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Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Sun 24 Mar, 2019 6:30 am
by Overlandman
From ABC
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-24/ ... d/10846536More than 110 people have been rescued from the Glass House Mountains on the Sunshine Coast in the past two years — 10 times more than any other mountain in Queensland.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Sun 24 Mar, 2019 11:44 am
by Aardvark
When put in perspective, a few of these mountains get hundreds of climbers in a day.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Sun 24 Mar, 2019 2:39 pm
by gbagua
Easy access to virtually anyone....even people on a wheelchair. Hence problems start to occur very often.
How many rescues in Leaning Peak?
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Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Mon 25 Mar, 2019 10:36 pm
by Lyrebird
I saw this and was a bit surprised Mount Barney escaped a mention. It seems like every month or so the local (Gold Coast) news covers a chopper rescue off the Big B. Of course I don't mean the unfortunate recent climbing accident, but rather the cavalcade of would-be hikers who seem to think Barney is a walk in the park to be undertaken with a small bottle of water and a half-charged mobile phone.
There must be more Glass House rescues than I realised! 110 in two years is a lot.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Tue 26 Mar, 2019 1:42 pm
by gbagua
Lyrebird wrote:I don't mean the unfortunate recent climbing accident...
The single most dangerous aspect in the whole mountaineering game:
Rappeling (abseiling)
Todd Skinner's death
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Tue 26 Mar, 2019 2:42 pm
by Gadgetgeek
Its also a bit of a statistical game there, glasshouse is a huge area with lots of places to get in trouble. Mt Coolum has stairs and you can on get in real grief if you try to walk down the wrong side of it. KP is a climbing area, so in general there are probably not as many rescues with ropes as there are spine-boards from the bottom. Pretty typical to make a headline based on such skewed data.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Tue 26 Mar, 2019 6:12 pm
by CBee
Moving car parks further away from the start of these scrambles, would halve the number of rescues.
Also removing signage that teases people to under-estimate their ability to cope with exposure such "experienced climbers only beyond this point", would help too.
And also, a reopening of Crooky, if this is ever going to happen, will boost the number of rescues again.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Wed 27 Mar, 2019 2:02 am
by Lyrebird
Cbee, agreed. I made a rare venture up to Beerwarh late last year; mid-week and in the middle of summer the carpark was still completely chockers and there was literally a queue to ascend. I vanished back into the scrub and headed back south. The only equivalent I've seen in the Scenic Rim/Border Region for sheer visitor numbers (not terrain, obviously) is Mt Warning-Wollumbin, which also attracts more than its fair share of under-estimators. It also has a carpark at the bottom, so you may be onto something.
And also, a reopening of Crooky, if this is ever going to happen, will boost the number of rescues again.
Unfortunately I think that's what will keep it shut. Any government that reopens it would have to brace for the inevitable media extravaganza when someone gets into trouble, even if said someone couldn't be trusted climbing a step ladder. The threat of 'Government Risks Lives' coverage is not worth the hassle of re-opening it for the relatively small group of people who'd actually appreciate it.
Gbagua, thanks for the links; interesting reading.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Wed 27 Mar, 2019 7:56 am
by CBee
Re: abseiling. Each situation should be assessed individually. Reasons not rules. I do a fair bit of abseiling but not as a standalone activity, only as a mean of descent on different terrain. A number of things can go wrong.
Re: Crooky. This is a trad climbing area with only one "tourist" track, very exposed in one section. Sp I don't see this reopening soon. Unlikely Mt. Warning, where there is a clear gentle track all the way to the top, these peaks have a fair amount of loose rock and vertical cliffs nearby walking tracks. And also some moves that look hard to the most.
But accessibility is the key, I believe.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Wed 27 Mar, 2019 10:38 pm
by gbagua
If you stick to the rules methodically rappelling is safe in most instances. The margin for error starts to increase when one becomes lazy or routinely does rappels by skipping on something or making one single mistake; eg. not tying off the ends of a rope and accidentally rapping off the end way before touching the ground. This is one scenario, there are many others; but the one that I fear the most is rapping off natural anchors that end up collapsing due to the forces generated during an abseil; eg. a climber weighing 85kg would load the anchor with 1 to 2,5 kN.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Thu 28 Mar, 2019 8:11 am
by CBee
There are instances where the knot at the end of the rope is less important if not dangerous like technical abseils on big walls where rope have to travel through cracks or crevices and if get stuck could be fatal. Or other instances. Forgetting to tie a stopper is often equally dangerous as forget to untie to retrieve the rope.
Rapping off natural anchors is as safe as bolted anchors with a difference, natural anchors have to be assessed, bolted anchors have to be blindly trusted as the abseiler does't often have information about hardware quality, drill position and rock quality.
kN (kilo newton force) does not apply generally to abseiling unless the person falls on the rope with significant slack. Weight of system+body will affect anchors, minus absorption through equalisation, contact of body on the rock, rope stretch, etc. So load would apply to anchors during abseil and not force.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Fri 29 Mar, 2019 7:45 am
by Gadgetgeek
My understanding, and I have no stat to back this up, and so there may be some biases to my data. The greater risk is to the leader setting up, often they will be the one comfortable near the edge with no safety. They will be the one to try a different technique when a piece of kit is lost, ie, munter-hitch when someone drops a figure-8. Falling while at the top, setting up, or injury in rockfall is likely the most common events. Also I'm not sure how everyone else does it, but I can see someone taking a hand off rope during a rockfall. Lots of ways to get hurt, regardless.
As for forces, any movement that is stopped is adding force, its just the duration of the force and so its the peak load that changes. Load vs force are not fully interchangeable obviously, but all loads are forces so in the context its reasonable to use either I think. But really we are arguing minutia here, anchor failure is rarely the cause of the incident, operator error is far more common.
The thing is, if you brought a rope, you are considered a climber.
If you were out on a face, you are a climber
If they rescue you using any ropes, it was a high angle rescue, even if that was just while evacing
If they use ropes while looking for you, its a high angle rescue.
So no matter what happens, there are going to be certain areas where the news coverage is for rescued bushwalkers and some where its rescued climbers, but that doesn't give the full story. Case in point, they listed the rescues for Kangaroo point. Its essentially an urban climbing center, and in general single pitch climbing doesn't require a rescue to get the victim to the ground, however I would suspect that its responsible for at least as many injuries if not ambulance calls as the Glasshouse, though I don't know for sure.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Fri 29 Mar, 2019 9:16 am
by digbyg
I have extracted bolts with my fingers on several bolted anchors at MtArapiles back in the day. Perpendicular to the load but still nasty.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Fri 29 Mar, 2019 3:41 pm
by CBee
Hi Gadgetgeek,
Gadgetgeek wrote:My understanding, and I have no stat to back this up, and so there may be some biases to my data. The greater risk is to the leader setting up, often they will be the one comfortable near the edge with no safety.
First thing you do when setting up an abseil, is making sure you are tied to an anchor. You never fiddle with gear near a cliff edge, unprotected.
Gadgetgeek wrote:Also I'm not sure how everyone else does it, but I can see someone taking a hand off rope during a rockfall
The reason you must use a back up such prusik cord or mechanical prusik (or similar), is to avoid a fall in the event you let go of the rope with the braking hand.
Gadgetgeek wrote:As for forces, any movement that is stopped is adding force, its just the duration of the force and so its the peak load that changes
It is impossible to know precisely how much load (or force) an anchor can take. We can only assume by assessing. With experience we'll be able to judge, that's why we try to use a number of anchors, not only for redundancy but also to lower the load on each anchor by equalisation. Unless you are rapping off a cement bollard from the top of Kangaroo Point cliffs and you'll know the anchor is stronger than your rope. Abseiling is the most gentle of rope activities towards anchors and safety gear is made with the purpose of protecting from lead climbing falls, hence the use of kN to rate every piece of gear.
Gadgetgeek wrote:The thing is, if you brought a rope, you are considered a climber.
If you were out on a face, you are a climber
Many people do abseiling as main activity without knowing how to climb. I know bushwalkers abseiling frequently but they wouldn't know how to climb a grade 12.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Fri 29 Mar, 2019 9:50 pm
by Gadgetgeek
@CBee, Thanks for the input, there is no way to put this without sounding a bit like an *&%$#!, but I mean this in the best possible way. I teach abseiling. Okay, granted I've only got an artificial qual becuase QLD is kinda dumb, but I've done natural face in training and its not for a lack of trying, but we don't end up with enough clients wanting to do natural faces for it to be something for me to add to my book. Someday though. But I appreciate that you broke out my response the way you did, because it really illustrates how dumb the accidents that do happen can be. We are pretty much on the same page.
I don't keep track of all incidents, but I do try to read through the reports I can get ahold of, so while you will never find me two falls from an edge without a tether, it's shockingly common, and its the guide who take the tumble. I always run a short prussic below, from the belay loop, and my device is on the first loop of my PAS. (I know some don't like dyneema anchors, but I'll never even factor 1 it, let alone a 2, never in those situations, and if I did, I'd switch to a nylon chain reactor) I've seen incidents caused by the prussic biner interfering in the leg loop, and I've got one harness that will open the leg buckle with pressure from behind, so all centerline for me. Commented on a youtube Vid about different ways to abseil, and was a little critical. The guy claimed he had 32 years experience, and didn't use a prussic unless the run was over 50m. So yeah, best practice be damned I guess.
I agree with what you on anchors and assessing. Never enough, and never too strong. supposedly there is a place in the alberta rockies where the top-rope anchor is four concrete K-rails that were dropped in by heli because the shale moves too much to bolt permanently but they wanted a solid topper. So the k-rails are cabled together, and when the lead gets to the top they just thread some tape through some swagged eyelets to make the top anchor. That way each winter as the freeze breaks a new layer of shale, it cannot affect the top. I'm pretty confident that a few tonne of concrete won't move.
From a statistics point of view, I've noticed that rope=climber, and no rope=bushwalker. Often even though the area the rescue took place was obviously a scramble, they were bushwalkers. Someone decides, and thus the statistic. It is a bit of an aside to be honest, but I think it just shows how misleading certain stats can be. And why we need to look closer at actual datapoints to be sure of the story. What would be more important would be to know the per-user/day rate of rescues, and the per/user rate of injuries that were self/party rescue or just pickups by ambulance from the carpark. And how many of the glasshouse incidents were crossfit clubs, nothing against crossfit, but I've heard a couple rumors and there seems to be an invincibility complex that happens.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Fri 29 Mar, 2019 11:31 pm
by Lyrebird
And how many were heart attacks or strokes that would probably have happened anyway, even if the victim was running to catch the train, or simply sitting on the veranda at home.
...while others were overcome by dehydration or a medical episode.
(from the original article).
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Sat 30 Mar, 2019 8:42 am
by CBee
@Gadgetgeek
I hope you didn't get the breaking down of your post business as criticism, as I just wanted to direct the discussion directly to you on these particular topics.
Is good to know you teach abseiling and I think this sort of thread could be valuable for the whole forum when we come forward and provide accurate information.
I am myself a rock climbing guide so not specifically trained to abseiling, but ropework in a broader way. I don't have much experience in artificial walls/abseiling apart from my spell in the army, so all my experience is based on real rock. PS: I don't teach or coach.
I don't have data about abseiling accidents but I can recall only two cases where rescues were performed in SEQ in the last few years in regards of rappelling accidents: one was an abseiler coming off the rope and the second one was abseilers trapped on a ledge unable to retrieve the rope to progress further down and unable to climb the rope to the anchors.
The first case is obviously a human error. Even if an heart attack occurs, as Lyrebird mentions, if the abseil was rigged properly, the person should remain attached to the rope.
The second case didn't end up in tragedy, but the situation could have been possibly planned better. As far as I can see from the aerial photo of SES, the guys were trapped on a ledge but several way existed to scramble up to the chains. A proper assessment of the terrain prior setting up abseil could have avoided calling a chopper.
The great majority of other accidents at the Glassies, for what I can read, have nothing to do with ropes.
The point I'm trying to make by posting here on this thread, is that the activity of abseiling has so many factors involved, that is hard to come up with a set of rules to cover each situation. I believe we can only learn so many rules and techniques, then apply them to each scenario to avoid troubles. The application of such rules to each scenario could possibly generate a human error and in our case, since we are dealing with heights and gravity, could result in death.
It is a fascinating subject by the way.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Sat 30 Mar, 2019 1:40 pm
by Gadgetgeek
@CBee, no offense taken at all, it was the awkward sort of "how do I explain I'm a professional" sort of thing. I never know how to do that without me coming off as a blowhard, I know many here on the forum who are technically amateurs, but have more experience than I.
All of these are points that people do need to understand. I mean there have been treads here and in other places on the safety of cliff edges, and how many people (excluding most of the forum) don't realize just how easy it is to take a fall.
I appreciate your forthrightness.
I find that in many cases its hard to know the how/why of an incident and all of the factors that lead to it. I think in any case if people are implementing realistic risk assessments as they go, they will in general come out alright. Even if someone doesn't have the experience of seeing first hand, they should be able to look at something and think about a slip/trip and from there logic out what the outcomes might be. I try to give as much credit as I can until I have evidence to show otherwise.
Weird things happen, and if you are out often enough, one of those one-in-a-million things will come up. For example I was out with a buddy in the Rockies in an area that while it is a rockfall area, you wouldn't plan on taking helmets for where we were going, if you were climbing you would, but we had two or three three meter scrambles, so nothing really serious. As it turned out we spent a big chunk of time getting showered by decent sized rocks, thankfully nothing big connected with anything important, but the open slope would have been a rag-doll roll had something hit either of us. The rocks were coming off the top of the waterfall a very long ways up, so we had to get out quick. That probably happens one day a year as the ice melts. Neither of us would have thought about it beforehand though.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Sat 30 Mar, 2019 5:11 pm
by north-north-west
This is interesting stuff. As a diver involved in the technical side I try to keep up with incident/injury/mortality stats and II'm wondering if there's a parallel with climbing. With diving, the two groups most commonly represented in these stats are novices and the very experienced. The former don't know enough to keep out of trouble or to deal with it if and when it occurs, and the latter either get blase and cut corners or the odds catch up with them (as Rob Palmer said "You get away with it, until you don't.").
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Sat 30 Mar, 2019 6:33 pm
by CBee
I don't know if there is a parallel between climbing/mountaineering and diving. But to back your stats I can say once I read a technical book about climbing. I learned about 4 categories where the lowest is the beginner pushing the limits without much knowledge about gear and without fear of getting injured. The second is the category of the intermediate climber, still not knowing how to climb but becoming familiar with gear and getting scared. The third is the experienced climber with fear of getting injured but master of technique and gear. The last category is the elite climber who know about gear and has great technique but lost the fear.
The 1st and 4th categories are those where the most accidents occur.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Sat 30 Mar, 2019 8:45 pm
by Gadgetgeek
Knowing some divers, pilots, racing drivers, rodeo cowboys..... yeah, I'd say that largely its the same. As my dad puts it, you start with a bag of luck, and an empty bag for experience. The idea is to fill the experience bag before the luck runs out. Everyone will have an incident, sometimes that kills them, sometimes that keeps them careful, and sometimes that makes them cocky. I think in the end though, some people are going to get themselves killed no matter how long it takes.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Sun 31 Mar, 2019 8:34 am
by north-north-west
CBee wrote:The 1st and 4th categories are those where the most accidents occur.
Exactly. It seems to be fairly standard in so-called "adventure" sports.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Sun 31 Mar, 2019 8:53 am
by CBee
By following this criteria, I could assume that the lack of fear or self defense mechanism, in pushing our limits in adventure sports, has a bigger weight than the lack of experience.
It's a rough way to see it, but it could be a different perspective into analyzing accident data.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Sun 31 Mar, 2019 9:07 am
by Aardvark
Regardless of what angle you're looking at the data from and no matter how much a sample of data you take etc,
42.7% of statistics are made up on the spot.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Sun 31 Mar, 2019 9:14 am
by digbyg
It might be interesting to consider why some people survive a potentially deadly experience. Now in my 70's, I could recount in boring detail the ten or so that I have survived so far. In my teens the issue arose due to not recognising a threat, in my 20's due to overconfidence, and after that from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Is it simply dumb luck, or a perceptual awareness, help from bystanders, personal toughness or even the floppy drunk phenomenon, probably all of the above. Any other survival traits that could be encouraged?
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Posted:
Sun 31 Mar, 2019 9:37 am
by Aardvark
Why is luck always described as DUMB?.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Sun 31 Mar, 2019 10:22 am
by north-north-west
Aardvark wrote:Why is luck always described as DUMB?.
To take a probably not serious remark seriously:
Partly as a judgment on someone who encountered trouble (however that occurred), and partly because luck has no correlation to logic; it is purely (apparently) random factors operating in your favour.
I can think of more incidents than I care to where my survival has been down to luck at least as much as anything else.
Re: Glass House Mountain Rescues
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Sun 31 Mar, 2019 10:54 am
by Gadgetgeek
Aardvark wrote:Why is luck always described as DUMB?.
Because smart luck is also called preparation? I don't know, its a weird thing, but I have met people who refer to some of their preparation as "packing extra luck" Interesting thing to think about. I do think that how stories get told makes a difference for when people learn from them. I know a few people who "just have things happen" strangely its never their responsibility, and I know others that are constantly the one who screwed up.