World's Longest Whipper

Title is self explanatory.  What do you got?  Only 2 (related) requirements:

1. Gotta be held by gear (gear anchors are OK).  No bolts. 

2. No weird "free solo fall but survived" or "rope fell but caught on rock".  Whippers only. 

One that is not the longest but definitely outrageous is Jeff Lowes fall on the first attempt of the Lowe-Kenedy on Mt Hunter. "In a flash, the rope came tight and jerked me into the air and along the ridge. Blue and grey snow and ice flashed by. I came to a sudden halt, my body bent over and my legs straddling the ridge with 4,000 feet of space on either side. A cornice had broken, and Jeff had fallen sixty feet. The front points of his crampons snagged in the ice on the way down, wrenching his left ankle"  The Falling into Place Alpinist article is a great read. 

Do slab falls count as a whipper? Surely it's not the longest ever, but I know someone that took a 50 footer on a slab at Suicide about 15 years ago. She luckily only ended up with some scrapes & a busted wrist.

Edited to get the year more accurate.

A slab fall is...absolutely...a whipper.

Check out the whipper in the description for Prune at Seneca rocks. Sounds like it was solidly over 100 ft. Seems about as big as they get.

One that springs to mind, in particular because it's probably not the sort of event that would normally have been survivable in 1943, was Hermann Buhl's reported 50 metre FF2 dive out of what later became the Schmuck Kamin after going off-route near the top of the Asche-Lucke on the East Face of the Fleischbank in Austria's Wilder Kaiser. The single anchor pin ripped and his companion came close to following him down.

Troy Johnson when he inadvertently 'cleaned' The Shield's rurp pitch while leading it?

Definitely not the world’s longest, but it definitely was our personal “come to Jesus moment”…we were 16 years old and my buddy took an 80-foot factor 2 fall on to a belay anchor consisting of a single fixed pin. A story I’ve told before…

Haven’t there been a couple of jumaring accidents that resulted in near full rope length falls? Would that count as a “whipper”? [Edit: I seem to recall a jumar accident like this on The Prow, Washington Column???]

That Dan Osman zipper has to be a contender 

Daniel Joder wrote:

Haven’t there been a couple of jumaring accidents that resulted in near full rope length falls? Would that count as a “whipper”? [Edit: I seem to recall a jumar accident like this on The Prow, Washington Column???]

My colleague on Mescalito managed to simultaneously unclip both jugs when cleaning the pitch after the Molar; wasn't re-tying in short so went to the end of the rope. It's not a long pitch though and I'd probably taken in the slack before tying off the lead line - so maybe not as far as it felt!

saign charlestein wrote:

That Dan Osman zipper has to be a contender 

At 7:11

Tommy Caldwell took a very long fall in the Nose speed record Reel Rock movie.

https://www.redbull.com/us-en/episodes/reel-rock-s6-e5 

World’s longest? Seems doubtful, but amazing to watch him get right back to speed climbing with seeming no ill effects or fear. 

Last year’s Snake Dike accident comes to mind - a 200 footer….

As an aside I’ve always found it interesting that hypothetically you could take a 500ft FF2 if you ran out a full 70m rope.

P B wrote:

….As an aside I’ve always found it interesting that hypothetically you could take a 500ft FF2 if you ran out a full 70m rope.

In fact, it’s the only reason to trudge a 70 foot rope

James - wrote:

Tommy Caldwell took a very long fall in the Nose speed record Reel Rock movie.

https://www.redbull.com/us-en/episodes/reel-rock-s6-e5 

World’s longest? Seems doubtful, but amazing to watch him get right back to speed climbing with seeming no ill effects or fear. 

Quinn Brett probably has that beat in the same episode. Sounds a horrific fall.

I fell 130ft from the second pitch of a route.  I took a sudden fall when a handhold broke.  My belayer was fiddling with the anchor as a I fell and did not have his hand on the break strand.  This was almost 40 yrs ago and we were using a figure 8 device in what we called "sport mode" at the time.  Well, sport mode does not offer much friction nor does it lock up without a break hand. Anyway, I fell until the rope finally came tight at the anchor which, luckily, held.  We had a 150ft rope, as was the norm then.  So with tie in knots and the anchor knot, I must have fallen 130-135 feet.  The rope slowed me and took some weight but I still hit the ground.  Two broken legs, badly injured hip, compression fx's in my spine, and myriad other sprains and strains all resulted.

James - wrote:

Tommy Caldwell took a very long fall in the Nose speed record Reel Rock movie.

https://www.redbull.com/us-en/episodes/reel-rock-s6-e5 

World’s longest? Seems doubtful, but amazing to watch him get right back to speed climbing with seeming no ill effects or fear. 

That's a big one. I'm curious about something else from that film. Since they were leading in blocks, and Tommy didn't want to do the Boot Flake without placing a piece, why didn't Alex just do it? Or would that have lost more time because of the swing right there? 

Don't think it's the longest but i have always been blown away by this one from Arnaud Petit on Black Bean https://youtu.be/-TeTejh1ebs?t=623

Mike wrote:

Do slab falls count as a whipper? Surely it's not the longest ever, but an ex of mine took a 50 footer on a slab at Suicide about 15 years ago. She luckily only ended up with some scrapes & a busted wrist.

Edited to get the year more accurate.

Do you remember the route just out of curiosity? Definitely some whipper, or perhaps more accurately cheese grater potential at Suicide. 

James - wrote:

Tommy Caldwell took a very long fall in the Nose speed record Reel Rock movie.

https://www.redbull.com/us-en/episodes/reel-rock-s6-e5 

World’s longest? Seems doubtful, but amazing to watch him get right back to speed climbing with seeming no ill effects or fear. 

Time stamp?

Not the biggest by far but Dave MacLeod has taken his fair share of big falls on pretty marginal gear.

https://youtu.be/5nnDliljwqE?si=7TrzN24X744VrUx3

ryan climbs wrote:

460ft 

Factoring in rope stretch, the fall would definitely clear 500 feet in this hypothetical scenario.

Andrew Rice wrote:

That's a big one. I'm curious about something else from that film. Since they were leading in blocks, and Tommy didn't want to do the Boot Flake without placing a piece, why didn't Alex just do it? Or would that have lost more time because of the swing right there? 

Seems likely that they tried it every which way. If you watch that film carefully, in the early attempts Alex is leading the lower pitches and Tommy is leading the upper block. Then they switch. The movie shows 4-5 attempts but Tommy said in the American Alpine Journal they took 12 attempts over a month.

http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13201215023/The-Nose-Under-Two-Hours