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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

 Page 3 of 4. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 64
Author
The most dangerous time of your life!!?
One Day Hero
17-Mar-2012
9:31:29 PM
On 17/03/2012 Useful wrote:

>if you want to
>argue that *on average* cragging is more dangerous than mountaineering,
>show me the data. I promise I'll be persuaded if you can.

No, that would be idiotic. What I'm saying is that you can't use such broad generalisations to make judgements about the relative risk of the specific climbing which you are partaking in today...........I mean you can if you like, and take comfort in knowing that after you crater, your accident will be averaged out by all the people not having accidents on rock that day!?!

If stats are the ultimate word, go lead Immaculate Deception at Booroomba. Statistics show that its a completely safe route, with absolutely no injuries recorded in 25 years.
One Day Hero
17-Mar-2012
9:33:29 PM
On 17/03/2012 cruze wrote:
>
>One thing that I am aware of is how people that partake in risky behaviour
>often divert attention away from themselves in order to justify their risky
>behaviour to themselves, such as saying the drive is the most dangerous
>part of the activity, or saying inactivity leads to heart disease, that
>base jumping is more dangerous than climbing. etc..........

or, as you said

>since moving to NZ I have tried to get a solid base in variable conditions in different seasons >on quite a lot of grade 1 and 2 peaks (typically with big vertical gains from valley floor, loose >rock, variable snow, etc). Some people (possibly those that chopper into huts where grade >1 and 2 peaks are the bumps you go over on the way to get to more technical objectives) >will scoff at these efforts. But I have done this to build a base for the future and have >become quite sceptical of those that fly over and do a TMC and then start looking for grade >>3 objectives for their next season. IMHO that is a dangerous way of doing >"mountaineering" particularly in NZ where weather and conditions change so quickly.

Pot? Kettle?

One thing which my limited (non-NZ) mountaineering experience has taught me, is that often (just like rock climbing) the objective risk goes down as the grades go up.

If the low grade routes have avalanche/rockfall/crevasse risk, maybe spending too much time working up through the grades isn't actually safer?

Miguel75
18-Mar-2012
1:55:00 AM
Thanks for breaking it down ODH, master Yoda certainly has a way with words;)

On 17/03/2012 bomber pro wrote:
>How Miguel managed to get peeved is truly perplexing.

For starters I'm a sensitive sooky la-la;) Secondly it was a big day. Thirdly he's chosen a dangerous path through life. I appreciate his introspection and while it's terrible watching a mate, or anyone injure themselves, each and every one of his friends that died in the mountains knew (or should have known) the debt to be paid if they were dealt a dud hand. I can understand him working through the grief process and being angry but the language he used in the excerpt below annoys me. I feel he's complaining about his/his friends choices while leading a life less ordinary;

"I do a lot of presentations about mountain sports, and sometimes share a list of dead friends to remind myself and the audience that the hidden price for the stunning photographs is all-too-regularly life itself. There are 27 names on my list. Not one of those friends died while driving to the mountains. Not one died on a commercial airline flight. To equate the risks of mountain sports to everyday activities like driving or even the chance of death from cancer is completely idiotic."

Climbing is rad! I love it, but to think any of our exploits on rock really matter to anyone besides ourselves, fellow climbers and maybe our ever proud parents seems pretty silly.


cruze
18-Mar-2012
6:24:20 AM
On 17/03/2012 One Day Hero wrote:
>Pot? Kettle?
Completely hypocritical, I know. I have justified doing risky things all my life by saying other things are more risky, or more colloquially 'she'll be right'. I'd be surprised if anyone out there doesn't.
>
>One thing which my limited (non-NZ) mountaineering experience has taught
>me, is that often (just like rock climbing) the objective risk goes down
>as the grades go up.
>
>If the low grade routes have avalanche/rockfall/crevasse risk, maybe spending
>too much time working up through the grades isn't actually safer?
Possibly, but I am hoping that reducing subjective risk by gaining broad experience will help when it counts. On the flip side if all I wanted to do in life was climb a single specific peak and retire then there is an argument that I should just go and try that and never climb again, thereby reducing my lifetime objective danger risk significantly! As you know it is all a very imperfect balancing act.

Still working it all out which is why this thread is interesting. I know what I do is dangerous. I feel I can manage most of those dangers and the ones I can't I feel are worth the risk to live a fulfilling life. Sure the photos are pretty but it is more than that to me.

davidn
18-Mar-2012
7:09:11 AM
On 17/03/2012 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 17/03/2012 Useful wrote:
>
>>if you want to
>>argue that *on average* cragging is more dangerous than mountaineering,
>>show me the data. I promise I'll be persuaded if you can.
>
>No, that would be idiotic. What I'm saying is that you can't use such
>broad generalisations to make judgements about the relative risk of the
>specific climbing which you are partaking in today...........I mean you
>can if you like, and take comfort in knowing that after you crater, your
>accident will be averaged out by all the people not having accidents on
>rock that day!?!
>
>If stats are the ultimate word, go lead Immaculate Deception at Booroomba.
>Statistics show that its a completely safe route, with absolutely no injuries
>recorded in 25 years.

Obviously many, many more people climb per day than lead one particular climb at one particular crag in Canberra :P We both know what I was saying, your backpedalling notwithstanding!

Checking the description, when you say lead what you meant was 'free solo'. Is free soloing cragging?!
One Day Hero
18-Mar-2012
11:30:18 AM
On 18/03/2012 Useful wrote:
>
>Obviously many, many more people climb per day than lead one particular
>climb at one particular crag in Canberra :P We both know what I was saying,
>your backpedalling notwithstanding!

I'm not backpedalling, and I understand what you were saying.....the funny bit is that you have no idea what you're talking about.

Contained within the broad catagory of "cragging" are a bunch of different options, some of which are pretty safe, and some of which are about as risky as it gets. Even though you're too chicken to ever dip your toe in the broad catagory of "mountaineering", surely you can understand that a similar spectrum of dangerousness exists there. Furthermore, a large chunk of the mountaineering spectrum overlaps a large chunk of the cragging spectrum.....to the point where there's probably some "mountaineering" (low angle scree bashing) objectives which are less risky than clipping bolts at Nowra.
>
>Checking the description, when you say lead what you meant was 'free solo'.
> Is free soloing cragging?!

If the only 2 options are "cragging" and "mountaineering", then protectionless grade 22 chop routes at Booroomba have to go into the "cragging" box............although, I would argue that spontaneous foothold crumblage (which would almost certainly be fatal on that route) is actually more objective than subjective.

The good Dr
18-Mar-2012
11:42:32 AM
Free soloing is not cragging it is just high ball bouldering. We are not including bouldering in this discussion about climbing.

davidn
18-Mar-2012
12:45:02 PM
Ok, I'm going to stop feeding this pointlessness. Even on the rare occasion these things start with discussion, they always end up with... this.
One Day Hero
18-Mar-2012
2:06:14 PM
On 18/03/2012 Useful wrote:
>Ok, I'm going to stop feeding this pointlessness. Even on the rare occasion
>these things start with discussion, they always end up with... this.

By "this", you mean "you talking through your arse about some topic (non-bouldering) when you obviously have no direct experience. So you just rehash some stuff which a world famous idol of yours has written, come up with some irrelevant stats from askaquestion.org, contradict yourself, then when finally unable to undig your hole without looking like an idiot, you take your ball and go home"?

Its not really as complicated or as romantic as people try to make it out to be. Confusion arises when idiots try to put a box around walking up Mt Fuji and climbing the north face of Jannu (and every other thing inbetween which sometimes gets called mountaineering), and then make judgements based on the average of what's happened in the past.

ChuckNorris
18-Mar-2012
2:38:17 PM
On 18/03/2012 Miguel75 wrote:
>Thanks for breaking it down ODH, master Yoda certainly has a way with words;)
>
>On 17/03/2012 bomber pro wrote:
>>How Miguel managed to get peeved is truly perplexing.
>
>For starters I'm a sensitive sooky la-la;) Secondly it was a big day.
>Thirdly he's chosen a dangerous path through life. I appreciate his introspection
>and while it's terrible watching a mate, or anyone injure themselves, each
>and every one of his friends that died in the mountains knew (or should
>have known) the debt to be paid if they were dealt a dud hand. I can understand
>him working through the grief process and being angry but the language
>he used in the excerpt below annoys me. I feel he's complaining about his/his
>friends choices while leading a life less ordinary;
>
>"I do a lot of presentations about mountain sports, and sometimes share
>a list of dead friends to remind myself and the audience that the hidden
>price for the stunning photographs is all-too-regularly life itself. There
>are 27 names on my list. Not one of those friends died while driving to
>the mountains. Not one died on a commercial airline flight. To equate the
>risks of mountain sports to everyday activities like driving or even the
>chance of death from cancer is completely idiotic."
>

Isn't he just calling bullshit on stupid comparisons.

Like I said I really wanted to dislike the article but can't see anything much to get annoyed about - and I will go out of my way to find something to dislike in something if I really want to.

One Day Hero
18-Mar-2012
2:50:17 PM
On 18/03/2012 bomber pro wrote:

>Like I said I really wanted to dislike the article but can't see anything
>much to get annoyed about - and I will go out of my way to find something
>to dislike in something if I really want to.
>
The article in isolation is fine. Its just that when you take it in the context of all the badarse mountaineer stuff he's written, it seems a bit lame and predictable. To be fair, I can't recall any of Gadd's stuff I've read that was total "how good am I?" spray.

I dunno, it just seems like if it took 28 of his mates getting axed to finally question whether its such a good idea............maybe he's a bit of a slow learner?

cruze
18-Mar-2012
2:53:03 PM
Did davidn change to useful? Man I struggle to keep up.

Miguel75
18-Mar-2012
4:00:39 PM
On 18/03/2012 cruze wrote:
>Did davidn change to useful? Man I struggle to keep up.

What? I thought Stugang = Useful = Bomber Pro?

If Davidn is useful it makes more sense because I was wondering how I could be having two different discussions with the same person.

And apologies that my post destroyed your thead. 🌵
One Day Hero
18-Mar-2012
6:52:25 PM
On 18/03/2012 Miguel75 wrote:

>What? I thought Stugang = Useful = Bomber Pro?

I've stopped thinking about it in terms of real people, too confusing. I'm just treating the usernames as types now.

e.g.

- Anyone who is a smartarse is Stugang
- Anyone who shits me to tears is Davidn
- Anyone who heh heh heh's is M9
- Anyone who is mates with Lynn Hill is Bomber

I see this revolution in Chockstone thinking as being akin to Einstein coming up with special relativity.



ajfclark
18-Mar-2012
7:11:51 PM
On 18/03/2012 Useful wrote:
>Ok, I'm going to stop feeding this pointlessness. Even on the rare occasion
>these things start with discussion, they always end up with... this.

Don't they usually end up with Nazis?

ChuckNorris
18-Mar-2012
8:41:19 PM
OK maybe there is something annoying in the article. Here goes....despite all the moving stuff he writes about his friend's accidents etc, when it comes to the 5 stages of grief, he seems to be saying that he is going through it cos of the instability caused by this change to his world view. Nice, "I know you got minced, but how do you think that makes me feel".

Basically, he's having a mountain mid-life crisis, and he's a bit confused cos most people would just go out and buy a sports car and do crazy shit.

Macciza
18-Mar-2012
8:52:02 PM
On 18/03/2012 The good Dr wrote:
>Free soloing is not cragging it is just high ball bouldering. We are not
>including bouldering in this discussion about climbing.

What absolute rubbish; out of respect for the OP I have to say your comment shows no understanding of what he is talking about . . .

Once you have free soloed some of the Piddo classics and flashed a 200m V1 in the Grose Valley, then maybe you can talk about it as 'just highball bouldering' . . . .
Or have you done those already, please tell . . .
dmnz
20-Mar-2012
4:09:25 PM
On 18/03/2012 One Day Hero wrote:

>I dunno, it just seems like if it took 28 of his mates getting axed to
>finally question whether its such a good idea............maybe he's a bit
>of a slow learner?

Did you not see footage of him riding a pillar in Hyalite I think it was and then going back up again on the mixed?

But I agree re low grade mountaineering routes being much more dangerous objectively...a lot of snow routes are avalanche prone and can also make for good skiing (hint hint, that should make you think of avos when you are outside ski area boundaries) and I'm assuming most people on them are new and not able to judge the snow conditions properly...just look at the Ramp on Aspiring. Probably the easiest route on the mountain yet it's claimed the most lives. Also look at Taranaki...
Deceptive appearances and all that, cruze.

IdratherbeclimbingM9
21-Mar-2012
10:13:45 AM
On 18/03/2012 cruze wrote:
>Did davidn change to useful? Man I struggle to keep up.

He is now Wasteoftime ...


~> Like trying to keep up!


Post edit 15 March 2013:
He has now changed again to ratherbeclimbinV9

Capt_mulch
21-Mar-2012
6:27:13 PM
On 16/03/2012 oldtraddad wrote:
>Thanks Nic
>Yes Todd, some collegues in NZ the great Paul Scaife , Will Maqueen and
>Anton Whopris come to mind to. Too many.
I'm a mate of Peter Wopereis, Anton's brother. He gave me a copy of the book "Aspiring" to read, and we discussed Anton after I finished it (and a few other times in between). Anton was pretty hard core.

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There are 64 messages in this topic.

 

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