Climber who survived 400-foot fall that killed 3 others

[guest]

Would be interested to hear from some of the experienced rock climbers here about their thoughts on what may have happened with this climbing accident in Washington state, where 4 experienced climbers, (youngest being 36), fell hundreds of feet.

https://cdapress.com/news/2025/may/14/c ... pay-phone/

According to the news article, (we know how dicey that can be), said they were all attached to the same anchor, all falling at same time, (while one was rapping down). The guy that survived, Anton Tselykh, stated "Speaking from a Seattle hospital, Anton Tselykh, 38, confirmed investigators’ theory that an anchor, called a piton, that he and his companions were using Saturday evening to rappel down the Early Winters Spires in the North Cascade Range had ripped out of the rock.

He accomplished an amazing feat to get to help.
"It took Tselykh eight hours to disentangle himself, work his way down the rough terrain of rock and snow — with help from a pick-like ice tool — to his car, where he drove for some 40 miles to the unincorporated community of Newhalem and called for help", authorities said.

Luckily there was still a pay phone in that area, (can't remember the last time I've seen one here in SoCal.

[Ed]

Very sad. Everything was wrong. It is not unusual in mountaineering situations to use an old piton or bolt of unknown provenance for an anchor, but that is when you take extra precautions. Or better said, make sure you take routine precautions. I can understand one person falling due to a bad anchor. Not four. They should have rappelled one at a time, only one person's load on the anchor at a time. If possible, additional anchors. If a second rope available, a belay for the rappeller, with only the last person down without a belay. (Hopefully, the lightest person in the group volunteers for that duty.) When the survivor is interviewed, he may have information indicating that these things were difficult to do. Still, you don't have to take a climbing course or be an experienced climber to understand these things. They are common sense.

Also, it has been pointed out that they should have had a satellite-based SOS device. And the survivor does not seem to have been familiar with the area or consulted a map, since it was said that it would have been a much shorter drive to a phone in the other direction. But of course he could have been badly disoriented.

[guest]

Thanks Ed, I was wondering the same thing. Was the anchor spot so steep, they all needed to be tied in to the same point? Can't imagine more than one rappelling at the same time, but maybe they were. Be interesting if a reporter, or climbing org interviews him eventually, to hear his side, but still a real bummer. I know anchors have pulled out, (or rocks dislodging) around Lilly / Tahquitz rock over the years, (like the man nd women from OC who were racing a storm a few years back).

[Ed]

And there was the Tina Fiori case, falling while rappelling at Joshua Tree. I did not know Tina, as a number of people on this discussion board did. But she was clearly a versatile high-achiever with a great deal of climbing experience. She died because she trusted her life to an old sling of unknown provenance rather than using one of her own, at the cost of a few dollars. Inexplicably sad.