IndianolaTom

And gun control means using both hands, right? It's circular logic to say that something used in a manner that will prevent its failure will never fail. The problem is that the random collection of unforeseen events that we call 'real life' occasionally leads to events that exceed safe operating parameters. Any "QA engineer" will also verify this, and explain that this is why, even with 'perfectly functioning devices' we employ backups. IMHO, 'tween-the-legs breaking ain't much of a backup, but I can at least see the logic.

Wow. That is two pictures of me on P2. That's pretty funny. I still climb in that thing. Man do I look funny. Mind sending me a copy? Flickr or whatevr won't let me download it. Also, good f'ing memory, man. How did you remember me from just my screen name? If you are around I would love to climb with you a bit - I'll be down at smith right around the beginning of april, and I'm hoping to hit Index or Vantage up this weekend. And thanks for the bump!

Thanks man!

bump?

Alasdair (are you the Cannon person I met and talked to by Pony Keg?), if you saw the broken gear firsthand, you know more about what happened than me. I tried in my post above to be delineate as clearly as possible between what I saw and what I was speculating. Maybe it was a bad choice to include my speculation at all. I, too, hope he recovers quickly, and that he puts out a write-up for us all to learn from. As long as we're on the topic - sometime the night before the accident or the morning of it I lost several solid-stem friends and u-stem TCUs in that general area. If anybody found them (or sees them on craigslist) please please please let me know!

Seriously, I lost 3 or 4 solid-stem Friends and a similar number of old u-stem TCUs at Vantage saturday night or sunday morning. Or someone took them - but I doubt that. I admit, I also posted this in the Lost and Found. I am desperate to get these back - they were the better part of my rack - please forgive the cross-post. The slings on the Friends were very distinctive homemade jobbies. If you find them - or see them on Craigslist - please PM or email dancinghobotom(at)gmail.com Thanks in advance!

Vantage, Wa. Sometime between Saturday evening and sunday midday (3/17 or 3/18) I lost track of a carabiner or two containing three or four solid-stem (old style) friends and three or four u-stem TCUs of similar vintage. Probably all clipped together or onto at most two seperate biners. These were given to me by a friend who gave up climbing, and they have some sentimental value to me. Obviously, there was enough gear there to be a major loss to me in terms of my rack, too - all my cams. I am pretty sure I left them at the base of Bob's Your Uncle, on the Sunshine wall, where I used some of them to build a belay anchor just before dark. This was also the scene of a minor accident the next day (sunday)(another party, unrelated), so they might have gotten picked up in the fray/aftermath. Alternatively, I did not realize they were missing until about 11 the next day (Sunday), so I could have dropped them on the trail or at the camp, but I don't think that happened. The slings on the Friends were very distinctive home-made jobbies - you'll know them if you see them. I will of course pay shipping (and for a beer) for anybody who returns them. PM or call number below. Thank you in advance! Tom 360 seven-one-oh 0045

I helped out a little and talked to a few people right at the scene. Here is what I saw and heard, and what it led me to believe: I saw the guy's rope on the wall after he fell. It ran through commercially sewn draws on the first through fourth bolts. On the fifth bolt was a single, apparently closed and intact carabiner of different color than the others on the route. I also saw this myself. An intact carabiner was apparently found on his rope. I heard this from a witness. I saw a piece of 1" blue webbing on the ground in the fall zone. It looked shiny and new, showed no signs of abrasion, and had hot-cut marks from a cutting machine or lighter at both ends. The bolts were evenly spaced. The belayer was not making himself known to anybody, or saying what happened, but he also wasn't lying on the ground dead of rockfall. Dude looked like he weighed around 200. What seems likely to me: Guy clipped his fifth bolt with a hand-tied draw (the webbing), climbed some distance above it, then fell. His fall pulled the knot out of his webbing, leaving one biner on the rope, one on the rock. The force generated by what had become a 20-foot-ish whipper could easily have pulled an unprepared belayer off his stance, causing him to drop the leader in a barely controlled fashion to the ground. With the bolt spacing, if he blew the sixth clip, his fall to and past the fourth bolt could have been as much as 20-25 feet. This alone would not have put him on the ground - I didn't measure distances, but it was obviously much further from the fourth bolt to the ground than it was from the fourth to sixth bolts. The only funny thing was that the blue webbing I saw looked mighty short to tie a draw with - like, the biners would have been nearly touching. But no-one mentioned anything about seeing other broken webbing around, and neither of the biners apparently had half a broken QD attached to them. Anyway, that's my armchair quarterback version of the facts, and what they led me to believe. Certainly made me plan on buying a GriGri.