CANADA

We thank Canada for submitting reports from Alberta and British Columbia for this year. Robert Chisnall, an ACC member from Kinsgston, Ontario, was responsible for editing the narratives.

UNITED STATES

This is the second year for a new section in Accidents called “Know the Ropes: Fundamentals to Save Your Life,” which targets common causes of many of the incidents analyzed herein. We hope these technical tips will increase awareness and education, and thus help prevent accidents. The topic for this year is lowering, which seems especially appropriate given that, since 2003, there have been 79 reported errors in this category.

Unfortunately, rappel errors, the topic of last year’s Know the Ropes section, continue to be a frequent contributor to incidents. Whereas the average number of rappel errors over a 10-year period was seven per year, there were 17 incidents reported this year. We’ll assume that our tips did not capture a wide enough audience of climbers.

This year we have grouped accidents by climbing centers in each state rather than by date. The goal is to help readers understand the trends in significant locations. We are no longer listing all mountain rescue teams in the U.S., primarily because the website of the Mountain Rescue Association contains this and much more information. We encourage you to visit this site: www.mra.org.

Aram Attarian continues his much-valued contributions as ANAM associate editor, collecting narratives and data from the Southeast and Colorado. In addition to the AAC professional staff, Erik Hansen and Joe Forrester continue their contributions as copy editors.

Along with the dedicated individuals on the Safety Advisory Council, we are grateful to the National Park Service rangers who forward their incident reports, and to all individuals who send in or post their personal stories.