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apeman_e
Nov 28, 2008, 1:32 PM
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So...I suspect that when many of us were learning to climb, we did some pretty stupid stuff i.e. complete misunderstanding of gear, concepts, physics, partners, ect.
Also, some of us are just stupid.
So come clean!- what is the dumbest thing you've ever done rock climbing?
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ddansby1
Nov 28, 2008, 1:43 PM
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Only put one piece of pro in @ The Glass and fell on it from 10 ft above swinging within inches of the ground. That or breaking my leg bouldering.
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sbaclimber
Nov 28, 2008, 1:48 PM
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Waaaaaayyyy back before I and my then climbing partner had any clue what we were doing (and a bit before the internet was even worth using to find porn, let alone good climbing info)...
We tried using "military webbing" (the od green cotton stuff, at best only good for tying a bed-roll together) to set up a toprope anchor, because it was free and "webbing is webbing....right!?"
We wrapped it around a boulder, which wouldn't have even been all that good with nylon webbing, as one of the corners was a fairly sharp 90deg, and we were set to go. 1st (and only for that day) climb, and all was fine....until my buddy ran into a bees nest...
I saw the bees first, and said, "let go, I'll lower you quick". Turns out, I didn't even need to lower him, and he definitely made it to the ground quick. As soon as his weight hit the rope, *snap* the corner of the boulder cut through the webbing, and he dropped. Thankfully, he wasn't more than 10-15' feet off the ground, and only scraped his elbow after falling ass-backwards down the small hill at the bottom of the 'crag' (it was really short, more a boulder really).
Could've been nasty if it had been any higher though.
Definitely taught us very early on to only trust tested and certified climbing gear! ...or at least time-tested...(e.g. knots and such)
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Guran
Nov 28, 2008, 1:49 PM
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After I seconded a climb, my buddy handed me a sling already secured to the anchor. I grabbed a locker and clipped it to my tie-in-loop. (I was using an alpine bod, so no belay loop. Therefore I used the loop of rope from my tie in to attach belay devices etc.)
Next we prepared to rap down. I untied the rope to thread it trough the rap ring.... and felt really stupid when the sling and carabiner connecting me to the anchor fell to the ground.
Luckily this was on a huge shelf so no harm done.
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taydude
Nov 28, 2008, 1:52 PM
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I once let a girl belay me that I had never seen belay before. I get halfway up this sport route, call for a take and nothing. Appearently she knew how to lead belay but didn't really know how to lock off well.
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knieveltech
Nov 28, 2008, 2:36 PM
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Went night bouldering with a bunch of friends on a trip to the New. Every last one of is was roaring drunk at the time so of course we pick one of the highball boulders at Cotton Hill Bottom, since it's close to the road. Did I mention the walk-off was a hairball downclimb over talus?
Two of the guys in the group who where unfamiliar with the area ended up bombing off of the "walk-off" (a 10' to 20' fall depending on where you fell and your angle of descent. One managed to land between rocks unharmed. The other fell off the very top of the boulder and landed in the middle of some cooler sized blocks. Shattered his elbow, six months of rehab, has since quit climbing. 
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wanderlustmd
Nov 28, 2008, 2:45 PM
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apeman_e wrote: So...I suspect that when many of us were learning to climb, we did some pretty stupid stuff i.e. complete misunderstanding of gear, concepts, physics, partners, ect. Also, some of us are just stupid. So come clean!- what is the dumbest thing you've ever done rock climbing?
So...what'd you do?
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apeman_e
Nov 28, 2008, 3:05 PM
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First time I set up a top rope, I tied an american triangle of death with one piece of old webbing on a two bolt anchor. My friend Silas got the rope we used from his roomate, who got it from a friend who had retired and kept it in his trunk all summer and winter. We clearly wanted to die.
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Parkerkat
Nov 28, 2008, 3:07 PM
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hahaha..couple new folks climbing with us once, and had seen them in the gym..seemed like they knew what they were doing..at least for top rope..so I set a top rope route for them outdoors, and asked if they were ok to go from there. They said yes, we've been outdoors before.. I double checked everything on them, Grigri, knots etc. Everything was fine.
10 minutes later as I'm on clip two of a new route down the way, I hear screams for help!..Rap down, run over as fast as I could, only to fine one of them clinging for dear life at the top of the route, while the belayer kept pulling out armfulls of slack!.. She thought the grigri didn't look "right"? ..WTF? and wanted to pull the rope out and re-thread it!!! (which would have been the wrong way had she done it!!!)..and get this, she couldn't figure out how to undo a screw locking biner!...so in the end, you have a moron who can't open a biner, while a climber at the top is in tears clinging for her life while the rope has pretty much been pulled out of the belay device!
- had to slap my gri on quickfast and belay her down myself..
Lets just say I learned to pick trip buddies a little better now!
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a-e-jones
Nov 28, 2008, 3:23 PM
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sounds like another day at rattlesnake point
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Parkerkat
Nov 28, 2008, 3:34 PM
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No Quite..but close..and no, not Nemo either..
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MikeSaint
Nov 28, 2008, 3:39 PM
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Once bailed off of a #9 BD Stopper when I could have equalized another stopper with it.
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socalclimber
Nov 28, 2008, 3:56 PM
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About 15 years ago, my partner and I went to do our first multipitch together. He lead the first pitch. When I got to the belay, I tied in. VERY SMALL LEDGE! We had the rope all tangled at our feet. During the gear sort getting ready for my lead, I went to lean back on the anchor when my partner grabbed me by harness, and said "SHIT, YOU'RE NOT TIED IN!". Sure enough, somehow during the switch over my end was untied from the anchor. I nearly went 130 feet to the deck. No clue which of us did this. It doesn't matter.
Lesson learned? Always know what your partner is doing!
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epoch
Moderator
Nov 28, 2008, 3:59 PM
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Started posting on climbing forums.
[What? Someone had to say it before page two.]
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zeke_sf
Nov 28, 2008, 4:42 PM
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epoch wrote: Started posting on climbing forums.
He has a good point.
Hmmm... one of the dumbest things I've done was the first hanging belay I ever made.
End of the third, classic 5.7 pitch of Nutcracker, I get in 3 pieces. A little paranoid, I back that up with a 4th piece for possible up-pull or what have you. This is, like, one of my first handful of leads.
Anchor complete, I finally call off belay just before pulling up the rope. It takes forever, considering my slinging on the slightly wandering route was a little F'd. It also takes forever because instead of hauling up the rope then putting it into the belay device, I essentially belayed probably 80'-100' of rope through my atc before encountering my 2nd.
Did I mention I was extremely baked at the time? Yeah...
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swaghole
Nov 28, 2008, 4:50 PM
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Not on rock but on ice - but it's still stupid.
I was on lead on a nice line when I noticed my harness kept dropping lower and lower on my ass. When I started the climb, I had my jacket tucked in under the harness but I didn't tighten it too much.
When I got up about 50', the jacket had pulled up enough so it was not longer tucked in. The harness became really lose and the weight of the screws and gear was threatning to pull it down over my ass. Not good - a fall with crampons could easily flip me upside down and I'd fall out of the harness.
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fresh
Nov 28, 2008, 4:58 PM
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big stupid mistakes are usually a cumulation of small stupid mistakes. like:
climbing standard route on whitehorse when it was wet, without a tag line, without having led a route on run-out slabs before, planning to lead every pitch. and there were thunderstorms predicted after 2PM. oh and then dropping my atc, that was stupid. but it wasn't as stupid as recommending my second to use the hip belay over the munter hitch. but I probably did that because I was dehydrated and dizzy because we didn't bring enough water which was also stupid. and then there was taking a steep variation near the end that my second had to climb around.
that was a good day.
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socalclimber
Nov 28, 2008, 5:26 PM
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fresh wrote: big stupid mistakes are usually a cumulation of small stupid mistakes. like: climbing standard route on whitehorse when it was wet, without a tag line, without having led a route on run-out slabs before, planning to lead every pitch. and there were thunderstorms predicted after 2PM. oh and then dropping my atc, that was stupid. but it wasn't as stupid as recommending my second to use the hip belay over the munter hitch. but I probably did that because I was dehydrated and dizzy because we didn't bring enough water which was also stupid. and then there was taking a steep variation near the end that my second had to climb around. that was a good day.
I like this one a lot. That list adds up.
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skiclimb
Nov 28, 2008, 5:27 PM
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Most of my climbing career learning stages were defined by having good background reading and some fantastic mentors...unfortunately sportclimbing wasn't one of those areas..Sport climbing had just started to take off in the US when I got into climbing and most of my mentors were crusty mountaineers and ground up trad ethicists..
One of my early sport leads I didnt have quickdraws and was just using a single biner. It was a vey short route 3, 1/4" bolts on a route with a couple low end .10 moves ending with a right-hand traverse to the anchor.
After the second bolt I heard my belayer gasp looked down to see that one of the biners had come un-clipped. Made me a bit nervous but I could see the moves and felt better finishing than trying to downclimb...
Eventually go to the rap anchor looked down and saw that ALL THREE BOLTS had come unclipped!!! Woulda been a 30ft deck onto boulders!!!
Belayer simply shaking his head obviously pretty scared for me ..yelled up that he didn't warn me because there was no point scaring me if I couldn't do anything about it.
I had to agree and thanked him for not mentioning it when I got down.
Learned about draws the hard-way that day..Well almost the hard way..
(This post was edited by skiclimb on Nov 28, 2008, 5:31 PM)
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apeman_e
Nov 28, 2008, 5:32 PM
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I just remembered...
In city of rocks last year, I led this really easy 5 or 6 pitch slab climb with my gf following. In the middle of the summer, with brutal heat, my gf finishes the first pitch (200 feet), clips in next to me, and realizes she forgot the water at the bottom.
Instead of having her lower me down, I said, "it's easy climbing, we'll be fine, let's just finish 'er up!" Once at the top, we are super dehydrated and and hunting for the rap anchors, covered in these insidious flying ant mutant things which apparently only live at the top of this dome (and in considerable numbers). We rap down the back, hike grueling talus in our climbing shoes around the dome to the front of the slab, and get the water. After a huge gulp, I hurled.
don't forget your water!
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notapplicable
Nov 28, 2008, 6:22 PM
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See my avatar. After finishing a lead I untied and lowered the rope to pull up slings for a top rope but when I got the gear I just tied the rope to my harness with a double over hand so I wouldnt loose the rope. I planed to re-tie it before I lowered but forgot and it came loose something like 25 ft. from the ground while I was cleaning a hex.
Thats about as dumb as it gets I'd say.  Luckily all I got was a broken wrist.
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duncanlennon
Nov 28, 2008, 6:38 PM
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Bailed off a ring piton some army guys left in the 60s. I was on a route that likely hadn't been ascended since then. Raining, moss everywhere, poor pro beneath me... Should have just backed it up, it would have only cost me a stopper.
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scottb
Nov 28, 2008, 7:50 PM
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A handful of things come to mind from when I was learning, but this is the worst:
I went out to a local crag with a friend who was more experienced than I. Only, just barely...
My friend had just bought a set of nuts and he wanted to lead on them. He went up an easy crack, built an anchor and lowered off. I went to TR it. When I got to the "anchor", this is what I saw: two nuts wedged under either side of a boulder perched on top of the cliff and they were slung together with an ADT... At this point I had never built an anchor off of gear but I had read enough to know that something wasn't right. But instead of saying "WTF is this?!!" and topping out and walking off. I just thought: "He climbs trad, he climbs harder than me, he knows what he's doing, it's prolly fine." So I weighted his anchor and let him lower me off. It was fine... but I feel like I lucked out big time.
Moral: when learning don't hesitate to call out your "mentor" if his setup looks like garbage. If he becomes defensive, find someone else to take you out.
Of all the stupid stuff that I've lucked out on while learning to climb, this one, ironically had the fewest consequences, but it makes me cringe when looking back on it more than anything.
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coolcat83
Nov 28, 2008, 8:04 PM
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was setting up a tr with a friend when some high school kids start setting up a rope from a twig of a tree. so we decided to help them set a real anchor, lent them some gear, there was one bolt over the edge and then some placements. while we were there and told them about SRENE and all that. so we climb they climb, my firned has to run to work, so i'm there waiting to break down the kids anchor, so i had to rap over the side of the route to the bolt. ok no problem, i drag my rope over from the climb i was on next to theirs, set the rap, start going clean the bolt and gear, look down and one rope end is about 25feet off the deck, knotted of course, so i quickly tied off that side with a 8 where i was, clipped it to my belay loop. and rapped the other with great difficulty since both strands were in my device and i didn't really have the skills yet to think about unloading the strand. the only thing that saved my ass was the fact that i'm paranoid about rapping so i tied the knot, keep looking at my ends, and had a autoblock backup so i could hang and deal with it. i went home, whipped a middle mark onto my rope (i still feed the ends when possible) and have never rappelled without equaling the ends ever again.
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mushroomsamba
Nov 28, 2008, 8:33 PM
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I've got an equally stupid rapping story. I was at the gunks with my partner doing a very easy route, 2 pitches 5.3-5.4 and we finished no problem. Got to the top and our first mistake was my partner dropping his ATC, no big deal, just used a munter hitch for the rap. The problem came however, when I was rapping after him and missed the rap station due to a complete lack of concentration. I was about 12 feet below it, and had to pendulum my way over to the other rope, unweight what I was on and use a munter to lower myself the rest of the way down. I felt like such an ass to mess up on something I'd done countless times.
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