In 2022, there were 13 reported climbing-related accidents on the Mohonk Preserve. These included eight leader accidents, three bouldering accidents, and one lowering incident. Recorded injuries included three head/facial injuries, one shoulder injury, six ankle injuries, one knee injury, one abdominal/hip injury, and one spinal injury.

In the lowering accident, the climbers were top-roping the entirety of a two-pitch 5.10 with one 70-meter rope. With a 70, lowering from this pitch is a rope-stretching game where the belayer must be very close to the wall for the climber to make it down to the ground. In this instance, the belayer was standing away from the wall, there was no knot in the rope end, and the belayer was distracted in conversation with another person on the ground. When the climber was approximately five feet off the ground, the rope slipped through the belayer’s device, causing the climber to freefall to the ground, landing on their back. The patient reported back pain and tingling in their lower extremities after the impact.

Another accident occurred when a leader took a fall on pitch one of a 5.8 route. This pitch takes a long traverse starting only about 20 feet off the ground. The climber slipped on the slab traverse and flipped upside down, hitting their head on the slab, before their belayer was able to arrest their fall about four feet off the ground.

A climber leading the classic Madame Grunnebaum’s Wulst (5.6) fell from about 20 feet above the ground before placing any protection. They impacted a ledge about 10 feet below and continued to fall until they impacted the ground. The leader sustained a major facial injury as well as injury to their shoulder. (Sources: Mohonk Preserve Rangers, Dan Cassidy, and Andrew Bajardi, Chief Ranger.)