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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 17, 2012 - 03:28pm PT
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The real risk could be estimated by reviewing the last 50 years
Forgive me for speaking bluntly, but you have no idea what you are talking about. The simple fact that you would post such a statement is evidence of your lack of informed judgment on the general topic.
There are factions within the NPS-- and outside of it --that do indeed wish to reduce campsite totals in the Valley. And I have no doubt that there are factions within the NPS that would be especially happy with reducing the C4 footprint and even see it (maybe most climbers) disappear.
But some sort of systemic response to the Curry and other disasters was entirely predictable given the way Americans love to sue anything that moves.
It is ludicrous to think that you are going to Wiki in here and do homemade geology. What are you planning to do, kill some chickens and read their entrails?
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
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Jul 17, 2012 - 03:49pm PT
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As far as I can see, the study is based on this:
The hazard line everywhere represents the same level of hazard, i.e., a 10% chance of exceedance in 50 years.
To me this is an entirely arbitrary starting point. Real data from real accidents measures the real threat.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 17, 2012 - 03:58pm PT
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To me this is an entirely arbitrary
You either didn't read Greg's post or didn't understand it.
If you did understand it, then you need to respond to his explanation of why "historic risk" is not the driver. And "to me" means nothing-- you arren't even a fake geologist. You are a fake avatar created for trolling. Everyone needs a hobby. But this is not a suitable thread or topic for that kind of fun.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jul 17, 2012 - 04:05pm PT
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I agree with Kerwin, and others. Greg is doing his best. You can argue that the basis of his conclusions is inadequate/incomplete data, but it's the only data available, and quite a lot more than was formerly available.
As for the fate of Camp 4, and camping in the Valley, when the time comes in the current process for the public to comment on those issues, climbers need to do so as effectively as possible. Whatever the geology, we'd like Camp 4 to be re-established and if at all possible larger, with some attention to facilities. It need not have the same exact footprint - that's changed over the years anyway. But it should include Columbia Boulder and environs.
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
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Jul 17, 2012 - 04:25pm PT
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klk - I didnt understand it. I went back and looked at the report and have no idea what you're talking about. Searched for "historic" and "risk" but do not know what part of the report you refer to. It sounds like BS considering there is real accident data easily available. If you can quote from something in the report I am glad to respond to it.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Jul 17, 2012 - 05:02pm PT
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And a second request to Greg & committee:
Greg,
How much did this study cost? When was it ordered? Where did the order for the study originate?
Thanks.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 17, 2012 - 05:47pm PT
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peter, seriously? what exactly are you suggesting? that if it turns out the nps did part of the grant that we can then burn the thing in a barrel behind hank's new house?
there are five authors beyond greg (not a committee): three from two different offices of usgs; one from cnr-irpi in perugia; and one from georgia tech.
for each of these individuals, the resulting study is going to be something that will be part of their internal reviews at their respective institutions.
then the thing went through two levels of peer review (not including the original grant vetting):
"Dr. Jonathan Godt (U.S. Geological Survey), Sandra Melzner (Geological Survey
of Austria), Michael Moelk (Austrian Service for Torrent and Avalanche Control), and
Dr. Robert Wesson (U.S. Geological Survey) provided helpful internal reviews. Dr. John
Clague (Simon Fraser University), Dr. Fausto Guzzetti (CNR-IRPI), and Dr. Oldrich
Hungr (University of British Columbia) provided constructive external reviews that
greatly improved the final report. Dr. Jan van Wagtendonk (U.S. Geological Survey,
emeritus) facilitated the external review process."
Do folks on ST really believe that this study is the instrument of a fiendish international plot, involving the usgs, the international scientific community, and universities and research institutions around the globe, funded to the tune of millions of dollars, and all aimed at reducing the number of yosemite dirtbag climbers by a few dozen?
is everyone here going batshit crazy?
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
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Jul 17, 2012 - 06:01pm PT
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klk - did you see my question directed to you three posts above?
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 17, 2012 - 06:24pm PT
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dp--
i thought greg's post did a good job of explaining why events that have happened in our memories are not in themselves reliable predictors of future events. that's partly because fifty years is bascially nothing in geological time. and it's also why he has been so cautious in evaluating the impressions of many of us that rockfall seems more frequent than it used to be.
he's done that in pretty much every thread on rockfall that i can remember here, going back several years. he's actually remarkably good at explaining it, and he must have the patience of a frickin saint cuz he has to do it again in each and every one of these threads.
he and glazer have another really readable account in that section of the geology underfoot book.
i personally don't have the expertise to evaluate the scholarship in that report. and geohazard risk evaluation is a huge field right now, and he's right in the thick of it. as an informed outsider, i can only read that report against the other stuff on geology in yosemite and against the stuff that i read coming out of europe. as best i can judge, the sorts of modeling assumptions they are making in that study (all identified and explained) seem fairly judicious. the concluding language is especially cautious. if they were really pushing the envelope in some weird way, it's highly unlikely that the study could've gotten past peer review. even as an outsider, i can see that the field is pretty dynamic right now.
spend just a half hour or so skimming the literature-- there are a lot of different approaches right not to doing that sort of mapping. big conference in munich last year as the euros tried to develop a protocol for standardizing some of the formal stuff across all those national borders and languages.
i have no idea if 20 years from now the sort of work greg et al. have done in that study will still be considered current. and i don't really know greg-- met him only once. but he's a serious guy, he's obviously respected in the field, and he's unusually good at explaining this stuff to non-specialists. we're lucky to have him doing drive-bys here.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Jul 17, 2012 - 06:32pm PT
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Breathe, Kerwin. No. If this issue keeps going further, and you and I should easily assume it will, we might want to know the origins of the study among other internal facts and docs at the NPS et al. It is just a factual request that when answered, if at all, will help fill out the picture of what in a wider sense is going on here with this strange study "from nowhere".
You might need to be reminded that the AAC had a number of meetings with the superintendent as part of an AAC task force set up to get an AAC ranch or camp somewhere convenient to the Valley in the last decade. This effort at AAC is still very much underway and there is even funding earmarked for such a facility. And what happens at C4 directly effects the AAC plans, as you will eventually see. Finally the authorities did assure us that the Camp would be returned to its original chartered 80 or so sites. But today we all know that nothing has happened at all towards this end.
I do agree that we just don't know very much Kerwin, that after all this time simply moving sites into the center of Camp Four is not any big deal, nor is it a big deal to execute similar changes around the Valley. Perhaps it is a really rational thing to do. I have read the study. I don't challenge it so much as I want to know more why it has been done "now", how much the sucker cost, and how it was ordered. But we have to look a bit further than this.
Because combined with:
(1) a decade or can we just say decades of resistance to Camp Four being returned to its original scope;
(2) the squalor that C4 has become;
(3) the absurd and disappointing difficulties of especially international visitors trying simply to get a site in C4;
(3) what they encounter when they do: the absurdly short stay periods, the meagre overwhelmed facilities, the costs; the terrific lack of any kind of security for property etc etc;
well you should not be surprised that I am trying to elicit from the study people, what and who set their own peculiarly complex work in motion as it does affect C4. We might want this info further down the line as the pressure on the C4 continues to worsen shamefully while the NPS refuses to help. And this info is not secret but can be made public, one way or another. After all we actually did have to sue these strange people once already for a flagrant disregard of our rights and heritage. Imagine how could they take the "Camp Four" sign to the dump....? Hell, who knows what's next, and as I always say, "Don't get bit by the same snake twice"; being vigilant is just a good idea.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jul 17, 2012 - 06:42pm PT
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The motivation for the study seems to have been the rockfalls over the last ten years in the Valley, such as those onto Curry Village a few years ago, on Glacier Point Apron, from Rhombus Wall, etc. Perhaps there's some broader NPS initiative to assess geohazards in developed areas in national parks, but even if not, it probably has to do so in places like Yosemite, given recent events, and now that there are better tools for doing so. What happens at Camp 4 is pretty small potatoes in the larger picture. As Peter reminds us, we need to keep an eye on the ball, just in case, but it seems unlikely that this is some sort of Trojan Horse.
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gstock
climber
Yosemite Valley
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Jul 17, 2012 - 11:41pm PT
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Just getting back from a long day in Tuolumne.
Peter, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but the study cost about $90k. Most of this went to the US Geological Survey (for hazard and risk assessment expertise) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (for the cosmogenic exposure dating). The funding came from the portion of entrance fees that stay within the park.
The study was commissioned by the NPS as part of the overall Merced Wild and Scenic River planning process. We began work in earnest in 2010, but I have been contemplating a study like this since I started work here in 2006. Damaging events like the 2008 Glacier Point and 2009 Rhombus Wall rock falls were certainly motivating factors, but the need for a comprehensive rock-fall hazard and risk study was apparent well before those rock falls occurred. In fact, this study builds on earlier work by the USGS to evaluate rock-fall hazards in Yosemite Valley:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1998/ofr-98-0467/
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1999/ofr-99-0578/
All of our publications on rock fall research in Yosemite, including several papers dealing with rock-fall hazard and risk in Yosemite Valley published well before I got here, are posted on the park's rock fall website:
http://www.nps.gov/yose/naturescience/rockfall.htm
EDIT:
At the time of the October 2008 rock falls I was on pitch 16 of Mescalito. It was my first time on El Cap and I was fulfilling a dream I had since practically memorizing “Yosemite Climber” twenty years earlier.
A rock fall had occurred on the evening of October 7, but I didn’t hear about it until we had set up the ledges at about 10 pm. A radio call was set for 7 am the next morning, but as I was monitoring the radio at 6:50 am I heard the second, larger rock fall and ensuing chaos in Curry Village. Fifteen minutes later the dust cloud drifted past El Cap.
Early reports were of major damage to cabins, injured Yosemite Institute students, and many people unaccounted for. I had spent the previous two years assembling the pieces of a hazard assessment for Curry Village, and had co-authored a paper on hazards associated with the Staircase Falls area, but the 2008 rock falls originated from an area I had not yet looked at in detail.
As the magnitude of the event began to sink in it became clear that I was needed on the ground. It was difficult letting that dream go. A SAR team flew to the top and Scott lowered down to us. I exchanged a few emotional high fives with Jesse and Lincoln and began the slow descent to a very different reality.
And this is where the story becomes relevant: As I silently watched the pitches reel by in reverse, saw the seams and flakes that had dominated my life for the previous three days slip away, I thought hard about what had transpired at Curry Village that morning and saw that a major change was needed. I knew the situation that morning would play out again if we didn’t change our focus from reactive to proactive. Rather than wait for rock falls to happen, we needed to anticipate them as much as possible, assessing the hazard using the long-term evidence of boulders on the ground. We needed to evaluate the risk so that kids wouldn’t be sleeping in high-risk structures. And we needed to do this for all of Yosemite Valley. By the time my feet hit the slabs at the base of the alcove, the basic outline of the present report was already in my mind.
I assure you, after this experience my thoughts were not about conspiring a way to undermine Camp 4.
Greg
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