Tuckerman's crevasse/moat hiker fatality: lessons learned

**PNWbrit** · 06-06-2012, 12:17 PM

Originally Posted by kingdom-tele

or were they just really skilled with what is perceived to be inferior gear, afterall, they descended without injury, and removing the awful events that occured might have found it "sporting" in retrospect,

That might be possible...

I know other mountain travelers that look for such conditions to challenge themselves

Obvious.

**kingdom-tele** · 06-06-2012, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by PNWbrit

That might be possible...

In fact is was entirely possible. what is the difference in a novice who succeeds at descending vs a skilled mountaineer who succeeds at descending?

**icelanticskier** · 06-06-2012, 06:56 PM

absolutely nothing^^^^^^^^^^. the difference between a novice descending and dying and a skilled mountaineer descending and dying is the novice will be ridiculed for it and the skilled mountaineer may not be ridiculed for it. or something like that.

rog

**wooley12** · 06-06-2012, 08:30 PM

^^^'bout right. We live life and sometimes shit happens. I think the big thing the Monday Morning Quarterbacks are loathe to admit is that you can do everything right and still get hurt. Or do a few things not right and walk away 999 times out of 1000.

**strawjack** · 06-07-2012, 02:13 PM

i still have not read what route they were climbing. did i miss that? my take on this was they were traversing above the lip and that is when he fell. i did not read that they climbed up over the lip...maybe they did. i have too many times with out an axe or crampons. my axe are my skis...ya, don't do that biatches! my safety tip

i don't really understand the cravase talk, but what do i know. i was always under the impression that was more like a randkluft. either way its one long ass hole that i never wanted to fall into.

bottom line was he fell above an area where he could have just gone for a long tumbling slide (and hurt badly possibly) but instead, just by chance, he hit the hole and went in. imo it was just really bad luck. RIP

**Jonathan S.** · 06-07-2012, 04:12 PM

Originally Posted by wooley12

I think the big thing the Monday Morning Quarterbacks are loathe to admit is that you can do everything right and still get hurt.

Please give me some skiing incidents along those lines. (And not rock climbing, or even alpine climbing on anything other than a pitch that is intended to be skied, since that's not my kind of thing.)

Originally Posted by strawjack

i still have not read what route they were climbing. [...] imo it was just really bad luck.

Up LH summer route, then down into Tux ... via one of the steeper routes in Tux, with the worst exposure at that particular time of year . . . which was very easy to see from the bottom had they bothered (which they didn't) with the ~1 min extra hike from the LH summer turn-off up to the classic "revegetation" view shed.
And on a rock-hard day which was warned about in the USFS bulletin (which they never indicated they read).
All four of them with summer footwear. Only one with some sort of "crampons" (unclear if "microspikes" etc or true mountaineering crampons). No ice axes.
Two members of the party with no hiking experience whatsoever.
The other two with no winter mountaineering experience.
I suppose that's all a form of bad luck depending on how you define it.

**kingdom-tele** · 06-07-2012, 06:50 PM

Originally Posted by Jonathan S.

Please give me some skiing incidents along those lines. (And not rock climbing, or even alpine climbing on anything other than a pitch that is intended to be skied, since that's not my kind of thing.)

Up LH summer route, then down into Tux ... via one of the steeper routes in Tux, with the worst exposure at that particular time of year . . . which was very easy to see from the bottom had they bothered (which they didn't) with the ~1 min extra hike from the LH summer turn-off up to the classic "revegetation" view shed.
And on a rock-hard day which was warned about in the USFS bulletin (which they never indicated they read).
All four of them with summer footwear. Only one with some sort of "crampons" (unclear if "microspikes" etc or true mountaineering crampons). No ice axes.
Two members of the party with no hiking experience whatsoever.
The other two with no winter mountaineering experience.

there is forum for that here isn't there, ski and something I believe.

by looking for reported "incidents" doesn't it preclude any event that doesn't have a negative outcome that can be attributed to error. 4 make it down instead of 3 and there is no idea it even happened. Just for clarification Jonathan, not saying there isn't a benefit to highlighting the above decision process and its concerning aspects, but...

... 3 are still alive, adding mountain experiences to their learned repertoire, making adjustments accordingly, accomplishing goals, no different than us (written in the context of success without the death of the man's father, a hypothetical possibility)

**PNWbrit** · 06-07-2012, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by kingdom-tele

by looking for reported "incidents" doesn't it preclude any event that doesn't have a negative outcome that can be attributed to error. 4 make it down instead of 3 and there is no idea it even happened. Just for clarification Jonathan, not saying there isn't a benefit to highlighting the above decision process and its concerning aspects, but...

... 3 are still alive, adding mountain experiences to their learned repertoire, making adjustments accordingly, accomplishing goals, no different than us (written in the context of success without the death of the man's father, a hypothetical possibility)

Someone me pass an aspirin.

**icelanticskier** · 06-07-2012, 08:23 PM

Originally Posted by wooley12

you can do everything right and still get hurt.

BULL FUCKING SHIT^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

examples? c'mon wooley.

rog

**wooley12** · 06-07-2012, 08:41 PM

So, no mountaineer has ever been hurt by accident? No mountain travel entails a bit of pucker factor? My 50 y.o. neighbor got hurt tonight taking a soft ball in the face during a league game. Should have had a full face helmet at 1st base? Nope - Accident. Sorry, I'm too busy cleaning out 50 years of accumulated bits and pieces for a move to the mountains to do a search. My gut, and 50 years of playing on the edge tells me that some times shit happens. What is.........is. If thinking that by doing everything right you will eliminate any chance of risk helps you sleep at night, go for it.

**icelanticskier** · 06-07-2012, 09:27 PM

we're waiting wooley. you can do it

sounds like your neighbor shoulda been watching the ball. that shit didn't just happen, just sayin.

rog

**garyfromterrace** · 06-08-2012, 02:36 AM

Originally Posted by wooley12

So, no mountaineer has ever been hurt by accident? No mountain travel entails a bit of pucker factor? My 50 y.o. neighbor got hurt tonight taking a soft ball in the face during a league game. Should have had a full face helmet at 1st base? Nope - Accident. Sorry, I'm too busy cleaning out 50 years of accumulated bits and pieces for a move to the mountains to do a search. My gut, and 50 years of playing on the edge tells me that some times shit happens. What is.........is. If thinking that by doing everything right you will eliminate any chance of risk helps you sleep at night, go for it.

Sometimes shit happens (like an asteroid to the head), true but you mitigate the risks to the best of your ability. Dude at Tuckerman's did not mitigate the risks. Your beer ball playing buddy just sucks at beer ball - hit in the face by a ball at first base, come on that example sucks.
That is all.

**kingdom-tele** · 06-08-2012, 04:24 AM

Originally Posted by icelanticskier

we're waiting wooley. you can do it

no he can't.

it's a fools errand. there will always be hind sight error that can be attributed to human choice, just like anything else involving human decision making and choice, especially in reports of mountain "incidents" otherwise its not an incident, its another day in the mountains, which I suppose is an incident in itself

its not hard to look at half the TR's on this site and realize the author is a squirrel fart away from disaster, from my perspective, maybe even their own, but something has gotten them to that point that making a choice that looks absurd to me is completely within their skill set. Not to imply that this scenario is one, but the line of demarcation between good choice and bad is pretty thin, like chalk on the drive thin and even more so unique for all of us.

wonder how many people were moving around that day on Mt. Washington and have only another day to report back on. you could look at any of those scenarios too and find fault somewhere too and yet we wait for injury or death to begin our nitpicking, not that nitpicking is necessarily bad, but it is certainly easier when it is removed from yourself, or maybe even more dangerous, is used to prop up your own belief that your perspective/skill is infallible

ETA: what could this guy have done different? ( TC I will gladly pull this off if it is crossing a line)
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...o-Gnar/page255

**wooley12** · 06-08-2012, 05:31 AM

Two issues here. The event in Tuckerman and the more global question. The question is .... are all accidents preventible? All accidents are preventible in the theoretical but all accidents are not preventible in the actual.

**icelanticskier** · 06-08-2012, 05:34 AM

Originally Posted by kingdom-tele

squirrel fart away from disaster

like!

rog

**icelanticskier** · 06-08-2012, 05:42 AM

Originally Posted by wooley12

Tuckermans

it's tuckerman, wooley. not tuckermans. k, now back to your bizarro world thoughts and queries.............

rog

**wooley12** · 06-08-2012, 06:16 AM

Fixed it, thanks Rog. WTF? My wife isn't even up yet and already I'm being taken to task over nuance of vocabulary.

**icelanticskier** · 06-08-2012, 06:27 AM

Originally Posted by wooley12

Fixed it, thanks Rog. WTF? My wife isn't even up yet and already I'm being taken to task over nuance of vocabulary.

hey, that's what anal rententive friends are for!

rog

**strawjack** · 06-08-2012, 07:32 AM

Originally Posted by Jonathan S.

Up LH summer route, then down into Tux ... via one of the steeper routes in Tux, with the worst exposure at that particular time of year . . . which was very easy to see from the bottom had they bothered (which they didn't) with the ~1 min extra hike from the LH summer turn-off up to the classic "revegetation" view shed.
And on a rock-hard day which was warned about in the USFS bulletin (which they never indicated they read).
All four of them with summer footwear. Only one with some sort of "crampons" (unclear if "microspikes" etc or true mountaineering crampons). No ice axes.
Two members of the party with no hiking experience whatsoever.
The other two with no winter mountaineering experience.
I suppose that's all a form of bad luck depending on how you define it.

ok, that changes everything for me. that is just a really bad plan, sorry. climbing up that is hairball enough, but down climbing is just not smart unless you are truly prepared with axes, crampons and some experience, especially on bullet proof day. even then i would consider a rope possibly.

i will say that i've been up there solo on a bullet proof day with my skis and it was not fun. the thing about that place is the lower half can be relatively soft but once you crest over the headwall area and clouds roll in it can turn bullet proof. the pucker factor was way high and i really questioned my sanity, but that is when you turn on your 'a' game and rely on your experience. it could have gone really bad and it would have been all on me obviously. i did learn from that experience and that is part of the process. i learned i can rip that biatch!

**icelanticskier** · 06-08-2012, 07:42 AM

new green tundra?^^^^^^^^^^

c'mon i ride by your work on my bike commute to the store. any day there aren't waves. i'll be riding by again in about an hour. pop out for a cigarette and say hi!

rog

**PNWbrit** · 06-08-2012, 09:54 AM

Can we get his merged with the seat belt thread?

**icelanticskier** · 06-08-2012, 10:06 AM

Originally Posted by PNWbrit

Can we get his merged with the seat belt thread?

and the helmet thread.

rog

**strawjack** · 06-08-2012, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by icelanticskier

new green tundra?^^^^^^^^^^

c'mon i ride by your work on my bike commute to the store. any day there aren't waves. i'll be riding by again in about an hour. pop out for a cigarette and say hi!

rog

no, a dodge. i wanted to check out the built in tool boxes on the bed side. holds golf clubs beautifully and the other side can be filled w/ beer and ice.

cigarette

**coldfeet** · 06-09-2012, 03:30 AM

Originally Posted by wooley12

^^^'bout right. We live life and sometimes shit happens. I think the big thing the Monday Morning Quarterbacks are loathe to admit is that you can do everything right and still get hurt. Or do a few things not right and walk away 999 times out of 1000.

You can do almost everything right and still get hurt (because getting off the couch and outside exposes you to some risk). But if you don't take all the reasonable steps you can to mitigate risk you are more likely to get hurt. You might get away with it 99/100. However, a 1% risk of death or serious injury on a given day is higher than most of us dentists are comfortable with. I'm no Mark Twight. (and Mark Twight is still alive, which suggests that even he wasn't Mark Twight.)

MMQ to identify the reasonable steps that were not taken is not necessarily a bad thing, even if it is MMQ. Think of it as analysis, not blame.