The 500 ft Fall of Yosemite Legend Todd Skinner

Late afternoon, October 23rd, 2006. Five hundred feet up the Leaning Tower in Yosemite, a climber finishes his last move of the day. His fingers are raw and taped, his shirt soaked through. He has just battled one of the hardest routes on the wall, and the fight is over. All that is left is the part he could do half-asleep: rig the rope, lean back, and slide down the fixed lines to the ground. He has made that move more times than he could ever count, over thirty years of climbing. He never makes it down alive. In the next heartbeat, one small piece of his equipment is going to do something it is not supposed to be able to do, and the fall that follows will jolt the entire climbing world. Within days, gear companies will be tearing harnesses apart in testing labs. A warning will be written that is still repeated in climbing gyms today. And the man on the rope, considered by many the finest free climber of his generation, will become the most important cautionary tale in the sport. This is how Todd Skinner died. Make sure to subscribe for weekly videos!