29/05/2020

Southern Sandstone 29 May 2020 - ground fall from incorrect anchor set up. Failure to set up top rope anchor correctly on SS route. My climbing partner was adjusting a sling's length in a daisy chain of slings by knotting it with a doubled overhand/figure of eight so the end carabiner was just over the edge of the crag with the top rope hanging from that. He had been recently told by another friend that a way to make the knot easier to undo after loading was clipping another carabiner through the knot. When you want to undo the knot, you can remove the carabiner producing some slack in the knot. Having no spare carabiners he re-clipped the carabiner being used as part of the anchor through the knot, re-clipping only a single stand of the doubled knot. (I have emailed pictures) This caused the sling to be no longer firmly attached to the carabiner and when the anchor was subsequently loaded from a climber falling the knot unravelled and the carabiner came free, resulting in a ground fall for the climber. I, nor the other members of the party, did not check the anchor system after it was incorrectly set up as we had confidence in the experience of the user in question. The person setting up the anchor had been climbing sport/UK trad for 3+ years and was considered experienced. Luckily he was only approx 8-10feet up and landed on sand/grass rather than rock/logs and suffered no major injuries, although probably has a sore back today. The climber ended up falling on his back with the top rope, carabiner and the un-knotted sling. The rest of the anchor system was still in place.

16/05/2019

Unclimbed wall

On Sunday 19th May 2019 one of the finishing holds on Unclimbed Wall at Harrison’s Rocks broke and a young talented climber was unfortunately injured when making a solo ascent of this route. The climber was very experienced and had climbed this route many times, but unfortunately he did not tie into a rope and decided to solo this route. Sandstone is unpredictable and the finishing hold broke, approx 8 metres high. Fortunately there were other climbers near by who were first aid trained, who did their best to keep the situation under control until the air ambulance arrived.