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Stupidest thing youve seen? 18-Dec-2003 At 8:22:40 AM Jimbo

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Picture this....two young adults arrive at Werribee Gorge and ask us where is Snatch and Grab as they had no guide book. Cool I showed them the line and they proceeded to setup a top rope.

After no rope below (we were top roping Barbra Streisand) and a brand new static rope comes over the cliff close to hitting us, we see its attached to one biner to their "setup rope".

They came back down and did not acknoweldge the 'thanks for the warning mate!' comments we made. They obviously were not capable of climbing a 17 let alone a 20 so were doggin the route, even clipped a draw into a hanger for a hold and promptly fell off and had problems getting back to retrieve this draw. Oh did I mention that the belayer (a learner) was not really on the ball and the climber regularly fell 1 - 2 metres onto a static rope!

After deciding to pack up and get out of there before they killed themselves we started to pack up our anchors and what a sight.

Their setup rope had two anchors. The primary 'bomber' was tied to a dead tree branch approx 1.5 metres off the ground AND approx 3 metres along the branch from the trunk! The second was a prussik cord attached 90 degrees to the direction of pull and the loop just drapped around a movable rock!

Anyway the best part was these young adults came up to the top of the cliff to ask questions about our setup. Our only advise was dont so any more setups until they did an anchors course with someone or join the VCC.

They were keen climbers and hopefully they were properly taught before getting seriously hurt.