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Australian Landscape Photography by Michael Boniwell
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Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

 Page 1 of 2. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 21
Author
Funny thing happened on the way down the rope ...

Macciza
3-Aug-2015
12:43:16 AM
So ended up rapping down a prospective line today, and needed to drop down 10m to a lower ledge to to find the line and set a re-belay and hope the rope was long enough, but more on that later . . .
Anyway, need to move several metres to the side and maximise everything but looked like it got to the bottom or at least pretty close, but more later . ..
So heading down just a bit out from a slightly vegetated corner that I was trying to pull over to have a look at when 'whoops', a bit of a slip and next thing you know I'm kinda stuck . . .

Or Reasons to trim my beard: Part 1.
So where was I? Oh yeah, stuck half way down the abseil with a rather large chunk of beard caught in my device . . . Bugger! Yeah sure, it has been happening a bit more often of late but mostly with the ATC and usually only a little bit that gets ripped out, from one end or the other, and its all good . .. But this time, no, its my grigri, (an old, death-modded device, with a well developed dynamic ability and slow release function); and a rather sizeable chunk of beard hair with definite bondage tendencies . . .

Now most of you probably know me from my classic 0.75 Purple camelot beard days but these days I'm more a tipped out #4, and this wayward chunk of hair is well set. In fact it was pretty bomber, handled a decent bounce test and probably could have rapped off it (if it want actually stuck in my rap device, but anyway . . .)
Yep, need to get weight off it, hmm, foot rap won't work here, shit, aah, fortunately in anticipation of a possible rebelay I had a biner with a sling and a prusik on it, cool. Hmm, limited vision, hunched over with my face in my grigri, I manage to find it and extricate it, and put the prusik to work, feeling somewhat Simpson-esque as I set the prusik unseen above my head, attached the sling for a footloop, and went to stand up.
Ouch, what the?, are you serious?. Somehow Ive manage to now hook up a bunch of my hair in the prusik which has tightened down near my head. Adding to the hilarity of the situation is that of mission creep, the slow release function had kicked in and has now swallowed most of the chunk of my beard. Now this has definitely become one of the weirder, out there type of situations to find one self in; and a quick scan of my memory of rescue scenarios etc reveals not much specific to this situation so it looked like I was on my own . . .
A quick sit back on the bearded grigri and I could sort my hair/prusik combo out allowing me to stand up and release a bit of the tension on the grigri and extricate a good portion on now recalcitrant beard, before ripping of a reasonable amount of the stragglers just to show it who's the boss around here. Remove the prusik, pocket the chunk of beard as a souvenir and continue down . . .

Hmm, ok, well thats enough drama for today I thought as I headed down to the bottom. Only to discover I was correct, the rope didn't quite reach the bottom, but it did at least end near a decent enough tree ending about 4-5 m off the ground. Although a down climb would be possible the seconder may not be too impressed so I set a quick belay in the tree, call off rope, and start to pull the climbing rope out of my pack before dropout to the ground. The pack that is, not the rope; that I only drop most of, before slinging the end of a main branch notch of the tree and lowering the end to the ground so we could just do a short rap. All good, seconder arrives and although somewhat bemused accepts it as it was pretty much the only solution on offer . . .

Good fun outing for all concerned (except the bit of beard, but we won't mention that).

PS. Oh yeah the route looks like it will go. Bit of jiggery to get past the somewhat wet, somewhat holdless, start but once established its a interesting upward rising, weird, slightly overhanging corner thin inverted crackish thing that heads out to a lip and better gear before heading up a classic, thin corner crack, slightly vegetated in small fern and the occasional very small shrubbery. Should clean up on lead ok. (And repeat ascent will only clean it up further . . .)

shortman
3-Aug-2015
9:30:40 AM
Gold Macciza.
mikllaw
3-Aug-2015
12:17:17 PM
And here we thought the beard was just to smoke on a long bivi.

Eduardo Slabofvic
3-Aug-2015
12:36:02 PM
I feel your pain. If it makes you feel any better, I once got my scrotum caught in a sprung stitch plate.
timbigot
3-Aug-2015
12:39:47 PM
"My point boils down to this: weird sh*t happens when abseiling"
kieranl
3-Aug-2015
2:06:54 PM
On 3/08/2015 Eduardo Slabofvic wrote:
>I feel your pain. If it makes you feel any better, I once got my scrotum
>caught in a sprung stitch plate.

I was going to say "Photo or it didn't happen" but then I thought better of it. Some things are best left unseen.

IdratherbeclimbingM9
3-Aug-2015
2:42:07 PM
On 3/08/2015 Eduardo Slabofvic wrote:
>I feel your pain. If it makes you feel any better, I once got my scrotum caught in a sprung stitch plate.

C'mon Ed, I thought you'd been round long enough to know that classic abseiling rope-between-legs method doesn't involve a new-fangled sticht plate device...




Macciza, your new line sounds great!
Bugga about the ouch on the recce though.
Glad you didn't call for a helicopter rescue too!!
;-)

Macciza
3-Aug-2015
3:25:52 PM
I thought about rescue ops, but my phone had no reception, my emergency flare is just a joint container, the PLBs batteries were flat, and the satellite phone insisted it needed a system upgrade. My radio link to the top was just static and for some reason I had failed to pack my ham- radio gear...
So yeah it did cross my mind, but I couldn't bear the embarrassment of anyone finding out ....

IdratherbeclimbingM9
4-Aug-2015
1:56:54 PM
Attention M75.
You might need to inform the hirsute hippies you know, about the dangers outlined in this thread...

IdratherbeclimbingM9
10-Aug-2015
1:26:28 PM
On 3/08/2015 Macciza wrote:
(snip)
>Good fun outing for all concerned (except the bit of beard, but we won't
>mention that).
>
>PS. Oh yeah the route looks like it will go. Bit of jiggery to get past
>the somewhat wet, somewhat holdless, start but once established its a interesting
>upward rising, weird, slightly overhanging corner thin inverted crackish
>thing that heads out to a lip and better gear before heading up a classic,
>thin corner crack, slightly vegetated in small fern and the occasional
>very small shrubbery. Should clean up on lead ok. (And repeat ascent will
>only clean it up further . . .)
>
Reminds me of another of your outings...

OodlesDownHere
11-Aug-2015
7:44:58 AM
On 3/08/2015 Macciza wrote:
>I thought about rescue ops, but my phone had no reception, my emergency
>flare is just a joint container, the PLBs batteries were flat, and the
>satellite phone insisted it needed a system upgrade. My radio link to the
>top was just static and for some reason I had failed to pack my ham- radio
>gear...
>So yeah it did cross my mind, but I couldn't bear the embarrassment of
>anyone finding out ....


Reminds me of the day my PLB and GPS didn't work because they were reprogramming the satellites. Can't wait for the polar flip.

Snacks
11-Aug-2015
5:00:15 PM
On 11/08/2015 OodlesDownHere wrote:
>On 3/08/2015 Macciza wrote:
>>I thought about rescue ops, but my phone had no reception, my emergency
>>flare is just a joint container, the PLBs batteries were flat, and the
>>satellite phone insisted it needed a system upgrade. My radio link to
>the
>>top was just static and for some reason I had failed to pack my ham-
>radio
>>gear...
>>So yeah it did cross my mind, but I couldn't bear the embarrassment of
>>anyone finding out ....
>
>
>Reminds me of the day my PLB and GPS didn't work because they were reprogramming
>the satellites. Can't wait for the polar flip.

GPS can handle a polar flip no worries.
martym
12-Aug-2015
8:00:24 AM
On 10/08/2015 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:
>Reminds me of another of your outings...
>
>

On 11/08/2015 simey wrote:
>Come with me and I'll show you my Totem Pole.
Reluctant
22-Aug-2015
1:59:12 PM
Please name the climb "barber of the hill" or "beard eater" or similar. Too funny.

JamesMc
22-Aug-2015
8:17:43 PM
Did you forget your abseil knife?

Macciza
6-Sep-2015
8:35:36 PM
And fun happened going back up the rope/rock . . .
Posting here as followup on the climb and as potential accident/injury warning . . .

Anyway, I had left the rope there since the last visit so with a quick re-rig I knew it would reach the ground this time and was able to avoid any hair-razing incident whilst giving the top corner a quick clean of some dirt, moss and assorted small greenery, in search of gear and found sufficient to make it somewhat sensible .. . .

Accessing the start of the route was more problematic though - it being wet and devoid of holds about from some diagonal greenery in the wetness that may have been nailed previously, when not green or wet... Or maybe they started to the left in the now green and damp start to the route to the left, hmmm....

Well, at least we can sling the prow of the ledge at 4m and jug up to it. A large stick came in handy to place some 7 or 8mm cord over the ledge though its prefer position was cutting it fairly fine, with maybe several cm of cord on the ledge, only 20mm from the corner on side in a slight not and about 60mm on the other side. The point had short 80 degree slab beneath then is cutaway by wetness.

Using Zac as a counter weight I was able to jug up the other side to just before the lip, where progressing onto the 600mm slab would disrupt the tenuous grasp of the rope. The whole time whilst jugging I was trying to keep my unused leg in position, and body in general position, to be able to absorb the impact should I fall., seem sensible.. So I had done all this in my approach boots so had to sit there for a while and change into rock shoes in order to safely pull the final moves onto the ledge and the good looking placement that had sat out of reach until then.

As soon as I pulled on for the mantle move my safety/ascent line fell away but it was a simple move to grab some jug side pulls and pull up onto the ledge and plug some bomber gear, and get on belay. The cord has been knotted and jammed into a placement for to make further attempts a bit easier . . . .

Cheers

PS. Only had my climbing knife and didn't want to cut the rope as I was a bit attached to it . . .
technogeekery
18-Sep-2015
12:28:14 PM
Great story Macca :-)

>>The cord has been knotted and jammed into a placement for to make further attempts a bit easier

Yeah, um, can't wait to get on it.

Macciza
18-Sep-2015
12:35:26 PM
On 18/09/2015 technogeekery wrote:
>
>can't wait to get on it.

Great, this weekend?? Even if it rains the bottom half is covered, only the sketchy upper bit might be a bit wet, but it needs a bit of a clean anyway . . Got any #000 C3's? A few extra might be handy . .
Jayford4321
18-Sep-2015
6:55:14 PM
On 6/09/2015 Macciza wrote:
>A large stick came in handy to place some 7 or 8mm cord over the ledge though its prefer position was cutting it fairly fine, with maybe several cm of cord on the ledge, only 20mm from the corner on side in a slight not and about 60mm on the other side. The point had short 80 degree slab beneath then is cutaway by wetness.

Wtf Rya talking about?
Cut to the chase and say ya jugged the first pitch.

>I was trying to keep my unused leg in position, and body in general position, to be able to absorb the impact should I fall., seem sensible..

So you end up as a one legged cripple? Good strategy mate, as then you'd fit right in with the bouldering scene.

Miguel75
18-Sep-2015
7:22:03 PM
On 4/08/2015 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:
>Attention M75.
>You might need to inform the hirsute hippies you know,
>about the dangers outlined in this thread...
>☺

As fate would have it, my hirsute friends are all falling victim to male pattern baldness;)

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There are 21 messages in this topic.

 

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