Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board climbing rules

I recently witnessed an accident where one of my freinds fell approximately 50-60ft from the top of a cliff and decked. By the grace of God someone was standing at the base of the climb and more or less tackled him in mid air just before his head hit the ground preventing a head injury that probably would have killed him or left him paralyzed. He has two cracked vertabrae but should recover fine in a few months. He was setting up an anchor at the top of the cliff, and was not clipped in and slipped and fell. This incident has brought up an interesting debate among my freinds and I and I wondered if anyone had any thoughts....

Some people argue that there are rules in climbing which you should not violate..ie if you are on an exposed ledge clip in, if you are attempting say the east face of whitney in a day you should bring emergency bivy gear etc.... These rukes are in place in order to mitigate risk and lower the probabilities of consequences in ways that you can control, and you should always follow your rules and make the safe choice in order to mitigate risks.

The other side of the argument is that climbing in itself is a risk, and instead of using rules to mitigate risk one should use their judgment and take calculated risks based on your comfort level as long as you are being honest with yourself in accepting the potential consequences. Solo climbing or choosing not to carry emergency gear in order to go as light as possible are two examples of this.

so what is more important, controlling probabilities to the extent that you can by not violating your safety rules, or making judgement calls and accepting certain levels of risk. i guess this is largely a personal choice but i was just curious if anyone had any insights......

thanks

Interesting topic, DrewDrew. You could argue both sides of the coin. My two cents worth is the latter i.e. climbing in itself is a risk. I would add to this that at no time should you ever risk danger to any other person. On the other side of the coin, it is definitely smarter to not violate "so called safety rules".

That is an interesting topic. As I see it, the first approach is "systemic" and the second approach is "egocentric."

While we all need to take responsibility for our actions, it is easy for us to overlook the hidden systemic effects of our actions. Saying that "climbing is itself a risk" sounds like more of a rationalization than an explanation. If somebody takes a fall, somebody else will have to do a rescue. Preventing a fall prevents someone from having to do a rescue. That is my 2c.

To me the point of the 'rules' (e.g. tie off the bottom of the rope before you rappel) is so that you don't have to think about it when you're tired and cold and hungry and oxygen-deprived. I agree with the basic judgment philosophy, but it can be worth it to also have self-chosen rules that you always follow even if it's not necessary in a given situation. So if you're at the last rappel and you can see the rope ends on the ground then it's silly to make sure that you won't rappel off the end of the rope, but you knot them anyway just to stay in the habit. Other decisions have to be made 'fresh' every time, and those are subject to judgment -- impaired or not. But there's no reason to extrapolate that and decide never to have rules.

I'm glad your friend is basically okay, Drew.
-julian

To keep it simple... safty is always the first concern, no matter what your doing. Sorry to hear about your friend.

I think there are some procedures in climbing that you can make hard and fast rules about and many others that require judgement calls at the moment.

Examples of rules based procedures include always doubling back your harness buckles, always checking each other before you start climbing (looking for correctly threaded and tied knots, harnesses put on correctly, etc.).

An example of a judgement call is how often you place protection while leading a pitch. You can decide to make a move while run out 15' or you can place gear to protect the move. If you plug in lots of gear you might be short of a crucial piece near the top of the pitch. If you run it out more you'll have more gear available but you increase the risk if a fall occurs.

I'm sorry to hear about your friend. I've already said a prayer for him and hope the accident can at least be used as a learning experience by others. Thanks for sharing.

All the best,

Kurt

another spin on this which fred touched on is the role of ego in all of this. perhaps rules are important because judgement can be clouded by emotion such as ego, fear, those days when you feel really solid and invincible....etc. Isn't this okay though?? I guess climbing is sort of a sick pursuit in that sometimes with greater risk comes greater reward, and many of the most impressive achievments in climbing and anytime limits were pushed (i wasnt alive for it, but i think free climbing in yosemite in the 70s is a good example of this) was due to people making judgement calls based on ego and emotion. where does the line get drawn though between someone pushing their limits and doing something irresponsible? i guess the easy answer is when other peoples lives are put in jeapordy by having to rescue you and your partner, but as you are making plans and decisions these outcomes are unknown.

I view risks as cumulative. I will fly (a single engine piston plane) in the mountains and I will fly at night, but I will not fly in the mountains at night. If you look at accident analysis, it is typically true that more than one thing goes wrong and the errors compound each other.

I think about climbing the same way: how many risks do I want to pile on top of one another. It is a judgment call as to how much risk is too much. So for example, a buddy and I climbed Mt. Hood last year unroped because the snow was good and we felt comfortable self-arresting. If it was icy and very windy, we might have decided to rope up on that same pitch.

I just read the details of the rap accident on Mt. Wake.

This is a perfect example of the use of rules. I find these kind of accidents incomprehensible, particularly in expert climbers.

In this one, it was the typical: not following the safety rule, combined with fatigue, distraction, a problem with the gear (small diameter rope being very slippery in the belay device).

Of note, after the fall, the other climber did not have the ability to rap down, as she "had the rack". That means that he did not have a "rescue" setup that most expert climbers carry: carabiner, prussik loop, etc. With one carabiner he could have used a Munter hitch very effectively, instead of the risk of downclimbing. In fact, the Munter likely would have solved the "slippery rap device" problem, or there are other ways to enhance the function of the device, which they apparently did not do.

One hates to be critical of someone in this setting, but sometimes the highest tribute is to learn from their loss of life.

This sort of accident is very disturbing, as it was totally preventable.