Fatal accident at Tahquitz today

Tim. joe simpson and partner were dangling from a knife blade and apparently fighting like cats and dogs to be first to get plucked by the helicopter... 

Benjamin Shackelford wrote:

https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/2022/09/29/two-rock-climbers-found-dead-near-idyllwildrs-found-dead-near-idyllwild/8126418001/

RIP Chelsea and Gavin

Article explains that Gavin was an NFL tight end from 2013-2016 after being drafted in the 2nd round in 2013. RIP to him and Chelsea.

It then goes in to say “weather has not been cited as a factor in the deaths”, which is obviously ridiculous and poor journalism.

Just wanted to save everybody a click.

https://nbcpalmsprings.com/2022/09/29/man-woman-killed-climbing-mountainside-near-idyllwild-identified/

Most football fans will know of him for his years with the Cowboys. Cowboys fans will certainly know the name. While not a star, he was a pretty good tight end for many years. 

apogeewrote:

Edit:

Word from two persons involved in recovery is that there is a lot that isn't clear at this time, however apparently the rope was knotted at both ends, and no anchor gear between the two partners. One person was attached to the rope via an ATC on a PAS tether, the other person had some kind of rap device with a prussik backup on their harness, but was not attached to the rope. A nearby witness said they saw the party fall with a very large (refrigerator sized) block. A coroners report is expected in a few days that may shed more light.

The explanation for which one was attached and one not was that it was a simul and one of them missed clipping the rope in their atc.

Edit @ Cor:

Two knots reported at both ends of the rope, ie didn’t rap off the end.

Tradibanwrote:

The explanation for which one was attached and one not was that it was a simul and one of them missed clipping the rope in their atc.

If I were pulling wild guesses out of my butt - as you are - a football player as a conservative climber and a novice female simul rapping together wouldn’t be one of them.

A sling anchor failing with one on rappel and one clipped to the anchor - would be the simplest and highest probability given what’s known - however we’ll wait and read the report, as there are a lot of knowable details missing.

There has been no information about whether Gavin’s device had one or two strands threaded through it, though it was apparently threaded somewhere in the middle of the rope.

The report from RMRU will be quite interesting to read- hopefully it will bring more clarification.

We were caught in that same storm, it was sudden and it was a downpour creating gushing  rivers all over the rock. We hid out under a slab of rock at the peak, when we heard a female voice crying out and then what we thought was thuds, but we weren’t sure since it was thundering pretty heavily. The response was very quick and we saw two helicopters come and go and assumed the climbers were rescued.  But on our way down we ran into SAR and they informed us of the 2 fatalities. I’m still a bit shook and my heart goes out to the families and friends of the 2 climbers. We ran into them at the top of the trailhead and had a quick exchange, they seemed happy and excited to climb Dave’s. Whatever the scenario this is a sad day.

Stay safe out there

The most detailed information says that one climber was attached to the rope, and the other was not. Do we know if the climber that was attached was on both strands?  Maybe one climber was rapping with the rope around a large block, and the other was standing on a ledge preparing to rap, hence the device and prussik on the harness but not the rope.  The block pulled, and both climbers fell. 

Another sad and mysterious accident that hopefully will make us all just a little more carefull. 

RIP

James Wwrote:

If I were pulling wild guesses out of my butt - as you are - a football player as a conservative climber and a novice female simul rapping together wouldn’t be one of them.

Chelsea was not a novice climber, she’d been climbing a decade and had taught many others to climb and rappel safely. We had a whole debate about tying knots once - whether the chance of the rope getting stuck outweighed rapping off the end… she was team knots. I know even the most experienced climbers make mistakes, so anything is possible but I just wanted to say, she was deliberate and careful and always had safety in mind. We’d been friends since college and both come to climbing separately, but I got to climb with her quite a few times in the last few years. She was so graceful and so strong, I can only dream of climbing like her. We had plans to go to smith rock and trout creek this fall… I just loved her so deeply. Anyway, call your loved ones and please be safe out there. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-29/gavin-escobar-former-nfl-player-killed-while-rock-climbing%3f_amp=true

Same incident I'm assuming

James Wwrote:

If I were pulling wild guesses out of my butt - as you are - a football player as a conservative climber and a novice female simul rapping together wouldn’t be one of them.

A sling anchor failing with one on rappel and one clipped to the anchor - would be the simplest and highest probability given what’s known - however we’ll wait and read the report, as there are a lot of knowable details missing.

I agree, it's unlikely given their sizes that they decided to simul but possibly in a rush to get down they decided to do so (Edit: saw some pics of the guy, he was big no way they planned on a simul). It's unlikely a tat anchor failed as there isn't one in the location they fell from and slings/tat generally don't just fail. 

Slinging a horn/boulder to which one was clipped and the other was rapping on and then the horn failing seems more likely. As Bruno notes knowing if the attached climber had one or two strands in their rap device will solve the simul or not mystery.   

I'm aware of one slingable horn/boulder in that location that I know was loose, after the steepness of Piton Pooper there's a bit of a scramble before you go left to URA, it is/was right there. It would seem like a good place to belay and subsequently bail off and I don't think it's looseness would be obvious. Also, that spot is strangely void of good gear placements besides around this boulder I'm talking about, in a rush I could definitely see someone gearing it up for belay/rap. 

The most  likely scenario from what we know which is that they were seen falling with a large block and  one was rappelling,  the other not  rappelling is anchor failure do to rock fall.  We don't know if the  falling block was the anchor or took out the anchor..

I'd been keeping an eye on the forecast all week, and I kept seeing that there was a forecast of possible bad weather for Wednesday. This is the NOAA forecast page I normally use for Idyllwild: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-116.71257019042967&lat=33.748579246932735 

Does anyone recall the details of that day's forecast -- how likely they were saying a storm was, and how intense? 

In summer, there's often a lot of monsoonal weather, and pretty often the forecast in Idy for a month at a time will be the same thing every day: a 20% chance of rain after 11 am, with only a very small amount of precipitation if it does rain. My experience is that when that's the forecast, all it's likely to do, if it rains at all, is just sprinkle a tiny bit -- not even enough to make it a problem to climb the slabs above Lunch Ledge. I've had various climbing partners who have had various trigger levels they would set based on that forecast. Some will climb if it's 10% but not if it's 20%, some will consider climbing if it's 30%, etc.

John Texwrote:

https://nbcpalmsprings.com/2022/09/29/man-woman-killed-climbing-mountainside-near-idyllwild-identified/

Most football fans will know of him for his years with the Cowboys. Cowboys fans will certainly know the name. While not a star, he was a pretty good tight end for many years. 

I met Galvin when he was still trying to play football and had started climbing.  He tried out for the Patriots that season as I recall and I remember teasing him about what BB would say about him wasting time rock climbing.  Tremendous smile and enthusiasm.  

Corwrote:

  Rope could have been not evened out for each descender.  One raps off end, other then falls when rope pulls through anchor.  

apogeewrote:

 however apparently the rope was knotted at both ends, 

Ben Crowellwrote:

I'd been keeping an eye on the forecast all week, and I kept seeing that there was a forecast of possible bad weather for Wednesday. This is the NOAA forecast page I normally use for Idyllwild: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-116.71257019042967&lat=33.748579246932735 

Does anyone recall the details of that day's forecast -- how likely they were saying a storm was, and how intense? 

In summer, there's often a lot of monsoonal weather, and pretty often the forecast in Idy for a month at a time will be the same thing every day: a 20% chance of rain after 11 am, with only a very small amount of precipitation if it does rain. My experience is that when that's the forecast, all it's likely to do, if it rains at all, is just sprinkle a tiny bit -- not even enough to make it a problem to climb the slabs above Lunch Ledge. I've had various climbing partners who have had various trigger levels they would set based on that forecast. Some will climb if it's 10% but not if it's 20%, some will consider climbing if it's 30%, etc.

I was with Alex and Amanda who’ve posted about weather conditions on Wednesday at Tahquitz around the time of the accident. Weather forecasts can vary from site to site. We looked at climbingweather.com which had 14% chance before 11am, mourntain-forecast.com for San Jacinto had no precipitation forecasted. I can’t recall what NOAA link on MP had but think it was similar to climbingweather.com. We thought we’d be ok with those numbers. We saw them on the approach trail as we were about to split off to Left Ski Track. We wished us all a good day of climbing and good weather.

I’m saddened by the turn of events for the day. I send my condolences to their family and friends. 

"Does anyone recall the details of that day's forecast -- how likely they were saying a storm was, and how intense?"

Thunderstorm activity in Idyllwild is generally more common in the middle of the summer, however this year there was more thunderstorm & rain activity in the area than typical for whatever reason. September is less common, however there was a Tstorm event last week, and as previously described, there was obvious buildup as early as 9 am on Wednesday, the day of the accident. There were two events that day- the first one (around noon) lasted about 30-40 minutes and was accompanied by moderate rain (in town)- this is the one that probably had this party choosing to apparently descend. The second event, later in the afternoon, was particularly intense, washing a lot of mud and debris all over the town.

Tstorm activity is by its nature highly localized- forecasts from any source are commonly erratic and inaccurate for a specific mountain location. It's always important to closely watch local conditions, and adjust plans accordingly.

Ben Crowellwrote:

I'd been keeping an eye on the forecast all week, and I kept seeing that there was a forecast of possible bad weather for Wednesday. This is the NOAA forecast page I normally use for Idyllwild: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-116.71257019042967&lat=33.748579246932735 

Does anyone recall the details of that day's forecast -- how likely they were saying a storm was, and how intense? 

In summer, there's often a lot of monsoonal weather, and pretty often the forecast in Idy for a month at a time will be the same thing every day: a 20% chance of rain after 11 am, with only a very small amount of precipitation if it does rain. My experience is that when that's the forecast, all it's likely to do, if it rains at all, is just sprinkle a tiny bit -- not even enough to make it a problem to climb the slabs above Lunch Ledge. I've had various climbing partners who have had various trigger levels they would set based on that forecast. Some will climb if it's 10% but not if it's 20%, some will consider climbing if it's 30%, etc

I was driving back from Anaheim and I noted the mushroom clouds out toward Idy.  It was one of the bigger clouds I had seen in my ~3 years in SoCal.  There are reports on facebook groups about the water flow gushing down the rock and I think I saw someone mentioning hail.

Condolences to the victim's friends and family.

Eric Holdenwrote:

RMRU is currently investigating the cause of the accident.  Once we get all the information collected something will be posted on https://rmru.org/..  Our thoughts go out to both climber's friends and family.  

I just read some of your reports. Thank you for everything that you do!

Ben Crowellwrote:

I'd been keeping an eye on the forecast all week, and I kept seeing that there was a forecast of possible bad weather for Wednesday. This is the NOAA forecast page I normally use for Idyllwild: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-116.71257019042967&lat=33.748579246932735 

Does anyone recall the details of that day's forecast -- how likely they were saying a storm was, and how intense? 

In summer, there's often a lot of monsoonal weather, and pretty often the forecast in Idy for a month at a time will be the same thing every day: a 20% chance of rain after 11 am, with only a very small amount of precipitation if it does rain. My experience is that when that's the forecast, all it's likely to do, if it rains at all, is just sprinkle a tiny bit -- not even enough to make it a problem to climb the slabs above Lunch Ledge. I've had various climbing partners who have had various trigger levels they would set based on that forecast. Some will climb if it's 10% but not if it's 20%, some will consider climbing if it's 30%, etc.

Showers on Tah are regularly “intense” but usually brief and I would implore anyone caught in one to ride it out instead of hastily retreating.

In addition the idea that there was enough of a torrent to push a large block off from above the climbers is very unlikely as there’s not enough surface area that high up to collect a powerful enough water force or any boulders dependent on soil for their positions. I have actually been caught in an intense storm in the exact spot as the indicated location of the accident.

Furthermore, “acts of God” explanations and that climbers were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time are extremely rare and more applicable to less stable environments than are found in that section of Tah.

EDIT:

@Pug

I don’t think any of it is particularly dangerous from heavy rain and I don’t consider above Pine Tree ledge particularly loose. Truth is that Tah doesn’t shed too much random rock compared to true alpine environments. The loose band above Whodunnit then right to Wong Climb is suspect but I haven’t seen any activity not caused by people themselves.

@Alexandria

Yea about an hour sounds normal. Deciding to move up, down, or stay put depends heavily on the particulars of the moment but in general the storms don’t last as long as people think they will.