Safety Considerations
In January I lead the Jasper Ice and Mixed climbing trip, where we climbed ice lines in Maligne Canyon and mixed lines in Groby Canyon. As you may have noticed, may of the pine trees in Jasper have succumbed to mountain pine beetle (MPB), and are in various stages of death and decay. Unfortunately, this has affected a number of the main anchor trees in Maligne Canyon, and you can expect this to affect other rap routes or tree anchors in the park. This may make climbing at a number of top rope venues more difficult in the future!
Trees affected by MPB will have pitch tubes on the bark: locations where the beetle has entered and a mix of saw dust and sap accumulates at the entrance. There are three stages of attack:
- Green Attack: the tree is affected by MPB, but the needles still appear green. The tree has been attacked or killed less than 1 year;
- Red Attack: the tree is affected by MPB, and now the needles are obviously red. The the tree has been dead for 1-4 years!
- Faded: the tree has most or all needles, and is gray or faded (obviously dead).
All red attack trees should be considered suspect anchors and their use, if at all possible, should be avoided.
How to Select Tree Anchors
- Alive! While live trees are not necessarily free from rot or failure, they are less susceptible to it;
- Literature varies on the preferred size with the minimum being approximately 16 cm (6” for you all trapped in Imperial) - bigger trees are better for monolithic anchor points, and you should be aiming for larger if possible (30 cm). Your climbing helmet is a good approximation of this diameter;
- Try to select a tree that has no snags or hanging dead branches for your safety. Snags can fall and kill you;
- Test before you trust: push or kick the tree if safe to do so. Is it well rooted? Does it resist shifting or bending?
- Place slings and cord down as low as possible on the trunk to reduce leverage on the tree; and,
- If necessary, consider backing up your anchor by tensioning to other trees or equalizing the load between two points.
Other Tree Safety in Climbing
Live and dead trees may fail and fall over, or become hung precariously above climbing routes. In Lake Louise last summer, a climber was injured by a falling tree; and in Jasper, the Watchtower crag was affected by the 2015 Excelsior fire with a number of burnt snags hanging precariously over the crag. Be aware of the potential for other hazards, besides rock fall.
Policy Updates
In January 2019, the Section adopted a policy for camps, courses, and trips to have a written Emergency Response Plan (ERP) if they meet certain criteria. The intent of the policy is to help reduce the risk to coordinators and participants in the event of an emergency. The ERP policy has already been put into place on Winter in the Mountains course and the Fairy Meadows Camp. You can read the policy here.
Call for Volunteers!
The safety and risk management needs of the club are not solely the purview of the Safety Chair - we have a Safety Committee that assists staffed with volunteers from the Section. We are looking for the Safety Committee to take on more of a role guiding the safety culture of the club by hosting biannual safety round tables in the spring and fall, contributing to the development of trip management software, developing and managing policy, and taking more active roles in equipment maintenance and management, in addition to reviewing trip submissions.
There is one position we are looking to fill. If this is a position that interests you, contact Foster Karcha, Safety Chair at safety@accedmonton.ca
References:
Natural Resources Canada - Mountain Pine Beetle
https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/forests/fire-insects-disturbances/top-insects/13397
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