"Because it's there."

Delicacy said:
Have you ever hiked any glaciers in Alaska?

If not, do you plan on doing so before they recede into nothingness?

Do you face climb?

Give me an example of an experience that really caused you to respect the wrath that Mother Nature may offer.

I was on an expedition to Denali that was cut short when my partner had a personal crisis. Spent five nights on the Kahiltna. I'll be back one of these days.

I've been in storms and stuff, but this really opened my eyes to what an avalanche could be. This is as seen from base Camp on Denali. The buttress with the conical snowcone on top is about fivethousand feet high, and is three miles from where I'm standing.

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When training for your next climb do you watch Cliffhanger with well known climber Sylvester Stalone?
 
KyleW said:
When training for your next climb do you watch Cliffhanger with well known climber Sylvester Stalone?


Sly trained hard for that movie. he was making really hard moves on a practice wall. However, his climbing double was Ron Kauk, one of the greatest rock climbers ever.

The climbing in that movie, for the most part, is ridiculously inaccurate.

I gotta go. My wife is going to divorce me in a minute.
 
crazybbwgirl said:
Why?


Oh - and what do you think of people who get lost/trapped on a mountainside and we spend thousands of $$$ in search and rescue to get them down? Shouldn't THEY have to pay for that? I mean - why should I have to pay for some - um - idiot (ok - silly person) who wants to just go out and climb around?

I'm sorry, I scrolled right past it the first time.

I've done a fair amount of SAR, as a volunteer and as part of my job. There's a lot of grey area here. In NH, they can bill you for it if they think you were negligent/irresponsible.

I don't think you should have to pay for those people, but then, we pay for a lot of foolishness everyday. Consider the cost of paying for my ambulance runs for people who refuse to quit smoking. Free ride, paid for by the town.

Colorado has a "hiker's certificate that defrays rescue costs for hikers, climbers, and hunters/fishers, etc.

I have to go this minute and do laundry or she'll rip my balls off. I'll answer you more indepth later.
 
Peregrinator said:
I'm sorry, I scrolled right past it the first time.

I've done a fair amount of SAR, as a volunteer and as part of my job. There's a lot of grey area here. In NH, they can bill you for it if they think you were negligent/irresponsible.

I don't think you should have to pay for those people, but then, we pay for a lot of foolishness everyday. Consider the cost of paying for my ambulance runs for people who refuse to quit smoking. Free ride, paid for by the town.

Colorado has a "hiker's certificate that defrays rescue costs for hikers, climbers, and hunters/fishers, etc.

I have to go this minute and do laundry or she'll rip my balls off. I'll answer you more indepth later.


oh - that's fine... I had no idea there were even ways to help pay when that stuff happens. That's pretty cool. Ambulance is usually covered by your insurance I think?

And I get just as disgusted (or more) about the assholes who take their snowmobiles out on the lake and have to be rescued every single winter around here....
 
KyleW said:
When training for your next climb do you watch Cliffhanger with well known climber Sylvester Stalone?

I was going to ask what he knew about Angelina Jolie's climbing scene in 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' and whether it was real or not. She flies her own personal plane at 7.5 months preggers - something tells me she also mountain climbs, as well. But since he's gotta get going, I'll just leave such question as a cliffhanger.
 
crazybbwgirl said:
oh - that's fine... I had no idea there were even ways to help pay when that stuff happens. That's pretty cool. Ambulance is usually covered by your insurance I think?

And I get just as disgusted (or more) about the assholes who take their snowmobiles out on the lake and have to be rescued every single winter around here....

As far as ambulance, it depends on the situation. As a town volunteer squad member, I got a very smalll amount of money at Christmas time--it depended on how many calls you went on, but the super active folks probably got a few hundred bucks--and the ride was free for anyone who lived in town. Town budget paid for it. On the professional squad, we billed insurance, yeah.

SAR is not a paid job anywhere in the country except for park rangers and Fish and Game officers and the like. They're in charge, but an awful lot of the actual work is done by volunteers. In Yosemite, the YOSAR members get "paid" by being allowed to camp all season for free, and get a few bucks per hour while on a rescue.

Far and away the most expensive SAR operation ever in NH was the search for a Lear Jet that disappeared a few years ago in a snowstorm. Most ops in NH--which has a tremendous number per year compared to other states--are relatively simple matters; hike in, splint/bandage/package, hike and carry out. I know of a couple cases where people were billed for stupidity...one involved a winter night climb of Mt Cardigan by three young men and a case of beer...cell phone call from under a rock near the summit. One was an arrogant pathologist who went unprepared for a winter climb of Mt Washington despite being told by several people not to and came within a literal five minutes of having the search abandoned until the next day, by which time he would certainly have been dead.

The cost of such things is relatively minimal; a few overtime hours for the Fish Cop in charge, and the rest is mostly volunteers who are eager for the experience, rescue geeks like me.

People do dumb things on snowmobiles, yeah. I've been known to say on occasion that snowmobiles offend all five of my senses.

One possible difference is that most serious climbers are aware of their abilities and the risks they're taking. Another is that there is a powerful self-reliance ethic amongst climbers; being rescued is embarassing, so we avoid it. I'd crawl out of the backcountry on the bloody remains of my extremities before I'd ask for a rescue.
 
Morcheeba said:
I was going to ask what he knew about Angelina Jolie's climbing scene in 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' and whether it was real or not. She flies her own personal plane at 7.5 months preggers - something tells me she also mountain climbs, as well. But since he's gotta get going, I'll just leave such question as a cliffhanger.

I don't remember the scene. I fell asleep in the middle of that movie and watched the rest the next morning...it was new years eve and I was alone, off teaching...I may have overindulged a bit. Judging by her other movies, and that I think I read that she likes to do her own stunts, it's possible that she's a climber.
 
Recidiva said:
Do you climb mountains to get away from your wife?

Certainly not; she's a climber as well, though not as experienced as me. She loves outdoors stuff. She was just pacing around, waiting for me to be done here so we could go do laundry.
 
Peregrinator said:
Certainly not; she's a climber as well, though not as experienced as me. She loves outdoors stuff. She was just pacing around, waiting for me to be done here so we could go do laundry.

Do you have a sense of humor?
 
When will you get a new jacket, I don't like the blue one.

It's so 80's.

but so am I.

hehe
 
Recidiva said:
Do you have a sense of humor?

Sorry; I'm really hungry and kind of grumpy. She just got offered a job, like, this minute, so there was a fair amount of cheerful noise here.
 
Little Tighty said:
When will you get a new jacket, I don't like the blue one.

It's so 80's.

but so am I.

hehe

Where the hell have you been?

That jacket is the nadz. It's actually a windshirt, a thin nylon pullover that packs the size of a tennis ball.
 
Peregrinator said:
Sorry; I'm really hungry and kind of grumpy. She just got offered a job, like, this minute, so there was a fair amount of cheerful noise here.

Yaaaay!

Congratulations to her :)
 
Peregrinator said:
Where the hell have you been?

That jacket is the nadz. It's actually a windshirt, a thin nylon pullover that packs the size of a tennis ball.
I've been around.

Ok but I don't like the color.
 
Peregrinator said:
Sorry; I'm really hungry and kind of grumpy. She just got offered a job, like, this minute, so there was a fair amount of cheerful noise here.
congrats fo Perg-wife.
 
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