mountaineering

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

mountaineering: at least it's not race car driving

lol global worming

the craft/teamwork/exercise/nature aspects are all p sweet, wanting to get to the top of things is understandable, needing to get to the top of every tall mountain in the world is p lol, like how people are mad that theres a peak in bhutan that the government wont let them go up, aw

i'm going rock climbing (at the gym) right now, in fact. i just like the challenge (physical and mental) and the exercise - more stimulating for me than going for a run or lifting weights. on the other hand, i also really love yoga. i'm not a hardcore climber (yet?) nor a mountaineer. but i still don't think one can generalize about those higher-level types.
anyway, if we're going to use the driving analogy, as a novice driver without a licence (yet?), being a passenger in a car in heavy traffic causes me more anxiety than any extreme sport i've participated in. maybe this is all about control, in the end.

control and trust, i suppose. and staring fear in the face, obv

re: experience, at least with rock climbing and mountaineering, you know your skill level and who you're climbing with and you trust them, and know the mountain you're climbing (via experience of others or self), whereas with driving on a busy highway, you only know that you can drive and everyone else is a potential maniac and the road is full of potential dangers - a difference of variables perhaps.

call us back when youre up on some huge rock face and just realized youre out of yr depth

you know your skill level and who you're climbing with and you trust them

this illusion of perfect information is def dangerous

I did a p minor climb two weeks ago (breakneck ridge outside of NYC) and there were like 50 times when I was like, man it's b so easy for me to slip and fall here and that would be the end of me, it felt bad man

wasn't even rock liming just xtreme hiking

You know we climb with ropes and harnesses for a reason right?!
xps

you know people still die and get injured climbing w/harness and ropes right

consequently people who dont climb rocks die from falling off rocks at a much lower rate than those who do

you seem to be arguing that rock climbers don't actually notice that there is a risk of dying from a fall, while simultaneously arguing that they talk of little else. Assessing risk and accepting risk are not the same.

gbx's example of drivers seems useful to me. Driving is risky. The best way to avoid those risks is never to get into a car at all. However, many people see that in order to achieve their goal of getting places, taking some risk is acceptable. A well-trained and well mentored driver then tries to identify and mitigate those risks through safe driving techniques. A damn fool driver texts and juggles hot coffee while driving.

There are damn fool rock climbers, too, who take damn fool risks. The sport has a way of weeding them out before they climb any really big walls. The elite climbers are never that particular kind of fool. They die, too, but not because they stupidly underestimated the dangers they faced.

you have v poor reading comprehension, what of course im arguing is that climbers underestimate the risks inherent in climbing, and are further dishonest when discussing those risks w/non climbers

Of course, and I also know that there is risk of death/injury in many activities including more traditional sports and just everyday activities
Xps

Maybe that's because you hang with the wrong climbers.