First and foremost, my deepest apologies for the scare. i've been there, and now, to a much darker place. Unfortunately I did not read the trip report above from telemarker and i was planning to belay from that hollow flake based on the mountain project beta. I didn’t give it too much thought, but I figured I could leave the #4 in the car and still have a safe anchor. So basically I was walking to my potential grave without knowing it.
I scrapped up the pressure chamber pitch and found the horizontal crack. I checked out the #4 crack to the left, and not having the obvious piece, moved back to the hollow flake. I did not inspect the flake as well as I should have. I didn’t have to think too hard about the two previous anchors on the climb, the slung horn above psychopath, nor the bolts above iconoclast corner and must say, I had my blinders on. I put a #2 in, a yellow metolius and a little peenut, and equalized them all behind the flake with no other cracks around. I weighted the anchor and the rock moved. I couldn’t tell exactly how much cuz I wasn’t looking at it, maybe a half inch. I yelled down for the teams below me to get safe and gave them a couple minutes. I could see my belayer and the team directly below us scurry around, and they said they were safe. I was about 99% sure that the rock would have come down when I weighted it if it was gonna come down at all. I was 99% wrong. I cleaned the two cams, and had just this tiny little nut to remove. I was off to the left side of the flake on the foot ledge and pulled the nut - with about the same force you would clean a typical nut, pretty easy. I was absolutely astonished to see this car door sized rock roll off its perch (old buick car door sized). I yelled rock a couple times and listened to the destruction below me. I made sure everyone was okay, and then built another anchor in the 4” crack to the left (took some time to get the gear to work, but I made sure this one was good). I won’t bother getting into the depths of my mental anguish caused by my ignorance, I’ll just say double check you’re anchor.
Just a suggestion: let’s put all the important beta in one place. How about Mountain Project?
Lessons relearned: 1.) rock stability changes over time 2.) make sure the ‘get safe’ message is relayed to the other teams below 3.) Triple check your anchor.
Again, my apologies. I am so incredibly happy everyone is okay.
