Fall in Eldo Sunday evening

John Byrnes wrote:Here's the most important one: Not double-checking that the rope (lowering) or your rap-setup takes your weight before unclipping from the anchor is really stupid, and generally fatal. If you don't know how to do this, learn. If you know how but don't then Gravity will be your judge. P.S. Not checking your partner's knot or belay before leaving the ground falls (pun intended) into the same genre.

Agreed. Mistakes happen so it's those double / triple checks that mitigate those chances.

I always say that if Lynn Hill can forget to finish her knot and fall off a cliff...well so can I.

keep checking all those systems every time.

Stay home drink beer......

Fall off couch.....

B-Mkll wrote:It seems to me that there are an inordinate number of these kinds of accidents, and just falls in general, happening in Eldorado Canyon. Far more so it seems than in any other climbing "mecca" in the US. It may be that the poster-base of MP has a particularly high representation from the Colorado Front Range and so these incidents merely receive more coverage here, but I'd like to hear people's opinions on what they think may explain this phenomenon.

I think your assumption is likely. I also think that there has been a large influx of young, outdoorsy people within the last year and a half who decided that Boulder was a great place to move to. Legal weed, and the great outdoors. I moved here to be closer to climbing, and more are coming. With Eldo being soooo close and soooo awesome, plus the above, it's not shocking that a lot of falls happen there.

It's also possible that when there are a dozen classics within 20 minutes from the car that are moderate and you have to wait in line at all of them on some days, it might be the same number of falls per capita, but there are just more people. I haven't been to any other climbing meca, so I don't know how often that happens with trad.

Holy Cow. Anyone out there actually interested in what happened to the poor guy?? He is a co-worker of my wife at NIST and she'd like to know his status.

Any updates on his health?

Ray Lovestead wrote:Holy Cow. Anyone out there actually interested in what happened to the poor guy?? He is a co-worker of my wife at NIST and she'd like to know his status. Any updates on his health?

Ray, thanks for asking about Boris. I am in daily contact with him and you will be happy to know the doctors expect a slow, but full recovery. If your wife has more specific questions she is welcome to contact me or Boris's supervisor at NIST.

He sustained a fractured left tibia, a fractured right calcaneous, and a fractured pelvis. The doctors believe the pelvic fracture will not require surgery, so that is good news. He has no spinal or cerebral fractures and is just dealing with some minor soft tissue/neurological repercussions of the impact which will return to normal as he heals. His attitude is good and his outlook is positive.

I want to emphasize that this accident occurred because the climber and belayer DID NOT COMMUNICATE with each other. Boris had no opportunity to anchor in before he was taken off belay; a belayer should NEVER take a climber off belay until there is verification that the system/anchors are bearing the full load of the climber. Similarly "OK" is not an acceptable belay command,and if you are changing the routine that you and your partner have established it needs to be communicated clearly beforehand. We all know this, it is not brand new information, yet it is easy to forget if we lose focus. The consequences are harsh and swift.

Serious mistakes were made all around and I am only grateful that both climber and belayer will recover from this in time.

csproul wrote: What exactly are you disagreeing with?

Sorry, I was unclear. The only part I was disagreeing with was always sticking to the plan that was made on the ground. I was trying to point out that the climber may change his mind about lowering vs. rappelling when he gets to the anchors. In the past, I've changed my mind after inspecting the anchors up-close.

csproul wrote:Most people are not going to clip into an anchor if they reach the top expecting to be lowered.

They will if they're gonna thread or rappel. That was the situation in the OP.

Alexey Dynkin wrote: In practice, the "tug" method is often unreliable, particularly when you have a long, wandering pitch with a lot of friction in the system.

One of the advantages to leading such multi-pitch climbs on twin ropes is it an make the "tug" method very clear. You don't have to count tugs, and worry if they are tugs vs just pulling rope to clip, dropping it, trying again, etc. You designate one rope -- and a long continuous pulling of slack on one rope without the other rope is the "off belay" designation. (Of course, this isn't as clear with half/double technique.)

Still, even on a single rope, I've found the tug method to be generally quite reliable, assuming both climbers have agreed in advance that they will be applying it in case of inability to hear.

best wishes to the climber

im not quite sure why belayers seem to be in a rush to take their climbers off belay

simply keep the person on belay until you clearly hear "off belay" from your climber (not someone elses climber) ... and even if you do its good to confirm it with "are you rapping?"

if you are uncertain simply keep em on but keep giving them slack as they pull up the rope ... until its pretty obvious they are rapping when they pulled up half the rope

also for climbers if you are lowering dont say "off belay" or "safe" ... just ask for slack or dont say anything

test the system regardless before taking off yr safety

the fastest my lard AZN azz has ever run was on climb (where you couldnt see the climber) where the climber said "im safe at the anchors" (or something like that), the belayer wandered off .... then the climber said "lower me" ...

i have never ran that fast to put that person on belay ever before or since

its all about habits ... develop habits and techniques to keep you safe and practice them all the time ...

that way when yr cold tired hungry in the dark, youll still be able to do em easily

John Byrnes wrote:The key is to clip directly to the anchor with some long slings, or equivalent. Now you're hanging below the anchor so you can thread or set-up your rappel. When you're ready to go down, you say "Take!" or get on rappel. Now, if everything is going right, your long slings are slack and you've verified that the rope has your weight. Now you can unclip.

This is what I do. I'll bet I even learned it from rec.climbing, or from my partners that mentored me. I teach it to everyone I climb with.