primate

This is such a beautiful TR. It reminds me of the capacity for good in the world. Peace to danhelmstadter and all the OGs of CC.com.

Yes, when I write 'estimate' I mean that I make the number up (I don't read them off my handy risk-o-meter). But I try to do it in an honest fashion. Seriously, though, I think quantitative reasoning can be useful even in the absence of authoritative data.

I was specifically thinking of arguments like justifying exposing oneself to mountain hazards by the fact that the drive to the mountains has some risk. I've taken to skiing inbounds when there is significant avalanche danger, as an example. If I am realistic about the ability of the parties I ski in to judge and manage avalanche risk, skiing backcountry when there is significant possibility of initiating slides is above my risk tolerance threshold. I don't ski as much powder as I would get to otherwise. It is a lot easier for me, personally, to 'deny' myself if I have made some quantitative estimates. I'm not talking about doing detailed calculations on route, I'm talking about changing my goals in such a way that my wife has a higher probability of having me to grow old with. If I just trusted my gut, and not some numbers, my gut would find a way to tell me that I could do whatever it was that I wanted to do.

This is a great thread; one of the best things I've read on cc.com in a long time. I'm very sorry to hear about Marc and Ryan. I think it's a social problem that some find discussing risk to be disrespectful of their memories. On a lighter note, I'm a little dismayed that so many on here express the belief that risk is not quantifiable and that equations are inherently useless for informing our decisions. I think it is extremely worthwhile to look at risk estimates, which, of course, are limited in what they can say by the availability of data. I would urge folks to think about what they get out of climbing and maybe look for behavior modifications that can improve the safety of the climbing w/o sacrificing the positive aspects. Equations are definitely useful for evaluating different climbing practices. The main concepts that are needed to estimate how probabilities accumulate are 1) the probability for A and B to both occur is the product of their individual probabilities and 2) the probability that (at least one of) A or B happens is the probability that A happens plus the probability that B happens minus the probability that both A and B happen. Naively one might think that if you expose yourself to a 1% probability of dying 200 times the total probability of dying would by 200%. It's actually less than 100% because you must subtract the probabilities that you die more than once in the 200 attempts. That's why @Bronco's suggestion above focus on the probability of not dying gives a simpler expression: the event whose probability you're estimating is not dying on the first climb AND not dying on the second climb AND ... not dying on the nth climb, so the total probability is just the product pxp...xp=p^n if p is the (assumed identical) probability of dying on each climb. If you try to construct the probability as the probability of dying on the first climb OR dying on the second climb ... OR dying on the nth climb you need to remove events where you die on more than one climb.

Glad you are OK! Solo skiing is no joke. Looks like breaking trail was a bear.

Search cc.com (I'm too lazy to tangle with the google); there was a thread some years back. IIRC, Lage Wernstedt is by far #1 with Fred #2.

From near the bottom of the original TR:

Bummer about the beer....

Park in the overnight lot at T-line. You can dig all sorts of caves within spitting distance of the car if there is snow. When you get too cold/wet you can head down to Gov. camp for food and beer. See my pictures here: http://fraangelico.phys.washington.edu/~prange/Timberline_small/Timberline_small.html

Fishscales will not climb like skins. But for rolling terrain, not having to deploy and remove skins is a great advantage. And you can always slap skins over the scales for sustained, steep climbs. I've never put AT bindings on fishscales but it has been discussed extensively at telemarktips. Do it! And tell us how it worked out.

Take skis. Make sure you know what you are doing w.r.t. avalanche danger. Approach from teh sno parks -- it's not THAT far.

What makes the wilderness we have valuable? Basically, it is the absence of roads. If we close more roads, we will have more roadless areas. The roadless areas we have will be 'deeper' and (from my POV) more valuable. I understand that many do not share this view--their viewpoint is as important as mine and as a society occupying this land we should try and find a consensus solution. For me the question is 'how much roadless land do we want to leave future generations?'. It's my beleif that almost everybody (and certainly society as a whole) 'wins' when we preserve land. Hell, we can always build roads all over it later!

I think modern science has found that most of the weathering action of glaciers is actually done by 'quarrying' -- large blocks are removed from the glacier bed and carried along by the glacier. The action of embedded rocks in the glacial ice does account for polish, striations, etc., but this action is not sufficient to remove material quickly enough to account for much of the total erosion accomplished by the glacier.

Nothing: I'm interested in your skis; check your pm's.

Maybe it was John/Jon from Redmond?