You and your climbing partner are midway through what has been an exceptional climbing vacation in the desert. You are car camping in the surrounding National Forest. Highway 125 is 30 minutes away via dirt road, the nearest town one additional hour away.

Well into the morning, the two of you have attained a spacious ledge from which you “rope up” to start the first pitch of a multi pitch route. Your partner has the lead and he is approximately 30 feet off the deck and six feet above his last piece of protection. At this point you notice him starting to struggle with a section of the climb. He hesitates and starts the move repeatedly. Knowing this to be a harbinger of bad things to come, you brace yourself for a fall. Immediately afterwards he comes off the route and swings into the rock about 12 feet below his high point. His feet impacted first and he grabs his right ankle, signaling a possible end to the road trip.