I was a little nervous when my friend told me about this video, but I am glad to see you handle it with such respect. Danny was a good friend of mine and somewhat of a mentor to me in climbing. I worked with him for 2 years and he taught me a ton of things about climbing. When we were told of the accident, many of us were shocked and baffled. Danny was meticulous and overly cautious when it came to climbing. Him getting in to an accident of all people was so confusing, he was so thorough and so knowledgeable. I appreciate you breaking this down and tackling it with precision and gentile. Danny was always trying to learn more and grow in his climbing and I am honored to have been along for the ride. Thank you. Im glad his legacy and memory can be carried on, not just by those who knew him, but by other lovers of climbing as well.
@@BlindGuardian050if your family member dies, are you gonna act like you hardly know them? All he said about "himself" was that Danny was a friend of his and taught him some things.
@@BlindGuardian050 way to be a terrible human. They did not make anything about "them." They shared their appreciation that the topic was covered is a thoughtful manner.
One person in the mountain project thread made a really good point that in a normal slab fall, the climber's body on the rock prevents the rope from completely pinching down on the carabiner, whereas in a situation where there is a slab above an overhang, the falling climber can actually fall below the angle of the slab, resulting in a true pinch of the rope at the carabiner. It would be interesting to see if you could replicate those two situations in a more controlled setting. The fact that the belayer felt no tension does seem to indicate that the carabiner compressed the rope. Deep condolences to everyone involved.
Under this scenario, I wonder if leaving ANOTHER carabiner attached to the carabiner attached to the rope would reduce the chances of pinching (at the expense of making rattling noises while climbing). or add a thick rubber ring to the rope.
I really appreciate you taking the time to fully humanize this as more than just a “what happened/could’ve happened” discussion and pay full attention to the life that was lost ❤
I was there and was very involved in the post accident events which left me very shaken up. It’s surreal to me to now see this accident being covered by a channel as big and influential as How Not 2.
I'm sorry that you were involved in the accident. As someone who's lost friends who were climbing, I hope you're able to parse through things. Therapy definitely helps :)
It's absolutely awful to be witness to something like that, I'm sorry you had to go through that. Do everything you can to heal and help those around you heal as well, you're all going to need it. Be there for each other. If possible, it would be a huge contribution to the climbing community to send in the used gear for testing, and it might help bring you some peace as well.
Thank you for making this video and giving an understanding for those of us that are still looking for answers into why Danny's rope snapped. I was a close friend of Danny's for a number of years and the news about his accident was unbelievable when it reached me. Danny and I started climbing together years ago and eventually found ourselves working together at a local climbing gym. He was the biggest nerd when it came to knots, gear, and how to use it properly and we always relied on him when it came to checking our gear and whatnot before a climb. I've seen all the talk about his accident on MP with many people speculating about him making a mistake and it's upsetting to think that this could have been a result of him making a mistake. You describing this as being a factor of many small things culminating to a freak accident is very reassuring to me so I appreciate you taking the time to address this. Danny loved the climbing community dearly and was loved by many in our local community for helping foster a love for climbing in central Pennsylvania
Graceful handle of a tricky ask. Thanks for taking the time. I lost a rope to this exact scenario and I was fortunate to have that be the only cost of such an important lesson. I had loaned my rope to a couple buddies and one of them fell of a quickdraw that was situated such that the bottom carabiner rested on a rock edge. The climber took a fall and it wasn't even that big. He maybe fell five feet, if that, and he was only like fifteen feet off the ground and the rope was immediately core shot. The belayer was able to lower him quickly and nobody was hurt, but we were all amazed at how small the fall was, and how big the consequence, simply due to the carabiner laying on the rock and pinching the rope between itself and the rock during the fall. My heart goes out to everyone feeling the sting of this loss and I am eternally grateful that I got to see, firsthand, the importance of extending draws over rock lips without paying more than a rope for the lesson. Thanks again for the video
Ryan, I lost a friend to climbing and got to see an asshole on Mountain Project shit talk them in their "accident analysis". I want to thank you for being kind in how you approached this. It shows.
Thank you for taking the time to treat this accident with such respect. Reading some of the theories and speculation on that thread, it felt like it got to a point where the argument mattered more than the loss. It got hard to read. In the end, like you said, freak accident and there is no way to ever know every detail. Danny was one of my son's first climbing coaches and the first person he trusted to bring him down from the top of the wall. My husband worked with him at the gym and we all were so fond of him. This was such a hard loss for so many people. His smile was contagious and I still see it everytime I walk in the gym.
Experimental physicist here. The crux to this experiment is to recreate the rope overlap that caused the pinching during a whip. As you said, things move around. A little bit of double-sided scotch tape to keep things in place during a drop test. The extra adhesion is negligible compared to the fall forces in the drop test. So here's how I'd set up a drop test experiment: Drop test a mass M (climber) a distance L (total rope length during the accident) above a fixed point (belay) with a point of protection between the climber and belay. M, L, and the location of the protection should be selected to best match the accident report. Attach two dynamometers: one at the belay and one at the protection point. The protection point should be a carabiner taped to a slab-like rock, positioned in a way that ensures the fall line of the mass M results in the rope overlapping during the whip, recreating this necessary pinching effect. This is not an easy task as the fall line has variance. Wind shields help if this is outside. Also magnetic release systems promote consistent dropping. Here's the key to a successful experiment: the dyna on the belayer should read ~ 0 kN if you successfully recreated the pinching effect, as noted in the accident report. If this doesn't break the rope, add some burrs or sharpness to the carabiner (although, not sure if that actually played a role here).
@@derekcraig3617 Harder to control variables at the accident site compared to in a lab. It could be very nuanced the details you need to get right to recreate the failure mode. Plus, a lab setting allows you to more easily vary things like slab angle at the point of protection.
Seneca is Tuscarora Sandstone, sand cemented into quartzite. It does chew up ropes. The exposed sections can get jagged, and you have to watch the flakes. Something to consider, it's not unusual (at least when I was climbing there) to bring a piece of carpet or a part of a welcome mat to put down on the rock when you rapelled. Might be something to consider to mitigate that in the future, especially if you take one anyway. Clip it into the biner, may not work if the rope angles from it. RIP Danny. I hate to hear Seneca Rocks take lives.
@@lydiagattens7426there’s a Seneca rocks in WV, but I’m not sure if that’s the place they’re talking about. I see people mentioning PA, but he’s also from there
If you could recreate the basic situation, where the belay strand passing through a carabiner gets pinched against the rock by the leader strand, it would be interesting to see what the forces look like and if the rope breaks significantly lower in that situation. You could make a rig where you're able to place anchor a paver at different angles and then have a fall occur over the edge, and I could see trying it with smooth pavers versus a rough edge (maybe pour your own concrete paver for this to get the texture as you want it) to see how the roughness of the rock might affect things.
I see two different tests. The likelihood or force of the pinch on a sloped surface is one. Then the risk of a burr tearing the rope as another. Yes both of these events may have happened together but trying to combine it all is going to be harder and it won't say what the more dangerous situation is. Obviously people should avoid both but shit happens and you have to make due sometimes, so knowledge is important.
I would really love to see this test @HowNOT2 . If the danger factor is that high for a rope to be pinched and create a fall factor >1 at pitch >1 I think it would be a fundamentally important lesson for any climber doing more than leading/toproping a single pitch.
Yeah I'd be curious to see this too. It's not something I've really thought about before - especially somehow pinching the rope on a slabby section and falling over a lip where you have that very specific circumstance creating a lot of force all at once.
First, very thoughtfully done, kudos. Second, I go for the pinching theory with an effective very high fall factor. I do lots of silly abrasion tests, where I pull kernmantle rope back and forth over a very coarse, nasty wood file. My experience is that the sheath is very quickly breached, and then the core strands keep sliding back and forth with little erosion, even for ten times as many pulls. Essentially the sheath is woven so that the sharp points on the file stick in between strands at 45 degrees and pop them, whereas the almost parallel core strands quickly find places between the sharp points. So the rope still has at least 65% of its strength, even though it looks horrible, with frayed sheath everywhere. Drop test sounds cool, but you can probably get a feeling from a slow pull test; namely find the conditions where the rope will pinch through a biner. Put a steel plate at an angle on one end of you pull setup, attach the biner to a "bolt" on the inclined plate, yada yada, find the conditions where it pinches. Attaching the plate to the bench will be interesting, but really you need just 2 attachment points at one pull end of a metal triangular prism. Did he have a unicore rope? Edit: seems like there is a new analysis at MP? May come diwn to calculating the force of an F2 fall with a dynamic rope
Man, that’s sobering. I was on a dead stem of a walnut tree that same day, and had nowhere to tie in at the top. I only had a few cuts to make, and I was tied in twice, but both ropes were tied way below my waist, almost down by my feet. On static ropes, I know that a fall, even just the 5-6’ I could’ve fallen there would fuck me up pretty badly. I think about it a lot when I find a flat open topped tree. Hard not to let things like this shake you too hard.
RIP Danny. We have a memorial for Danny at Seneca, he has a place in so many of our hearts for the rest of our lives. Please feel free to reach out to visit if you wish to reflect on Danny and his life ❤
Sounds like a bunch of things came together into one single tragic result. As a kid we used to free climb with nothing but nylon ski rope as a backup on sand stone faced mountain. We were lucky. I learned a lot later just how dangerous we were. Now days I always consider SGPR (Situation Gear Placement Ramifications). Be it a climb, fall protection, a lift, or even securing loads, there is always enough time. Proper gear is cheap, severe injury or death, not so much! Ryan and crews videos have taught me so much about rigging and safety and made me both safer and more analytical about what I do and how I do it. Gear I once deemed more than sufficient is now bare minimum is now relegated to tent tie downs or securing a tarp or pipes to a rack. This tragedy is yet another example of a smart person missing just one small detail, or perhaps many small details, in haste and paying the ultimate price for the oversight. So sad for the guys family. Dissemination of these things makes everyone safer but, fuck, there are better ways for us all to learn! Be safe and ever vilegent people.
I’m not a climber but I have 35 years in industrial rope access. Our knot locations are always changing on the rope based on height of work, rarely do you put stress on the same places on the rope. Climbers always use the end so all the stress is almost always in the same areas over and over based on how many climbs and how many whippers(falls). So either end of the rope could be full of unseen internal stresses caused by many uses. In short the pinch areas might have occurred many times in relatively same area. One to many, could cause a snap where the inner cords have been damaged and didn’t hold after the cover was pinched then failed. Just trying to wrap my head how it could have possibly happened. But not real sure. Sadly there are risks and knowing the conditions of rope are paramount.
First. Thanks for treating this matter with respect. Second. It's important for climbing community to learn from this accident - because there are no freak accidents. Importantly, from the available information, this was an accident scenario that was pretty ordinary - an experienced climber and belayer working on a known route using reasonable safety precautions - not elites simuling and placing little protection for the objective of a speed record, not uniformed beginners that tied with single overhand knot and belayed without the use of a device or hip belay (both of these scenarios are from actual accidents). Point is - any of us could encounter this failure so it's worth examining for everyone's benefit, and I think that does the Danny and his loved ones a service. Said that, I've modeled how I believe this accident occurred (based on the currently available info) and I think there are four variables to examine: (1) the position of the roof and the slab relative to the extension of the carabiner and its ability to pinch the rope as the extended protection moves against the rock as the climber moves; (2) the effect of a burr or other wear point on the specific model of carabiner used - alpine carabiners tend to have a design that hollows out the structure of the biner to save weight, creating ridges in the biner by design (3) the effect of the rocks texture on the rope in a pinch scenario and (4) the effect of fall factor. My hunch is that several of these variables aligned to create this tragic ciircmstance. But I also suspect one or more of these variables played a disproportionate role in the accident. Lastly, I think it would be useful to test whether or not this accident could have been prevented with the use of twin ropes (or double ropes if the route allowed it) vs a single rope. It's worth studying not so much because this was a freak accident, but because it sure looks like this was how most of climb every day, a seemingly innocuous but dangerous flaw in the system can be identified that can save lives in the future. Thanks for all the rigor and care.
For the test - how about beginning by isolating the pinch factor? Ex. Bolt a biner to a peice of metal to pinch the rope and do a few body drops at varying lengths on that. If that doesnt break the rope, start adding in some contibuting factors until you find minimum number that would recreate a failure. For example, if the pinch alone isnt enough, then add in factors like substituting the metal for rock, adding small vertical cuts, recreating the angle, adding a bur , etc.
If you wanted to test pinching ropes maybe a scaffolding Jordan Safety Clamp (temporary anchor point for scaffolders) would let you apply such forces. They are designed to arrest falls (up to 22kN depending on application) and already have a large eye you could use. The idea is the clamp is suspended by the eye and in the jaws instead of the normal scaffold tube is a smaller diameter length of solid round stock, the rope, then carabiner. Could use a low range torque wrench when tightening the nut to measure how tight the rope is being clamped / pinched. Possibly clamp a small rock in there to simulate gear not being extended. As always, thanks for raising awareness of these issues and explaining it so it's understandable.
How about dropping on a garda hitch to better test the burr/pinching theory? If the belayer never felt the load, the force must have stopped at the top carabiner, since there was no mention of a stuck rope.
Thanks for making this video, very well done and with compassion. I worked for many years as an accident reconstruction expert and it needs to be reinforced that weird stuff happens and very often we will never know for certain what happened. I have worked on legal cases where all the experts had figured out what most likely happened only to be demonstrated to be wrong when a video or other evidence turned up. Dan Merrick (DAMMERR)
I don't know this guy, but he grew up near where I lived. He probably climbed at Reading Rocks, the first place I ever climbed back in 2001. Condolences to his friends and family.
Yeah sometimes I am overly scared when climbing since I know about so much that can go wrong. Or just having seen so many ropes break here. But while it is definitly nice to know a lot about limits of gear now I for myself should just acknowledge how much it takes for new rated stuff to fail when used correctly and have fun with it.
I can definitely see the pain and the sadness in you over this event. A very sad story. As you said the sad thing is everything could have been perfect, perfect conditions, perfect set up, perfect gear, perfect technique but as with anything in life sometimes that 1 in a million failure happens and it can cost someone’s life. Very unfortunate and condolences to everyone involved and the climbers friends and family.
Such a terrible loss, same age, definitely a splash of cold humble water to the face with this one. Stay safe people, rest in peace to a brother, a son, a friend, a fellow human being
I have had ropes twist creating a loop. When the loop hit a carabiner it was the same as tying a stop knot. Usually happens if you use a rope for short projects then jump on a long multi pitch tying into both ends of the rope at the ground traps the twist. I messed up uncoiling a new rope once and that rope would twist up on everything for about a month.
Sorry to Danny's family for their loss. Our sport is not without it's risk and while I can't speak for Danny, for myself, I go out knowing those risks because climbing brings me enough joy to make my life worth living. I hope Danny got to experience that. The description of the "gunshot" sound makes me think of a similar incident which happened to a friend of mine where the rope was damaged by battery acid. I wonder if there has been any look at the rope ends? I imagine with the emergency response that wasn't a priority. Maybe I'm just unaware of it, but I don't think there has been a HowNot2 test of how battery acid (or other chemicals) affect rope?
A pretty simply way to simulate a fall factor > 2 , is connect a weight to a chain/cable, then connect the chain/cable to a length of rope which is attached to an anchor. 3/8" grade 80 chain should be strong enough
Yep, if you attach 5ft of chain to your weight on one end and to 5ft of rope on the other, then drop it from 5ft above the anchor you would get a fall factor of 3 since the weight can fall 15ft with only 5ft of dynamic rope in the system. Using chain will also let you dial in the exact FF you want by attaching the weight to a different link closer or farther from where the rope is connected to the chain.
A similar way that doesn't involve joining a chain/cable with a rope and should be doable with material you probably have: Attach the rope to a ring/biner but instead of attaching the ring/biner to a bolt let it slide down a length of metal rod that is attached to a strong point at the bottom. If your rope length is X feet and the length of your metal rode is Y feet your weight drops 2X + Y feet before the rope catches and you get a factor 2 + Y / X fall.
Cable is the worst. At least when chain breaks you only have to look out for a single link worth of shrapnel. Line dampers are cheap insurance for cable though.@@ryanp0342
Accidents like this are freaky, but it is still respectful to try to figure them out and think about preventing them in the future. I have a theory you might find useful for an experiment: during the fall, the rope falls too. If it falls into a feature that pinches it close to the climber (not on the carabiner or before like you seemed to hint at), all bets are off… you can easily go over 2x. I accidentally managed this at a fortunately very low speed once. It was memorable. Doing that at more than 10m/s would be… not something I'd try.
Good respectful and thoughtful discussion. I feel two ways about this, on the one hand there are a zillion freak combinations that can happen that cause gear to fail. Enough people climb enough and you are going to have black swan events. You can't possibly test everything. On the other hand, I think climbing's empirical and anti-fragile approach is really important, and we owe it to Danny to find out what happened. In order to properly investigate, it may be necessary to get a look at the actual gear and the exact location, which may not be possible. But I think it is worth trying to find out if this was likely a gear issue like a carabiner with a burr, or if there is some potential issue like the pinching you talked about which on its own can present a major risk that people maybe aren't fully considering.
Hi Ryan, You can simulate a factor two fall with a CAMP Goblin. Rope can pulled back very quickly through it. This can be accomplished with bugie rope parallel below the Goblin. Condolence to all the families.
Hello Ryan/Bobby, thank you for explaining the possible causes of this accident. It is always hard to learn what happened and think about what could have been done to prevent it. I can only imagine how the belayer is feeling. Thinking of your question on how to try to recreate this accident: What if you were to have a grigri at the bottom of the drop tower, have the brake rope go to a pulley above with a load. Then, dropping both loads (the belayer and brake rope) simultaneously, thus reducing the slack of the climber load as it falls. Sort of a 2:1 pulley system for the brake rope. Not sure if that makes total sense. Happy and safe climbs.
Condolences to Dany's family and friends and to the belayer..... man such a horrible thing to happen to someone who maybe is your best friend just... hope everyone finds a way to deal with this tragic loss and lots of strength. Thank you for going into this it's very interesting how to avoid these situations. For the test: Do a pull test where you bolt it into your in-office pull table. Hard to explain but I will try Build a steel H frame with a steel plate and a loop on the other side of the pulling force On top of the steel plate, you bolt a round piece of rock(sloper) If it does not make sense send me a message or answer here and I can draw something up in autocad
if i had infinite resources to work on this to find the root cause, i would either close the climbing area and do testing directly on the anchor (with a scaffolding installed to work from) or i would make a casting of the area around where the anchor was. you should be able to case the rock using paint on silicone and a lot of patience. my third option would be a laser 3D scan of the area around the anchor then 3D printing the area then using that to make a mold. lastly i would go to computer modeling (but only as a last resort). i hope the engineers that work for the companies that made the climber's gear all put in some work to figure this one out. we take on an ethical and moral responsibility when we make products that impact safety
Thank you for a very humane discussion of the relevant technical details. My first thought is that with the information available, there isn't a way to reproduce the accident. I could see playing with a "rope grinder" of a carabiner pinching the rope onto a piece of rock in the slow-pull machine to see what happens, but I hare a hard time seeing drop tests working with such a thing. I think the other issue that should be considered is the possibility that the rope had been exposed to a strong acid. There was an accident some years ago where a climbing rope broke in a gymn and forensic analysis found it had been exposed to battery acid.
After watching your video and reading the forum thread I came up with a theory that the failure was a combination of pinched rope and abrasion and just posted that theory in the thread (Tyler Murray's post). As mentioned in that post it would be interesting to see test effects of pinching a rope (both pull test and drop test) and abrasion drop tests (drop over smooth curved surface, rough curved surfaces with either increasing roughness or reduced radius, blunt/sharp edges etc). The first test (pinched rope) would just be interesting to see if/how much it affects rope strength. The second one would show the importance of gear placement to avoid falls on edges. I believe you have already done some fall factor videos but a drop test video on that and trying to recreate effects of belayer pulling in line while a climber falls would be interesting. This could be done easier than you theorized because you don't have to test to failure so can use lighter weights and some type of capture device (even toothed) while trying to pull in (some way to know how much rope was pulled in will be the hard part, maybe colour coded rope or something and high speed video). All you need to do is measure the forces and see if you can recreate a greater than factor 2 fall. The high speed camera idea also gave me idea that it would be neat to see high speed video of a rope failure, not sure if that has been done.
Quick comment: For some ropes, the rope fall ratting number is only on fall factor 1s and not fall factor 2. Those ropes should be retired after one fall with 1.6 factor or higher. Always check the UIAA fall ratting for the rope you use and how it was tested (fall factor 1, 1.5, 1.7 or …)
Well done. Good treatment of the situation. I agree that securing a piece of concrete to the drop tower as a replicate edge might be effective for recreating this scenario. I would start with a pier block as they are substantial and come with a pre-drilled hole for anchors if to the tower with a big bolt. Or maybe just clamp a paver to the top side of an I beam with a few squeeze clamps.
My sincere condolences to the family and friends of the young man. I have five sons and can't even think of what it would be like... My thoughts and prayers go out to them. But I believe your analyzing and trying to explain what could happen is extremely important and necessary.
It might not recreate the scenario exactly in regards to the pinched on a rock, but perhaps for the nicked carabiner and the pinch working in tandem to create this failure, you could use a Garda hitch (alpine clutch) with the top binder having the notch in it. Thanks as always for the insight and open dialogue.
When you mentioned that it was pinched like a gri gri I had a setup in mind where you have two dummies/weights attached together by the rope: one is falling from some distance above a "quickdraw" and one simultaniosly starts falling from right under the quickdraw. That way it would create a factor >2 fall. To make that pinching action there could be a pinching locking device right under the qd or instead of a qd there is a gri gri directly. Alternatively the device under the qd could be one where the rope goes through in a straight way, like with a taz. Or you just have a normal factor 2 fall with a sling attached to a short dynamic rope attached to an anchor, thus technically having a factor >2 fall, ideally creating exactly the factor that can happend by taking a lot of rope and having the rope pinched.
Idea for design :on your droptower Or on your testbench, have a large diameter tube ( metal or something) have like griptape on there to simulate the rock, a carabiner on that surface which you can adjust up and down to recreate the angle of the "rock" , so you can recreate the pinching effect. What you also can do maybe instead of griptape (which might damage/ slide during testing) , use industrial paint with course sand dusted over it .
Thank you for humanizing this accident. I think regarding gear fear, everyone needs to remember that almost all climbing risk is mitigable. This is the rare case where it seems most everything was done right. The vast majority of deaths are from rappel accidents that could be fixed by weight testing, using a prussik/assisted brake device and tying stoppers. If you are really concerned about something like this, it sounds like climbing on twin ropes could prevent rare rope snap accidents like this. Like you said, freak accident. I view something like this like getting struck by lightning or having a heart attack. Driving to the crag is significantly more dangerous.
middle marks on ropes from the factory should be mandatory. No exceptions. I recently had a brush with death a middle mark would have prevented. was using a Beal rope that didnt have one from the factory. wasnt supposed to be our multi pitch rope so I had yet to put one on this very dark colored rope but we had it so we used it. I wont go in to the details of how this close call happened, yes mistakes were made, but a middle mark would have prevented the close call. Condolances to friends and family.
Sympathies and best wishes to family, friends, and rescuers! We all know ropes tend to break in knots. Why...bends and compression in the knot. Test the strength reduction do to compression of the rope. If the biner pinched the rope against the rock resulting in an increased FF, the biner/rock pinch point functioned similar to a knot compressing the rope. Testing the effect of compression of the rope on strength might be telling. First pass test - put a cable clamp on rope and pull test. Thanks for your thoughts on this tragedy.
I have a pretty nuanced/obscure question- we talk a lot about how you will usually break well before your gear- at what kind of fall would it hurt less to take a termninal velocity drop than to have the gear hold you? Obviously the ground will stop you faster than a rope, but on a rope your impact is focused to a much narrower region
I've seen it stated over and over that fall factor is only ever between 0 and 2. The possibility of exceeding fall factor 2 may not be the main cause of this accident, but I think it would be really worth experimenting to see if it's possible to recreate falls on the drop tower that are greater than FF2. Would need a safe way to take in some of the lead rope mid-drop. Maybe suspend a second smaller weight acting as a gravity powered brake-hand on a Grigri? When the test weight drops, the rope is unloaded, and the "brake hand" starts pulling rope in through the Grigri. Either timing or friction would mean it doesn't capture all of the rope, but could still enough to substantially shorten the amount of rope the fall is caught on. If it generates forces greater than a control FF2 drop, it would undermine the oft-touted assumption that falll factor has an upper limit of 2, and maybe mean new belay best practices regarding not trying to take in rope during a catch, only before.
Fall factors can exceed FF2, just think of via ferrata's. Best not to fall off of those. Taking in slack during a fall doesn't introduce higher, but lower forces into the system, so it reduces FF. Look at the following two scenarios: Standard scenario: Person 3m above last draw with 1m of slack in a system with 30m rope will fall 7m so fall factor is 7/30 = 0.23 Scenario with pulling in: Person 3m above last draw with a meter of slack in the 30m system, with the meter of slack being pulled in while falling will fall 6m, with 29m of rope in the system so FF is 6/29 = 0.21
Yes, that would be interesting to explore. Theoretically, any time you are looking at a fall factor greater than 1, you are better off having as much slack in the rope as you can get without risking hitting the ground (after the rope stretches, of course). I don't think anyone does that. Exploring what actually happens at difficult fall factors on different sized falls would be interesting - falling 2 ft on 1 ft of rope and falling 120 ft on 60 ft of rope aren't really going to produce the same force, are they? What actually happens?
@@DenisHosteIt can do either, just depends on the ratio. If the fall factor in the standard scenario is above 1, taking in slack will lower the force, but lower the amount of rope more when considering proportions. E.g. exaggerated standard scenario, person 10m above last draw with 5m slack with 20m rope total in system, will fall 25m giving fall factor 1.25. If the slack is taken in, will fall 20m on 15m of rope, giving fall factor 1.33.
It will be important to find out charactheristics of the rope. What was it's diameter? How long was it in use? How many leader falls had he taken on it previously? When I started climbing 51 years ago, ropes were 11 mm in diameter. Then it became the thing to climb with smaller diameter ropes. People are climbing with 9 mm ropes now. It's a certainty that a smaller diameter rope is more prone to break over edges than a thicker diameter rope. Then why are climbers on a march to climb with thinner ropes? Is it because a 9 mm rope weighs less on the approach? Is it because a rope manufacturer has done lab tests that show that thin ropes are fine in perfect condition and that they know that they can charge every increasing prices for less volume of material. Certainly, the cost of manufacturing a rope goes up with the diameter. Have rope companies seduced us with a lighter pack while they can charge more money for a less safe product? With the loss of a good climber and person, we are asking ourselves how did this happen? Why is it nearly impossible to find 11 mm ropes to climb with now? It's even difficult to find a 10.5 mm rope. I hope that the experimental design will include using the diamater of rope that Danny had and also recreating it with 11 mm rope to compare. It would seem that putting a climber's weight tied in as Danny did, then having the rope pass through a carabiner that is isolated by putting it on a bolt hanger on a bolt on a ramped location would be the start. The rope could be anchored just a few inches below the carabiner to a second bolt. It seems that regardless of how the rope wasn't able to elongate though the climb, that was what happened. Did it get caught in a grove as some suggested? Did it get pinched? Either way, the lower anchor below the carabiner would simulate this. I've climbed at Seneca Rocks many times. The rock, the Tuscarora Sandstone is vertically bedded and while it's called a sandstone, it's been metamorphosed in a number of mountain buildling episodes in the Appalachains. This results in many sharp edges and quartz blobs that protrude. Likely, the situation is not similar to California granite that has rounded edges. It would be important to this investigation to photograph the location of the accident and have a better understanding of the sharpness of the face where the rock came into contact with the rope. To me, it seems more likely that a sharp quartz crystal could have cut the sheath than a burr in a carabiner. One other thought. In the past, the axiom was the leader never falls. Today, people are encouraged to fall when they take their lead test at the rock gym. Climbers today are educated that taking leader falls is no problem. How would the situation have changed had the victim decided not to intentionally fall and tried to downclimb instead? This accident points out that it is very difficult to consider all the variables that can happen in a fall. It's better not to fall. At such times, we have to honor the victim and console those who were a part of this tragedy. However, we must investigate the accident and try to recreate what happened so that the rest of us can learn better how to climb safely and possibly make changes to our gear. As such, we gather here to honor Danny and his love for climbing. We know that Danny would want the answers to what happened so that this doesn't happen to other climbers.
Thank you for sharing this story respectfully. We need to have these conversations to learn and keep ourselves and each other safe doing this type of activity. ❤
Seatbelts will absolutely help even in a head on collision, as long as the crash structure works. You may get fractures but that's generally preferable to dying.
UIAA specs (such as 7-8 falls) are useful in comparing one rope to another. They have virtually no value in real world climbing. Even if the leader's mass were equal to the UIAA test weight, the spindle diameter in the test is much greater than a carabiner plus other differences conducted identically each time in a laboratory. It's very dangerous to think that a 7-8 fall rope will take 7-8 falls in the real world. It may take 30 falls, it may be unsafe after 1 fall. Thank you for posting the video. It's important to analyze and discuss all accidents. Especially when life is lost.
the diagrams on the forum look like the carabiner is on the end of a sling (I'm not a climber, but maybe fresh eyes would help). It's possible there's a *small* chance that when you transfer from above to below the anchor it causes a wave in the rope that could (because the carabiner is also in freefall for a portion of it) maybe loop around the carabiner and *tie a knot around the carabiner*, further reducing the strength. This has happened to me at least once while rigging cargo to the roof of cars and beds of trucks with carabiners and rope. (And also, maybe some experimenting for things you can put under carabiners that don't reduce strength, but do ensure the rope is free to the belay, might be in order?)
Seneca Rocks is a formation in the Tuscarora Sandstone. This stuff is quartzite and forms extremely sharp edges that will cam your rope on these sharp crystals. It's like catching a factor-2 fall on pro traxion. A virtually identical accident happened in the same location in 2010. You've gotta touch this stuff to understand how sharp these crystals are. It's almost like a rock made from broken car windows.
From the explanation I’m assuming due to the slack to the belayer never getting tight, and the snap sound. It sounds like it was in deed pinched higher “probably where the belay” was and like you said snapped due to less rope available above the anchor. The slack was taken up down the line somewhere, that’s where the failure was most likely located. What caused it exactly isn’t present unless you can get ahold of all his gear
First and foremost, RIP Danny... =( I had an idea about how to target a certain part of rope. Instead of using tape or something like that, which can be moved from pressure via a carabiner, etc, but instead use spray paint. Like, use two pieces of cardboard to help narrow down where the paint lands on the rope for a finer line to help target spots. Could be useful in examining different tests when looking at a specific spot on a rope.
It’s too hard to know exactly what happened, but I am interested in the gunshot bang. It would be interesting to load some ropes and then cut them in varying ways to see if you can re-create the sound. it just seems to me that cutting from one side to the other would take too many milliseconds to make a sharp noise.
So sorry to all concerned, tragic; Ryan is best placed to answer , as your comment “the sharp bang” is likely the key, Ryan’s testing has gear flying everywhere making a noise, so difficult to isolate how much of a bang a rope snapping makes, huge release of energy for the belayer to hear a sharp bang . grim all round.
I hope his climbing partner doesn't blame themselves. Quick thought on a way to test it. Anchor the belayer side and tension climber side of the rope with the carabiner pinching against a rock. If you could wrap straps around the carabiner to maintain the pinch enough to release the tension on the climber side of the rope. Then add weight and do a normal drop test. Hard part would be tensioning it against a rough surface or burr. Might need to use some removable blocks to hold the carabiner/rope off the rock/burr until tensioning has been completed.
The MtnProject drawing and analysis seems fairly clear; testing over a broadly curved rock section, with coarse texture, could replicate the binding of the strand from below, as the section from the biner to leader is trapped by the force of the fall - the abrasion under the biner could initiate the tearing of the fibers, while the binding effectively creates a factor two fall - maybe more, if several feet of slack slide down initially. Not really that hard to imagine, and surprising only perhaps as on that terrain climbers rarely slip, and never just jump off.
Looking forward to any amount of analysis testing you can come up with. I’m particularly concerned that the gunshot noise indicates the rope broke and NOT that it was cut - and what this means in terms of general rules we should keep in mind while evaluating risks and strategies. Since Danny was reportedly a good climber, and planned to whip, I assume he evaluated his placement against typical risks - and would have seen and corrected a burred caribiner, or edge loaded caribiner, or crossed rope, or rope over an edge with sharp crystals. Especially since he knew it was going to be a long fall and was worried enough that he warned his belayer. So I’m thinking it’s a new risk that isn’t obvious.
I think this is a really important thing to look into. How does popes getting pinched, or a large amount of rope drag in the system affect the forces? and how would crystals or a bur on the carabiner affect the rope? I wonder how often things similar to this happen, but the outcome is less tragic. I.E: This summer I had a 10m whipper on a slab. It was a low-angle slab, but I luckily fell off the edge of the slab into a gully so it was a fall in empty air. Anyway, my belayer said he could not feel me falling (and I was out of view). He did not realize I fell until I stood up. There was quite a lot of rope in the system 40 or 45 meters. I assumed rope-drag and rope-on-stone friction was the reason he did not feel the fall, but now I am wondering if the rope got pinched. Edit: There was no visual damage to the rope. We were using two ropes.
I outweigh my belayer by 60 lbs and we noticed that It doesn't take more than a few sharp bends in the rope before there's so much drag that lead falls start feeling like top rope falls to the belayer
My personal view is that You should refrain from make a "testing video" about this until there are enough "firm facts" that You can make a video without having to speculate. And imho that is presently not the case. Best regards.
At least one of the actual incident witnesses is reaching out to him. Besides, even if all he does is disprove several supposed answers he'll still have contributed something of incredible value.
hey, I've been a witness to something very similar you are describing in the beginning. two guys from our group were projecting an 8B and they unable to clip another QD, their last QD was in a bolt placed stupidly just above a ledge, where pinching was happening on a normal length QD. They squeezed in a few desperate attempts, definitely less than 15 maybe less than then and in the final fall, they managed to completely desheath and break a majority of the core strands on a brand new rope, luckily no-one got injured at that time
If there is a possibility of a near factor 2 and a rope losing it's sheath, then the relevant question is how much energy the core absorbs on it's own, and also whether the core strands still load equally. A drop test would be one way to check that, but it would also definitely be worth knowing whether the stress strain characteristics remain the same. 60% absolute strength doesn't mean that it can absorb 60% of the energy if it doesn't start to take load as fast. Dynamic ropes are designed to stretch; the whole structure is built to make that happen. I don't think it is likely that you would keep the performance without all the parts. The experiment I might suggest is to measure the stretch between starting to experience load and the point of failure. You could either do this by looking at camera frames, or by measuring time and keeping hydraulic movement consistent. You might find that rope damage could reduce the fall factor it would fail at even more or less than might be expected. The rope broke 7' from the climber, so there was at least that much taking energy. The report seems to be of the opinion that cutting was the mechanism. It could have been an unfortunate sequence of movements; A short vertical pull through the carabiner over a crystal cutting the sheath, followed by a pendulum moving it all sideways cutting the exposed cores. I don't see how you would replicate both in a single setup, but a drop test should be able to replicate getting a vertical cut in a rope, and a drop test with some pendulum might be able to show unprotected cores failing.
My guess is you could model this as a lengh of rope knotted at each end with the top knot connected to a static anchor. As a belayer, when catching a fall, I make use of initial friction at the top biner to set initial force to the climber. I then regulate force throughout the fall by managing friction through the system. If I wanted to, and with enough other friction in the system I could make the rope stop completely at the top biner. I'm a big boy so it's not that hard to do. People don't believe me when I say this, but it's easy to demonstrate. In the accident scenario decribed, with enough friction from the rock, belayer inputs could easily lock the top a very near static condition.
It would be interesting to see a drop test with varying distances over an edge. Maybe starting with the bottom carabiner at the roof (crossloaded on the edge) for the lowest test. And raising the draw each test until the draw is about 2 or 3 inches abound the edge. I’ve noticed a locking pinch that can occur when the carabiner is about an inch above the lip of a roof. Obviously, we want to extend the draw/sling below the roof, but it it would be interesting to see if something funky is happening there.
To test a fallfactor above 2 you could create a movable anchor point. The rope would be fixed to guide rod and is stopped at the end. Kind of like on a via ferrata which can reach a fall factor as high as 5! Maybe using a spanset for half the rope length would be close enough to static.
Thank you for treating this video with respect and care. What a freak accident. Thinking of all of the people affected by this loss. This may be meaningless, but I also would like to echo what was said here, the belayer did nothing wrong.
An eyewitness to the fall recently added to the mp discussion, "The rope was definitely taught against a sharp edge and the tension created by the fall was enough to go through the rope."
Well, assuming that is true, then that seems to be the answer. Occams razor - The simplest explanation is usually the most likely. Rope got loaded over a sharp edge, rope was cut. That’s an important difference from the rope breaking. My sincere condolences to the friends and family of this phone man.
Keeping in mind that I'm not a climber, is it possible (even if very unlikely) that the rope could have made an additional full loop on the carabiner as he was in free-fall? That is, you have previously shown how a rope can disengage from a carabiner if it is flipped just right as it is pulled by the gate. If it could somehow add an extra full loop (about 540 deg total wrap), then it would jam much easier.
Be interesting to know if rope against rope burns was partly or the whole reason? As the rope becomes pinched then falls over the rope below the carabiner.
Thanks for doing this video! I was there and it was very scary! Also I hope his family is doing as good as they possibly can after this. Also I have pictures of the cut rope if it means anything, but would rather not post them publicly
Much love to the family, freak accidents suck. My suggestion would be to place a weight on a belay device such that as the rope is unweighted from the fall the rope will be pulled through the belay device as the dummy falls. If you hang a free weight on the belay side the slack will be pulled through the device as the dummy is unweighted. Again sorry to the family. Hopefully we can find some resolve
Unless there are pictures of the rope and the hardware on the rock I don't think you can even begin to properly explore what happened with testing. The only thing that blind recreating the accident could lead to is some repeatable freak loading that always results in a failure.
I’ve seen a handful of fresh out of the gym climbers taking whippers and rope swings at their local crag. In these videos I see them relying on a bad understanding of stretch, open anchor systems, and with horrible abrasion problems. I’m of a large belief that if you aren’t falling under normal circumstances it is a rope jump or swing. Your video described perfectly why no one should try to do rig jumps unless you know what you’re doing.
A possible option for a drop test where you can pull slack during the fall and get the rope pinched at the carabiner would be to use an alpine clutch/garda hitch? Just a suggestion, this definitely is not an easy test to do!
in terms of how to recreate a pinch, a piece of concrete shaped similar to the ledge may work. the only trouble then is getting the block onto your drop test rig, which I haven't seen in a while, so I'm not sure how that might slot in
If the most plausible premise revolves around a burr on a carabiner, maybe the most helpful how not 2 would be to explore actions and contexts that might be able to create a burr. If it revolves around the rock structure, maybe looking at what about that rock structure was capable of creating a cut in the rope like that? This sort of approach would probably yield helpful insight and save lives even if it wasn’t the actual mechanism.
This whole deal makes me think we should talk more about drag, corners and other stuff that would essentially "increase" the FF. The pinching thing didnt have to be "absolute" for this fall become really harsh, if the rope is no longer new (i.e. fuzzy-ish and not slippery) and is touching some rough edges near that too pro, that alone would increase the FF significantly, right? Many many multi pitch routes have zigszags and rock features thay "remove" significant rope lenght from the system when a leader falls. How many times have you asked for slack but the belayer acually had you loose? Theoretical FF may be a bad idea.
Ok so here's a left field theory, the rope from the harness to the break point was long enough to where the core shot was damaged, to stretch enough to rebound like a supersonic whip crack with all those lively little tails for a text book whip crack. Especially possible if it broke on the belayer side of the top piece so the rope is being drawn up as the climber falls, then gets suddenly reversed as the rope comes out of the carabiner. I've always thought the outer sheath is too thin. This is why I don't lead climb I think this is a worthwhile experiment to recreate
My condolences to the family and friends, it must be hard. Sounds like a combination if small things that most of the time would have no effect interacting in an unforeseen way.
Such respect for the channel and the way you handled this. You clearly feel for human life and have the best interests of people in mind. Always nice to see
Rest in Peace Danny. Losing a friend is never easy. My condolences to those who knew him. Seems like a set of tests that could illuminate some things relevant to this accident would be drop testing with a carabiner laying horizontally with the rope running over the edge. So rather than testing the carabiner in bending over an edge, have the carabiner further back so the rope runs over the edge, under the carabiner, and back over the edge in the event of a fall. Maybe tape some sandpaper around a pipe and hose clamp that to a beam of the drop tower to simulate a rounded rock. I sheathed a rope a few weeks ago when I took a very small fall on lead and the rope ran over a wide round rock horn instead of coming tight on my gear (ironically because I extend the piece too far). I was truly surprised when I looked up to see several feet of expose core, as the fall felt totally benign. It really doesn't take much for rock to cut a rope under tension in some situations.
Isn't that kinda the point though? For me anyway my fear motivates me to do everything right, learn, and double check. When I'm putting the rope back in the bag at the end of the day it's a different feeling of accomplishment than hiking Mt. Washington. They might take the same overall effort, but the possibility that things could go badly wrong really fast makes it distinct. The risk is what helps us focus; and as with any risk it will statistically catch up to someone eventually. Not trying to be cold, and what happened to Danny was outta the blue sky as far as I know, just saying that the risk IS the reward kinda. Not really sure how to put it better, but I hope you know what I mean.
You can do a drop test where you increase the fall factor in a controlled way by adding a bunch of static rope to the system, this way you could simulate the belayer pulling in rope. For the pinching, you can probably do the test over a rounded edge with a big ass carabiner, if it doesn’t generate enough friction to pinch the rope, maybe try to pin down the carabiner by attaching it to taut ropes on each side.
To recreate: Maybe a Trango Duck or a locking munter made with two carabiners at the draw? I've seen knicks in carabiners from sustained sport usage. Since the material needs to go somewhere, the material squished can be pushed up on the sides of the knick.
I liked that video a lot. I think it is really good to discuss this kind of stuff. I very much appreciate the fact that you never say this is what happened. Because we just don't know. But it is nice to discuss what could have happened.
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I was a little nervous when my friend told me about this video, but I am glad to see you handle it with such respect. Danny was a good friend of mine and somewhat of a mentor to me in climbing. I worked with him for 2 years and he taught me a ton of things about climbing. When we were told of the accident, many of us were shocked and baffled. Danny was meticulous and overly cautious when it came to climbing. Him getting in to an accident of all people was so confusing, he was so thorough and so knowledgeable. I appreciate you breaking this down and tackling it with precision and gentile. Danny was always trying to learn more and grow in his climbing and I am honored to have been along for the ride. Thank you. Im glad his legacy and memory can be carried on, not just by those who knew him, but by other lovers of climbing as well.
Sorry for your loss
@@BlindGuardian050 Not sure how you would say that…But, there always that guy and you were him today! Peace bro!
@@BlindGuardian050if your family member dies, are you gonna act like you hardly know them? All he said about "himself" was that Danny was a friend of his and taught him some things.
@@BlindGuardian050 way to be a terrible human. They did not make anything about "them." They shared their appreciation that the topic was covered is a thoughtful manner.
Danny was a great guy and great climber, thank you for treating this video with respect.
😞
One person in the mountain project thread made a really good point that in a normal slab fall, the climber's body on the rock prevents the rope from completely pinching down on the carabiner, whereas in a situation where there is a slab above an overhang, the falling climber can actually fall below the angle of the slab, resulting in a true pinch of the rope at the carabiner. It would be interesting to see if you could replicate those two situations in a more controlled setting. The fact that the belayer felt no tension does seem to indicate that the carabiner compressed the rope. Deep condolences to everyone involved.
Under this scenario, I wonder if leaving ANOTHER carabiner attached to the carabiner attached to the rope would reduce the chances of pinching (at the expense of making rattling noises while climbing). or add a thick rubber ring to the rope.
I really appreciate you taking the time to fully humanize this as more than just a “what happened/could’ve happened” discussion and pay full attention to the life that was lost ❤
I was there and was very involved in the post accident events which left me very shaken up. It’s surreal to me to now see this accident being covered by a channel as big and influential as How Not 2.
I'm sorry that you were involved in the accident. As someone who's lost friends who were climbing, I hope you're able to parse through things. Therapy definitely helps :)
Can you get him the rope and gear?
how are you holding up after the accident?
Please consider some counseling or talking to loved ones, you can have long lasting PTSD from being around events like this.
It's absolutely awful to be witness to something like that, I'm sorry you had to go through that. Do everything you can to heal and help those around you heal as well, you're all going to need it. Be there for each other. If possible, it would be a huge contribution to the climbing community to send in the used gear for testing, and it might help bring you some peace as well.
This is tragic RIP Danny. I think this was a freak accident and I hope the belayer is able to handle the mental anguish this is causing.
Thank you for making this video and giving an understanding for those of us that are still looking for answers into why Danny's rope snapped. I was a close friend of Danny's for a number of years and the news about his accident was unbelievable when it reached me. Danny and I started climbing together years ago and eventually found ourselves working together at a local climbing gym. He was the biggest nerd when it came to knots, gear, and how to use it properly and we always relied on him when it came to checking our gear and whatnot before a climb. I've seen all the talk about his accident on MP with many people speculating about him making a mistake and it's upsetting to think that this could have been a result of him making a mistake. You describing this as being a factor of many small things culminating to a freak accident is very reassuring to me so I appreciate you taking the time to address this. Danny loved the climbing community dearly and was loved by many in our local community for helping foster a love for climbing in central Pennsylvania
Graceful handle of a tricky ask. Thanks for taking the time. I lost a rope to this exact scenario and I was fortunate to have that be the only cost of such an important lesson. I had loaned my rope to a couple buddies and one of them fell of a quickdraw that was situated such that the bottom carabiner rested on a rock edge. The climber took a fall and it wasn't even that big. He maybe fell five feet, if that, and he was only like fifteen feet off the ground and the rope was immediately core shot. The belayer was able to lower him quickly and nobody was hurt, but we were all amazed at how small the fall was, and how big the consequence, simply due to the carabiner laying on the rock and pinching the rope between itself and the rock during the fall. My heart goes out to everyone feeling the sting of this loss and I am eternally grateful that I got to see, firsthand, the importance of extending draws over rock lips without paying more than a rope for the lesson. Thanks again for the video
Ryan, I lost a friend to climbing and got to see an asshole on Mountain Project shit talk them in their "accident analysis".
I want to thank you for being kind in how you approached this. It shows.
Thank you for taking the time to treat this accident with such respect. Reading some of the theories and speculation on that thread, it felt like it got to a point where the argument mattered more than the loss. It got hard to read. In the end, like you said, freak accident and there is no way to ever know every detail. Danny was one of my son's first climbing coaches and the first person he trusted to bring him down from the top of the wall. My husband worked with him at the gym and we all were so fond of him. This was such a hard loss for so many people. His smile was contagious and I still see it everytime I walk in the gym.
Experimental physicist here. The crux to this experiment is to recreate the rope overlap that caused the pinching during a whip. As you said, things move around. A little bit of double-sided scotch tape to keep things in place during a drop test. The extra adhesion is negligible compared to the fall forces in the drop test.
So here's how I'd set up a drop test experiment: Drop test a mass M (climber) a distance L (total rope length during the accident) above a fixed point (belay) with a point of protection between the climber and belay. M, L, and the location of the protection should be selected to best match the accident report. Attach two dynamometers: one at the belay and one at the protection point. The protection point should be a carabiner taped to a slab-like rock, positioned in a way that ensures the fall line of the mass M results in the rope overlapping during the whip, recreating this necessary pinching effect. This is not an easy task as the fall line has variance. Wind shields help if this is outside. Also magnetic release systems promote consistent dropping. Here's the key to a successful experiment: the dyna on the belayer should read ~ 0 kN if you successfully recreated the pinching effect, as noted in the accident report. If this doesn't break the rope, add some burrs or sharpness to the carabiner (although, not sure if that actually played a role here).
what about actually going to the accident site and reproducing the scenario that played out with a bag drop test?
@@derekcraig3617
Harder to control variables at the accident site compared to in a lab. It could be very nuanced the details you need to get right to recreate the failure mode. Plus, a lab setting allows you to more easily vary things like slab angle at the point of protection.
@@michaelwolfe9807 one thing you cannot recreate in the lab very easily at all is rock texture
Seneca is Tuscarora Sandstone, sand cemented into quartzite. It does chew up ropes. The exposed sections can get jagged, and you have to watch the flakes. Something to consider, it's not unusual (at least when I was climbing there) to bring a piece of carpet or a part of a welcome mat to put down on the rock when you rapelled. Might be something to consider to mitigate that in the future, especially if you take one anyway. Clip it into the biner, may not work if the rope angles from it.
RIP Danny. I hate to hear Seneca Rocks take lives.
where is seneca rocks?
@@lydiagattens7426 West Virginia
@lydiagattens7426 it's in West Virginia
@@lydiagattens7426there’s a Seneca rocks in WV, but I’m not sure if that’s the place they’re talking about. I see people mentioning PA, but he’s also from there
If you could recreate the basic situation, where the belay strand passing through a carabiner gets pinched against the rock by the leader strand, it would be interesting to see what the forces look like and if the rope breaks significantly lower in that situation.
You could make a rig where you're able to place anchor a paver at different angles and then have a fall occur over the edge, and I could see trying it with smooth pavers versus a rough edge (maybe pour your own concrete paver for this to get the texture as you want it) to see how the roughness of the rock might affect things.
I see two different tests. The likelihood or force of the pinch on a sloped surface is one. Then the risk of a burr tearing the rope as another. Yes both of these events may have happened together but trying to combine it all is going to be harder and it won't say what the more dangerous situation is. Obviously people should avoid both but shit happens and you have to make due sometimes, so knowledge is important.
I would really love to see this test @HowNOT2 . If the danger factor is that high for a rope to be pinched and create a fall factor >1 at pitch >1 I think it would be a fundamentally important lesson for any climber doing more than leading/toproping a single pitch.
Yeah I'd be curious to see this too. It's not something I've really thought about before - especially somehow pinching the rope on a slabby section and falling over a lip where you have that very specific circumstance creating a lot of force all at once.
First, very thoughtfully done, kudos. Second, I go for the pinching theory with an effective very high fall factor. I do lots of silly abrasion tests, where I pull kernmantle rope back and forth over a very coarse, nasty wood file. My experience is that the sheath is very quickly breached, and then the core strands keep sliding back and forth with little erosion, even for ten times as many pulls. Essentially the sheath is woven so that the sharp points on the file stick in between strands at 45 degrees and pop them, whereas the almost parallel core strands quickly find places between the sharp points. So the rope still has at least 65% of its strength, even though it looks horrible, with frayed sheath everywhere. Drop test sounds cool, but you can probably get a feeling from a slow pull test; namely find the conditions where the rope will pinch through a biner. Put a steel plate at an angle on one end of you pull setup, attach the biner to a "bolt" on the inclined plate, yada yada, find the conditions where it pinches. Attaching the plate to the bench will be interesting, but really you need just 2 attachment points at one pull end of a metal triangular prism. Did he have a unicore rope? Edit: seems like there is a new analysis at MP? May come diwn to calculating the force of an F2 fall with a dynamic rope
Man, that’s sobering. I was on a dead stem of a walnut tree that same day, and had nowhere to tie in at the top. I only had a few cuts to make, and I was tied in twice, but both ropes were tied way below my waist, almost down by my feet. On static ropes, I know that a fall, even just the 5-6’ I could’ve fallen there would fuck me up pretty badly. I think about it a lot when I find a flat open topped tree. Hard not to let things like this shake you too hard.
You sir, need a crane.
RIP Danny. We have a memorial for Danny at Seneca, he has a place in so many of our hearts for the rest of our lives. Please feel free to reach out to visit if you wish to reflect on Danny and his life ❤
Sounds like a bunch of things came together into one single tragic result. As a kid we used to free climb with nothing but nylon ski rope as a backup on sand stone faced mountain. We were lucky. I learned a lot later just how dangerous we were. Now days I always consider SGPR (Situation Gear Placement Ramifications). Be it a climb, fall protection, a lift, or even securing loads, there is always enough time. Proper gear is cheap, severe injury or death, not so much! Ryan and crews videos have taught me so much about rigging and safety and made me both safer and more analytical about what I do and how I do it. Gear I once deemed more than sufficient is now bare minimum is now relegated to tent tie downs or securing a tarp or pipes to a rack. This tragedy is yet another example of a smart person missing just one small detail, or perhaps many small details, in haste and paying the ultimate price for the oversight. So sad for the guys family. Dissemination of these things makes everyone safer but, fuck, there are better ways for us all to learn! Be safe and ever vilegent people.
I’m not a climber but I have 35 years in industrial rope access. Our knot locations are always changing on the rope based on height of work, rarely do you put stress on the same places on the rope. Climbers always use the end so all the stress is almost always in the same areas over and over based on how many climbs and how many whippers(falls). So either end of the rope could be full of unseen internal stresses caused by many uses. In short the pinch areas might have occurred many times in relatively same area. One to many, could cause a snap where the inner cords have been damaged and didn’t hold after the cover was pinched then failed. Just trying to wrap my head how it could have possibly happened. But not real sure. Sadly there are risks and knowing the conditions of rope are paramount.
First. Thanks for treating this matter with respect. Second. It's important for climbing community to learn from this accident - because there are no freak accidents. Importantly, from the available information, this was an accident scenario that was pretty ordinary - an experienced climber and belayer working on a known route using reasonable safety precautions - not elites simuling and placing little protection for the objective of a speed record, not uniformed beginners that tied with single overhand knot and belayed without the use of a device or hip belay (both of these scenarios are from actual accidents). Point is - any of us could encounter this failure so it's worth examining for everyone's benefit, and I think that does the Danny and his loved ones a service. Said that, I've modeled how I believe this accident occurred (based on the currently available info) and I think there are four variables to examine: (1) the position of the roof and the slab relative to the extension of the carabiner and its ability to pinch the rope as the extended protection moves against the rock as the climber moves; (2) the effect of a burr or other wear point on the specific model of carabiner used - alpine carabiners tend to have a design that hollows out the structure of the biner to save weight, creating ridges in the biner by design (3) the effect of the rocks texture on the rope in a pinch scenario and (4) the effect of fall factor. My hunch is that several of these variables aligned to create this tragic ciircmstance. But I also suspect one or more of these variables played a disproportionate role in the accident. Lastly, I think it would be useful to test whether or not this accident could have been prevented with the use of twin ropes (or double ropes if the route allowed it) vs a single rope. It's worth studying not so much because this was a freak accident, but because it sure looks like this was how most of climb every day, a seemingly innocuous but dangerous flaw in the system can be identified that can save lives in the future. Thanks for all the rigor and care.
For the test - how about beginning by isolating the pinch factor? Ex. Bolt a biner to a peice of metal to pinch the rope and do a few body drops at varying lengths on that.
If that doesnt break the rope, start adding in some contibuting factors until you find minimum number that would recreate a failure.
For example, if the pinch alone isnt enough, then add in factors like substituting the metal for rock, adding small vertical cuts, recreating the angle, adding a bur , etc.
If you wanted to test pinching ropes maybe a scaffolding Jordan Safety Clamp (temporary anchor point for scaffolders) would let you apply such forces. They are designed to arrest falls (up to 22kN depending on application) and already have a large eye you could use.
The idea is the clamp is suspended by the eye and in the jaws instead of the normal scaffold tube is a smaller diameter length of solid round stock, the rope, then carabiner. Could use a low range torque wrench when tightening the nut to measure how tight the rope is being clamped / pinched. Possibly clamp a small rock in there to simulate gear not being extended.
As always, thanks for raising awareness of these issues and explaining it so it's understandable.
How about dropping on a garda hitch to better test the burr/pinching theory? If the belayer never felt the load, the force must have stopped at the top carabiner, since there was no mention of a stuck rope.
Thanks for making this video, very well done and with compassion. I worked for many years as an accident reconstruction expert and it needs to be reinforced that weird stuff happens and very often we will never know for certain what happened. I have worked on legal cases where all the experts had figured out what most likely happened only to be demonstrated to be wrong when a video or other evidence turned up. Dan Merrick (DAMMERR)
I don't know this guy, but he grew up near where I lived.
He probably climbed at Reading Rocks, the first place I ever climbed back in 2001.
Condolences to his friends and family.
15:24 that summation is perfect 👌🏻
sad to loose someone in a freak accident like this, much love to family and friends of this poor guy
Yeah sometimes I am overly scared when climbing since I know about so much that can go wrong. Or just having seen so many ropes break here. But while it is definitly nice to know a lot about limits of gear now I for myself should just acknowledge how much it takes for new rated stuff to fail when used correctly and have fun with it.
I can definitely see the pain and the sadness in you over this event. A very sad story. As you said the sad thing is everything could have been perfect, perfect conditions, perfect set up, perfect gear, perfect technique but as with anything in life sometimes that 1 in a million failure happens and it can cost someone’s life. Very unfortunate and condolences to everyone involved and the climbers friends and family.
Such a terrible loss, same age, definitely a splash of cold humble water to the face with this one. Stay safe people, rest in peace to a brother, a son, a friend, a fellow human being
I have had ropes twist creating a loop. When the loop hit a carabiner it was the same as tying a stop knot. Usually happens if you use a rope for short projects then jump on a long multi pitch tying into both ends of the rope at the ground traps the twist. I messed up uncoiling a new rope once and that rope would twist up on everything for about a month.
Sorry to Danny's family for their loss. Our sport is not without it's risk and while I can't speak for Danny, for myself, I go out knowing those risks because climbing brings me enough joy to make my life worth living. I hope Danny got to experience that.
The description of the "gunshot" sound makes me think of a similar incident which happened to a friend of mine where the rope was damaged by battery acid. I wonder if there has been any look at the rope ends? I imagine with the emergency response that wasn't a priority.
Maybe I'm just unaware of it, but I don't think there has been a HowNot2 test of how battery acid (or other chemicals) affect rope?
Chlorine, sun exposure might affect too
A pretty simply way to simulate a fall factor > 2 , is connect a weight to a chain/cable, then connect the chain/cable to a length of rope which is attached to an anchor. 3/8" grade 80 chain should be strong enough
Yep, if you attach 5ft of chain to your weight on one end and to 5ft of rope on the other, then drop it from 5ft above the anchor you would get a fall factor of 3 since the weight can fall 15ft with only 5ft of dynamic rope in the system. Using chain will also let you dial in the exact FF you want by attaching the weight to a different link closer or farther from where the rope is connected to the chain.
Just a friendly reminder to be very careful when tensioning chain and cable. It has a lot more kinetic energy than rope.
A similar way that doesn't involve joining a chain/cable with a rope and should be doable with material you probably have: Attach the rope to a ring/biner but instead of attaching the ring/biner to a bolt let it slide down a length of metal rod that is attached to a strong point at the bottom. If your rope length is X feet and the length of your metal rode is Y feet your weight drops 2X + Y feet before the rope catches and you get a factor 2 + Y / X fall.
Cable is the worst. At least when chain breaks you only have to look out for a single link worth of shrapnel. Line dampers are cheap insurance for cable though.@@ryanp0342
Accidents like this are freaky, but it is still respectful to try to figure them out and think about preventing them in the future. I have a theory you might find useful for an experiment: during the fall, the rope falls too. If it falls into a feature that pinches it close to the climber (not on the carabiner or before like you seemed to hint at), all bets are off… you can easily go over 2x. I accidentally managed this at a fortunately very low speed once. It was memorable. Doing that at more than 10m/s would be… not something I'd try.
Good respectful and thoughtful discussion. I feel two ways about this, on the one hand there are a zillion freak combinations that can happen that cause gear to fail. Enough people climb enough and you are going to have black swan events. You can't possibly test everything. On the other hand, I think climbing's empirical and anti-fragile approach is really important, and we owe it to Danny to find out what happened. In order to properly investigate, it may be necessary to get a look at the actual gear and the exact location, which may not be possible. But I think it is worth trying to find out if this was likely a gear issue like a carabiner with a burr, or if there is some potential issue like the pinching you talked about which on its own can present a major risk that people maybe aren't fully considering.
Hi Ryan,
You can simulate a factor two fall with a CAMP Goblin.
Rope can pulled back very quickly through it.
This can be accomplished with bugie rope parallel below the Goblin.
Condolence to all the families.
Hello Ryan/Bobby, thank you for explaining the possible causes of this accident. It is always hard to learn what happened and think about what could have been done to prevent it. I can only imagine how the belayer is feeling.
Thinking of your question on how to try to recreate this accident: What if you were to have a grigri at the bottom of the drop tower, have the brake rope go to a pulley above with a load. Then, dropping both loads (the belayer and brake rope) simultaneously, thus reducing the slack of the climber load as it falls. Sort of a 2:1 pulley system for the brake rope. Not sure if that makes total sense.
Happy and safe climbs.
Condolences to Dany's family and friends and to the belayer..... man such a horrible thing to happen to someone who maybe is your best friend just... hope everyone finds a way to deal with this tragic loss and lots of strength. Thank you for going into this it's very interesting how to avoid these situations.
For the test:
Do a pull test where you bolt it into your in-office pull table.
Hard to explain but I will try
Build a steel H frame with a steel plate and a loop on the other side of the pulling force
On top of the steel plate, you bolt a round piece of rock(sloper)
If it does not make sense send me a message or answer here and I can draw something up in autocad
if i had infinite resources to work on this to find the root cause, i would either close the climbing area and do testing directly on the anchor (with a scaffolding installed to work from) or i would make a casting of the area around where the anchor was. you should be able to case the rock using paint on silicone and a lot of patience. my third option would be a laser 3D scan of the area around the anchor then 3D printing the area then using that to make a mold. lastly i would go to computer modeling (but only as a last resort).
i hope the engineers that work for the companies that made the climber's gear all put in some work to figure this one out. we take on an ethical and moral responsibility when we make products that impact safety
Always a treat to see Bobby on your episodes, great info, I’m very sorry for the loss of this great human.
Thank you for a very humane discussion of the relevant technical details. My first thought is that with the information available, there isn't a way to reproduce the accident. I could see playing with a "rope grinder" of a carabiner pinching the rope onto a piece of rock in the slow-pull machine to see what happens, but I hare a hard time seeing drop tests working with such a thing. I think the other issue that should be considered is the possibility that the rope had been exposed to a strong acid. There was an accident some years ago where a climbing rope broke in a gymn and forensic analysis found it had been exposed to battery acid.
After watching your video and reading the forum thread I came up with a theory that the failure was a combination of pinched rope and abrasion and just posted that theory in the thread (Tyler Murray's post).
As mentioned in that post it would be interesting to see test effects of pinching a rope (both pull test and drop test) and abrasion drop tests (drop over smooth curved surface, rough curved surfaces with either increasing roughness or reduced radius, blunt/sharp edges etc).
The first test (pinched rope) would just be interesting to see if/how much it affects rope strength. The second one would show the importance of gear placement to avoid falls on edges.
I believe you have already done some fall factor videos but a drop test video on that and trying to recreate effects of belayer pulling in line while a climber falls would be interesting. This could be done easier than you theorized because you don't have to test to failure so can use lighter weights and some type of capture device (even toothed) while trying to pull in (some way to know how much rope was pulled in will be the hard part, maybe colour coded rope or something and high speed video). All you need to do is measure the forces and see if you can recreate a greater than factor 2 fall.
The high speed camera idea also gave me idea that it would be neat to see high speed video of a rope failure, not sure if that has been done.
Quick comment: For some ropes, the rope fall ratting number is only on fall factor 1s and not fall factor 2. Those ropes should be retired after one fall with 1.6 factor or higher. Always check the UIAA fall ratting for the rope you use and how it was tested (fall factor 1, 1.5, 1.7 or …)
Thanks for your effort to shine light on this... Maybe use a Garda brake as a pinch?
Well done. Good treatment of the situation. I agree that securing a piece of concrete to the drop tower as a replicate edge might be effective for recreating this scenario. I would start with a pier block as they are substantial and come with a pre-drilled hole for anchors if to the tower with a big bolt. Or maybe just clamp a paver to the top side of an I beam with a few squeeze clamps.
The fact that the belayer never felt the fall seems to be the single most important detail of situation. :(
Horrible, nonetheless.
My sincere condolences to the family and friends of the young man. I have five sons and can't even think of what it would be like... My thoughts and prayers go out to them. But I believe your analyzing and trying to explain what could happen is extremely important and necessary.
It might not recreate the scenario exactly in regards to the pinched on a rock, but perhaps for the nicked carabiner and the pinch working in tandem to create this failure, you could use a Garda hitch (alpine clutch) with the top binder having the notch in it. Thanks as always for the insight and open dialogue.
Genuinely tragic, I hope we can learn from what happened and all be a little bit safer. May he rest in peace.
Excellent analysis. Sorry for the loss of Danny.
I feel like Twin/Double ropes is going to be the way.. Why no redundancy is such a critical piece of equipment :(
When you mentioned that it was pinched like a gri gri I had a setup in mind where you have two dummies/weights attached together by the rope: one is falling from some distance above a "quickdraw" and one simultaniosly starts falling from right under the quickdraw. That way it would create a factor >2 fall. To make that pinching action there could be a pinching locking device right under the qd or instead of a qd there is a gri gri directly.
Alternatively the device under the qd could be one where the rope goes through in a straight way, like with a taz.
Or you just have a normal factor 2 fall with a sling attached to a short dynamic rope attached to an anchor, thus technically having a factor >2 fall, ideally creating exactly the factor that can happend by taking a lot of rope and having the rope pinched.
Idea for design :on your droptower Or on your testbench, have a large diameter tube ( metal or something) have like griptape on there to simulate the rock, a carabiner on that surface which you can adjust up and down to recreate the angle of the "rock" , so you can recreate the pinching effect.
What you also can do maybe instead of griptape (which might damage/ slide during testing) , use industrial paint with course sand dusted over it .
Thank you for humanizing this accident. I think regarding gear fear, everyone needs to remember that almost all climbing risk is mitigable. This is the rare case where it seems most everything was done right. The vast majority of deaths are from rappel accidents that could be fixed by weight testing, using a prussik/assisted brake device and tying stoppers. If you are really concerned about something like this, it sounds like climbing on twin ropes could prevent rare rope snap accidents like this.
Like you said, freak accident. I view something like this like getting struck by lightning or having a heart attack. Driving to the crag is significantly more dangerous.
middle marks on ropes from the factory should be mandatory. No exceptions. I recently had a brush with death a middle mark would have prevented. was using a Beal rope that didnt have one from the factory. wasnt supposed to be our multi pitch rope so I had yet to put one on this very dark colored rope but we had it so we used it. I wont go in to the details of how this close call happened, yes mistakes were made, but a middle mark would have prevented the close call. Condolances to friends and family.
Sympathies and best wishes to family, friends, and rescuers!
We all know ropes tend to break in knots. Why...bends and compression in the knot. Test the strength reduction do to compression of the rope. If the biner pinched the rope against the rock resulting in an increased FF, the biner/rock pinch point functioned similar to a knot compressing the rope. Testing the effect of compression of the rope on strength might be telling. First pass test - put a cable clamp on rope and pull test. Thanks for your thoughts on this tragedy.
I have a pretty nuanced/obscure question- we talk a lot about how you will usually break well before your gear- at what kind of fall would it hurt less to take a termninal velocity drop than to have the gear hold you? Obviously the ground will stop you faster than a rope, but on a rope your impact is focused to a much narrower region
could an ATC in guide mode/ follower belay be used to simulate a pinch? Such a sad story and praying for Danny's friends and family
I've seen it stated over and over that fall factor is only ever between 0 and 2. The possibility of exceeding fall factor 2 may not be the main cause of this accident, but I think it would be really worth experimenting to see if it's possible to recreate falls on the drop tower that are greater than FF2.
Would need a safe way to take in some of the lead rope mid-drop. Maybe suspend a second smaller weight acting as a gravity powered brake-hand on a Grigri? When the test weight drops, the rope is unloaded, and the "brake hand" starts pulling rope in through the Grigri. Either timing or friction would mean it doesn't capture all of the rope, but could still enough to substantially shorten the amount of rope the fall is caught on.
If it generates forces greater than a control FF2 drop, it would undermine the oft-touted assumption that falll factor has an upper limit of 2, and maybe mean new belay best practices regarding not trying to take in rope during a catch, only before.
Fall factors can exceed FF2, just think of via ferrata's. Best not to fall off of those.
Taking in slack during a fall doesn't introduce higher, but lower forces into the system, so it reduces FF. Look at the following two scenarios:
Standard scenario:
Person 3m above last draw with 1m of slack in a system with 30m rope will fall 7m so fall factor is 7/30 = 0.23
Scenario with pulling in: Person 3m above last draw with a meter of slack in the 30m system, with the meter of slack being pulled in while falling will fall 6m, with 29m of rope in the system so FF is 6/29 = 0.21
Yes, that would be interesting to explore. Theoretically, any time you are looking at a fall factor greater than 1, you are better off having as much slack in the rope as you can get without risking hitting the ground (after the rope stretches, of course). I don't think anyone does that. Exploring what actually happens at difficult fall factors on different sized falls would be interesting - falling 2 ft on 1 ft of rope and falling 120 ft on 60 ft of rope aren't really going to produce the same force, are they? What actually happens?
@@DenisHosteIt can do either, just depends on the ratio. If the fall factor in the standard scenario is above 1, taking in slack will lower the force, but lower the amount of rope more when considering proportions. E.g. exaggerated standard scenario, person 10m above last draw with 5m slack with 20m rope total in system, will fall 25m giving fall factor 1.25. If the slack is taken in, will fall 20m on 15m of rope, giving fall factor 1.33.
@@byron. very true i was considering lower than 1 FF scenario's and didn't think it through enough
It will be important to find out charactheristics of the rope. What was it's diameter? How long was it in use? How many leader falls had he taken on it previously?
When I started climbing 51 years ago, ropes were 11 mm in diameter. Then it became the thing to climb with smaller diameter ropes. People are climbing with 9 mm ropes now. It's a certainty that a smaller diameter rope is more prone to break over edges than a thicker diameter rope. Then why are climbers on a march to climb with thinner ropes? Is it because a 9 mm rope weighs less on the approach? Is it because a rope manufacturer has done lab tests that show that thin ropes are fine in perfect condition and that they know that they can charge every increasing prices for less volume of material. Certainly, the cost of manufacturing a rope goes up with the diameter. Have rope companies seduced us with a lighter pack while they can charge more money for a less safe product? With the loss of a good climber and person, we are asking ourselves how did this happen?
Why is it nearly impossible to find 11 mm ropes to climb with now? It's even difficult to find a 10.5 mm rope.
I hope that the experimental design will include using the diamater of rope that Danny had and also recreating it with 11 mm rope to compare. It would seem that putting a climber's weight tied in as Danny did, then having the rope pass through a carabiner that is isolated by putting it on a bolt hanger on a bolt on a ramped location would be the start. The rope could be anchored just a few inches below the carabiner to a second bolt. It seems that regardless of how the rope wasn't able to elongate though the climb, that was what happened. Did it get caught in a grove as some suggested? Did it get pinched? Either way, the lower anchor below the carabiner would simulate this.
I've climbed at Seneca Rocks many times. The rock, the Tuscarora Sandstone is vertically bedded and while it's called a sandstone, it's been metamorphosed in a number of mountain buildling episodes in the Appalachains. This results in many sharp edges and quartz blobs that protrude. Likely, the situation is not similar to California granite that has rounded edges. It would be important to this investigation to photograph the location of the accident and have a better understanding of the sharpness of the face where the rock came into contact with the rope. To me, it seems more likely that a sharp quartz crystal could have cut the sheath than a burr in a carabiner.
One other thought. In the past, the axiom was the leader never falls. Today, people are encouraged to fall when they take their lead test at the rock gym. Climbers today are educated that taking leader falls is no problem. How would the situation have changed had the victim decided not to intentionally fall and tried to downclimb instead? This accident points out that it is very difficult to consider all the variables that can happen in a fall. It's better not to fall.
At such times, we have to honor the victim and console those who were a part of this tragedy. However, we must investigate the accident and try to recreate what happened so that the rest of us can learn better how to climb safely and possibly make changes to our gear. As such, we gather here to honor Danny and his love for climbing. We know that Danny would want the answers to what happened so that this doesn't happen to other climbers.
Thank you so much for taking the time to explain fall factors!
Thank you for sharing this story respectfully. We need to have these conversations to learn and keep ourselves and each other safe doing this type of activity. ❤
Seatbelts will absolutely help even in a head on collision, as long as the crash structure works. You may get fractures but that's generally preferable to dying.
UIAA specs (such as 7-8 falls) are useful in comparing one rope to another. They have virtually no value in real world climbing. Even if the leader's mass were equal to the UIAA test weight, the spindle diameter in the test is much greater than a carabiner plus other differences conducted identically each time in a laboratory. It's very dangerous to think that a 7-8 fall rope will take 7-8 falls in the real world. It may take 30 falls, it may be unsafe after 1 fall.
Thank you for posting the video. It's important to analyze and discuss all accidents. Especially when life is lost.
Great job with approaching this, Ryan. Very respectfully done.
the diagrams on the forum look like the carabiner is on the end of a sling (I'm not a climber, but maybe fresh eyes would help). It's possible there's a *small* chance that when you transfer from above to below the anchor it causes a wave in the rope that could (because the carabiner is also in freefall for a portion of it) maybe loop around the carabiner and *tie a knot around the carabiner*, further reducing the strength. This has happened to me at least once while rigging cargo to the roof of cars and beds of trucks with carabiners and rope.
(And also, maybe some experimenting for things you can put under carabiners that don't reduce strength, but do ensure the rope is free to the belay, might be in order?)
Seneca Rocks is a formation in the Tuscarora Sandstone. This stuff is quartzite and forms extremely sharp edges that will cam your rope on these sharp crystals. It's like catching a factor-2 fall on pro traxion. A virtually identical accident happened in the same location in 2010. You've gotta touch this stuff to understand how sharp these crystals are. It's almost like a rock made from broken car windows.
From the explanation I’m assuming due to the slack to the belayer never getting tight, and the snap sound. It sounds like it was in deed pinched higher “probably where the belay” was and like you said snapped due to less rope available above the anchor.
The slack was taken up down the line somewhere, that’s where the failure was most likely located. What caused it exactly isn’t present unless you can get ahold of all his gear
First and foremost, RIP Danny... =(
I had an idea about how to target a certain part of rope. Instead of using tape or something like that, which can be moved from pressure via a carabiner, etc, but instead use spray paint. Like, use two pieces of cardboard to help narrow down where the paint lands on the rope for a finer line to help target spots. Could be useful in examining different tests when looking at a specific spot on a rope.
It’s too hard to know exactly what happened, but I am interested in the gunshot bang. It would be interesting to load some ropes and then cut them in varying ways to see if you can re-create the sound. it just seems to me that cutting from one side to the other would take too many milliseconds to make a sharp noise.
I agree with you on the basic test, but not with cutting. You have to overstretch the rope until breaking point to get that sharp bang.
So sorry to all concerned, tragic; Ryan is best placed to answer , as your comment “the sharp bang” is likely the key, Ryan’s testing has gear flying everywhere making a noise, so difficult to isolate how much of a bang a rope snapping makes, huge release of energy for the belayer to hear a sharp bang . grim all round.
RIP Danny. I wish your family and friends peace in their lives.
I hope his climbing partner doesn't blame themselves. Quick thought on a way to test it. Anchor the belayer side and tension climber side of the rope with the carabiner pinching against a rock. If you could wrap straps around the carabiner to maintain the pinch enough to release the tension on the climber side of the rope. Then add weight and do a normal drop test. Hard part would be tensioning it against a rough surface or burr. Might need to use some removable blocks to hold the carabiner/rope off the rock/burr until tensioning has been completed.
The MtnProject drawing and analysis seems fairly clear; testing over a broadly curved rock section, with coarse texture, could replicate the binding of the strand from below, as the section from the biner to leader is trapped by the force of the fall - the abrasion under the biner could initiate the tearing of the fibers, while the binding effectively creates a factor two fall - maybe more, if several feet of slack slide down initially. Not really that hard to imagine, and surprising only perhaps as on that terrain climbers rarely slip, and never just jump off.
Sad story, stay safe my friends. Don't stop climbing over the rocks and start living under one.
Looking forward to any amount of analysis testing you can come up with. I’m particularly concerned that the gunshot noise indicates the rope broke and NOT that it was cut - and what this means in terms of general rules we should keep in mind while evaluating risks and strategies. Since Danny was reportedly a good climber, and planned to whip, I assume he evaluated his placement against typical risks - and would have seen and corrected a burred caribiner, or edge loaded caribiner, or crossed rope, or rope over an edge with sharp crystals. Especially since he knew it was going to be a long fall and was worried enough that he warned his belayer. So I’m thinking it’s a new risk that isn’t obvious.
I think this is a really important thing to look into. How does popes getting pinched, or a large amount of rope drag in the system affect the forces? and how would crystals or a bur on the carabiner affect the rope?
I wonder how often things similar to this happen, but the outcome is less tragic.
I.E: This summer I had a 10m whipper on a slab. It was a low-angle slab, but I luckily fell off the edge of the slab into a gully so it was a fall in empty air. Anyway, my belayer said he could not feel me falling (and I was out of view). He did not realize I fell until I stood up. There was quite a lot of rope in the system 40 or 45 meters. I assumed rope-drag and rope-on-stone friction was the reason he did not feel the fall, but now I am wondering if the rope got pinched.
Edit: There was no visual damage to the rope. We were using two ropes.
I outweigh my belayer by 60 lbs and we noticed that It doesn't take more than a few sharp bends in the rope before there's so much drag that lead falls start feeling like top rope falls to the belayer
My personal view is that You should refrain from make a "testing video" about this until there are enough "firm facts" that You can make a video without having to speculate.
And imho that is presently not the case.
Best regards.
At least one of the actual incident witnesses is reaching out to him.
Besides, even if all he does is disprove several supposed answers he'll still have contributed something of incredible value.
hey, I've been a witness to something very similar you are describing in the beginning. two guys from our group were projecting an 8B and they unable to clip another QD, their last QD was in a bolt placed stupidly just above a ledge, where pinching was happening on a normal length QD. They squeezed in a few desperate attempts, definitely less than 15 maybe less than then and in the final fall, they managed to completely desheath and break a majority of the core strands on a brand new rope, luckily no-one got injured at that time
If there is a possibility of a near factor 2 and a rope losing it's sheath, then the relevant question is how much energy the core absorbs on it's own, and also whether the core strands still load equally. A drop test would be one way to check that, but it would also definitely be worth knowing whether the stress strain characteristics remain the same. 60% absolute strength doesn't mean that it can absorb 60% of the energy if it doesn't start to take load as fast. Dynamic ropes are designed to stretch; the whole structure is built to make that happen. I don't think it is likely that you would keep the performance without all the parts.
The experiment I might suggest is to measure the stretch between starting to experience load and the point of failure. You could either do this by looking at camera frames, or by measuring time and keeping hydraulic movement consistent. You might find that rope damage could reduce the fall factor it would fail at even more or less than might be expected.
The rope broke 7' from the climber, so there was at least that much taking energy. The report seems to be of the opinion that cutting was the mechanism. It could have been an unfortunate sequence of movements; A short vertical pull through the carabiner over a crystal cutting the sheath, followed by a pendulum moving it all sideways cutting the exposed cores. I don't see how you would replicate both in a single setup, but a drop test should be able to replicate getting a vertical cut in a rope, and a drop test with some pendulum might be able to show unprotected cores failing.
My guess is you could model this as a lengh of rope knotted at each end with the top knot connected to a static anchor. As a belayer, when catching a fall, I make use of initial friction at the top biner to set initial force to the climber. I then regulate force throughout the fall by managing friction through the system. If I wanted to, and with enough other friction in the system I could make the rope stop completely at the top biner. I'm a big boy so it's not that hard to do. People don't believe me when I say this, but it's easy to demonstrate. In the accident scenario decribed, with enough friction from the rock, belayer inputs could easily lock the top a very near static condition.
It would be interesting to see a drop test with varying distances over an edge. Maybe starting with the bottom carabiner at the roof (crossloaded on the edge) for the lowest test. And raising the draw each test until the draw is about 2 or 3 inches abound the edge. I’ve noticed a locking pinch that can occur when the carabiner is about an inch above the lip of a roof.
Obviously, we want to extend the draw/sling below the roof, but it it would be interesting to see if something funky is happening there.
To test a fallfactor above 2 you could create a movable anchor point.
The rope would be fixed to guide rod and is stopped at the end.
Kind of like on a via ferrata which can reach a fall factor as high as 5!
Maybe using a spanset for half the rope length would be close enough to static.
Thank you for treating this video with respect and care. What a freak accident. Thinking of all of the people affected by this loss. This may be meaningless, but I also would like to echo what was said here, the belayer did nothing wrong.
An eyewitness to the fall recently added to the mp discussion, "The rope was definitely taught against a sharp edge and the tension created by the fall was enough to go through the rope."
Well, assuming that is true, then that seems to be the answer. Occams razor - The simplest explanation is usually the most likely. Rope got loaded over a sharp edge, rope was cut. That’s an important difference from the rope breaking. My sincere condolences to the friends and family of this phone man.
Why would you choose to whip on that!?
Would there be a loud 'bang' if the rope was simply cut over an edge?
Keeping in mind that I'm not a climber, is it possible (even if very unlikely) that the rope could have made an additional full loop on the carabiner as he was in free-fall? That is, you have previously shown how a rope can disengage from a carabiner if it is flipped just right as it is pulled by the gate. If it could somehow add an extra full loop (about 540 deg total wrap), then it would jam much easier.
Be interesting to know if rope against rope burns was partly or the whole reason? As the rope becomes pinched then falls over the rope below the carabiner.
Thanks for doing this video! I was there and it was very scary! Also I hope his family is doing as good as they possibly can after this. Also I have pictures of the cut rope if it means anything, but would rather not post them publicly
Much love to the family, freak accidents suck.
My suggestion would be to place a weight on a belay device such that as the rope is unweighted from the fall the rope will be pulled through the belay device as the dummy falls. If you hang a free weight on the belay side the slack will be pulled through the device as the dummy is unweighted.
Again sorry to the family. Hopefully we can find some resolve
Unless there are pictures of the rope and the hardware on the rock I don't think you can even begin to properly explore what happened with testing. The only thing that blind recreating the accident could lead to is some repeatable freak loading that always results in a failure.
i went climbing with my friend who was at seneca during the accident and he was really on edge
I’ve seen a handful of fresh out of the gym climbers taking whippers and rope swings at their local crag. In these videos I see them relying on a bad understanding of stretch, open anchor systems, and with horrible abrasion problems. I’m of a large belief that if you aren’t falling under normal circumstances it is a rope jump or swing. Your video described perfectly why no one should try to do rig jumps unless you know what you’re doing.
A possible option for a drop test where you can pull slack during the fall and get the rope pinched at the carabiner would be to use an alpine clutch/garda hitch? Just a suggestion, this definitely is not an easy test to do!
in terms of how to recreate a pinch, a piece of concrete shaped similar to the ledge may work. the only trouble then is getting the block onto your drop test rig, which I haven't seen in a while, so I'm not sure how that might slot in
If the most plausible premise revolves around a burr on a carabiner, maybe the most helpful how not 2 would be to explore actions and contexts that might be able to create a burr. If it revolves around the rock structure, maybe looking at what about that rock structure was capable of creating a cut in the rope like that? This sort of approach would probably yield helpful insight and save lives even if it wasn’t the actual mechanism.
This whole deal makes me think we should talk more about drag, corners and other stuff that would essentially "increase" the FF. The pinching thing didnt have to be "absolute" for this fall become really harsh, if the rope is no longer new (i.e. fuzzy-ish and not slippery) and is touching some rough edges near that too pro, that alone would increase the FF significantly, right?
Many many multi pitch routes have zigszags and rock features thay "remove" significant rope lenght from the system when a leader falls.
How many times have you asked for slack but the belayer acually had you loose? Theoretical FF may be a bad idea.
Ok so here's a left field theory, the rope from the harness to the break point was long enough to where the core shot was damaged, to stretch enough to rebound like a supersonic whip crack with all those lively little tails for a text book whip crack. Especially possible if it broke on the belayer side of the top piece so the rope is being drawn up as the climber falls, then gets suddenly reversed as the rope comes out of the carabiner.
I've always thought the outer sheath is too thin.
This is why I don't lead climb
I think this is a worthwhile experiment to recreate
It would be good to get pictures or videos of the actually spot where the failure was and replicate the rock shape and connection.
My condolences to the family and friends, it must be hard. Sounds like a combination if small things that most of the time would have no effect interacting in an unforeseen way.
Such respect for the channel and the way you handled this. You clearly feel for human life and have the best interests of people in mind. Always nice to see
Rest in Peace Danny. Losing a friend is never easy. My condolences to those who knew him.
Seems like a set of tests that could illuminate some things relevant to this accident would be drop testing with a carabiner laying horizontally with the rope running over the edge. So rather than testing the carabiner in bending over an edge, have the carabiner further back so the rope runs over the edge, under the carabiner, and back over the edge in the event of a fall. Maybe tape some sandpaper around a pipe and hose clamp that to a beam of the drop tower to simulate a rounded rock. I sheathed a rope a few weeks ago when I took a very small fall on lead and the rope ran over a wide round rock horn instead of coming tight on my gear (ironically because I extend the piece too far). I was truly surprised when I looked up to see several feet of expose core, as the fall felt totally benign. It really doesn't take much for rock to cut a rope under tension in some situations.
As someone who is trying to get over fears and climb better, this takes me a step back... Not gonna lie, it's scary
Isn't that kinda the point though? For me anyway my fear motivates me to do everything right, learn, and double check. When I'm putting the rope back in the bag at the end of the day it's a different feeling of accomplishment than hiking Mt. Washington. They might take the same overall effort, but the possibility that things could go badly wrong really fast makes it distinct. The risk is what helps us focus; and as with any risk it will statistically catch up to someone eventually. Not trying to be cold, and what happened to Danny was outta the blue sky as far as I know, just saying that the risk IS the reward kinda. Not really sure how to put it better, but I hope you know what I mean.
You can do a drop test where you increase the fall factor in a controlled way by adding a bunch of static rope to the system, this way you could simulate the belayer pulling in rope. For the pinching, you can probably do the test over a rounded edge with a big ass carabiner, if it doesn’t generate enough friction to pinch the rope, maybe try to pin down the carabiner by attaching it to taut ropes on each side.
To recreate: Maybe a Trango Duck or a locking munter made with two carabiners at the draw?
I've seen knicks in carabiners from sustained sport usage. Since the material needs to go somewhere, the material squished can be pushed up on the sides of the knick.
I liked that video a lot. I think it is really good to discuss this kind of stuff. I very much appreciate the fact that you never say this is what happened. Because we just don't know. But it is nice to discuss what could have happened.