Another Rock Canyon Accident?

I couldn't find anything about this online, but my dad called me and said that the news had reported that a climber fell today in Rock Canyon. Apparently attempts were made to get a helicopter in there but the canyon or the area he was at was too tight. I've never heard of a helicopter rescue for a climbing fall in the canyon...

Anyone have any info on this? Where was the person climbing? Was it really a climber or was it a hiker or scrambler?

-Tristan

A little more here

Perin Blanchard wrote:A little more here

A helicopter for a few broken ribs... Probably best it couldn't make it...SHESH!! Is it just me or WTF?!

Next time I get a bad headache on a climb, I'm callin SAR. I've always wanted to ride in a chopper.

It appears this incident is probably another "lowered off the end of the rope" accident.

A trauma surgeon acquaintance of mine mentioned this morning that he'd been asked to look at a climber that was brought to the hospital yesterday. He indicated the climber had told those that accompanied him to the hospital that he'd fallen when the end of the rope had been reached while he was being lowered.

I don't know how anyone feels on the recent problems in this canyon, but I would like to know. What you think the root cause is?

I have talked many times with my friends and family over what I have seen in Rock Canyon over the the last several years; it has plain been frightening! I learned to climb in that canyon and have been climbing there for 11 years, though recently I spend most of my time in Canyonlands and Zion. Overtime I go back to visit I see something that makes me swallow hard and want to hit people with my hammer. Whether it is: Some meat head with a girl that has never belayed, The American death triangle (the only place I have seen it outside my books), People scrambling over terrible crumbling rock with no shirts, or very poorly constructed top rope anchors, the list can go on. Please, don't tell me this happens everywhere. I am on the east coast right now climbing at Seneca, New River Gorge, and Great Falls. The Education of the climbers of the proper way to build top rope anchors and general principles of rock climbing is far greater than I have seen anywhere in Utah at the beginning level. Rock Canyon is by far populated with people that do not seem to respect the rock in any proper manner or people with vastly more experience that chimes in to help them. There are some very knowledgable people climbing in this canyon as well.

I mean not too offend anyone, I have met people in that canyon with great skills and a love for climbing that I don't see often.

I wish this climber a fast recovery.

Robert A. Schwarzmann

atrau wrote:I don't know how anyone feels on the recent problems in this canyon, but I would like to know. What you think the root cause is?

Good question. Rock Canyon is a fantastic canyon for beginners. There are several walls that have a lot of sub-5.10 sport routes. The tops of a lot of these walls are easily accessible for toproping. This makes it easy for people who don't really know what they're doing to "safely" (in their minds) climb routes--in other words, it makes it that much easier for people to screw up.

Anyone who climbs with me knows that I have something of a grudge against climbing gyms. I think that gyms give people a false sense of security. In the gym, you don't have to check anchors, holds won't come off in your hand, you don't have to thread the rope through the anchors at the top of a route, there is no routefinding, the holds are all soft and smooth, someone will likely tell you if you're tied in wrong, the weather is always good, the "rock" is always rope-friendly, the ground is always soft, the bolts are always well-spaced, and the ropes are already in place for the toproped routes. I think that The Quarry is a great gym as far as climbing gyms go, but the gym does not entirely prepare you for climbing outside.

And of course, it's the closest canyon for both BYU and UVU students looking to impress their dates. I go to BYU and I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who have rock climbed, but are not rock climbers. The sheer number of extremely inexperienced "climbers" that climb in Rock Canyon every day is probably significantly higher than in other canyons.

Rock Canyon (and Red Slab, the Kitchen, and Tinker Toys, especially) has become sort of an outdoor climbing gym, a remote extension of the Quarry, but all of the above-mentioned comforts and safety precautions of the climbing gym are absent.

Overall, I believe that climbing is more complicated than most gym climbers and casual climbers think it to be. There's more to toproping than just clipping a draw through each bolt at the top of a route. There's more to belaying than just taking in or paying out slack. There's more to climbing and moving up than just grabbing for the next chalked hold. I feel that more beginning climbers need to study (ideally through experience with a more experienced climber, but also through books, magazines, internet forums, websites, etc) the intricacies of rock climbing more before they head out into the canyons on their own.

-Tristan

climbing is becoming glamorized - i've seen articles touting what movie star has started climbing - articles about how many calories you can burn climbing, etc,etc - and have seen too many instances of prople out there with no idea what they are doing (such as a group top-roping off a single draw in af - they were able to scramble up around a corner to reach that one bolt which was about half way up a climb) - if it's a safety issuse (as the aformentioned was) i'll try to politely share information as to why they are putting themselves in danger - other than that? - walk away and hope they live through their adventure

atrau wrote:I don't know how anyone feels on the recent problems in this canyon, but I would like to know. What you think the root cause is? I have talked many times with my friends and family over what I have seen in Rock Canyon over the the last several years; it has plain been frightening! I learned to climb in that canyon and have been climbing there for 11 years, though recently I spend most of my time in Canyonlands and Zion. Overtime I go back to visit I see something that makes me swallow hard and want to hit people with my hammer. Whether it is: Some meat head with a girl that has never belayed, The American death triangle (the only place I have seen it outside my books), People scrambling over terrible crumbling rock with no shirts, or very poorly constructed top rope anchors, the list can go on. Please, don't tell me this happens everywhere. I am on the east coast right now climbing at Seneca, New River Gorge, and Great Falls. The Education of the climbers of the proper way to build top rope anchors and general principles of rock climbing is far greater than I have seen anywhere in Utah at the beginning level. Rock Canyon is by far populated with people that do not seem to respect the rock in any proper manner or people with vastly more experience that chimes in to help them. There are some very knowledgable people climbing in this canyon as well. I mean not too offend anyone, I have met people in that canyon with great skills and a love for climbing that I don't see often. I wish this climber a fast recovery. Robert A. Schwarzmann

I couldn't agree with you more. I like climbing in Rock Canyon but the beginners there make me cringe. Last time I was there some meathead took his girlfriend and her friend, both of whom I don't believe have climbed before, to climb the Green Monster- leaving both of them there to free solo the 5.4 approach while he scrambled around to toprope the Monster. Since I had just rapped down with the rack from the anchors below the Monster I offered to belay them up the approach. They both fell trying to climb the approach. If they weren't on the toprope I offered them, then for sure the first girl that fell would have been injured.

While I was doing that some guy came by with a cub scout troop or youth group and attempted to scramble up the loose talus slope there, kids and loose rocks were sliding and flying everywhere, and when I mentioned that he should probably take them elsewhere to be safe he tried to ignore me since I don't look Mormon (nor am I, not that it matters). But, he finally told the kids to stop climbing the slope and then proceeded to give me and the kids a lecture on how the Mormon prophet has forbidden extreme sports and how terrible what I was doing was, never mind that what I was doing was much safer than what his ignorance had subjected the kids to...

(edit- this is not meant to be a knock on the LDS religion, the gentleman in this particular situation was just a bit off his rocker as I'm sure my Mormon climbing friends would agree had they been there)

Then on the way down someone was trying to rap down from Main Crack's anchors to set up another toprope but didn't know to sit back in their harness, and I started to fumble in my pack for my cell to get ready to call for a rescue because she began awkwardly downclimbing using one hand on the rope on the wrong side of her belay device, and sometimes neither hand on the rope at all to keep herself from falling, there was no belayer below to catch her if she slipped, and she obviously was having a difficult time. Finally, well below the anchors, she figured things out and began to rappel properly, whew!

And that was all in just one day!

Great climbing up there especially if you like quartzite crack climbing, but geez, I'm surprised there isn't an accident there practically every day!

Rock Canyon is where I was first introduced to climbing several years ago. There were several pretty important things that I was never taught and some others that were totally incorrect and dangerous i.e. backclipping, running the rope directly through the anchors when top roping, lowering off single carabiners, not opposing carabiners etc... Fortunately I read a lot to supplement what I was taught by my partners and moved on to climb with other people that were more knowledgeable, so I have been able to correct false info. and avoid serious mishap, but this thread reminds me just how lucky I was that I never got into trouble. There is definitely far more to climbing than the vast majority of climbers at Rock Canyon think there is.

It appears that this accident happened on Ed and Terry Wall. I was up there this morning and cleaned up some medical trash, including bloody gloves.

That location is certainly consistent with a lowering accident; a 60m rope isn't close to long enough for lowering off of the routes on the center and left side of the wall.