Ouch!

Things that concerned me about the belay:

* seemed too inattentive - often looking away from the leader;
* not helping keep the rope out of the leaders feet and from between the leaders legs;
* not helping to keep the rope from moving the first piece.

Also, it looked as though the leader actually fell on the rope as he came down due to belayer's poor position. May have actually reduced the outward pull on the first piece (although it had already been wiggled some).

I'm not saying gear placement was mistake free. I just think the belayer could have helped the leader to focus more on the lead.

Thanks for posting! I look forward to comments from others.

Bill L

Uhhh... the only thing that belayer could have done to make the situation better would have been to drop the rope and give the climber a spot. The groundfall had nothing to do with the belay.

There was bad gear there for sure.

But again, the belay had nothing to do with the ground fall. The key piece that would have kept him off the ground pulled.

The key piece that would have kept him off the ground pulled.

If he didn't have that low, difficult section wired then he needed to double up the piece that came out because where he came off was a high enough fall to have had significant consequences. Pretty much any time you are making a placement where there is groundfall potential and anything other than completely bomb pro, you should double up.

i watched it a few times in slo mo

If you watch carefully you can see the bottom piece "zipper" as the rope goes taught and then the top two pieces pull completely, ending up with no pro at all.

Belaying wasn't great but the gear didn't hold at all.

Hope the guy is ok.

I know of three ground falls on that route.
Never pulled a piece myself and have fallen from pretty much the same place as Clint.
When ever I see somebody about to attempt it, I always warn them to double up down low as the inside of the crack has a slippery hard black texture in some places.

Clint has since passed away in another incident.
Probably why nobody else from this neck of the woods has posted anything.

There was discussion on Qurank.com for anybody interested in further info.


My own personal opinion was that Clints progression through the climbing grades due to his natural strength, far outstripped
his climbing knowledge and he often underestimated or didn't recognise the danger involved.

I was once asked why I didn't go climbing with him when I was without a partner at Frog and I replied that he would kill himself one day and didn't want to be around to see it.

It was no surprise when I heard of his later accident.

No doubt the locals will scorn me for saying so.

... and know of cams ripping from seemingly good placements in parallel sided cracks in other smooth rock.

Which is all the more reason why you want to double up on low cruxs which Clint himself discussed after the incident, though was seemly dismissive of the idea in practice.

If you manage to rip 3 cams what makes you think a 4th will stay in place?

I don't think the amount of gear placed is really the issue here (the 2rd and 3rd cams were placed rather closely in the video) it's how you place the gear. Around here I wouldn't trust a cam unless it was placed in a pod of some sort.

Neither you or I can tell these things just from watching the video.

The rock in the video is volcanic; columnar ryolite, I believe. We can armchair critique this all we want, but the lesson that most people should take from this is that parallel splitter cracks in very hard rock can have worse cam placements than in similar cracks of sandstone or granite. The hardness and smoothness of the rock basically makes it difficult for cams to grip into it. As granitegrl said, limestone can be really bad for this, too, but limestone also tends to have more bottlenecks and constrictions in it, which of course will make both cam and nut placements in slick rock much better.

I've not climbed at Frog Buttress, but there are a couple places in the US that are also smooth, columnar igneous rock (Frenchman's Coulee and Paradise Forks); I recall stories from both areas about apparently perfect cam placements in parallel cracks simply pulling out.

Bottom line: in rock like this, do not expect to rely on the same cam placements that you would get in an identical Yosemite or Indian Creek splitter. Flares and parallel cracks should be suspect; look for bottlenecks, stopper placements, etc.

Yeah, there are rock types where you have to be careful with your placements and preferably double-up and consider the slinging, but bottom line, when you rip or zipper a line of pro you alone, and your skill and judgment, are the root cause of the accident - not the rock.