Nose death flake

what DOES hold the boot to the wall? faith?

what DOES hold the boot to the wall? faith?

where is the fall line more or less?

I can tell you from personal experience that it will likely come right down along the line of the first three aid pitches of the original Nose.

we drill bolt in them and chain them to the wall

nobodys forgetting

amazing how you can advocate simply throwing our hands up

my partner stepped on it inadvertently while setting off from the belay and it slid down several inches.. we thought it was gonna take us out right then and there... was pretty terrifying for the rest of that belay.. as there is no where to hide from it..

Why make erosion wait?

Just expressing my desire to transform potential energy into kinetic.

That statement brings back a fright from Sahara Terror at Tahquitz in the early 80's which is strikingly similar to the OP.

Unfortunately, the very next day a guy dropped it on the woman belaying him. It severed her arm completely and she bled to death at the belay. Could have been me.

johntp...It was almost me and my gf (I posted this before somewhere)

"I was also terrorized the last time I climbed this route. That was back around 1984. My gf and I were climbing behind another couple. We shared a couple of belays and pleasant conversation. We stopped for a bite to eat at the little alcove at the belay before the regular crux pitch. The other team continued on. They had done the crux pitch and the guy was about half way up the next one (last or 2nd to last pitch) when I started out again. He screams "ROCK" and I hear the terrible scrapping of something that starts sliding then bouncing down. The deep rumble identifies it as something big. I look up and there is a huge crash and explosion of rock fragments and dust and I see the woman´s body flung out onto the face. Her rope comes taught and she is hanging upside down about 10 ft below the belay ledge. My gf can´t see anything and is in a panic, but as fate would have it, we are at the spot where the route takes a little jog to the right and so are not directly under the rock fall. The rest of the route below gets showered with debris. I climb up to the woman as fast as I can and reach her in about 5 minutes but she is clearly already dead - one hand amputated and a massive gash on her chest, no sign of a pulse, and as she was hanging upside down like that, looked like all her blood had drained out onto the rock. By this time her bf, who has untied from the rope and downclimbed to the belay (!), is yarding on the rope trying to haul her back up to the ledge. I move up to the belay, get us both anchored, and we bring her body up to the ledge. He tries to resuscitate her (that was grim) and then when he finally accepts her demise, falls to pieces. People on the ground, on the top, and my gf are all yelling to find out what has happened. I have to let them know that there is a fatality but no other injuries, although the bf is close to non-functional. I wait with him and try to help him get it together for what must be done until some other climbers, who have rescue experience, rap down to us. Then we decide that they will help get the bf out. I will bring my gf up and we will clear out. My gf is also not in very good shape, especially after she has to climb over the gore on the face, past the woman's body on the ledge, and around her grieving and sobbing bf - people who just minutes before we had seen happy and full of life and who were like ourselves enjoying a beautiful day on the rock. Not too long after that my gf dropped out of climbing. I did a lot of thinking, and the smell of pulverized granite can still transport me back to that moment in a flash, but the bad wasn't enough to cancel out the good, and so I continued to climb."

I always assumed that the boot flake is integral to the wall

If you fix any potential problem you might as well be sport climbing.

It makes sense to me to trundle that block to avoid injury or death. Pick a day in the dead of winter.....with no one around.....and send it.