Who: A 21-year-old man
Where: Potholes route in the Garden of the Gods, Colorado
His mistake: He didn’t properly set up his equipment for a rappel.
What happened: A man fell 50 feet into a sidewalk and suffered life-threatening injuries when he failed to set up his equipment to rappel.
The account below was taken from Stewart’s Climbing Blog.
“The man had just climbed the popular route Potholes, a moderate 5.8 route up the steep east face of Red Twin Spire in the Gateway area. The 55-foot-high route, protected by four fixed pitons and bolts, works up a series of potholes to an airy exit and a small summit the size of a dining room table. At the edge of the summit is an anchor composed of fixed pitons linked together with chain for top-roping, lowering, and rappelling.
“The climber apparently untied, threaded his rope through a large quicklink on the chains, and prepared to rappel with a figure-8 descender. He failed, however, to thread both sides of his rope through the descender and locking carabiner, instead just securing one side in the device. So when he stood up and weighted the rope, it zipped through the quicklink and dropped him down the vertical face to a concrete sidewalk, which surrounds Red Twin Spire and neighboring White Twin Spire. The Colorado Springs Fire Department high-angle rescue team responded from Station 5 and evacuated the climber, whose name and injuries have not yet been released.”
Read the story here.
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