Gaff on The Javelin

[catbirdseat]

My partner, and I climbed this Leavenworth route yesterday. Jim was leading and was having trouble getting started on the layback when he asked to be lowered so he could tape up his hands. He had put in a "supplemental" green Alien in a crack or flake to the left of the main flake. At first he down climbed, but then got to a steeper section and as soon as he weighted the rope, the Alien popped and he dropped about ten feet and was caught by the bolt below. He was entirely uninjured. Apparently, the flake expanded beyond the range of the cam and out it came.

 

After taping up he had another go at it and forsook the rack, deciding to rely on the bolts. He made maybe a single jam with his right hand before sucking it up and going into the lieback. He was successful on this try.

 

This mistake was a learning experience. Although I couldn't know how secure the cam was, I had a feeling that I should have had him clean it while downclimbing to the bolt, but didn't. Had the cam waited longer to pop, he could have grounded before the bolt caught him.

 

(Edit)

I almost forgot to mention about the anchor. It features a single bight of chain between two bolts. This chain passes through a large stainless steel ring. If either bolt were to fail, the ring would slide off the end. For this reason, someone had added a nylon sling tied off with two aluminum rappel rings. I seem to recall that this chain arrangement once resulted in the deaths of two or three climbers at Yosemite and witnessed by John Long. Someone should go up and replace that setup with two separate chains or else take a hacksaw or bolt cutters and cut it.

 

It's unlikely that a new 3/8" bolt is going to fail, but one way of looking at it is this: you wouldn't rap from a single bolt, would you? This setup has twice the likelyhood of failure as a single bolt.

Edited October 12, 2004 by catbirdseat