I just had my closest "near death" experience. On a recent climbing trip to Devils Tower, I was almost killed. Let me explain. To get off the tower, from the summit, it is necessary to complete 4 double rope raps. These raps are always jammed with stupid, little experienced, trad "wana bee's," too slow, too old, too damn worthless, climbers. 95% of these slow asses just completed the Durrance route (5.6); the easiest route on the tower. Most of these losers, jockey for position early in the morning (let's say 5am). If you're the unfortunate soul that didn't rise until 5:15am (because you drank too much the night before) you have a small chance in hell of finishing the route before dark. As many as 35 people (per day) drag their worthless, slow asses up this "50 Classic" route. What was Roper thinking? This route is hardly worth the recognition. Durrance is not even in the same league as Salathe, Castleton, etc. Anyway, these greenhorns always make life miserable for the rest of us. On my particular trip, I was guiding four competent climbers; Kyle VanKley, Scooter, Brad Kimes, and Chris McCracken. When we began the raps from the summit, we were immediately stopped by three climbers who were doing their "first outside climb." They were moving at an enormous rate! Yea right, more like an enormously SLOW rate! It's amazing that these guys (one girl and two guys) didn't kill each other. These climbers never, not once, hooked up their belay device properly. Oh yea, they got their rope stuck once, too; and I even warned the guy before he did it. Behind us were three other climbers (two adult guys and a boy). If any of you have done those raps, you'd know that there are a few loose rocks on the ledges. Common sense tells you to be careful and not knock anything off. Now, I know as well as anyone that sometimes it is impossible to prevent from dropping or knocking something off. Throughout our raps, these jokers behind us rained loose rocks on us like a flash hail storm. Not once did they ever yell rock. During our last rap came the close call. It was almost dark. I was standing directly under the rap to brake the two climbers that I still had on the wall. Brad and Chris had finished and were standing on the ground away from the "fall area." Scooter and Kyle were still atop the last rap station. Kyle was loading his belay device. Suddenly, there is a sound of something falling down the wall. I listened, but it wasn't rock. As it fell past Kyle and Scooter, they immediately yelled "rock." I moved aside, and tried to find cover. Trying to see what was falling, I caught the sight of sparks. "What the hell is that?" When it hit the ground, 20 feet from me, I moved over to see what it was. When I found it, I almost fell over. Those bone jockeys had dropped an open knife 300 feet. The blade of this knife was four inches long. The tip broke off during the fall. See the attached picture. If that knife had hit one of us...well, I think that we all know what would have happened. Wanting to beat the shit out of those jack heads, we retreated to the car where they couldn't drop anything else on us. After waiting for half an hour, they arrived. After a short confrontation, we departed in disgust. Why would anyone take such a knife on a climb? How could you drop it and not yell anything? How could you be such a shit head and call yourself a climber? Oh well. Live and learn, but hopefully not live, learn, then get sliced to death by Tower climbers.
