Accident in Squamish

[Lambone]

 

Not Beta...he was the man! I loved watching him humbley put the VW sportos to shame in his EB's...I can only imagine his grace out on the granite. The first time I saw him at Index he was giving up a beautiful climbing day to pick up trash. Next time I saw him he was working hard on preping a new route. He gave alot to to our community, and will be missed.

[texplorer]

It is very sad and sobering when anyone dies in an accident but somehow I feel especially vunerable when competent climbers experience accidents in places and on routes which I know and have done. Cliche-ishly we can all learn from others mistakes but I would rather we just never make them. It is too easy for us to say "that'll never be me" when gumbies make mistakes but this shows we must all be vigilant in your safety.

. . . .I cannot summon the correct words today. . . ... .

be safe friends.

[Lambone]

I agree %100 Tex, my thoughts exactly...

 

[kitten]

I also agree with Tex. My heart goes out to his friends and family in this time of grief.

[EWolfe]

I knew Dave pretty well within the climbing community - this is a great loss, he was a good man...

[matt_warfield]

According to the accounts on the Gripped site, the accident happened after a request to set up a 2-rope toprope

for the next party on the climb and a subsequent lower. Without knowing the details of the lower, is is still safe to say that

2 rope topropes and lowers can be problematic due to knot issues. The crowded scene would inhibit the clear

thinking necessary here. Rappelling would be a better approach......or telling the new party to get their own

rope up there.

 

Regardless, a tragic loss and a reminder that gravity is in charge.

[DCramer]

For some years I virtually gave up climbing although on occasion David and I would go off on some hair brained search for a new crag or route. On one of these trips we discussed the possibility of raising funds for bolt replacement. David’s energy and enthusiasm resulted in the creation of the Travelers’ Guide as well as reviving my interest in climbing. Although many people joined in the effort, the guide especially the Darrington topos, was the result of his hard work.

 

He then devoted countless hours replacing bolts/anchors and recleaning routes all around the state. Usually he worked alone. Most of the new anchors at the Upper Wall are his work. He preferred to fly under the radar for the most part so most did not know the extent of his contributions to NW climbing. Next time you’re on the Upper Wall and reach a bomber belay take a second and whisper thanks to Dave.

 

Darryl

 

[Mike]

I can only echo the words of everybody else - Dave was the nicest guy and this is a tragic loss to us all. This will be a very hard time for the people involved in the accident, and I hope they can find solace and peace.

 

Dave's funeral is this coming Saturday, June 7th at 2:30 at the Lake Burien Presbyterian Church, 15003 14th Ave SW in Burien.

[drjensen]

Dave was a phenomenal friend for all and will be missed by many. Accidents occur in life and unfortunately Dave ended up on the losing side. From talking to his friends, it's hard to believe how many lives he influenced.

 

There will be a gathering celebrating Dave at the Vertical World on Saturday at 7pm following the Memorial. All our welcome to attend. There will be a grill and please bring something to share. BYOB. If you need more info, please contact me at darrell.jensen@jensenlange.com.

[rr666]

It is always a sad day to hear that a climber has been involved in an accident, especially when someone dies.

And to hear how great of a person he was, just adds to the pain. I never met him, but it sounds like the kind of person I would hold in high respect.

[murraysovereign]

Some of you may be interested to see this report of the Coroner's findings, from the Squamish Chief newspaper, Friday 28 May, 2004:

 

Climbing death ruled accidental by coroner

‘Breakdown in communication’ cited in 2003 death on Grand Wall

By John French

Reporter

Like many days last spring, May 31, 2003 was a great day for climbing.

While it may have started as a good climbing day for David Christopher Gunstone, it certainly didn’t end that way.

 

Gunstone was in Squamish, visiting from Seattle, to do some climbing on that Saturday afternoon. He was with a group of friends and they were climbing a route called Exasperator at the base of the Grand Wall area of the Stawamus Chief. Exasperator is a popular route with a moderate difficulty rating. The route is described as a two-pitch crack climb.

 

Gunstone, 41, finished a top rope ascent at just after 5 p.m. He was on his way back to the ground when things went fatally wrong. Gunstone fell 25 metres to his death.

 

Coroner Jody Doll investigated what happened leading up to Gunstone’s fall and determined his death was accidental. Doll’s report was completed May 6 of this year.

 

Doll determined that Gunstone fell when his climbing team failed to tie two ropes together. Essentially, where two ropes were needed to lower him to the ground, there was only one in place and he fell to his death because he ran out of rope.

 

According to Doll’s report, Gunstone and his friends arrived at the bottom of Exasperator and met two other climbers already on the route. Gunstone’s group had met the other two climbers through previous encounters in the climbing area. The two climbers completed the first pitch on Exasperator and said they wanted Gunstone and his group to join them and lead the climb up the second pitch.

 

In consultation with climbing experts, Doll determined that two ropes were initially used to begin lowering Gunstone. One of the ropes belonged to Gunstone while the second one belonged to the other group of climbers.

 

“Mr. Gunstone and his group planned to leave after Mr. Gunstone was on the ground,” Doll wrote in her findings. “Their rope had to be removed from the system during the knot pass and replaced with a rope from the other group. When Mr. Gunstone’s rope was untied, the replacement rope was not attached in time. As a result, the rope passed through the belay device and Mr. Gunstone subsequently fell to the ground.”

 

Gunstone and one of the other climbers were using a belay system. Gunstone was on the wall and the helper was on the ground with a mechanical belay device attached to his harness. Gunstone also had a harness and the rope was securely attached at his end.

 

According to Doll, rock climbers have to look after their own safety and share responsibility for the safety of all the other members of a climbing party. “It is an accepted and common practice for climbers to double check knots and harness configurations, confirm instructions and vocalize plans,” she wrote.

 

“When a climbing situation develops into a social atmosphere, as is often the case when larger groups of acquaintances congregate at the base of a climb, and especially in a controlled top rope situation, a relaxed atmosphere often evolves,” Doll wrote in her report. “In these situations, the direct line of communication and psychological connectivity between the climber and the belayer is interrupted by exchanges taking place in the group on the ground.”

 

Doll found that a number of factors contributed to the fatal accident that spring day last year. “There was no well-communicated plan to complete the transfer of the ropes and there was a break down in the communication between the belayer and the rest of the group on the ground,” Doll wrote in her report. “The belayer instructed the third member of Mr. Gunstone’s group to complete the rope disconnection and reconnection process. The belayer stayed focused on Mr. Gunstone and assumed the rope reconnection had taken place. The belayer began to lower Mr. Gunstone and continued without noticing that the approaching end of the rope had not been reconnected.”

 

Doll learned that confusion developed between the two groups in the minutes before the fall as 60 metres of uncoiled rope lay at the base of the climb.

 

“This created a confusing mess of multiple untied rope ends that could not be easily identified and separated,” Doll concluded.

 

Gunstone’s resulting fall caused massive head trauma. After the fall a call was made to 911 and local emergency officials arranged for an air ambulance helicopter to take Gunstone to hospital in Vancouver.

 

Hwy. 99 was closed at the base of The Stawamus Chief for a short time while the injured climber was loaded into the aircraft.

 

“His injuries were catastrophic and he was essentially dead [from the impact],” Doll said in the days after the accident. “When B.C. Ambulance got there, people were performing CPR on him. Some of his body processes were shut down.”

[jefffski]

i remember this tragic accident.

 

however, the report does not make one thing clear.

 

if the knot had to be passed through the belayers device, then clearly the climber would have had to anchor himself to the wall during that process.

 

i just don't see another way the knot could have been passed. with all due respect to the coroner and the belayer, this fact was omitted, unless i have really misunderstood something.

 

comments appreciated.

[Alpinfox]

If you have two belay devices (one above and one below the knot) the climber doesn't need to secure himself during the transfer, just unweight the rope briefly to allow the belayer to remove the upper belay device. I've done this for TRing long ice climbs.

 

I don't know if that is how David's group was setting it up or not.

[layton]

basically no one was paying attention.

[mattp]

I was at Little Si when basically the same thing happened on Technorigine or some climb like that at WWI. The route is over a half rope long, and the belayer lowered the guy past the point where the end of the rope went through the belay device. He fell to the staging ledge, bounced off, and went another forty feet to the ground below. I think his buddy, who got so excited he jumped of the staging ledge after him to rush to his rescue was more injured than he was, but both received nothing more than bruises as far as I know.

 

The analysis is right: it is very easy to lose track of what is going on and to lose communication between belayer and climber when there are lots of climbers milling about.

[Lambone]

holy shit, that's a crazy story mattp

 

I don't exactly understand the situation that led to David's fall, but regardless...it is truly horrible.

[RescueMan]

This was clearly a tragedy for all involved, but from what has been so far posted I can't agree with the coroner's conclusion that this was an accident.

 

This fatality was the result of extreme negligence on the part of both the belayer and whoever was switching the ropes on the ground, and the belayer always holds primary responsibility for the safety of the climber on the sharp end of the rope.

 

While I'm sure those responsible don't need any more blame aimed at them than they're already feeling, I believe it's important for the climbing community to identify this mistake properly so that it isn't repeated in some other form.

 

- Robert

[RuMR]

What the fuck is your point, asshole?

 

Like its a big duh! that negligence is involved. And it goes all the way around, from the climber to the belayer to the people WHO ACTUALLY UNTIED THE ROPE and on and on...

 

You should shut your piehole or someone else will...the people involved know what happened and are affected for the rest of their lives...

 

Some pissant standing on a soapbox screaming "negligence" at this point is a.) redundant, b.) unnecessary and c.) grating as all fuck...so shut the hell up NOW

[Lambone]

Edit: i wrote this before i read Rumr's comment, but he pretty much sums up what I was getting at.

 

well, yeah of course it was negligant. I suppose it comes down to how one defines the term accident. I'd guess that almost every report detailed in "Accidents in North American Mountaineering" could be attributed to negligence at some level.

 

But it is not like they intentionaly dropped Beta...sheesh. it sounds like it was a gross misscomunication. Which i would call an accident.

 

What gets me about this one in particular is that as Dcramer stated above, Beta did alot of his climbing and route work alone, but his fate was ultimately determined in the hands of another climber. very sad.

[Skeezix]

Some nice comments about Dave's life and service to the climbing community have been made here. Might be a good idea to forward some of these validations of his contribution to climbing on cards to the family as consolation.

[layton]

What the fuck is your point, asshole?

 

Like its a big duh! that negligence is involved. And it goes all the way around, from the climber to the belayer to the people WHO ACTUALLY UNTIED THE ROPE and on and on...

 

You should shut your piehole or someone else will...the people involved know what happened and are affected for the rest of their lives...

 

Some pissant standing on a soapbox screaming "negligence" at this point is a.) redundant, b.) unnecessary and c.) grating as all fuck...so shut the hell up NOW

 

Who are you refering to?

[scratchandsniff]

What the fuck is your point, asshole?

 

Like its a big duh! that negligence is involved. And it goes all the way around, from the climber to the belayer to the people WHO ACTUALLY UNTIED THE ROPE and on and on...

 

You should shut your piehole or someone else will...the people involved know what happened and are affected for the rest of their lives...

 

Some pissant standing on a soapbox screaming "negligence" at this point is a.) redundant, b.) unnecessary and c.) grating as all fuck...so shut the hell up NOW

 

 

I re-read resuemans post and changed my flame of Rumr.

That is still uncalled for Rumr, but I see that recueman is saying it wasn't an accident. I think rescueman just mis-posted. There's no way.

 

Stuff like this happens, I'm just glad it wasn't to me, from the outside, it appears that the belayer totally F*ed the pooch. Hope he/she quits climbing or learns to belay.

 

Does anyone have the real - full story?

 

Edited June 2, 2004 by scratchandsniff

[RuMR]

I may be an ass, but my opinion of Rescueman stays the same. He wasn't there, doesn't know the story nor the people involved and after the fact fingerpointing accomplishes absolutely nothing.

 

Again, the people involved know exactly what happened and will carry it to their graves. Life will never be the same for them, nor should it be and some anonymous dickhead stating the obvious on this board is pointlessly painful.

 

Dave RIP, the community here misses you...

[RichTurley]

Whenever there is a serious accident post's like these usually appear, someone posts a theory or disagrees with one position and someone else (usually who is close to those involved) gets upset with them for second guessing or opening old wounds. I think the debate is healthy when done appropriately. I don't see anything wrong with Rescueman's post, he wasn't inflamatory and the accident is a year old.

 

As a new climber I am interested in safety and staying safe myself. I read accident and SAR reports not with some morbid curiosity but to learn from the mistakes of others.

 

Rich

[RuMR]

why not post a series of facts about the accident only? and why the statement that this was not an accident????? If that is not passing judgement, then what is?

 

and what does Robert mean to accomplish by passing judgement?

 

Its fine that he does pass judgement (and we all do to a limited extent), but that is his opinion and he should not be posting it here...that is something that should be held in private...

 

Do a post mortem analysis, but hold the judgements in reserve...list the steps that occurred leading up to the fall and leave it at that.