On October 23, the climbing world lost a legend — Todd Skinner, originally of Pinedale, Wyoming, 47 at the time of his death and a leading big-wall free climber. Skinner died in an unrestrained 500-foot fall from the Leaning Tower in Yosemite National Park. He was rappelling the penultimate in a series of 10 fixed lines down Jesus Built My Hotrod (VI 5.7 A4) — a free-climbing goal with partner Jim Hewett — when the belay loop to which his rappel device and locker were attached apparently failed.
The pair had spent an estimated 100-plus days — including freeing Wet Lycra Nightmare (V 5.13d), a free version of Wet Denim Daydream that they’d completed in 2004 — on the wall and knew it well. They’d fixed their lines on Hotrod, which lies just left of Daydream, only a week before. Rehearsing moves in order to come back and redpoint individual pitches as the season cooled, the climbers spent October 23 high on the route, with Skinner figuring out the moves on a likely 5.14a crux pitch and Hewett (an outdoor sales rep based in Fairfax, California) unlocking a palmy stemming corner. When the sun came around that early afternoon, they called it a day, descending to Ahwahnee Ledge, a small perch a third of the way up the radically overhanging wall. Skinner and Hewett stopped here to eat sandwiches; at 2:30 p.m., they set off down the final three fixed static lines, heading for another ledge 400 feet lower — the end of the rappels. Each rappel overhung some 20 to 30 feet, so the climbers pulled in to reach the belays. Skinner carried only a small backpack filled with gear.
“Todd rappelled a lot faster than I did, so he went first,” says Hewett. Ten minutes later, as Skinner neared the end of the second rappel and began pulling in toward the anchor, Hewett stopped one rope above him to pass a knot. Then, “I heard a snap,” says Hewett. “I looked down really quickly to see him falling, just getting smaller and smaller.”
Hewett called to climbers on the nearby West Face to rouse YOSAR on their cell phone (they were unable to complete the call), and then “very deliberately” continued his descent. “I got to his device with the auto-locking carabiner still on it [it was still locked, according to Hewett and an NPS report] — I pretty much knew what had happened,” he says.