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Todd Skinner dies in accident on Leaning Tower

 

Much has been going around the internet about Todd Skinner’s death Monday while rapping off the Leaning Tower in Yosemite. I received an email today from a climbing partner who just moved out to California. His friend and fiance were on Leaning Tower right before Skinner. They were rapping down as he was jugging up and helped afterwards. Their report from the scene is that

His harness broke.  It was old and worn out, and he had a new one on the way in the mail.

If that isn’t a sad reminder for all of us to check our gear regularly, I don’t know what is.

The SuperTopo forum has a long thread with a lot of stories memorializing Todd. Will Gadd (Gravsports) and Dougald MacDonald (The Mountain World) relate their thoughts about Todd and there is some more media coverage at MSNBC, MountEverest.net and The Mercury News.

UPDATE: More from my friend on the accident and the harness failure:

what he heard from one of their SAR friends was that the belay loop gave out

Again, remember to check your gear…

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Written by Tom Markiewicz on Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 7:29 pm in Accidents, Climbing News 

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3 Responses to “Todd Skinner dies in accident on Leaning Tower”

  1. 缝里缝外 » Todd Skinner意外身亡 on October 27th, 2006 12:08 am

    [...] 据说是安全带的belay loop断了。 [...]

  2. Bouldr - Climbing Routes and Bouldering Problems on October 27th, 2006 2:10 am

    [...] Tom over at All Climbing has some insight on the accident, citing an initial report that suggests his harness broke. [...]

  3. ck on October 7th, 2007 7:55 am

    Black Diamond performed some tests on damaged belay loops and found that even if the company cut 90 percent across the webbing, it still would have a breaking strength of 777 pounds. Skinner’s loop may have broke under less force than that.

    His partner noticed Skinner’s belay loop was badly worn, acknowledged by Skinner himself. The damage was induced by an attached daisy chain, an extension device itself made of webbing. The rubbing between these components over time caused visually apparent damage.

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