Gumbiest thing you've done?

This is a repost but it still makes me chuckle. kinda

When I started climbing, the stoke was inversely proportional to the knowledge and I forced my friend to come out with me. I unwrapped my brand new 70m rope, set up a slingshot toprope over the edge of a 30' cliff, intending to hike to the base to climb. As I started packing up some gear, I heard him yell "Hey are you gonna hold the other end or what?"

When I looked up, he was standing back-to the edge of the cliff, no harness on, straddling the master point, holding one of the ropes with both hands, and starting to stick his ass over the edge of the cliff.

"Dude, are you serious? Stop!" I said.

"Oh! Duh, sorry!" he said, picking up the other rope as well, thinking that his only mistake was trying to hand-over-hand rappel on a single rope instead of both ropes.

Oh, I also didn't extend the master point enough so we wrecked about 10m of rope

Colonel Mustardwrote:

Belayed the rope up instead of just pulling it up on one of my first trad leads (prior to putting the follower on belay). The follower’s look of disgust when he finally arrived at the anchor said it all.

Yoo same. It was my second ever trad lead on a 5.6, I was out with a friend who regularly sends 5.10 trad. He got bored and just started soloing up to me while I frantically belayed through what seemed like miles of rope and finally caught up with him when he was halfway up!

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

Y’all do know you’re supposed to attempt to rodeo clip it for about 5 minutes beforehand, right?

Once your rope is tangled mess and your shoulder exhausted, you mutter something about the draw being “off-axis” and THEN go grab the stick clip.

Brought my little sister up a 5.6 multi pitch climb while over estimating her abilities. The second pitch traverses left over some dikes and has little pro for the entire 50-60 foot traverse. It’s easy to get a bit off route there and end up in 5.9 territory, which is exactly what she did. She’s yelling at me from below that she can’t hang on any longer and I’m telling her to go backwards and then down to the larger dikes. She pumps out, let’s go, and takes a 30 foot swinging fall that spins her upside down and into a bush growing out of the wall. I think the bush saved her from injury and luckily she was able to climb back up to the dikes to finish the climb. 

When I started out trad climbing, for a time when placing a nut I would:

• Take the nuts biner out of my harness
• Take the nut that I thought would fit out of the biner
• Put the biner back on
• Try out the nut
• If it didn't fit, I'd put the nut back on the harness & do the whole thing again

I felt pretty dumb once that was pointed out to me.

Wonder what Merry Christmas and good will to all message Greg posted that got deleted? Lol. 

Greg D confirmed fun at parties. 

Dropped my ATC at the anchor setting up my rappel. Luckily I was seconding and my over prepared partner had 2. 

Doug Chismwrote:

Dropped my ATC at the anchor setting up my rappel. Luckily I was seconding and my over prepared partner had 2. 

The Gumby part wasn’t the drop, it was the worry that you dropped it. 

Or a Munter...

A V wrote:

Munter will kink ropes - you end up with a bunch of pigtails after a few raps

Much better to bivy and call your mom on In Reach.

A V wrote:

Munter will kink ropes - you end up with a bunch of pigtails after a few raps

Hold the brake strand of the munter up, not down as you normally would when rappelling, and it doesn't kink the rope that much.

Dropping my ATC after the first rap on the Grack. Also, getting to the top of the first pitch of cathedral and realizing I left my grigri in my backpack hanging in a tree. Fortunately, I knew how to belay on a munter.

Way BITD, maybe fall of ‘76, my climbing partner tried to show me this new, adjustable way of clipping into an anchor with the rope: the clove hitch. I told him, “That looks pretty iffy, I’ll stick to the figure-8, thank you.”

Wore a helmet on a well bolted sport climb....just kidding, haven’t stooped to that level. 

Jens 1wrote:

Wore a helmet on a well bolted sport climb....just kidding, haven’t stooped to that level. 

In a few years helmets will go the way of skiing-not wearing one makes you look like a Gumby.

Spencer Oldswrote:

In a few years helmets will go the way of skiing-not wearing one makes you look like a Gumby.

Perhaps for the recreational 5.10 traddie. Skiing is different. The faster you go, the more you need a helmet. I was a former ski racer & instructor. Climbing helmets are for ice, mixed, alpine, ski descents, slabs with long falls, & aid on bad rock. 

Jens 1wrote:

Perhaps for the recreational 5.10 traddie. Skiing is different. The faster you go, the more you need a helmet. I was a former ski racer & instructor. Climbing helmets are for ice, mixed, alpine, ski descents, slabs with long falls, & aid on bad rock. 

You're right.  Helmets are no good for protecting your head from dropped gear, falling rock, beer bottles thrown off the top of the cliff by local yokels, inverted or wild swinging falls on "well-protected" sport routes...

Jens 1wrote:

Perhaps for the recreational 5.10 traddie. Skiing is different. The faster you go, the more you need a helmet. I was a former ski racer & instructor. Climbing helmets are for ice, mixed, alpine, ski descents, slabs with long falls, & aid on bad rock. 

Dumb question, but I'm gonna ask cause I'm lazy and you seem to know some stuff...

have you ever tried to dis-aggregate the various climbing statistics for those other kinds of climbing from sport climbing?

Like, it's been easy enough for me to look at a couple of years of accident statistics published in "Accidents in North American Climbing" and say that since almost 1/3 of accidents are at least complicated (if not wholly caused by) lack of a helmet I ought to just go forth and wear the helmet as it seems like the single easiest way to improve safety in climbing.

But I've not disaggregated the data I've seen specifically for sport climbing.... it might really be the case that there's just no reason for me wear a helmet when sport climbing.

I certainly would prefer not to wear a helmet.

But I don't have data so I've just been gproceeding the idea that, since I am not likely to be a statistical anomaly, the data I've seen knows more than me.

Have you got a good source for some data similar to the AAC publication that would lead me to the idea that there's no reason for wearing a helmet while sport climbing?

Or, conversely, I really don't like wearing a helmet while skiing.  What is the maximal speed and terrain types under which a helmet does no good for a skier?