Rock Climbing Incident at the Feathers

Although I thought I had a tight grip on the rope, when a 180 pound person falls from 40 feet, the shock of the load on the rope will take its toll. It was a beautiful day in Frenchman Coulee, near Vantage, Washington. I was climbing with a friend at the Feathers, an area of basalt columns comprised of routes from 25-55 feet—mostly bolted. We had climbed a couple of easy routes and my partner wanted to set the lead rope up a route we had not tried before. As he reached up to clip a bolt near the top, his foot slipped and he missed.

I recall very little of the incident. I remember the initial jolt, and the feeling of a rope rapidly sliding against the soft palm of my hand. I held onto to the rope with all my might and I quickly brought my left hand above my right to act as a brake. My feet left the ground as I swung to the rock wall and my partner plummeted toward the earth. A nearby friend saw what was happening and grabbed my feet to add his weight, and with any luck, slow my partner’s descent. At about 10 feet from impact, we leveled out. We all slowly worked our way carefully to the ground. My climbing buddy was fine, just annoyed with himself for missing the bolt. I tried to let go of the rope with my right hand but my hand didn’t want to release. I carefully peeled each finger, one by one from the rope, unfortunately leaving a great deal of the skin attached to the fibers in the process. My hand felt similar to what it felt like when I had grabbed a hot iron as a child. I guess my climbing day was done, and I went in search of ice. As we took off down the road, my hand wrapped in an ice pack, I decided it was time to purchase a gri-gri before our next climb. I never thought that I needed one, but having a tool that automatically locks upon a “shock load” would have been a nice toy to have.