Effective immediately.

Taking “victory whippers”, also known as rope jumping, is NOT permitted in Muir Valley. Anyone caught performing this reckless act will be subject to losing visitor privileges. We assure you that this decision was made after a fair and reasonable study of this act and its consequences. A synopsis of this study follows for those who wish to know the “why” behind our decision.

There isn’t complete agreement on what constitutes a “victory whipper” but the general consensus is that it is an act of daring done by a climber after finishing a climb that is characterized by the climber not clipping into the anchors but rather touching them and then releasing grip on the wall and falling until the rope from the belayer, up through the clipped quickdraws, and tied to the climber, is pulled taut by the falling climber. This act puts a significant stress loading on the belayer, the climber and the last hanger to which the uppermost quickdraw is attached. Often a climber, taking a victory whipper, will have his belayer pay out additional rope on the ground prior to releasing his grip and thereby falling even farther.

A few weeks ago on the Red River Climbing Forum, I posed a question about the practice of taking victory whippers. The responding posts and PMs were varied, ranging from “It is an irresponsible act.” to “I’ll do them whenever and wherever I damned well please.” So, I decided to contact climbing hardware and gear manufacturers and some of the more highly respected climbers and guides in the U.S. and ask them their opinions of this act.

The response has been overwhelmingly in opposition to taking unnecessary falls of any kind – especially those on hardware placed in soft rock such as the Corbin sandstone of the Red River Gorge region. In the future, I plan to organize and consolidate this information and present it in a magazine article.

There is an immediate risk to the climber who takes the victory whipper and to his belayer. And, more importantly, there is a very real increase in risk to climbers who climb a route after persons have taken victory whippers on it. Here’s the simple logic:

1. Repeated shock loading on a hanger bracket affixed to Corbin sandstone with an expansion cone type anchor bolt will, sooner or later, cause it to loosen.

2. Taking hard, unnecessary falls after finishing a climb adds unnecessarily to the number of shock loadings on a bolted hanger, thereby reducing the time to its loosening.

3. A loosened anchor bolt can exit the rock and release its affixed hanger bracket.

4. This type of catastrophic failure could occur as an unsuspecting climber relies on that hanger for protection, thereby resulting in his injury or death by falling.

5. Therefore, taking victory whippers on a route unnecessarily increases the risk to climbers who later climb there.

A few weeks ago, Liz and I were at the Solarium with two very well known and respected climbers in the Red. We watched another climber reach a top of one of the overhanging routes there and call down to his belayer to pay out some rope on the ground, which she did. He continued to ask her to pay out more rope. He then bailed off and fell about 50 feet before coming to a stop about 20 feet up. His belayer was pulled up to within about a foot of the first bolt. The only thing between the climber and the deck during his fall was one bolted hanger. There was no redundancy, no backup, and no margin. If that single bolt would have failed, he would have decked, and his belayer would probably have been slammed up against the first bolt.

Unintentional falls are part of climbing. Even taking a reasonable number of short intentional falls to learn and/or reinforce proper technique in falling is recognized as part of this sport. But, deliberately bailing off a top anchor system for the shear giddy thrill of rope jumping is NOT part of the sport of rock climbing. It is, rather, a separate irresponsible act of daring that unnecessarily endangers others’ lives and therefore will not be tolerated in Muir Valley.

For those Dan Osman wannabes who wish to perform these antics, please do so elsewhere.

If you have questions and comments, please email directly and we will be happy to respond.

Rick and Liz Weber
Owners: Muir Valley Nature Preserve, LLC


"With the best equipment in the world the man with poor judgement is in mortal danger." — Royal Robbins.