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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Feb 25, 2009 - 07:00pm PT
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"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. "
Didn't you just say you bailed at the base? You must be the expert.
FWIW, I've never had issues at altitude up to 22+ or whatever. You mostly just sit on your ass for a week or so interspersed with some hiking up to high camp. If I am acclimated, it does indeed "feel" the same to me at 20k as 12k, it's just that at 20k I'm going a LOT slower - 1/2 to 1/4 speed or less, just depends what I'm on. If you try to exceed your pace, you do get floored a little harder up higher. I think most with some experience would report the same.
I don't seek out this kind of climbing as much as I used to. It was a phase. The thing is, the most popular objectives tend to be very easy and a little boring after you have done a few. The technically difficult (TD+ and harder) routes rarely get climbed, mostly because few rise to them, but also because these routes tend to be much more condition sensitive - ie, summary - you need a shitload of time in your life to be successful on a bunch of them. Sadly, I don't have that time/interest. I enjoy warm rock too much and it consumes all my free time to try and be good enough at it to engage climbs that will really challenge and interest me.
Beyond that - I've found this type of climbing is mostly an egotistical hot air culture of wankers exceeding even that of aid climbers. Most of that wankery seems to center around the sole difficulty involved - altitude - ie, sitting on your ass while acclimating. Oooh I'm so bad ass I took a trail up Aconcagua and I'm going to belittle all those around me when I speak about it, even though I paid to have my worthless sack pulled up by a guide or whatever. Listen to me roar. Weird bunch of people, weird sport, weird game. A bit too much objective danger for what I got back out of it.
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ricardo
Gym climber
San Francisco, CA
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Feb 25, 2009 - 07:25pm PT
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i am now convinced that rokjox is a troll ..
good going man .. you've managed to get people to continue "debating with you for over 300 posts" ..
what a jerk off
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 25, 2009 - 07:40pm PT
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Any folks know how the debate is going in South America?
I agree with Rox on portions, they did fail. Perhaps the six guys did everything they could have done with what they had. Should they have had more gear, or a better plan.
The gear you have, is a decision you make before you leave the gate, if you are headed up on a rescue.
JLP- I too worry that there is some wankerdom going on with these big mountains.
We see tons of wankers on Whitney, are they climbers?
By the way, most of the wankers are on the trail, not the north fork, at least not the wankers that need rescue.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Feb 25, 2009 - 08:38pm PT
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I kinda don't get it.
Rox knocks the guide culture on AC but it was a guide that needed the rescue and probably wouldn't have been there except for guiding.
Even Hillary hired somebody help him summit Everest the first time.
Rox knocks the client culture on AC as if the world was separated into noble people who have plenty of time and proximity to mountains to learn to do it all themselves and ignoble people who live crass lives served by others (whom he also casts aspersions about)
From these stereotypes alone I can suggest that Rox has made an investment in his perspective and plans to concoct all it takes to defend it.
Too bad, because the bottom line remains that people just make mistakes and it's really hard to put yourself in anybody's shoes no matter how we quantify the data.
I've climbed with a lot of professionals who don't have the time to climb like dirtbags. If you knew their character, you would not dare make blanket statements about client culture.
I took my then-girlfriend over an 18,000 foot pass in Nepal once. She got tired and a bit Altitude sick and lay down in the snow. If I didn't give her the jerk boyfriend routine to get her up. I'm convinced she could have just died there peacefully. Later in Periche's "hospital" we got our O2 tested and she was doing much better than me.
Eliminate guiding from big mountains and a few lives might be saved but at the cost of many people breaking free from the real dangers of societal domestication.
People die sometimes. It happens. We should get over it.
We could save thousands of lives by making more restrictive laws regarding smoking, driving, eating but we give people choice and freedom and don't waste excess energy wringing our hands over every life lost by bad decisions, bad karma, or relative lack of heroism.
Knocking people we don't know in such harsh terms for how we imagine they were "supposed" to have acted is inviting a big smack down from the universe to show us how it feels different when you are in the shoes.
Peace
Karl
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Feb 25, 2009 - 08:52pm PT
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Another misleading factor is the video.
The video shows the group after they have figured that the rescue is failed and they are documenting the "why we had to give up stage"
That looks different than when they were trying to carry him and before they got gassed and frustrated.
Perhaps at that point they'd fixed his hat dozens of times and so on.
The rescuers, the guide, and maybe even the guide's clients might each deserve some blame but who is to really say? (If the guide's 3 other clients had self rescued, since conditions supposedly weren't so bad, that would have meant 17 rescuers for the guide) We just can't crawl into people's skin.
I'm all for figuring out better systems, rescue teams and caches and such, but the character assassinations really bug me.
Shoot, I walk by poor needy people all the time here in India, and perhaps you do the same with the homeless in your town. Do you do absolutely everything in your power to rescue them? What about the next one? and the next?
Life...It can be intense
Peace
Karl
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matisse
climber
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Feb 25, 2009 - 09:37pm PT
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Rok,
The way you posed your original scenario had a great many false assumptions although the way it ended up as the patient with emphysema wasn't all that bad.
I wrote all that stuff; doesn't sound like you figured that part out. I was just trying to point out to you that your audience isn't all stupid or uninformed.
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Scared Silly
Trad climber
UT
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Feb 25, 2009 - 09:40pm PT
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Speaking of wankers ... I am proud to say while acclimating/getting over a respiratory infection on Aconcagua I walked up to about 16k and wanked while my partner schlepped a load up to Camp 1. If I could gotten it up farther I would have been able to see over to the south face but alas it was not to be.
I now return you to your usual TacoStand pissing mach or is it a wanking match?
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 25, 2009 - 09:50pm PT
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rox has made some good points- his problem is he has said some things about the character of the rescuers.
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matisse
climber
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Feb 25, 2009 - 10:07pm PT
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only the ones since 1989, and not the 3 after 1989 that deal with liver stuff. the only thing I know about livers is how to abuse them.
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Doug Buchanan
Mountain climber
Fairbanks Alaska
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Feb 26, 2009 - 02:20am PT
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Most discussions are benefited with occasional objectivity.
So who are these climbers and rescuers in this obviously dangerous game?
Some of the best climbers in the world never climbed a mountain, but fought to the death to secure the right of climbers to freely climb mountains without having to beg permission from some self-serving mental midget government dolt.
One of the worst climbers was the first American to summit Sagarmatha, who highly profited from political support for the National Park Service, to extensively screw the RIGHTS of individual climbers after good people fought wars to create the RIGHT of the public to walk (climb) on public land.
A RIGHT is an action for which the government holds no authority to demand permission (permit, license, mandatory registration) or charge a fee or tax. The National Park Service has obviously proven that every American military person was or still is a fool, perhaps you or a relative.
They climb for fun, ego, adventure, ignorance, money, curiosity, confusion and illusions.
They rescue fellow climbers for as many reasons.
If they climb or claim to be climbers, they are all climbers. If they are human, they make mistakes.
In the mix, you get to create your own principles as a climber, and you will reveal them.
Cool show, huh?
Human actions based on freedom of choice advance the human phenomenon, including climbing. Freedom allows learning from one's mistakes, and objectively evaluate the comparative mistakes of others.
Actions based on the use of force or deception (government) retard the human phenomenon, including climbing. Force and deception create the government dolt's option to always blame the other guy, to not learn from one's mistakes.
The mountains offer these lessons. They force and deceive nobody. The climber's mind is tested against flawless logic, the optimum opportunity to learn new knowledge.
The government offers the opposite. It is exclusively predicated on force and deception, in a void of logic, reasoning or questioning. The inherent human mistakes of its unquestioning personnel, who are taught that their agency can do no wrong, and that those citizens are always to blame, compound the mistakes of individuals who are forced to be victims of the government mistakes.
Climb for whatever reasons you wish, but if you want to learn the lessons of the mountains, they are among the free mountains which are getting fewer as the insatiably greedy government thugs and their minions write more laws and regulations to force you into their increasing mistakes.
And rescue your fellow climbers in need of rescue, without accepting pay, as you would appreciate of them. Learn the techniques. They are useful climbing techniques.
Or so I might imagine for your consideration.
DougBuchanan.com
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andy@climbingmoab
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 26, 2009 - 10:31am PT
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I wasn't at the base when I got HAPE JLP, and i've climbed a fair number of peaks in the Andes on other occasions. My experience has been largely the same as yours about feeling ok but slow after acclimating. That all goes completely out the window after getting HAPE though(which I got after feeling good above 14K for a week), and getting down from 20K with HAPE is a much different experience than descending a few thousand feet after getting altitude sickness at 14K. The high altitude thing was also a phase for me, and I don't plan on doing much more of it.
People have been mentioning the experience of guides and others on the mountain. I found that it is all over the map, and some guides were truly frightening. I spent some time showing a guide with half a dozen clients how to properly guy down a tent, and explaining why its a bad idea to orient your vestibule straight into the wind. Others were absolutely world class. The experience of private parties was also wildly variable. We were on the Polish Glacier side of the mountain - I imagine the other side was more of a circus. I would not want to count on any kind of a rescue from the majority of people on the mountain - way too much of a crap shoot.
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matisse
climber
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Feb 26, 2009 - 11:18am PT
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hey Andy,
if you are interested in being a research subject PM me. I was just getting ready to post up an advert...
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scuffy b
climber
just below the San Andreas
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Feb 26, 2009 - 01:09pm PT
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Sorry about the deja vu aspects of this thread, Sue.
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matisse
climber
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Feb 26, 2009 - 01:32pm PT
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no worries guys. That dude made me spray, and as much as I am a blowhard, I hate showing that in public. So I'm beating myself up about it right now. :)
however I did get some potential subjects and that is a great thing.
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Scared Silly
Trad climber
UT
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Feb 26, 2009 - 02:24pm PT
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Andy, your experience sounds like mine. I got a respiratory infection in Mendoza or on the plane down. On the walk in I went from fast to slow to a crawl. It was actually funny cause I typically hike faster than my partner. The first day I got to camp about 30 minutes befor him. On the second day we arrived at the same time and when we got to the base camp I was 30 minutes behind him. I eventually recovered enough to move up higher and summit. Probably the funniest part is that my ascent was alpine style - I never carried a load up high, just moved up. My partner carried one load on the day that I did an acclimation hike.
Your observations on the ability of both the guided and private groups are spot on. The ability varied all over the map. That is problem with a mountain like Aconcauga that has easy access. Kibo is similar.
Brian, you mentioned not wanting to come down to the Polish side cause they were based on the normal side. You may not know but there is path between the two that pretty much contours the hill. Not sure how good it is but Phil Ershler took his group out that way rather than going back down to the Vacus. In talking with Phil, he said the logistics were not that big of a deal. So I imagine that any rescue could have done the same.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Feb 26, 2009 - 04:06pm PT
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Brian, you mentioned not wanting to come down to the Polish side cause they were based on the normal side. You may not know but there is path between the two that pretty much contours the hill. Not sure how good it is but Phil Ershler took his group out that way rather than going back down to the Vacus. In talking with Phil, he said the logistics were not that big of a deal. So I imagine that any rescue could have done the same.
Ahh, yeah, now I remember that path. A local guide did his trips that way. Looked like a neat and, his variation, remote way to descend/ascend. They ended up cutting back down into the Relinchos (sp?) Valley way upstream of where the standard approach up the Vacas cuts off. Forgot about that. That peak off that direction looks pretty cool too (La Manos, or the Hand, or some such?).
Still, you'd have to pass by that col that gets all the high winds. Saw a guided group pitch there and they had about 5 tents go down. Hard to believe folks camp there. Nasty venturi type effect or some such. Crazy high winds. Picked me up and set me 10 meters or so down slope there. Scared the crap out of me.
Yeah, big windy pile of dirt...
Cheers,
-Brian in SLC
(ps: hey Sue!)
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matisse
climber
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Feb 26, 2009 - 05:42pm PT
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Yo Brian,
we'd still like to get you to SD for a couple of days. won't hurt a bit. promise :)
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Feb 26, 2009 - 07:07pm PT
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"People have been mentioning the experience of guides and others on the mountain. I found that it is all over the map"
That's true of everywhere I've been. However, for peaks on the "High Altitude Trophy Tour", I have to say I've found the mean competence level to be well below par. As Rox noted, the typical kind of people you meet are not climbers as I know climbers. Yeah, lots of rookies in camp IV, too, but they are mostly there "earning their stripes" as Breashers so succinctly put it after the 96 deaths on Everest.
Edit: I'm speaking of clients + guides. The best guide on the mountain guiding a group of 6 fools is a weak team. Rob Hall's death is the obvious example.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Feb 26, 2009 - 08:39pm PT
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"But truely? I don't think emotion should be considered. Their feelings can run the gamut, and its unimportant, and the true depth and breadth is basically unknowable. I don't want my doctors emotional, I don't care about a rescuer's emotional state. I expect professionalism no matter what they are feeling. If they can't put aside emotion during a response, they shouldn't be there. What do you think a hospital would say to a EMT who got emotional everytime they made an ambulance call? You got to put that stuff aside. Cry on your own time. "
Come on Dude. When you're out all night at high altitude in a storm and busting ass to help a guy who doesn't look like he's going to make it, at what point might unexpected emotion come up? Do you go home then or just regret that you volunteered for a rescue where you might get emotional?
Nobody really knows what's going on inside another person. I flew to Lukla once and by the time we hiked to Namche, it was seriously tough to walk at 12,000 feet the next day. The day after I was fine. Who could gauge how hard it would be for me to do anything on either day.
Like all situations, there is probably a lot we still haven't found out about this situation. Have any interviews with the clients come out yet? I don't have bandwidth to surf here.
PEace
Karl
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Scared Silly
Trad climber
UT
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Feb 26, 2009 - 08:47pm PT
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Fattrad, the False Polish Route which I have been up takes an upward rising traverse until it hits the normal route. The route I am speaking of contours (i.e stays a basically the same elevation) around the hill before joining the normal route.
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