Sad:
The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office announced this afternoon that the search for two climbers that have been missing on Oregon’s 11,249-foot Mt. Hood since Friday has been suspended and is now being handled as a recovery effort.
“One of the most difficult decisions I have to make as Sheriff is the decision to suspend search operations. I have consulted with all of the search-and-rescue experts at my disposal, along with the family members of Katie Nolan and Anthony Vietta, and have made the decision to suspect search operations at this time,” Sheriff Craig Roberts said in a news release.
Of all the thrill seeking adventure activities, this is the one I understand the least. I seriously don’t get it. I can understand the adrenaline rush of surfing monster waves or base jumping or skydiving or many other of the wide array of insanely stupid but allegedly exciting things thrill seekers do.
But putting on a bunch of cold weather gear and walking up a damned mountain at 1 mph so you can then… walk back down at a slower pace? You lost me there.
kent
You need to go, then. Do an easy climb, not a “thrill seeking” one. It’s just a beautiful experience.
Canoeing in the Boundary Waters sounds boring too. But there’s almost nothing better in the world.
Fencedude
That wasn’t really his point.
Tom Hilton
Okay, I’m not a climber (although I’ve done some non-technical peakbagging), but I have the opposite reaction: all that adrenaline shit you talk about holds no appeal whatsoever to me, but I do enjoy exploring. Experiencing wild places on their own terms. That’s the part of climbing that I can empathize with (the crazy-ass hanging by your fingernails over a yawning abyss, not so much).
Catsy
Mind you, I’ve never done it. So I may be talking out of my ass. But minimizing mountain climbing as “walking up a hill at 1mph” sounds akin to calling surfing “standing on a piece of wood in the ocean”.
If you don’t get it, that’s fine. There’s a lot of things I don’t get. But there’s more to it than walking up and down a hill in the cold.
The Grand Panjandrum
Until you’ve been deep in the back country with nothing but fresh air and snow all around you wouldn’t get it. It really is a great experience. I love the winter. Back country skiing and snow shoeing are a way to enjoy the season.
Tax Analyst
No, I’m not looking for opportunities to freeze my frickin’ ass off AND risk my life at the same time either, John.
There’s a lot of wonderful shit you can do and see in this world without shivering, slipping and sliding around some damned mountain.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Catsy: Standing on wood just doesn’t sound like much fun, at all.
Chat Noir
@Tax Analyst: I’m with you. I am perfectly happy looking at a beautiful setting from the safety of the ground. Mama Nature proves once again that she’s in charge of us.
kid bitzer
yeah, i feel that way about caving.
mountain-climbing is totally gorgeous–the views, the climb itself, all that stuff is really fun.
but the idea of being in a constricted space several hundred feet underground where my arms are pinned to my side and i can’t straighten my neck–that to me is horrifying. then add in the possibility of water, of being first trapped and pinned and then drowned–and i just cannot see how anyone would ever go into a cave (i.e. one narrower than the new york subway, which is bad enough).
i’d rather freeze to death on a mountain-side with sunshine and fresh air. any day. any day. they say freezing to death isn’t a bad way to go, anyhow–you fall asleep.
JenJen
Why climb a mountain? Because it’s there, Cole. Because it’s there.
Yeah, I don’t really get it either.
South of I-10
I heard a report about this on NPR this morning and thought the same thing.
Violet
People like what they like.
Chasseur
some ppl like doing different stuff that is hard and beautiful mystery
GReynoldsCT00
I feel for the authorities too. People go thrill seeking or whatever it is they do and they rescue teams have to spend days risking their own safety trying to find them.
Doug
Different strokes, but I’m in the pro-mountain climbing, anti-spelunking crowd.
Reaching the top is cool, but just the walk is awesome as well. One of my favorite hikes wasn’t a peak at all, but just a trek out to Lake Solitude in Grand Teton National Park. Saw a moose, a bear, lots of pretty flowers, and really enjoyed the oversized bark of pikas along the way.
nikkos
Some folks like climbing mountains. Some enjoy participating democratic politics. Everybody chooses his or her own futility.
Scott de B.
Isn’t that what rescue teams do? If there weren’t people to rescue, we wouldn’t have rescue teams, and those folks would be out of a job. Seems like an odd thing to wish for. I mean nobody wants to see anyone get hurt, but if the rescue workers wanted to find a safer line of work, they probably could.
SLKRR
Some things you just like, and some things you just don’t. You’ll never catch me skydiving or hang-gliding or any of that X-Games crap, but put me on a trail in the Rockies and I’m in heaven.
Elie
Though it can be cold, if you are equipped correctly, you mostly won’t be..
I don’t climb any more, but as some have shared upstring, its not really about Adrenaline at all but more about challenge and being outdoors. You learn a lot about yourself in the planning and in thinking through the route and planning for eventualities and objective hazards such as avalanche risk or falls, among some.
Not every climb poses the same objective hazards or technical challenges, but they all take you outside yourself and all closer to a nature we do not engage often enough anymore — the mountain on its own terms. Believe me, feeling little is important to healthy psychology once in a while, I believe, and I would highly recommend that everyone have that experience, whether on mountains, on surf or wherever. It cleans you and allows you to see, hear and feel again differently.
Its interesting that many climbers are in the sciences and mathematics..particularly ice and rock climbers. Maybe something about the physics and technique involved attracts them. It can be very technical in how you put in protection and the route to take as well as the many observations about the nature of the ice and/or rock you are climbing in relation to weather, etc.
I learned a lot about dealing with my fear, about planning to deal with that fear and about the exultation of accomplishment and seeing real beauty.
My shoulders and knees no longer allow me to participate, although I still get outdoors for hiking and snowshoeing. I would not have picked a winter climb in the Cascades, but then if you prep for it and have the right experience and skills, I could see that it would be a challenge to test your technical and judgement skills against the mountain at its most extreme.
In this case, obviously something happened that the team could not handle. They found one climber alone, rather than roped together which one would expect on a technical climb unless they were very very skilled.
I wish that many people could learn the idea that mountains present. That you have to prepare psychologically and physically for challenges. That you have to work with your team, communicate and expect set backs and need for changing routes or expectations.
Also, high emotions have to be managed rather than indulged if you want to get out of some situations…a good climbing partner doesnt scream about why we are on this route, why we didnt do such and such and I knew it all along half way across an icy couloir with tons of ice hanging over you.. you try to keep moving …
Brick Oven Bill
Allow me to enlighten.
Although her alma mater is unknown to me, Katie appears to have been a Typical upper-case ‘White Person’. Note the lip-ring.
Stuff White People Like: Number Twenty-Eight.
Camping.
“Conversely, any camping trip that ends in death at the hands of nature or requires the use of valuable government resources for a rescue is seen as relatively positive in white culture.”
See also the UC-Berkley grads who decided to self-discover on the Iran-Iraq border.
adolphus
I agree with you in principle, John, but Mount Hood isn’t a thrill seeking climb. There is a hotel on the summit when you get there for cripes sake. I’ve also been snowing shoeing on Mount Hood and it is as beautiful as previous posters have said. I have also worked on Mount Washington and while it is a much more difficult climb, it also is not the bare knuckle abyss-hang you might think. Again, depending on the time of year, there is visitor’s center, museum, cafeteria, and a host of other amenities on the summit. This is only a thrill seeking climb if, and this is REALLY important, you don’t take the weather and remoteness seriously. When I was on Mt Washington, you’d be shocked how many goofers showed up on the summit with nothing more than a GPS, a cell phone, and the latest in snow-bunny wear from L.L. Bean. These are the people who get lost and die of exposure. You can die of exposure in your average alpine environment 12 months of the year and it can take only a couple of minutes. I worked with a lot of danger-boys and girls, and I never understood the rush either, but both Mount Hood and Mount Washington are not what I would call vertical ascents, more like strenuous hikes, (extra special strenuous in the winter) but you have to know what you are doing and prepare. And no 3 credits of PE Trail Hiking doesn’t cover it.
Remember, there is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.
Terri
I was hiking in the Colorado Rockies once, and it was so quiet, I could almost hear it snowing. Aside from the spectacular view, the soul refreshing energy you get from being outside, up high, and mostly alone, is not something you can get just anywhere.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Enjoying a walk or climb in the mountains is one thing but people like these put others at risk when they require rescue services. Remember the ANG chopper that crashed on Mount Hood a few years ago? I love the outdoors as much as the next person but going out mountain climbing at places like Mount Hood in winter conditions, especially when you are caught in a winter storm, is not a very smart move.
Just about every year I hear of one or more deaths just on Mount Hood (we live in Oregon) but when I hear of a rescuer being killed it just pisses me off because it was senseless. Yes, it is their one of their jobs but I sure as hell would feel like shit if I was rescued yet someone lost their life saving mine.
Enjoy a nice hike in the mountains? Do it in a way that doesn’t risk your life or the life of someone who might have to come and save your stupid ass.
TaosJohn
It has to do with being in a place where no one (relatively speaking) goes. I know people who ski here in the true high country, where one misstep would make them disappear forever. They go there because of wanting to experience Nature directly. It’s a very human craving. To the extent that modern life has separated us from this primal knowledge, our chances of survival have decreased. People who go to these places and do these things, even if they come across to lots of us as stupid, thrill-seeking morons, should be praised and elevated in our esteem.
We need them. We need Nature. We need to take risks.
Simp
Heh, methinks someone hasn’t experienced the unbelievable glory that is the Mt Hood and Gifford Pinchot national forrests.
Hood stands there alone like an intoxicating siren just begging you to climb it.
Come on out in early June sometime and do the non-technical climb of Mt St. Helens or Mt Adams and you’ll “get it”. It’s an amazing experience, beyond words.
Mt Hood has several routes up depending on the difficulty you want. Climbing in winter has some enourmous risks that most experienced climbers are aware of. These 3 were well aware of the people Hood has claimed, esp in recent years.
Looks like some one got I injured on this climb. 1 headed back down for help and weather shifted quickly.
gwangung
Aw crap.
Had a friend die this fall. He survived a grizzly attack ten years ago, but he was hiking by himself and fell off a glacier.
adolphus
Except that a lot of these people are volunteers and have day jobs. There might be a core of professionals, who also have other things they should be doing like fighting crime if they were cops, conservation work if they are park or forest rangers, etc. But when places like Mount Hood talk about search parties the vast majority tend to be part of a volunteer network, and everyone involved has other things they could be doing.
Tim F.
Pro tip: if you don’t enjoy it then don’t do it.
IMO the morning view from the top of a fourteener in late December, with a sea of clouds a quarter mile below stretching over Kansas and beyond, made the rest worth it.
Another random bonus: pizza never tasted so damn good.
Michael D.
I don’t understand walking along a trail with an animal, picking up poop, and then turning around and… walking back home again.
Actually, I do. I was going somewhere with that, but I got lost.
PhoenixRising
You don’t have to get it, but I’ll try to ‘splain so you can understand: You know that unified-with-all-the-world, integrated feeling you get when Lily falls asleep on your feet? Some of us get that from going up high into the clouds on our own two feet.
That said, my response to the news coverage of these kids, speculating as to the cause of death: They died of ‘Mother Nature Bats Last’, which I plan my hikes and climbs carefully to avoid–because we’re all equally prone to this ailment.
Mark
I have a friend who’s a serious climber – climbed El Capitan, etc. He was always bugging me to come to the climbing gym with him. Finally did it. Bored me out of my mind.
He asked if I enjoyed it. I said no. He said “Don’t you need some excitement? Some adrenaline rush? Some danger?”
I said: “I play hockey. If I feel the need for danger, I can go punch somebody in the face any time.”
My view of the world is way too probabilistic: no climbing, no flying planes, no skydiving, no motorcycles, no getting into bar fights, no flipping off guys in Mustangs with tinted windows. Avoid anything with a risk of death above a certain likelihood.
Terri
@Elie
This, X 10.
@Tim F.
Or, a cold pint of IPA and the whole left side of the menu.
stevie avebury
I live in Oregon and will never become accustomed to these nearly annual tragedies. I used to cry for the lost hikers and for their loved ones. Now I am just numb and angry. What is it about december that makes people want to go die on Mt. Hood? What kind of thought goes into this decision?
‘On the one hand I can challenge myself like I never have before and have the most exciting adventure of my life. On the other hand I could: leave my spouse a widow and my children without a parent, possibly plunge my family into poverty, ruin christmas for everyone who loves me(probably forever), possibly take the lives of some of those sent to rescue my sorry butt, suffer extreme pain and die. Hmmm… I think I’ll do it!’
Textbook definition of a selfish asshole.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@JenJen:
The funny thing is when Mallory, the source of that quote, said that, he was just frustrated about getting the exact same question over and over again and having to explain why he loved mountain climbing so much, so he just snapped, and unwittingly stumbled into motivational quote history.
BSR
I hike Pack Monadnock in New Hampshire once a week with my dog. It’ perfect for us, 2.8 miles up and down, and it almost tires super dog out (Oma is a lab-pit mix, she gives a new definition to high energy).
In my case it’s purely to stay fit. When I started it took well over an hour to get to the summit, now my usual time is about 40 minutes. It’s a great feeling.
susan
I never understood mountain climbing either. However, I read a really wonderful book, called “Breaking Trail” written by one of the first women to get really involved in it. So interesting. However, just about everyone dies in it!
kid bitzer
“They found one climber alone, rather than roped together which one would expect on a technical climb unless they were very very skilled.”
i remember once talking with a guy who had spent a lot of time in the cascades, lived right below mt. adams, thought nothing of traipsing up it in the winter for laughs.
so i asked him, what’s the protocol on roping up? when do you want to be roped in with the other climbers, when not?
that’s easy, he said. when you’re the one falling down the mountain and they are stable, then it’s good to be roped in. if they are falling down the mountain and you’re attached to them, then it’s not advisable.
he tended to climb solo, anyhow. and, to his credit, i’m pretty sure he would have told rescuers to stay safe at home even if he got in a jam. he was always a live-alone, die-alone kind of guy.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@stevie avebury: I agree fully. I cannot understand why these idiots who climb Mt Hood in foul weather deserve to be looked for when they get caught up in bad conditions. Why are their lives worth more than the people who are sent in after them to “rescue them”?
The National Park Service – or whoever oversees the climbing trails – should have a “conditions alert” and state that they will NOT go after anyone who ventures out in certain conditions.
Gene pool restructuring, I call it.
PeakVT
People can do what they want to do, but I think people who engage in risky activities in remote areas should buy some kind of rescue insurance. The cost of a operation like that aren’t insignificant.
Sentient Puddle
I loved to climb as a kid. All kinds of shit. Whenever I noticed my parents wanting to grab something off the top shelf in our living room and going to get the ladder, they’d come back to find me climbing down from the shelf with said object in hand (and, of course, they’d promptly scold me). But come on, who wasn’t like this as a kid?
I also had the Sandia mountains practically in my backyard, and every so often, my dad would take me, my sister, and a few friends there to climb. In a way, it was sort of demoralizing. You’d reach what you thought was a peak…and then you’d look up to see that you’re maybe about a quarter of the way up the mountain. And then when you got down and look at just how high you reached, you’d realize it was even less.
Still, I can see the appeal. I guess what I wouldn’t be able to put up with is the cold weather gear.
Nancy Irving
I’m with Cole. It sounds like total misery to me.
Give me a cup of hot chocolate in front of a crackling fire any winter day. :)
AnotherBruce
What I don’t understand is why people want to watch cable news shows or the Sunday pundits and then bitch about them all week. I’d rather go bag a peak.
Don’t get me wrong though, I’m grateful for the people that watch them so I don’t have to, but the idea of sitting through a half hour of “Meet the Press’ is the very definition of hell for me. Just a bunch of pasty unattractive people spouting conventional bullshit. It can’t compare to the view from a Cascade peak.
susan
I never understood mountain climbing either. However, I read a really wonderful book, called “Breaking Trail” written by Arlene Blum, one of the first women to get really involved in it. So interesting. However, just about everyone dies in it!
kid bitzer
actually, i should say that krakauer’s book “into thin air” pretty much made me feel john cole’s way about the everest fad. there’s something weird going on with that whole industry–the exploitation of sherpas, the celebrities toted up pretty much on someone else’s back, the whole thing is just warped.
what really pissed me off were the stories of everest climbers in the so-called “dead zone” walking by other climbers who were in trouble. look, pal, you don’t stop having human duties above 25,000 feet. duties of aid and assistance and ordinary decency are not somehow suspended just because you think you’re hot shit.
62across
@Doug:
My hike to through Cascade Canyon to Lake Solitude was a highlight of my life.
Martin
I’ve done a number of 14ers (and hope to take my son on his first easy one next summer) but never in Winter. Mountains I do, winter camping I do, mountains in winter I don’t do. Maybe someday, but the number of variables goes up a LOT when you combine them and I’m not at that proficiency yet. But I can certainly understand the appeal.
For me, there’s something really satisfying about starting in one place and going, armed with nothing but what I can carry, to some other place of my choosing and experiencing everything that’s in between. I’ve noticed that campers and hikers are almost always do-it-yourself people – they like to be self-reliant. For me, the feeling that ‘anything that needs doing, I can and will do’ is very powerful, and when something becomes easy, I look for something new to challenge me.
Pococurante
I don’t get why it is the taxpayer’s obligation to foot the bill for rescue/recovery. Thrill seekers are not exactly citizens going about community business that benefits the community.
Every participant should fork over a high five-digit deposit, a licensing fee on top of that to justify the bureaucracy, and their family a bill for the difference should there be intervention.
adolphus
If we are recommending books, might I suggest Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. He captures my philosophy of mountain climbing pretty closely.
Edit: Forgot to say that for those of you who blanch at taxpayers paying for rescuing fools from their own folly, when I left NH they had instituted a policy of charging the rescued for ops if they could not prove they took all reasonable precautions, and there was a pretty high bar. I have no idea how successful that policy proved to be or if it is replicated elsewhere, but it was applauded by pretty much everyone except your average masshole day hikers. I recall some Boston TV talking head got lost because he wandered away from his group and they charged him a small fortune.
GReynoldsCT00
@Scott de B.:
who has a budget for full time rescuers? we’re talking about law enforcement/park rangers/firefighters probably doing this in addition to their day jobs. I stand by my opinion.
Dom Phenom
I actually had a conversation last night with someone who is on the mountain rescue team on Hood and was up there over the weekend helping with the rescue efforts. His opinion was that there was about a week of good conditions for the route they chose, and they climbed in the tail end of that. It sucks, but it’s a risk of climbing really hard routes with limited accessibility (can only go when there is a certain level of snow or icepack since the rock is too loose). Some people just like to do things that happen to have no margin for error.
Ian
In my experience, most of those volunteers are from the same community – they may well be in need of a rescue at some point in the future.
NSinNY
nature is beautiful and people want to be part of it and see more of it. how is that difficult to understand?
trollhattan
No mosquitoes.
Sloegin
Its usually a good year if only one or two people die on Mt. Rainier (Wa St.) as well.
The base camp (camp Muir) is at 10,800ft elevation and is a relatively ‘doable’ climb. I was in good shape at the time, thought it would be a nifty hike and gave it a go; thing is… the altitude really hits you after about 9500ft. Then it’s just painful, death-march, breathe in-and-out 3 or 4 times, make a step, repeat.
The whole oxygen deprivation thing sucks all the fun and adventure out of most people who try climbing for the first time.
stickler
What pisses me off most of all is the fact that people are allowed to climb Hood in the winter WITHOUT tracking devices. There was talk last year about making them mandatory for winter climbers, but the talk went nowhere. At the very freaking least, if you’re going to traipse off to climb Wy’east in the middle of December, you should have to wear a tracking device so the Air National Guard knows where to go to pick up your corpse. Would sure have saved our rescue folks some time this past week.
Joel
I’m not a serious climber, but I’ve hiked some. The appeal is strong. Solitude, beauty, etc. Especially given that the beauty of our glacial landscapes is rapidly disappearing.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
Actually, coming down can be a blast. I’m not a big climber, but back in the day a friend and I climbed up Mount Rainier to one of the base camps (10,000 feet) and spent the night there. Going up was torturous–think climbing steep stairs for five hours straight–but coming down the next morning was great. There are lots of big, blank snowfields, and we sat on our ponchos–or maybe just our snow pants–and sledded down for very long stretches at a time. Took under two hours to get back down. Plus I have a picture somewhere of me feeding a vole. Good times.
Shell
It’s funny, there was a climber on Leopnard Lopate’s show today, talking about K2 and Everest. And he said the exact same thing. “Either you get it or you don’t.”
And he also mentioned Mallory’s quote ‘because it’s there…’ and opined that he said that cause he was probably sick of being asked.
But yeah, mountain hiking in winter? The F?
debbie
@kid bitzer:
I thought it was bad enough when I read they felt free to leave their litter strewn wherever, but what you describe is nothing less than depraved indifference.
adolphus
ian: absolutely, but that doesn’t mean we should treat them as at our beck and call with nothing better to do but sit around like bored ghostbusters waiting for the alarm bell to ring as Scott @#17 seemed to be implying. I never met anyone in those communities who wouldn’t drop everything to help a fellow hiker in a fix, but those same people get livid and vengeful if it turns out they dropped everything for some rube who didn’t prepare themselves or did something particularly stupid. And all of them, even the professionals, would be just as happy never to get called out at all. Time they spend on the mountain rescuing a hiker is time NOT spent educating the next hiker how not to need rescuing.
Cat Lady
A park ranger at Grand Tetons told me that the deadliest thing you can do in the mountains is wear blue jeans. Once they get wet, there’s nothing that will suck the heat out of your core faster. And always, always, always pack a hat, some warm gloves, a Zippo and one of those shiny blanket things, regardless of what the conditions are at the bottom.
Maude
@The Grand Panjandrum: I wouldn’t climb on Mt. Washington in a snowstorm. That’s what these hikers did out west.
Joel
@GReynoldsCT00: To be fair, the authorities are in (by and large) for the thrills, too. Some of the most adventurous guys I’ve known are SAR types and forest fire fighters.
Steeplejack
@adolphus:
I got a chuckle out of this. I picture someone trying to weasel out of the charges by claiming that he wasn’t lost and that the search wasn’t needed.
“Lost? Me? Naw, I was just having such a good time that I decided to stay on the mountain an extra couple of days. And then I decided to rest for a bit at the bottom of this crevasse before starting back. . . . The broken leg? Just a scratch, really. No problem.”
Michael Palin would be perfect.
licensed to kill time
After I read “Into Thin Air” I made a note to myself to never climb Mt. Everest or any other above the snowline mountain. This decision has served me well, YMMV.
ETA: I have trekked in the Himalayas and saw Everest from a safe distance. Good enough for me!
The Other Steve
I’m lazy. I prefer driving through RMNP to climbing.
Will
[I am terribly sorry this is so long]
I do a LOT of climbing. I also read this blog. I do techical rock climbing, mountaineering, ice climbing, back country skiing, etc. Many readers of this blog would consider the stuff I’ve done to be crazy. But by the standards of many of my climbing friends (several of them mountain guides) I’m a only dedicated weekend warrior.
Short Answer: It’s bloody marvelous fun. Either you get it or you don’t.
Long Answer:
1) It is not an adrenaline rush.
That Mountain Dew bullshit is for shit like bungee-jumping and riding a zip-line. Some one-off event that you do on vacation and which scares you, but actually is probably entirely safe.
2) It is about facing real challenges with associated danger, controlling the resulting fear, and managing the situation.
Most climbers I meet are very intelligent people who desire real challenges that everyday life simply does not afford. Who knows why – maybe Momma didn’t hug them enough? Actions have consequences once you head into the mountains. It is one of the few situations in modern life where you are really and truly responsible for your actions.
Everyone will have a different level of acceptable challenge. Some folks are happy going for a summer hike, others go for winter hikes, others climb technical routes in the mountains, still others solo himalayan peaks in the winter. It depends on the person.
3) If it’s your thing, the rewards are amazing.
a) The sense of accomplishment from choosing a challenge appropriate to your skill level, one where failure has real and immediate consequences, and then meeting that challenge is intense.
b) The level of focus you achieve on a hard climb is beyond anything I have experienced elsewhere. For a portion of the climb, for what seems like a moment, all of the useless bullshit falls away and you truly understand life and your place in it. The future, the past, your concerns, worries, hopes, dreams, failures … everything disappears; instead, all there is only the job at hand. That experience is enlightening.
c) Climbing forces you to be honest with yourself. On a difficult climb you have to stop lying to yourself. You achieve a greater level of self-knowledge, and resulting self-confidence.
d) The friendships I have with my climbing partners are deeper than those that I have with most anyone else. These are people who have trusted their life in my hands and vice-versa. We have been scared, cold, and wet together. I have told my climbing partners things I would never tell my parents, my twin brother, or my girlfriend.
e) Holy sweet Jeebus is it beautiful. Ever watched the sun rise over the Amazon from about 20,000 feet? Ever watched the moon-rise over Half-Dome from about 1,000 feet off the deck?
4) It is selfish. You are pursuing personal gratification (and perhaps a bit of self-improvement) in a risky sport. [Note that some varieties of climbing are probably less dangerous than playing football or rugby. Technical mountain climbing, especially in winter or at high-altitude, is not one of those varieties.] Arguably the same could be said for whitewater kayaking, mountain biking, or even any kind of biking (commuting or road-racing) where you are likely to encounter cars; but without some statistics I really have no idea.
5) What about rescue costs?
We should run this shit like Europe and everyone should get Rescue Insurance. Membership in the American Alpine Club is one US source of rescue insurance.
But I also believe that hikers (even including summer-time day-hikers) should have rescue insurance. Most summer-time hikers coast-by on luck and good weather wearing cotton and without enough water. Climbers, generally, are better prepared and better informed, they just got fucked (by a mistake, by the weather, by a random mountain hazard such as rockfall). Think of it this way: the hiker is wandering around blindfolded in the middle of the road in a small town; the climber is sprinting across the interstate with a plan and his eyes wide open.
Climber rescues get lots of media coverage. But make no mistake, most wilderness rescues involve “Lil’ Timmy” getting lost on the family trip to Yellowstone. It can get pretty damn expensive to organize a few dozen folks to comb the woods for a day or three to find him. A friend of mine works search and rescue in Yosemite (Tuolumne), most of his work is lost hikers.
6) Isn’t it safest just to stay home?
Yes. Despite efforts to control the risk associated with mountain climbing, there are some risks which simply come with spending time in an alpine environment. No matter how smart you are, if you spend enough time in the alpine cross-hairs the odds start working against you. These hazards are generally called “objective hazards.” Stuff like weather, rockfall, avalanches, etc. fall into this category. You can manage your exposure to objective hazard by carefully choosing when to go out, by not climbing certain routes, by avoiding areas of mountains prone to rockfall etc. But people fuck up, weather reports are wrong, and sometimes shit just happens.
7) Here are a few quotes on Mountain climbing that may not explain it any better, but hell, it’s something.
“I find it fascinating that our planet still has areas where no modern technology can save you, where you are reduced to your most basic – and essential – self. This natural space creates demanding situations that can lead to suffering and death, but also generate a wild interior richness. Ultimately, there is no way of reconciling these contradictions. All I can do it try to live within their margins, in the narrow boundary between joy and horror. Everything on this earth is a balancing act.”
– Jean Christophe Lafaille, disappeared attempting a solo winter ascent of Makalu, the 5th highest mountain in the world in 2005.
“The truth is, I like an unforgiving climate where if you make mistakes you suffer for it. That’s what turns me on. It’s like the difference between windsurfing on Lake Como in the summer and off the coast of Maine in the winter. One is a challenge, the other is a soft option, something you do at weekends when you want to have a good time. But every year you need to flush out your system and do a bit of suffering. It does you a power of good. I think it’s because there is always a question mark about how you would perform. You have an idea of yourself and it can be quite a shock when you don’t come up to your own expectations. If you just tootle along, you can think you’re a pretty slick bloke until things go wrong and you find you’re nothing like what you imagined yourself to be. But if you deliberately put yourself in difficult situations, then you get a pretty good idea of how you are going. That’s why I like feeding the rat. It’s a sort of annual check-up on myself. The rat is you, really. It’s the other you, and it’s being fed by the you that you think you are. And they are often very different people. But when they come close to each other, that’s smashing, that is. Then the rat’s had a good meal and you come away feeling terrific. It’s a fairly rare thing, but you have to keep feeding the brute, just for your own peace of mind. And even if you did blow it, at least there wouldn’t be that great unknown. But to snuff it without knowing who you are and what you are capable of, I can’t think of anything sadder than that.”
– Mo Anthoine, died of a brain tumor in his home a year after attempting a new route on Everest
“This is the fucking life, no ?”
– Jean Afanassieff, first frenchman on Everest (on the summit of which he smoked a cigarette waiting for the others)
Egilsson
You see sights you simply will not experience otherwise.
I’m not a great hiker, but I have intense memories of snowshoeing up a peak in the White Mountains in January. It was a gorgeous day, but I had a full pack of emergency stuff. I thought I was going to stroke out going up (because I do not condition myself during the week), but the winterwonderland scenary up one of these peaks is just something you will not see otherwise. You just won’t.
lambaste
Why should you become numb and angry because someone you don’t know made a mistake and died?
Chuck
Different strokes for different folks.
Speaking of which, I’m a technical scuba diver. I’ve done advanced wreck penetrations to 300′, but am most decidedly not a thrill-seeker, just a safety conscious explorer.
Throughout it’s history, SCUBA has attracted the “bungee jumping” crowd. To experienced, careful divers these folks are known as “strokes,” as their only goal in diving (and other activities, I would assume) is to “stroke” their ego. No responsible diver I know would get anywhere near the water with a “stroke.”
I’m surprised to see so many “nanny-staters” here. One commenter expressed shock over the fact that people are permitted to climb without a PLB, another expressed outrage at climbers passing by those needing assistance. Last time I checked there was not such thing as the “mountain climbing police.” Also, I don’t imagine that there is too much jurisprudence regarding any affirmative duty to assist or safe harbors for good samaritans in either Tibet or Nepal. Assumption of the risk is the law of the jungle.
Climbers (and divers) do so in teams for a reason: they are reliant on one another – not passersby – for their safety.
I was undergoing some advanced training this past summer in a quarry and during a lecture there was a commotion with shouts of help, etc. Most of the students (myself included) turned to run and assist. The instructor stopped everyone and said “The second you even look in that direction, you’re involved.” This bothered me for weeks. I finally decided that I agreed 100% with the instructor. It sucks, but morality goes right out the window in our litigious society.
Julie
@stickler: This. I’m from PDX, I love Hood, and I totally get the appeal of climbing (and skiing/snowboarding, which are almost equally dangerous), but what I can’t understand is why trackers aren’t mandatory. What’s the argument against this? I’ve never heard a good one.
tde
I can understand climing Mt. Hood.
What I can’t understand is doing it without a PLB.
Tim F.
@kid bitzer: Your friend was being snarky, but not very informative. When you have a reliable anchor point and the fall could kill you, rope up. If your sitch fails either of those tests then do not rope together. Roping together without an anchor is one of the stupidest ways for a mountaineer to die.
Citizen_X
What Will said, squared.
Seemingly OT, how many avid climbers/hikers (and I am the latter) do you think are global warming deniers? I would venture to say NONE, or at least very very few. Why? Because their avocation teaches them that the old sailor’s maxim about the sea is more generally true. In other words, nature is mercilessly unforgiving of human error. That holds true whether you’re up a mountainside–even when fully trained, experienced, and equipped–or whether, say, you and your billions of fellow humans are dumping the collected carbon of the last half-billion years into the atmosphere and imaging that nothing too bad will happen.
When it comes to climate, we are wayyy up on the mountain without camping gear, the sun is going down, the pressure and temperature are plummeting, and the wilderness experts are yelling that we have to prepare shelter or start down NOW, while our group leaders are scoffing and joking about the guides having sent some snarky emails.
New Yorker
I’m no climbing nut, and the biggest hike I did this summer was the 2-mile round trip between Mt. Mitchell and Mt. Craig in North Carolina, but I can can understand the feeling of being part of nature that climbing provides.
Once I was out on the rocky summit of Mt. Craig, away from the parking lot and the observation platform at Mt. Mitchell, with the stunning view, and nobody else (except my friend) around, and a perigrine falcon is diving off of a nearby cliff, there’s a wonderful feeling that can’t be explained, it just has to be experienced.
But…..
I was hiking around a 6,600′ peak in North Carolina in August. Even at that relatively low elevation, in a state as far south as North Carolina, they warn you that the winter weather up there can be dangerous…..
….so what motivates someone to climb a heavily glaciated peak that’s nearly 12,000′ high in a region know for its powerful winter storms in December is beyond me. I don’t understand why you can’t wait until July to climb Mt. Hood. It’s still the same mountain, and heck, you might actually be able to see things when you reach the summit because there won’t be fog and/or snow blinding you.
Tim F.
@kid bitzer:
In that situation the humane reaction is also dangerously wrong. Most people in the “dead zone” have almost zero energy to spare and no rescue training. If they stopped to help a stranger that high up, with conditions worsening as fast as they did that day, future mountaineers would have two bodies to step over (Everest bodies are traditionally left in place) rather than one.
You could respond that most people on Everest therefore have no business being there. Well, yeah. But they are, and it’s important to understand that most of them are not Ron Kauk supermen.
mvr
@adolphus:
FWIW, many of the rescue folks themselves climb. A friend of mine lives in Seattle and carries a beeper for such occasions. He also climbs very seriously himself. He really likes views from tall places and also the challenge I think.
Myself I like lower elevations (6,000-10,000 feet) with water and wildlife. But even there the weather can get you even if you pay attention for much of the year.
It doesn’t sound from the reports like these three were inexperienced risk-takers. But I don’t know all the details.
Tim F.
@Steeplejack:
Heh. Glissading is the sweet reward for postholing your butt up some freezing hill for a day and a half.
Delia
@Julie:
I’m in Eugene. A local story I heard is that the rescue teams are against mandatory trackers because they encourage underprepared people to set out on climbs thinking that there will always be someone to rescue them
ifwhen they get into trouble. There was one story of a dad and two sons who called for help twice and the third time the team just loaded them up and brought them down the mountain.Nate
There is no hotel on the summit of Mt. Hood. There is a ski-resort/hotel on the Mountain, but not on or near the summit.
It’s a very rugged mountain, totally unlike Mt. Washington (east coast), which is really just a big hill with bad weather.
Cat G
@adolphus: You know, I lived in Portland for several years, and I’m pretty sure there’s no hotel on the summit. Every couple of years, some physically fit people in the prime of life die on the mountain because they decide to climb in the WINTER !!! Several years ago on TV I watched a helicopter crash near the summit when it was trying to rescue some climbers. It hit a blade on the upslope, crashed and dropped people out of it as it rolled over them and down the glacier. It was just luck that it didn’t go over the edge and hit thousands of feet below. And I could see the Hood from my window. It was the damndest, eerie thing. They are fools to climb in the winter, and put well-meaning rescuers at risk.
nwrain
I have hiked a lot, and a lot around Mt. Hood. I’m not a serious mountain climber, but I summited Hood ten years ago (in the Spring) via the mostly non-technical, most commonly used south route. That long simple climb on a glorious sunny day, seeing the alpenglow at dawn at 10,000 feet with the sky purple and dark blue around me, seeing Mt. Jefferson and other mountains glowing like lamps in the pre-dawn light, hearing and smelling the sulfur vent roaring like a train engine, peering down the big crevasse near the top, and then reaching the summit for the most beautiful views I have ever experienced — this was one of the greatest days of my life. I love that mountain, and it makes me happy every time I see it (plus, I stood on the top!)
I’ve also hiked alone in the wilderness. It is risky, and I am not an adrenaline junkie. But things can happen in your mind, and in your heart, when you are alone in the wilderness that never happen otherwise. I think it is good for us, as humans, to experience physical challenges and adversity, and to take real risks with open eyes. Winter climbing is not for me, but I understand why people do it. It enriches your mind, your heart, and every day of your life.
Meeting those challenges with open eyes is key, though. Complacency, being in a hurry to leave, not turning back when things go a bit awry, and lack of respect for the mountain are things that can kill you, though, just like their analogues on the highway. So can random bad luck: one woman was recently killed on Hood because she got hit in the face with a falling basketball-sized chunk of ice and knocked down a long slope (that is the risk of climbing in sunny weather, by the way).
I don’t endorse not taking a locator — no matter how isolated you want to feel, it seems disrespectful to not help their loved ones recover the body. It seems really important to some folks not to carry one, I don’t quite get that, it’s like a first aid kit to me.
And last, everyone dies, often as a result of their own choices and risks they are inured to (e.g., smoking, speeding, working on an unsafe ladder) and often through means outside of their control. But die we will.
(By the way, there is no lodge at the summit of Mt Hood (11,249 ft); that’s at timberline (5960 ft).)
bago
@Tax Analyst: See, that’s my idea of fun. Baker here I come!
Julie
@Delia: Ah, thank you. I can see the logic there. The trackers are already available, so I don’t know that I agree that making them mandatory would encourage more inexperienced climbers to head out in the first place. That said, that argument makes far more sense to me than the ones I’d heard previously, which essentially amounted to “They can’t tell me what to do!”
Cat G
@nwrain: Of course we’re all going to die. I enjoyed your description of your Hood climb, and envy your thrill. Those kinds of experiences can touch us in our very cores. They’re an important part of being fully realized humans. Having watched the anguish of rescuers and family members on previous winter Hood climbs, some of whom were prepared and others of whom relied on cell phones, it’s selfish and the judgment is on a par with jumping into the tiger cage at the zoo. I’m sure it’s a thrill, and if you make it out alive good for you. The last time I was at Timberline Lodge (a fabulous relic of Depression era public works) you weren’t required to register so that the authorities would know you were on the mountain, nor were you required to carry emergency signaling gear, or any emergency gear.
Tom Hilton
@nwrain:
This. I’ve done a fair amount of solo backpacking, and it is a real restorative to be completely free of human contact for a while.
Timberline Lodge, known to Kubrick fans as The Overlook.
Dom Phenom
@Cat G: Just as a point of correction, that accident occurred in May, which is the best time of the year to climb. Shit can happen any time. All the rescuers I have met love mountaineering, and do not hold accidents against people unless they were ridiculously unprepared or foolish.
The fact is there is always a risk involved in mountaineering, people do what they can to minimize, but the fact remains.
Terri
People who mountain climb in the winter unprepared, are the same people who will venture out into the Gulf of Mexico without a radio or EPIRB on board their boat. See Grissom, Marquis.
You’re never gonna stop stupid.
tavella
I was reading Touching the Void the other day and came to the conclusion that while I vaguely understood the sort of mind that finds mountain climbing life-enhancing, I would never, ever want to do it.
Also, man did I feel sorry for the guy who had to cut the rope — I poked around the net and read a couple of interviews with him, and it was clear it fucked with his head in ways he’s never quite gotten over, far more than the guy who fell. It was the only decision *to* make; Simpson couldn’t climb back up, Yates couldn’t pull him back up, what microscopic chance there seemed for Simpson’s survival was the hope he was not far off the slope, would survive the fall, and Yates could get down to him. And it did end up saving both their lives, if in an unexpected way. But still — you’ll always be the guy who cut the rope.
ScottRock
@Tim F.: If he was above snowline, especially on a glacier, it would be a different story. Of course, i’m not sure if the friend was referring to rock (which would be stupid) or snow (which would be prudent).
ScottRock
Earlier this week i climbed Mt. Washington (New Hampshire). It was masochism and it was gorgeous. Adrenaline had very little to do with it–really, it’s the view and the challenge. I don’t think it’s that exotic of an idea to believe that the fulfilling things in life require an effort. This is what motivates people to get up mountains, and it’s what makes them want to do it in winter. The greater the challenge, the greater the reward.
Fulfillment isn’t necessarily equivalent to thrill-seeking. There’s a big difference between hikers who go up Mt. Washington to climb the mountain, and hikers who go up to snowboard down. Different strokes all the way.
SiubhanDuinne
I have never even once in my life been tempted to climb. But damn, some of the e posts on this threead are among the loveliest, most passionate writing I’ve come across. A memorable thread, this.
tom p
I thought about explaining this urge within a person, then I realized, “Why bother? It won’t make a difference.”
Then I looked at a few of the replies already written, and thought, “Shut the F*** up, tom.”
John, if you don’t know by now, you really need to get out of the house.
Ruckus
Some people like challenge, some like the feel of working the adrenaline increase over normal life, some people can’t stand it. Like everything else in life, enjoying the risk or not, is what makes it worth doing. Climbing/hiking has the added benefit of seeing/experiencing nature up close.
Many risk taking people learn what someone up thread stated – nature does not care if you take risks, it does not care if you don’t, it’s going to do what it does. If you get in the way, you lose, if you play by natures rules, you can still lose, but when you win it feels like nothing else.
I need a name for in here
@kid; from what I’ve read about people walking past people in trouble in places like Everest, it’s not a situation where one hiker is in trouble while the others are on an easy hike down a hill. The climbers coming back down the mountain are often barely making it down themselves and the risk of others dying is significant if an individual or party stops to help someone else down the mountain.
Often they do try anyway, at times they are successful, at other times the rescuers themselves don’t make it. It doesn’t seem as simple a decision for sommeone half delerious on a mountain as it does while we sit here warmly typing on our laptops.
Personally one of my dream trips is a trek to see Everest. Not to climb it, just to go spend a few days at the base looking at it.
Steeplejack
@Tim F.:
Glissading! That’s the word I couldn’t think of. Thanks.
Steeplejack
@nwrain, @Tom Hilton:
Timberline is way cool. I used to travel to Oregon and Washington a lot and stayed at Timberline several times. One time the S.O. and I had been camping for a week and were running low on ice in our ice chest. So after we checked in at Timberline we took the stuff out of the ice chest and stuck it in the snow that came right up to the sill of the window of our room. The room was on the second floor. And it was May. LOL.
nobody_you_know
1) Why climb Mt. Hood in December?
The route the climbers in question were climbing is much safer in the winter than in the summer. It shouldn’t really take much brain power to figure out that climbing on a glacier might be safer in freezing weather than in warm weather.
If you hike up past McNeil Point on Mt Hood in late July or August you can hear what sounds like thunder and see boulders the size of large cars or small houses bouncing down the upper cliffs of the mountain. You don’t want to climb when that is going on. You want whatever ice is holding those rocks in place to stay ice.
2) Why do some climbers choose not to carry locator devices?
They aren’t magic rescue lasers. They work by line of sight. So they won’t work in a crevasse, or a deep canyon, etc. You have to turn them on for them to work, so if you are knocked unconscious by a fall, you still won’t be found. To track down someone using one, you have to use triangulation which takes time. And in bad weather, rescuers still will wait before sending rescuers so you can die waiting for the weather to clear up even if you have one and are in a place where it can work and are able to turn it on.
So it is a piece of equipment that may, in a limited set of circumstances, help keep you alive. But there are a lot of pieces of equipment like that and they all weigh something. Climbers will spend $500 to get a sleeping bag that weighs 6 ounces less than their old one. Every pound of gear you carry means you move slower, which means you take more risk. If you have to choose between 3 climbers carrying locators and the same climbers carrying a shovel, a gps and a camp stove to melt water, which do you go with? Climbers choose the gear they think gives them the best shot at accomplishing what they want to accomplish.
3) Shouldn’t climbers have rescue insurance or pay for their own rescues?
This is ridiculous, and I say that as someone who does have rescue insurance through an organization to which I belong. Here are the number of rescues carried out in Oregon in 2008 by the state Sherrif’s office:
•Hikers 136
•Motor Vehicles 119
•Wandering 48
•Game Hunting 39
•Aviation 30
•Suicide 28
•Swimming 22
•Snowmobile 21
•Fishing 21
•ATV Mission 21
•Climbers 15
•Snowboarding 13
•Bicycle 11
•Other Snow 10
•Mushroom Pickers 9
•Criminal 6
•Cross Country Ski 6
You hear about climbers being rescued because climbing is an activity which non-climbers cannot comprehend. You don’t hear people talking about how every year we have to rescue those damn mushroom pickers from the forest when they get in trouble, why were they picking mushrooms during mushroom season instead of when the weather was nice!
I do a little climbing, mostly non-technical stuff. A climb that involves a glissade is wonderful. On the other hand the fear of rappelling never left me even after doing it repeatedly, so I trust that fear and don’t do climbs that involve that anymore.
I hike alone, in snow and bad weather, on long hikes without telling anyone where I am going or when I will be back. Everyone takes risks including everyone commenting here, and everyone here can justify to themselves the risks they take. I’m not judgemental about people who take risks that I wouldn’t. Maybe they know things I don’t, maybe they have different priorities, maybe they’re just idiots. At the end of it all, what does it matter?
Steeplejack
@nobody_you_know:
Well put. Thanks for your perspective.