Tillmaster: It makes sense. The dead man fell wasn't the usual idiot who climbs mountains wearing a T-shirt and plimsoles. He did all the right things, but still fell because a hand-hold broke away.
I'd say "unfortunate" was the appropriate term.

New Rising Sun: Ker_Thwap: Tillmaster: It makes sense. The dead man fell wasn't the usual idiot who climbs mountains wearing a T-shirt and plimsoles. He did all the right things, but still fell because a hand-hold broke away.
I'd say "unfortunate" was the appropriate term.

My adult kid and her SO climb, as in with harnesses and ropes or mats if it's a low feature.

He hardly did all the right things.  What, they had the equipment, and chose not to use it?  Free climbing over a 600 foot drop, on an icy day, trusting a single point of failure, where the rock might fracture...  Yeah, I don't consider that "all the right things"


They weren't doing:

[Fark user image 312x234]

They were:

[Fark user image 331x248]

You wouldn't rope up to go up this any more than you would to "climb" Mount Washington.

New Rising Sun: Ker_Thwap: New Rising Sun: Ker_Thwap: Tillmaster: It makes sense. The dead man fell wasn't the usual idiot who climbs mountains wearing a T-shirt and plimsoles. He did all the right things, but still fell because a hand-hold broke away.
I'd say "unfortunate" was the appropriate term.

My adult kid and her SO climb, as in with harnesses and ropes or mats if it's a low feature.

He hardly did all the right things.  What, they had the equipment, and chose not to use it?  Free climbing over a 600 foot drop, on an icy day, trusting a single point of failure, where the rock might fracture...  Yeah, I don't consider that "all the right things"


They weren't doing:

[Fark user image 312x234]

They were:

[Fark user image 331x248]

You wouldn't rope up to go up this any more than you would to "climb" Mount Washington.

No.  Look at the first picture in the article.  There's a big old rock face shown.  You put up a picture that the shows normal folks following the rock scramble part of a marked trail.

[static.independent.co.uk image 850x628]

Yes, my picture is taken from on it. It's literally a picture of people climbing Y Gribin.

ZeroPly: Ker_Thwap: Tillmaster: It makes sense. The dead man fell wasn't the usual idiot who climbs mountains wearing a T-shirt and plimsoles. He did all the right things, but still fell because a hand-hold broke away.
I'd say "unfortunate" was the appropriate term.

My adult kid and her SO climb, as in with harnesses and ropes or mats if it's a low feature.

He hardly did all the right things.  What, they had the equipment, and chose not to use it?  Free climbing over a 600 foot drop, on an icy day, trusting a single point of failure, where the rock might fracture...  Yeah, I don't consider that "all the right things"

So, he was the usual idiot with expensive climbing gear, who didn't choose to use it, because it would have slowed him down.

Ask your adult kid or SO to educate you, because you don't sh*t about sh*t when it comes to Class 3/4 terrain:

1 - roping in isn't "free". Putting pro in takes time, and speed is safety. Yeah, you CAN put cams in every 6ft on a scramble, but it's not a good idea if it means you're going to go off course after dark because it took you 2 hours to go 300ft.

2 - "free climbing" to a climber means they're using their hands, as opposed to aid. You're thinking of "free soloing". Free soloing is only on class 5 terrain, which these guys weren't doing.

3 - it's not the distance to the bottom that dictates whether you rope in, it's the chance of falling. It's quite common for climbers to walk unroped on ledges that are 600+ ft off the deck, if they make the call that it's safe. I do this all the time walking off climbs in Colorado. On the other hand, if you're going across a section that's 20ft off the ground but technical and sketchy, you rope in.

4 - you sound like the usual idiot who doesn't own a single piece of climbing gear and has never been 50ft up a route, but still thinks their common sense and keyboard are all they need.

ZeroPly: Ker_Thwap: You seem to be putting a whole lot of words into my mouth.  I didn't suggest any of those things you seem to think I'm suggesting.  But it's easier to call me an idiot to read my actual words.  I'm too old to climb that kind of terrain, I'm too poor to even buy the gear, so I stay the hell off of climbs and sketchy ledges.

I hike a whole lot, I don't solo winter hike, I don't do rock scrambles in the winter, I don't winter hike in groups without the proper spikes, crampons or snowshoes.  I even take the time to change those when the conditions change.

I responded to the actual article which stated that he went off a 600 foot drop, and that a handhold broke off . A handhold, not walking along a ledge.

If you had any clue as to risk management on technical terrain, you'd have heard of the Swiss cheese model. Sometimes the holes line up just right, and then you're f*cked. It's highly unlikely he was depending on the handhold as the only thing between him and certain death. What's much more likely is that it broke unexpectedly, he was surprised, he lost his footing unexpectedly, and went over on what he thought was safe.

It's not a "600 ft drop", as in falling vertically 600 ft. That's rare even on Class 5 terrain. More likely, he went off the ledge they were on, but couldn't arrest his fall, went off another ledge, and took a series of falls until he was gone. Swiss cheese model.

Even on steep terrain, and even on icy terrain, there are other factors, such as whether the edge is sloped down or up. There are areas in Michigan where I won't go within 30ft of the edge on ice, even though it looks level, because I know it's a death slide. Swiss cheese model.

And finally, the people who did the rescue aren't Monday morning quarterbacks like you. Their web site shows 4375 hours of training sessions and 178 incidents logged in the last year. If the SAR folks think it was just bad luck, then yeah, it was just bad luck. SAR people can tell in about 15 seconds h ...

Noah_Tall: Ker_Thwap: Not sure where the article got the 600 ft drop part from.

Is this the first time in your life that you have read an article about somebody falling?  Any time somebody falls down a hill the news media calls it a drop or a cliff.  If somebody did a controlled scramble down a 30 degree sandy slope then hit their head on a rock at the bottom the media would would describe it as a 100 foot drop down an unstable hillside.

ZeroPly: Ker_Thwap: I obviously have more of a clue of risk management than the dead guy does did.

You're conjecturing just as much as I am with you're "highly unlikely" scenario where he was just "surprised."  The risk isn't a broken ankle and inconvenience, it's death, you cooperate with your buddies and string a rope.

If he was tired, or easily surprised, then that's a matter of knowing what your own limitations are based on your experience.  This guy made a poor choice, and I don't care if you do crossfit, or have climbing experience.  You make your own luck in these situations.  It's not like an elephant fell out of the sky.  It was preventable.

No. No, you don't. That's like saying you know more about flying the space shuttle than Francis Scobee did, since it blew up while he was flying it in '86.

I know I'm dumping on you, and it's not particularly fair to you, but I am SOOOOO tired of Americans who think common sense trumps training and experience. I'm tired of arguing with people who have never heard of terms like "kurtosis" and "skew", but are experts on how GISTEMP is cooked to promote a climate change conspiracy.

I'm tired of arguing with Americans who are convinced the COVID vaccine "changes DNA", but get a deer in the headlights look when I ask them to explain what a protein does, and how it's related to RNA.

Should we mention the Americans who have never fired a gun in their lives, and can't tell a bolt assembly from the hole in their butt, but feel qualified to tell me that I'm wrong about AR15s, and that they are "high powered" mass destruction weapons that only soldiers should have?

I could go on, but I think you get the gist of it.

And here you come along - you don't climb, you don't know how climbing gear works, you've never done SAR, but somehow you know more than the SAR crew who recovered the body, because you're that f*cking special. Is there any sequence of English words that I can use to convince you that you are utterly unqualified to have ...