When do you decide to "say something" to another party/person?

I guess I've been lucky or it's the way I approach people. I've not had the "mind you own business" or "unsolicited advice" responses yet. If I see something dangerous usually I'll approach it with a question about why they're doing it. And then "Mind if I make a suggestion?"

Not really dangerous but one time I saw a guy top roping with his GF and he had threaded the rope into one slot of his ATC, through a carabiner and out the OTHER slot of the ATC. I told him I'd belay for him if I could get a lap and "BTW, that's not the way I set up my ATC". He insisted a guide friend showed him that way. I said "Let me show you how I do it" and proceeded to set it up normally. He  responds "Wow! Your way is better. I'll have to show my friend."

There have been several times (mostly at Otter Cliffs) when I was TR soloing and someone approached me with "Hey, you look like you know what you're doing. Would you mind checking our anchor before we climb?"

I've never had anyone object to anything, including flat out intervening, because it's usually done kindly. Even yelling at someone to stop what they're doing.....followed immediately with the "why" of the thing. Usually it's just a gentle, kindly ask. "Wanna borrow our stick clip?" turned into a whole coaching session at the local crag one day, very gratefully accepted by the noobies.

But I'm a dinky old lady, so it's very easy and low risk. Don't care what anyone thinks of me, and no one cares what I'm saying anyway. No threat, lol!

If I see something merely unusual, and it looks like an okay time to ask, I just ask. You find out interesting stuff that way, like new to you belay devices, for example.

I sometimes just offer help, if people look scared or befuddled. Yeah, it eats into my climbing time, but so what. Helping other people is also part of being a community, for me at least. And it's often fun! First timers at City of Rocks, especially. It's a special place, and people have made a trip to get there. I've completely lost track of how many Climb On maps I've handed people, lol!

Best, Helen 

In my second season ice climbing, my partner and I set up a non-redundant anchor above Lake Superior and were going back and forth about whether it was “good enough.” Some guys came by and asked if we noticed our nchor wasn’t redundant. We said yeah. They clearly knew we were pretty new to ice climbing. They asked if we knew how to prussik up a rope. We said yeah.  They said it didn’t seem like a good idea, lingered for a couple minutes, then kept walking.

We ended up packing up and moving to a climb that we were more prepared for (material-wise and skill-wise). I appreciate that they said something and thought they handled the situation well. 

FrankPSwrote:

You can tell if an abdominal aorta can be severed from a climbing accident, before it happens? Remarkable.

I just preemptively warn any climber I see with a pulsatile abdominal mass. Then again, as frequently as aortic lacs are afflicting climbers these days, we may just have to add Kevlar binders to our safety gear.

Don‘t get me wrong, people have free will, and I‘m not here to tell them how to live their lives. But if one more rando exsanguinates on my proj, I’m speaking up, if for no other reason than establishing who cleans up the mess.

I intervened yesterday yet again, and it's still bothering me.
At a popular section of the gunks cliffs my friends and I were hanging out and casually climbing and possibly waiting to get on Strictly from nowhere, but also just happy climbing an adjacent short route while Strictly was occupied by a 2nd party. Strangely a 3rd party appeared at the top of the Shockley p1 block (20ft climbers right) and started climbing left towards the Strictly roof. Odd, maybe it was other obscure route I didn't know about. I carried on my business and cleaned my buddy's lead nearby. At the top of my pitch I could get a better visual as to what was going on. The 3rd party walked left across the p1 shockley block about 20ft off route, climbed up and attempted left onto strictly but must have noticed they were way off the shockley route, then they traversed HARD right. 3 piece of pro were placed way off route climber's left almost on strictly, and the 3rd piece was placed way way up high in the ceiling under strictly. Miraculously this lost leader traversed under the ceiling about 25ft climbers right and gained the shockley route where they placed further gear and carried on the route.
When I was back on the ground I started to really worry about the follower. 20ft up off the shockley p1 large block/ledge was the last off-route piece, followed by a 20ft runout to the next piece exactly at the same elevation. This would be an absolutely brutal fall/swing bouncing off the ledge/block if the follower fell after removing the 3rd piece and trying to traverse right. Likely leaving them dangling off their rope in space while severely injured.
My buddy seeing my distress at the current situation started trying to shout a conversation to the follower asking if they needed or would like assistance removing this danger. It was clear now that the follower was fairly new, and didn't quite understand their situation there.
I ran back up my pitch to get closer to communicate, as the 2nd party was now rappelling off of strictly directly above these off-route climbers. But my route was ~30ft short of the top of the shockley block.  After a while I could communicate with the rappelling party but they couldn't get under the roof enough to pull this gear while on rap. With Strictly's now empty after the rappelers I looked down at the 3 micro cams and a nut I had cleaned off the route I was on. I also had my "emergency gunks rack" which is a biner with a pink tricam and two blue offsets. So I fired up Strictly's from my position while shitting my pants, I tried to explain to the off-route follower why I was intervening here but I really don't think they got it. I managed to hang under the roof and pull out that way off route high piece and finished strictly with almost no gear, and while lowering down it became even more clear that the off-route follower was having issues even getting the two lower pieces out and they were STILL going to attempt to traverse anyway and not downclimb and walk across like I suggested. I again stopped and convinced them to lower back down to the block again and I removed the remaining pieces and they walked 20ft across the block get directly underneath the 4th piece, where the route actually goes. The off-route leader was way out of sight but thankfully they had walkie talkies.
I'm still convinced that the follower didn't understand just how much danger they were in and why, and obviously the leader had no idea the danger they put the follower in.
I'm really glad I intervened, I'm 90% sure we stopped a horrible accident as I seriously doubt the success of the follower attempting a 20ft off route traverse on very difficult overhanging terrain. But at the same time I kinda wish I just walked away.

I also HATE the fact that as a grey haired dad that I've been beaten into submission about mansplaining anything to younger people. You don't HAVE to learn this painful lesson, and I shouldn't have to feel bad for stepping in, but thanks, now it's always a factor in my decision making.  I really doubt this lost party has been thinking about that situation more than it will continue to haunt me. The follower was receptive to my assistance, and I'm impressed how strong the seemingly new leader must be to set up the route that disastrous way.

crappy drawing. blue is their off-route route, red are the cams, yellow is the ledge/block.
Top tree is the strictly rap anchor (route not shown), lower green tree is the top of my pitch. 

In regards to OPs situation.  When I was young, I would be very impressed by people running it out. Now that I am the old I’m not.   Particularly at some sort of climbing festival where there inevitably theres a lot of new, inexperienced and impressionable climbers.  I have no clue if two screws was an adequate number of protection points for this climb or not, but I could see someone calling that out in a public setting if they thought it were not.

gtlukewrote:

I intervened yesterday yet again, and it's still bothering me.
At a popular section of the gunks cliffs my friends and I were hanging out and casually climbing and possibly waiting to get on Strictly from nowhere, but also just happy climbing an adjacent short route while Strictly was occupied by a 2nd party. Strangely a 3rd party appeared at the top of the Shockley p1 block (20ft climbers right) and started climbing left towards the Strictly roof. Odd, maybe it was other obscure route I didn't know about. I carried on my business and cleaned my buddy's lead nearby. At the top of my pitch I could get a better visual as to what was going on. The 3rd party walked left across the p1 shockley block about 20ft off route, climbed up and attempted left onto strictly but must have noticed they were way off the shockley route, then they traversed HARD right. 3 piece of pro were placed way off route climber's left almost on strictly, and the 3rd piece was placed way way up high in the ceiling under strictly. Miraculously this lost leader traversed under the ceiling about 25ft climbers right and gained the shockley route where they placed further gear and carried on the route.
When I was back on the ground I started to really worry about the follower. 20ft up off the shockley p1 large block/ledge was the last off-route piece, followed by a 20ft runout to the next piece exactly at the same elevation. This would be an absolutely brutal fall/swing bouncing off the ledge/block if the follower fell after removing the 3rd piece and trying to traverse right. Likely leaving them dangling off their rope in space while severely injured.
My buddy seeing my distress at the current situation started trying to shout a conversation to the follower asking if they needed or would like assistance removing this danger. It was clear now that the follower was fairly new, and didn't quite understand their situation there.
I ran back up my pitch to get closer to communicate, as the 2nd party was now rappelling off of strictly directly above these off-route climbers. But my route was ~30ft short of the top of the shockley block. After a while I could communicate with the rappelling party but they couldn't get under the roof enough to pull this gear while on rap. With Strictly's now empty after the rappelers I looked down at the 3 micro cams and a nut I had cleaned off the route I was on. I also had my "emergency gunks rack" which is a biner with a pink tricam and two blue offsets. So I fired up Strictly's from my position while shitting my pants, I tried to explain to the off-route follower why I was intervening here but I really don't think they got it. I managed to hang under the roof and pull out that way off route high piece and finished strictly with almost no gear, and while lowering down it became even more clear that the off-route follower was having issues even getting the two lower pieces out and they were STILL going to attempt to traverse anyway and not downclimb and walk across like I suggested. I again stopped and convinced them to lower back down to the block again and I removed the remaining pieces and they walked 20ft across the block get directly underneath the 4th piece, where the route actually goes. The off-route leader was way out of sight but thankfully they had walkie talkies.
I'm still convinced that the follower didn't understand just how much danger they were in and why, and obviously the leader had no idea the danger they put the follower in.
I'm really glad I intervened, I'm 90% sure we stopped a horrible accident as I seriously doubt the success of the follower attempting a 20ft off route traverse on very difficult overhanging terrain. But at the same time I kinda wish I just walked away.

I also HATE the fact that as a grey haired dad that I've been beaten into submission about mansplaining anything to younger people. You don't HAVE to learn this painful lesson, and I shouldn't have to feel bad for stepping in, but thanks, now it's always a factor in my decision making.  I really doubt this lost party has been thinking about that situation more than it will continue to haunt me. The follower was receptive to my assistance, and I'm impressed how strong the seemingly new leader must be to set up the route that disastrous way.

When “fuck the follower” goes too far

gtlukewrote:

crappy drawing. blue is their off-route route, red are the cams, yellow is the ledge/block.
Top tree is the strictly rap anchor (route not shown), lower green tree is the top of my pitch. 

You did a good thing there! Good on ya bro!!!

gtlukewrote:

crappy drawing. blue is their off-route route, red are the cams, yellow is the ledge/block.
Top tree is the strictly rap anchor (route not shown), lower green tree is the top of my pitch. 

I remember seeing part of this happening, I just assumed that the leader was trying to lead the 10d roof but backed off, which is clearly not what was actually happening. I’m not sure how someone could get off route there, if you look to the right from that ledge the route very obviously goes up that notch corner thing, and even if you forgot your lefts and rights and somehow ended up on strictly’s, just following the chalk up the roof isn’t a whole lot harder than Shockley’s is anyways.

This reminds me of the scariest thing I experienced in the gunks, which is where on the first pitch of bombs away, I reached up to a big grassy ledge and got bit by a little snake. Looking back, I got very lucky that it was not a copperhead, and that for some reason, none of the venom got into my hand because the bite didn’t keep on bleeding for a while. 

Heather Smith wrote:

There are only a few species of venomous snakes in NY (copperheads and rattlesnakes) and none of them are good climbers, especially of rock. A snake on the ledge of a climbing route is almost always going to be harmless, unless the ledge was only a few feet off the ground. 

Not really accurate. While maybe they can't glide right up the faces ( though I'm far from convinced of that), they are definitely able to 'chimney' up cracks and hang out in them---occasionally venturing out from them onto ledges to sun themselves. Rattlers, at least, have definitely been encountered in such situations on climbs in many parts of the country--and climbers have been bitten.

Heather Smith wrote:

There are only a few species of venomous snakes in NY (copperheads and rattlesnakes) and none of them are good climbers, especially of rock. A snake on the ledge of a climbing route is almost always going to be harmless, unless the ledge was only a few feet off the ground. 

That’s definitely good to know, this was the end of a big vegetated ledge. I’ve seen a couple bushes with snakes in them (the first pitch of wrist comes to mind, before the layback). I was more referring to the fact that a lot of the less deadly snakes supposedly have something in their bite that makes the cuts not stop bleeding for long time, which didn’t happen to me. I’m still going to be way more careful about reaching up onto big ledges now no matter what.

Alan Rubinwrote:

Not really accurate. While maybe they can't glide right up the faces ( though I'm far from convinced of that), they are definitely able to 'chimney' up cracks and hang out in them---occasionally venturing out from them onto ledges to sun themselves. Rattlers, at least, have definitely been encountered in such situations on climbs in many parts of the country--and climbers have been bitten.

There are  rattlers on top of Devils Tower in Wyoming as I have personally witnessed while tossing a disc up there years back, I've seen them pretty dang high up on low angle cliffs in Utah as well. 

Heather Smith wrote:

I’ve probably had over 500 snake bites lifetime

I'm sorry... what? Is this normal for Florida? 

gtlukewrote:

I'm impressed how strong the seemingly new leader must be to set up the route that disastrous way.

Not to make light of a serious situation (good on you for helping keep folks safe!) but holy shit that rope drag...it's hard to imagine a person making it to the P2 belay after doing that double traverse

Looks like this thread has gone off on some far off tangent(s).  But to the OP.  I am an old school hippie libertarian type, so it sort of goes without saying that the best human trait as valued by me is one of live and let live.  Staying out of other folks business is a real challenge for the righteous (whether we are discussing abortion or climbing, whatever the subject).  I realize that skill in modern American society might have been lost on younger generations.  However, it is always refreshing to still find folks who really don't give a fuck what someone else considers appropriate and even safe, for themselves.  If you are in eminent danger from a potential mistake made by another, I understand, but if not, take a few deep breaths and leave others alone.  When this can be achieved within some distance, at least, of a trained Buddhist level.....you will be rewarded with enlightenment and self awareness that will allow you to be one happy camper.  Not to mention one with more cred and net influence than the narcissistic option.  Folks deserve to learn by their own methodology without the preaching and meddling of busy bodies.  

Dow Williamswrote:

Looks like this thread has gone off on some far off tangent(s).  But to the OP.  I am an old school hippie libertarian type, so it sort of goes without saying that the best human trait as valued by me is one of live and let live.  Staying out of other folks business is a real challenge for the righteous (whether we are discussing abortion or climbing, whatever the subject).  I realize that skill in modern American society might have been lost on younger generations.  However, it is always refreshing to still find folks who really don't give a fuck what someone else considers appropriate and even safe, for themselves.  If you are in eminent danger from a potential mistake made by another, I understand, but if not, take a few deep breaths and leave others alone.  When this can be achieved within some distance, at least, of a trained Buddhist level.....you will be rewarded with enlightenment and self awareness that will allow you to be one happy camper.  Not to mention one with more cred and net influence than the narcissistic option.  Folks deserve to learn by their own methodology without the preaching and meddling of busy bodies.  

Interesting. Does this libertarian philosophy extend to letting them bleed out at the base of the climb after they've taken the fall 'cause, how else are they going to learn from their experience? Genuinely curious...

When do you decide to "say something" to another party/person?

When Intelligence tells you

Heather Smith wrote:

That may be true out west, especially with low angle rock, but the person I was responding to was in New York, where the specific species of venomous snakes that occur there are exceedingly unlikely to be found high up on rock ledges. They will occasionally climb trees, but they aren’t good at scaling rock faces.

Not saying it can never happen, but it would be extremely unlikely. 

If you knew the gunks layout you might back off that belief,  there is a 5.3 Gully in between every section of vertical face and ledges with trees all across the cliff for about 2 miles. The nope ropes can be anywhere there like Al said.  Copperheads are all over in the NE and as you should probably know baby snakes go all over the place.

The gunks is where I once had a 5' black rat snake land on my head from 50' up, luckily for the snake I definitely helped break his landing and it slithered off