mountaineering

i have a lot to say about this, but, to be brief, you're...not really right about most of that

Well, that's enlightening, thanks.

chill dude writing takes time

aren't 'extreme' climbers of the type who scale K2/Kanchenjunga necessarily odious yuppies?

young urban professionals? no

the mountaineering community (and there is one) discusses stuff like Western privilege all the time. sometimes not very insightfully, or with much nuance, but it's not like no one has ever noticed the glaringly obvious before. also alpinists have been derided as callous narcissists ever since ppl started walking up mountains just for the hell of it. not that anyone needs to worry about their feelings or anything, it's just that pretty much everything you wrote has been said a million times before, it's a stock criticism.

anyway, it seems to me that you are conflating "guys/gals that go on guided expeditions maybe once or twice ever" with "guys/gals that climb mountains all the time."

my friend Fr3ddie, who made that film (his first), has been working as a guide for years, and making very little money doing it. he did come from privilege, yes, absolutely. and that is definitely what afforded him the chance to even learn about climbing. but right now he lives in a 12x12 shack (that he built) in new hampshire, works as a rock climbing guide in the summer, makes one or two Big Trips, and works as an ice climbing guide in the winter (well, now he's getting paid to write, too). those Big Trips are in part subsidized by sponsors, and he does get most of his equipment for free or for very cheaply. which seems fair to me, since he actually uses his "extremely expensive" equipment every day.

(nb mountaineering equipment isn't wildly more expensive than other kind of tools; it would certainly cost more to take up, like, furniture making than it would to have the needed supplies for a mountaineering trip).

mountain guides, in general, are the people that are doing most of the mountaineering out there, and as they say, the only difference between a guide and a large pizza is that the pizza can feed a family of four. and, as aimless pointed out, they don't live in cities. many of the guys i knew that made Big Trips on their own dime worked as carpenters, or doing other manual labor in the off-season. moreover, not all mountaineering trips are "expeditions" in the sense you seem to be thinking of. sure, it might cost 50k for a relative novice to get to the top of everest, but that's because someone has planned every single moment of their trip for them, including meals, travel, permits, and someone (many someones) to carry their shit since they are a fat yuppie.

but most climbers (actual millions of people do this activity, btw) travel the same way as the "groovy int'l backpacker" set, just with heavier packs. if i had the time, i could go climb something in the Andes for under $3000, i'd reckon. that isn't cheap, but i have a sneaking suspicion that some of the haughtier dismissals of mountaineering are made by people that might just maybe consider $3000 pretty cheap for two weeks doing anything anywhere in Europe.

also i think what you're missing out on is that these people ("these people") aren't driven by some psychotic "need to get to the top." they actually just enjoy the physical act of getting out there, climbing is really really fun. and so for some, it's a hobby, for others it's a job. and for "odious yuppies," sure, it's an expensive way to earn bragging rights.

and just to put you on the spot: what exactly is so galling about people having fun in bad weather in dicey places that compels you to make wild assumptions about their motivations? or immediately assume that they're self-absorbed yuppies who don't think about poor people? is it ok if they only do it once? what if, god forbid, they want to do it again? or is it only ~really~ despicable if they do it in a foreign country with lots of poor people? what if they got all of their equipment second-hand? does it matter to you that, decades ago, "alpine-style" mountaineering actually developed as a criticism of the "expedition-style" you're suspicious of?

things to read: i'll have to think about this. fr3ddie's book (pimped upthread) is actually pretty good, and he spends quite a bit of time picking apart how western mountaineers and sherpas relate to each other. if you want to read something that will shatter your image of "mountaineer as yuppie" you can read pretty much anything by Mark Twight, though he will shore up the notion that climbers are psycho. the Alpinist magazine is usually really good, and usually includes a lot of historical stuff. i'm ashamed that i haven't read some of the classics (one of which, funnily enough, is called Conquistadors of the Useless), so i can't recommend much there.

tl;dr: "At either end of the social spectrum there lies a leisure class." - Eric Beck

good lord i am sorry for posting all that

this is where you can get insurance, btw, and it's worth poking around the whole site if you want to get a better sense of the public face of mountaineering: http://americanalpineclub.org/

the annual journal:
http://aaj.americanalpineclub.org/

after looking at that AAC website, i guess i will concede that the mountaineering ~world~ IS rather like the art world, what with the preservation societies and fundraisers and outreach and self-congratulatory publications and such. it's a world of privilege, but it's maybe not the kind i gather you imagined.

Don't be sorry, gbx. I read it.

I give global tetrahedron credit for not going into full-rant mode and for counterbalancing some of his opinions by signalling the degree they were based on conjecture rather than deep study of the subject. However, people like global tetrahedron are not close enough to the mountaineering community to know how much they do not know, and unless someone explains it to them a bit, they will have no remedy for their (necessary and rather commonplace) ignorance.

xps

also, just cuz i'm procrastinating and have been thinking baout mountains on my own lately, here's how i break it down to an extent: climbing equipment really isn't that expensive, when compared to the other stuff that people spend money on for fun. especially when you consider that some of the pricier bits (outerwear, shelter) can be used for other things, like walking around in bad weather or basic normal camping. serious undertakings (ho ho) may require specialty tools, and it's always smart to have back-ups---that said, a basic alpine rack is still going to cost less than or equal to what a lot of people pay for one guitar and one decent amp. if you are fortunate enough to live somewhere with good access to the mountains, then you'll only need to pay for stuff as you lose/destroy it. if you have to travel, well...oversized baggage aside, dirtbaggin in mountainous areas is pretty affordable, actually. you're sleeping outside and making your own (spartan) food!

this may not be true, but i've always wondered if the assumption that climbing gear is expensive comes from the fact that it is (or appears to be) really dangerous. surely if one is doing something as stupid/reckless as falling off the side of a rock, the safety measures are High-Tech and absurdly priced (maybe even on purpose, to dissuade such foolish behavior!). but, it's like, nope, a single wired nut costs ~$8 and you can use it over and over and over again. i have, and have used, biners my dad got some time in the 70s. sure, ropes need to be replaced, but you can have one for the cost of an oil change and one or two trips to the pump.

perhaps they are thinking of the cameras they bring along

taking kids to climbing gym for first time tonight

tbf, a full-blown K2 expedition such as cited by gt, does cost a lot, and scrounging up the money for a big group effort like that is a rare talent and a difficult sell to a bunch of hard-headed business folks. I notice that Eddie Bauer has ponied up a fair-sized chunk of cash and equipment for some recent expeditions, mainly because they long ago lost their cred as outfitters and they thought it was worth buying back.

btw my kids are self-indulgent and reckless, they might be extreme climber material

oh for sure, i think it really does cost like 50k/head for those insane siege-style guided expeditions, considerably more if they're like fucking webcasting from the base of everest or something.

twight on expeditions:
"Climbing used to be counter-cultural. The parts of it involving great risk still are." he explains "Where others are trying to collect high numbers on sport routes or high summits by any means, the few alpine purists are searching for a particular psychological experience, regardless of the summit, the difficulty or the mainstream. In a sense, Alpine Style is rebellion against an acquisitive climbing culture that is full of 'collectors.' Climbing by fair means is a Luddite philosophy that has no place in the modern, 'fast food' style of climbing we are becoming accustomed to."

dude is a blowhard for sure, but i agree that it's a shame that the public conception of mountaineering (and other forms of climbing by extension) is that of a wealthy, middle-aged westerner huffing oxygen while a sherpa carries all the heavy stuff.

also that is killer, hunt3r. my dad took me to the gym (a novel concept at the time) when i was 13 and it really set the hook. not that i've been out climbing since, cough, march, but i was actually planning on going tonight myself!

xp basically all kids are extreme climber material, whenever i see a gaggle of them at the gym, they're incredulous that (a) they are allowed to do this at all and (b) that older people think it's a sport, and not merely stupid fun.

one thing that is prohibitively expensive is the cost of climbing permits for certain peaks. everest is upwards of 10k US dollars or something right?

10k per person i should say

dunno, but that sounds reasonable. expedition companies cover that by charging the customer; independent, unguided parties (2-3 ppl) will commonly receive grants from orgs like the AAC or, as is the case in Europe, from their governments.

it's worth noting that exorbitantly priced permits for famous mountains is a pretty reasonable practice: local govts fleecing the tourists.

but "lesser" peaks are often very cheap, or free, and many countries don't require permits at all.

yeah, thats about what i figured, too right as well.

hunt3r do let us know how you get on, thats definitely something i've been thinking of doing with my two little guys

i wonder if expensive permits had much to do with pushing the sport towards minimalist, alpine style ascents in lesser ranges and/or on less famous peaks of the greater ranges. why spend insane money on a permit when you can get full value from some random peak in the canadian rockies that, altitude aside, is way more braggable from a technical/misery pov than trudging up everest.

man now all i want to do is plan a trip for this spring :-/

I read your long post too, it was great, thanks. I admit my feelings are based on conjecture, are admittedly selective, and were especially based on my kneejerk reactions the tone of this fake documentary/promo spot and the attitudes portrayed within, which still grate on me tbh. I love big mountains though! I went on a hiking trek via Darjeeling to Sandakphu and a wee bit of Nepal a year or two ago, saw Kanchenjunga and Everest, and the West Bengal countryside was especially gorgeous. I suppose my own trip was also morally indefensible based on the metric I'd outlined above. No matter, I don't think I hurt anybody. Except my own ankles, which were sore for weeks afterward. I'll look into those books.

also, re: "and just to put you on the spot"-

I made/make wild assumptions about their motivations because their motivations are so unclear to me, especially since these motivations push them into doing something like, I dunno, sleeping in a tent that's hanging on a sheer and sharp rock face above a thousand meter drop so that they can weather a snowstorm and then climb up said sheer rock face. Coupling this with the fact that they are in many cases courting death and some are fathers/have families sort of astounds me, so that's why I wonder. Mine is a premise essentially based on ignorance, but also formed from what I *do* know about them. Wanting an answer led me to possibly make up some of the erroneous beliefs above, but I don't think my caveats are completely unfounded. Not that you said they were unfounded, just that I still feel many of my points are valid.

also, MAN that fakey North Face documentary was shit. this could be a big part of how I came to this stance.

also, on an unrelated note, this picture is amazing and terrifying (1909 expedition to K2):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/07/K2_West_1909.jpg

gbx did u see this let us now catalogue famous people

i did! it, and the one above, are tremendous

since these motivations push them into doing something like, I dunno, sleeping in a tent that's hanging on a sheer and sharp rock face above a thousand meter drop so that they can weather a snowstorm and then climb up said sheer rock face. Coupling this with the fact that they are in many cases courting death and some are fathers/have families sort of astounds me, so that's why I wonder.

sorry if i jumped down your throat a bit, up there. i haven't had the joy of sleeping in a portaledge, but plenty of people i know have. and while it might seem like courting death, it really isn't, if you know what you're doing. obviously bad things happen in the mountains, but most ppl do alright. it's just a question of comfort/familiarity, really:
http://assets.natgeotv.com/POD/346.jpg
this looks precarious and dangerous, but i'd rather spend the night in one of those than in a normal tent that i foolishly pitched in a depression that acts as drainage. some people might see delicate nylon tents tethered with bits of cord, but i see 9 honking bolts that could each bear the static weight of a good-sized automobile. those guys are gonna play cards and read books and not once wig out about the very slim chance of their anchor failing and plummeting to their deaths.

but the thing is: they didn't just wake up one morning and suddenly feel comfortable with such an absurd position. if you are on a portaledge, on baffin island (this is a picture of The Great and Secret Show), then you've probably got a fair bit of experience under your belt. sure, they've got families, but so do firefighters and alaskan fishermen and war correspondents. i know that it grates on actual alpinists (IANAM) when ppl raise the whole "reckless" and "selfish" thing, largely because the non-athletic side of mountaineering is a pretty serious technical craft. doing things safely in the mountains requires a more than superficial understanding of meteorology, geology (certain varieties of rock are considerably safer than others), engineering/physics (anchors can get real complicated real quickly), basic rescue medicine, and so on. asking a climber if they are ~truly~ aware of the risks involved in what they do is kind of insulting, since literally every single choice that you make is an evaluation of risk/reward. "don't you realize you have children at home??" "wait so THAT'S who those lil monsters are?!"

i'll just gin up a strawman here and suggest that anyone who has ever smoked/used their cellphone in their car while speeding should probbbbbbbbbably not go pointing fingers at ppl who are spending most of their waking moments being ~extremely careful~

i mean the very existence of Accidents in North American Mountaineering, as a publication, sorta puts the lie to the canard that alpinists are fundamentally throwing caution to the wind.

that said, have there been notable, experienced ppl that have made hubristic decisions in the face of objective hazard? loads. was Dan Osman a little...unhinged? very probably.

holy shit @ portaledge

what's interesting to me is that the nuttiest forms of climbing are at opposite ends of the gear spectrum: freesoloing, and hard aid climbing. everyone knows freesoloing, but aid climbing is a totally different kind of mental illness

A0 Pulling on solid fixed gear.
A1 Easy aid, no risk of any piece of protection pulling out. Safe falls.
A2 Moderate aid. Short sections of tenuous placements above good protection.
A2+ May include easier A3 moves but is not hard enough to be rated as such.
A3 Hard aid. Involves many tenuous placements in a row.
A3+ May include easier A4 moves but is not hard enough to be rated as such.
A4 Runout, complex and time consuming. Many body weight placements.
A4+ May include easier A5 moves but is not hard enough to be rated as such.
A5 Serious, hard aid with huge falls and possibly lethal results. No bolts or rivets.

here is a demonstration of body weight placements, by an unhinged gentleman who is trying to undermine all the reasonable things i've tried to say about climbers (0:30):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=tJcvhBDxFkA&NR=1

haha just a bunch of RURPs, nbd, hahahahahahahahaha
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee229/ddiegelman/RurpBelayNE92.jpg

here is something to read:
http://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1997_files/AJ%201997%2052-58%20Hollinger%20Baffin.pdf

he appears to have something that is growing through his baseball hat worn backwards

moffe growing vpon the skull of a hard aid climber

yeah, i've seen that pic countless times, and even tho i'm sure it's just a finger in the way, it always looks like an incongruous novelty afro or something

granted i don't know jack shit but i don't even ~get~ that rurp belay- is that cause they didn't want to bolt it?

so my 6 y-o got high tonite (about 25 ft)

http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr222/Chass3ur/IMG_1110_edited.jpg

whoa sorry so big!

both kids (the other is standing below) had a great time. i'd really like to have them do this once a week, but it's a pita travel zone, and pretty expensive. renting the harness plus the wall time was $16/kid.

i'll just gin up a strawman here and suggest that anyone who has ever smoked/used their cellphone in their car while speeding should probbbbbbbbbably not go pointing fingers at ppl who are spending most of their waking moments being ~extremely careful~

― well if it isn't old 11 cameras simon (gbx), Tuesday, November 20, 2012 6:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol dude i appreciate yr passion but you realize youre just reenforcing the general perception that mountaineers are horrible judges of danger

My experience is that properly trained and mentored mountaineers are far better judges of the risks involved in their sport than anyone outside it. But they use this awareness to manage and mitigate risk, rather than reject all chance of reaching their goal. The fact that the goal is useless just puts it in the company of every other game or sport.

Mountaineers have no more of a death wish than anyone else. As I said in my first post to this thread, the best of them just get so exceptionally brilliant at managing and mitigating risk, that eventually they tend to accept risks that leave a margin for error too small to consistently evade, because their goals are insanely difficult and cannot be achieved without accepting such extreme risks.

lol sure and what would that experience be

My experience is not the experience of being a technical mountain climber.

It includes climbing about a dozen peaks in the Cascades, spending some time on belay, learning how to wear a harness, how to rapel, how to use an ice axe. I hike in the mountains every summer and I've met and conversed with dozens of mountain climbers. I have taken some rudimentary lessons in mountain first aid. I've read the manual published by the Seattle Mountaineers titled Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills and learned simple knots and techniques. I've read a great many climbing narratives by elite climbers, who tend to like to talk shop. I just generally am interested in the subject and keep my eyes and ears open to it.

There. I am sure this will provide you with all the lol fodder you seem to desire. What are your qualifications to be on this thread?

im just wondering how you think this experience gives you the insight to quantify the relative accuracy of the two mentioned cohorts risk assessment skills

i mean i would love to see some research on this but it seems p obvs that mountain climbing is prob more dangerous than anything most people engage in, i think to some extent mountain climbers tend to know this but just get defensive when people question them abt it and end up offering up ridiculous defenses like gbxs driving while smoking one, meanwhile when theyre together they reminisce over all the times they almost died, i just failed to find this gbx post i remember where hes all yeah sometimes you almost die rock climbing *shrug* comes w/the territory

this is not particularly a value judgment, their lives are their own, but the general unwillingness to own up to the fact that theyre doing a dangerous thing because they enjoy it does make me think that theres a level of denial going on

its like i was talking to a friend who does back country skiingand i asked him how he felt abt the risk of death involved in it, and he was like oh its not that dangerous and besides we all wear avalanche beacons, and i was all yeah i dont do anything that requires avalanche beacon

So, let me just get this straight. Are you saying that you have any reason at all to believe that non-mountaineers are equally as proficient at assessing the risks involved in an activity they know absolutely nothing about, as those who have actual training and experience in that activity? Because that would be kind of jaw-dropping.

meanwhile when theyre together they reminisce over all the times they almost died

fuck it. what experience is that based on?

witnessing rock climbers do just that

also just human nature

and theres a super obvious reason why people who dont rock climb might be better at assessing the risks than those who do, rock climbers are the people who looked at a cliff and went woot lets climb that shit, everyone else, the vast majority of people, went naw i dont want to fall and die, consequently people who dont climb rocks die from falling off rocks at a much lower rate than those who do

im sure you wouldnt argue that say base jumpers are the best risk assessors at base jumping

I kinda feel, man they wanna fall of a mountain that's cool I'm gonna watch and look at the cool pics u guys get and maybe read that one book that everybody reads

or street corner drug dealers are the best risk assessors of getting shot

mcdonalds customers are the best risk assessors of heart attacks

im sympathetic to the argument that rock climbing is frivolous and self centered, but the problem is a lot of things that people do are frivolous and self centered, at least rock climbing is good exercise and doesnt contribute to global worming

can win/die if you don't play the game, bra