Rescue at Laurel Knob, NC

Imagine hanging in your harness all night in 25-degree weather with a stream of water running down a water groove over your feet and legs. For an amazing first-hand account of this and the next morning's rescue, check this link:

carolinaclimbers.org/phpBB2…

JL

John, thank you for posting this on the site. The amount of information on the other forum about the decision making leading up to the evacuation is important to review.

Most of this incident I think was preventable up until the elements overtook the climbers upon which aid assistance was completely necessary.

I have been in this type of situation 4 times and have gotten out without needing assistance, though we did get benighted to the point of having to bivy once (which was by our choice given the descent terrain) & none of the situations were medical-aid required. (Not that I'm saying I'm friggin Wonderdog -- my point is more toward practicing self & buddy rescue techniques)

The one fundamental I saw was lack of self & buddy rescue skill sets in practice. Also, 2 serious mistakes I saw were getting into terrain without both parties familiar in anchor assessment & using poor "fixed-line" skills; the latter could have been minor, except that it seems to me there was a major rigging error that could have ended in a much worse incident; the rigging wasn't all that clear to me in the climber's explanation. Getdownitis seemed to also play a role to the detriment of the climbers.

I don't see lack of knowledge of the descent as a bad decision in going into terrain. I do this numerous times, but I have practiced self rescue skill sets many times over to put a viable plan into effect, so that if something doesn't go as planned, I can get to a safe anchor within a reasonable amount of time.

I have found that the minority of climbs are where everything goes exactly as planned when exploring new (to me/the party) routes. Thus, I feel technical skill sets are important to discuss and work on & practice, especially if a partner becomes incapacitated.

In no way, would I ever correlate access concerns to climbers requesting aid. But, I would "gig" them for not properly/adequately addressing self rescue & anchor skill sets prior to committing on a technical route.

saxfiend wrote:Imagine hanging in your harness all night in 25-degree weather with a stream of water running down a water groove over your feet and legs. For an amazing first-hand account of this and the next morning's rescue, check this link: carolinaclimbers.org/phpBB2… JL

"Thanks for the link." Always nice to learn from these kind of situations.

I'm so proud of Karsten!!! All of his training really paid off in helping rescue those climbers.

A thread posted on this incident in another forum (how to descend a weighted rope) got me thinking about something -- do you think this pair of climbers would have benefited from simul-rapping? I was thinking this would have cut some of the time they spent rapping under bad conditions, and also would have given them two sets of eyes to look for the rap anchors they missed. And if they'd still gotten in a jam, they'd have been together to keep each other warm.

What do you think -- would simul-rapping have been better or worse in this incident (this of course presumes that they actually knew how to do it)?

JL

They sound like newbie's and maybe they'd have died with a rig like that.
Its spooky to simulrap. especially with so much less friction.

If they wanted to stay together during the raps, you know what really works pretty well is rigging them both off the same biner using the same rap device.

But, what really got them benighted was not being proficient in fixed line work to try and locate the next anchor. So really, they both would have been stuck hanging on the rope anyway if they did simul-rap, assuming they wouldn't kill each other doing it.

Mark Nelson wrote:So really, they both would have been stuck hanging on the rope anyway if they did simul-rap, assuming they wouldn't kill each other doing it.

But then they'd have been right there face to face, making it easier to argue over whose fault the whole epic was!

JL

Had it not been for someone in serious trouble, I would be laughing my ass off if I had dropped into that situation behind them, and saw an couple stuck on each rope strand arguing.

Would this be one of those points in time where all interest in taking pictures ends?????

(not for me, I'd take 20 shots; the one where the lady pops the guy in the jaw would be especially precious)