The CragBaby

Last October I was in a horrible climbing accident where my climber decked (meaning hit the ground). There was fault on both sides of the partnership. She was indirect at the anchors, but had threaded the system incorrectly (accidentally taking herself off belay) and forgot to ensure her system was working correctly before coming off of the indirect position. I should have talked to her more to ensure everything was correct, especially since we were using a funky system. I did a complete write-up on the event, but am not going to link to it as I don’t feel the need to drive traffic to that link (as it is an emotional topic for me). If you want to read the writeup, you can find it under the Destination: Red River Gorge, KY category label.

I wanted to write up a follow up post, though, as it has been hard to recover from such a traumatic accident and thought I would share some insights in case any of you readers catch yourself in a similar situation.

A fun pic, to lighten up a serious topic.  This is an old pic of me climbing in Indian Creek while donning a wrap-around dress, in celebration of Zac’s annual Indian Creek birthday costume celebration.

First of all, a question that all climbers should consider is the following…

• Climbing is hobby where things can go horribly wrong, very quickly. Mistakes can happen, even to the extremely experienced climber (think Lynn Hill and Todd Skinner). Know that participating in this sport puts you at risk for serious injury (and potentially death) if a simple mistake occurs.  Are you ok with that?

After my accident, I was going to quit climbing all together but was persuaded by a friend to try bouldering instead of going home from my road trip. I ended up enjoying bouldering, especially the fact that I wasn’t nearly as scared on a boulder problem as I was on a rope. However, upon getting home to Utah I decided to return to the rope, but only with my small handful of trusted climbing partners.

If an accident (of any magnitude) does happen, and they DO happen, here are some helpful tips to return to climbing mental homeostasis.

• Take some time off – There is nothing wrong with a sabbatical. Climbing, as many of us must remember, is a hobby! It can be mentally taxing and there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a break for awhile. The rock isn’t going anywhere, so wait until you feel completely ready to go back.
• Climb Only With People You COMPLETELY Trust – I am a social butterfly by nature and love to include people in my hobbies. However, I am now picky with whom I will rope climb as not everyone understands the dynamic belay and some people are a little too lax on safety for my liking.  Climb only with people you feel completely comfortable having in charge of your life and vice-a-versa.
• Triple Check – I have always been the queen of double check, but now I am the queen of triple check. I now check everything 3 times before hoping on a route, and even make my partner audibly confirm everything looks good (even though we have gone through 3 checks). I also like to have my climber validate that everything looks correct at the chains if I am planning on a top roping, ensuring they have placed two opposing draws at the anchors.  And will even question if everything is ok before they come off from the indirect position at the chains, even though this is their responsibility. I figure the couple spare seconds of safety questioning could potentially catch a mistake.
• Become a Gym Rat for Awhile – I first went to the gym when getting back on the rope because the bolts are close together and easy routes abound. I felt like this was extremely helpful.
• Trust the System – One of the best pieces of advice I received from a fellow climber (who had personally decked in an accident), was to remember that the system truly does work when done properly. My friend reminded me to triple check everything, then simply climb without worrying about the system.  Check it .. and go.
• Fall – After getting back on the rope with someone you trust, start taking falls again. Falls, for the majority of us, are scary; yet controlled falls can quickly clear out the lead head while being a reminder that the system truly does work.
• Go to Familiar Crags – This was one of the breakthrough points for me! I caught myself still being scared outside, so one day went to a crag where I knew every single climb  and had in years past taken numerous falls on these particular routes, knowing fully what to expect.  By the end of the session, I finally felt back to my old route climbing self.
• If Still Not Enjoying Yourself, Take a Break Again – If still not thoroughly enjoying yourself, stop, wait it out, and start the list over again.

Have you recovered from an accident?  What helped you get back on the sharp end?

Two young climbers I knew from the Red River Gorge passed away this past Tuesday due to equipment failure. They were on a two-pitch climb and it sounds like the webbing on the anchor broke. If you are climber, please consider donating to their funeral fund.

The Red River Gorge climbing community mourns the loss of two of its own. Ben Strohmeier, 18, of Hebron, KY, and Laura Fletcher, also 18, of Brownsburg, IN were killed in a climbing accident on Monday, November 3, 2008. The accident was due to an equipment failure.

Ben and Laura will be sorely missed, and never forgotten.

A memorial service is planned at the base of Whiteout in Emerald City (part of Lady Slipper) at the Red River Gorge on Friday, November 7 from 3-5pm. Miguel’s will be closed during this time.

A fund has been established to help Ben & Laura’s families with the cost of funeral services. You can donate from a link on the homepage of redriverclimbing.com or directly at this link.

Dear readers, be safe out there.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was unfortunately involved with a recent climbing accident where the climber decked from the chains.  I wanted to write up a post to explain the accident, how it could be avoided and to give the update on the people involved.

The Accident
We were climbing the climb Ro Shampo at the Roadside crag in the Red River Gorge.  Ro Shampo is a 5.12a, so a potential project for me but above the current limit of my climbing partner that day, Marcy, whose forte was traditional climbing.   We had ran into some folks I knew who were working Ro Shampo and so we asked if we could join the crew.

I did one top-rope burn on Ro Shampo and thought it felt do-able but didn’t feel real confident leading it yet.  I wanted to top-rope it one more time and Marcy decided she wanted to top-rope it as well, so our friend lead with our rope and the plan was for Marcy to do a burn before I did another burn.

The climb is really steep and as we started to pull the rope to a top rope, Marcy said that she would climb in the middle of the rope as she feared she couldn’t clip back into the draws after climbing because it was so steep and a hard climb for her.  Her thought was that by climbing in the middle of the rope she could then clip in the trailing end of the rope, allowing the rope to be set up through the quickdraws for when I top-roped it.  I had never seen someone climb in the middle of the rope on a one pitch sport route and so was confused with the mechanics of it, inquiring how it would work.  She explained the aforementioned which made sense, so I put her on belay.  She seemed confident with this system so I assumed that she had used such techniques in her trad climbing.  When she got to the last bolt I was confused on how everything would work out at the top, so started talking to her again.  On this climb there is a bolt right under the anchors, protecting one last dynamic move, and we were talking about her clipping the trailing end through just that bolt and leaving her lead top rope through the anchors.  But then she said she was indirect and that she was ok, so I assumed she knew how to set it up so everything worked properly.  She then said “take” and I did.  And she fell, taking the 60 foot fall to the boulders below.  It was horrific!

I looked up at the rope and I saw it going through the anchor.  I looked at my device and everything was threaded correctly through my gri-gri,  but my partner was laying on the ground bleeding profusely.

What happened is this system of climbing in the middle of the rope is exactly comparable to trailing a rope up a climb.  At the anchors one usually goes indirect and drops the initial rope (to avoid confusion) and has the belayer go to the other rope (which the climber is already tied into).  In this case, she had done the exact thing as trailing a rope, but when at the chains had clipped her line through the anchor draws, meaning the only thing between me and her was the draw keeping her indirect.  However, she never said to take her off belay and switch side of the rope, so I didn’t.  She must have forgotten to check to see if the rope was taut because if she had checked she would have seen it was not.  Her system could have still worked if she hadn’t clipped through those anchors or if she had switched out only one of the draws with the trailing line or even put up more draws.  I didn’t know what she was doing though because she was the climber at the chains and I was on the ground.

It can be confusing without drawing out the system we were using.  Here is a graph from Rockclimbing.com that shows the set-up.  When my climber clipped the trailing end through the anchors, the only thing between her and me was the draw keeping her indirect at the chains.

How to Avoid Such a Scenario
1)    Keep it Simple – The main confusion on this day was the fact that the climber was climbing in the middle of the rope.  Though it is the same as trailing a rope, it is much more confusing.  In this scenario the climber was worried about being able to clip the rope back in for a top rope.  We should have had her trail a rope or adjust the climbing rotation so a leader was one again before the top-roper.
2)    If Unfamiliar with A Climber’s Technique, Don’t Belay – I was not familiar with the middle of the rope technique and so relied on my climber’s knowledge of the mechanics of the system. If a person doesn’t understand how the whole route is going to be done from climbing, clipping to cleaning, that person should not belay.  Or the whole system should be explained prior to anyone climbing.
3)    Always Check to Make Sure the Rope is Taut Before Coming Off Indirect – This is such a basic rule of climbing.  Before ever unclipping oneself from the chains, one should check to make sure the rope is taut and the system is working properly.  Only the climber knows what he/she has done at the chains and should check to make sure the system is still working with any changes that were made.

Update on People Involved
1)    The Climber – Marcy is real broken with injuries including a broken back, hip, leg, wrist and a shattered pelvis.  She has had a couple surgeries and will be in the hospital for a bit.  Her spirits, however, are superb.  In fact, we both think she is doing mentally better than I am.  The last time I chatted with her she was hilarious, talking about how much fun we had climbing the day prior to the fall and how I should come hang out with her if I didn’t feel like climbing.  Plus she has had her friends call me to get out climbing.  Such a nice gesture, but I wasn’t ready to join them yet.

Marcy keeps insisting that I need to forget about the fall as she states that she made a mistake at the chains.  Whew, easier said than done!  I not only am still struggling with the image of the fall, but as the belayer I feel that I should have been talking to her more to ensure everything was being done properly.

2)    The belayer – I was the belayer and am doing ok.  I tried to sport climb two times after the accident and it was simply horrible, with me crying on route both days.  It seems that my fear is in the system and its ability to work, even though I know the accident occurred from human error.  I guess I get nervous because when she fell I remember looking at the system and everything looked correct, yet my friend was on the ground.  It took me a couple minutes to realize what had happened.  So, when climbing even though everything looks correct, I am nervous on route.  My last route in the Red River Gorge was a 5.10c (what I would usually use for a warmup) that I was unable to finish because I was too scared of moving past the bolt.

I am currently in Boone, North Carolina bouldering.  The bouldering here is superb and it feels nice to get back on the rock and actually have fun.  Yet, I still can’t get that image of the fall out of my head and I think about it even when down climbing a boulder problem.  And though it is fun to boulder, I still somewhat long to go home and hang up the climbing shoes for a bit.

3)    There were three witnesses directly involved, a girl and a guy from Quebec and a guy from France.  They are all doing well and back out climbing.  I am in Boone with the guy from Quebec; the girl from Quebec is bouldering in Rock Town and the guy from France is still climbing in the Red River Gorge, but heading back to France shortly.

Last thoughts
One thing that really bothers me is how many similar stories I have heard!  I have had at least 11 close friends (many of which are completely experienced climbers) tell me they had been in an accident where someone decks and I heard numerous more stories while at the Red (at least 10 more stories).  The most amazing thing is I have yet to hear only one story that resulted from gear failure, instead human error usually being the cause.

Hope all you readers are well.  Be safe and remember to double check everything.

I have hit a huge crossroad in my life.

On Monday, October 13th I went climbing with a girl who I had met here in the Red River Gorge.

I was her belayer as she top-roped the climb Ro Shampo at the Roadside Crag.

The story is complex and includes errors from both of us.  Regardless, she ended up taking a 60 foot fall from the chains, landing on the below boulders.

It was horrific.

She is doing better and is in the West Virginia hospital.  She has numerous broken bones and needs surgeries, but will definitely live.

I am more emotionally stable today than the last three days, but feel completely lost in life.

Something positive needs to come from this incident so I am going to write about it later, explaining our errors in hopes that lessons of safety can be implemented.  And to remind all readers that climbing is dangerous.

I hope all you readers are well and safe.