RRC Archives

what near accidents have you had? you know, the times when you realize what's wrong and you say to yourself, "holy sh*t!"

i have two:
i was on epinephrine at red rocks this summer past. probably could have used some more trad experience but i was out there and didn't want to miss the opportunity. well on one of the chimneys (second i think), i looked up and was able to see the anchors and the crux (narrow section) right before them. i cruised for about twenty, thirty feet, and got to a part where the crack i was protecting in the chimney jutted out then went in deeper. i didn't even notice that it went deeper and headed straight for the chains, plugging on last piece of gear before i went. at the crux, was when i realized i was in trouble: thirty feet above a ledge that was directly below me, my gear placed in that ledge.. meaning i'd hit the ledge, then have another thirty or so feet onto another ledge where my belay was.. great.. and my feet kept slipping. and my belayer yelled, "uhh.. paul.. i don't think you want to fall cause you'll get hurt". make a long story short, my feet slipped a few more times but i hucked myself up onto the ledge with the chains with every bit of energy my adreniline could afford me.

the other time i yelled "i'm off" to my belayer at t-wall. in my mind, he was lowering me. as i crawled over the ledge to get ready to lower, i heard loren yell something and i looked down, watching my belayer rapidly put me back on belay. if loren didn't say something and wasn't watching my belayer.. well.. good thing he was. now i always say, "take me completely off belay" (when rapping) or try to otherwise clarify things with my belayer. if it's going to be noisy, then i try to tell them ahead of time..

When I was at NOLS in the Wind Rivers we were several pitches up on Bears Tooth. I was ready to start following the last pitch when I heard "rock" yelled from above and dove into the base of the crack. I looked back and saw a large boulder, about the size of a person, hit where I had been standing and then careen off down the face. When it reached the bottom it started bouncing down the scree and then took out a number of pine trees below the scree slope. I was shaking like a leaf but finally got it together enough to follow up to the top.

Shit, I could write a book.

Did you yell "I'm off", Paul? I thought you'd yelled "Take me up" and he'd heard "Take me off." They sound pretty similar with 90 feet of air between you and your belayer. Regardless, like I've told you many times, I get chills whenever I think about that moment.

J-Rock wrote:Shit, I could write a book.

I don't have enough for a full length book, but could fill up at least a couple chapters worth.

Yasmeen wrote:Did you yell "I'm off", Paul? I thought you'd yelled "Take me up" and he'd heard "Take me off." They sound pretty similar with 90 feet of air between you and your belayer. Regardless, like I've told you many times, I get chills whenever I think about that moment.

you know, i honestly don't remember exactly what happened and what was said. now that you mention it, though, it was something along the lines of me saying one thing and him hearing another. yeah, thinking about being on the ledge, about to weight the rope, then looking down at him and him looking at me with no rope.. makes me pay extra attention to safety now.

I woke up one morning, not know where the hell im at. I look over and see an enormous mound next to me Thats when I realized what had happened. It was a huge beast of a ladie. I thought to myself, did I hook up with this or was i to drunk. I hope I was to drunk I tell myself. I wake up a little more and realize that this huge mound was laying on my arm. Not trying to disterb this mound of somthing, I try to wiggle my arm free. But no luck the mound weighs to much for me to move my arm and it is crushing it. Starting to feel the tingling of my arm loosing feeling and all known possiblity of serving, and staying atached, I say"Paul please roll over so I can go home now"

this actually happened recently but please don't hate me for it. I was belaying Gar on Us and Them at Torrent and at some point looked down to realize that i had clipped into the Grigri biner into the webbing that was girthed thru my tie in loops instead of my belay loop. with my belayer at the second or so bolt, i didn't really know what to do cause i didn't want him to freak out. i realized i had another locker on my harness and clipped it through the belay loop and then through the Grigri biner. when i told Gar once he got down he was admitted that he had heard the biners clicking and was a bit confused/concerned about what i was doing.

oh yeah, and that time i got to the first bolt on Tuna Town (the first and only time i've ever gotten on the route) and Jen kindly let me know that i hadn't tied in

allah, for thre record.. you were too drunk. i had to do all the work..

As far as near misses go, the Regular NW Face route on Half Dome was very interesting. As the beast cools down at night the rocks start to fall. I predict the entire upper portion of the route will fall off within a few years. Throughout early evening on the pitch 6 bivy I heard many rocks whiz by. Some were big some were small. You knew it was big if you heard it hit below. The sound is indescribable unless you have heard it for yourself. A big rock falling from 1000ft above you and passing at terminal velocity (~300 mph). At first it sound like a faint buzzing sound then it starts sounding like a bullet as it nears and it's very loud as it passes you. Probably some sort of shock wave, sound blast, as it passes is the best way to describe it. It was rough to fall asleep that night until everything cooled down sufficiently. Others have the same stories that have climbed it recently.