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Scariest moments/mistakes when climbing not resulting in injury
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Once in the 2000s, after I'd been climbing outside for at least 5 years, I almost rapped off my rope from the anchor on a single-pitch sport climb in Boulder Canyon. I was the last person up the climb and waved my friends away to go start up another climb while I cleaned and rapped, in the name of efficiency. It had been a while since I had done any rapelling but my pride said I could do it. The anchor was over a slight bulge and I could not see the ground. I tethered myself to the anchor chains, hauled up a few feet of rope and tied it off on my the right side gear loop so that I couldn't drop it, untied my knot, and threaded my end of the rope through the chains right to left. Then I tied that side of the rope to my harness on the left, with a few feet of rope tail hanging over the bulge out of sight. I don't recall whether I knotted the end of the rope. Many of you can probably guess where this is going. I untied the other side of the rope from my harness and pulled it up to the middle mark, flaking it carefully as I went. I then suffered a horrible brain glitch as I looked at the anchor with the rope threaded through, and threw down the stacks of rope I had just pulled up without pulling them through the chains. I set up to rappel, carefully checking my carabiner and backup prussic before untying the rope from my left side and almost rapping over the bulge and off the short tail of the rope. I somehow noticed what happened right as I was cresting the bulge, had a minor panic attack, and hauled myself back up to anchor. I don't think I told my friends what happened that day. Mistakes: being too proud to admit I was rusty on a basic skill. Not understanding the basic mechanics of rapelling and instead relying on a memorized sequence of steps, which I faffed up. Not asking for help or sharing what happened. |
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My scariest moment was on a 5.4 slab lol. I lead rope soloed the "crux" pitch while scrambling the rest. I forgot my solo device so I had to basically improvize short fixing, but that wasn't why it was scary. I spied the only bolt on the pitch about 60 ft up and started making my way up. Pretty soon the moves became a bit thinner and more tenuous than I was comfortable soloing, but it was too late. The rock had diagonal features leading up and right that offered more holds, so despite trying not to I found myself being pulled to the right until I was above and right of the bolt by about 20 ft. I had to downclimb the slab down to where I could finally clip the bolt. Saved! It was a Paul Ross route - I had climbed other similar slabs at harder grades, but this one seemed way more frictiony and tenuous. Maybe it was just the nerves. And I consider slab one of my strengths having climbed multiple 5.11- slabs (with close bolts) |
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I have gobbs of slab horror stories. The stuff of nightmares. more than once i have missed a bolt and not seen it untill it was 20ft below me and 10ft left.. No choice but to keep going up. With slab you need to keep momentum. when you stop and ponder it can all go to shit in a hurry... I have added 4 bolts after the fact to a pitch that I drilled on lead and its still scary. No clue how I was able to get up there with a drill and all the other extra iron that weighs you down on FA missions. |
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I had a new fear unlocked last weekend in Red Rocks. My middle son (adult) struggles with oppositional defiance and attentiveness but he really wants to be included in our climbing adventures. He has scared the bejeezus out of everyone climbing with him because he argues about your climbing and his technique *while he belays you* and he hasn't been attentive on the belay. He's been working on these issues and has improved enough that most of the family will let him TR belay us indoors. My wife talked me into taking him with us to Vegas....and then into letting him lead belay me outdoors. That was the scariest 5.7 sport route I've ever climbed in my life! I only got short-roped a couple times, he listened (mostly), and he didn't do a terrible job, particularly compared to before. However, I got more grey hairs from those 7 bolts than I think I've gotten in the last 15 years! |
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On D7 on The Diamond, there is a block that is "wedged" that looked just like a jug. It's huge. I'm leading, grabbing it, and then it starts to rotate out. Killing my belayer flashes through my mind. Oh S__T! Then it wedges and stops. It was back in the day when I didn't get much detailed info on routes...duh...like the mid-1990s, I think. Oh my freakin' goodness! |
Nick Goldsmith wrote: It’s always nice to have luck on your side. |
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Honky Tonk Woman, Near Trapps.
So now I’m run out, about 50’ up, last piece being the shite spinner bolt, on this insecure Gunks 5.9 face. Downclimbing was not an option for me. Figured the only way was up. Within a couple moves I was in ground fall territory. A move or so later, light at the end of the tunnel - a good horizontal rail. |
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Cut my teeth in outdoor climbing at a beloved crag in Northeast Ohio. I’ve seen more sketchy sh*t there than all of my climbing since. I’ll include a short collection of stories but there are many many more… Stopped a guy from rappelling off an island about 50’ off the deck. I happened to look up and notice he had both stands loaded in his ATC but neither through the carabiner. He was one step from committing to the edge. Pretty sure I might have saved him from a bad ground fall. Highschool kids in the preserve to smoke chucking several softball sized rocks over the edge. Thankfully missed about 20 climbers in the gully below. Couple guys trying out their new trad gear with seemingly no experience. Couldn’t find a placement so continued climbing 3-4’ at a time. Eventually placed one cam about 4’ below the chains, 30’ off the deck. He was shaking the whole time. Again, high school kids… group of 6-7 hiked on top of a large separated flake and convinced their buddy to take a running leap to join them rather than the 2 minute hike to go the way they went up. To his credit he did make the jump but in doing so he had to clear a nearly 12’ wide gully which is about 20-30’ deep. I puckered. Local guy (60+) would be free soloing every time we saw him. Only wore a harness to carry his flask of fireball. Unseasonably warm day in late February got me out to climb. Girl belaying in the party next to us got clipped in the bicep by a 12’ tall icicle which had separated from the cliff edge. Never heard it fall but sounded like a gunshot when it hit the ground. Credit to her that her hand never came off the rope Guy rappelling got his curly bangs sucked into the extended ATC. Hung by his hair for 20+ minutes screaming until someone got him a knife. Cut off all the hair in the ATC but was otherwise unharmed. Non climbing school kids soloing in tennis shoes and crocs because they saw everyone else climbing. Happened constantly and always got yelled at by someone. Anchors made of hardware store rope… not even good stuff. People commonly down climbed the cliff edge with no protection to set their TR anchors. It’s not hard but the risk/reward isn’t there. I’m sure I’ll think of more. Climbing in Ohio is an experience!
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@ Mike C -- All good stories but it has to be a scary moment or mistake that you experienced to count. The most important lesson of the thread is humility. |
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Back before winter came, I got in a day with a new-to-me partner who was getting into trad after sport climbing. Stronger than me on grades, working on improving gear placements and that sorta thing. I'm always down to offer advice I can, so along we go one cold morning. I lead a few, he of course follows fine. Doesn't seem to have trouble cleaning gear. Swap leads, his placements are fine. Takes more time than I expected setting up on bolt anchors, but ok. I'm slowly gaining confidence in him, not that I won't abandon my "easy trad, do not fucking falll" mentality. He's game to lead harder, so he goes up Son of Easy O, making it through sheer force of strength and ability because he went left onto Easy O at the end and made horrendous rope drag. I struggle up, my fingers frozen from the rock, hidden from the sun by clouds most of the day, hanging on pieces with a tether or yarding. I can't hear him well, and while I think I'm on belay (I have to wait for him to pull up rope, but it does go up) I still don't want to fall on principle with a new partner. The coup de grace is when I get to the anchor, clove in with one of my lockers and say well done. Hell of a climb. We chat about the route finding, the Elvis leg, gear options, the lack of more slings/ or a few doubles which made drag worse. We have to rap. I'm taking a moment to collect myself sitting at the belay as he tidies up before we rap, and I hear "what's this?" and the sound of a carabiner gate snap "oh shit im so so sorry". He had taken my clove off the chains because "I was cleaning the mess and that wasn't something I put on making the anchor so I just took it off." and that's why I was suddenly sitting on that little ledge free as the birds below. Because my partner took off gear that wasn't his from the anchor. It's one thing if I have a lapse of sanity and do something affecting me, but when my partner does it, and on a simple 3-piton-next-to-eachother anchor? Not my favorite. |
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@ Orion Belt, I had a partner do that to me once on a long, steep, multi pitch ice climb. He was a great climber technically, and very, very experienced on rock, ice and alpine. He just made a simple mistake, as any of us could. @4433407 k, the value of this thread is recognizing that we all make mistakes, and acknowledging the fact that if you climb long enough you will make critical mistakes, and find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the only thing that will prevent you from dying is luck. It's easy to critcize, point out mistakes others make, and this thread could devolve into a rant about gym-to-crag noobies and so forth. But that wouldn't accomplish anything meaningful. Hearing about the mistakes of others can so easily make one feel superior in some way. Talking about one's own mistakes is the first step to real learning. Do you disagree or are you just trolling? |
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I’m with Bruno. I’ve made my share of mistakes and still do so every now and then (I like to think less often and much smaller ones compared to noobie days). Luckily, to date, none have resulted in anything catastrophic. To repeat what I posted in another thread (even though I’m not particularly “religious”): “But for the grace of God go I”. |
Mike C wrote: Let me guess, Whipp's Ledges? |
rgold wrote: Just finding this thread and Rich's story reads like the climax of an adventure movie scene but for me, the casual "mic drop" here at the end is priceless, and no doubt, very true! Damn! |
Thomas Worsham wrote: Yup |
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friend of mine just had a close call yesterday trying to climb Le Promenade a 3 pitch 5+ @ The Lake he had a good 3 screw belay out of the bomb zone for pitch two and one good protection screw in before the hanger .  he tried to climb that pillar on the left but had not touched down yet. about 8 ft up the hanger he committed the cardinal sin of putting a screw in a hanger below the attachment point. it was a 10cm screw . when the hanger broke off a move or so later he took a big ride. the hanger that was attached to his rope with a 10cm screw hit a ledge and exploded. either his screw ripped out or the ice broke in the right spot because his first screw held and the belay held... and that big hunk of ice that he rode was no longer attached to his rope... not seriously injured just a little banged up. This photo is Not from this incident. its just to give you an idea of the location. |
Bruno Schull wrote: Absolutely. I could have thrown in a "lessons learned" tidbit above. I consider that story partly my fault for getting complacent. I was cold, it was a tough climb mentally that wore me down. It was a new partner that I didn't have a rapport with. I want to be more vigilant in the future and make sure I'm not relying on a new person 1000% when I don't have to be, like at an anchor. I could have watched the anchor while he tidied up. I could have set up my rap tether immediately to have a second attachment. I share that story so others don't get complacent with new partners, or even old partners, who may make a mistake that affects not them but you. Im with you on not letting this divulge to meaningless insults. I do see you're replying to 4433407 on that, but because my post is about a mistake of someone else I feel partly included. The thread is scariest mistakes and moments. That was a scary moment for me. It must of been scary to have that friend unclip you too. It's definitely on all of us commenting to make sure we don't engage in petty "if I were there", "if I were in your shoes", "kids these days..." and I think we've done pretty good so far. Just here's what happened, here are some things it made me think. Take heed. |
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I recently did a whole route bolted with carrot bolts. I'd placed every bolt plate the wrong was around.  |
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Regarding unclipping a partner from an anchor: I'm guilty as charged. I was out last season with someone who is working as a guide. I've climbed with him maybe 20 days, so we have our sequences nailed down and move fairly efficiently. I lead climb a lot at my home crag and he is only here seasonally, so I let him do all the leading. I arrive at a belay station where he had built an anchor with a combination of sling and rope. I quickly indentify the key points of the anchor and tie into two with my end of the rope, call "off belay", and hand over the sling with gear I had cleaned from the previous pitch. He starts reracking and I undo the gri-gri that he had clipped to the anchor and used in "guide mode" to bring me up. So far, this follows our standard procedure. As I unclip the gri-gri and its biner from the anchor, I see a sling "detaching" from the biner. I was thinking: "Hey, what's that thing?" and realize he had clipped himself with a sling to that same biner. Luckily, this was only the second tie-in point for him, so he was still tied in with the rope. This was NOT our standard procedure as he had never used the "guide-mode biner" for anything else than his guide-mode gri-gri before. Lesson learned: Don't turn off your (or rather my) brain and go on "muscle memory". Muscle memory only works for the EXACT same sequence as it was trained for. There are more than enough variations in trad climbing that one day, a small deviation from standard procedure will throw the muscle memory a curve-ball. |
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I was rappelling a route using a tube style device with a 70m rope, first member in the party down. I reached the next anchor after a 37-38m rappel and thought "I'm going to increase efficiency here and untie the knots and start threading the rings" (before my partner reaches the station). I got the knots undone before remembering that there were only a couple meters of rope left when I arrived at the station, and that they needed to be there, just in case. I put knots back in before my partner had their rappel set up. |
