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Scariest moments/mistakes when climbing not resulting in injury
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I was leading a climb 8 years ago and messed up such that my rope got caught in a crack at the lip of a roof. It completely wedged just as I had my hands on the finishing ledge and I couldn't go up at all. I decided to just place 3 cams where I was, go in direct with nylon runners, and then do the easy mantel onto the ledge and wait for my partner to walk around with an extra rope and rap in to get me / free the stuck rope. I also could have down-climbed, but my plan would have been safe if I'd executed it properly. I built the anchor, untied, and dropped the rope end... then realized I had never actually clipped to the cams. So I'd just been hanging from a decent jug (with good feet, but not a no-hands stance) 80 feet off the ground for a minute or so without being attached to anything. I clipped in and did the mantle and all was well, but it's a moment I think about a fair bit. Makes me extra cautious about triple-checking/weighting any new safety system before unclipping my old one. 3rd place was on P1 of West Face of Cardinal Pinnacle when I'd been trad climbing for maybe 4 months. I used all my cams and arrived at a final tricky corner with a small ledge underneath with no cams that fit. I climbed it and placed 2 nuts... and when I arrived at the mantle onto the belay ledge, I looked down and saw that both of my nuts had popped out and were resting on their draws on the little ledge with no other gear protecting me. I decided that this was an important mantel to onsight and all turned out fine. I got better at extending nuts after that. |
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Maybe a more useful top 3 would be 43 Rockfall 25 Not actually attached to the anchor 13 Shoulda had stopper knots |
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So this happened many years ago when wearing helmet was laughed at, especially when rock climbing single pitches. My partner and I were sitting at the base of Big Rock in Riverside County (CA) when whole bunch of friends and people around us were having fun with both of us wearing helmets. After some serious ribbing, i removed my helmet, totally intimidated. Not even minute later, some guy way above us dropped number 4 Friend straight on my head. There was blood everywhere over my face and head. Everyone around was either screaming or laughing but everyone was listening when I just kept saying that this is exactly the reason for wearing helmet. BTW I recovered (somewhat). And I gave the cam back to the guy who dropped it on me. |
Kaleb Wellswrote: thanks for this summary! we all think we are safe climbers, but it's really useful to read this comment on what can happen on a normal day out. |
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+1 for not threading both bites through carabiner when setting up for a rappel on an ATC. It was a juicy ledge in the Tetons, 5 pitches up, and I was showboating for two young lasses. Being all cool and casual I didn’t anchor in, set up to rappel quickly, and started to walk back to the edge when one of the bites slipped out of the ATC. I was a step away from fully weighting the rappel which would have been my fastest and last descent. |
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Mysteriously Moving Middle Marker We had done a two pitch sport line and rapped once. We had one more rap to go down. We made sure to untie the end knots and pulled the rope from the top anchor and were feeding it through our mid-anchor. I found the wee bit faded 4-inch wide middle marker. The start of the pitch below us was low angle, so we saw both rope ends were just laying in a pile on the slab without dropping to the ground. Even though the ends were not on the ground, there was no concern, since we had rapped from this same anchor earlier in the day with this same rope. As such, we hadn't bothered with knots in the rope ends for this last rap. Since I had sloppy/comfy shoes, I sent my buddy down first. He came to the slabby start and to my horror and embarrassment, the rope was badly uneven, so he didn't reach ground. Luckily, he noticed the situation and the slab was low 5th, so he simply scrambled down the rest. With the rope ends straightened out, I evened out the rope ... and found a second 4-inch wide slightly faded middle marker! WTF?? Now I could see the rope ends on the ground, so I proceeded down and looked for the other "middle". On my way down, I found it and it turned out to be a wet spot on the rope. This was a lighter colored rope and a 4-inch wide all-around wet darker section looked nearly identical to the faded middle marker! That small section of rope had dropped into a small "pot hole" puddle earlier while climbing the last pitch This is a classical case where several "almost-innocent things" had "cooperated" to cause a potentially serious situation. Wet spot of 4" close-ish to middle, faded middle marker, slabby start collects the rope ends, having rapped from the same anchor earlier made it "natural" to not need knots. Statistically, all these things happening at the same time should be one chance in a gazillion. |
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Was belaying my partner on the direct start to Narcissus at the NRG. We sticked 1st bolt, He fell a couple times getting to bolt 1. Finally climbed past the crux and to the jug (clipping hold for 2nd bolt). When he pulled up slack to clip I felt the rope “pop” out of my grigri. Turns out I never clipped the plate on the grigri and miraculously the device cammed on the falls he took while he was below the 1st bolt. Immediately told him to try and stay on that jug while I fixed my GriGri. I don’t know what would have happened if he had taken a lead fall with the device like that. Safe to say, I take my pre-climb checks seriously these days! |
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Spent several minutes teaching my dad how to setup his atc and rappel without realizing I wasnt clipped into the anchor. Had taken my dad climbing a few times, but this was his first multipitch and first time rappelling. I was clipped into the anchor originally when I was setting up the rope, but I had unclipped to show my dad the easiest way through a short section of 3rd class you needed to downclimb to reach the anchor. I knew that he was a bit nervous about rappelling since he had never done it before, so when I got back to the rap station I was so focused on making sure that he was safe and felt comfortable that I completely forgot to clip myself back in. It wasnt until after I had finished showing him everything and went to setup my own rappel device that I realized I wasnt actually connected to anything. |
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Hoped I'd never have to post here again, but a few days ago my wife and I had a pretty type-2 day that could've gone even worse. Figured some of these lessons could be a useful cautionary tale of overconfidence. We're in Catalunya for the week. It was raining in the mountains so we changed plans (late in the day) to climb a 5 pitch rap-in, climb-out sea cliff with stellar reviews. That commitment factor always scares me but the route is 5.9+/10- and mostly (though sparsely) bolted, so it's ez-pz, right? We got there at around 3pm and knew the sunset was at 7 but, again, it's mostly bolted and the pitches are mostly short (~350' total, give or take). Let's go for it. The route is overhung and traverses slightly so you need to clip directionals to stay within reach of the belay stations. The last rappel traverses heavily in the top few bolts so tramming over to the directional was difficult. Folly 1: my partner needed some extra rope to tram over to the directional so I unclipped the tails from the base anchor so she could use the tail-end as a pulley. After unclipping the super-tensioned directional she then lost control of the draw when trying to pass her belay and swung around the corner, leaving her hanging in space above the Mediterranean, 20' to my right. Thankfully, we had a long enough rope that she was able to throw me the tails and I pulled her over to the anchors at the base, but we were racing daylight and that maneuver wasn't in the playbook. Folly 2: before the final rap to the base platform (~8' above the sea) we noted that the holds below looked wet due to the waves and sea mist. However, they were enormous jugs so we didn't pay much mind. After climbing that first pitch we were a bit dismayed by the level of wetness/grime even higher up the pitch, but figured things would dry up as we progressed. However, on the next pitch we discovered that the entire cliff was getting progressively wetter due to the high (>90%) humidity and the lack of afternoon sun/wind to dry the cliff out. Pitch 2 was now even wetter than pitch 1 and every hold was covered in an indescribable slimy mixture of sand, chalk, and saltwater. My wife just took to calling it 'mud'. We made it up p2 with a lot of effort but no falls and reached a nice ledge at the base of pitch 3. On the way down, this pitch looked like a fun juggy overhung hand crack/flake. However, on the way up we realized that a) the crack was completely slick with mud slime b) there's almost no fixed gear on the pitch (2 bolts and a tattered fixed sling across 65') and c) we had no idea if cams would hold in the slimy, flared flake (let alone if we could stop sliding out of the crack long enough to place them). Further, due to the difficulty climbing the mud-caked holds below, our forearms were already more pumped than they've been on any 5.12. Now the 'what the F have we done' starts to set in: we have less than an hour and a half until sunset and it's only getting wetter. Thankfully, my wife has been leading a lot of mentally taxing routes lately and tolerates wet rock better than I do, and so she took the reins, linking pitches 3+4 to the final belay ledge with a lot of griping and F bombs but no major incidents aside from a broken foothold 15' runout that she managed to reel in, giving me quite the heart attack in the process. If it were two copies of myself we would've been benighted on that ledge waiting for the cliff to dry out. Thank god for rope guns, eh? Thankfully, p5 was windy and mostly dry so we topped out uneventfully just as the sun began to set. There were so many ways that could've easily gone worse I shudder to think about it. A few that come to mind:
Lessons learned:
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MattHwrote: There was the trip to Greenland that I took two new headlamps, cause I was tired of having problems with my headlamp. It never got dark. For the whole month. |
highaltitudeflatulentexpulsionwrote: BECAUSE..... you had TWO headlamps. |
Kaleb Wellswrote: Jesus christ, I thought this was ONE persons list at first. |
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Many moons ago, I was chatting with a lovely lady on top of Bishops Terrace while setting up my rappel. I was about to set off,I I unclipped from the anchor and was about to (die!) head down, the Angel I was talking with, calmly pointed to my reverso and noted that only one strand was threaded....no backup of course Very close and humbling |
Olek Chmurawrote: Somebody else’s list is simply “3x stood too close to *that* guy”. |
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when i did my first real non practice rappel. had it all set up and comforted myself by saying "even if I accidentally let go i have my third hand" my third hand was improperly tied lmao |
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You climb long enough, you're going to have a few "moments".... Here's some of the ones I remember the most. Very early on in my climbing (late 80's), before anyone wore helmets, we got to the base of a route slightly behind another party. It's only short and one pitch, so we all hang out at the base. As the leader is placing his second piece, he falls, but flips backwards/upside down as he's caught by the first. I somehow manage to reach up and put my hand between his head and the rock just in time to prevent what would probably have been a serious head injury. From then on, I always wear a helmet when climbing. Another helmet lesson, just sitting at the base of a climb, and a fist size rock randomly falls beside me from hundreds of feet up. Noone up there, nice warm sunny day. Lesson, wear your helmet even when you're just at the base hanging out. Incidentally, I have a friend who watched someone die from this type of rock fall at the base of a single pitch crag. Was about to rap, it's getting dark, so hurrying a bit. No autoblock. Do one last check (after I undo my tether) before I weight the system, and realize I have only clipped one bight.... Had another friend do the same thing, except he had his rappel prussik on, and ended up hanging by only his prussik. Now, I always, whatever the circumstances, go through double checking everything (including a final weighting of the system) before undoing the tether, make sure I always have an autoblock. And tie knots in the end of your rope! Traversing across the top of bugaboo spire to get off before the storm, and having your ice axe humming and sparking beside your ear (it was in my pack, shaft poking up). Don't think I've ever gone down 4th class faster.... Going to do some bolt replacement/put up a new route. We'd scoped it out a week before, and used a not that old anchor (6 years?) to rap into the line and check it out. This anchor was one we wanted to replace, since I'd seen it seemed to have stainless hangers but plated bolts. Because of this, I had backed it up to tree before using. This time, got to the anchor with everything, but realized I had left the drill bit below. Rather than just walk down and get it, I opted to set up the rappel anyway so I could scope things out and clean a bit of vegetation out of a crack. I got lazy, and because the anchor had held up to a top rope and hang session just a week before, and looked otherwise fine, didn't worry about the tree backup. Got down a few feet and one of the bolts broke clean off at the rock surface. One of the most terrifying few milliseconds I've ever had. Very, very carefully climbed back up, Sat for a few minutes, walked down, got the bit, and replaced that anchor. The other bad bolt got pulled. Moral of the story, if you think something might be sketchy, even if you see others using it, back it up if possible, don't be lazy. On the topic of partner checks I have experienced or seen the following:
Lesson: don't just do a cursory look when doing partner checks, take a real close look. Not only is the knot good, is it in the right place? Is everything about whatever device is in use correct? And don't be offended if I ask to check. Not my mistake, but seen and heard at a crowded crag, one leader gets to a belay and yells down to be taken off. The belayer next door (who's leader is out of sight, almost to a belay) hears this, thinks its their leader, and takes them off. I see this, and yell at them to put them back on... Lessons: always use names if there are others around, and if you're not 100% sure you heard it right, take the safest default action. Similar issue, had a partner relate to me the following. He had just finished leading a climb that went around a buttress, out of sight of his belayer. It was a bit of a windy day, and there was a stream at the bottom adding to background noise. When he got to where he got to the anchor, he called down to his partner that he was there. The partner thought he heard him yell down off belay, and took him off. Meanwhile my friend is setting up to lower off, and when he leans back, thinking he has tension (really just friction of rope against a lot of rock, he was fighting rope drag on the way up) goes for a long ride. He's only alive because of that rope drag, which slowed him down a bit, and enabled the belayer to notice the rope ripping up, grab it, and halt the fall. |
Shaniacwrote: Don't add God to a conversation when it's as simple as a dumbass forgetting how north and south hemispheres work. Darkness isn't weather, it doesn't "just happen". |
Natalie Blackburnwrote: Definitely took time to admire its beauty. They get big too, I saw another one like 2 months ago that was about as girthy as a 2 liter soda bottle (below). Must have just eaten a rabbit or something. Saw another that was at least 7 feet long soaking in rays across a fireroad.  |
Gene Bordsonwrote: We passed two of his cute little buddies on our way up to Half Dome a few years ago. I'm rather fond of the buzzer-butts. Didn't get great photos like yours, but they're great little pest control specialists. Interestingly enough, roughly 28 people in the US die every year while climbing while only 5 die from snake bite.  |
Branon Rochellewrote: Cute, I love the nickname lol. I'm not worried about dying, just getting bankrupted by the medical expenses. It cost $500 for our kids 2 minute er visit with insurance a few months ago.. If there's ~7500 bites in u.s. every year and it probably costs at least $100k for treatment in socal... I've had at least 5 close calls when they don't buzz their butt (2 this year). They are wonderful though. |
