This video was shot on the Aiguille du Midi Arete on Mont Blanc and captures a very scary moment in which a climber descending from the summit slips and nearly falls to his death on the knife-edge ridge.
Thankfully he self arrests very quickly, but had he gone in either direction of the ridge, it would have been a disaster. Definitely a frightening moment with thankfully a happy ending. A good reminder of why knowing how to self arrest is so important.
Kraig is an outdoor and adventure travel writer based in Nashville, TN. Over the course of his career, he has contributed to numerous online and print outlets, including Popular Mechanics, Gear Junkie, Outside Online, National Geographic, Digital Trends, Business Insider, TripSavvy, about.com, and of course The Adventure Blog.
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Actually he never gets the axe oriented correctly in his hands for a proper self-arrest. It looks to me as if he used the adze side to arrest with, which is completely wrong, but luckily for him, in those snow conditions it worked.
Yes. not the nest arrest, but it worked and it's great to share this video. When we look at the left and right of him, it means death indeed.