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Date of Incident

19/08/2023

Country

England

Activity

Trad rock climbing

When

Traversing

Injury

Minor injury

Incident

We were near the end P2 of the The Angel's Girdle route at Wintour's Leap when the incident occurred. The route is given VS and both of us are very comfortable on multipitches at this grade and above and have been trad climbing for 6+ years.

The route is a long traverse of the North Wall at the crag. Near the end of the pitch the leader had climbed up onto the E1 traverse that goes above the VS and then back down to the belay, as the guidebook description regarding a sapling was found to be confusing. I was following this higher section when a large (big microwave-sized) block I was holding onto broke off. The next gear protecting me on the traverse was reasonably far away and I fell sideways around 6 metres. The rock I fell past is quite slabby and protruding and it was not a clean fall - my foot must have clipped a ledge and began to swell significantly and I could not put weight on it. I felt like I was going to pass out and hobbled along the rest of the pitch and was backroped to the belay, leaving a piece of gear in, and we abseiled from the tree at the end of P2 and commenced the journey out from the crag (mostly via me being carried).

Lessons

I was warned about a section of loose rock by the belayer, and could see it myself, but thought it was limited to the small section closest to me and reached past it to what looked like decent rock - unfortunately the loose section was much bigger than I realised. In hindsight this was a very poor decision, and as there was no way for me to climb this section without using this area of rock I should have downclimbed and returned to the VS line below when I saw the area of loose rock.

In terms of route reading, we should have followed the easiest logical path to the belay at the end of P2 rather than trying to make the route description regarding climbing up to a sapling make sense (this sapling is presumably long gone!)

Causes

Hold breaking

Anonymous?

No

Reported By

Participant

Wearing Helmets?

Yes

Rescue Services Involved?

n/a

Author

Liera

22 August 2023 at 15:30:48

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All reports are self-submitted and have not been edited by the BMC in any way, so please keep an open mind regarding the lessons and causes of each incident or near-miss. 

If you have a concern regarding this report please contact us at incidentreports@thebmc.co.uk

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