Washington Pass – 3 Fatalities Rappelling on NEWS

While speculation should be avoided in most cases, I’m going to surmise that in this case, given it was a party of 4 and given the age/experience level of the team, that reluctance to leave gear was not a factor, and rather it was lack of suitable gear that was “placeable” at the location.  

For those who may be reluctant to leave gear, While Mark Smiley’s offer is admirable, it would be super lame to take him up on it and you’re missing the point.  The point is that it is so “out of bounds” to even consider cutting corners on life-death decision making situations over a few bucks of gear.  It’s so crazy that a complete stranger will reimburse you.   Instead just think of your own family and loved ones and how they would feel.  It’s your responsibility to do all you can to get back to them.  It’s the price of climbing as recreation. 

Mark Pilate wrote:

While speculation should be avoided in most cases, I’m going to surmise that in this case, given it was a party of 4 and given the age/experience level of the team, that reluctance to leave gear was not a factor, and rather it was lack of suitable gear that was “placeable” at the location.  

Agreed, and to be clear my two comments regarding Mark’s offer were not meant to insinuate that was the case whatsoever or to trivialize anything about this accident or other similar ones. Definitely agree with you, leave it all if it means we live. 

Mark Pilate wrote:

While speculation should be avoided in most cases, I’m going to surmise that in this case, given it was a party of 4 and given the age/experience level of the team, that reluctance to leave gear was not a factor, and rather it was lack of suitable gear that was “placeable” at the location.  

I wonder.

From Nick Sweeney's (2019?) trip report for the route:

"There are no fixed anchors on route, but it seems that a descent could easily be done with a single 60m rope by leaving rock gear if bailing. "

And the party of four had just ascended the way they were going down. Presumably, they found decent gear anchors on the way up.  

Last, it seems reasonable to assume they had more than one rope as a party of four.  Double rope raps would increase anchoring options for the first person down each rap.

Still, yes, lack of suitable gear in general is possible.

Other things come to mind.  Imagine the challenge looking for anchors while rapping in the dark.  Now imagine overall team is feeling pretty confident with how the descent has gone so far covering familiar terrain.  So someone goes down first who is relatively inexperienced.  Perhaps that  combination tends to increase the odds of stopping somewhere with a lone piton and otherwise scant gear options  - and settling for that.

I'm not saying any of this was the case.

Fortunately I lived through my years of bailing off of sketchy shit. Gear is just gear. I now  have zero pride when it comes to getting home alive and I really don't care how much gear that takes.  And I still might screw up and die. ... 

Mark Pilate wrote:

A very stark tragedy.  3 climbers lost in one fell swoop.  I admire the self-extraction execution.  Toughness personified.  

Not commenting on the specifics of this case, which is above my pay grade.  Absent proof to the contrary I assume all climbers made the best decisions possible given the circumstances in front of them, including the survivor. 

But in general, are we sure it's admirable to drive a fairly significant distance with a TBI?  Maybe sometimes calling in a rescue is the safer option, particularly if you have (admirably) already extracted yourself from an environment with objective hazard e.g., made it back to your car.

William K wrote:

But in general, are we sure it's admirable to drive a fairly significant distance with a TBI?  Maybe sometimes calling in a rescue is the safer option, particularly if you have (admirably) already extracted yourself from an environment with objective hazard e.g., made it back to your car.

That is assuming the device which one would make such a call survived the fall. Of course if the device did, it is hard to call for a rescue when one does not have a signal which is make such a call, be it a cell, radio, or other signal.  

William K wrote:

But in general, are we sure it's admirable to drive a fairly significant distance with a TBI?  Maybe sometimes calling in a rescue is the safer option, particularly if you have (admirably) already extracted yourself from an environment with objective hazard e.g., made it back to your car.

Report was, he drove to a “pay phone”. Seems reasonable to assume the survivor did not have a functioning cell phone.

I think the admiration is about him having the drive to get to medical help despite his injuries.

One doesn’t want to instead try to sleep off a TBI. Unsure of what other options were available.

This has come up in conversation with non-climbers recently, and I'm wondering what people here would do if you were rappelling to retreat, assuming gear limitations were not of concern.

As first person down, if you encountered a single piton with no usable placements to back it up, would you...

1. Traverse sideways for more opportunities?
2. Ascend upwards?
3. Continue downward?
4. Use the piton?

J L wrote:

This has come up in conversation with non-climbers recently, and I'm wondering what people here would do if you were rappelling to retreat, assuming gear limitations were not of concern.

As first person down, if you encountered a single piton with no usable placements to back it up, would you...

1. Traverse sideways for more opportunities?
2. Ascend upwards?
3. Continue downward?
4. Use the piton?

Depends on the actual circumstances--too many unknown variables to answer your question in the abstract.

Alan is right. Every circumstance is different. You just have to identify the options and decide as best you can, based on  experience and knowledge.

J L wrote:

This has come up in conversation with non-climbers recently, and I'm wondering what people here would do if you were rappelling to retreat, assuming gear limitations were not of concern.

As first person down, if you encountered a single piton with no usable placements to back it up, would you...

1. Traverse sideways for more opportunities?
2. Ascend upwards?
3. Continue downward?
4. Use the piton?

If it comes down to 4 being the only option then a vigorous bounce test should be performed before going off rappel. 

There is a 5th option that would be better than rapping off of a single pin:

5. Have all but the strongest member of the party downclimb the pitch on toprope, with someone putting in sufficient gear on that pitch (and clipping their rope into that pro) so that the strongest member of the team has protection for lead-downclimbing as the last member. 

Rapping off of a single old pin of unknown origin is by far the worst choice. Even if darkness is approaching. 

Sincere condolences to all involved in this. What a terrible tragedy.

Olga K1 wrote:

to whom it may concern so to say but rather to people who have climbed this route or something similar, could you make some comments
on the following subjects? I believe this info would be useful for others in their decision making
* decision to climb this (alike) route
* experience
* time to prepare
* route conditions assessment
* when to bail (when to bail on carry over)
* when to push sos button
* you've pushed the button and discovered there is no signal, your next action(s)

For your first post here you don't expect much do you? There's no way I could begin to answer these questions without knowing more about who is asking them, but the fact that you have asked them indicates to me that you're not likely prepared for the answers anyway.

I would rather not pass judgement on people I don't know who have had an accident on a route I have not done, but I have difficulty thinking I would have started up a somewhat remote alpine mixed route without some consideration as to how I might bail if necessary. In other words I would have had at least a hammer and given the lack of an established descent line most likely pins, cordage and gear I was more than willing to donate. Perhaps this helps your thought process regarding preparation.

People will probably encourage you to call for rescue sooner rather than later, as it is a benefit to the rescuers to get an early start. I have only self rescued so my advice is to avoid needing it at all if possible. 

J L wrote:

As first person down, if you encountered a single piton with no usable placements to back it up, would you...

1. Traverse sideways for more opportunities?
2. Ascend upwards?
3. Continue downward?
4. Use the piton?

Having twice done multiple raps on unknown terrain while bailing, and another time sussing out a new 5 pitch route …

That list leaves off a critical option - maybe your option 2. Though option 1 seems to happen on the way down.

We were optimizing for using most of the rope on rappel. First down keeps a mental note of the last likely gear anchor.  Just before getting uncomfortably close to the rope ends, ascend to the last good opportunity.

Here’s another article:

https://apnews.com/article/washington-rock-climber-fall-death-survivor-acad73387217d799119a34a3d9d42441

That article mentions a GoFundMe, anyone got a link?

Yikes- Just read the article Marc posted.  Apparently the wife of one of the deceased is named Olga.  Even though OlgaK1 has been apparently deleted by MP as potential bot acct (as I thought as well) it seems at the very least, an uncomfortable coincidence.  If Olga was in fact posting a legit inquiry for wider perspective on the accident, please accept my profound apologies and condolences.  Please call me directly at (952) 818-2278 if you have questions.  

h j wrote:

That article mentions a GoFundMe, anyone got a link?

https://www.spotfund.com/story/f2174a23-36a7-4434-bf55-853dce5d17af

I'm all for keeping this place bot-free, but I do think we've gotten a bit too eager to write folks off as bots recently. Very much not a critique of you specifically, Mark, but perhaps we can all take this as a reminder to be careful.

Terry E wrote:

https://www.spotfund.com/story/f2174a23-36a7-4434-bf55-853dce5d17af

Do we have any validation of this link? Not tryna be too suspicious, just wondering if anyone has confirmed this came from the family. A bit of Googling shows me one or two other links to it, but nothing verifiable.