This weekend, I was about halfway up a T-Wall 5.easy trad lead when I got to experience my first such fall. My last piece was a medium nut slotted into a nice notch.

I was about 6 feet above and 6 feet to the right of two nuts placed in opposition. I hadn't like the way that the large hex was sitting, so I backed it up.

I did not double the medium nut. About 4 or 5 feet higher, my right foot slipped and I started to accelerate downward at 9.8 m/sec squared, minus much friction on my back, ankle, and elbow.

I slid far enough to realize that one or more pieces had blown. Now, the point of the post...

What thoughts have you had while "in transit?"

Mine were:

1. That last nut failed.
2. Will they all fail?
3. Will it hurt when I deck?

(Donna, you made a great catch! Don't second guess yourself.)

No, sir you are an idiot. Stormeh started with the polite ribbing (which is actually a little ridiculous when you actually know Jay's personal climbing history, but that's a side issue) and then a few others, like you, elected to pursue the point.

Now fuck off, you elitist twat. The only people I ever hear slagging on sport climbing are either pros who got their panties in a bunch that the undeclared project they planned on headpointing got bolted, and people who haven't climbed enough to know that its all climbing.

I'm sorry you're so insecure that you feel the need to highlight your imagined superiority.

/climbs almost exclusively trad
//ashamed to call himself a "trad" climber because of the excess of asshats like you

Anyone who pretends that pulling perfectly placed trad gear isn't a distinct and even likely possibility SHOULD stick to bolts.

Just about one of the ony comments that is %100 true in this thread.

This is a truly tired debate. How people keep ending up arguing it is beyond me. It seems to start off innocently enough, with a dig here and a witty comeback there, but then somebody feels like he got disrespected, and all of the sudden sport climbers are pussies.

It looks like there are roughly 400 other threads on this site about how trad climbers are elitist cunts and how sport climbing is for expecting mothers.

Reading comprehension FAIL.
Reread it, and see if you can actually catch what dingus and rocknlice are saying.

Sorry, I wasn't commenting on what those two were saying. The FAIL was me replying to rockandice instead of jt512 and bennydh, or whoever else was stirring up a shit storm.

And hey...I read at a 4th grade level, buddy. More than enough to float to the top in this pond.

Next time try note to quote the people you're not talking to...

Huh? What? Huh? STFU

Huh? What? Huh? STFU

I once fell unexpectedly trying to climb a bigwall in Malaysia. I had a 0.5 camalot in far below because the bolt was rusted that protected the crux. I pulled the crux roof of the pitch, and went to lean back and flick the rope out from under the roof. I was holding a large block that looked attached to the wall but it wasn't apparently. I remember having this sinking feeling in my stomach all of a sudden and my "spidey sense" told me something was wrong. My hand was still on the block, but I was moving. There was a thought of "Oh FUCK this is gonna be a big one!" I just relaxed and the rope caught me about 40' below and I swung into a tree demolishing some almost wrist sized branches. The really sickening feeling came when I realized all that stuff from branches to rocks were slamming down around my GF belaying below. I pulled myself back up the rope and the camalot had slid about 8" out of the crack and was holding me with two lobes. It was almost a REALLY REALLY big fall...

Biggest fall and the most potentially traumatic was actually sport climbing. No gear pull, but blowing a clip plus a belayer error resulted in a 70' head first whistler. I remember there was a ledge about 50' below where I fell. My first thought was "Oh this is gonna suck!" Next thought, "Why haven't I stopped yet." I passed the ledge 50' below and realized it and thought, "Belay failed, I'm dead..." Suddenly I was hanging completely inverted. I grabbed the rope, flipped myself happy as hell on the inside to be alive, turned to my belayer and said calmly, "That is NEVER going to happen again, right?" Half the people at the crag went home immediately after, traumatized. I remember one guy saying, "I've never heard the sound of a human body flying through the air again." I finished the route, refusing to let it get to me. Repeating that clip was one of the scariest things I've ever done climbing, but I finished and lowered...

*gulp*
Sometimes it's worth being the one with the shitty uninteresting stories...

My friend taught me to ask the question, "What would be the more adventurous option?" I'll always prefer to have the more interesting story.

My friend taught me to ask the question, "What would be the more adventurous option?" I'll always prefer to have the more interesting story.

Pro pulls and that is a fact.

Damn, I'm impressed! It was, in fact, the Dragon's Horns on Tioman Island. I tried to climb it back in mid 2008. My buddy Scotty, actually the SAME GUY who taught me to ask, "What would be the more adventurous option," is the first ascentionist. Anyways, I went down there to climb it and it turns out that a mixture of factors played into a lack of safety. The bolts weren't stainless, the proximity to the ocean had its effect, and in sections something was seeping out of the rock that bolts on a few years old had hangers partially dissolved. Since higher up the route there were sections that were aided on the FA and were only bolt protected, gear apparently liked to slide in the cracks due to the crap seeping out of the rock, and the only medium rock quality, I decided to call it day. I finished the pitch and rapped the route from about 3-4 pitches up. Someone really should head back up there with the same titanium glue-ins found in Thailand. I'm sure it'll be an amazing route once that has happened.

Josh