A male climber (18) was seriously injured in a fall on August 3 at the Black Rock climbing area, located in the Grandfather Ranger District of Pisgah National Forest, near the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area. He was free soloing Crazy River (5.9) w...
I witnessed an accident on June 8 that teaches a good lesson and luckily had an okay outcome. The climber was a strong and competent, but new to the area. I watched him easily climb Nuclear Crayon (5.10c R) and Quakerstate (5.10d/11a). After onsig...
There were 17 reports from the Gunks in 2013. There were no fatalities, but there were seven serious injuries, along with 10 sprains/strains and other minor injuries. In one case, a spontaneous shoulder dislocation caused the climber to fall.Fourt...
On December 18 a climber rappelled off the short end of his rope at 30 feet, fell 20 feet to a ledge, tumbled 20 feet more over steep terrain, and slid another 20 feet on steep snow. He suffered a broken pelvis and torn adductor tendon.Analysis A ...
On October 13 my partner (27) and I climbed the route Little Finger on Rogers Rock, a three-pitch 5.5 with a descent by 60-meter rappels from bolted anchors to the right of our route. I brought a 70-meter (9.2mm) single rope, and a 75-meter (5mm) ...
On September 18, Ronald Czajkowski (44) fell 120 feet to his death at Thatcher Park, according to police. “He had a harness and rope with him. It appears it was human error as far as attaching it to the anchor point on top of the cliff,” said Capt...
In the early afternoon of March 29, parties called 911 and reported “cries for help near the Upper La Luz Trail in Upper La Cueva Canyon.” Bernalillo County Sheriff officers located Carlos Cox (35) by helicopter at the northeastern base of the Tri...
Bonehead Roof is a 5.10d climb with a classic “Rumney Runout”: five bolts protect the route. The first bolt is about 20 feet off of the ground. The initial two-thirds of the climb are approximately 5.8, containing three bolts. A slope of about 20 ...
According to two reports, someone fell after the second bolt on Tree Keys at the Geriatric Walls on September 14. The belayer (age unknown) received significant rope burns on her hands.As reported, the belayer lost control of the rope as the leade...
On August 10 a climber in his mid to late 20s was leading Nutcracker (5.10a) on the Barber Wall. He fell and at least one of his pieces pulled, causing him to flip backward. He hit his head before falling to the ground. He was not wearing a helmet...
My climbing partner and I were involved in a rescue on July 23 when a climber in his early 20s fell while descending Child’s Play (5.5) at Cathedral Ledge. We had just come down from Recluse at the North End and were packing up around 2:30 p.m. A ...
Mark, Pete, and I (Jesse Morenz) headed up to the Whites early Saturday morning, March 16, to train for our upcoming Liberty Ridge climb. We arrived at the Frankenstein parking lot at 12:30 p.m. and planned on getting in two climbs before our larg...
On March 1, James “Jimmy” Watts died as a result of injuries sustained in an avalanche in Pinnacle Gully. Jimmy left the Harvard Mountaineering Club cabin near the base of Huntington Ravine, intending to climb multiple gullies. Based on earlier co...
My climbing partner, Marty Goss (50) and I, Paul Spence (52), met at Red Rock for a week of climbing. On March 14 we had planned to climb Cat in the Hat, a six-pitch 5.6 trad route in Pine Creek Canyon. We were the only ones on the route and could...
On September 21 a climber named Michael Parker fell 30 to 40 feet from Practice Rock. Officials said Parker had failed to secure his anchor. It took more than 35 rescuers about an hour and a half to get him off the side of the mountain, due to rou...
On September 2, John “Amos” Ridenour (35), a Gallatin County sheriff’s deputy, died after falling while rock climbing in Hyalite Canyon, 10 miles south of Bozeman. He had gone to Practice Rock with his son and neighbor early on Labor Day morning t...
A party of approximately 15 volunteers was cleaning routes for the ice climbing season at the Sandstone ice cliff. Volunteers’ levels of experience ranged from great to little. The victim volunteered to go on rappel to clean the face of a new rout...
On July 17, Andrea Campanella (47), a guide with a local climbing company, was guiding two older teenagers on the South Wall of Champlain Mountain when he fell to the ground due to a lowering error. The exact sequence of events is not clear, due t...
On April 28, Will Raymond (age 21) was leading Old Town, a popular 5.7 corner climb. Nearing the top of the first corner, which is typically climbed as a lieback, he slipped and fell. The camming unit that he had placed for protection failed, and ...
On October 6 a male climber (35) took a long lead fall while reaching high for a bolt. His fall caused him to impact a tree. He suffered broken ribs, a punctured/ collapsed lung, and broken scapula, requiring surgical repair. (Source: Rick Weber, ...