Scariest moments/mistakes when climbing not resulting in injury

Kristian Solemwrote:

Here's a mistake that has killed climbers on "safe" sport climbs.

The route in question was "Shithooks," on Low Profile Dome, Tuolumne Meadows. My partner, an experienced climber, shall remain nameless to protect the not so innocent. It came down like this:

I led the route in one long pitch using double 8.5mm ropes. At the top I joined the ropes with an EDK and rappelled from the bolted anchor. My partner TR'd, with me belaying from the base, passing the knot when it got to me. While he was climbing a female Park Ranger and a trainee walked up and watched. She was especially interested in the knot passing business, and watched carefully. When my partner got  to the anchor at the top he yelled down "OFF BELAY!!" I took him off, dropped the ropes, turned around and got into a chat with the Ranger and her charge. Then I heard my partner yell "TAKE!!" and rope started running up the wall out of the pile on the ground. I dove into the pile of rope and wrapped the running cord around my body. Fortunately the top of the route is lower angle, so he wasn't in free fall yet, and I was able to catch him.

When he called down "OFF BELAY" that meant, to me, that my job was done and he was going to do the obvious thing: rappel. Why he decided to lower instead, especially on the skinny cords was/is beyond me. 

If you plan to lower, never say off belay. It's really best to say nothing. Just clip in, make the necessary arrangements depending on the set up, and yell "TAKE" when the time comes.  Also, it's really a good idea to talk about how you intend to descend before you go up.

I had a similar experience in 2010, which I thought about posting here. Luckily, when my partner said "take" I started screaming at her that she wasn't on belay and grabbed the rope before anything bad happened. If she'd fallen I never would have forgiven myself. It was mostly her error but I had a bad feeling about it, and I should have acted upon it earlier.

Right after I had that experience I remember seeing on a thread here on this site a bit of advice. The advice was that if you are on the ground and your partner reaches the anchor of a single pitch route and says "off belay," you should ask: "are you setting up a rappel?" If the answer is yes, then fine. If it is no, then you say "I'll keep you on belay and feed some slack!" And of course you should talk this stuff out before you leave the ground. But I have taken this advice to heart and it has really helped me avoid the confusion that causes so many tragic accidents. I never take my partner off belay unless they have confirmed to me first that they are setting up a rappel. 

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

argument with significant other while ice climbing. leaned back into rappel without putting rope through rap device. caught by auto block...

This is probably very common, making mistakes rappelling. I've done it once, after cleaning the anchors after a day of ice climbing. Was dog tired, about to lean out over the edge when I stopped because something didn't feel right. Looked down to see the rope through the belay device but not through the locker. 

I've also had a second come up to a belay ledge I was sitting on give me a proper ration of shit for belaying them up to the anchor while I myself wasn't clipped in.

Haven't made those mistakes again.

On one of my earlier outdoor climbing trip a friend of mine was tying in to lead a brief history of climb at the RRG. Got to the crux around the second bolt and pulled up rope to clip the next draw and the only draw below him fell of the hanger. When it was stick clipped the draw was held open by the hanger, which we missed. Luckily he was able to finish getting the second draw clipped. 

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

argument with significant other while ice climbing. leaned back into rappel without putting rope through rap device. caught by auto block...

Many ice climbers read this and arrive at the conclusion that the solution to this dangerous situation is to just never have a significant other....

Yeah, just because you’ve been climbing a hundred years doesn’t mean you won’t do dumb shit. I’d rather be humble and have someone check my knot and stuff rather than be a hotshot and be dead. 

• Belayer threaded the GriGri right...but didn't fully close it and I only did a cursory visual inspection. Unbeknownst to me the rope drops out while I'm still climbing. He puts it in properly and I take a swinging fall immediately afterword. He tells me on the drive home. I love my son.
• Rapped off of sketchy tat...which fell down when I pulled my rope.
• Realized I'd rapped on just the webbing behind my harness's bottom hard-point...while setting up for the second hanging rap. I had missed the belay loop because I couldn't see past the dog I had in a backpack in front of me.
• Lost my feet while adjusting (and accidentally pulling) my second cam 20ft off deck. I decked flat on my back (with the cam still in hand) onto a small patch of snow without a bruise.
• Dry canyoning without gear, I had a chock stone roll out under foot, trapping me 30ft up. I free soloed the super crumbly 80ft with a backpack full of wildlife cameras. Nastiest choss I've ever been on--holds literally pulling out of the wall 2-3 times for every movement.

Man, I didn't want to write about my mistake, but I figured it's more important for somebody to learn from it than for me to hide my embarrassment of it.

Yesterday, I was climbing with a new partner at a wall that has several two pitch sport routes. I didn't feel great that morning, so I was happy to let him lead everything. He has an 80 meter rope, and in the interest of expediency, he decides to link the two pitches of the first route since we should have enough rope. He makes plans before climbing for him to belay me from above at the end of the climb, and then for me me to lower him to the ground and I'll rappel afterward. Seems fine, I think there are better ways than lowering him all the way, but it works out. Since I wasn't feeling great, I'm more interested in just going with the flow as long as it doesn't sound unsafe. He finishes the climb, leans back and gives me a thumbs up at the top after setting up the anchor. We're next to the river, so he's using non-verbal communication, even though I can yell loud as shit. I take him off belay, he puts me on, I climb up, everything goes to plan.

For the next climb, he checks the guide book, and says he'll link the two pitches of this climb as well. I'm tied into the bottom of the rope, because I'm expecting we'll do the same thing as the last climb. I'm a little concerned because this route is taller, but worst case scenario, we can just come down in two rappels if the 80 meter rope can't reach the ground from the top. He climbs, and the halfway mark of the rope goes past the first bolt, so my concern for having to rap twice seems justified. My partner gets to the top, and takes some time at the top doing something that looks like setting up an anchor to me. He looks down, leans back, and gives me a thumbs up. I take him off belay, and do it very dramatically since he's communicating non-verbally, holding my arms spread wide apart so he can see the rope in one hand away from my body, and the belay device/brake hand not touching the rope on the other side of my body.

A few seconds pass, and I go to put my belay device on my harness, when I feel the rope go taut in my other hand. I was still holding onto the rope, because I had some concern about not shouting and getting an acknowledgment. Thank goodness, because he was planning on getting lowered, which was every different than what I thought was going to happen! He had leaned back to lower, and I was lucky to still be holding onto the rope. I held the rope, and I don't know how far down ha had fallen, but thankfully it was quite easy to keep him from falling further by just holding the rope in my left hand. There was a good amount of rope drag from linking the two pitches, so it was easy to wrap the rope around my left hand and put him back on belay with my right hand. If I had let the rope go, he would have taken a 120 foot ground fall.

A lot of little slips all added up to almost a very serious accident. I should have used verbal communication even if my partner wasn't, should not have assumed we'd do the same thing for the second climb as for the first climb, should have mentioned my concern about the length of the climb versus the length of our rope, and should have been more vocal about pre-climb communication since we were doing something abnormal (linking two pitch sport climbs into one long 40+ meter climb). Really, a lot of it comes down to me letting my guard down, because I'm normally a big fan of all that stuff I just mentioned, but my new partner has decades more experience than me and has a different style of communication than what I'm accustomed to, and I deferred to his style rather than sticking with my own. What's wild, is that we climbed another route right after that experience!

T Legowrote:

Nearly exactly this. My climber took two whips on a single hardpoint before realizing. I consider myself just as much at fault, and don't do "casual" buddy checks anymore. It doesn't have to be by the book formal, but I always make sure I know saw a good knot and that my climber knows I saw it. 

Reminds me of the time my gym partner didn't finish tying her figure 8 knot and fell twice on it while leading! We didn't notice until she went to untie. Now, even if I don't visually inspect my partner's knot I always try to ask them to look at it one last time before they start climbing

T Legowrote:

It was Hot Yoga, wasn't it?

Oh you know it. The #1 double digit lead at Pilot is a magnet for gumbies. 

Duncan Dominguewrote:

…..but my new partner has decades more experience than me and has a different style of communication than what I'm accustomed to, and I deferred to his style ….

Apparently he has decades of experience with no “style” at all.   That’s not style, that’s just stupid. 

Duncan Dominguewrote:

Man, I didn't want to write about my mistake, but I figured it's more important for somebody to learn from it than for me to hide my embarrassment of it.

Yesterday, I was climbing with a new partner at a wall that has several two pitch sport routes. I didn't feel great that morning, so I was happy to let him lead everything. He has an 80 meter rope, and in the interest of expediency, he decides to link the two pitches of the first route since we should have enough rope. He makes plans before climbing for him to belay me from above at the end of the climb, and then for me me to lower him to the ground and I'll rappel afterward. Seems fine, I think there are better ways than lowering him all the way, but it works out. Since I wasn't feeling great, I'm more interested in just going with the flow as long as it doesn't sound unsafe. He finishes the climb, leans back and gives me a thumbs up at the top after setting up the anchor. We're next to the river, so he's using non-verbal communication, even though I can yell loud as shit. I take him off belay, he puts me on, I climb up, everything goes to plan.

For the next climb, he checks the guide book, and says he'll link the two pitches of this climb as well. I'm tied into the bottom of the rope, because I'm expecting we'll do the same thing as the last climb. I'm a little concerned because this route is taller, but worst case scenario, we can just come down in two rappels if the 80 meter rope can't reach the ground from the top. He climbs, and the halfway mark of the rope goes past the first bolt, so my concern for having to rap twice seems justified. My partner gets to the top, and takes some time at the top doing something that looks like setting up an anchor to me. He looks down, leans back, and gives me a thumbs up. I take him off belay, and do it very dramatically since he's communicating non-verbally, holding my arms spread wide apart so he can see the rope in one hand away from my body, and the belay device/brake hand not touching the rope on the other side of my body.

A few seconds pass, and I go to put my belay device on my harness, when I feel the rope go taut in my other hand. I was still holding onto the rope, because I had some concern about not shouting and getting an acknowledgment. Thank goodness, because he was planning on getting lowered, which was every different than what I thought was going to happen! He had leaned back to lower, and I was lucky to still be holding onto the rope. I held the rope, and I don't know how far down ha had fallen, but thankfully it was quite easy to keep him from falling further by just holding the rope in my left hand. There was a good amount of rope drag from linking the two pitches, so it was easy to wrap the rope around my left hand and put him back on belay with my right hand. If I had let the rope go, he would have taken a 120 foot ground fall.

A lot of little slips all added up to almost a very serious accident. I should have used verbal communication even if my partner wasn't, should not have assumed we'd do the same thing for the second climb as for the first climb, should have mentioned my concern about the length of the climb versus the length of our rope, and should have been more vocal about pre-climb communication since we were doing something abnormal (linking two pitch sport climbs into one long 40+ meter climb). Really, a lot of it comes down to me letting my guard down, because I'm normally a big fan of all that stuff I just mentioned, but my new partner has decades more experience than me and has a different style of communication than what I'm accustomed to, and I deferred to his style rather than sticking with my own. What's wild, is that we climbed another route right after that experience!

If I got no audio, I will keep the belay device on and just feed out a bunch of slack. That way I can see if he’s taking out the slack super agressively to bring me on belay and I can take off the device. If Im not confident ill sometimes just feed a bunch more through the grigri as he’s pulling to make doubly sure. And if i have no visual either, like if the pitch starts under the roof, then sometimes i’ll just feed all the slack through until its at the end. Its maybe a minute of inconvenience, but it’s good to know this can happen to justify my protocol.

Once I somehow double backed my byte though the anchor when cleaning. I was on a PAS so not actually dangerous. But when I undid the overhand to retie my figure 8, the rope just zipped right through the anchor! I grabbed it so I didn’t need a rescue, but the feeling was sickening knowing that if I’d I lowered on that overhand, like many do, I would have plunged 100ft to my death. 

Bump. I really like the idea of compiling all near miss modes like the annual accident reports. 

Twice I have taken myself off rappel on multis without clipping into the anchor. I now clip the carabiner of my pas to the guide mode hole.  I realize there’s the chance of fuckery if things get tangled but I’d rather that than death. 

Climbing Weaselwrote:

Bump. I really like the idea of compiling all near miss modes like the annual accident reports. 

I believe phylp was working on something similar? Initially I think she was going to host it on a WordPress site or similar, but happy to provide some space on the Climbing News Aggregator site if interested.

J Lwrote:

I believe phylp was working on something similar? Initially I think he was going to host it on a WordPress site or similar, but happy to provide some space on the Climbing News Aggregator site if ainterested.

Our Phylp is a 'she'.

My memory of this isn't perfect, but the gist is that I lead route #1, then traversed over to route #2 to set up a top rope. The top of route #2 had two bolts with quick links and new-looking mussy hooks, and I'd built my anchor using a nylon sling tied with an overhand in the middle. For some reason I can't remember I'd placed the sling directly into the mussy's instead of installing carabiners on the bolt hangers or quick links. Somehow (maybe while traversing back to route #1's anchor to clean it?) the sling caught underneath the gate of one of the mussy's and popped out, leaving me with just one remaining good leg of my anchor and the possibility of the same failure mode occurring on it. I believe the sling had fully cleared the gate and then worked its way back under it as opposed to never being fully inserted.

Alan Rubinwrote:

Our Phylp is a 'she'.

Corrected thank you.

Duncan Dominguewrote:

I should have used verbal communication even if my partner wasn't, should not have assumed we'd do the same thing for the second climb as for the first climb, should have mentioned my concern about the length of the climb versus the length of our rope, and should have been more vocal about pre-climb communication since we were doing something abnormal (linking two pitch sport climbs into one long 40+ meter climb). 

Better yet, use different non-verbal hand signals for different commands. Using a thumbs-up is similar to someone yelling "OK!" when he reaches the anchor. With "signal1" (choose your gesture here) being "Off Belay" and signal2 (a widely different gesture) is "Lower!", cragging in noisy areas is convenient (as long as you see each other).

Hearing someone deck.  I wasn't hurt, but the guy who decked was.