These pages are dedicated to the telling of gut wrenching tales of horrid injury or near-miss experience.
The type of stories you hear in the pub, that makes your crisps curl. That sort of thing.
All have some basis in truth; well at least they've been told to me. Apocryphal, but effective I think ...
Please feel free to submit your own. |
Acknowledgements Thanks to the following for contributions, in one form or another: Matt Gallagher (for the original idea), Noel Curtis, Roger Peppe, Dave Hollingham (that's the last time I'm rescuing you, Dave!), Ian MacLellan, Al Downie, Martin Brown, Gareth Rees, John Wilson, Pete Squires, Martin Thompson, Graeme Peacock, Aiden Maguire, David Jones, Steph Barrett, Ruth Taylor, Bob Wightman, Craig Smith, Al Evans, Andy Kay and the staff of Airedale General. |
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Big Falls - I |
Graeme Peacock has fun on The Ben. |
Competition is bad for your health |
Climbing walls. Playground for 'adults'? Martin Thompson speaks. |
Out of sight, out of mind |
Sitting comfortably? Good. Relax and listen to Al Downie's words of wisdom ... |
Nice soft sandy landing ... |
Southern sandstone. Bowles rocks. Digitalis (F7a+). Young chap goes to solo this pumpy little route - nice sandy landing,
can do it on toprope, therefore no problem. Half way up, the young lad drops off, and his friends watch him hit the deck feet first.
"Phew!" Collective sigh of relief when they see him standing upright, no sign of injury. Until he painfully gasps that he can't move.
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Stuck ropes - I |
Moelwyns. Some HVS. Noel Curtis takes up the story ... |
EpicMeister Ransome |
The Lake District, Gimmer Crag. Ian MacLellan [Ian 1]
recounts a day out with Ian Ransome [Ian 2] ... |
Stuck ropes - II |
Ben Nevis. Banana Groove (E4). I was once dragged up this route by a ridiculously keen Andy Cockburn.
Very windy conditions, not enough clothes, etc. A smattering of rain put us in the right mood.
Andy, to his credit, stormed up the crux pitch and I followed, thankfully resting on the rope whenever a wire was 'too hard'
to extract with one hand (sneaky, eh?). Beacause of the wind, Andy had carefully 'lapped' the ropes at the hanging stance.
However, when I reached him the wind dropped and in a moment of optimism, Andy kicked the ropes off.
Predictably, back came the wind and took 2 x 145ft. of slack rope around the arete (Aggripa), and jammed them tight.
With little option, our hero Andy sets off leading uncharted (unscrubbed) ground with just enough rope to reach the
sticking point, and continued up the arete. |
Slip sliding away |
Scotland. Etive Slabs. The Pause (HVS). Mark, nickname Agasi due to uncanny resemblence to folicly challenged sports-star,
has a history of 'loosing' a route. Once discovered half way up Haystack instead of the Needle. Anyway, the line at top of
The Pause is notorious for being particularly coy with leaders - very easy to get lost on a non-reversable slab. Non-the-less,
our hero finds himself lost, alone and runout, no belay in site, and at the end of the rope. He decides to test the non-downclimbable
theory, and finds it holds true. |
"Birds, eh?" |
Yorkshire. Heptonstall Quarry. Fairy Steps (VS). Our North-of-England correspondant,
Noel Curtis, reports ...
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Clip or die! |
An apocryphal tale. Llanberis Slate. Rainbow Slab. Probably Raped by Affection (E7). Rumour has it that a young upstart called Johnny
(I think you know who I mean), attempted the second ascent of this route on sight. The first 70ft are effectively unprotected
and then you get a single bolt and the technical crux, and so to the top. Johnny nears the bolt, but lacks Redhead's reach,
and is unable to clip it. In desperation, he calls for a load of slack from his belayer and, with a quickdraw clipped into the rope,
jumps for the bolt. He slams the krab home and immediately weights the rope. Thus, the first dyno-clip was born.[1]
[1] Why didn't he ask for a rescue rope like most of us would? Gads!
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GOREdale |
Gordale Some Hard Severe. Roger Peppe recounts a fitting episode... |
"SLACK!!" |
Here's another one from Roger Peppe, about a certain young lad called
Martin ... |
Verdon rope testing | France. Verdon. Belay ledge with a lot of air around it. Two youths from Cumbria / Yorkshire have just abseilled onto this ledge. They start sorting the ropes out; both are tied into the ends of a 9mm. One lad thoughtfully clips himself in to the bolts and continues sorting gear out. Looks up: his mate has gone! "Oh shit!" as he sees the coils whipping off the edge. Massive lo-o-o-ong strain on the rope as too many yorkshire puds and beer come to rest. Half an hour later, his mate arrives back at the ledge after falling and prussiking 150 ft on his shoe-laces. He dusts himself down, and asks whose lead it is. |
Big Falls - II |
Not actually in the UK either, but this gruesome one from
Aiden Maguire is set at Lover's Leap, California...
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The Approach Path |
Beeston Tor, Peak District. Tale sent in anonymously. |
Steph's Ankle |
Noel Curtis reports on a weekend in Yorkshire... |
Anvil Chorus |
drj recounts an ascent of Bosigran's Anvil Chorus |
Pembroken |
Ruth Taylor's memorable day out in Pembroke...
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Huge Fall I |
Bob Wightman reports... |
Huge Fall II |
Bob Wightman again. Perhaps you should not climb with this man...? |
New routing at Cilan Head |
Al Evans recalls a new route ... |
Look No Fingers! |
Andy Kay has this for us to digest:
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© J.Read and individual authors, 2001