Calico Basin Accident

https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/man-critical-after-fall-while-rappelling-at-calico-basin-2743117/

Anyone have any information on what happened at Red Rocks Calico Basin Sunday?

Nathan Regouski wrote:

https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/man-critical-after-fall-while-rappelling-at-calico-basin-2743117/

Anyone have any information on what happened at Red Rocks Calico Basin Sunday?

How is this news person unable to pronounce rappelling? Lol. Really leaves us with very little.

Hope he's recovering.

Michael Buszko wrote:

How is this news person unable to pronounce rappelling? Lol.

Probably because they never saw or heard the word before.

I wasn’t there, but I’m good friends with 2 people who were. It was not a rappelling accident. Leader was lowering off of a trad anchor, I believe 2x #2 & #1. The anchor blew. Leader had run out the last bit of climbing & last piece was quite a ways down. Leader fell whole length of route + tumbled further down the hill. 911 was called & eventually was helicoptered out. Those are the details as I know them! Hope he’s ok...

Good summary, Corey. I was there and watched the leaded lead the last half the pitch and raced back to the base when I heard the accident take place. The anchor blew while the victim began to lower. No gear was close enough below to keep them from falling very far. This was a long fall resulting in grievous injury. I hope this individual will recover to climb again one day. Be safe out there with anchor building and good communication. 

Corey Bringas wrote:

I wasn’t there, but I’m good friends with 2 people who were. It was not a rappelling accident. Leader was lowering off of a trad anchor, I believe 2x #2 & #1. The anchor blew. Leader had run out the last bit of climbing & last piece was quite a ways down. Leader fell whole length of route + tumbled further down the hill. 911 was called & eventually was helicoptered out. Those are the details as I know them! Hope he’s ok...

Poor guy.  I hope he recovers.  Which route was he on?  I’m surprised an anchor with cams of those sizes blew.  Lowering off doesn’t create a lot of force…perhaps all three cams were held in place by a block that moved?  

It’s hard to believe a three piece cam anchor blew. My guess is the rock was compromised and broke. So many things would have to be wrong for a properly equalized three piece anchor to fail otherwise…. Hoping for a fast and effective recovery! 

Weston Spivia wrote:

Good summary, Corey. I was there and watched the leaded lead the last half the pitch and raced back to the base when I heard the accident take place. The anchor blew while the victim began to lower. No gear was close enough below to keep them from falling very far. This was a long fall resulting in grievous injury. I hope this individual will recover to climb again one day. Be safe out there with anchor building and good communication. 

Assuming this was at Moderate Mecca?  Do you know what route?  Might be worth noting in the page for it to avoid future accidents

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

The accident took place on the route Soupy Sales at Moderate Mecca. 

This route may need a bolted anchor.

There was an anchor failure on the route while we were climbing further left over Thanksgiving 2021. The leader led the route, built an anchor, lowered down and cleaned all the non-anchor gear. The anchor failed when the follower was climbing the route. The follower was okay.

Anna Brown wrote:

This route may need a bolted anchor.

There was an anchor failure on the route while we were climbing further left over Thanksgiving 2021. The leader led the route, built an anchor, lowered down and cleaned all the non-anchor gear. The anchor failed when the follower was climbing the route. The follower was okay.

I witnessed that as well. The person being lowered that time was extremely lucky they didn’t tumble down the second tier below the belay. Sounds like the person being lowered in the recent incident did tumble down the second tier. My friend and I scoped out the likely spot where the anchor failed and there was a loose block which might not immediately appear to be loose by someone setting up an anchor.

@MKGreen Were you the pair climbing right next to the 2021 anchor failure (to the right) and hiked up with them to look at what happened? If what I heard was correct, it was all cams that failed on that anchor, including a #4. I was there a few weeks ago hiking and checked out the anchor placement options because I was curious. It looks like the good placements are further back from the edge and new leaders may not look that far when trying to set a top rope. I’d guess this recent anchor failure used very similar placements to the 2021 anchor.  

Yes, we were climbing the next route over on climber’s right. Pretty sure the anchor pieces were large cams, but can’t recall with certainty. It was quite a surprise to see the entire anchor hit the ground.

I added a warning comment regarding the loose / detached block for the route description. There were definitely other anchor options for TRing the climb.

MKGreen wrote:
I added a warning comment regarding the loose / detached block for the route description. There were definitely other anchor options for TRing the climb.

It's always sad to see climbers get injured.  But it's possible the issue is not the lack of a bolted anchor but the skill level of climbers who are apt to do such an easy climb.  They may not realize a good, bomber placement from a sketchy one.  They may have chosen something close to the edge because they only had the gear to do that.  They may not have known that sometimes the wiser choice is not to TR at all, but to have the leader sit at the top to belay from a farther back, better anchor (This is extremely common in Joshua Tree - so many circumstances where it's a complete waste of time to try to set up an anchor for lowering to the ground and TR from below).  All those routes there can be approached by walking and are all broken down by walking off. I doubt I've done any of them by setting up a TR after leading.

@MKGreen Thank you for adding your comment to the route and for taking the time to hike up there with that party to analyze the situation.

I have climbed this route 100's of times and though I don't know anything about the climbers skill level or details regarding this accident, I will offer the following comments about the route.   First, due to the accessibility, ease to protect and moderate grade, this climb is frequently climbed by new climbers breaking into trad.  In fact, I see more new people on this route that seasoned climbers because frankly it's so easy.  Many people have used this route as their training test piece.  Both the top and bottom of the route are easily accessible, though frankly the top is so easily accessible is scares me how many non-climbers are standing there for the view with your anchor at their feet.  I have never seen someones anchor tampered with, just saying.  The problem with the route is despite the ease of the route, the anchors are not a new climber friendly.  There is a handful of finger size cracks that aren't near one another making equalizing and placement difficult.  Many of climbers sit up there for long periods of time trying to figure it all out.  Many resort to this big pancake rock sitting on the ground as their achchor.  That is what I recommend slinging if you want something bomb proof, but you need some cordage to accomplish it.  If the climber had a #4 pull out, there is nothing up there for a #4 except under the pancake rock.  I would hope that would have been chosen because a cam could exert enough force to lift the rock causing complete failure.  I'm sure that due to the complexity of the anchors and the skill of most on this route, both likely came into play.

This route and the ones to the immediate left and right are a very common place for AMGA SPI Assessments to be done. There are lots of options for anchors, but they can be spread out and not necessarily right next to the top of the climb. There is also a lot of red flag kinda placements, which is a benefit for assessing judgement of prospective guides.

Assessors are looking for many things, such as not approaching too close to the edge without some form of safety, appropriate placements in appropriate rock quality, redundancy, timely to construct, etc... They may ask for things like "make an anchor appropriate for a top managed site" where you will need to provide safety to yourself setting up the anchor and safety for a client to come in to that anchor from the top whether by belay, friction hitch on a leg of static rope which the anchor is typically made of (JTree system), etc... or "make an anchor appropriate for a bottom managed site" where you will make an anchor and drop the rope and walk around and top rope it.

I hate to add it... but with building an anchor there, a lot of the time you will be building up on top of the cliff, where its closer to flat, less drainage, potentially more chance for higher trapped water content... and its been a very wet season. I think loose block is definitely more likely considering 3 pieces failed... but just mentioning it.

So basically I'm just saying that, yeah I can see how newer leaders could get in trouble in that area. Glad everyone is OK... and to anyone looking to do an SPI exam in RR, go check out that area ahead of time if you can.

Update: Heard from Elaina who just finished running an SPI exam, one or two of the people in the exam knew the person or witnessed the accident.

The person who fell died in the hospital.

I’m so sorry to read this news. Thank you for sharing with us. 

This is very upsetting. I am so sad for the climber's family and friends. I started a new thread in "trad climbing" that references this accident because I wanted to try to contribute something positive to newer climbers.