RAPPEL ERROR—ANCHOR SLING CAME OFF, INADEQUATE PROTECTION, FALL ON ROCK

California, Yosemite Valley, Sentinel Rock.

On April 17, Charles Comstock (34) and Jay Schifferdecker (27) hiked up the third-class approach ramps to the Chouinard-Herbert route on Sentinel Rock. When they reached the climb it was late. They decided they didn’t feel like doing that route after all, so they descended the same way they’d come up. The ramps had been covered with verglas earlier, and they were still wet, loose, and slippery, so the pair decided to rappel a shallow gully in the middle of the face.

Their fifth rappel anchor, two pitches above the ground, was a pointed horn, around which they looped a sling. They worried that their weight might cause the sling to pop off the horn but, after some discussion, decided it would be OK. Comstock held the sling in place on top of the horn while Schifferdecker, keeping downward pressure on it from below, eased himself into the rappel. The sling shifted while he descended, but he made it to the next anchor.

Comstock felt the sling would have come off if he hadn’t stabilized it. Nevertheless, he thought he could rappel safely by himself, by staying closer to the rock at the start than Schifferdecker had.

Comstock had rappelled about 12 feet when he felt and saw the sling suddenly shift halfway off the horn and stop. He was reaching for a nearby handhold when the sling came all the way off. He fell 20-30 feet down a chimney and landed on a small ledge.

He immediately knew he was injured. Both his ankles and his right hip hurt and he could not bear weight on his legs. The anchor sling lay nearby, still around the rope, so he retied it around a nearby chockstone and rappelled/slithered on his good side down to Schifferdecker. From there he was able to rappel the final pitch to the ground, where he waited while Schifferdecker went for help.

Schifferdecker reported to the NPS at about 1400, and the first rescuers reached Comstock about an hour later. He was packaged in a full-body vacuum splint and carried a mile down to the road. X-rays at the clinic showed fractures of the right side of his pelvis, the left ankle, and both heels.

Analysis

Comstock had been climbing frequently for 16 years and led 5.9. For the last ten years he had averaged 40 expedition days/year. Schifferdecker had been climbing for 8 years and led 5.9-5.10.

Both climbers agree that the compression force of the loaded sling slid it off the point of the horn. They feel that a longer sling would have stayed in place since those forces would have been less. (Source: John Dill, NPS Ranger)