JosephH

Human-powered snowmobile... Home page...

[Cross-posted from ST...] - The intersection of all climbers, all risks, and all accidents is an unavoidable reality. The 'incident horizon' of that intersection is only definable in hindsight. - Others' public journeys beyond [and back from] that 'incident horizon' are personalized by us each according to our need - some will say it's 'luck' Lynn Hill survived or 'fate' Alex Lowe didn't - but one can never really know. - Every climb is a dynamic union of 'subjective' reality (talent, skill, fitness, experience...) and 'objective' reality (route, gear, weather...). Our ability to accurately perceive, evaluate, entertain, and mitigate risk within that union is itself an aspect of 'subjective' reality. - Climbers all choose to operate within a self-defined 'comfort zone' at some distance from the boundary of all [perceptable] risk. One's range of exercisable options at any given moment is, in large part, a function of proximity to that boundary. - Risk is managed or mismanaged similarly across all levels of skill and experience. Those capable of a higher order of risk management quite often play much closer to the edge than those with lesser capabilities - that sometimes normalizes their respective risk profiles - sometimes not (e.g. Reardon is probably safer free soloing 5.12 than I am 5.9). - Understanding how and why accidents happen may help us individually avoid them in the future. Judgment about those involved might even reinforce our own ability retain those 'lessons' - but - it likely also prejudices us to associate the accident with that individual rather than with their circumstance, thus diluting the true value of the 'lesson'. - 'I am He as You are He as You are Me And We are all together...' - either sage wisdom or apt irony spoken by someone whose life was taken by someone not himself. Either way 'I'm crying...'

Seriously, the questions may seem simple, but we aren't really talking integers or a serial sequence of events. It is in every respect far more complicated than it appears on the surface. Attempts to reduce it all to 'simple' questions in an incident such as this largely destroys most of the value in the exercise of examining it at all. Everyone is free to think about it. The trouble is in the judgments and conclusions which typically follow when the people doing the thinking are not climbers. The perception of risk is a very subtle and complex affair in both individual humans and in society as a whole - much of it is misinformed, faulty, and clouded by our genetic past, perceptual thresholds, and popular myth. Climbers are quite wary of regulatory conclusions made under the influence of such bias. For example, my main partner did his masters on the perception of risk. As part of that he planned to have volunteers do a supervised rappel backed-up by a safety rope and belay and then survey their before and after perceptions of risk. His thesis committee (all non-climbers) wouldn't let him do the experiment saying it was too 'risky'. This sort of thing happens everyday and public policy sometimes flows from high profile events such as this - it is rarely good policy or policy grounded in any objective reality.

I bet a simple IP comparison would get to the pink of things pretty quick. Not hard to guess though...

At this point the real tragedy is the lack of resources to adequately moderate this site - the smartest thing instead would have been to just lock down membership at the first sign of any such circus and provide the SAR team a read-only thread to post to. The second best thing would be to make it impossible to post for the first two weeks of membership except through submitals to a moderated email queue. Instead, a perfectly dysfunctional community has been completely hijacked by the suddenly interested. Given the shortage of resources to do a herculean job just keeping this place going I've just kicked in a second $25 donation to this site. You can do the same by going to the FAQ page and clicking on the lower lefthand link that says 'PayPal - Donate'. So suck it up folks and contribute, particularly all you new posing, righteous, and / or condescending sprayers with a post count under 60 who are making such a hash of this site...

Force levels in Iraq are purely at the President's discretion - Congress has no say in the matter whatsoever. If I were Pelosi he'd get whatever he asked for - no questions asked - it's his deal start to finish.

No need, the place will be swarming with French and Chinese as soon as we pull out...

They're at the other end of the rope paying it out...

Actually, Karl Rove has far outdone Osama when it comes to MidEast terrorism...

Some had personality all along. Some only acquired their personality here. Most will still have no personality long after their last post here. The value dilution factor over the past two weeks has been nothing short of remarkable. Given the lack of resources to provide real moderation maybe next time they should pre-load a series of threads along the lines of: - Incident Title / Offical SAR Team Notifications (Read-only) - Incident Title / Primary Discussion thread (Open, but moderated) - Incident Title / Non-climber questions thread (Open, but cleaned periodically) - Incident Title / Event speculation thread (Open, unmoderated) - Incident Title / Smackdown thread (Open, moderated by Layton) Hopefully after this circus is over all the posts can be reviewed and Incident / SAR FAQs can be developed - one for general questions, one for Mt. Hood., one for the Media. That would help being prepared for the next time such events unfold.

It is quite remarkable that in these days of endless sophistication 99.5% of the folks who live in Tornado alley don't have storm cellars. Whole towns get wiped out and all these 4000sqft homes are just built on slabs - amazing. One could almost guess it has cultural roots in perceived economic status coming out of the depression. Most of the "storm" cellars were in fact root cellars and still having one as the wave of electrification and refrigeration hit probably was looked down upon as "poor" and "backwards". Results - lots of dead folks when a section of big sewer pipe or an empty septic tank in the back yard adding next to nothing to the cost of a home would save countless lives every year. Perception of risk is a funny business and we are genetically wired to view the vertical with suspicion while all manner of horizontal threats go virtually unrecognized.

Sure, I'm still using them and have a couple of new routes coming up that I'm guessing are going to eat a few...

Peter, thanks, too tired when I did that one - that should be early-mid '80s. But points the same and I'd still buy these if you don't want them anymore...

Guys get a grip! Eight years old? I'm still using Wild Things Air Voyagers from the '70s on occasion. I've fallen on a few dozen of them and Screamers as well over the years. In fact, some are half blown and sport taped back to preload state as they are still good for a go or two. I have many that are steeply pre-sliced with a razor to create very flat loading curves for delicate rp nests and #2 Crack'N Ups. The odds of the sling breaking after the stitching blows is pretty damn remote even on my oldest ones - it isn't going to happen. The odds of the stitching being dramatically out of spec is probably fair on those. More of an issue for ice no doubt, but eight years old? Come on. Hell, I'll buy them - how much? PM me... Edit: Damn, just sent all my old Dyneema 8mm slings off to be tested, should have thrown an Air Voyager in there too...

Frank, sent you a PM, couldn't play hooky today. But if it's anything like yesterday folks should still head out and run up the corner. Kev, it was warm rock, no wind and like great late fall climbing.

Is there a moderator in the house that could simply spare the families and SAR personnel these rants? It's hard to imagine what values cc.com is attempting to preserve here letting this continue (feel free to clean my posts along with the rants...).

Man, they need to purge recent forum memberships and lock down most of those ip addresses after this circus. This has been the online equivalent of a dirty bomb - an explosion of contagious cluelessness.

I don't know about that, but there is now clearly a need for one here. This has been a quite unbelievable discourse almost to the point where the first thing that needs to happen at the onset of any future incident is to immediately lock down forum membership to a moderated sign-up mode. Separate sign-up links for family, incident team members, the media, and general public could be established and requests quickly reviewed. A moderated primary incident thread could also be established as well a read-only thread Incident Team notices could be post to. That would be a hellish burden on the CC.com moderators, but it would seem something is needed to control the clueless spray and circus of sudden interest.

Young girl with a three-minute old, one post history.... I think I have to check with my Wife, a forum moderator, and a lawyer before someone my age can respond to your [troll and droll] post. But does it ever dawn on you these avatars you keep creating might actually be the real you? At the very least they authentically reflect your level of maturity if not the gender-specific anatomy of your always evident lack of courage.

Bummer news from Hood... Got back a bit ago and just heard. It was a zero wind day out Beacon - sunny and mid-September-like on the South face and the rock was warm. Had to shuck hat, gloves, coat, etc. and was still sweating. Anyone that can should play hooky Monday and hit it while it's like this... Condolences to the climber's family...

Looks to be a fairly casual no ice, light wind day - will be heading out in a bit, have to make one stop and so will be out there about noon if anyone is interested. Bring lots of layers and a hat if so and be prepared to move fast...

I got out three times last week (Monday, Thursday, Friday). All three days were blowing east hard. It was 29 degrees on Monday, about 40 on Thursday, and back down in the 30's Friday. Snow and ice was heavy everywhere Monday but gone by the end of the week. Last Friday you knew it was going to hell in general as the wind was steady 40-50 with gusts to 60 up on the corner ridge. Yeah, it's cold but I have a pretty good system down with layering, fingerless gloves, and those air-activated heating pouches. You just have to jam and keep moving. Brisk, but I can't quite get my head around the gym while it's still open. Good for you guys getting out down there.

Yep...

Should be refreshing if there isn't too much ice...

Damn, this is getting to be a total drag - it's been a really harsh 2006. I don't know Christine, but did shared a rope with Charlie a couple of times back in the day and she must have no shortage of moxie if she's hanging out with him. We'll really be losing a character in Charlie if he doesn't wander back on to the scene and no doubt Christine would be greatly missed as well.