TERREBONNE —

Joel Sprenger says he should be dead.

Early last week, the veteran rock climber was detached from a high line on the Monkey Face at Smith Rock State Park and dropped into a free fall for what he estimates was about 10 feet. He managed to catch a rappel line as he fell, and he slid some 20 feet down that rope before securing his grip and stopping himself from meeting a certain demise hundreds of feet below.

Sprenger suffered severe rope burns on his hands — but he is alive.

“I should be dead, there was nothing else,” Sprenger says. “The rodeo line saved my life.”

Sprenger, 27, and Jesse Brown, 25 — who both live and camp virtually year-round at Smith Rock — were practicing a new offshoot of their sport called the “rodeo swing.”

Brown saw the whole thing.

According to Brown, Sprenger was sitting in the middle of the high line — a particularly strong piece of rope that is anchored from near the top of the 350-foot high Monkey Face across 30 feet to the “springboard” area. He was hanging from a “quickdraw,” a device used to connect climbing rope to an anchor.

“It unclipped on him,” Brown says of the quickdraw. “He just went into free fall. He reached and grabbed the rappel line as he was falling, which is just unheard of. It was pretty incredible. The second it popped, my thought was, ‘I just watched Joel die.’ I wasn’t expecting him to catch the line like that.”

It’s worth noting that what happened to Sprenger could happen to any climber who does not secure his or her rope with more than one quickdraw.

But the incident, and another incident two months ago, has raised concerns among climbers at Smith Rock about the safety of “rope swinging” — an activity in which thrill seekers swing into midair with the protection of climbing ropes, harnesses and other gear.

Look out below

On July 9, a climber on what is known at Smith Rock as the “Monkey swing” inadvertently struck two other climbers with one of his ropes, sending them rolling down the rocks and into the intensive care unit at a local hospital.

Elizabeth Redman, 28 and of Oakland, Calif., spent 20 hours in the ICU and was hospitalized for six days, according to Lee Dingemans, the other injured climber. Redman suffered a broken collarbone, two broken ribs, a lacerated liver and several broken teeth. Dingemans, 29 and of Minneapolis, suffered minor injuries.

Redman and Dingemans had just finished rappelling the Monkey Face — a world-renowned sheer rock spire — after climbing it. One of the ropes of the swinger wrapped around the two climbers and sent them sprawling down rocks. Dingemans says Redman tumbled about 100 feet.

“I remember holding on to the line and going off the ledge,” he recalls, “and seeing the other corner of the Monkey (Face) come toward me … and then I woke up on the rocks. I was out (unconscious) sometime between one and six minutes.”

The “Monkey swing” setup consists of three ropes attached to bolts near the top of the Monkey Face’s west side. Their harnesses attached to these ropes, climbers jump from this area, falling some 70 feet and swinging hundreds of feet through the air. Once finished swinging, they use a rappel line, also attached to the bolts, to rappel themselves safely down to the ground.

The “rodeo swing” is an entirely different setup. The ropes for this swing are clipped into the high line. The idea is for a climber to hang from the high line in a harness, swinging back and forth some 40 feet in each direction like a child on an oversized — and incredibly dangerous — swing set. Climbers use a rappel line to ascend back to the high line and then make their way back over to the springboard, which is accessible via the Misery Ridge trail.

Monkey swing is taken down

Ian Caldwell, a Redmond resident who has been climbing at Smith Rock for 20 years and is one of the most respected climbers in the park, says he is concerned about the swinging — so much so that, a few days after the July 9 incident, he climbed the Monkey Face and removed the bolts necessary for the Monkey swing. He did so only after consulting with other climbers.

“I’m not sure if the Monkey Face is the best place for (rope swinging),” says Caldwell, 41. “There’s a lot of elements involved, so that makes it very complex. I’m concerned because it’s very complex. The equipment they’re using is rock climbing equipment. There’s no real equipment designed for swinging.”

State park officials do not manage climbing activity at Smith Rock, but they can close certain climbing areas when conflicts arise, according to park employees. Usually those conflicts involve wildlife, such as eagles or falcons nesting.

Rope swinging is not included on a list of prohibited activities at Smith Rock. BASE jumping (parachuting from a fixed object), hang gliding, paragliding and other similar activities are prohibited, according to the park’s website.

Caldwell says grouping rope swinging into that category would be a “really big stretch.”

“Swinging is a lot more like rock climbing than BASE jumping,” Caldwell explains.

Caldwell, who is friends with Sprenger, knows that most of the rope-swinging enthusiasts at Smith Rock are highly accomplished climbers. Sprenger says he has free-soloed (climbed without a rope) Monkey Face 275 times.

“They’re all really experienced,” Caldwell notes. “They know how to climb and set up stuff, and they’re trying to be very careful. Personally, I feel there’s a high risk involved — a higher risk than rock climbing. That’s one of my concerns.”

In 1998, Dan Osman, a rope-swinging pioneer, fell to his death at Yosemite National Park in California. He was attempting a rope jump of more than 1,000 feet, nearly three times the height of the Monkey Face. According to a report in “Outside” magazine shortly after the accident, Osman’s jump placed an unbearable load on one of the knots that connected the ropes of his jump line.

‘A little kid on a giant swing set’

It’s a few days before Sprenger’s near-death experience, and I hike up Misery Ridge to the springboard to watch Sprenger and Brown making some trial runs on the rodeo swing.

The bolts for the monkey swing are gone, but the rodeo swing is doable because the ropes are secured from the high line. The rodeo swing is more about swinging back and forth in midair high above the ground, rather than a controlled free fall as experienced on the monkey swing or in Osman’s pursuits.

According to Sprenger, he and Brown never attempt the rodeo swing when other climbers are on the east side of the Monkey Face or below, where Redman and Dingemans were when they were injured.

Sprenger hangs from the high line in his harness, trying to get a good swing going. But he quickly loses momentum. He shimmies back up the rappel line to the high line, visibly relieved after hanging out in midair hundreds of feet off the ground.

“It’s a little scary,” Sprenger offers in obvious understatement, his voice shaking with a twinge of nerves. “It’s a lot of air.”

Then it is Brown’s turn. He manages to get a big swing going, and he even stands on the line for a moment while swinging, seemingly unaware of the Crooked River and the rocks and sagebrush far below.

“It’s the best thing I’ve felt in a long time,” Brown says, adding that he hopes to perform back flips on the setup soon. “You just feel like a little kid out there — on a giant swing set.”

Fully recovered, and no hard feelings

Redman and Dingemans are both fully recovered from their injuries, according to Dingemans, who harbors no ill will against the individual who sent them sprawling down the hillside. (According to Sprenger and Brown, the climber — whose name was not available to The Bulletin as of Thursday — is a regular at Smith Rock.)

Dingemans does not frown upon rope swinging, either.

“I’m certainly not opposed to all those shenanigans,” Dingemans says. “The way I look at it is, (the swinger) wasn’t really paying attention, and that’s what caused it. People had been doing it for quite a while, and nobody had gotten hurt. I think the swing is slightly more problematic than the high line, because you have other ropes hanging.”

Sprenger says his harrowing midair escape from certain death will not deter him from the rodeo swing.

“Once I get some new skin on my hands, we have a huge rodeo line planned,” he says. “Nothing like this will ever stop me.”