Anyone have any "on the ground" information about this accident today? It was my climbing partners good friend and we are both concerned for him.

http://www.denverpost.com/...verpost.com#comments
[EDIT]The link says a 2nd accident of 75 feet. That's the one but it happened today. So that's an onerous report. Or the person who called us here at work has the date/time wrong for the lowering.

As we understand it, the climber never told the belayer he wanted to be taken off belay. He set the anchors up, communicated that he wanted to be lowered and then decked. The belayer was reaching for something heard the rope whiz off and that was it. We think anyway. We know for a fact the leader was dropped from the anchor after the belayer took him off. The details around it are sketchy at best. This is all coming in over the phone as I type this. This stuff sucks. Simple communication error and now a broken back.[/EDIT]

Yeah, we are talking to people close to the scene. I'm going to ask if the belayer would be willing to write up the incident here. Even though we all know about this one and it's certainly not anything new under the sun.

In the latest PETZL catalog there's a diagram of a guy being lowered and having a prussik cord attached to the other side of the rope. If I understand the diagram correctly this thing by itself would have prevented a ground fall. In the diagram the guy being lowered slides the prussik down as he is being lowered. If the belayer is killed by rockfall and drops the guy he will still be okay because the prussik will bind.

Anybody see that and am I right? Is that an overkill solution or is it worthwhile when being lowered? I'm starting to think (with the prevalence of this type of accident) that I'm going to use that method when being lowered. It only takes 1 minute to rig and it could save your life...

Yeah, we are talking to people close to the scene. I'm going to ask if the belayer would be willing to write up the incident here. Even though we all know about this one and it's certainly not anything new under the sun.

In the latest PETZL catalog there's a diagram of a guy being lowered and having a prussik cord attached to the other side of the rope. If I understand the diagram correctly this thing by itself would have prevented a ground fall. In the diagram the guy being lowered slides the prussik down as he is being lowered. If the belayer is killed by rockfall and drops the guy he will still be okay because the prussik will bind.

Anybody see that and am I right? Is that an overkill solution or is it worthwhile when being lowered? I'm starting to think (with the prevalence of this type of accident) that I'm going to use that method when being lowered. It only takes 1 minute to rig and it could save your life...

If only climbing had a medal of honor.

A similar thing happened a few weeks ago in Clear Creek Canyon. A friend was belaying a random drifter, who climbed to the anchors out of sight, out of hearing. Belayer thought he'd rap, climber thought he'd lower. Belayer unclipped, and so did the climber, and the climber started to fall.

On the next route over, a man was clipped in to the first anchor while belaying his partner on the 2nd pitch. As the falling climber passed him, he locked off his partner and quickly spun his free arm into the climber's slack rope, catching him with a single bare hand. Despite severe rope burns, he gently lowered the catch and finished climbing his route like nothing happened. I kid you not. bamf.

The Gold Glove. Hot damn.

Self-lowering has all the drawbacks of abseiling when you have to strip the route. In other words unworkable most of the time.

Just always lower, every time, all over the country, for everybody.

Your kind of accidents just don´t occur in Europe (we screw-up tying knots instead!)

Jim

We need signs at the crag that say, "Fuck the anchors. Save your life."

All joking aside though, not all of the anchors here can withstand the rigors of repeated lowering, and some of those are in very sandy areas. Despite ever-increasing conscientious route development and the remarkable success of local and regional anchor-replacement programs in America, they still aren't the norm. The conclusion then is that if everybody always lowered (including self-lowering)—in numerous places—the anchors themselves would soon become the widespread cause of such accidents.

However, in cases where conscientious and responsible route developers and maintainers have installed anchors that are designed to withstand the rigors of lowering—steel rings for instance—I absolutely agree and I preach as much at the crag.

Likewise, when I install an anchor, I prefer SS rings. I want and expect people to lower, not rappel.

You mean these?

Those exact rings, but not necessarily in a hanger-ring configuration. I prefer hanger-quicklink-ring, for example.

As the belayer ... handy some day.

You mean these? [image]http://www.aspiring.co.nz/images/fixering.jpg[/image]

If I see them, I assume the guy who puts them up wants me to rap. I may lower anyway, but I'm just sayin'.

However I will always lower from chains*. They are designed to be replaced when they wear out, and typically you just need to unscrew the link and replace that.

GO

*When I say "always", I mean I leave my own hardware on the anchors, but the last person down lowers off the chains.

...Eldo is in the latter category. I suspect that it is unusual to lower there, and that the expectation would be for the climber to rap. Perhaps this was an element in the accident.

Jay

[W]e recently added helmets to our check and you have to state out loud that you do not wish to wear one and you accept the risks before we let you leave the ground.

Oh, come on.

Jay

We will never know. The belayer iced up and isn't talking. Cannot remember anything says it's from stress. So it's up to speculation as to exactly what happened. Since the belayer is a friend of those involved it's really hard to press him with any demands or accusations which doesn't seem to fit the spirit of climbing. I suspect though that he may have just seen his last days in 2-man climbing team as a belayer. He may be restricted to group climbs for life...

Oh, come on.
Jay

Kinda depends on how you say it. If you just say, "Gonna wear your helmet?" And the response is, "No, I'm okay," then it's not so far out there. If the response is more like, "I understand and accept the risks associated with not wearing a helmet, including but not limited to rock fall, gear fall, head bumping, bee stings and sunburn, and release and indemnify you, the Belayer (hereafter identified as Belayer) from and against all risk and liability arising from my decision not to wear said helmet," well then, um, yeah.

If you are new to climbing with us and want to go on lead that's how it goes. If you have been with us for a bit the shake-out goes like this... [Note: This only applies to lead climbing. Our crag is run-out bolts are typically 10 to 15 feet apart. If it's top-rope then we skip the helmet bit.]

Want your helmet?
No.
K.

{see reason at bottom}

If you are a new climber to our group.

C=climber, B=belayer

B: Want your helmet?
C: No.
B: Okay, that's fine but you understand the risks?
C: Yeah.
B: K.

REASON: We ask for one simple reason, people forget. Pretty much every time I climb I forget to put on my helmet. I want to wear it but I forget. So that bit of dialog is priceless to me. That's mainly why.

New climber, on lead. We know nothing about him.

I can expand our whole thing if you wish. It's not legalistic like what you think. My first comment said, "We recently added helmets... and something about you don't leave the ground without acknowledging the fact. It makes sense especially for me where I forget my helmet all the time.

... (we recently added helmets to our check and you have to state out loud that you do not wish to wear one and you accept the risks before we let you leave the ground).

What I don't understand is why so many people can simply just dump their weight on the rope without a second thought to the consequences.

...I mean, what's different about weighting the rope at the anchor versus any other place on the climb?

I think we should discuss etiquette at the dinner table now. What's the small fork for?

Combing my butt hair?