Help finding accident report of friend

Hi,

I’m not a climber, but I have a shot-in-the-dark request. Last August I had a friend pass in a climbing accident. I wanted to understand what happened by reading the accident report, but I’ve never been able to find it. Since I’m not familiar with climbing, maybe I’m not looking in the right places. Any help would be appreciated, and sorry in advance if this is inappropriate for this forum.

Accident date August 15 or 16, 2023

Snoqualmie Pass, Washington area, possibly climbing The Tooth but this may be incorrect.

Gosh I'm so sorry to hear about your friend. There are a couple of climber-specific spots you can look, assuming the general googling has not yielded anything for you. 

https://www.climbing.com/people/climbers-we-lost-2023/ this is an annual article Climbing magazine does, but unfortunately and rather tastelessly they have it paywalled. I managed to screenshot the list of climbers though. I'll attach it here and you can see if your friends name is there, and if so you can read or buy the article to learn more. 

There is also this: https://publications.americanalpineclub.org/about_the_accidents Which comes out annually and has I believe all of the reports they receive and verify included. They don't publish an index, but you could find it in a library that carries mountaineering books. I don't think the entries always include full names, so you would be looking by date and location. 

There is also the local climbing group forum, which may not be super active, in which case looking here in the NOrthwest section might be helpful. cascadeclimbers.com/forum/

These are the basic sources, the others would be through whichever rescue squad was there. Sometimes there are daily reports you can find online for rangers stations and SAR groups, but these tend to be a bit basic in their details. 

If anything else crosses my mind I will come back and share it. Condolences again for what happened. 

From the ANAC 2024:

FATAL SOLO FALL Snoqualmie Pass Area, The Tooth On August 16, a 35-year-old female climber attempted a solo climb of the Tooth near Snoqualmie Pass. She shared an inReach tracking link with two close friends upon leaving the trailhead. The climber successfully climbed the South Face Route (330 feet, 5.4) and texted photos from the summit around 6:30 p.m. After leaving the summit, she traveled north and somehow fell from the ridge between the Tooth and the Fang (an adjacent summit due north). She fell 600 feet to the toe of the Northeast Slabs route. The climber was wearing approach shoes and a helmet, and had worn rock shoes during the ascent. One of the people with the inReach tracking information called SAR late that evening after the climber failed to return home and did not respond to phone or inReach messaging. It was also clear from the inReach track that she would have had enough time to return to the trailhead but had not. A SAR team hiked in the next morning and located the climber’s body by 7:40 a.m. using GPS points and drone support. The climber had succumbed to injuries from the long fall. The SAR team extracted the body using a helicopter. 

ANALYSIS Unroped scrambling is inherently risky. The Tooth is a volcanic rock formation, and rock quality varies significantly. The North Ridge (4th class) is the preferred descent for unroped climbers, but judging from where she came to rest, it was not possible for her to have fallen from that route. Those close to the climber knew she loved traversing ridgelines and was looking for an after-work loop, close to Seattle. An inReach GPS point was sent at 6:55 p.m. from atop the ridge. The next, at 8:05 p.m., was at the bottom of the NE slabs. Sunset on August 16 was 8:18 p.m. Thus, it is likely that, given the daylight remaining, she left the North Ridge descent and crossed onto the ridge between the Tooth and the Fang, with the intent of traversing farther, before descending easy terrain to the west. The exact cause of her fall is unknown, but loose rock is most likely. When traversing exposed terrain, there is little room for error and caution must be taken to avoid brittle rock and fragile holds. The climber had traversed similar terrain many times and was someone who navigated chossy rock with ease. Her accident was a shock and a reminder that casual mountain outings can be as deadly as more foreboding objectives. (Sources: A close climbing partner of the decedent, Seattle Mountain Rescue, and Portland Mountain Rescue.)

Thank you so very much. 

David JJ wrote:

Thank you so very much. 

I’m glad I was able to find it for you. If you have any questions that we might be able to help with please ask. 

This is so good. Thanks, ClimbOn and Mnt File, for going above and beyond to help a stranger. Yes, it helps the impressions that the non-climbing world has of us, but just the human to human connection that used to exist in older times is still so good to see. We need each other!