This autumn, like most others, social media is flooded with photos and stories from Yosemite Valley, a vertical wonderland long considered climbing’s Center of the Universe. Golden granite walls, triumphant selfies and tales of struggle and success seem to represent the complete Yosemite experience, according to Instagram.

But what about the darker, less visible side of Valley climbing? The side where we hurt, fail, fall and flail… and where accidents sometimes happen. I’ve been fortunate to have spent many days in Yosemite over the years, and I’ve experienced all of the above. For the sake of representing this dark yet very real side of climbing, here’s the first half of a story about two climbing falls: the worst I’ve seen and the worst I’ve taken — both just days apart on an ill-fated Yosemite trip 23 years ago.

It started wonderfully, with a week of perfect weather and tons of climbing. I bouldered and soloed, then climbed with Justen Sjong who, like me, had recently moved from Seattle to Boulder. After two rest days, we would start our multi-day climb of the Salathé Wall on El Capitan — a route we’d both climbed before, only this time our goal was to free climb as much as possible.

With two days off, I spontaneously planned to go cragging with Roger, a guy I’d met in Seattle. He was excited to get out, and I figured a morning out wouldn’t tire me too much.

He’d toproped Crimson Cringe (5.12a) a few days earlier, and he wanted to lead this line, characterized by a crack splitting a steep, yellow wall as it arcs leftward across a sheer face to its anchor 160 feet up. The crack itself is guarded by a 40-foot wall speckled with smooth, dark knobs, water-polished from the creek below and the wall above.

Its name, Crimson Cringe, seemed to portend the tragedy of what was soon to come.

The crack itself protects well, but the easy face below the crack has no gear; it’s a 30-foot free-solo to the first bolt. Slow and steady, Roger navigated the lower-angled rock to reach the bolt. I had him on belay, but the rope was so far useless. As he reached for a sling to clip the bolt, I looked down to untangle his rope — a mess of spaghetti at my feet.

That’s when I heard the most frightening scream of my life.

I looked up to watch Roger plummet, feet first, faster and faster until he disappeared from view behind a large boulder; he had somehow slipped as he reached for the bolt. The impact was a sickening blend of “thud!” and “splash!” as he landed among rocks in two feet of water.

I yelled his name but heard nothing back. I ran around the boulder to find him on his back in the ice-cold river, eyes rolled back, blood gushing from his head. “Airway!” flashed in my brain. I’d recently been re-certified as a Wilderness First Responder (WFR), and I’d rehearsed various trauma situations. When I reached him, water partially obscured his face, so I dragged him out of the river knowing full well that moving him would risk worsening a spinal injury.

Despite my WFR training, I was unprepared for the sensory overload of a real accident: the whites of his eyes up close, the gurgling from his lungs, the overwhelming iron scent of his blood and its sheer volume. My clothes turned red as I tried to warm and comfort him.

After several long minutes, he regained consciousness, though he didn’t know where he was or what had happened. Once he seemed stable enough, I ran to the road a few minutes away and flagged down a ranger who mobilized a rescue. I raced back to the cliff.

Later that day, I learned Roger had broken many bones and had punctured a lung, among other injuries. He would ultimately climb again, but with chronic mobility issues.

As for me, I had to buck up and meet Justen the next morning for our four-day ascent of El Capitan. Thus began the doomed second half of my worst trip to the Center of the Universe…

Contact Chris Weidner at cweidner8@gmail.com. Follow him on Instagram @christopherweidner and X @cweidner8.