The less respected dangers of climbing

[JoshK]

I'm sure when most of think of the dangers of climbing we think of objective hazards, weather or a fall on difficult exposed terrain. Yesterday I got a subtle reminder of the less thought about dangers in climbing.

 

I had summited Snowfield Mountain earlier in the day and was on my way down. I had gotten through the few parts of the trip that I thought would cause the most troulbe - the summit scramble, the exposed crossing beneath Pyramid Peak and crossing the glaciers. Thankfully none of these things presented a problem.

 

At around 4500 feet (if I remember correctly) i began the steep forested decent back down to Pyramid Lake. I had just taken off my skis because the forest was quite thick and sported icy dirty snow. Several spots in this forest featured *very* steep snow steps (steeper than I have ever seen in a forest) where (I believe) the very heavy snow pack covered short rock steps and large boulders. On one section i actually front pointed down about 15 feet.

 

About 15 feet below where i front pointed i came to another very steep section. I was tired and sweating and wanted to get down to beat traffic home (yes, terrible reason...) so I suppose I got lazy. I should have turned around and front pointed. Instead I went for a plunge step and my foot didn't penetrate the snow enough. I lost my footing and immediately began to slide feet first. There was a horizontally oriented felled 8" thick pine in my path. I shoved out my boots in an effort to stop myself on it. I had too much speed at this point and my feet hit it and bounced over - as did I. The next few seconds happened very quickly. I tagged another pine and scraped through a bunch of it's branches before going full airborne.

 

At this point it was obvious i was falling off the top of a large step so I attempte as best I could to protect my head and extremities. A second later I slammed into a DEEP moat between a near vertical rock and snow. I felt that sickening smack of my head hitting something. I immediately yelled "holy fuck!!!" to myself, almost too shocked to be scared but more immediately concerned that I had given myself a concusion and would immediately be in big trouble. Thankfully this turned out to not be the case.

 

I was now sitting vertical in the moat, wedged between rock and snow. I couldn't actually see the bottom due to the darkness below but I estimated it to be approx a 10 foot moat. Thankfully because I had my skis on they wedged me higher than I normally would have stopped. I was high enough that i would get a pole up and across the snow and chimney my way out. In the fall I had lost one pole (the one with my whippet, of course) into the moat. I didn't even consider retreiving it for one second.

 

Stunned I gathered myself and stumbled over to a spot flat enough to rest and recollect myself. My head was woozy. I felt my forehead and a large bump had already formed. I remembered hearing that a bump is a good sign as it means the swelling is going out rather into your head. I inspected the terrain where I fell. It was fairly surreal because right beyond the moat the slope was just as steep and led directly into a large grove of trees. I believe if I hadn't landed in the moat I would have gained enough speed to hit those trees and cause myself serious damage. It wouldn't have been pretty.

 

The rest of the ascent was rather uneventful, save for a few mandatory slips on wet branches or moss. I don't normally post things of this nature (thankfully they are few and far between ) but I figured it might serve as a good reminder. I know plenty well that climbing carries serious risks but i still never thought that my scariest moment in the montains would occur under the cover of forest on the approach.

 

A day later the only thing majorly wounded is my pride. My head sports a large black and blue knot, my right forearm is scratched and solidly bruised, my right knee is swolen and tender and my left knee is also quite tender. All and all I got very lucky.

 

Be safe out there all,

 

-josh

 

[Norman_Clyde]

Glad you're safe. Thanks for sharing the story. I can't read reports like this too often: they keep me honest.

 

It can be hard to anticipate every risk, especially on the return when fatigue overcomes concentration. Good thing that wounded pride only makes you come back stronger.

[111]

after you are through "the hard parts", still stay alert. Not doing so cost a dear friend her life when she slipped on gravel after the "hard" parts.

Edited May 18, 2006 by 111

[chucK]

I hate it when that happens!

 

Sobering read. Glad that it ends with you returning (relatively) unscathed.

[EWolfe]

In a pocket hold: bees, snakes or spiders

 

Oh My!

[ivan]

all the cool folx die on the forest deproach!

[scottk]

Glad to hear you're ok. The close calls are always the best stories…. It's a good reminder for us all that there's less margin for error when you're by yourself. I had a similar reminder this winter after falling in a tree well. It was the result of skiing too fast on steep terrain at the end of a hard day of skiing (when these “should have known better” incidents always seem to occur). I fell about 30 feet from this tree and was sliding towards it at a very high rate of speed. I remember thinking, “This is going to hurt”. Fortunately, the branches absorbed the impact and I was virtually unhurt. However, I ended up pinned between the branches and the snow in a prone position about 4 ft below the snow surface. Although I was skiing with a partner (out of sight behind me at the time), he skied past me without noticing. It took about 10 minutes of Houdini-like twisting to remove my skis, rotate my body, and dig steps to climb out. (OK, Houdini would have been out of that tree well in about 15 seconds.) Let just say, it was a slow, careful ski the rest of the way.

[Rastus]

Did something like this too last weekend. Past all the steep and more difficult stuff on the descent. Got my head up looking out at the views and thinking about a fatty chicken breast at the Shell station in Darrington when my left crampon finds something to lodge in under the snow. Too much momentum to stop, my forward leg slips, and I rotate my body around then hear a loud pop in my left foot which finally decides to release from the snow. "WTF was that", I thought as I was sliding on my back down a snow gully ready to go over a waterfall about 200' below. I arrested and managed to catch my ankle a couple times in the process which shot radioactive pain up into my leg. Hobbled the 3 miles off the mountain under the care of 800mg of Advil then got my chicken breast. Torn ligaments in my left ankle and 4-6 weaks out of the mountains will teach me to pay more attention on the easy stuff!

[Shastaman]

Luckily, many of us can report stories like this because we survived. This story just out-- http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/05/20/100loc_b2hiker001.cfm

about the fatal fall a couple days ago by Larry Ingalls, a well known prominent member of the Everett Mountaineers. I would post this as a new story, but I can't, as a lurker I guess.

Larry was a great mountaineer who gave a tremendous amount to the club. As a fellow Everett Mountaineer, I am saddened and stunned by this accident. The side of Lewis Peak is one long slippery slope. I am sorry that Larry found it so...

[genepires]

glad to hear you are ok.

 

Is it me or this turning out to be a more than usual, year of trauma for climbers in washington?

[Chad_A]

Thanks for sharing, Josh. Very scary for sure.

 

Also, sorry to hear about Larry; I guess that stuff can happen to experienced folks at any time.

 

This thread reminds me of my first trip to Stuart a couple years ago. Stewart and I were heading in to do the Ice Cliff Glacier; unfortunately, instead of following Nelson's approach description, we ended up following tape markers on tree branches. This lead us high onto the granite boulderfield, way too high.

 

Rather than go back, we decided to stick it out. Scrambling along the boulders wasn't bad at first, but then we ended up jumping and hopping across car sized granite blocks. I fell once; mostly frustrating, and some cursing. The second time I fell, a rock hold on a slope pulled off, as I was scrambling up a steep section to get on top of another granite block. I fell, somersaulted 30-40 feet down this steep slope, lost most of my pack contents all over the place, and ended up with my head downhill, mere feet away from another rock that would've crushed my skull.

 

I brushed it off as best as I could, but wore my helmet the rest of the way. I still have a nasty scar on my right wrist from the fall.

 

A year later, I did that approach again, and followed the trail next to the stream. Lesson learned- don't blindly follow taped trees, and follow a guidebook description!

[Gary_Yngve]

It seems the past few months have been really bad for unroped falls on snow/ice, especially on scrambly terrain.