What I Discovered Climbing With Pete Takeda, aka “The Accidents Guy”

Imagine almost freezing to death on El Cap. Now visualize being nearly crushed by rockfall on Half Dome. And in a totally separate incident, rapping off the end of your rope. Let’s say you survived all those terrible accidents. Would you let it fuel your nightmares? Retire from climbing? Or would you transform all the climbing experiences you had endured into something helpful for your fellow climber?

Pete Takeda, the editor of the annual Accidents in North American Climbing (ANAC) report, chose the latter. A few weeks ago, I had a chance to rope up with Pete in the Gunks. During our day of climbing together, after years of reading ANAC, I got to know the climber behind all the analysis.

We chose the route Cold Turkeys (5.8) on the Arrow Wall for our warm-up. As we racked up and flaked our rope, Pete sprayed me down—upon request—about his climbing background.

How Pete Takeda became “the accidents guy”

Pete started rock climbing over 40 years ago. Across the decades, he has excelled in every genre of the sport. He’s bouldered Yosemite’s Midnight Lightning (V8), established a grade VI route up Half Dome, climbed El Cap a couple of dozen times (including a Nose-in-a-Day ascent in the `90s, and sport climbed up to 5.13+. The guy’s also been on 15 expeditions to the Peruvian Andes, 15 trips to the Himalayas, and has spent time in Alaska. Did I mention he’s got more first ascents than I have years of climbing?

Listening to this, it became obvious that Pete’s seen some stuff. So I asked him how he thinks his climbing experience prepared him for his editorial role with ANAC, which is a publication of the American Alpine Club.

“There is no accident that someone sends in that I have not witnessed, almost experienced, or actually experienced,” he told me. “I have an understanding of the mechanics [of an accident], but also what it’s like psychologically to survive something like that.”

Besides his climbing, Pete’s an accomplished writer and editor. To pay for rock trips around the world, Pete wrote books, published feature stories for Climbing Magazine, Rock and Ice, and The Alpinist. He even made a foray into Hollywood as a screenwriter. You can get a sense for Pete’s multifaceted skills in the short film “Bigg’s Crack” that he wrote, narrated, and appeared in about “the greatest unclimbed offwidth no one’s ever heard of.”

Pete describes the fusion of his climbing and writing background like this: “I’m not a rich guy. I’m kind of still a bum, which I really enjoy. And now I get to be ‘the accidents guy.’ If that helps my fellow climbers, then I am the luckiest guy in the world.”

Sounds like a dream job. But I could imagine there have to be some challenges, too.

What it’s like analyzing hundreds of climbing accidents

“What’s the hardest part about working on ANAC?” I asked Pete.

First, he mentioned the pressures of putting together a book. “It always comes up to the very end of the deadline,” he said. But I pushed further—I wanted to know about the emotional hardship involved in documenting accidents.

Pete’s generally jovial attitude shifted, and he fidgeted with his hands uncomfortably. Pete gave me the answer I suspected anyone who works as closely with loss and scary situations as he does would: “There are times I just break down and start crying […] sitting in front of the computer. It can be a very emotional journey. You have to take the time to understand [the accidents]. It’s emotionally taxing. I’ve definitely drunk myself to sleep a couple times to handle a spike in stress … That’s just the way it is.”

In addition to dealing with other climbers’ accidents, as I alluded to earlier, Pete has his own accident history. The worst might have been when a fall paralyzed a partner on his rope team. And like many OGs of our sport, Pete’s lost many friends to climbing. I wondered if his work as ANAC editor dredges up his own trauma and helps or hurts his healing process.

So, with that kind of baggage, what keeps him going? “I can share a passion for the thing I love,” he told me, “I have this chance to actually make a horrid experience into something that can be part of a legacy. Or that can save a life.” Ultimately, he believes in it. It’s something that he says is “worth more than any money in the world.” (Indeed, ANAC, as you might expect, is a not-for-profit publication.)

I’ve read many issues of ANAC, and I must say: I’ve learned a lot of potentially life-saving lessons. What’s unique is that Pete and ANAC are not dogmatic. He’s not here to prescribe what’s wrong and what’s right. Which is good because some of his recreational climbing habits were far from textbook.

This perspective aligned perfectly with his behavior at the cliff that day in the Gunks. For someone with such a vast climbing background, he never came off as judgmental. He was just psyched to be there. Each time his head popped up after following a pitch, he had a big smile plastered to his face.

What Pete’s noticed over the years

In Pete’s words, “A solid set of rules doesn’t apply to everything in climbing.” That’s why he says he tries to keep the accident report in the climber’s words as much as possible. “We let them analyze their own accident,” he says.

After climbing Feast of Fools (5.10b) and a link-up of Moonlight (5.6) with Keep on Struttin’ (5.9+), we sat down for a more structured interview. We cracked some IPAs, and I probed Pete to explain more about the accident patterns he’s observed over the years. He started with what’s obvious to most climbers: Rappelling. “One mistake in a fairly complex process can end it all,” he reflects.

But descending in general causes problems—he’s seen a lot of accidents with climbers being lowered. He says these are usually “due to inattention or not being able to comprehend a different type of lowering setup. Or a technical error.”

Then there’s the common issue of miscommunication—something I’ve covered before for Climbing.“ I think communication at the crag is way too complex,” Pete explained to me. “Everyone is talking and over-communicating. When someone brings up something extraneous, like asking, “How’s it going up there?” That’s a big no-no.” He also attributes communication issues to climbers using terms inaccurately or to the stoke climbers bring to the crag.

“Tell us how you feel later,” he added. Then he chuckled and knocked back his beer.

Besides analyzing close calls and accidents in climbing, I wanted to get Pete’s perspective on the loftier goals of ANAC. He sat up proudly in his chair, at attention, and said: “We’re trying to give everyone the tools to feel empowered to make a decision. That’s because, unfortunately, “accidents are going to happen. And the only way [to avoid them] is not by teaching techniques or saying you need to do this all the time, or you shouldn’t do this ever. But instead, by imbuing people with the ability to make judgements.”

Going back to his own brushes with death in Yosemite and beyond, I wanted to know what Pete might tell younger Pete. What did he wish he’d known back in those high-risk, high-consequence days?

“Over time, I’ve learned it’s not just us against gravity, trying to survive,” he said. “[My perspective] has developed into something where my life has value, so I should take precautions.”

But these days, for Pete, it comes down to who’s tied into the other end of the rope. “Eventually, I got to the point where my partner’s life is worth more than mine,” he said. “Like, I became so concerned about their safety that it became the preeminent thing. If you see someone else’s welfare above yours, chances are you’re going to be really, really safe.”

You, too, can be an “accidents person” (in a good way)

Curious about how to get involved with ANAC and the invaluable accident reporting Pete oversees? To bring the publication to life, Pete and the rest of the team at the American Alpine Club depend on volunteer proofreaders, regional correspondents, and online assistants. Reach out to the ANAC team to get involved.

You can also join the American Alpine Club. AAC members get a free copy of the ANAC. Or donate to support the mission.

And have an accident to share? Report it here.

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