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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Feb 25, 2017 - 12:33pm PT
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My sawzall didn't come with a guard...Will i be fined...?
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Scole
Trad climber
Zapopan
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I think the problem is AMGA, not OSHA. Pre-AMGA, guides were hired on merit, with personal recommendation being far more important that a resume' on fancy paper or a certificate.
I started guiding teaching the dulfersitz rappel,then we moved to the carabiner break followed by figure 8s. The key to rappel safety when guiding is to always back the client up. Redundancy is how you stay alive in climbing, whether its personal or guided.This not only applies to clients; it applies to the guide too.
The idea that a "certified guide" is superior to one without a paper is ludicrous. In the last 10 years of my 30+ years of guiding I have seen plenty of AMGA puppies that had essentially zero climbing skills. Maybe they knew a few cool knots, and had a set of rules to follow, but as a former employer was fond of saying "Rules are for fools".
Real guides have a lifetime of climbing experience and, while they may, or may not,have any certificates, they have proven their skills many times over. The idea that OSHA can oversee guiding is based on a set of standardized protocols, but climbing and mountaineering involve constantly changing situations.
All that being said: Gary was a good guy, a strong climber and a good guide.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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I agree...
OSHA and the related nanny-state tentacles do have a place in common construction/workplace environments where standards and protocols are more easily adapted. After all things NEED to be created in society and a limited framework is often helpful.
OSHA involved in purely recreational and known dangerous pursuits with a million unaccountable and changing variables which can kill you is folly.
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Rick Krause
Trad climber
Madras, Or
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We can all agree that the decisions we make are directly related to our training or lack of training we have. There is really are no work place accidents just a series of events that lead to an incident.
Over the past few years’ three mountain guides have died. I do not think they were out side of their scope of training. Other words they had received training for what they were doing, but that training lead them to the decisions they made, which lead to their deaths. So we must look at their training, it obviously failed them.
On this last incident a professional thinks that an Alpine Bod harness and a tied 7/16 web with a knot in it was the best safety equipment made that will get him home back to his family? I blame his training or lack of training on personal protective systems. For $8.00 you can purchase sewn sling. He can’t afford a sewn sling? This entire incident was filled with bad decisions. From not bringing equipment for everyone, to turning down equipment offered. To picking bad personal protective equipment. With just one change at any step this guy would have gone home to his family.
Over the past few years I have been looking to the rope access people to see what they are doing. They have a lot of cool toys. As a company that employees guides, I see all of the rest of the rope access industry are using class 3 harnesses. You have to admit will give your employee the maximum protection in a fall. So why dose the mountain guiding industry use recreational harnesses for personal protection? Don’t they care about their employee safety?
I have a class 3 harness, I use for rescue and bolting new routes. But I do admit I still use a class 1 harness. My choice for my safety is the Metolius Supper Tech. My Metolius might be heavy but I can clip 10kn onto any part.
The bottom line is a guide only have one job that is to come home to his family, and your personal safety should be number one, buy whatever equipment is necessary and if your training is not teaching you that you should find some other training. AMGA or any group certificate will not save you only your training.
I do not want to read about any more young guides dying this year. Three is too many.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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I'm not joining the conversation over there
https://www.mountainproject.com/v/siebert-research---must-see-informaton-on-the-dangers-of-water-knots-and-retiring-gear/112526101__2#a_112540049
[Click to View YouTube Video]
I hope No one responding needs to be told this:
This is the result of the modern function of having reduced, up-graded, modernized the methods that people (now) follow when learning.
WHEN MANY OF US STARTED WE LEARNED THREE THINGS:
check your knots
Check Your Knots
CHECK -ALL-YOUR.KNOTS
It was the name of the game Constant vigilance! Focus on everything .
There were pre sown runners way back, but we learned from the best, who had experience.
Especially when things get 'hairy' - a stuck rope, dropped shoe, there are hundreds of things
that happen.
Die Wirtschaft von -Welt ist verloren, wenn die Sicherheit nicht überflüssig ist.
The economy of -swift- is lost if safety is not redundant.
&
Niemand sollte - "eine Situation arbeiten" - aus, nur einen Knoten.
No One should be - 'working a situation' - off of Only One Knot.
The Numbers game, ? $$/ 2guides = less per guide than if 1guide, the number, of Guide to / climber ratio per objective seems most in question in the mountains. While heavy traffic and
Repetitive ascents of the route builds confidence it's double edge; complacency lurks, and with out redundant systems the results can be tragic.
always check , and double check everythin. . . . . ( omitted 'g' for the giggles!)
Under no circumstances should one lower out on a single 'improvised' tether.
A piece of, suitably strength rated, pre-tied, in a loop of known length :
A 'Cordellet'. made of round Cord, ( used as a P.A.S.) AND SOME OTHER TIE'D POINT ,
AND THE ROPE . . . .
Never a tied runner of shoulder-length - thinner than one inch tubular,
Never! . . .( this, gets forgotten?)
again I think it is a function of short cutting in the learning Process.
We were more in-touch with specialization , it was not all 'just' gear.
Each piece made up a whole system. We had differnt Racks for differnt challenges.
Wide rack, aid rack, guide rack, fun free rack, hard rack etc.
When we Mixed aid and free kits as some become more seasoned we saw it
led to complacency . . . .Complacency is a killer.
Learn how to properly tie knots, how to check, before you weight them.
Clove Hitches, , .
The rope is your Life line. Stay tied into it & use it !
Redundant systems start at ones life link, double it up.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Mar 10, 2017 - 06:04pm PT
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There's one axiom in failure analysis: there is seldom only one failure point. Operator error is considered a failure point.
The report lists "contributing factors" in order (usually of importance) 1: Equipment failure, 2: operator error, 3: fall
This is one thing that bugs me about most failure reports: the result is often listed with the contributing factors.....which of course is silly. (yeah, the fall was a contributing factor to Falk's death but it still bugs me).
If we do a Root Cause Analysis (sort of the ultimate failure analysis) #2 operator error is the root cause.
It's entirely likely that Gary had checked his knot when he tied it. This shows a situation where checking yourself can be insufficient. e.g. when you've got several people and one is responsible for them all.
He was preparing to safeguard the students with a belay rope as they rappelled one-at-a-time off a roughly 120-foot drop slightly below the summit.
Most failures actually contain more than a single cause (hence the search for the root cause). So now we're short one piece of important gear.
But because of a last-minute re-arrangement of climbing teams, Falk found himself one ATC short. Did this "cause" the accident? No but it likely contributed to some confusion and a loss of attention.
So now we've got one client down the rappel with three more clients to go.
From above, Falk tried to flip the jammed rope and ATC to free them. . This is the Owen Chimney which has a sloping fairly smooth slab at the top, with some loose rock. Trying to free a stuck rope in the chimney would have required going right to the edge. Although not stated in the linked report, Falk likely moved forward close to the rim. Also not stated in the report is weather conditions. I'm surprised that haste wasn't listed as a contributing cause.
So the root cause was operator error: not checking his belay before weighting it at the edge.
My condolences to Falk's family and the Exum guides.
As for that wicked, nasty, anti free market OSHA: As someone else said, when you're doing something for $$ they've got a legal interest in the result. In this case they did a full failure analysis, Exum have improved their safety training and added formal checklists.
When I started my mechanical engineering career (1972) at least 1/3 of my older colleagues were missing part of a finger, including my department head and a very good friend of mine, both very bright men. Then OSHA came along. I don't know any engineers who started after OSHA who are missing parts of their bodies from work accidents. In the group of about 15 that I managed, we only had one serious accident in 5 years post OSHA: A guy disabled the OSHA mandated safeties in an injection molding machine and smashed his hand in it breaking most of the bones. Operator error (DOH!)
The only other accident was in the machine shop I managed when a guy was pressing a hardened dowel pin into a mold, the pin split and a piece hit him in the eye. Well......it wasn't his eye, it was his OSHA mandated safety glasses. No harm done.
I've got no complaints about OSHA.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Mar 10, 2017 - 07:41pm PT
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This is the Owen Chimney which has a sloping fairly smooth slab at the top, with some loose rock. Trying to free a stuck rope in the chimney would have required going right to the edge. Although not stated in the linked report, Falk likely moved forward close to the rim. Also not stated in the report is weather conditions. I'm surprised that haste wasn't listed as a contributing cause.
He wasn't at/in the Owen Chimney. He was at the top of the standard rap, which is just past the Catwalk (east). The Owen Chimney is above the west end of the Catwalk.
Also...this was the weather that day:
Tragic deal.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Mar 11, 2017 - 04:53am PT
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I am a carpenter. we do tons of stupid dangerous sh#t, I work with lots of rough tough egos. we joke about osha when we do stupid sh#t but without osha half of us would be dead or maimed....
one thing I noticed about the guides in the tetons is that they had taylored their rope lengths to the routes they were working on. This guide had likly been at that rap stations dozens or possibly hundreds of times. he possibly had a home made teather system that allowed him to manage that station. Something like the Petzl connect would probobly be very usefull for a guide and safer than a home made rig.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Mar 11, 2017 - 01:58pm PT
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Brian, thanks for the clarification and the weather photo.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Mar 11, 2017 - 03:13pm PT
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Again, if you're stupid enough to commercialize an activity you love and take responsibility for the lives of clueless people you've convinced to pay you to keep them safe doing something inherently unsafe - and then you screwup - it begs the question on both sides: just what the f*#k did you expect? A world run amok with clueless guides 'certified' (now there's a euphemism filled with hope) by other guides who figured out how to make money from climbers as well as civilians and you expect no intervention or oversight? Now that is the very definition of stupid.
P.S. Oh, in case you missed the drift - I have zero respect for guiding and particularly the abject nonsense it's evolved into today.
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