Climber Falls from Anchor at the Gunks

[GWG]

A climber fell from the anchor point of the first pitch of Middle Earth at the gunks this past Saturday. Fortunately, he survived with what appears to be some broken bones.

Details appear to be that after arriving at the anchor tree, he set it up as a top rope and then proceeded to lean back to be lowered. The belayer had taken him off belay. The first pitch of Middle Earth is about 100' and the fact that it is mostly slab, the guy didn't freefall all the way to the ground.

There's an extensive discussion taking place on rockclimbing.com:

http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/for ... _collapsed;

A couple of take aways from this incident:

1. Weight the rope before going off direct at the anchors

2. Have clear expectations of both the climber and belayer before leaving the ground

3. Communicate

Hope everyone has a great weekend at Rocktoberfest. Wish I were there.

GWG

[Shamis]

1. Weight the rope before going off direct at the anchors

[toad857]

Someone correct me if this is not accurate:

Climber: "Indirect!"
...as in, I (the climber) am indirectly tethered to you (the belayer). (I'm attached to the anchors, but also still attached to you...just not directly. Thus, "indirect")

"direct" and "indirect" are relative terms. Relative to what? To the belayer.

If a belayer takes a climber off-belay, there is a different term for that. It's called "off-belay".

Right?

[tbwilsonky]

...

in direct (to the anchors)

[bcombs]

or, straight in.

[pkananen]

or, directly attached to the anchors

[pigsteak]

yes, toad, I am betting most say "in dirct" to mean they are straight into the anchors..at that point the belayer takes them off belay and shouts up "off belay"..I typically add in a step before taking someone off, by saying "taking you off belay" before I actually do it....

so for me, I have never said "indirect" to mean my belayer was to be holding me in any form.

[Toad]

Dammit, Piggy...

Please don't confuse me with toad857. But, I agree with you about it meaning "in direct" and not "indirect".

[vertical1]

I would like to be able to say that if the climber had repelled off the route, he would not have had this happen, since the accident here in the PMRP people said to lower to be safer. But alas, I cannot say that because careless people will make careless mistakes no matter their preferred method of descent.

[Toad]

But alas, ...

Alas? Are you walking around talking to a skull of a court jester?