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Melissa
Big Wall climber
oakland, ca
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FWIW...when we came up that morning (around 10?) there were no less than 5 SAR folks milling around at the trail head, and it was suggested to us that we find another place to climb for the day as they were "going to trundle an enourmous death block from below Dolt Tower."
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Larry
Trad climber
Reno NV
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One does take one's chances, hanging around the base of El Cap, doesn't one? Or any cliff, for that matter, no matter if there are tons of people up there or not.
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cadl
Trad climber
Long Beach, CA
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Wow, thought this thread was dead long ago. David Nelson, thanks for the story from the ‘top side.’
When we hit the ground around 11:30am after rapping from Dolt, we were greeted by Lincoln and another YOSAR member. They had already cordoned off the area from the fork in the climber’s trail (the fork that splits between the east and west walls) to Mescalito with yellow ‘crime scene’ tape. Although these routes are not that far apart, it’s still a pretty big swath of area and I’m sure it sucked for the person who had to scramble through the trees stringing yellow tape. In addition, they had to position people at all the trail access points into the base of El Cap. All in all, it’s a pretty sizable area to close off and required quite a few people to block access.
After a visit to housekeeping for showers and the deli for red meat, my partner and I parked ourselves in El Cap meadow with a 12-pack of beer and awaited ‘the show’. It was pretty amazing watching the two YOSAR members getting lowered from the top on a single static line. Even though they had something like 400 lbs of gear between them, that line made one major arc in the wind (I guess at 11mm x 1500 ft, the cross section has enough surface area for a small sail). They ended the lower off one pitch below and just slightly east of Dolt Tower and then had to climb back up to Dolt. From there, they rapped off Dolt to the block.
From our vantage point in the meadow, you wouldn’t have even noticed the block falling unless you were looking for it. It was a mere puff of dust when the block careened off the wall and broke into a few smaller pieces. The scale of the Captain is pretty awe inspiring!
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David Nelson
climber
San Francisco
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It just shows the power of the Internet: An event is observed/participated in by a few folks who have never met and are spread over the planet (although, in this case, I will admit they are all in CA), and yet we can share detailed information about the event. Chris, thanks for putting up this site!
I would love it if Werner or John Dill (both who were on the SAR team at the time) would post some comments. It was John, by the way, who taught me the "boiling spit" test for a hot rappel device (I checked my notes). He is something to see in action: he has seen it all, so he is not in the least excited, just all business and no false moves.
In case any of you have missed it, John's article on climbing safety and accidents is great: http://www.bluebison.net/yosar/indexframes.htm. It is on the YOSAR site. Also, if you missed it, John Middendorf's posting on YOSAR is good reading: http://www.bigwalls.net/climb/yosar.html
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Lincoln
climber
Yosemite, CA
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I never thought I'd get "overextended" as a ranger, I mean come on, aren't rangers supposed to just walk around enjoying the wilderness while telling visitors not to feed the squirrels?
Sorry to have flaked on posting more info, it was a pretty hectic spring up here and I did a wonderful job of getting completely sidetracked from pretty much every project I started. Thanks to those who reminded me about this thread.
Sounds like most everything has been hashed through already: what happened, who did what, etc. etc., but I’ll add a few comments for those who are interested. In the soap opera of Yosemite Valley, “operation trundle” was definitely one of the more interesting episodes.
The taped off area:
When we made the signs to close the area we were a bit pressed for time and didn’t yet know exactly what we were dealing with (at that point we hadn’t spoken to anyone who had actually seen the block). I spent a good deal of time hanging out at the base to talk to climbers and explain what was going on, but my apologies to anyone who was confused/annoyed by the closure area. As for people who were inconvenienced by having to push back their Nose ascent… most of the folks I talked to were perfectly happy to have an extra rest day while we sorted out the mess.
Our involvement:
It is not the responsibility nor the desire of the Nation Park Service to make wilderness entirely safe. That is one of the reasons we rarely close climbing routes due to rock fall or other hazards. Were we to close “hazardous routes” we would have to close everything: rock falls all over in Yosemite, climbing is dangerous, etc. etc. I’ll let the lawyers hash through the rest of that debate. Point being: we want to help maintain people’s safety, but the dangers and hazards found in places like Yosemite are part of what makes wilderness wilderness.
That being said, here are some thoughts on why we got involved in this specific incident beyond what we normally might have.
We were brought into the situation by a 911 call reporting some kind of rock fall or hazard on the Nose. A quick assessment of the route showed a number of climbers in the area of the stove legs and a block that looked dangerously loose. Without having more information, and without the ability to communicate with the climbers involved, we made the call to at least temporarily close off the area so more people would not become involved in a possibly dangerous situation. This would enable us to check out the block in good light the next morning and figure out what happened, what we wanted to do, etc.
So at that point we were involved, like it or not. Having closed one of the world’s most popular big walls we needed to figure out what to do… quickly. Some of the obvious options were:
-Take the hazard tape down and quietly walk away… wilderness is dangerous, oops, didn’t mean to get involved… sorry…
-Work with the climbers on the wall to help them safely knock the block off while we guarded the base
-Climb up to the block ourselves and knock it off
-Come down from the top ourselves and knock the block off (either with a small team of two rapping the route anchor to anchor, or as a large lowering team with long ropes).
You can imagine there was a great deal of debate, concern, thought, and consultation, that went into making this decision. Given the location of the block, our level of involvement, etc., none of us were willing to simply walk away, so that meant removing it. Having lost contact with the parties on the wall we couldn’t enlist their help (which would have raised a number of other concerns anyway). Climbing up from the bottom was hard to justify (though some climbers would obviously be willing to run up the route and cut the block loose, from an official standpoint that risk was too large). That left coming down from the top. Two of us could rap down to the block, but that would leave us stranded on the wall if for some reason the block was too difficult to remove but unsafe to rap under. So, a lowering operation was chosen as the fastest, easiest, safest way to get people to the block and “solve” the problem.
Though it obviously looks darn impressive, lowering off El Cap with long ropes is actually a relatively straightforward operation. A small team of rescuers (compared to a standard El Cap rescue) lowered two people (a SAR siter and a ranger) down to the block, which they removed while others had the base cleared. That pair then rapped the rap route down the stove legs to check for other loose debris and make sure the rap bolts had not been crushed in the trundle effort.
This was obviously a pretty wacky situation, but all told it seemed to end with everyone decently happy with the outcome. The route was re-opened less than 24 hours after it was closed, and the block was reunited with its brethren at the base of the wall. It sustained some minor injuries in the fall, but it’s recovering well and should be climbing again soon.
Hope this answers some questions, or gives people some interesting material for late night banter. This place never stops presenting us all with wacky new challenges and controversies.
Climb hard, climb safe, keep it clean, and try not pull too hard on big loose looking blocks.
Cheers,
-Link
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David Nelson
climber
San Francisco
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Linc, thanks for the data. We all have been dying to get the input of YOSAR on this episode. If there are take-home lessons, it seems to me to be that:
(1) bringing a cell phone on a climb can help both yourself and others (if the block-loosening party had a cell phone, they could have communicated with YOSAR better and saved a lot of time, energy, and expense)
(2) don't be too quick to criticise; YOSAR seems to have done a good job of evaulating incomplete data, considering the options, and acting on them
(3) if YOSAR says an area is dangerous (come on guys, they are all climbers like us!), don't just duck the yellow tape and go forth; ain't it obvious that Lincoln doesn't want to close it any more than you want to see it closed?
(4) test a block before you yank on it!
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