Read this and be safe. Please.

[brice618]

Ok so I've sat on this for a few days now just thinking about it and figured I'd share with the rest of the mags.

Story:

A good weekend for climbing though a little rain was going to be in the area, we decided to head from Lubbock down to Enchanted Rock (near Austin, Tx). I wanted to do some trad and work on my slab climbing technique and also get out with another friend who had only been gym climbing and show him the 'ropes'. Well, as we had feared, it rained on us the first night (which was also a story of camping on the side of the road in our cars because the camping sites were all taken by a boy scout troup who weren't actually using them) and some that morning, leaving everything fairly damp and forcing us to find some dry boulder problems for the morning.

By noon, things were starting to dry out enough to get on ropes, though it was still kind of sketchy on slab climbs with less friction than normal, so we picked out a fairly easy lead to get the new guy some climbing in. I spent the better part of 20 minutes leading the 70ft route as it took a lot of coaxing to get myself to trust my feet on the still damp granite, especially when it became slightly run out to the anchors.

So I get down and start to eat lunch, while in the meantime another group had come up and started to climb about 30 yards to the left of us. As I relax and watch the new guy start climbing I begin to watch the guy on the left of me get up to a ledge, and by ledge I mean maybe 4 inches of good foot and a decent spot for hands, and start conversing with his belayer and other members of the group. I overhear something about him not seeing any bolts or anchors above him and I kind of kick into "what the hell is he doing" mode. As I listen I hear one of his buddies ask if he is OK to stay where he is on the ledge for a while, and he says he is alright. Then there was some conversation between the others down below that I didn't hear and the next thing I see is him leaned over on the rock, pulling out rope from beneath, effectively taking himself off belay, and then tossing it to his right. I realize a few seconds later what is really going on when he pulls a trad rack up from the slack he just tossed over. He was obviously on something he shouldn't be on and didn't have the skills to be on.

This is when I decide it is a good time to intervene. I probably should have done it sooner, but I didn't realize the ignorance of the climber/ group until then. I run over to their belay position as quick as I can get there, and ask them what the situation is, though once I got there I saw the immediacy. He had climbed up 20ft to the first bolt and clipped that, then climbed up another 30 ft to the "ledge" he was on now and sketched out over the runout of the route.

I assess what I have the ability to do and tell them I'll ascend the rope we I just fixed and set up an anchor and belay him from above to safety. I then run back to our rope and sling a rope and anchor building supplies to myself and quickly hand over hand my way up our rope before having to run the top 30 from our anchor to the top of the ledge out, fortunately it was a very mild class 5.



From there I traversed over and found a nice rock to use for a wedge and decided this would be sufficient enough for belaying the stuck individual as I didn't want him to spend any more time than absolutely necessary without being on pro. I found a set up rap anchors about 25 feet away, and proceeded to feet the rope through and flake enough rope out to throw him a new line. This is where I realized the gravity of what I was doing. If I missed and he lunged, or hit him with the rope and knocked him off balance, he would fall and most likely get injured severely or die. So, I said a little prayer and made it clear I didn't want him lunging or making anything more than a small movement to get the rope and then tossed. Things kind of went into slow motion at this point, the end of the rope with figure eight on a bight tied to it landed 3 foot above his hand and draped itself right between his arms. I couldn't repeat that throw in 10 years of trying, but I was more focused on him getting safe at that point. He was a little confused as to what to do with the rope and I instructed him to get the locking carabiner from his tether and attach it to the rope and that to his belay loop, I would have put a beaner on there to begin with, but I didn't want to hit him with it or crack the beaner and put him in a worse position.

He attaches the beaner and I instruct him to climb up if he thinks he can as it would be easier for me to just belay him up in the position I'm in, but it quickly becomes clear that he won't be able to do that, so I tell him to weight the rope slowly and traverse over below me. He does this and I slowly start to lower him while keeping myself between a large boulder and the ledge.

I then hear some sort of commotion, but cannot see what is happening as he has gone over the ledge and out of my view. Well then I feel another weight on the rope, and call down to one of my friends who was trying to deal with the issue to find out what is happening as the bumbling idiots on the other team don't seem to find it necessary to inform me of whats going on. My friend yells to me and tell me that the girl who gave the guy the trad rack was also stuck on a ledge about 20 foot up. Well I realize how stupid these people are as my friend tells me she is trying to get her rack back before she gets safe on the rope. I can hear my friend yelling at her to keep the rack on him and just clip into his belay loop and rope. So she does this and some more mumbling goes on down below that I can't understand, and I'm trying to get them to tell me whats going on when the rope starts penduluming. I call down, at this point very frustrated, asking what the hell they are trying to do and I hear the guy say he is trying to get the draw back, which is now 30 ft to the left. So both of them are trying to run back and forth for this draw. Realizing how stupid of an idea this was took only long enough for me to finish "STOP!" I followed it with "You need to both QUIT doing anything and listen to ME! I WILL GET THE DAMN DRAW WHEN I RAPPEL DOWN!!!"





My friends say I was quite intimidating at this point, and they finally started to listen to me. I lowered them and set up a rappel and gathered the draw and quickly made it to the ground. I was happy to be down there, but very angry with the people who got into the mess. As soon as I get down they offered a handshake and a "thanks" and quickly asked for their draw back and "where are we exactly?". I kept my cool, gave them their draw and sternly told them to pay attention to what they were doing, and not do routes that weren't obviously bolted or have anchors at the top. Then I told them to be safe and not get others in danger with their recklessness.

In a way I didn't want to give them their draw back, and I wanted the lady with the trad rack to take it back to whatever store she just bought it from. She obviously shouldn't have been using it, or didn't know how to use it if she sent it to the guy who was stuck on a slab face climb. I wanted to yell at these people till I was blue in the face. I was mad that their stupidity in more than just him getting stuck up there had endangered me, fellow climbers, his friends, and himself, and they didn't care to understand the gravity of the situation. All that needed to happen was a cramp or a gust of wind and that guy could have killed himself, or a friend. I didn't want to watch/ be apart of this guy falling to his death.


So to sum this up:

-In whatever you do in the mountains this year, be safe.

-Remember you aren't the only one your actions affect. Don't be selfish.

-Plan for mistakes and be able to handle the consequences.

-By all means push your boundaries, but be able to handle the "trials" you give yourself.



I know those are all things most people on this board know and live by, but seriously I don't want to read any "someone started an avy above us and I lost a friend" stories.

Now get out there and play!

Brice
(Sorry this was so long)

[Kevo]

Wow man, good on ya for handling it the way you did. Those people sound like idiots. Huge surprise that this guy couldn't find decent pro on a slab/face climb that he obviously hadn't even looked at from the bottom. You would think alarm bells would start to go off WELL before he reached the factor 2 fall/ground fall point, but these people had no idea what they were doing. Who the hell did they get a trad rack from to begin with?

[sfotex]

Ahhhhh yeah, the E-rock shit show. Some things never change.

Looks like chick-a-roo's harness isn't doubled back either:

[brice618]

Ahhhhh yeah, the E-rock shit show. Some things never change.

Looks like chick-a-roo's harness isn't doubled back either:

Thats my girlfriend... she wasn't climbing at the time... she knows what shes doing


edit:

It is double backed, now that I look at it more closely, those bd's don't have the different colored backing, the silver you see is the D loop

[G]

Shoulda let 'em die.


Natural selection.

[Tectonically_Neglected]

You're better off bouldering at Roger's anyway...

[Brock Landers]

Great job...good story too. Wish I had a clue what you were talking about though.

[sfotex]

:Thats my girlfriend... she wasn't climbing at the time... she knows what shes doing

Opps, thought that was trad rack girl.

[wicked_sick]

Good read, brice. I'm glad there are people like you out there in the right place at the right time. It sounds like those people could have had a really bad day.

[smolakian]

Yeah, people are stupid. That's why most non-climbers think climbing is soo dangerous. I'm pretty sure it's one of the safest out of all the sports that I do. Granted, I don't ever push myself on trad or manky routes or do any mountaineering. But, if you know how take a fall, read a route and set solid anchors, you're golden. You should have a TON of sport leading and trad seconding before buying a rack. I'm an OK climber and I NEVER step on the sharp end and start running up a route without knowing what kindof protection it needs. It's sad because this kind of recklessness is what makes the access fund have to work all that much harder.

[khakis]

glad everything worked out okay. I cringed at the part where you said you hand over handed 30 feet, but was relieved a little seeing in the pics that it was low angle. The first time I found myself in an "out climbing and all of a sudden we're doing a rescue or saving someone's ass" situation I did the exact same thing. The immediacy and adrenaline affects you. After running that whole night over in my head and with the other people there I learned to place more emphasis on not allowing one injury (or potential) into two or more. It's just way too easy to make mistakes when you're in a hurry and focusing on helping someone else. Sounds like you handled the situation really well though.
(this board needs one of these icons)

[Poop~Ghost]

I can't tell you how many times I've seen near death situations... luckily never any full death - but I've seen guys go 30 feet into talus... and it's not a fun situation.

worst thing ever was watching a 12-13 year old boy almost get brained when his friend was scrambling above him on loose rock. A 30 pound rock just missed this kid... fucking parents/gaurdians just standing around like idiots.

brice - it was pretty nice of you to actually help out, I know I've seen clusterfucks coming and just packed up and left because I didn't want to have to carry somebody out.

[killclimbz]

Ahhh the rockclimbing shit show. Go to a popular crag and you are going to see it sooner or later. Good on you for making sure that didn't turn into a tradgedy. This type of thing is just too common these days.

It's also good to remember that everyone had to get their start in climbing somewhere...

[gimpy]

what a bunch of knuckleheads. they musta been from texas or something

and yeah i'ma cynical bastard but i'd bet they didn't learn a thing from their ordeal thanx to you saving the day. if you hadn't, then they probably wouldn't be out there getting tin the same fix again. you shoulda at least kept their draw to leave them w/ some repercussin of their idiocy. climbing is scary in it sown right but lead trad climbing is a whole other level.

[dre66]

Good on you for helping out. There are a lot of clueless morons out there.

I spent the summer climbing in Canmore and we spent a lot of time at Grassi Lakes crag because the access was easy and there were some climbs we were working on. Almost all the climbs at this crag, for those who don't know, are well protected sport routes with no more than 6 or 7 moves between bolts. This crag is also popular because between the hard 10s and easy 11s there are a few 5.7s and 8s which are great for beginners to practice on.

I was going out with generally more experienced climbers than myself, but had the safety systems well dialed for myself. We often ran into groups of people with one self proclaimed expert who was showing his friends "the ropes" but doing a terrible job of it. We've stopped people from things like back-clipping, skipping bolts, etc. Once my friend freaked out as I was climbing. I asked what was wrong and he pointed to the wall adjacent to us. I turned to see what was going on and saw a complete beginner about 10m up the wall, holding the end of the rope in her hand, and holding onto a draw with the other. Apparently she had made an improper figure 8 and her friend asked if she was secure (it was a relatively easy climb) and then told her to retie it.

One experience of my own was when I was one pitch up a 2 pitch wall teaching a friend about multipitch systems. I climbed while he belayed and when i got to the top of the first pitch I set up the anchor, clipped in daisy, set up clove hitch, clipped my ATC-Guide in (first time using it) and began bringing the rope up. The guy on a multipitch route beside me happened to notice what I was doing and mentioned that I should take the Guide out and use a draw to bring the rope up because it would reduce rope drag and get it up much faster. I hadn't multipitched in a while and it slipped my mind at the time. A minor mistake but could have been costly in a situation where time was of the essence.

[DharmaBum]

Great read. I think people often misconstrue the notion of "pushing your envelope" to mean that they just take off and do something way over their heads in terms of ability. To me, pushing the envelope has always been a progression of sorts, so that testing a limit becomes the next logical step. Two years ago, I wasn't ready to try a climb-and-ski on Mt. Rainier. I've learned some stuff and tested myself on some "smaller" hills (e.g., Mt Hood). I may not be ready for Rainier yet, but I have progressed to where it will be less of an envelope push this year or next.

The climbers you rescued were in no way ready for what they were attempting. You likely saved one or all of them from injury or worse, and for that you are a credit to the maggot community.

Beers to you.

[wardog]

Brice, you did a very good deed.

Your perfect rope toss was a beautiful moment.

I once did something far stupider than those people, when I was young and I wanted to climb rock but I hadn't started studying or learning yet -- I was on a hike with a friend and his two girls, and I decided to go straight up a thirty-foot ledge instead of hiking the switchback around it. No harness, no rope. I just started up and did fine for a while, until my face was about eight feet from the top. Then I realized I was stuck. What had looked like a good hold from below turned out to be just a smooth very shallow round protrusion like a flattened grapefruit half, useless. I looked left and right, looked up again, and saw absolutely no holds. My position was way too precarious to try to downclimb, and I was getting tired. I kept looking for a hold, no luck. My friend was looking down at me from the top. I figure I was maybe fifteen seconds from cramping and falling off -- and then I lost consciousness, and woke up safe on the top. I know this sounds like ludicrous BS but it really happened. At the top I asked my friend what happened and he said I just climbed up -- he said he hadn't thought I would make it after I got stuck. I had absolutely no consciousness of anything for however long it took me to make those last moves. It was like I was stuck and then I was instantly on top. But my friend said I looked normal and aware during that time.

That was the only experience like that I ever had. It still freaks me out. I have no clue how I made those last few moves. Some primeval instinct or something. I would have fallen onto a 30 degree angled hodgepodge of big jagged granite rocks.

Brice, I figure maybe the same spirit guided your rope toss that guided my last few moves that day. I was super stupid and extremely lucky to get out of that mess in one piece. I was not thinking. I have guide friends who have had people die in their arms after similar screwups. In one case a guy brought his little brother on a slab climb with no pro, and his little brother ended up dead. Sorry about the sad news but everyone please heed Brice's message and be well prepared, focused, and careful.

Someone here said to be extra careful when helping others in trouble, because adrenalin and worry can cloud your judgement. Maybe that's what happened to Coombs.