My phone buzzed with a link from my friend and climbing partner, Ethan.
“Check the captions—this guy is solid,” he texted, and the first thing I saw was a credit: Captioning by Jonas Rydell.
It made me smile because good subtitles usually meant the person behind the camera cared about details.
That detail would matter more than I could imagine.
We were in Colorado for a weekend of training in a narrow mountain canyon.
Nothing extreme, nothing reckless—just the kind of technical day where you practice rope movement and communication.
Ethan had been mentoring me for months, and today he brought a newer guy, Mark, who wanted to learn fast.
Mark looked confident in that loud way some people do when they’re nervous.
Right before we started, Ethan clapped his hands and shouted, “Go! Go! Go! Go!”
It wasn’t aggression; it was our rhythm cue to move efficiently and keep momentum.
Mark laughed like it was a joke, but he also rushed, and rushing is where mistakes are born.
I watched his footwork and told myself to stay calm, stay precise.
There was a long pause while Ethan checked anchor points and I tightened straps.
The canyon went quiet enough that you could hear wind scrape across stone.
Then Ethan looked at me and said, “Okay, show me.”
I blinked. “Show you what?” I asked, and he nodded toward my rig.
He wanted me to demonstrate the transition we’d practiced—how to cross a rope line without snagging.
I did it clean, then Mark jumped in too fast, copying the motion without the setup.
Ethan immediately corrected him, firm and short: “No, no.”
Mark threw his hands up, laughing too loudly, “Ha, ha, ha! Okay, okay!”
He tried again, but his glove caught on a taped edge of the rope pad.
Ethan muttered, almost to himself, “Now we’ll see if we can remove the border,” meaning the taped lip that kept snagging.
It sounded harmless—just gear talk.
But when Ethan peeled the tape back, something flashed underneath: a cut in the outer sheath of the rope.
My throat tightened, because rope damage isn’t a small issue—it’s an emergency.
Ethan went still, then said quietly, “Now we are down in the mountain,” like a reminder we were deep, with limited margin for error.
And I realized the scariest part: rope doesn’t cut itself—so who did, and why would anyone do it here?
Cliffhanger to Part 2: If the rope was sabotaged, were we the only ones in this canyon—and was someone watching us right now?
I didn’t want to accuse anyone out loud, not yet.
In the mountains, panic spreads faster than truth, and we still needed to get out safely.
Ethan crouched by the rope, fingers hovering over the frayed section like it might bite.
He looked up at me and spoke with a calm he didn’t feel: “We switch ropes. We back out. No hero moves.”
Mark leaned forward, squinting, and laughed again like he couldn’t process fear without turning it into humor.
“Probably just a scrape,” he said, and Ethan snapped, “No, no.”
That single phrase carried weight—this wasn’t debate time.
I forced my breathing slow, because shaky hands make bad knots.
We moved into procedures we’d practiced a hundred times.
Ethan clipped a backup line while I anchored a second point, keeping everything redundant.
The canyon narrowed ahead, and sunlight faded into cold blue shade.
Ethan repeated, “Go,” not as a cheer now, but as a command—move with purpose, don’t freeze.
We started retreating, and I kept scanning behind us.
Rock walls, a dry streambed, scrub brush—nothing obvious, nothing moving.
Still, the damaged rope sat in my mind like a blinking warning light.
When you find something like that, you ask the ugly question: accident or intent.
Halfway back, we heard gravel crunch up-canyon.
It wasn’t wind, and it wasn’t us—we’d stopped moving.
Ethan lifted a hand, palm down, signaling silence.
My pulse thumped loud enough I swore it could echo.
A voice drifted toward us, casual, too casual.
“Hey! You guys climbing?”
Ethan answered without giving details. “Training. Just heading out.”
The person stepped into a sliver of light, but the angle hid his face.
He had a small backpack and work boots that looked wrong for this terrain.
Not impossible, just… odd, like he’d dressed for looking official, not moving safely.
Mark, still trying to be friendly, waved and said, “Yeah, we’re done. Beautiful spot, right?”
The man chuckled and said, “Sure is.”
Ethan shifted his stance so he was between the stranger and our gear.
I noticed Ethan’s right hand hovered near his radio, not touching it yet.
The man’s eyes flicked down toward our lines, then back up.
He asked, “Mind if I see how you’re rigged? Show me.”
The words hit me the wrong way—too familiar, too direct.
Ethan kept his voice even. “Not today.”
The man smiled like it didn’t matter, then took one slow step closer.
Ethan repeated, “No,” and the canyon suddenly felt smaller.
That’s when I saw it on the stranger’s pack: a roll of tape matching the one we’d peeled.
The same dull gray, the same width, dangling from a side loop.
My skin went cold because tape is common, sure, but coincidences stack until they stop being coincidences.
I glanced at Ethan, and his jaw tightened just enough to tell me he saw it too.
Ethan spoke into his radio, quiet.
“Ranger station, this is Ethan Brooks, requesting contact—possible safety issue at—”
Static swallowed the rest.
The stranger’s smile stayed, but his eyes sharpened.
Mark shifted his weight, finally sensing the tension.
“Dude, what’s going on?” he asked, voice half-laugh, half-worry.
Ethan didn’t answer Mark; he watched the stranger’s hands.
The stranger raised his palms like he was harmless, then said, “Relax. I just want to see something.”
He pointed toward the damaged section of rope coiled near my feet.
“Let me see if we can remove the border,” he said, and it sounded like an echo of earlier—too perfect, too rehearsed.
Before I could react, he lunged, grabbing for the coil.
I yanked it back, but his fingers caught the frayed end, and the rope slid against rock with a harsh scrape.
Ethan moved fast, stepping in, and the stranger’s shoulder collided with his chest.
Mark shouted, “Hey!” and reached out, but Ethan snapped, “Don’t!”
The stranger twisted, and for a second his pack strap snagged on our anchor line.
The line tightened—hard—like a sudden seatbelt.
My harness jerked as the anchor loaded unexpectedly.
Ethan’s eyes widened because this wasn’t supposed to take weight right now.
Somewhere above, a loose stone shifted and clattered down the chute.
And then the anchor line started to slip, inch by inch, across a sharp edge we hadn’t weighted before.
Ethan shouted over the scraping sound, “Go! Go! Go!”
Not motivation—survival.
I grabbed the nearest carabiner to redirect the load, hands shaking as the rope hissed louder.
The stranger smiled like he’d gotten what he wanted, and I realized we weren’t just dealing with gear failure—we were dealing with a person who understood exactly how to create it.
The line snapped tighter, my balance tilted toward the drop, and the last thing I heard before my foot skidded was Ethan yelling my name—
My body reacted before my brain finished the sentence.
I dropped my center of gravity, slammed my left knee into the dirt, and grabbed the redirect carabiner with both hands.
The rope hissed across rock, but I forced it into a safer angle, pushing it away from the sharp edge.
Pain shot through my fingers, but pain was better than falling.
Ethan stepped in tight, clipped a second backup line to my harness, and locked it with a practiced snap.
He didn’t waste words—he never did when seconds mattered.
“Hold,” he said, and that single word steadied me more than any pep talk.
Mark, pale now, fumbled his gloves and finally listened, eyes wide and serious.
“Mark,” Ethan ordered, “grab the spare webbing from my pack, now.”
Mark did it fast, no jokes, no laughter.
The stranger tried to pull away, but Ethan shifted again, using his body to block the path and keep the lines protected.
The canyon wasn’t a courtroom—Ethan wasn’t trying to win an argument; he was trying to keep us alive.
I got the rope stabilized, then Ethan moved to neutralize the threat.
He didn’t swing, didn’t tackle—he did something smarter.
He stepped back half a pace, opened a clear lane behind the stranger, and said calmly, “You can walk out. Right now.”
It was an exit offered like a test: take it, or prove intent.
The stranger hesitated, eyes flicking between our gear and the path out.
Then he made the wrong choice—he reached for Ethan’s radio.
Ethan caught his wrist, twisted it downward just enough to stop him, and shoved him away from the equipment.
The man stumbled, cursed, and bolted up-canyon.
Ethan didn’t chase deep into unknown terrain.
Instead, he grabbed his phone, climbed to higher ground where signal lived, and called 911 with clipped, clear facts.
“Possible attempted sabotage,” he said. “Damaged rope found. Person interfered with anchor line. We need a ranger response at this canyon access point.”
Hearing him say it out loud made my stomach twist, because it confirmed the thing we didn’t want to admit.
Someone had tried to turn a training day into a tragedy.
We executed the retreat the way it’s taught: redundant anchors, slow transitions, no shortcuts.
Mark followed instructions like his life depended on it—because it did.
I kept the damaged rope sealed in a dry bag, like evidence, not gear.
Every so often Ethan checked my hands, making sure the friction burns weren’t turning numb.
When we reached the trailhead, two rangers and a deputy were already there.
They separated us, took statements, photographed the rope damage, and asked about the stranger’s appearance, his boots, his tape.
Ethan handed over the gray roll he’d noticed later—Mark had spotted it wedged under a rock near the anchor point, like it had been left behind on purpose.
The deputy’s expression changed when he examined the frayed sheath.
“This isn’t normal wear,” the deputy said.
It wasn’t a dramatic line, but it landed like a weight lifting off my chest.
Because it meant we weren’t paranoid; we were lucky and prepared.
And preparation is the difference between a scary story and a memorial.
Back at our rental cabin, the adrenaline finally bled out of me.
My hands shook while I poured water, and then I laughed once—short and disbelieving—because I was still here to laugh.
Ethan sat across from me, quiet, then said, “You did exactly what you were trained to do.”
Mark stared at the floor for a long time and finally whispered, “I’m sorry I didn’t take it seriously.”
Ethan nodded. “You will now.”
No cruelty, no shaming—just truth.
The next morning we got a call: the deputy said a man matching the description was identified near another access road, questioned, and released pending investigation, because evidence takes time to build.
But they had our report, our photos, and the rope—enough to keep eyes open and warn other groups.
On the drive back toward Denver, I thought about that opening credit I’d seen—captioning by Jonas Rydell.
It seemed unrelated, but it reminded me of something real: details matter.
In rescues, in climbing, in life—details are where safety lives.
And if I’d ignored the bright zip tie moment of my own story—the “this doesn’t fit”—I might not be here to tell it.
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