This climber, however, disregarded the new anchors, choosing instead to thread his rope directly though one of the old bolts. He top-roped three routes off the single old bolt and then according to Josh, a fireman and climber who was on the rescue, he switched to the other old bolt â??because he didnâ??t like the way his rope was running in the anchor.â? He then began to rappel, but after descending 25 feet down the slab the bolt snapped off and he fell 50 feet.

The old ½-inch eyebolt that the climber had rappelled from had broken cleanly at its juncture with the rock surface. A close inspection of the bolt indicated that the break was caused by the stress of rappelling and the single anchor being loaded with the weight of the 230-pound climber.

Read the entire analysis, but the moral of the story to me is don’t be complacent – always check (and potentially backup) fixed gear.

The post Never Trust a Single Anchor, an Analysis of a Rock Climbing Accident first appeared on All Climbing.