Accident Prevention

At 13,642 feet, the Jungfrau is the tallest peak in a massif that includes the Eiger (13,025 feet) and the Munch (13,474 feet). These craggy and winds...

Winter-weary climbers flock to the horizontally fractured, quartzite cliffs of New York's Shawangunks each spring eager to dust off racks and practice trad climbing on the many steep classics of every grade. On March 20, a Saturday, the popular Trapps area was in prime condition and climbers were trying a variety of routes.

LATHROP STRANG, 46, died on April 25, of injuries sustained when he fell trying to ski the skier's left Laundry Chute on Mount Sopris, the striking 13,000-foot monarch above Carbondale, Colorado.

Runout results in fatal fall.

After a late start because of threatening weather, James Reed, Blue Eisele and Eric Moore climbed 50 feet of fourth-class terrain to the first pitch o...

Josh Creasser, an experienced climber from Las Vegas, stood below the 1,000-foot Original Route (5.12b) on the Rainbow Wall at Red Rocks. It was December 1, at around 9 a.m., a dry, sunny winter day. He was there to rope-solo the big wall, waiting for the party ahead of him to finish ascending a rope fixed to the top of the second pitch.

On January 12 a climber from Alma, Colorado, was severely injured when the Fang, a famous ice climb in the Vail amphitheater, collapsed. The climber, age 34, was attempting the freestanding pillar in lean conditions.

On August 23, Brad Chum Carter and Boyd Fackler walked up to climb on the Sport Wall at Index's Upper Town Wall near Seattle. Carter chose the techy, vertical Calling Wolfgang (5.12b), bolted in 1990 by Greg Child. Carter climbed to the first bolt and paused to check it out. I knew the route was old and had not been inspected for a while, he said. The bolt seemed OK so I figured they were all the same.

When Cri Boratensky heard a “pop” as he lowered off the Rigid Designator, a classic Colorado ice climb, he assumed his rope had slipped over a small hump above, and thought nothing of it.

Most climbers take carabiner integrity for granted, but a common mistake can snap biners at low loads.

Bowline comes undone—again.

At the top of Central Gully (WI 2), John told his two partners he was too exhausted for the four-mile walkout, and that they should go ahead and get...