Scariest moments/mistakes when climbing not resulting in injury
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Beepity boppity lump this is now back in the toppitty bump |
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Thanks for bringing attention back to this thread--it's important. I had a close call/near miss this season that raises a bunch of larger questions. I was ice climbing, starting up very low angle ice, the kind of ice many people including myself would just walk up in crampons. I was feeling good, psyched to climb the steeper ice above, singing to myself, having fun. When I reached the point where the climb actually began, I placed my tools, reached for an ice screw, and somehow lost balance or slipped. I turned around facing downhill on my butt, and slid about four or five meters, went over a small step, and landed in soft snow. I also pulled my partner off, and we both stopped together, completely unhurt but shaken. On the short ride down, I remember thinking, "Keep your feet up!" With the short distance traveled, and the low angle of the ice, it was would have been unlikely for one of us to be seriously injured (head, spine, torso) but we could easily have fractured our lower legs/ankles. Lessons? The terrain was so low angle that I would not have put in a screw sooner; even with a long runner it would have made the rope drag terrible on the transition to the steeper ice. I probably wouldn't put in an ice screw there if I did the climb again today, but I'd have to see the pitch to be sure. What's clear is that I should have been more deliberate and carefull on easy ground. As I often say to myself, "Respect low angle ice." I always place screws on low angle sections of ice climbs at the top of pitches, even when it feels uncecessary, and I should have taken the first meters of this climb more seriously. We also could have put in a screw or anchor for the belayer, but as the terrain was comfortable for both of us, we didn't really talk about it, although we should have. It's a classic case of familiarity and complacency. Zooming out, I had a solid ice climbing season and I felt good that day, but many people might not have been climbing in the mental state that I've been in for the last few years. Death of my father. Burnout at work and reduced work load. Divorce after twenty years of marriage. A terriblly painful breakup with a woman after a two-year relationship, the most profound love I've even felt, now gone. Real depression. Crying multiple times every day. Barely able to function. Holding it together for my daughter. Psychiatrist strongly recommending weeks to months off work, and some kind of acute intervention, like a hospital stay or ketamine treatments, in addition to the regular psychological medication that I take. Did all that factor into this accident? On one hand, it seems hard to believe that it did not in some way. On the other hand, it was a simple slip, and in a lifetime of climbing, mistakes happen. I don't know whether it's a strength or a weakness, but I have a strong ability to compartmentalize. When I tie into the rope, all that stuff dissappears, which of course is part of the reason I climb. I have tried to regularly check in with myself and ask, "Are you making good decisions?" or, "Is it safe for you to be climbing?" In general, I think I've climbed in a conservative way, which is my approach, and apart from that slip, there haven't been any serious red flags. But I'm still processing. After a quick check, we started climbing again. I lead the next pitches, first a grade 4 pitch of some cool, three-dimensional cauliflower ice, with an awkward side-step section that was engaging and fun to climb, like solving a puzzle. Then a grade 5 pillar. I've climbed at this place for over a decade. There are many routes, and I've climbed them all, except this pillar. I've always wanted to climb it, but I never felt ready. A few years ago, I looked at it, and I thought, "You know, you can climb that, you just have to do it." Anybody who's been climbing for a while knows the feeling of gradually realizing that you are ready to climb something you previously felt was too difficult or frightening. This year, the conditions, partner, and everything felt right. In the end, it all went smoothly. I placed protection regularly, rested, shook out my hands, took deep breaths, and stayed completely in control. It was near my limit, but I felt calm and relaxed. It almost felt easy, which is how I think hard ice climbing should feel. And this followed the slip at the start. Was it adrenalin from the slip that fueled the climb? Was it the desperation of the last months that made me so determined? If so, is that wrong? I don't have the answers to these questions. I joked with my partner that I wanted to write this up for MP, but I didn't know where to place it, in the "Scariest moments/mistakes" thread, in the "Climbers and mental illness thread," in a "Relationships and heartbreak thread," or in a, "Why do we climb?" thread. So that's my story. I hope somebody can take something useful away from it. |
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Low angle ice sucks. I literally hate grade 2 ice. 2+ is almost tolerable.. If its really warm and wet you can stand up and hike it comfortably as long as theres no gusty wind but if its cold , dry bullet proof concrete you pretty much have to get a tool in it and fckn crawl. hate that shit. Your mistake was not under protecting the low angle ice but falling while placing the screw at the top of it. Sounds like you were hands free and not holding either tool. Don't do that shit and don't fall. Otherwise great job on the rest of the day. We were soloing Odels gully in Hunnington Ravine 1986. My partner was standing on the top of a bulge fucking around taking this picture of me. Single digit temps, bulletproof ice, gusty winds. He put the camera away, pulled both tools out of the ice and took a step.. 500ft ride and a broken back,etc.etc. happened in the next few seconds.. Got to have one tool in all the time and be holding on to it unless it's soft super hero ice.. |
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Nick Goldsmith wrote: Yup, absolutely. Just not paying attention. Normally I never go hands free. Where we were didn't even feel like we were on a climb yet...lower angle than your picture. Maybe WI 1 or 1+ ??? I agree with you that WI 2ish sucks. You have to crawl. Steeper = better. |
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Gaurentee it won't happen to you again unless you are British.. lesson learned. Seems like Simon Yates fell off of everything he ever climbed but most actually learn from this stuff. |
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Bruno Schull wrote: I know we've clashed before but I'm really sorry to hear about all your troubles this last year or so. |
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Couple years back I was into ice, but had only ever done TR. One day a friend and I decided to try lead. I went first and put in a couple screws, got maybe 4 set in total. Climbing above the last one and found a good spot to hold for another screw. I felt super secure and zero indication of falling so I went to place another. Then just like that I fell. I remember being upside down with my head not a couple inches from the ground, slammed against the face, and my front points of my crampon in my belayers shoulder and near neck. Ice screw held but that was the end of the day right there. A couple weeks later I sold all my ice gear and have never looked back. Was fun to try it but figured going forward I'll stick to rock. I felt so bad for hurting him and ruining his nice coat too.. did not like that feeling at all. |
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About 22 years ago a friend and I climbed crimson chrysalis in red rocks. It was a long day and night fall was coming on quickly so we decided that simul rapping would get us to the ground faster. We had 2 60 m ropes and on one rappels we thought we could skip a station and get to the next anchor. It turned out we didn’t have enough rope and we were kinda screwed. It turns out another party was also rappelling and they threw us their ropes and we had to transfer from our ropes to theirs while simul rapping. We had to time it right so we both unweighted and weighted the new system at the same time. We were able to do the transfer but it was super scary and we both vowed to never simul rappel again. |
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Andrew Rice wrote: I really appreciate that Andrew. And I hope you understand that despite our arguments, I have huge respect for what you do and your contributions here. |
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Bruno Schull wrote: Wish you the best Bruno. There are no answers , but many an ice climber has climbed their best after heartbreak. Tears seem to make the ice just flow. It’s either turn deeper into ice and alpinism or country music. Not really a choice in my book. My example carries on the theme to an extent. The ice climb was “Tears of Joy”, a 2 pitch 3+ over the border in Canada. It seemed like a fitting climb to solo immediately post divorce. 1/2 way up the second pitch, I thought I was getting stupid arm, cuz I couldn’t get the right axe to stick at all. Finally noticed it was because I only had about 2 inches of pick left. The universe telling me I was a cliche dumbass. Sucks to realize one is a dumbass 1/2 way up a second pitch of ice with 1/2 an axe and no screws. Do I keep going and top out, or down climb to the tree between the 1st and 2nd pitch (I had a rope for getting down). Since the ice was hard boiler plate, I opted to take advantage of my placements already made, and downclimb. Made it to the tree and rapped from there. Once on the ground, I marveled that the pick didn’t break while I was pulling on that axe, sending me plummeting. (They never do) I vowed right then and there to be only 1/2 the dumbass in the future. Mostly lived up to that promise. |
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thats the reason I wear a harness with a few screws on it and have a 6mm tag in my pack. over the years I have broken crampons 3 times soling. Twice they fell off . M10 toe bail broke. Foot fang toe bail broke. stinger the front point just fell off. broke two different picks soloing. Ice climbing is too gear intensive to not give yourself a bail option. |
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Bump for a great thread-- And I really appreciate the theme of this thread being humility - I think anyone who has climbed long enough has had serious near-misses, and it's mostly luck that keeps them from becoming another entry in Accidents. Two from me: First, and the one that still haunts me to this day: I was climbing The Nose, a classic line up Looking Glass Rock in NC. My long-time partner and I had done the route several times before. There was another party starting up the first pitch so we opted to climb a little to the side of their line (it's a slab with multiple possibilities for climbing). My partner reached the ledge at the top of P1 about the same time as the other leader and they both started mucking around at the bolted anchors. I heard an "off belay" cry and promptly responded with "off belay" -- to which my partner yelled out "Why?!" . It was the other leader who made the call. I put him back on and all was well, but I could have killed one of my best friends that day. It's been 10 years and I still get nauseated thinking about it... And I have used names in every communication since that time, and I never, ever take someone off belay if there's any question about the communication. Second, climbing Original Route at Whitesides, also in NC. We were a team of 3 climbing on double ropes. About halfway up, our middle climber decided he wanted to lead a pitch (not originally part of the plan but no big shakes). We configure the ropes and up he goes. Follow the pitch. I'm back on the sharp end for the next one, so we do another rope swap and I take off on the next pitch. I'm struggling to get established about 15' up the next pitch and decide to wimp out and take on the one piece I placed -- but right as I'm calling take, I look down and see that I hadn't finished tying in to the second rope (threaded the figure eight through my hard points but didn't finish the knot, Lynn Hill style) -- which was the only one clipped into the lone piece. I would have taken a nice 30 foot F2 onto the anchor or just splatted on the ledge. I got the one rope I was tied in to clipped and then actually tied into the other. Finished the pitch but a damned close call. I now have added it to my safety check to recheck knots even in the middle of a multi-pitch, because that wasn't part of my usual checklist once I left the ground. Actually, a bonus third: Went to Red Rocks 2023 in the middle of a very wet Spring. Lots of rain but none in 36 hours so we thought we might be good. On the hike out, I noticed the sand was still wet in spots, and I mentioned it to my partner - we agreed to discuss it at the base once we took a look at the conditions. We got to the base, didn't really discuss it, and both of us assumed the other really wanted to continue (new partner, we didn't talk as much as we should have). He leads the first of the scramble-y entry pitches to Texas Hold 'Em , and I rope up for the second pitch. I hadn't really looked much at the topo and ~50 feet up the climbing seems inobvious. I get a stance and we look at the topo and feel like I failed to traverse right at some point. Downclimb and clean my last piece (I was only placing every ~20 feet or so given the difficulty). I see a potential traverse out right with a small ledge to pull on and then mantle up. Go to pull up and the whole ledge comes off in my hand and I go for a ride and land on the slab at the start of the pitch 30 feet below. Messed up my ankle and cracked my helmet, but I was fine other than unable to climb the rest of the trip. Moral: "24 hours" on desert sandstone is just a rule of thumb, communicate with your partner, and falls even on easy ground can be high consequence. Thanks for the contributions, everyone. Great thread to learn from. Also for those in the thread that don't, if you enjoy this sort of content: read Accidents every year - you'll learn a lot of things that have killed or nearly killed your fellow climbers, and hopefully you'll be safer out next time. |
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A buddy soft decked while cleaning a route recently. They were trying to leave a draw pre-clipped by trolleying off that draw. I had never seen this technique before, but they explained to me that it was fairly common? Maybe someone can describe it better than I can, but I'll try my best! Essentially, they clipped their belay loop into one of the biners of a quickdraw and clipped the other biner into the rope running through the draws (this is referred to as trolleying or tramming). Unlike normal trolleying through, they clipped it above the 5th draw and left it clipped as they lowered. This would allow them to, once they reached the ground, pull the rope and have it hang from the 5th draw like a really big clip stick would do. According to them, they had done it many times without any issues, but this time they had to swing over to grab a draw off an adjacent route. As they swung, their quickdraw unclipped from their belay loop, probably because the gate pressed against their knot, and all of the slack entered the system to make them hit the deck. The quickdraw was left hanging from the rope just above the 5th quickdraw. Luckily it was a soft deck with rope stretch, but certainly could have been far worse. |
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Cedric Salvador wrote: I had to reread this part because at first I thought your buddy was just doing what most people do as seen here: I was picturing the quickdraw attached to Ondra's harness (tram draw) detaching from the rope close enough to the ground that all of that slack plus the swing dropped your buddy to the ground. Instead it sounds like he was doing what is pictured above, but leaving the 5th draw clipped to the bolt and not reclipping the tram draw below it. In other words, Ondra just kept lowering from his position in the photo above. Then when your buddy was faffing about unclipping the other draw on another route, the tram draw unclipped, and since he was far (?) below the 5th bolt, a lot of slack was added to the system, which dropped him to the deck. I'm sure your buddy has done the lowering "super stick clip" thing multiple times, but the additional step of faffing about after having set it up is what introduced new risk factors or enhanced/increased the existing risk factors. Others may share opinions on whether or not tramming or doing the super stick clip lower, I'm just trying to point out that what you're describing sounds like a change to a normalized procedure that resulted in an unanticipated outcome. As climbers, we're generally quite good at protecting ourselves from anticipated hazards, but as humans, we're generally pretty poor at recognizing and properly handling unanticipated hazards (at least it's a lot harder to do). |
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Doctor Drake wrote: Yes! You have described in a very succinct way what happened to a tee. They left the 5th draw clipped to the bolt and did not reclip the tram below it. |
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Cleaning the bottom quickdraw while tramming can be hazardous on traversing or overhanging routes. If you unclip the last draw with the tram draw unclipped you'll go for a big swing, while if you unclip the last draw with the tram draw still clipped you'll drag your belayer along with you. It's better to lower to the ground without cleaning the bottom draw, and than either get it with a stick clip or by bouldering up to get it. |