Full Circle
by Robert Roper
JANUARY 9, 2009 TAGS:
UPDATE 7/9/09
Elite free-climber John Bachar fell to his death from a formation called Dike Wall near his home in northern California on Monday, July 6.The story below, about a far less daring method of climbing than Bachar practiced, reflects on the story of another climbing death.
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At the end of a day of climbing this October my professional mountain guide, working out of Seneca Rocks, West Virginia, received a call on his walkie-talkie. There had been an accident a few hundred yards away, a serious accident. We rappelled to the base of the cliff we’d been climbing and started making our way up through the autumn forest.
I’ve been climbing for many years, mostly in California. My mother, who died last year at 93, used to worry about me, and I would reassure her by saying that I climbed in a middle-aged Jewish sort of way, meaning with safety uppermost in mind and a realistic sense of my own capacities. On this splendid fall day I was certainly being cautious. Climbing with a professional guide is like taking up knitting, risk-wise – the guide takes responsibility for everything, turning his client into a pasha in a portable chair, whether he wants to be or not.
A broken leg, I theorized, thinking about the accident we were hurrying toward. Maybe a compound fracture, with blood and complications. I had recently taken a wilderness first-responder course, and my mind was full of medical scenarios that I might deal with – on a warm, sunny day like today, it was just as likely that someone had failed to drink enough water, had gotten dehydrated and passed out. That sort of thing often happened.
We picked up a rescue litter stored near the base of the cliff, started hauling it up through the trees. Then the guide stopped. He had gotten another call on his walkie-talkie, and I saw him nod, nod again. He dropped his end of the litter and motioned for me to do the same.
“They don’t need it now.”
“No?”
“No, she’s dead.”
“She’s what?”
“She’s dead. That’s what they’re telling me.”
So, a different sort of scenario, very different. Soon we came in view of a group of other climbers and hikers – you could tell the climbers because they were wearing plastic helmets. They had formed a kind of circle around the accident site at the base of the cliff. We, the guide and I, became part of this circle. Someone was talking quietly, urgently – a middle-aged man, not very athletic-looking, was seated on a nearby boulder, his left hand resting on the torso of someone stretched out beside him.
Someone had thrown a windbreaker over the victim’s face. The victim’s feet, in gaily-colored climbing shoes, showed themselves as I edged along the outside of the shifting circle, eager for a better view. The attitude of her feet struck me as being intensely life-like. Surely they were only at rest – in another moment, they would start to move, they would scramble up the wall.
But no – the woman was dead. I knew this less because of the jacket thrown over her face or her overall immobility than because of the behavior of these 12 or 15 people in attendance, this milling crowd. We were not mourners, surely, but we were behaving in a formal way, obeying some inner instruction. I remembered something I had read once. Elephants are observed in the wild sometimes in the days after the death of one of the herd – they form a group around the dead animal, usually making a rough circle. They are known to create circles to shelter their young when predators are nearby, or to protect a mother elephant as she gives birth, and they also form circles in the presence of their newly dead. The circles grow larger and less distinct with time, as if the dead animal’s spirit, weakening, holds them less and less, but continues to hold them.
I only thought about elephants for a moment. I was feeling very human, actually. Not wanting to seem to gawk at this terrible scene, I was curious however to know how the accident had happened, to try to make sense of it. (The woman, an experienced and safety-conscious outdoor athlete, had fallen from only about 30 feet up the cliff, but one of the devices that attached her rope to the wall had pulled free, turning her in mid-air so that she fell, head-first, onto the rocks.) There was a savage splatter of blood at the base of the cliff. There were those pretty, active-looking shoes on her feet, the windbreaker covering her face, the hand of her partner (her husband, I later learned) resting on her body lightly. It touched her in the way that the hand of a parent touches the shoulder or chest of a drowsing child, as the child drifts off to sleep.
Ten minutes later we stood in a more distant circle. There was nothing useful for us to do here, really – the search and rescue squad was on its way, and they would carry the woman’s body down. Something held us, though. My guide friend was taking it hard, the death of this unfortunate stranger – he was a young man, in his 20s, and he believed that no one should have died here, that this accident should never have happened. That it was too bizarre, too freakish. I tried to console him, and I refrained from saying, “That’s why they call it an accident.” Now there were a good 20 or 30 hikers, climbers, onlookers, and early-arriving rescue personnel gathered at the accident site. The circle was larger but still pronounced. I remained where I was out of respect and inertia, I guess, but if someone wants to tell me that the departing spirit of the fallen woman had me in thrall – was temporarily holding all of us there – I won’t argue. The day was still sunny and temperate, it was still pleasant to be there, but we were moving on toward sunset, the shadows more pronounced. I began to think about the bereaved husband. I could still see him, perched beside her, still touching her. I wondered if they had any children. I wondered about their life. I began to wonder how long they had been together.
--
Fatal accidents in adventure sports such as rock-climbing are quite rare.
The American Alpine Club, in its yearly compendium Accidents in North American Mountaineering, reported 15 fatalities in the United States in all of 2007. The highest tally in the last 57 years, in 1956, was 53. The yearly average was 25.
The British government, comparing the risks of various activities, assembled these statistics:
Clearly, hang-gliding and scuba diving are more dangerous than climbing (as is ordinary bike-riding, which accounts for roughly one fatality for every 100,000 rides). But watch out for that really dangerous sport: pregnancy.
--
Photo Courtesy of Michael Sarver via Creative Commons
Elite free-climber John Bachar fell to his death from a formation called Dike Wall near his home in northern California on Monday, July 6.The story below, about a far less daring method of climbing than Bachar practiced, reflects on the story of another climbing death.
--
At the end of a day of climbing this October my professional mountain guide, working out of Seneca Rocks, West Virginia, received a call on his walkie-talkie. There had been an accident a few hundred yards away, a serious accident. We rappelled to the base of the cliff we’d been climbing and started making our way up through the autumn forest.
I’ve been climbing for many years, mostly in California. My mother, who died last year at 93, used to worry about me, and I would reassure her by saying that I climbed in a middle-aged Jewish sort of way, meaning with safety uppermost in mind and a realistic sense of my own capacities. On this splendid fall day I was certainly being cautious. Climbing with a professional guide is like taking up knitting, risk-wise – the guide takes responsibility for everything, turning his client into a pasha in a portable chair, whether he wants to be or not.A broken leg, I theorized, thinking about the accident we were hurrying toward. Maybe a compound fracture, with blood and complications. I had recently taken a wilderness first-responder course, and my mind was full of medical scenarios that I might deal with – on a warm, sunny day like today, it was just as likely that someone had failed to drink enough water, had gotten dehydrated and passed out. That sort of thing often happened.
We picked up a rescue litter stored near the base of the cliff, started hauling it up through the trees. Then the guide stopped. He had gotten another call on his walkie-talkie, and I saw him nod, nod again. He dropped his end of the litter and motioned for me to do the same.
“They don’t need it now.”
“No?”
“No, she’s dead.”
“She’s what?”
“She’s dead. That’s what they’re telling me.”
So, a different sort of scenario, very different. Soon we came in view of a group of other climbers and hikers – you could tell the climbers because they were wearing plastic helmets. They had formed a kind of circle around the accident site at the base of the cliff. We, the guide and I, became part of this circle. Someone was talking quietly, urgently – a middle-aged man, not very athletic-looking, was seated on a nearby boulder, his left hand resting on the torso of someone stretched out beside him.
Someone had thrown a windbreaker over the victim’s face. The victim’s feet, in gaily-colored climbing shoes, showed themselves as I edged along the outside of the shifting circle, eager for a better view. The attitude of her feet struck me as being intensely life-like. Surely they were only at rest – in another moment, they would start to move, they would scramble up the wall.
But no – the woman was dead. I knew this less because of the jacket thrown over her face or her overall immobility than because of the behavior of these 12 or 15 people in attendance, this milling crowd. We were not mourners, surely, but we were behaving in a formal way, obeying some inner instruction. I remembered something I had read once. Elephants are observed in the wild sometimes in the days after the death of one of the herd – they form a group around the dead animal, usually making a rough circle. They are known to create circles to shelter their young when predators are nearby, or to protect a mother elephant as she gives birth, and they also form circles in the presence of their newly dead. The circles grow larger and less distinct with time, as if the dead animal’s spirit, weakening, holds them less and less, but continues to hold them.
I only thought about elephants for a moment. I was feeling very human, actually. Not wanting to seem to gawk at this terrible scene, I was curious however to know how the accident had happened, to try to make sense of it. (The woman, an experienced and safety-conscious outdoor athlete, had fallen from only about 30 feet up the cliff, but one of the devices that attached her rope to the wall had pulled free, turning her in mid-air so that she fell, head-first, onto the rocks.) There was a savage splatter of blood at the base of the cliff. There were those pretty, active-looking shoes on her feet, the windbreaker covering her face, the hand of her partner (her husband, I later learned) resting on her body lightly. It touched her in the way that the hand of a parent touches the shoulder or chest of a drowsing child, as the child drifts off to sleep. Ten minutes later we stood in a more distant circle. There was nothing useful for us to do here, really – the search and rescue squad was on its way, and they would carry the woman’s body down. Something held us, though. My guide friend was taking it hard, the death of this unfortunate stranger – he was a young man, in his 20s, and he believed that no one should have died here, that this accident should never have happened. That it was too bizarre, too freakish. I tried to console him, and I refrained from saying, “That’s why they call it an accident.” Now there were a good 20 or 30 hikers, climbers, onlookers, and early-arriving rescue personnel gathered at the accident site. The circle was larger but still pronounced. I remained where I was out of respect and inertia, I guess, but if someone wants to tell me that the departing spirit of the fallen woman had me in thrall – was temporarily holding all of us there – I won’t argue. The day was still sunny and temperate, it was still pleasant to be there, but we were moving on toward sunset, the shadows more pronounced. I began to think about the bereaved husband. I could still see him, perched beside her, still touching her. I wondered if they had any children. I wondered about their life. I began to wonder how long they had been together.
--
Fatal accidents in adventure sports such as rock-climbing are quite rare.
The American Alpine Club, in its yearly compendium Accidents in North American Mountaineering, reported 15 fatalities in the United States in all of 2007. The highest tally in the last 57 years, in 1956, was 53. The yearly average was 25.
The British government, comparing the risks of various activities, assembled these statistics:
- Maternal death in pregnancy 1 in 8,200 maternities
- Surgical anesthesia 1 in 185,000 operations
- Hang-gliding 1 in 116,000 flights
- Scuba Diving 1 in 200,000 dives
- Rock climbing 1 in 320,000 climbs
- Canoeing 1 in 750,000 outings
- Fairground rides 1 in 834,000,000 rides
- Rail travel accidents 1 in 43,000,000 passenger journeys
- Aircraft accidents 1 in 125,000,000 passenger journeys
Clearly, hang-gliding and scuba diving are more dangerous than climbing (as is ordinary bike-riding, which accounts for roughly one fatality for every 100,000 rides). But watch out for that really dangerous sport: pregnancy.
--
Photo Courtesy of Michael Sarver via Creative Commons
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