Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2010 6:37 pm
If it was Zion (DH suggested this possibility), the rock can get amazing loose very quickly, and as almost no one goes in the backcountry, few slopes are pruned of loose stuff. You grab what looks like a secure sandstone ledge, and suddenly it comes off in your hand, followed by a few hundred lbs of junk. I'm amazed that Zion reports just one rockfall fatality.
This crap happens, and often there is little warning.
The one death in our outdoor club occurred when a guy stopped to put on his poncho, and a block let loose above him and crushed him. No one was up above; it was just rotten luck, with a light rain lubricating the rocks. People started shouting "rock, rock!" but he probably just heard the rustling of the nylon.
The traditional scramble route up "Indecision Peak" in Red Rock is up a horrible sand-and-talus gully that is just waiting to let loose. I've knocked a baseball-sized rock loose, and it fell down knocking free successive larger blocks, till the final meter-sized block came to rest on the edge of a cliff.
A lot of Sierra peaks are covered with such marginally stable stuff, just waiting to break loose.
This crap happens, and often there is little warning.
The one death in our outdoor club occurred when a guy stopped to put on his poncho, and a block let loose above him and crushed him. No one was up above; it was just rotten luck, with a light rain lubricating the rocks. People started shouting "rock, rock!" but he probably just heard the rustling of the nylon.
The traditional scramble route up "Indecision Peak" in Red Rock is up a horrible sand-and-talus gully that is just waiting to let loose. I've knocked a baseball-sized rock loose, and it fell down knocking free successive larger blocks, till the final meter-sized block came to rest on the edge of a cliff.
A lot of Sierra peaks are covered with such marginally stable stuff, just waiting to break loose.