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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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May 25, 2013 - 11:57pm PT
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We are all interested in avoiding unnecessary bolting, but perhaps if the climbing culture in the Valley were more amenable to it, a bolt could have been placed on the main face, thus avoiding the need to place protection inside a dangerously loose flake.
I am indulging in hindsight of course, but possibly a number of others have used the flake previously, thought it hazardous, but were unwilling to place a bolt due to the fear of being pounced on by peers for over bolting. Of course, there may be other safe options for those moves besides a bolt, but if not, put in a bolt.
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Lambone
Big Wall climber
Ashland, Or
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May 26, 2013 - 12:40am PT
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^^^I'd be more inclined to believe that most people actually avoided that chunk of rock completely by climbing around it to the left.
You can see my partner's pro in the pic I posted. You can see the block up to the right, he didn't go anywhere near it.
Not trying to judge Mason's or anyone's actions. Just saying that the notion that every climber who's done Muir Wall has climbed through that deadly block may not exactly be accurate.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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May 26, 2013 - 12:59am PT
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Exactly, L-bone.
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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May 26, 2013 - 01:53am PT
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Matt Lambert and Peter Haan: So easy to judge my choices or Mason's from comfort of your laptop, isn't it?
To Mason's family: I am so, so, so sorry for loss, and am sorry if the picture that I shared made it any worse. I posted my picture feeling vulnerable for having been in the same place and not remembering all that went into my choices, though I do remember some of it. If it had seemed doable or safer for me to go up that grassy crack without using my hammer, I have to think that I would have done that. Maybe I just didn't see it, or maybe I couldn't reach. Maybe the stuff out right (and not in the line of the belay ledge and belayer) seemed more solid on the "C1" pitch in person than it did in my picture. I honestly don't remember.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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May 26, 2013 - 02:05am PT
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If you are a climber you have no choice but to answer the call and if not for luck and grace there go everyone of us a thousand times over
That is the truth. Often we try to find ways to rationalize that a mistake occurred, one we would not have made or did not make in a similar or same circumstance. But the fact is we all have made mistakes and if we are here typing then we were lucky. Harder to accept is the fact that no mistake might be made and yet tragedy can result. Same difference though and we are all susceptible either way.
I will be somewhat more careful about blocks that seem secure I suppose. But how far can one take that without bolting everything? Shall I avoid the boot flake? Shall I switch to hauling on dynamic line so that I might have the privilege of taking a 400 foot ride to the end? While in some instances that might save my life I still find it one of the least of my worries .. so far down the list as to be akin to worrying about hantavirus from sleeping at camp 6. (hepatitus might be a real worry though)
Hey where is Brutus's disclaimer? In case some folks might not have noticed, this climbing thing is dangerous. Nothing you do or don't do can change that at the most basic level.
For me I will take this lesson from this tragedy. We have an amazing community, good friends and a wonderful way to live. I will be careful but not too careful. I will take the opportunity to be as happy as Mason so clearly was as he LIVED.
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dugillian
Trad climber
Vancouver
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May 26, 2013 - 02:15am PT
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So very sad! Thank you for sharing your story. Condolences to Mason's family and friends.
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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May 26, 2013 - 09:21am PT
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I duuno know who in their right mind be slinging huge loose looking flakes right above their belayer...
I have.
The black diorite on El Cap is full of loose crap. I ran slings around the loose flakes and tied them off. It prevented my rope from knocking the flakes loose right onto my partner.
Christ, the black diorite pitch right above Camp 4 was scary as hell, all kinds of loose flakes sticking out right above the belayer. I wasn't about to go gardening on the Nose during the height of wall season, so I slung the blocks and tied them off to keep them from getting knocked loose by my rope.
And I have to confess that I've placed bolts in order to avoid touching big, loose blocks hanging out of cracks.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Potemkin Village
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May 26, 2013 - 09:44am PT
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slr, what you say in your post seems like an altogether different context.
melissa, I wish you hadn't done that. This is a valuable thread and now it's lost some consistency on a very important aspect.
(EDIT: oh no worries, image preserved elsewhere, provided they don't delete, to each their own, I guess.)
riley, well put.
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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May 26, 2013 - 09:49am PT
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what you say in your post seems like an altogether different context
I know
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go-B
climber
Hebrews 1:3
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May 26, 2013 - 10:01am PT
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Yes, condolences to Mason's family and friends, and especially to you Marc and may you get some restful sleep!
Accidents happen with dire consequences all the time and sometimes when the ball is set in motion it is beyond our control to change course, or even see it coming!
Don't forget you can use your haul line for double rope technique if you think you need it, climbing expando, around sharp edges, shorten the fall, or for rope drag, although no one would have used it here!
God give us peace!
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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May 26, 2013 - 12:19pm PT
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I think in these vulnerable issues it is normal to try and assign blame or to feel guilty about this or that but the fact is, adventure sports are not safe, at all. We all know the risks going in. They're part of what attract many of us in the first place. Sadly, we're all not going to make it through. That's how the game has played out since man first ventured from the cave. It's the irreducible brute element, and no amount of talking and bolting and regret can ever erase it entirely from our experience.
JL
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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May 26, 2013 - 12:24pm PT
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Johno, all true. Every now and then, climbing has to eat one of its own, as do all the other extreme sports and arts. It is inherent.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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May 26, 2013 - 02:25pm PT
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We've collectively yarded on tens of thousands of loose blocks and flakes. We hit them with the heels of our hands, kick them with our feet, observe the motion, listen to the sound, and make a judgement. It's not exactly an engineering survey. The process only really identifies the most precarious features. For the rest, we shrug, mutter to ourselves that it is probably ok, and then weight the feature or place some pro behind it. Most of us have done this over and over, which may convince us that we actually know what we are doing, whereas in reality we are just benefiting from favorable rolls of the dice.
My personal count is two holds snapped off while soloing---in each case only a desperate, tenuous, and highly improbable recovery kept me from going to the deck---and one incredibly extreme incident wrestling with a large air-conditioner size chockstone that dropped into my lap in a chimney. I've done, I think, four climbs using major features that have since fallen off; those features were heavily pulled on and used for protection by all the ascenders.
As the years have gone by and the close calls have mounted, I've become increasingly wary of loose stuff. There's a climb in the Gunks with an obvious loose flake, covered with chalk from being used by others, that I resolutely refused to touch, at the expense of adding a grade to the route. That flake is now gone, as far as I know without taking anyone with it.
Mason's death is a terrible and sad reminder that our skill and experience is not always enough to control nature's vagaries. I agree that risk is an intrinsic part of the appeal of adventure climbing, but the appeal comes from our ability to neutralize risks with skill, cunning, and self-control. The trouble is that we don't always succeed, and even when we do we may be mistaking good luck for evidence of our ability to control our environment.
In the aftermath of these tragedies, it often seems like the climbing endeavor can't possibly be worth these devastating losses. But for most of us, to quote Barry Corbet a few days after Jake Breitenbach was killed on Mount Everest, "I, at least, am experiencing the return of the desire to climb."
My heartfelt sympathies to Mason's family, who have lost two children to the mountains. And my most fervent wishes for the rest of us---knowing that we will continue to venture forth---for favorable rolls of those dice.
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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May 26, 2013 - 06:26pm PT
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Stranger, stranger, lover of unreachable heights, why dwell you among the summits where eagles build their nests?
Why seek you the unattainable?
What storms would you trap in your net,
And what vaporous birds do you hunt in the sky?
Come and be one of us.
Descend and appease your hunger with our bread and quench your thirst with our wine."
In the solitude of their souls they said these things;
But were their solitude deeper they would have known that I sought but the secret of your joy and your pain,
And I hunted only your larger selves that walk the sky.
But the hunter was also the hunted:
For many of my arrows left my bow only to seek my own breast.
And the flier was also the creeper;
For when my wings were spread in the sun their shadow upon the earth was a turtle.
And I the believer was also the doubter;
For often have I put my finger in my own wound that I might have the greater belief in you and the greater knowledge of you.
And it is with this belief and this knowledge that I say,
You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields.
That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind.
It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for safety,
But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether.
If this be vague words, then seek not to clear them.
Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end,
And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning.
Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal.
And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay?
This would I have you remember in remembering me:
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones?
And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt that building your city and fashioned all there is in it?
Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound.
But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well.
The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it,
And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it.
And you shall see
And you shall hear.
Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf.
For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things,
And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light.
After saying these things he looked about him, and he saw the pilot of his ship standing by the helm and gazing now at the full sails and now at the distance.
And he said:
Patient, over-patient, is the captain of my ship.
The wind blows, and restless are the sails;
Even the rudder begs direction;
Yet quietly my captain awaits my silence.
And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater sea, they too have heard me patiently.
Now they shall wait no longer.
I am ready.
The stream has reached the sea, and once more the great mother holds her son against her breast.
Fare you well, people of Orphalese.
This day has ended.
It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own tomorrow.
What was given us here we shall keep,
And if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver.
Forget not that I shall come back to you.
A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body.
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.
Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.
So saying he made a signal to the seamen, and straightaway they weighed anchor and cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they moved eastward.
And a cry came from the people as from a single heart, and it rose the dusk and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting.
Only Almitra was silent, gazing after the ship until it had vanished into the mist.
And when all the people were dispersed she still stood alone upon the sea-wall, remembering in her heart his saying,
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me."
from "The Farewell" by Kahlil Gibran
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SCseagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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May 27, 2013 - 12:28pm PT
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Memorial Day bump
Susan
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landcruiserbob
Trad climber
PUAKO, BIG ISLAND Kohala Coast
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May 27, 2013 - 03:15pm PT
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Isn't climbing about the unknown?
Rest brother
Aloha and be well
RG
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Hoots
climber
Toyota Tacoma
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May 28, 2013 - 02:43pm PT
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After I heard about this I looked through some photos that Tom took of our ascent around this time last year, and found this one with the belay, and that gnarly block sitting right at my feet. The block that pulled is just out of view inside the corner. I do believe that block was well off route, and most people have and will continue to easily avoid it to the left, but being heads up about the block just getting to that belay is still quite important.
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michael robison
Social climber
columbia falls montana
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May 29, 2013 - 10:44am PT
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Realize that each individual person does make a difference because one person influences the next and so on until everyone has been influenced by each other and that, in the end, is what makes up our country, our humanity, and our lives, Mason Robison's journals,
See ya all in oct
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Kalispell, Montana
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May 29, 2013 - 11:21am PT
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Hi Michael,
Sorry for your loss and sorry I missed you on Saturday at Cfalls.
What's going on in October?
Arne Boveng
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michael robison
Social climber
columbia falls montana
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May 29, 2013 - 11:33am PT
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Headed to Yosemite for 10 days Starting on oct. 1st. My parents have never been there. Anyone is welcome to meet us their. I'll know more later Cheers to all
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