10.
Death in Eldorado Canyon A climber was discovered dead at the Eldorado
Canyon in Colorado.
According to the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, a call came in at around 6:00 o'clock
at night from a group of climbers who discovered the body of Scott Dewey.
He was alone, not breathing, and had no pulse.
There was no evidence of foul play, and it quickly became apparent that he had died while
solo climbing up the side of a cliff.
There were no ropes found, no harnesses, and he had no protection of any kind.
This is something called free soloing, in which a climber has nothing but shoes and
a chalk bag.
It’s the most dangerous form of climbing that a person can do.
The people who came across his body never heard or saw the fall, they were just unfortunate
enough to find the corpse.
The accident appeared to be recent, just a few hours had gone by before he was found.
Once his identity was confirmed, the authorities learned that Scott was a dedicated climber
who spent a lot of time in Eldorado Canyon.
He frequently climbed by himself just for the thrill of it.
And to be honest, this is a dangerous enough canyon even when you have safety protection.
Just before Scott’s fatal fall, two different climbers who had the proper safety equipment
fell when one of their anchors ripped.
They fell down 100 feet (30m) to the ground below and died instantly.
And two years before that in 2019, a different free solo climber also fell to their death
here.
All these deaths make the Eldorado Canyon one of the most dangerous places to climb
in all of Colorado.
9.
The Climbing Prodigy, Luce Douady A French climbing prodigy named Lucy Douady
fell 500 feet (152m) to her brutal death after she slipped from a path while walking up to
a cliff.
The French teenager, only 16 years old, was already a climbing champion at the time of
her death.
She was walking with a group of friends through the French Alps to a climbing spot when she
slipped off the path.
This was tragic and a little ironic.
It would be one thing if she fell from an extreme height while attempting a brave solo
climb, but it just seems unbelievable that she died while walking with her friends.
People who knew Luce said she was bound to be an Olympian and was hoping to compete as
a climber at the Tokyo games.
She was part of a French climbing team, she had a bronze medal from a European event,
and she had a Junior World Championship title.
She has been described as full of energy, passionate, and wildly talented.
The fall happened while Luce was walking across an exposed path near Crolles and Saint-Pancrasse.
Even though she wasn’t climbing, it was still a dangerous area to walk.
There were no guardrails and the edge of the path was right beside her.
What she should have done was secure her cable to the makeshift handrail as she walked across.
But she didn't, likely because she had been there multiple times before and was confident
enough to do it by herself.
But her foot slipped out from under her, she went over the edge, and all the experience
in the world couldn't save her.
The next ten seconds must have been terrifying as she plummeted all the way down to the ground.
8.
Mexican Climbing Fail The American free solo climber Brad Gobright
died in Mexico while trying to descend down the side of a sheer cliff face.
Brad had already climbed up the cliff in El Potrero Chico, one of the most popular destinations
for rock climbers in northern Mexico.
It was coming down that proved troublesome.
At the time, Brad was climbing with Aidan Jacobson, another American solo climber.
Aidan had ventured into the mountains for a three-week long trip and had bumped into
Brad somewhere along the way.
They started climbing together, they were having an awesome time exploring the wilderness,
and then disaster struck!
The pair were descending at about 3:30 in the afternoon.
But their route down the cliff was poorly chosen and both of them lost their footing
and fell.
While Brad tumbled about 900 feet (274m) to his death, Aidan only fell a short distance.
Aiden injured his ankle and was a little banged up, but he survived.
Brad on the other hand may as well have jumped off the top of Mount Everest.
He hit the ground at terminal velocity and made a bloody mess on the rocks.
7.
Surviving the Impossible On the morning of April 11, 2021, a group
of climbers were getting ready to scale the After Seven route at Yosemite National Park.
As they were getting ready, they saw a lone climber heading for an extremely challenging
route called The Nutcracker.
Both the group and the solo climber were scaling the Manure Pile Buttress, which is located
on Yosemite’s north side.
It's a 600 foot (183m) rock formation that usually takes climbers a full day to get to
the top of.
It is dangerous, but it's not the most dangerous.
And for this reason, it's wildly popular with free soloists.
As the group of climbers were busy making their way to the top, just shortly after seeing
the solo climber take a different route, they heard shouting from below.
The noise was for somebody to call 911.
As it turned out, the solo climber had fallen somewhere between 150 and 200 feet (45-61m)
and broke themselves on the ground.
The solo climber was Josh Ourada, from the California area.
He had climbed the exact same route before, both using safety equipment and not using
safety equipment.
Never before had he had an accident.
The really amazing part is that Josh survived.
Normally if somebody falls 200 feet (61m) straight down, they crack open like an egg.
But in the case of Josh, he only suffered a few injuries.
A helicopter was able to take him to the nearest hospital, where doctors discovered that he
shattered his right heel, sprained his ankle, fractured his pelvis, broke some ribs, collapsed
one of his lungs, and broke his thumb.
He had to have surgery to fuse his spine and to put plates and pins in his thumb and in
his heel, but he did survive.
Have you ever been scared for your life while climbing?
Let us know in the comments below and if you’re liking this video, be sure to hit the thumbs
up and subscribe buttons if you haven’t already!
:)
6.
A Dramatic Rescue While Emily Harrington was trying to climb
El Capitan at Yosemite National Park, she took a tumble.
The 33-year-old climber was with her boyfriend, another climber named Adrian Ballinger, and
their friend Alex Honnold.
Alex and her boyfriend were obsessed with becoming the first people to climb El Capitan
without using a rope.
Emily Harrington was also interested in getting to the top of El Capitan freestyle, no ropes
and no safety.
An experienced climber, Emily had already scaled Mount Everest, the Ama Dablam mountain
in Nepal, and the lesser-known Cho Oyu.
But El Capitan holds a certain appeal to climbers because it's 3000 feet of vertical climbing.
It's extremely challenging and horribly dangerous.
Alex had already been preparing to climb it solo for two years.
Emily was 100 feet (30m) below Alex when he heard her scream.
Keep in mind that this wasn’t completely without safety equipment.
They were climbing using a technique called “simul-climbing.”
It’s where they put their equipment very spread out.
The result is that there are huge gaps between safety points, but the climbers can move much
quicker.
It's the next most dangerous thing to free climbing
When Emily fell, Alex was able to quickly reach out and grab her rope, which saved her
life.
If he hadn't grabbed her rope instinctively as he saw it falling beside him, because of
the huge gaps between placements, she would have splattered on the ground.
Instead, she banged her head on a rock, suffered some minor scrapes and bruises, but was otherwise
perfectly fine.
She's even said that she still plans on climbing El Capitan solo in the future.
5.
Dead in Tennessee Tennessee probably isn't the first place you
think of when somebody mentions mountain climbing, and yet Tennessee was the recent location
of a terrifying death of a beloved rock climber.
We don't know his name, but the National Park Service has said that he was a 34-year-old
guy from Columbia.
He was climbing at the Big South Fork National River when he plunged 100 feet (30m) off the
side of a cliff to his death.
When the National Park officials went to investigate, they realized that the climber hadn't been
using any of the proper ropes or pieces of equipment.
He was free soloing.
This park is home to the Twin Arches, arguably one of the most impressive geological features
anywhere in the eastern United States.
The arches are also popular for rock climbers, since the tallest is only about 103 feet (31m)
. It can easily be climbed in just a few hours even if you're not super experienced.
People climb it despite the fact that climbing is prohibited in most areas of the park.
You're not allowed to climb on the arches or most of the cliffs, especially because
they’re made of loose and soft rocks.
This makes them wildly unstable and dangerous.
For our unfortunate free climber, he found out just how dangerous the hard way.
4.
Dead in the Water Two climbers from the United States were soloing
off the coast of Mallorca when something went wrong and they fell into the water.
To understand this a bit better, keep in mind that the cliffs of Mallorca, located in Spain,
overlook the ocean.
It's a beautiful place but it’s also extremely dangerous to be free climbing.
According to the authorities in Spain, both American men arrived at the climbing site
from Barcelona hours before their accident.
They haven't been named for privacy reasons.
As they began to climb the treacherous cliffs, something happened that caused them both to
fall off and hit the water.
Both men hit the ocean so hard that they broke their bodies and were unable to keep their
heads above the surface.
If they didn't die from their injuries, they died from drowning.
Their bodies were discovered by swimmers, who alerted the lifeguard.
But the lifeguard was unable to resuscitate either of the men and they were pronounced
dead at the scene.
3.
Straight Down the Mountain Austin Howell was known for being one of the
most courageous solo climbers anywhere in the world.
But his current ended up getting him dead when he fell while climbing the Shortoff Mountain
in North Carolina.
He was only 31 years old at the time of his death, falling at an unspecified time in the
late morning.
Rescue crews had to repel down the side of the mountain to reach his body, the other
climbers beat them to it and tried to perform CPR to resuscitate him.
But because he fell and broke himself, likely collapsing both of his lungs, there wasn't
much that CPR could do.
While nobody knows exactly how high up he was, other climbers believe he was about 20
feet (6m) from the top.
They looked up and saw him there, and the next second his body was streaking to the
bottom.
They never even heard him scream, suggesting he just kind of accepted what was happening
as he fell and closed his eyes and welcomed the warm embrace of death.
2.
Swept Away Michael Reardon was a lot of things.
He loved free soloing, he was a motivational speaker, he wrote in his spare time, and he
even made films.
The American climber was 42 years old when he traveled to Ireland to climb up the side
of a sea cliff in County Kerry.
He had decades of experience climbing rocks without using harnesses or ropes.
He was the real definition of a professional.
And that makes his death in 2007 so ironic.
You see, it wasn't the cliff that killed him, but a wave.
As Michael was scaling up the side of the sea cliff, a wave jumped out of the sea, knocked
him off the rock, and then swallowed him down into its icy depths.
He was reported missing after witnesses saw him fall into the water.
But despite help from the Irish Coast Guard, his body couldn't be found.
They searched all along the cliffs and in the water, but Michael's body was never recovered.
Before long, it had probably turned into fish food.
1.
Too Young to Climb An Italian climbing prodigy named Tito Claudio
Traversa was one of the youngest skilled climbers to ever be born.
He climbed his first cliff at the age of 10, and by the age of 12 had become an insanely
skilled climber.
But in 2013, his life as a climber was cut tragically short when he fell 50 feet (15m)
and died.
Tito was climbing in France at the time, and French officials doing the investigation found
that his equipment had been assembled incorrectly.
Little to his knowledge, he had been free climbing completely by accident.
8 out of his 10 quickdraws were assembled in such a way that they could not support
his weight if he fell.
And fell he did.
He expected to be kept safely in place by his equipment, but the quickdraws and carabiners
were all wrong and so he plummeted to the ground.
The only silver lining here is that because this is France, everyone involved has been
seriously punished.
Five people were charged with manslaughter.
The owner of the company that produced the equipment, the owner of the shop that sold
the equipment, the manager who organized the climbing trip, and two instructors who were
present at the time.
All five of them were charged with manslaughter for failing to check the boy’s equipment,
resulting in his death.
Would you dare try free climbing knowing how deadly it can be?
Let us know in the comments and thanks for watching.
For more great videos, remember to hit subscribe!
See you next time!
Bye! :)