With the success of De’l’S and Fitz Roy behind us, I was pretty content with our trip. It was early February and we were enjoying a couple weeks in town recovering, bouldering and eating plenty of empanadas. We had gained a better understanding of the climbing conditions and felt for the first time that we knew what we were doing, at least a little bit. So, when a three-day weather window materialized in late February we were excited to attempt the Motocross Traverse which connects the summits of Aguja Guillamet and Aguja Mermoz via a technical ridge. 

Our plan this time was to try the traverse in a long day, foregoing bivy gear and preparing for the possibility of a 24+ hour outing. The weather was forecasted to be sunny, windless and warm. We awoke at midnight to begin the approach to the Amy Couloir on Guillamet, finding temperatures in the couloir oddly warm despite it being 3am. By 5:45am we were on the summit of Guillamet and began traversing the gendarmed South Ridge of Guillamet. We found this section much longer and trickier than expected, but by 11:30am we had navigated the complexities and were at the final rappel into the col between Guillamet and Mermoz. 

This is where things get a little complicated, so I will do my best to explain the situation:

We were climbing in two parties of two; Chase and I on one rope team and Otto and James on another. Otto and James rappelled into the col first, noticing that the large slung block anchor below had almost entirely melted out of the ice. The boulder was loose and they had no choice but to trundle it down the col. Chase and I rappelled in after, arriving to a crowded stance with now few options for good anchors. 

Chase built a solid anchor in a good crack that we clipped to, but the stance was on a horrible ice slope. Otto and James stepped away to a better stance to give everyone more room, putting in a small two-piece anchor of a 0.4 and 0.3 cam on a sliding-x. A few moments later we all transitioned to the new anchor with the better stance and I added a #1 cam in a sliding-x for a third piece of gear. 

Once settled, we decided Otto could lead the next pitch while I jugged up and sorted the stuck rappel ropes. At this point Chase also had to fix the 7mm tagline to the anchor to rappel and retrieve a rope that had fallen off his backpack below us. Soon enough, Otto had climbed the next pitch and built a new anchor, I had come back down to the anchor and was clipped in, and Chase was still on rappel below us. James was standing next to me at the anchor, having just belayed Otto.

PING PING PING. Three distinct noises back to back. The anchor cams ripped from the wall. 

I remember being torn from the wall and starting a chaotic tumble staring at a 1000ft drop below me to the glacier. In that moment I distinctly remember thinking “I am dying right now, tethered to two of my friends. We are tumbling to our death.” I remember helplessly trying to grab any surface I could while the weight of all three of us pulled us downward. And then suddenly…we stopped.

None of us had any clue what had happened. Why are we alive? “Did the rope catch on something? What failed? Will we die if we move”?

After a couple of breaths I look around me. James is suspended above me, his tie-in to Otto’s climbing rope pulling his harness upward and the anchor sling with the weight of me and Chase pulling his harness downward. I am hanging off of my personal tether to the anchor sling hanging from Jame’s harness. Chase’s rappel rope was still clipped to the anchor sling, with Chase was 30ft below us on rappel. He had backfliped while falling and dodged a microwave-sized rock that dislodged from part of our anchor.

Still not knowing exactly what we were hangin on, I quickly did what I could to secure us, clipping to the rappel ropes still hanging above us and building a makeshift cam anchor next to me. Once secure, we took a breath to assess what the fuck just happened. 

The anchor failed because the crack was two pieces of a fractured rock held together by the now-melting ice. One side shifted and broke off causing the cams to fail, sending James, Chase and I tumbling 30ft. James was caught from his climbing rope above because Otto had already put him on belay. Chase and I hung off of the anchor sling clipped to James. 

We yelled up to Otto, telling him to add more gear to the anchor. As he added gear as we began un-sorting our mess of ropes, making a plan to microtrax the taught rope one-by-one up to him. At the belay we gathered ourselves and agreed we were going to bail. We started down the Argentina route on the west side of Mermoz, taking extra caution on the descent and building backup anchors during each rappel (which you should do anyways in the alpine). Chase and I cried together as the reality of our experience set in. Eventually we made it back to camp and town the next day, sobered with our memories.

In hindsight, and during many conversations after, we all agreed that we each played minor parts in complicitly allowing this accident to happen. When we switched from the good anchor to the one with the better stance, no one questioned the rock quality or checked the anchor. No one planned on having all three of us leaning on that anchor at the same time, and we all failed to communicate those details to each other. The anchor was a series of two sliding x’s, it would have been just as easy to create a non-extending anchor but the good stance and “time-cutting” mentality had us overlook this. And most importantly, we realized that the new anchor was in a giant block surrounded by melting ice. We knew the temperatures were warm, we knew anchors were melting out and we still didn’t critically think about if that anchor was the best possible rock to build it in. It had the better stance, so that’s why we went there. These were ultimately the wrong decisions that led to the accident. 

There were also a handful of good habits that most likely saved our lives. At one point I changed my attachment to the anchor from a non-locking carabiner to a locking carabiner. The non-locker almost certainly would have twisted and unclipped in the slack mess of anchor sling as we were falling. Chase was using a prusik and knots in the end of his rope when he was rappelling. He most likely would have lost control of the rope and rappelled off of the end while falling if he didn’t have those in place. It is my opinion that safety is a habit and I write this as a reminder that those habits might be the thing that saves your life when you least expect it. Too many years of cumulative life could have ended due to the difference between a locker and non-locker. 

My goal in recounting this experience and this trip is to normalize telling a holistic experience of what can happen in the mountains. I don’t see much use in recounting heroic tales of success without also the lessons of failures and mistakes. How is the next generation of climbers supposed to learn from the mistakes of others if no one shares their stories? Wouldn’t failures be the best opportunities to learn from?

I would also like to see a changing narrative in climbing storytelling that highlights good decisions rather than good outcomes. As a group, we need to be better about owning up to our decisions and mistakes and sharing honestly our experiences. I want to hear more stories of bailing and failed outings (or successes!) centered around decision making and good judgement. Those are the experiences that we have the potential to gain wisdom from, and therefore what should be shared. What good is it to hold back a lesson that could save someone's life for the sake of ego?