[dr_botnik]

There must be some Johnny Driving rumours.

Johnny offered to drive to the roaches and took the back way, rally driving as per. When we got past Buxton on the road to leek, overtook an Audi but couldn't pass the lorry infront, queue lots of arm waving from said Audi driver. Johnny, being gracious, offered the next opportunity for the Audi to overtake, but it didn't. Maybe there wasn't enough of a gap, but Johnny wasn't giving him another chance and got past the lorry on the next straight, then preceded to take every bend at 60+ just to get far enough ahead "he can't even see us anymore". Well, the Audi driver took up the challenge and tried to chase him, but Johnny was driving my 1.2l clio and seriously owned him, getting miles ahead.
The story gets interesting when we reached the turn off for the roaches, which is around a blind bend. We had to stop as there was traffic coming from the other direction. The Audi swung in behind us as did another car, however the arctic truck we had overtaken someway back obviously wasn't prepared for a queue, taking the bend too fast. All i saw as we pulled off the main road was an arctic truck actually getting air as it dove off the road and through the fencing.... Props to the driver he didn't roll the lorry and probably saved the other drivers lives.
The above piece is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actuals events or people is purely coincidental 

[Will Hunt]

I've just remembered the one about Ordinary Route on the Idwal Slabs! You know the one!
The couple who got benighted trying to climb Ordinary Route, not once, but twice! They apparently spent two nights out and had to resort to drinking from puddles 

I think everyone knows that one, but is it actually true? Surely it featured in the news somewhere?!

[Wood FT]

I've just remembered the one about Ordinary Route on the Idwal Slabs! You know the one!
The couple who got benighted trying to climb Ordinary Route, not once, but twice! They apparently spent two nights out and had to resort to drinking from puddles 

I think everyone knows that one, but is it actually true? Surely it featured in the news somewhere?!

Brilliant, there's a book deal to had among the clusterfuckery

[slab_happy]

I've just remembered the one about Ordinary Route on the Idwal Slabs! You know the one!
The couple who got benighted trying to climb Ordinary Route, not once, but twice! They apparently spent two nights out and had to resort to drinking from puddles 

I think everyone knows that one, but is it actually true? Surely it featured in the news somewhere?!

I found https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=29936 , in which someone quotes:

'From Ogwen Valley MRT:
http://www.ogwen-rescue.org.uk/ovmro/reports/2000/i_narrative.html

9th October 2000: 21.23 - 00.55 hrs. Idwal Slabs. Female, 30 yrs. Exhaustion, dehydration and swollen feet.
The woman set off up the Slabs on the Sunday morning with her partner. The conditions were wet and they were very slow climbing. They did not reach the top of the route until dusk and then could not find the walk off. They stayed on the ledge for the night without waterproofs, food or water; these had been left in the rucsac at the bottom of the climb. On Monday morning, they still could not find the walk off and decided to climb down by Ordinary route. By dusk, they were still 200 feet from the bottom and the female could go no further due to hunger and exhaustion. Her partner climbed down and raised the alarm. She was retrieved and walked off. They had not called to any party in the Cwm during the day. They had taken 39 hours to do Hope - possibly a record.
15 Team members."

That link now seems to be broken, but http://www.ogwen-rescue.org.uk/incident-maps/?id=1062 seems to confirm the basic "cragfast on Idwal Slabs for two nights" picture.

[dave]

Amazing.

[Will Hunt]

You have made my day! I always wanted to believe but never quite could. Phenomenal.

[Oldmanmatt]

I was twelve when I first led the ordinary route. It was my first real lead.

I didn't take 39 hours though, so not relevant really. Though I do remember Ron walking up the route beside me telling me how to place the gear, whilst rolling a fag and occasionally dipping into a tin of Sardines...


Now having a nightmare about being stuck on the route for 39 hours with nothing but Sardines to eat, choking on Ron's cheap tobacco fumes and the stench of the old Army surplus jacket he always wore that was principally waterproof with Sardine/Sild oil that leaked from the used tins he kept in the pockets...

[andy popp]

Truly amazing and rather wonderful. The really amazing thing is that it must have felt as genuinely epic to them as some storm battered benighting on the north face of the Eiger. They had the kind of adventure few of us will ever experience.

[Johnny Brown]

Now that is the greatest story ever told, never mind Lord Jesus Christ!

[moose]

I read the the original Mountain Rescue report when it was first noted on UKC, iirc the couple had other teams climbing past them during their benightment but were too embarrassed to ask for help.  Makes it all the more deliciously British - you can imagine the passive aggressive recriminations through the night. Like a mountain version of those childhood car journeys filled full of accusatory remarks about road atlas reading skills and unwillingness to ask strangers for directions.

[petejh]

Great story, part of n.Wales folklore!


Talk of puntering on the slabs reminded me of a tale of misadventure involving a mate. Now married for 20-odd years with two teenage kids... it could all have been so different..
He'd not long met his future wife when he thought it'd be nice to take her climbing to show her a bit of his world. Admittedly he didn't have much experience of climbing, nor much equipment - his 'rack' consisting of three wires and a couple of slings. But what could go wrong..
They did a route up the slabs without incident, then he decided to do Lazurus (S) on the continuation wall above. He led up and stopped on a small ledge to 'belay' - due to his lack of equipment he didn't actually have any gear with which to build a belay, his 3 wires all placed in the pitch.. the last one about 20 feet below. Adopting a braced stance he called down to his girlfriend to start climbing..

Up she climbs, removing the first wire placement - two remaining - and then starts having difficulty on a tricky move. My mate udges a bit further into the back of his ledge.. She falls off the move.. the force rips my mate off the ledge... they both end up going a fair distance and the rope flicks out the top wire placement.. the last remaining wire holds.. and now they're both left dangling counterbalanced like a pair of frightened conkers hundreds of feet above the base of the slabs from a single wire.
You'd think he'd count his blessings, lower off to the base of the route and totter off to the pub for therapy. No. The craziest part is he described climbing back to his little gearless ledge (replacing the ripped wire placement as he passed) and coaching his gf through the tricky bit, this time with more success. Nutter-punter. He became a teacher and a responsible mountaineering instructor. She didn't take to climbing.

[Will Hunt]

 

[tomtom]

"Character building" stuff I'm sure. Thankfully the nearest thing I get to an epic nowadays is leaving my chalkbag in the car...

[SA Chris]

I still maintain that surviving the first 6 months of my climbing career were the most impressive. Looking back I didn't have a clue and was almost taunting death.

Love the Idwal story. Reminds me of mate getting benighted on Square face, which is 3 pitches. Would have been funny if they weren't caught in a storm and were nearly hypothermic.

[Offwidth]

Sometimes truth can match legend and amazing epics can happen on the easiest routes through bad luck.

Moff and I were out scrambling in Langdale with friends and had just got down Jack's Rake when we heard screams and saw a climber falling like a rag doll down the lower cliff over to the left. We shot off expecting something very grim and piled up the starting chimney pich of Crescent Climb, Mod, to find a very injured but thankfully alive woman clinging from her fingers off the last patch of turf above a clean steep face;  out on the rock just right from the chimney. A couple of nail biting minutes (that felt like forever) followed as the rock was shocking and belays were shite for my scrambling rack and there were no other options given my short scrambling rope and the woman was begging in terror for help, but eventually (although we couldnt move her, being in too much pain) we had things secured enough so she probably wouldn't kill herself or us if she fell. 

It transpired she had taken a beginner on the climb who had been severely spooked by the rock quality and exposure and she decided to back off.  She was lowering him when the rock on the belay unexpectedly failed. He fell and soon landed on a ledge, she was catapulted out and over him and was probably slowed just enough by his body weight on the ledge, 30m or so above, to grab said turf.

This was the start of a long afternoon and evening. First problem was the dropped man was in shock and kept looking down to see what was going on. He didnt seem to understand about or couldn't find a belay but finally got the message to move to the very back of his ledge and brace just in case. Climbers appeared from above and secured him and dropped ropes to improve our belay and that of the woman. Mountain rescue turned up and a rescue helicopter. The helicopter tried to pendulum in a rescuer on a rope but the blades were just that bit too close to the rock so they gave up after some fabulously scary looking attempts. 6 more hours of careful ropework on shite rock finally got her down and off to hospital.. fractured pevis and a few other breaks.

[Will Hunt]

Since we're doing epics, this one caught my eye and it really is a must read. It caught my eye when I did a route on Grey Crag in Buttermere and thought it was oddly named and the FA was done quite late for such a historic crag (it's only VS). On Googling "Return With A Vengeance", I found this article in the FRCC journal which describes the original destruction by rock fall of Slabs Ordinary on Grey Crag, the survival of the climbers involved (by an absolutely phenomenal series of events), and then the revisiting of the crag later to reclimb a route where Slabs Ordinary had been.

The fun starts on page 79. READ IT!
http://www.frcc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Vol27-1.pdf

[andy popp]

Crikey! Reminds me of another story, the details of which I'm to find somewhere.

[Will Hunt]

I think what I like most is that he doesn't try and hide the fact that the autopilot decisions that his brain is making for him have got absolutely nothing to do with anybody else's survival. Their survival is purely a means to his own self preservation.
We all know that this is the ruthless reality of how the human brain works, but writing in a journal 28 years later he could have easily made himself out to be a selfless hero.

[andy popp]

I think what I like most is that he doesn't try and hide the fact that the autopilot decisions that his brain is making for him have got absolutely nothing to do with anybody else's survival. Their survival is purely a means to his own self preservation.
We all know that this is the ruthless reality of how the human brain works, but writing in a journal 28 years later he could have easily made himself out to be a selfless hero.

Thankfully (and kind of amazingly) I've never actually been in or anywhere near a really bad accident. That insight into the psychological processes that unfold as its happening are fascinating. I'm very happy to experience them secondhand though.

[fatneck]

Great story!

[tommytwotone]

Nowhere near on the same scale but I nearly got into a tricky situation on a single pitch route.


January 2008, and my girlfriend of the time and I are spending a few months off having just moved to Sheffield from London. Due to a relatively recent ankle problem she can't boulder / risk landing on it, so we spent the time trying to work through The Peak's routes. In the middle of winter.


We went to Rivelin on a day that wasn't that cold, and I decided to lead Croton Oil, having seconded it years before. It was as great as I remember, and that situation of being perched on the needle similarly so.


Only thing was a) the breeze picked up and was whipping a chilly northerly right down the valley and into me, stuck belaying at the top b) it was a day my thermals happened to be in the wash and we were just "popping out" so hadn't thought this a problem and c) my girlfriend was still very much getting to grips with gritstone (having been primarily a wall climber in London).


she struggled and struggled with that weird offwidth thrutch at the very start and eventually overcame it, but not before I'd started to feel increasingly woozy. She got to the penultimate piece of gear just as I realised there was a good chance of me passing out, so I told her this (what a way to inspire confidence!) and rapidly lowered her off.


I must have tried and failed to rig the abseil off the needle about 5 times, as I kept getting confused midway through but fortunately was aware enough that I needed to get it right before lowering. I got to the ground, put all the clothes I could find back on and even after quickly packing up and stumbling back down the hill I still didn't get warm again until well after we were back home.


Was really shocking how quickly it came on, and how close I was to potentially being passed out through hypothermia on top of Rivelin needle!


To top it all off, my girlfriend owned at the time one piece of gear and one sling of her own as she'd just started building up her own rack. That of course was the piece we'd had to abandon in the route so we ended up going back the next day (obviously well layered up this time) to re-lead it so we could retrieve the gear and so she could tick it off.

[Oldmanmatt]

1990ish.
A group of us in the Verdon, having walked into the bottom in the early morning of a hot August day; gradually reassembling in the campsite as dusk draws in. Most have hitched back from the rim, since we only had one minibus between us, so it's a dribs and drabs affair...

The sun dips below the rim.

Ian (SystemaIan on here) and Dunc still haven't shown up, but that's not unusual, so we wander into La Palude looking for Pizza and beer.
Hey, they'll know where to find us, no worries.

There's no moon that night, it's very, very dark.

Pizza has come and gone.

Fuck.

We start to get worried and hasten back to the campsite.

Nope. Tents in darkness, empty sleeping bags.

So we pile in the van and head out, arguing about which route they said they'd be doing and who should have dealt with this much earlier and frankly pretty scared what we might find (or worse, not find).

It is bloody easy to walk off the rim of the Verdon, when stumbling around on a pitch black night with nowt but a crappy headtorch; hunting those little painted route names. Step over the wrong bush or boulder and you win 11 seconds of freefall and an abrupt deep tissue massage.
Exclamations of "Fucksssakkeee!" and wildly veering torch beams grace the night.

Eventually we track down the right top out and there is a chorus of shushing as we try to peer into the abyss .
Finally, a weak but plaintive cry can be heard some distance below and, rather inconveniently, far into the overhanging cliff...

It took two 50m ropes tied together, spread out either side of the route and agonising minutes of swinging to get a rope to Ian.

Dressed only in vest and shorts, without any kind of torch; the had found themselves starting the final pitch as the sun clipped the opposite rim of the canyon. As the shadow sped up from below, Ian , exhausted from the several hard pitches below, lost the race.
Plunged into frigid darkness, unable to see route or bolts, he badly misjudged how much climbing remained and pushed on unprotected; hoping for a nice safe belay at the top.

Eventually the cold and fear stopped him. Unable to climb up or down, too high above the last clipped anchor to risk the lob; he clung on while we chomped Pizza and laughed at crap jokes.

By the time we got the rope to him, he was frozen stiff. He managed to step though the loop of rope and we pulled it up snug against the ropes tied to his harness. Half rescue rope, half running belay.
Kudos to him though, we could only part haul him, he climbed through.

You'd be hard pressed to imagine a more forlorn pair than the disheveled, shivering, naked apes we pulled up that night.

Top tip.
Beer and cheap wine make excellent Post Traumatic stress relievers.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cowboyhat]

I'm pretty sure I also remember a tale from one of my old timer mates of a young Ben Bransby falling off the top of Chee Dale cornice after some miscommunication with his belayer, landing flat on his back on my mate's sandwich box completely destroying it, and walking away unscathed.

Can anyone confirm whether this is true?

Seems like a Ben mix up to me:

True story, Ben Tetler was dropped by his belayer from the top of Chee Tor. He clipped the belay and shouted 'safe' at which point he was taken off. He lent back and went further than expected. Landed flat on his back in the relatively soft ground down that left hand side of Chee Tor from at least 15 metres. Walked out, bit winded.

I remember when Bransby once took a big whipper off chee tor pulling a hold off, only damage being rope burn to belayers hand. Not really comparable as an anecdote.

Unless Bransby did also fall the height of the Cornice? He'll be along in a minute to confirm...?

[cheque]

 This thread has become amazing. That "Return with a Vengeance" piece has to be one of the best climbing epic stories ever "The blood and flesh stain on the rope was later measured and found to be twelve feet long"

I was told a story about a different incident of calling mountain rescue after topping out on the Idwal Slabs by the protagonist, who seemed totally unembarrassed by it. Another member of the party was mortified to learn that he'd broken their pact of secrecy though. 

There's another quality thread of epics (although some aren't the lightest reading) for those who haven't seen it here. Fatdoc's "white peaches" Verdon story in particular is incredible.

I still maintain that surviving the first 6 months of my climbing career were the most impressive. Looking back I didn't have a clue and was almost taunting death.

    Sounds familiar. I'm not sure where I heard the phrase "If get through your first year of trad combing you'll probably be alright for the following ones" but it's absolutely true. I feel obliged to type up a story now. Bear with me...

[Will Hunt]

I know I chipped in with Return With A Vengeance but I can't help but think that the factual epic stories, as good as they are, belong in the Carking It thread. This is kind of supposed to be about folklore that you've heard, which may of course include epics.