Re: Black Lung-- I was involved with two rescue lowers in the late 1980s-- in each case the leader fell from bottom of the crack, pulled gear and landed on the big tree ledge-- both hurt quite badly with fractures of ankle, elbow and head laceration for one, humerus, kneecap, ankle and multiple lacerations for the other-- looking back, cams were fairly new then and people may have had them undercammed-- too long ago to analyze here but since I wasn't a full time local then and I was involved in 2 rescues involving Black Lung ( In each case I was about to start leading, once on Retaliation, the other time on The Book when we heard the "jangle, thud"), I'd agree with Strand that ground falls were common on the climb. In addition, years ago, the route was NOWHERE near as clean as it is now-- the black lichen from which it got its name ( early ascents resulted in inhaling a lot of it) still obscured footholds and made stemming friction less secure.