*Loose block alert* Eldo-Rewritten

I almost brought down the house today on the last pitch of Rewritten. I was carefully climbing up the gully when a coffee table sized block started to go. I was able to stop the block from going the distance with a combination of fear and adrenaline. With the help of another party, we tied the block off to one of the trees in the gully on the last pitch.

The situation up there is serious as there are a bunch of rocks ready to fall. It needs to be trundled ASAP.

Loose rocks on Rewritten

Sorry for being that guy...I've been climbing in Eldo for years and know how to move through loose rock...this one was ready to go.

I called the park and notified them. Let me know if you know of anyone else I can notify. Also, I'd love to get the gear back.

An email to ACE would be a good idea. I will notify them.

aceeldo@googlegroups.com

Thanks!

Just say no to the choss gully and climb the arête/face variation.

But seriously, thanks for the heads up, nice job securing that monster.

ACE is aware and we'll work with Park personal to mitigate ASAP. Thanks for the notice!

There was a really large loose flake ready to go if pulled on too hard on the 1st pitch when I climbed it recently. Maybe out 2/3rds of the way up the pitch in a cruxy area. Plenty big enough to kill a belayer. I thought this thread was about it when I saw the title. Use caution.

Contact this guy through MP -----> Mike McHugh

He can help organize a trundling in the Park

Thanks,

Dan

I don't want to be the contrarian here, but it seems as if there is a now a growing list of dangerous blocks in Eldo that will get trundled. I do appreciate the efforts of the OP to safely deal with what is obviously a huge death block, and I especially appreciate the tireless efforts of guys like Mike M. and Greg G. taking care of the canyon that we all love. But with due respect, where does this end?

I don't ask this question from a "keep Eldo as is" perspective (even though I believe this should always be a consideration), but rather from a safety perspective. I have watched the video showing the trundling of the huge block off of Redguard, and that video clearly shows the entire wall being showered with rocks large and small, some of which apparently ran all the way to the stream. I feel like we're playing Mother Nature when we take a large crowbar up that high on the wall and pry a huge block off. I'm sure this has been considered, but I'll ask anyway: what about all of the chaos created as a result of that action? There are undoubtedly loose rocks that are now below where that block used to be, as a result of prying it off the wall, that are in and of themselves additional hazards to the unsuspecting climber (and people that may be below). And a flying rock does not need to be the size of a microwave oven to be deadly.

I know these actions are being taken by intelligent, thoughtful stewards of Eldo, but now we have another block on Rewritten that has been temporarily engineered to the cliff (I'm not suggesting that it was wrong to do so, may very well have been the best-possible action given the circumstances) that will get trundled, and will have the ensuing chaos below the block that will create new and additional hazards. On top of that, there are further reports on this thread of blocks that apparently will get trundled. How far can we go in removing loose rock, and when do we accept (and assess risk based on this acceptance) that this is an inherent part of climbing in the canyon that we so dearly love?

What if someone pulls off a different loose rock below the block that was trundled off of Redguard, gets hurt (or hurts someone else) and then claims the hazard was created when the original block (in the video) was trundled? Surely this has been considered, but am I wrong in believing that there might be some liability to the Park, and individuals in this scenario? It's not too much of a stretch to imagine this as a possibility in our ridiculously litigious culture.

And if as a community we are now forming a list of dangerous blocks to be trundled, let's go ahead and put the entirety of Peanuts Wall on the list. I've climbed there for years and have been going there a lot recently for shade, and while I love the climbing and ambiance, almost every route up there has a large and potentially dangerous loose block on it. And that's not referring to the ledge systems that are basically piled up rubble piles. I've done the two raps from the top of Heavy Weather three times in the last few weeks, and I simply don't pull the ropes until it is obvious that no one is below. The second rappel is on a ledge that is horrendously loose.

The truth is, Eldo has more dangerously loose blocks than many areas. No amount of engineering is gonna change that fact. The first safety consideration for anyone climbing in Eldo should be the recognition of and acceptance of this fact. In the meantime, where do draw the line between trying to make the canyon safer, and possibly inadvertently creating additional hazards? Again, I have huge respect for the folks making these good faith efforts, and do not question the intentions of anyone who is trying to decide the best course of action.

Brad- it is a tough call. We can't stop loose blocks from falling. Taking a proactive approach to the blocks that are definitely about to fall by closing off the trail below and giving a push assures that at least that particular block won't kill somebody. The ones that really need to be trundled are the ones above the easiest, most popular routes. Rewritten and Swanson Arete get so much traffic and the dihedrals above all converge to the belay there. The Pony Express area is another particularly dangerous spot for belayers.
I climbed Redguard on Tuesday partly to get a look at the rubble left behind on the route. Thankfully it is mostly rock dust.

It would seem simple trundling could be replaced with drilling a bolt in the block and lowering it. Unless you have personally seen the energy created by a microwave to refrigerator sized block, it's hard to appreciate the effects.

Greg, is a block that needs to be trundled with a crowbar truly a block that is about to fall off the cliff?Personally, I might make the case that it is not.

I agree that it is a very tough call to make. I think we're talking about blocks that might get pulled off by a climber, as there is relatively little natural rockfall in Eldo. I would guess that the force exerted on a block by a crowbar like the one in your video far exceeds the expected force a climber would place on it.

Again, I'm just wondering if we're truly solving the problem of having dangerously loose blocks on well-traveled routes, with these actions. There are loose rocks and blocks of many different sizes sitting at the base of Star Wars Crack, especially so at the base of the excellent alternate start to the left. This is surely the most popular route on Peanuts Wall. Do we remove all of those? As you know better than I, sometimes you remove a loose block only to find even worse-quality rock below it that has been uncovered.

I do very much appreciate your commitment to trying to mitigate the problem.

Bill M wrote:It would seem simple trundling could be replaced with drilling a bolt in the block and lowering it.

It would likely take some very serious rigging. The average weight of stone is 175 lbs per cubic foot. For the "coffee table sized block", using rough measurements of my coffee table as an example, that works out to a bit more than 2600 lbs.

Edit: corrected the original "175 lbs per square foot", which obviously makes no sense in our world of 3-space!

I can't speak for any of the previous rocks that have been trundled (on Redguard etc.) because I haven't seen them. I'm sure every situation is different. However, the situation on the last pitch of Rewritten looks really bad. There's a big loose block being held in place by big loose blocks surrounded by tons of rocks. All of this is directly over one of the most popular spots in Eldo. I think this risk is worth mitigating. With that said, I don't think park personnel should just chuck a 500 pound block off the top of the Middle Buttress if it is not necessary to avoid catastrophe. Maybe the blocks could be lowered 10-20' to a more secure location???

Brad White wrote:Greg, is a block that needs to be trundled with a crowbar truly a block that is about to fall off the cliff?Personally, I might make the case that it is not. ...

Fair criticism. I took the crowbar because I had not seen the block in question prior to rapping down to it. It was held in place by a ~1-2" lip at the bottom and I could rotate it on that a few degrees. The lip trends down diagonally though and it appeared that the rock had recently moved. If nobody had reported it as a hazard then I might have come to a different conclusion. The catch 22 is this: if a trundler goes up to inspect/trundle it and declares it not to be a threat only to have it fall a week later and kill a climber, the trundler/(non-trundler) looks even more culpable than if he never looked at the block. I can agree that the Redguard block was not going to be set off by a climber accidentally touching it. It was probably going to come down soon in a geologic sense, though. Geologic time includes now.
The recent block in BoCan on It's Time for Change was eminent - I am 90% certain that a belayer and/or climber would have been killed by that one if we left it as it was. I had a cat's paw crowbar that day but didn't actually need any force.
If this block is at the top of Rebuffat's, a controlled lower to the ledge at the start of the pitch might make sense. Scary loads, though.

Brad:

I (as always) appreciate your reasoning. I'm a huge advocate of lowering danger blocks. It's a much less chaotic approach - but it's very hard to pull off. The time, number of people, and equipment involved in lowering blocks is much greater than just trundling. When there's a block that constitutes a clear hazard, it's frequently pretty scary to be tied in near it drilling bolts and possibly doing a feather/wedge split.

For what it's worth, my goal as an organizer/support team member for Eldo trundles is to try and gather a consensus of climbers about each trundle. I think you're right - as climbers, we ought to accept some risk. The Redguard block raised my hackles because it also presented a hazard to the non-climbing public - the streamside trail is incredibly popular. If there is criticism of that trundle, it should be directed at me and not Greg.

It looks like a team will get after this Rewritten block next week. If there are adequate numbers and it can be done safely, that block seems like a good candidate for lowering.

Hey Mike and Greg, I didn't really mean for my comments to come across as criticism so much as simply pointing out that in my opinion, these well-intentioned actions with loose blocks are not really going to make the canyon safer for climbers in a general sense. I'm not even sure that is possible. I think we do need more consensus from the Eldorado climbing community on this issue. I'm just an old guy with chronically hurting feet trying to keep his foot in the game.

For instance, when you speak of the potential threat to hikers on the Streamside Trail from that block on the Redguard, that could be a good starting point for consensus building, in my opinion. No reason to put other users in the Park at undue risk caused by climbers.

When we start talking about making climbing in Eldo more safe for climbers, that's where things get murky for me. (isn't that the job of the individual climber??) It's not that I'm absolutely against that principle per se, but I do know plenty of climbers that won't climb in Eldo because of their perception that Eldo is dangerously loose and funky. While I don't entirely agree with that risk assessment, I do appreciate it for what it is, which is the recognition that loose blocks are an inherent risk when climbing in the canyon.

Nick: I rapped in today. It looks like someone repositioned the beast atop another weird flake AND bootied most of your slings & biners. I got your green cordelette.

Tomorrow morning some brave volunteers and I will lower that block down to the big ledge immediately below. There will be some early closures on the Redgarden west trail, but I expect it will be open by 8 at the latest.

Tallyho

Mike McHugh wrote:Nick: I rapped in today. It looks like someone repositioned the beast atop another weird flake AND bootied most of your slings & biners. I got your green cordelette.

Ha ha ha! Oh, man. Rather than leaving the deadly block, they repositioned it and bootied the slings. Good one frugal Eldo Prancers. Good one.

Japhy, Tom, Clint, and Eddie from CMS came out to the park early this morning, and we lowered the block to a much less precarious perch.

We tied it back in and split it:

Split and tied off.

Then lowered it to the big ledge with the dead tree:

Two halves in situ

Then we lowered a few coal bags of the worst of the loose rocks that were pinned behind the beast. The area looks better:

Tom's legs. Note the striking absence of precarious debris.

Super big thanks to all involved. IMHO, this was a perfect place to do this - launching that beast might have had bad impacts on a lot of popular pitches lower down.

Super big thanks to you Mike, and everyone else that contributed to stabilizing and lowering this beast!