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Biggest/Nastiest whipper with no sad ending 23-Sep-2010 At 1:53:47 PM bluey

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On 23/09/2010 kg wrote:
>On 22/09/2010 bluey wrote:
>>I've regurgitated my Lamplighter tale to many a fellow climber - my mate
>>took a whipper while I was belaying - in short, she got off route on
>the
>>second pitch about a couple of metres before the top of the pitch (crazy
>>offwidth that other lost leaders had confusingly chalked up), peeled
>off,
>>a couple of pieces popped and she ended up level with me at the belay
>ledge
>>at the end of the first pitch. Scared the bejeezers out of both of us.
>
>This might be related to Bluey's story and happened about 2 years ago
>at Araps, involved 2 girls and 2 pieces of gear popping. Otherwise, here
>is another Lamplighter story.
>
>I was about to lead the last pitch of Judgement Day which traverses slightly
>below Lamplighter when I heard a loud crack. My belayer and I looked up
>to see a helmeted girl falling head first straight past us. I thought they
>were on the third pitch according to the guidebook and the fall seemed
>to go on forever. 20m would be a conservative guess because by the time
>she stopped falling she was well below where we were sitting.
>
>Fortunately the cliff below Lamplighter drops away so there was nothing
>but air to hit. If there were rocks this one would have been a fatality.
>
>To the girl's credit, they got straight back on the climb to recover their
>gear.

Yep that would be us. It was a long drop for sure and seemed to go on forever. I was just happy to see my leader swing around and give me some healthy eye contact when she stopped falling.

We did alot of pfaffing after that to get down and recover some of the gear but ended up coming back the next day to recover the rest. I led the offending pitch in the end, and crapped myself the whole way remembering the events of the day before.