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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Jul 25, 2016 - 08:37pm PT
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Sad day. We were at the Climbers' Ranch when word came in on Saturday. Cast a bit of a pall over our scene. Didn't help to get home on Sunday and hear of another fatality in Maple Canyon. Heavy sigh...
I was on the Grand when Allan Bard had his accident. I rappelled down from the same rap point that Gary fell from and encountered a couple of stunned clients who said their guide had just fallen. Allan was not guiding for Exum, he was working for Jackson Hole Mountain Guides.
We'd climbed the Grand via the Stettner-to-Ford the day before and were hanging out in the Moraine Camp. Conditions were pretty snowy/icy. Ugh.
http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13199807400/Fall-on-Rock-Inadequate-Belay-and-Protection-Wyoming-Grand-Teton-National-Park-Grand-Teton-Owen-Spaulding
This climbing thing can be unforgiving on the simplest of mistakes.
Condolences to friends and family.
Let's take care out there, folks.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jul 25, 2016 - 09:21pm PT
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I can think offhand of eight times when I came within a hair of having an accident like Gary's.
1. While soloing the Jensen Ridge, my left handhold broke, causing my left foot to blow off its hold. With right hand and right leg still on, I pivoted out almost to the point of total release, and then managed to pivot back in again.
2. Similar experience guiding in the Gunks. Not enough pro to prevent a groundfall. I stood up on a foothold that looked as if it could break, but I had tested and used it the week before and it was fine then. This time it broke and the other foot went too. Stopped myself on fingertip handholds. Yay for Gunks horizontals.
3. Walking at the edge of a huge cliff at the top of No Escape Buttress, a stone rolled under my foot. I ended up sitting on the lip with one leg hanging over in space.
4. Leading a climb in the Custer SD Needles, I had passed the crux and was embarking on the all-to-usual groundfall runout. I arrived at a spot for a piton, but the climbing was moderate and I felt fine without it. For some reason, I changed my mind and put the piton in. Two steps higher a crystal broke and I had an inconsequential fall onto the piton, but it would have been a death groundfall otherwise.
5. I failed to tie in once, just had the rope passed through my swami with no knot. In a way fortunately, the rope fell off when I was half way up the pitch (fortunate because I didn't fall or try to weight the rope). I soloed the rest of the route to the top.
6. I fell up to my armpits in a crevasse underneath the West Face of Snowpatch spire. Unroped. Legs kicking around free. Somehow managed to get roped up and then wiggle out.
7. There have been two times when I assumed I was tied in but discovered that I was not attached in any way to the anchor on a ledge.
After 59 years of climbing, these few moments constitute the tiniest fraction of the total experience. I can't say they've conferred any real wisdom, other than the amazingly slow realization that we may think we are more in control than we are, and that frequent reflecting on this fact is probably a very good idea.
The difference between between many of us and Gary is that we have so far been lucky and his luck ran out. We have all worshipped at the altar. We have all drunk the waters. We have followed Muir to the good tidings the mountains offer, and yes, Nature's peace flowed into us as sunshine flows into trees. The moment of inattention, the ill-considered step, the rock that crumbled, the storm that raged, the stones that fell, the sling that snapped, these have been part of the fine print of the contract, the one we signed---as usual without really reading the whole thing.
Whether or not we actually knew Gary, we somehow understand what happened, and we grieve for him and the family he left behind, surely for their own sakes, but also because we are him, and he is us.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Jul 26, 2016 - 06:26am PT
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Also, the place that used to worry me as a guide was getting clients up the headwall to the Lower Saddle. . always in the dark, almost always dripping wet, sometimes iced up, long upward traverse to the left. NBD for a climber, but many clients on the Grand are total and absolute beginners in the mountains.
Yep, and once just pausing at the start of that headwall we were literally rained on by softball sized rocks at terminal velocity exploding all around. Nobody was hit which was good since nobody had
helmets on and it likely wouldn't have mattered.
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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Jul 26, 2016 - 07:44am PT
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So very sorry. Condolences to his family and friends. Ugh...
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sowr
Trad climber
CA
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Jul 26, 2016 - 02:49pm PT
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Tragic accident and my condolences to his friends and family. I'm sure he understood that the risk went way up when he unclipped from the anchor. I soloed the OS route with a friend in the 90's - well, as far as the Double Chimney, the exposure was staggering and it really got to me, so I suggested we rope up - which felt a lot better. To be un-anchored in such a location is to accept that the consequences of an error will be violently fatal.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jul 26, 2016 - 05:48pm PT
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Gary left a wife and two young sons.
A gofundme site has been set up to help them navigate the financial tough times ahead. http://www.gofundme.com/2g5jqkk
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 26, 2016 - 06:30pm PT
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Thanks rGold :)
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Jul 26, 2016 - 07:36pm PT
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Heart breaking, my sincerest condolences to family and friends.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Jul 26, 2016 - 09:10pm PT
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It's at best silly to speculate on this. There are any number of ways this could happen on this terrain, when everything was done "right."
If it's a single guide with multiple clients, the standard is likely to be a belayed rappell, as opposed to a fireman scenario, various details of the situation would determine this decision in a give situation on a particular day. If it is a belayed rap, you're going to be pulling up the rap line every time between rapells. Forget about whether they are hauling a device each time, ( though that's an additional complication) that's irrelevant right now, the fact is even a bare rope could potentially get hung up each time, get it? If the only way a guide can unf*#k the rope is to be untied, there is going to be risk. I imagine he had done similar things other times ( you can't completely eliminate the need) and this was the time that caught up with him.
Condolences to a fellow guide whose got caught up in the odds.
Every one of us takes risks like this every day of our lives, sometimes it's just crossing the street, or passing a slow car. Chance and entropy are always over our shoulder.
Play for keeps! But don't the afraid to live!
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Spanky
Social climber
boulder co
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Jul 27, 2016 - 07:06am PT
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This one hits me really hard as it could have been me. I have a 2 year old and another on the way and it breaks my heart to see his little ones who won't remember their dad. I have been guiding in RMNP for 12 years and from what it sounds like Gary was using the standard industry set-up for getting multiple clients down a rap situation like the OS. If you have clients you don't know or who are inexperienced a belayed rappel from above gives the guide the most control over the situation like a couple posters mentioned above. One thing I don't think I saw mentioned that is an advantage of this system is that you fix the rappel line with a Munter mule knot so if the client makes a mistake then you can release the rappel line and transfer the to just lowering the client on the belay line. Obviously if every client had a device which is what I always try to do would have helped but that isn't always the situation you're in. (client drops device etc.)
Regardless it's a tragedy and my heartfelt condolences go out to his family and friends. RIP brother.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Jul 27, 2016 - 05:42pm PT
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I totally agree that the speculation may be silly, but I am still confused and I think this is important.
If it is a belayed rap, you're going to be pulling up the rap line every time between rapells.
If it is a belayed rapp, would you not be hauling up the belay rope each time and not the rapp rope? I would rather have two ropes, they rapp one and I belay on the other. Rapp rope always stays in place. Each client has their own device and they get down to safety and I take them off belay and they untie the knot. Guide pulls only the BELAY rope up as each climber has their own device.
Please let me know if I am missing something obvious here and I mean no disrespect for the fallen. On the contrary, I feel very sorry for the family. All of us know it can happen in an instant.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jul 27, 2016 - 07:35pm PT
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I'm pretty sure Jaybro meant the belay line, not the rap line.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Jul 28, 2016 - 05:09am PT
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Correct! I misspoke and meant belay line.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Jul 28, 2016 - 05:48am PT
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Rgold nailed it: The difference between between many of us and Gary is that we have so far been lucky and his luck ran out. We have all worshipped at the altar. We have all drunk the waters. We have followed Muir to the good tidings the mountains offer, and yes, Nature's peace flowed into us as sunshine flows into trees. The moment of inattention, the ill-considered step, the rock that crumbled, the storm that raged, the stones that fell, the sling that snapped, these have been part of the fine print of the contract, the one we signed---as usual without really reading the whole thing.
Yep.
BAd
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Jul 28, 2016 - 09:33pm PT
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The difference between between many of us and Gary is that we have so far been lucky and his luck ran out.
Rich,
I understand what you are trying to say, but I don't necessarily agree. I believe that the guidelines I practice while climbing are intended to make me as safe as possible. Believing that luck plays a major factor goes against this idea.
What could Gary have done better? He could have clipped himself into the rope that didn't have the stuck belay device with a prussik/autoblock as he went down.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jul 28, 2016 - 10:11pm PT
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Perhaps you don't really understand my point Bruce. After the fact, we can all think of ways this particular accident could have been prevented. (I should add that we don't know exactly what happened, nor do we know what precautions Gary might have thought were in place.) In any case, in a mountain environment, especially a technically easy mountain environment, you can't protect every step (and manage to leave base camp). Whether guiding or just climbing on our own, we have to continually make judgements about whether our skills constitute our protection, or whether we have to supplement those skills with the protection from gear.
You can be right 999,999 times and wrong once---and you're dead. And when that happens, the outcome would always have been preventable by doing something else. I think we are all subject to these odds. For some the odds are better than for others, either because of choice of objectives or inherent skills or both, but there is always a chance that something will not work the way we thought it would. In that chance, small as it might be, lies the cruel reality of tragedies such as this one, a cruel reality that is all of ours to share, and which for me allows for grief and demands compassion, with both of these emotions unmitigated by ex post facto judgements.
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ormondo
climber
Utahrdia
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Jul 28, 2016 - 11:13pm PT
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Gary was one of my best friends, climbing partners, and colleagues. We started at Exum together, took our final guide exam for our IFMGA licensce together, and climbed many awesome routes in between and after those two points. While I am not in Jackson this summer (in Zermatt, guiding), I can give a few more details:
Usually, there are enough belay devices for every client. The group was short one device, any number of reasons why, but easy to deal with. The last client down clipped the device onto the belay rope to be pulled back up. It jammed, which can happen since the rap transitions from just under vertical to overhanging. We typically tie clients into the belay rope for the rap with a bowline, so that when they untie, there is no possibility for a knot that could jam to be left in the rope.
Gary was clipped into the rap anchor. When the rope jammed, he unclipped to get a better position for flipping the rope out of the crack below. This was witnessed by three clients, who were waiting to rap. There was one guide with the clients, but he did not have eyes on Gary. The clients were minors, some with previous experience and some without. Their understanding of technical systems would be limited, but they all confirmed he was clipped in originally, and then unclipped.
Why he fell, no one knows. He could have slipped, caught his foot on an edge, who knows. A possibility I've considered is that he could have intended to grab the fixed rap line to lean out on, but instead accidentally grabbed the slack side of the belay rope, and when he leaned out there was nothing holding him back. Maybe something distracted him, or this was just enough of a distraction in a situation he had been in so many times (150+) that something didn't click like it should have.
Why unclip at all? Why not rap down on a munter or carabiner brake, or at least clip into a clove hitch or figure eight on a bight with some slack to reposition? We'll never know. He was probably thinking this was just a minor distraction and should be easy to deal with, just need to get a better angle on the rope. It was a momentary lapse in the constant guard we have up when guiding, and that was all it took. All climbers, but guides in particular, are exposed to hazards on such a constant basis. We evaluate and weigh consequences throughout the day, so many decisions to be making, and none of us are infallible. Gary was careful and considerate in his guiding, and I will wonder for the rest of my life what his thoughts on unclipping were.
Miss ya, brother.
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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Jul 28, 2016 - 11:28pm PT
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^^^^
thanks to the previous two posters.
and condolences to family and friends...
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Jul 29, 2016 - 12:28am PT
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You can be right 999,999 times and wrong once---and you're dead. And when that happens, the outcome would always have been preventable by doing something else. I think we are all subject to these odds. For some the odds are better than for others, either because of choice of objectives or inherent skills or both, but there is always a chance that something will not work the way we thought it would. In that chance, small as it might be, lies the cruel reality of tragedies such as this one, a cruel reality that is all of ours to share, and which for me allows for grief and demands compassion, with both of these emotions unmitigated by ex post facto judgements.
Rich,
I agree that being wrong once and you can be dead. If somebody makes a bad decision and gets hurt or dies, you might think it is bad luck, but I think that is a bad decision.
Yes, luck can keep a bad decision from having serious consequences, but the root of the problem is that it was a bad decision. And yes, as you pointed out with your own personal examples, we have all made bad decisions in our climbing careers.
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