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rvega
Oct 24, 2003, 12:00 AM
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Last trip I took to Sequoia Kings Canyon my backpacked got skunked and still wreaks! Any good stories out there about getting bit/stung/harassed/dive bombed by critters on climbs?
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davidji
Oct 24, 2003, 12:11 AM
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In reply to: Last trip I took to Sequoia Kings Canyon my backpacked got skunked and still wreaks! Any good stories out there about getting bit/stung/harassed/dive bombed by critters on climbs?
As far as stung, there's this:
Once I was stung by a yellowjacket while belaying in southern Illinois. I was TR belaying from the ground, and handed the belay off to someone else. Didn't have to hand off the belay, but I was glad I could.
As far as furry creatures & packs, there's this:
We returned to our packs one time in the Sierra to find my partner's lunch devoured by rats (or other small furry creatures). He had a sandwich. We saw bits of it on the trail as we approached. I had a sandwich and a chocolate bar. The rats ate a circle from the center of the chocolate bar and left my sandwich alone.
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jookyhead
Oct 24, 2003, 12:15 AM
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Hmm... I got stung by a wasp on the approach to a climb, thats the best I've got so far.
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joeschmoe
Oct 24, 2003, 12:22 AM
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its off topic i know, but you could wash the bag in a 1 cup bakin soda, 1 cup peroxide, 1 tsp dish soap mixture, or use the ratio to whatever you need. it got most of the smell off my dog a while back.
i havent been stung, but do know a guy that got 20+ stings while cleaning a route. poor guy had to tie a figure 8 while batting off yellow jackets...
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rvega
Oct 24, 2003, 12:28 AM
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In reply to: its off topic i know, but you could wash the bag in a 1 cup bakin soda, 1 cup peroxide, 1 tsp dish soap mixture, or use the ratio to whatever you need. it got most of the smell off my dog a while back. i havent been stung, but do know a guy that got 20+ stings while cleaning a route. poor guy had to tie a figure 8 while batting off yellow jackets...
Actually that's great advise about washing the pack. I'll try that since all the conventional wisdom I'd been given (tomato juice etc) seemed like a bad idea for my pack. Thanks.
Ouch on your friend. :(
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mattdog
Oct 24, 2003, 12:29 AM
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In reply to: Hmm... I got stung by a wasp on the approach to a climb, thats the best I've got so far.
Out at Currahee there must have been a local yellowjacket convention... probably due to the vicinity of Georgia Tech. (snicker) While I was belaying, I got stung once on my leg, stepped on it, then another one got caught up in my ATC, so it came back and stung me twice on my arm.
Now I bring wasp and hornet killer. :twisted:
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redpiton
Oct 24, 2003, 12:31 AM
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stuck my hand in a hole on the second pitch of a climb in So. Pennsylvania and got greeted by a copperhead. luckally he was pretty lethargic and I escaped harm, but I certainly warned my second about the new friend I had made.
Also stepped on a copperhead scoping out new routes in the Red River Gorge this June. I figure my next encounter with a copperhead will be the unlucky one :roll: How many chances does a guy get??
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skecthballer
Oct 24, 2003, 12:55 AM
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one time while on a climb a bee came up and stinged me under my right eye
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c_kryll
Oct 24, 2003, 12:56 AM
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What a good topic, should be good for some laughs.
Last Aug. a group of us were visiting Rumney up by the Wiamia (sp?) wall and while we were waiting for some friends to catch up one of them stepped on a wasps nest. As we watched from about 50' away we could see our friends swatting and cursing up a storm, it was pretty funny to watch until they starting running towards us. Then we started yelling at them to run the other way!
My last incident happened at the Del. Water Gap, Pa earlier last month. I was doing an easy climb on the Cat Wall when about half way up the first pitch there was this Black Rat snake curled up in the vertical crack that I was following. Now I'm not partial to snakes while I climb and I decided to go off route about 5' and do some serious face climbing until I passed him. I yelled down to my partner to watch out for our new 'friend' on the way up.
Chris
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brutusofwyde
Oct 24, 2003, 1:02 AM
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Carrying a 90-pound haul bag up the third/fourth class scruffy buttress to the base of West Buttress El Capitan, multiple hornet stings in armpit, groin, neck... turns out I had kicked their burrow. Now I carry an epi pen. Had to abort the attempt.
Mt Waddington, Rainy Knob on the Tiedemann Glacier... Nurse Ratchet and I went up to do some self-arrest drills on a rest day. Got stung by a bee, inside my waterproof rain pants. He must have been attracted to the bright colors (?) and been inside the pants when I put them on.
Stepped over a timber rattler on the descent from South Face Lone Pine Peak. He started rattling after I had passed... Didn't see him. I can see why it's usually the second person hiking in a group gets bit.
Brutus
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strider
Oct 24, 2003, 1:02 AM
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While following the first pitch of After Six on Maunre Pile this summer I found a wasp nest about halfway up. Once I saw them I just started climbing as fast as I could and yanked out the pro as I climbed past. When i got to the belay there were four pieces hanging on the rope on my harness. The funny thing was my leader never noticed a single wasp on the way up, so when he saw me start running up the climb, leaving the pro on the rope and waving an arm around he thought I was crazy.
-n
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hawgdrver
Oct 24, 2003, 1:03 AM
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Deleted
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esoteric1
Oct 24, 2003, 1:34 AM
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I woulda replied to this one but its rvega`s
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flagstaff_climber
Oct 24, 2003, 2:02 AM
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I was stung twice this year at the Oakcreek Overlook. Once I was onsighting a 5.9 trad and about halfway up I reached out to a seductive looking side pull only to have about 15 wasp boil out of it.
They gave pursuit all the way to the ground, but only one got me.
The other was at the crux of a trad route, I gave battle for 5 minutes and got at least 4 confirmed kills before they got me.
The moral of these stories is don't give in to these route hogging buggers, kill as many as you can before they get you :) Hairspray works great, gums up the wings and they fall out of the sky.
Rick
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rokshoxbkr19
Oct 24, 2003, 2:19 AM
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I was free soloing a route during the summer and a wasp flew out of the rock and stung me in my right bicep. I screamed like a little girl. It was really unexpected to feel that up there. Luckily I didn't freak out, but my arm really swelled up. I look like some muscle head, at least my right bicep look really big anyways. :lol:
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boltdude
Oct 24, 2003, 2:53 AM
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Stung 6 or 8 times in the head and neck on top of Middle Cathedral a few years back, my follower ran up the end of the pitch as fast as he could.
Good thing too, ran into a guy with lots of welts about a week later in Tuolumne. He'd been stung by the same yellowjackets at the exact same place, but his partner had still been at the belay, and they returned a second time, so he had around 15 stings.
Broke a hold off on easy terrain on a new route in Owens, and a scorpion ran out and around. So I was holding a 10 pound block in one hand (didn't want to drop it on my belayer), a good (i.e. still attached to the wall) hold in the other, with the little guy running around, luckily he hid in a corner right away. It was only 5.6 terrain, but I was about 40' out from the last pro and it would've been ugly if he'd stung me. We called the route "Scorpion."
Almost got in trouble bouldering along the wall along the Lower Gorge at Smith, trying to avoid bushwacking. Just before I reached into a pocket, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Downclimbed and bushwacked past the 8 or 10 big black wasps hanging out in the pocket...
Just got nailed by yellowjackets again, while backing off from a rattlesnake. That wasn't on a route, but somewhere below Mt. Watkins in Tenaya canyon.
In the Valley, a king snake came down the wall above me, saw me, then did a 180 and went back up the wall.
But the weirdest is the "raining silverfish" in the Valley, happened to me on Central Pillar once, a shower of silverfish jumping off into your face, every time you reached for a jam...not toxic or anything, but annoying, and squishy...
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kimmyt
Oct 24, 2003, 12:54 PM
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Two weeks ago when I was climbing at the Gunks, apparently I got bit by a spider. I didn't see it, but it bit me right in the center of the calf. I thought it was just a skeeter bite at first, but then it got infected and started swelling and got all gross. But it cleared up and I didn't have to go to the doc's.
Other story, which didn't involve getting hurt or anything but reminded me of the silverfish story: I was bouldering (read: attempting to boulder and failing miserably) at this bunch of boulders near State College, PA. They were pretty neat, with all these little tiny pockets all over them (similar to those hueco things). We were all excited cause they looked like great holds: turns out in every single pocket there were two or three insect larva (pupa? I forgot my biology). They were everywhere. It was so nasty we couldn't even attempt it. I couldn't anyway.
K.
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jbird
Oct 24, 2003, 1:05 PM
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In reply to: I was stung twice this year at the Oakcreek Overlook. Once I was onsighting a 5.9 trad and about halfway up I reached out to a seductive looking side pull only to have about 15 wasp boil out of it. They gave pursuit all the way to the ground, but only one got me. The other was at the crux of a trad route, I gave battle for 5 minutes and got at least 4 confirmed kills before they got me. The moral of these stories is don't give in to these route hogging buggers, kill as many as you can before they get you :) Hairspray works great, gums up the wings and they fall out of the sky. Rick
Lysol.
Carry it with you at ALL times!!!!
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keinangst
Oct 24, 2003, 1:20 PM
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I was finishing up my very first 5.10 on TR a while back.
On the very last "10 move", I pulled hard on a 2-finger pocket only to dicover seconds later that I had just poked a wasps' nest. About 4 or 5 came out at the same time, and one managed to instantly find the inside of my lower lip.
I bailed--but as anyone bailing on TR knows, you don't exactly go anywhere. I somehow managed to communicate to the belayer to get me the f**k out of there ASAP :wink:
Spent the rest of the day looking like I had been in a fight 8)
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mistymountainhop
Oct 24, 2003, 1:31 PM
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Yesterday I was sporting a fat 10a route, i reached into a huge pocket and instantly something slimy and wet jumped at me and hit my face. i was totally freaked cause i didnt know what the hell it was. Turned out of was a tree frog. Pretty innocent, but it scared the hell out of me.
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imnotclever
Oct 24, 2003, 1:45 PM
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My first story:
I was belaying my partner's first sport lead on an easy 5.7, when I hear this thud about 5' away from me. It was a snake that must have been sunning it self on the cliff and had fallen off. There are timber rattelers in the area but I didn't see any rattle.
Well not wanting to mess with my partner on his first lead, I just watched the thing to see what is was going to do. The fall must have knocked it out or something because it didn't move until after I had lowered my partner. A couple of minutes later it crawled away as if nothing happened.
My other story:
I have been allergic to honey bees since I was about 3 yrs old. My dad is a teacher and as a summer hobby/job he had about 400 hives. When you need your sons to help with the bees you have to get around this allergy thing. So I used to have to get stung a lot and on a regular basis. This builds up your resistance to allergic reactions.
I haven't been stung since 1994 and have never been stung by a wasp so I don't know if I'd have a reaction.
Let me tell you this, nothing helps you get past the crux move faster than that familliar sound comming from the crack that your hand is in. This happend to me this summer.
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cracklover
Oct 24, 2003, 2:12 PM
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Climbing at the Gunks. Guy on the climb before me freaks out, says there's a snake in the crack, and comes down. His partner goes up to clean the route, and doesn't see any snake (we exchange one of those "he's wacked" looks). My parter leads the route, no problem, and as I'm seconding it, the bat (not snake) decides he's had enough people shoving their hands in his face while he's trying to sleep and bites me, then sticks his head out of the crack and "clicks" at me too. I finished the climb without any more trouble, but let me tell you, those rabies shots are a pain in the ass! (get it? a pain in the... oh nevermind)
GO
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buzzard
Oct 24, 2003, 2:42 PM
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Here is something you can do with your pack. This is what we did. While we were camping one night my buddies pack got sprayed by a skunk. that same night oine of the other campers that knew us, but didn't get along with us told the park ranger that we were smoking some pot. So the next morning we took the pack and put it under his front seat in his car. It took him a while to figure out what it was. But needless to say it stunk up his whole car. Just an idea for ya.
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thegreytradster
Oct 24, 2003, 2:51 PM
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The large ants in yosemite. Nothing like spending a 1/2 hour with them in a belay tree.
I LOVE THE SMELL OF FORMIC ACID IN THE MORNING!
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cracklover
Oct 24, 2003, 2:55 PM
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In reply to: The large ants in yosemite. Nothing like spending a 1/2 hour with them in a belay tree. I LOVE THE SMELL OF FORMIC ACID IN THE MORNING!
If they bite you, bite back! You're bigger than they are, and they taste like little lemon drops. :)
GO
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