Climber fall on Wind Tower Eldo

https://www.dailycamera.com/2025/04/23/rescue-effort-responds-to-fallen-climber-in-eldorado-canyon-state-park/

Report of a fall in Eldo yesterday. There's no mention of a partner. Was it a rope solo accident? Hoping the climber and anyone else on scene is okay. Many thanks to our tireless emergency personnel. 

Two buddies of mine on Wind Ridge. Follower fell while the leader was in the process of pulling up excess rope to set up the belay. Probable (my speculation here) that the follower stepped up to clean the first piece while waiting for the 'on belay' and just slipped. Unforgiving landing spot there. Hurt, but full recovery expected.

Which route? Why couldn't the injured climber be lowered to the ground and then the leader raps off to assist??? 

Fern Gully wrote:

Which route? Why couldn't the injured climber be lowered to the ground and then the leader raps off to assist??? 

Wind Ridge

Fern Gully- let me rephrase what appears to have happened. Every leader risks a ground fall before they place the first piece. If the follower would gladly have taken that risk, he sometimes declines the protection afforded by a top rope in order to preemptively clean that first piece in order to be efficient. The belay had not yet begun. The follower was at the base of the route. The leader was at the walk-off ledge more than half a rope away, and many climbers sprang into action to help. Does that clarify it?   

An interesting read on some of the impacts on hanging too long in a harness. Glad this individual is going to be okay!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_trauma

Ahh - now I understand the misunderstanding: the article said 'suspended in a harness'. Not actually true since the excess rope hadn't been taken up. It was a ground fall. Harness was on and he was still tied in, but not suspended.

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L Kap:

I wasn't at the scene, but the leader would have protected that pitch conservatively which means #0.5 Camalot on the left at the first opportunity. I doubt that RMR will chime in, but they probably were estimating the maximum potential fall based on the next piece of gear that had not been cleaned and where he ended up (there were no close-by witnesses and the climber doesn't remember).

From the bottom of the flake to where you would come to rest after falling is probably 15' 

It says the person fell 15 feet. Does that mean the leader placed the first piece 15 feet up on Wind Ridge, around the arete after the flake? That would be a terrible fall. Or was the first piece just a few feet off the starting ledge but the follower fell off the ledge? 

Gregger Man wrote:

Every leader risks a ground fall before they place the first piece. If the follower would gladly have taken that risk, he sometimes declines the protection afforded by a top rope in order to preemptively clean that first piece in order to be efficient. The belay had not yet begun.

EDIT: Moved my response to this here.

Alex C wrote:

No offense intended to the injured party, and I truly hope he makes a full recovery, but I’m totally baffled by what you’re describing here as if it were standard practice. Why would anyone do this? Why not wait to be put on belay and just clean the first piece and every other piece on your way up? Surely the time savings are minimal. 

What I have heard of is cleaning one or two pieces of an anchor while waiting to be put on belay, if the remaining piece is bomber. But in that situation you are not exposing yourself to a fall.

In your previous post you said you were speculating. But I’m confused because you seem to be speaking more authoritatively now about what happened.

This, times oh, about a million 

To be honest, I personally tend to wait for a belay, but what Greg was describing doesn't seem super unreasonable.

I mean, the leader was perfectly fine being unprotected for the first 10-15 feet of the climb. 

I also agree that time savings is not all that much, but to each their own I guess. Although in this particular case it is painfully obvious that there is some extra risk involved.

I was there. My partner and I were finishing up the second pitch of Tagger when it happened. Neither of us saw the fall so I can’t say exactly what happened. Also, I hope the injured climber is recovering well physically and both in the party are supported in their psychological recovery after a pretty traumatic event. There’s a lot of speculation on here about what happened. Regardless of the details of this accident, I think it could be helpful to reflect on how the nature of multipitch climbing— especially in Eldo where it is often windy (it’s called wind ridge for a reason) — makes communication quite difficult. Miscommunication about being on/off belay has led to many accidents in the past, even with very competent and high level climbers. Although we have so little info on what happened in this accident, I hope people reading this can still take the opportunity to review their own strategies around communication especially when out of sight and sound of their partner. 

Alex R wrote:

I was there. My partner and I were finishing up the second pitch of Tagger when it happened. Neither of us saw the fall so I can’t say exactly what happened. Also, I hope the injured climber is recovering well physically and both in the party are supported in their psychological recovery after a pretty traumatic event. There’s a lot of speculation on here about what happened. Regardless of the details of this accident, I think it could be helpful to reflect on how the nature of multipitch climbing— especially in Eldo where it is often windy (it’s called wind ridge for a reason) — makes communication quite difficult. Miscommunication about being on/off belay has led to many accidents in the past, even with very competent and high level climbers. Although we have so little info on what happened in this accident, I hope people reading this can still take the opportunity to review their own strategies around communication especially when out of sight and sound of their partner. 

When it's windy, or the pitches are long or the belays out of view, I like to use "windy day rules", which I learned from a post by Climber Pat here on Mountain Project. I especially like to use windy day rules in Eldo for all of the above reasons! It's best to have a belay device that doesn't wreck your elbow from pulling all the rope up through guide mode.

climber pat wrote:
I live in New Mexico where the wind blows and blows and then blows some more. We use "Windy day rules" when communication is difficult. If someone feels that communication is going to be difficult they say "Windy day rules apply" and from then on the leader puts the follower on belay immediately after creating the anchor before pulling up the extra rope. So when rope becomes tight the follower is either on belay or the pair are simul-climbing if the leader has not gotten to a belay when the rope runs out.

It is a mild pain in the ass to pull all the rope through the belay device but the confort of knowing that you are on belay while seconding it worthwhile. It puts an end to the endless off-belay/on-belay yelling.

Also, no extra gear is required.

Yesterday was another "Windy day rules" day. :) good fun!

Duncan Domingue wrote:

When it's windy, or the pitches are long or the belays out of view, I like to use "windy day rules", which I learned from a post by Climber Pat here on Mountain Project. I especially like to use windy day rules in Eldo for all of the above reasons! It's best to have a belay device that doesn't wreck your elbow from pulling all the rope up through guide mode.

Great tip. I use the same technique, although I believe I picked it up from The Mountain Guide Manual. Definitely easier on the arms to use a microtraxion or the like as a belay device, which seems to be becoming slightly more common than it used to be— not sure who popularized it.

Alex C wrote:

No offense intended to the injured party, and I truly hope he makes a full recovery, but I’m totally baffled by what you’re describing here as if it were standard practice. Why would anyone do this? Why not wait to be put on belay and just clean the first piece and every other piece on your way up? Surely the time savings are minimal. 

What I have heard of is cleaning one or two pieces of an anchor while waiting to be put on belay, if the remaining piece is bomber. But in that situation you are not exposing yourself to a fall.

In your previous post you said you were speculating. But I’m confused because you seem to be speaking more authoritatively now about what happened.

I know the belay had not yet begun, but I don't know whether the first piece had been cleaned or not. I'm guessing that that is the most likely reason that he would have put himself in a position to take that fall before the belay began based on a pursuit of optimum speed. Efficiency is its own game for some, especially when climbing easy routes for mileage.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but you don't need windy day rules if you have radios.  ("Can't believe" because I heaped scorn on radios for many years.  Then in my dotage my hearing declined and radios were a solution that has turned out to be great for many situations.)

As far as rope actions, I pull up all the slack fast, and when the rope comes tight I immediately let down about 6 feet, thread the belay device, and then take up that slack.  From the second's point of view, the rope comes tight, then some slack comes down, then the rope goes up more slowly and at that point they can climb.  

rgold wrote:

I can't believe I'm saying this, but you don't need windy day rules if you have radios.  ("Can't believe" because I heaped scorn on radios for many years.  Then in my dotage my hearing declined and radios were a solution that has turned out to be great for many situations.)

As far as rope actions, I pull up all the slack fast, and when the rope comes tight I immediately let down about 6 feet, thread the belay device, and then take up that slack.  From the second's point of view, the rope comes tight, then some slack comes down, then the rope goes up more slowly and at that point they can climb.  

I too have grown to find radios for certain routes very useful. 

Alex R wrote:

I too have grown to find radios for certain routes very useful. 

Same, I finally bought a pair of radios last year, and it makes communication so much easier and more reliable. No more yelling! No more guessing and hoping! You can easily tell your follower not to bother trying to remove that nut halfway up the pitch, it's fixed and was there already. And it's less bothersome to surrounding climbers.

But I've still got windy day rules in my back pocket when I need 'em   

Stagg54 Taggart wrote:

To be honest, I personally tend to wait for a belay, but what Greg was describing doesn't seem super unreasonable.

I mean, the leader was perfectly fine being unprotected for the first 10-15 feet of the climb. 

I also agree that time savings is not all that much, but to each their own I guess. Although in this particular case it is painfully obvious that there is some extra risk involved.

EDIT: Moved my response to this here.

rgold wrote:

I can't believe I'm saying this, but you don't need windy day rules if you have radios.  ("Can't believe" because I heaped scorn on radios for many years.  Then in my dotage my hearing declined and radios were a solution that has turned out to be great for many situations.)

As far as rope actions, I pull up all the slack fast, and when the rope comes tight I immediately let down about 6 feet, thread the belay device, and then take up that slack.  From the second's point of view, the rope comes tight, then some slack comes down, then the rope goes up more slowly and at that point they can climb.  

Having climbed a lot in windy Britain, this was also basically my system -- I would also add a few hard tugs to signal on belay, but that isn't strictly necessary. No need to pull 30m of rope up through an ATC. Now though I just use Rocky Talkies.

Again, my heartfelt sympathies to the injured climber! And again, a reminder that we don't actually know the full details of what happened here...

Gregger Man wrote:

I know the belay had not yet begun, but I don't know whether the first piece had been cleaned or not. I'm guessing that that is the most likely reason that he would have put himself in a position to take that fall before the belay began based on a pursuit of optimum speed. Efficiency is its own game for some, especially when climbing easy routes for mileage.

I am not trying to sit on a high horse (we all take what we think are "acceptable" risks in this sport) but I do not understand why someone would decline waiting a minute or two (max) to be on belay in this scenario. Wind ridge takes less than an hour from bottom to the true summit even if pitching it out in 2 or 3 pitches, so not waiting for the belay saves you what, 5-10 minutes spread out across the whole climb? And if that kind of time savings really matters for a competent experienced party doing laps on the wind tower easy/moderates, then why not just solo it? 

All I am trying to say is deciding to not wait for the rope to tighten for the sake of "efficiency" on a route like the wind ridge seems asinine. 

If you’ve never burned your mouth on hot chocolate, because you just couldn’t wait, feel free to judge the follower who decked.  

climber pat wrote:
I live in New Mexico where the wind blows and blows and then blows some more. We use "Windy day rules" when communication is difficult. If someone feels that communication is going to be difficult they say "Windy day rules apply" and from then on the leader puts the follower on belay immediately after creating the anchor before pulling up the extra rope. So when rope becomes tight the follower is either on belay or the pair are simul-climbing if the leader has not gotten to a belay when the rope runs out.

It is a mild pain in the ass to pull all the rope through the belay device but the confort of knowing that you are on belay while seconding it worthwhile. It puts an end to the endless off-belay/on-belay yelling.

To avoid the pain in the ass part of this, a simple but great system is to establish that 30 seconds (or whatever) after the rope comes taught the follower will be on-belay.  The leader sets up the anchor so that he is 100% ready to put the follower on belay once slack is pulled up.  It will take the leader 10 seconds to put the follower on belay and they have extra time as a safety buffer.  This system is waaayyyyy better than rope tug communication.