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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion
General Climbing Discussion
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2:13:07 PM |
What moment stands out as a supremely scary climbing moment for you? What did you learn from it? Is it when your mum said she thought climbing might be a good activity to take up? or is it when you descovered that climbing through a hard section with no gear doesn't always result in a rest or good gear. For me, one moment was when my partner suggested we should do 400m of steep alpine rock solo in order to avoid an easy 50m snow gully descent and wander over a glacier to our objective on the other side. Lesson - even when your partner looks strong, he can be making decisions with porrige between his ears when at altitude. |
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4:40:44 PM |
... and then I said to my partner : " Screw this climbing nonsense --- just stand there while I stick this straw in your ear , so I can suck out some of that tasty..." --------------------------------- OK --- nevermind that --- Once while abseiling off Bluff Major, via Missing Link , I found myself at the end of the rope , still well off the ground , and adjacent to a single rusty carrot .It had a tiny, VERY , sun-bleached hero-loop on it. Abseiling from one point is bad enuf , but to abseil off the 'loop was... I refused to abseil unless there was a wire-over-the-bolt-back-up. I abseiled to safety ; then 'partner' (part nerd ?) happily abseiled off the loop , not wanting to leave the wire behind , and made it safely down too, amazingly --- but wait there's more . Not content with this , said partner then did a huge tarzan swing out over the void towards the Pines--- still only attached to the 'loop... -------------------------------------- Oh I like ta have a beer with A5 Oh I like ta have a beer with whereitsat ! We drink in moderation But I never let him belay cos I know everything will go F@#$% bloody SPLAT !!! We drink at the Nati-National Where the atmosphere is great ! I like ta have a beer with A5 cos A5iswhereitsat !! ------------------------------------ A5 --- I would prefer a G-string... ----------------------------------- Robin --- if you climbed Sky Rocket post, circa, 1992 , all you had to do was reach right and clip one of the 20-odd U-bolts that a certain kiwi-moron placed in total dis-respect for the integrity of Sky Rocket... ---------------------------------- Neil --- I hope you had your poo-tube handy ! ... |
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4:53:13 PM |
On 12/08/2004 HEX wrote: > (snip) so I can suck ... Eeeegguuh You just pinged OFF, (the poor ridge) H-T ... 26/07/04 A5iswhereitsat said: (On the 'A Short Story' thread) >I was experiencing the standout scariest moment of the climb thus far, which was .... You will find it there (On the 'A Short Story' thread) shmalec! ____________________________ WM >welcome back Hex. wheres ya been I heard from a reliable source that Hex has been 'eliminated' twice now by forum moderators, but fortunately he is a survivor of the 5th dan and keeps coming back. H-T Re Slim Dusty lyrics; I wouldn't have credited that you were of that genre of music. The only belay your likely to receive from me on that 'score' (pun intended) is being tied off to a taught 'E' string ... ___________ >A5 --- I would prefer a G-string... I thought* you would say that!; (should've put money on it!) (*At the time I refrained from puns about taught G strings, though it had occurred to me) ... _________ H-T >Neil --- I hope you had your poo-tube handy ! ... nm hasn't clicked (yet?); besides he is a self confessed 'non-user' of poo-tubes. He prefers to 'hold on' instead; ... leading to BA comment 27/05/04 >Monty, does that mean you're full of shit when you climb big walls? |
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5:37:54 PM |
>abseiling off Bluff Major, via Missing Link .....single rusty carrot .....then did a huge tarzan swing out over the void towards the Pines welcome back Hex. wheres ya been? a) how short was your rope to leave you off the ground on a 28m rap? b) where's the bolt on missing link? c) if you swing from missing link towards the Pines you are swinging into the cliff.... |
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5:46:33 PM |
Stranger than fiction, eh... | |||||
6:35:57 PM |
Scariest moments are when you know you're going to fall but can't do anything about it. My scariest moment was on Sky Rocket (20) Mt Wellington. This is a long, sustained pitch that swallows wires. About half way up I started to run out of gear. I placed a marginal wire then ran it out a bit. When I couldn't find anymore gear I decided to downclimb (bad move). I got half way down a layback flake then ended up so pumped I couldn't take either hand off the rock. Still run out over a crap wire I hung on till I fell. That was scary! The wire held but the fall was still big. There was one cam below the wire, and below that all my wires zippered. I came out of it no worries but the belayer had slight rope burn. Still after the fall I figured that was the worst thing that could happen and the wire was obviously OK, so I jumped back on and finished the climb. |
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6:47:47 PM |
Aiding pitch 5 or 6 of Ozymandias on the north wall of Buffalo and i decided to switch from aid to free mode to try and speed up the process. I was wearing runners not climbing shoes. I laybacked up some sort of expando flake and managed to kick out the wire I had placed at my feet. The previous bit of gear was a good 7m below that and suddenly i relaized that my Nike's don't grip onto granite like 5.10 rubber does! The feeling of being in a tenous layback move five pitches up Ozy in runners facing a 15m+ fall was totally freaky. I started sketching and shaking and seeing no gear nearby I managed to downclimb and whittle a replacment wire in using my feet and slump back onto my daisy chains. I promptly decided I wasn't going to try and free any more of this route and stayed in my aiders for the rest of the day. | |||||
10:13:48 AM |
Oh I like to have a beer with Neil-o Oh I like to have a beer with ' The Mont ' ! We drink in moderation He gets pissed-out-of-his-head cos he's going to the Font ! We drink at the Nati-National where the atmosphere is great ! I like to have a beer with Neil-o cos Neil likes to tickle my date !! |
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10:14:05 AM |
On 12/08/2004 HEX wrote: > I like ta have a beer with A5 > cos A5iswhereitsat !! May the great one wield the heavenly golden guitar in your direction. That's f###ing brilliant >> cos Neil likes to tickle my date With his Ryobi aka the French tickler? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well Hexy, he took me by the hand* And said there's so much in this life I do not understand Like when that music starts, my body just won't stop I just wanna stay all night and do that modern bop * But I palmed the little fairy off |
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10:40:43 AM |
I love to have a beer with Robbo, I love to have a beer with Rob. He drinks while inebriated, And he always likes to polish my big fat knob. He drinks in the town and country, And he always stays up late, I love to have a beer with Robbo, Cause Robbo's second rate. |
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1:20:10 PM |
---------------------------------------- Oh I like ta have a beer with......... Oh I like ta have a beer with Chris He's a one-can-screamer , so he gets really/easily very-f@#$%-pissed ! We drink at the Nati-National where the atmosphere is great ! I like ta have a beer with Chreee-iis Cos he thinks Chockstone is bliss !... ----------------------------------------- Wha ?!!! ---aw fair-go mate--- that's no worse than ' ........izashit ' !--- aw OK then, here's the censored one... |
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2:14:04 PM |
On 13/08/2004 Damietta wrote: (re HEX) >May the great one wield the heavenly golden guitar in your direction. >That's f###ing brilliant Kissed and made up huh? Not all those who wander are lost... "Don't talk to it Merry! Don't encourage it!" ----------- You need to read more widely H-T, or at least see the movie/s ... Ya havnt bin pickin up the retrocryptic like ya usta -> (The reliable sources were right, you have been more restrained of late...); like a G string?? _______________ Aahh; nuff, nuff, ... I went looking for the irony & I found it twice!! (In fact it can be taken on at least 2 levels...) Hex said 08/07/04 >I wonder here , I wander there --- it has me reaching for the Bex, >But everyone keeps telling me, it's cool to be ' The HEX Hence ... Not all those who wander are lost... |
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5:59:25 PM |
A5 --- There are so many flys around the addax's smelly butt ,that you are being distracted from the subtle-tease of irony... ------------------------------------------------------- Yeth Damey --- don' incuwigde it --- it'th vwery nawtey... |
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2:19:08 AM |
When I first started climbing Mikl took me out to do the first new route of the millenium. After a bit of a walk we arrive at the place, a 2 pitch 27/14, both pitches 50 metres, very exposed. As a bumbly, guess which pitch I got? Very sportingly bolted. The first pitch is a gobsmackingly beautiful arete on perfect rock, nively bolted, one every few metres. Mikl hauled my ass outta there, onto the ledge, where I headed up the "14". Think carrots, every 12 metres. Think big chunks of really loose rock, I had several ledges collapse. I had a sit down and cry moment, between bolts at one point, got my crap back together, and headed up into the choss again. The last 15 metres consisted of huge spikes and shattered dinner plates, all very loose - think fine, shattered china, with Mikls old thinnish looking rope running between them all, down and around the corner where the last carrot lay 10 metres below. Four points of contact climbing. Often two of the points served the purpose of throwing chunks of rock off into space, three or four in quick sucession before a hand would land on something solid. Not what I had in mind for one of my first climbs, really. It may have been, like, 15 or 16, but the way I was forced to avoid anything that looked remotely like a hold it was more like a solid (or not so solid) 18. Ness |
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12:06:18 PM |
Back when you could climb at Hanging Rock, and way back when, when the "loose" pinnacle on Bridge of Sighs still moved, the gentle rocking movement as you scampered up over the pinnacle was certainly a sphincter-tightening moment. - Steve (for those with no knowledge, this easy climb went up over a semi-detached rib of rock, about 1m in diameter and not joined to the cliff for a considerable span in the middle). |
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2:20:55 PM |
Oh I like ta have a beer with Ste-vie Oh I like ta have a beer with g(round)f(all)-donc We drink in moderation We talk lotsa shit&drink lotsa plonk !! We drink at the Nati-National where the atmosphere is great ! I like ta have a beer with Ste-vie Cos gf-donc wants a bonk... |
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2:39:04 PM |
On 16/08/2004 gfdonc wrote: >climb went up over a semi-detached rib of rock, about 1m in diameter and not joined to >the cliff for a considerable span in the middle. Sounds disconcertingly like certain spots in the Warrumbungles. Once did a middle pitch on a multipitch climb there only to find once I got higher up, that the 'face' I was climbing on was in fact a huge area of rock about a metre thick and largely detached ... >sphincter-tightening Yes; ... and it kind of mocks the sound pro placed along the way and clipped too ... John Middendorf recounts a similar experience when he did ‘The Grand Voyage’ with Xavier Bongarde (sp?), on Great Trango Tower. They climbed for many days and when about 3/4 up it, were bivvied in a portaledge on the wall. During the night the previous 2(+?) pitches fell into the abyss ... Joe Simpson had a similar experience on the 'Dru' (?). He and his partner were left hanging off a 'rope handrail' with very manky support both ends of it, after their ‘natural’ bivvy ledge decided to jump off the face into the abyss taking pretty much all their gear with it ... |
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2:51:48 PM |
The East Face of Crookneck (17 allegedly) in the Glasshouse Mts used to have a rather exciting pillar that moved out about 6 inches when you cranked to get on top of it... all your gear that was behind it then dropped out as the pillar expanded... very interesting. I ended up doing a very concerned and nifty little layback to get on top of it. I believe that someone (Dick Henderson?? appologies if I am wrong) went up and levered it off in the interest of 'safety'... bloody do-gooder! Next pitch Dags Holloway got off route when the crack got unpleasant (ie off width) and pulled a block off the face onto Moi from about 20 metres above us. Good day to look back on when you consider that we all survived. | |||||
3:04:17 PM |
On several occassions HEX wrote: >Oh I like ta have a beer with (snip) Moderators were wrong. You have not become more constrained. Seems your a cheap hussy too, as you never did come good with the bottle of plonk promised back in the early post-days campfire of THE AUSTRALIAN RETRO/RE-BOLTING OPEN FORUM. How about giving us some historical facts from your cauldron of lore, re drinking and climbing? eg Do yano anything about how the wine bottle got to be suspended under the overhang on the wall adjacent Crystal Brook Falls at Buffalo? |
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3:23:06 PM |
Oh I like ta have a beer with Wonder-dog Oh I like ta have a beer with the bitch(?) We drink in moderation When the tail starts to wag ' The HEX ' gets a twitch ! ... We drink at the Boona-par-ar-b where the atmosphere is great ! I like ta have a beer with --- I'm so over-whelmed by one of your rare appearances Wonder-dog !!! --- yes indeed , don't let us forget one of Greg Child's awe-some new El Cap routes , where they spent the night ,2000 feet up , hanging-off pitons , nailed down the back of a 3metre-by-3metre 'biscuit'... Luv,HEX... |
| There are 27 messages in this topic. |
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