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JimTitt
Jan 15, 2013, 6:20 PM
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You do know Denis Healey is spelt with an extra e?
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viciado
Jan 15, 2013, 8:33 PM
Post #27 of 43
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No, I didn't. I suppose I ought to correct the spelling , but where would be the irony in that?
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milesenoell
Jan 16, 2013, 3:20 PM
Post #28 of 43
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healyje wrote: viciado wrote: Even experienced climbers make serious mistakes though. Accidents involving experienced climbers usually entail raps off uneven ropes, drops while TRing, and partial tie-ins. Mistakes of anchors, protection, and actual climbing are actually quite rare among experienced climbers. On the other hand, folks crossing over from sport at a reasonably high level without the requisite amount of trad seconding / mentoring are often positively horrifying to watch.
Anytime someone refers to their "combined years of experience" with the other people in their party I get the urge to slap them.
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JimTitt
Jan 16, 2013, 6:42 PM
Post #29 of 43
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milesenoell wrote: healyje wrote: viciado wrote: Even experienced climbers make serious mistakes though. Accidents involving experienced climbers usually entail raps off uneven ropes, drops while TRing, and partial tie-ins. Mistakes of anchors, protection, and actual climbing are actually quite rare among experienced climbers. On the other hand, folks crossing over from sport at a reasonably high level without the requisite amount of trad seconding / mentoring are often positively horrifying to watch. Anytime someone refers to their "combined years of experience" with the other people in their party I get the urge to slap them.
My brother and I were climbing with another guy last month, we had 146 years of combined experience. Itīs a brave man or an internet warrior that would think about slapping me!
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rgold
Jan 16, 2013, 7:46 PM
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About 200+ years of climbing experience.
Slap away...
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avalon420
Jan 16, 2013, 8:06 PM
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rgold wrote: About 200+ years of climbing experience. [img]http://www.supertopo.com/photos/6/92/190678_5166_XL.jpg[/img] Slap away... 
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curt
Jan 16, 2013, 9:30 PM
Post #32 of 43
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patto wrote: Update: Hi Guys,
I am one of the climbers that was involved in the fall...
...I placed a cam deep into the horizontal crack for my partner to clip into. While I looked around for other possible routes. I stopped up onto a shelf that was about hip height to take a look at the wall above the small rooflet, again looking for gear placement or carrots for our first bit of pro. At this point of time I still had no intention of climbing on, I was just looking for the possible route, but my second put me on belay out of habit...
I'm a little surprised that nobody has commented on this yet--as this error is likely the proximate cause of the accident. Apparently, by thinking he was merely scoping out the possible line, the climber failed to realize that he was, in actual fact, really climbing.
It is particularly important to realize the importance of good anchors and good protection directly off belay ledges, where the possibility for high fall-factor falls is high.
Curt
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patto
Jan 16, 2013, 11:09 PM
Post #34 of 43
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I'm not sure all this insult slinging is productive. Mistakes were made yes. Sure discuss them. Those involved and those reading can learn from the incident.
However simple berating those involved to make yourself feel better about yourself is not what A&IA forums is about.
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surfstar
Jan 17, 2013, 12:39 AM
Post #35 of 43
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So Factor 2 falls do happen.
We need to resuscitate an equallete thread.
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gunkiemike
Jan 17, 2013, 1:49 AM
Post #36 of 43
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surfstar wrote: We need to resuscitate an equallete thread.
Start a new, redundant one. It's the rc.com way.
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healyje
Jan 17, 2013, 2:48 AM
Post #37 of 43
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surfstar wrote: We need to resuscitate an equallete thread.
You'd need a new monolette thread.
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rgold
Jan 17, 2013, 5:40 AM
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I can sort of understand how this unfolded, although the description is pretty confusing. Anyone who has done much mountaineering knows how subtly and insidiously a third-class situation can turn into a fifth-class one, sometimes after a single unfortunate move.
The fact that the leader was on a shelf only hip-height above the ledge apparently lured both of them into thinking climbing, as opposed to unbelayed scoping, hadn't begun yet, and maybe they thought that a fall from that spot wouldn't send the leader over the edge in any case, although a ledge in the 3-5 feet range sure isn't very big.
Whatever the party might have been thinking, when the leader placed a protection piece, that would have been the moment for both leader and second to say, independently, whoa---now we need a proper anchor. The lack of an appropriate response from either of them at this moment constituted a shared flaw that certainly should have been fatal for both.
This really serious communal error was compounded when the leader chose to yard on an unseen flake in spite of questionable protection. When you start stringing together bad decisions is when the trouble typically starts.
It is always hard to know what to make of "experience." Sometimes people get away with terrible practices for years, becoming "experienced" without really ever having learned how to be safe. And then some climbers get less experience in, say, eight years than others do in a year.
In any case, as someone with 56 years of "experience," I'm here to say that it ain't all its cracked up to be. Experience can promote complacency, and it can also blunt appropriate fear levels and promote a faulty sense of of infallible judgement. I'm always taken aback when I hear experienced climbers speaking in absolutes about their capabilities and judgement. I think experience ought to teach us that we're not as smart, not as competent, and not as able to control everything as we may think, and a lifetime of good decisions can be undone in an instant by a single bad one.
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majid_sabet
Jan 17, 2013, 5:58 AM
Post #39 of 43
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1 pro=your entire life is on it
2 pro=50% chance to either live or die
3 pro= more chance to live than die
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billl7
Jan 17, 2013, 2:41 PM
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majid_sabet wrote: 1 pro=your entire life is on it 2 pro=50% chance to either live or die 3 pro= more chance to live than die
Bill L
(This post was edited by billl7 on Jan 17, 2013, 2:42 PM)
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ClimbClimb
Jan 17, 2013, 6:16 PM
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curt wrote: In reply to: At this point of time I still had no intention of climbing on, I was just looking for the possible route, but my second put me on belay out of habit...I'm a little surprised that nobody has commented on this yet--as this error is likely the proximate cause of the accident. Apparently, by thinking he was merely scoping out the possible line, the climber failed to realize that he was, in actual fact, really climbing. Hope they continue to heal well. Could've happened to any one -- it's sort of the ledge version of "unfinished tie-in not". It is particularly important to realize the importance of good anchors and good protection directly off belay ledges, where the possibility for high fall-factor falls is high. Curt
Right, if this is really the case -- the three-piece anchor was not clipped or was broken down, and all they had was the one cam, it feels like a classic "slippery slope" accident - taking more risk then they would if not at all on belay or with no pro clipped at all, but yet not protecting as they would if "really climbing".
(This post was edited by ClimbClimb on Jan 17, 2013, 6:17 PM)
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patto
Jan 17, 2013, 9:44 PM
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rgold wrote: I can sort of understand how this unfolded, although the description is pretty confusing. Anyone who has done much mountaineering knows how subtly and insidiously a third-class situation can turn into a fifth-class one, sometimes after a single unfortunate move.
Exactly.
The fundamental problem here being reliant on shit gear. The results speak for themselves. The gear was shit. Personally I would be happy to entrust my life to ONE bomber piece of gear. Though my requirements on what constitutes bomber may be stringent.
One cam in a choosy ledge in blue mountains sandstone does not fit the normal description of good gear let alone a good anchor.
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