Ice climber rescued from 2nd Flatiron

Glad none were hurt.
Kudos to RMR.
9news.com/story/news/local/…

Indeed. Thanks again to the guys and gal that dropped a rope to my sorry ass. Suddenly a no-brainer as to where this year's charitable contribution is going.

Went to climb Call the Copps (on its face, a route that is just within my solo comfort zone) on Friday morning. When I got to the base of the climb, it was evident that the route was probably not in and that it was threatened from above by a fair amount of ice. Took off in a rising traverse, scampering across the face in the general direction of the summer route. Got to a ledge 30' above the leap of faith and unexpectedly lost my sac when a crampon slipped while trying to make the layback moves required to get off it. Hung out for a minute to cool down, executed the moves, but couldn't get any purchase in the slush above them. Mindfuck took over and I downclimbed back to the ledge, assessed my other options - none of which look like a good idea at the time- and called for help.

In retrospect, I'm 99% certain that I could have pulled through the slush above the lieback or downclimbed 15' of 5.4ish slab that would have put me in a place where I could easily traverse to the trail. However, I'm 100% certain that falling off a flatiron is even poorer form than calling for help.

Cue merciless heckling.

It bakes balls to own up to a bad judgement call right away. Kudos to you.

I'm sure RMR is much happier helping a stranded climber, over a body recovery. Way to suck up the pride and make the correct decision for YOU. Learn from all of this.
Jared

Skullybones wrote:I'm sure RMR is much happier helping a stranded climber, over a body recovery. Way to suck up the pride and make the correct decision for YOU. Learn from all of this.

Well said.

CJC wrote:Eric glad you're ok. Little surprised you thought that thing would be around long enough to solo...you know how ephemeral flatirons ice is right? E facing, first sun and rapidly warming temps come on man. If you want some free advice definitely think about why you thought you could pull it off ok? Lucky you didn't get your clock cleaned from ice falling off above you at the very least. Again, glad you're safe.

Wasn't really expecting it to be in but wanted to have a look anyway. As soon as it was clear that I had missed the conditions window, and I would likely get clobbered by falling ice, I bailed across the face to safer ground. Probably spent a grand total of 60 seconds in a position where falling ice may be an issue. However, at that point where I was exposed to any sort of objective hazard from above, it was still early enough (intentional) that nothing had started to peel off yet.

Glad to hear there was a happy ending. I bet you were sitting on that ledge waiting for RMR being all "damn it, time to start a countdown to the inevitable MP heckling" haha. In all seriousness, you did the smart thing, and it sounds like a fairly simple and safe rescue for them to do as well. No harm no foul, that's why RMR exists.

As I recall, you soloed Martha's this past spring? Good reminder to all of us that trouble can come while climbing wherever we are, be that an alpine ice route or just screwing around on the 2nd flat.

CJC wrote:Eric glad you're ok. Little surprised you thought that thing would be around long enough to solo...you know how ephemeral flatirons ice is right? E facing, first sun and rapidly warming temps come on man. If you want some free advice definitely think about why you thought you could pull it off ok? Lucky you didn't get your clock cleaned from ice falling off above you at the very least. Again, glad you're safe.

Nothing wrong with going to check something out. Though admittedly, bringing some sort of skinny rope/cord to rappel with would have been prudent

willeslinger wrote:Glad to hear there was a happy ending. I bet you were sitting on that ledge waiting for RMR being all "damn it, time to start a countdown to the inevitable MP heckling" haha. In all seriousness, you did the smart thing, and it sounds like a fairly simple and safe rescue for them to do as well. No harm no foul, that's why RMR exists. As I recall, you soloed Martha's this past spring? Good reminder to all of us that trouble can come while climbing wherever we are, be that an alpine ice route or just screwing around on the 2nd flat.

Correct on all accounts. And its always good to have a little feedback that's not coming out of my own head.

Eric I'm truly glad you weren't injured and that the mountain peeps have been relatively kind with their rebuttals.

You are a good man for sharing the intimate details of your adventure with us.
Had you pulled this solo off it would've been a feat worthy of praise.

I am glad you listened to reason and chose to back off your project.

Live to climb another day my friend!

I can't say "well, it has happened to the best of us" but it has happened to me.
My story is the opposite - looked like OK weather when I started, but 20 minutes later it was a fairly nasty sticky snow storm. I couldn't get down the back of the first so easy, as that had been plastered over with snow and sleet and froze into ice. I made it down to maybe 30' off the ground on the West side, but the last little bit - well, I was not so sure of that and my hands were very numb from scraping snow and ice off of the holds I had been using. RMR threw me a rope as well.

You are not alone. Glad you are safe. Throwing a rope is easier than hauling a litter.

PS- I made it to the cover of USA Today on a slow news day. By the time it got there, I think it was something like "30 rescuers pluck climber from mountainside cliff."
The calls from family were... not that great.