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shipoopoi
Big Wall climber
oakland
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sad times. i did the east butt a couple of weeks ago and did not notice anything out of the ordinary, except that the party below me was going off route a lot from where i had gone. there are a few different ways to go there, and maybe some ways are looser than others. anyway, totally tragic. my condolences to all partners, family, and witnesses. steve
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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From UKClimbing, http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=551953 .
"Dear all
I have had the great pleasure of knowing Felix over the past 9 years. I met him at Manchester Medical School in 2004.
Having been in touch with his family, I thought I'd write a few words about him here:
As well as a keen climber he was a dedicated and competent Doctor who was taking a sixth month break before embarking on specialist training to become an Oncologist in London.
From a climbing point of view he was an accomplished boulderer, mountaineer, trad and sport climber.
A cautious and dependable partner, with whom, i climbed some of my hardest and most ambitious routes. One of the more memorable being a one day ascent of the Frendo spur in 2009.
He has been all over the world for climbing, medicine and pure travel.
He'd spent time in the USA, Thailand, China, Nepal, India, S. Africa as well as much of Europe and the UK.
He knew a staggering number of different people from all walks of life, he was charming and extremely loveable, as well as offering thoughtful advice when it was asked of him.
He took great photos, liked good food and had a refined taste in music having at one point run a club night at University with his twin Brother.
I was with him in Kentucky a month ago, we had a really great time, meeting loads of new people exploring the State and climbing almost every day.
He is one of the best friends I have ever had, and an inspiring individual who changed the way i see the world in a very positive way.
I will miss him so much.
My thoughts are with his mother, father, sister and brother.
If anyone has any photos or wants to chat, get in touch.
Thank You, Tom Brookes"
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/london-doctor-killed-by-falling-rock-in-accident-on-tough-us-mo..."
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elcap-pics
Big Wall climber
Crestline CA
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Thank you Tom for the comments ... I didn't know him but this makes me even sadder. I am at a loss for words ....really...
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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So sad to see such a young, accomplished life cut short.
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BFK
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Thank you for posting Tom. Sorry for your loss as well as the loss to our community.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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This is really sad.
My condolences to Family, Friends and others.
RIP
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Les
Trad climber
Bahston
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Damn, RIP.
Whenever I hear of these incidents, I'm reminded of Bean Bowers' words (in a letter to Christian Beckwith) after he took a 100+ footer on Torre Egger when the entire rime mushroom cap he was climbing cut loose:
"The experience was simply a vivid reminder that all is good and mundane and seemingly going your way until suddenly it is not, and then luck or the lack thereof steers our inevitable destiny . . . ."
Yet despite the experience, he ends the letter with, "Go do something wild today."
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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The East Butt and the Muir, both of these accidents are that of what nightmares make. These are two images that I wish my mind had not seen.
Both men were loved by many, and it seems both gave back more than what they took in. Rest easy, and strength to the families and friends.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Will the terrible news ever end? Felix sounds like the nephew of a couple of friends of mine, killed in a traffic accident while riding his bicycle. He was also a doc, in his late 20's, a wonderful person, much loved, and a life snuffed out far too early.
My heart breaks every time I read or see an accident like this.
John
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robpressly
Trad climber
Ann Arbor, MI
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My partner and I were the party climbing immediately below Luke and Felix, and all the details seem accurate based on our experience. Felix was wearing a helmet, but the impact knocked him out instantly. He was a charming, smart guy and a strong and competent climber...this was a terrible accident and our hearts go out to Luke and to Felix's family.
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velvet!
Trad climber
La Cochitaville
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We made pretty good fun of Felix for his little picture session with fellow climber Elodie Saracco in the Red last month but she got some really nice pictures...
Such a fashionable dirtbag!
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, tom... thank you for sharing your wonderful history of your dear friend...
and--a twin losing a twin--seems to hurt, more, as--i know many twins... :(
my condolences to his family and loved ones, once again... and i will be
praying for them, as they move on, without him...
also, velvet! thank you for posting the photos! we can feel the history, now, matching with them...
god bless...
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AlanDoak
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Stefan and I did this route the previous day, it's unsettling how one mistake can forever change everything.
After building this anchor at the top of pitch 10 (just below the traverse), I was unhappy with the integrity of that block and added a tricky nut placement to the main wall. I never pulled on the block and treat all suspicious rock with care but it's a bit embarrassing in retrospect that that cam is even in the photo, but we learn by honest self critique. Speed adds significantly it's own form of safety, but fast style needs to be balanced with awareness and vigilence.
I'm not sure why, but I have this gnawing question whether or not that particular block was involved in this incident. It's not important, but I would appreciate if anyone knows and responds.
Stay safe and climb long everyone.
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WBraun
climber
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AlanDoak
The block that came off was on pitch 7
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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A modified version of the supertopo.
With this numbering, pitch 7 is the one which goes up some slick hand cracks, then over a small roof and finger crack and ends at the "Nose"/Prow.
I remember a number of loose-looking flakes before the roof, and the belayer is in the corner down below with little freedom to dodge.
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velvet!
Trad climber
La Cochitaville
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I know most of you all are US based but just to share:
Felix's Memorial Page on Facebook -
https://www.facebook.com/FelixKiernanMemorial
It's been all over the news in the UK. Felix was a well loved and respected man.
One of the more recent articles...
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/death-of-a-twin--i-always-thought-how-terrible-if-it-happened-to-us-8649389.html
From the other side of the glacial valley of Yosemite National Park, the naked eye can’t see the men and women on the sheer rock-face of El Capitan, so vast is it and so small are they. Move closer and they come into view, shimmying gracefully up the famous vertical formation of granite. Big-wall climbing is a careful sport, of meticulous — almost nerdish — planning and silent, personal ascent that only blurts into sound if something goes wrong.
On Sunday, at about 2pm local time in California’s Sierra Nevada, something went terribly wrong on “El Cap”. London doctor Felix Kiernan, 28, had set out early in the morning with his climbing friend of many years, Luke Jones. They were ascending the East Buttress of El Capitan in alternating “pitches” — one going ahead, setting the anchor and clipping himself in while the other used the dangling 60-metre rope for his own ascent. Emailing this morning from California, Luke — who was “in pieces” when he first narrated the events to the family the next day as they huddled around the speakerphone — describes what happened next: “It was my turn to lead so I took the rack, had a last look at the guidebook and set off, all the while Felix bantering away in his poor attempt at a northern accent.
“I had climbed up about 25 metres from the belay [anchoring point] and was moving rightwards along a small ledge. I then had to move around a bulge and as I made the move the block I was standing on detached from the face, which caused me to fall about three feet on to the ledge.
“I shouted “BELOW!” as soon as I felt the block go, as is normal when the lead climber dislodges or drops anything.
I looked down to check that Felix was OK but saw that he was hanging upside down from the belay. It was immediately apparent that the block had hit him.”
Felix was killed instantly by the foot-wide rock, a death made all the more harrowing for the other climbers at Yosemite that day by the fact that his lifeless body hung dangling from the cliff face — a cruel variation on every climber’s nightmare of death by falling. When Luke abseiled down to him, he says: “I did everything I could to revive him but it was too late, he was gone.”
It took six hours before the rescue operation was complete, and the news reached London about four hours after that. When Felix’s 25-year-old sister, Dorcas, got a call from her mum as she got on her bike to work on Monday morning, she says she “didn’t think it was anything”.
Across town in Whitechapel, Felix’s twin brother Miles — also a climber, just as he is also a graduate of Manchester medical school and also a junior doctor at the Royal London — says he knew immediately. “He [Felix’s GP father, Patrick] called and just said, ‘You need to come round in a cab’. I knew that something very bad had happened. I absolutely knew that it was something with my brother, and it wouldn’t have been that feeling that I sensed with my dad if it had been a grandparent or something.
“It’s something I had feared terribly as well, because I was friends with two climbers who were twins at university, and one of them died under similar circumstances, and I always thought how terrible that might be if that was to happen to me and my brother.”
Patrick and Sarah Kiernan were supposed to be flying to San Francisco and making their way to Yosemite today, to visit Felix on his dream trip and do some campervanning in the valley. Instead they are grieving at home in Tufnell Park, responding to the hundreds of messages sent from Felix’s colleagues and friends from around the world and waiting for their son’s body to return to north London, where they will bid him farewell at a funeral in a week’s time.
One poster on an internet climbing forum from a mate who had climbed with him at home and abroad in Spain, calls Felix “caustic, funny, highly intelligent, a motivated climber, competitive, aggro, urban, kind and extremely good company”. Another tribute emailed to me by Luke Alvarez, 45, describes him as “funny and scabrous but also serious-minded about politics and philosophy of medicine” and says he was great fun to climb with and great fun to schmooze with. “I will miss him very much both on the rock and in the pub.” Several mention his striking, rugged good looks.
For his mother Sarah, who speaks happily for two hours about her son’s illustrious life but has to leave the room when we first come to discussing his death, the news is almost unthinkable. “I just think it’s the worst thing that could possibly ever happen. You just can’t believe it. It’s just the worst, worst thing. The only slight way of thinking about it is that Felix was really, really happy. And he had all this future ahead, and he was really looking forward to seeing us, and he wouldn’t have known…”
She remembers her “impulsive, mischievous, completely fearless” son running off and getting lost in Camden Market as a child and taking to every sport she threw at him. She recalls going to his room to bid him goodnight and finding him clinging to the makeshift climbing frame that was the sloping wall above his bed — practising the strong fingers and trusty grip required in the sport he first tried at the age of seven and took to in a big way during his A-levels at Latymer secondary school in Edmonton.
He learned to climb properly at a disused water station at Manor House called The Castle, where the flag was flying at half-mast yesterday. “I felt sorry for him because it was two buses and two trains to school,” recalls Sarah. “So as soon as he could drive I said he could have my car whenever he wanted. What I didn’t realise, which I found out last night, is that he used to collect up to six or seven people, ram them in my car, whizz through the roads of Muswell Hill, terrifying them all, cackling joyously and go to The Castle.”
She says Felix never told her when he was going to attempt a difficult climb, not even about his ambitions for El Capitan. But did she fear the worst? “I did worry,” she says slowly after a pause for thought, “I did worry.”
Dorcas, the pretty younger sister who relied on “chilled out” Felix for his no-nonsense advice, tells how her brother once spent 45 minutes reassuring her about a daunting treetop swing while all his mates below looked up and thought, “Who the f*** is this girl?”. “He wanted me to do it. That’s what he did — he made people feel really safe, and like they were capable of doing anything. He made you believe in yourself.”
“RIP Felix,” Ben writes to finish his email. “A great climbing partner and friend, you knew when to be cautious and when it was necessary to push.”
For Miles, as with any twin who loses their soulmate, the pain and bewilderment of Monday’s news is sickening. Born two minutes apart, they had shared everything — learning to ride their bikes without hands together, running a club night in Manchester together, studying medicine together and then — extraordinarily — ending up at the same deanery at the same hospital together, an outcome against which the odds are stacked so heavily it couldn’t help but feed Patrick’s belief that his sons are somehow linked by more than DNA.
In a sub-plot that now has a sad irony, both parents say they actively encouraged them to be independent, sending them to different schools so that they could forge their own identities, even attempting to bribe Felix to accept an offer from Bristol university rather than Manchester, where Miles was going. Now, in unimaginable circumstances, their intense and happy intimacy is over.
“You know, someone said we were very much an equation, of Miles and Felix and Felix and Miles; that’s now sort of been halved, in a way. And he was someone who I’ve shared every milestone with, in a very energetic way, and in a very intimate way. And it’s just a huge shock to know that that’s not going to be.”
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nopantsben
climber
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I'm so sorry Libby. Sincere Condolences to you and all his friends and family.
big hug.
b
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mountain girl
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Jun 10, 2013 - 10:44pm PT
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Very, very sad...my thoughts are with the family and friends of the climber. I escaped getting killed by rock fall at the base of El Cap during spring years ago. To all climbers, be careful.
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