Epic Failure in the Cirque

I just got back from a five day trip in the Crique of the Towers where I was hoping to get a lot of Alping climbing in. Unfortunately out of the three days that we were going to climb, the 2 days were stormy and the other was...well just read the story.

The following took place on August 7, 2009

The Cirque of the Towers is truly a unique place unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s definitely one of America’s premier places for alpine climbing. My brother and I hiked into the Cirque on a beautiful day covering some rough ground and scrambling over some boulder fields to get there. The next day we were scheduled to climb, but storms rolled in and it wasn’t until fairly late that things dried out. We decided with the last few hours of light to scramble up the cirque to the base of a large tower called Warrior I, and stash our gear for a quicker ascent the next day. We woke up around 7am the next morning and headed to Warrior 1. The route we had chosen to climb was a 9 pitch 5.11b R that would require roughly 10 hours to send. However after making it only 300 ft we encountered some really rotten rock that didn’t take gear at all. We then decided to bail off and cut our losses. Arriving back at camp at around noon we tossed around a few ideas as to what to do with the rest of the day. Although it was really too late to start another climb, we set off anyway since we’re both stubborn as hell (thanks to my mom).

We arrived at the backup climb at 2pm and prepared for what we thought would be a quick 6 hours on the wall. Although the weather was starting to get worse we tried not to let it bother us and began climbing. What lay above us was a 1,200 ft 5.9 climb and since my brother was feeling really tired that meant that I had to lead each and every one of the 11 pitches. By the time we were about 450 ft above the ground the weather was really beginning to turn for the worse with little sprinkles and dark clouds, but since the sky was still patchy and our confidence was still fairly strong we decided to continue rather than to bail off. As chance would have it not only did each pitch get harder and harder, but a freak snow storm came in while at around 800 ft which made all the rock wet and icy. This fortunately didn’t last long, so of course we decided to keep going thinking that we’d be done soon enough and laugh this off. To make things worse I was getting extremely tired and dehydrated and it showed when I started placing gear 8-12 feet apart rather than 15+ feet apart, resulting in me nearly running out of gear on each pitch since many pitches were 150+ ft. At around 1000 feet a snow storm began again to hit hard and the wind was extremely cold. I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore, and I couldn’t tell if my feet would stick on the slick rock or not since my toes hadn’t had a brake from my climbing shoes all day long. All these things caused us to slow down significantly, and before we knew it the sun had set and we were climbing with our headlamps in the dark.

Knowing that the top was only 200 ft away I mustered my strength for another pitch. I could barely make out anything above me so I chose a crack and prayed it was the right one. After giving every last bit of effort I struggled through a slick overhanging chimney only to find myself staring at a 8ft x 8ft roof; a total dead end. I knew I had gotten off route, but I didn’t know where, and even if I did, it would be impossible to back my way out and finish the pitch. I went ahead and radioed my brother to come on up even though where I was didn’t even remotely resemble a belay ledge. I was hanging in mid air from a few cams that I was able to place in the roof, with the rope dangling below me. By this time it was snowing harder and my brother had to struggle up the slick rock and I can only imagine the frustration that went through his mind every time he had to clean a stopper or a nut from the crack. By the time he hit the chimney I knew he felt exactly what I did. We were totally screwed, and when he approached the hanging belay under the roof I thought he was going to cut the rope just to end the frustration. At this point we knew we were off route and couldn’t correct it and climb to the top even if we wanted to because the rock was now iced over. We either had to wait out the night and hope that we could find our way out in the morning, or face a 1,100 ft rappel in the blizzardy conditions hoping that everything would go smoothly.

From our experience with multipitch descents the double fisherman’s knot used to tie the ropes together would always get stuck. We would have to make 8 rappels, some full rope-length rappels. The chances that the rope would get stuck were highly probable, and if it did than we would be in an even worse situation. I quickly decided that our best option was to wait out the night while hanging under a roof with 1,100 ft of air below us. We both had a fair amount of warm weather gear on us, but as the temperature dropped down to the 20’s and with the winds howling at 11,000ft the clothing still didn’t help much. To make matters worse we had used up all of our food and water and were becoming very dehydrated fast. Around 11:30 at night the snow storm gained momentum and even with a full moon there was a total white out and visibility was reduced to about 20ft. Unfortunately the little corner we were hanging in offered little protection and it seemed that the snow still managed to hit us hard and find its way into every little gap in our clothing. After hanging in midair for an hour and a half unable to get any sleep and with the temperature still dropping, we ran the risk of getting hypothermia before morning. At 12:30 the storm broke for a brief time and we decided to attempt a 1,100 ft rappel. We knew that we would have to sacrifice a lot of gear in order to reach the bottom, however since our lives were at stake, several hundred dollars in gear didn’t seem like an issue.

Each rappel went very slow since we would often rappel off only one or two poorly placed stoppers in the wet/icy rock. Only once did we have to sacrifice a cam because the crack was too large for the passive gear I had. There was one belay ledge that I was afraid of getting to because I knew that the crack was extremely small and rotten and would barely hold our small C3 Cams. Once we got there I was able to clean things out enough with a pocket knife to fit two really small stoppers (#3 and #5 BD). The stoppers barely stayed in place, but it was either risk death by falling, or by freezing to death still 600ft up on a 1ft x 3 ft ledge. We went for it and fortunately they held like a dream. Might I add that not once did our rope get caught while pulling it down after each rappel; I was sure praying! By the time we got down to the top of the first pitch we encountered another problem. We started the climb by scrambling up 300ft way right and then made a 200 ft horizontal traverse across slab in order to reach the crack. There was no way that we could make the traverse back over wet/icy rock. We decided to continue downward although we knew the face was pretty much blank and had little chance for a place to set up another anchor. By a miracle I stumbled across a flake that we immediately threw a large strip of webbing around. One final 200ft rappel sent us over an overhanging cliff and onto the ground.

Although no tears were shed when we reached the ground at 4:30am, we shared some hugs and long sighs, and I took a well deserved pee on a nice patch of grass. Thirty minutes later we were back in camp and sleeping like babies, while it all seemed like a big nightmare. Although I don’t regret climbing Pingora Peak, I don’t ever want to repeat the experience we had. By the way it snow the entire next day meaning that even if we had stayed hanging there until morning and hadn’t froze to death, that we still would to have made the rappel. All in all we spent 14.5 hours on the wall and only lost about $250 in gear. Someone now has a dozen stoppers and nuts as well as biners, and a few runners, not to mention a BD C4.

I'm just glad I lived to learn from this experience, although I think I'll stick to the Creek for the next year or two.

Wow, that does not sound like fun.

Anyway, other than starting too late, it sounds like you kept a good head about yourself, which is probably why nothing worse happened. Thanks for sharing and I'm glad it's going to end up being just a good story.

Evan

I don't know if you know any aid climbing, but was there any possibility of aiding out of that roof (i.e. was there a string of gear placements leading out of the roof)?

Wow... wild! Glad to hear that the epic ended well with (relatively) minimal losses. Amazing that the rope never got stuck when pulling it from your rappels. My experience with bailing from high points has been similar: the rope always seems to get stuck, making an already bad situation even worse. Have you considered using the EDK (flat overhand) instead of the double-fisherman to join ropes? It is asymmetrical and more compact than the double-fisherman, which makes it less likely to get caught.

Sounds like you both kept your cool and made some good decisions, except for starting a long, committing climb so late in the day. Good that you're both alive to learn from it!

Thanks for sharing,
JC

Was your backup route the NE face of Pingora? Sounds like a character building experince. The weather can be a bit fickle in the Winds for sure. When I did the NE face a few years ago I felt like I should have enjoyed it more. The whole time we were on it the weather was right on the edge. We were so nervous the whole time and were pretty happy when a short hail/lighting storm hit us on the last pitch. Your experince makes mine seem like a walk in the park. I cant believe you started out for 1200' of climbing at 2pm. You should be getting down off of high points about that time. Glad you lived to tell about it.

Gripping read!

Bad Sock Puppet wrote: Although the weather was starting to get worse we tried not to let it bother us and began climbing....but a freak snow storm came in while at around 800 ft which made all the rock wet and icy.

Freak? Nope. Totally predicted.

Bad weather was a given last weekend, especially friday/saturday.

Great story, and, hopefully lessons learned.

As far as I could tell there was no aid gear coming out of the roof, and we could have managed to aid it ourselves if only we weren't so beat and the weather was nicer. I'll have to try the EDK knot it sounds like it might make life easier. And yes it was the NE face of Pingora. I know that we shouldn't have even considered starting that late, but after being stuck in the tent a whole day prior, you seem to get overambitious. Let's just say that I better learned to trust my gut than my ego.

This reminds me of a lesser epic I had a few weeks ago on Wolf's Head. Same old culprits: a late start, and overly-optimistic expectations of the route. We topped out right around dusk and ended up doing 5-6 raps off snow bollards to get down a gully of bullet-hard snow. Got back to camp at 130.

This season's weather in the Cirque has been especially difficult -- it snowed for most of June and there's still an exceptional amount of snow up there, and apparently growing!

It took us about 6 hours to go up Pingora's NE face on the same trip and we were pretty dialed as a team. Pretty solid Grade IV. Great climb, though, bummer it was spoiled by the weather.

I still vivedly remember the time at Devils Tower with my brother prussicing our stuck set of ropes(still through the anchors) as darkness descended with thunder in the distance. Thankfully my brother made the 170ft pitch in a record time of just over 3hrs.

KG Lee wrote:I don't know if you know any aid climbing, but was there any possibility of aiding out of that roof (i.e. was there a string of gear placements leading out of the roof)?

I personally would have avoided this decision. Staying hunkered under the roof, descending one pitch then trying to get on route again, or going all the way down were your best choices. Moving out the roof would have exposed you even more, may have led you to a dead end, and could have made it impossible to retreat because of the overhanging rappel.

You should definitely switch to the EDK, just leave plenty of tail.

Yes, you should have respected the weather moving in, but once the shit hit the fan you handled this well. I'm glad you guys are okay.

Being relatively new to climbing (couple of years) I am always particularly interested in reports of accidents and mishaps. So many of these appear to be so preventable if just a little thought is applied prior to proceeding. The errors in judgment displayed in this epic are painfully obvious with several opportunities missed to reconsider and back off. Also, ditto on the above comment regarding the snow storm. I have made numerous trips (backpacking, not climbing) into the Winds including the Cirque and if there is a constant it is that the weather is constantly changing and can turn to worms on a dime.

The outcome of this epic could have easily been fatal and I am very glad that you came through unscathed. I appreciate that you have taken the time to relate this episode so that others can learn from your mistakes. I will certainly file your story away in my memory bank.

My climbing partner must have read this last night because a 7 am this morning he called and backed out of our trip planned for the last week in august. Not to hijack, but, any body else in the same situation?

Good to read that your only loss was $$$.

JC

We could hear and see you guys from our tent and were thankful that we were not up there with you! Weather prediction was completely hopeless and the "alpine start" was worth exactly jack sh*% on our trip. It was all over the place with storms hitting at all different times of the day, clearing up here and there just enough to lure you onto climbs only to be stormed off. We tried to climb the NE face of Pingora the next day (not a cloud in the sky at 5 am), but more snow rolled in early (like 7am?!) and we had to bail a couple pitches up. Glad it hit when it did or we might have repeated your nightmare.

At one point we heard one of you yell "on belay, climb when ready!" and we couldn't help but shake our heads considering the sideways blowing snow and approaching darkness. I remember thinking those guys are either waaaay more hard core than us or they are about to endure a serious epic. Glad you're ok!

Me too, but I strive not to repeat them.

I was at Wild Iris near Lander that day, and we had cold, super-high winds. It was so nasty that we gave up after three pitches. Can't imagine how chilly it must have been up on the high peaks.

Thanks for reporting your epic in the Cirque. Every climber makes f-ups (myself included), and I think it's very big of you to suck up your ego so that other strong, Indian Creek sport climbing gumbies may remain humble enough in the mountains not to get themselves killed. I encourage all climbers to tell of their own near-misses/epics like you did. Sorry if i offended you, but seriously.. it's big of you.

dirtbag wrote:Thanks for reporting your epic in the Cirque. Every climber makes f-ups (myself included), and I think it's very big of you to suck up your ego so that other strong, Indian Creek sport climbing gumbies may remain humble enough in the mountains not to get themselves killed. I encourage all climbers to tell of their own near-misses/epics like you did. Sorry if i offended you, but seriously.. it's big of you.

No offense taken friend! I have no shame, I just don't want others to end up in any similar situation.

Carter 332 wrote:My climbing partner must have read this last night because a 7 am this morning he called and backed out of our trip planned for the last week in august.

I really hope that I'm not chasing anyone away from a fun experience. You really need to mix things up to keep the fun stuff fun.

For everyone in general, alpine climbing is just a lot different and it's easy to let your ego get you into bad situations. Your ego is a good thing though because it helps you progress and push the limits. It's just that if you plan on doing alpine climbing than be extra smart about it all, especially if you're not used to long multipitch trad while carrying gear.

seriously though, that sucks. i hope your future trips are more successful.