Scariest moments/mistakes when climbing not resulting in injury

highaltitudeflatulentexpulsion wrote:

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

Based on your avatar, I'd have to say they're your daughters.

Jeb Wennrich wrote:

When I was 16 and getting into climbing my friends and I were struggling at the end of the day to get up a climb at a short (15m) crag. Expierienced climbers next to us and said they’d grab our draws. I belayed one of them up on one end of their rope while another member of their party was climbing another route on the other end. Crag was short and I was inexpierienced and a little confused. Didn’t tie knots in the rope and while the climber was lowering, the end went through my ATC when climber was maybe 10 feet up. Somehow I caught the end and was able to scramble up a talus field to get climber on the ground. Would have been a bad butt first fall into bouldery scree. Got incredibly lucky. 

edit: To this day I still don’t really understand how they had the rope rigged so that there was two people climbing and I was able to lower them off the end. Any ideas? I’m assuming he tied a 8 on a bite for some reason and led the middle of the rope up… logistically this make no sense to me though. 

At the risk of thread drift - a true crime for this awesome thread - I’m sorry….did they have the rope set up in an M shape with two separate top rope anchors next to each other above? I don’t know why you would do this, but if the crag was short and the rope long, it would be possible (stupid, but possible) to tie into the middle part of the M and have the belayer on the end. Maybe they just weren’t quite as good as they seemed to you at the time b/c you were only 16.

Here is one from this past saturday. Did the season’s first ascent of hanging spoons in the adirondacks, a free standing pillar which was in wi5+ condition, airy, dubious protection, and bitter cold. I placed 2 screws halfway up the pillar at 30’. One was a solid 19cm screw, the other was a 13cm I didn’t hate but I had 2 ropes so I figured it was fine. I had one 16cm screw remaining. I start up the last 25-30’ of overhanging ice on the pillar and stop to place my last screw 15’ below the top. I get it started and I drop it. So there I am faced with 2 options. Up or down. I opted for up. I got quite pumped at the top, and was seriously struggling to swing to get a solid stick to top out. I kinda got a right tool to stick as I pulled over onto a ledge and the dinner plate broke and my tool popped. Game over, I’m fucked. 50’+ splat on a column imminent. But I wasn’t falling. I had managed a knee bar against the pillar of ice on the ledge and I fell into it without even knowing it was there.

 Closest call I’ve ever had. I rested there for a minute before collecting myself and topping out. That was a close call. I don’t know if that fall would have been survivable. I got lucky. Definitely took too much risk. I’ve been walking around feeling like a ghost for the past couple days. 

 I topped out the climb, let out a scream, blood seeping from my lip and cheek from some shards that got me, and the cold hit me like a brick wall. I felt nothing while I was climbing. It was 5°F. My face was numb, my toes had no feeling but my fingers and forearms were fine. This was one I was not ready to go for in those conditions after dropping a screw. Good enough to think I could do it, stupid enough to commit, not good enough to have it in the bag, but good enough to get lucky. It was not the right call to go for it especially after dropping the screw, and I should have brought more.

TLDR: I ran it out after dropping my last screw on wi5+ and almost fell from the top but got lucky. 

Nick Budka wrote:

 especially after dropping the screw, and I should have brought more.

Glad you are here to tell the tale.

An old partner of mine, when racking up for sport routes, would always bring one extra draw, racked with the quote "and one to drop".  I do that to this day, and always say the same thing, out loud. Seems infinitely more critical for ice climbing!

A few years ago, I was in the valley for a few days by myself and thought I would head down canyon and rap into five and dime for a few tr solo laps. I built an anchor and fixed the rope to a master point with an eight on a bite, leaving a fairly long tail.  I stepped away to grab my shoes, pack away other gear, etc., before walking back to the anchor to rap in.  I clipped the gri-gri to the rope and weighted it, preparing to rap.  I then looked down over my shoulder and realized that two strands of the rope trailed over the edge out of sight --- one was the rope, and one was the 2-3 feet of tail on the eight knot.  Just to be absolutely sure, I pulled up the end I was currently rappelling on to learn in horror that I was on the tail, and about 3 feet above an unknotted end.  

It shook me up enough that I proceeded to pull up the rope, pack it out and go bouldering for the rest of the afternoon.  No harm, no foul that time.  But I learned my lesson and now always tie off the tail when fixing a single line rappel.

I was climbing Alpamayo in Peru. While belaying my partner 4 pitches up the face I get hit in the back of the neck with falling ice. I was literally paralyzed from the neck down, I can’t feel any of my limbs and I’m just hanging from the anchor by my PAS. My partner is an Equadorian I had just met and communication isn’t ideal. My main worry is if his rescue skills are up to the task. After a few minutes of shouting without any confidence that he understands the situation, feeling returns and I’m able to climb up to him and explain my insistence that we need to bail. I was able to get myself down without issue and have never had any symptoms or problems from the “injury”. 

Here’s a mundane but common one, I bet. Had just finished some single pitch TRS laps and packed my gear up at the top for a walk off (the safe thing to do, right?). I was tired from the week, and the year. My body had already started to warn me to take it easy and I was thinking I probably should call it a season and take a rest for a month or two.

I was enjoying the view, moving around a little to see more and I lost a sense of where I was standing. I went to pick up my gear and realized I had meandered very close to the edge and had been totally unaware (with zero protection). Shook me up pretty good that I could have been so careless and convinced me I definitely needed to take a little break to refresh my head and body.

Complacency and fatigue definitely kill - and, to paraphrase a line from The Sopranos: it often won’t be cinematic.

My takeaway was to always be mindful of how tired I am, both in terms of the day and the long term type of fatigue that builds over months (or more).

arn't you not supposed to put screws into free hanging pillars?? 

Earlier I posted one where I screwed up and found myself at the belay not anchored in. but here's one that wasn't my fault. I was ice climbing in Boulder Canyon around 97 or 98 at the upper area, where there was a grade 4+ pillar. I was below the pillar looking up at it and considering leading it. It was a very cold day, below zero, and had been like that for several days. Next to the pillar was a large hanging dagger, and I could see a way to quickly stem over onto it from the main pillar and was thinking that would be a good lead for the day. This was back in the day when I'd ice climb 50-60 days a winter minimum. As I was making my plan, my now ex-husband was about 50 feet away, and he called me over to look at this gorgeous little ice feather that had formed in a rock pocket. I had just told him my plan as I was eyeing this beautiful little ice feather when the entire hanging dagger detached and came crashing down at the very spot i had been standing about a minute or two before. If I had still been there I would have had to dive away and slide down the low angle ice I was standing on to try to get away, but likely the dagger would have just gone turned me into a splat mark. After the noise from the dagger crash died down, I looked at my partner and said, "I'm done for the day. Let's go get breakfast in Boulder." Still gives me the willies, especially since it had been so cold and I wouldn't have thought the dagger would be so unstable.

Nick Goldsmith wrote:

arn't you not supposed to put screws into free hanging pillars?? 

*free standing* not free hanging. The pillar was supported by laminated ice on the top and bottom, was safe enough to swing into, and wasn’t going anywhere. Not that I’d ever want to fall on a screw in that thing but  it most likely would have been solid enough to keep me alive. This photo was from the rap. 

The top out looks really hard..  yea that's a tough one. It's skinny enough that ideally you don't put anything in but hard enough exit that you want something.. and the crux is right at the attachment point where if it is going to break that is where it will happen. Be nice if there was a bolt there.. 

While descending Higher Cathedral  Spire in Yosemite we jerked the stuck rappel ropes and dislodged bowling-

ball sized rocks that  narrowly missed us !

Nick Goldsmith wrote:

The top out looks really hard..  yea that's a tough one. It's skinny enough that ideally you don't put anything in but hard enough exit that you want something.. and the crux is right at the attachment point where if it is going to break that is where it will happen. Be nice if there was a bolt there.. 

I don’t think anything I could have done would have broken the pillar, it was well supported from above and below, and ice was actively forming at the top making the stresses fairly evenly distributed with the column being most brittle but the top was softer. I definitely could have placed a screw if I had one. A bolt wouldn’t have done any good, there was no exposed rock. It was just terrifying to drop my last screw while redlining and having to gun the topout, and actually falling just to catch myself in a knee-bar by sheer dumb luck. Way too close. I wouldve splatted on the slab below, I’m almost certain. 

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. 

there was no need to remove the GriGri to take over just because someone was going to barf. I would have put my arms around the belayer and taken over operation of the belay device. Then I would have told the climber to downclimb as much as possible and take a small fall onto the bolt.  Then lower them to the ground. 

Worst that might have happened is you got barfed on a little. Which is much better than a 20+ foot ground fall for your climber.

In a situation where you absolutely MUST take over, you don't remove the belay device. You put a new one on the free end of the rope just below the existing one. Take over there, then remove the first one. But nothing in your situation merited that. 

I've got a couple:

I was attempting to do the Stuart range traverse with a friend this past summer I slipped on a snowfield while traveling unroped and fell approx 150 ft uncontrolled sliding fall on snow. I attempted to self arrest with a rock that I had picked up, didn't have a ice axe, this slowed me down a bit but didn't really help. Only stopped the fall when I jammed my leg in a crevasse between the rock and the snow. It flipped me upside down and I hooked my knee around the lip of the crevasse and was able to arrest my fall. I was really shaken. I didn't finish the traverse, but we still had to solo sherpa to get down to a point where we could bail, so we soloed sherpa and went down sherpa pass. 

In Joshua tree a couple years ago a friend was following me up EBGBs after I led it, he took a swinging toprope fall at the mantle and core shot the rope pretty bad. EBGBs is perched atop a pretty nasty fall had it fully cut. Thankfully he was ok, and I rapped from the top and cut my 70 into a 60m.

Early on in my climbing days my brother and I were climbing in the gunks on shockleys ceiling, a classic 5.6. We got off route stupidly and I ended up climbing with no protection for basically a full pitch of 5.4/5.5 ish terrain. I was comfortable with soloing it at the time, so I didn't think too much of it. I built an anchor, and brought my brother up. About 10 ft from the top i hear "FUCK FUCK FUCK" then *THUD* I thought I killed my brother somehow. He pulled off a TV sized block that I had pulled on while essentially soloing the pitch just a few moments before. After a second or two I heard "I'm ok". He was just spooked by the rockfall but the rope held him just fine.

There was no danger involved here, but it was certainly a mistake to learn from.

I was climbing in some really heavy wind. My partner had put up the draws on a project of his, I was TRing it but wasn't able to get past the crux. I lower down, untie, and a gust of wind throws the end of the rope high onto a ledge. The big problem is that "untie" in that previous sentence doesn't mean completely removing the figure 8, just the follow through connecting it to my harness, and the knot wouldn't pull through the draws. Luckily we had access to another rope, but I can imagine scenarios where it would have been a much bigger issue.

Alex wrote:

There was no danger involved here, but it was certainly a mistake to learn from.

I was climbing in some really heavy wind. My partner had put up the draws on a project of his, I was TRing it but wasn't able to get past the crux. I lower down, untie, and a gust of wind throws the end of the rope high onto a ledge. The big problem is that "untie" in that previous sentence doesn't mean completely removing the figure 8, just the follow through connecting it to my harness, and the knot wouldn't pull through the draws. Luckily we had access to another rope, but I can imagine scenarios where it would have been a much bigger issue.

This sounds like the climbing equivalent of “sky’ing the halyard” on a sailboat. A halyard raises and lowers the sail. If you’re not careful on some boats, the end that’s supposed to be connected to the sail can end up stuck at the top of the mast. The fix is usually onerous and embarrassing.

The reason I only tie nots in the ends of the ropes when it's absolutely necessary is because I have had the wind take the rope out of reach with a knotted end before i could untie to pull.. had to lead out to retrieve the rope to continue the decent of a multi pitch ice climb. lucky I had enough rope to do so... 

Nick Goldsmith wrote:

The reason I only tie nots in the ends of the ropes when it's absolutely necessary is because I have had the wind take the rope out of reach with a knotted end before i could untie to pull.. had to lead out to retrieve the rope to continue the decent of a multi pitch ice climb. lucky I had enough rope to do so... 

I had knotted ropes jam below the landing stance. Both ropes,  Freeing them required rapping to almost the very end, wrestling with the knots, and prusiking back up to the stance.  One of the ends had somehow slipped into a constriction, probably as a result of our initial efforts to pull the ropes up by brute force,  When I got down to it, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get it out without untying the knot and pulling the end through.  So now I'm faffing around nearly at the end of the lines with one strand unknotted.  The whole process consumed a lot of time and was the difference between finishing in the light rather than in the dark.

I have also almost died because I did not have knotted ends. working on a new cliff top down and had an anchor in @30m which with my 70m rope was very comfortable. I went out there one day with a 60m rope and was distracted on the way down looking left and right scoping for holds when I see out of the corner of my eye the anchor off to my right.. look down and see about 8 inches of rope left...  sometimes its better to be lucky than good...