Sacred Falls - Luckiest Descent Ever... or Too Good to be True?

[Slot Machine]

A story from 2007 that doesn't quite add up...

http://www.merman.us/cgi-bin/blog?s=1&pl=lf

They lowered all but the last man from 500 feet?

Fell 200 feet and lived?

Not enough rope for the last 86 foot drop, so they jumped it??

[Reedus]

I find it all believable. 200 feet is a long ways down, but survivable especially if entering the water like he did. As for the 86 foot jump, not that far. We jumped stuff that high all the time at Lake Powell. I even had a buddy that was on the dive team in high school that would do a swan dive off the big ones. Good story.

[oahu_canyoneer]

I do believe it. There was old webbing on almost all the falls so SOMEONE had done them at one point. Falling 200ft is probably gonna mess you up but if you land it right, like he said he did, it might not be too damaging. Very scary though.

P.S. - sure glad this post didn't turn out to be about about OUR trip .

[Slot Machine]

I can understand jumping into Powell from 86 feet. The water is effectively bottomless. However, jumping that far into a pool at the bottom of a waterfall is a totally different level of danger. The beat-up member and one of the guys on their team were rushing to finish the route and get to a hospital. To speed things up they jump off a big waterfall? This was their best option? Have the ER patient jump from the falls??

"Adam and I left the group and took off down stream. Adam was anxious to get me to the emergency room. I was anxious to run get the truck, pick up the group, and get done. We reached the top of sacred falls and realized we didn't have a rope to descend it. I'm pretty sure I've never jumped from anything this high, but I suspect Adam was thinking the same thing as I - if I could survive a 200 foot fall then we could jump this 86 foot drop."

Also, Bill Westerhoff posted some pertinant questions:

"I am a canyoneer that is very interested in some of your findings after the fall. It sounds like you were using a biner block. Were you using a rapide (quick link, or mailion) or another carabiner? Were you using a clove hitch on the block. When the rope was retrieved was the biner block still tied to the rope? If the webbing broke the rapide would still have been on the rope, was it? What sort of "re-rigging" were you performing to accomodate the pull? What sort of knot did you have attaching the 300 to the 200? I would imagine that an EDK might be able to make it through your top anchor. It also sounds as if you were lowering everyone down as opposed to the "rap & lower" method..."

I wonder what happened here? I'm just curious. Is Bill a Bogleyite?

P.S. - sure glad this post didn't turn out to be about about OUR trip .

X2