Scare ‘Em Straight

Hey, how about your most gruesome story? Tell it with pics if you can.  Many of us have seen the worst of it, perhaps we can scare a few folks straight and save some lives.

Namaste.

Basically, I felt some gurgling before heading down to belay sarah on her project at a top access crag. It got a little more urgent as she began the pitch. Sarah was kinda gripped and climbing really slow and backing off moves as things got a little more desperate for me. I started begging her to climb faster and telling her I was gonna shit myself. Got REAL close to shitting myself, but finally sarah was topping out. The second she called off belay I rapped off to the side, hung in my harness and started blasting. When I looked at the damage I realized I'd shit all down this ledge system  roughly level with the belay for the next route over. Probably 20 - 30 sq ft of plaster. Came back real early the next morning with a spray bottle and scrubber to clean up. 

Once upon a time,

My partner and I topped out on a slab route at a place called Tollhouse. At the top out belay, she reached for a little joint-kit she had in her fanny pack. As she withdrew the precious package she bloody well dropped it, oh NO! We watched helplessly while it bounced, rolled and went off the naked edge of the cliff. Our screams could be heard for miles. I was sick to my stomach. My partner was apoplectic!! But there was nothing to be done, the joint-kit was gone. Finally we were left with nothing but silence; no joint, no buzz.

I could not help but thinking this is the exact situation for which I was warned by my Ancient Mentor, so long ago. And I in turn had warned my partner - THOU SHALT NOT! Drop vital equipment or supplies!

We decided to do another route and so descended back to the base of the dome. Randomly, as we walked along the base, my partner said, 

"It should be right about up here." And she hiked slightly uphill from me, to have a look. At the very same time I audibly scoffed at the idea of finding that small package at the base of this big ole dome, she said matter-of-factly,

"Here it is." And she held up the joint-kit literally before I finished my scoff. Shortly thereafter, the universe was righted and the next route of the day was sent without further histrionics. 

The end.

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

Once upon a time,

My partner and I topped out on a slab route at a place called Tollhouse. At the top out belay, she reached for a little joint-kit she had in her fanny pack. As she withdrew the precious package she bloody well dropped it, oh NO! We watched helplessly while it bounced, rolled and went off the naked edge of the cliff. Our screams could be heard for miles. I was sick to my stomach. My partner was apoplectic!! But there was nothing to be done, the joint-kit was gone. Finally we were left with nothing but silence; no joint, no buzz.

I could not help but thinking this is the exact situation for which I was warned by my Ancient Mentor, so long ago. And I in turn had warned my partner - THOU SHALT NOT! Drop vital equipment or supplies!

We decided to do another route and so descended back to the base of the dome. Randomly, as we walked along the base, my partner said, 

"It should be right about up here." And she hiked slightly uphill from me, to have a look. At the very same time I audibly scoffed at the idea of finding that small package at the base of this big ole dome, she said matter-of-factly,

"Here it is." And she held up the joint-kit literally before I finished my scoff. Shortly thereafter, the universe was righted and the next route of the day was sent without further histrionics. 

The end.

There is no epic quite like running out of drugs before you run out of climb...

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

Once upon a time,

My partner and I topped out on a slab route at a place called Tollhouse. At the top out belay, she reached for a little joint-kit she had in her fanny pack. As she withdrew the precious package she bloody well dropped it, oh NO! We watched helplessly while it bounced, rolled and went off the naked edge of the cliff. Our screams could be heard for miles. I was sick to my stomach. My partner was apoplectic!! But there was nothing to be done, the joint-kit was gone. Finally we were left with nothing but silence; no joint, no buzz.

I could not help but thinking this is the exact situation for which I was warned by my Ancient Mentor, so long ago. And I in turn had warned my partner - THOU SHALT NOT! Drop vital equipment or supplies!

We decided to do another route and so descended back to the base of the dome. Randomly, as we walked along the base, my partner said, 

"It should be right about up here." And she hiked slightly uphill from me, to have a look. At the very same time I audibly scoffed at the idea of finding that small package at the base of this big ole dome, she said matter-of-factly,

"Here it is." And she held up the joint-kit literally before I finished my scoff. Shortly thereafter, the universe was righted and the next route of the day was sent without further histrionics. 

The end.

I'd rather drop the rope.

Locker wrote:

Just my opinion...

What a stupid fucking idea

reminds me of the fools that go to watch races because they really want to see crashes, not people winning...

 that said

Maybe you will have the best thread ever here on lame project

Imagine….when you were a noob and you saw what you’ve now seen??

Tradibanwrote:

Hey, how about your most gruesome story? Tell it with pics if you can.  Many of us have seen the worst of it, perhaps we can scare a few folks straight and safe some lives.

Namaste.

Most of the time you're just annoying. Other times, like this, you're a total dick.

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

"Here it is." And she held up the joint-kit

I say we troll back and make every story on this thread about poop

Legendary story from an acquaintance of mine (who really has had some bad luck on his adventures) was camped on the snow near Mt Kosciuszko in winter. Beautiful clear night, amazing views, for dinner cooked up a new freeze dried meal, spicy sichuan chicken with rice.

Shortly after the rumbles started in his bowels.

He tried to ignore them...but he left it too late. It became unbearable. He quickly started thrashing out of the sleeping bag and desperately clawing at his boots. He stumbled out the tent and tried to get his pants down but he had already let loose. Squirted all over his pants and the virgin snow.

It went through him so fast the rice was still undigested and there was little grains of brown shit rice all over everything.

A miserable attempt at cleanup (I don't remember if he had baby wipes or just TP) in freezing temperatures followed by a horrible night and retreat the next day.

The lesson, when camping, never ever try to ignore an urgent bowel movement, no matter how cosy you are or much of a pain it would be to suit up go outside and poop.

Sam Mwrote:

I say we troll back and make every story on this thread about poop

Legendary story from an acquaintance of mine (who really has had some bad luck on his adventures) was camped on the snow near Mt Kosciuszko in winter. Beautiful clear night, amazing views, for dinner cooked up a new freeze dried meal, spicy sichuan chicken with rice.

Shortly after the rumbles started in his bowels.

He tried to ignore them...but he left it too late. It became unbearable. He quickly started thrashing out of the sleeping bag and desperately clawing at his boots. He stumbled out the tent and tried to get his pants down but he had already let loose. Squirted all over his pants and the virgin snow.

It went through him so fast the rice was still undigested and there was little grains of brown shit rice all over everything.

A miserable attempt at cleanup (I don't remember if he had baby wipes or just TP) in freezing temperatures followed by a horrible night and retreat the next day.

The lesson, when camping, never ever try to ignore an urgent bowel movement, no matter how cosy you are or much of a pain it would be to suit up go outside and poop.

Poop counts.

We were climbing on El Cap, day 3 on Mescalito.  Things were going brilliantly and we were in high spirits that morning.  I was hanging below the portaledge and packing the haul bag while my partner was standing on the portaledge and handing things down to me.  So I was eye level with his shoes.  I heard a little plop sound but couldn’t really figure out where it came from or what it was.  I didn’t say anything but I had a bad feeling.  Then I starting hearing plop, plop, plop!  I looked over and saw little splatters of shit start hitting the portaledge!  I started to duck under the ledge to get out of the line of fire and right as I did so I saw the mother of all “plops” land squarely on my partners pant leg and then run down to cover his shoe!  When I braved a look back over the edge we made eye contact and I’ll never forget the look of complete horror that was on his face.

Then I just couldn’t stop the laughter.  It was so gross but so funny because it mostly didn’t happen to me.  We sacrificed some precious water and several wet wipes to try and get things cleaned up.  

The bastard poopers were a full two days ahead of us so we never did catch them.  

We were climbing an obscure new route in the Eastern Sierra in a party of three when one of our party had to go fairly urgently.  We were about 4 pitches up and near a traversing ledge, so our distressed friend - who regularly eats lots of cabbage and raw foods- scooted out as far as possible, dropped her harness leg loops, and let loose.  We didn't think much of it at the time since there were no other routes on this particular wall.  But during our decent later that day, we discovered that with the wind and maybe an unlucky bounce, the organic bowel bomb befouled the 2nd pitch ledge where we had placed descent anchors several hours before.  The shear volume of the cow pie mess... all that came out of one gal?  We did our best to keep the rope out of the pudding and somehow managed to get back to the ground unscathed, laughing all the way.  

Oh man, this thread, I laughed so hard I sharted in my spandex. 

bob steedwrote:

We were climbing an obscure new route in the Eastern Sierra in a party of three when one of our party had to go fairly urgently.  We were about 4 pitches up and near a traversing ledge, so our distressed friend - who regularly eats lots of cabbage and raw foods- scooted out as far as possible, dropped her harness leg loops, and let loose.  We didn't think much of it at the time since there were no other routes on this particular wall.  But during our decent later that day, we discovered that with the wind and maybe an unlucky bounce, the organic bowel bomb befouled the 2nd pitch ledge where we had placed descent anchors several hours before.  The shear volume of the cow pie mess... all that came out of one gal?  We did our best to keep the rope out of the pudding and somehow managed to get back to the ground unscathed, laughing all the way.  

It’s always the veggie people makin’ a mess!

Safe is an adjective, not a verb.

It's almost like there's and entire thing called accidents in North American climbing we can read and learn more from instead of a blatant insensitive troll thread. Internet is neat

5Seven Kevinwrote:

It's almost like there's and entire thing called accidents in North American climbing we can read and learn more from instead of a blatant insensitive troll thread. Internet is neat

ANA doesn’t get gritty enough to scare anyone straight.

bob steedwrote:

 organic bowel bomb

That's my favorite flavor of Clif Bar!

This thread has definitely put the fear of god into me with respect to multipitch climbing with vegans, but I’ll just add my own 2 cents to the original thread goal.  

I totally can appreciate the concerns for “sensitivity” when they arise in the forums, and assume they come from sincere motivations.  However, I think the root problem is not a lack of sensitivity on the part of Tradiban here, but rather a lack of sensitivity on the behalf of his target audience.

New climbers, especially those coming from gyms, can surely read ANAM/ANAC and they wholeheartedly should, but those sanitized anecdotes fail to have the visceral punch that is needed to truly motivate the uninitiated to fully pull their head from their ass.  

That is also why MADD used to take a crumpled, burned up wreck to a high school to talk about the dangers of drunk driving.   Sometimes without a shock to the senses to plant the seed deep, academic theory just evaporates at the surface.

This applies as well to military training and the like.

Sometimes making people uncomfortable in a safe setting, can pay dividends by reducing the more tragic outcomes later.  

Locker wrote:

"Locker · 2 hours ago · Yucca Valley, CA · Joined Oct 2002 · Points: 2,349

This post violated Guideline #1 and has been removed."

if anybody is wondering, this is the equivalent to what was removed...

Was it actual climbing carnage?

Sam Mwrote:

I say we troll back and make every story on this thread about poop

To keep on theme here- climbing an alpine route with a MP first date a few years back. We meet at 4am and begin the long hike in. Some of you fellow dirtbags may be familiar with the wonderful meal that is Zatarains black beans and rice. I eat alot of this but once every 8 meals or so it gives me the shits. I ate a whole pot the night before. We get to the base of the route and rack up quickly. Dumping before the route occurs to me but don't really need to + partner is almost ready to go so I just rack up. He leads p1. Finishing the pitch I feel a gurgle. Leading p2 is far harder than I expected and my gurgle begins to rumble. I build a belay in a terrible spot and am so uncomfortable from it the urge gets worse. He leads up p3. My plans is to shit on the ledge (wagbag) as soon as he is around the corner. Right as he is, another party shows up and asks to share the belay. I dont really want to say "No I was gonna shit" so they join. New plan is as soon as I am out of their sight to rip it. Their leader asks if he can lead close behind me instead of waiting for me to finish the pitch. So that option is out. The pitch pulls three distinct roofs. Physical and grunty hand jams. Pulling hard on the second roof I feel it escape. I have actively shat while climbing. Hurry to finish the pitch, skirt around the corner and scrape into the wag bag what I can. Didn't explicitly tell partner what was going on but he probably figured it out. The walk off was not fun. Thankfully had approach shorts in my pack at the base so changed and was all good for the walk out. We never climbed again. 

The lesson here is always poop on your alpine starts.