RRC Archives

yea yea yea

...And yet people at the Red complain about a few loose rocks here and there? Damn.

Better stay in the gym if you don't like dirt, lichen, loose rocks, friable edges, bugs, snakes, heat, humidity, cold, rain, ice, etc. It's all part of the experience. You can only dumb it down so much before it will become an outdoor gym... tick marks looking like little pieces of colored tape...a line must be drawn at some point. When is a route too dirty? Too clean? Too much loose rock?

Better to climb smart and tread lightly. If this isn't for you then stay in the gym.

After reading Larry's stories,you realize just how much it has been dumbed down or cleaned up and overprotected. Luckily thats only newer routes. The old bold trad lines are still the way they were put up. It should be that way.

had a near miss tonight actually.. now i know i made a mistake having a gumby belay for me. that said, he's belayed for me before and i've watched him belay others and he's been fine. well, on the lead wall i took a fall and he caught me just fine.. i was monkeying back up the rope, got to just below the top draw, and told him to take me up while still holding the rope on the other side of the draw (effectively, i had myself locked off). when i looked down to see if he was set and had all the slack, i saw his brake hand come off for a second.. whoops.. i finished off quickly thereafter and bouldered to round out the night.

Paul3eb wrote:the other time i yelled "i'm off" to my belayer at t-wall. in my mind, he was lowering me.

Not to turn this into a belay thread or anything, but I'd just like to mention that it's entirely possible and easy to clean a route without ever coming off belay. Just pull slack once you "go direct" on the chains. You never have to come off belay. Your belayer can even throw a mule knot on their ATC if they feel the urge to move around or stop watching you. Grigris are even easier. [/old tired rant that we've all heard before and wish people would quit bringing up]

I watched an experienced climber with a relatively experienced belayer take a 25' whipper in a 32' gym tonight. He was on the ceiling and was in a position to clip a draw at his waist. His belayer thought he was going to clip so she gave him slack. She didn't realize that IF he was clipping he didn't need any slack since the draw was at his harness, but it looked like he might do a long clip to the next draw 5' away from him. After an arm or two of slack she realizes that he's not clipping, he's falling. I hear a bit of commotion mostly relating to "look out below" and see him dangling at about head height after narrowly missing the chance to shorten someone by about 6 inches.

Whenever I have a gumby belaying for me I teach them how to use a gri-gri and then when I get to the top I clip into the anchors and rappel. Works well every time.

marathonmedic wrote:Not to turn this into a belay thread or anything, but I'd just like to mention that it's entirely possible and easy to clean a route without ever coming off belay. Just pull slack once you "go direct" on the chains. You never have to come off belay. Your belayer can even throw a mule knot on their ATC if they feel the urge to move around or stop watching you. Grigris are even easier. [/old tired rant that we've all heard before and wish people would quit bringing up]

yeah.. i when i don't rappel, i almost always do it that way now, feeding it through on a bight of rope.

i try to get people on gri-gri as much as possible since i usually feel better climbing if they're on gri-gri.. especially belayers that are new to me.

i got shortened once. i was at miami's climbing gym and was walking over to talk to a belayer, a spot which happened to be below the roof there. well the climber was at the anchors and skipped a clip.. i never new what hit me. the next day my body felt like i had been in a low speed head on collision

I did that bouldering a few weeks ago. I hit my jaw on some guys head from the second bolt up. Fortunately I didn't hit him square.

The nice thing about climbing is that all of Newton's laws work perfectly,every time.

Only climbing close call I have had...

I hiked out to the Three Pinnacles at Star Gap to do some roped soloing. I was completely alone and carrying a mighty big pack. I hiked out to where the walkdown was a few years ago. The recent forest fires had obliterated any hope of me being able to get to the cliff base. The undergrowth (read: greenbriars) was just too thick to get through. I aborted my climbing agenda for the day and decided to hike out to the end of the ridge where there was a good view.

Most of the approach is on the south east side of the ridge below an upper cliffband. When I reached the south end of the upper band I could see a long way off the the west and a huge storm cloud just a few miles off. It had rolled in while I was behind the ridge. The wind had picked up and I could hear all kinds of thunder as it got closer.

I quick scrambled back up to the ridgetop to book it back to my car. The whole bushwhack escape along the ridge top is burned (no pun intended) into my memory. That ridge top is nearly denuded of any substantial trees. Between the pine beetles and fires its very exposed, but the undergrowth is so thick that its a terrible bushwhack. So I'm wading through this stuff with a big ole pack as fast as I can, and just waiting to feel my hair stand up warning me that I'm about to be lit up by lightning. No lightning hit the ridge I was on but I could see it nearby and the thunder was right on top of me the whole time.

I made it back to my car just before the rain and hail hit.