Scariest moments/mistakes when climbing not resulting in injury

Was climbing The Odyssey in the Black. At one point higher up you can combine two pitches into one rope stretcher that might need a bit of simuling. Easy enough climbing my partner and I were both comfortable doing so if need be. 

The belay sits in a cave and you quest out 70 maybe 80 meters through a vertical valley of barely held together choss. I climbed gingerly, testing every hold and then very carefully weighting anything I deemed good enough to hold body weight. Getting closer to the end of the pitch is a huge perch you could play Frisbee on, as I got nearer to this ledge the rock quality was seriously degrading. I slowed down a bit assuming my buddy was at any point cleaning the anchor and taking off. I tested a hand and it started to give, so I placed it neatly back where it came from. Extended my leg and gave a little tappy tap on a maybe 3 ft tall 18 inch wide blade to see how terribly hollow it sounded. The moment my foot tapped it, it slowly let loose from it's residence and went for a sail.

It set off a mechanical chain reaction.

The first tumble it took off several other rocks. In a mere matter of seconds this thing has created a sizeable rock slide with what I can only imagine was hundreds if not thousands of pounds of shrapnel dancing around my rope. Worst of all my buddy should be simuling by now, he's right in the impact zone. The sound roared throughout the canyon in a way I've only observed from a distance, admiring nature in awe. I'm absolutely convinced my buddy could not have survived that. My heart is sunk but hope not lost yet. I never felt a tug. I step up, still drag on the rope. Good sign. The only sound now was every climber in the canyon hooting and hollering cheering at us. Why tf are they cheering? Don't they know something serious might be going on?

I start screaming and hear what I think is a faint scream from my partner. Between the river below and all the obstacles between us I could hardly make out the sound, but unless it's in my head It has to be him. Maybe all those climbers across hollering can see both of us clearly. I continue up, rope still had all the drag of having 200 ft out, I'm well into simul territory by now. Is he climbing? I build an anchor slowly bring my boy up. This guy arrives and gives me a high 5 and is stoked for his lead. I thought I killed my friend for a few minutes but he was safe and snug in a cave when all that happened.  

Mac P wrote:

Was climbing The Odyssey in the Black...

Lucky the rope didn't get damaged.

Once while descending Mt Thompson near Bishop,  you go partway down a big loose bowl.  We went down diagonally across the bowl so no one is above or below another.
One guy set off a large rock, which rolled and set off a huge chain reaction of several tons of rock.  Lower in the bowl, everything funnels through a choke point so it would be certain death if you were in that funnel.  Fortunately we were safe.

I was mid-send on my mega-proj.  My foot picked and my homie/spotter/dudebro Kevin just barely got out of the way to avoid the dab.  Makes my heart race just typing this out.  Epic rig.

Sam D, that was hilarious. 

WOW! Mac P..     

In March of 1990, I found myself out at Red Rocks for nine days, and in need of a partner. Knowing I wanted to climb a number of routes in Black Velvet Canyon, I drove out the dry wash to find a good camping spot (that was allowed back then). It was here that I came across the campsite of the late, great Alaskan climber, Dr. Andy Embick. He was on holiday away from his duties at the hospital in Valdez, and had been in the area for a little over a week, climbing with various people he had connected with. I was fortunate that he was presently without a partner, and also was willing to share his campsite (and his copious amounts of food!).

Andy shared that he was willing to climb, but didn't want to do any leading....a partnership made in heaven!   He began reciting routes he wanted to do, and we started ticking them off....Ixtlan, Triassic Sands, Lotta Balls, Prince of Darkness. While climbing PoD, I got a great view of a party doing Dream of Wild Turkeys, and suggested to Andy that we knock that off. However, he informed me that he had done it with another partner the previous week. 

That evening, while sitting around the campfire, Andy informed me he wanted to take a rest day the following day, so I started contemplating soloing DoWT. Andy began sharing a bit of beta, but more emphatically, spent more time trying to talk me out of it. Not long after dark, a vehicle pulled up with two girls who asked if they could share our campsite. We welcomed them, and quite immediately noticed that it was clear neither of them had bathed in a VERY long time....it was stomach-turning stench of epic proportions. That's bad enough when it's a dude, but girls.....bleh! Shortly before turning in, the girls announced that they were planning on jumping on DoWT in the morning. Had they smelled better, I would have asked to join them.

The following morning, they were off to an early start. Andy and I lounged around camp, enjoying coffee and copious amounts of bacon and eggs out of his cooler. I finally got motivated and told Andy I was going to go solo the first pitch of DoWT to just check it out. I put on my harness, and took a couple draws, my chalk bag and a day pack, and headed out. By the time I arrived at the base, the two girls were on the 4th pitch, which is the crux. 

I meandered up the first pitch, confident I could easily downclimb it. Resting at the anchor, I scoped pitch two and decided it looked good. Feeling in the groove, I kept going. Admittedly, the crux on pitch 4 gave me pause....some delicate and rather exposed face moves to the left, after being in a secure crack. Before letting my nerves get the best of me, with heart racing I danced left. Resting at the anchor, I could see the girls just reaching the top of 5, and I headed up, arriving at their belay in short order. They told me they were going to rap from the top of 7....I let them know I was going to do the upper pitches and walk off. I left them behind, VERY happy to be away from their combined stench. 

Alas, as I was climbing on, the weather began turning sketchy.....clouds, cold wind, and by the time I reached the anchor at top of 7, it was spitting snow. In spite of my olfactory senses begging me not to even consider it, I decided to wait on the girls and see if they'd mind me rapping with them. They didn't mind.

In a few weeks, I'll celebrate 50 years of climbing....I've made my share of mistakes (see my first post up thread). I believe the decision to rap with those two that day was quite possibly THE biggest mistake I've ever made while climbing. Waiting at the anchors was a vomit-inducing exercise in personal self-control. In all honesty, in 34 years of SAR, I've recovered bodies that smelled better. 

Dean Rosnau wrote:

Dean, LOL!

Background: Climbing our 2nd sport route of the day with a group ~6 months ago. I was watching someone start their 1st ever outdoor lead (5.8) while our most experienced (4+ years, sport/multi, ~1.5 year hiatus) member who led the first route of the day belays with a grigri.

Incident: As climber approaches 2nd bolt, belayer looks at me and says “I need you to take over belay, I’m about to be sick”. Belayer collapses and starts vomiting while maintaining control of the brake strand. I tell the climber “don’t move, we need to switch belayers”. I then removed the grigri completely from the belayers harness and attached it to my own. The climber had potential to take a ~20’ ground fall in those moments they were off belay. The climber continued to climb until they were secure at the second bolt and we paused to assist the vomiting belayer. They said they would be okay and thought their condition was brought on by nervousness of not having led in a long while. We gave them some water and food and their condition markedly improved within ~10 minutes, fully recovered and continued climbing ~30 minutes later.

Reflection: I thought I was being helpful by taking action but looking back it was one of the worst things I could have done. I don’t think the situation was as dire as I thought and we should have just tied a knot (?) below the device and told the climber to cease climbing or down climb. If for some reason it was necessary to switch belayers, I think I should have just continued the belay from the incapacitated belayer’s harness until the climber could either down climb or clip the 2nd bolt. Then we could have loaded a second belay device below the grigri or a munter if no device was available before taking the first device off.

I am still new to the sport but have been out climbing several dozen times since while seeking mentorship from a greater variety of people. While there was not a serious problem, the belayer’s condition was indistinguishable from a medical emergency until a further assessment could be made. This would have taken time that climber may not have had. Even though everything worked out, I’m left wondering how to deal with similar situations in the future, especially if I don’t have any extra people to belay/belay devices on hand. If anyone has experience or protocol dealing with needing to switch belayers, a medically incapacitated belayer, or comments on my reflection, please share. 

Cody Morris wrote:

Background: Climbing our 2nd sport route of the day with a group ~6 months ago. I was watching someone start their 1st ever outdoor lead (5.8) while our most experienced (4+ years, sport/multi, ~1.5 year hiatus) member who led the first route of the day belays with a grigri.

Incident: As climber approaches 2nd bolt, belayer looks at me and says “I need you to take over belay, I’m about to be sick”. Belayer collapses and starts vomiting while maintaining control of the brake strand. I tell the climber “don’t move, we need to switch belayers”. I then removed the grigri completely from the belayers harness and attached it to my own. The climber had potential to take a ~20’ ground fall in those moments they were off belay. The climber continued to climb until they were secure at the second bolt and we paused to assist the vomiting belayer. They said they would be okay and thought their condition was brought on by nervousness of not having led in a long while. We gave them some water and food and their condition markedly improved within ~10 minutes, fully recovered and continued climbing ~30 minutes later.

Reflection: I thought I was being helpful by taking action but looking back it was one of the worst things I could have done. I don’t think the situation was as dire as I thought and we should have just tied a knot (?) below the device and told the climber to cease climbing or down climb. If for some reason it was necessary to switch belayers, I think I should have just continued the belay from the incapacitated belayer’s harness until the climber could either down climb or clip the 2nd bolt. Then we could have loaded a second belay device below the grigri or a munter if no device was available before taking the first device off.

I am still new to the sport but have been out climbing several dozen times since while seeking mentorship from a greater variety of people. While there was not a serious problem, the belayer’s condition was indistinguishable from a medical emergency until a further assessment could be made. This would have taken time that climber may not have had. Even though everything worked out, I’m left wondering how to deal with similar situations in the future, especially if I don’t have any extra people to belay/belay devices on hand. If anyone has experience or protocol dealing with needing to switch belayers, a medically incapacitated belayer, or comments on my reflection, please share. 

Quickly off the top of my head….

• Learn how to hip belay.
• Put something on the lead line below the belayer’s device and anchor it before removing it from the belayer’s harness. 

Marc801 C wrote:

Learn how to hip belay.
Put something on the lead line below the belayer’s device and anchor it before removing it from the belayer’s harness. 

Belay takeovers, weighted and unweighted and pick offs are not just guide skills! Great tools to have in the kit. 

Did nobody else have another belay device?

there are a plethora of ways to handle that situation without taking the leader off. Personally I simply install the brake hand strand into my belay device before taking the leader out of the  belay they were in. 

Dean, you don't happen to still have the girl's numbers do you?

Jay Goodwin wrote:

Dean, you don't happen to still have the girl's numbers do you?

I totally expected him to mention that one of them is his wife now. And they’re celebrating their 30 year anniversary soon.

Cody: I nearly always have, at a minimum, a single wire gate with a double length sling. This is sufficient to tie a friction hitch above the belay drive, secure it to someone, then tie an additional catastrophe knot below the device and swap belayers. Even sport climbing with permadraws you can find situations where the ability to grab a loaded rope is key. With a small selection of other knots/hitches you can do quite a few self-rescue maneuvers without any more gear than that and your rope.

There are a bazillion ways to do this without taking the leader off belay.  But let's assume the rescuer has no gear with them or doesn't know how to use what they have and doesn't know how to do a hip belay (only us old folks know that nowadays).  Then they take a bight of rope from the brake-strand side of the belayer's device and tie it into the hard points of their harness.  Then they take the belay device from the incapacitated belayer, clip it to their belay loop, untie the bight which was protecting the climber while this maneuver was carried out, and carry on belaying.

RG, you are assuming that they know how to tie a knot

Noah Betz wrote:

Just the other day at an ontario crag, a fifteen pound death block ripped from the top of a neighboring climb and impaled the ground where my partner and I had been standing 5 minutes prior. I’ve seen and experienced breakages before, but never literally where I was just before it occurred. Scary

You're forgetting our lovely experience at Vine Wall

I think a pact is made... after certain, events.

I was going for a redpoint on one of my trad projects back in 2021, I had been working this a while and had all the beta and gear down for getting to the crux. At the crux my foot popped and I started falling, while starting the fall my foot got in front of my last piece of gear and flipped me over and sent me falling head first. I wasn't too worried since I sewed up the route pretty well, but I was falling farther than expected even though my last piece was just below my feet when I fell. I ended up falling 20 feet or so before coming to a stop just before a big ledge. I looked at my belayer and he was standing roughly 30 feet back from the wall belaying me, causing all my gear to zipper out (my first 4 pieces were all nuts with extended alpine draws) and introducing tons of slack into the belay. Lucky for me, my last piece of gear was a purple totem that saved me from a catastrophic injury. When I jugged back up to the purple totem I saw that the biner on the alpine draw had also gotten crossloaded during the fall and the gate was severely bent.

Lessons Learned:
-Even when you have climbed with your belayer before always give periodic checks when on the wall to make sure they are using proper technique.
-Always have your first piece be able to stand multidirectional forces (I thought my gear was all good to hold falls, but wasn't anticipating the direction of pull to be straight out from the wall)
-When belaying, stand close to the wall to avoid unnecessary outward pulls on gear if the leader falls and to keep as much excess rope out of the system
-Always be conscious of where your feet are in relation to the rope to avoid being flipped