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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Arapiles Benightment 4-Oct-2010 At 11:03:40 PM sleake

Message

On 4/10/2010 Olbert wrote:
>All these people saying "They should have spent the night in the cold and
>gotten out in the morning" should read the 'it was -2 and windy' part of
>the story. I challenge anyone, even the most hardened mountaineer
>to spent a night in sub zero windy conditions with little more then a jumper.
> Im not an expert here but I am under the impression that a healthy fit
>person is unlikely to survive a night like that.
>
>You can point out that they were inadequately prepared, they were silly
>not to scope out the decent before they left, etc etc but I think once
>they got themselves into that situation and could not get down by themselves
>what they did was completely right! If they had 'toughed it out' then
>they would most likely be dead

Sorry ollie...... Having been benighted (semi-intentionally) on the same climb the night before this went down, in fairly simmilar conditions, a healthy fit person would have had no dramas. Sure, a cold long night, but a bit of snuggling and shivering and jumping up and down would have got you through. After spending a high, long, snowy gearless winter bivy in NZ a few months back........ well lets just say I would have much prefered to have been up on syrinx in shorts and a teeshirt. If you are dry and somwhat out of the wind...... not much australian weather could kill someone after only one night.