two almost death falls.
first, back in the US. had led my two partners up 4 meandering pitches to big tree with slings and rap rings. decided to rap straight down instead of going back the way we came. went over an overhang (out of sight and hearing of my partners), saw the next rap station about 2m underneath me, and felt a weird sensation in my hand. it was the two knots i had tied at the ends of my rope bunged up in the prusik cord i was using as a rappel backup. immediate adrenaline overload. if i hadn't tied the knots, would have died that day. spent about 15 minutes 'swinging' back to the face, plugged in some cams. took a long breather, then prusik'd 50m back up to the tree where my mates asked me wtf. we rapped the other way down.
second in korea. was rapping down 4 pitch route. got to second station just as a party of 7 (yes 7) got to the crappy rap station. my mates and i moved over a couple meters to a lone bolt and small tree while this group sorted themselves and started up the next pitch. i was last to rappel. was easing over to the rap station, still hooked up to the bolt, when one of the korean morons decided to be helpful and unclip my carabiner from the bolt. 100m up, no protection with 6 people crunched up on a slab. I screamed!! at him to clip the f-ing thing back in. clipped into rap anchor, reached over, unclipped myself from lone bolt and got out of there. fyi, koreans are the world's most unsafe climbers. don't ever go near them. |