New Ways of Thinking Through Climbing Accidents

(upbeat music) They called up, actually a friend of mine at Black Diamond, Eric Win, and they go, "Do you have a portal ledge that we can use?" And they're like, "Why do you need a portal ledge?" They're like, "Someone has their knee stuck in and off with, and we might have to amputate the leg." Yeah. And so the surgeon who might have to perform this is actually assessing the situation through a drone. And so this is what's at stake, you know? You might have an app-utated leg, or, you know, if no one can do anything and you're in a remote area, you might just die from suspension syndrome. (upbeat music) You're listening to the American Alpine Club podcast, your guide to the climbing community. (upbeat music) This year, the AAC's Accidents Editor, Pete DeKeta, received a 30% increase in climbing related accident reports. In this, our annual Accident Trends episode, we look at the patterns of climbing accidents that happened in 2025 and discuss what these patterns reveal and what all climbers can learn from them. From the human factors that influence accidents across disciplines, the emerging prevalence of top-rope soloing accidents, the under-appreciated danger of getting your knee stuck in an inversion off with, or the hidden dangers of a stick clip, to the continued high incidence of lowering accidents, we dive in to some of the biggest trends and most poignant examples of accidents to learn from in this year's book, Accidents in North American Climbing, 2026. If you're a partner level member or above and opted in to receive accidents, you'll be getting your copy in the mail in the next month or two. If you aren't a member yet, now is the time to take action, so you can get your copy and dive into the details and learnings captured yearly in AAC. I'm your host, Hannah Provo. Here's the video. (upbeat music) - Welcome Pete back to the pod. Always love to have you here. This is our annual episode where we dive into the trends that you identified in the Accidents book. It's waiting to be put on a boat to ship to all of our members across the world. And I'm super excited to get my hands on a physical copy. I've been able to look at a PDF. Obviously a lot is in this book, so we're gonna have to try to cover some of it today. And we're gonna talk about some of the bigger trends that you might have discovered this year. So I guess first of all, this year, any summaries or big takeaways? - Yeah, that's a good question. So the first thing is, Accidents is just bigger and there's more reporting. So I think in some ways, we're really doing our job here. The Accidents team by extending the invitation for people to talk about what they've experienced and also encouraging people to do so. From 2023 to 2024, there was an almost 6% increase in reporting. From 2024 to 2025, there was a 30% increase in reporting. So overall, I think from 2023 to this year, which is actually the 2025 list of accidents, it's like a 37% increase. And so given this volume, we actually had to increase the number of pages of the book from 128 to 144. Part of this is because whenever someone writes their accident in to us, I look at it as they're reaching out personally and talking about something that they witnessed or experienced. And they really deserve the first consideration to have their words and their narrative included in this book. So I'm like, "Oh yeah, we got to increase the book." And we all talk about it. And it's like, "Okay, yeah, let's do 144 pages." At the same time, we're getting more and more submissions for our Know the Rope section. We've expanded the Human Factor section to almost be a part of every book because the American Alpon Club is the global leader in Human Factor's research behind climbing accidents. We also had a new query about a program that was developed in the gunks by Dan Cassidy. And it was basically with the support of his team, but he led the charge on building preventative search and rescue standards and a program for the Schwankunks. And this is something I see emerging is that every area is different. America is geographically spread out and each area has its own flavor. With that comes the fact that each area has its own particular hazards. And so each area, I'm not gonna say they should, but the impetus is out there to develop preventative search and rescue standards for their area. And we've been helping people kind of discover what those are by doing our Human Factor's research and our site visits. And so I see this as another content trend in art book. As you mentioned earlier, we have a Danger Zones feature from Mount Whitney. And so this guy who I'd never met named Brandon Rizza, he reached out and said, "Why aren't you reporting on this?" And what's going on with this? That all these accidents and I don't see any inclusion of this. And so I always turn the tables on people. I go, "Well, no one wrote me about this, so feel free to write me." And he was like, "Well, I have, I spend a lot of time in this range." And he's arguably the subject matter expert on movement in that section of this North American climbing area. And so I'm like, "Oh man, you're a graphic designer, you're an artistic guy." And I really would love to see a feature story about this. And he went above and beyond. He provided a long article, "Complete with graphics and complete with every photograph that we used." So it's kind of my dream assignment to kind of push out there. As soon as someone just delivers this whole package, this usually have to piece it together. And so I think you noticed that there were a lot of graphics in there and I'd love to take credit that all in my team put this together, but no, this Brandon, Brandon all the way with this. And our big challenge was, where do we put all this material? And so that fed in also to the, it's just like the 144 page book. It's a thick one this year, people. Don't miss it. - Yeah, actually, let's drill down on that for a second because I was really struck by the Whitney article, partially because it just, it does represent like these new ways that we are thinking through accidents and like really applying data and everything 'cause some of those graphs that you were mentioning, like they were representing like where accidents happen on the mountain. And you're like collating that and representing like, basically where the danger zones are as per the name. And similarly, there was a graph about the number of deaths and fatalities per over years and it's growing trend as is very obvious by the very simple graph. And like I just found it really illuminating, you know, as graphs do, they just like as a snapshot of like, you can hear the words, but if you can see the data represented, it's very striking. So I guess I, would there any other specific takeaways for you from that article? - Yeah, you know, so they say a picture is worth a thousand words whatever, which is, you know, it's true. Like a, you know, a short segment of film was worth 10,000 words. You know, a graphic is almost like a, that combination of an illustration, like a photograph and some really targeted information. Yeah, so when you see a graphic, it's like, whoa, this makes sense. Brandon did, you know, the graphs, he also did a heat map. Chat thought was really cool where you can, you know, highlight the, well, in this case, it wasn't highlighted 'cause it's a static page, but you can see, you know, whoa, this is where this happened. So I think in some ways it's a very creative way of conveying the magnitude and importance of specific areas and specific sections of these routes and what to look out for. And once again, we gotta give credit to Brandon. We also have to give credit to Dougal's for coming up with the name DangerZones. I didn't come up with that, though I would have. (laughing) Just kidding. Yeah. You know what? I do wanna go back to the human factors thing because there's a lot of energy from the team on this and I think it's a really important new addition to the way we're thinking about accidents. For those people listening who maybe haven't listened to our previous episodes that, you know, the gallery was on or haven't seen our, like, recent conversations about this. Can you tell us what human factors are and what's going on here? Like what are we talking about? Yeah, you know, I didn't know really what human factors were until the gallery car kind of explained it to me and she said it. It's kind of cryptic. She goes, "Human factors means just showing up as a human." And I'm like, "Well, what's this got to do with like, "people falling off a cliff or, you know, "freezing to death or something?" It's like, this is very esoteric. So, I had to ponder this for a while, but, what she said is true. It, is what are the emotional, psychological, and internal conditions that lead people in a set of circumstances to have an accident, how they manage it in real time and what the outcome is. So it's this fascinating thing because we can divide finding accidents into numerous categories. And we do that in our data tables, but human factors is a unifying, I think, idea and principle behind all accidents. And what this does is it dissolves the barriers between oldering and sport climbing and tread climbing and it will climbing and alpinance. You know, everyone wants to think that they do the best thing in the whole sport, which they do. But the human factors is relevant to anyone. The beginner, the pro climber, the guide, the tread climber run out, you know, above a really bad piece, the boulder topping out a high ball, the sport climber looking at the chains and wondering if they have enough strength to clip. All those different genres and experiences are unified because what goes on in our head is pretty common to all humans, except maybe Alex Hanoel. And so it's this fascinating field of study. And once again, the American Alpine Club is the global leader in this research. Part of what Valerie and I do is we travel two sites. We interview people who've had accidents. We talk with the administrators, the land managers, you know, the SAR people. And we also go climbing. She's getting a great climbing education out of this. And so we also experience for ourselves what are the unique hazards to an area in the process of speaking with the administrators. You know, we get to either help develop like preventative search and rescue standards or we get to showcase what they've already done. So I welcome anyone out there who is involved in this that may shoot me an email. And you know, at some point where it will come out there, you know, Dr. Carr came up with an acronym anchors ANCHORS. And so this is an acronym similar to the backcountry acronym of facets. In fact, she modeled it off facets. And so in climbing, we now have an acronym to represent the psychological, mental states that occur as we're going out climbing. And and tying that to the potential hazards. And I'm not going to say what that is. You all got to just get come on people. I'm in the club. Yes. So I understand we're going to keep what they all mean quiet so that people get the book. Let's just give one example because I do really like what you said about how human factors dissolves the differences between the disciplines. Because I can totally see how like I think always others and like the influence of what other people are saying. And if you're in a group of boulders who believe that like this particular high ball is something worth pursuing and there's like an energy behind it, you might make a choice to do that even though you're not prepared to make the moves that high above the deck like you personally. In this similar way, your climbing partner could influence you to get on a really run out pitch on a track line or believe that an anchor system is like well set up even though it's mostly just one fixed pin. And so I could totally see how these human factors like the mechanisms of those accidents if they were to happen are completely different. And you have to analyze those things. The pad was placed poorly like that is a mechanism of the accident that we have to analyze. But so is like the human psychology of it. And that links those disciplines together. And so I really like what you said about the dissolution of the differences. I think that's yeah, it's so powerful. Yeah, that's a great kind of analysis. And in each of the examples you brought up, what I'm hearing is wow, this is a real situation. This happens all the time. I mean, it happened to me yesterday. I'm with someone way better than me. And you know, I feel this subtle pressure to like, oh man, I gotta step it up and create my e-game. But you know, in all the accidents that you were describing, there's that thing called, it's the expert halo in which there is someone who is the de facto leader of the group by virtue of their performance and their experience. And so they carry a disproportionate amount of influence in the decision making. And so part of what the anchor's acronym does is it isolates probably two things or three things because these aspects stack on each other. And it isolates those things into something that now has a lexicon and a word. So the people who are disadvantaged or less experienced or might be hesitant about sticking their necks out farther, they actually have something that's almost this third party representation of their interests. It's not just like, I don't want to do that. It's like, well, I read in accidents in North American cloning that you are demonstrating, you know, the expert halo and you're doing this, this and this. Therefore, I'm reconsidering my participation in this dangerous circumstance. And it also gives people the leeway to say, hey, you're right. I want to go for this high ball top out. But I want to have more pads. And you guys need to take your hands out of your pockets while I'm climbing or all bets are off. I'm not climbing. And you know, we can point the finger going, oh, it's these kids, they just don't care. It's like, no, everyone cares. No one wants to get hurt. No one is like, man, I can't wait for my buddy to just break his legs. You know, I've been waiting for this day forever. No, it's just people need to be reminded of their responsibility as climbers. And so I think what Dr. Carr has done with creating this acronym is given people the lexicon and the tools, therefore, the empowerment to represent themselves and their interests in any situation. And I'm not going to give away what anchor stands for. You guys got to just, you know, do your bid for bar or a copy. I don't care. Yeah, but it is a very powerful tool. So I'm super excited. And one last thing I got to add is that, you know, anchors, like the research we're doing is not like here's the last word in the truth with a capital T. It's like, no, these are the findings and any finding just like any history puts itself out there to be critiqued and also to be amended or changed. So people should feel free to write Dr. Carr about this if they have an disagreement. All right, me. Just a facilitator. These are the brains of the outfit. Yeah, so that's a very cool new element of the book. And I'm excited to see evolve in the years to come. But you also noted in your introduction that in these accidents that you put together for this edition, there are some kind of more technical trends as well. One of those that really stood out to me was that there is maybe an increase of top rope soloing accidents. Can you tell me a little bit about how that trend emerged maybe or what's happening, like why are there accidents in top rope soloing? Yeah, so, you know, we're living in the age where, you know, there's this mass influx of climbers. And so the population has grown. I don't even want to speculate. But, you know, many times the size of what the climate population was in the past. And so as you have all these new climbers become experienced and then get older and start having responsibilities like a job family, children, and so on, they want to squeeze the same experiences they had earlier in their life into a shorter amount of time. And top rope soloing is one of these really seductive things that, oh, you know, I don't need a partner because, you know, I'm too busy with my family and my kids to cultivate the social connections that allow for, you know, a steady stream of like-minded people who are interested in the same things I want to and will go out at the same time that just ceases to happen after a certain point. So, you know, people lie to on top of soloing. It's a seductive tool in that, yeah, it's more efficient. Yeah, you don't need a partner. Yeah, you can get in like, you know, everyone's like, I did six pitches of 512 before noon today and then went to work. It's like, that's great. But, you know, not only are you being ingrassiously boastful, which, you know, I get on this way all the time. You're also kind of putting the gauntlet down and saying, I am better than you because this is what I did. What did you do today? Knowing full well this person was changing diapers and working remote, you know, whatever it is the people need to do. So, I think, you know, we got to just kind of gauge what we say to people based upon an understanding and compassion of every individual situation. So, what you have with top rope soloing is you have an activity that does not have a specific protocol, a specific technique and a specific set of tools. There's one or two, you know, purpose built top rope solo devices out there. Most standard, and I'm using air quotes, standard configurations are coupled together things that are complex enough that you're really putting it out there on the line. And I think a lot of people, they go, oh, top rope soloing, that's pretty simple. You know, the people I know who Adept at it have climbed Alcapitan. They have done a drutz. They have rigged. They have worked in them You know various, you know high-angle industries. It's not something as a creative movement-based soul To just try to break apart and buy the stuff and then participate in because You know, there's something that can go wrong with any form of climbing We see it all the time the top row solo and you're blending a very complex You know multi-faceted technical system with you know a real go-for it kind of perspective with the free climbing And you're also doing a lot of rigging and all it takes is one mistake Or one oversight And that's it and the thing is is there's also this glut of information often conflicting often contradictory That tells you how to do it and you can find that on YouTube Well, the other thing about top rope soloing is that there's just one person to review the system as well Oh, that I forgot that yeah, there's one person and that's you and if you're pressed for time And you're thinking about someone else which is a very human thing to do Yeah, you can make a mistake and it will cost your loved ones your life Are the accidents that you're like seeing in this realm? Mostly like gear failure like the backup sling getting stuck in various like devices and stuff Yeah, you know, you know, I've seen seeing things like that in the past this year The one that really stands out to me as someone clearly was getting back into climbing and had You know looked at all these different systems and talked obviously with a bunch of people But didn't really have the current competency in other words they were not current with their skill set And they got themselves in the position where they could not physically extract themselves from the top rope solo setup I don't think I published that this year because this was one of those Reports that god I just had to cut because we just ran out of space for it The other incidents I've seen in top rope soloing are people who are very experienced Who For whatever reason we're in a bit of a rush and cut a corner Yeah, one was a sling getting stuck in a Microtraction the other was two devices Jammed into each other and they defeated each other so the person ended up sliding down the rope the other one was I mean it was just an experienced SAR group And they were so I think overly obsessed with you know backing up the backup that they backed the three devices all the way into a position where they all failed and the guy hit the ground So I guess to take away with all this rambling I'm doing is it can happen to anyone folks and don't let it be you Yeah for real another trend that you identified which Has some personal resonance with me is the what you called uniquely American Stuck me and off with experience and why I say it has resonance with me is because I remember when we were filming the prescription video Where I was the model and I pretended to get my knee stuck in a crack The masses of the internet were like that doesn't happen like people can't get their knees stuck in off with and then you have a couple Instances of that happening this year. Can you tell us about what's going on there? Yeah, first thing I have to say Hamas. Thank you for doing that And you know when people raise objection to it that actually means it's having an impact out there and or the record I think everyone wanted me to do it and I just felt I had to maintain some shred of my dignity Not pretend I got my knee stuck because the I don't know people have probably heard this but I actually have gotten my knee stuck and it was so embarrassing Yeah, he didn't Kennedy had to solo up behind me and take a hammer and pound my foot until my knee released That's another story though, but yes every year we have multiple knee Stuck in off with accidents And usually when the knee goes in it's like Buy and large these happen on vertical or less than vertical off-wits You know and it happens to someone who maybe puts their knee in too deep Because they're seeking like a certain sense of security. It's just like when someone places a cam too deep and it walks into the crack It's like well now it's so safe. We'll never get it down You know purpose accomplished, but the intent maybe was defeated So you know we've been seeing that and you know because they come out You know with no harm. It's like well, it's kind of humorous It's like you know getting a pie on the face or something But I was a list thinking I go man one day someone's gonna get stuck in an inversion off with and when you're suspended upside down And you can't move that the clock is ticking because that can cost your life And so it actually happened in Little Cottonwood Canyon outside Salt Lake City in an inversion off with And the long and the short of it is someone got their knee stuck The two people this guy was climbing with That they just did a tremendous job in just I think saving saving his life You know they they had him tie off to an anchor that the the leader built when he was stuck Well off the ground in the off with The belayer bless her heart came up underneath him and it's trying to hold him upright And that just god that just that's it just makes you want to pride tears because it's just so I mean what a effort And then the other climber there was running around got on top you know borrowed someone's rope tried to affect a rescue and the star shows up and this is a brand new style of accident No one really knows there's no protocol yet Established on how do you how do you free this person? And so they're using dishwasher detergent and boil and whatever lubricant they can to try to pull his knee out And after a few hours This actually happened they called up Actually a friend of mine at Black Diamond Eric win and they go do you have a portal edge that we can use And they're like well, do you need a portal edge? So they're like someone has their knee stuck in an off with and we might have to amputate the leg Yeah And so the surgeon who might have to perform this is actually assessing the situation through a drone And so this is what's a stake, you know, you might have an apputated leg or You know if no one can do anything and you're in a remote area you might just die from suspension syndrome This is this is what's at stake. So you know, it's like everyone says this and that about This accident is not legit whatever, you know Carabiner's don't come on clip from hangers people don't get stuck in off with it. It happened You know and from my personal experience if you mock something You're you're in line to have it happen to you that's happened to me two or three times. I used to scoff at stuff Why don't they just lower off? It's like I know better than being critical. So you know, I get the I understand the pundits too I've been a pretty critical pundit in my life. So You know this happens and the two off with accidents this year one was in the bugaboo's and blowing off It's just like five six or something but they're way up on this this alpine rock root in anada And if someone happened to not be repelling by to help free this gentleman I mean, he could have just froze to death up there storms moving in you're sitting there Knee stuck in an off with you can't lower you can't go up you can't go down your belayer stuck down there separated by whatever 60 feet of technical terrain What are you gonna do you don't have any gear that fits the cracks? So you can't relieve the weight on your knee therefore you can not extricate yourself So there's a real consequence and I think you know beyond all the the rancor and all this kind of Like irrelevant junk out there pure off with climbing this actually can't happen so Be advised that this this is a real threat. So you know you can think about it when you stick your knee in a crack and an off with The the guy who performed this rescue and who I think saved his friend's life He Actually carries I think it's a tube of dishwasher and detergent whenever he goes off with climbing So maybe this is a new kit you know some climbing manufacturer out there You should come up with the off with extraction kit this complete giant cam a bunch of slings some super super slick dishwasher detergent and I don't know what else a knife and a pair of scissors Maybe it cuts your friend's leg off. I don't know oh my god What ended up happening with the the first the first accident you're talking about in little outline they extracted him well as Has this gentleman Told the story it's it's like he's just up there I think he was up there for three hours And it's just getting desperate and they keep sending You know detergent up, you know and then more detergent and it doesn't work and They they told him they go okay. We're sending up. It's just like some sort of motor oil like they're they're kind of going through the lubricants You know until they light upon the one that works and and he I think I talked him on the phone in his own words said oh fuck it. I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try it really hard And what he did But actually, it occurs to me, it's what other people have done when they couldn't get the knee out. He pulled on the pant leg to try to get the pant leg that soaked in detergent, to try to get a little bit of movement between the leg and the rock. And so there's that layer of stretchy material in the climbing pants that actually moved and he was cutting it up with a knife and actually was able to pull a piece of this fabric out. And it's just that tiny little margin that allows the knee to release. And sorry if I get any of these details wrong, I can, you know, it's in the book, you can read it and everyone can correct my narrative here. Yeah, you got a lot floating around in your brain probably to keep it all straight. It's a lot. I need to offload it. People go, wow, what's wrong with you? I can't remember someone's name. I go, yeah, because I got 12 other ones. Yeah. Living around, or, you know, 80 other ones in my head right now. So. Well, that's very illuminating and definitely something to think about for anyone considering off with climbing. You know, you also mentioned a very unsurprising one, which is that lowering mishaps continued to be shock and then common. Can you tell us what are the range of what that could look like? Yeah, so to tee this, this part of the discussion up, it's funny. I like, I know older climbers, well, obviously I know older climbers, but I talk with older climbers and they go, yeah, it's funny. Like I imagine that, you know, repelling is still the most dangerous thing. And I'm like, no, it's lowering because many people don't even know how to repel. And why should they know how to repel because they never have to do it? And it's a shocker to older climbers. I go, no, no one has an ATC or figure eight. Because no one needs to have that. Why buy this extraneous piece of gear when I lead and I lower it or I top rope and I lower? So out of that, we see instances where people are unfamiliar with the anchor hardware and have an accident in the process of changing over and lowering. We have people who might be using this weird knot that was suggested to them by the more experienced climber. And because that knot was tied in the middle of the rope, there's confusion as to which end you lower on. They clip the wrong end, lean back and boom, they fall to the ground. The serious, serious accident. And this goes back to, if you're the more experienced person, you're not there to tell everyone how rad you are, you're there to actually safeguard and nurture this person's climbing. We're all guilty in some way of that myself included. So I'm not pointing a finger at anyone. The other ones I see is, there's always this thing where, oh, you should top rope this. This is your first day. Man, you got to do this route just tie in here and the crux is this. And if you get through that, you can make to the top. That's great. This person makes it to the top and then they go, oh yeah, you need to clean the anchor. So this is what you do. And so this person's 60 feet up on the route. There's a stream flowing with spring runoff. No one can hear anyone and they're just yelling at each other using perhaps not the exact lexicon or terminology to describe what is probably the most complex life critical like procedure that this climber who's up at the bay has ever done in their life. That's something to consider, you know. And so one of the solutions to that is, I mean, it's actually in our piece, our articles where, you know, in popular sport climbing areas, they actually create a belay station at ground level so you can go through the exact process with the exact hardware on how to lower, which blows doors on like yelling at someone. It's like, take your end of the rope, clip it to a cloth hitch on your harness, untie your rope, take the knot out. Oh, and by the way, be clipped into the anchor. You know, it's, it's, it's a, yeah, it's a, it's, it's a big problem. The other thing I noticed that's related to this is when people are confronted with a situation in which they have to repel. They often do not have the, the know how, nor the right tools. There were a couple accidents where people are repelling on a knot block, a reapshner. Basically, where you use a single rope, a tagline, and a jammed knot and a locking carabiner. So you can repel a single line because you are familiar with the gree-gree and you've never used anything but a gree-gree for rope management. The trouble with that is like in one situation, which is, breaks your heart is the tagline and the lead rope is of a similar diameter in color. This person had the reapshner set up, the more experienced climber descends to the ground. The person up there is perhaps less experienced, takes the gree-gree, threads of the repel rope through, but it's the wrong end. And so I think she fell. It's like two pitches. It could be prevented by having a belated ice in which, you know, you can do a double rope repel. Something simple like that. We're having three people in the party, one is directing what's going on or using a variation of the stacked repel so that the more experienced person can safety check the less experienced person, the four wrapping down. In all this thing is that the benefit of hindsight is easy to say hard to do, but if we can reduce the number of these things that happen, which are readily preventable, then we're doing our job. Yeah. So, I think that's the best way to do that is to get the best out of the entire AAC accident's team, not just me. It's a whole team of people. And a whole group of correspondents, regional reporters, administrators out there. I send a thank you note out to like hope most for all of the people who have, you know, selflessly and anonymously given their time. So, anyway, my thanks out to you. And just everyone who is willing to analyze the mistakes that they have made or witnessed, you know, and do so with humility often, because you have to kind of admit that I didn't necessarily do the right thing in this moment, or I don't understand why I didn't do the right thing in this moment, that sort of thing. Like hard to look at the accident sometimes if you were involved. And then one of the last trends that you mentioned were pretty critical accidents where people trusted fixed peatons or fixed gear. And there was one in particular that got a lot of like media attention and where there was a triple fatality in Washington. Can you tell us a little bit about this trend of people trusting fixed gear and maybe that particular accident? Yeah. So over the, over the course of I'd say my generation, prior generations, the generation after me, we were familiar with peatons. Like it's function, how they're placed and so on. And with that came this understanding that a peaton is not to be considered a permanent anchor. You know, it has a lifespan on like you bang a peaton in. Great. That's a that's a permanent anchor for the time being. And I, it's my feeling that this upcoming generation and this generation that has now arrived in climbing that's might take on. Some adventurous aspects of climbing they need to, they need to be educated in the same way that we were that fixed pins are not bomber. They sometimes are the quality of the placement makes a big difference. The type of peaton makes a big difference when it was placed makes arguably the biggest difference. And so these things are like little ticking time bombs that probably won't go off, but very well might. So in the case of this one youngster of really good climber, really spirited guy just really inspiring. He he fell and fixed peaton that was his critical piece broke. This was an old piece and he ended up taking them must have been the 60 70 footer and suffered these horrendous injuries. And apparently he's already back climbing, which you know, if I was my teen, yeah, I get it. It's just like the enthusiasm and you know, spirit and physicality of youth. So he's back at it and you know, he, you know, he he was really open about sharing his story. So I think, you know, he might have saved a couple of lives by sharing the story. So thanks to him. The other one was a group of four people who were doing an Alpine mixed root in the cascades. And you could tell that they might not have had the broadest and deepest like trad climbing background. Because this type of Alpine mixed stuff, it's it's a step way beyond just being a good trad climber. Yet to have a bunch of different skill sets and tools available. Anyway, they, you know, they they were climbing up this classic Kool-R mainly mixed. And they ended up having to descend. They made a good choice by descending because it was it was dark and so on. But they're repelling down and so they're repelling down their root of the scent, which did not have a lot of fixed anchors. And they ended up being stuck on this ledge at one point and one of them found a fixed G-ton. And clipped it. They decided to use that as their, I think it was going to be their final repel anchor. So they all clipped into it and they're standing on on this ledge and one guy takes off, repelling and the pin pulls, pulls everybody off. And so, you know, there are a couple of principles here that got violated. One is like, you always wanna have at least two pieces of gear. I have wrapped off a single P-tom before, but I had to, you know, we're in the caracorum and we're 3,000 feet off the ground. And what are we gonna do stand there and starve to death? It's like, well, I have to go. But I placed that pin and I've also placed hundreds of P-tons. So I have a pretty good idea what is good. And so we wrapped off similar situation. I told my partner I go, you can either unclip from a ballet, the single P-ton, or you can clip it and then if it blows, we're both gone. If not, you'll survive another five days and they'll never find your body. So, great. I'm rad. I survived. I've had other situations where I placed a single anchor and I go based on all my past knowledge, decades of experience. This piece is good. I waited it and it blew and I ended up in the hospital. So it doesn't matter how, you know, how experienced you are even, it's like these things happen. And so in this case, they put their trust into a P-ton of unknown age and unknown vintage. - Mm-hmm. - And if you're experienced, you can go, you can look at and go, oh yeah, that's, you know, that's the old, you know, Shennard Lost Arrow. So that's from 1970-something. Or you can look at and go, wow, that's super rusty. You need to pound on it. And I don't know if anyone pounded on that P-ton to reset it, but that's a standard thing you used to do. Nobody carries hammers anymore for good environmental reasons. But it used to be that if you trusted a pin, you tap on it just to hear it. And if it, if it's kind of loose, you wail it into the crack. So to reset it. So no one is really doing this. And if they see a metallic eye poking out of the rock, they kind of assume that it's right up there with a bolt. And so, you know, if they put their trust into it, because I think these guys had to, they could not find another anchor. That's what happened. And so there was an expert halo around that also, because like the most experienced person, I don't have, I don't know if they said, this is good, this is riskier, whatever, but the sole survivor in his account said, I just assumed that someone so had approved the use of this single P-ton anchor. So, you know, the expert halo doesn't, isn't always limited to one person saying, I'm the expert, I know what I'm doing, and this is bomber. You know, sometimes it's like, well, this person's an expert, they've been taking really good care of me. So I assume that they tested this so it's safe. So these things cut all different ways. You know, when I do a route like that, I always carry my lucky P-ton. And I always have a hammer tool, at least one of them, if not a natural hammer. And so, but that just comes with experience. And that comes with having made serious mistakes and gotten away with my life. And, you know, that's a bargain that people of my generation made with the fates or whatever, the universe, but you know, people aren't bought into all this. And I think they deserve a certain consideration when they, you know, they get out there in the more intense and dangerous climbing world. - You know, you're specifically speaking to P-tons as fixed gear, like fixed P-tons. And there's nuances as you're saying to like, the way that a P-ton is placed and how old they are in like the history of climbing gear and everything, is there something also relevant to take away from just generally trusting fixed gear? Like if somebody were to encounter a fixed nut, is there a different counting there that you would have people think about? - Yeah, I mean, you can look at the age. I think with nuts, you know, there's old wired nuts out there that are just bomber, they're still bomber. If there's a sling on it or a piece of Perlon that looks really white, chances are that was bluer red back in the day and the sling is faded and so the sling is probably faulty. I mean, that's killed people in the recent past. I think you just wanna look at the fixed piece like say it's a nut and go, is that what a piece I would run out on? Is that what that looks like? Or is it kind of in there and just, man, I just, I don't know, that thing looks sketchy. One thing I look for is if it has a bunch of marks on it, like someone counted it in the crack, that's a better sign that it shows that it's been actually counted in the crack. If the wire is frayed, then just know that the entire strength of that is contingent upon how many wires are still intact. My partner, yesterday, Hayden Jamison, and though you're listening to this, he looked at my tradwreck as we were climbing at his rack and he looked at my hex and go, wow, you know what, these are good for, I go, no, I expect him to say, these are really good lightweight, versatile pieces to save the rack weight. He goes, these are really good to throw off the cliff. It's my fault, am I going to go, well, you know, in my experience pounding this into a crack, there's nothing more satisfying and I'm not leaving a $100 cam in the crack. So, you know, the lesson there is, I guess, is, I don't know what the lesson is. If it's bomber, you can trust it, back it up. Yeah. It's got a cable on it. It's better than a piece of Perlon. That's why all the hexes and nuts out there, they don't use Perlon anymore. There is a reason behind that that they last whatever 20 years longer than they fail. Ah, but I gotta have this. The cool thing I'm seeing is the generations of Peetons out there, date back to the '60s or '50s. They're slowly being replaced and companies like Black Diamond are making smaller and smaller cams. Uh-oh, I'm giving away a trade secret. I watched someone testing these tiny prototype 4 cam units yesterday. So, I think the clean gear that's being developed is really bridging that gap where Peetons were considered necessary and, you know, stuff's getting replaced by a bolt and we might say, "Oh, bolt is bad, it's unethical," and all that. But, you know, I've done first free of sense where I had a fixed Peeton I placed, I could fall on it. That's great. 15, 20 years later, someone is gonna fall on that same thing. I bet you that pin sucks. So, when someone asked me, I said, "Yeah, put a bolt in." You wanna recreate the circumstance that you encountered for these future generations. Not just chest pound and say, "I'm so rad, I risked my life and I got away with it." Woo-hoo, now you can go get yours. Same goes for bolt placement. Like, I've learned so much. I used to put in whatever I had available, i.e., the cheapest thing I could find at the hardware store. And I look back and I go, "Man, that's kind of a disgrace." And it's kind of like thumbing my nose at the rest of the climbing world. I used to say, "I climb from myself, not for others." And everyone can go, you know, "Fuck off." That's not the attitude that promotes longevity in this sport, though, but changed my ways. I love how every time we start with like more technical accident analysis, we end up with wisdom from Pete. (laughs) It's just, oh no, it's like human factors, right? If you understand the underlying mental, cultural, sociological programming, then you understand like what of that is valuable and relevant to all people. And you also understand what is isolated to one's personal experience. Personal experiences are really strong, but they're also in a bigger context, often very wrong. And if we all do that, I don't know. The world would be different. I'm not saying better, different. No, I'd say better. - Okay, so I did want to ask a few more questions before we wrap up. One of them is, do you have an example of an accident that you really had to investigate, like what was going on here and like really uncover and think critically about like the mystery behind of the mechanisms of a particular accident? What accident had a lot of sleuthing behind it for you to publish it? - God, this one. Oh, that's a really good question because I'm having a hard time answering it. Like usually every year there's something where someone sends in a report and I'm like, "Eh, this doesn't make any sense. They must have done this." And they're just not talking about it. And I'm usually on proven wrong and they get separate incidents. You know, the one that sticks out with me this year is really experienced climber. He's also a physician, was going to a crag and he witnessed an entire family. I think it was three generations like going climbing. That's great. You did notice that they were setting up a really complex anchor with a bunch of trees. And he's like, "Huh, that's really interesting because they're using all these trees to set up a top-rope and repel anchor." It's a little bit overkill, but probably the person in charge, the experienced person was going, "Hey, this is what you do. You back this up, you back this up, you use lockers here and so on." This person who witnessed this went down and started climbing and you know, the next thing he notices is a rope comes down the face and it's this group that was setting up a top-rope and repel anchor. And so he's starting to climb and the next thing he sees is I think it's an 11 year old girl flying down the face, detached from the rope, wearing a harness, a ballet repell device, and yet it's unclip from the rope. And so this was like, huh, you know, I saluthed into this and really talked extensively with this person who wrote the report. And in this case, it's not a completely satisfying answer because we isolated it down to, well, she was never clipped into the rope. We never established why, you know, and that was kind of the dissatisfying part of that. But, you know, the person who wrote this in actually made a really good point. He said that no child this young should bear the responsibility of double checking and safeguarding her setup. He's in the care of adults. And he knows this because he's a healthcare professional. So that was one takeaway. The thing that really, the details that emerged later were really disturbing this family called the, it's like SAR. SAR assessed the girl and she was miraculously without injury against the hesitation of the family. They took the girl to the hospital and she was released without any injury. I think two of the family went with the girl to the hospital and the rest kept climbing and they were displaying really reckless, careless behavior. No helmets climbing way off to the side on top ropes in which if the individual, the other children fell, they would swing into this other wall. And I get it, you know, we're all like, we're all after freedom. You know, we want to do what we want to do. But the thing is, is like, if you're bringing children into this, they don't necessarily share the same philosophy about self-determination that you do. And so maybe it's good to just consult other climbers, you know, get the right information, perform, you know, double safety checks. It doesn't matter how many times you've done all this stuff, it's good to just keep an eye on your partner. And you know, I'll go back to the thing that we do on the prescription videos, is you know, like mentoring is the realm of very few climbers these days. So, you know, it unfortunately, and fortunately, in some ways, it's up to the individual to educate themselves first by knowing that climbing is dangerous, gravity never sleeps. It is an equal opportunity killer. You know, it doesn't matter if you're young, old, expert, novice, six feet tall, four feet tall, bouldering, sport climbing, whatever. And so I think it really is beneficial to hire a guide. And you can get three of your friends together and just pull your money and hire a guide and go, "Hey, we're doing our first outdoor trip to the Red River Gorge, and we want to just understand what we're up against and be able to work together as a team to understand how to perform whatever tasks we need to safely." And then you have four people who have gone through the same thing together, pulled each other accountable and also encourage each other to do the safe thing. And then they can encourage each other to really, you know, let's go without putting their friends at hazard. So, you know, I can't emphasize that enough 'cause I've thought about this a lot. And my first reaction as kind of this old crusty climber is to just say, "Yeah, you know, everyone, "they just need to read Freedom of the Hills and just practice." It's like, "Well, let's just start." But there are resources out there that didn't exist in my age, that people don't take advantage of. That's my plug for my buddy, Jason. - Yeah. - He's probably busy, so book in advance. - Yeah. - Shame this plug for Jason. - They send me Jason at Cleary, Cleary, Cleary. Yeah, let's go. - Stoked. - Stoked, bro. - You have to have a mullet like him in order to work with him. - I'm pingin, bro. I'm really glad we talked about all the range of accidents. We've talked about one that really stuck out to me. I'm kind of newly interested in accidents that are like close calls or things that are like, you know, 'cause there's a lot of attention to the fatal ones. And I think rightly so. We need to like that the high consequence climbing is like very important to understand why we get into those situations. But I'm also interested in like, for the most part, I'm sport climbing. There are risks that are not potentially fatal. And the example that like really highlights like my interest in this is that somebody had their ribs broken and buy a stick clip in a belay, so. And I was like, that's crazy. That is something that I could 100% see happening to me. I've belayed on a high ledge where I've like, clipped in my gear because I would like it to not fall off the ledge. And if I had clipped in a stick clip and taken that, you know, in the accident, he catches a fall and makes sure it's a soft ball. So he kind of goes up in the air and he collides with his stick clip and breaks five ribs, which I just think is so crazy. - Yeah, if you said watch after that stick clip 'cause you could break your ribs, people would be all, what are you talking about? You know, I think you need to, you know, get bolder, you know, and stop worrying about this stuff. So in my life as, you know, an ice climber or a wall climber and so on, you know, you're carrying these rigid, pointy objects around and sometimes they clipped in weird and they stick out. And so I've always been conscious of, you know, this, I have a hammer clipped to my harness if I hit sideways, I could get hurt. There was one incident. I think it was a climber named Bob Locke in the early 70s, but he took a big fall, traversing fall, and traversing falls by the way, generate more impact on an upper down fall. We're gonna cover this 'cause this is a huge issue. So if people out there have a mystery injury when they fell sideways or something, it's, it's for a reason or got a hard catch, flipped upside down and hit their head. Anyway, I digress. This gentleman took a fall and he had a nailing rack, a hammer and a bunch of peatons and ended up, you know, taking a sideways fall into a wall and ended up having these pins embedded in his rib cage and he died. So these are the things that, you know, I'm like, "Oh, yeah, be aware of this." So, you know, some climbers are really conscious of this. I notice all the time when people clip a stick clip that has a rigid, fascinating, in other words, it's not a flexible fasting and they clip it to their harness. Sometimes it's poking straight out and if they have the collapsible type like, "Oh, you know, it's not uncommon to have that poking straight out and being short enough to where if you impact that, it's gonna directly transfer the force into whatever part of your body is in contact with the butt." And that's what happened here. And so, you know, there's, you know, we can't be paranoid about everything, but if we can be conscious of it, we'll make an adjustment. And my friend, the other day, he was saying something to his wife and I think she had her, I don't know, I think it was her brush sticking out and he's like, "Oh, watch out for that brush." 'Cause, you know, he's kind, considered in loving and he's like, "Watch out for that brush because that could poke you." And you know, you think about that as I've whatever it did, that's not gonna happen, but, you know, it could happen. So, it's a small thing to dull out that wisdom and make the adjustments. - Yeah, okay. And then I did wanna ask, you know, sometimes the accident book covers high profile accidents, such as the case with Balan Miller's accident. And so I just was curious kind of, do you have a specific perspective or way that you approach things that are really high profile like that? - Yeah, you know, yeah, like Balan's accident, it's like, God, I mean, there's quite a bit going on with that. And to me, you know, people will call up and go, "Oh, of course you've heard about this." And, you know, they go down the spiel. That's usually something that they read on Mountain Project or saw in some news. And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, that's pretty serious." It's my perspective that, you know, if a famous or noteworthy climber has an accident, it pretty much gets pushed out there and, you know, analyzed and, you know, spun around in all sorts of different circles and everyone has an opinion. That's great. So with me, when I approach that particular accident, I try to stick with the mechanics of it versus trying to, I think, talk about his place in the history of climbing and so on. Like that's for other people to discuss, you know, its impact, its importance and all that. So I try to stick with the mechanics of those accidents. And, you know, with his accident, it's a couple different things played into it. You know, we'll can sermonize about it all day, want that. You know, he made a, it's like a couple, I'd say errors, but I think the biggest thing to play into it would be the human factors behind it. I mean, here's a guy who's just, I mean, he's young. He's just so incredibly accomplished. He's like, he is the future. And then he solos this credible, you know, this difficult and historic route and he tops out. And then he has to go down and free his hall bag. Yeah, and then has this accident. It's like, it's tempting to go into, into a lot of it, but I try to keep everything as relevant to the audience as possible, because I don't want to get into some like discussion about things that you know, we do not cover in this book. I think by edging into human factors, we start to edge into places where there will be more of a discussion, but I try to stick with what we know, or at least, you know, highly well-qualified analyses, which can venture into the realm of speculation, but yeah. So like treating those high-profile accidents as just like just another climber who made like choices that we can like decide about the more technical side of what happened and like, decent together like any other random Joe who made an accident as well. Yeah, and so you know, that's like, that's a good point in that, yeah, this is an example of a really incredibly accomplished climber having an accident, having a fairly readily preventable accident. I think for the vast majority of climbers out there, they're not going to solo a wall or they're not going to haul a hall bag on a grade six wall. They're just not going to do it. So they're not going to understand the technical aspects of what led to that scenario. And I think they can get embroiled in that, but it creates more confusion because it's not relevant to what they are going to do. And then you have the pundits who, you know, have an opinion and then everyone argues about it. I think in that case, it's a very valuable lesson to wall climbers, people who solo aid, people who haul hall bags and use multiple ropes to facilitate in a setup of very technical root. You know, when I heard about it, I'm like, oh man, like, like, I got a pretty good idea what happened and it's just, this is one thing. And this is taxing on me is I had to watch the video. I'm like, I just don't want to watch this. It's just like hitting replay button in my head of things that I've experienced or seen or almost seen, you know. So the watching at a couple of details came out that I noticed that are very poignant, but I'm not going to go into describing those things because it's not relevant to the analysis of the accident. It's relevant to me as a human being and just kind of understanding what went on in those last moments, but I'm not going to get out there and go on about that. The pete of 10 years ago would go on about it, but I think this last five, seven years or so, I have a completely different perspective. You know, I feel like I kind of owe it to people to be discreet and be encouraging and promote like just the well-being of people. Yeah. Which kind of brings us to our final question. What accident or accidents from this year are going to stick with you personally? Ooh, I did not, I did not think about this one. Oh boy. I mean, Baylon Miller's accident will definitely stick with me just because I've been in that situation and I know what it's like to be on top of LCAP in that zone and I know what it's like to stand on the top and high five myself and all that and then have just this reminder that your job's not done and the tall bag is stuck or whatever it is. And so, yeah, I like to get someone of those things. It's like, yeah, you know, in some ways, a farmer like myself traded so many things in life to have those moments of elation. But these things, I think that no one else can really understand like it's so personal. And then to have this accident occur, you know, it's just, I don't know, it's just, it's just very poignant and I can't say it's good or bad or, you know, there's no moral quality to apply to it. It's just an accident. But, you know, sometimes I wonder it's like, wow, what if that happened to you? You know, you remember the exact moment where you did something like up on a grade six and I came, I'm standing there, you know, holding a sling and my repel device came off and my, my stitch plate dropped all the way to the base of LCAP and I'm just standing there going, whoa, if you had leaned back and waited that, you know, it wouldn't be here to spew on about this stuff. The other part of me is like, well, yeah, but then your, your life would be done and that's like you wouldn't have to worry about this stuff. You know, there's a bunch of different slides to it. Sometimes I do wake up at night when I'm running these things through my head and I remember something that I'd forgotten and I just wake up and I'm kind of in that cold sweat, like palms are sweaty and my eyes are open and I'm like, oh, and then I'm reminded you had that experience, but you got away with it or whatever reason you survived and that's this very thin line that divides people who, you know, do the same thing and some people pay the price or die or get injured. It's like, you know, in some ways us as survivors, if we're in that category, we should just be understand that that was luck and it's nothing else. You know, our skill saved us multiple times, but we all had a situation where it just came down to something. Two things or three things didn't occur in that same moment. I think that going through what I've gone through in this last whatever, 10 years or seven years or five years, especially talking with climbers and understanding their accidents. It's like I've developed, it's just this understanding and it's also allowing me, I think, to present multiple stories that I've witnessed or experienced in a manner that's not like arrogant or it's not corrosive. I think that's the term I used in this Alp and this Nordic hole. It's like, you know, all that I was just talking about how the sum of all my experiences, the good or bad, the rad, the mediocre, whatever. In some ways, just added up to just a bunch of like, like I know something better than you know, so ha ha. And so through this last, you know, whatever, five, seven years, it's like my perspective has changed. It's like, well, so what if you know that? That doesn't mean anything. So you can die all alone with your knowledge. Good for you. You know, it's like I was saying to my friend, hey, yesterday, it's like, yeah, you know, we, I do understand that it's important to share and it's important to share with compassion. We don't learn to do that at some point. You know, it's kind of a fairly meaningless existence. So we know what's cool is climbing has brought me from whatever I was through whatever I became, through whatever I evolved into. Do I think learning just a really basic lesson of being a human being? And so, you know, I do feel like a lucky person. Yeah. Yeah, I can laugh at this shit. Well, not about other people stuff, stuff I've experienced. Yeah, things I'm qualified to laugh at. Right. That's what I'm looking for. Yeah. I mean, I think it's really cool that, you know, I feel like we don't learn lessons until we like feel them in our body. And like you can learn the, what you would call a basic lesson over and over again. And until like we integrate it into ourself. Yeah, I don't, whatever it is. Maybe it's like for you, the process of editing all these accidents and like talking and climbers all the time, you can like learn a new lesson, even decades of, of experience into climbing in, which is really cool. Well, thank you so much Pete for all of your wisdom and thoughts. And I hope everyone gets really excited to either get their copy of Anac or join the club to make sure that they get this one. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Hannah. It's pleasure as always. This episode was hosted by me, Hannah Provo, and produced by Sierra McGibbie and Shane Johnson. Siked on this episode? Learn more about the American Alpine Club. Become a member or get more involved at americanalpineclub.org.