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Bargainhunter
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 25, 2007 - 01:22pm PT
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They haven't released the name yet. It occurred on the Ruth Glacier in DNP.
http://www.adn.com/outdoors/story/8824681p-8725594c.html
Here's the text:
Climber dies in plunge
ACCIDENT: Fall came while pair was rappelling during descent.
By MEGAN HOLLAND
Anchorage Daily News
Published: April 25, 2007
Last Modified: April 25, 2007 at 01:50 AM
A climber died Monday after falling 1,000 feet while rappelling on a mountain in Denali National Park and Preserve.
The climber's identity has not been released because the individual's spouse is out of the country and has not been contacted, park spokeswoman Maureen McLaughlin said. McLaughlin would only say that the climber is an American but not from Alaska.
The accident occurred on Mount Wake in The Great Gorge of Ruth Glacier at about 6 p.m. Monday. The climber was descending after a day climb up the 8,000-foot peak of mixed ice and rock with a partner, and was below the partner and out of sight when the fall occurred.
Park authorities said they do not know the cause of the fall.
The climber was in top shape and technically skilled, said Talkeetna Air Taxi pilot and owner Paul Roderick, who knew the climber. He said that even though Mount Wake is tough by most climbers' standards, the day climb was probably a warm-up for these climbers to tackle something harder in the following days.
"For their ability, it wasn't difficult," he said.
It was also not the first time for the climber in the park, although it had been several years since the last climb, Roderick said.
Roderick said he dropped the partners off to set up base camp at the Ruth Glacier about a week before the accident. They were doing short, technical climbs, as many climbers do around the Ruth.
The Ruth Glacier has grown in popularity over the years as more people seek technically harder routes around the series of peaks that rise like walls for thousands of feet in The Great Gorge, said Denali mountaineering ranger John Evans. It is about 15 miles southeast of 20,320-foot Mount McKinley.
Mount Wake is not one of the popular peaks. McLaughlin said it is climbed fewer than half a dozen times a year.
The climber's partner told him and park authorities that this is what happened:
The pair began at about 4:45 a.m. so they could reach the top of Mount Wake and make it back in one day. Before they reached the summit, though, they were turned back by deep, unstable snow. The route they were attempting was not a new route, but just when anyone last attempted it was not known.
As they were descending about 800 feet off the glacier floor, on the east ridge of Wake, they shared a single-strand rappel line. One climber was below the other and out of sight, having disappeared down a gully to the left.
That's when the partner heard a scream. Then the rope went slack.
Unroped, the climber plummeted the equivalent of about a 10-story building.
The climber must have died in the fall, Evans said.
The partner descended to the body and confirmed the death. The partner sought help from another climbing group in the area and was able to call authorities on a satellite phone.
The park service and Roderick recovered the body early Tuesday morning.
Park rangers have ruled out the possibility that the climber was swept away by avalanching snow or ice.
"Nobody knows for sure what happened," Roderick said. "There could have been a piece of snow or ice or something that hit (the climber) in the head. And then you let go. That's a reality. All it takes is a pebble to fall 200 feet above you, in the face or the chest, or wherever. Then (the climber) lets go of the rope."
"Whatever it is, (the climber) rappelled off the end of the rope and nobody knows why."
The death is the first in Denali Park of this year's climbing season, which began this month and goes until midsummer. Last year, three climbers died.
Thirteen years ago, nearly to the day, two climbers died while rappelling off the same peak almost in the exact same spot, Roderick said.
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Shack
Big Wall climber
Reno NV
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Apr 25, 2007 - 01:28pm PT
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Hmmm. First the article says he plunged 1,000 feet,
then later says he fell the equivalent of a 10 story building!
Which is it?
Either way it sucks.
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wbw
climber
'cross the great divide
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Apr 25, 2007 - 01:48pm PT
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Those big peaks and walls around the Ruth Gorge have got to be some of the gnarliest formations in the world. Every formation on the Wake side of the Ruth, such as Mts. Barille, Dickey, Bradley and Johnson have 3000-5000 ft. rock walls rising directly out of the glacier and are capped by seracs that routinely cut loose. We were there last July, which admittedly would have more falling stuff than at this time of the year. The avalanches and rockfall were so frequent that we stopped noticing them after a while. Even the pure rock routes, like
the Eye Tooth seem to have an astonishing amount of debris raining down upon them. It is a most intimidating and serious alpine venue.
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TwistedCrank
climber
Hell
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Apr 25, 2007 - 02:59pm PT
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Feck. Why do people have to get killed in the hills? It takes all the fun out of it. I hate that news.
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travelin_light
Trad climber
california
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Apr 25, 2007 - 03:16pm PT
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I will be landing in there sometime this weekend. I keep hearing about a bad snowpack. Similar to what turned those guys around on Wake. Its rumored that some dudes got 'lanched off the approach up to the Root Canal Basecamp. Others report unconsolidated snow, hoar, etc. I had just got off the phone with Paul yesterday he confirms cold and dry but the trade routes look good from the air.
My condolences to the lost climber's family and friends.
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reddirt
climber
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Apr 25, 2007 - 10:54pm PT
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"The climber's body was found without any ropes attached to the safety harness. All the climber's gear, including spiked boots called crampons, was intact and undamaged, except for the helmet, which was lost during the fall, said mountaineering ranger Kevin Wright."
5:42pm AKDT
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/ap_alaska/story/8823034p-8723939c.html
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paganmonkeyboy
Trad climber
the blighted lands of hatu
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Apr 26, 2007 - 12:44am PT
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My condolences to the family and friends.
-Tom
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Apr 26, 2007 - 12:56am PT
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RIP, compadre.
God, I hate rappelling.
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Ain't no flatlander
climber
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Apr 26, 2007 - 10:34am PT
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Sad news. Please post her name when appropriate.
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Staples10
climber
Jeffrey City, WY
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Apr 26, 2007 - 02:09pm PT
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My partner and I returned from the Ruth five days ago. The snow conditions were suboptimal, to say the least. The locals said the winter was warm and dry. Anyway, we cut our trip short. It was my partner's sixth trip to the range, and my first.
Three days before we flew in, three guides were climbing the approach to the Root Canal when one or all triggered a slide. One guide suffered a shattered elbow. He was evacuated and the others elected to leave as well. Or at least, this is what the climbing ranger told us when we were picking up our CMCs.
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reddirt
climber
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Apr 27, 2007 - 05:09pm PT
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Park Service IDs dead climber
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: April 27, 2007)
Park Service officials this morning identified the climber who died Monday while rappelling in Denali National Park as Lara-Karena Kellogg of Seattle.
Kellogg, 38, fell about 1,000 feet while rappelling the northeast ridge of Mount Wake, according to the Park Service. Her climbing partner didn’t see the fall, and park officials say they don’t know what caused it.
The climbers were descending after a day climb up the icy 8,000-foot peak.
The death is the first of this year’s Denali Park climbing season, which began this month and goes until midsummer. Last year, three climbers died.
Thirteen years ago, nearly to the day, two climbers died while rappelling in almost the same spot, Talkeetna Air Taxi pilot Paul Roderick said this week.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 27, 2007 - 05:35pm PT
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As linked on rockclimbing.com:
http://newsminer.com/2007/04/27/6685
Apparently she rapped off the end of a single strand rope. Obviously a tragedy for all involved.
Single strand is tricky - I usually switch to a Munter hitch instead of ATC for it (especially if steep or a thin rope), and stop well short of the end and clip into a figure-eight loop at the end, if I need to stretch out the rappel. But I might skip that to go faster....
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Climber’s fall reinforces safety issues
By Matias Saari
Staff Writer
Published April 27, 2007
A simple knot would have prevented a 38-year-old Seattle woman from rappelling off the end of her rope and falling to her death Monday on a technical mountain in Denali National Park and Preserve, her Fairbanks climbing partner said Thursday.
Jed Kallen-Brown, 23, was above his partner and out of her sight on Mount Wake when he heard her scream, followed by the sound of a person falling. Kallen-Brown, who arrived back in Fairbanks Wednesday night, has two theories about what happened.
“I think the most likely scenario is she was looking for gear, didn’t realize how close to the end of the rope she was, and it just slipped through her hand,” said Kallen-Brown, who met the woman more than a year ago and had climbed with her in California’s Yosemite Park.
“The other possible scenario is that she knew she was close to the end of the rope, intended to only let a small amount of rope through, and due to the slippery belay rope combination, more rope than intended went through the device, and she went off the end of the rope that way,” Kallen-Brown said.
The woman, a climber of 15 years who had been in the Alaska Range before, was rappelling on a single strand and was setting protective devices for Kallen-Brown in order to belay him down to her. A safety knot at the end of the rope would have prevented her 1,300-foot fall, Kallen-Brown said.
While tying such a knot is recommended in climbing manuals, eschewing the practice among experienced climbers is common, Kallen-Brown said.
Such knots can also be problematic because they are time-consuming and can get stuck in rock cracks, Kallen-Brown said.
However, the Fairbanks climber will begin using protective knots while rappelling.
“I’ve reassessed the value judgment, and I now feel that putting that knot in the end of the rope is worth it for safety matters,” he said.
The accident occurred in a steep, rocky section of the rarely climbed 9,130-foot peak in The Great Gorge area of the Ruth Glacier, about 15 miles southeast of Mount McKinley. The pair set out on a day climb about 5 a.m. Monday and had been climbing mixed ice, snow and rock for more than 13 hours. They had ascended about 3,500 feet before turning back 1,400 feet shy of the summit due to unstable snow conditions and a large mushroom-shaped snow obstacle, Kallen-Brown said. Their route of travel, the mountain’s Northeast Ridge, had previously been summitted just once, he added.
The climbing fatality is the first in Denali National Park this season. Two climbers died rappelling down Mount Wake in 1994.
While word of the death has spread through the Seattle climbing community, the woman’s name has not yet been released pending the notification of her husband, who is traveling in a remote area overseas, Kallen-Brown said.
Kallen-Brown, who dangerously downclimbed alone for 50 minutes to reach his partner’s body at the bottom of a steep gully and confirm her death, was visibly affected while discussing the accident. He believes she died upon impact during the fall.
“It’s really a kind of a shocking and raw experience. As much as you play the scenarios through your head, it’s completely different when it actually happens and I don’t think you can actually be prepared for it,” said Kallen-Brown, who previously had experienced nothing worse than frostnip despite a handful of ambitious climbs that include last month’s first winter ascent of the Alaska Range’s Mount Huntington.
Kallen-Brown and his partner had been in the Ruth Glacier area about a week and had intended staying there until May 4. Now Kallen-Brown will travel to Seattle on Saturday and spend about a week there before heading to Greenland for glaciology work.
Kallen-Brown will continue climbing and plans to attempt a 24,200-foot peak in Pakistan beginning in late-August.
“(The accident) doesn’t change my love for the mountains. It doesn’t make a difference for me as far as stopping climbing,” said Kallen-Brown. “It does provide a different perspective on safety and the things that we kind of take for granted, the aspects of climbing where a mistake has dire consequences.”
Kallen-Brown called his partner an impressive climber, a vibrant individual and a good scientist.
“We had a lot of things in common and really good dialogue,” he said.. “We were certainly disappointed to turn around up high because of the snow conditions, but it was really enjoyable climbing. Throughout the day she had a big smile on her face just enjoying the climbing … right up until the end.”
Contact staff writer Matias Saari at 459-7591 or msaari@newsminer.com.
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Cosmin
Big Wall climber
Europe/China
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Apr 27, 2007 - 09:43pm PT
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Damn!!!! Bad news!
Isn't she the wife of Chad Kellog?
RIP! My condolences to the family and friends!
C
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maldaly
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Apr 28, 2007 - 12:41pm PT
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Oh, man, this sucks. I'm so sorry. I've rapped off the ends of my rope twice and luckily lived to tell about it. Once was 300' off the ground, at night on the Apron, the other time in Kloof alcove. No injuries either time but the heart-stopping realization of what you just did is not easily forgotten.
Let's all be careful out there.
Mal
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darod
Trad climber
South Side Billburg
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Apr 28, 2007 - 03:03pm PT
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this really sucks, my heartfelt condolences to her friends and family...
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Crag Q
Trad climber
Louisville, Colorado
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Apr 28, 2007 - 05:46pm PT
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Terrible news. I used to live in Seattle, so I've been waiting in dread to here who the climber was. I knew her and Chad. She was a great person.
My condolences to Chad, her friends and family.
http://rememberlara.blogspot.com/
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rockermike
Mountain climber
Berkeley
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Apr 28, 2007 - 07:32pm PT
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My condolences and RIP
I think I've posted this before but I try to make it a policy to knot the end of ropes. If getting knot stuck somewhere, or if rope might blow around a corner or what ever I just put a fig 8 on end and clip it to my harness, thus keeping control of rope and having safety too. my 10 cents worth. I wonder how many climbing deaths over the years have been due to going off end on rappel. It seems pretty common and easily preventable.
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crøtch
climber
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Very sad. Condolences to family and friends.
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