UKC

North Wales Live article has impressive account by rescued Gogarth climber of ac[cident: https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/dramatic-moment-badly-inj...

lucky escape, i dont fully remember dinosaur but maybe the start isnt ultra safe before you get the bomb shelter of cams? i didnt think it was the sort of route youd hit the ground on either, anyone konw what happened? glad it sounds like the person is making a recovery.. 

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/lost+found/abandoned_gear_at_gogarth-7716...

I'm none the wiser as to what happened after reading that which is I think what George was asking about. Not sure why he's getting downvoted for it either, but I've never understood the "don't ask out of respect" mentality around accidents when there's so much to be learned which may help someone stop making a similar mistake in the future. 

The posters logbook is public and has further info about what happened. 

Yes, I also read that but it still wasn't clear to me what actually happened. "Decided to reverse and strip gear, one thing led to another and ended with a 15m+ groundie" 🤷

I think in that case you're expecting more than you need to know. It's clear that the climber blobbed it and decked. Normally when people complain about a lack or withholding of information, its after very vague reports of injury or death on a route, in which case some further info would be beneficial (was it rock fall, failure of fixed gear, etc. - things which have affected the route). People reversing and taking out gear as they go does sometimes end badly (see Paul Sagar who wrote about similar at Wildcat).

I'm not sure I agree. I also don't know what you mean by "it's clear that the climber blobbed it and decked". What does "blobbed it" mean?

I can think of various scenarios in which someone could deck it trying to back clean a route with different learnings including belay error/miscommunication (possible solution= better communication or establishing protocols before setting off), falling off whilst down climbing and being way above last piece (solution leave one rope clipped into a 'sacrificial' top piece and strip the rest), sitting on a lower wire and it popping because it was unseated by the direction of the pull of the rope during the initial fall (solution place a cam as the first piece to ensure wires are less likely to get pulled out) ....... I'm sure there are plenty others.

None of this is meant as criticism btw. We all make mistakes. I know I've made plenty and probably will continue to do so in the future. However, being aware of what might potentially go wrong in any particular situation helps to avoid this. I know it's helped me. 

Having heard 2nd hand what happened, it sounded like there were some lessons to be learnt/warnings to others but perhaps the participants should be the people to share this information. 

Ps I hope Jon you have a speedy recovery 

Based on the logbook, I assume either he removed the bomber gear before the crux then fell while down climbing and the next gear down was too low or it ripped; or he left a single piece and down climbed, removed the next piece and then fell and the top piece ripped (edit - the post linked above mentions lowering and the logbook mentions stripping gear so my second suggestion seems to be more likely).

The lesson would appear to be to lower / down climb from bomber gear (at least two peices) because your life is more valuable than the gear. Besides, you can abseil in to retrieve the gear there, although it would be a bit of a faff.

Before anyone criticises me for speculating, yes that’s what I’m doing but the log book is public and somewhat cryptic, so I’d say it’s fair to speculate. 

I would add that a friend of mine once thought it was a good idea to lower (or down climb, can’t remember) from an old in situ wire, in winter. The wire ripped or snapped. Despite a big fall, he was somehow ok.

Would be interesting to know why it took so long for the coastguard to get down to them, 4+ hours is a very long time to find the right spot and get down considering there was an RNLI rib there which could have guided them to a spot directly above (and I say this as a cliff rescue volunteer).

I thought that initially, but it's actually pretty clear as to why from the article linked by the OP. 

We'd still do the work to get ready to go down in case the helicopter wasn't able to help - from reading reports over the years it's common for helicopters to not be able to get to casualties under overhangs, and its not unknown for them to be re-tasked to something more pressing (like a sinking vessel).  RNLI regularly guide us to the right anchor spot above casualties as we can't see the base of the cliffs. We also have climbers in our team who know where routes are, surely the Anglesey coastguard do too?

Interesting. Thanks for the insight. In that case, yes it does seem odd it took so long. However, as I'm pretty ignorant of how rescues work, it's no something I could judge personally! 

Main Cliff is pretty high - you’d need a 200m rope to be sure of hitting the bottom from boulder belays at the top (which are some way up the slope - and if they wanted to belay off an outcrop, that’s even further up). Don’t know how long the ropes would usually be. It wouldn’t be straight down and the last section would have been quite overhanging. Alternatively, a shorter abseil to the abseil spike at the top of the second pitch of Dinosaur - again not straight down and you’d need to know where it is. Then another abseil off that spike and back up gear. I reckon as cliffs go this would be one of the more complex ones, at a guess.