I recalled in conversation today a psychiatrist friend of mine who was an ice climber who had moved from Nashua to North Conway so that he could get up and do Cathedral Ledge some mornings before heading to work in Concord. A bit crazy, yes, but wonderfully so. He was part of a group that would teach serious ice climbing for rich guys (occasionally gals) willing to pay a lot for a series of weekend lessons. He mentioned once that the six-week course always included the lesson of turning back when conditions were not safe. They seldom had to design this artificially, he said, as the weather in NH usually provided one Saturday or Sunday where there had been a thaw weakening the ice, or visibility was too low, or whatever. But if they had to, they would fake one, because they would not graduate anyone without the lesson of turning back.
The would-be adventurers would object, not only because they had paid good money, but because they were the driven sort who had expectations of how and when things should be and didn't like being thwarted in this. They would often transfer their irritation about this to the instructors, taking their eyes off the weather and conditions. The instructors would of course be unmoved by the complaints. If you couldn't learn the lesson that you had just ignored a potentially deadly risk, they would send you home right there, refund that day's lesson, and not accept you back for at least a year.
Groups do better at this than individuals. With teenagers, we worry about them egging each other on to dumber and dumber things, and this does sometimes happen with adults as well. But it is more often the people just out of their teens acting alone or maybe as duals who do the dumbest stuff, and bad mountain judgment among older adults is almost never in groups.
It a sound practice but hard to implement for more than just type A personalities. I'm the type who overhypes risks when sleeping or just getting up, but when out on the trail I realize most were bad dreams. This helps suppress your observational skills in looking ahead. The triple A types keep going when the current situation is already clearly bad. But many people fail to look far enough ahead to prepare contingencies. You may not need to "turn back" but maybe you need to be ready to stay put for a while.
ReplyDelete(But Ice Climbers are truly crazy!)
I am always alone, and I get out there pretty far sometimes. I am good at rambling in my mountains, but I am very careful. When its 4 or 5 miles back to the road, you have to keep your head on straight, and keep careful track of time and distance.
ReplyDeleteI am fortunate in that I don't get lost. It was when I was about 16 I discovered that this was unusual, but I am grateful. I believe its the sense of direction I never get wrong. Distance I have been somewhat wrong on, but not by a large amount. So I can maintain confidence, probably further out than most people.