Everyone is always so quick to chime in with loads of criticism. Blah blah blah... It may not have been perfection but the man never claimed it was. It is an honest account of what happened to him that day and a good learning tool for those new to the scene. I especially admire how calm the man remains in spite of the few that cant resist criticizing. I really enjoy your videos John and many more do as well. keep keeping it classy my friend.
Not sure if he remained calm. He was pretty tired and getting frustrated when his tools when biting and the ice was cracking. Totally understandable though .
It is literally impossible to over emphasis the level of risk for leading ice. Granted if you want to risk your meat like that and you're not going to put your belayer at risk or SAR at risk to come cart you out of the woods - do what you want. But if I was the belayer for this cat on that day I wouldn't have belayed and blankly said you're not ready to do this.
So funny to see all these criticism like "hire a guide and do two/three additionnal season of top rope climbing on ice" while few years later your projecting on couloir nord direct and other very technical stuff like that ahah. Keep going on and, more important, take care :)
Wow I remember watching this video back in 2017/2018, and when I rewatched it now I was noticing all the mistakes (also that you use the same axes as I do which was partly why I clicked). Then I check the comments and it's a video by Jon Murua himself! Damn, goes to show how far you can get in 3 years with dedicated work.
Your feet blew out because you climb relying too much on your tools. You were more or less fine on the body of the flow, but when you got to the top out and your sticks started dinner plating, you were forced to put more trust into your bad foot placements and they blew out. Get good feet. 1 swing 10 kicks. When you looked down right before you fell, you can see a gap between your boot and the ice. Those points were barely in the ice at all. Your points should be fully planted, kick a bunch until there's a nice chopped out hold for the whole front part of your boot if you have to. Do whatever you need to do to get good feet.
The only failure is losing your life which he didn't because he had built the safety anchor. As of climbing great job keep it up and never give up you are already doing great your foot placement of the front points is remarkable. I don't see new climbers using the front points of their crampons so effortlessly, so great job.
Man everyone posting sounds like your typical elitist "your gunna die" ego trolls. As if no exceedingly proficient ice climbers have ever fallen or hung on lead, ridiculous it happens. Love your videos Jon, way to bravely show both your mistakes and successes on here keep it coming.
Your comment speaks to strong lack of understanding of the risks of falling on ice. a 2m (6 ft) fall on ice could easily shatter an ankle. Ice climbers don't fall. What happens is your crampons catches and the rest of your body keeps going. ankle snaps As for hanging yes totally, I believe Jon has improved a lot since this day but as a 30 year ice climber I could see the fall coming long before and with that in mind he would have done well to hang. His feet were weak, his tool placements were weak etc... So he should have gotten a screw in hung, rested and then moved up. This would give him lots of strength to kick until his feet were in and solid and warm his hands up so he wasn't doing the dead arm swing seen right before the fall. Accident = an unforeseeable event that results in injury. As a long time ice climber this was not an unforeseeable event it was pretty obvious. Though I have seen a lot of ice climbers sneak through this stage as they topped out.
Those are the Cassin X-Dry. I found them terrible on ice, but that's probably because I was a beginner back then and because of the dry picks instead of the ice picks.
By the way, you can check my videos for Beta Block Super, Pinocchio and Scotch on the Rocks. My partner uses the Cassin All-Mountain and he loves them for every terrain except for pure dry tooling.
@@jonmurua I heard the All-Mountain are very lightweight, but I do mostly mixed than water ice, so I went for a sturdier one. Cassin are impressive though.
your error is that you barely use your crampons, you did not dig them into the ice. So your leg are virtually useless. I usually kick into he ice 3-4 times on each crmpons in order to get my foot stable. When I swing an ice axe, I always have 3 solids points into the ice. Like in rock climbing, always have 3 solid point of attachment to the wall before doing the next move
Yikes! Glad you didn't get hurt. Like others have said, I think you probably need another full season of top-roping steep ice before leading WI4 (or even 3's tbh). Everything about your technique looked very shaky and like you were just barely hanging on. If you keep this up, you will be seriously injured at some point, there is no question about that.
I led my first WI4 3 days after holding ice tools for the first time. To each their own comfort level, but you will have xyz is utter bollocks. One might get hurt or not. Mountaineers tend to have a different comfort level from boulderers or top rope ice garden dwellers, but that's the nature of the game. I'm an anxious person myself but all of the over the top safety fetishists I encountered on my mountaineering journey stagnated and never became somewhat capable alpinists
Dude you need to get professional instruction. You should not be leading ice. Any competent ice climber can tell you after 5 seconds of watching your video that you are not ready, and that this is downright dangerous. You are very lucky you didn't get seriously injured, and that your screw actually held. From watching your other video, you need work on your screw placements too. Go hire a guide
Hello, My name is Kate and I work on a comedy science show for National Geographic. We would love to talk to you about using your video in a show we are workin gon. If this is something you are interested in, please email me on Kate.Hansell@iwcmedia.co.uk and include the title of your youtube video and the name of your youtube channel. Thanks very much for your time, All the best Kate
