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Wierd stuff found on climbs


deadbudgy

28-Jun-2012
3:06:21 PM

On 28/06/2012 Reluctant wrote:
>Monkey at petchaburi. Not happy not cute. Found out why guide carried
>a length of steel pipe. Only told after about b virus.

Monkeys are only cute when they are on tv. In real life they are angry and scary and usually infectious.

kieranl

28-Jun-2012
3:07:01 PM

On 28/06/2012 climbau wrote:
>
>Does finding M9 halfway up Devilled Cream at Buffalo count?
Only if you threw him back.


climbau

28-Jun-2012
3:38:07 PM

On 28/06/2012 kieranl wrote:
>On 28/06/2012 climbau wrote:
>>
>>Does finding M9 halfway up Devilled Cream at Buffalo count?
>Only if you threw him back.
M9s are only interesting when they are on chockstone. In real life they are angry and scary and usually infectious. Unfortunately, he proved quite feisty and clung to the rope. Shoulda had that steel pipe Reluctants guide had.

dmcg

28-Jun-2012
3:40:25 PM

Two metres from the top of Bougainvillea in Spider gully, Hayes Creek, NT pulled up to eyeball a red and yellow banded snake in a large hole. I’d previously heard that Hayes creek was a known hangout for death adders so pretty much shat myself. Scrambling down the steel rungs to the access the supa fun happy area at Wingello moved within inches of a large python before seeing it, then 15 minutes later saw two smaller but much nastier looking snakes in a small cave a couple of metres off the deck on drank the Slab. Both these trips I was climbing with bill begg who back in the Jurassic era I’d belayed on a climb at the cloisters when he got bitten on the finger by a tiger snake while leading…I’m getting a bit weirded out just tying all this together now…

PDRM

28-Jun-2012
4:29:19 PM

I believe Kenneth's Climb at Berowra is named after a large cranky bluetongue that lives/d in a break half way up.

At that same crag, climbing Fox Pox Sox on bullethole wall, stuck my hand into one of the huecos and felt something large and spiderlike crawl over it. Jumped off screaming like a little girl - not keen on spiders...

P


nmonteith

28-Jun-2012
4:38:49 PM

I reckon the leap away reaction to spiders & snakes is a hardwired evolutionary reflex. You don't consciously think - "snake" than leap away. Your body is already leaping before your conscious mind catches up. Sometimes i mistake a large stick for a snake on a trail and my adrenaline shoots through the roof - then my mind processes what i am seeing a little better and I realize I just got scared by a lump of wood. I'm sure there are some scientific studies on this...


climbau

28-Jun-2012
4:55:02 PM

There was a big brown hairy thing in big pocket at the top of a reasonably high boulder problem I was doing an FA on at Mystery Rocks. I considered the problem was gonna be easy enough that I did it while a mate was brushing a problem around the corner (he had the mats as well). As a result I somehow how resisted the usual response (see PDRM post) and managed to latch the top out hold and poo myself at the same moment.
I never did investigate further. I just let it be.


Groveller

28-Jun-2012
5:21:43 PM

On the way to the plantation area at Mt Beckwirth there is a large Homer Simpson doll hanging from a tree. I imagine some fools have been using him for shooting practice. It is a bit spooky.

ARidgley

28-Jun-2012
5:33:27 PM

At the top of the bolt ladder leading up to the roof on Ozy, circa 1988. There was a bleached Barbie doll, her wrists tied carefully in a crusifix position, stapped to the belay bolts. She died so we could live.

More alarmingly, near the top of the face/slab on The Bolt Ladder at North Head. Stuck my hand in a welcome jug only for about ten thousand Bogong moths to exit it swarming past my face. It's a testament to the exposure of that climb that I didn't let go.

Winston Smith

28-Jun-2012
6:48:39 PM

A few weird things spring to mind:

1. Grabbed a jug inside a crack (Zatidee) at Mt Keira that turned into a Blue-tongue Lizard which I then dropped on my belayer. (lizard ran away apparently unharmed).

2. Dead baby billy goat on Mitch's route Trick of the Light at Historic Wells is not as weird as the creaking wired on flake you need to tiptoe up to get to it.

3. Disappointed never to have encountered the eponymous 'monster' described in the guide and said to live in Monitor Madness at the Wolgan's Coal Mines Cliff, despite a few trips up it.


ajfclark

28-Jun-2012
6:55:16 PM

Very desiccated possum or rat while climbing Braveheart at Mount Alexander.

A year or two beforehand it'd been a lot fresher when Sliamese decided he didn't want to lead it...


JamesMc

28-Jun-2012
6:58:01 PM

Two very large and very unhappy goanas on top of a very small pyramid at The Pyramids. Not a comfortable belay.

JamesMc


shortman

28-Jun-2012
7:56:11 PM

On 28/06/2012 ajfclark wrote:
>Very desiccated possum or rat while climbing Braveheart at Mount Alexander.
>
>A year or two beforehand it'd been a lot fresher when Sliamese decided
>he didn't want to lead it...

Pretty sure it is a possum.


ChuckNorris

28-Jun-2012
8:47:54 PM

I heard an old story that mikl found a pair of shoes at the summit of a climb at the sea cliffs...left behind from a granny that did the jump.

I'd be curious to know the truth (or not) of that story...in any case its either a good story or a great urban myth.

ARidgley

28-Jun-2012
9:26:04 PM

'Plunging Grandmas'?


ChuckNorris

28-Jun-2012
9:47:53 PM

On 28/06/2012 ARidgley wrote:
>'Plunging Grandmas'?

Yep - forgot there was a route name attached to this. Still the Q remains did it happen??


ChuckNorris

28-Jun-2012
10:09:14 PM

Stugang has a story, whilst nowhere near as good as mikl's plunging granny story, it is a story nonetheless. And in the absence of mikls plunging granny story I'll bore you with mine:

Situation: Cleaning a route deep in a gully, on a windy windy day. One of those days where the wind gusts and swirls about you without any sense of direction.

My eagle eye spotted a loose flake that would spoil the experience of the hoard of repeater (Tim, mate glad you loved the route) for this out and out overlooked classic. As I prised off the flake i noticed a few cobwebs, and then in an instant the flake popped off and fell to the ground to leave behind a nest of over a hundred baby spiders living in a large pocket that had bizarrely formed behind the flake.

Next thing one of those gusty windy things blew all of them spiders outa the hole and had them spiraling around me - millions of the buggers were stuck all over me, in my mouth, in my hair and they had those cute little parachutes and all.

Thats about it. I used to hate spiders, but now realize they are an often overlooked source of protein for those living on a budget.

barney800

28-Jun-2012
10:55:14 PM

Nothing to do with me, but this picture cracks me up every time:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.html?id=69486

Reluctant

28-Jun-2012
11:32:18 PM

The spider thing reminds me. Left a work shirt on the line for 2 weeks while away. Running late grabbed it off the line. Put it on just before getting on th train. Felt weird. Woman next to me screamed and fled. Spider nests in shirt had openned. Little spiders and some big ones everywhere. Best way to get a carriage to yourself in the morning.


cruze

29-Jun-2012
6:46:21 AM

On 28/06/2012 dmcg wrote:
Both these trips I was climbing with bill begg who back in the
>Jurassic era I’d belayed on a climb at the cloisters when he got bitten
>on the finger by a tiger snake while leading…I’m getting a bit weirded
>out just tying all this together now…
Thanks for clarifying that description in ACT Granite. Never understood the "pet tiger snake" reference.

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