Flakes, ghosts, and liars (oh my!)

I can understand your frustration, and tbh I've been on both sides of this coin many a time.  Usually recovering from some injury, the last being a broken femur a few years ago. Still recovering...Dow makes some interesting points and I was just talking about the "twilights of a champion" concept...(used to...can't now...)

In my youth, I think my proudest sends were all post-ghost etc.

For example, my first El Cap route was solo. This was not particularly of my own volition, but I was quite pissed at a situation in which we were supposed to do the Captain as a party of 3, but our most experienced member never showed out on the route. Now, tbf, we were biting off a big chunk by attempting the NA Wall. 

Nicky, the most experienced among us (he had bailed from pitch 22 of the Salathe Wall), was actually watching me fix the first couple pitches of the NA through a telescope from El Cap meadow. This was well before cell phones or any communication, so all of this came out much later. I had soloed the Prow as my first wall, which itself was a spontaneous decision after potential partners decided not to drive up from SoCal, but had yet to taste the Big Stone.

In the days of my youth I was told what it means to be a man, and one of the messages was to climb El Capitan. I kept asking Valentine (present and belaying on the NA)..."do ya think Nicky is going to make it? What if he doesn't? Can you lead some? "

It became slowly apparent that we would not be 3 with Nicky and I think we took the next day to get the ropes and schlepp everything back down.

Lit by the fire of youth and (over)confidence, and with the haulage still in the back of the Geo Metro --- I parked near Han's Florine's Metro, which had custom CA plates of NO BIVY, I reschlepped everying to the Zodiac. The route itself went fairly smoothly. Notable highlights

•  I took some pictures of Eric Kohl who was establishing a fright fest nearby. That gave me a lot of confidence, watching him moving slowly and calmly over shattered diorite. He used one of the photos as a Xmas card, writing a general thanks and noting about the photo..."it's obviously early in the route, my t-shirt is still clean and I'm still smiling..."
• Losing my wallhauler on P5 due to overtightening a screwgate (no wrench or leatherman)...hauling through an orange Petzl plastic rescue pulley the rest of the route. Yikers.
• Totally whacked after fixing a great circle pitch, I slept on a tied of figure 8 (belay device). This was pre-Gri-Gri days.
• Leading the Nipple pitch with 1 #4 Friend and possibly Gen 1 #4 camalot, as well as the pitch above Peanut. This was pre-#5 days. My mind still boggles how I managed these leads. Youth and (over)confidence is my best guess.
• Shedding tears of ??? at an awesome bouquet of flowers spouting out of cracks near the Mark of Zorro (and making sure my rope was fixed around the floral arrangement...!)
• Getting off route on the last pitch....my folks came down to watch me on the last day...I kept traversing left, left and left rather than going right. Tom Evans and other valley denizens kept telling my folks, "oh yeah, he's really screwing up" and I think they were yelling at me to goooooooo back.
• Keeping a sharp eye out for wild dikes on the descent (also onsight). Fortunately I had not burned all the daylight by traversing wrong on the last pitch.
• Someone had a recent fatal accident on the rappels, their bloodstains were still on the ledges. That was quite sobering. From my limited recollection you had to swing over with a shorter (60m?) rope.

I would be remiss to state that this was all me. So many people helped along the way. None of this was done in isolation. Crafty Crafton showing me how to jam. RDA teaching me how to aid climb. JCA inspiring wide climb. DO doing DO stuff.  Seasonal jobs with full enjoyment benefits. Safe and dreadfully unsafe mentors at the start of my climbing. Nicky peeping from EC meadow....

TLDR

The older I get the more I think about how things don't happen to me, they happen for me...aka How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ghosts, Flakes and Liars....

YMMV

Jared AE wrote:

What are your strategies for filtering these hosers out?

Some of my best partnered climbs have evolved from me heading in somewhere with my Soloist.

I dunno, but if nothing else, it certainly simplifies one side of the equation.

I've been the weak link in partnerships before.  That photo of me next to my haul bag, that's a tough one, one where I can say that I truly broke first.  And, you don't get those days back.

In the following photo, that Soloist is in my pack, where it sat all day.  A completely ad hoc adventure, and a standout as one of the finest days I've ever had in the mountains. (it's just two of us, kind of an over-the-shoulder group portrait)

The Soloist lets me do what I want, if I can do my part.  It also lets me fail.  Then again, it lets me fail without ruining someone else's plans, ambitions.  But, perhaps more importantly, it feeds me enough rope to get out there and come across a lot of people with whom to have a great time.

Jason EL wrote:

Some of my best partnered climbs have evolved from me heading in somewhere with my Soloist.

I dunno, but if nothing else, it certainly simplifies one side of the equation.

I've been the weak link in partnerships before.  That photo of me next to my haul bag, that's a tough one, one where I can say that I truly broke first.  And, you don't get those days back.

In the following photo, that Soloist is in my pack, where it sat all day.  A completely ad hoc adventure, and a standout as one of the finest days I've ever had in the mountains. (it's just two of us, kind of an over-the-shoulder group portrait)

The Soloist lets me do what I want, if I can do my part.  It also lets me fail.  Then again, it lets me fail without ruining someone else's plans, ambitions.  But, perhaps more importantly, it feeds me enough rope to get out there and come across a lot of people with whom to have a great time.

  +1 for rope soloing 

Last week two different partners bailed on me. And I went out with my soloist and had a decent day.
This week I ended up having to bail on a partner because I put some holes in my fingers. Sometimes is my brain wants to climb more than my body is capable of.

I’m happy for yall that enjoy soloing! I’ve delved pretty deep into it, myself; but i decided I didn’t really enjoy climbing without the social aspect 

Jared AE wrote:

I am once again asking yall not to waste days of my time and hundreds of my dollars going out to Yosemite to climb with you only to ghost me the morning of.

Shame 🔔 Shame 🔔Shame 🔔  Emma

Wow, that is pretty awful for you. Sorry to hear it. I hope your trip gets salvaged in some positive way. 

phylp phylp wrote:

Wow, that is pretty awful for you. Sorry to hear it. I hope your trip gets salvaged in some positive way. 

It didn’t, at least not for climbing; Emma fucked me over pretty good!

maybe I’ll start using this thread to actually call out the flakes by name from now on… just a thought 🤔

Jared AE wrote:

maybe I’ll start using this thread to actually call out the flakes by name from now on… just a thought 🤔

Please don’t.

Sucks to be flaked on of course, but how is your Valley trip not salveable? I don't think there's anywhere on earth where it's easier to find a partner. Just make sure you line up a couple, because there's a good chance they might flake for a different partner.

Also, Dow, why in the world is someone mentioning they're coming back from an injury a red flag? There are plenty of very strong experienced climbers who because of an injury may chose to post up for partners to climb at a more moderate level as they work through their recovery. Maybe it's just because I'm literally in that boat right now, having not been able to climb the last 2+ months because of a knee injury, but I like to think when I get back on the rock in a few weeks, my 20 years experience matters more than my short-term physical limitations. 

In general, whenever I'm climbing with somebody new I can sniff out within minutes on the hike in whether they're lying about their ability level. And as a rule, I never climb with a new partner on something I'm not willing to assume the role of guide on. It means first-timers are almost always going to be climbing something moderate with me, but I'm fine with that. If we jive personality and climbing wise, they'll be plenty of time for the harder stuff.

Mike Larson wrote:

Sucks to be flaked on of course, but how is your Valley trip not salveable? I don't think there's anywhere on earth where it's easier to find a partner. Just make sure you line up a couple, because there's a good chance they might flake for a different partner.

That’s the thing, I won’t line up a couple because I don’t intend to ever be the flaker. It’s a scummy and disrespectful thing to do, especially with absolutely no notice (just ghosting, like I dealt with today). We’re also talking 10pm at night or 5am in the morning realizing my prospective partner has decided they have better things to do, ergo not so easy to mosey on over to camp 4 and line something up with a rando

The Ole "coming back from an injury" tends to coincide with folks inflating the grade they can climb. It also starts things out with excuses. All I want to know beforehand is current ability and hitlist,  the stories can come during the day.

Maybe the lesson is: always prepare for Plan B. You spent spent hundreds of dollars traveling to climb with someone who you've never met before? Sucks they flaked but it shouldn't be a surprise. A rando is a purely hypothetical climbing partner until you actually meet them face to face.

Mike Larson wrote:

 Just make sure you line up a couple, because there's a good chance they might flake for a different partner.

Or maybe people could gain a little integrity and follow through on things they said they would do?

apogee wrote:

Or maybe people could gain a little integrity and follow through on things they said they would do?

☝️

By far the best thing about revitalizing this thread is allowing those of us who missed the July 2024 and subsequent posts to see someone say as follows: I have a vast network of partners and one famous one still doesn’t know about me nearly dying while he belayed me on an offwidth, so let me tell you all about it here, at length, while naming names. Holy smokes thanks for the Monday morning comedic interlude. 

M M wrote:

The Ole "coming back from an injury" tends to coincide with folks inflating the grade they can climb. It also starts things out with excuses. All I want to know beforehand is current ability and hitlist,  the stories can come during the day.

Just disagree with this. If you're coming back from an injury oftentimes you have no idea how hard you can climb and need to be conservative in how you approach things. They may indeed end up overestimating what they can climb that day, but they very well might not have known till they're trying to pull the moves. 

When I get back on the rock after dislocating my knee, you better believe I'm gonna let my partner know about it ahead of time, and that I'm going to be have to be climbing way below my actual ability level as I suss things out. Of course my partner could have declined to climb with me to begin with if s/he didn't want that sort of uncertainty. Injury recovery is not an excuse. 

I think most of us on here have dealt with injuries at some point in time, and probably appreciated a little bit of flexibility and understanding as we worked our way back to full strength.

M M wrote:

The Ole "coming back from an injury" tends to coincide with folks inflating the grade they can climb. It also starts things out with excuses. All I want to know beforehand is current ability and hitlist,  the stories can come during the day.

Well said.

He doesn't even climb anymore!

Dow Williams wrote:

Well said.

It's happened enough to be real!

To the anti-injury crowd, how do you expect recovering partners to behave? To just say the lowest grade they can be sure of and then exceed expectations? And what happens if they don't mention they're injured but then it flares up or unexpectedly limits them mid-climb? Do you blame them?