What's the worst climbing day you've ever had?

I have another Castlewood story... Couple friends and I were out on Cave Wall just hanging out and enjoying the great day. I was at the top of the wall looking over and decided to rap down into the cave instead of climbing down into it. Well I had my rack tucked into my harness which I thought was attached via a biner...it turns out that it wasn't attached and as soon as I started my rap i saw something out of the corner of my eye falling. When I got a good look, I realized it was my rack. I lost 6 cams, 8 tricams, 18 quick draws, 2 sets of nuts, a nut wrench, 5 screwgates and 4 big boys that day. That had to be my worst day of climbing thus far in my experience.

All of them. I hate this sport as much as I hate myself

Brandon johnson wrote:I have another Castlewood story... Couple friends and I were out on Cave Wall just hanging out and enjoying the great day. I was at the top of the wall looking over and decided to rap down into the cave instead of climbing down into it. Well I had my rack tucked into my harness which I thought was attached via a biner...it turns out that it wasn't attached and as soon as I started my rap i saw something out of the corner of my eye falling. When I got a good look, I realized it was my rack. I lost 6 cams, 8 tricams, 18 quick draws, 2 sets of nuts, a nut wrench, 5 screwgates and 4 big boys that day. That had to be my worst day of climbing thus far in my experience.

Brandon, is there no hope for recovery?

Jim Rudolph wrote:Trying to bivouac in a tee shirt on the top of Cathedral Spire back in the '70s in Yosemite. Freezing a slow death we rapped off in pitch black, got our ropes snagged in a crack, but did manage to make it back to the crotch. We covered ourselves with rocks to try and keep warm till morning.

Jim,

I recall another hideous valley story that happened to us.
We had just finished the south face of The Column and as the last of our party, and I do mean party, topped out, we were benighted.
Instead of attempting the ugly descent down the gully at night, we decided to spend the night. We were eaten alive by fire ants until the sun came up enough to descend.

The days i get injured. what about you?

My worst day climbing was better than my best day fishing.

I have two or three that contend... The worst one was definitely when I went to send my first 5.12 that happened to be in a new area. There was a rudimentary trail, and I went down the wrong way. While steadying myself on an undercling to hike down the steepest part of the gulley, the hold broke off and I went flying about 15 feet hitting rocks on the way down and I landed on the trail right next to a drop-off and broke my face in three spots. Had to get a whole bunch of metal all up in there. 

My second-worse isn't that bad, but still not fun. I climbed a fist crack in an area where putting up bolts is banned, and it went pretty well. Got to the top where I had my anchor tied to a tree, and realized it would be better to rap on a reapschner. Set that up, and I'm by the edge of the climb to see that a baby rattlesnake had climbed to the top of the crack on some dust just two feet from me, suggesting it could have bit my hand while climbing the route. I make no sudden movements, back up, and leave it be and continue rapping. This is the first time in my life I have had long hair, so I wasn't really thinking of the warnings I had received about tying it up for climbing or the predicament you can find yourself in while you're rappelling. I found myself in that predicament. I had to hold the break strand (if I didn't, the grigri would slip because my hair was reducing the friction in the device) and tie an overhand on a bight above my head to put my foot into so I could pull up on the grigri enough to get my hair out. It worked and the rope dislodged, but a huge clump came with it. I wasn't prepared to throw in the towel on the day at that point, until a day or two later I realized there must have been poison ivy in the crack, and therefore all over my rope. I had been exposing myself and others to it since that day. 

Speaking of poison ivy in the crack, I once left my climbing buddy where were cragging and mentioned he had to poop. He told me not to wipe with poison ivy and I just laughed. It was really coming up on me, and I had to drop trou and let a messy one rip. I look around me where I'm squatting and notice there's only two kinds of foliage - one with thorns and one that looked a-okay. In hindsight (no pun intended), it might have been better to wipe with thorns. I spent a good month and a half recovering from that poison ivy. It got everywhere, and working construction didn't help. Every time I took a step I could feel the poison ivy itching itself between my cheeks. 

Climbed The Thumb in Little Cottonwood Canyon in the heat of the summer.  Ran out of water half way up.  Finished the climb very dehydrated.  

On the descent, the rope got caught on the rappel.  Tried to free it to no avail.  Ended up climbing as high as I dared, and cutting the rope.  Continued rappelling on this short rope piece.  Used my rack up to make rappel anchors.  Was so thirsty, I ended up drinking my own urine to avoid complete shutdown due to dehydration.  

Ended up getting down to the ground after dark.  Lost two brand new ropes and about half my rack.  Pissed blood for a day afterward from the severe dehydration.  

The body recovery at Tahquitz is right up there. 

The three of us were on the trail, west of the Maiden and below Vampire, getting our stuff together to head over to lunch rock. A young woman in a sun dress and street shoes came around from the east side of the buttress. "Excuse me, our friend fell. Can you help us?" 

We figured some guy broke his ankle or something and took off in her direction to help.

The body had no head. The last thing I wanted right then was an anatomy lesson of the human neck but there it was. The body had no left leg below the femur. While the head was nowhere to be seen, the leg lay there twenty feet away with a climbing shoe on its foot. He wore a "No Fear" T-Shirt.

Needless to say getting him down in the stokes litter was the stuff of nightmares. Dead bodies do weird shit when you start moving them around.

Why did we even get involved in recovering this body? There are seasoned pros for that. Because it was late in the day, and his completely freaked out friends begged us to. "The animals," they pleaded. We decided not to leave him there over night.

The back story is that it was his first climb, and his friends just waited around at the base 'till he got back. Then, right in front of their eyes, he came tumbling down from the top of the Maiden. It was the classic scenario we all joke about. Taking pictures he took one to many steps back.

Unlike Russ and his colleagues, I was not seasoned in such things. It really messed with my head for quite a while.

Kristian Solem wrote:

The body recovery at Tahquitz is right up there. 

The three of us were on the trail, west of the Maiden and below Vampire, getting our stuff together to head over to lunch rock. A young woman in a sun dress and street shoes came around from the east side of the buttress. "Excuse me, our friend fell. Can you help us?" 

We figured some guy broke his ankle or something and took off in her direction to help.

The body had no head. The last thing I wanted right then was an anatomy lesson of the human neck but there it was. The body had no left leg below the femur. While the head was nowhere to be seen, the leg lay there twenty feet away with a climbing shoe on its foot. He wore a "No Fear" T-Shirt.

Needless to say getting him down in the stokes litter was the stuff of nightmares. Dead bodies do weird shit when you start moving them around.

Why did we even get involved in recovering this body? There are seasoned pros for that. Because it was late in the day, and his completely freaked out friends begged us to. "The animals," they pleaded. We decided not to leave him there over night.

The back story is that it was his first climb, and his friends just waited around at the base 'till he got back. Then, right in front of their eyes, he came tumbling down from the top of the Maiden. It was the classic scenario we all joke about. Taking pictures he took one to many steps back.

Unlike Russ and his colleagues, I was not seasoned in such things. It really messed with my head for quite a while.

Holy shit! 

As weird as it is that these old threads keep getting resurrected, they also help me realize how posts on MP used to be way more interesting and high quality

I can't think of a worst day climbing.

Almost dying of hypothermia on mont blanc and getting rescued. 

A close second would be a gym date I went on where she basically didn't talk to me and just talked to her friends, weird date. 

Yeah I feel like for those of us got significantly injured, this is easy to answer. The day I fell and broke my back and got a concussion was a really bad day. 

Seeing my friend fall from a second pitch of a climb to the ground was a bad day too though miraculously he walked away fine. I was leading the climb next to it, and I thought I was seeing my friend die.  After he said he was fine, I had to hang on a piece and cry for a bit before I finish that climb.  He was leading Even Stevens at Index so the second pitch isn’t as high as if he were on a typical second pitch, but that was still a really long fall. Newish belayer with a grigri. And the friend was taking practice falls for the new belayer to learn lead belaying

Solo outing on Longs Peak in early fall.

Fell on lambs slide near the top and somehow managed to self arrest.  Made it to the loft around sunset and got hammered by 70-80 mph winds.  Nearly got lost trying to find Clark's arrow in the dark.

Ended up close to hypothermia, but found a small cave behind the notch and managed to pull my shit together.

I didn't die or end up injured, so it probably wasn't the worst.  But I felt pretty foolish afterward...

When the crag is too crowded or there is some kind of shit show or bad vibes such that I feel compelled to leave.

Became more frequent in more recent years.

worst day ever was going to Black mountain to boulder mid-summer, thinking that there might be nice temps up there. nope, overnight low of 73 and weirdly humid. we climbed the evening that we got there, and the next morning we all tried to pull on to some warm-ups, but all the skin was already lost. we left that morning at like 9am because it sucked so bad. probably a total of 7 hours of driving for maybe 30 minutes of actual climbing...

Locker wrote:

Likely not what the OP was looking for...

but, my worst day involved in climbing was many years back hanging out with "too strong" In the Hidden Valley parking area and three very serious accidents occurred back-to-back

unfortunately, I was witness to all...

watched an elderly woman top roping tiptoe with the Anchor way off to the right and she pendulum and was rendered unconscious...

watched James Soloing on ski track and taking his falls...

then watched a dude climbing spider line which he eventually got spit off of, and was killed upon falling...

all within 3 hours...

thats fucking crazy.

ive climbed for >20 years and not witnessed a serious accident (many breaks and sprains). 3 in one day. fuck. sorry.

Robert Somoano and I climbed the South Face of Clyde Minaret in the Sierra in August. The climb went well, but the descent down the gully between Clyde and (MIchael ??) didn't. The gully was frozen snow even at 4 pm and we were in rock shoes. Rapped the whole gully. Took us well into the evening to do about ten raps while carefully placing anchors and trying not to slip on the frozen snow.

 Since the route is fairly easy (5.8), we didn't bring much gear and by the tenth rap were running out of pro. Robert set up the rap and took off. I heard a loud ping and the rope disappeared down the slope. 

I was hanging on one stopper, luckily placed by me separate from the anchor, but I was sure Robert was gone and I was stuck up there...The most horrible thoughts went through me. How am I going to tell Robert's wife? I felt so alone, shaking all over, trying to stay calm which was totally impossible.

After couple minutes I heard some yelling and realized that Robert fell into the bergschrund some 70 feet lower down. He told me that he crushed his daypack and that saved him from injury....

But it took several hours to get the rope and the hardware to me so I could set up another rap station and get down to Robert and easier ground. We got to our camp early next morning.

This happened some 35 years ago but to this day, I will check and re-check any and all rap anchors, no matter how solid they look.

I guess, thinking back on it, if this was the worst I ever witnessed while climbing, all those years were not that bad after all.

Lightning ground strike at Sand Rock, Alabama. There were six of us in at the Devil's Whipping Post. Everyone took a shock, ranging from me and two others feeling like we'd touched an electric fence to one guy who got knocked on his ass and couldn't feel or move his legs for about 20 minutes. He eventually walked out, but he had these zombie-like black "vein" looking things on his legs for two days.