mountaineering

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.

oops. not a response to rrobyn, but to lagoon

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

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Wednesday, November 21, 2012 1:06 PM (35 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

see this argument is a perfect example of this kinda vague approach to risk assessment, sure you can fall down the stairs at home and die, but walking down stairs is not nearly as dangerous as climbing rocks, neither is basketball, neither is even the relatively dangerous activity of cycling

im not sure why its so hard for people to just admit that theyre doing something thats more dangerous than things they usually do

agree w/lagoon here.

sure, they've got families, but so do firefighters and alaskan fishermen and war correspondents

afaik alpinists aren't putting out fires (and getting paid for it), catching fish (and getting paid for it), or reporting on wars (and getting paid for it) on top of those mountains. daily driving is not the comparison. having the hobby of being a race car driver is a better one.

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

― Aimless, Wednesday, November 21, 2012 1:06 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is not just people ive met, its the impression ive gotten from p much everything ive read seen etc abt mountain climbing, including from people itt

i mean its kind of basica human nature to believe you are not going to die, mountain climbers are no different, theyre just engaged in something thats more dangerous than things most people do

its prob not more dangerous than stunt flying or being a mercenary

I never said I didn't think it's dangerous - of course it is, and part of the fun/challenge is working with this danger, applying tools and skills that mitigate it.

To quote my climbing partner with whom I'm in a car right now, "people are constantly underestimating the risk of driving - I can't believe we're not killing each other all over the place right now, but somehow it works, and sometimes we are..."

Okay going climbing!!

but driving while dangerous is not nearly as dangerous as climbing is the point

you can have 'great risk assessment skills' and still do things that other people would consider stupid risks

not sure what the argument here is

cars are stupidly risky is a great argument against cars, not a great argument for rock climbing

you can have 'great risk assessment skills' and still do things that other people would consider stupid risks

― iatee, Wednesday, November 21, 2012 1:19 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

only if you admit that youre taking a stupid risk

crossing a busy street is risky. but it's part of daily life and people need to do it multiple times a day in order to meet basic needs relating to food/clothing/shelter. moutaineering is a hobby, not part of daily life, only meets self-actualization needs.

well you can admit that you're taking a stupid risk when judged by other peoples risk preferences but not based on your own taste for risk

it's more that you are taking a smart risk you just have stupid tastes for risk

hypothetically but generally in the real world denial enters into the equation

there's the risk of getting mauled by a lion when in the process of hunting that lion for your meal. then there's the risk of getting mauled by a lion cause you get your kicks by running though lion dens w/impala carcasses strapped to you.

yeah I mean I prob don't agree w/ aimless' characterization of these guys as cliff-hanging warren buffets but I think people can still make 'rational decisions' that most people would consider really stupid, because they rationally act on their stupid preferences

yeah i agree that thats part of it, i certainly have done things that are dangerous and i consider myself p risk adverse to physical danger, i just decided it was worth it, but also theres denial and acting on mistaken unexamined assumption bad infos etc

how it looks to me:

lagoon considers X to be a stupid risk, for example, hanging in a nest on the side of a big wall in Yosemite. some people other than lagoon also consider X to be a stupid risk.

gbx, otoh, explains that X is nowhere nearly as risky as it looks to the untrained eye, because of the engineering specs of the hardware and other equipment, and the composition of the rock and how the hardware interacts with the rock, with redundancies included for safety, and staying on an anchored belay at all times. Not to mention that elite climbers understand the danger of mountain weather and remain prepared to retreat when adverse conditions threaten.

lagoon insists that because many people deem this risk to be stupid, gbx can only be correct if he admits the stupidity of relying on engineering, experience and redundancy to remain safe, because lol, just look at it!

how can we ever decide who is correct here?

coin flip

well you could look at the fact that people not infrequently die or are badly injured from mountain climbing

i mean lol just look at this dead crumpled body, engineering! expertise!

your credulousness in the face of expertise is kind of charming tho aimless

your insistence that expertise precisely equates with stupidity is equally charming.

i have some stock market tips for you, pm me

I thought he was saying that managing risk does not mean that those risks aren't still there

was just looking on this friends facebook page for a rant he had abt people not doing ice climbing right, i couldnt find it but i did find this

http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=67521

The 37 year old mountainguide and geologist was, according to friends, a careful and serious climber. He was the president of the Rätikon Climbing Club and author of the Rätikon climbing guide.

obvs just anecdotal but its interesting how in these conversations people are always all oh yeah well if youre not doing it right then of course its dangerous you just have to not be a stupid fuck up, but no one does everything right all the time and there are a million things to be right about and no one knows everything, situations are dynamic etc mistakes will be made

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.

― Aimless, Wednesday, November 21, 2012 1:01 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like this is not actually a bright line, everyone is a damn fool from time to time

Mountaineering looks like fun.

I went off, ate a meal, and have returned with the thought that, perhaps some of this tussle is generational. Most of my direct mountaineering experience took place in the 1970s and early 80s and most of my recent interaction with mountain climbers has been with my age group peers. That predates this whole X-treme Sports mania that grew up in the 1990s.

The nearest parallel I can come up with is flying. lagoon probably flies on commercial airlines. in this he exhibits the same trust in expertise that he clucked about in my case, except commercial pilots and flight engineers are not just highly trained, but also licensed, carefully screened and embedded in tightly contolled systems to ensure safety. Climbers are not.

There was a time when climbers were a tiny group of specialists on the far fringe of the population and the best of them were serious minded and analytical types, inventing techniques and refining them with the dedication of engineers. I'm pretty sure this ethos has been signifigantly eroded by the X-treme sports movement, who I would liken to the barnstorming pilots of the post-WWI era. Those guys crashed frequently, accepted injuries as part of the game, and died pretty often as a result. They weren't exactly damn fools so much as careless about the mortal risk.

this entire argument could have been prevented if we had remembered that gen x is short for gen x-treme

but I think denying lagoon's point altogether is weird

like, ppl who climb mountains surely reckon with the inherent danger of doing so the same way ppl who do big wave surfing etc.
yes there are degrees of danger seeking; there's degrees of mountaineering like there's degrees of surfing. but you're still at some point reckoning with the knowledge that you are one person against nature

idk. I don't think lagoon's really off base, and it is kinda weird how defensive ppl get about this

shrug, I have no horse in this race though so #twocents

Just had a super sweet climbing sesh - back on 5.9, slowly but surely, aw yeah (didn't climb indoors or out this summer, but did some bouldering). I realize that the cars and airplanes analogies aren't going to win any arguments, of course. More pointing out the extreme risk is all around us. I think the interesting question is around what risk is to some people and how one defines a risk level (of death or injury)- not only by a situation but by the circumstances of a situation. Climbing gear and experience is part of circumstance. And risk is still higher than going for a jog, sure (unless you're jogging in cougar territory maybe or in traffic.)

Anyway, climbing and mountaineering is super fun to me and I would never deny the risk involved but I also acknowledge that these activities are way more engaging to me than jogging or lifting weights, both of which I used to be into. I don't know any climbers/mountaineers in my circle of friends and acquaintances who would say these activities are full-on safe for anyone and everyone.

ercise

haha on iphone so didn't see that bit of dangling word left there

ercise otm

to use the racecar analogy, it's like, sure you can put in a rollcage into the racecar, put in lil inflatable pillows around the driver's neck, you can put in a horsepower limit, you can move the spectators back away from the track, you can have a fire crew availalble 24/7, but it's still a v v v dangerous sport and you'll be safer by not racing cars in the first place!