Uhh... Mark would you really trust the pro of a party that was in this situation?

I for one would use my own!

Tim,

Eman originally posted that your leader had only attached her in with webbing. That would have been quite bad - leaving nothing to stretch and absorb the force of her fall, once she cut the rope. From what you said, that wasn't true. I had guessed he would use a rope, earlier in the thread - I'm glad this was the case.

Another point is the knife. It's very, too, easy for a sharp object to cut a tensioned rope. What if the knife had happened to come near your rope, as she fell onto it? The thing is, she was panicked, and so she shouldn't have done the cutting. That wasn't a great call on your leader's part; he should have cut the rope himself.

All in all, your leader did a decent job of handling things - and after all, he didn't ask to be put in that situation. It's the leader of the party above you, that really f*cked up. Just plain lowering her would have made all of this moot, and put everyone in less danger.

No, of course not! I don’t remember if it was on this board, but it was mentioned that leader A had already tested almost every piece by hanging on them! If I’d been waiting to climb I surely would have noticed the leader if front of me hanging their way up the route. Anyway I don’t think I need much pro for the top pitch of High E – though I would be very careful not to fall on party A’s seconds. So there was probably a lot more than I would place, and I would have checked only the ones I wanted to depend on. –especially the ones above them till I was out of range

For the record I am an OK climber – but slow and inefficient placing gear.

the rope that really needed cutting was the rest of party A's when they got to the ground. cut it up into leetle pieces so that it couldnt be used again. and their gear should have been shared out to everyone in the area.

I think they should have thrown the girl off the GT ledge for falling on that climb, and for screaming in panic. Clearly she should not be breeding.

Then the party on the GT ledge should have soloed up and knifed the original leader for cowtailing an inexperienced climber and showered his gear onto more deserving climbers below.

After that the people below should have beaten to death the GT ledge party for doing such horrible things to other people and then accordingly divided up their gear.

Just my 2 cents.

No, no, no don't punish the people involved. Remember ours is a culture of victimhood. It is not their fault High E has The Move. I say bolt High E from ground to top, turn it into a sport climb. With many many rap anchors.

...well, now that you mention it, why not make every bolt a double set? That way people could make use of doubles on the new, improved Hi,E(renamed because who the hell cares about the past, anyway). Adding rap rings to each set of bolts is a good idea because the people could toprope from any station along the way.

The shark has been jumped!!

If it's that hard to get back on after a fall off High E, why aren't there constantly epics there? I'm still having a hard time picturing how she could be so stuck.

Right, it takes work to create a mess like this, but Team A was up to the challenge. Two possibilities come to mind:

1. She fell before the tricky move up onto the face and just swung out. Not many people fall here.

2. She fell at the move but with slack in the rope. Remember that her rope is not controlled by the belayer but rather by the second person's progress. If she moves up and the second person doesn't, the rope doesn't go up with her.

The vast majority of parties are competent enough that neither of these scenarios happens.