In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:
> Hi ToOby. As I understand it, the first person abseiling was clipped into the 'master point'. The second person that fell was clipped into a secondary point. THe two were connected by an old sling. When the second shock loaded his anchor itfailed , the shock load then came onto the sling which also failed. The main anchor which was what the first person was on held!
Yeah - that's how I figured it must have happened. Clearly because the guy already rapping survived, the ropes must have passed through a maillon or whatever that was somehow separately attached to the second part of the anchor. It's a good reason to never do sometime like the X-clip because if the sling fails, not the anchor everyone would have come detached and fallen. And also when you find ab points that look like this:
http://lightfromthenorth.blogspot.com/2007/07/superior-ethics-or-littering.html
Always clip into the master point, don't just think - "I'll clip into this 'half' of the belay whilst I wait to ab - that, looks OK".
Sutty - my only friend who has been killed climbing, was also killed when an insitu point in the alps failed, despite his partner having just abbed the same ropes and was just down on the glacier, i.e. having 'tested' them. I really hate abbing of stuff that isn't a) a large tree, or b) a two-bolt-and-chain-anchor.