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punkclimber52
Jun 2, 2004, 6:17 AM
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I was suppose to attempt my first trad lead today, nothing to hard, just an easy 5.3 to get my feet wet. after waking up at 4:30am, driving 30 minutes out of town, 20 minutes down dirt roads (which was pretty fun in itself), hiking to the crag, getting off trail and having to trailblaze to the base of the route, we had finally found it. Then as we set our packs down, we looked up and about 30ft. up the route we see a nice swarm of bees flyin in, out, and around the crack.
Bummer man. After several bee attacks in our area (one that ended fatally for a climber on Camelback Mt.) that's not something we mess around with. Hence, we went in search of another route. But to our dismay we were unable to find anything nearby that i felt comfortable enough leading.
We finally found the trail and ended up heading back to the car. We used the day as a scouting trip for our next adventure out this way, hopefully after i am more versed in trad. And of course i enjoyed the off-roading adventure back to the main road, that made the day worth it.
Has anyone else had any recent disruptions in their climbing plans due to bees? They are getting pretty vicious here in AZ.
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nonick
Jun 2, 2004, 6:40 AM
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its pretty common here to encounter bees (in the western part of India) while climbing.
I have been witness to a bee attack that nearly ended fatally because a climber panicked and was almost going to jump off the cliff.
I've heard bees are particularly agitated by strong smells..smoking is definitely out. In the above mentioned bee attack, quite a few people were smoking. I don't know if its true or not since im not an expert on bees, but id rather not have anyone smoke around beehives.
A few months ago, friends of mine encountered a huge beehive while climbing. They managed to avoid any trouble by keeping a really low profile near the beehive.
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pinktricam
Jun 2, 2004, 11:48 AM
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Sorry about the abort. The subject line reminded me of my first trad lead on Cave Route at Tablerock, NC. About 3/4's of the way up of the first pitch, there's a large split in the rock and as I was making my way up through it, I could here the distinct buzzing of many bees echoing out from the back of it. Definitely a disconcerting sound when you're trying to focus on a first lead!
Anyway, there was no mishap, just a great and memorable day of climbing. I think that AZ has gotten the African variety of bees that's moved up from South America. From what I hear, those are extremely aggresive! Better to be safe and look elsewhere. Do your homework and study topo's to look for a lot more optional routes you'll feel comfortable on, instead of having just one on your list.
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timmah
Jun 2, 2004, 12:36 PM
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In reply to: I've heard bees are particularly agitated by strong smells..smoking is definitely out.
Bugger, so are my shoes then. Peee-ewww!! :shock:
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overlord
Jun 2, 2004, 12:58 PM
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im not an expert, but im pretty sure that beefarmers use smoke to calm bees. well, at least it works with europen bee and its probably a special kind of smoke.
i would guess that cigarette smoke would repel the bees. but im not going to try it out :wink:
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grinspoon
Jun 2, 2004, 1:10 PM
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I think only bong smoke calms bees, any other smoke will just piss 'em off.
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keithlester
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Jun 2, 2004, 1:46 PM
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In reply to: I think only bong smoke calms bees, any other smoke will just piss 'em off.
Works for me :P
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imnotclever
Jun 2, 2004, 1:52 PM
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Bee keepers use smoke to cover the sent that the "look out" bees fan into the hive when they sense danger.
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punkclimber52
Jun 2, 2004, 2:35 PM
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pinktricam wrote: In reply to: Do your homework and study topo's to look for a lot more optional routes you'll feel comfortable on, instead of having just one on your list. _________________
We were gonna do the route right next to it as back up, but since it was right next to it, it was still pretty close to the bees, so we decided against it. Then as we were making our way to another route, it took us alittle while to find the trail and got pretty frustrated, backtracking and all, so we just decided to pack it up and head out.
We actually had to reppel down on another route as the bushwacken had taken us pretty high up, and it wasn't till after we repeled down that we had found the main trail.
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icekubes7
Jun 2, 2004, 2:48 PM
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A few weeks ago here in mexico, on a 5.9 trad lead, I reached into the crack for a finger lock, and instantly felt a really sharp pain in my pinky finger. I yanked my hand out, and right afterwards, this HUGE bright red wasp flew out. Luckily it wasn't a hive, but there were three more that I could see in the crack, so it was really hard pulling the move without using that section of crack, but the others didn't bother me. My pinky finger went totally numb and swelled up to the size of a sausage to the point where I couldn't even bend it! Luckily I was close to the anchors and was able to finish the route. I've climbed it since, and the wasps are still there, but I just climb around them and they don't bother me.
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crimpandgo
Jun 2, 2004, 3:22 PM
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punkclimber52, Where were you climbing that you ran into the bees? I feel your pain. I did my first trad lead 2 weeks ago. One for the Road on Sven Slab in the McDowells. We heard the bees but couldn't find them. So, off I go. Its a traverse route that's probably 70-80 ft. long. I got 60 feet into the climb and then I saw them, about 15 feet from the end of the route to the right. Fortunately I could bail left over a ridge and up to the finish. But it was still scary. I was concenetrating on the route so much, not sure if I noticed the bees because of the noise or the motion in front of the hive. Just glad I saw them :oops:
By the way, please post the climb you were on so the rest of us are warned. Thanks for the heads up :)
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punkclimber52
Jun 2, 2004, 6:24 PM
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crimpandgo wrote: In reply to: punkclimber52, Where were you climbing that you ran into the bees?
I was going to attempt Mousetrap (5.3) on Sven Slab at McDowell Mt. Then the routes right next to that one were Mousetracks (5.6) and Over The Hill (5.11a). The latter two both started the same and I couldn't tell which one went which way after they split, and one of them went pretty close to the bees, plus they were both beyond my ability at this time, so we chose to move on.
Pinktricam wrote: In reply to: I think that AZ has gotten the African variety of bees that's moved up from South America. From what I hear, those are extremely aggresive! Better to be safe and look elsewhere.
Yes, i have heard this. I've also heard that we not only have them, but that ALL bees in AZ have become the africanized bees, having mated and all. Now whether or not this is true, i'm not sure. But i've heard of several attacks already, plus i was out at Lookout Mt. and got swarmed by one of the two hives out there. Luckily we were just finishing packing up and were able to jet out before they attacked. I've also had a friend get swarmed at Lookout Mt. as well.
Needless to say, I take the bees seriously (especially since i'm allergic).
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crimpandgo
Jun 2, 2004, 6:50 PM
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That's too bad. Sven Slab climbs are really nice. One for the Road that I ran across the bees is just around the left from your climb. There are some nice climbs just to the right though. couple of 5.5, 5.7 and 5.8s. if your are so inclined to go back. I climb there often and have not noticed the bees down near these other climbs. Ego trip is a fun 5.7 and quaker oats is a classic 5.5. Dont know what level you are looking for though. I also stopped climbing Cholla Mountain area because of the bees. Really too bad.. there is so much area out there, you'd think they could find another place to swarm :oops:
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corpse
Jun 2, 2004, 7:13 PM
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My 2nd lead climb was also infested with flyin buggies - either they were bees or wasps.. I'm guessing a yellow jacket since it was long? There were about 15 or so flying around, no apparent nest, towards the top of the climb. They *seemed* calm and I just slowly and patiently climbed thru. If they were in a crack I wanted, I would try to blow softly on them to get them out of the crack - which sometimes worked - and didn't tick em off. A couple times they landed on my shoulder to say hi and left - pretty freaky..
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punkclimber52
Jun 2, 2004, 7:40 PM
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crimpandgo wrote: In reply to: That's too bad. Sven Slab climbs are really nice. One for the Road that I ran across the bees is just around the left from your climb. There are some nice climbs just to the right though. couple of 5.5, 5.7 and 5.8s. if your are so inclined to go back. I climb there often and have not noticed the bees down near these other climbs. Ego trip is a fun 5.7 and quaker oats is a classic 5.5. Dont know what level you are looking for though.
I've climbed quaker oats before. I was really looking foward to my first trad climb, so got kinda bummed and didn't feel like doin any of the sport climbs out there. We actually ended up rapelling down from the tree belay at top of the sport climbs at Sven's. So we could have easily climbed those, but choose to call it for the day, then went and scouted the approaches to Tom's Thumb, and Gardener's Wall, with the hopes of some day climbing both of those. So it wasn't a total loss of a day, and like i said earlier, got to have fun doin a little bit of off-roading.
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crimpandgo
Jun 2, 2004, 7:47 PM
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cool, Did you get all the way up to Gardners Wall. That is an area I have wanted to try for a while, but it looks like a pain to hike up to it. :?
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punkclimber52
Jun 2, 2004, 8:01 PM
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crimpandgo wrote:
In reply to: cool, Did you get all the way up to Gardners Wall. That is an area I have wanted to try for a while, but it looks like a pain to hike up to it.
We went as far as we could drive back. It's kinda wierd cuz there is this lone house way out there and it's pretty close to the base of the mountain. We drove right past it, and i mean right past it, and then the end of the road was another 100ft or so, and that is where you are suppose to park. From there you can hike to the trail for Tom's Thumb or Gardener's Wall. We didn't actually do anymore hiking that day. But it honestly didn't look like that bad of a hike.
From what i've gotten from other climbers, the best way to do it is to hike up to Gardener's wall, Hanging Gardens (5.5) is suppose to be a pretty classic route, and then take a trial up on top over to the Thumb and climb there.
My partner is moving Sunday to Colorado :cry: :cry: but we are gonna plan that trip when he comes back in November to visit for a week.
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emilb
Jun 2, 2004, 8:07 PM
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I had a scary experience with wasps at Stone Mountain, NC. I was leading Fleet Feet a 10a located on the left side of the south face. This part of the face is not slabby like the rest of the south side but nearly vertical in spots. It does have some crack/flake systems and Fleet Feet starts up one of these. I was cruising up an easy section about 10 feet above my last piece of pro when a swarm of wasps flew out from underneath the flake I was yarding on. They were swarming all around me and I was not at all happy. I started frantically trying to get a piece of gear in to lower off of. If they had started stinging I probably would have jumped off and taken a big whipper but I didn't get a single sting. They were just startled I guess but not really pissed off.
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crimpandgo
Jun 2, 2004, 8:09 PM
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I had heard that road to the climbing area was closed due to complaints from the land/home owners. Hope that its not true. I want to go up there but had been hesitant. There is another road a little farther down. I wonder if it gets back to the same places? I might have to check it out one of these days soon. I will let you know what i find out. Garden of the gods is the climb I have been scoping. :D
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punkclimber52
Jun 2, 2004, 9:23 PM
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We didn't really see any signs saying the road was closed. At the end of the road, where we would park, we did see a sign that said something about tresspassing, but it didn't say don't trespass. And it was knocked down as well. I do know that the whole McDowell Mts have been set aside by the city of Scottsdale for a future Mountain preserve park of some sort, i think similar to Phoenix mt. preserve (aka Squaw Peak). But it seemed like the road was fine.
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ic2d
Jun 2, 2004, 10:01 PM
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I don't know what's worse, bees or spiders. I've climbed past bees before, but 4 spiders (about an inch and a half across) next to the anchors was a little too much for me. Solution: traverse to the next route over and lower from those anchors. Am I a wuss or what?
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crimpandgo
Jun 2, 2004, 10:26 PM
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Dont know if you are a wuss, but I think bees are a lot worse. Haven't heard of any deaths recently from spiders so I might call that a phobia. The bees in AZ are very aggressive and very deadly when you run across the hive. Some of the hive here are known to contain tens of thousands of bees. A kid got killed running into the street after a swarm attacked him because he was throwing sticks at a hive that contained 20,000 bees.
When you see a hive, you do like we do, RUN.... :shock:
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gds
Jun 2, 2004, 11:11 PM
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Ants! Have you ever been attacked by ants?
Last year we were on a 5 pitch route and the belay for p3 was a semi hanging belay off a tree. As I followed the pitch my partner started yelling at me to hurry. Thousands of red ants came out of the tree and accross the rope to my partner. He had no where to go and the rope was was the perfect conduit for the ants.
Of course the next pitch was mine to lead so when I saw what was happening I just continued up past the belay without collecting any gear (it was a 5.2 chickenhead pitch) and "missed" the excitement.
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wpy71
Jun 2, 2004, 11:34 PM
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In reply to: We didn't really see any signs saying the road was closed. At the end of the road, where we would park, we did see a sign that said something about tresspassing, but it didn't say don't trespass. And it was knocked down as well. I do know that the whole McDowell Mts have been set aside by the city of Scottsdale for a future Mountain preserve park of some sort, i think similar to Phoenix mt. preserve (aka Squaw Peak). But it seemed like the road was fine.
I have climbed at Gardners and done hanging gardens. I haven't really been able to get a good idea of how much land the owner of those houses controls, however I have been told that he could restrict access if he chose to do so. My best advice is to drive slow, park as far away from the houses as you can, and be low key. You shouldn't have any problems.
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climblouisiana
Jun 3, 2004, 12:39 AM
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I have noticed two active beehives in the sven slab area. One to the right of one for the road in the large brushy crack and the other up on a large ledge to the left of mousetracks and mousetrap.
A couple years back I got stung on the a$$ by a bee when downclimbing one for the road. I wasn't doing anything that I thought was disruptive to the hive but got stung anyway. Several bees came after me after the sting and I high tailed it out of there.
I was thinking of taking care of the problem but have been too busy.
Another hive to mention in a popular area is the hive in the BEEGEE crack on SUNDECK ledge at PINNACLE PEAK. Take extra care if you climb the following routes to sundeck ledge. Birthday Party, Pecker Party, Dried Oatmeal, South Crack, Mr. Cream Jeans and the Boxer. Don't attempt BEEGEE until this problem is taken care of or when it's winter and all the bees are too sluggish.
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