Scare ‘Em Straight

Tradibanwrote:

Was it actual climbing carnage?

He never said, but implied since it was posted in this thread. It was severe (and pretty gross) head trauma.

Marc801 Cwrote:

He never said, but implied since it was posted in this thread. It was severe (and pretty gross) head trauma.

Yea, I saw. By removing it my point is proven.

T.W.A.

I was climbing the classic East BUTTress of Middle Cathedral many, many years ago with a good friend who was known for his Big Wall climbing.  About 600' feet up, he reports to me that he is crowning and needs to find away to traverse off the route.  He climbs an easy 5th class traverse straight sideways about 50', hangs his rear end as far from the cliff as he can and ejects his mud missiles down the face of the wall.  At this point he yells over to me asking if I had any toilet paper with me.  I did not.  So he takes his lunch out of his pack, grabs a ham and cheese sandwich on white bread, eats the ham and cheese, then proceeds to wipe his ass with bread- sending the newly Nutella'd bread slice into the void like a disc golf cyclone driver.  

Well,  At the very least, I hope this thread impresses upon newer climbers the importance of carrying a wag bag and quality bumwipe.  

Don’t make it so these poor souls soiled in vain

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 save some lives.

Namaste.

This should cover it:

Scariest Climbing Stories

June 1994. For some reason I remember that it was Father's Day, which had little to do with me since I wasn't one and hadn't seen my own in quite some time.

Ian Katz, Mark Wagner, and I began our day with an ascent of John Long’s direct version of Tobin Sorenson’s The Edge. John called his direct version Turbo Flange. Everything went smoothly, but if you are familiar with the route, you’ll get what I mean when I say the adrenalin rush was still running strong as we made our descent. We decided to run laps on The Bat Crack to burn it off.

I led first, and rapped leaving the gear in. We pulled the rope and either Ian or Mark led next, etc. We each did it at least twice. I was the last one up, it might have been my third burn, and had set about cleaning up the anchor to rap when a small helicopter flew up and hovered, the pilot apparently wanted to know if I needed help. I signaled that I was fine and began my rappel. He flew away, disappearing around the far end of the rock. Had there been an accident?

We rapped and scrambled down to the trail that traverses from Lunch Rock around the base of the White Maiden and on into the Northwest Recess and points beyond. To our surprise a young woman in street shoes and a dress came walking around from that area. She asked us for help.

“Can you help us, our friend fell?” 

Envisioning an injury, perhaps a broken ankle or something, we fell in line and followed her back around under the White Maiden’s buttress and up to where her friends body lay in the talus. One leg was torn off at the knee and lay about 30 feet away with a climbing shoe on its foot. The body had no head, it must have been torn off by a ledge as he fell. His neck, what was left of it, was a hideous gaping wound. Two others of his friends, both young men in street clothes, looked on in shock. The body wore a “No Fear” T-shirt.

I found out later that he had just been led up the White Maiden. It was his first climb, and his friends were just there to hang out and watch. Word was that he was on top, done climbing, and he fell off the edge backwards while taking pictures. 

His friends begged us to help get him down. They didn’t want to leave the body there overnight. “The animals,” I remember them saying. Mark ran back to lunch rock and returned quickly with the Stokes litter stashed there. We loaded his body into the litter, and Ian removed his fancy jacket and covered the open neck with it. It took several hours to negotiate the terrain going directly down the talus slope below there and eventually we emerged from the woods into Humber Park. Riverside Mountain Rescue was there. They made it quite clear that they would have preferred that we left the recovery to them, and by then I wished we had as well.

Mark had enough and headed for home. Ian and I stayed the night and climbed the next day at Suicide Rock. It was almost, but not quite, as if nothing had happened.

Later that week, at work, I was in a meeting with a client I’d known for years. At some point I looked up from papers on my desk and had a full-on hallucination. The person sitting across from me was not my client Steve, it was the headless corpse with the “No Fear” shirt. I don’t know how to describe this except to say that it was as real as could be. Then Steve broke through, asking repeatedly “Hey Kris, are you alright?” Then it was over.

I told Steve what had happened and what I’d just experienced. He reminded me that his wife was a psychiatrist, and he called her. When I told her the story, and about my hallucination, she said I was experiencing “classic PTSD,” and that she’d refer me to someone who could help.

I met this doctor, and he said “So, tell me all about what happened.” He interrupted me constantly, saying I was skipping over details. He made me recall every bit of the event, frame by frame, as we struggled to move the body down the rocky terrain. No detail was too small. Dead bodies do crazy stuff when you bounce them around. It was a real horror show, and I’d already repressed the worst of it. Getting it all out, frame by frame, with the help of a trained professional put the whole matter to bed for me. But mine was an easy case. It was a single event. I didn’t know anyone involved. None of it was my fault or my doing.

I feel that this gave me a small insight into the horror that PTSD can be for war veterans, for example, and first responders. I had friends who came back from Viet Nam with real demons. Many layers of unthinkable experiences. People they loved and depended on killed right next to them. Maybe they themselves did unthinkable things. And then, too often, this all gets tangled up in a web of alcohol or drug use. How the hell do you sort that out?

Kristian Solemwrote:

No Fear indeed.

Thanks. Should be required reading for access to Tah.

Kristian, thanks for sharing. Powerfully written.

1994 was a rough year for Tahquitz.  This accident happened the weekend before Father's Day.

Kristian Solemwrote:

 

Belated Godspeed to whomever had to pick up the head.

Makes me think about those “close calls” that turned into nothing.

Tradibanwrote:

Belated Godspeed to whomever had to pick up the head.

Makes me think about those “close calls” that turned into nothing.

Clark J went soloing all around that section of the rock the following Monday but found nothing.

I heard about that accident that Todd Jenkins linked. Mostly what I heard about was litter getting dropped and breaking some guys shoulder. At the time I didn't understand how seriously injured the climbers were. 

FALLING ROCK — CALIFORNIA, TAHQUITZ ROCK

Publication Year: 1985.

FALLING ROCK

California, Tahquitz Rock

In May of 1984, Kimberly Eittreim (23) was killed when a rock weighing in excess of 240 kilograms, which was accidentally dislodged by the lead climber on Sahara Terror, fell a distance of ten meters and landed on her right shoulder and arm, pulling it from its socket and amputating her right hand. It was obvious that she had bled to death in seconds. (Source: RMRU Newsletter, Volume XX, Issue V, May 1984)

Analysis

For some reason there had been a large amount of rock fall in this area all day, according to climbers who were on the rock or in Humber Park. The small ledge on which the victim was standing when struck—less than a meter in width—offered little protection from rockfall. In addition, the victim proably had no time to react when the large rock was dislodged. (Source: RMRU Newsletter, Volume XX, Issue V, May 1984)

--I was there that day although we did not see or hear a thing until we topped out and saw lots of people up on the summit. Someone told us what had happened . On the long drive back home we didn't say one word.

Wtf is with all these rescue stories?! This was a POOP STORY thread!!! Less blood carnage and more pants carnage please.