Fatal Fall on Snowdon

[Jorts]

Bad news out of the SJs. Condolences to family, friends and the partners with him. I don’t know details beyond this article. I was just up there yesterday. That notch at the top of naked lady always seems sketchy.

https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/ ... h-of-july/

[jfm3]

I was at Molas Pass on Thursday evening and saw the helicopter fly over. I climbed Snowdon a few years ago and was surprised at how quickly the terrain went from mellow to rather serious rock near the top.

[Boggy B]

Very sad. An update from yesterday is light on further details but notes Snowdon is a "relatively tame hike," which though technically accurate is an odd characterization for a SJ peak whose standard route is unobvious, loose 3rd class. A sampling of route descriptions mention cairns (which no longer exist) alongside vague directives to traverse across or down the east face to avoid the difficulties of the notch atop the couloir. Not trying to read too much into the incident or statements in the article, but as standard routes go it's not great, and despite the easy access shouldn't make any short list of recommended Silverton-area summit hikes.

[supranihilest]

Very sad. An update from yesterday is light on further details but notes Snowdon is a "relatively tame hike," which though technically accurate is an odd characterization for a SJ peak whose standard route is unobvious, loose 3rd class. A sampling of route descriptions mention cairns (which no longer exist) alongside vague directives to traverse across or down the east face to avoid the difficulties of the notch atop the couloir. Not trying to read too much into the incident or statements in the article, but as standard routes go it's not great, and despite the easy access shouldn't make any short list of recommended Silverton-area summit hikes.

I'm of the opinion that the standard route description here should be removed. There's an entire paragraph on the easy and obvious approach but only two sentences about the climbing itself, both of which are vague to the point of uselessness; it talks about snow on the date it was climbed so totally irrelevant; there's only two photos both of which are useless and neither of which show the route (one is a selfie of half the guy's head...); and the peak isn't even spelled right. It's very poorly done. That ridge might only be class 3 but I remember it not being easy at all, it's exposed with lots of route finding to avoid harder climbing and the quartzite is slick even when dry. I'm not saying that route description contributed to this accident, but I do think it's misleading and potentially dangerous since it doesn't at all describe the realities of the ridge.