Accident Prevention

On October 16, a 29-year-old climber from the Bay area arrived at the second anchors of the two-pitch sport climb Members Only (5.10d) at Owens River Gorge and prepared to descend.

Yosemite's leaning tower hangs like a tilted ironing board over the Merced River. Tipping out at an average of 110 degrees, and less featured than El ...

At about 11 a.m. on July 26, several groups of climbers were navigating one of Colorado's most famous ridge traverses, the line of blocks and gendarmes that separates El Diente Peak (14,159 feet) from Mount Wilson (14,246 feet) in the San Miguel Range. Though popular, the traverse is notorious for choss and proved deadly this morning.

The sound of rope sliding across coarse granite prompted me to turn and watch Rock and Ice intern Jonathan Vickers falling through the air. He was about 20 feet up, curled like a fetus, head turned earthward and emitting a growling yell.

Accident in Yosemite underlines the need to backup a popular rappelling method

LATE LAST YEAR the climbing world was stunned when Harald Hari Berger, 34, died in an ice-climbing accident near Hintersee-Flachau, Austria. Berger, who began climbing in 1986, was an UIAGM mountain guide and professional climber, sponsored by top-shelf companies such as Petzl, The North Face and Lowa.

On February 4, Ian Mack, 23, OF Appleton, Wisconsin, started up the route Paradise, a four-star 5.9 at the Banana Belt crag, Owens River Gorge, a popular sport-climbing area on the East side of the Sierra Nevada.

March 11 was a bluebird day at the Soul Asylum, a limestone sport crag in the Utah Hills near Saint George, Utah. Ike Palatt, 21, on his first day of spring break from university in New York, was eager to warm up on the 110-foot Soul Train (5.12a), a line that starts slabby, then rears to vertical about halfway up. Belayed by friend and frequent climbing partner Jarret Hunter, Palatt tied in and sent the route.

THE PERILS OF BACK-CLEANING

HANTAVIRUS AT RIFLE?

Dennis Luther, 54, was a dedicated and veteran climber, establishing a slew of new routes in the Adirondacks from the early 1980s through 2007. At Poke-O-Moonshine, one of his favorite stomping grounds, he did first ascents of such popular routes as Son of a Mother (5.10b), Air Male (5.11c), Static Cling (5.10c) and, most recently, Pandemonium (5.10).

PYRAMID PEAK (14,018 feet) is a craggy mountain located approximately 12 miles southwest of Aspen, Colorado. Unlike many of that state's gently sloped...