Man Dies in 200-Foot Fall from Index, WA, Climbing Wall

Gregory Scruggs and Catalina Gaitán
The Seattle Times
(TNS)

A man in his 20s died after falling more than 200 feet while climbing at Index Town Wall, a destination that draws expert climbers from around the world, according to Sky Valley Fire Chief Eric Andrews.

Callers to 911 about 4 p.m. Thursday reported seeing the man fall and hearing cries for help, Andrews said.

Members of Sky Valley Fire’s search and rescue team found the man dead from “obvious traumatic injuries,” Andrews said, adding that climbing the huge rockface" can be risky.

Someone told firefighters the man was attempting to switch from one anchor to another, but wasn’t able to click into one of the anchors and fell, according to Sky Valley Fire.

Climber Jonathan Dotson said he met the man Wednesday evening when they were parked next to each other in the gravel parking lot where climbers congregate.

Dotson, a former Seattle resident who has been climbing at Index for the past three years, said the man, whose name has not been released by the medical examiner, told him he was from out of state and had spent the past three weeks in Index. Dotson said the man was living full time out of his van to pursue climbing, a lifestyle known as “dirtbagging.”

On Thursday morning, a friend of the man arrived in another van, Dotson said. The three climbers discussed potential objectives and settled on a plan linking together the routes Godzilla, City Park and Slow Children up a granite slab called Lower Town Wall. The route consists of three pitches, or sections of climbing between belay points. Slow Children, rated 5.10d or intermediate on the Yosemite Decimal System for grading climbs, was their primary objective.

On each section of the route, a different climber led the way — climbing first and placing protective equipment in the rock along the route. The following climbers would then be protected from falling if they lost their grip. The friend led Godzilla, the man who was later killed led City Park and Dotson said he led Slow Children. Climbing each pitch proceeded uneventfully, taking about three hours total.

At the top of Slow Children, Dotson said during a phone interview Friday, he attached a quickdraw to each of the two anchors bolted into the rock. A quickdraw is a device with two carabiners attached to semirigid material. Dotson clipped one end of the quickdraw onto the anchor and fed the group’s rope through the other end, creating what’s known as a top rope system. He lowered himself down to what he called a “sizable ledge” at the base of Slow Children, which he estimated was 200 feet off the ground, the friend climbed the route with the top rope as protection and lowered himself back down.

The man who later fell wanted to try leading the route, Dotson said, so the group pulled the rope above them out of the quickdraw system. The man began climbing, placing eight to 10 pieces of protective gear as he ascended to arrest a fall. He fell twice at the crux, or most difficult part, of the climb. Dotson said the man was “fine” after those falls, which are not uncommon for climbers attempting the hardest part of a route, and eventually succeeded in climbing over the crux.

The crux was barely in sight of the ledge where Dotson and the friend waited, and they could not see the man when he stood atop a ledge that Dotson described as “two-thirds the size of a foot” at the top of the route, about 300 feet off the ground. Since Dotson had left his two quickdraws on the anchors at that spot, it was the man's responsibility to remove them, what’s called “cleaning the route,” and bring the equipment back down with him, Dotson said.

At this point, Dotson recalled that the friend was belaying the man, so if the man were to fall while his harness was clipped into the rope, it would be the friend's responsibility to arrest the fall with his belaying device, which applies friction to brake the rope’s movement.

Typically, climbers communicate verbally with each other when they detach from a belay system. Dotson said he never heard the man yell “off belay” after he reached the top of the route, but about a minute or less later they saw him fall uncontrollably.

"At first it seemed like it’s just a normal fall, like maybe he’s falling on some gear and some of the gear’s ripping out, but then he keeps going farther and I realize it’s going to be a really big fall,” Dotson said.

Dotson pulled his body tight against the wall to avoid being struck by the man's falling body, which he said crashed into a tree near the bottom of the route and broke several branches. The man was not attached to the rope, which fell back to Dotson and the friend at their belay station, Dotson said.

Dotson told the friend their first priority was to get down safely. They yelled to climbers below them to call 911, then began descending the rock wall.

Based on the distance of the fall, Dotson said, “I assumed he was dead.”

Another climber ascended the route to retrieve the protective equipment that the man had placed on the wall and to check the anchor, which was solid. Dotson hypothesizes the man who fell did not first attach his harness to the quickdraw devices before untying the rope in order to thread it through the anchor.

“In the climbing community the standard is to always be redundant — always have something keeping you safe at all times,” Dotson said. "The highest probability is that he was entirely untied from the rope and not connected to the anchor.

Dotson cannot confirm exactly what transpired — he did not get a close-up look at the man's harness after the fall.

“He seemed very confident and skilled,” Dotson said.

On their first two pitches, one of which the man led, Dotson said, “He knew what he was doing and I trusted him to keep me safe.”

In October 2023, a 33-year-old man from Index was killed after falling 100 feet while climbing the Index Town Wall. In April, a 47-year-old woman was rescued and hospitalized with knee and head injuries after she fell while climbing there, according to Sky Valley Fire.