Had a close call on a hike? Send your videos to Emma Veidt, closecalls@outsideinc.com, with any additional relevant information about your experience.
Just a couple of inches can make the difference between life and death. That’s the lesson that Captain Shayan Anwer learned at the basecamp of Spantik, a 23,054-foot peak in Pakistan’s Karakoram mountain range, when a person-sized disc of rock zoomed through the air, dented a tent in its path, and missed a camper by just a hair.
In the past decade or two, Spantik has become an increasingly popular 7,000-meter peak for expedition climbers. It has an easy-to-follow ascent trail, and despite the rockfall caught on video in 2018, relatively safe climbing conditions, making it a hotspot for organized commercial trips.
The terrain on Spantik can range from grassy field-like trails to outcrops of rocks and scree to snow- and ice-covered routes. Rockfalls are common in areas with steep rock slopes or cliffs, but they require a stimulus to start. Some common causes include weather, natural disasters, continuous freeze-thaw cycles, human activity, or erosion. According to Anwer, who filmed this incident, “it had been continuously snowing for a couple of days while I was at the base camp, and due to the weight of the snow and loose rocks above, this rockfall happened. After the near-miss, several teams abandoned the base camp and their expedition while I stayed back and tried to take shelter away from the boulder’s path.”
Rockfall is natural, and depending on the area, common. There’s no way to predict specifically when and where a rockfall will happen, but geologists can predict if a rock is vulnerable to falling and the potential paths it could take mid-tumble. Some observers mention hearing a thunderous boom right before seeing the falling rock. Experts say a small rockfall, even a couple pebbles bouncing down a slope, could lead to a bigger incident if that slope becomes less stable. (So it’s a bad idea to toss rocks down the mountain. Even just a scrap of scree could trigger something bad downslope.)
See a tumbling rock? Shout “rock!” to alert anyone in earshot. According to Yosemite National Park, which experiences rockfall regularly, there are three things you should do if you’re in rockfall territory. First, be aware of any hazard zones near you. If you witness rockfall, once everything has all stopped moving, quickly leave the fall zone and get to safety. That would be a convenient time to do the second thing Yosemite suggests: inform park staff.
Want to hear more wild stories about surviving rockfall in the backcountry? There are hours and hours of episodes on our podcast Out Alive. Check these out:
From 2023
