#idiot cops

Strapped on my pack and walked the few miles to the base of the climb, its only 150ft or so, but watching the sun come up with that slow meandering amber lighting it up, it got me stoked! My plan was simple, hike up top, fire some nuts into boulder cracks, sling some trees and build an anchor to abseil down the route, check for holds, possible routes, cleaning as i went. So id set up my anchor after 15 mins of dicking around, 2 nuts from boulders, a sling around the bases of 2 trees and a big sling around a spiky node of rock, 5 points tapered to a single anchor point, i could haul an entire truck up the face off this without worrying. Attached my rope, tied a simple double overhand into the end and slung it off the edge, clipped in, walked out and saw id hit bottom over the overhanging lip, then proceeded to simply walk off. The downside of the chunky rope is its hard to slide through my ATC, 11mm is fairly beefy and it takes some work, even with your body weight to descend. but the upside is it saves my good ropes from getting trashed on route cleaning. The top portion is a steep overhang, so id just lowered myself into free space, but i could see a crack that looked perfect for a size 4 nut, with a nice little crimp next to it, swung myself over, got my fingers into the crack, feet onto the wall and set about clipping in to keep me roughly parallel to the face for the rest of the descent, quickly seated the nut, and clipped in a draw, started slowly down and got maybe 15ft before I felt the rope go taught and YANK me clean off the face! I almost had a heart attack watching the face spin away, adrenaline ramped up to high gear, too scared to even let out a scream... very manly! I could feel someone below pulling on my fucking rope! What. The. Fuck! I was freaking out as someone kept tugging my rope, jerking my hand loose and binding up the ATC, So i tied a Prusik above me, slid it down and clipped it into my belay loop and let it all seize up as i was screaming "STOP!" below me. Safely stuck to the rope just out of reach of the wall i just lay back upside down to see what the hell was going on, turns out it was a pair of police men, standing at the bottom, one tugging my rope and both screaming at me to come down. Bunch of god damned idiots! Had i not have been top roped in, the assholes would have killed me! I spent a good 10 minutes upside down screaming at them to quit it, they would scream back "Get down here!" then YANK my rope again to sown they where in control!!! "LEAVE THE ROPE YOU EEJITS! YOU'RE GOING TO GET SOMEONE KILLED ASSHOLES! GET BACK TO YOUR CAR AND I'LL MEET YOU THERE! ITS DANGEROUS!!!!" TUG! I hit the wall again and part of it broke off, a chunk the size of a car tire came loose, years of winters, water, ice, sun and surrounding explosions had not been kind. it took forever to sail down to the bottom and hut the ground 10ft from an officer with a gut wrenching THOOD! Like some road runner sketch... Had positions been swapped and I was on the ground, I'd have taken that as a sign to back the fuck away as quietly as possible. These idiots seemed to be made of much denser material however and took it as a sign to double time the yanking! I flipped up to grip the rope above me, and sat watching horrified as they proceeded to juggle the nut around in that crack above me. Watching for movement, wishing REALLY hard i had brought my helmet. Looking around at the really shitty quality of the rock, choss everywhere, some really sketchy, dodgy shit, wondering how to beat a charge for a cops death, because these bastards are too stupid to live. "GET!" YANK "YOUR!" YANK "ARSE!" YANK "DOON!" YANK "HERE!" Watching on in horror at the quick draw above me yanking against the jammed up size 4, hoping it was a deep crack and not just a flake of slab about to come down on me, scanning the really sketchy parts of the wall around me that i really didn't trust connecting with... "RIGHT FUCKTARDS! HERE'S WHATS GONNAE HAPPEN, YOU'S WILL GIT RIGHT TAE FUCK BACK TAE YER CAR! SAFE FAE AWE THIS SHITE YER ABOUT TO PULL DOON ON TAP AE US AWE! AN I'LL WORK MY KNOT LOOSE, AND SLOWLY GET DOON! RIGHT? NOW GET YERSEL'S TAE FUCK AFORE YE GIT US AWE DEED!!!" More tugging to prove a point, more debris falling off the wall down to them, after a few minutes they seemed to concede and the rope slowly went slack, i saw them move back a whole 6 feet, like that's going to save them from half a wall of rock slide... The prusik was jammed solid, i wrapped a sling above it, and stepped into it, pulling me up just enough to almost begin unscrewing the beaner as i got yanked again! The fucking idiots thought i was trying to escape by ascending, pulling me backwards and falling onto the rope back to where i was and really pranging on the nut above me... I lost it. "LISTEN YA FUCKIN PLEBS! AH NEED TO GET ABOVE THE FUCKIN KNOT, OR ELSE AM STUCK HERE AWE FUCKING DAY! EVEN IF A WIS PLANNIN TAE ESCAPE UP THERE, WHERE THE FUCK UM A GONNAE GO? AH NEED TAE GIT TAE THE BOTTOM EVENTUALLY! WIND IT THE FUCK IN ARESHOLES, GET BACK CLEAR O' THE FUCKIN ROCK FAWE AND GIES PEACE FUR A MINUTE TILL AH KIN GET MASEL FREE!!!" Rope goes slack and i decide fuck it, and yank up bundles of slack as fast out of their reach as i can. No small task cause it weighs a ton! I keep feeding rope through my hands until i get to the knot at the end, unbind it, tie a quick bight and clip it into my belay loop. Awkward to work with, but safer that these fucking idiots perpetually yanking at me. I can hear them screaming and bawling below me, fuck them, couple of idiots going to get someone dead, likely themselves, dead from a rock fall in my obituary? It's a good death but NOT GOOD ENOUGH! Back into my sling, step up above the knot, unclip it from my belay loop, slowly sit down with my hand firmly in the brake position, sit back, tuck my legs from the shitty wall, and start feeding myself slack, the extra rope weight seems to help slightly, watching the prusik sail past me, still bound to the rope, fuck it, least of my problems at this point. I slowly make the last 120ft back down to the ground, dont even get my feet on the ground before tweedle-dumb and tweedle-fucktard rush me... "WHIT DAE YE HINK YER DAIN?" fucktard screams at me. "um, desperately trying to avoid death my dumbass cop, and prevent you from killing yourselves you fucking muppets!" "DAE YE HINK YER FUNNIE?" dumb barks. "Naw, I'm being deadly serious, badge number bawbag, take me to your sergeant, best log onto job sites whilst we head out there, cause you guys are definitely needing a new job after that idiot stunt!" "AYE RIGHT! YER UNDER ARREST FUR TRESPASSING OAN AN ACTIVE QUARRY!" "Tilcon shut her down in 2007, but whatever, that doesn't explain why you approached a rope and felt the need to YANK on it, endangering not only MY life BUT YOUR OWN! are you belays?" i asked. "WE'RE ASKING THE QUESTIONS HERE!" fucktard screams back at me. "THAT'S GREAT, FIND A FUCKING MIRROR, LOOK INTO IT AND START ASKING SOME REALLY FUCKING DIFFICULT ONES YOU BUNCH OF SUICIDAL MORONS!" I screamed back at them as they cuffed me and threw me into their car. I just bit my tongue all the way back to the station (which is only a 3 minute walk from my home) got taken into processing, stripped and tossed into a holding cell, I presume I was stripped so i couldn't hang myself on my own belt, because I'm the suicidal one in this situation... Taken out of the cell, given my underwear, and hauled into a room with a tape machine. Left to sit for 15 mins and then some balding guy came in, I asked if he was in charge of the pair of idiots, he said no, i refused to talk to anyone unless it was the man directly in charge of that pair. Another guy showed up, apparently the man in charge and asked what i was doing. "First off, I'm trained,  have performed a risk assessment and have all the paperwork i need back home to show that I'm not just some idiot dangling off a rope, i was performing a safe abseil of that cliff face, to check for feasibility of a future climb, the road is 100yds back from the site, more than enough room to prevent any risk to road users or pedestrians from rock fall or any undue alarm, my anchors where secured with not three but FIVE separate points of failure all fully SERENE compliant. I was mid check when one of your officers saw fit to approach an ACTIVE safety line and proceed to YANK A CLIMBER OFF A ROCKFACE, CAUSING UNDUE ALARM AND SERIOUS RISK NOT ONLY TO MYSELF BUT A SERIOUS RISK TO THEMSELVES AND THE PUBLIC! Untrained, ignorant officers who almost got everyone killed whilst sworn to protect and serve the general populace. I've done my due diligence, the quarry was owned and operated by Tilcon until the late 90s, traded to Aggregate Inc who mothballed it in 2001 and its lain dormant and for sale since 2007, I was not in breach of any explosive ordnance laws, was NOT trespassing due to Scotland's native rights of access, and was merely inspecting an Historic Scotland Protected Landmark. I have broken no laws so far as i could find. Your officers on the other hand can't state the same." "We're willing to let you go with a warning if we can put all this behind us." the guy told me! "Excuse me? You want to GIVE ME A WARNING? For having done NOTHING WHATSOEVER WRONG? How about you get me a lawyer, write me up and I'll see if a jury of my peers agrees with this miscarriage!" "We could simply let you go and write the entire thing off." he muttered. "Indeed we could, now let me get dressed, get me a lift back out there and let me haul my gear out before some kid wanders along sees the rope and winds up killing himself in a rock slide, people are STILL IN DANGER, danger your officers have placed the public in. I'm not going to sue, but i cant say the same for a mother who's child has just died to their negligence!" "On top of this i would request that the department free up some budget for an awareness course, i can give you the number of Glenmore lodge who will happily come and educate your staff on what to do the next time they see a live rope, it could save peoples lives, and with this region being somewhat of a hot spot with both Dumbuck and the Castle being focal points for climbing tourism your officers SHOULD be properly trained on how to handle situations outside the scope of normal!" I was turned loose, given my clothing and harness, got dressed, rode back out with another officer and went about hiking back up to the summit. Fucking cops almost got me and themselves dead :/

Everyday struggle.