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The Arapiles we Love... 6-Oct-2006 At 6:56:05 PM Diablo

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Lately, i have noticed that a hell of alot of ppl have died, or been seriously injured while climbing at Araps!

i have heard of numerous accidents occuring, on all grades, and a range of seriousness.
to list a few,
The hermit jumped,
ground fall off missinglink on lead,
ground fall off pedro on lead,
broken leg off of kachoong (actually heard of a few ppl doing that),
ephemeral lead fall, bounced down the cliff ending up at the bottom,
leader bounced down off of guiding light tugging on gear...

WTF!
why are so many people injuring theirself!? is there insufficient instructing available to novices, are people getting lazy, messy, are people getting careless, is there bad beta on climbs, or are ppl taking too many risks? this is a growing problem for all climbers,

what is happening that is causing all these accidents at araps.
the other day, i saw a man take a 4 meter fall off of piccolo, a grade 11! it so happens that this man was guiding 2 kids from a school group. now i know that everyone makes mistakes, but his gear failed... he was leading up a grade 11 and took a 4m fall, one piece of gear popping on the way.

i dont know about you, but if this Guide cant place good gear, what does that say about the ppl he's teaching...

this seems to be a problem to me. arapiles is our passion, and in some cases, our escape, our life. how can we make sure that this kind of thing isnt happening more and more often?

Rock climbing as a sport is growing, but so are the deaths of climbers.

i would love to hear from ppl about what and how they feel about this issue...