Gumbiest thing you've done?

Jim Tittwrote:

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

Man nothing is more sobering than to be told, "you're doing it wrong!" on the gumby thread. 

OK! First time ever really climbing outdoors. I'm all of twelve, 6th grade. I'm OUT OF MY MIND excited. I have brought all the necessary climbing accoutrements that I'm sure I'll need, including tree climbing foot claw/spikes, a pocket knife or two - F-t I think I brought a g/d grappling hook - all to school, all to show my very puzzled R.O.P.E. guides. They... they take these things away from me - I'm not sure if I ever saw them ever again, and instead of suspending me from school - I am mean what DO you DO with a kid who brings  grappling hook to first period? they just let me go on the field trip and away to the most sensational cliffs that Connecticut has to offer to top rope and rappel (or probably just get lowered). To this day I hate to love traprock but I can't say how much Tom and all them at youth services inspired me to do dumb things on rocks. 

Climb with leather boots on my harness for the descent...on a route full of chimneys.

First multi-pitch trad climb. We took a cable car to the top of the mountain (seemed like a great way and place to get into multi-pitch trad in a chilled way) then rapped two full 60 meters down to begin the route. Got the ropes stuck on the second rap, prussik'ed up the whole rope-lenght. This got us so delayed that we ended up having to lead the last two pitches in the dark. Of course without headlamps. I couldn't see if any of my gear was good, so sewed it up so I ran out and had to downclimb to clean, only to climb up again. Still don't know if any of the gear would have held and still the most scared I have been on a climb.

When topping out, we were of course too late for the last cable car down and had to hike all the way down in flip flops. As we walked, we were planning the next adventure, super stoked to be alive and suddenly much more experienced having gone through a years worth of fuck-ups in a single day....

Robert P wrote:

Climbed at a busy crag with my gym LC attached to my harness...on multiple visits.

Me and my buddy were roping up to climb the Ingraham Glacier on Mount Rainier, and I spotted his gym toprope certification on his harness. I told him he had to take that thing off or we were going back down!

I have some great photos of me on easy, but beautiful summits from my first year of climbing in the mountains. My “belay certified” gym tag is very visible in all of them. 

I had climbed a little in the 90s, and over the years I had gone out occasionally trying to get back into the sport.

A couple of years ago, I found myself without a wife, my kiddo was getting ready to leave for college, and I had lost a lot of weight from some other positive changes to my life.

I remembered that I used to really like to climb, so I started going out to a gym.  After a couple months of that, I decided that I wanted to start leading trad again.

So I got out my old rack, and tossed almost all the soft goods... a bunch of more or less new petzl dogbones, and various runners.

After a couple of years of regular climbing, almost all of my gear is in rattier condition that that stuff.

Lame.

At least I kept the sewn stuff on my old c4s and rigid friends.

I once bailed on a 5.7 slab sport climb. I didn't want to leave a draw or bail biner, so I bolt-to-bolt rapped with a munter on my utility chord threaded through the bolts...

George Mwrote:

I once bailed on a 5.7 slab sport climb. I didn't want to leave a draw or bail biner, so I bolt-to-bolt rapped with a munter on my utility chord threaded through the bolts...

lmao how long did that take??

Started up a trad route without my rack -- got to the first place I wanted to put in gear, about 15 feet up, went to reach for my gear, and realized it was all still on the ground.  I carefully reversed those moves, grabbed the rack, and headed up again.

David Gibbswrote:

Started up a trad route without my rack -- got to the first place I wanted to put in gear, about 15 feet up, went to reach for my gear, and realized it was all still on the ground.  I carefully reversed those moves, grabbed the rack, and headed up again.

At least you had an attentive belayer...lol

I threw away the belt for my first chalk bag because I thought I'd prefer attaching it to my harness with a carabiner instead

Lead my first route with my girlfriend who was also new, put up the anchor, got lowered down and proudly surveyed my work. Only then did I ask myself, how do you get the anchor down?

TR'ed with death triangle for a day

Mark Pilatewrote:

At least you had an attentive belayer...lol

Climbed 10 pitches of an 11 pitch sport route before my partner realized we had about a half hour before sunset to rap the route. Brought too little extra layers. Right then would have payed significant money for headlamps that had heater modes.

On my 1st multipitch as a lead climber, with the anchor far back from the top of the cliff, I:
1) attached the rope to the anchor and clove-hitched it to a carabiner on my belay loop for better belay position (good)
2) belayed the follower with an ATC directly off the belay loop w/o redirect (not uncommon on low-angle terrain)
3) tried adjusting my clove hitch while belaying (sketchy)
4) got lost in the 4 strands and failed to retighten the clove hitch (bad)

So a follower fall could have pulled both of us down some distance, and I don't know if I would have held the ATC.

Mark Pilatewrote:

At least you had an attentive belayer...lol

This was one of her first times belaying a trad lead - she'd mostly belayed sport & gym leads.  I had enough draws on my harness to look fine for a sport lead, so she probably didn't notice, because I had a "normal" to her amount of gear.

A V wrote:

You know what’s more gumby than stick clipping in the gym?

Breaking your ankles in the gym because you were too cool to stick clip in the gym.

Who cares, it’s the gym, it’s not real climbing anyway ;) training injuries suck and should be avoided. Stick clip if you think the start is sketchy

This is true!! Although I haven't used a stick clip at the gym, I have climbed up an easier route to clip the fist or second bolt on harder 12s... No shame here, I like being able to walk on my ankles.. 

Joined MountainProject.com

Michael Swrote:

This is true!! Although I haven't used a stick clip at the gym, I have climbed up an easier route to clip the fist or second bolt on harder 12s... No shame here, I like being able to walk on my ankles.. 

Nice visual, but if you’re walking on your ankles, you probably should’ve used the stick clip!