[Fatality on Snow Creek Wall]

Thanks Kurt. We rapped from the station below the "NO" in your topo and the accident happened in the gully at the bottom.

 

Sorry to hear about the accident. This is the topo that I've drawn up over the years. The topo in Selected climbs is incorrect because it was based on a photo taken from a suboptimal angle.

 

Kurt

 

[Fatality on Snow Creek Wall]

Hi Chad, your assumption is incorrect. We had knots in the end of our ropes for each rappel. You couldn't see them from where you were. We were able to rappel safely down but loose rock on the walk down swept Amy over a ledge 20-30 feet.

 

I'm sorry you're connected with the accident, and it was nice to meet you at the belay station. The accident happened after we safely rappelled the route, anchor to anchor. We were a party of 5, so the comms you heard were us letting the party of two ahead of us know that we had decided to bail off.

 

Thank you, sincerely, for responding to the SAR. We were blown away by the response from the community and a contingent will be joining me to return to the accident site. Feel free to get in touch - please. It helps for me to talk about it and it helps others to get detail.

 

Hello,

 

I was on Orbit that afternoon as well, in fact I believe my partner and I were at the same belay right before this accident occurred. I'm sure my story isn't the most accurate, as what we saw was only bits and pieces of events leading up to (what I assume was) the incident. I'd like to share what information I saw, even if it had absolutely nothing to do with the actual fall.

 

As we reached the base we looked up and saw that the party of 3 had started rappelling from the pitch above. They must have decided they were going too slow to finish in the light and decided to bail.

 

What we saw next, I assumed is what led to the tragedy that occurred, but I could be completely mistaken.

 

As the first person was rappelling, who I identified to be the 3rd climber in their party (last to reach the final belay), we noticed there were no safety knots tied in the end of the rope. The rappel position was horrendous, with about 25 feet of traversing necessary under a roof to reach the previous anchor, all above another roof with the ends of the rope dangling off the edge and out of sight. We watched the rappel for a minute, but it looked like the climber had everything under control, so we continued packing our gear and headed to climber's right to stash gear at the base of Iconoclast for our climb the next day (Wednesday). As we were walking away from the base, we heard yelling coming from the party, but it seemed like communication, not desperation. This seemed concordant with the amount of verbal communication we heard from them while on-route.

[Fatality on Snow Creek Wall]

Thanks. Does anyone have a topo/good quality pic of the lower half of Orbit?

 

I'm sure I could get off the couch and dig through the car for the guidebook but I'm truly not feeling like it.

[Fatality on Snow Creek Wall]

Hi, I was in the party and am writing an incident report. Does anyone have information for John (Race?) who was our first SAR on the scene. He's a local guide. I need to talk to someone very familiar with Snow Creek so that I describe the location of the accident accurately.

 

Thank you so much to the many volunteers and other members of the community who came out. It was amazing to see all the headlamps coming up the trail, knowing that Amy was going to be tended to with care that night (after the heli couldn't get in until after dark).