I'm a little ashamed and embarrassed to admit this to a group of my peers but I feel that it is very important to help remind people to please stayed focused while climbing.
This past weekend I went sport climbing and when I got to the top of a route (just under 200 ft) I clipped a quickdraw to one of the rap bolts and cloved hitched myself to the draw. Since this climb was so high it required a double rope rapel to get back down. I started setting up the second rope that I'd been trailing up and once I got it ready I un-tied the climbing rope from my harness (since I wasn't focused I somehow thought the clove hitch was still holding me). I tied the two ropes together and when I tossed them down I noticed that there was nothing attaching me to the rap bolts, I was just standing on the ledge with no pro. First I mentally freaked out, followed quickly by calmly attaching my harness directly to the quickdraw. All total I was probably standing unprotected for about 20 - 30 seconds. If I would have thought this through I would have had attached a myself directly to the bolts and not used the rope in the equation, but I made a mistake.
I know these are just excuses but I feel that this mistake was due to the fact that I hadn't been rope climbing in almost a month (mostly bouldering lately) and the last few rope climbs had been multi-pitch with a walk-off at the end(in which i would never need to untie myself from the rope and my clove hitch approach is acceptable and my preference).
I wanted to post this for two reasons: 1) I needed to "let it out" as this has really been on my mind for the past few days (I won't make that mistake anytime soon) and 2) I want to remind everyone to please stay focused when climbing and mental walk through each step in your climb and descent before you begin so you don't overlook something as critical as I did.
Be safe and climb on.
cbear
Universal Rhythm says:
Its wierd, because no matter how long you've been climbing we all make mistakes. I mean Lynn Hill even forgot to tie her knot and fell 80ft (i think it was). So it's ALWAYS a good thing to double check no matter how good at climbing you happen to be.
-Peace Out
slockwoo_knits says:
Holy crap.
People get tired. People untie. People make mistakes. A similar thing happened to a friend of mine when he just untied on a very small beley ledge. Fortunately, his partner saw him and nothing bad happened.
I always try to tie in to two points so that I don't accidently untie. I first started climbing multipitch while I was on chemo. Chemo makes you spacey. I learned to back everything up because I didn't trust myself at all. I had really great partners who watched me like hawks too. But yeah, backing up protection isn't really ever a bad idea.
captain static says:
Thanks for sharing your story and glad that you were able to keep it together. I am always super nervous about cleaning anchors or rapelling so always check and double check. It is good to have partners that are into checking knots, harness buckles, etc. It isn't a bad idea to keep an eye on other people at the crag and let them know if you see a problem. Earlier this summer my friend saw somebody take their partner off belay because they thought they were clipped into the anchors when they were really still climbing. He said something real fast and helped the belayer get their partner back on. Scary stuff.
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