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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Author
Descents
Bob Saki
12-May-2006
1:43:53 PM
This has been the longest week since I was held tentbound in a blizzard for 5 days a few winters back.

And in order to provide myself and hopefully others suffering the same "long week" syndrome so enetrtainment

It would be good to hear of peoples classic descent stories
such as "got to top of route, no gear, no bolts. Had to lasoo atree and swing across a void etc...."
encapsulating enginuity, luck, orginality or whatever.....................

Sadly I don't really have any to get the ball rolling
and if this topic has been done to death before let me know

Have good weekend folks
Chris

PS - possibly one day someone might like to produce a climbers scrapbook with some of the post and stories that have appeared on this site, with pix.
with a title like "chockstoning - musing, stories and pics from the aust climbing community"


nmonteith
12-May-2006
3:36:16 PM
On 12/05/2006 Bob Saki wrote:
>PS - possibly one day someone might like to produce a climbers scrapbook
>with some of the post and stories that have appeared on this site, with
>pix.
>with a title like "chockstoning - musing, stories and pics from the aust
>climbing community"

Thats a great idea Bob! A project for the future... lets hope some moron doesn't come in and destroy the
posts beforehand.
pablitodawes
12-May-2006
4:36:04 PM
I spent some months climbing in Mexico a few years ago and i have some that come to mind. One involved tarantulas, another involved a 10m fall after a dynabolt failure, but the scariest by far was abseiling off a multi-pitch in Potrero Chico.

I had been climbing there for almost a month and was pretty confident leading 5.11+ or so. My partner Duanne and i had heard good things about a climb called El Sendero Diablo (the devil's path) so, on a warm 30-odd degree morning after a breakfast of 2 pieces of nutella on Bimbo toast and a swig of water, we set out.

The climb was 5 or 6 pitches and in the direct sun, and the ones i had were 5.12 or more. On one of the pitches i followed Duanne up on i managed to dislodge a brick-sized block that resulted in a bruised old feller and considerable swearing and crossing of legs.

By about pitch 4 we had stopped sweating and were starting to rue the decision to climb without sunscreen or sustenence. The final pitch saw us pulling on bolt plates and crying for our mothers.

And then we were at the top. The guidebook didn't actually say much about the climb, it concentrated more on the epics people had had on the abseil down - things like heart attacks and hanging in mid-air for 5 hours - you get the idea. You see the climb followed the lip of this big bowl/cave and we had to abseil into it. Unless you had two 250m ropes, the only way off was to abseil down to the lip, and from there abseil by clipping bolts through the roof (just like a gym) to reach the relative safety of the base of the bowl.

I don't know why i got conned into abseiling the pitch into the bowl, but there i was, clipping and abseiling, and feeling pretty dehydrated and weak. I decided that since i was running out of clips i was probably (probably...) close enough to the wall that i could just clip every second bolt. Unfortunately, in my disoriented state, i misjudged and was unable to reach the next one.

It's not a nice feeling to be hanging in mid-air, the end of my rope dangling 25m below me (100m above the deck), my partner out of view and oblivious to my cries for help 35m above me, and unable, no matter how i tried, to swing enough to be able to grab the next clip. I cried for my mother a second, third, fourth time.

After what seemed like half an hour of swinging, swearing, thrashing, panicking, attempting to prussic up, crying and praying to my mother, i was able to get a grasp of a piece of tat hanging off the bolt. I frantically clipped myself into it, and continued down the line, clipping EVERY bolt. I didn't run out of clips and reached safety, readying myself for my partner.

Because, if anyone's ever done an act of stupidity like this knows, the second abseiler has to unclip what has been clipped. I had to remember to clip in the bottom of the rope to my perch, so that when Duanne had unclipped all the bolts, culminating in a 20m horizontal swing out from the wall, i could pull him back in.

We completed the rest of the abseil without mishap, and when we got back to our gear we downed a litre of lukewarm water each, immediately perspiring like crazy.

Duanne and i decided not to try anything so hard and stupid ever again: i soon returned to the safe confines of Mexico City and Duanne ended up down in South America hiking some 6000m peak in blundstones.
Bob Saki
12-May-2006
5:17:25 PM
classic
worth the wait!!

IdratherbeclimbingM9
16-May-2006
12:19:37 PM
On 12/05/2006 nmonteith wrote:
>On 12/05/2006 Bob Saki wrote:
>>PS - possibly one day someone might like to produce a climbers scrapbook
>>with some of the post and stories that have appeared on this site, with
>>pix.
>>with a title like "chockstoning - musing, stories and pics from the aust
>>climbing community"
>
>Thats a great idea Bob! A project for the future... lets hope some moron
>doesn't come in and destroy the
>posts beforehand.

I agree. Incidentally that is one of the beauties of the 'Short Stories' thread, where many are collated in one location ...

http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.asp?Action=DisplayTopic&ForumID=1&MessageID=8727&Replies=106&PagePos=0&Sort=#newpost

plus view messages ...


sticky
16-May-2006
3:23:40 PM
This story is a bit long, apologies.

Getting off Uncle Ben's in Squish with only one headlamp (Where our hero tries to kill himself and his partner, but Simon saves the day!).

We had been going all day. We we thirsty and exhausted. Simon had fallen several metres just minutes before, and I had completely terrified myself with a moment of deja vu from a recurring nightmare I had been suffering from for the past few years (another story altogether!). Finally, we made the top, in the dark, after 24 hours on the go. I was erratic and slow thinking. I could see the concern in Simon's face, but I didn't know how to snap myself together.

Eight or so abseils, but it was bolted rap anchors all the way - what could be easier? Back in time to have a summit beer at the pub. I led down, prusiks, wearing the tikka and the half the rack; Simon followed. The first several raps were fine, until I rapped down to the portaledge, two hundred metres off the deck. It wasn't there. I had run out of rope; the portaledge had disappeared, the anchor with it.

Through the inky night I made out a patch of reflective material to my right . The portaledge. I had rapped about twenty metres to the left of where I should have been. I wasn't thinking clearly, so ignoring the jumars on my harness I wrapped the rope around my leg and did some running pendulums to get to the 'ledge - desperate, one handed lunges, falling just short (or wide) each time.

Back, forth, back, forth, the edge of the ledge tantlisingly close. With each swing, I heard the ominous scratch of rope rubbing against granite. I vaguely wondered what would give way first - the rope or my patience. I was very worried. Back... forth, rest . Back ... forth, rest, seemingly forever. It was probably twenty minutes, maybe a little more. Simon had fallen asleep.

At last, I grabbed the ledge. Now to reach the anchor, eight feet above. I clumsily climbed up the rope hand over hand, until Simon awoke and told me to use my bloody jumars. With one hand holding onto the ledge I jugged up to the bolts. I was too far gone to work out how to unweight the line I had jugged up, so I fixed the other line for Simon to abseil down and sort me out. I was fading quickly.

Once free I grabbed one of the bags and went back down into the dark. Simon dismantled and packed up the portaledge and pig, following promptly down. After two more raps we we landed on the Flake Ledge, a shiny set of ringbolts marking our progress.

Glad to be out of trouble, I left Simon the headtorch to sort out the gear as I threaded the rope through the rings and lowered into the forest below. We still seemed very high. I remember seeing some young trees growing out from the cliff as I descended into the forest, and wondering if they'd hold an abseil.

I first noticed a problem when I hit the knots at the end of the rope. Bugger. I had packed my jumars in the pig. Simon had those. I didn't have any prusiks. I called out to Simon, joking at first, then slightly panicked. No answer. How the hell was I going to get down? I needed to get up, or Simon needed to get down. I had no way of getting up, and Simon couldn't get down until I got off the rope.

It was pitch black in the forest - I couldn't see the hands in front of my face. Beneath my feet I felt a small ledge of dirt, a foot and a half wide. I felt the rock for some bolts. Nothing.

Then I decided. Simon could lower himself to the trees and set up an anchor there. But first I needed to get off the rope. I took a deep breath and unclipped from the rope. The ledge held my weight. I pressed myself into the cliff, hoped, and waited.

After an age, I heard Simon coming. He had the pig on his back; the 'ledge and poo-tube dragging six feet beneath him, bouncing their way down the cliff. I shouted up to him to explain the situation. I heard him mutter his assent and continue down.
"For god's sake," I sighed, "Please don't knock me off this bloody cliff."

Simon found a small tree clad ledge and lowered the rope (onto my head). I clipped in and rapped off to the ground, thirty metres below. Unbeknownst to me, Simon hadn't trusted the tree. He had given me a body belay, with the tree as backup. Now he dropped the ledge, the pig, everything he had - thirty mertres to the base of the Chief.

He gingerly weighted the tree and abseiled down into safety. We were down. After an hour of stumbling through the forest we reached the campground as the sun began to filter through the trees. The beer could wait.
Bob Saki
16-May-2006
4:01:26 PM
that was a great tale; well told!

There are 7 messages in this topic.

 

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