Shots Fired in Coal Creek

I got some disturbing news yesterday from my friend Duane about a shooting incident that occurred in Coal Creek on Saturday afternoon. Here is his account of what happened:

“I don’t know if you were still around, but mid-day, Saturday while Chris and I were working the new route by the cars, some idiot in a pickup roared up, jumped out and started shooting with a semi-automatic rifle. I didn’t get a good look at him and assumed he was shooting at something across the creek on the other side of the canyon. He hollered “that’ll teach you,” or some hillbilly/redneck yell like that, then tore out of there. He fired maybe 10-14 shots in quick succession.

We didn’t think much about it then, but yesterday we went back to the route and got to the anchors where we discovered that he had been shooting the big hanging icicle directly over our heads. The hanging tooth had a couple of bullet holes with powder burns around it, and was fractured from the hits. Another shot in the right place would have dropped a couple of tons of ice right on our heads. Clearly, he was trying to harm us in a big way, but stopped short of shooting us, if barely.”

As of now they don’t have much information about who the shooter might have been, but a report has been filed with the sherrif, and we are hoping someone out there might know more about who was involved. If so, please contact one of us (bj AT splitterchoss.com, Duane’s can be found at www.rockandice.com) or call the police.

It’s incredible to think someone would be this reckless and purposely tried to harm these guys in such a manner. Hopefully this person can be found and confronted so we don’t have to worry about getting shot at while climbing!