Scary days at the Smoke Bluffs......

[NateDoggOG]

So I drove up to Squamish today with this girl who I hadn't met or climbed with before. We were going to meet up with some of her friends who were visiting from Ontario to climb.
Found them at the south end of Burgers and Fries, sorta just hung out and chatted, they told me what types of climbs they were looking to get on, so I figured I'd take them up to Neat and Cool since there are some good moderate classics there.

Now, of the four people visiting, all four were sport climbers, only one had any experience with traditional climbing, and he was the only on with any sort of rack besides draws. A very limited rack, consisting of camalots .75, 1 and 2, a set of nuts, and some hexes.

No big deal; they wanted a finger crack, I decided Flying Circus was perfect for them. I borrowed his cams (I have no rack of my own aside from a set of wallnuts) and took my nuts to lead up it. I've climbed it enough times; I know where the cams go, I know where to get bomber nut placements, it's no big deal.

I spent an extra minute or two fiddling a nut into a perfect spot just below the crux (before you go up and left to the juggy sidepull/crack dealy). Normally you can get a microcam in a bit higher up, but the bomber nut is what's going to catch you if that piece was to fail. Of course, I didn't have a microcam, so I ran it out about eight feet up through the crux to the next placement. No reason to waste my energy trying to hold on a moderate finger lock in order to place a piece when I can just go for the jug. I didn't expect anyone else would try to do anything beside top rope it (File this under obvious foreshadowing).

I set up the anchors, came down, and was going to set up a rope on Cat Crack so everyone wouldn't have to stand around for one rope. The crag was pretty much empty, so top ropes weren't taking over. While I was doing this, the only guy with trad experience TRd Flying Circus because he wanted to try it before leading. He didn't clean my gear, just unclipped it. He got it clean on TR, no big deal.

Now the next guy decided he'd just lead it on my pre placed gear. I wasn't too worried about it, they seemed to have a pretty good handle on what they were doing. In the meantime, I was soloing up the crack just right of Cat Crack, the one that leads into Corner Crack near the top.
By the time I got to the large ledge just before the final crack up, the guy on Circus had just clipped the nut before the crux and runout. I stopped to watch and offer advice if he asked.

The one thing that so many sport climbers seem to do when climbing a crack for the first time is layback the edge. This guy was no different, except it didn't work. He was about four, maybe five feet above that nut when I asked if he was doing okay. His response was that he was getting tired..... then he let go.

It looked like he tried to twist away from the rock in midair for some reason, but his foot getting caught behind the rope prevented that. He inverted, got caught by the rope after maybe a ten foot fall and slammed into the rock. I really mean slammed into it hard; he was lucky he's one of those smart climbers who wears their helmet even while cragging.

Keep in mind that during these few seconds of terror:
(A) I am watching all this from mere feet away, and
(B) The nut he fell on was one I placed..... one I took special care to make sure was set solidly.

As I'm sure you can all imagine, I was stressed to all hell.
He was alright, didn't try to finish the climb, just came down and shook out. Kudos to him for continuing to climb after taking a whipper like that.

I haven't been climbing for very long, and I'll be the first to admit I've done some less-than-smart things while climbing, but never have I been this scared while on the rock. Spooked me right out..... People can place their own gear from now on...... I'm not pre setting anything. I couldn't stop thinking about how I would have felt (and would still feel) if that nut had popped.
On the other hand, I'm stoked it held.

[NateDoggOG]

Just an afterword:
TL/DR is not appreciated. I know it's long, but that happened to be the length it took me to describe the story in detail.
Also, I'm not necessarily looking for any negative criticism. Constructive criticism as to what in my power could have been done differently might be nice, but I posted this story for the pleasure (or horror) of the climbers on the forum.

[scrubber]

I appreciate the story. Sometimes just writing it all out after witnessing something can be very therapeutic. It sounds like you discovered a new boundary for yourself regarding your responsibility for others. Most of us have been part of, or closely witnessed, some sort of incident involving novice climbers like this at some time.

Take care,

Kris

[staven]

I think it would be a good idea to stress the importance of not trusting pre-placed gear, just because you trust the person who placed it. It could have walked out of the crack, or maybe the leader placed a crappy piece knowing there were easy moves and better gear above it. Some sport climbers are used to whipping onto a bolt whenever they get a micropump, so it's also good to stress that it's a bit more serious on trad gear.

My sister was out climbing with her boyfriend on the Witch Doctor's Apprentice the other day. Her boyfriend is a bit of a hot shot sport climber, with less confidence on trad lines, and some overconfidence in climbing above marginal gear. My sister fell twice on a number 0 metolius he placed, then finished the climb. This being her 3rd or 4th trad lead ever, she just clipped the biner and kept going, just like it was a bolt. Her boyfriend climbed it again to cleaned the gear, and found the cam only holding by 2 lobes. He told me this after they got back, and was reluctant to tell her about it because he felt like it was his fault and didn't want to look like he wasn't the ropegun he made himself out to be.

While it is the responsibility of the leader to be comfortable with the protection, I think he missed a good learning opportunity for my sister, and how humility can make the whole system safer. I never lead a trad climb on pre-placed gear without learning what a good piece looked like before setting off. Doesn't mean I never placed a sh*tty piece while learning, but I definitely thought about each one for a while before climbing above it, and got the seconder to check and give me feedback. Basic stuff for a new trad leader, I think.

Something else you probably already realize is that placing a few extra pieces for your newbie friends might be a good idea. I think that you might bear a small slice of responsibility for the incident, but I guess it's up to you and you're conscience to figure that out. It's also hard to judge people's ability after having just met them, so definitely a tough situation. Better safe than dead though, and having the right gear for the route is also nice. I guess you'll be thinking about this a lot for the next while, and you've no doubt learned a lot from the experience. Glad it wasn't worse.

Wes.

[NateDoggOG]

Definitely was a learning experience..... Maybe in the future when I have more confidence in myself then I won't have any issues preplacing gear for people who want to try and lead, but until then, if someone wants to lead, it's their gear that they're going to fall on.
I wasn't expecting anyone else to try and lead up on what I placed which is why I ran it out at all. I have no issues with showing visiting climbers different crags and lines, but I guess I'm not ready to take responsibility for them while they are actually on the wall.

[Optimally-Primed]

A friend of mine has mantra: when getting into a new arena (like climbing trad or placing gear), challenge yourself with one thing at a time. Challenge yourself with the fact that you have to place gear while climbing something easy. Or challenge yourself with the climbing with the gear all sorted beforehand. In the story here, it seems that the climbing itself was a challenge. When I bring new climbers to trad leading, I do pre-place the gear for them. But I place so much that they are almost on TR the whole way. Seems like this option wasn't available in the described situation as the rack was thin...

[jipstyle]

This is a great thread, Nate ... thanks for sharing. If even one person learns something from what you've written, that's great.

Another lesson that I picked up on in your story is one that is universally applicable across all forms of climbing: if you're going to change plans, give the new plan as much consideration as you did the original. In this case, you led the climb and placed gear with only yourself in mind and this original plan was sound. The plan changed when the second leader decided to lead it on your gear. You hadn't planned for this and some learning ensued. In the future, I recommend stopping and thinking through the 'new' plan whenever you decide to change something.

This applies to bouldering (choosing a different topout mid-problem .. are the pads still going to protect you?), sport climbing (choosing to rap off sketchy anchors rather than getting lowered to save wear on your rope .. is your belayer fully aware of the new plan), etc..

Often, it is the on-the-fly changes in our planning that cause the biggest problems. They are often unavoidable, so we just have to ensure that we're taking the time to think everything through.

[c-plus]

if you're going to change plans, give the new plan as much consideration as you did the original.

+1 for sure. And especially so when taking along newcomers since they will often assume that whatever choices and judgements you make for yourself ARE ALSO THE BEST FOR THEM. As you clearly realize now, the runout that you were comfortable with (and your buddy just assumed was acceptable) was not appropriate for his skill level. Just realize that what's easy for one person can be a near-death experience for someone else! After much learning just like you are doing now, I realized that it's best to create a nice, safe, low-stress environment for newbies so that they can build up their confidence slowly. If you freak 'em out right from the get-go, they'll get turned off from the sport quickly.

[Lurch]

Flying circus was one of the more heady leads in my early trad career.
It was especially so at the time for me, because i had been figuring out the gear for a couple days, and then this happened.
http://squamishclimbing.com/squamish_cl ... s+fatality
"A climber was on Flying Circus at the Smoke Bluffs; fell; blew two pieces of gear and decked."

Something about a practice fall? low on the climb.

Obviously this added a little spice to the climb for me.

I hope that guy knows how lucky he is....

[psi4ce]

There is an interesting correlation between this thread and the thread titled "Calling out the Hacks." http://www.squamishclimbing.com/squamis ... f=1&t=3532

Some of the same people have posted to both the threads, but the tone is quite different. This is not meant as a troll because I can do without the flames, but think about it. Over there it's like "gumby noobs without ropes suck and they are f*ck1ng a$$h0les" whereas over here it's like "gumby noobs with ropes are cool, they just need a little love".

I've been climbing for years and years. I'm not the world's greatest climber by any stretch of the imagination, but here's some wisdom (at least I'd venture to call it that):

You want to be a climber? Safety is always concern and it is always YOUR responsibility no matter what the situation is. No matter how inconvenient it might be, you need to be doing your best to think the situation through, and you need to do whatever you can to avoid the unthinkable. None of us are perfect, and that's why we ought to climb together--so we can check each other. I can't even comment on full-on soloing because, as fun as it looks, it is so far outside the realm of general safety that I don't even think it qualifies.

Have a nice day

[staven]

Gumby newbs should not be soloing.

[psi4ce]

Gumby newbs should not be soloing.

They shouldn't be leading either, especially on runout trad gear.

[harihari]

I've been first responder at two head-injury accidents. Neither victim wore a helmet; in both cases there would have been little or no injury had helmets been worn; in one case, the guy would have bled to death in literally two minutes had my partner and I not been there. Amazing how much blood comes out of a neck artery. Given how amazingly light and well-vented modern helmets are-- Petzl has one, BD another-- there's no excuse for not having one.

And remember-- any head injury resulting in decreased loss of consciousness (this can range from a full-on blackout to "mere" confusion/unco-ordination) means call the ambulance. You have one hour, best case, before brain injuries start to have long, long-term consequences.