Bogley

tanya · Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 5519 Location: Utah

What was your scariest or most dangerous moment..... :popcorn:

Bo_Beck · Joined: 02 Dec 2005 Posts: 742 Location: Southern Utah

tanya wrote: What was your scariest or most dangerous moment..... :popcorn:

Working out the crux move on Necessary Evil (5.14) and working the last super thin sequence....slipping...crimp harder! SHEEEEEEEEET! Then I woke up and my wife was screaming and gave me a black eye and yelled "Go crimp something else"! :lol8:

Gotta be my 40' whipper on the 2nd headwall pitch of Spaceshot? Gotta quit leepfrogging that pro!

denaliguide · Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Posts: 542 Location: new zealand/alaska

could be the lead fall on the the titan in about 1980. took a screamer when a bolt that i was standing on popped out on the start of the third pitch just below the thumb. turned out this little 1/4 bolt was put in by layton kor on the first ascent in 1964. still have the bolt as a souvenier.

or maybe the 20 foot fall into a crevasse ascending the south buttress on denali in 1984. drug my ex-wife face first through the snow until the friction stopped me.

or maybe the night i spent in a nasty storm on the west rib of denali in 1994. tents shredded emergency evac to a lower altitude in the middle of the night. went down from 16,400 to 15,200. dug 2 snow trenches for the clients and the lead guide. i took the body of a tent (without poles)and tied it off to a pin in a crack and then tied my self in to the rope and crawled in. i was on a small downsloping ledge that dropped off about 5,000 ft. (no exaggeration). winds were howling around 80+ mph. shovels were blown away during the night. the lead guide went back up to 16,400 to see if he could get another shovel from a team that had stayed there. they wouldn't let him come back down that night alone. by morning when the storm broke i had 2 of the 3 clients in the tent with me. the lead guide showed up and asked if i had seen peter. i told him no. he said "i think he 's dead". the trench peter was in had lost the piece of fly that was covering it over blown away and the rest was just filled in by blowing snow. we went over there expecting the worst. we started digging and soon heard sounds from peter. not dead at all. just patiently waiting for someone to dig him out. this was an epic for sure. peter was the only one to suffer any injuries. minor frostbite was all. there was a video made of this, it was called "Storm over Denali".
LINK
we were the other expedition that nearly got wiped out. tom pollards group was the one that we tried to get another shovel from.
http://www.chesslerbooks.com/eCart/viewItem.asp?idProduct=1269

or maybe rafting down westwater and flipped our paddle raft in sock-it-to-me. got held under, maytagged and hit my face on something underwater. at that point i let go of my paddle and just went limp and hoped that i surfaced before i ran out of breath. got a big shiner out of this one.

but definitely it was the time i was out running my dogs in the middle of the wilderness of alaska and fell through the ice on this small creek. my lead dogs had gotten tangled up and i stopped to go up and straighten them out. as i walked back alongside my team i stepped just off the trail and broke through the ice. here i am 75 miles from the nearest road and i'm up to my armpits in the creek and can't touch bottom. first thing out of my mouth was a big HELP!!!!!. obviously that fell on deaf ears. lol. i hollered at my dogs and got them moving and made a grab for the sled as it went by. got it and the dogs pulled me out of the water. air temp was -15. i had to go back to the little dirt floored 8x10 trappers cabin i had spent the night before. oh yea this was a solo trip too.

cheated death one more time. sure hope i have more lives than a cat.

tanya · Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 5519 Location: Utah

You both have me scared! :eek2: :eek2:

RedRoxx · Joined: 07 Jan 2007 Posts: 90 Location: Tucson Az

More than one--
Flash flood near Buckskin Gulch--unintentional bivouac overnight on East Clark Bench cause Paria flowed also.
Fall in Robbers Roost area, roping off a backpack, downclimbed and pack rolled and took me with it. I tossed the rope around a rock prominence and kept both from going over about a 30 foot drop.
Fall in the Dirty Devil River in high water.
Stuck in a cave, sliding down a tight area and got hung up by my helmet and my body weight hanging by my chin strap.
Dangling over a reported 3200-3600 foot mine shaft, trying to swing over to a tunnel to get rope to my partner.
Climbing out of a cave during a huge rainstorm in a resultant underground waterfall almost blocking the entrance and temporarily flooding the passage.
Solo hiking, fall with lower leg laceration with bone exposure. Had a 3 mile off trail trip to get out. Trekking poles make nice crutches.

mrbrejcha · Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Posts: 184 Location: Durango, CO

denaliguide wrote: could be the lead fall on the the titan in about 1980. took a screamer when a bolt that i was standing on popped out on the start of the third pitch just below the thumb. turned out this little 1/4 bolt was put in by layton kor on the first ascent in 1964. still have the bolt as a souvenier.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! The fishers.

Mine would be....

My first trad lead. I read the section about placing nuts in freedom of the hills on the way to the crag, on the third pitch I placed a nut (we were poor and only had 1/2 set of nuts and 1/2 set of hexes), i took up slack to clip it and all my stoppers below fell out. Then I fired the "crux" and promptly cleaned my pants.

Falling into a crevasse is up there.

Watching (and hearing) the ice pillar i was leading crack and form a fracture line just above my head was scary too. Then finishing the lead.

Soloing a decent size (but EZ) ice climb, getting back to the car and hearing the climb 200 yards to my left had a giant avalanche while I was climbing. Just as easily could have been my climb.

Iceaxe · Joined: 07 Mar 2005 Posts: 7682 Location: Local Bordello

Scary and rerun scary..... Both climbing.....

First was 1976 while climbing the North Ridge of the Pfeifferhorn. A rock slide started above us and we kissed the wall as the massive boulders bounced over the top of use without hitting me or my partner.

Second was 1998 while climbing Grand Teton. A couple of toads managed to start a rock slide above us and we kissed the wall as the massive boulders bounced over the top of use without hitting me or my partner.

Damn scary feeling when is all you can do is suck up to the wall and try to make yourself little.... knowing any of the rocks bouncing over your head could easily kill you.

Pfeifferhorn - 1999