Guided party falls in RMNP

Daily Camera article

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BOULDER, Colo. — A family of three mountain climbers being guided by a Boulder man on Tuesday fell between 300 and 400 feet while roped together in Rocky Mountain National Park, officials said Thursday.

The accident was reported by cell phone about 2:15 p.m., and happened about 2½ miles from the Bear Lake Trailhead. The climbers, who were attached by a rope while descending a steep snow slope, tumbled when one of them slipped.

The group was unable to stop their fall until they hit the rocks at the bottom of the couloir, according to a news release.

The group consisted of three family members and a guide from the Colorado Mountain School, identified as Steve Johnson, 40, of Boulder.

The names of the other adults involved in the accident were not immediately released.

The entire group suffered injuries.

Johnson suffered a broken leg, while a 15-year-old boy from Greenwood Village has deep bruises to his neck. Both the climbers had to be carried out on a litter by rescue workers who arrived at the scene about 4 p.m.

The boy was taken by ambulance to Estes Park Medical Center about 9 p.m.

Johnson was taken by friends to Estes Park Medical Center and released late Tuesday night.

The extent of the other climbers’ injuries was not available.

About 30 park staff and Larimer County Search and Rescue personnel were involved in the rescue.

According to the Colorado Mountain School Web site, Johnson began climbing in 1992 and became a guide in 1996.

His online profile says Johnson spends the majority of his time climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park, but he has experience climbing in France, Italy and Switzerland. He has guided climbs along the Front Range, Mexico and Ecuador.

Johnson also works as a certified massage therapist, according to his online profile.
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I hope everybody recovers quickly.

--Marc

That sucks. Probably the second worst thing a guide can have happen while working. It sounds like he was short-roping them. Anyone have any info on that and where they were coming down from? I couldn't tell from the picture. I'd be curious about the terrain, especially slope angle and snow conditions. There've been a few recent studies showing short-roping to be a fairly ineffective technique so I'm curious to know what technique(s) had been used or were knowledgeable by the other people on the rope.

Hope everyone recovers quickly and fully.

I hope everyone fully recovers. I wish them the best.

As for being roped together, I've always been a firm believer in using a running belay or pitching it out if you're tied together on steeper terrain (or go solo, if conditions/skill warrant). There's very little chance of arresting a fall like that on steeper terrain without 2 or 3 anchor points along the rope-length. It may be possible on a flat glacier, but more than that, a fall will just take the whole team down usually. Just my .02.

A good friend of mine that passed away recently wrote a very good paper on the forces involved with short roping.

alpinerecreation.com/ShortR…

Best wishes to everyone involved for a quick recovery....

We don't know the details of the accident described here, but in general, staying roped up on steep terrain with no running belays or anchor points between the climbers is just plain foolish. If you have the rope on then you should either be belaying or have protection points (running belays) between the climbers.

Thanking that you can arrest a fall by another climber indicates that you do not understand the forces generated in even a minor fall.

Bruce

I agree, Bruce, but leading beginners safely up and down steep snow is often problematic. There many not be any decent anchors at all, or one may not have enough pickets to do running belays. As a guide, you are forced to decide between unroping completely or trying to rig halfway decent anchors. Pitching out a 1000 foot snow slope can take hours, and you may have to climb down in the same manner. I'm not saying what the guide did was right, or that I even know the situation, but often it is not so black and white.

If you can be certain that everyone is expert at self-arresting, then its probably best to stow the rope. But with beginners this won't be the case.

I helped with the carry out of Steve, being a member of LCSAR. From what I understand there was no way his belay was going to hold three people falling down a snow slope without self arresting. Obviously as a guided group they were shown and probably practiced self-arrest, but when the shit hits the fan people are unpredictable. I'm sure CMS will evaluate this incident from a number of angles and hopefully learn something from this.

The picture shows Hallett Couloir in the background, and the SAR team looks to be doing the standard descent from routes on the south side of Emerald. I know Hallett Couloir is a popular destination for guided parties - especially this time of year given it's northern exposure. Descending it a couple weeks ago, my partner and I remarked how the soft snow from the week's warm temps would make self arresting extremely challenging if a fall or glissade got out of control. Even a seasoned guide with whipsnap reactions would have a hard time arresting 3 bodies already in motion in those kind of conditions.

Best wishes to all of them for full and speedy recoveries. And big thanks to the SAR crew who got up to Emerald w/in 1h 45m of the accident first being called in.

While I agree that leading beginners up a snow slope is problematic (as leading beginners through anything often is) I don't necessarily agree that it is all that grey of an area. The study linked above, which is the one I was referring as well, makes it pretty clear that short roping is fairly useless the steeper and icier the terrain. I think that eliminates some grey area right there. If the slope is 30 degrees or greater and the conditions are icey then short roping is far more of a hinderance than a help, putting the entire party in danger, so don't do it. Instead suck it up and belay, assuming that other external conditions don't make it worth the risk of going without a belay.

A guides job is not merely to show people the way but also to anticipate possible dangers and mitigate them to the best of their ability. Since I don't know the conditions of the snow, angle of the slope, ability of individuals in the party, or the actual technique being used, it would be preemptive of any of us to make judgements and it doesn't sound like we are. If we agree that short roping on certain slopes is more dangerous and the slopes in question meet that criteria then I might feel there was a certain failure of the person in charge to properly assess the technique needed to provide safety. If that technique requires hours then so be it. It's hard to tell from what people are saying about the route and conditions what would have been the most adequate technique.

In the end only the guide and his clients know what happened and we can question whatever actions they took all day but in the end they did what they thought was best and it's hard to put yourself in someone elses boots in the same exact situation. For all we know it could have just be a simple moment of inattention and the fall caught them off guard. It happens to the best of us. I've had screw ups on the job before, none have been life threatening but I'm young. That's why we all try to learn from accidents, to take someone elses experience and consequences and use it to prevent them in our own lives. Climbing and mountaineering are dangerous. Hopefully his employer backs up whatever he was doing as I would hope mine would. I always feel like there is a lot to keep track of when I guide. There's a lot of factors involved and taking the time to think all them through can look like a lack of confidence to other people which puts pressure on the guide to think and act quickly, maybe even rashly depending on the personality of the group.

I know someone from CMS posts stuff about upcoming classes and things on here and I'm surprised that they haven't said anything. Maybe they're keeping it hush-hush. Who knows.

Bruce Hildenbrand wrote:We don't know the details of the accident described here, but in general, staying roped up on steep terrain with no running belays or anchor points between the climbers is just plain foolish. If you have the rope on then you should either be belaying or have protection points (running belays) between the climbers. Thanking that you can arrest a fall by another climber indicates that you do not understand the forces generated in even a minor fall. Bruce

That is a bold statement. Most climbers know that staying roped up is often the best decision. It would be a bloodbath in the mountains every weekend if simul-climbing teams were not roped together. Just take a look at the number of solo climber deaths to the number of roped team deaths.
If I had not been roped to team mates in the past while on steep snow terrain, I would be dealing with at least 3 deaths and possibly even my own. And If a team of 2 falls together onto pickets and other "snow" anchors while simul-climbing, good luck. They are called "flukes" because it is a fluke if they hold you.

Roy,

I think you might be misunderstanding what I am saying. Staying roped with no anchors or running belays is foolish. How are you going to stop a partner if they fall? It's one thing if you are 1) all descending in a vertical line with 2) the rope is tight between all climbers and 3) everyone is an expert at self arrest, but if any of these three items are not the case then it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to hold a fall on a steep slope of either snow or ice.

Staying roped up with no anchors or running belays on steep terrain is just an accident waiting to happen. Luck is not the same as good mountaineering practices.

Bruce

If you were not there in the situation,

I don't know how anyone can judge....

Best wished to Steve, this has to be a real bummer to be going thru.....

A few years ago, I was guided by Steve rock climbing. Competent, conscientious, and attentive to my interests and safety. I've seen him a few times since then. A really nice guy. I was terribly sorry to read about the accident.

My best wishes to Steve and the others for a quick and full recovery.

Cheers,
Rob.calm

No Bruce, I understood you.
And my skills as a mountaineer have gotten me much further then my luck....
In my experience, Anchoring and running belays are not always feasible, practical, efficient, effective....etc. etc. I do know the details of this accident and the best possible decisions where being made given the circumstances. Unfortunately, several "unlikely" factors happened to line up. It happens to the best (and it did).
Have you ever had a friend injured or die in the mountains? Perhaps we should analyze the foolishness of their ways, since your "freedom of the hills" approach makes it so easy to do.

sorry to hear about this.

I know Steve to be a strong, experienced and conscientious guide and person.

I'm not surprised that this hasn't and probably won't show up on the CMS/Total Climbing website. A few other accidents CMS has had have never shown up there either. The negative publicity won't help their business.

Speculating the pros and cons of what transpired and pointing fingers doesn't help anyone since only the people there know under what circumstances this accident occured.

I hope everyone in the accident recovers well.

Steve was one of my guides during a CMS mountaineering seminar, and he was professional and safety minded. I second the opinion voiced earlier that if it can happen to him it could happen to anyone. I would climb with him again anytime.

My best wishes to him for a speedy recovery.

Steve is a really solid guy, and has been guiding for many years. Guiding steep snow routes is the most dangerous kind of guiding because of the fact that reliable anchors are often nonexistent. There are a huge number of accidents that occur in the Mt. Blanc massif similar to this one. A bunch of folks short roped, one slips and takes the rest along for the ride. It's easy to speculate on-line about not tying in, in such situations, but what is a guide gonna tell the clients? "Let's unrope and solo through this part because there really arn't any anchors anyway".

That's not how guiding works. It is the guide's job to not only keep the client safe, but also make them feel as comfortable as possible in an environment in which most are out of their element. This is not the same type of situation as climbing with your solid buddy who is okay with putting the rope away. Guiding is a real art, and accidents happen sometimes even to the very competent.

Brad White wrote:It's easy to speculate on-line about not tying in, in such situations, but what is a guide gonna tell the clients? "Let's unrope and solo through this part because there really arn't any anchors anyway". That's not how guiding works. It is the guide's job to not only keep the client safe, but also make them feel as comfortable as possible in an environment in which most are out of their element. This is not the same type of situation as climbing with your solid buddy who is okay with putting the rope away. Guiding is a real art, and accidents happen sometimes even to the very competent.

At what point would a guide tell his clients that the climb was too unsafe for them? I understand they are under pressure to show the clients a good time but what is the proper balance between customer service and quality of experience versus safety?

This is a very enlightening thread.

Bruce Hildenbrand wrote:Roy, I think you might be misunderstanding what I am saying. Staying roped with no anchors or running belays is foolish. How are you going to stop a partner if they fall? It's one thing if you are 1) all descending in a vertical line with 2) the rope is tight between all climbers and 3) everyone is an expert at self arrest, but if any of these three items are not the case then it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to hold a fall on a steep slope of either snow or ice. Staying roped up with no anchors or running belays on steep terrain is just an accident waiting to happen. Luck is not the same as good mountaineering practices. Bruce

I think there are two ways to look at this. With clients it only makes sense to keep them roped to their guide even on steep snow with no anchors: it gives the clients a sense of security and allows the guide to at least attempt to stop a fall if one happens. Psychologically I think this would make a big difference to inexperienced clients since it gives them the impression that they aren't totally on their own.

Personally though, I never rope up on steep snow that offers no protection. In such instances I know that if I or my partner peels, there is next to no chance that I would be able to self-arrest and thus both people would be then injured and/or killed. I far prefer that each climber is responsible for themselves in such an instance. I don't think this is a hard and fast rule though by any means. If the climbers feel more comfortable being roped together than it likely is safer for them to proceed that way. Like most things in climbing, there are many different ways to stay safe.