[Wood FT]

Reading stuff on other threads about folk kicking their rock shoes off into the heather in frustration has got me thinking -

what is the biggest climbing tantrum you've either....

a) witnessed

or

b) had yourself

[lagerstarfish]

Joe Picalli

[SA Chris]

I've not seen many;

Richard Simpson having a monster huff at Churnet because a hold was wet.

There have been others...

[Wood FT]

Joe Picalli

anecdote s'il vous plait

[Doylo]

Neil Mawson after dropping the last move of another 8a onsight in Terradets.

[shark]

Not witnessed but Dave Barrell kicked the rock after falling off Rooster Booster and broke his toe

[Fiend]

B) Where do I begin??

Failing on a F6C slab in a quarry near Cadair Idris, having spent 30 minutes doing the crux move and slipping off the next one. Bellowing CUUUNNNTTTT at the top of my voice, throwing all my quickdraws to the ground, and chucking my shoes over the edge of the next tier of quarry

Failing on Traveller In Time due to cowardice, bellowing in rage again, and smashed my helmet to pieces against the rock

Failing on Witches Tooth due to cowardice, screaming and shouting and actually started self-flagellating my leg with a rack of wires I was so angry

Failing on Ivy League due to cowardice, more bellowing and shouting, abseiled down for gear and threw every bit to the ground, was on the verge of just letting myself drop to the ground I was that furious. Took me a few whiskeys and a full day to calm down




Now you've all pointed at Fiend the weirdo and had a good laugh, it's worth noting that I always apologise and communicate with my climbing partners and don't take it out on them, I can fail quite calmly if it's something actually hard rather than me being a pussy, I could list a couple of thousand examples of the elation I feel from doing good routes, and the occasional tantrum is a natural reaction because I love climbing and invest a lot into it emotionally (link).

[lagerstarfish]

Joe Picalli

anecdote s'il vous plait

I don't have the words - maybe others can help

incredibly loud swearing

cursing the bolters for being devious (and foreign when appropriate)

cursing the guide book writer

most of all, cursing himself

[SA Chris]

B) Where do I begin??

You left out climbing at Harper's Wall with me

[Wood FT]

Failing on Traveller In Time due to cowardice, bellowing in rage again, and smashed my helmet to pieces against the rock

Brilliant stuff

[SA Chris]

I've seen someone fail on a route just after my girlfriend had done it, bellow "a girl can do this!!", punch the rock and remove the skin from the back of knuckles and not be able to climb for the rest of the day.

[Fiend]

Brilliant stuff

Sorry to disappoint but I did take it off my head first.

Chris, Harper's Wall was a minor sulk, trust me Great stuff about the "girl can do this" tantrum. Was that you??

[SA Chris]

Nah, I pissed it too!

[ghisino]

witnessed:
the funniest was a friend getting totally mad and throwing his chalkbag towards a somewhat messy slope. Fortunately the bag hit a tree just a few meters from us and was easy to recover. Brilliant chalk cloud as well.

the worse was the 1st time i was in verdon. on a rest day we went to see what "les spécialistes" looked like.
As we got closer, we started to hear loud tantrums in french (not intelligible for me at that time apart form "merde" and "putain", although probably he was whining about the damp conditions).
As we got even closer, we could see this guy looking as if he was just checking out the route, nervously trying again and again the same move at 2/3rd height, kicking the wall and screaming loud tantrums at each fall, just before pulling himself up the rope, all happening in fractions of a second, again and again.
What made it even worse was the sight of his partner (probably his girlfriend as well). While operating the grigri in a mechanical fashion, she kept staring the same spot at the base of the route with a blank expression: from that day onwards, she's my idea of a "belay slave".


as for my own, nothing beats the sense of relief i feel after a loud series of bestemmie (italian swearing against god). If you're in fontainebleau and you hear some loud screaming involving the word "DIO" (god) it could be me...
(search youtube for a vid called "Toujours Zen!" )

[Gritlad]

Had a couple of moments kicking chalk bags, pads, shoes and anything else within kicking distance akin to this

[lagerstarfish]

an excellent one in Thailand where an American chap was not impressed when his "spotter" just let him fall to the ground without any intervention - shouting inches from his face, finger jabbing the air slightly closer to his face, a bit of foot stamping, description of how the fallers life could have been ruined and a promise of legal action

the poor spotter was absolutely devastated - turned out he'd never been asked to spot before and didn't know what to do - he looked like he was about to cry (man in his 30s)

I interjected with some British crag banter - that didn't help at all, so I settled for reassuring the spotter that he hadn't really done anything wrong

we're taking a 5ft fall onto sand - the guy was pretty horizontal at the time, but still...

[Johnny Brown]

10:38- dropping the flash on Lady Big Claques. Mercifully the chalkbag kick is hidden by a boulder, and conclusion of swearing edited out, but you get the picture. Had a bad one on Strapadictomy too, when the wire got stick and I got pumped stupid trying to adjust it. The rest of the wires got thrown into the woods and Bbelayer had to stare at the floor a lot. I find my failures quite annoying.

[SA Chris]

I've never seen you sketching out before, usually in perfect control.

[cb_6]

I've seen someone fail on a route just after my girlfriend had done it, bellow "a girl can do this!!", punch the rock and remove the skin from the back of knuckles and not be able to climb for the rest of the day.

Serves him right after comment like that! "A girl" has climbed up to 9a+ too.

[gme]

I would never ever do such things. You are all so childish.

My favorite was when Malc fell off the last move at one of the British comps held at Bristol wall. He seamed quite pissed off when he got to the ground took off his boots then had a proper strop and threw one of them with all of his power straight at the head some BMC/UIAA bigwig (double barreled name (Ian Mcnaught Davis??? ,cant remember it.)

I believe he was disqualified. I believe we laughed a lot.

[Rocksteady]

There's a notorious 'angry guy' who climbs around the north and east London climbing walls. Nice guy when I've spoken to him, but well known for going bright red, shouting and kicking the wall when he fluffs a problem - which seems to happen 8-15 times every time I've ever climbed and he's been around. I respect his rage.

I've had a few tantrums myself. Defo my worst was falling off the top move off a 6c+ in Kalymnos (which would have been my first 6c+ onsight) after faffing around and climbing up and down a bit before just committing to my original sequence. I literally did a 'Noooooooooooooooooooo' then a 'raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarggghhh' at the top of my lungs. Out of the corner of my eye saw lots of little faces at the base of the crag turning to see what the fuss was about and then felt quite embarrassed.

At the wall if I fall off something in my warm up I get really pissed off and mutter about shit route-setting and sandbags and crimps etc etc

[Jaspersharpe]

gme - that reminded me of my favourite. Malc at Orpierre in about 1990. He was trying to onsight a short, steep 7c+ and nearby a french guy was flailing miserably attempting to work the start of one of the longer harder things, belayed by the campest, loudest man in the world (replete in pink fleece/tights, blonde highlights and dangly ear-ring).

As Malc clung on, the cries of "Oooh La Laa!!! ALLEZ OLEEEVE!! OOOH LA LAAAA!!!!" and so on got louder (and it seemed, even more John Inman-esque) until he fell off.

Whether the noise of the belayer had actually prevented Malc from doing the route is debatable but it definitely didn't help and as he swung from the rope he let out a tirade of abuse at the "Fucking stupid, shouting French poof" nearly as loud as the "fucking mincing prick" himself.

It was very funny.

[SA Chris]

I remember seeing some Brit trying to redpoint Privelidge du Serpent at Ceuse, amidst an international chorus of "Allez", "Venga", and "Do It / Seed it" failing and responding "would you lot kindly shut the fuck up!".

Amused me no end.

[Fiend]

10:38- dropping the flash on Lady Big Claques. Mercifully the chalkbag kick is hidden by a boulder, and conclusion of swearing edited out, but you get the picture. Had a bad one on Strapadictomy too, when the wire got stick and I got pumped stupid trying to adjust it. The rest of the wires got thrown into the woods and Bbelayer had to stare at the floor a lot. I find my failures quite annoying.

Excellent. Love the music that comes in instead of the tantrum.

[Doylo]