UKC

Like a lot of people I was at school when I first started climbing and benefitted hugely from being able to join experienced climbers from my local club from whom I learnt a lot. However very early on when at school one day I noticed that the venetian blinds were being replaced and there was lots of lovely cord going free which looked perfect for climbing slings 😊

In those days aid climbing was still a thing and on wet days I would peg my way across Cow Cave at Chudleigh with school mates, finishing at the lip and being lowered off. So armed with my recently acquired venetian blind cord I worked my way out to the peg on the lip and threaded some of the cord to make a anchor and started to be lowered off and surprise surprise and I landed flat on my back on the cave floor. Fortunately in those days I bounced well so no harm done, but I did learn some valuable lessons not least that venetian blind cord is not strong enough to hold my weight!

So who else is brave or honest enough to share their most stupid moment when starting out climbing ??????

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Mine not a tale of (almost) woe, but stupid nonetheless.

First outing foray into trad climbing - just called climbing in those days: around 5am, bunked over the wall into the grounds of Beeston Castle in Cheshire - a tasty looking sandstone wall up in a moat near the castle. Not the cliff the castle is perched on, I hasten to add. (Alan Rouse one of the few to have attempted that overhanging giant back then). Anyhow, there we are, unpacking our 'gear'... Rope - about 20m of kermantel rope found in the back of a mate's garage, his dad used it to tow things; battered steel karabiners - found in another dad's tool box; shoes - just extra socks with which to stuff our tennis shoes so feet didn't slip around; one harness made from webbing cut off a diver's weight belt. We'd read about whole body belays, so reckoned that that would do. No protection of any kind. Belayer stood on the lip of the moat - not tired into anything.

Top roping was the thing; no idea of technique - we just took turns being the one at the top wearing the rope like a toga. We had all the climbing calls down pat, though alone at dawn in a castle moat, there wasn't much shouting needed.

I don't remember much of the actual climbing, but I do remember how much the rope cut into my shoulder and hands. There wasn't much life left in it - practically a static rope by that point. The tennis shoes didn't give much grip, so we took turns holding multiple small falls.

Probably pretty stupid, but no harm done and was a lot of fun !

In reply to Steve Woollard:

In the 1990s I was a teenager growing up in Kent near some old chalk quarries. I was dead keen on climbing but had no gear, no idea of what I was doing and no transport to real cliffs.

After reading something like Chris Bonningtons account of an early repeat of Cima Grande I carefully manufactured a set of homemade pitons out of some old lawn mower blades and masonry nails. I then recruited my little cousin and headed to the quarries. We did have a genuine climbing rope of uncertain vintage from my dad's climbing in the 1970s and a real stitch plate.

Obviously we attempted to lead climb because everyone knows, even 14 year olds in Kent, that top roping doesn't count.

I made it about ten meters up before, whilst bounce testing my top piece, one of the "pegs" ripped. I stripped the entire pitch and landed gently on the floor on rope stretch.

In testament to my engineering, none of my pegs broke.

Edit. Though having re-read the original post I'm not sure if this was the most stupid thing I did.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Mid 90's, having had a 2hr session on an indoor wall in Stony Stratford so week before, we set up a (bottom) top rope in the Burbage South Quarries. We had an extensive rack, a few hexs, three nuts and four slings if memory serves. All was going hunky dory with Ross half way up the pitch when the whole top rope set up just fell down. Mild panic ensues, I have to run around to the top with the rope and our meagre rack and set up a belay and bring Ross up. 

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Loads from learning to climb at from with a school mate in Torbados from a book and trying to learn from our near misses. Two examples:

1) Having set up the ab rope on the pegs at the top of Era, Ansteys, I only put my old figure of eight descender on one side of the double ropes and was about to step backwards when my mate and I decided to talk through how I had set things up and what I had clipped into before I leaned back…

2) The worst one was a few years later. I was top roping a beginner mate on Little John, Ansteys sitting at the top belayed off the fence posts. He did the climb eight times in a row and each time I lowered him back down from the top so he didn’t have to walk back down the steps. Before his ninth ascent I decided to make my belay position more comfortable. I unclipped my belay plate from the belay loop, attached it to a gear loop on my Petzel Jump harness and sorted out the belay ropes. I then sat down, belayed him up and asked whether he wanted to do the route a final, tenth time. He said yes. Stepped back to the edge of the wall, asked “Have you got me…?”. “Yep. Lean backwards,” said I.
 

His weight came in the sticht plate. There was an almighty crack. My mate and the sticht plate disappeared over the edge and the rope shot through the air making a very scary whizzing noise. I instinctively grabbed the rope and tried to hold onto it to stop my friend’s fall. I had to let go when searing pain burned through my right hand. My mate and the rope stopped shortly afterwards. I moved towards the edge in trepidation expecting the worst. Thankfully my mate was sitting on the ground in a bush with a big smile on his face shouting “That was a bit fast…!”, having fallen the length of the route (25 feet?) and decked.

He was totally fine. I wasn’t physically and psychologically. The rope had burned through most of the the skin and a lot of flesh on my right hand and the pain was intense, particularly as the mess that was my right hand was exposed to the air. It turns out I had failed to re-clip the sticht plate from my “5kg max” plastic gear loop back into the belay loop and hadn’t spotted it when glancing down before belaying due to the thick fleece I was wearing.

I walked in agony to St Marychurch doctors surgery which was just about to close on Saturday morning. A doctor did some rudimentary patching up. I then walked to Torbay Hospital A&E where did a better job. I still have scarring on the skin on some of fingers on my right hand. 

Some years later I bumped into a local legend and was recounting the story. He said he’d accidentally down a long ab off a plastic gear loop and had only realised when he got to the bottom! 

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Not so early on but pretty stupid:

*I soloed a polished 50-metre E1 5a at Avon wearing hush puppies. Why? I don't know

*Being very careless, I slid out of control super-fast down 20 feet or so down a steep gully (angle about 70 degrees) in summer while unroped. Stopped by sheer luck at the bottom of the gully. JUST below was a huge vertical drop, death potential or sure death. Don't know why I stopped, incredible luck

*I soloed another 200-foot steep limestone climb wearing hush puppies. Near the top was a difficult polished groove up a very steep slab. It must have been 4c. Was right on the absolute verge of falling out of the groove. Death potential fall for sure

*Soloing a severe or HS at Cheddar, I grabbed a huge giant flake (like a pinnacle) and swung on it. The whole thing swung out from vertical to horizontal but amazingly didn't pull off. I was left in space hanging on the tip of the flake by my fingers and JUST managed to escape to the side. A horrible drop onto a nasty landing was below

In reply to Steve Woollard

Abseiling down the Boulder Ruckle the first time I went to Swansge unaware it was free hanging, in the old fashioned classical over the shoulder and under the thigh on a single 5mm rope. I still have the scars.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Not starting sooner

In reply to profitofdoom:

That sounds horrific! There's quite a few good soloing stories out there, particularly when something happens other than the climber just scaring themselves shitless...

In reply to Steve Woollard:

There's a post from Chris craggs above about horseshoe. I did exactly that, at horseshoe, when I first started climbing.  (wasn't me this time!)

Before climbing in earnest I did a weekend trip in Cornwall. Climbing as a three, the instructor disappeared with the other client, out of sight. After what seemed a very long wait I figured I should just set off. I did a long traverse completely unprotected. The instructor did point out, calmly, I should have waited. Nothing more was said, but looking back on it, I bet they swore a lot after!

In reply to Steve Woollard:

I'd actually been climbing a while...

Leeds Wall, seconding. Climb up, unclip the fixed clip, climb up, unclip the next clip, etc.

Get to the top, undo and unclip the screwgate at the top, lean back ready to lower off. Hmmm, something not quite right here...

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Milestone Buttress, Christmastime, many years ago The rain is clearing snow off the holes of Rowan Tree Gully. 

25’ up I finally got a first runner in, which was a relief, given the slippery conditions and climbing in walking boots.

My rope had fallen off. I had to solo to the top.

I tie on well nowadays.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

First experience of multi-pitch. Without thinking about it (too enthusiastic and no experience of belaying anywhere other than ground level), I unclipped from the belay at the top of the first pitch pretty much as soon as I'd taken my leader off belay - before he'd taken in the slack on my rope, or even put me on belay!

Fortunately, I was on a fairly safe ledge and the 3rd climber in our party gently pointed out my error. I've not made that mistake again.

In reply to profitofdoom:

Family holiday on Menorca decades ago - I'd taken rock boots and chalk bag and ended up trying a bit of deep water soloing, traversing around the beach where we were staying. Made a move to the right onto a bit of a buttress and, as I moved left hand and foot onto it, I felt the whole thing move! With visions of falling backwards into the sea holding a boulder about the size of a car in front of my family, I gingerly reversed the move and decided snorkelling was less risky there!

In reply to Steve Woollard:

First ever lead, as a teenager, some years before I took up climbing properly. I'm not sure I was even competent to tie myself in at this point. My dad for some reason let me lead a Severe. Off I went with his rack of nuts and solid stem cams. I placed one runner at around half height of the 30 metre route, and nothing else, despite persistent advice from below.  It just seemed easier to keep climbing than to stop and fiddle with stuff. Fortunately I didn't need to construct a belay, just clipped directly into some abseil tat, though I remember still being a bit confused as to how the next bit was supposed to work. My dad is congenitally calm, but I don't think he was too pleased with me or himself.

Similar behaviour years later, several months into climbing regularly, and attempting my first E1 (Engineer's Crack on the Buachaille). Five metres off the ground, I dropped my entire set of wires (all of them racked on the same carabiner). They landed next to my belayer, but rather than attempt to downclimb or lower off to fetch them, I decided to carry on. I had 7 cams, and I figured that would do. By amazing luck, it did do - I placed all 7 of them and arrived at the belay with no gear left but quickdraws and slings - and again, fortunately, there was in situ tat to clip.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

I suppose there are 2 categories of stupid - Type 1: you know it‘s stupid and still do it (ahem, hush puppies! ) and Type 2: you do something stupid in blissful ignorance of the possible consequences.

My type 1 was just doing loads of soloing on Baslow Edge, trying to push my grades on things I wasn‘t able to judge. Had some lucky escapes but the upside was learning how to downclimb while panicking. Type 2: Stepping out of one of those Italian bivouac shacks in the middle of the night for a pee without realizing that the soft snow from yesterday would now be iron hard. I nearly took that final long slide.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

I took my Dad climbing for the first time recently. I spent a good 30 mins explaining the process to him. Including "safe" "climb when ready" etc.

I set off, got to the top and started building a belay 20m up from my Dad. Before I'd tied any clove hitches I heard "I'm not sure where to go next son" VERY close to me.

He had started climbing and was now soloing 17m up trailing 2 half ropes to a pile on the ground

My only thought was " don't let him know what he's done". I got him on belay in about 45 seconds, suddenly he realised and I lowered him down.

He came away saying it was great and he wants to go again!

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Early lead on some easy VDiff, the name escapes me. It involved climbing a crack, an easy traverse left across a break in a slab, and finishing up a crack on the other side.

Got up the initial crack, placed some gear, and made it most of the way across the traverse. The runner in the first crack wasn't extended enough and the rope jammed. Placed some gear in the second crack with the aim of traversing back across to free the first rope. That also got stuck (slow learner here!). In the meantime, my belayer had been trying to free the first rope and had succeeded in pulling some through, but it had jammed again, leaving me stuck neatly in the middle of the slab, unable to move in either direction or to reach either of the gear placements.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Took it seriously.

In reply to raussmf:

Ah yes, the early days of not really knowing what you're doing! I've a similar tale for my first lead, a 2 pitch Diff on Lewis up a sort of arete feature. Halfway up the 2nd pitch I decided it was a bit easy so went over and up the slab on the right, about v-diff probably. We were just using a single rope and while Dad was teetering up this slab on second, it became clear I'd pulled the rope straight through a crack and it was now stuck. The only thing I could think of at the time was to come off the belay and scramble down to sort it, then race back up and reattach as quickly as possible! All of which was witnessed by my Mum who happened to be walking along the cliff top at the time...

I've a vague feeling I wasn't tied into the rope at the time, so would've been OK, but it'd have been curtains for Dad if he'd come off.

Next day was hilarious in retrospect. I found a nice slab, about mod, and zigzagged up it to try and make it more interesting. As did the rope of course, so I found out what ropedrag was.

In reply to kathrync:

At least your life stuck on that traverse got more interesting once smartphones arrived and you could post on UKC about it.

In reply to Luke90:

Ha - in case it wasn't obvious, I am no longer strapped to a slab somewhere in Cornwall  

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Not my most stupid thing, but a particularly stupid thing from people who certainly should have known better:

A fresh-faced, diminutive 15 year-old, but probably still looking no more than 13 or 14, I was camping in Borrowdale for a week with a mate. We were both keen runners at the time, him more than me and I needed a rest day after a few days. I'd brought my climbing shoes, as you do, but no kit as my mate wasn't into climbing. So I wandered over to Woden's Face and started soloing a few of the routes there. I'd only been climbing for a couple of years, mainly at school, and my hardest lead so far was HS, but I felt fine soloing these routes up to MS. A car pulled up and out popped parents and a 16 year-old boy. 

"Are you a climber?", they asked. 

"Er, yes," I replied.

"Our son's just got into climbing but has no-one to climb with. He doesn't know how to lead but we have a rope and a lot of equipment. Would you take him up a route?"

"Yes, of course!"

And with that the parents drove off, and I led the lad up Little Chamonix!

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Too embarrassed to say the most stupid/dangerous thing. The second, though, was getting a rope burn practising abseiling on the stairs at home (first lockdown).

In reply to Steve Woollard:

I started climbing. 

In reply to Steve Woollard:

It's either:

A. Getting 10m up a route when my partner said, 'don't you think you might be better tied into the rope?' Or

B. Jumping on to an electrified railway line in the Chamonix valley....BOOM.

In reply to john arran:

Given the climbing career you went on to have, you could argue that the parents made an excellent choice!

In reply to Steve Woollard:

First time. Found an unclimed river cliff above the Exe. Decided that we needed to climb it and then "chip" a ledge near the top. No idea why.

I borrowed the ropes my dad used to lash stuff on the back of his truck, and an "ice axe" (aka a slaters hammer). 

I lead the climb, tied on with double grannie knots for safety while the least incompetent of my mates belayed me. We had seen this done, so all would be fine. What we hadn't seen was how a lead climber put protection in. But the belayer did hold the rope really tight, so it would be fine.

I didn't die on the climb.  Dragged the others up on the rope and we then set about making the ledge bigger.

This went well until I was "dangling" below and smacked my head against the cliff.

Biggest safety issue was the b*locking from my mum for borrowing my dad's stuff and the bleeding head and missing bits of hair when I got home. Grade? Maybe V diff?!!

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Not signing on immediately  - I'd have been way better. 

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Yeeted my rope off the top of stanage then continued to take the wrong route down and got stuck on a rather precarious ledge halfway up the crag with my brother.

Started laughing uncontrollably, nearly pissed myself and fell off. 

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Bought my first proper nylon rope but thought I'd better learn to abseil before getting stuck up any climbs.

Bought a karabiner and figure 8 from Army Surplus; ones with nice deep grooves in them to show you where the rope was supposed to go. My harness was made of three leather belts (figured if they could hold my trousers up, they could hold me up as well).

First abseil went OK but when I got to the bottom and undid the krab, my harness fell apart, all the belt buckles stretched and bent beyond breaking point.

Gave me the fear a bit. Ive never been very good at abseiling, from that point on.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Abseiling off a snow bollard to get over a bergshrund, which then disintegrated. One of the nine lives gone...

The one that really gave me sleepless nights was getting the strands of a rope that I'd rucksack coiled caught in my crampons,  whilst setting up a top rope at the tope of an ice climb. Cue sliding towards the edge hog tied- some how I managed to swing a tool into the ice and sort myself out.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

I come from a family of three brothers. Raised by my mother on a rural farm. No dad around. I discovered climbing and made my brothers do it too. We didn’t have any money so used what we could find. Our rope was an old washing line, my harness was an old army belt bought from the local army navy store in York. I think I had slippers on my feet 😂. Our one and only bit of gear was a hexagonal steel nut that we took off an old car and threaded some thin rope through as the sling. I remember using all this on the local quarry that was about 6m high. I placed the nut in some soil on lead (or should I say solo as my bro was only wrapping the washing line round his body!), needless to say it fell out! I’d wrap the washing line round a tree a few times to belay my brother up. A friend of my mothers who was a climber was so concerned he gave us a load of old gear from the Yorkshire climbing club. He took us to Almscliff and showed me the correct way. We were very lucky nothing happened. 

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Almost abbing off the end of the rope in the Verdon...for some reason we didn't tie a knot in the end of the ropes or use a prussic knot back in the 80s... With no bolts in sight, I stood on a small foothold just above a massive roof totally alone, until my mate abbed down, realised what I'd done, found the right belay and eventually threw me a rope...

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Am I allowed to share my most stupid moment even though it happened a few weeks ago after climbing for 40 years?

First day of a trip to Lewis. Arrived at top of crag, set up abseil anchor on a big boulder about 10m back from the edge, attached static rope and chucked it down. Then faffed about for 15 min racking up and so on. Went to edge of cliff, attached belay plate to rope and, with hand on rope, leant back. To my horror, the rope was slack and I lost my balance, windmilling my arms arms about shouting f***, f***, f***, wondering how the rope had become detached and convinced I was about to die, before toppling over the edge. Next thing I knew I was about 8m down hanging in an abseil position with the rope locked off which I had done instinctively. Luckily it was steep with nothing to hit. It turned out the rope was attached but I had left loads of slack in it lying about on the cliff top. I've always hated abseiling and hate it even more now. The good news was that it turns out falling on to a static rope is perfectly fine and you don't get cut in half or the rope snap, and that even over quite a sharp edge the rope was just a little fluffed.

I suppose the lesson is that through a moment of complacency and inattentiveness it is possible to screw something up that you've hundreds of times before.

I'm sure I did lots of stupid things when inexperienced, but just never realised they were stupid at the time and got away with it. Also I just had a far higher risk tolerance when younger (pretty normal I think). 

In reply to Bulls Crack:

i was going to say that. Working, instead of heading out every day with Pollitt and co.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

I started climbing before I learnt to drive. We'd either get the train to Almscliffe from my parents' house, or one of our mums would drive us to Peak Scar on the NY Moors (they were our two closest crags).

My mate's mum was keen to watch us on one of those early trips to Peak Scar, and we were keen to show her that climbing was (or should) be fairly safe most of the time.

I led a V Diff and she walked along to watch closely when I brought up her son. I put a sling round a big solid tree, clipped the rope into the screw gate, carefully screwed it shut and sat down at the edge of the crag......completely forgetting to finish making myself safe.

My mate was 3/4 the way up the route before I realised that the pile of rope I had carefully taken in wasn't going to help in any way if he fell off. He didn't notice, I didn't say anything, and his mum was none the wiser and seemed impressed with how safe and competent we both appeared to be

In reply to Steve Woollard:

First ever outdoor lead - my friend and I had started climbing indoors. Could probably just about get up a 6a, but would definitely fall on 6a+. 

First trad route we didn't understand that tech grades arn't french grades. Picked a no star 2 pitch HVS 4c as our first route because 4c is obviously dead easy. Rock paper scissored for the lead. No gear near the start of the route so my friend pushed on. About half way up he starts getting a bit freaked out as he's getting tired and still cant find any gear. Tries to down climb but cant. He can see the fixed gear for belay at the end of the pitch so sketches his way to the anchor. I watched helpless heart in mouth thinking this trad climbing lark is no joke! 

In reply to Sam Beaton:

Sorry, but I'm not clear what you had forgotten to to do here! 

In reply to Robert Durran:

Presumably to clove hitch the rope running through the sling back to their harness.

I remember doing something similar when I’d not long started climbing. A mate made a route reading error and ended up half way up a very bold E6 rather than the E2 they thought they were climbing. I was further down the crag about to set off on a route with someone else when they called over to ask if I could set up a top rope and rescue them, pronto. I ran round to the top and set up a top rope in a bit of a fluster (never rescued someone before). Chucked the rope down with a crab on the end for them and just as I started to shout “on belay” realised I hadn’t actually connected myself to any of the belay I’d just built. Thankfully I realised just in time and they were able to hang on a couple more minutes while I sorted things out. Good thing too - once I had they tried the next move and immediately fell off. 

But probably the stupidest thing I’ve done was a year or so later. About to set off on a route and my belayer said “looks like a size 4 Friend will be useful under that roof, want to borrow mine?” I’m not sure why, but I said no. Some 30 minutes later I was on the floor with a fractured spine waiting to be airlifted to hospital.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Not me but my climbing mates parents. Made him a sit harness from a Datsun Cherry seat belt. His mum sewed the joints!

In reply to Steve Woollard:

It's amazing how all of us incompetents are still alive.

I include myself in that.

In reply to Stuart Williams and Robert Durran:

This

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Lead my first route then got on YouTube at the top to learn how to build an anchor (my belayer had never held a rope before either)

In reply to Sam Beaton:

Thanks.

Not quite a climbing story, but when I was at primary school, aged about 10 or 11, we had a game to see who could jump from highest up a tree. One lad was quite far up. It was probably only about 10 feet, but it looked a long way at the time. This teacher came round the corner and shouted at him to come down immediately. To her horror he braced himself and lept to the ground. She was so relieved to see him unhurt that he didn't even get a warning. She didn't realise the intention was to jump and assumed he'd only jumped at her command!

In reply to Steve Woollard:

One serious mistake and one embarrassing mistake:

Doing one of my first winter routes in Cwm Idwal in 1982. The route started after a steep approach so, safety in mind, secured my second to a nice big spike under the route. I climbed what was an out of condition route, chatting away not paying much attention until I noticed I was 20 metres up with no gear. Chatting stopped promptly, sweating started. Initially I found a very rounded and shallow spike for a sling. Then above and right I noticed a pinnacle with a wide crack down the one side I could see. Got two great hexes in - huge relief. I then started to layback off the crack to gain height. As I moved up the rock groaned, my hexes rattled down the widening crack and the whole pinnacle started to move out. I quickly ( somehow ) got a handhold and an axe placement either side of the pinnacle and bridged my legs either side of its base. Then yelled something like "****ing big rock below!"    The pinnacle plummeted down straight towards my second who started to leap to one side, only to be held by there by his anchor. Through sheer luck it just missed him and clattered down the slopes below. Quite a few serious rooky mistakes all within a few minutes of each other!

The embarrassing mistake: Having watched Ron Fawcet on Rock Athlete on the telly I thought I'd copy some of his actions. So, leading a nice sport 6a in the Chamonix valley I started copying some of Ron's self talk such as 'come on arms, do your stuff!'. I added some loud grunts and groans for good measure. Arriving at a ledge I heard an 'alright youf'...I found myself next to ... a grinning Ron Fawcet.

In reply to fmck:

I like it 👌

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Mine was choosing to go to college in Guildford, being totally oblivious that there was not climbing throughout the UK. The employee in the local Blacks just looked at me blankly when I asked where the nearest climbing was.

I started climbing in Yorkshire and was spoilt for choice, had ventured to the Peak, Lakes, North Wales and Scotland and it never crossed my mind Guildford may not have any climbing.

On the plus side I did travel a lot at weekends to many crags in the SW that I would never have seen, the Uni club was very active and even warmed to Southern Sandstone. Long drives back home, to Pembroke, the Lakes and Peak just became 2nd nature and was easy to fill my car every weekend.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

I can remember standing on the hand traverse on Milestone Buttress as it sleeted gently wondering why it was all so... difficult. 

I can also remember standing on a deadman (which lay on gravel and slush) in the hope that a crampon point would got through one of the holes and stick us to the surface of a welsh alleged grade 3 gully.

And I have a vivid memory of (having forgotten my Prussik loops) considering untying my bootlaces and ignominiously sliding my way up a torridonian gully that I was miserably failing to second, even on the world's tightest rope with the winch on from my leader. 

The one I was luckiest to survive was basically glissading down a soaking wet snowfield in the Pyrenees in spring wondering why I seemed not to be going very fast. Turns out that was because the whole snowfield was travelling pretty much the same speed down the hill as I was. In the end we ground to a halt a few hundred metres lower down and beat a hasty (and very fearful) exit stage left with my super-ego handing my id (which wanted to get down to the valley as quick as possible) a stern talking to followed by it's ass on a plate. 

Ye gods I was rubbish, and I'm worse now...

b

In reply to ben b:

You're nearly as bad as me Ben 

Loved the moving snowfield incident. That could have ended really badly

In reply to Steve Woollard:

I was persuaded to try caving by a housemate/friend at uni. Got the gear from the club lockup on Friday night and drove up to the Peak in the snow. The following morning we walked into the middle of a field, where a man-hole cover was opened to reveal a dark hole with a scaff pole across it. 100m of rope was dumped into the hole and the first person set off down the 80m abseil.

It takes a while for each person to abseil that far, and it was bloody chilly in the snow. I half put my caving harness on so I could shove my hands somewhere warm and jogged around a bit. It will be relevant for later to know that a caving harness comes together at a triangular maillon which holds the abseil device (a rack which I was/am largely unfamiliar with) and also holds the entire harness together.

When it was my turn I threaded the rope onto the device and got it checked, then swung into the hole and started to descend. Maybe 5m down I realised that I hadn't ever finished putting the harness on; specifically the maillon that holds everything together was completely open. I tried one-handed to at least screw it up enough to close the gap, but with my weight on it even that was impossible. What then followed was several minutes of the smoothest abseiling I have ever done.

Since then I have made a rule for myself that if I do something I do it properly: no putting a helmet on my head and not doing it up, no putting a harness on but not tightening the leg loops, no putting something on the car roof rack and not immediately lashing it down. I can't be trusted to check things later.

In reply to Simon King:

At least you got further than I did...a mate and I were on a tour of the South of France sometime in the 90s...having got spanked by Buoux we thought we'd take a look at the Verdon. Arrived at the top of the gorge somewhere, took one look over the edge, looked at each other and you can almost see the simultaneous speech bubbles forming over our heads: "Run away!!!"

On a similar(ish) note, amongst the many c*ckups I made as a young(er) climber, abseiling  to the base of a route in Pembroke with a new-fangled shunt or similar. Jerked over the edge of an overhang and device completely locked with my full bodyweight on it. To this day can't remember how I got off it but I dimly remember improvising a prussik with the cord of a hex...

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Did the aiguille de le Tsa in Arolla with my mum and dad in my first ( and their last ! ) alpine season. My dad assured me his ropes were safe….from the ?60’s…’ now’t wrong with those youth, they cost me 3 and 6 ‘ (or 9 and 12 or whatever…) 

There was an abseil from the top and I had my suspicions so I lowered them down on both strands but when I came to ab myself, the rope was so stiff it barely went through the device. As I went down there was a big cloud of breaking nylon strands from the sheath and I had to physically bend the rope to coil it at the bottom. Nice and warm so it wasn’t frozen! 

Avoid 35+ year old ropes. 

In reply:

Great thread. What to avoid ha ha ha

Reading this thread makes me wonder how anyone on here (definitely including me) is still alive

In reply to profitofdoom:

I think it goes along the lines of "you start out with a full bag of luck and an empty bag of experience - the trick is to fill the second bag before the first bag runs out"...

In reply to Steve Woollard:

I joined UKC... That was pretty dumb to let all you cretins warp my naive teenage mind.

❤️

In reply to profitofdoom:

This thread is the very definition of survivor bias! And very entertaining it is too.

In reply to profitofdoom:

I haven't bothered to join this thread because my list of mistakes would be just too long. Besides, I've written a whole book about my worst (multiple) mistake.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Most extreme gain of experience, Gordon

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Set off up Flying Buttress on Dinas Cromlech with a fresher at around 3PM in December having lent my headtorch to a friend that morning, got benighted and the mountain rescue team were called as we couldn't get any further down than the top of the descent gully. 

Series of cock ups on my behalf:

Lending head torch to my friend (I had planned to go to the slate quarries and someone told me I was going to Dinas Cromlech literally as I left the hut, there was a significant shortage of competent leaders in the club at the time so those who were sometimes got strongarmed into changing their plans).

Setting off up the route without checking the time

Not backing off the route (noting that the difference between "it's totally fine" and "it's really rather dark" felt like it was only 10 minutes).

Other than dented pride, bruised shins and being very cold for a few hours I got away ok, unfortunately the fresher I was with got put off climbing because of it. I did get bullied about it by someone from the club for several years unfortunately, but unfortunately the alcoholic tosser was more popular than me so people just let it go.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

The climbing portion and starting… sure there might have been numerous mistakes along the way… but without climbing, I would spend godless amounts of money, effort, and time to something perhaps more productive…

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Led something easy on Stanage, can't remember what, walked round a boulder at the top and, in a fit of absent mindedness, instead of reattaching the rope back to my belt krab I put it straight into the sticht plate. Luckily once my second was more than a few feet off the ground I noticed that the loop round the boulder was getting bigger and bigger, and shouted down "Err, can you just hang on there a minute" while I frantically tied an overhand knot in the now slack loop and clipped into it. Duh!

Less serious but more embarrassing (and equally dumb). Put runner in below crux overhang. Clipped it. Moved up about a foot. Felt need for another runner. Clipped it. Lurched over overhang to discover that I'd clipped the second one onto the rope below the first so that the rope now ran round in a tight circle, effectively knotting me into a sprawled position on the top edge of the overhang. Luckily the guy seconding is very tall and was prepared to solo up a few moves to where he could unclip one of the runners. He still takes the piss and it was 35 years ago.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Seconding an old club member on the Cornish sea cliffs whose was using a 25 year old rope, gardening gloves, and various other items that should have been consigned to the bin. My first time climbing (other than southern sandstone top roping)..

Seconding a club member in a quarry , and watching him kick the shit out of the loose stuff at the top, when I was belayed into the bottom, I had yet to buy a climbing helmet.  We went straight to the nearest climbing shop for a helmet after that.

Leading a Welsh multi pitch and about 40 feet into an airy pitch noting my bandolier of gear hanging off the last bit of gear I’d placed.  Cue delicately down climbing back to collect gear so I could protect rest of pitch.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Misread the Wintours leap guide book and somehow ended up leading Gendarmerie (E3/E4) instead of a VS.  I didn't have a decent rack back then but I'm not sure it would have mattered as the first gear at 20ft was a sling around a sapling.  The second piece of gear was around double that height, a nice peg.  The only problem was I couldn't reach it from the ledge so had to do a tenuous bridge to clip it.  After that I don't remember much, I was so gripped. I just remember landing on the belay ledge and then deciding to ab off. Mentally I was shot.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

I went to do Great Slab in about 1971, with a 120' rope and my mate who was quite ... large. After the first moves I found the rest of P1 pretty easy, so didn't bother to put any more gear in until I ran out a 100'. At that point I carelessly threw a couple of Troll spuds behind a loose flake, and proceeded to bring my mate up on a shoulder belay, assuming he'd find it easy too. He didn't; he fell off straightaway and arced across the cliff; his weight on my shoulder flipped me upside down, just held by a couple of rubbish nuts I could hear grating in the expanding flake. So I dropped him, not so fast as to hurt him, but enough to burn myself, and then somehow righted myself and got a half decent runner in. I still don't know how that belay held.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Wow 

I’ve often wondered whether there are any stories like that… 

white slab start would be another candidate. 

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Just after turning 18 and having probably less than ten lead climbs under my belt, I decided that it would be a good idea to take my non-climbing friend over to  Shelterstone Crag and attempt The Citadel (VS) (summer). The day began pretty well and we made good progress up to the 2/3's height ledge. However, in getting there I was pretty sure we'd veered off route at various points and in doing so had come a cropper of  large volumes of loose rock and grassy ledges. I have a distinct memory of really running it out on some rather thin sections.

Anyway, fast-forward to the 2/3's height ledge and my mate is sufficiently spooked to declare that he's not having a good time and wants to go down. At this stage, I too was rather unnerved by the whole experience and decided that, yes, we should probably turn back. At this early stage in my climbing career I had never rigged an abseil before, but I knew the theory, and what better place to learn than ~200m up from the ground? Two of the abseils in particular have stuck with me. The first, involved abseiling off of a flake which was merely sat on a ledge, not attached in any way to the surrounding rock. I watched it move as I weighted it. The second, involved abseiling off some rotten cord linking two very rusty pegs. Again, these pegs moved an alarming amount when I weighted them. In both circumstances, I "reasoned" that this was my only option and abseiled off of them regardless. 

As if by some sort of miracle, we made it down to the ground alive and then walked back over the plateau to the cairngorm ski centre car park. Looking back, perhaps the most stupid moment of all happened that evening when I was detailing the events of the day to my mate's father, who incidentally was a senior member of the cairngorm mountain rescue team. My luck held out however, and I wasn't slaughtered by him for nearly killing both myself and his son. I may have been rather light on the details as I regaled him of our exploits.

Funnily enough, you can read a roughly contemporaneous account of this misadventure because I kept a blog at the time that this happened. Again, it's rather light on the details of the abseils. I wonder why? http://caelanclimbs.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-sht-adel.html

In reply to Steve Woollard:

Soloing at Stanage my first time on grit. It all went fine but remember choosing the odd chimney route I probably shouldn't have done. In hindisght I'd have just pottered round doing some low level bouldering. Definitely not my first time climbing but first time in the Peak.

In reply to Steve Woollard:

This wasn't one of my wisest plans 

https://crankitupgear.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-guides-tale.html

In reply to CaelanB:

Bloody hell. I salute your choice of route at such an early stage, but those abseils...  it's definitely often the early over-ambitious undertakings which live long in the memory!

In reply to CaelanB:

You got further than me on my first visit to Shelterstone. I remember my first visit to the Cairngorms, aged maybe 16, not long after I had started climbing with someone of similar experience. We had climbed a few Welsh VSs, probably some on gritstone as well, so when we looked at the guidebook we reckoned we could probably get up routes such as the Needle which was given VS.

So we walked in with gear & food for a couple of days, but took one look at the crag & were a bit frightened, seemed a bit bigger than any of the Llanberis crags we'd climbed on. In the end we climbed some easier & shorter routes on Hells Lum & Stag Rocks and it was some 15 years before I climbed the Needle.

In reply to LastBoyScout:

My dad (who gave me the gift of climbing) always said that generally people's ability to get themselves into a situation exceeds their ability to get themselves out of it.

Sometimes it works out (=epic); sometimes it doesn't (=tragedy).  Experience lets you smell out which you're heading into

In reply to Nic:

Abseiling down to the base of a climb in Pembroke. The person I was climbing with abseiled down and we realized that neither of us had a rope. We hadn't got any gear that we could use as a prusik. Luckily someone at the top heard us shouting and dropped us a rope. 

In reply to Steve Woollard:

First sport route, first climb outside, first lead, first time threading. Quick lesson about back clipping and threading anchors and off we go. Climb was fine, but the anchor became a clusterf*ck as I tried to work out how on earth my rope was supposed to go through the ring.

I was having a hard time explaining what I'd done, so my partner decided to take me off belay and walk up to the top of the crag to inspect.

I tried to declutter the setup to make it visually simpler to check, and as part of that, I unclipped my lanyard from the lower-off, and went to sit back on the rope. A split second before I loaded it, I realised the absence of a belayer meant that was a bad idea.

Lessons were learned, but watching new climbers thread still makes me nervous!

In reply to Steve Woollard:

One of my first leads at went pretty smoothly. Placed enough gear, built a decent belay and my second weighted the rope to give me a feel for what it was like to hold someone on a rope. As he set off again it was at that point I noticed that I hadn’t done my harness up and it was only the Velcro that was holding everything together. Lesson learned always double check then double check again that both harnesses are done up. 

In reply to Steve Woollard:

My first sport climbing trip to the Costa Blanca. The first two routes had snaplinks at the top, just like at the climbing wall. The next one didn't. No one had told me to expect this. I had to work out how to rethread for myself at the top of the route.

It's made me particularly careful to make sure that first-timers know what to do and have practiced at ground level.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

A brilliant book I might add!

In reply to Steve Woollard:

First trip to the Alps.  Believed my brother who said "just a  few slings and krabs" for the Mitellegi  Ridge which is "like Striding Edge"

In reply to wercat:

OMG that's funny 

Did you believe your brother next time ha ha ha

PS try Everest it's just like Tryfan *

* disclaimer it isn't 

In reply to Steve Woollard:

After a couple of years of climbing experience at uni I was back in North Devon for a the summer holidays. Had a bit of time off between shifts at the local factory so decided to head out for a little "solo adventure".

I had read a bit about DWS and also the sea level traversing down in south Devon so assumed that there must be a decent bit of rock on the north coast. 

I caught the bus to Combe Martin and set off for a solo around the coast to Ilfracombe - probably about a 3 mile traverse with a couple of beaches on the way for rest purposes and a whole bunch of interesting caves to explore.

Being a bit naive I paid no attention to the tides, nor considered sharing my plans with anyone.

Needless to say, as the water began lapping around my ankles about half a mile from the nearest put in/exit I got a little panicked and decided to solo out. The rock at the bottom of the cliffs is sea washed shale and quite pleasant for climbing but the higher I got the more friable the rock became - I likened it a little to climbing a bookshelf filled with playing cards.

I fell down the corner I was climbing about 30ft and my knee bounced off an edge. In a fair bit of pain I waded/swam back around the coast and caught the bus from Combe Martin to Barnstaple where A&E gave me 7 stitches in my knee. 

Life before mobile phones was much more of an unpredictable adventure and I feel pretty lucky to have come through it all relatively unscathed!

The Exmoor Coast Traverse

In reply to Steve Woollard:

I went on a family holiday to Turkey. Loafing by the pool, I saw a nice limestone ridge going up a nearby hillside. It looked about v diff. I took my shoes and chalk bag (because everyone takes those on a family holiday don’t they?). It was lovely. Perfect rough limestone up a ridge surrounded by fierce thorn bushes. All was good until the one good jug that wasn’t attached to the rest.  I fell unbelievably quickly off the ridge and into the thorn bushes.  There was blood and snot and lots of upset. Worse still, I was on the wrong side of the ridge from ‘home’. So back onto the ridge and onwards to try and find a path back. The only things to have made paths were goats. They are a lot smaller than me, and better suited to crawling through thorn bushes than some tit wearing shorts and a singlet. 
 

some time later……

i walk back to the family by the pool. It’s a small hotel   There is nowhere to hide. I am covered in sweat, dust and blood, and pretty much everything is scratched, grazed, bleeding or all three 

Everyone turns to look.  The cabaret has arrived.

“What the f*** happened to you!”

I still ask myself that…