East Ridge of Wolf's Head peak Accident Report July-6-2022

For our second day of climbing in the cirque of the towers, having completed the northeast face of Pingora the previous day, my partner and I decided to try the classic east ridge of wolf's head. The day started at first light with a short breakfast, followed by a brisk approach to the tiger peak start of the east ridge. Our ice axes proved useful to gain the gully up to the ridge line, but the crampons were never needed. The climbing went fun easy and quick with Tiger peak being quickly crossed simul-climbing, and the rappels short and easy. We quickly reached the base of the east ridge proper and proceeded to simul the first portion of the knife edge ridge all the way to the first tower. with some grunting thru the horizontal chimney, and a few more long wandering pitches we arrived at the summit a bit before 11am. The clouds were starting to look a little gray so we had a brief rest and then started the standard decent route.

The first two rappels were easy to find, and the cordage looked good on both. after some scrambling across the west face we found the next set of rappel anchors, and proceeded down, again deeming the cordage to be in reasonable condition. After more sideways scrambling we arrived at the 5th rappel. I inspected the visible sections of the cordage on the anchor, two lengths of cordelette roughly 5mm to 6mm, and yanked hard on the anchor. The cord held the pull and handled well not showing indications of sever sun damage, however it was wedge into a crack and I could not see to back side of the material. I then threaded the rope, and prepared to rappel first to the next ledge about 50ft below. 

After checking my ATC i loaded the rope and sat back to rappel. Almost immediately I was accelerating downward at 9.8m/s. Roughly half way down, my feet impacted a small ledge, causing me to somersault before landing on the ledge at the bottom of the rappel, mostly on my back and left side. I immediately knew i was badly injured and heard my partner calling out if i was ok. I responded that i was not and he should activate the beacon that was in his backpack. My partner activated the emergency beacon, and after that also called into 911, which was able to be reached via normal cell phone (in emergency mode) from the west face of wolfs head looking toward the town of Pinedale. SAR responded that their helicopter was already out on a rescue, but they would refuel and be at our location in roughly an hour. 

During wait, i untangled myself from the rope and anchor cords and did a self assessment as best i could, and found i had broken both legs, with an open fracture on the right, i had some painful spots on my back, and my right arm was weak, i had also broken my helmet into 3 pieces, and had multiple facile lacerations. i did my best to communicate my injuries to my partner, who relayed them to the 911 SAR dispatcher. Roughly an hour after calling in we heard and then saw the helicopter flying up the valley. The helicopter located our position quickly and then landed down by a lake to rig a long line for a pick off. at this time a second party showed up at the ledge were the 5th rap anchor had been and my partner still was. The helicopter came back in short order and a rescuer dropped onto my ledge in short order. the rescuer attempted to splint my legs with some tape ridged foam supports, and got a 3 point seat harness under me. With that accomplished we clipped back into the long line, and the helicopter lifted use off the side of the mountain and did a short flight down to the flat landing area near the lake on the west side. At the lake landing site, the SAR team transferred me into a soft litter, and loaded me in the back of the helicopter. A short 5 minute flight later I was at the Pinedale clinic. The clinic staff began work on my injuries immediately, and gave me a powerful sedative. 

A day and a half later i woke up in a hospital room in Idaho Falls, with a back brace, a cast on my right arm, and an external fixation device on both legs, along with multiple stitches and bandages. All told I had broken my tibia and fibula in both legs, my radial and ulnus in the right arm as well as the thumb on the right hand, 2 vertebrae, the orbital bone structure over my left eye, and the bridge of my nose. I ended up staying in the hospital just short of a month, receiving a major surgery on both legs to add lots of new titanium hardware to my shattered bones. The doctors were confident that i will be able to walk on my own again by winter, although my ankle strength and mobility will be permanently affect.

In Summary:

WEAR A HELMET based on the damage to my helmet and other facile trauma, i would have died had the helmet not been on my head.

Also bring more fresh cordelette for decent routes, and if reasonable a bolting kit with some knowledge of how to install solid permanent rap anchors.

A big thanks to Tip Top SAR and all the docs and medical staff of Pinedale and Idaho Falls, and a further thanks to all my family and friends that have supported me physically and emotionally thus far.

-Alex S.

P.S.  Sorry for poor spelling and grammar, and delays in writing this up, but learning to do everything left-handed takes some time.

Thanks for sharing, a good write up. Hope you recover quickly!

I’ll add a bit to this report, as I was Alex’s partner for the trip. Alex fell while I was descending to the rappel station. I was uncertain how he fell at the time, and initially thought that he might have slipped rather than the anchor failure. This made me extremely cautious about moving around the nearby terrain. After activating the beacon and calling 911, I set up an emergency blanket to act as a signal to the helicopter, although I’m not sure if it helped. I briefly considered down climbing so I could administer first aid, but I quickly realized that the terrain was too difficult, and I would only add another injured person to the problem. As the rope fell with Alex, there was no safe way to reach him.

I did my best to remain in contact with SAR while maintaining battery life. I missed a call early on due to my phone being on vibrate, but fixed that once I realized what had happened. I was fortunate enough to be on a fairly large ledge with a boulder between me and the edge, which helped with keeping me calm. When the second party arrived, we were told to remain in place until the helicopter had finished the rescue, as SAR didn’t want the area around him to be crowded. In the end, it took about 3 hours to get him off the mountain.

After the rescue, I decided to continue down the mountain with the 2nd party, rather than waiting for another helicopter, as it would be a faster route down and it would allow me to inform the other 2 people on the trip what had happened, as well as get the gear. We stayed one more night, and hiked out in the morning.

Some quick lessons learned:

 carry your identification and medical insurance. Neither of us had ours on us when this happened, and it might have made the aftermath a little smoother.

double check for emergency signal. I think the service I had sped up the process significantly. There was no indicator on the beacon that the message had been sent. It may be worth it to invest in 2 way communication for deeper backcountry trips  

Take your phone off vibrate.

Don’t attempt to reach someone if it is unsafe to do so.

-Peter

Glad you are ok...

If possible back up anchors for the first person repelling ( no tension on the back up )

Bounce testing I find useful also

I repelled off bolted anchors last year.... 

Be safe out there

Peace

Hope your recovery is quick and smooth.  Take care.

Wow. Really glad you survived and hope your recovery goes well!! Just curious, what helmet were you wearing? 

Great write-up Alex. Hoping you recover quickly.

Couple questions: 

1) You seem well versed in managing yourself as a patient. What sort of experience did you have leading up to this event that came in handy?

2) From your write-up, it's not totally clear what actually failed. Do you know if it was the tat or user error?

Here's to your recovery. 

Damn rappeling in the Winds is no joke. Reminds me a little of the Janette Heung accident.

This report was horrifying to read.  It's something of a miracle you survived.  Wishing the best for your recovery.

Cheers to your recovery sir. Thank you for sharing.

Just curious, what helmet were you wearing?

I had an older style mammut wall rider helmet.

Couple questions: 

1) You seem well versed in managing yourself as a patient. What sort of experience did you have leading up to this event that came in handy?

2) From your write-up, it's not totally clear what actually failed. Do you know if it was the tat or user error?

1)  While this has been by far my worst injury, i have broken a bone climbing before so i had a rough idea of how thinks were going to hurt.  I also have family members that work in front line healthcare and i have picked up lots of random things via osmosis from living with them.  Additionally im friends with a bunch of folks that are on SAR teams, so once Peter had contact with the local SAR team in WY and we had an outline of a plan i knew what to do to make their jobs as easy and quick as possible.

2)  The existing cordelette on the rap anchor is what broke causing the fall.  But it is also on me that i choose to utilize that anchor as-is based on the section of the anchor i could see and test, and the experience of the previous 4 anchors along the decent route all being good.  

My suspicion is that on the backside of the block the cord was wrapped around it must have been damage, likely being run over an edge.  but since part of teh loop of cord was wedged frimly into a crack i couldn't slide the cord around to investigate the hidden half of the material.

And thanks to everyone else for the well wishes.

Was there a rap ring or biner or anything like that, or was the rope passing directly over the cord?

James Wwrote:

Was there a rap ring or biner or anything like that, or was the rope passing directly over the cord?

Double aluminum rings on two pieces of 5 or 6mm cord, one green and one orange.

If the cord was wedged and you couldn’t move it, cutting seems like a reasonable assumption to me.

I recall giant nests of webbing for rap anchors on that route.  Such a spartan anchor on a massively travelled trade route is also a little weird, like possibly a better anchor was missed.

Hi Alex,

I'm glad you are alright now. I had a similar experience in the Deep Lake area a year ago where I took a nasty fall and was knocked unconscious. Tip Top flew me out to Pinedale where I was transferred to an air ambulance and flown to Idaho Falls. Just a heads up, that if you also took an air ambulance, they will likely send you a ridiculous bill ($70-80k). You do not owe this! This is a bs routine that they try to pull on people to get insurance companies to pay more. If this does happen to you, I recommend a lawyer named Richard Burke: https://qulegal.com/richard-j-burke/.. The man worked on a completely contingent basis, meaning he only got paid after he finished his settlement against Air Methods. I didn't pay anything out of pocket. I hope you are resting up and doing better. I just want you to be prepared for a lot of bullshit medical bills to be sent your way. Always check that your insurance has either paid or discounted your bill before paying anything. It took me almost a year to get an $850 refund from a medical company that purposely overbilled me and I mistakenly paid.

All the best

Sam

Alex: Thanks for posting and glad you're alive. All the best for your recovery.

Sam Rumelwrote:

...I had a similar experience in the Deep Lake area a year ago where I took a nasty fall and was knocked unconscious. Tip Top flew me out to Pinedale where I was transferred to an air ambulance and flown to Idaho Falls. Just a heads up, that if you also took an air ambulance, they will likely send you a ridiculous bill ($70-80k)...

There's new federal legislation effective Jan 1, 2022 that's intended to prevent this type of abuse. If you've got ACA-compliant health insurance (for example, through employment), and it's a medical emergency, then out-of-network providers such as air ambulance companies are no longer allowed to send you a surprise "balance bill". They're supposed to work things out with your insurer, and your co-pay is supposed to be no worse than if the out-of-network provider wasn't involved. That's the theory, anyway. No doubt the private equity firms that own these air ambulance companies will be looking for loopholes.

Martin le Rouxwrote:

Alex: Thank for posting and glad you're alive. All the best for your recovery.

There's new federal legislation effective Jan 1, 2022 that's intended to prevent this type of abuse. If you've got ACA-compliant health insurance (for example, through employment), and it's a medical emergency, then out-of-network providers such as an air ambulance companies are no longer allowed to send you a surprise "balance bill". They're supposed to work things out with your insurer, and your co-pay is supposed to be no worse than if the out-of-network provider wasn't involved. That's the theory, anyway. No doubt the private equity firms that own these air ambulance companies will be looking for loopholes.

Can you share a link?

I was hit with a 50K air ambulance bill.  My insurance eventually paid all but 1K, but they had an extensive checklist (e.g., life or death, an ambulance would take longer, etc)  to verify I qualified for their support.

Thank you for sharing and I hope that you recover well.

I hope that this spurs a further conversation about installing rap anchors. It is environmentally better than Tat (not to mention more visually pleasing). I imagine it will not increase the traffic in the winds as has been previously suggested. 

Gumby Kingwrote:

Can you share a link?

Try https://www.cms.gov/nosurprises/consumers. This only applies to expenses incurred after Jan 1, 2022. And there are some exceptions, such as ground ambulances. But there's no exception for air ambulances.

Another link (may be hidden behind a paywall): https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/upshot/medical-bill-ban-biden.html.

Alex Swrote:

… at the 5th rappel. I inspected the visible sections of the cordage on the anchor, two lengths of cordelette roughly 5mm to 6mm, and yanked hard on the anchor. The cord held the pull and handled well not showing indications of sever sun damage, however it was wedge into a crack and I could not see to back side of the material. I then threaded the rope, and prepared to rappel first to the next ledge about 50ft below. 

Alex,

Your fall could have been mine. I recall that the last rap anchor we used on that descent in ~2014 was very similar. Our anchor rock was kinda shattered and none of the cords in the cracks could be fully inspected. We scouted around a little and did not find other options.

For some reason, at that time, we didn’t think the anchor could be easily supplemented with gear and we thought the anchor had “enough going on” to be ok.  It worked, but our reasoning was not solid and perhaps was partially born out of tiredness.

I won’t get into could-a, would-a, should-a.  We did none of that.  Besides, this is mostly just to say I empathize with you.  Best wishes during your recovery. 

When does the bolt discussion start? Ratty tat breaking backs, vs titanium glue in...