UKC

Asian hornet's nest found under an overhang on the cliffs in Jersey

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2022/10/12/another-unpopular-seafront-de...

What's the nastiest nature you've found on a route? With my relatively small amount of foreign climbing I can only tell of a scorpion under a VF wire in Arco.

Rattle snake, El Cap.

An Adder on the platform at Sennen. 

My mate revealed a most unpleasant side when I dropped a crucial piece of equipment on Lost Arrow Spire (Tip only) (A2).

Tawny Owl. About 3 ft away. Amazing beautiful eyes, which managed to communicate

'I'm giving you 3 seconds to get the phuq away from me, fail to do so and I'm having your ears  your tongue and your lips before I get your eyes out and play conkers with them'

all in 0.3 seconds.

Where was Darren Jackson when you need him, he would have sorted that Owl out for you.

I give you a route at Symonds Yat - where else ?

"A vegetated and loose climb, a wasps nest in the finishing crack may provide a further hazard".

(I may have got the wording a bit wrong, but ...)

The route's name is, I believe, "Threshold of Insanity", I think it was an E1 4A ??

I always wanted to see a white tailed sea eagle. Popping my head over a ledge on the Cioch nose I came face to face with a startled one. Jeez its big. Think Pterodactyl.

Brazilian Fire Ants on a granite cliff in Texas. The ants attacked me when I was rapelling and stood on a flake that had the nest behind it. When I tensioned across the cliff to get away from them, they streamed across the rock to get me. I received several hundred bites, each of which came up like a boil.

Bees' nest in a large pocket on a route in Portugal.  They were massively unimpressed by my presence - I've never reversed and stripped a route so fast in my life.  Didn't get stung, but they were all over me, and I got the distinct feeling that they were gauging my compliance to see if stings of encouragement would be needed

Met an Asian hornet on fourth pitch of a route in Japan a few years ago, didn't know what it was but doubted it was good news. It was investigating the holes in my petzl helmet

French guides have to be up there?

A relatively fresh turd on top of the prow in Wilton One.  Whilst I could admire the balance and self-control necessary for such precise placement, the result was less endearing.

T.

Arriving at the top of a route at Shelf Road in Colorado, I chanced upon a beautiful young deer. The nasty nature soon appeared in the form of redneck hunters shouting at me to get out of the way as they apparently had a clear shot.

Not me but a mate had a rat run out of a crack and down his arm on some Mediterranean sea cliff. 

I came close to finding a nest of copperheads in the Gunks whilst soloing.  Luckily a ranger spotted me and advised me that the reverse solo was a lot less dangerous than topping out.

A rotting dog corpse on Compost Wall, Wintours Leap.

A golden eagle.

Male stag with antlers giving me the eye as I topped out on South Ridge Direct!

A thousand woodlice at Helsby, birds nest at Staden, naked human at Frogsmouth.

At least you got the on-shite.

Gets coat…

A flash or so you suspect they rehearsed the moves first on top rope?

Naked photoshoot, but think all natural lighting. Didn't hang around for the full beta.

You sure that wasn't 'Dance of the Flaming Axxehole' (sanitised, sadly, to 'Padarn Dance') at Pex? Did the guy have a rolled up newspaper, on fire, thrust up his back passage?

But did he do it clean?

Is it on UKC logbooks?

Never mind the coat...

Not on route but at the bottom in Corsica, Thunderous thumping sound, we climbed a tree, the ground shook as a herd of wild boar charged past spooked by friends approaching the next cliff along the escarpment.

A friend was recently bitten by a viper while on route in Southern Europe.

Topping out on one of Tissington Spires in Dovedale, I reached up to the top of the small platform to pull myself up and grabbed a blood soaked bird corpse that I can only assume had been massacred by a bird of prey.

Climbing a route in Llanberis pass, many years ago.

Some cretin above decided they needed a pee, but instead of relieving themselves discretely, they decided to see how far they could pee off the edge.

We were fortunate to miss it directly, but one party slightly to our right got pretty rained on, weren't at all happy and abandoned the route, partly citing dire consequences if they caught the offending party. The girl was especially pissed off, as she was wearing a brand new borrowed jacket and was going to have some explaining to do to the owner.

Made some of the holds a bit of Russian Roulette for the rest of us that carried on.

Snakes, scorpions and spiders were all to be avoided while trying a spot of bouldering in the Masai Mara.

If you count weather as nature, a hasty 2-pitch abseil off Cinque Torre in Cortina while watching a hefty thunderstorm work it's way towards us down the next valley.

I put a cam in a pocket in red rocks.

when my second took it out, a tarantula came out with it

A friend reached a ‘thank god jug’ on a route in Spain once to find it was inhabited by an angry bat!

I once topped out a route at black rocks - I cannot remember which - it involved a blind reach over the rounded lip and I surfaced between the legs of a couple "making out"...

Thousands and thousands of ladybirds at Llanymynech

It’s marked as Did Not Finish, no doubt he will be back.

Great thread! I've nothing great to contribute (some very large hornets/wasps in Italia; various gulls) but I've enjoyed reading the accounts of others. I would love to meet a white tailed sea eagle or an owl on a climb... I have watched peregrines diving past and flying below me in Spain and saw a pod of dolphins at the weekend, surfing and leaping from the waves. These encounters really help make climbing a beautiful thing.

Sport climbing in the Chamonix valley some years ago I noticed my green single rope I was bringing my second up on had a slight thickening. The thickening moved up the rope - finally revealed itself as a viper working towards me. Ashamed to say I did let go of the rope for a while - hopefully my then climbing partner doesn't read this!

    Reaching a ledge in the Pyrenees I was confronted by two very large vultures who eyed me hungrily, I departed swiftly.

  On Dinas Mot I was mobbed by a couple of Peregrines, very scary.

   A friend of mine was climbing in South Africa and had to stop abseiling back to their gear at the bottom of the route as a Rhino had decided to settle down near their packs, for the whole night.

Ooh; and a rotting deer in Strans Gill. Although, a caterpillar attack on Simon's Seat was far more disturbing.

My one significant caving trip resulted in me exiting to daylight through a decomposing sheep's ribcage

Once, halfway up a route at Swanage, I came across a dead seagull. Knowing that my second was a sensative soul, I picked it up and tossed it into the sea. This was clearly enough to revive it from its dying coma and rather than making things stress free for my partner, they had to endure 15 minutes of squawking and splashing as it slowly drowned. 

A few years back, we had a family holiday in Cuba and I took a day out with the lad to go climbing.

We were diverrted from our first objective by a rather angry and territorial billy goat, so changed our plan to instead climb a 2-pitch route up the front of a rather shapely pinnacle.

This all went smoothly until the abseil descent.  The top of the pillar was deeply grooved limestone penitentes (I know penitentes are snow...but not sure what an identical looking formation of sharp, deep spikes in limestone is called?).  We carefully arranged the ropes to avoid the worst of the razor edges and I sent the lad off over the shorter side at the back.  He got about 10m before reporting that the ropes had clipped the corner off a large hornets' nest and the former residents were a bit stirred up.

Inspecting the top I couldn't see another way to lay out the ropes to avoid it without a significant risk of severing them on blade like edges.  So we agreed to just more or less free fall past and then apply the brakes before decking.  This was not a plan that would have received approval from my spouse, but needs must.  Fortunately, the lad duly whizzed down, caught himself and breathed a sigh of relief.  Unfortunately his weight on the rope had now embedded them in the nest and, as I started to pull them up to clip in for my ab, a large section got severed and fell landing next to him.  Fortunately, he'd unclipped and had the presence of mind to leg it down through the undergrowth.  Unfortunately there were now clouds of angry insects both on the wall and at the landing. 

I decided that perhaps, after all, I could drape the rope the other side and it might not cut through if I was very careful and just crept down like a sliding shadow.  Fortunately I was right, and landed triumphant on the side away from the hornets.  Unfortunately, the ropes jammed solid.  I considered my life choices for a moment and decided that it would be easier to re-climb the route than bounce up the ropes in reascending them.  Fortunately, It was a mild grade and I felt ok soloing it.  Unfortunately the landing zone I'd ended up in was amidst a thicket of spiky, stingy, prickly macchia and I got shredded making my way down and round.

The re-ascent went ok, although the joy of movement had somewhat departed by this stage.  Once on top I pried the knot off the spike it had impaled on, reset the ab down the nest side, said a few prayers and zoomed down.  At the bottom I tried to carry on abbing down the path a way, to get away from the broken nest.  It probably helped a bit.  I like to think so.

And that folks, is type 3 fun.

Years back climbing in Thailand, going up a steep arete. I reached up to a high break and blindly touched something that was suspiciously soft but not wet in any way. As I moved my fingers away, quickly!, I felt their imprint stretch back out again. I didn't get any closer to confirm it, and my hand certainly wasn't going up there again so I lowered off in the fading light but I reckon there was a fair bet I'd touched the flank of a sizeable snake. The giant land crabs that scuttle about there at night spooked us for a funny moment too. Those claws would easy take a finger!

Surprisingly no one has mentioned the ants of Gowder yet…

I found my old girlfriend I'd not seen for months with her new partner on a belay ledge I climbed up to. That was an awkward 1/2 hour.

I met a bullet ant nest 2 pitches up a tree in the Amazon. It wasn't so bad, so we continued. Halfway up the 3rd pitch I was swarmed by killer bees. We should have taken the earlier warning!

What an amazing photo opportunity if on top of the Rosa pinnacle. Did you see it get down?