Scariest moments/mistakes when climbing not resulting in injury

I was ascending a rope because we rappeled off route (bad toss got the tag line stuck around a tree) on the east face of lexington tower. As I'm jugging up the rope I see that the rope is desheathed. I was scared shitless and had a panic attack. Came back down we had to cut both the rope and the tag line cause the rope got stuck.  Tried to lead us back to the rap station on tooth and claw but the rock we were on was rotten.  After all that partner made the right call to scarfice our gear and try and head down. Had to build our own rappels on a short amount of rope bivvyed and got to the 3rd pitch rappel station.

Moral of the story always walk off over rapping or just saddle the ropes in unknown terrain. Lost a lot of gear this Monday:(. Glad to be alive 

Francis Josewrote:

I was ascending a rope because we rappeled off route (bad toss got the tag line stuck around a tree) on the east face of lexington tower. As I'm jugging up the rope I see that the rope is desheathed. I was scared shitless and had a panic attack. Came back down we had to cut both the rope and the tag line cause the rope got stuck.  Tried to lead us back to the rap station on tooth and claw but the rock we were on was rotten.  After all that partner made the right call to scarfice our gear and try and head down. Had to build our own rappels on a short amount of rope bivvyed and got to the 3rd pitch rappel station.

Moral of the story always walk off over rapping or just saddle the ropes in unknown terrain. Lost a lot of gear this Monday:(. Glad to be alive 

This (desheathing due to friction on rock) can be avoided using a technique called “rebelay”. If ever you’re planning a to reascend a rope going over an edge, try to create one.

this is assuming it’s a trad line or some fixed pro is available

Jared Ewrote:

This (desheathing due to friction on rock) can be avoided using a technique called “rebelay”. If ever you’re planning a to reascend a rope going over an edge, try to create one.

Dave Mac talks about this in at least one of his videos, such as here -- https://www.davemacleod.com/blog/selfbelay -- starting around 5 minutes in.

But that doesn't help at all in this scenario - a re-belay would prevent you from pulling the rope on your rap. (EDIT: I guess the question is: did they rap with the intent to detangle the tag line before pulling the rope and moving the rap line elsewhere, or did they discover the need to ascend only after rapping)

As an aside, this (along with the stuck rope risk of a biner block) is the reason I'm wary of single strand raps - you end up with a lot of sawing motion over any edge since all your weight is tugging on just one side (rather than both sides simultaneously).

MattHwrote:

But that doesn't help at all in this scenario - a re-belay would prevent you from pulling the rope on your rap.

As an aside, this (along with the stuck rope risk of a biner block) is the reason I'm wary of single strand raps - you end up with a lot of sawing motion over any edge since all your weight is tugging on just one side (rather than both sides simultaneously).

The user I responded to desheathed their else whilst ascending. Presumably they knew they were going off route in the way down to fix the tag line. You create the rebelay(s) on the way down and remove it on the way up.. it has no effect on pulling way

Personally i didnt know exactly what i was looking for when descending so i thought maybe i was near, or it was just below the tangled tagline, idk, i just know i fucked up. Ive seen daves video about rebelaying the rope for top rope soloing, didnt even think about it for ascending on a multi. appreciate the feedback. The rope was around two edges with no cracks near or places to rebelay but i wasnt really looking either, directionals couldve made the difference for sure. the upper edge you couldnt see from the rotting cave (where the tree was) the lower edge was fine when ascending it was when i saw the upper that my skin turned white.

Francis Josewrote:

Personally i didnt know exactly what i was looking for when descending so i thought maybe i was near, or it was just below the tangled tagline, idk, i just know i fucked up. Ive seen daves video about rebelaying the rope for top rope soloing, didnt even think about it for ascending on a multi. appreciate the feedback. The rope was around two edges with no cracks near or places to rebelay but i wasnt really looking either, directionals couldve made the difference for sure. the upper edge you couldnt see from the rotting cave (where the tree was) the lower edge was fine when ascending it was when i saw the upper that my skin turned white.

The rebelay doesn’t have to be near the crack. It’s still better to have one 20 ft below than to not have one at all.

It’s not a terrible idea for the first to place a rebelay by default if going over an edge. The second can remove it, however they’ll be less protected if there’s any penduluming involved. Maybe this can be mitigated by fixing the bottom of the rap line to the lower anchor. It’s not as effective as a rebelay but should still reduce sawing

Was TRS'ing in a party of 3 on Central Pillars of Frenzy. (Other 2 climbers were swapping leads and setting up a second rope for me to TRS off of). Thought it would be chill to just have one microtrax with backup knots (had never TRS before and was very stupid). Got to the top of one of the pitches and realized the nylon waist band from my chalk bag had gotten stuck in the micro trax and was autofeeding. Was more than 40 feet from my last knot.

Was belaying a friend on a short 11b with a crux down low. As he approached the 3rd bolt and was in the crux, the second bolt's hanger came off and his quickdraw slid down the rope. Would have only been a 20 foot fall, but certainly scary to see. 

L had lead the route and slung a tree with some cord for the top rope anchor. I lowered her back down whereupon she commented "I think I set that anchor up right" (foreshadowing!). 

So I top roped, fell a couple of times, and reached the anchor. Here is what I saw (or so I thought...more foreshadowing):

Figure eights to isolate the strands, lockers opposite and opposed. Not what I woulda done, but it didn't seem terrible. I lowered off, mentioned that I'd do it a bit differently.

C climbed it, fell a couple times, then took the anchor down and walked off. When he arrived, L asked me what I would have done instead. C handed over the still-tied cord, which looked like this:

Those weren't figure-8s. They were just a bight partially passed through a loop, with the carabiners clipped to the lowest part of it. It's not even a knot. And two of us fallen on this.

I couldn't believe it. "Is this what was there?" I asked C. "Yup. Why, what's wrong?"

I wiggled on the lower loop and it came free. I had that hollow feeling in my guts, and L looked horrified.

So, lessons learnt:

1. When someone says something like "I think I did X right", alarms should go off. I should have lead the route.

2. Expectations shape perception. If I expect to see something, that increases the likelihood that I'll see it, whether it exists or not.

Yikes

Years back I was exploring a little done route in Vegas and started up the second pitch with my partner perched on a ledge just above a huge terrace- I had him move the belay up because i thought the pitch would be a rope stretcher. We left the rope on the terrace. 25’ up the pitch, I stemmed off the flake to my left and it suddenly cut loose. The flake was 30’ tall, 2’ wide, and 1’ thick and was balanced on the belay stance I had just left. It slid off, landed on our rope, then careened down the climb and into the gully below, absolutely decimating everything in its path.

I managed to downclimb to the belay, check my partner and shake it off. We pulled the rope up to inspect it and it had been chopped into 6 pieces and had 4 core shots in the pieces that were left. We tied it together and fixed it to get down to the top of the first pitch, then used our tag line to rap down and head home.

to this day, it was one of the scarier things I’ve experienced as a climber and I often think back to that last second decision to move the belay- it definitely saved my partners life- they would have been standing where it hit first.

Did hassig’s on cannon, wi5 m6 in bare conditions with only ice screws and some rusty old pins for protection. The crux pitch was runout as hell on rock with iced up cracks and loose rock, one of those days where you need a cigarette after even if you don’t smoke. Wound up doing the exact thing Marc-Andre LeClairc did in the alpinist with the bare handed mixed climbing with some rock moves to get through it. Basically a whole pitch of sketchy mixed climbing with 2 pieces of pro. It was spooky. I bought half a dozen pitons after… and chainsmoked a pack of spirit blues. 

I was in EPC climbing Space Boyz with a random off Facebook (i was travelling with an odd number of people so this day I was on my own). We topped out, and set up for the first rappel. I had read on MP that you can link the first two rappels with a 70, but it would be a bit of a rope stretcher. We each coiled an end of the rope, and he asked me if I had a stopper, which I did. I unwittingly assumed that if he was asking me if I had a stopper, then surely he would also have tied one. I set off down the rappel, and about 10ft from the end of the rope I looked down to see a tail flapping in the wind, no stopper. The length of the rappel meant that if I had just been looking at the rock, focussed on finding the anchor, I surely would’ve rapped off the end of my rope and fallen 8 pitches. Scary stuff! Picture to show just how tight the rappel was (obviously after I had pulled up the tail and tied a stopper)

Miles Eastwoodwrote:

I was in EPC climbing Space Boyz with a random off Facebook (i was travelling with an odd number of people so this day I was on my own). We topped out, and set up for the first rappel. I had read on MP that you can link the first two rappels with a 70, but it would be a bit of a rope stretcher. We each coiled an end of the rope, and he asked me if I had a stopper, which I did. I unwittingly assumed that if he was asking me if I had a stopper, then surely he would also have tied one. I set off down the rappel, and about 10ft from the end of the rope I looked down to see a tail flapping in the wind, no stopper. The length of the rappel meant that if I had just been looking at the rock, focussed on finding the anchor, I surely would’ve rapped off the end of my rope and fallen 8 pitches. Scary stuff! Picture to show just how tight the rappel was (obviously after I had pulled up the tail and tied a stopper)

Homie I know you're at the anchor, locked in, and you probably were super solid on the rappel if you caught the "no knot at the end" thing... but your locker being unlocked is giving me the heebie jeebies 

Caleb BRwrote:

Homie I know you're at the anchor, locked in, and you probably were super solid on the rappel if you caught the "no knot at the end" thing... but your locker being unlocked is giving me the heebie jeebies 

Haha I noticed that as well, looks like I was halfway through breaking down my rappel when I decided to pull out my phone and take a picture. After going into the anchor on my pas of course!

Still no idea if this was a near-miss because I get mixed responses and haven’t tested it. But I led a sport route with three hard moves and the worst clipping stance at the end. While struggling to clip at the end, my belayer announced they had just realized they had me on the brake end instead of climber’d end in their Grigri. I went in direct and they took me off belay and fixed it so I was no longer threaded backwards. If I had fallen during the lead, I think it would have performed worse than an ATC but possibly better than nothing?

Glad is all worked out OK Alaina!

Let's keep this thread alive--I think it's really important!!!

Bruno Schullwrote:

Glad is all worked out OK Alaina!

Let's keep this thread alive--I think it's really important!!!

Yes, let's keep this thread alive, because the 'lessons learned' may help keep us alive!!!!

Alaina Gwrote:

Still no idea if this was a near-miss because I get mixed responses and haven’t tested it. But I led a sport route with three hard moves and the worst clipping stance at the end. While struggling to clip at the end, my belayer announced they had just realized they had me on the brake end instead of climber’d end in their Grigri. I went in direct and they took me off belay and fixed it so I was no longer threaded backwards. If I had fallen during the lead, I think it would have performed worse than an ATC but possibly better than nothing?

A Gri can stop falls when loaded backward. It won’t pinch the rope and won’t assist braking, but, if the belayer keeps the brake hand on the brake strand and pulls it back toward the hip, the fall can be arrested. This would be similar to using a ATC. When belaying the leader with any device, the brake hand should always be with the palm facing down (facing the hip), instead of up. Doing so provides a better grip and more leverage on the rope. Keep in mind that falls using thin ropes are more difficult to brake with any device. 

Glad to see this thread revived! As a relative newbie to outdoor climbing, it has been really helpful to see the breadth of topics brought up, even if a lot of them aren't yet applicable to my sport-only leader self for now. Good to some sense of the common and less common modes of failure before taking more on.

Here's my story, which I've been considering posting for the last two months or so since it happened and now that I'm couch ridden with covid, am finally getting around to it. At "a crag somewhere in Western Mass", leading a route at my limit, feeling surprisingly good, I get to the final of three roof pull cruxes at the last bolt (mostly due to great running beta lol). You come around this roof by laying back and pulling left around a corner to the anchor. Last bolt is on the right face of the roof coming into the move. It's a relatively vertical face here, so the bolt is basically to the side of your right hip as you come around the corner. I tried to pull the corner a few times, but was too pumped to do it. I give it one last sad go, thinking "bolt right next to me, clean air fall below me, totally safe, just go for it". Grunt, knee slips, falling— except instead of going mostly down, I'm jerked sideways and half a second later my throat starts feeling constricted. Yikes! Instead of hanging in the air below, I'm roughly level with the draw on the last bolt— Did my hard get caught in the draw? My shirt? Did I somehow wrap myself in the rope? I pull up on the draw, which releases some tension around my neck. Rope is clear of my body, I glance at the carabiner right by my cheek and realize that my helmet ear strap might be the thing stuck in it and holding me in place. Unclip helmet buckle, pressure around neck releases, I call out and let go of draw, and take the fall I assumed I was going to be taking with my helmet hanging in the draw above me. 

No injuries outside of the first and second hand anxiety during the five or so seconds of hang man on the draw. Not sure what the takeaways are, beyond the obvious awareness of where your body parts will fall relative to the rock and gear, especially when you are close to a draw/carabiner on a relatively flat surface. It could be more likely for a newer / nervous climber who, while falling, tries to grab onto or stay close to the rock or rope. However, it truly does seem like a low probability incident; the couple of handfuls of folks I've mentioned it to have not heard of similar occurrences. I suppose the likelihood vastly decreases the further the carabiner is from your falling position, though if the stars did unluckily align in that case, being suddenly arrested by a short bit of static material by your neck would be very much not fun. (Or hopefully the weakest point in the helmet would give out before your spine...) In my case, it was a short enough fall from last position to carabiner that I didn't suffer any whiplash, and continued climbing for the rest of the day.

Hope this post of me hoisting myself by my own petard doesn't bring out the anti-helmet brigade to this thread, which has been remarkably on point and troll-free till now.  

My other story is actually the same mistake as Alaina's, with me messing up on the belayer end. Thankfully I noticed while paying out rope as leader clipped the first bolt after an easy but somewhat long scramble— as soon as I switched to taking in slack it felt obviously wrong, but if you're not paying enough attention and just giving slack before the first bolt, it doesn't feel very different when set up backwards. Not an excuse, obviously, just noting a case where it might slip by more easily— always do a thorough partner check before stepping off the ground!