How 3am cracked me

This accident occurred in April of 2023, this post was made to share my story and encourage others recovering.

After a snowstorm dumped feet of snow on to the wyoming plains, my boss approved a few days off work while waiting for the highways to reopen. I packed my subaru and darted straight south eight hours to moab where the storm missed. I had no partners, but was psyched on exploring and hopefully could get a belayer for some cracks in the creek. My first stop was arches national park and I soloed elephant butte and had a blast. After a fun half day, I worked south towards looking glass rock for another quick solo. Atop that rock I met a crew of six climbers around my age on a spring break trip. We quickly got along and I enjoyed riding their rope swing. Afterwards, they shared that they were going to the creek for the first time and I made plans to meet them the next day.

The next morning we met up and got after it. I recall acting as a group lead since I had at least ten days climbing at the creek by that point and about as much climbing experience as their whole crew combined. On our first day at the creek we had a good time, we put up and shared several top ropes. At one point I recall rambling about the creek and said "... the most common accident in Indian creek is being lowered off the end of a rope, always tie stopper knots."

For our next day we met again at the super crack parking lot. I made plans with two of them to try castleton tower the next day, I knew my trip was coming to a close and I was psyched to try that objective. After warming up on the right side of supercrack buttress and working left, I told one climber he should try leading 3am crack. I knew it was out of his reach, but he was stoked and we had all the cams he needed to safely push himself. I made sure they had all the gear and asked if their rope was a 70m.

They tried 3am crack and after some hanging, were lowered back to the ground from fifty feet up, now it was my turn. Since all the hanging, we swapped belayers and I tied in. My ascent went well, but my pumped hands grabbed a cam near the top barely blowing the red point.  I was lowered down the route cleaning cams quickly to get the crew moving when the accident occurred. From about twenty five feet up I began to free fall.

Fortunately I held near perfect falling position and my belayer acted as padding as I landed on them. I screamed in pain and bystanders ran over. While there was no bleeding, my condition was stable except for some shock. I sat on a boulder and watched as a different team hopped on the route to clean my gear off the anchor. While I hoped the pain would subside and I could get a TR lap on the route I rope gunned, my feet remained in pain whenever touched. After an hour, the two strongest guys in the crew carried me down half of the approach before I decided I would rather crawl.

They helped me into my subaru and pulled out everything I needed into the passenger seat before I drove away. It became apparent that my feet still worked, but pressure on the heels hurt, with a pillow on my ankle driving wasn't too bad. At one point i got out of my subaru to pee and struggled in pain, I used the roof bars and walked on my toes. Halfway home, I had to call a gas station worker out to my car to help me fill up my tank. Once home I had my roomie use a roller chair and skateboard to get me into bed.

The next day I crawled into my car and made it to the ER. I had two small fractures on my heels and spent the next six weeks in boots with crutches. The time spent at home was depressing, but I enjoyed completing all the video games I never finished and cooking new recipes. At the six week mark, I got the doctor's approval to slowly begin walking then climbing and was suprised at how quickly I went from crutches to rock climber.

At the gym I could climb as long as I didn't fall on my feet, I could even ride my bike. After one more week, I was back at Vedauwoo starting with aid climbing and approaching on my bicycle. Free climbing came back quickly too, but heel toes hurt. At the eight week mark, I returned to my blue collar job with extra sturdy boots and life resumed. By sixteen weeks I even soloed the grand teton, but slept in a cave on the way down as my feet were sore.

Conclusion: 

While I still love to meet and climb with strangers, I am much more careful. After this accident, I mostly just climbed with very trusted partners or with a self belay. I now often experience images flashing in my mind of me falling to my death whenever I'm doing something moderately sketchy. Whenever I climb now, I've adopted a much more aggressive pre climb checklist where I check tie in and stopper knots (when appropiate). Lastly while I give the partners slight fault for telling me their rope was 70m (it was a 60!), as the most experienced climber I accept responsibility for skipping a stopper knot. Sure my heels still feel a bit sore and it sometimes bothers me while I sleep. But at the end of the day, I feel incredibly fortunate to have crawled away and made a full recovery.

Bailey Moore wrote:

Fortunately I held near perfect falling position and my belayer acted as padding as I landed on them.

They forgot the knot, but at least they gave a soft catch!

For real though glad you weren’t too hurt and seem to have healed up well, and nice of you to not put all the blame on the belayer. It seems like it’s way easier to forgot the knot at the end than it is to forget to finish your tie-in since it isn’t directly attached to you, isn’t a problem the vast majority of the time even if you do forget it, and many people don’t have a consistent habit of tying/checking them if they also climb in the gym. Stories like this are a good reminder to stay vigilant about this, thanks for sharing.

Bailey - I mainly wanted to write two things:

1. I'm glad your injuries were not more severe and that you are out there climbing with lots of stoke!

2. I appreciated you sharing your story in such a clear, reflective, but not overly judgmental way. This is a mistake that COULD happen to any of us, including myself (I really enjoyed 3AM Crack). Thank you for sharing your pointed reminder to be vigilant and systematic.

As an additional comment, these days I almost always climb with a single partner or a group of three. But on the exceptional occasion, I find that with larger groups (or even just in the hustle & bustle of a crag like SCB) there is more opportunity for distraction making systems, rituals, or checks all the more important.