I posted this to my Facebook page in an attempt to reach people, and I'd like to repost it here for the same reason.
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I've been spending time in SAR forums and climbing threads since the most recent unfortunate incident involving another death on Mount Whitney,
and there have been many questions asked about how to avoid these kinds of accidents, so I attempted to answer them.
My goal is to do my part as a climber to stop senseless deaths in the mountains.
I posted this on INYO SAR's FB thread about this recent accident, but of course it was lost in a sea of "OMG"s, "RIP"s,
frowny-face emoticons and calls for prayer, all of which do nothing to prevent future occurrences.
If you're so inclined, please share. Maybe it will trickle down and one person will see it and it will matter.
A 10 minute read-through of this would have saved her life...
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Hello all, many of you have asked, so here's some advice for avoiding this situation:
Understand the terrain you are entering.
Understand that each time you enter the mountains, many parameters of various environmental conditions dictate the state of those mountains.
Understand that you must adapt to and respect that current state in order to move efficiently and safely in the terrain you find yourself in.
Winter conditions and Summer conditions present totally different situations.
Two subsequent winter ascents on the same route on the same mountain can present
two vastly different subsets of scenarios you must know how to process in realtime.
Carry the proper gear.
Don't use microspikes when you should be using crampons (for example).
Actually, just don't use microspikes...they're for shoveling your driveway in Minnesota, not for mountaineering.
If you think crampons are too heavy, just train harder or leave a camera at home, or carry .5L less water. Or spend extra money on light crampons.
Understand the difference between "hiking" and "mountaineering", and know that if you are a hiker who stumbles
into mountaineering territory and you have no knowledge of mountaineering, you can die.
Carry an ice axe and understand its purpose and use, and understand that its use needs to be muscle memory.
Don't carry trek poles alone when you should be carrying an ice axe.
Don't glissade with crampons on; you may snap your tib/fib in half and it might end up poking out of your skin,
also known as an "open fracture", which can be a death sentence in the mountains.
Don't hold your ice axe upside down while attempting a glissade, physics dictates that it will be torn from your grasp,
leaving you unable to self-arrest, which means you will tumble uncontrollably down a slope, otherwise known as “a fall in the mountains”.
Understand that “a fall in the mountains” is almost never a vertical free-fall, it’s almost always “tumbling uncontrollably down a slope”.
So when you hear the phrase “Climber fell to his death in the mountains” that’s usually what it means.
And there you are; on a slope, in the mountains, on the snow, with no ice axe and no way to arrest your fall.
Injuries can include being disemboweled by the jagged end your own broken femur.
And nobody wants that...
Learn what "self-arrest grip" is and WHY it is. It’s not intuitive.
Understand what self-arrest is and learn to judge when it is feasible and when it is not feasible.
Learn how to move safely in terrain where you deem self-arrest is non-feasible, or don’t move through it at all.
Realize that if you can't self-arrest on a given section of terrain, your partners probably can't either.
Roping up in this scenario provides no security.
In fact, it reduces your safety margin and is sardonically known as a "suicide pact."
In this type of terrain, rope up and use one of many belay techniques with fixed protection.
Wrangle up crampon straps and baggy pant legs; tripping on one at the wrong time can actually kill you.
This happened recently on Mount Shasta; but not before a tracheotomy with a CamelBak hose was attempted...
Time your ascents and descents to optimize your safety from objective hazards such as rockfall and the consequences of melt-freeze cycles
on certain types of terrain on certain topological aspects at certain slope angles.
Understand that the danger associated with objective hazards cannot be mitigated to zero, but it can be managed to varying levels of risk acceptance.
Learn your level of risk acceptance and that of your partners.
Understand weather patterns and how to track them over time.
Learn the cryptic language of the good people who write NOAA forecast discussions.
Understand the cumulative history of a season's snowpack and how it could effect avalanche conditions throughout that season.
Take an AIARE Level I course.
Geologic time includes now; wear a helmet whenever you are in suspect terrain or whenever you are engaged in certain activities.
Learn to identify suspect terrain and those activities.
If you’re walking on piles of rocks under a slope (for example), consider that the rocks likely got there by falling.
Put your helmet on.
Don't die from rockfall with a helmet strapped to your pack; you're carrying it anyway, so carry it on your head,
because that’s what it’s for and that’s why you’re carrying it in the first place.
Bring an emergency bivy sack, even on short day-hikes, because short day-hikes can and do turn into epics.
Know what an “epic” is.
Learn what subjective hazards are and how to avoid falling prey to them; they are the single most controllable element of any climb.
(That cannot be stressed enough…)
Understand some basic heuristics theory and how to apply it to your critical thinking in the mountains.
Think critically in the mountains.
Train hard; don’t just exercise; fitness and safety in the mountains are directly linked.
Soccer moms exercise; you’re trying to climb a huge mountain. Understand the difference.
Understand that speed and strength equal safety in the mountains, but know what we mean by "speed" as it relates to climbing.
Build a mental model as you progress through terrain and through time, then reference that model.
Build a mental model before you even enter that terrain.
Have a plan, but be willing and flexible enough to alter that plan, drastically if the conditions demand it.
Don't bend the map.
Understand what "bending the map" means and the consequences it can have.
Carry an actual map. (you're allowed to bend that one...)
Carry a compass and learn how to use it. (Get one with an inclinometer so you can determine slope angles and runout zones and get all H=DtanA on stuff…)
Use technology. (Create tracks in GoogleEarth and load them into your Suunto GPS watch, for example...)
Understand that you are not in control, the mountain is.
You are only in control of the decisions that you make IN the mountains.
Realize that you will never “conquer” a mountain.
Consider never even using that term, it’s offensive and it’s an anathema to climbers everywhere and it should be one to you as well.
Understand and be able to identify the various forms of AMS and how it can progress into more dangerous forms of altitude illness,
and know what those more serious illnesses are and what to do to remedy them.
Understand what terms like "ataxia", "hypoglycemia", "hypoxia", "hypothermia", "hyperthermia"
and "dehydration" really mean and how to avoid or manage all of them.
Just for fun, while you're at it, look up "hyponatremic encephalopathy". People die from that, too.
Learn how to properly manage your core and extremity temperatures in the multitudinous weather situations
you'll likely find yourself in; it sounds easy but it's an art-form.
Don't suffer from snow-blindness.
You can get a sunburn on the roof of your mouth and inside your nose when you're on a glacier or snowfield all day (or for three weeks...)
Account for the environmental lapse rate when you plan your layering system and sleep system. (and bivy system.)
Know what "environmental lapse rate" is and how it can affect you. It plays a huge role in areas with elevation variances of 10000 feet.
(Lone Pine to Whitney summit, for example...).
Read every word on every page of every issue of Accidents In North American Mountaineering.
Multiple times.
Take notes.
Write in the margins.
Realize that being in the mountains is analogous to a chess game; every move you make matters.
You can make a wrong move 23 moves back that becomes your undoing.
Checkmate...
Perhaps most importantly, understand that it's your responsibility to know all this stuff (and lots more, depending on your objective),
preferably very intimately, but a rough working knowledge or even a general awareness of it may actually save your life, or the lives of those around you.
If you don't think you need to know all of these things, consider hiring a guide to go with you into the mountains,
or go with an experienced friend or acquaintance (but vett that experience, because sometimes lack of accidents is not experience, it's luck...),
or consider not going into the mountains until you've processed at least some of this information.
Realize that if you go into the mountains with none of this knowledge, you put yourself at risk, you put your loved ones at risk
and you put the highly-trained people who work the SAR situation you may create at risk.
Ever seen the video of the helicopter crash on Mount Hood?
Don't be responsible for that.
And finally, and this is actually the most important part; go into the mountains to experience them.
Humans have an innate need to do so that I have yet to be able to explain in the decade-and-a-half that I've been climbing.
Maybe you can share your own insight on that.
Approach the mountains with caution and respect and they will enrich your life.
Approach them with ignorance and/or arrogance and they will take it mercilessly, and then they will grind your bones to dust, because that’s what mountains do.
Sorry for the book, but sometimes actionable intelligence is exhaustive.
Such is the case with mountains.
Climb on...
