Funniest Trad Moments

On my first attempt of The Emperor at the needles. I got a finger stuck in a jam about 15 feet from the anchor. I have a arthritic knuckle that went just a little too deep in a constriction. I had to place some gear and take. After about two or three minutes of wiggling and spitting on it, it finally popped out. 

Maybe not funny but weird. I was crossing a traverse and came to the vertical flake I would belay at. Right when I got there a pitch black phantom of death crawled out of the crack, scuttled up the rock face and back into the crack. It sent a strange horror into me like nothing else had ever done. I had no idea what I had seen, the freakish thing looked so weird. 

In a moment I realized it was a bat, climbing by its wing claws.

In 1999 I took my beginner girlfriend, now wife, climbing to Joshua Tree over Thanksgiving. We climbed all the classic roadside stuff, Double Cross, Dogleg, The Swift, Dappled Mare, Cakewalk etc.  We decided we wanted to climb something a little longer, so we hiked back to the Astro Domes. I wanted to scope out Solid Gold and Figures on a Landscape, and there were other climbs she could probably do, Hex Marks the Poot, Let Your Freak Flag Fly and Breakfast of Champions. I led LYFFF and we then walked over to Hex Marks the Poot. 

I booted up and get ready to take off up this sweet hand and fist crack, and told M to get comfortable, because I was going to run both pitches together. 

She finds the perfect butt shaped rock to sit in and belays me up to where the first belay would be and I am so gassed I decide to break it unto 2 pitches(offwidth). Then I hear the screaming coming from below, but it is too windy to tell what is going on. All I could make out is that something was stinging her in the ass.  Luckily someone had left some webbing in situ that I bailed off of at the belay.

It turns out the little bowl that M had decided to sit in was full of small cholla needles, and they were buried all over in her ass and crotch...I mean hundreds of them, fine as a dog hair.  Every time she moved the fabric of her shorts would brush against them. She pulled off her shorts, and we made a skirt out of my jacket for her to walk in back to the car. I spent the next couple hours with a tweezers and flashlight pulling these little buggers out of her sensitive areas.    ;-)

P Degnerwrote:

I was following a route once, about to clean an extended cam. Right as I reached up for it, the leader suddenly took out slack, and the carabiner sprang up and hit me right on the bridge of the nose, leaving a small bruise.

This happened to me except it chipped my front tooth

I was leading a 5-6 or 5-7 pitch that was the last of a 5 pitch route, and it was now full dark. At the belay below I had strapped my headlamp over my helmet with nothing but tension to keep it on (you know where this is going). Midway up the pitch I leaned it and managed to scrape the headlamp neatly off my helmet, and into the void below (cue slow-mo "noooo!!!")...or at least onto the belay ledge where my wife (now girlfriend, this has become a theme in this thread) was able to block it goalie style with her foot. Luckily I'd done the pitch a few times before (Uprising at Beacon rock, for PNW locals) and could somewhat safely climb, find pro, and build the hard-to-find gear anchor by feel and not by sight. I learned that helmets actually had/have straps to trap your headlamp. Idiot. I never claimed to be a gearhead....

Right before my first trip to Vedauwoo (from south Louisiana, mind you, one hell of a drive) I got an old BD #4.5 in the mail that I had purchased off of eBay. I was the proud owner of an impressive frankenrack at the time, with gear from at least the early 80s (rigid stem Wild Country friends, no anodizing) up to some well loved BD camalots, and anything (and I mean anything) in between. My gear may have been old and used, but I made sure to inspect it regularly because being cheap doesn't mean you have to be reckless!

Anyway, I'm my rush I hadn't given this new-to-me BD #4.5 the proper once-over, and just tossed it in my gear crate before driving the whole damn day to Wyoming. And again, in my enthusiasm to climb the beautiful off widths of Vedauwoo I also didn't check it before I racked it and headed up "Jogging to Vedauwoo".

I was really jazzed because my partners let me have the first go at the route, and I was certain that I read somewhere that this was a 5.10 OW which was going to be challenging for me.

The climbing starts out well, I'm really enjoying myself, and I get to the ledge feeling confident. I rest a bit, marvel at the splendor of life, then continue climbing up to the true off width. The splendor of life quickly recedes from my memory, and I'm full on battling the rock at this point. Every part of me is fighting to get into that crack: hands, arms, feet, legs, face, ass, helmet, and I swear I must have been expelling as much blood as I was sweat.

I've moved a series of hard fought inches, placing gear with wild abandon, and I've come down to just a few pieces left on my harness. There's some nuts left, some Russian tri cams, and that untested BD #4.5. I grab the #4.5, squeeze every part of my body tight so I don't slither out of the crack, reach up to place it, and the f***ing trigger wires break like some damn old shoelaces! 

This cam flew across the country, rode in a car back across the country, only to fail me in my time of need. All I could do was laugh, laugh like a crazy person. And like a true crazy person, I just put it back on my harness, neglecting the fact that I could have still placed it, and continued on with the climb.

Much grunting later, I finish the climb, belay my friends up, and we have a good laugh about it. Back on the ground, I check good old Mountain Project, and find out the route is only a 5.9. I loudly lament my chuffer status, and the climbers next to us politely inform me that it's more like a Vedauwoo 5.7. My ego was destroyed.

I love Vedauwoo.

edit: edited really unfortunate autocorrect, hopefully no one saw that!