Weekend Whipper: “The Biggest Fall of My Life”

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Say you’re about to take the biggest fall of your life. Would you rather land near the ground—or 500 feet above it?

In this Weekend Whipper, American climber Noah Kane navigates the sheer face of El Toro, the central mountain of El Potrero Chico, Mexico. At pitch five, he’s trying a variation to La Sombra de Muerte (5.12d) that swaps the 5.12d crux for 5.12b climbing on famous neighboring route El Sendero Luminoso (5.12+).

Kane has already passed the 5.12b crux of that pitch, where he took a brief fall. He’s now well into the easier section of blockier, chossier, and more runout terrain.

“I was certainly not expecting to fall,” he tells Climbing. He kicks his foot onto a massive foot hold, with a horn-shaped block of limestone in his left hand.

Then, the horn-shaped block snaps cleanly off.

“Fuck,” he says.

For a few moments, he instinctively tries to grab something else.

Then he’s pulled backward into a freefall above 500 feet of rock face, the rolling forests even farther below. Kane watches the wall speeding up beneath him.

His palms slam into the wall. It’s a sharp, violent stop, and then it’s over.

“A rock broke,” he tells his belayer, who’s already whooping at the 30-foot whip.

Kane says it was the biggest fall of his life, although he reported no injuries beside minor palm scrapes. “Mentally, though, I am still quite shook,” he says.

Happy Friday, and be safe out there this weekend.

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