Strong piece by @JohnBranch about Brad Gobright on irony of huge risk-taker dying in most mundane (for climbers) way: rappelling. But there’s a deeper lesson. 1/11 https://nyti.ms/35JqtrS 

Veteran climbers call rappelling most dangerous thing we do. (No, not falling on lead like the great emily harrington on #elcap). Typical explanation is that rappelling depends 100% on gear. 2/11

Truth is more nuanced. Rappelling is a system that, like all climbing systems, we design and build on the fly, using hardware and ropes that we carry. 3/11

Basic rule of all safe system design, from aircraft to width of highway lanes, is to account for inevitability of human error (pressing wrong button, swerving). 4/11

4 cardinal rules of rappel-system design aim do this: 1. Make sure rope’s midpoint is at anchor so that a shorter end can’t slip unexpectedly through your rappel device as you descend; 5/11

2. Tie giant knots in ends of rope so you can’t accidentally rappel off end of rope; 3. When throwing rope ends down to begin, be sure they go where they’re supposed to so nothing weird happens. 4. One climber descends at a time, to keep things simple. 6/11

(Note: I don’t have stats to back this up, but rappelling off ends of rope might be single most common way to die in all of climbing, for pros and beginners alike; @alexhonnold got badly hurt when his partner made a variant of this mistake) 7/11

Gobright broke every single one of these rules. Worse, every climber either does same or knows climber who does. Why? Cheap answer: Convenience. Cardinal rules of rappelling are annoying, take extra seconds/minutes. 8/11

Better answer: Human brain learns from experience. Gobright did so much wild stuff without harm that he learned he could skip cardinal rules. If you think you’re smarter than this, consider: 9/11

Ever texted while driving, and managed not to crash or kill anybody? Ever rolled a stop-sign on bike without dying? Do either one 10000 times and your brain will come to see it as safe, whether you like that or not. 10/11

So Gobright’s death-by-rappelling not ironic. Painfully predictable—because, human. So, to the many climbers I love: please, please tie knots in ends of rope, obey cardinal rules. 10/11