The climber believed the safety officer deliberately loosened the rope, preventing her from continuing upward. Furious, she decided to hang in midair and not come down, "unless they apologize!"
This sudden decision caught both the on-site staff and her friends off guard, and the staff insisted they were not at fault and refused to apologize. And so, she remained suspended in the air for over an hour.
Three friends went rock climbing together.
Xiao Qian, a clerk who works in an office, went to Geleshan Forest Park for fun just after 2 p.m. yesterday. A rock climbing enthusiast, she knew the park had a climbing facility and quickly invited her friends to join.
The rock climbing facility at Geleshan Forest Park is built on a natural cliff about 30 meters high, with eight climbing routes. From left to right, they are categorized as easy, medium, difficult, and very difficult.
With some prior climbing experience, Xiao Qian chose the third route, which is of medium-high difficulty, classified as "difficult." After putting on her harness and gloves, she grabbed a safety rope fixed to the top of the cliff and began climbing, while her two friends waited below.
It had drizzled the night before at Geleshan, making the cliff surface somewhat slippery. Coupled with the higher difficulty level and the scattered distribution of climbing holds, Xiao Qian slipped after climbing only about four meters, losing her balance and nearly hitting the cliff wall.
Normally, when a climber loses balance, the staff at the base of the cliff should immediately grab the rope.
"But I felt that the safety officer holding the rope at the base of the cliff actually loosened it a bit," Xiao Qian said. This caused her already unbalanced body to suddenly sink further after the slack. Moments later, the rope loosened again, and her hands scraped against the cliff wall, leaving bloody marks.
"And so I just hung there, unable to come down."
Xiao Qian was immediately enraged. Her friends told us that there were actually quite a few climbers that day, with over 20 people waiting in line behind her.
"Xiao Qian told us that the safety officer’s actions made it impossible for her to continue climbing. The whole point of rock climbing is to reach the top to achieve victory and fulfillment," her friends said. Xiao Qian felt the safety officer was trying to get her to give up and come down sooner so others could climb. Thinking this, she became somewhat angry and decided that the more impatient the other side got, the calmer she would remain.
Having made up her mind, she yelled a few words at the safety officer below, then shouted, "I’m not coming down. Let’s see what you do!"
Hearing this, the safety officer quickly responded, "How can that be? If you can’t climb up, just come down quickly. There are many people waiting in line."
She called her friends to bring her clothes and snacks, preparing for a long standoff.
"Why did you deliberately loosen my rope earlier? When you saw me slipping, you should have tightened the rope to ensure my safety. Instead, you loosened it, almost injuring me and making it impossible to continue climbing," Xiao Qian snapped angrily.
After talking to the safety officer, Xiao Qian asked her friends to throw her clothes up, as it was a bit cold hanging in midair. She also had them bring up her bag and phone, and she spent the time snacking (on sunflower seeds, cookies, etc.) and scrolling through her phone.
The safety officer holding the rope at the base, having realized that persuasion was useless, simply tied the rope to a stone bench at the foot of the cliff and stood aside to rest.
The people waiting in line were also unhappy, but there was nothing they could do.
Xiao Qian said she definitely wouldn’t come down unless the safety officer apologized. The safety officer at the base replied, "I didn’t do anything wrong, so why should I apologize?"
The situation remained deadlocked. Xiao Qian dangled in midair, snacking on sunflower seeds, checking her phone, and occasionally looking around at the scenery. The safety officer alternated between squatting by the roadside and strolling around, not appearing too anxious.
The standoff lasted an hour, and her friends grew impatient.
Her friends said that because they witnessed the safety officer loosening the rope while waiting at the base, it led to Xiao Qian’s hands getting scraped while she was hanging in midair.
"We’ve all done rock climbing and know the rule: the safety officer responsible for protection should constantly monitor the climber’s movements and decide whether to tighten or loosen the rope. When Xiao Qian lost her balance, the safety officer below should have tightened the rope, not loosened it," Xiao Qian’s friend told us. When they tried to reason with the safety officer based on what they saw, he ignored them, which made them angry and supportive of Xiao Qian’s actions.
But after Xiao Qian had been hanging in midair for over an hour, her friends started to worry too, since they had something important to do that evening. With the standoff dragging on, the safety officer refused to apologize, and a duty manager from the park urged Xiao Qian to come down if she wasn’t going to climb, saying she shouldn’t waste time occupying the spot—showing no signs of apologizing.
"If this isn’t resolved, I’ll call the police."
Seeing the situation, her friends called both 119 and 110.
After making the calls, Xiao Qian felt she could actually come down and that it wasn’t necessary to involve the authorities. Her friends quickly explained the situation, and the 119 team withdrew midway.
The park manager came over and offered to refund Xiao Qian and her friends the cost of their three tickets and the 20 yuan rock climbing fee.
Xiao Qian no longer insisted and asked the safety officer to lower her back to the ground.
It’s really important to understand consumer psychology.
The staff on site told us that it was actually just a misunderstanding because the safety rope is naturally elastic. They even demonstrated it for us. The safety officer explained that this design is meant to protect climbers’ safety, and the reason the rope felt slack was because the on-duty officer was a bit nervous at the time—it wasn’t intentional.
“Later, the woman refused to come down, and it was quite tiring for them holding her up from below,” the staff member said. As a last resort, for safety reasons, they tied the rope to a stone bench at the base of the cliff.
We also felt during the interview that it was precisely this action that further deepened the misunderstanding between both sides. Xiao Qian said that seeing the safety officer tie the rope to the bench clearly felt like being trapped, which showed a blatant disregard for visitor safety—so she decided to push back.
The scenic area staff explained that they actually had no prior experience handling such situations, and if they had explained things properly at the time, the misunderstanding could have been resolved.
Online opinions say that rock climbing is a game for the competitive-minded, with many going in with the attitude that “no one’s a real man until they reach the top.” Staff should understand and make use of this mindset—time is money, and to keep the business going, they can’t just “assume they’re not wrong and ignore everything from the sidelines.”