In the morning of September 22, my partner (male, 34) and I (female, 38) were climbing at the Beer Wall. We had hoped to warm up on a 5.4, but the route was taken, so we chose Daisy Cutter, a nearby 5.7 sport route. My partner led. The route begins in a chimney before moving out left to the face and a good ledge. He fell twice while attempting to reach the anchors above the ledge. On the first attempt, his thigh hit the ledge, he flipped over, and he fell head first inside of the chimney below the ledge. On his second attempt, he scraped his thigh again on the ledge. He was wearing a helmet that likely saved his forehead from a nasty laceration. He did suffer a lot of bruises, scrapes, and cuts, so we decided to head out and get them all cleaned and bandaged. (Sources: Matt Smith and Anonymous.)

ANALYSIS

This route is known to have bad fall potential due to the positioning of the bolted protection, especially between the described ledge and the anchors. In addition, the leader said, “I may have misread the route. I thought a 5.7 would be relatively easy for me. I was about ten months into climbing, and it was my first time at the New River Gorge. I overestimated my skills at a new climbing location.” (Sources: Matt Smith and the Editors.)