Best Of Mountain Project: The Worst Climbing Day You’ve Had

Photo by Marc Daviet 

Up next on The Best Of Mountain Project, a collection of my favorite posts from great threads, What’s the worst day of climbing you’ve ever had? Climbing can sometimes be type II fun, or as forum user, Leo Paik said, “retrospective fun”. Here are a few prime examples…

Tony B: 

No specific order, but a few come to mind.

April 1996. I was dropped while on lead on one of the Elephants and fell 8 meters flat on my back on a ledge. Yes, people do truly bounce, but just once. I actually felt my head compress and bounce back up. Bruised ribs, chipped bones in one heel, concussion, etc... I was NOT wearing a helmet. I soloed for about 4 months after I recovered, but would not climb anything significant with a partner. In retrospect, I had a nice time learning to aid-solo in Zion.

January 3, 1997. Cleaning up brains off a ledge in Eldo, then coming home and finding out that they belonged to a friend. An account in this was published in R&I last year called "Nobody I Knew." In retrospect, I learned that "No man is an island, entire of itself. If a clod is washed away from the main, Europe is the less".

July 3 1997 (1996?) shoot, I don't know, but it was the day the storm wiped out the Redgarden Trail in Eldo. I was 1/2 way up D7 on the Diamond. It felt like standing at the end of a driving range, getting pelted with golfball-sized hail and about drowned besides. Since we bivied at and rapped in from Chasm View, we had to go back up there to get all of our stuff after rapping to the lake. This involved a huge amount of B.S. in bad weather. In retrospect, it taught me respect for mountain weather. Plus, I lived.

Thanksgiving 2001, getting stuck at the top of the First Flatiron soloing and not being able to downclimb because of snow plastered to the backside. I was able to downclimb to about 40' up the backside well North of the standard slab, but RMR had to toss me a rope to rap down from there. It ended up in the local paper, then in USA Today... where my parents read about it. In retrospect I learned that getting up a climb is not the same as getting down it when soloing.

Thanksgiving, perhaps 2002 or 2003, forging my way up off route on Babes In Thailand in Snow Canyon State Park UT. About 400' of new climbing without a bolt kit and largely runout. Complete with a 1000-lb. boulder turning loose while I was climbing there. Getting DOWN was the hard part. I managed to lose nothing but a full set of hexes and some biners (rapping off in spots) In retrospect, I learned that on larger climbs, a headlamp is a must, even if you do finish the route in the light, you have to get back down. One might observe a theme here- that Thanksgiving is apparently not my weekend to go climbing.

July 2004. I survived one of the worst electrical storms I've ever been trapped in on Childhood's End on Big Rock Candy Mountain. My partner's vague description of this is posted on this site under the route description comments.

June 2005. After climbing and more or less on the way back to the car (10 meters away) I was fooling around jumped down to the trail. I ended up with my foot sideways and lodged between two semi-buried rocks (immobile) and then fell over with it stuck there. I ripped up so much anatomy in that foot that I passed out and crapped my pants. I spent my summer disabled. I've since gone back with a sledge hammer and pick-axe and removed the offending rocks, which by probably no coincidence broke someone else's ankle just 1 week later. In retrospect, I learned a few things that day too.

1) Don't fool around even close to your car.

2) Ligaments take a year to heal (I still run with a limp and can't jam thin cracks)

3) I have amazing pals who will literally carry me across a scree-field to a cliff to TR-climb on one foot if I can't walk there.

4) If something hurts bad enough, you can pass out from pain.

5) I should always keep a pair of clean undies in my car.

Tom Hansen:

The other day, an acquaintance of mine, after hearing me spew about yet another climbing adventure, asked me if I ever had a bad day climbing. I had to think about this. After reflecting back upon thirty-four years of pulling down, a memory of one particular day did stand out.

It was on a typical hot and sunny day at Castlewood Canyon, perhaps ten or more years back. The usual crew, The Boys of the Wood, were there, Mike, Scott and Steebo.

We had spent the first few hours bouldering and decided to head over to the east rim to do a few sporty climbs near Patrick Hedgeclipper at The C-Section. I decided to jump on The Korbomite Maneuver. All was going smoothly until I was approaching the anchors when suddenly the rope popped out of the last draw. Dang, I shouldn’t have placed that bolt so close to the corner. Now I was looking at possibly decking on a ledge about fifteen feet below. I needed to concentrate, but it was difficult because of the commotion taking place below me. While I was on the route, Steebo had managed to catch a rattlesnake. The last twelve feet to the anchors was pretty loose back then, even by Crumblewood standards. I managed to make it to the anchors and lower off to the excitement taking place below.

As I was coming down from my adrenal overload, I was, for the first time, able to take notice of what was transpiring at the base. Steebo was holding his proud catch behind its head and showing it off to the boys, when the serpent twisted its head, freaking out Steebo, who lobbed it in my unfortunate direction. The rattler bounced off my shoulder, inducing from me, the classic “snake dance.”

That day would have to be the closest I’ve come to personally experiencing a bad day at the crags. No one wants to reflect on those times that friends or acquaintances have been injured or worse. In retrospect, the day of the snake dance was really pretty cool, now that enough time has passed to put things in perspective.

When everyone comes home in one piece, there is no such thing as a bad day climbing. Getting rained out, losing a send to a competitor, getting kicked off of a classic line on private property, forgetting your rock shoes at home, even having a rattler thrown at you, are all part of the lifestyle and no reason to get bummed.

Brejcha: 

Decko wrote:

There are no bad days of climbing.....Any day outside climbing in any conditions beats the sofa

What about the day I got pounded with ping-pong-ball sized hail? I never wanted to be inside, on my couch, that bad in my entire life.

Dirty Gri Gri, or is it Gi Gi?:

G, Wanna climb today? J

It was a typical text message I would get from John that summer while I was slaving away in a short staffed, high acuity mental health war zone. His text msg. always seemed to come towards the very end of my shift after I had just finished fantasizing about crashing out on my couch for the rest of my evening. Initially, I would cringe when I saw his text for after work climbing, but the mere thought of climbing off my frustrations made me want to meet up with John.

I'd reply with...J, when and where should we meet? (with some typical non-relevant rambling I usually threw in)G

John's straight to the point text,

G, 4:30 Calico Basin, J.

Here we were several months into our self-centered climbing partnership, as we both had limited energy in those days for anything else. I was torturing myself with overtime in a hard-core mental hospital and John was working 6 or 7 day, (60-80 hour) weeks of awful, alternating shifts as a rigger during an install of a new show on the strip.

Being two people that shared a common desperation to climb when we could, a solid climbing partnership quickly developed between us. I got the picture that being two people with limited time, and a shared desperation to climb, that we sometimes overlooked most weather issues. Too hot, cold, windy, and/or possibility of rain, we'll find somewhere and something to climb. I'd only question the weather when I felt like shopping at Bath and Body Works instead, or when I was feeling lazy. John was always so optimistic and up for the climbing. He'd calmly say, "Let's just head out and see," which usually meant, we'll hike to the base of the climb, then see.

Well here we were, heading up to do a nice two-pitch trad climb called Physical Graffiti in Calico Basin, on a stormy looking summer afternoon. Now we knew it might rain, as I remember we both sort of covered our boots and stuff up at the base of the climb. I watched John move over to a flat ledge to gear up and stash his pack. I remember laughing to myself, of the thought of his stuff getting drenched, in the area he had chosen, if it should rain. I was being a bad girl and just had to amuse myself at the thought of it that day. I found a perfect, rain-proof spot for my stuff, pushed up under a little overhang at the base of the route, and threw my rope tarp over it for extra protection.

We started up the climb, with the weather holding out fine for the first pitch, but as John was half-way up his leading of the second pitch a dark cloud suddenly moved over us, with torrential rain, deafening thunder, and bright flashes of lightning dancing around us. I was a somewhat worried being strapped to the anchor atop the first pitch, pre-occupied with all the metal, especially when the lightning strikes seemed to be moving closer to us. John finished his lead, very quickly, and I started following up the beautiful crack that suddenly turned into a huge waterfall in the pouring rain. I blocked out my fear of the possibility of the waterfall getting any bigger and climbed on. I had to literally submerge my entire head and half my body into the waterfall to remove John's gear. I was lucky to be able to laugh for a split second, as some of John's new cams I removed resembled a mini Swamp Thing with leaves and grass entangled in it. Laughing sure does make me feel better in stressful situations. I laughed again (a nervous laugh this time) as I was forced to straddle the waterfall the whole pitch up, as the only effective way to climb, as I couldn't use the crack. I was very surprised at how good my footwork was and how well my shoes could smear on wet sandstone, especially when climbing fast; more on instinct rather than learned skill, I suppose.

As I neared John who was belaying in a little cave, I noticed that he was looking at me funny. Being a girl who was suddenly aware of a little secret crush I had on him, I was embarrassed, as I imagined I must have looked like a wet dog, or a D-movie zombie reject emerging from the waterfall.

When we walked off, the rain stopped. I was happy but couldn't laugh when I saw my rope bag, pack and boots drenched in mud as I unknowingly put my stuff right underneath the waterfall's path. My stuff was thrown around like a rag doll. Looks like John had the better spot after all. I was jealous that he had warm, clean boots to put on but also glad he did. Besides, I deserved what I got for laughing at him earlier.

Months later, when we became a couple, he told me he had stared at me the way he did that day because I looked beautiful coming up from that waterfall and he wanted me near him in that little cave. What a sweetie!

It turned out to be one of my best climbing days with J.