What are your sketchiest moments climbing?

2 come to mind for me.. both while developing out at Smith. 

First one is when I was developing my first over-hanging route and while rap bolting down, I moved a directional without clove hitching my way down. Ultimately my rope was laying on the rock for a couple hours with me swinging around below it doing all the bolty things.. After finishing and jugging back up to the new directional I set that day, I noticed the sheath of my rope completely sawed through by the rock. As I was sliding my ascender up the rope, I placed it near the cut sheath. Upon me pulling down, the sheath pulled down with the ascender exposing about 2' of core strands starring me in the face! In a panic I started sliding sheath back up the rope as best I could. Ended up just removing the ascender a sec, replaced it above the cut section, and continued ascending up the wall. Phew..

And the second is a pretty sketch method I used a couple of times to get to the top of a fixed line while hanging from a fixed line of a route just beside it. Before jugging up a line I would trail up the neighboring route's fixed line as well. After finishing whatever work I needed to do on route 1, I would lower down to an acceptable height, pass my grigri to the neighboring fixed line, and just pendulum over. Holy fuck talk about feeling some g force swinging over on a static line! My own dumb fault, the last time I did take one of these gnarly pendulums it gave me a little whiplash that lasted a couple of weeks.

I definitely don't endorse any of these tactics, just fun to share. Enjoy, have fun out there and don't die! 

Buddy led a route, I followed as he belayed me from above. Right before I started climbing he asked me to bring the water bottle up. The packs were a ways away from the base so I untied. Some minutes later I slipped and came off on the crux section of the route, but some how managed to latch on to a knob and get back on the rock. Couple of moves later I reach a stance. I'm maybe 50-60 feet above talus, partner is on a ledge above peering down at me. 

"What's going on with your rope?!" He asked me, alarmed. I looked down at my tie in... I wasn't tied in at all! I was completely disconnected and the rope was dangling there in front of me.

The ensuing moments getting tied back in were thought provoking. Locked off on the rope, half hitched in, retied the knot properly, got back on the rock and finished. The route, the day, and nearly my life. 

Always check your knots!

I was seven hundred feet off the deck jumaring my own fixed lines in a large granite area in Colorado. 11:00 at night in the winter, headlamp off to conserve battery. I felt something off in my top jug, flicked on the torch and was horrified to see ...

... a 24-inch-long section of core shot that I was hanging on. The core strands were literally blowing in the breeze.

I gingerly slid my ascenders past it, finished the jug out, collected my lines and drove to Mexico the next day. "Fornicate this sketchy aid climbing shit, I'ma go sport climbing at Potrero."

There was an old established climb I rebolted in a cave.  Well I am french freeing  through a roof with all my bolting gear with me water running down my arms, I finally make it to the start of the climb.The start of it started off this large ledge, I notice there is a loose microwave sized block and I push it off with my foot, dont think much of it.

I rap down three weeks later to bolt a new climb that shares the start with the thing I rebolted. I get back to the ledge and this time I sit down on the ledge. The whole ledge moves two inches and I fall off it and swing into the cave. I have my friend go half a mile down the trail as this block is sitting over maybe the third most popular hike in WA. I push it off with my foot, it was maybe the size of two refrigerators. This block then dislodges another block, I then spend 35 minutes standing on the block I am trying to trundle because there is no where else I can fit. I finally get it eventually. I hate trundling. But old people seem to think these blocks were designed benchs for a breather during the hike lol.

Now this is the content I’m here for.

Not directly climbing related but close.
I was scrambling around out in the desert near Moab, just exploring and looking for cool stuff in a remote part of Arches NP. I ended up about 150’ above the bottom of a canyon on a 12” wide ledge. I’m trying to climb up to the next layer 8 feet above me when the foothold I was on disintegrated. I fell about two feet and landed flat on my feet on the little ledge. I looked around, stunned, and slowly made my way back to where I’d come from. 

If one climbs long enough one will collect many such stories. The goal is live to tell about them.

High in the Andes, climbing solo into the clouds I came upon a crevasse. Seeing a bridge I crossed to other side. Fortunately not the other side, but could have been as the bridge collapsed into the void behind me. I continued on to the summit leaving how to get back for the return.

For another, see my comment on climbing Malan's Waterfall.

Rope soloing at Tahquitz, just left of the Larks.  No guidebook (i just climb what looks good).  Long day.  I get real tired and weak, out of water.  I've got one pitch left in me but I'm a the top end of my rope anchored a pitch below me.  Looks like 40 feet more and I don't want to set a belay.  I'm gonna self rescue and come back for gear tomorrow.  So I tie a cordalette onto the end of my lead rope and head up.  Way not long enough.  Tie another cordalette on.  Leading up.  Still not long enough.  I've got a 20 ft piece of 1" tubular webbing.  Tie it on. Lead through. STILL not enough.  Also about out of prieces to place.  Well I anchor the end of the line and free solo from there it's just about class IV by that point.  Success.  It's getting dark, all by gear is stitched up below.  I head down the north gully descent in the dark. Back to the car, food and bivy.  Next day I head up to clean up my mess with the extra rope and gear I had in the car. Now my back is out.  Bad pain.  After getting up to the talus I have to turn around and head out.  Going to have to come back next week when my back cools off.   Came back the next week and climbed up the North Gully.  That is interesting if you've never done it before.  Rapped in and cleaned. No one had touched my gear.  Of course it was all off any guidebook trade route. 

Epic fun.  Proud of the self-rescue.  I don't give up easily.

This is one of many sketchy climbing moments: 

I was leading the third pitch of Backflip on the Bookmark, Lumpy Ridge, when I placed a piece just below the final crux. As I reached for the rope to clip, I couldn’t find it. After searching, I noticed it hanging from a carabiner about 40 feet left and down. What to do? I didn’t want to lose my precious rope, so I climbed back and anchored to the biner. I tied a good knot so I wouldn’t lose it again and continued to the top. I brought up the woman with whom I climbed a lot in the late seventies and early eighties, then blamed it on her for being distracting. She did try, however, to help by yelling after the rope fell off, which was when I was about to make the clip. 

My fault: leading Pitch 2 of Walk on the Wild Side in JTree, I clipped the first 3 or 4 bolts over the first 15m or so, then missed that the route veered left, and I just continued up.  Keep on clmibing.  The rock gets a bit crumbly, little gritty noises under your feet, as JTree can be when you're not on something well travelled.  After a while, belayer yells out "5 meters".  Shortly thereafter I reach the pitch 3 anchors.

(Mostly) not my fault: I'm climbing in EPC and ask a guy who seems competent if he's interested in doing Yankee Clipper.  He says yes, but can he bring his buddy along, too?  Ok, I guess.  He and I swap double-leads through pitch 8 with no problem, then guy's buddy asks to lead pitch 9.  When I finish following the pitch, I discover he's only used one carabiner to setup the "guide mode" belay, which means my the rope is running from me, up through the ATC, over the carabiner on the anchor, and then down through the ATC again to his hand.  I, of course, climbed the pitch as if I was on belay, not (effectively) free soloing it.

David Gibbswrote:

My fault: leading Pitch 2 of Walk on the Wild Side in JTree, I clipped the first 3 or 4 bolts over the first 15m or so, then missed that the route veered left, and I just continued up.  Keep on clmibing.  The rock gets a bit crumbly, little gritty noises under your feet, as JTree can be when you're not on something well travelled.  After a while, belayer yells out "5 meters".  Shortly thereafter I reach the pitch 3 anchors.

Guessing this is pretty common.  I did the same on S-Direct 9+ R in LCC.  The route trends left and I kept merrily going straight up.  It's an all-bolted pitch so of course I left all the gear.  I climbed about 100' of 5.8 gritty slab and finally found a 2" diameter twig for the anchor right as the rope ran out.  Ha! 

Getting out of bed....

I accidentally skipped the 3rd bolt on my first 5.11 redpoint. The crux was between the third and fourth bolt. I was often coming off here. An easy start means this was all pretty high up. The only reason my belayer didn’t say anything is because I had just explained to him that there was a bolt I was going to skip, or I probably couldn’t send the route. The bolt I skipped on purpose was the 6th, and I have no idea how I skipped the 3rd by accident. It would’ve been awful. 

In my first year I was on top of a route and set up a rappel. My harness didn’t seem right, I looked and had rigged the entire thing off my gear loop. Oops. Easy to fix then, 3 seconds later I’d have had my full weight on it. Beginners, amirite?!

Over the years a few more interesting ones happened.

There was the time I took a fall really run out and to the side of a dihedral on the diamond. A hundred feet before my gear would have caught me my rope snagged on a little horn and stopped the fall. 10ft super mellow slip that should have crippled me into a corner.

Another time on the diamond, I was buzzing and I could feel my head sparking under my helmet. The ‘tone’ I made changed when I waved my arms around. That felt pretty dangerous.

At camp 4 I went to the car to get something. I opened the hatchback then sat in the front seat and the days fatigue took over and I fell asleep. My friend came to check on me and apparently had to chase a bear off that was in the back of the car probably licking my face. Black bears aren’t really sketchy but that’s a pretty good animal story.

Kris and I were stormed off of Ice Pirates one time. With the intense rain we had on jackets and were doing the raps at full speed because it was miserable. Anyway because I had on a long jacket my rap device was hidden from my view. I normally look down just to make sure everything was ok, but not this time. In my haste I had missed clipping both strands in the ATC. Well I leaned back and WTF!!! I fell about 3 feet and suddenly stopped. Looking up at the chains I realized that the knot joining our ropes was stopped at the anchor and I was rapping on the one strand!! So I pulled back up, clipped my leash back in, fixxed the situation and continued down to Kris. I was pretty shook up about what had just happened but didn’t say anything to Kris. It was that evening when the full impact hit me - it had come down to a 50-50 chance and I got lucky. Live and learn. Now I always check just to make sure the ATC is working, holding my full weight before I undo the leash always always!
This is a great topic, hopefully people will learn from some of the things we share. 

That one time I clipped a stainless bolt that had a non-stainless hanger

Almost rapped of a piece of bail webbing that was cut 3/4 of the way through. Double checked at the last minute (literally on rappel with no back up), I was able to break it with my hand. Would have slid down a big snow slope into a talus field. 

That webbing is now my cord for organizing gear.... reminds me every time I touch or look at my gear how close I came to serious injury, most likely death. 

Years ago when I was ice climbing more, my regular partner excitedly told me that he’d bought a new set of half ropes he wanted to break in. Not thinking too much about it, I grabbed his new lines, tied in, and off I went. As per normal half rope technique, I was alternating clips into my screws.

We finished the route, rapped off, and headed back to the car, packed up the gear, and were chatting about the day. I asked him, “what kind of ropes did you buy?” He says, “Bluewater Ice Floss.” Only then did I realize that I’d been half roping with twins. 

Not climbing but scrambling, maybe not totally related to the topic. I was scrambling up a talus field below Royal Arches in Yosemite, taking a day off climbing. I stop at some point to take in the view and I hear my partner say “uh, we gotta go.” When I ask why, he tells me there’s a bear 10’ away from me. Without hesitation I scrambled back to the bottom. Apparently I can scramble much faster than I thought I could as he said it was the fastest he ever saw me move.  When we got to the bottom I asked him what happened and he said there was an adolescent-sized bear lumbering out on a limb above me. Yikes. 

On one of my early Tuolumne climbs, we're on Matthes heading up the main headwall around noon. Weather is blue skies and sunny. We crest the top of the headwall onto the glorious ridge only to see huge towering clouds taking up the half of the sky previously blocked behind the headwall. We start soloing down the ridge looking for the first reasonable option to bail, and while I'm on a little gendarme waiting for my partner to down climb the other side, I suddenly feel tons of static electricity buildup. My hair stands up suddenly and I start getting lots of little static shocks between my head and my wide brim hat I'm wearing. I freak out a little and jump ~6ft off the gendarme to flat ground and the static stops. We rap about 5 mins later as it starts raining, and it's a deluge by the time we're back in the woods. 

I used Z4s in basalt and my partner said I was gonna die 

Indian creek, new partner for the day, I belay them on Anal Leakage. True to the name, there's some rocks coming out of the crack as she climbs. She sends, disappears above to clip the anchor, then starts getting lowered down the face and mid-face swings a little sideways. The rope dislodges a football sized rock from the anchor ledge above. It misses her by a foot or so and harmlessly hits the deck. After she's down we realize the rope is running around some sort of constriction and despite fully hanging  on it we can't pull it down. Later we retrieve it via wavy gravy and discover that our pulling had core-shot the rope on a sharp edge. An expensive and disconcerting afternoon.