RRC Archives

I was climbing a route rhino introduced to me awhile back in the southern region that kinda had a weird finish to a crack climb. I had to place to peices of pro in two horizontals and climb above the gear and make a weird face move to the anchors. Well it was in the dead of the winter and snow had developed on top of the crag and water was dripping on the anchorss and the slab going to thr anchors. Well i kept trying to get to the anchors and i was slipping. the gear was good so i wasnt falling to far. The last attemt though I fell and ripped out a cam that had failed due to the rock breaking. So I took a pretty decent fall there, maybe 15 feet or so, not to bad i guess. well i jugged back up on the other cam to find that it had rotated out alil in the horizontal which freaked me out because if that would hvae failed as I was jugging up I was pretty confident I was gonna fall a long ways. the cams that i had placed after the 25 foot hand crack was marginal and the rock was sorda bad but on easy climbing so i had run it out alil and wasnt worried about it. but like i said i might have zippered out two or three more pieces if this one placed had blown as well.

anyways let me hear some horror storiesd that you traddies out there have encountered.

Fell out of an offwidth roof onto a #4 Camalot which turned sideways after I fell on it. I was close to the ledge where the roof started and my leg was stuck in the crack after I fell. My abs were smoking as I did situps to try and release myself the whole time waiting for the cam to blow and my body to slam back onto the ledge behind me once I did get my leg free. I got it free finally and fortunately the cam held.

Topping out First Fall while trying to find something to use for anchors. I grabbed a mossy ledge with my right hand, turned it into a mantle while reaching for a small tree and my hand slipped. I was on a long traverse with a #2 TCU as my last piece. Fell about 30-40 ft (if you count the pendulum and the number of times I smacked the bulges and the ledges back and forth, it might be more than that). Walked away, or should I say was carried away with only a broken ankle to show for it. The TCU had only one lobe cammed by the time Jared got up there on TR to install the anchors (of course, the anchors were placed way below the chossy part that I was climbing on to prevent the same incident/accident in the future). I was lucky indeed.

Whiney wimp! If it were me I would have finished the route (broken ankle and all). Ha! I can't believe you let a little minor inconvenience like a broken ankle stop you from getting back on and sending that top-out. Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy...

My biggest fall was a 40+ footer on 11:11. I pitched from the top when I tried to mantle on some dead pine needles and leaves mere inches from the massive tree anchor. I fell most of the route, ending up where the face holds end and the crack/roof thing begins.

SCIN, I feel you on getting the leg stuck, though I wasn't on lead. I was doing a boulder problem out in Vedauwoo last weekend called Spin to Win and on one of my early attempts I got my foot lodge in the roof and my abs were burning as I tried to pull my leg out. Jrodan then reminded me I was 6 inches off the ground and could simply sit down and then get my leg unstuck It's still a freaky feeling.

Back when I was even dumber than I am now I started racing up Right of Passage to catch up with this guy on Cruising Lane that yelled down that he'd be finished before I got my harness on. I threw in a cam about 15 feet up and popped off at around 30 feet. My belayer managed to pull in enough slack to keep me about a foot off the ground. It took awhile to sink in but it made me much more careful.

i was jugging a line in the dark while doing the nose. it was a traversing pitch that lead to camp iv bivy or whatever bivy is below the great roof. anyway, i had finished the traverse and was straight below the bivy about 50 feet or so i guess. i was jugging up and couldn't see anything with no headlamp and then all of a sudden the rope gave way and i fell about 10 feet i guess. not far but i almost crapped myself. i thought the rope had cut over an edge or something.

Man, I can imagine how scary that would be. It's enough to make you crap when a biner jumps much less a 10 footer. Was the rope caught on something and slipped off?

i guess it got caught up in the crack or around a flake when i was traversing. i couldn't see anything though, so who knows.