Eldorado canyon colorado

Chris Fedorczakwrote: ...but it sounds like the available pro is tenuous at best, and obviously failed entirely in this scenario — especially on a 5.7 that will most assuredly attract newer climbers who may not be thinking of upperward pull failure scenarios when slinging natural pro.

I'll put it plainly that your understanding of that protection is incorrect.  It is not "tenuous at best."
It is bomber if done correctly (which is not complicated) and not somehow undone.
And it has held people on the occasions where it has had to for 60 years without prior failure.

Lindsay Randall wrote:

A slung boulder like this one?  Well, when it has a 10'+ circumference, but the area hitched below the middle is much smaller.
Have you climbed the route? Or are you arguing based on what you read that someone else said?

On another note,

Best of wishes to the surviving party and a full and speedy recovery.
For the others impacted by this, I wish the same. I have cleaned "personal effects" off of a wall before, and only later learned that they were the remains of a friend.
It took me a long time to get over that, frankly. One thing that helped was writing about it, in something between a story telling and journal style.
It helped me slow my thoughts and emotions surrounding it all down to the speed of written language and allowed me to process it all instead of just cycling on my feelings as they were.
Also, don't be afraid to reach out to a trusted friend or a professional therapist if it might help.

Wishing the surviving climber a speedy and full recovery.  It’s times like these that should make us all re-examine our procedures and focus on safety. As an airline pilot we constantly study and train for emergencies.  This has made me realize I need to be better prepared.  Medical, self rescue, etc.  Please be safe out there everyone.

David Hwrote:

It’s times like these that should make us all re-examine our procedures and focus on safety.

Making Eldo Climbing "Safer'

I started another thread specifically about the issue of a bolt/s on this section of Wind Ridge, if anyone wants to open up that debate we can leave this thread to focus on the accident and the individuals affected: 

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/121227819/bolts-on-wind-ridge-eldorado-canyon

In addition, Steve Levin opened a thread about risk mitigation in Eldorado more generally:

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/121227909/making-eldorado-canyon-climbing-safer

Edit: changed the destination of the link to Steve's Thread

This is horrific.

I offer my sincere condolences to the fallen climbers Family and Friends. I wish a speedy recovery to the injured - may your recovery be complete.

Aubrey- Thank you for everything you did. The rescue and the explanation of what happened.

Prayers

Mountain Rocketmanwrote:

Failure? I thought that a sling fell off a horn. Is there no pro on the belay ledge?

Sorry misspoke… they made the mistake of not backing up their sling and their single point of protection was not adequately placed. 

Nice work Aubrey. I hope that you are also taking care of yourself in the aftermath of this.

hey guys,

got a question about the victim fund and how to support the friend of the dead climber.

i am friends and the back up climbing partner of the trad mentor for the dead climber. they were best friends and climbed many times a week. he taught him to lead belay and lead trad. i met them while climbing in eldo this year. so as i am a trad partner to the mentor i am hearing a lot from the  mentor and the accident. he and  i climbed trad this past saturday. it was a sad and depressing day of climbing as  he spoke a lot about when he took the now dead partner to do wind ridge recently and mentioned lots of details and had many unaswered quesiot friends. such as when they climbed wind ridge talked about anchors and a lot about the gear and such at the p3 start. it is our first dead climbing friend. unsure how to support him... any suggestions?

does the victim fund offer support to the dead climbers mentor?

as for the future climbing plans with the mentor is it of benefit to go climb wind ridge with the mentor? or what might be best? 

thanks in advance for your time in addressing this uncomfortable situation 

Maybe Considerwrote:

hey guys,

got a question about the victim fund and how to support the friend of the dead climber.

i am friends and the back up climbing partner of the trad mentor for the dead climber. they were best friends and climbed many times a week. he taught him to lead belay and lead trad. i met them while climbing in eldo this year. so as i am a trad partner to the mentor i am hearing a lot from the  mentor and the accident. he and  i climbed trad this past saturday. it was a sad and depressing day of climbing as  he spoke a lot about when he took the now dead partner to do wind ridge recently and mentioned lots of details and had many unaswered quesiot friends. such as when they climbed wind ridge talked about anchors and a lot about the gear and such at the p3 start. it is our first dead climbing friend. unsure how to support him... any suggestions?

does the victim fund offer support to the dead climbers mentor?

as for the future climbing plans with the mentor is it of benefit to go climb wind ridge with the mentor? or what might be best? 

thanks in advance for your time in addressing this uncomfortable situation 

Hey there, 

ACE may have some resources in terms of therapy and/or support. I would start there. 

In terms of the accident, am I reading this right? The cordelette slipped off the boulder and the hitched sling failed? Typically I back up the boulder with a #3, I think. Someone help me understand because it sounds like they were being relatively safe and got very very unlucky. I get that we should minimize risk as much as possible. I'm glad the discussion hasn't turned into any reprimand for the climbers, I feel like I see too much disappointment surround climbing accidents. It's just very tragic all around. 

Aubrey Runyonwrote:

...

Just read the article. Thank you for the actions you took that day, Aubrey. 

Apologies to everyone else for broaching the bolting discussion. That was not appropriate in this thread. 

My condolences to those who lost loved ones.

To Aubrey and the other folks that participated in this rescue--great, great work.  And to everybody affected by this, just a sad story...touching hearts far away.

I am confused about the details, which is natural at this stage.  I read the article.  Was the boulder the same as the horn, or are these two different features?  How was the boulder slung?  With a cordelette?  How was the belayer attached to the cordelette? With a girth-hitched sling?  And was this same piece used as the first point of protection for the climb?  Maybe folks who've done this route can decipher the report.  I think it is important, because, as mentioned before, accidents like this as rather rare.  

All best.

My new Super Hero is Aubrey. Thanks for dealing with that. Take care of yourself.

This is reply to some people here but also a broad statement. How many of us have made decisions and gotten to squeak by? Rolled the dice on a placement and just happened to make it through? From our perspective mistakes may have been made, but I can only imagine the grief and guilt the surviving climber is feeling right now. I’ve had the privilege of speaking with both families now. They seem like two amazing individuals that on that day were very unlucky. We can find the cause but let’s show love and compassion to two very hurting families. To those asking how I am, I’m in a great deal of physical and emotional pain, but it’s nothing compared to what they are dealing with. Lastly, please consider donating to your local search and rescue organization. You won’t need it until you need it but when you do, they’ll show up. These volunteers are the real heroes and we owe them. 

Aubrey, thank you for being there and knowing what to do in an emergency. As well as emphasizing the love and compassion we need to show to both families, parties involved including the surviving climber that will forever be etched with this day in his memories. 

A tragic accident. I've belayed at that same ledge with two other parties anchored in the immediate area, all on separate anchors. I recall slinging a hueco, see Bill W., using a very small cam, and one other piece. There is adequate pro for an anchor even when crowded. Adequate but not great. 

If I understand this specific event, it sounds like there was zero gear between the leader and the belayer at the time of the fall. My recollection is that the moves are awkward for the grade, bouldery (aka power), and that one can place at least one cam from the ledge. If and when I return to that third pitch, I will surely place gear before leaving the ledge. 

Best wishes to the injured climber for a speedy recovery

Aubrey Runyonwrote:

This is reply to some people here but also a broad statement. How many of us have made decisions and gotten to squeak by? Rolled the dice on a placement and just happened to make it through? 

Raising my hand here. I also had to rappel with my dead friend's body off the ledge he came to rest on. The mistakes we made were far worse. No judgement from me, that's for sure.

It occurs to me that perhaps, the choice of the leader to clip the cordellete wrapped around the boulder/horn, may have magnified the likelihood of the protection coming free.  In other words, when the leader used the anchor as a Jesus piece, it made matters worse because when his fall pulled differently on the cordelette than had the fall been a straight factor two where the force yanked downwards on the belayer and also on the intended way the boulder was slung. 

I mentioned before that one thing that helped me deal with something like this was writing about it. (See post above, a shor way up on this page.)
So here is something I wrote about 20 years ago...
It is graphic, so trigger warnings and all that stuff.

--------------------------------------------------------

I returned from a weekend of skiing one Sunday night and checked my phone messages. A couple climbing friends, Taimi and Lewis, had called asking me to return their calls. As I picked up the phone to dial them, the headline of the Sunday paper caught my eye. I put the phone down.

A climber who had fallen to his death yesterday afternoon in Eldorado Canyon. Was this what my friends had called me about? I scanned the article for details, which were sparse, reading, “...on a popular route called The Dirty Deed …26 years old, from Kansas, name withheld pending notification…” My pulse raced; could it have been Taylor?

I returned Taimi’s call first, with dread. When Taimi told me that she had called for social reasons and did not know anything about the death in Eldo, I was a bit more at ease. Still, I rushed from that conversation to call Lewis, Taylor’s housemate with a lump in my throat.

The phone rang a few times before Lewis answered in a quiet voice.

“Hello?”

“Lewis?”

“Have you seen the paper?”

“Yes… Someone we know?”

“A friend of Taylor’s. He was staying with us for the weekend.”

“Nobody I knew,” just an old buddy of Taylor’s. Although sad for the nameless climber and for his family and friends, I was relieved.

Lewis provided more details. He and Taylor had been in the canyon climbing The Yellow Spur, not far from their visiting friends. When he saw the fall from his position on the fourth pitch they retreated, abandoning gear, to rescue the injured climber. Lewis asked me to retrieve his gear and ropes, which I agreed to do on the next day.

I hung up the phone and met my roommates’ concerned looks with the only answer I could think of: “Nobody I knew.” Later that night the phone rang for me. I took only a few calls before asking my roommates not to disturb me. “He’s not available right now… "

“Nobody he knew, but a friend of a friend.”

It was nobody I knew, but I felt grief. The climbing community is small, and this loss felt personal, no matter who it was, or how distant.

Monday morning I packed up a rope, a Grigri, a small rack and a few gallons of water in a haul-bag. I was heading to Eldo, intent on soloing The West Chimney to reach the Red Ledge, from which I could traverse over to the Yellow Spur’s fourth pitch, fix a line and aid or solo to retrieve Lewis’ gear. I intended to use the water to wash away the blood of the nameless climber if I were to pass it on the Red Ledge traverse.

When I arrived at the base of the West Chimney, I paused at the site. Quarts of blood covered a ledge 15 feet above the ground and more was visible 30 feet up. I reasoned that this must have been the route by which the rescue team had retrieved the body from the wall. Being a bit squeamish, I sat down for a few minutes to catch my breath and calm myself. I took deep breaths with my face tucked down into my arms. “Nobody I knew” had become a mantra for me, calming me both the night before and now, sitting below the bloodied canyon wall. I tied into one end of my line, and tied the other to my haul bag. I started soloing up a clean area of the wall to the left but more blood appeared the higher I went. To escape them I traversed left to Rewritten. Still, as I moved up onto a blind in-cut overhead, I felt my fingers sink into a slick, cold pool of two-day-old blood. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. An image of the falling climber invaded my mind’s eye and a sickening numbness washed over me. I shuddered. “Nobody I knew.” I started humming a familiar tune to distract myself, putting everything else from my head other than the song and the second-nature robotics of climbing movement. I back-stepped to a hold behind me and felt blindly for a clean hold on that ledge, finding only more blood. “Nobody I knew,” but the scene would no longer allow my nonchalant disconnection. My mind reeled back to 1988, reading John Dunne…

“Any Man’s death diminishes me because I am involved with mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” (Dunne)

I felt a great sadness, a connection to the nameless climber. Blood was everywhere, and other personal effects were scattered. The information in the paper was incorrect, this was not where the rescue team had brought the body out, but the sight of the accident. I closed my eyes to the vulgar reality in front of me, but no use, imagined scenes appeared with haunting detail. I opened my eyes again and looked to the clouds to drive them away. The canyon was cold, empty and indifferent; my eyes welled up with tears and I shuddered again. “Nobody I knew.” Yet, this was someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s friend. I closed my eyes one more time and saw the nameless climber fall.

“Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon occasion rings? But who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the mainland. If a clod be washed away to sea, Europe is the less.” (Dunne)

I opened my pack and took out a jug of water; the few gallons I carried did little to wash away the blood. The job required much more. But I felt compelled to respect the nameless dead, a climber I had never known.…

I gave up on cleaning the wall and resumed my solo toward the Yellow Spur. Forty feet higher, as I was just below the scrambling exit of the first pitches of the chimney, a single move gave me pause. The move was a shade harder than the rest, with less certain balance and smaller footholds than the rest of the climb. Searching for the most secure moves I set my foot on a sloping hold and moved up insecurely. Seeing a fixed pin just out of reach, I knew exactly where the nameless climber met his end. I mantled the last of the ledges above hurriedly, while the dark images again took over again. A panicked novice on one of his first leads, a pin just out of reach, a decision to go for it unprotected and, finally, a slip. One single slip of a foot off a sloping edge, panic, terror, a scream…

I sat down on the ledge and looked up at the sky again. I had finished the last few moves blinded by the sequence of images playing in my mind from every angle, images that refused to leave me in peace. I was seeing what Taylor and Lewis had seen, what the belayer had seen, what the climber had seen in his last moments. Emotions toyed with me as I moved over and traversed around a corner en-route to my friends' gear, now paranoid. When I looked out into the canyon, my progress ended; I could go no further. I should have been comfortable there, but I was imagining my own body broken open on the ground below. I imagined my parents getting that phone call. Twenty feet from my objective, I froze.

“But this bell that tells me of his affliction… applies to me, if by this consideration of another’s danger I take mine into contemplation and so secure myself by making my recourse...” (Dunne)

I looked up toward Lewis’ gear, and decided it could wait; I would not do those moves today. I retreated nervously back toward the chimney, to my rope and my pack, each move harder and less secure than when I began the traverse. I rigged up some gear and my rope and started the rappels downward, pouring out the last of my water. I would return later to wash away the blood, to respect the nameless, the son, the brother the friend that belonged to us all just two days before. I arrived at the ground and packed up my gear and began the walk out to my car, slipping on the icy trail many times. Upon hitting the ground, I sat for a moment and thought for a few seconds about the accident. “Nobody I knew.”

When I arrived home I called Taylor and Lewis again.

“It’s a little rough” Taylor said. “Did Lewis tell you who it was?”

“No, only that it was an old friend of yours.”

“Tony, it was Dave. Lewis didn’t know that you…”

His voice faded away… Dave? 
My mind raced back to October, spinning back through volumes of images in my head: Dave was standing next to me on the West Ridge in Eldorado Canyon, smiling. Dave was cleaning a 5.7, working his way smoothly up the route; Dave was toproping a nearby 5.9, struggling to hold on; Dave was at the top of a 5.10, looking down with pride. Dave was standing beside me, explaining that while he had some mountain experience, he was looking at vertical rock as a new and different challenge. The images continued flashing through my head one after the other. Dave was across the table from me at dinner, drinking Margaritas. Dave was telling jokes, laughing, and smiling. Dave was getting out of my car, he told me that he would be back sometime next year and asked if I wanted to get out and climb some more next time he was in town. Dave was walking back into his hotel. When the mental movies committed to memory ran out, only one manufactured image remained: Dave’s motionless broken body on a ledge, a face of a nameless climber, smashed beyond recognition.

I am no longer haunted by the images of some nameless climber falling from the route in Eldorado. Now it is Dave who haunts me, someone’s son, someone’s brother… someone’s friend.

Russ Keanewrote:

It occurs to me that perhaps, the choice of the leader to clip the cordellete wrapped around the boulder/horn, may have magnified the likelihood of the protection coming free.  In other words, when the leader used the anchor as a Jesus piece, it made matters worse because when his fall pulled differently on the cordelette than had the fall been a straight factor two where the force yanked downwards on the belayer and also on the intended way the boulder was slung. 

You understand that the thing in question isn't fixed pro, right?
It's just the anchor that most people place and clean when they climb the route.
Any cord there at the time was placed by the party using it.

These threads so often break down into different camps: people calling for respect and condolences, others trying to figure out what happened, others trying to find fault, and so forth.  This is natural, expected, only human.  As far as I can tell, on this thread, I have seen a great deal of respect and compassion for the victims and the rescuers.  I have not seen mean-spirited fault finding, but only honest attempts to find out what happened.  And that makes sense, because this accident just doesn't add up.  It's not clear what happened--and we may never know.  But it can he helpful to many to try to figure out, knowing that we all make, or have the capacity to make, the same mistakes.  

This is my understanding so far:

A feature was used as protection with a cordelette.  It's not clear if this was lassoed with a pre-tied loop of cord, or a cord was threaded round and re-tied, a potential point of failure.  Also, is this a real boulder, or just a horn, where you need to maintain the pressure/angle of pull in a specific direction so that the protection holds?  However this was done, the belayer was attached to this, presumably with a clove-hitch on the climbing rope, maybe with something else like another sling or a PAS.

It's possible that a piece of protection--a sling--was added to this feature, or another feature. This sling was either used as a back up for the belayer's main attachment, or used as the first piece of pro on the next pitch, or both, that is, it was incorporated with the sling to secure the belayer, and it was also clipped as the first point of protection, a common though controversial practice.   

The climber ran into difficulty above the belay, with no other intermediate protection in place.  The climber jumped off intentionally, with communication between climber and belayer.  Somehow, the whole system failed. 

I see at least three main possibilities:

1-The cordelette/sling shifted on the horn and lifted off, perhaps before the jump/fall, maybe when the belayer was spotting the climber on the first moves.  The party was not attached to the wall. 

2-The force of the fall broke the cordelette/sling.  This seems implausible but not impossible.  If something did break, I think the community would be interested to know what, how, knots used, and so forth.  

3-The force of the fall pulled the cordelette/sling off the feature.  This seems entirely possible, especially if part of the anchor was used as the first point of protection, and the belayer was pulled up toward the feature, and possible pushed the cordage off with their body.  If this is the case, it would seem to be an instrumental case arguing for not clipping the anchor as a first piece, and using a direct belay, but that is just speculation--but it's an important point.  

People who have climbed this route may have a greater understanding of the liklihood of difference scenarios, and we may earn more from witnesses. 

All best.