Gumbiest thing you've done?

Hate to admit this, but hopefully it saves someone else a rope, or from injury or death. Probably the gumbiest thing I've done is set up a top rope with a climbing rope, and I didn't bring any rope protectors. Decided that wrapping my rope bag around the needed area would be sufficient. Climbed for a couple of hours, then went to climb out and noticed the rope bag was gone. It had fallen off and landed behind the belay and neither me nor my partner noticed. Core shot the rope, and determined if we'd have climbed another 2-4 hours, one of us would have likely been seriously injured or killed. 

Moral is - ALWAYS tie off what ever you are using for a rope protector, and have each climber inspect it when they reach the top, if possible.

It would seem, and should be obvious, that if you are flagging your ledge and laying on it to belay, that you should exit the ledge through the same straps you entered through.

Well, yeah, it should be. 

I saw the error of my ways as I got off the ledge but the wind was wiping and I couldn’t figure out a fast, easy and safe way to untie and fix the situation. I let the bags go figuring that I could take apart the anchor, untie and pull the rope through the straps.

Big mistake! 

The ledge immediately began to spin, reeling in the rope with every turn.

The bags were hanging about 20 feet out in space and thirty feet off to the side. I hurriedly cleaned as the rope came tighter and tighter against me. After a little while I was right next to the bags and I cleaned as Skot hauled.

It took us an hour to untangle the whole mess.

Moral of this story: Don’t be a dumbshit!

Mark Hudonwrote:

It would seem, and should be obvious, that if you are flagging your ledge and laying on it to belay, that you should exit the ledge through the same straps you entered through. Well, yeah.

I saw the error of my ways as I got off the ledge but the wind was wiping and I couldn’t figure out a fast, easy and safe way to untie and fix the situation. I let the bags go figuring that I could take apart the anchor, untie and pull the rope through the straps.

Big mistake! 

The ledge immediately began to spin, reeling in the rope with every turn.

The bags were hanging about 20 feet out in space and thirty feet off to the side. I hurriedly cleaned as the rope came tighter and tighter against me. After a little while I was right next to the bags and I cleaned as Skot hauled.

It took us an hour to untangle the whole mess.

Moral of this story: Don’t be a dumbshit!

Mark, you can do no wrong! That is absolutely insane!

Mark Hudonwrote:

It would seem, and should be obvious, that if you are flagging your ledge and laying on it to belay, that you should exit the ledge through the same straps you entered through. Well, yeah.

I saw the error of my ways as I got off the ledge but the wind was wiping and I couldn’t figure out a fast, easy and safe way to untie and fix the situation. I let the bags go figuring that I could take apart the anchor, untie and pull the rope through the straps.

Big mistake! 

The ledge immediately began to spin, reeling in the rope with every turn.

The bags were hanging about 20 feet out in space and thirty feet off to the side. I hurriedly cleaned as the rope came tighter and tighter against me. After a little while I was right next to the bags and I cleaned as Skot hauled.

It took us an hour to untangle the whole mess.

Moral of this story: Don’t be a dumbshit!

Mark, it warms my cockles to learn that you are, in fact, mortal. Thanks for the reminder that no one is immune to being a dumbshit from time to time.

RRR, do no wrong, no, insane, yes!  

Andrew, dumbshit, gotta own it! 

Man, I have so many gumby stories. I went to New Zealand to ride my bike and do some tramping. My second, three or four day tramping trip starting with an off trail portion, and then a river crossing. I crossed the river maybe a km or so too far downstream - below a confluence of two rivers instead of above. I couldn't see that second river and well: I tried crossing anyways only to get stymied halfway. You see, there was the river, an island in the middle of the river, and more river. That second side of the river was a no-go: too deep, too swift, too wide. I hightailed it back across the island (we're talking sandbar really, rather than island), but unbeknownst to me, there was a flash flood taking place and the other side of the river wasn't crossable neither. 

Long story short, I stayed on the g/d sand bar island thing for three days: cold, no shelter, rain the entire time (except when it was snowing - this was around Easter), and with that "island" slowly shrinking as the water level kept rising. By the end, it was me, a tree, and the angel of death on maybe 20 square meters of soggy grass and sand. Once I got back over to something akin to civilization, I had to ride the 60 or so km to Wanaka to check myself into the immediate medical place. 

Man I love NZ and I can't wait to go back. 

I won’t even tell you about the time I was “cleaning up” the anchor and only a few moments later realized that I had completely unanchored myself and was merely standing on a small foot ledge.

Don’t be that guy.

Mark Hudonwrote:

I won’t even tell you about the time I was “cleaning up” the anchor and only a few moments later realized that I had completely unanchored myself and was merely standing on a small foot ledge.

Don’t be that guy.

I did something like this once. I was at the top of one of the spires in El Potrero Chico setting up a rappel. I untied in order to thread the rope through the chains, then realized a few seconds later that I hadn't gone in direct to the anchor, I was just standing on a little ledge. Stupid!

Mark Hudonwrote:

Moral of this story: Don’t be a dumbshit!

Sorry, that's a dealbrealer.  

The anchor was 2 brand new looking totem cams and a red C3, equalized with some new looking cord.

Did you spend the next few weeks trying to find the litterers on MP.com? So you could give it all back to them? Earn some brownie points with the gear gods?

(I hope not)

Robert Rowsamwrote:

That’s awesome. nothing wrong with the goggles.  It’s the large gap between them and your helmet that screams Gumby. Lol

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

Did you spend the next few weeks trying to find the litterers on MP.com? So you could give it all back to them? Earn some brownie points with the gear gods?

(I hope not)

Nope...my partner took the totems and gave me the C3

Mark Pilatewrote:

That’s awesome. nothing wrong with the goggles.  It’s the large gap between them and your helmet that screams Gumby. Lol

Gaper

David Kwrote:

FWIW 5 wraps or more is called a friction knot, and when I took a trad class years ago, REI was teaching it as a valid way to tie off to a tree (maybe they still are? I don't know). I've played around with it and it definitely holds body weight, but it still doesn't inspire confidence.

Yes, i've read about this, and I think even seen people do it, but the idea terrifies me. Don't think I'd ever be willing to do it. 

Wasn't new to climbing at the time, but still a very big face palm. I have a couple pairs of the same shoe and grabbed a pair to climb at the Gunks. Didn't walk far before from the Trapps parking lot, Horseman, before unpacking and realizing I had accidentally grabbed two left shoes. What a pain in the ass. Climbed wearing my friends shoes which were two sizes too small. I could edge like a mad man! But my toes were killing me. After that I jogged back to the car to swapping one shoe out. 

I climbed moonlight in the gunks (a 2 pitch 5.6 route where each pitch is around 30m long, with a giant ledge between P1 and P2) in 4 pitches.

Real gumbyism isn't when you are a beginner, its when you know what you are doing and still make a beginners mistake, twice.

So my brother and I wander up to a new route I'd been working on, I'd rope-soloed the first five pitches bolting as I went and roped him in for a push to the top. At the bottom we discussed how much water to take and my comment was "if we aren't back down by 5 I'm an asshole" the relevance being that evening there was a climbing festival party with free food and beer and 1000 climbers. All went well and we passed the highpoint in time for lunch on a nice ledge then continued upwards, placing a few protection bolts and the belays.

The easy ground proved to be a bit harder than anticipated until after eleven pitches the overhanging vee-groove filled with vegetation looked unnapetising in the light of our only headtorch. A retreat was decided on so we rapped-off, into the dark down an unknown part of the cliff (our route wandered a bit) with a single 60m rope and six bolts using the handy light on my drill. Ten raps later and eleven at night we touched ground.

The next attempt we were mentally better prepared, dozens of high-res pics of the cliff pored over and we knew we'd crush it this time. This time we started earlier, took an easier line and went for it. 13 pitches later in the pitch dark, streaming rain and a thunderstorm we huddled up for the night in our summer climbing clothing expecting to die.

Together we only had 90 years climbing experience and over 1500 FA's to our names. Gumby indeed!

I guess that before the internet, and before climbing gyms were ubiquitous, the gumbiest thing was “learning by not dying.”  

First summer in the Valley around '78 or so was up on Serenity and rapped down to the first belay (one more to go) and thought it would be a good idea to tie a knot in only one end as it was getting dark and didn't want to rap off the end of our 150' ropes dont 'cha know?

Welp, inevitably you forget (gumby) until the rope won't pull and you realize you're potentially stuck for the night...Ah, but simple solution! You simply batman the 150' back up to the anchor and git it unstuck. Good to know the overhand knot won't squeeze over the link.

All's well that ended well I guess?

3 months of (gym rat) experience.

recently TRSent my first 10a, so, obviously I’m an expert rock climber.

Inspired by all the Team Texas kiddos whipping left and right.

Want to be as cool, take big falls too. But lead climbing is hard and scary.

On top rope, standing on a hold 7 meters up.
Inspiration!

“Hey Josh, give me some slack so I can take a big fall. No, more. No I mean more.”

5meters of slack on the ground.

About to let go when thankfully assistant manager Casey comes running full sprint from the far side of the gym shouting “WHOA WHOA WHOA!! NO BUENO!” and began rapidly pulling in all the slack.

It took me maybe another year to realize exactly how dumb that idea of mine was.