|
9.
Early Mountaineering Accidents
LAM History Index |
Go
to Previous Topic |
Go to Next Topic It is important to
remember that mountaineering, despite its many attractions as a sport,
is not without its dangers. Throughout the club's history, there have
been a series of accidents with falls, broken bones, and other injuries.
Several mountain climbing accidents have resulted in fatalities. In
addition to the personal tragedies involved, these events received a lot
of publicity and affected the club in many ways. Larry Campbell, Len
Margolin, and Bob Cowan remember that these accidents helped shift the
club into a more conservative direction, with new safety guidelines for
club trips.
In the 1950's, Los Alamos resident Herb Martin was killed while climbing
the step east side of Mt. Wilson. Charles Mader believes that he was
killed by a falling boulder knocked off by another climber. Ken Ewing
also remembers this event, but thinks that it was probably not a club
trip. Early in the club's history, around 1960, two club members (a Neil
Campbell and his partner) were killed in a climbing accident near Blanca
Peak. Then in 1965, the club lost three members in an accident in a snow couloir in the Maroon Bells. This party consisted of Frank Pretzel,
Herbert Ungnade (author of the book, "Guide to the New Mexico
Mountains"), Bob Day, and a young member of the club. The party was
eager to do their trip in fewer days than usual. To save time, three
members of the party were climbing simultaneously in the couloir, with
one belaying. When one member of the party slipped, all four fell. The
younger member was wearing a construction hardhat, but the other three
were not wearing head protection and were killed. After this accident,
the club strongly encouraged the wearing of helmets on trips. The
accident itself was widely reported and cast a pall across the club and
its reputation for many years. Club member Arvid Lundy said that he
first learned of the Mountaineers from a newscast on the Maroon Bells
accident while he was living in New York City! John John Ramsay believes that "at one point
in time, more people in Los Alamos had died in mountain climbing
accidents than by industrial accidents or even auto accidents!"
Fig.
1. Herbert Ungnade, Stan Landeen, and Bill Wood
on a climb of Capitol Peak (John Ramsay photo, Spring 1960).
In May 1972 there was
also an accident on the North Face of Blanca Peak. George Bell, Larry
Campbell, Ross Harder, Bill Hendry, Karl Horak, and David Michael set
off a wet-snow avalanche while descending a snow face on the north side
of the east ridge of Blanca Peak. The slide caught Larry Campbell, who
was a short way below the others, and carried him about 50 feet over
rock ledges and then down another 100 feet of snow.
Larry wrote down his account of the fall: "I began traversing left below
the others when several shouts of warning activated my adrenalin glands.
Above, the snow had become alive and was crawling towards me. It was a
surface slide of wet snow which I didn't take very seriously, supposing
I could hold my ground and let it flow around me. No way. In 5 seconds
it was carrying me with it and after a few futile jabs with the axe I
turned my attention to staying on top. As we picked up speed, the
hissing became very loud, and in my field of vision there was nothing
but a uniform pale brown light. (It was old and dirty snow.) Then the
whacks and smacks began, separated by the empty sensation of falling
free. I resigned myself to await the fatal blow but it never came.
Instead I was artfully deposited 50 feet from the rocky cliff I had been
swept over . . . . drops of blood from a trivial scratch slowly grew on
my nose and dropped off into the snow . . . . I could wiggle and feel
everything and was nowhere numb. I was overwhelmed with joy and relief.
The rocky rib 70 feet to my right looked more comfortable than my
present cold, wet snow perch but I didn't dare move without a belay. The
angle of the snow slope was sufficiently steep that if I blacked out
trying to stand up I might rejoin the avalanche debris 1200 feet below."
Larry sustained a broken knee cap, a cracked pelvis bone, a fractured
finger, two deep cuts, and a bruised kidney. His hard hat was cracked in
the accident, but probably saved him from serious head injuries or
death. George Bell and Bill Hendry hiked out to request a rescue, and
the others stayed with Larry through a very cold night. In the morning
the team used ropes and ice axes for belay to lower Larry to the base of
the cliff, where a military rescue helicopter was waiting to take him to
Fort Carson.
George Bell's analysis of this accident concluded that "The avalanche
hazard wasn't recognized by a party with over 50 years of combined
climbing experience, including much on snow. Others should be warned by
our mistakes. In retrospect, it seems clear that the slope we were
descending became increasingly dangerous as it became gentler, with
increasing depths of wet snow unbonded to a hard snow slope beneath."
On the same day, also on Blanca Peak, Ken Ewing was leading another
party up a snow route. When he stabbed his ice axe all the way into the
snow, he noticed that there was a slab layer underneath the surface. He
realized, based on the snow training they had received from Gene Tate,
that this unstable layer could avalanche. So he took his party down
another way, even though this required tying off their Goldline nylon
rope, rappelling down, and then abandoning it. Just as they came back to
the base of their snow slope, they saw it avalanche. George Bell and
Larry Campbell's climbing party, who had gone up a more difficult route,
had triggered the avalanche when they used that slope to descend.
Only one month later, a member of the Mountaineers, Bill Hendry, was
killed by rockfall dislodged by a haul line on the East Buttress of El
Capitan in Yosemite, while climbing that route with Len Margolin, Bev
Johnson, and Ray Phillips. Bill Hendry was struck in the side of the
head by a rock that had bounced in from the side, and he was killed even
though he was wearing a helmet. The National Park Service concluded that
Bill's helmet was too small for him, and that it therefore did not
provide adequate protection. Bill was a strong, aggressive, but safe
climber who was already becoming well-known for pioneering first ascents
on the Brazos Wedge and other areas. Larry Campbell remembers an
enjoyable climb of Shiprock with both of the club's strong young
climbers, Bill Hendry and Len Margolin.
The two side-by-side accidents shocked the club and led to a lot of soul
searching. Many of the senior mountaineers wrote down their thoughts to
share with each other. Even though they admitted to having had many
accidents or near-accidents themselves, they were searching for some
useful lessons to draw from their experience. Don Liska observed that
the club was becoming more proficient technically, but was doing fewer
trips that provided members with the total mountaineering experience, so
that the risk level was becoming higher. He was also concerned that this
was being exacerbated by the club's climbing school and by the easy
availability of technical climbing equipment. Eiichi Fukushima pointed
out that -- in climbing versus mountaineering -- a person's technical
ability can far outstrip his judgment for many years. He also noted that
Northern New Mexico is not an ideal area to gain snow and ice climbing
experience, and that summer snow in Colorado did not become hard and
firm like the snow in the Pacific Northwest, so that it was actually
inherently more dangerous. Larry Campbell pointed out that the people
who had climbed the most had the most accidents. And he also observed
that the Mountaineers themselves often served as the inspiration for
more people to take up risky mountaineering activities. Dave Brown's
maxim is that, "Whenever climbers go up a dubious snow slope, and get
away with it, it reinforces a dangerous behavior. The next time, they
are more confident and may go on an even more dangerous slope." So
experience can also have a negative aspect.
To help reduce the risk of future accidents, these senior club members
recommended that the club consider adopting a set of regulations for
club outings. The club's bylaws already provided some of these, and it
became traditional to read the "Articles of War" from the Mountaineer's
Constitution annually at one of the meetings, and also the latest
edition of "Accidents in North American Mountaineering." This helped to
increase the members' awareness of some of the dangers inherent in
mountaineering. In 1972 the club also began requiring each trip
participant to sign a waiver of liability.
Around 1985, Norbert and Lynn Ensslin also experienced a fall in a snow
couloir on North Maroon Peak while climbing that peak with Bob Jones,
Linda Fazio, and Mike Fazio. The party had ascended the couloir
successfully in the morning, but through inexperience made the
mistake of descending by the same route in the afternoon, when the snow
was soft and rotten. Norbert said that he "tried several times to
self-arrest after falling, but the snow was too soft for the ice axe to
hold. As I accelerated, sliding head-first on my back, I had the
sensation of withdrawing into myself and losing all sense of motion, as
rocks seemed to come up from below and bump into me. I lost
consciousness for a brief period and, when I came to, found that I had
landed very comfortably -- on top of Lynn!" Fortunately Lynn was not
hurt, and Norbert recovered from his injuries fairly soon. However, the
situation might have been much worse if they had not been wearing
helmets.
Over the years there have been several rock climbing falls resulting in
broken bones, sprained ankles, or more. On an August 1984 club trip to
the Sandias, Rich Davidson broke his arm on a climb on the Muralla
Grande. Jim Straight recalls that "We had a large group climbing on the
wall, I would guess 15 to 20. Rich and I were on one rope team and were
leap-frogging. About half way up, Rich took a lead fall of about 16
vertical feet. He was spooked so I went up -- stood up and relaxed --
and fell. So I had to go back up and do it again. Towards the top, Rich
began to get his sea legs back and wanted to lead the last pitch. He got
to within about 5 feet of the top and his legs turned to jello. He threw
the entire lead rack up into a large crack hoping something would catch
-- it did -- but for a few seconds and then popped. He fell about 8 feet
and landed on his left arm -- broke it. Most everyone else was either
done with their climb or nearly so. I worked my way up to him and
splinted the arm -- everyone else came around to the top. It took quite
an effort to get him up those last few feet without hurting him -- then
we had to hike to the cars on top."
In the early 1990's, John Meier experienced a rappelling accident near
Ouray when he rappelled off a rope that was unevenly set, so that one
end was well short of the ground. This fall required a major rescue
effort, which was documented in a TV show. Also during the 1990's on a
club trip to South Colony Lakes, Jan Studebaker slipped on a snowfield
while retreating from a serious thunderstorm encountered on a rainy
attempt of Kit Carson. After a long slide on the snow he miraculously
stopped just before a drop-off that could have easily caused serious
injuries. As it was, he broke both arms. His ice axe was safely stored
in the tent. In the mid-1990's, club member Meg Walsh broke her pelvis
bone in a leader fall in White Rock. And Ron Palmer, a Santa Fe climber who was a good friend to some
of the Mountaineers, fell to his death on Capitol Peak while traversing
the knife edge without a rope.
The most serious recent accident involving a long-time member of the
Mountaineers occurred in 1996, when
Rich Davidson died while climbing
Annapurna-IV. Rich said that he loved climbing uphill on snow more than any
other pastime, and he led several long ski tours and ski mountaineering
trips for the Mountaineers. In 1996, he joined a group from the Colorado
Mountain Club that was attempting to climb Annapurna-IV by the Standard
Route. The party was caught by a series of severe snow storms at their
5,300 meter-high Camp I. The second storm dropped an estimated 3 meters
of snow in about 48 hours, catching the climbers off guard while they
slept. The tent in which Rich and his tent mate Debbie Marshall were sleeping collapsed
during the night, causing them to suffocate to death.
The Mountaineers were active in a 1979 effort to get a bill passed by
the New Mexico State Legislature that would absolve landowners of
responsibility for accidents that occurred on their property. As the
issue became more thoroughly researched, it was discovered that a new
bill was unnecessary. There is already an obscure clause in the State's
Fish and Game regulations that absolves landowners from liability for
hunters, fishermen, and others who use their lands for recreational
purposes without paying a fee.
As a way to reduce the risk of accidents, the club's senior members in
the 1970's had recommended that the club provide its members with a more
balanced, less technical "total mountaineering experience." Instead, the
advent of new sports like mountain biking, canyoneering, and sport
climbing helped the club shift its interests away from more committing
and more dangerous trips. Club activities began to move away from snow
and ice mountaineering and to shift more towards rock climbing and
mountain scrambling and hiking.
In the past few years, several club members or trip participants have
also been severely injured in auto accidents in Utah. Regretfully, long
driving trips to climbing areas or hiking destinations also present
another objective hazard in enjoying the outdoors. The annual reading of
the club's safety rules and the use of waivers was discontinued in the
mid-1980's. But some of the later accidents reported above prompted the
club in 1987 to again require all participants in club trips to sign
waivers. In 2006, this evolved into a requirement for all club members
to sign a one-time blanket waiver covering all club trips that they
might participate in.
LAM History Index |
Go
to Previous Topic |
Go to Next Topic
.
|
