On September 7, at 5 p.m., Ross Halverson and a partner completed Infinite Bliss, a 23-pitch 5.10c that climbs the south flank of Mt. Garfield, near North Bend. They texted a friend from the summit, took a few photos, then immediately headed back ...
On Sunday, November 30, I (Jake Jones) watched as a climber fell approximately 40 feet to the ground while leading. At the time I had just been lowered to the ground after climbing a different route. I happened to look to my right and saw a male c...
On December 27, 2013, at the base of the center Tablet at Lake Willoughby, my friend John (37) and I (32) congratulated ourselves after a 60-meter rappel to the ground, shortly after sunset. We had just finished our third two-pitch ice route that ...
During the early evening on Saturday, October 4, a female climber (20) was leading the sport route Plate Tectonics (5.9). When she was between the second and third bolt, about 26 feet off the ground, she fell. Neither the climber nor the belayer w...
On October 19, Christopher Spencer (47) of San Jose, California, was killed after falling from the approach to Iron Messiah (5.10+) on the Spearhead formation. Spencer and his partner were scrambling up the easy (low 5th class) but exposed buttres...
On April 5, a 30-year-old male climber from Grand Junction, Colorado, began aid soloing up Gregory Butte, located near the mouth of Last Chance Bay, at 7 a.m. A little after 9 a.m., he was over 500 feet up the wall when a piece he had placed pulle...
On September 23 a climber fell between 75 and 100 feet while rappelling Zenyatta Entrada (5.4 C3) on the Tower of Babel. NPS rangers responded to the scene and found the climber lying on the ground at the base of the route. His partner was still d...
On November 7, Michael Lydon (50) was killed after falling down nearly a full pitch of moderate terrain at the top of Beast (5.11a), a five-pitch climb on the Bell’s Beast formation. Lydon and his partner, Chris Wood (33), had first climbed Beauty...
Jimmy Burckhard, 31, was climbing the bolted route Foot Fist Way (5.13a) in a limestone canyon southwest of Rapid City on September 26. He had previously worked on the route a couple of weeks earlier. On this day he climbed partway up the route, y...
On October 19, Ted Wogan (22) and Climber 2 began climbing Chouinard’s Crack (5.9) late in the afternoon. Wogan placed one piece of protection and followed it with a second piece at 25 feet. He initially placed a cam but then, wanting to save the ...
On May 4, Forrest Koran (24) and Suruthai Pokaratsiri-Goldstein (27) began climbing a four-pitch trad route called Zebra Zion (5.10a). The climbers were members of an “Advanced Rock” class hosted by a local climbing organization. Koran led the fou...
Around 4:30 or 5 p.m. on July 21, after skiing down the Whitewater Glacier high on Mt. Jefferson, Miko Smilenski lost an edge during a steep turn and fell about 100 feet near treeline. The 56-year-old experienced skier hit many exposed rocks durin...
On November 12, Ryan Burton (25) and Benjamin Newkirk (39) left the trailhead at Pole Creek and hiked six miles to Camp Lake, where they set camp and rested before departing around 6:30 p.m. Weather reports at the time and for the three days follo...
On May 24, James Adams (59) slipped on ice while descending the South Side Route. He was unable to self-arrest and slid several hundred feet into a fumarole (an opening in a glacier caused by ice melting due to volcanic fumes). Others witnessed hi...
On May 13, Robert Cormier (57) attempted to summit Mt. Hood via the popular South Side Route with two companions. One team member suffered a leg cramp, and the party separated as Cormier summited ahead of his companions. He traversed too far north...
On August 15, 2014, Will Richardson-Little and I started hiking toward the Grand Sentinel at 7:20 a.m. from the Moraine Lake parking lot. Our objective was to climb the normal route on the south face (4 pitches, 5.9). We had a standard rack, doubl...
On September 12, I had a near miss when I was climbing a sport route called Twist and Shout (5.13c) at Coney Island in Boulder Canyon. The route has four fixed quickdraws on the overhanging top half of the route, two of which are regular quickdraw...
On May 1, Gonzalo Espinosa and I drove to the upper highlands below Cotopaxi’s south face. This is a flat highland area composed of scree created by this huge volcano’s eruptions and ancient glaciers. From here we targeted our objective, Morurco (...
In April, Owen Lunz and I made a five-day journey through the Great West Canyon region of Zion National Park—what you might call ultralight backpacking with a big-wall rack. Along the way we made the first ascents of three technical summits surrou...
Along with a rope, protection is the most essential part of the climbing system. A bolt and quickdraw, a cam or nut—these are the things that keep climbers from taking dangerous ledge falls or hitting the ground. While not the most common cause ...