...make sure that my ability to meet and trauma and everything goes a little bit beyond the bare minimum....
Do you remember when Joe Simpson crawled down Siula Grande in Peru?1 Or when Doug Scott crawled down The Ogre in Pakistan after breaking both his legs? No-one knows those stories anymore which is our loss. I listened to the monthly Sharp End Podcast today, and thought, as I often do, why do I listen to these episodes? The stories can be modestly interesting but the analysis makes vanilla ice-cream look like an exciting new flavour. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single guest say “I should have made better decisions.” The standard answer to the “learnings” (I blame the Millenials, or perhaps the Zoomers for popularising “learnings,” although the term has apparently been around for a centuries) is always “I need more gear.” Never, I need to make better decisions.
The first thing you have to get past in this episode is the annoying Zoomer who relates the story, who, in case you missed the 334 times he mentioned it, is a “professional” guide. Whatever that means. Anyway, the accident was just that an accident. Sydney injured her knee (apparently the quadriceps tendon was torn) which sounds like a really sucky injury to sustain, but stuff that like happens in the mountains. Sometimes these things are preventable by being stronger or having better proprioception or being less fatigued, but, injuries are a part of outdoor adventure life.
These guys were lucky. Not only did they get plucked off by a helicopter but they had a bag of bivvy gear dropped to them by helicopter. That gear drop made the difference between a cold night out at 3,000 metres and a relatively comfortable bivvy with food, drink, sleeping bags etc. What’s striking about this episode is that the two climbers simply sit on the ridge where the accident happens and wait for rescue. That seems odd to me. With a partially torn quadriceps tendon it is highly unlikely that you’ll be able to get out of there alone, but, it’s 4.45 pm when the accident happens, you’ve got four hours until sunset to do something, anything to make some kind of shelter for the night. Obviously there is no wood for a fire, but you might scavenge some snow for drinking water, move some rocks around to get some flat ground, build some rock walls for protection from the wind, or even just grovel your way to a slightly better spot to spend the night.
One of the best ways to avoid unplanned bivouacs at 3,000 metres when you have sustained an injury is to start early! This won’t necessarily prevent an accident, although if you are hurrying to get somewhere before nightfall that can increase your risk of accidents, but if you do need a rescue, the agency that has to come in to haul your arse out of there has a lot more daylight hours to work with.
When I was with Nelson SAR, the call for a missing skier or injured hiker almost always came after dark. Start early and you’ve got time to deal with anything that comes up. Leaving camp at 11 am with your boom box speaker, your fishing rod, and your almost dead mobile phone doesn’t leave much buffer for when things go wrong. And we all need buffers.
1As an aside, who gives Simpson’s amazing story of tenacity and survival a one star review because they don’t know how to use a dictionary (here’s the actual review: “To enjoy the book, you may need to really know what a 'col' is, what a 'moraine' is …”). Goodreads seems to be as big a cesspit as Bluesky.
