November 5, 2017- I had just finished a bachelor party for a good friend in Havasu City, AZ, and was headed north out of Lake Havasu in the adventure bmw. I was bound for Red Rock canyon, a mecca of moderate long trad climbs on sandstone outside of Las Vegas. I had plenty of free time, I wasn't supposed to meet up with my partner for the week until Monday afternoon. I decided to kill the time by heading to First Creek canyon and going for a quick solo up Rising Moons (5.5 3 pitches) and roped solo the standard rappel route to reacquaint myself with the rock, as we had some big plans and I wanted to be on point. With no where in particular to stay, I did the dirtbag thing and bivy'd next to my car out in the desert west of Red Rock (there is some BLM land out there that you can camp on for free). I was woken the next morning at 5:30 AM by something that i could only imagine happening in/outside of Vegas. At 5:30, about a half hour down a dirt road in the middle of no where, some guy rolls up blasting 80's hair metal in an early 90's pontiac, parks maybe 50 feet from where i am very clearly sleeping (literally miles of open land around with no one...), continues to blast music and does god knows what in his car for the next 2 hours while watching the sunrise... Definitely one of my more interesting "wilderness" experiences.
We had some big plans for the trip, one of which was to get to the top of Mt Wilson, which just dominates the skyline and has been a goal of mine ever since i first stepped foot in the Red Rock area 3 years ago. I decided to scope out the approach to make sure things went smoothly in the event that we decided to climb Wilson on Monday while waiting for Collin to get into town. When he did get in, we set our schedule which included climbing Inti the following day. Of course, no one had been on the route when i scoped it out, and according to the summit register no one had been up there for a week. The Tuesday we decided to climb, there was a party ahead of us and two behind us. I kept tabs throughout the week when we could see it and i never saw another party on the route. How we all decided to climb the same route on the same day, I will never know, but it was a busy day up there.
Busy day up on Mt Wilson
Topping out Inti Watana and moving on to the upper portion of Resolution Arete on Mt Wilson with a couple thousand feet of air below
The route itself is amazing, steep but easy climbing for the most part, and very scenic. Linking to Resolution Arete adds a bit of easier climbing on to the route with more of an adventure feel (all gear belays, no bolts from what i remember, a bit of loose rock) but leads to an amazing summit. The link up was rated 5.10c, maybe 1800-2000ft of climbing with some scrambling that we simul'd to get to the top. In terms of physical effort though, i feel like this is a very approachable route and felt the climbing on Epinephrine (which i did about a month before) was more strenuous but an easier grade. We took the south fork of Oak Creek to get off of Wilson which was beautiful and relatively straight forward, however the group that had been right on us most of the way up had a bit more difficulty finding the start of the decent and eventually ended up following us for most of it. In total we did the route in something like 13 hours car to car, including about 2 hours for the approach and 4 hours to get off Wilson, not bad for our first time up on the wall!
Horseshoe Wall and Dogma Area of Mt Wilson and the low lying surrounding desert from the main summit of Mt Wilson
Walking off the main summit of Mt Wilson in the late November sun
Wednesday was a "rest" day for us so we decided a run up the uber classic Crimson Chrysalis (5.8 1000ft) would be fun. We got a late start and were at the base beginning the climb at ~1 pm with 5 other groups on the route either going up or down. This actually was a good start time because we could move at our own speed for the most part, only having to wait a bit for the party in front of us on the final pitch. I had never done Crimson before but i get why it is so classic! Fun, steep climbing at a very approachable grade to a sweet "tower" summit!
View from the final belay on Chrimson Chrysalis
Still feeling a bit gassed from the previous two days, we decided to go for some shorter classics in Black Velvet on Thursday. It was a relatively quiet day in the canyon, despite the beautiful weather, with 5 parties on Epinephrine, 4 on Dream of Wild Turkeys, and a few others scattered about. I honestly expected the parking lot to be jammed based on the weather but there was still plenty of space. At the base of Triassic Sands (5.10b, 4 pitches), we began racking up when another party showed up looking to climb the same route. I started climbing and linked pitches 1 and 2 for a full value 200ft pitch of amazing crack climbing. I guess while i was on lead, there was quite the discussion at the belay between our new friends. Something about Bro-J's, super casual, i guess where you haven't gotten any in a while so one of your bro's just gives you a blow job instead? And something about being propositioned for sexual favors instead of paying rent (this was a group of two guys talking about this who, i later learned, had just met the day before). I am ok with the fact that i missed this conversation, but you gotta love climbing in vegas, you never know what kind of characters you are going to run into!
The second party was planning on linking pitches 1 and 2 just like i had; I yelled down to make sure to save a few number 2 cams for the top because the upper section is something like 110 ft of steep 5.9 #2 C4s, definitely the dream! The guy didn't listen to me and i got to watch him try and fiddle in nuts and TCU's for about 10 minutes on lead for the upper section before yelling "Fuck it" and running it out to the anchor. His partner decided not to follow up after this, and the guy mentioned something about never climbing with his partner again, i guess they were only in it for the bro-j's? Anyhow, after doing the first 3 pitches of Triassic Sands we decided to rap rather than continue up the (amazing looking) 4th pitch and have to walk off. I wish we would have done the 4th pitch which looked like a perfect splitter corner but we didn't tape up and the corner looked sharp, plus we didn't want to have to walk off. We moved on to Wholesome Fullback (5.10a 2 pitches) which is another sweet route. I felt Wholesome was harder than Triassic; the crux is thin and not as obvious. Both routes are fun, definitely worth doing, and make for a good low commitment day in BV.
Moving on to the meat of the situation- the interesting bits that make this more than just a review of some climbs we did. After two "rest" days, Collin and I were looking to go up to Eagle Wall (possibly the most "remote" wall in Red Rock) to climb Eagle Dance (5.10b/c A0 900ft) and get a look at Levitation 29 for a future trip. There are a few ways to approach the wall: the shortest 5th class route, a medium 4th class route, or a long 3rd class route. We opted for the 4th class because we had never been to the wall before and didn't want to get stranded or slowed down by getting off route on the 5th class approach. The "hike" to the wall involves endless boulder scrambling over boulders up to 20 feet tall; this is about the most "bouldering" i do. Eventually some slabs are reached (you go right at the two pine trees, yep that's the beta, it actually worked this time though) and continue up to the base of the wall, approach time was expected to take 2-3 hours, it took us about 2.5 but was kind of strenuous bushwhacking and scrambling. That day there were only two other groups out on the wall: one party a few pitches ahead of us on Eagle Dance, and a party on Levitation.
For the most part the route went smoothly. It is largely face climbing on the typical Red Rock style crimpy face holds with the occasional crack for protection, but the movements are interesting and the climbing didn't seem monotonous. There are a few crack pitches to kind of even things out as well. The setting is pretty amazing, the wall starts higher in the canyon than most walls top out, so the views of the surrounding desert are quite stunning. We were a bit concerned because the first pitch didn't have bolted anchors, yet we were supposed to somehow? rap the route with a single 70m rope using some unknown rappel station. In any case, the climbing went smoothly. The route includes a touch of aid climbing-a bolt ladder that is easily surmounted for those who are familiar with how to aid climb. I got through it with relative ease but the party ahead of us and my follower Collin both seemed to have some difficulty aiding the roof section.
While i was at the hanging belay on the top of the seventh pitch, the party ahead of us popped over the roof above on rappel. I talked with them briefly as they were hoping to use the anchor i was currently occupying. No issues, as they could relatively easily get to the next set of anchors, the 7th and 8th pitches are not very long and could easily be combined. While talking with them, they complained that the 8th pitch felt hard and the rock quality was considerably worse. Spooked by the 8th pitch, they decided to skip the 9th and bail off the route.
Hubris is a dangerous thing in climbing. It is actually a dangerous thing in most high intensity outdoor sports, and can lead to problems just in general. Looking at statistics and accident reviews each year, it seems the vast majority of accidents always happen to skilled or competent parties, not on technically hard terrain, but rather on the easy terrain or when the team is overly confident. This is a situation where you can go into "auto pilot" whether that be an easy pitch that the leader decides not to protect well, if at all, or while on the rappel because of the routine nature of the task. Collin and I were on the tail end of a pretty good week of climbing. Sunday i solo'ed a few pitches of 5 easy-5.5 . Tuesday we climbed 2500 ft to the top of Mt Wilson via one of the classic 10's in the park. Wednesday we easily finished Crimson Chrysalis, another 1000 ft of 5.6-5.8 as a rest day activity doing the ascent and decent in just a few hours and ticking off another uber classic. Thursday, a second rest day, we easily completed two classic 10's in Black Velvet for another ~500+ feet of technical climbing. That is ~4000+ ft of technical terrain that we had covered in the past 3 days. Sure, for some parties this is pretty easy, but for us at this moment, to have finished that much, many of the pitches at 5.9 or higher, definitely had an effect on how we were making decisions.
We felt good. The climb up until this point had been 7 pitches of classic and fun climbing that had gone by quickly, most of it above 5.10. We wanted to truly finish the the route and finish it in style. We weren't going to bail based on what two random people had said. Besides, they had a lot of difficulty on the A0 pitch so i questioned their general competency. Hubris can get you into trouble, and we were high on a week of solid accomplishments and feeling confident. Collin had some difficulty with the short aid section largely because he had never aid climbed before, and was trying to figure it out with two shoulder length slings on an overhanging bolt ladder. We quickly did a gear change over and Collin fired off on the next pitch. The belay here was hanging in a kind of alcove and the next pitch continued up a vertical crack/groove on softer rock with some face holds for about 40 feet. Our plan was to link this with the final 110ft pitch above it to speed up our ascent. Collin quickly reached the P8 belay (out of sight from my hanging position on P7) and began up P9. A short time later, the rope tries to rip through my belay device. I quickly react and lock it off; Collin must have taken a lead fall. I wait for verbal communication. Nothing.
"Collin, you OK?" I yell up, as i still cannot see him.
"Gruuuuuuuuuuugggggghhhhh" a distant moan floats down to me. I can barely see his helmet now, thank god he is still conscious.
"What happened?!? Are you OK?"
...
...
...
Collin tries to wight his legs, immediately gives up.
"...No" he responds
I lower him a bit. I can visibly see he is a bit banged and scraped up. Then i notice his legs. Each ankle is about 2-3 times normal size, one of them looks pretty messed up. I am hoping that they aren't broken.
An admittedly terrible drawing of roughly what the route looked like and what happened. I am not an artist. For reference, the X's signify bolts, the lines with the arrow markings signify a crack or trough system. This is all from memory and is likely at least a little bit wrong.
When responding to an emergency, its important to not have to think about what to do. You should just know. This is true for any emergency scenario, but especially true for high angle rescues where a single mistake could potentially lead to a death fall. I am glad that Vlad, another friend and apprentice rock guide, held "rescue practice" nights while he was practicing for some quide classes/exams. We would get together and practice escaping the belay, ascending the rope, lowering a victim, etc. over beers. This is something that everyone who engages in high angle activities should practice regularly; i will admit that i don't practice this enough. They key, though, was that i had practiced this type of scenario before. I was familiar with what to do and there were no questions.
As soon as i got a response from Collin my body went into rescue mode even though my brain was still shocked and confused- still trying to take in the situation and figure out how to deal with what was going on. I lowered him down to the belay because he was still conscious, attached him with two personals and we got him some pain meds. Assessing the injuries, it was pretty clear that one if not both ankles were broken, he couldn't move or weight either and they were severely swollen/deformed. We were pretty far out over some gnarly 4th class terrain and up pretty high. Had we have been closer to the car, i would have gladly carried him out. Of course though, when this kind of situation arises, we are on quite possibly the hardest wall to access in the area. We made the call to search and rescue to see if he could be extracted as there was no way he would be able to walk out. Turns out a hold breaking was to blame for the fall. At the time he was smearing through the crux 5.10C section on some questionable rock when a handhold broke while he was clipping the rope. Sometimes you just have bad luck.
Once the call went through, we began the unplanned self rescue portion of our afternoon. Collin was still relatively with it. I did not think he could lower himself but he was still aware enough to clip in and go off belay. Rather than try to tandem rappel which would probably have been painful for Collin and awkward for both of us, and because the wall was relatively steep, I opted to lower him to the belay, verify that he has clipped in twice onto two different bolts, rappel, pull ropes, and reset the system. About an hour later Collin and I found ourselves at the P2 belay station. Supposedly there is a rappel route that is bolted the whole way but it was not obvious and I was beginning to get nervous, i might have to leave him and go searching for the anchor. Suddenly i hear a faint thumping in the distance. Rescue is on the way! Rather than trying to find a rappel anchor, I want to get collin to the ground ASAP so he can be extracted if possible; i lower him the full 210ft that remain to the ground, fix the rope, and right as i start to rappel the helicopter comes in view. I visually make contact with them and they respond that they have seen us. I am almost on the verge of tears because i think this stressful situation is almost over and Collin is on his way out. I rappel at near free fall speed to get to the base and try to figure out how they will haul Collin out. The Helicopter circles twice and leaves without any communication outside of a wave. Help is here, just... not... here here... They had come and gone leaving me unsure of what our next moves should be.
There were 2 other parties on the wall that day; one party climbing ahead of us and a party to our right on Levitation 29. The two on Levitation had just finished rappelling when the helicopter flew in, so they decided to check if any help was needed. The climbing community can be truly amazing sometimes and I would like to give a big shout out to Mike from England and Will from Finland. They had no obligation to do anything, but they came over to see if they could help even as the sun was setting and they were facing a 3 hour walk out minimum. Both of them not only stayed with us, but gave up the jackets off their backs, food, and stories to keep Collin from getting any worse while we waited. All around stand up individuals, but i get ahead of myself.
Mike and Will come over and immediately see we aren't going anywhere fast. They offer to try and carry him out, but i mention that SAR is already on the way. I run up to a spur coming off the wall where i can get service on Collins phone and verify that a group is coming up the wash to help. I give the SAR team my cell as well because i get service at the base of the climb in the event that they need to contact us (thanks T-Mobile for always having service in the weirdest places... even though coverage in town can be spotty?). Thus begins the waiting game. I tag one of the ropes Mike and Will climbed on up with me as I ascend our rope to retrieve it and use it as insulation for Collin. The sun has just set and it is now ~6:30 PM. We wait and trade stories of climbing, adventures, misadventures, and I learn that it is possible to retire at the ripe old age of 28 (?!?) if you are a professional Sailor like Will. Mike and Will take turns doing push-ups and squats to stay warm, as we have all given Collin whatever we could to keep him warm.
Around 9 pm a single headlamp approaches, coming up the 5th class slabs that lie between us and the canyon floor about 2 thousand feet below. Ben, an ER nurse and resident red rock climber, made quick time up to us to evaluate the patient and get a plan together for the rescue. He looks at Collin; he is viibly disheartened by what he sees.
"Oh damn, I thought just one ankle was broken and I was really hoping we would be able to walk you out of here tonight" Ben says.
Clearly the full message was not relayed to the SAR team about what had happened, all he knew was there was an "ankle injury".
"Ya... Based on the look of things, there is no way we can walk you out. Even if i had a team of 6 it would still probably take a day and a half to get you out of here on a stretcher." Ben says as he turns away to talk with the SAR team. Looks like we will need a chopper or will be spending the night. About 10 minutes later two more SAR guys show up, Chad (own and runs a climbing shoe resoling company, apparently a bit of a local legend and someone who has done a ton of FAs in the red rock area) and Mike Ward (an older red rock legend, was on the FA of many classic routes throughout the area) show up and we start trying to figure out what to do about Collin. Our foreign friends finally leave now that we have the help of the SAR team. Seriously i cannot thank these guys enough, if nothing else than for moral support. They had no obligation to stay but willingly epic'ed a bit and didn't get back to their camp until well after midnight just to help out some fellow climbers.
The first extraction attempt was some time around 10:30pm. The SAR crew and i helped Collin crawl (in some sections he was carried, chad is a strong guy) to a more open, relatively flat (but still very rocky) exposed buttress where the helicopter will have better chance of picking Collin up. Ben interfaces with the SAR pilot of the chopper.
"How much does he weigh" says the pilot, concerned about the weather (10-15 mph winds)
Some words are muttered, the pilot responds "Ok... who is the next lightest person we have to accompany him? .... both of you get ready, we are going to spend 15 minutes burning off 50lbs of fuel and will make an extraction attempt"
Yep, our margin hangs on a couple pounds of fuel in the helicoper... not much margin for error.
The Pilot comes in or the first landing attempt, he spends about 10 minutes trying to land as the wind buffets the chopper, the thing looks like a toy being blown about in the wind (it is one of the small traffic choppers, i guess the heuy is in the shop getting new doors or something). The chopper only holds 4 people, doesn't have doors, and the cockpit area is a total of about 12 square feet, maybe less. After getting awfully close to touching down a few times, the pilot abandons his attempts due to winds and the potential to crash. Apparently i am the only one who has legitimate internet service, so i pull up weather models for the area looking at wind, i guess it is supposed to start dying down, reaching a minimum of 1-3 mph at 6 am. I really hope we don't have to wait till 6 am. We return to waiting, talking with chad, mike and ben trading stories with some local legends. Around 11:10pm the chopper pilot comes in for another pick up. It is super frustrating now that whenever the chopper is away, the wind dies down completely, but the second the chopper approaches, the wind picks up and makes it impossible to land. The Pilot tries his best to land for another 10 minutes, continually circling around, and then aborting due to wind; he says he is done for the night, we will try again in the morning.
The able bodied among us begin collecting firewood to help keep us warm until the chopper can land. We scour the nearby cliffs, bring back whatever burnable material we can find, mostly dead cacti. We set Collin up in what appears to be the most accommodating section of the rock rib. Just after midnight the wind has died down completely and mike makes one last call to the base team in the parking lot. There will be one last airlift attempt! The chopper came in around 12:30am, we readied the area, put all the gear in a crevice to prevent it from blowing away, and got Collin ready to transport. after about 5 minutes of attempting to land, he finally touches a skid down! Due to the terrain, the chopper cant fully land so we have to be very careful loading anything in, any small shock can make it unstable and could potentially lead to a crash. Chad and Ben load Collin into the very small cargo area, Ben hops in, and they take off. Collin is finally on his way to the hospital and the ordeal is finally over for him! After dropping Collin off at the ambulance, the chopper comes back for one last load. Due to fuel concerns this will be all they can fly and they can only take two people or one person and gear. We decide to send Mike down with most of the gear; i will walk out with Chad. Mike is a bit stubborn and upon landing at the base with the rest of the crew, promptly refuses to let us walk out. He sends the chopper back.
Collin getting loaded in to the helicopter for his flight out of the canyon so he can finally get help
"Alright look, we only have a few minutes of fuel left. If we can land within 30 seconds we can pull you guys out of there, otherwise you are on your own" the chopper pilot's voice comes in over the radio.
Chad preps me to get on the helicopter, I have never flown in one before, let alone at night, without a proper landing area, and in a chopper with no doors. We harness up (no doors means we need to tether in to the center of the helicopter). The weather is perfect, the wind has died completely, the moon is out and there isn't a cloud in the sky. The pilot, now accustomed to the landing area, quickly touched a skid, we boarded, and we too were off and back to the parking lot! This was definitely something i will never forget, the views of Oak Creek, Mt Wilson and the Red Rock front were absolutely amazing from up in the air.
With everyone back to safety, the SAR team circle up for a debriefing. I was lucky enough to attend and hear how everyone felt things went, what could be changed, what could be done better. It was a great learning experience for me, and reinforced an idea that has been in the back of my mind for quite some time, i would like to join the SAR team to help others the same way they have helped my friend.
I got back to our AirBnB at around 3 am, i grab a book and make a quick PB and J sandwich (i haven't eaten in ~15 hours) and head off to the hospital to see Collin. He is looking rough, but better. The morphine has kicked in and he isn't in pain anymore which is nice. I hand him the book, Vertical Aid, a book about actions to take for medical issues while in the mountains. I ask Collin to open up to the section about Ankle issues (i hadn't gotten to that section yet) to rate my response. The first sentence is something along the lines of:
"In the event of a single ankle break, stabilize the break and self rescue. In the event of a double ankle break, help will be needed to enact an airlift or litter carry, call search and rescue."
So what went wrong and what can we learn from this?
I dont know that Collin and i did anything wrong necessarily. As Chad said, we wanted to finish the climb in style, which means going to the top. As he also said, when you play the game long enough, sometimes your number is up and there isn't anything you can really do about it. We were not about to bail one pitch from the summit while we still had plenty of time. The rock quality on the 8th and 9th pitches turned out to be much worse than the entire rest of the route and a broken hold was what caused the fall. Sometimes the only thing you can do is down climb to get out of the situation, or push through as safe as possible and hope that all goes well. I don't think either of us made a mistake continuing up, we were both relatively confident we could get through the last section without issue but sometimes the unexpected happens. Collin's main take away from the ordeal was to never climb on questionable rock. I dont' know that this is something i will enact in my own climbing career, however i am definitely more aware of the rock quality and protect and climb accordingly, delicate rock means you climb very delicately and test each hold before fully committing if necessary, or down climbing to get out of a tough situation. One major takeaway for me personally is to make sure that if we are climbing difficult sections, ensure that there is good communication between the leader and the belayer, and try to maintain visual contact if possible. If i were to go back, i would make sure that we link pitches 7 and 8 rather than 6 and 7. This would ensure that the belayer has full view of the leader while they are climbing through the crux and respond accordingly.
One thing that was reinforced for me in this experience is the need to practice medicine and self rescue techniques. Since the accident Collin has taken a WFR (he told me he was glad i was not the one injured, he didn't know what to do to respond), i have also registered for a WFR that is long overdue. The continued practice of self rescue techniques to ensure that these skills are fresh is also of utmost importance, there is no room for error in one of these situations and the ability to rescue needs to be automatic to ensure that you can perform even while panicking, as i was. I urge everyone who recreates away in the mountains, or even interacts with others on a regular basis, to practice emergency response techniques on regular basis in the event that they ever need to aid in an emergency situation.
Some resources for those who are interested:
