Recent Climber Death in JTree?

News broke early this morning on Facebook that Wikipedian Adrianne Wadewitz died while rock climbing recently. Wadewitz was well known in the Wikimedia community for her activism drawing attention to the lack of female contributors on Wikipedia. She was also very involved in the Wiki Education Foundation, serving as a member of its board of directors.

Earlier this week I was told the following about the Headstone and Cathouse accidents by a JTNP ranger:

Cathouse (03-29-2014)
A traditional anchor was built at the top of the Cathouse using three pieces of gear. The female victim started to rappel down the cliff face and one of the three anchor pieces pulled out. The victim stopped on a ledge and the male, who was still on top of the cliff, reincorporated the third (failed) piece back into the anchor. After being assured the anchor was now sound, the victim started to rappel again. The entire anchor then failed and the victim fell 15-20 feet, suffering fatal injuries.

Headstone (03-30-2014)
The Headstone accident involved top roping on the route Cryptic. The climber tied into the rope in the mid-section, not the end. The climber then did the route and was being lowered by the belayer. Apparently the belayer moved positions during the climb or the lower, thus making the overall distance longer than when the climber started climbing. There was no knot in the belay end of the rope and the rope ran through the belay device (a Grigri) as the climber was being lowered. The climber fell into the boulders at the base of the route after the rope went though the belay device.

The information provided above may not be 100% accurate and as such, should be used judiciously.

This is very sad. I was nearby and heard the ambulances.

Both people relied on the wrong partners (who I hope quit climbing).

As for the Headstone incident on "Cryptic," why the hell would anyone tie into the middle of the rope to toprope?

Those must have been A6 placements.

Not
1. Putting a knot in the leader's end so the belay is retained
2. Pulling the rope through
3. Walking off the backside

must look really cool. Is it the crowd climbing that makes this necessary? Or does it come simply from the gyms?

it's at least slightly interesting to me that some of you seem to be incriminating gyms for at least some things that aren't really dangerous, and have nothing to do with gyms.

convenience anchors

May as well blame these accidents on "marihuana" or people-who-don't-look-like-us or whatever.

When I started climbing in Josh 40 years ago, our mantra was...."If there's a way to walk off....do it."

"If there's a way to walk off....do it."

When I started climbing in Josh 40 years ago, our mantra was...."If there's a way to walk off....do it."

Forty year later......still living that same code.

"As a sometimes visitor to JT, seems to me that the developers of your era screwed the place up in a lot of ways with crap bolt jobs and poor anchors."

Double Huh?

Wanna give some specific examples of crap anchors & bolts you are referring to, blahblah?

And the 'developers of our era'...exactly who are you talking about?

Too many freaking sketch downclimbs there for my tastes--wastes time and adds unnecessary danger.

I can't think of a single sketch down climb in JTree.

The "walk off" mantra is all well and good...except there ain't no walkoff of the Headstone, which is where one of these two accidents happened. You are lowering/rapping, or downsoloing 5.6/5.7 as the easiest ways off the formation.

It seems that Josh has the highest death rate of crags in America. I attribute that to amateurs trying their hand in the 'real world', without the proper skillz.

I feel really bad about the gal especially. That just did not need to happen. Sad sh#t....God bless her.

The crack is shallow and a bit flared, and would not be an easy spot to rig a reliable gear anchor.

J-Tree with the inexplicable tradition of bolted face climbs with no anchor. If you've got the drill on you, why not finish the job

J-Tree with the inexplicable tradition of bolted face climbs with no anchor. If you've got the drill on you, why not finish the job?

Again, I'm not talking about climbs upon which one sets out with a rack of gear…what is more convenience-based than a bolted face? Don't tell me that following someone else's line of pre-placed protection is all about self-reliance, route-finding, judgment..etc. And then a totally different ethic prevails on top.

the disconnect between modern expectations and established reality is broader than this and growing wider......
People now regularly complain about run out climbing on easy bolted fare like Double Dip (5.6) on Echo Rock (established in 1973) -- despite guidebooks warning them that these older routes aren't sport climbs. In the case of Double Dip, that disconnect between expectations and reality is compounded by limited outdoor experience and an apparently lack of reading comprehension.ere

For me it's more of a logical consistency issue.

I'm just kind of amazed by the JT ethic of putting up a bolted climb but making people carry a pile of gear and hike back 30 feet to some crusty crack to find a safe anchor.

I spent three year climbing in HS with Hunt Prothro

Please be careful everybody!

This sport is very unforgiving of ignorance.

maybe this kind of incident will make some of the hard-core ethical traditionalists in the J-Tree community re-consider the placement of convenience anchors atop climbs.

As a sometimes visitor to JT, seems to me that the developers of your era screwed the place up in a lot of ways with crap bolt jobs and poor anchors.

Climbers of my era learned about self-reliance first.

I don't think the discussion of JT anchors is relevant in this unfortunate incident

What I learned as the worst student in the class

When professors teach, they teach what they love. What they are experts in. What it is easy for them to learn. Thus, it is easy to forget what it is like to be the student who struggles in the classroom. In fact, many professors may never have had the experience of struggling to learn--they probably effortlessly got A’s or at least easily understood how to teach themselves a topic. How can they, then, sympathize with and, more importantly, effectively teach students who do not intuitively understand their subject matter?

Embrace failure.

Ultimately, nothing was more helpful for me than failing repeatedly. Academics choose to pursue subjects in which they do not fail very often. When I went climbing, I was failing spectacularly--and publicly--every hour of every day I was climbing. This is quite different from job market rejection or publication rejection--those can all be justified or explained away in one’s mind. I was forcing myself to do something that I knew would cause me to feel fear, failure, and frustration. The mental and physical discipline it took for me to fail repeatedly and try again was completely different from the kind of academic discipline I had developed over the years. This is perhaps the hardest lesson I want my students to learn. They have been taught that all failure is something to be ashamed of and something to be avoided. Thus, I have decided that one entire assignment in my next writing class will be about writing failures, since all good writing entails drafts and revisions. The students will save their failed writing attempts and explain what they have learned from them. Focusing entirely on those drafts and revisions and why precisely they decided to delete paragraphs or change introductions will, I hope, make students feel more comfortable with this concept.


Write a new personal narrative.

For me, one of the most empowering outcomes of my year of climbing has been the new narrative I can tell about myself. I am no longer “Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, and Wikipedian”. I am now “Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, Wikipedian, and rock climber”. This was brought home most vividly to me one day when I was climbing outdoors here in Los Angeles and people on the beach were marveling at those of us climbing. Suddenly I realized, I used to be the person saying how crazy or impossible such feats were and now I was the one doing them. I had radically switched subject positions in a way I did not think possible for myself. That, I realized, is what I want my students to experience - that radical switch and growth. It is an enormous goal and I would love to hear how others work at achieving it with their students.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/business/media/adrianne-wadewitz-37-wikipedia-editor-and-academic-dies.html

Ms. Wadewitz’s interest in rock climbing played out on Wikipedia. Her last editing was to improve an article about Steph Davis, a prominent female climber and wingsuit flier. In Ms. Wadewitz’s hands, the article became filled with personal details, spectacular photos, a highlighted quotation and 25 footnotes.