Accident Report: 2/24/24
It’s fitting to consider the following incident as “winning the lottery” for it has often been the case that earning the winnings of a lottery is likely a bad outcome for you.
On the 24th of February, I was leading a group of friends (two parties of two) with my SO up the route Cookie Monster with plans to continue into the top of Cat in the Hat and summit the Mescalito. My group was with a newer traditional climber while my SO was with a climber new to multi-pitch climbing but could surely handle the feat.
As we rolled up to the climb, my party was the first to climb, and I decided as the most experienced of the party to lead the first pitch to “set the tone” (style, speed, safety). Given I have climbed this route before, I was confident despite having a rupture A4 pulley in my left hand that has been struggling to heal over the past 4 months. The only thing that I did not quite remember was the exact route, but rather than review the beta we had on the climb, I chose to forgo and charge forward.
I quickly racked my gear at the base, tied in, and climbed swiftly upwards along the face of the cliff left of the “obvious” crack system (I quite love usage of obvious in terms of providing route finding information. I strongly encourage this practice to continue throughout all guidebooks, online forums, and verbal directions, especially when the landmark in question is completely obscure.). I figured I would soon join the major dihedral system, but I would take advantage of all the face jugs until then. Roughly 20 feet up, I placed my first piece, a small cam, into a decent pod. A good placement. Another 30 feet would pass before I placed a slotted nut in-between two constricting horns. A creative nut placement that warranted great appreciation from all who witnessed its glory that day. But I soon reached an impasse.
A bulge row extruded itself above me, and the juicy, squeezed jugs had all but disappeared. Above me lay a fault in the row. Weird white baby powder coated a side pull that would prompt for a strong move on my left hand. As I wondered who would bring baby powder up a route, I figured that the reason I haven’t healed my pulley injury yet lied above me, and that I might as well consider a better option to my sides. At this point, the slotted nut was at head height. I quickly pulled up on a jug to see if there were anymore to be found higher up above the bulge. I pressed both feet on a horn roughly the size of a tissue box, when suddenly it happened.
CRASH! The foot broke. Well, fuck that foot anyways. As I remained hanging from my hands, I then traversed left and right looking for better options, slightly bewildered by the sudden crumbling of what I believed was a decent foot and the questionable remarks of my belayer as he dodged a few of the pieces whizzing by him. I then thought about if the rock was dry, despite my incessant checking in fear of the wet rock police. It had been 2 days of dry weather and given this route gets sun, I was quite comfortable in the conditions. Still, it startled me and had me questioning my reasoning.
Given this, I began traversing right, as I figured gaining the prominent feature of the system would be a better idea and slightly easier than the V2 boulder I considered earlier. As I stepped across, I told my belayer that I was looking for an easier option. Precisely and carefully, I traversed several feet to the right along the bottom of the row. I paused as I noticed some succulents I would have to step over, and I remembered a time in which I had drunkenly stepped on a succulent and admired its beauty. To be growing so quaintly in such a dangerous and in-hospital ar –I was falling. My feet hit a bulge 5 feet below me. I felt the rope catch as I began to swing across the rock. I knew that I would likely hit the wall soon so I tucked my head, but I didn’t put my hands behind my head as I was still holding onto the “wall”. I felt my back roll along the rock, and then softly my head hit the rock, and then I opened my eyes. I immediately checked for my belayer, ensuring that he was uninjured from the rock fall that took place. He was fine. I then remembered to check myself. I was fine? I immediately worried about my head, had I given myself another concussion? Was this the start of suffering again? My anxiety from past traumas began to overwhelm me, but then I recalled I barely rolled onto my head. Phew. It would be several hours of reassuring myself I had not re-injured my head, but that is par for the course.
What the hell happened? I was chilling on a foot, enjoying the easy nature of the climbing, checking the feet and holds I was using, and to quote Alex Handhold “climbing like a cat” with a mighty fine jug in my hand. As I looked up and down, I realized that mighty fine jug was still in my right hand. Nice. I peeked inside the entrails of the freshly exposed rock to see, no, the hold was not saturated (it actually was because exactly 2.5 years ago a flood hit this section of rock and everyone knows that on the 4th thursday of February you can’t climb the mescalito unless you grind silica powder into your chalk. You’re the one ruining Red Rocks because you didn’t do enough prep…). I looked down and asked my belayer if my foot broke, and he confirmed that he dodged a few rocks. I was standing on one section of rock along a rail. Presumably, the feet broke causing me to load my handhold, which subsequently also immediately broke.
I didn’t even get the chance to save it. I was just… free falling. At the time of writing, I have been climbing for 7 years, outdoor climbing for 7 years, trad climbing for 4 years with hundreds of pitches under my belt all over the country, a route developer, and overall, I would consider myself a qualified climber to assess rock quality and the safest way to climb a route. And yet, here I was, helpless to the environment at (in?) hand, despite exercising medium caution to the risk and being given a warning sign. I was disturbed. Could I have prepared slightly better with the route beta? Definitely, and this would have prevented the accident. On Mountain Project, almost all the photos indicate just going direct up the fault system. But my memory served me as climbing the left face and then entering the crack system. My memory is right, that is how I did it last time. This is apparently “off-route” and not intended.
What does this mean? I honestly believe, I won the lottery. I have broken off my fair share of rocks, trundled big rocks, taken off feet and hands, but never have I blown all of them while trusting them. I am not quite sure the odds of it, but I am pretty sure that given all my experience and precaution, it has to be pretty insane odds for it to happen. And yet, I also won the conventional lottery analogy. My piece, a slotted nut, held. If the piece blew, I would probably not be writing this. Given the runout, I would have definitely hit the ground. It was only roughly 50 feet up, and I felt confident about my placements and the spacing. I am alive and well.
And yet, I adjust my knobs and dials, and head out back into the wild.