Jump to content

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 121
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I wont debate it here EBC sorry I felt the thread needed that aspect of honesty sorry.

 

I was even more angry at tats yesterday for sking an area during high avie danger.

 

If you really want to do this and learn think about who you want to learn from. Please take daves course and get an idea of how to think. You couldve come with us had you had the stuff to climb with.

Link to post
Share on other sites

It does need an aspect of honesty - don't be fooled by the nice pictures people, it was a fkn disaster - AK & I know it, and we talked a LOT. We'll talk later FT. I might be the one who is on this forum, but i was with 5 other people on Saturday - don't just direct this at me, we all need to talk.

 

I always think a lot up there - i'm far from gung ho in the backcountry, i always err on the side of caution... i don't think so much about lines, i think about safety, but i don't speak up enough.

 

I was supposed to do Dave's course when he put it on for staff last year, but it got cancelled the evening before... i didn't know if i could hike in January cause i was still in physio... and now i have work commitments when the next course runs, and i'm cracking up cause i really really need to do the course.

 

No one you tour with has the level of knowledge in the bc or of the area, as you do... i might rely on you more, but they still all rely on you too.

 

Tats ran the north faces yesterday?!!!!!!

 

Have you looked outside at the slides all over the 3 peaks yet?

 

And... i wanted to ask you - did you use skins to climb on Saturday?

Link to post
Share on other sites

On Saturday we skinned for about 2 hours total.

9 to 10 then a sketchy traverse on ice for 30 mins. 1 hour of slope inspection including breaking and trying to break huge cornices.

(dizzy dug a pit roped up and cut the slope on a rope). I talked with dizzy the whole time he dug the pit.

 

1 hour of skining and traversing up the other side same aspect trees just a ski cut for inspection. the peaks were clouded over when I tried to look.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Heal fast AK.

 

I was coming up about an hour or so behind you in nothing but a long sleeve T and watched you drop in from afar around 2:00. At the time I was a bit surprised you went. Glad you all made it out.

 

Thanks for the pics and the honesty. I don't feel nearly as bad about having bailed that afternoon.

Link to post
Share on other sites

We didn't drop in at 2pm - we were almost at the end of our line at 2pm, i was calling matt to come pick up AK at around 2pm.

 

TB - wasn't your plan always to go up the ridge and back down it, like journey man? I thought you didn't have a beacon or something... but maybe i'm totally mistaken?

 

FT - lookin forward to seeing your photographer's ;\) shots of the trees that are 'better than cortina'. breaking cornices? sounds like an interesting day out.

 

there was a window of sunlight this morning with cloud hanging low just above the peaks, so i went out to look. so many slides!!!!!!!!!

Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree with most of what FT is saying, and lord knows I need more training too.

 

However, I think it is important to note that everybody at some time gets themself into a sticky situation when it comes to riding/skiing bc, or any other dangerous sport, and how you deal with the situation is most important. From what I have heard about this situation, yes there were many mistakes, but I also feel like the entire group handled it very well. You guys showed excellent team work and didn`t freak out. Just delt with the situation the best you could and got out safely. Well done.

 

Now that being said, like you said EBC. Think back on the mistakes you made and learn from them. There is no point in dwelling on the mistakes you made they are done, but rather try to understand why they were made and avoid them in the future.

 

I think a lot of us can learn from your (as in your groups) mistakes that day.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'll see you down at Shintani for some mami love then AK! I cut my hand last week with a woodsplitting axe. Six stitches. That was just in my garage as well.

 

It's good to push yourself and try new things, but it sounds like you need to leave a much bigger margin of error. I'm surprised you wanted to ride a south face because south facing areas lower down have little snow. The "wet slides" bit should have come as no surprise. Snow after heavy rain on Thursday etc.

Link to post
Share on other sites
 Quote:
Originally posted by eskimobasecamp:

TB - wasn't your plan always to go up the ridge and back down it, like journey man? I thought you didn't have a beacon or something... but maybe i'm totally mistaken?
I had all my gear, but the printer was out of ink and after trying unsuccessfully to turn the topo into a shamail, I didn't have a map. So the plan was to go up and decide about the descent based on what I could see. The audible was to head down off the first ridge on the north side.

But I was solo, and hungry, and (#1 reason) something about being alone on that ridge just started messing with my mind so I went up to the 3rd cairn and headed back.
Link to post
Share on other sites

Just a quick post:

 

Thank you FT for the considered response, and to all the other people who said get well soon, etc.

 

I am looking at an operation to fix up my nose, unfortunately, with a few days in hospital after no doubt.

 

It really could have been a lot worse though.

 

The following are my personal reflection on the day:

 

Accidents happen more due to the wider circumstances that act on a situation, than the actual immediate accident itself.

 

In this case, I was riding fairly quickly, checking for wet slides coming down from the left, and this was as a result of being in the wrong place.

The small blind roll into the small (perhaps only 2m wide) hole opening could always be there, but the accident was maybe caused because i was preoccupied with the dangers coming from above - large pinwheels coming down, more and more as the aspect of the valley became more southerly, and the complete lack of safe spots, hence keeping moving, with the increasing knowledge that this is the WRONG place to be.

 

I was in the wrong place, along with 5 other people, as a result of not thinking about the safety of that exit enough at the top of the run - i had thought carefully about the critical riding part of the run (which was north facing, although off the south faces, and if anything, too hard and solid), yet I had simply let others decide (without thinking enough myself - which makes it MY fault) about the exit they wanted to follow.

 

This created a very dangerous wider situation in itself, which i was occupying my mind when the accident happened - instead of thinking about how little snow we have had this year so far, and the dangers this might create with rivers or streams, which would not normally be present in February.

 

I have only myself to blame for this - I was not fully 'switched on' and thinking about every part of the route from drop-in to exit's end - and paid the price for realising this too late.

I had enough knowledge to tell me that it was not a good area to exit into, but i didn't use that.

I also had enough experience to know that my lack of knowledge of the exit area was enough reason not to go.

 

that's all for now.

 

About the fall itself - not so nice really, the only thought i had was of the waterfall at the bottom of the north faces when it came into view - less than one meter away - and that there was no coming back from riding into that.

I couldn't see the bottom either as it was narrow.

 

The only really good thing about the situation as a whole was the quick response of all the group, and the correct use of a first aid kit.

 

I am off to get laughed at by my students now.

bye

Link to post
Share on other sites

Group Thought.

 

that's the reoccuring mistake I see occuring in the story of this thread.

 

Nobody feeling things were right, but nobody speaking away from the group.

 

the world's elite make mistakes that cost them their lives. Limiting Group Thought will limit the mistakes that spiralled out of control here.

 

It's not said enough; It takes more balls to step up and walk away from a dangerous situation than it does to follow a group into one.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Samurai - that's pretty much exactly what my mum said (she is experienced - and alive - mounatineer, and would not have made the same mistakes I did! slightly embarassing.) Her first question was actually "who was leading the group?"

 

Even worse than weak group thought, I was switched off in terms of the really important decision about where to exit, as I didn't know the topography of that valley, so I went along with the decision of others.

Why? I was just not thinking. My mind was a bit elsewhere that day, and i was not thinking with my 'mountain head', merely my 'riding head':

My fault 100%.

 

If i didn't know better, i could excuse it as blidly following, but even worse I mentally blindly followed despite having the experience to do otherwise. Maybe as I was being lazy and considering it as someone else's lead.

No excuse.

 

..and that head was nearly left all over some scenic rocks at the bottom of a hole as a result.

 

FT - yes, although i'm kind of ok now, just badly wonky nose, doc said i have multiple fractues of the nose structure, meaning proper op and maybe even wire it it, as well as the bg clean snap of the nose bridge (which was what i touched thinking i had some rock stuck in my face when feeling the wound after moving the middle section of my nose back about 1cm before climbing out. nice.)

Link to post
Share on other sites

mum's don't mess around - especially when they had mountain leader qualifications and first female ascents in the alps.

 

It's her words "it's only pain, it doesn't hurt" from my childood that I still remember!

 

Of course she has been great too, she was just like, "well, sounds like a typical accident situation, I hope you have learnt alot from it"

 

CB - actually she worked as a (unhappy and bored) secretary in the rhinoplasty department of the hospiital back home for nearly a year, so know quite a lot about it - she said I need to have the op within 3 weeks, preferably 2.

Link to post
Share on other sites

sheeeeeeeeeeet AK that sucks man. Whats gonna happen with work? Will you be able to have the time off? Maybe schedule it on a Thursday and have Fri, Sat, Sun, and (maybe) Monday off to recover some?

 

Geeze, you're one of the few blokes I know who (will) have had a nose job ;\) You sexy man you!!

Link to post
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...