dodgiest moment

[racingsnake]

As we seem to be doing a lot of Hardest / Biggest / Best Threads at present.
Here is my one
After a few years of caving we all have a least one or two scary/ dodgy moments under our belt.
Those of you who have read David rose,s book beneath the mountains will recall reading about Paul a guy who unwittingly traversed out over a shaft with an ammo can hanging by a donkey's from his harness. Gripping stuff. (read it for yourseves)

Mine is this.

I was at the re belay below the traverse of the gods in nick pots main shaft with my partner on the ledge a long way below me. As I approached the bolt it was necessary to swing across to gain a purchase against the wall. As luck would have it there was a handhold behind a flake of rock to the right of the bolt, so swinging across I grabbed this in an attempt to hold myself still to clip in to the re belay. Clipped in no problem and at that exact moment the flake I was holding came away in my hand.

No exaggeration but it was the size of two dinner plates and was too much for one hand to hold. I grabbed it with the other hand and held on for dear life as my cowstail took the strain of  the impending smash against the wall. I could not imagine what my

partner below was thinking but now I had the choice. Do I

a )  let it go and risk killing him
b )  Try and pass the re belay with my rock passenger in tow ( and risk dropping it)
c )  Hold onto it and let him start climbing

After considering this for about four hundred years I clipped my ascender into the rope above the bolt with one hand will holding my precious cargo into my lap with the other I then clipped everythink I could into this and with the dryest voice I have ever had whispered rope free. I didn't know if my mate new of our predicament  but every step he took nearly cut my family Jewel's in half. But I remained silent hardly breathing until i could touch the top of his helmet with my foot at this point I pushed him unceremoniously to the side with my foot and dropped my UN welcomed passenger which whistled  inches past his face to the bottom  of the  shaft.

The rest thank god is history but needless to say they ran out of Diesel in the new inn that night                         

 

[paul]

I've had a few "dodgy" moments over the years but my most recent was last Sunday while at the bottom of Whalf Pipe climbing shaft (Peak). I heard a loud "BELOW" and heard a rock banging its way down for what seemed ages until the bugger hit me on the back. Luckily it didn't hurt too much even though about the size of a fist, probably because it banged from side to side down the shaft which is narrow and somewhat winding.

My most dodgy experience was around thirty years ago in Lamb Leer Cavern. A pair of us arrived with 3 borrowed ladders for the main pitch and a lifeline - we brought none for the entrance pitch as it had a fixed iron ladder at that time. However, my companion Dave had started down the entrance pitch and quickly returned ashen-faced suggesting we use our lifeline on the entrance pitch. I soon found out why: the ladder was only partially "fixed" and not only did it swing away from the wall at regular intervals, but the bolts joining the various sections together were wither loose or missing altogather on one side or the other!

So we continued on and laddered the main pitch from the old platform and had a good look around the cave. On the return trip Dave soon climbed back up the electron ladders and I followed. Unfortunately I found it very awkward to climb the last few feet where the ladder lay against the rock just below the old platform. Soon my arms were tiring and I thought it best to climb back down for a rest. I realised I wouldn't be able to hang on for long so climbed extremely quickly! Soon I had me arms grasped around the back of the ladder and paused to look down and that was when they gave out and I fell the rest of the distance which was luckily only 2 or 3 metres and only suffered a very bruised bum!

Dave retrieved the lifeline from the entrance pitch and after a long rest I climbed back up this time with a lifeline!

 

[cap n chris]

Some similar stuff on this previous thread:

http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php/topic,141.0.html

 

[Dickie]

Nick Pot's main shaft

It's that sort of place!

I was last man out going up Vulcan and was holding the rope so I could feel when my mate was off, since the waterfall made it too noisy to hear properly.
The next section I was yelling "Owwwww" very loudly. Just as he was wriggling through the top of the shaft, you guessed it, a dinner-plate-sized flake peeled off and hit me on my outstretched arm.
If it had been my head or shoulder....?
I prusicked up with one arm and thrutched my way out of the cave eventually, with my wet suit holding together a large split in my arm. That was the worst bit, when I slid my finger into my wet suit sleeve and it fell into a hole in my arm!

Well, if you think that was bad.......................next!

 

[racingsnake]

Yep Dickie it is that sort of place. The first time I did it was with our mutual mate Des Marshall and that trip went without a hitch ???

 

[AndyF]

Heres a recent one by someone who shall remain nameless.

Rigging a traverse line, clipped onto a bolt (called bolt "A"), leaning forward to place the next bolt (bolt "B").

Get the bolt in place, and a krab on it. It's a bit of a stretch, so he leans and grabs the krab. At this point Bolt "A" comes out of its spit (dodgey thread), leaving my friend at full arm stretch forming a tension line with the preceeding bolt.

If he lets go he will have a big swing stright into a spikey wall.... hmm nice. The alternative it to try to cowstail onto bolt "B" (which, of course, he hasn't done already  :spank: )

He managed to cowstail on in the end, but there was a lot of swearing and wimpering before it happened, as spectators watched helplessly....

 

[hoehlenforscher]

my brush with the other side!

Exiting a large cave system in Austria by a different enteranc e to the one we came in by found the normal route heavily caked in 6 inches of solid ice. This should normally involve climbing over a VERY large boulder that spans the top of a 30 metre blind shaft. (a bit like the middle of Alum pot). The consequences of a slip from the icy boulder left us searching an alternative route. A good ledge with handholds was found traversing the right hand side of the shaft with a short climb up on the other side that brought you out beyond the icy boulder. All well and good but the end of the traverse involved crawling behind a column of ice where a small waterfall had frozen. The column of ice was about 5 metres tall and 30cm in diametre. So the first 5 or six of the party traverse over without a hitch leading to the conclusion all is well with our new route. So I duly foillow the chap in front and am standing on the ledge (wich is only about 20cm wide) holding on to a reasonable handholds as he is crawling round the ice stal. And thats the moment the stal decides to give up the fight with gravity and come smashing down. Matey infront is able to scamper clear. Me. I just hold on tight while a tonne or so of Ice crashes around me. I finalluy feel a big gust of wind and it goes quiet. Opening my eyes I am facing the butt end of the ice column just cms from my nose.  It is half a metre across and balancing on the edge of the shaft that I am now acutely aware of. Small bits of ice are still rattling into the depths.  I make a hasty retreat to find another member of our party has a nasty leg injury where a block of ice has hit him in the thigh.

To cut a long story short a lifeline is found and the remaining team members traverse the icy boulder and exit the cave. But not an experience I wish to repeat in a hurry! NO SIR

 

[Jagman]

Climbing a long free hanging ladder a 100 feet up in a stope.
Ladder reached by crossing 20 feet of false floor with water running over it and bending significantly.
After climbing about 30 feet up the ladder I discovered that the ladder was tied securely at the top..... by a piece of telephone wire.
Worse, the ladder ended about 4 feet from the next available hand-hold, the only available option was to decend the way I had come
The only time on a ladder that I have seriously expected not to make it :-\

 

[ditzy 24//7]

my dodgiest moment would half to be when i was up in goatchurch and me and spongebob were in the maze and i slipped and got stuck. i eventually managed to get out with the help of spongebob.

 

[Peter Burgess]

There may be many times when I have been close to serious injury and not known it, of course. There is only one occasion that makes me shudder when I think about it now. This was on a trip in Ffynnon Ddu, when I was in a team attempting the Midnight Traverses. I was wearing a pair of rubber ankle boots, and I was finding the soles less than satisfactory, in terms of the grip they provided. Our un-named leader (he does have a name, of course) had been this way before, so we had a fair degree of confidence in him. However, on this occasion, he had missed a vital point where one moves out of the rift. He carried on, looking for the correct way, and we followed. The ledges we were traversing on began to slope more steeply, and at one point, probably some 60ft above the streamway, both my feet slipped at the same time. By flinging out my arms hard I managed to jam myself in the rift, and regained the ledges. I gingerly (a strange adverb, as I never have been ginger) made my way to a rock and sat down to recompose myself (Mozart would have been proud of me). I have never been back there since, with or without those accursed boots.

 

[ditzy 24//7]

peter burgess

that must have been scary do you think you will ever go back there again?


ditzy

 

[stealth]

Falling down Tradesmans in Goatchurch last saturday, I missed my footing and slid all way down landing awkwardly and winded myself.

 

[AndyF]

I was at the top of a large stope in Halkyn level. The stope had a fixed SRT rope, and a tatty old hauling rope wrapped round a stemple, used to get digging gear to the top.

I descended, and was surprised to find at the bottom I had landed in an unexpected place.....

It was then I realised at the constricted rebaley 100 feet above be I had somehow transferred to the tatty digging rope.....

 

[ditzy 24//7]

Stealth

when you did that you worried me for a minute i thought you may have been seriously hurt i was glad that you were ok

ditzy

 

[Hughie]

There may be many times when I have been close to serious injury..............

Peter, that's one of those bowel loosening moments, I believe.

 

[whitelackington]

My bowels are quite loose now.
I think it is the storm

 

[Peter Burgess]

and there was I thinking that loud noise coming from the Bracknell direction was your guts.....

 

[mrodoc]

Have had a few. The one occasion I thought 'I am going to die' was in Wookey 24 in flood helping to move kit out of the cave after a push at the end. Standing at Sting Corner with entire River Axe backing up behind me facing down a narrow rift was the most scary moment of my life. We had discussed earlier the fact that being flushed down the rift would be fatal. I did get flushed down the rift! it wasn't fatal but I surfaced without my spectacles and apart from having to drink my beer blind I had to drive home wearing my diving mask.

Other stupid moments spring to mind. Launching over the edge of Split Rock and finding I had reverse threaded my rack - fortunately a convenient ledge below the lip allowed me to save myself. Not done that again I can assure you!

 

[Peter Burgess]

that must have been scary do you think you will ever go back there again?

If I do, it will only be because some idiot has got me lost again!

 

[AndyF]

I got to the first climb down in Long churn. It was really wet and my glasses were steamed and I couldn't see. Someone had put a rope on it, so, i thought, I'll hand-over-hand down that to avoid the water.

Got two loops along a travers line to realise I was on the first pitch of Diccan.... 

I'm going to stop posting stories as I'll start sounding like an idiot....!  :blink: