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weaktwosI the link in my previous entry will take you to a summary, but let's say your day started out like this:
First, you are a 25 year old mountaineer. You've already made a tremendous climb up a 21,500 mountain face. It was dangerous, stormy, cold. You're about to begin your descent. This should be the easier part of your mountaineering experience. Then..
-You slip and fall several feet, breaking your leg in a most painful way, jamming the bones in your calf (tibia?) up and splitting your femur.
-There is no help to be had, except in your partner. No radioing for help or a helicopter. One or both of you dying is highly likely.
-Your buddy tries to slowly lower you down the mountain face, but as you're being lowered, your leg is hitting all sorts of rocks. But hey, as long as you're feeling pain, you're alive.
-It's storming, you can't see, nor can your partner. Your partner can't see that he's lowered you over an overhang. you can't get slack in the line, so your partner doesn't know that you're still alive and well, or what. Your partner is getting frostbitten, lossing his ability to anchor and hold you up, and he can't go down further without risking the both of you falling down the mountain.
-So, he cuts the line. You fall about 100 feet into an icy crevass.
That's Day 1.
After that, you're still alive, precariously balanced on a little icy ledge in the crevass. You can't crawl up towards the light. You're pretty sure you're dead meet. Your partner assumes you're dead, but doesn't come looking for you. You're alone. All alone.
What do you do?
If you're this fella, he lowers himself down further into the crevass. He'll either hit bottom, or he'll fall, and death will be quick. Yay for death, kids!
He makes it out of the crevass, and crawls, falls, rolls, hops, scoots back to base camp in about 4 days. He fights of dehydration, hallucinates, soils himself, loses about 1/3 of his body weight in the process.
His climbing partner, riddled with grief and guilt, burned his buddy's clothes thinking he was dead, and viewing torching his partner's drawers as a good way of closure. Passing out intermittently, he was trying to reflect on his life and family, feeling certain he was going to die soon, when a song he hates gets stuck in his head. I heard the song too. It was very bad.
How did the unfortunate climber know he was getting closer to camp? He was crawling through the stinky water run-off area where they went to the bathroom at base camp. Yes, he was crawlng amongst his and his partner's shit and piss.
Interestingly enough, the climber started out on this trip a Catholic. He lost his faith in God during his 5 day crawl. Though he didn't mention it, I'm fairly sure he believed in hell.
So...how badly is your day going?
First, you are a 25 year old mountaineer. You've already made a tremendous climb up a 21,500 mountain face. It was dangerous, stormy, cold. You're about to begin your descent. This should be the easier part of your mountaineering experience. Then..
-You slip and fall several feet, breaking your leg in a most painful way, jamming the bones in your calf (tibia?) up and splitting your femur.
-There is no help to be had, except in your partner. No radioing for help or a helicopter. One or both of you dying is highly likely.
-Your buddy tries to slowly lower you down the mountain face, but as you're being lowered, your leg is hitting all sorts of rocks. But hey, as long as you're feeling pain, you're alive.
-It's storming, you can't see, nor can your partner. Your partner can't see that he's lowered you over an overhang. you can't get slack in the line, so your partner doesn't know that you're still alive and well, or what. Your partner is getting frostbitten, lossing his ability to anchor and hold you up, and he can't go down further without risking the both of you falling down the mountain.
-So, he cuts the line. You fall about 100 feet into an icy crevass.
That's Day 1.
After that, you're still alive, precariously balanced on a little icy ledge in the crevass. You can't crawl up towards the light. You're pretty sure you're dead meet. Your partner assumes you're dead, but doesn't come looking for you. You're alone. All alone.
What do you do?
If you're this fella, he lowers himself down further into the crevass. He'll either hit bottom, or he'll fall, and death will be quick. Yay for death, kids!
He makes it out of the crevass, and crawls, falls, rolls, hops, scoots back to base camp in about 4 days. He fights of dehydration, hallucinates, soils himself, loses about 1/3 of his body weight in the process.
His climbing partner, riddled with grief and guilt, burned his buddy's clothes thinking he was dead, and viewing torching his partner's drawers as a good way of closure. Passing out intermittently, he was trying to reflect on his life and family, feeling certain he was going to die soon, when a song he hates gets stuck in his head. I heard the song too. It was very bad.
How did the unfortunate climber know he was getting closer to camp? He was crawling through the stinky water run-off area where they went to the bathroom at base camp. Yes, he was crawlng amongst his and his partner's shit and piss.
Interestingly enough, the climber started out on this trip a Catholic. He lost his faith in God during his 5 day crawl. Though he didn't mention it, I'm fairly sure he believed in hell.
So...how badly is your day going?
