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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Feb 24, 2009 - 09:34pm PT
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Secor calls the Polish Direct 45-50 degrees, but only for a short section. Skiable by many, sometimes even me on a good day. Like I said, I would have been taking a hard look at descending, not climbing back up. 50 degrees is very downclimbable at a good clip, so little more than axes needed, last guy downclimbs. I would have considered lowering 2x full rope lengths per pitch, or all ropes in the party, or somesuch. My personal estimate would be that going up would be 5-10x harder and longer. The difference a mere 1k feet can make in O2, temperature and often wind is significant. Just my take, my experience.
Also, and I've seen this a lot, up and over, people get fixated on the summit being the finish line. It's not like there's some tea party up there waiting. Most times, you're taking the long way home, even if able bodied.
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 24, 2009 - 10:35pm PT
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Again, I wasn't there so I ain't talkin' trash. This seems like a possible rescue to me.
Up or down, if the guy is relatively stable, it could be done. Rescue is a tricky beast, up, down, the whole situation is best of bad options, otherwise you'd already be at the hospital.
Down would take time, especially with a 200 foot rope, but you have gravity on your side.
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Scared Silly
Trad climber
UT
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Feb 24, 2009 - 10:36pm PT
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JLP you have to remember they first had to get to the direct part of the route. As I previously noted, traversing over to it would have meant moving over long stretches of 50-60 degree terrain. No way they were prepared for that.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Feb 24, 2009 - 10:50pm PT
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Not seeing that SS, in the pix nor the guidebook. Never been there, can't see what they saw either, but not seeing a big 70 degree face (whatever - looks like you just edited your post) to traverse. Kind of looks like some rock hopping, actually. In any case, my point is still the same - I can cite countless examples where fixating on up and over and down some tourist trail doomed the party. Kiener's on Long's, several parties on the Nose, yada yada. Going down is usually better, by far. They were at best a dozen hours from puting themselves at the exact same elevation on the other side of the mountain, in a way more wasted and dire state. They didn't even make that.
Also, not arguing about whether they were prepared or not for such a descent - just stating that such a descent is generally not that difficult and a party incapable of such a thing is running a very thin margin and maybe shouldn't be on such a mountain in the first place.
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 25, 2009 - 12:39am PT
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did they go up becuase they didn't have the gear to go down? That would emphasize the planning ahead aspect to rescue.
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Scared Silly
Trad climber
UT
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Feb 25, 2009 - 09:55am PT
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Tom, you would be hard pressed to find a descent length of rope let alone an ice screw on the normal route. Hell for that matter many do not even take an ice ax or crampons. Most walk up with ski poles. Even for us we had a 100' section of rope that we planned to use for the Polish Glacier which we ultimately did not climb because I had a respiratory infection and did feel like we had enough of a margin to safely go up the route. So instead, we walked around.
JLP - I would agree going up and over and down the normal route would have sucked because once to the summit it would been rock scree most of the way. Had they been able to go up some then traverse over to the Polish Direct Route it would have been very fast. As for the steepness of the terrain, we are picking nits here. The more important point is that they would have had to traverse well out from the rock band with a non-ambulatory person in order to get to the Polish Direct Route.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Feb 25, 2009 - 11:27am PT
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Yeah, we didn't have any rope either. Or screws, cached our ice tools (used ski poles). Pretty bare bones.
I would agree going up and over and down the normal route would have sucked because once to the summit it would been rock scree most of the way. Had they been able to go up some then traverse over to the Polish Direct Route it would have been very fast. As for the steepness of the terrain, we are picking nits here. The more important point is that they would have had to traverse well out from the rock band with a non-ambulatory person in order to get to the Polish Direct Route.
Down the Polish Glacier doesn’t make a bunch of sense to me. They didn’t stage out of there. They didn’t have the requisite gear (especially since they didn’t come up from that side). Their camps were all on the other side. Once down the Polish, they still would have had to take him all the way down to Plaza Argentina, another, what, 6k vertical? And, that’s tough terrain for a team with a person who isn’t ambulatory. Can be rough even for folks who have no health issues. I guess carrying a guy down scree would be a lot more reasonable to me.
The comparisons to Denali and Alex Lowe’s rescue of the Spanish climber in 1995 are pretty interesting. Quite a different situation, though. And, an unbelievable effort on his part. Kinda wonder, though, had their been video of him dragging the guy through the snow for 3 minutes, and the guy had died, if there’d been a similar conversation about that rescue. I don’t think he actually carried him that far and probably dragged him in the snow further (according to some of the reports). Not that even being able to pick up a full grown man in that scenario wasn’t amazing, much less being able to move uphill with him. Record for a helicopter rescue at that altitude at the time, too. And, talk about horsepower. Those three guys (Marc, Scott and Alex) were pretty far out there on the bell curve of existence, not to mention fairly acclimated (or at least not suffering from the altitude). Fixed lines, knowing a helicopter was coming back for a pickup and thoughts of being whisked all the way to town: pretty strong motivation for going all out in a rescue like that. Didn’t really need any margin.
Altitude differences between Denali and Aconcagua. For me, I felt a whole bunch more crappy on Aconcagua than Denali. Days to summit for A was 13 and for D was 16, so, not a whole bunch of difference there, and, spent a lot more time up high on Aconcagua than Denali, as far as where those days were spent. My partner would more than agree that Aconcagua was a much rougher summit day for him, too. And, the distance and vertical gain on Aconcagua seems a bit shorter from high camp (at least on the Polish side) so, you’d think it’d be an easier feeling day, at least. Summit day on Aconcagua, pretty much burned up all the available daylight up and down. I think around 12 hours round trip. On Denali, was 5 to the top, 3 back down, and, felt pretty good afterwards (good enough to go all the way to the airstrip in 9.5 hours the next day). Fitness wise, for each, I climbed them within around 6 months of each other so, probably not much difference there either. Anyhoo, that’s my comparison between the two, FWIW.
-Brian in SLC
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andy@climbingmoab
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2009 - 02:00pm PT
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Earlier in the thread Rokjox said something about Aconcagua being near the Equator. Have a look at a map - it isn't even close. Its about the same latitude as Colorado. People have mentioned skiing the polish, and this also makes me laugh. The route is icy as hell and there are shitloads of penitentes, some of which are overhead height. Going that way is a bad idea.
I got pulmonary edema lower down on the Polish Glacier a few years back, and i had a hellish time descending in good weather. I was shocked at how quickly i went from feeling ok to desperate. Nobody who has never been to 22K has any business commenting about what people should be capable of up there, in a rescue situation or not. You just can't comprehend what it is like without experiencing it. Even a minor storm very high up is much worse than the worst blizzard down low. I've been in horrible whiteout blizzards on high 13ers in the winter in Colorado, and it is nothing compared to the wind kicking up on Aconcagua.
I never got as high up as the rescue location, but here is a photo of the Polish Glacier side. There is some very nasty terrain around the Polish, and everything looks the same in a whiteout.
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 25, 2009 - 02:03pm PT
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Rox- the three man anchor ain't bad. Actually tried it out this past weekend at a SAR training.
The snow was terrible and there were some that thought we could not anchor in it. This forced us to get creative and we ended up with a wide variety of anchors that worked.
The snow was sugar facets to the top of the sage brush, followed by a rain layer, then more facets, with maybe ten inches of wet snow on top (two layers in the ten inches)
Not saying that any of this would help the guys on AC, but when we pull tested (tug of war style) some of the anchors were surprisingly good.
Buried bags, skis, bollards, flukes, and the three man worked surpringly well. The trick was to make good snow out of bad snow by packing.
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andy@climbingmoab
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2009 - 03:03pm PT
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To be fair, you said "And 23,000 feet is NOT the top of Everest. Especially near the equator". I am just pointing out that Aconcagua's latitude is geographically closer to Denali's than to the equator. Aconcagua's latitude is actually about 6 degrees higher than Everest's, so it is closer to the top of Everest than the elevation would imply.
In any case, if you haven't been above 22K feet I don't think you have any understanding at all what those rescuers were going through. They looked gassed to me. Standing around apathetically is exactly what starts happening when you are falling apart. Its hard to slump over on your poles when you don't have them, and you don't want to sit down and have to get back up again.
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goatboy smellz
climber
dirty south
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Feb 25, 2009 - 03:17pm PT
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Seriously Rox, does it hurt to talk out of your ass so much?
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 25, 2009 - 03:17pm PT
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I agree andy as I've encountered to many times on hard carry outs as people start to fade we stand there looking at the litter and nobody really wants to move.
We've a few times had to transport a person by hand from the top lip of El Cap to the actual summit where the LZ for the helicopter is. That's a good 1000 foot gain up steep slope and takes 6 to 8 people with a wheel on the litter. You're working pretty hard pushing and pulling the patient up there.
Now at 20K in snow would be much harder on a tired crew with no sled.
Except of course for Rocky. He would just sling the guy over his shoulder Hollywood style and carry him to the top.
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whatmeworry
Mountain climber
Pasadena, CA
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Feb 25, 2009 - 03:41pm PT
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Tom - The human anchor approach can be surprisingly good as you noted. It certainly helps you get past some of the gear and condition constraints. It is very effective if you are not hanging the full load or rescuers/victims on it. It was used to great effect on a region recert a number of years ago. Raised some eyebrows but got the victim out about 10x faster than those rescuers building bollards, etc. It is easy to forget that time is a factor that needs to be accounted for. Trading speed for risk may be acceptable. Making that kind of decision can't be done lightly since the risk to the entire rescue team goes up. Making the decision when you're exhausted, cold, and oxygen starved is unenviable.
Does anyone know if they've done any helo extractions from the Camp 2 level (~19k)on Aconcagua? I believe they've done them at Camp 1 on the Polish Glacier side.
Again this is all useless "what if" speculation, but I'm wondering about the general viability of traversing and "lowering" out on the Polish Direct. If the steep sections could be managed it is likely there would have been climbers at Camp 2 and they could've assisted the rescuers with gear, hot fluids, manpower, etc. Avoiding the need to go up and over would certainly have some appeal, at least in theory. The logistics get more complicated but could be dealt with more readily if you can get lower. You might have a better fighting chance.
Not being there, not knowing conditions, and all that of course apply in this situation and I'm certainly not about to criticize those that had to make the decisions.
Just trying a little bit of out of the box thinking on how I might have approached the situation.
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andy@climbingmoab
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2009 - 03:49pm PT
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Seems simple enough to me. Make the judge dodder around at 23K in a storm for a day and see if he thinks the rescuers are negligent after that.
No one who hasn't been up that high has any qualifications to debate this.
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andy@climbingmoab
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2009 - 04:50pm PT
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No, being in very bad physical condition at 14K is nothing like being at 23K. Sorry. Go up there sometime and see how debilitating it is. There is nothing intimidating or chest beating about this - it just is how it is.
Your analogy is like comparing a fat guy body surfing in florida to someone surfing mavericks. They may struggle the same way, but the experiences don't compare in the slightest.
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darod
Big Wall climber
South Side Billburg
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Feb 25, 2009 - 05:01pm PT
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WBraun wrote: "Now at 20K in snow would be much harder on a tired crew with no sled.
Except of course for Rocky. He would just sling the guy over his shoulder Hollywood style and carry him to the top."
lol
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 25, 2009 - 05:07pm PT
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andy, if it is so hard and debilitating, perhaps rescuers (the pro types, which they have down there) should mitigate that factor with bottled o2? Rich people use it on Everest to lower the mountain, why not use it for government sponsored rescuers?
I don't know, but I assume it would be a factor to consider to avoid a similar situation in the future.
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matisse
climber
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Feb 25, 2009 - 05:24pm PT
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Back of the envelope big fat round numbers:
sea level barometric pressure = 760
14k feet is 4200m and a barometric pressure of 470 Torr (or thereabouts)
20k feet is about 6000m and a barometric pressure of 350 Torr
at sea level your partial pressure of oxygen in your blood is 100, and your hemoglobin binding sites at 98% saturated. at maximal effort you deliver about 4.5 liters of oxygen /minute to your brain and muscle.
at 14 k the partial pressure of oxygen in your blood is about 50 Torr but you are about 85% saturated because the oxygen hemoglobin dissociation curve is not linear. your O2 delivery at 100 of max is about 3.2 l/min. of course you are not at max all the time so lets take 50% of max, so you'd be delivering about 1.6 l/min
at 20K your partial pressure of oxygen in your blood is about 38 and your hemoglobin saturation is about 66% saturated depending on acclimatization status.
to keep your o2 delivery the same as at 14K you'd need to be exercising at almost 70% of maximum. Heres the problem: you need about half of the 1.6 l/min just to stand on your feet, and breathe. it is both a higher absolute number (because you breathe more) and a higher percent the higher you go.
not the same at all.
I can provide y'all with a book reference if you'd like to read up.
I'd love to stay and argue boyz but I have to finish the book chapterr I an writing on this very topic.
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crøtch
climber
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Feb 25, 2009 - 05:36pm PT
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I suppose 6 smokers with 6 lungs between them could haul me up the last 1,000 feet of Shasta.
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matisse
climber
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Feb 25, 2009 - 06:33pm PT
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rok,
I am rather late to the party, but that is not actually what you said the first time. what the hell do I know.
Write for the dumbest of the dumb, the most clueless of the unclued
go here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
search Hopkins SR.
clueless I tell you. :P
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