During a hailstorm high on the cliff, last summer, I was placing and then stepping on pieces of gear to get up to a rap anchor. Take on red / give on blue / take on red / etc. "Climbing on both!" I said, took one step, slipped, and found myself suddenly 5-10m lower.... when 2 seconds before my belayer had my weight on a piece directly at my waist. (So I would have expected a 1m fall!)
My belayer told me he found the rope suddenly slipping through his fingers for a "brief bit" before it caught. I think he wasn't very experienced with double rope techniques and when the fall happened closing his brake hand wasn't automatic.
Not really sure but I was well pissed off about it!
What did not surprise me, was the difference in attitude. Nobody over there took a "shit hapens, uou get dropped, you aren't hurt so get over yourself" attitude.
Actually, look again, there was a little. Expressed differently (not so defensively) as it is here, but it was there in more than a couple of posters.
Plenty of interesting stories - I got a lot out of that.
I'd say that if there's one thing I learned from that thread, it's that even among SERIOUS climbers with, as you say, a less lackadaisical attitude, if you want to climb for 30 years and never get dropped, it may require some exceptional attention.
sadly .... been dropped twice, decked it once, thankfully these weren't from far up. In their defense the people were noobs and I was showing them how to belay/catch. So 10 feet off the ground ... i yell falling... god... the first time... i remember looking at my belayer as I dropped, he was off in freaking lala land and had let go of the rope. BOTH HANDS!! Thankfully I landed it... but I was this close to decking him. I pulled the i-am-going-to-dangle-you-3-feet-from-the-ground-halt on him when he went up the next time, I tied him off walked over to him and explained 'the situation'. something to the effect of "I ever find out you dropped someone, i will have your harness so far up your azz crack you will be tasting your balls for months" ahahahhhaha we laugh about it now.
The time I decked it... just happened to have a friends crash pad. I swung off a flake and the momentum landed me on the crash pad that was far to the right of where we were. I shudder to think of the pain i would have been in had I not happened to land in just that area. Hobbled away with a shortness of breath and a nasty set of bruises on my back side.
I do agree there are alot of careless climbers out there. From a young age it was drilled in me check check and double check. yet more often then not when I go climbing with friends at the local crag we are the only ones that are double checking the other persons gear as well as our own, and the only ones that are using all of the vocal cues etc... I don't know if it's that none of these people were taught this stuff, or they have just become lazy. I have even seen a supposed 'experienced' climbers harness come undone when he was 25 feet in the air on a toprope. Turns out he had neglected to double back, such a stupidly simple thing to check.
But I tend not to climb with too many nobs. I try and screen. Here's one I posted last year in April at the start of the evening afterwork climbing thing that caught me some flak.
Short technical note: I figure that posting my rant thing here for everybody, just once, might be better than PMing everyone. As it’s a new year, with new folks, I want to restate my terms and conditions. Sorry if you heard this before. I don’t know the skill levels of people tomorrow so I’ll repeat.
I only have 1 major issue. Safety. As such, I give and expect 100 percent perfect belays. 100 percent perfect means: good communication, ground checks for every climber/belayer, and brake hand on the rope ground to ground round trip for any climber off the deck who thinks they are on, or should be on, belay. If you've ever seen a person dropped by their belayer, you witnessed a less than perfect belay. Might have been a 99 percenter, hard to say, but it was less than 100 percent.
1 really don't give a rats ass if you can outclimb me, welcome to a huge club if like most people you can. I don't care. I don't want to hear anyone say it's just top roping either. I choose to be safe and as part of that refuse to climb with anyone who expects to do less. If you don’t like what I’m saying here, don’t show up. Last year the rescue crews were called out for 10 cliff incidents, most in the area we will be in. Every Fucking one of which was avoidable, except that somebody chose to not be safe. Don’t think this can’t or won’t happen to you. I once carried out one of the most experienced Oregon climbers who had just finished the easy White Rabbit 5.3 down climb and while turning on relatively flat ground, banana-peeled on the wet mud and seriously pitched. The hospital stay was like a month or so with the broken ribs, punctured lungs, surgery to remove the spleen and permanent pins added to the wrist a week into the stay with more surgery. No one is immune and it’s a choice we can make. I free solo out here sometimes and it always shocks and surprised that rare person who sees me toping out - I’m fine with you doing so too, best not this time of year with this group please, let’s let it dry out and clean off some.
I don’t want to teach belays either. If you don’t have your Sh*T together, don’t come out expecting that somebody will help you to get it together. Make arrangements with somebody else some other time, I’d rather solo. I like to get set up efficiently and rapidly to get maximum time to get pumped. That might mean running up 3 laps in a row without untying and/or down climbing. Given the time constraints, it’s not a good time to be dogging a route unless you have a belayer who’s toasted out and done in, and nobody is standing at the base: rock shoes on foot tapping hoping for another shot before dark. You want to smoke a bowl or drink some beers, pretty common and fine by me, stay in control and don’t get sparks on my rope or (more) glass on the ground is all I've ever asked.
If you haven’t choked and blown spit on your screen due to my arrogance thus far, I’m driving from Beaverton and should be there @6 pm. Directions to Silver Bullet are thus: as John said: After 3 speed bumps the road bends slightly right and passes a big tan dome building. Park past the big tan dome building, @ 100 years before the hard right turn, and cross the road to the north into the woods and walk c. 100’ east paralleling the road. You should immediately pass a tunnel on your right that goes underneath the road, @ 20 steps further there is a trail that branches left, head left out to the cliff edge (another 25 feet or so) and you should be able to gaze down to some anchors below. (Going straight is a very safe and gentle walk to the bottom. You could curve around and meet up with folks below if you don't want to jump on the fixed line).
Communication from the top to the bottom is very difficult. There is some white water rapids or something further below, and the continued roaring sound never abates and is very difficult to overcome. The hand signal for advising a belayer that you are over the edge, tied in safe and can be taken off belay is a wave of the hand for instance. Planning the hand signals in advance is a good idea. If my finger points down and makes a circular motion after I've topped out, that means please lower me. A fist means stop. Might want to clean some crap off so your trip up is cleaner, or perhaps reclimb a section that felt particularly great or difficult.
As there is plenty of slippery wet mud, leaves and winter moss buildup, I suggest we tie off a fir and rap to the ledge below, set up the climbs and then rap the same line the rest of the way down. I rarely do this at this location, but this would be the time to rap IMO. It might be dry, but probably not. I have beater rope and don’t mind getting sap on it. You show up and see a light blue Maxim tied to a fir, feel free to rap on it, don’t ask permission. Side note: out here it's common to see a single party have 2, 3 or 4 climbs set up, tradition is that you can climb on their ropes. Nice to ask first.
If you feel insecure on a single line rap and want a fireman’s belay, glad to do it, flip the rope around till some enquiring person at the base walks over below you and looks up, point or shout and we’ll pull on it to slow you down if you have a crappy rap device and/or hate single rope raps. Tossing an identical sized 2nd carabiner in most atc devices helps slow you down too.
As this had been a active rock quarry, many of the anchors are into large blocks. We had a winter with some freezing; I always, but especially now, like to back up all the anchors with a backup rope tied solid to a fir or a rock further back. I have plenty of sections of retired ropes to do this. Bring your climbing ropes and personal gear, some lockers and such if you have it. Should be plenty of gear and ropes if you don’t own that stuff, so no worries.
If you want to warm up bouldering, you might drive to the top and jump on some of the short man-made stuff up there. It's pretty good.
Have fun, be safe, and see you tomorrow.
PS, 2-4 is a great number of folks, I usually bag off if I see lots of cars and it's a big group, please don't be offended if that occurs. It's me, not you.
Any of you last years or before dudes gonna show? Ivan, Paul, B-rock, Ron, Dan, Pete, Roberto, Kirby, T?" _______________________________________________-- BUT, the upside is that no cascadeclimbers group which I've been with has had an accident and people are remembering that safety trumps climbing with style. These are people just randomly hoking up online at a local area to TR after work for an hour or 2 until dark during the weekdays.
Last year I caught a girl about to unclip and lean back on the top of the cliff who had threaded the rappel device and clipped the biner to the rap device, but the carabiner was not conected to her harness. It would have hurt had she lived.
(This post was edited by billcoe_ on Mar 6, 2007, 4:20 AM)
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