Watch this video, which has provoked plenty of discussion on UKC. I was impressed by the belayer’s reactions then I felt a bit emotional when I realised the two climbers are brothers because my younger brother and I also used to climb, mountaineer and mountain bike together. The top piece of gear, a small wire, actually broke, apparently.

You’ll need to FF to about 4 minutes if you’re short of time. Watch for the puff of dust just above the large horizontal crack as the top runner breaks.

****me.
More ‘reasons for not doing that that any more.

About a cm of slack from complete disaster there. Belayer did bloody well – took in and took a jump to get the slack in. Leader had hooked his leg under the rope and was going face first into the deck.

Still trying to calculate the distance to the first runner that held – there must be a lot of foreshortening in the shot because it looks pretty high up. Was it a very thin single rope I wonder?

That was sickening ,thought he was a goner!!

4 posts and no mention of the lack of helmets 😯

Nice echo.

Blimey. Good work by the belayer. Doesn’t get any closer than that.

I’ll be attending the funeral of an ex housemate whose fall didn’t go so well in Spain a few weeks ago. 😐

dd – condolences for your loss.

wow, it looks an innocuous climb but is a good reminder about protection and paying attention. the belay person moved back and that helped although I doubt it was a conscious action, more of a just getting out the way action, either way it helped.

as in cycling helemts are personal preference, as in cycling they are used more and more but haven’t gotten ubiquitous as in cycling.

Yes, thought it was a bit indulgent at first but it draws you in. Nothing hits the ground like a body from height. That wire pic he posted looked scary. I was at the wall last night on something easier, my mind was starting to wander thinking about the harder thing I was trying next and had to give myself a talking to. There but for the grace, etc.

Condolences DD

Didn’t enjoy watching that
Didn’t enjoy their tone
Didn’t enjoy memories of my close misses

I was thinking about getting back out on the crag this spring

**Puts rack and rope back in the loft**

I now don’t enjoy my memories of close misses either. At the time though I took it all in my stride and always climbed a hard or bold route the day after a near miss to make sure I was still on it. My younger self was a bit of an idiot at times.

Sad stuff DD.

Quick reaction from belayer, looks half accidental half by design.
As ever, in hindsight, there’s always more that can be done.
It frightens me some days at climbing walls, and when I used to be at crags even more.

As a macabre question of risk – I wonder how serious injuries and deaths in MTb compare with other sports these days?

Ironically, it’s the ‘inocuous’ little routes like that which can be the most dangerous. Pulling a couple of pieces of gear is considerably less dangerous when you’re 100 or 200 feet off the deck, on something harder and smoother.

I’ve had moments at places like Stanage where a quick mental calculation of the likelihood of a groundfall, even with gear clipped, is a bit disturbing.

Belayer did make a big difference there – he took a big chunk of slack in as the leader started to slither off, then jumped so he was dropping as the rope came tight, reducing the chances of him getting pulled up by the impact. Great catch, basically. A lot of belayers would have just frozen.

Sorry, bit of context…

I shared a house with him when I lived in Stroud – lost touch with them all when I moved down to Bristol. However, it was he that took me and another bloke to Gloucester climbing wall and later on our first outdoor seconding of his leads in the Wye Valley and Avon Gorge. I climbed for years afterwards at UCR in Bristol – so hearing of his demise last week brought back memories of getting into the sport in the first place.

Like I said, I’d completely lost touch with him. Then I get that random friend request on Fb that makes you think, “Uh oh, this is a request to deliver some bad news.” And indeed it was. Rob had seconded the first pitch and was leading the second. Details after that are sketchy but he took a 150ish ft fall, hitting the rock face of Penya in Spain several times. AFAIK, he was alive when rescuers got to him but died later at the Fire Station.

It’ll be strange going to the funeral – a lot of old faces I’ll half recognise. And even though I’d not seen or spoken to him in getting on 20 years, I figure I ought to say goodbye to someone who got me into the sport in the first place.

The top piece of gear, a small wire, actually broke, apparently.

I didn’t pick up on that. Did they say it broke or did it just pull? Second did a good job, though I’m not sure I would necessarily have trusted someone in a vest swigging Stella Artois to save my life. Anyway this chap was very lucky (as was my mate who fell on top of me at the foot of Curbar, thus breaking his fall).

It reminded me of a Johnny Dawes video on I climb I can’t recall. The second’s job was to sprint down the hill below the crag if the leader came off.

I’ve written this on UKC… watching the video you can see an explosion of rock dust at as the wire snaps. This suggests something stressing the surface of the rock and in the picture of the broken wire in situ you can see a corresponding scar on the rock, right next to the strands of frayed wire. I’d be willing to bet that looking at the area of the break under a microscope would reveal gouges across the strands from where the wire was hauled across the rock violently, cutting into several strands and creating a stress riser. I’d also be willing to bet the krab has corresponding scrape marks.

Condolences DD, I’ve lost 2 friends to climbing/mountaineering accidents. The suddenness makes it harder to believe and come to terms with somehow.

It reminded me of a Johnny Dawes video on I climb I can’t recall. The second’s job was to sprint down the hill below the crag if the leader came off.

End of the Affair at Curbar (E8 6c). Belayer basically has to jump off a ledge to prevent a ground fall. I can attest that it works (just) from the perspective of being that belayer……

That brings back some vivid memories of a very similar incident when I was belaying my BiL when he fell off Tower Face at Stanage and stripped all the gear. Unfortunately in that incident there was nothing to hold him and he went head first into a rock at the bottom. He was incredibly lucky, and got away with a 6-inch gash across the top of his scalp and something like 80 stitches. Never seen so much blood in my life. I still wonder today how he survived it, you’d think going headfirst into a rock from 30ft would be instant death.

I’ve written this on UKC..

You should have just mentioned it should be a bolted route on UKC and sat back whilst the old duffers foam at the mouth and rant about ‘tradition’ 😆

Marko

old duffers foam at the mouth and rant about ‘tradition’

Never did understand this. They’d go apoplectic at the mere suggestion of bolting some minor gritstone outcrop on some godforsaken moor yet be perfectly comfortable clipping bolts at beauty spots like Malham Cove. 😕

Tradition innit?

Tradition innit?

A stupid tradition IMO. Imagine if Coed Y Brenin insisted that everyone ride a mid-90s MTB on their trails?

I’m thinking that doing the right thing by accident probably takes a lot of practice.

For those who haven’t watched the whole thing, it’s in slow motion at about 7:00 which makes it easier to see where he came onto the rope.

not only would some go apoplectic some of us would up there hammering your hangers flat. If you can’t do it on grit without those little metal men then leave it for someone who can. Yep i’m and oldgit.

mt +1 (the sentiment that is)

Mind you, those bolts in the north wales slate quarries are sparingly fine.

Climbed on Shining Cliff a couple of times in part of a campaign to climb on every crag both of the Peak Limestone – Derwent Valley & Peak Grit – South Guides (Names could be slightly wrong)

Never has so much muddy and mossy grit and tottering piles of unconsolidated limestone been climbed on. Shining Cliff wasn’t the worst crag (I think that was either the one off the bottom incline on the high peak trail or one of the ‘crags’ in Lathkill Dale (The first had routes that with frequent repeats might degenerate into rock climbs the second had routes that with frequent repeats would be scree slopes).

Never been in favour of bolting grit but retro bolting some of the trad limestone lines that started as aid routes with insitu pegs which now have all the integrity of a corroded coke can (The crux on Lyme Crime on High Tor springs to mind) makes sense to me.

mt & yak, +1 also.

Climbing trad is almost a different sport from climbing bolted routes, part of the fun and the challenge is the gear placement.

The physical climbing may be the same but the consideration of options for protection, the selection and placement of the gear all adds to the experience IMO.

(another oldgit climber 😉 )

Wombat – assuming your username is from the Roaches classic roof climb then?

Climbing trad is almost a different sport from climbing bolted routes, part of the fun and the challenge is the gear placement.

Totally agree. I always accepted the anti-bolt status quo on grit but started questioning it after going to Joshua Tree, where some routes whilst mostly trad would have the odd bolt on them to turn them from being a potential death route, to something feasible for mere mortals/non-nutters. It got me thinking that there are huge numbers of routes on grit which never get climbed and are hence deteriorating because they’re not worth the risk of decking. Seems to me that one or two strategic bolts on routes like these would bring them back into play and reduce the traffic on the safer classics which are being slowly eroded by thousands of cam and nut placements.

@yak – actually my username is Wombat because my name is Tom and Dante Gabriel Rossetti had a pet wombat called Tom, it’s quite obvious really 😉

Top and Tom?

Damn, my knowledge of famous historical pets is poor 🙂

Edit – Right then, just read the essay,
‘Rossetti’s Wombat: A Pre-Raphaelite Obsession in Victorian England ‘.

Every day’s a school day.

A stupid tradition IMO. Imagine if Coed Y Brenin insisted that everyone ride a mid-90s MTB on their trails?

Poor analogy. A better biking analogy would be sanitising natural trails to make them safer or more accessible. Bet there are plenty of mountain bikers who would start foaming at the mouth over that one!

I felt a bit emotional when I realised the two climbers are brothers because my younger brother and I also used to climb, mountaineer and mountain bike together.

Very sorry to hear this. I climb (Badly) and have cycled with my kid brother always and it would be devastating to me if we didn’t anymore.

So sorry for your loss DD.

There used to be a kind of Godwin’s Law on ukc where you could turn any debate into a bolting discussion within about 20 posts. Well done STW 😉

Anyways yes, sobering video and always worth remembering this is Serious Stuff. Having said that I DID get my leading gear out of the loft benman and had a whale of a time last year and will do this. The rope was knackered though.

Not looked at ukc for over 10 years. Just looked and all the big hitters back then are still at it. 🙂

Classic prisoner’s dilemma – you’re in the sea and the sharks are milling. You’re not sure of their species. There’s a desert island to your left filled with UKC big hitters and another to your right filled with STW big hitters.

Swim left, right or take your chances with the sharks?

Good grief. 4th option – mumsnet?