Vail ice climber survives 72-foot fall

[Iceaxe]

Vail ice climber survives 72-foot fallBy Edward Stoner
The Vail Daily


VAIL

[price1869]

I'm slightly confused.

He was top-roping through the nylon? WTF? I don't see how anyone who had been climbing for more than a day (or anyone with a tick of common sense) could make that mistake. I must be reading something wrong, or the report was wrong.

Strange.

[denaliguide]

he obviously wasn't rappeling through the webbing. he must have been getting lowered off. thats the only way friction can be generated. when rappelling the rope shouldn't be moving at the anchor whether its through a biner or not. hard to believe that a climber with allegedly 9 years of experience would do something like this. especially if he was setting up a toprope for someone else to follow up on. WTF!!

[Iceaxe]

Always someone attempting to win a Darwin Award.

[denaliguide]

Always someone attempting to win a Darwin Award.

probably will get an honorable mention.

[Brian in SLC]

Scary. He must have rigged for a rappel off the sling/cord, then, forgot that he'd done that when his buds were TRin' off it.

Crazy.

Remember there was a gal here around ten years ago or so who successfully sued her "experienced" partner for lowering her through webbing on a TR, which, gave way and hurt her pretty bad.

-Brian in SLC

[Jaxx]

wow that guy is lucky. Even as a noob I know not to use slings instead of a biner. Rope on webbing. Of course its going to cut it. And it says that he found it at the top. Who uses left slings/webbing? That just seems rediculous and he let his two buddies climb on it. I wouldn't climb with this guy. 9 years and he doesn't know not to use rope on slings and he uses climbing gear that he found left behind by someone else?

[Brian in SLC]

wow that guy is lucky. Even as a noob I know not to use slings instead of a biner. Rope on webbing. Of course its going to cut it. And it says that he found it at the top. Who uses left slings/webbing? That just seems rediculous and he let his two buddies climb on it. I wouldn't climb with this guy. 9 years and he doesn't know not to use rope on slings and he uses climbing gear that he found left behind by someone else?

My bet is 99.9% of climbers use gear left behind by others. Whether is a bolted belay station, or, a sling on a tree, or, a v-thread at the top of a popular ice climb. Commonly done. Not all routes have easy walk offs...

It was a simple, foolish mistake.

Interesting info from his partner, posted on the 'taco, below.

What I take away from this is, double check yourself, and, double check your partner. Two people got TR'd off that set up and didn't notice anything wrong. That's pretty crazy. Easy to be in "client" mode though.

-Brian in SLC

I was standing 15 feet from Cri when he landed...

I don't think it is so much about knowledge or education. As Cri said in the above referenced article, he felt very confident during the climb and made a mistake by leaving out the most important part of the anchor while threading the rope for his initial double rope repell. We all repell off softgoods all the time - may be he didn't think that this would also be a jo-jo anchor... He doesn't know himself. But, if asked before hand if it's ok to use only softgoods for a TR anchor, he very well knew that doesn't work.

Here's my three learnings:
-I could have asked him "Cri, how did you thread the anchor" once he came down on his double rope. That would have prevented the accident since I would have led up an re-done it.
-Both me and my wife Charlotte followed on TR, however neither one of use climbed the last 5 feets up to the anchor and double checked it.
-I used the same anchor when I led the climb the day before the accident (yes, I used the biner). However, I wanted double back-ups so I used a 6mm cord (spectra/nylon) as a second backup. The anchor now had the sling w. the biner, a 1/2" sling as back-up and the 6mm cord. Now to my learning: The 6mm cord burt off in Cri's fall and hence didn't at all work as a backup.

Think about it... do you always check others TR anchors? You do? Good for you. I didn't. Did you know that cords make really back back-up's? Good. I didn't.

You live and you learn.

Peace.

[tanya]