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Stupidest thing youve seen? 8-Sep-2005 At 5:01:21 PM dr_fil_good

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On 8/09/2005 Sabu wrote:
>come on, with all the experienced climbers in this forum there must be
>some more stories!!

Mmm, no climbing stories come to mind but one with a bunch of cavers I hadn't been out with before - we were in the Bluies doing a cave that had two SRT pitches in it, the first you squeezed through a through a very very very tight squeeze and dropped out on abseil down a 5m vertical and the second was about 15m on a steep slope. Two of the guys were newbs and had supposedly just recently done a basic srt course and the other claimed to be experienced in srt. Only the 'experienced' one had a harness so I had to lend my only spare and the two newbs would have to share it - the 'experienced' guy had a fig of 8 which frustrated me but I let it slide because I wouldn't be able to do the cave by myself (for safety reasons). BTW, Newb #1 only has a $2 hand held torch from cunnos so I leant him my spare headlamp

Incident #1: First pitch, newbie #1 ties in his fig of 8 wrong (even though I leant him my reverso for the abseil and 'Mr Experienced' supposedly checked his device) when he goes to abseil off it locks up. Newb #1 lets go of his belay and clings onto the rock above him for support (fortunately I'm down the bottom on fireman) I yell up to 'Mr Experienced' to put Newb #1 on a prussik but 'Mr Experienced decides to ignore me telling me he knows what he's doing and takes Newb #1's device off (now Newb #1 has nothing but his hands to support him!!!) re-arrange the fig of 8, put him on belay and send him down ... so commenced lecture #1 from me

Incident #2: First pitch, newbie #2 abseils down just fine and this time on my reverso (thank you) but when he gets to the bottom I find that the harness straps hadn't been backed up. When 'Mr Experienced' came down he tried to explain to me that it wasn't necessary. So commences lecture #2 from me

(By now I'm having a bad day and am not enjoying the cave and to be honest I don't remember any of the features there-after 'cause I was so peaved that I'd been dropped with two newbs and a know-it-all who didn't know jack)

Incident #3: Second pitch Newb #1 and Newb #2 have paid attention to me (but are still annoying grommets who have hopefully wisened up since then as I know they still drift around Bluies Caves from time to time). However, 'Mr Experienced' gets to the bottom of the pitch and I see that he's clipped into his gear loop!!!! FFS!!!! It was only rated at 6kg!!!!! I was PEAKING!!!!!!! If that was on a vertical pitch he probably would be splat right now.

When it came to returning I prussiked (spl?) the pitches then set up a z-haul line with a footloop and locking bina on it - there was no way I was going to let those guys set up their own prussic!!!!!

Short of being flash flooded in NZ and the time I got lost in a cave in good ol' Adelaide: I don't think I've ever had so many scary situations in a single cave trip!!!

Fortunately the rest of my trip was excellent and I had very few other hassles other than a few more annoying people in some parties and some guy who didn't shower and smelt like it too!!!