Quote:
Originally Posted by BatteredBenz
As I'm get the runner placed around the spire the first sting hits followed shortly by more. MY climbing partner is belaying me and see's what's happening, starts shouting "just fall I've got you! Jump!" I manage to clip my rope into the biner on the runner and just sort of push myself off the rock face. Initial drop was about 5 foot which can be pretty jarring, even though we were using the original Plymouth GoldLine a hard laid braided rope with lots of elongation built into it. The force of the drop nearly upends my belayer yanking him off his feet, after a moment he's able to regain his position and start to try to lower me but this was at the early days of the figure 8 rappel belay devices and we didn't have one but used a plate with a slot to brake the rope as it ran through a biner. Needless to say the descent was a comedy of trying to unjam the belay while not dropping me all the way down as I was tyring to remain upright and defend against more stings.
Got to the deck scrapped and banged up a bit, stung probably 19 times already and the yellow jackets still in hot pursuit! Now the both of us are on the ground being attacked by the swarm, BUT still tied into the cliff belay points with the rope's ends attached to our waists with either a well cinched knot that had to be untied or a locking biner that had to be manipulated open to get free in order to run away! I had the least amount of slack rope and my buddy had already run to the end of the slack and was feverously trying to separate himself from the rope, every time either of us moved very much it yanked the other guy around who was also trying to get separated from the rope which held us in the yellow jacket cloud! It was like a comedic scene from a Road Runner cartoon!
Finally got free and ran probably a 1/4 mile to get away from the swarm, left the rope hanging and our protections in place until we went back a day later at night and recovered the rope and most of the protection I'd placed, I said screw the last sling runner at the top near the nest.
Ended up getting stung about thirty times, got a box of baking soda at the nearby general store to work into a paste to put on the stings, so that really helped the reaction to them.
On a side note on that trip I met Bill Shockley who had a place near the Gunks where he began going to climb when he worked at Bell Labs, spent dozens of weekends camped in his back yard on subsequent climbing forays. Great climber, gracious host and Nobel Prize recipient for his part in the invention of the semi-conductor transistor. Very interestingly his analysis was influential if not instrumental in the decision by Truman to use of nuclear weapons on Japan rather than trying to defeat them with non-nuclear tactics and the corresponding loss of Allied lives.
Needless to say after that attack by the yellow jackets I often spent an inordinate amount of time scanning and watching for any flying insects near any climb I was involved in if there was a chance of wasp friendly conditions!
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Dang, and I thought I had to jump through some hoops to get away.
It's hard to make a good estimate on how times I was stung. I'm guessing 20 at least but more likely toward 50 or more. They can sting multiple times and I couldn't rush my way down to the street too much, needed to hold roots and the like on the steep slope or could sprain an ankle or worse.
So they had maybe 30 seconds to work with little swatting. I'm almost thinking I had to kill nearly all of them in that swarm to bring it to an end. I keep my wallet in my left front pocket and at one point I saw 3 or 4 dead ones sitting on top of the wallet, which will often catch falling debris such as bits of drywall being cut overhead. In a weird way it was sort of invigorating. No major damage but there was a definite struggle for survival of some sort going on there for a few minutes. Felt that way briefly anyway.
The shortcut wasn't the best idea but I'd had to do shutoffs twice already and wanted to streamline the process. Absent wasps would have been a time saver. I wish I'd had the ball cap on when the swarm was going. My hair's pretty short now and they were going at it. I saw a few settled on my shirt sleeve before dispatching them. No idea if any of the stings made it through clothing, though a few minutes after I thought I felt one on the back of one knee - took off my knee pad, which I further fasten with electric tape, and from the back a dead wasp fell to earth.