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Narrative Description of Accident:
On April 16, 2005, veteran Southern California mountaineer and author Robert
(R.J.) Secor, lost control of his voluntary glissade and slid, hit rocks and
tumbled down a steep hard snow slope about 1,200 vertical feet from near the
summit of Mount Baldy to level snow near the Sierra Club's Baldy Hut where ski
patrol trained volunteers stabilized the seriously injured Secor, 48, of
Pasadena. A helicopter evacuation occurred four hours after the fall. R.J has
had a long and difficult hospital stay and is continuing to improve and respond
to visits from his many friends in the Southern California community of
climbers.
An eye witness reported in SummitPost.org: “It was warm out there today. Until
you get close the Ski Hut the trail is mostly clear of snow. From just below the
Ski Hut and the rest of the way up there's lots of snow. It was soft snow on top
of hard icy snow.
While starting down the bowl, a man started to glissade just above me in a
really steep section. He lost control and tried to self-arrest but it failed. He
hit rocks and then rolled all the way down to the bottom of the bowl. After he
hit the rocks, he didn't appear to be trying to stop himself. They airlifted him
out due to head injuries – “
Another eye witness reported: "He was unable to arrest. He tumbled all the way
down to near the stream by the Hut. Fortunately, the Hut was being hosted by a
member of the ski patrol and there were other patrollers there. I believe that
they were alerted before he came to a stop. They were able to get to him
immediately and treat for trauma. He had hit his head on rocks. They contacted
SAR and carried him to the Hut in the litter. A helicopter arrived 4 hours
later. He has a broken shoulder blade, ribs and skull fractures. His ice axe was
lost in the fall."
Reported another: "It is likely that his axe was lost in the fall and that his
crampons were ripped from beneath his pack where he keeps them, because they
were not with his things or in his car."
Another commented: "Mount Baldy is familiar and convenient destination for a lot
of us in So Cal that has the same objective dangers as other alpine peaks have -
it's easy for us to think of it as a benign 'local mountain' and to forgo
precautions we would take on more 'serious' mountains. R.J.'s a competent
careful mountaineer and I wish him a full speedy recovery."
Analysis of Accident: What knowledge and techniques will help prevent future
accidents?
R.J. Secor has been hiking and skiing since he learned to walk. An
enthusiastic peak-bagger, he has attained coveted List Completion status twice
in the Sierra Peaks Section of the Sierra Club with more than 700 mountain
ascents in the High Sierra, climbing as many as sixty peaks in a single year. He
has also done extensive climbing in Baja California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah,
Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Montana, British Columbia, Alberta, and
Alaska. Other mountain adventures have taken him as far as the Himalayas in
Tibet and Nepal, the Karakoram in Pakistan, the Andes in Argentina, and the
volcanoes of Mexico.
He is the author of The High Sierra: Peaks, Passes, and Trails (1992, Second
Edition 1999), Mexico's Volcanoes: A Climbing Guide (1981, Third Edition 2001),
Aconcagua: A Climbing Guide (1994, Second Edition 1999) from The Mountaineers
and Denali Climbing Guide (1998) from Stackpole Books. He is a member of the
Sierra Club, the American Alpine Club, the Southern California Mountaineers
Association, and the California Mountaineering Club.
Perhaps we should not second guess the decision of R.J. Secor to glissade that
day in fast sliding clothing, however, we feel it is important to analyze what
happened, according to eyewitnesses.
A witness had glissaded the same slope moments before: "He started down from the
same spot as I did just behind me."
Another climber reported: "I didn't see him with one on (a helmet). I saw him
putting on the yellow slickers and thought ‘well, he's going for a fast one’. He
lost control very quickly and failed to self-arrest (he tried very hard to)".
He was not wearing a helmet, although few climbers had helmets according to the
photographs at the summit. (Perhaps most snowboarders and skiers wore helmets.)
His most serious injuries are skull fractures.
Despite his experience, R.J. was unable to arrest on the steep hard snow.
R.J.'s yellow slicker glissade pants may have contributed to this accident.
*Note: Perhaps R.J. will be willing to write his own Accident Report to the
American Alpine Club, for the 2005 edition later this year.
Additional comments:
The arrest of a slip on steep hard snow (following the failure of a self belay),
should be instantaneous, before speed can quickly build. However, an arrest to
control a sitting glissade usually is initiated when the slide is already
attaining a high speed.
The speed of a slide on steep hard snow can accelerate very quickly to near the
speed of a free fall off a cliff. The speed of a slide is slowed only by the
friction of the climber's clothing and gear and any self arrest efforts. Self
arrest efforts from hands or ice axe are often impossible at the high speed of a
slide on steep hard snow. The climber may become airborne. Efforts to stop by
using booted feet may result in broken bones and dislocations as the leg is
violently compressed to the chest. Catching a boot or a crampon can result in
the climber becoming injured, airborne and tumbling "like a Raggedy Ann doll".
Clearly, hitting rock or ice obstructions during a slide at sixty or seventy
miles per hour is very damaging.
“Beyond Risk, Conversations with Climbers”, edited by Nicholas O'Connell, makes
the case that Risk is an integral part of mountaineering.
Report submitted by Robert Speik to the American Alpine Club on June 8, 2005 and
published on pages 35 and 36 of Accidents in North American Mountaineering,
2006.
Note: In the mid 1980s, Robert Speik was Chair for three years of the Mountaineering Training Committee (MTC) of the Sierra Club's large Angeles Chapter in Southern California. The Committee was responsible for the training up to 1,000 people per year in Basic and Advanced Mountaineering Training with more than 250 volunteer Leaders in five geographical areas, qualified in several levels of technical competence and responsibility. Bob Speik edited a new MTC Staff Handbook in 1985, writing the chapter on technical Snow Climbing. Recently, he has conducted class room and field classes in several mountaineering subjects for Central Oregon Community College in Bend Oregon. He is the author of the non-profit website TraditionalMountaineering.org. --Margaret Thompson Speik
The rest of the story!
Mountaineer on the mend
Southern Sierran
R.J. Secor is hiking again after Mt. Baldy accident
By Ginny Heringer
January 2006
Mountain climber and author R.J. Secor is famous for his classic guide book, The
High Sierra: Peaks, Passes, and Trails; his climbing guides for Aconcagua,
Denali, and the volcanoes of Mexico; and internationally for his mountaineering
exploits around the world.
Now he can add another remarkable achievement: his recovery from an uncontrolled
slide 1,200 feet down Baldy Bowl on April 16, 2005.
Secor doesn’t remember much about that day. He knows that he drove to Mt. Baldy
and hiked up to the Sierra Club’s Ski Hut and then hiked up the bowl toward the
summit. He spoke to people who remember him there, but he has no memory of
leaving the summit. Skiers, snowboarders, and other mountaineers were at the
bowl that day, taking advantage of a favorite local slope to practice their
skills.
Witnesses saw Secor don glissading pants, start down the slope in the classic
sitting glissade position, and then lose control of his speed. He was not
wearing a helmet. Using his ice ax, he tried to self-arrest but was unable to
slow down. He hit some rocks and rolled to the bottom, ending his slide close to
the ski hut where he was treated immediately by ski patrollers and a trauma
nurse who luckily were on site.
He was still conscious and speaking on the helicopter ride to a local hospital
and then ambulance ride to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Hollywood. He was
found to have a broken shoulder blade, broken ribs, and skull fractures, and
spent months in the intensive care unit, fighting episodes of low blood pressure
and pneumonia.
Friends who visited Secor in those first weeks were shocked to see him weak and
thin, heavily sedated, on a ventilator to reduce the pressure on his brain, and
unable to speak or recognize them.
But he remained in stable condition and needed no operations. Slowly he began to
recover. Friends put up posters of his favorite mountains on the walls—Mt.
Whitney, Aconcagua. He remembers “waking up” in Kaiser’s Northridge hospital in
the summer, spending a few weeks in a nursing facility for physical
rehabilitation, and finally returning to his home in Pasadena at the end of
August.
Secor, 49, began his first walks around the block, but kept looking from his
house up toward the Mt. Wilson Toll Road to Henninger Flats in the Angeles
National Forest, a hike he has done more than 2,000 times. Now he is hiking the
road again, four miles round-trip with a 1,200 foot elevation gain.
Secor has his driver’s license again, and is working on the third edition of his
High Sierra guidebook. He plans to return to the Mt. Baldy Ski Hut this winter,
where he expects to be the hut host the first weekend of March. He welcomes
visitors to hike up to see him there
http://angeles.sierraclub.org/news/SS_2006-01/RJSecor.asp
Read more . . .
Mount Rainer . . . eventually, with R.J. Secor
Sierra club, Angeles Chapter
American Alpine Club
Oregon Section of the AAC
Accidents in North American Mountaineering
Denali
"Friendship is the rope that binds us"
Mount Adams
A fine Mount Adams summit by Paul Chance
Mount Adams, a fine traditional alpine mountaineering summit
Mount Shasta
Mt. Shasta climb highlights need for arrest skills
Five Seconds (on Mt. Shasta)© 1996 by Mike Sarmiento
Mount Rainer
Mount Rainer, eventually, with R.J. Secor
Mount Rainier climber killed by falling rock
Another Mt. Rainier climber dies on Liberty Ridge
Other Summits
Mt. Whitney's East Face Route is quicker!
Mt. Whitney's Mountaineer's Route requires skill and experience
Warning!! ** Belayer drops climber off the end of the top rope ** WARNING!!
Runaway glissade fatal for Mazama climber on Mt. Whitney
Sierra Club climb on Middle Palisade fatal for Brian Reynolds
Slip on hard snow on Snow Creek route on San Jacinto
Notable mountain climbing accidents analyzed
California fourteener provides an experience
The Mountaineers Club effects a rescue in the North Cascades
Mount Washington
Mount Washington - Report to the American Alpine Club on the recent fatal accident
Mount Washington - Oregon tragedy claims two lives
Mount Washington - fall on rock, protection pulled out
"Playing Icarus on Mount Washington", an epic by Eric Seyler
7 pdf pages, later published in Outside magazine
A fine weekend winter summit of Broken Top, beta by Eric Seyler
Eric has fully recovered from his injuries
North Sister Experiences
Climbers swept by avalanche
while descending North Sister's Thayer Glacier Snowfield
North Sister accident claims another climber
North Sister and Middle Sister spring summits on telemark skis
North Sister, North Ridge by Sam Carpenter
North Sister, the Martina Testa Story, by Bob Speik
North Sister, SE Ridge solo by Sam Carpenter
North Sister Photos
Middle and North Sister exploratory adventure
North Sister and Middle Sister spring summits on telemark skis
North Sister, Scott's solo summer summit
North Sister exploratory
North Sister winter solo
North Sister: crux photos of the Three Sisters Marathon
North Sister images
Mountaineering Accidents in the News
Mount Washington - Oregon tragedy claims two lives
Young hiker suffers fatal fall and slide in the Three Sisters Wilderness
North Sister claims another climber
Solo climber Aron Ralston forced to amputate his own arm
Portland athlete lost on Mt. Hood
Broken Top remains confirmed as missing climber
Grisly find: hikers on Broken Top find apparent human remains
Once again, cell phone alerts rescuers of injured climber
Storm on Rainier proves fatal
Mountain calamity on Hood brings safety to the fore!
Fall into the Bergschrund on Mt. Hood, rescuers crash!
Paying the price for rescue
Accidents in North American Mountaineering
