Speaking of climbing "opps"....
When I was 23 I was teaching "how to rappel" and to demonstrate better the concept of being perpendicular to the wall I leaned way out from the top... when I levered a 9' Basalt Column that my rappel anchor was bolted to out of the face of Skinner's Butte in Eugene, Oregon. I fell ~ 60' from the top clear to the ground and broke my pelvis and ankle multiple places, plus ACL and assorted minor stuff that landed me a Summertime in St Mary's Hospital. Luckily the column didn't roll onto me or worse. (Besides the bones this was before they started screening blood for HIV and back then every druggy bum donated blood for $15 a pint.) Effectively ended my professional skiing career (bone spurs had already curtailed it) and while I've been back to the climbing gym with my kids I've never seriously climbed since (used to go to Yosemite, LCC, Gunks, etc.). I still have a circa 1983 climbing rack with Choiunard hexes and stoppers, D-carabiners....
Don't trust anchors after a Winter's freeze/thaw cycle!
There is a series of annual books called "Accidents in North American Mountaineering" and I made it in! Nowadays there is a good podcast called "The Sharp End" about climbing accidents. An awful lot of accidents happen to experienced mountaineers doing something fairly routine and easy like rappelling or low level routes. I respect climbers a lot but there are a lot of unavoidable situations outside of your control.
When I was 23 I was teaching "how to rappel" and to demonstrate better the concept of being perpendicular to the wall I leaned way out from the top... when I levered a 9' Basalt Column that my rappel anchor was bolted to out of the face of Skinner's Butte in Eugene, Oregon. I fell ~ 60' from the top clear to the ground and broke my pelvis and ankle multiple places, plus ACL and assorted minor stuff that landed me a Summertime in St Mary's Hospital. Luckily the column didn't roll onto me or worse. (Besides the bones this was before they started screening blood for HIV and back then every druggy bum donated blood for $15 a pint.) Effectively ended my professional skiing career (bone spurs had already curtailed it) and while I've been back to the climbing gym with my kids I've never seriously climbed since (used to go to Yosemite, LCC, Gunks, etc.). I still have a circa 1983 climbing rack with Choiunard hexes and stoppers, D-carabiners....
Don't trust anchors after a Winter's freeze/thaw cycle!
There is a series of annual books called "Accidents in North American Mountaineering" and I made it in! Nowadays there is a good podcast called "The Sharp End" about climbing accidents. An awful lot of accidents happen to experienced mountaineers doing something fairly routine and easy like rappelling or low level routes. I respect climbers a lot but there are a lot of unavoidable situations outside of your control.
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