Helmet cam captures ice climber's fall

This guy goes for quite the ride and his helmet-cam captures it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U3C799_ruzQ#!.

More info here. "Mark Roberts, 47, was climbing with pick axes in Snowdonia [Wales] when he was hit by a chunk of ice dislodged above him by another climber. The safety consultant plummeted 100ft down Parsley Fern Gully, near Crib Goch, breaking his ankle."

FUDGE! Wow!

Barf, yuk!

Ugh. Looks like more than 100 feet. Makes you really stop and think about soloing even easy stuff when there are climbers above you. Those dinner plates always seem to be laser-guided.

Edit: linked article suggests 100 METERS or more.

Holy crap, that's a piece of video! I got nauseous just watching it and winced and grunted the whole way down! I could also immediately get an idea of which ankle was broken (by how he was holding his feet and which one was kept still). Wow.

Thanks for posting that, great cautionary tale!

Ha ha haaaa, I just clicked on the link. The first words that come up are:


I'm laughing now, but Damn! that's a tough 90 seconds! I'm glad he's apparently okay.

Given the amount of GoPro cameras now engulfing the world (saw two helmet mounted cameras on hikers just in the past two weeks), I have a feeling we are going to be a seeing a lot of "Be a HERO" footage that may be in the same category.
He's amazingly fortunate to have survived that ride, given the amount of protruding rocks.

Far more than 100 feet, and far luckier than any mere mortal has a right to expect.

Yoiks!!!!!! He was lucky that he wasn't seriously hurt.

Fortunately I never took any falls back in my ice climbing days... But I was hit by a small piece of ice knocked off by a climber above--it hurt. And, of course, I knocked a lot of ice down on myself (just part of ice climbing...).

Doug

The fall took 31 seconds- that was waaaay more than 100 feet and I bet way more than 100 meters. And he lost at least 1 if not both axes along the way. Looked like he was maybe distracted by the ice chunk and leaned backwards - I wonder if he had leaned in and hunkered down if it would have missed him or bounced off without him coming off. Easy for me to say... yikes and I'm glad (and amazed) he only broke his ankle. At least he was able to keep his feet in front of himi basically the whole way.

weatherman said:

The fall took 31 seconds- that was waaaay more than 100 feet and I bet way more than 100 meters. And he lost at least 1 if not both axes along the way.

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Agreed--it looked like 100 meters or more. I also thought he lost at least one axe--couldn't tell about the second.

Looked like he was maybe distracted by the ice chunk and leaned backwards - I wonder if he had leaned in and hunkered down if it would have missed him or bounced off without him coming off. Easy for me to say... yikes

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Having been in a similar situation: you track the falling ice and dodge as best you can. However, you may have to keep your current axe and foot placements--if you try to move too quickly, you may fall off. Thus you may only be able to shift your body, but not even take a step. Also, the ice can take unpredictable bounces so you may have very little time to react to the last bounce.

When I was hit by falling ice (knocked off by a climber above...), I tracked it all the way down. At first it looked like it would miss me by a good margin, but it curved and with a final odd bounce it hit me in the knee. I couldn't react fast enough to avoid it.

and I'm glad (and amazed) he only broke his ankle. At least he was able to keep his feet in front of himi basically the whole way.

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Yes, he was very lucky in that respect. The risk of keeping your feet in front is that you will catch a point and break an ankle or leg. (There is no good way of falling on ice...)

He also did a good job of staying in the gully and off the rocks.

Doug

hikingmaineac said:

This guy goes for quite the ride and his helmet-cam captures it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U3C799_ruzQ#!.

More info here. "Mark Roberts, 47, was climbing with pick axes in Snowdonia [Wales] when he was hit by a chunk of ice dislodged above him by another climber. The safety consultant plummeted 100ft down Parsley Fern Gully, near Crib Goch, breaking his ankle."

Click to expand...

All articles referencing youtube are broken due to a copyright claim by Marc Roberts.

You can watch the video here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/wales/9920708/Terrifying-Snowdonia-climbing-accident-caught-on-camera.html

fish