Weekend Whipper: Over the Hair Lip (5.10a), Suicide Rocks
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Jordan Ramey slips off the balancey, layback crux of Hair Lip (5.10a) at Suicide Rocks, California—a crag where many of the Stonemasters cut their
teeth in the 70s.
“He took a nasty swing over ‘the lip’ partly because his old-guy belayer (a stranger he met on mountainproject.com)
was too lazy to stand up and give him a careful belay, even after he said ‘watch me,’” says Jeff Dunbar, who took the video. “Instead, Jordan’s unnamed
belayer remained seated on the ground leaning against a tree (in the shade, out of focus) for the duration of Jordan’s onsight attempt, despite saying
‘I got you’ just prior to Jordan’s fall.”
A softer catch, from an attentive belayer, could have prevented Ramey from slamming back into the lip.
Moral of the story: Be careful when recruiting belayers on the interweb.
“Fortunately, Jordan only suffered a few scrapes and bruises,” Dunbar says. “A few minutes later he finished the pitch in fine style.”
Happy Friday and climb safe this weekend!