genepires

well of course it would be near impossible to make a even half decent number, I think that if one looks through any or all of the Accidents in North America Mountaineering, pretty much all of them detail the lack of judgement that lead to the accident. I don't really want to speak for Bob, but I can remember a lot of bad decisions were good luck prevented me from a true accident. And one time were bad decision and lack of good luck (bad luck?) were it went bad. In that case though, good luck prevented me from death so I guess it is all good luck too? my head hurts.

yeah in select climb but n face shuksan is great steep snow climb in spring. i guess you may need to define what a steep snow climb means? how steep? and how long? n face maude is another. even in summer time. when the north cascade hwy gets open, there are plenty of nice snow gulleys to go up. One being the gulley that splits the north side of whistler peak. it is real obvious when climbing in the liberty bell group. not sure the name of the route on whistler as I don't have my guidebook here. But it is a real nice snow climb to the ridgeline, then a small bit of manky rock (3rd class) to the main face and summit. we descended the same way up. also, if looking for smaller objectives, I had good luck just going into snoq pass and wandering around till you find something worth doing. Seem to remember there being some gulleys in pineapple basin above source lake. North facing side of course. just get off these spring snow climbs before the sun beats down on the snow pack. Big wet point release slides came down on the north couloir of colchuck on us and it was not even late in day but the sun was beating on this one small slab all morning.

I think if you look at the total number of solo climbs where they came back safe (quit possibly thousands for those two) vs the number of hard alpine climbs before succumbing to the mountains, then soloing rock climbs looks "safer". for them anyways. I would die soloing a 5.9.

my goal was never to come up with a actual number to frighten people but to simply make us aware of how something a small as 1% (which most people would call "safe") as being dangerous over time and to encourage a more conservative methodology to rappels. (which I did become a victim of once) I guess the same idea can apply to alpine climbs too.

there are 2 (at least) problems with using binomial dist 1- that the probability for all trials must stay the same. You see it in the p^k part. If the event is for death, then obviously the prob of death can not stay the same after a preceeding death. it goes to 100% 2- the overall probablility is the sum of every possible event combination. That is seen in the (n!/(k!*(n-k)!) part. so for k=1 in 10 trials, there is only 10 ways to arrange 1 out of 10. but for k=2, there are 45 ways to get pairs out of 10 trials. once again, how to you get 2 deaths? Well, the natural question is just pick k=1 right? there is a problem with that too. getting to basic part of binomial dist is that P(0) + P(1) + P(2) + P(3) + ........ P(n-1) + P(n) = 1 there is no getting around this when you figure out P(1) for small amount of trials it looks good but when n gets large, the prob levels out and actually decreases slightly. what is happening is that the other P(other than 1) starts to accumulate and amount to a significant amount. It becomes unlikely to have just 1 event and more likely to get 2 or more. Once again, how to you die 4 times? well the next logical step is to say just look at P(0) and subtract that from 1. Same problem as above. we are applying the binomial distribution method to something that is not binomial. it requires a distribution that is not binomial and I have no idea how to do that. My meager BS math degree didn't go that far in probability. But I know enough to know I don't know enough.

it may not be fun but is this the media that promotes risky behavior? I blame it all on Red Bull and their 10,000 hours of bad ass videos I have wasted time on. I wonder if looking at heuristic traps as a way to evaluate whether we are taking risk for the wrong reasons? Usually for avalanche decision but it may apply to climbing in general with a little tweeking. For those not familiar, the way to remember is FACETS F familiarity, we may take on more risk in familiar locations A acceptance, impress others in group. C consistency, being stubborn and not changing plans when new info arises E expert halo, assuming that someone else with more experience will make the right choices. T first tracks, more about scarsity of routes or terrain. Maybe when all the well protected trad lines are full, one may jump on a x rated route S social acceptance

Agreed but this may be the media that makes hero’s of excessive dangerous actors? The question is, do these kinds of video promote regular folk to pursue as well? Does it encourage skilled climbers to go too far too often? I kinda don’t think so but I suppose if only 1% were influenced, then we would have thousands of people doing crazy shite.

is this the applause of risk Bob speaks off. that is some cray cray ski/boarding

you actually can't use that calculator that Rad links to as it allows for all possible combinations. In the context of rappelling accidents, you may get a couple accidents if lucky but definately not to the extent that the binomial prob method used in that calculator. For example, the prob of an accident in ALL trials is added into the mix. hardly realistic. the real solution is quit difficult to figure out with my meager math skills. but the calc does show a improvement of 1% vs .1%, 100% of failure over time vs 65% failure over time. fun times talking about death.

originally this thought to quantify risk came to me after I had my rappel failure at index. My thinking was that we all feel fine with a act that is 99% safe. If I were to offer you a gamble where If you won with a 99% chance to receive something positive and a 1% of something negative, I feel most people would take it. 99% safety feels safe but in reality and over time, your 1% will catch up you. My goal was to not suggest that anyone stop climbing but to encourage that we pursue reducing that chance to .1%. Keep safety at forefront and be ever vigilant for along climbing career. A 1% failure rate at rappels in unacceptable in the long run. as seen by my accident. and so many others.

I question whether we can blame the media for applauding risk taking. While certainly one can point to examples of such, I feel that the majority of media may not. While it is tedious to try and quantify every media in this case, let us look at just one, such as our most substantive and popular Rock and Ice magazine. In this months issue, there are interviews with safe sport climbers and dare say "normal people". They have a long running column of My Epics that highlights people's mistakes and the pain that follows. They also have an accident analysis like Accident in north america mountaineering. With my short memory, I can't remember a single written media that glorified (yes some reporting but not glorify and suggest we all follow) a crazy dangerous act. Tons of articles of peoples death.. And regarding Honnold's elcap solo, are we suggesting that the magazine should scold him for doing such a thing or simply report that the climb was done? I feel like it is easy to remember the few examples of maybe glorification but forget the thousands of examples of supporting safety and positive education regarding climbing. Now the videos could be completely different.

My question makes it a bit more complicated than your scenario. I asked a math professor and got a good answer but I did not fully understand at the time. My question is what is the chance of the event (death) happening at some point in X trials. So it is the chance of death on first try plus second on and on till X times but also negating the future possibilities after the death event. Nothing simple about it. 😀

for a while I have been trying to figure out the mathematics with a probability of risk. Seems simple enough to figure but there is a issue I have yet to figure out. My question is what is the probability of an event (death) when there is a 1% chance of occuring every day over X number of days. The sticking point is that experiment ends when the event occurs. But as X gets large, your probability gets to be scary large. I need to consult a working mathematician. this is kinda getting to what Bob is talking about. realize that risk over time will get us killed.

this is the key point that Robert is trying to make. Maybe he could have made it in a different tone but that is his style. But the message about being surprised is something worth considering. Been in the game long enough to know that the rolling the dice long enough yields snake eyes once in a while. My friends and I usually pick less audacous objectives and still have had several close calls. I can't imagine the mathematics working against senior world class alpinists. I am more surprised by the ones that make it into old age. Messner, Lowe and Bridwell are examples. Not sure how we could change things and that maybe the job on reigning in excessive risk taking is best left to friends and family? As said earlier, it appears that people don't take risks for public approval. I knew a couple of men who did climb for the approval of others but gave up when they realized how stupid that was. I was personally worried that things were going kinda extreme or him when reading about his winter solos on slesse. Only met Marc once and he is (staying positive) a very nice kid/man.

??? did something happen out there recently?

what is that used outdoor sports store in fremont? second ascent? I seem to remember them having a lot of used boots.

I think they have a large in stock. The best idea though is to go to their down town store and see what they got. at least try them on and talk to the employees there. Every time I have been in there, the employees are very knowledgeable and will direct you to the jacket you need. Maybe the icefall is not the best jacket for you and your needs. Also, not sure what you need a big ass jacket for, but maybe you only need to rent such a jacket? FF rents big expedition jackets, I think. worth asking if that is a good option for you.\

and this one is warm and smells good too

maybe you need puffy pants and not a warmer jacket? no idea what a cg snow mantra jacket is though. But if you really need a warmer puffy, look at either Feathered freinds jackets or just keep moving. Best to always keep moving.

can never hurt to ask, but i would suspect that a commercial business would not want their old gear possibly misused and result in an accident exposing them to liability. Not saying that Chris would misuse anything related to climbing but just as a general rule for businesses.

who would have thought that canadians can be rude? I would have thought a typical confrontation be as such patrol "hey eh, skiboarding is not allowed on our property, eh" boarder "fuck off man, eh!" patroler "well I see you are really passionate about this skiboarding thing so lets just go ahead and let you do it, EH. here have some fries and poutine, eh"

given that the sierras are relatively snow free, i would think some traverse over there would be good. especially if you are looking for low 5th routes.

I suppose there are a few old school grumpy outliers still but who really cares what they think?

with the exception of alta and some place in new england, that skier vs snowboarder crap is non existent thank god. Plenty of mixed crews ripping the terrain and the terrain park is definately being done well by skiers now. it is all fun.

but then the signage may keep the wet folk away. seems like this place is kinda close to vantage. how come there are no scorpions in vantage? maybe the lakes provide food for scorpions and vantage (the rock climbing) doesn't have the water? doesn't seem right though.