Getting Shot at While Climbing! WTF!!!

I apologize in advance for the rant, but you should know:

So my partner and I got out to clear creek yesterday, climbing at Lower Capitalist crag. We¡¦re there for about an hr everything is peachy. I hop on Lunchmoney just as I lead out we start hearing rapid fire gun shots going off up the canyon(west). Don¡¦t really think anything of it until they get closer and closer each passing minute. Making my way up this thing, and the shots are starting to get really loud and he¡¦s rapid firing (10 shot bursts). It¡¦s starting to sketch me out, its getting way too close but we can¡¦t see the guy. I pull the roof and fire up the slab to the base of the lay back crux. Now its getting really loud and I hear a hiss (bee buzzing type sound). Pull into the crux sequence lay-backing the flake and then I hear 7 more shots and 7 hiss (buzz ) sounds. So this a-hole is F***ing shooting at me! AWESOME! Throw a bail biner on the next bolt and lower, FAST! Now my belayer is hearing hisses and bullets hitting the bush 15 feet from him. Pack the gear up, FAST! And get the hell out of there, sprinting with a pack; cardio was better than I thought, haha! Seriously though, WTF is wrong with these people! Has anyone had this happen in CCC? Be careful out there!

PS: does this add an X rating to the route? :)

Fucking rednecks.....

Did you call the police?

Were you able to identify the vehicle associated with the shooter? Did you report it?

I don't know about making it an "X" rated route, but wearing body armor will bump up the grade a bit!

Yes, we filed a police report and they were relatively useless. At first they didn't believe us, transferred 3 times to diff. departments etc.
Unfortunately there was no vehicle associated because we was walking down the canyon from the north (we believe he was walking along the river, no clue though). Didn't feel like sticking around to figure out what was going on. Also there's no reception in that part of the canyon so we couldn't make an outbound call until we were back in Golden.

Body armor! I like it!! Note to self...

Edit:
Seriously John,
Rednecks, WTF!

Did you or cops walk the riverbed to collect dozens of empty brass? Seems from the amount of gunfire it should have been easy to find many of them. Possibly a clue to calibre and possible weapons trace later if this guy gets caught somewhere else. At least it wasn't al Quaida terrorists like it was for Beth and Tommy 10 years ago.

That's pretty fucked up.

Good luck - hope you figure out how to get the police to give you some attention.

GO

Was the report filed with the JeffCo Sheriff?

Getting shot at while climbing = effed up
Being ignored by police = double effed up

Buff Johnson wrote:Was the report filed with the JeffCo Sheriff?

Yea, it was Jeff Co. The guy didn't believe me when i told him. Haha!

muttonface wrote:Camo: It's not just for hunters anymore.

Do they make textured rock colored shirts for each climbing area (Granite, Sandstone, Limestone, etc) if not I think you're onto something here. Time to start a new gear company. Get Sly Stallone to Endorse it (Rambo Clothing Line) or something of the sorts.

In a busy place like CCC, you'd think others would have heard and seen someone who was walking around emptying clips?

A lot of private property around there. Could've been someone on top of the rim shooting, rather than down in the canyon. In a canyon setting it's hard to estimate the location of small arms fire. . . especially if there's a healthy breeze or some wind that's fluctuating.

Surprised the Sheriff isn't more interested.

The police didn't believe someone would pull over in Clear Creek to shoot some guns for fun? Yeah, that's really out there.

Stich wrote:The police didn't believe someone would pull over in Clear Creek to shoot some guns for fun? Yeah, that's really out there.

Ridiculous right.. The cops asked "Are you sure they were shooting at you?" Ummmmm, yea, the sound of bullets whizzing past my f***in head would be reason enough to assume I'm his target.. HAHA!

A little Dumb and Dumber:
Lloyd: What if he shot ya in the face!!?
Harry: Yea, What if he shot me in the FACE!?

FBI Agent: That was a risk we were willing to take!!

Cops like everybody else are getting the budget crunch. That means bosses want more productivity - more arrests - per man-hour. That means officers are forced to lower the quality of their work to increase the quantity. The result? Nik nak's friend is missing and other dude's getting lit up, but the cops could give a fuck.

A wanker carrying a sneak-a-toke, on the other hand? They're on it! As long as they don't have to get out of the car.

I can't believe such a thing would happen in such a pristine, beautiful and remote wilderness setting.

I had a similar situation happen a few years ago although it was not an intentional shooting. We were at our campsite off of Rampart and bullets started zipping through the air. One struck a tree no more than five feet from where we were sitting. We probably had at least ten rounds come within a few feet of us so it felt like we were the intended target. We ducked for cover and waited for the shooting to stop and then my climbing partner took off running and yelling in the direction of the shooter. I thought he was going to kill the shooter. It ended up being a dumb redneck that decided to shoot a dozen rounds off without checking down range to see if it was safe. We yelled at the guy for a few minutes and then we went back to camp and had a cold beer to cool off. The next morning me noticed a bullet hole in the back of my friend’s truck. We looked for the shooter to let him know that he hit our truck but he was not camping in the area and was long gone.

Well, if you ever wondered how the route "Turkey Shoot" got its name...

muttonface wrote:The other military/former military guys out there will know what I'm talking about here. A gun fired twenty feet to the right/left/above/below you has a very different report than one fired directly at you. The crisp crackle that comes from the soundwaves of a trajectory directly in your line is unmistakeable; even to people never in that position before. I can understand very clearly the sense of urgency instilled when shots are far away and then creep closer until they are on top of you. I'm glad you guys got out of there without getting capped. Seriously. Not as far as I know, but if enough climbers become long distance targets, I imagine these would be hot sellers. I wouldn't start a new one, I'd just pitch it to Patagonia or Marmot or whomever. Actually, Sly wasn't in my top ten. I was thinking Hank Caylor, since he's a veteran too and is all kinds of savvy to this type of thing. Worse comes to worse, I could don my invention- err... your invention; OUR invention?... but I'm not very appealing, hence my name.

Thanks mutton, and everyone else for the support. I definately will not be climbing here again, EVER! And if for some reason i Do, wearing this
My new climbing suit

Josh B: Glad to hear you're ok from that B.S.!
JLP: You're prob right, regardless I wasn't happy about rounds zipping in my general direction, especially being in a position that I couldn't take cover. The shots were coming from the forested area up the canyon, so I there was no lisc. plate/ cars info find. Sucks!

Note to self: Eldo or BC from now on. Sketchy clear creek.

And Hank , we would love to hear you chime in here! Mutton is right, we're making you the face of our Brand!!

Too bad you didn't get a positive ID on these lunatics and the ATV's they were riding. I'm sure they were fatties on ATV's!

Yeah, that sounds familiar.....

Been shot at once, trying for what would have been the FA of the Fun Ramp, near Moab:

mountainproject.com/v/fun-r…

First, bullets were hitting far away, then suddenly noticed (a change of noise, very scary, very urgent) they were hitting really close, within a few feet. I was 30 feet up on the climb. Never, before or since have I downclimbed so rapidly! Once down we sheltered behind a boulder and started yelling at the shooters, who were across the river. Really surreal situation. "You're scaring the deer!" one of them eventually yelled. It was a stand-off for a while, us too scared to move. Eventually they jumped in their white pickup (too far away to see the plates) and fishtailed off. We eventually left.

This was a long time ago, when Moab was still a halfway redneck place. Real surprised to hear of shooting like this in Clear Creek, now, with so many people climbing and fishing and hiking and gold-panning etc. Not good. Glad you escaped unhurt.

Time for climbers to carry guns and surprise the shit out of them when we fire back in self defense. Let them piss in their pants for once. Right to bear arms!