Accidents
Synopsis
This page contains a collection of reports on accidents that have happened on VOC trips or to VOC members. It is intended to serve as an educational resource to help VOCers to avoid similar accidents in the future.
Accidents are currently organized in four categories: Climbing, Mountaineering, Skiing and Other. Within the categories reports are listed chronologically.
Please keep reports succinct and impersonal (you can use participant initials). Include the trip objective, date, location and a link to any discussion thread on the message board. Please try to only post accidents that are important enough to have educational value.
Example
Here is an example report:
- Ground fall at Sugarloaf
August 26, 2007
Four VOCers were climbing at Sugarloaf in Murrin Park (Squamish, BC). JM started up a climb (Hot Wire) and placed a single cam. He then continued up to the crux. After some difficulties JM fell and the cam pulled. Since that was the only piece of protection, he landed on the ground, injuring his ankle after falling about 7 metres. Subsequent analysis resulted in the conclusion that another piece could have been placed below the crux and that dirt in the cam prevented proper operation and contributed to it pulling out.
Message board link
For more examples, visit ACC's Alpine Accidents in Canada website.
Accident Reports
Climbing
- Ground fall at Sugarloaf
August 26, 2007
Four VOCers were climbing at Sugarloaf in Murrin Park (Squamish, BC). JM started up a climb (Hot Wire) and placed a single cam. He then continued up to the crux. After some difficulties JM fell and the cam pulled. Since that was the only piece of protection, he landed on the ground, injuring his ankle after falling about 7 metres. Subsequent analysis resulted in the conclusion that another piece could have been placed below the crux and that dirt in the cam prevented proper operation and contributed to it pulling out.
Message board link
Mountaineering
- Fall in snow covered crevasse (unroped)
September 2, 2007
During the annual Mountaineering camp, three VOCers were descending the snow covered Wedgemount Glacier after climbing Mt. Wedge. The party didn't rope up because they were of the opinion they could recognize and avoid most crevasses (the heavily crevassed areas were bare). The snow was getting soft due to warm and sunny weather. LT did not follow the tracks set by other people, and from the transition from snow covered to bare glacier, party fell into a snow-covered crevasse. Luckily LT could easily climb out the crevasse with her ice axe (without help of the other party members). In hindsight, the crevasse was easy to identify (linear snow feature in between bare ice). Analysis: this incident could have been avoided by always roping up on the snow-covered glacier.
Message board link
Skiing
- Edmonds Glacier Avalanche
April 20 2006
Four VOC members were doing a ski traverse that went through the upper tchaikazan valley. An avalanche was triggered descending from the Chapman Glacier to the Edmonds Glacier. It was snowing at the time, and there was 30-40cm of new storm snow and the slope was cross loaded. The avalanche was size 2, about 200m wide and 200m long. The debris was up to 1m deep. SN descended the slope first and and traversed out to skier's left. SC started to descend before SN was completely safe. SC triggered a small sluff, which ran downhill and started a dry slab avalanche 5m below. The crown propagated 50m right and 150m left, releasing snow above SN. SN was able to ski off to the side without being caught in the debris. In this case, the party was caught off guard descending a south facing slope. Earlier in the day, the party had similarly steep north facing slopes with more snow loading without incident, and believed this south facing slope should be safer that what they had already passed. However, the south facing slope had a strong sun crust underneath the storm snow which acted as a sliding layer.