Weekend Whipper: Yikes! Bridge Climber Decks When All His Pieces Pull

Readers, please send your Weekend Whipper videos, information, and any lessons learned to Anthony Walsh, awalsh@outsideinc.com.

Do you categorize bridge climbing as an intrusive thought or a welcome change of scenery? For Michael Murphy, we’d wager he now groups it with the former.

Murphy had wrapped up a casual day of climbing at New Jersey’s Mt. Tammany and was headed home. But before he got there, he decided to finally check out a crack-riddled concrete bridge he’d been eyeing.

Both Murphy and his partner tried leading the vertical splitter, but neither made it to the top, and they both whipped multiple times on a nest of gear high in the crack.

“My buddy finally unlocked the beta with an all-points-off dyno,” he told Climbing. Murphy tied back into the sharp end, eager to try the powerful new beta, but he was tired and made it only 20 feet up before asking for a take on a cam below his previous highpoint. He sat on a No. 0.5 Black Diamond Z4 cam … “and all three of my pieces promptly slid out of the crack.”

“Turns out,” Murphy said, “painted concrete doesn’t have the holding power of the more-textured concrete that we were falling on above. I hobbled away with a potential crack in one of my foot bones (still waiting on confirmation from my doctor) and a bitten tongue. Not bad for what could have been a much worse fall.”

The following video shows the partner’s earlier attempt, where he is caught by a No. 0.75 cam that both he and Murphy fell on multiple times. Murphy believes this cam was placed marginally deeper than the cam which failed, and in concrete that is more textured: two factors which helped give the cam greater holding power.

Happy Friday, and be safe out there this weekend.

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