judgment & lighweight climbing, part XVII

[Lambone]

Have you guys ever heard the story about Charlie Porters solo first ascent of the New Dawn Wall on El Cap, it's one of my favorites...he is my hero.

 

I guess his pack roled off the edge of Lay Lady Ledge, be cause he didn't clip anything in. It had his sleeping bag and most of his food in it. He was only 7 pitches up, but instead of bailing...he kept going! And he spent like another week and a half on the wall, sleeping with his foam pad like a tunic, and eating basically nothing. Also, it was either late or early season and he endured some cold, bad weather.

 

What a bad ass.

[Rad]

Luck favors the prepared.

 

No helmet on 3rd class loose mountainside? That, in my opinion, presents far more danger to the noggin than climbing Outer Space.

 

Two tales of risk - accidental vs calculated

 

MY pregnant wife and I went to climb N face of Vesper in August. At the trailhead I realized I forgot the iceaxes at home. Oops. I brought crampons for myself but figured she'd be ok without them. In the parking lot another party of 3 friendly yahoos said they didn't have any axes or crampons and thought we'd all be fine. Well, we got to the glacier xing to get to the base of the route and it was much more frozen than we'd anticipated. Hmmm. I tied into the end of our rope and was 'belayed' as I I cramponed across. I had a walking stick to self arrest (not much use there as the glacier was rock hard in the shady spots). Turned out the glacier tongue was wider than we thought and my friendly yahoo belayers had to ties two 60M ropes together - by the time I was tiptoeing across the final 100ft of bullet hard 35 degree suncups the rope was utterly useless. Stayed in balance and made it just fine. I anchored the end of the rope and we set up a handline that my wife and two yahoos clipped into for the traverse. Yahoo #3 had to come across with a pseudo-belay. We all were fine, but lack of foresight had needlessly endangered me and Yahoo #3. The yahoos then got off route and we left them in the dust as we cruised the lovely steep buttress. Notably, two other climbers passed us as we were crossing the glacier - they had crampons and axes and decided not to rope up for the crossing despite crevasses down below. We each have our different levels of acceptable risk. Think hard about accepting more risk at the spur of the moment than you would accept if you had prepared for it.

 

A few weeks later I went into the Pickets with my buddy Ed for an amazing adventure. We went super light and exposed ourselves to risks of exposure to cold and glacier issues...but we had very carefully planned every item we would bring, how we would use them, and how we would deal with the potential adversities that might come our way. Our judgment was not, in hind sight, perfect, but we survived and had a truly inspirational adventure. We brought heavy boots and crampons for glacier travel but I decided to use cleaning tools instead of an iceax for self-arresting. We had no pickets or screws. However, I chose a route up the Terror Glacier to a notch by West MAc spire that was crevasse-free, and we climbed it in the evening when it was soft enough to kick steps fairly easily. We brought only 1 60m rope, no bivy sacks, no sleeping bags despite the weather forecast for showers. It did mist and got damn cold. (seach photo gallery for spaceman Rad for an idea) Lesson: next time I'll wear stiff tennis shoes, get superlight strap-on crampons, a stubby iceaxe, and bring a light down bag and bivy sack. Do I have regrets? Definitely not.

 

Take home message - there is a big difference between taking a calculated risk and being foolish. You have to know when to back off or go for it and that often comes from a curious blend of experience and gut intuition.

 

It's all part of the glorious mystery that is life.

 

Lastly, go read John Dill's opening to the Yosemite Free Climbing guide - it is an excellent treatment of accidents, risks, and preparedness.

 

Edited October 31, 2003 by Rad