Don't do drugs and rappel off of Drug Dome (or if you did, tell us the story!)

Last week a friend & I climbed Europop to Hobbit Book, which is a fun, easy linkup in Tuolumne.  The first 4 pitches follow the left side of a big slab on the far right of Drug Dome.  There are many bolts & bolted rap anchors every 30m or so.

My partner noticed a fixed rope off to the side from the base, and I saw the top of it from the 3rd belay.  It was about 50' to the side and well below me.  I suggested she traverse over there to check it out while she was seconding, because it was clearly a very odd setup.

What we found was, in a word, puzzling.  We remain baffled, and would LOVE to hear the story of how this happened.

The rope was on what looked like low 5th class terrain at most.  There is supposedly one route right of Europop called White Trash, but maybe that's closer than the rope was.

Anyway, from the top:  The rope was "anchored" to a Metolius nut tool that was stuck into some dirt about 2".  She said it came right out, so it wasn't hammered in at all.  In sequence, there was a carabiner to the top of the nut tool (plenty of leverage!), a sling girth hitched to another sling, another carabiner, another sling, TWO lockers in sequence, and the rope was tied to the lower locker.

About 40' down there was an intermediate anchor consisting of a still-in-place black Alien & a loose purple TCU.   Another anchor was maybe 30' below that and was made up of a gold Z4 cam & nut with 2 carabiners, one of which had its gate taped shut.  (No pic of the first one in situ so we reconstructed it.)

The rope continued downward and seemed to be snagged on something, but we didn't want to fully abandon our climb to fully pursue the mystery.  (I wish we had, though.)

SO MANY QUESTIONS.  The most obvious, aside from just WITAF, is how the nut tool held even body weight.  Or was this whole thing some elaborate performance art that we destroyed in the name of cleaning up the cliff?

See photos depicting the setup and my partner's booty haul.  The rope, which was reportedly in pretty good shape, is still there maybe 30' off of the deck on a sloping ledge.

What say ye, MP hive mind?

Inquiring minds want to know! Can anyone explain what’s going on here?

I can imagine the feeling of absolute dread when they first went on rappel off that hand placed nut tool.

If you have infinite monkeys building anchors for an infinite amount of time, eventually they will build a perfect anchor. But along the way, they will build this anchor.

This is some wild stuff! How Not 2 is gonna have a hay day with this.

Storm, inexperience, panic

Steve Hoffman rappelled off of Drug Dome apparently.

WITAF, indeed

Glenn Schuler wrote:

Steve Hoffman rappelled off of Drug Dome apparently.

Yesss!! Best MP forum response in a minute

philip bone wrote:

Storm, inexperience, panic

^^^ thinking this is it.

Ignore other options (storm, panic):  tunnel vision about going down while gripped

Nut tool with integral gate attached to slink-y to small clip (inexperience):  most (?) would not have a slink-y to small clip

Leveraged nut (inexperience)l:  instead, girth hitch it down low; maybe they were mostly sport climbers 

Extension off the nut-tool anchor (different abilities):  last to rap not so capable;  first to rap lands at terrain that is initially barely down-climb-able; first to rap calls to extend as much as practical to rap beyond the "barely" terrain

Intermediate anchors (smart?):  no trust in the nut-tool anchor

Hopefully they went back to camp and had a good belly laugh over brews.  I have in not unlike situations.

My best guess is that they were climbing the 3rd/4th class terraces right of Europop shown in the above topo "Trashmaster".

The climbing gets quite hard (5.9) near the top.

Probably one person was leading and needed to back off, either because of the difficulty or a thunder/hailstorm.

Maybe the leader fixed this second/spare rope to the poor nut tool anchor at the top, and then to better anchors as they climbed down.

And then eventually went down the 3rd/4th class terraces with one or no rope.

I bet a TON of water blasts down those slabs even in a mild thunderstorm - 4th class terrain won't feel like 4th class if there's a waterfall coming down the entire cliff face!

Bill Lawry wrote:

Nut tool with integral gate attached to slink-y to small clip (inexperience):  most (?) would not have a slink-y to small clip

WC nut tool, it comes like that.  I have the same one because of how wide the smacky part is.

Sam Schwinghammer wrote:

WC nut tool, it comes like that.  I have the same one because of how wide the smacky part is.

Fair enough. I have the Metolius Feather nut tool. No tether comes with that one.

Either way, if one has been handling a rack for more than a few years, one gets pretty used to handling untethered things in ways such that they do not get dropped - including nut tools without integral tether. I’ll never go back.

What a find!
Clearly it would appear they survived, so, I think..... Take note.
Your nut tool can be a piece of pro when it's turn sour. Kinda amazing. 

I for one would like to tell the party that bailed, I will not flame thee, I just want to know how this amazing epic went down.

I bet Sloan was getting ready to retrobolt hobbit book. 

Don't question the booty gods.

I have climbed all the published routes on upper Drug Dome.  I have never considered rapping and not sure why anyone ever would.

Two items I have noticed as significant generational differences that I cannot rationalize

1.  Many climbers, regardless of the grade they lead (call it 5.9 even), think that carrying something as small as chapstick up a route will potentially impede their "send".  They no doubt watched a vid of someone leading 5.15 in the gym and have gotten confused.

2.  Many climbers, beyond being efficient, are allergic to burning any extra calories, i.e. walk off a route. Many times their puffy bellies match their ethos. 

Both of these items I suppose can be linked to gym introduction to the sport vs alpine introduction to the sport.

Plus one for performance art.

(Or Eric Sloan trying to distract from the Snake Dike Debacle)

Mr Rogers wrote:Your nut tool can be a piece of pro when it's turn sour. Kinda amazing. 

Whilst on an ill-fated lurking fear solo, I was passed by a (much better) IAD soloist who sprinted the first couple bolt ladders (bolts interspersed with hook moves for most folks) by high stepping, catching the next bolt hanger with his nut tool, and doing a pull-up on it.

He later dropped one of his ladders, causing a bail--his ladder landed across my rope after the windowpane pendulum and I handed it back to him as we bailed together.