Walls Come Tumbling Down

The recent rock slide along the Youghiogheny River Trail (aka., Great Allegheny Passage), which claimed the life of an elderly cyclist and seriously injured another, was an unpredictable, catastrophic accident. We offer our sympathies to the victims and families.

(Internet Image)

A screen shot obtained from drone footage photographed by videographer ©John Tremba

What a mess. The sheer knife-carved failure plane of that massive scarp only suggests the stability of the standing wall to appear ten times more ominous. Whaddya do now? Vertical drill and blast appears to be the worst alternative. Looks like ya' got at least fifteen feet by what length of potentially unstable face to dislodge. Then hundreds of tons of rubble rock debris to bust up and haul away. Or judge it safe. Who makes that call? And who writes the check? You can bet that the lawyers will be right up there circling that cliff along with the turkey buzzards.

We have a bit of dated history associated with that, even then, shaky wall...

Climber Rob Goodman about twenty feet up the face (1983). Note that the crack splits the entire height of the wall.

In the early '80's we spied a pretty nice thin vertical crack that split the wall bottom to top. The actual cliff face itself sat maybe fifty feet up a loose, steep angled slope. Massive sandstone setting atop what appeared highly weathered shale. Textbook SWPA differential weathered geology. Made no difference to us. We're just out lookin' for new rocks to climb. Standing at the base of the sandstone exposure, it was a bit of a struggle to keep solid footing to avoid backsliding down the shaley slope, overhung by a good eight feet, while trying to focus on the intricacies of the near dead vertical crack above. To our right was already a somewhat large scarp from a previous small slide. We both commented as to what was holding the base of the wall in place.

We hiked around the north end of the cliff to a foot trail that led to the top. We fixed a rope and rappelled the face to scope out the crack. Other than in need of scaling of loose rock, the sandstone in all was pretty solid. The crack was a thin seam its entire length. Void of any finger locks or hand jams. It would take sparse but solid gear placement, at the time solely passive gear of wedged or jammed wire nuts. Small ones. Free climbing would be confined to whatever face holds existed. Looked like mostly small edges and crimps. This being Sunday evening, I had to head out of town for work for the week. Our buddy Rob vowed to return to rap the face later in the week, scale and better expose the immediate face for hand and footholds, and perform much needed gardening of roots and such growth from the crack and face. We'll return next Saturday with ropes and gear. See ya' then.

Saturday quickly faded into aimlessness. Handholds right off the bat were for the most part small crimps. No matter how well brushed the handholds remained coated with a slippery dust. Once a tad off the deck ya' invoked the gods that ya' grabbed the correct racked small nut placement as your grip hand slowly greased. We switched leads until we reached a high point of maybe half way up the seventy foot wall, when we achieved what up to that point was the crux. We had placed five pieces of gear which included our opposition piece at the ground. Next placement appeared near six feet above. Trying to advance further and taking repeated short falls on a small wire nut became nerve racking to terrifying thinking of that nut pulling and falling on a similar placement six to eight feet below. In effect a twelve foot fall at least. As long as that piece held. If not, a ground fall. Finally, switching a final lead with Rob and re-ascending to our high point, "secure" by the toprope from above, I inadvertently pulled and dislodged a blocky handhold and fell, which unexpectedly jolted a relaxed Rob from his belay. The maybe eight inch, ten pound block bounced off my chest and missed Rob's head by inches. At that point we both pronounced concurrently "F*k it I'm done!!"

The excitement didn't end there. Rob's lone prepping of the route the preceding Friday involved gardening of the crack of a long reach poison ivy vine. Although he'd taken the necessary precaution of wearing gloves and whatever "ppe", it didn't occur to him that his rope was dangling below in the vine and leaves. As he descended, garbed in short pants, the rope was rubbing his bare inner thighs. His subsequent case of poison ivy was bad enough that he had to seek medical treatment and suffered for about another week or two.

If you compare our image and configuration of the crack against the drone image and vertical fracture of the slide, you can see that the crack was indicative of the fault condition way back when. The slip occurred right along the crack seam.

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Having been involved with climbing rocks and ice on and off for goin' on five decades, we've encountered our share of rockfall events. We'd last climbed the 'Gendarme' rock formation, a forty-foot free standing spire teetering high within the Seneca Rocks, W.Va 'Gunsight Notch', only two week before it finally tumbled several hundred feet into the valley below. And setting on the Seneca summit ya' always felt a bit uneasy when the occasional military jet fighter roared down the valley near summit level. You could feel the vibration. Although a great place, Seneca still always looks as if the whole formation could collapse at any time. At Bellefonte Quarry located near State College, PA, we last climbed a route named 'The Bitter End', a bit of a long, angled hand crack (and one of the best climbs there), again earlier the same year that it collapsed to the ground. 

More recent times, here's climber Tim Anderson on a rarely formed ice route on the 'Pistol Whipped Wall'

located at the South Connellsville Gun Club. The upper arrow points to a massive rock at the top of the route. Seemingly solid. Nothing to worry about here...

... the same rock in Tim's image the following spring. Jeep KJ included for scale.

Finally, ice is considerably more unpredictable and potentially catastrophic...

'Collapse of the Sick-le'

(Running Time: 11:02)

Tim and Laura Anderson and a shaky day at the free hanging 'Sick-le'

Keep watchin' the skies.

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Correction (maybe):

Taking another later look at the video, we realized that we may have misidentified the location of our bygone crack climbing route. It could possibly be the location we've circled above. There was a second crack, a bit widely flared. The location of the earlier right facing small scarp we mentioned. We rapped down and checked it out as well. It was too widely flared to protect, so we passed. We currently can't get in there to verify. Quite frankly don't care to. If our assumption is correct, we wouldn't want to be standing anywhere below the reach we've identified without a pair of swift running shoes. Just mentioning this for anyone who may be in there stumbling around thoughtless. Don't say we didn't warn ya'.

What the ##!!?? Is A Thalweg?

SNAFU (Situation Normal, All F*k'd Up)

TARFU (Things Are Really F*k'd Up)

FUBAR (F*k'd Up Beyond All Recognition)

                                                       

                                                                      - United States Armed Forces                         

                                                       

To which we add SOP (Standard Operating Procedure)...

The conference room at the main office served a dual purpose, with the lesser of the two being storage area for the archival collection of old reports of completed projects. Overflow from the company library. Numerical by job number. All well organized and filed row upon row along standing metal shelving the length of the rooms featureless long span interior partition wall. Maybe five shelves high. Neatly bound in three ring binders. As many as three to a project depending on the project size and scope. We were sequestered at the very end of the centerpiece conference table, facing a tabletop sprawl of open binders and reference field mapping. Research for a current project.

Opposite end of the maybe twelve-foot length conference table, a small meeting in progress. Project manager. Project engineer. Survey manager. Drafting manager. Another new project startup. None of our concern. Glad too. The project manager (PM) was always a handful to work with. They were going over the specifications for initial site investigation for planned renovation of a two-lane, twin span bridge overpassing a small stream. Some remote location north-central in the state. We're well within earshot albeit passively indifferent of their conversation...

"... which includes establishing cross-sections and plotting thalweg two-hundred feet upstream and downstream of the structure." The survey manager, quoting from the specification, immediately pauses and adds, "What's a thalweg?" The three glance blankly about. A shrug of a shoulder or two. 

Following a bit of collective surmise, a turn our direction, "Hey, you're always out on the river somewhere... what's a Thalweg?"

"No idea."

The PM immediately consults his laptop, citing "Thalweg, pronounced TAL-veg; the primary navigable channel of a waterway." Adding from another source, "The line running along the low point of a river, where the riverbed is deepest, and the current is strongest."

The survey manager (SM) expresses issue, "That's not even a navigable waterway. It's not even a river. It's just a small creek. And it's pretty swift just downstream of the bridge!? And that channel looks deep. How are we supposed to get out there to shoot bottom elevation...?

PM: "Who knows... it's in the spec." (in other words, "that's your problem.")

Standard Operating Procedure: First win the bid, then figure out how to do the job.

(Internet Images)

Thalweg illustrated

The following week the SM stops by our office...

"Hey, the crew was up at the bridge today. That creek's too swift, rocky and high to wade out into. The narrow main channel is about six feet deep... about twelve feet wide. The rodman had slipped and went under. Above the bridge and upstream it's barely up to your knees the whole way across. Do you have a small boat that we can borrow?" We had a twenty-foot construction boat. V-hull. Outboard engine. Too large for the creek channel. And for the most part the creek was too shallow to float it anyway. Also, they would need a launch site for the tow trailer. We also had a small Jon boat that should float 'em over the shallow rocks. We gave 'em that with some paddles. And they could strap it to the roof of their truck. Off he went.

End of the week the SM returns...

"That creek currently is too high and swift. We can't hold the boat to any position. Do you have a long rope? At least 200 feet. The crew says that they can anchor the boat from the bridge."

We didn't possess one at the shop. However, I just happened to have a personal 300ft length of static climbing rope at home. Last used it spent the better latter half of the winter frozen in on a two hundred foot ice fall. Had subsequently trimmed off about fifteen feet that had badly frayed while swaying in the winter wind and weather for a month. I brought that in for 'em next day. He's on his way.

Mid following week he's back...

"That creeks too swift to steadily hold the boat. They lost control of it and flipped... we're wastin' too much time on this project... we only had a week budgeted for the surveying... it's goin' on three weeks... a three-man crew... travel, motel, expenses..."

I knew what he was suggesting. I'd helped 'em out a time or two in the past on the water. Each time taking a kayak out as the rodman. The last and final time they had me out in some shi**y urban runoff creek with floating black "sludge" and drifting trash, including hypodermic syringes and whatever else that we don't even want to think about. Trying to hold steady the telescoping 25ft prism pole to shoot the soffit curvature of a tall stone arch bridge, it was impossible to not flip the boat when the rod was extended beyond, say 15ft, at any angle. To our surveyors amusement, must have rolled over and gone under five times in that mess.* A few days later developed a burning red rash on the side extending from armpit to waist. Lasted for about a month. Never had it checked out medically. Didn't even want to know what it was. Finally went away. On the positive side, considering survival, we figured it to be a heck of a boost to the immune system.

"I'd try it with a kayak, but I know that there's no way that I could hold the boat in that current and manage a rod or depth finder." Which was true.

A day or two later I had just happened to be talking to the project manager for the client concerning another job. I brought up the subject of the thalweg and project. His engineer seal was on that specification...

"Hey, what is the deal with this thalweg on the XXX bridge project. Our surveyors are havin' a heck of a time there... and they're way over budget."

'The what?"

"The thalweg."

'What's a thalweg?" he responded with a slight chuckle and as if expecting a punchline (like asking if the "kneuter valve" needs to be left or right handed.) I went into further detail. He subsequently went and pulled a copy of the specs to review.

"Let me get right back to ya' on that..."

About forty-five minutes later he calls back...

"I just sent you guys an addendum. Tell 'em don't worry about the cross sections and thalweg. Unnecessary. The staff engineer (a young guy) here in the office, when piecing the spec together from previous specs (standard verbiage) pulled that section from an old navigable waterway spec involving commercial river traffic... tugboats, barges and such. It got missed in checking... and sorry, there's no money in the project to reimburse you guys."

Standard Operating Procedure: He should have added "... even though we f*k'd up." Mistakes are generally understood..."We'll make it up to ya' next project." Press the issue and... "Hey, you guys should have picked up on that, too." Bottom feeders are frequently left somewhat "hangry".

I relayed his comment to the SM. More than tight with a penny. He was immediately on his cell phone pulling his crew back to the shop while still alternately engaged in our inter-office call... 

"... and cancel the motel before 2pm so we don't get charged for another night!"

Later that afternoon we're stopped in the hallway by the currently irate (and always over budget) drafting manager... "Those ##!!??'s dumped all those surveying charges into my drafting budget!!..."

"Hey, Standard Operating Procedure."

*After much subsequent controversy we eventually managed the shot. Hot topic of dispute: why not just sight on the outside edge of the soffit and be done - and not have to dump your rodman into a shi**y cesspool. Basic right angle geometry...

"Just because your total station can measure to a thousandth of a foot don't mean ya' need to be that precise!... That elevations good to half a foot or better!... What the f*k, we're not establishing control!"... 

"This stuff has to check!!" - his favorite phrase. It'll go on his tombstone.

"I can measure that elevation to within a tenth of a foot without an instrument!"

Our always stressed, old school military trained survey chief was a stickler for precision no matter the function. We engaged 'em in a bit of amusing debate with the loser buying lunch. Using a wooden lath we employed rough stick and step (tape for our effort) survey method. Rounded to the nearest 0.25ft (under),

and short of dropping a plumb line, while estimating horizontal distance to the vertical by eye, our elevations were identical. Good enough for this general site survey (our opinion).

"I was gonna' buy ya' lunch anyway for helpin' us out."