SCENARIO
At approximately 8:10 am on June 2nd 2018, Yosemite dispatch received multiple reports of a climber fall from the Freeblast area on El Capitan. Reporting parties stated that two climbers had fallen to the ground and had not survived.
MORNING
Around 6 am on the morning of June 2nd, Tim Klein, Jason Wells and Kevin Prince started climbing El Capitan with the objective of ascending the Salathé Wall (VI 5.9 C2) in a day. All three had previously climbed the route, and were very familiar with the terrain. Tim Klein had climbed El Capitan 108 times previously, Jason Wells over 90 times, and Kevin Prince roughly 20 times. The team had climbed together previously, including a one-day ascent of the Salathé 4 years prior. Additionally, Klein and Wells had an estimated 40 one day ascents of the Salathé including a sub-eight hour ascent while also climbing the Nose in a single day.
One additional climbing team was also beginning their ascent of El Cap via the Freeblast start that morning. That team was planning for a multi-day ascent of the route Golden Gate and started climbing at roughly 5 am. Klein, Wells, and Prince quickly caught up with the Golden Gate climbing team. They continued to climb behind them until the top of pitch 6, named Triangle Ledge, at which point they passed.
On the day of the accident, Klein, Wells, and Prince’s goal was not for a speed record but to enjoy an in-a-day ascent with Wells and Prince attempting to free climb the route.
To be efficient and move quickly on the route, the team was using an advanced climbing technique popular among speed climbers on El Capitan. This consists of the leader climbing a pitch, pulling up the slack, fixing the lead line for the follower, and then continuing either on self-belay or without belay with the remainder of the rope. The follower ascends the fixed lead line, and upon arriving at the anchor places the leader back on a standard belay. Climbers commonly refer to this style of climbing as “short-fixing”.
Because they were climbing as a team of three, the second climber was tagging an additional rope behind him and fixing it at each belay anchor for the third climber to rope solo behind on self belay utilizing progress capture devices. At this point in the day, Wells was leading, Klein was the second and ascending the lead line, and Prince was rope soloing behind on the second rope.
ACCIDENT
At Triangle Ledge, Klein, Wells and Prince passed the Golden Gate team and continued in the style described above. The climbing above Triangle Ledge consists of approximately 100 feet of 5.9 climbing, followed by a traverse into a 5.10 chimney for an additional approximate 100 feet (The Half Dollar). After the Half Dollar, roughly 250 feet of 5.7 and easier ledgy terrain leads to the top of Mammoth Terraces.
It did not take long for Wells and Klein to climb through the Half Dollar and go out of sight. Klein yelled to Prince that his rope was fixed and Prince began climbing the Half Dollar.
At approximately 8:05 am, while Prince was behind the Half Dollar and unable to view his climbing partners, something happened causing Wells and Klein to fall. It is unknown which climber fell first.
A climber in the Golden Gate team who was positioned at the pitch 7 anchor below the Half Dollar and in view of the area below Mammoth Terraces stated seeing Wells in mid-fall. The climber then heard Klein yell and saw him come into view mid-fall. The climber also stated seeing the fall briefly arrested, before the rope failed. The two fell approximately 1,000 feet to the base of El Capitan. Multiple climbers in the area called 911 to report the accident.
Diagram showing pitches 7 through 10 on the Salathé.
Upon reaching the anchor above the Half Dollar, Prince waited for the Golden Gate team to reach him. Once they arrived, Prince tied in with them, and the three self-extricated to the base of the wall.
By the time they got to the ground, YOSAR personnel were already on scene and had confirmed Klein and Wells did not survive the fall.
INVESTIGATION
Due to the location of the parties on the wall, including Prince, there are many unknowns in the accident. No one was able to see the moment of the accident or the specific events leading up to it. We will explain the findings at the scene as best as possible.
Pitches 9 and 10 as seen from the ledge system at the top of pitch 8.
Upon reaching the anchor atop the Half Dollar, Prince found that his rope had been fixed to two bolts. The remainder of his rope was extended approximately another 50-60 feet, where it had been terminated at a #2 Camalot with a locking carabiner in the locked position. The location of the Camalot was not at a significant ledge, and was judged by investigators to be a temporary placement. According to Prince, this had not been part of the plan; at every other belay, Klein had stayed connected to Prince’s rope. Leaving Prince’s rope at the Camalot suggests that possibly Klein needed to move higher on the wall (although he would have needed to retreat back to Prince’s line at some point to retrieve it) or had needed to move back down the wall and had decided to leave Prince’s line at his high point to return to. It is also possible that Wells and Klein met at the top of pitch 8, and Wells may have carried Prince’s rope to fix at the location of the #2 Camalot.
Wells was likely combining pitches 9 and 10 into a single pitch, avoiding a gear anchor at the top of pitch 9. By doing this Klein would not have had enough rope to stay at the two bolt anchor at the top of the Half Dollar. It was determined by investigators that a 60 meter rope would reach the bolted anchor atop Mammoth Terraces from the location of the #2 Camalot.
Rope material indicating one possible location of rope failure.
The rope was cleanly severed within a foot of Klein’s harness. The investigation found boulders about 40 feet directly below the #2 Camalot, with evidence of sheath and core rope material. Approximately 40 feet above the #2 Camalot, a block was found with rope fibers on two sides indicating the fall may have been momentarily arrested at this location. No gear was found in the rock leading to Mammoth. Because the rope cut during the fall, there is a chance that gear was in place, failed, and was lost off the end of the rope. However no gear was found on the route during a follow up patrol subsequent to the accident.
Klein had two daisy-chains with ascenders clipped off to his gear loops. He had a belay device clipped to his belay loop with the attaching carabiner in the locked position.
Three unattached cams were found at the base of El Capitan near Wells. Multiple cams were attached to Wells’ right gear loops. Both gear loops on the left side of Wells’ harness were broken, and investigators determined that the cams found at the base likely detached from Wells’ harness during the fall. The number of cams on Wells’ harness, the three on the ground, two on Klein’s harness and #2 Camalot was consistent with the total amount that Prince believed the team to have brought for the climb.
Also of note was that a few reporting parties stated seeing a haul bag dropped off of the Shield Head Wall just before the accident. Extensive follow up found these claims be untrue.
TAKE AWAYS
- Lack of adequate protection – The follow up investigation indicated that no gear was in place prior to the fall. Had the leader placed gear, there is a chance that the fall would have been arrested. The difficulty of the terrain in the section of rock leading to Mammoth Terraces is relatively moderate and would lend itself to experienced climbers placing less protection. However, an unprotected fall in any terrain has catastrophic consequences.
- No belay anchor – Adequate protection by the leader would have potentially protected both parties, but by leaving the belay anchor at the top of the Half Dollar, the team was removed from their last fixed protection. In order for the leader to combine pitches 9 and 10 the follower would have been required to leave the belay anchor at the top of pitch 8.
- Haste, Speed Climbing – Moving quickly on big walls often decreases a team’s margin of safety. Risk of falling may be increased while climbing fast in vertical terrain, and it is important to continually assess risk. Limiting the amount of gear climber’s use increases the consequences of an accident. The last two years have seen multiple accidents that were the result of speed climbing tactics.
- Comfort – Expertise and familiarity with terrain often lead to complacency regarding low-risk, high-consequence situations. The accident occurred on the easiest 250’ of terrain on the 3000’ route.
After reading this report, I wonder if the leader was relying on running the rope behind flakes and protuberances instead of placing protection. I know that I have considered and done this in the past. I will not be doing this in the future after seeing the photos and thinking about the rope cutting abilities of the flakes and rocks “protecting” a climber.
Has anyone with the knowledge, experience and capability looked at why their climbing rope failed? Will there be any analysis of the rope? Will they investigate the fibers in the rope? What brand? Number of falls on it based on objective scientific review? What’s the tensile strength/fatigue of their rope versus a new rope? Maybe they did everything right and the rope failed when it shouldn’t have? I’ve read Yosemite’s report that explains the rope broke a couple feet from one of the climbers, and it wasn’t at a stress riser (a stress riser is a point of maximum stress at a turn around a block, knot, or other point of security). Did the rope fail at a stress riser or in some linear-arrayed straight portion–that’s important to know. Maybe its not that speed climbing is at fault, or where their security was placed, but that they used crappy, older, used rope OR maybe the manufacturers should make a rope SPECIFICALLY for speed climbing that has a HIGHER stain to failure as normal static, dry ropes, which can withstand specific point stress risers (I do this type of scientific analysis on human tissue–tendons and ligaments–but the same stain to failure can be applied to any woven material. Human connective tissues, in some anatomy, are also woven in a similar geometry to climbing ropes) . It doesn’t seem like anybody is looking at the tragedy in this light! I’d like to know about the rope. The basic safety of climbing is the whether the security holds but more than that, it whether or not the rope breaks. It doesn’t matter how much security you have if your rope fails (ESPECIALLY if it fails where there isn’t a stress riser).
The report states: “The rope was cleanly severed within a foot of Klein’s harness.” and ” Because the rope cut during the fall, there is a chance that gear was in place, failed, and was lost off the end of the rope. However no gear was found on the route during a follow up patrol subsequent to the accident.” You can’t speculate that it was a gear failure when there’s no evidence to support security gear failing, i.e. you can’t find the gear that failed. I’d like to do an analysis on the rope… Someone should do this.
Look at the rope… The rope was cleanly severed within a foot of Klein’s harness. The investigation found boulders about 40 feet directly below the #2 Camalot, with evidence of sheath and core rope material. Approximately 40 feet above the #2 Camalot, a block was found with rope fibers on two sides indicating the fall may have been momentarily arrested at this location. No gear was found in the rock leading to Mammoth. Because the rope cut during the fall, there is a chance that gear was in place, failed, and was lost off the end of the rope. However no gear was found on the route during a follow up patrol subsequent to the accident.
The rope failed and I wonder why it failed–what was the mode of failure. Where did it fail and why did it fail at that place. There doesn’t seem to be a stress riser where it failed–which is very interesting.
First – I am not a climber nor mountaineer. I am a retired career firefighter with 30 years of experience. During my career I was unfortunate enough to witness 2 firefighter fatalities and nearly uncountable injuries. These were almost exclusively due to what firefighters term “freelancing”. Much as climbers do firefighters rely on the buddy system wherein each has the other’s safety first in mind. When one believes he can perform an ultra hazardous activity without backup tragedy is often the result.
Climbing without safety devices is like entering a structure fire to do an interior attack without an SCBA or turnout gear.
My condolences to the families and friends of these obviously fine men.