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Really sounding like a grumpy old man here, dude. When someone loses a friend or loved one do you tell them to not feel sad? I don’t know how you feel all the time, and it’s none of my business. The feelings police don’t have any solid ground to stand on. Empathy. Only good that can come from this type of thing. If you feel sad, that’s fine, if you’re surprised, concerned, heartbroken, totally okay. If posting on the internet helps you, go right ahead. No one can judge the appropriate level of grief for another person. All that you have to give is compassion and love. I dont feel feel very good right now, and I feel like many others are feeling the same way. Take care everyone, and I love all of you that make up this community.

Agreed. I think the general statistical pattern falls pretty neatly into a pattern where technical difficulty * objective hazards * repetition = increasing mortality, but there are enough noteworthy exceptions to the pattern to preclude any of us knowing how our particular coin-flips are going to turn out, much less that dialing our risk back to a particular level is going to guarantee that we die peacefully in our beds at an advanced age. Renotto Cassaratto (sp?) falling into a crevasse within view of basecamp after descending K2, Daryl Hatten falling out of a tree, Mugs Stump, Goran Kropp, are just the first few and I'm sure there are plenty more. My Dad wasn't a risk-taker, and action-sports had zero appeal to him. He did, however, have principles that he was determined to live by despite the fact that doing so entailed certain risks. He loved to jog, and it brought him a profound sense of peace and fulfillment. He also had atrial fibrilation and a pacemaker, and knew that physical activity above and beyond a particular threshold would elevate the risk of heart attack, etc. He also knew that an arrythmia or coagulopathy, or some combination of the two, could potentially strike him down while watching TV. So he kept jogging, and about 18 months ago he sustained some kind of a cardiac arrest while jogging on the Sound To Narrows, fell and broke his skull on the concrete and sustained a massive TBI. He spent the next several months hovering between a coma and a vegetative state where he could open his eyes and that was about it. Ultimately, his body was beginning to deteriorate so terribly that my Mother finally agreed that it was time to let him go. His accident happened three weeks before our youngest daughter and his final grandchild was born. Our oldest was four at the time and loved her Papa as much as anyone can love anything in the universe. He had an awful lot to live for, and it's possible that if he'd been able to accept a life where he'd never exert himself out of fear of overtaxing his heart that he could have lived many more years. But he couldn't. Our family suffered terribly as a result of his accident. Watching someone persist in limbo between death and consciousness for months is many orders of magnitude worse than someone simply dying. I was never sure if he understood the risks that I took, which despite being completely prosaic in the world of outdoor sports, always seemed completely bewildering to my parents. On some level, I think they both understood, and never held it against me. When he refused to stop being active - I understood, and I never held it against him. Even though I would never take the risks that folks pushing the boundaries take on, on some level - I understand their choices. You can do that, and mourn their passing even when you are at the epicenter of the grief their death causes.

-I think that there's just something hard wired-in us to be impressed by, and applaud, accomplishments that transcend the limits of what most humans are capable of. That's particularly true when you have the first-hand knowledge necessary to appreciate the level of skill, talent, etc required for a particular achievement. That's true of many domains in particular, but alpine climbing at a high level requires so many capacities that people admire - skill, athleticism, determination, resourcefulness, mastery of fear, etc, etc, etc - that a certain amount of attention and praise is inevitable whenever someone starts putting up routes beyond a particular threshold. I also think climbing falls into a sort of grey zone where it isn't always easy to distinguish between and undertaking that's foolhardy and suicidal versus something where skill, experience, etc can largely mitigate the risk of death. At least that's why it seems to me that people tend to respond differently to the news that someone perished base-jumping or proximity-wingsuit-flying versus taking on an alpine route that's at the limits of what people are capable of. -When I read Bob's comments I can't help but wonder if part of what we're seeing is some Eastern Block psychology on display. I've often detected an air of resignation and fatalism from folks hailing from Eastern Europe with regards to death, risk, suffering, etc. More than one Russian I've chatted with has commented on what seems like a sort of naive, childlike optimism about risk amongst Americans in particular. "Life is hard, suffering is certain, and an early death is a predictable outcome of tempting fate. No sense in pretending otherwise." Not terribly surprising when you contemplate the history of that region over the past few centuries, but it certainly stands in stark contrast to the default settings that our culture imbues in most Americans. Might also be the reason why Eastern Block folks in general, and Poles in particular seem to have a virtual monopoly on Alpine routes that require immense amounts of risk and suffering. If the universe is geared to guarantee suffering and pain, why not gt your helping in the Himalaya? How many non EB folks were in on first winter ascents of 8,000 foot peaks? IIRC it was almost exclusively Poles, no?

Having lost many friends in the mountains only one really surprised me. That was Alex Lowe, not because he died in the mountains but because it was an exploratory walkabout with a big ass avalanche. Not what I would have expected. Others been been more of wrong place wrong time - rock or ice fall. While others have been because of a lapse in judgment. Those are the hardest. Everyone pushes their own envelope and regardless of the size of the envelope shit can and will happen.

I haven't seen surprise -- but why not act concerned? Should we not be concerned?

Pyramid is a mellow walk up the south side after you wrap around from the climber's path. Quite a grunt in a day, but doable. Don't overlook Sourdough. It's a great outing that doesn't have anyone on it in the snowy time of year. A steep snowy hike pretty much. Also, Davis Peak can be done without rope. There is a steep step that you may not like, depending on your comfort level. All of the above have avalanche issues in the winter/spring so be careful!