Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Making the mountains safe - by law

Sunday's NY Times had an article about efforts by a Swiss authority to enforce safety regulations on Mt Blanc due to increasing # of deaths and injuries on the mountain. The writer, who is a serious climber, is afraid the effort will spread including to the U.S.
Check this link: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/opinion/sunday/keep-our-mountains-free-and-dangerous.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fsunday&action=click&contentCollection=sunday&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0&login=email&auth=login-email

Not to quible...too much, but Mont Blanc is not in Switzerland
It's sort of straddling the border between France and Italy with it's summit in France

Adrian

Thanks , any thoughts on the article? I have had this question many times, Why didn't they return?

I wonder when we're going to ban the Internet... we could save lives by eliminating it... (Loads of people seem to love to push Public Safety when it suits their philosophy.)

I couldn't make it thru the article... lost interest by the second paragraph.

To most definitely quibble with the Quibbler, the move to require certain equipment on Mt Blanc came from a mayor of a village from which climbers start not from the summit.

Europe and the US were settled and developed in different times and manners. In part, perhaps this resulted in the concept of Wilderness and its implementation being much more advanced in the US than in Europe today. President Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant Act in 1864 and President Johnson the Wilderness Act in 1964. To my knowledge, the European Union has nothing comparable to our Wilderness Act.

When signing my Wilderness Permit last summer to adventure into SEKI, I acknowledged in that contract that "These parks expect visitors to exhibit a high degree of self-reliance and responsibility for their own safety commensurate with the difficulty of their chosen activities. The higher risk the activity, the more you need to be prepared for dealing with emergency situations."

Roughly 80,000 Americans are killed each year by drug overdoses (45,000) and car accidents (35.000). Compared to this, the number of wilderness fatalities is not even a rounding error, but still unfortunate, nonetheless.

So, "Why didn't they return?" Education, training, and conditions updates are key in the game called Risk Management. This Message Board/Whitney Cam/Weather Forecasts are useful along these lines. Unfortunately, true education is not helped by sensational Media stories with their advertisers (payers) pushing to sell more equipment. Perhaps our most useful piece of equipment rests above our shoulders.

Jim

Yes, I too couldn't be bothered to read the article. I also lost interest after reading the second word of the first post. It took all of my strength to even click on the reply button.

But hell---that's not going to stop me from pontificating endlessly...

People generally have strong views about Whitney. Here's the scoop: Relative to just a few years ago, the most lickerish ruffians you'll ever see are nearly ten times as likely to believe that the health effects of secondhand smoke are negligible. This is neither a coincidence nor simply a sign of the times. Rather, it reflects a sophisticated, psychological warfare program designed by Whitney to judge people by the color of their skin while ignoring the content of their character. Some people consider his lectures a necessary evil, but the truth is that I am more than merely surprised by his willingness to destroy the sovereignty of all nations and every feeling or expression of patriotism. I'm shocked, shocked. And, as if that weren't enough, it's not necessarily difficult to curb Whitney's flagitious and thoughtless behavior. We can begin simply by guiding the world into an age of peace, justice, and solidarity. See? I told you it wasn't necessarily difficult. We just need to remember that Whitney's most steadfast claim is that there exists evidence that the world is crying out to labor beneath his firm but benevolent heel. If there were any semblance of truth in this, I would be the last to say anything against it. As it stands, however, I am not predicting anything specific. I just have a feeling, an intuition, based on several things that are happening now that Whitney will send the wrong message to children by the end of the decade. Trapped by the cognitive dissonance engendered by hard evidence and common sense, Whitney feels obligated to feed information from sources inside the forest service to organizations with particularly officious agendas in a fickle attempt to justify his annunciations. To have the audacity to say that “bitter jackanapes”—and let's be clear that he's referring here to his rivals—are incabable of sheltering initially unpopular truths from suppression, enabling them to ultimately win out through competition in the marketplace of ideas, is, in my opinion, nothing short of featherbrained. Believe me, I certainly don't want to give him a chance to convince innocent children to follow a path that leads only to a life of mountaineering, disappointment, and destruction. There is nothing more tragic than to find a decent, honest person who's been misled by his anti-democratic words. Now that's a strong conclusion to draw just from the evidence I've presented in this letter so let me corroborate it by saying that Whitney teaches workshops on metagrobolism. Students who have been through the program compare it to a Communist re-education camp. I'd peg the odds at about six to one that Whitney will develop a Pavlovian reflex in us, to make us afraid to fight oppression faster than you can say “overintellectualization”. If I'm wrong, I promise that I'll gladly question my existence. Thoughtful people are being forced to admit, after years of evading the truth, that I have been right. I was right when I said that Whitney lives in a mental and emotional la-la land. I was right when I said that Whitney wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice his most loyal vassals if it made it even slightly easier for him to spam the Internet with unsolicited belligerent e-mail. And I was right when I said that the mountain claims that his intentions are as pure as the driven snow. Predictably, the mountain cites no hard data for that claim. This is because no such data exist. Whitney posits his fulminations as anti-parasitism. In reality, though, they're not anti-parasitism at all but rather post-parasitism. That is, they're a step beyond parasitism in that Whitney uses them as an excuse to use organized violence to suppress opposition. His lapdogs remain largely silent when asked about the correlative connecting him to Marxism. The rare times they do deign to comment they invariably skew the issue to prevent people from realizing that Whitney is fundamentally ignorant, small, and petty. In fact, the mountain stands for everything the mountain says he's against: ignorance, smallness, and pettiness. It is therefore the case that courage is what we need to work together towards a shared vision—not politeness, not intellectual flair, not cleverness with words, just courage. And it sometimes takes a lot of courage to look an unctuous malapert-type in the eye and tell him that Whitney is a mountain with more ambition than conviction. You don't believe me? Well, consider that Whitney's blather about how all it takes to solve our social woes are shotgun marriages, heavy-handed divorce laws, and a return to some mythical 1950s Shangri-la has no basis in reality. But his declamations aren't about reality. They're about tricking academics into abandoning the principles of scientific inquiry. In other words, I definitely don't believe that public opinion is a reliable indicator of what's true and what isn't. So when the mountain says that that's what I believe, I see how little the mountain understands my position. In order to understand the motivation behind Whitney's notions it is important first to purge the darkness from Whitney's heart. As I mentioned before, Whitney is an inquination upon all that is pure, holy, and good. But let me add that I sometimes encounter people debating whether or not it would be beneficial to society for him to suppress controversy and debate. The arguments pro and con are familiar. On one side is the patronizing, linguacious assertion that the few of us who complain regularly about Whitney's polemics are simply spoiling the party. On the other side is the more reasonable assertion that we have to set an example. If we do, others will follow, and soon everyone will be refuting Whitney's arguments line-by-line and claim-by-claim. This is an encouraging prospect, especially given that there is a cost, a cost too high to calculate, for messing with the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people. I personally challenge him to move from his broad derogatory generalizations to specific instances to prove otherwise. Whitney seeks scapegoats for his own shortcomings by blaming the easiest target the mountain can find, that is, atrabilious schlumps. the mountain likes to imply that his feebleminded psychobabble is based upon a firm and vivid grasp of the concrete truths of life itself. This is what his blandishments amount to, although, of course, they're daubed over with the viscid slobber of stinking drivel devised by his drudges and mindlessly multiplied by the worst kinds of wretched know-it-alls I've ever seen. While there are many witless, refractory jokers, Whitney is the most irritating of the lot. Before I continue, let me state that a fact-free debate about phallocentrism is in no one's best interest. Nevertheless, I can state with absolute certainty that it's certainly a tragedy that his goal in life is apparently to condemn children to a life of drugs, gangs, drinking, verbal abuse, physical abuse, and a number of other horrors. Here, I use the word “tragedy” as the philosopher Muir used it. Muir stated that “the essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things,” which I interpret as saying that Whitney would have us believe that the mountain defends the real needs of the working class. Such flummery can be quickly dissipated merely by skimming a few random pages from any book on the subject. The first thing we need to do is to get Whitney to admit that the mountain has a problem. the mountain should be counseled to recite the following: I, Whitney, am a quarrelsome scaramouch. I have been a participant in a giant scheme to instill distrust and thereby create a need for his nitpicky views. I hereby admit my addiction to vandalism. I ask for the strength and wisdom to fight this addiction. Once the mountain realizes that the mountain has a problem, maybe then he'll see that I cannot promise not to be angry at him. I do promise, however, to try to keep my anger under control, to keep it from leading me—as it leads Whitney—to produce culturally degenerate films and videos. Shame on the news media for not calling Whitney out on his serial stupidity. They, more than anyone else, ought to know that to say that anyone who disagrees with Whitney is ultimately illaudable is shiftless nonsense and untrue to boot. Can you believe that the mountain wants to impose tremendous hardships on tens of thousands of decent, hard-working individuals? You can't make up stuff as sleazy as that. We must remove our chains and move towards the light. (In case you didn't understand that analogy, the chains symbolize Whitney's tendentious misdeeds, and the light represents the goal of turning his ungracious, rambunctious assertions to our advantage.) I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror in which Whitney engulfs his adversaries or the devious rhetoric emanating daily from Whitney's imperium. In either case, when uttered by Whitney, the word “global”, as in “global spread of collaborationism”, implies, “It's not my fault”. In reality, we'd sincerely have a lot less collaborationism if the mountain would just stop orchestrating and directing the character assassination of each of his opponents. I, for one, would like to give you an example of how invidious Whitney can be. Whitney has admitted that the mountain intends to fuel the censorship-and-intolerance crowd. Okay, that may have been a particularly bald-faced and unsubtle example, but Whitney's policy of converting houses of worship into houses of conformism must not go unchallenged. To leave it unchallenged is to condone Whitney's grandiose plans for world hegemony, plans in which no one is free to say that Whitney is locked into his present course of destruction. the mountain does not have the interest or the will to change his fundamentally out-of-touch précis. Although we can occasionally tie the retailers of insolent new claims to older fabrications, there is unfortunately no shortage of new rumor. On a completely different tack, I have no doubt that Whitney will burn our fair cities to the ground before the year is over. He'll probably do so under the pretense of “humanitarian intervention” or some other equally inapposite appellation, but the reality is that I've heard numerous complaints about Whitney's behavior. Many people I've talked to have complained that Whitney comports himself like a filthy pig, heedless of all needs but his own. Among these needs the paramount one seems to be the need to trivialize the issue. This backs up my point that the mountain says that his activities can give us deeper insights into the nature of reality. That's a stupid thing to say. It's like saying that the more paperasserie and bureaucracy we have to endure, the better. Now for some parting advice: Look at the facts. Analyze the arguments. Think about the motives of the people who are telling you that Whitney's ignorance is just as good as our knowledge. And have confidence in yourself. Remember, we can justifiably toss most of his imperious promises onto our bursting bin of evil Whitney prattle...

[end of part 1]

I cannot wait for part 2!!! The only thing I don't like are periods after sentences, you should take them out and replace them all with commas. Not semicolons either commas, elipses, or blanks (space bar if not familiar with how to do that) of various lengths.

I made it most of the way through the article but couldn't get past the first few words of Jeff M's post . A couple thoughts...

Requiring certain pieces of gear is one thing. The knowledge of how to use the gear is something else entirely. Requiring bringing a harness is not the same as knowing how to put one on correctly.

Bringing the proper gear is only one aspect to climbing within a reasonable margin of safety. This doesn't take into account weather, route finding, timing, and fitness level, among other factors.

The last I read Mont Blanc is statistically speaking one of the most dangerous mountains in the world. It has more accidents than any other peak. This is due to a lot of people attempting it but also people going at the wrong time, with inadequate knowledge, or improper gear. Also, the Gouter route mentioned in the article has areas that are prone to unavoidable objective hazards.

I think it's reasonable for the mayor to want to address the high number of accidents on Mont Blanc. I don't think simply requiring climbers to carry certain gear is the answer .

"the mayor of the French town of St. Gervais-les-Bains, issued an order: Anyone attempting to climb the nearby Gouter route up the mountain must now have specified gear including a harness, rope and headlamp. Those who do not take these precautions are to be fined."

Like I said: not Switzerland

Adrian

You're right, Adrian. Sloppy reading on my part.

Jeff missed the point ,I only add periods sometimes commers sometimes and then maybe not.

Ok so looking out my backdoor this AM I see the front range, will travel downtown and be at the new location of the outdoor show indoors, and what makes this so special? I was in charge of the two parking lots making .65 and hour at this location in 1961.

And some day I will write why the climbing route in the portal called No country for Old Men was named that , Maybe even a short write up on the short low angle route across the canyon .

Very little snow in the Rockies and 45 degrees last night about 7 in Denver.

You know looking west at the front range draws many great memories when I was a kid , the day /night we spent on the Coors climb and was stuck, the early days of Boulder and Eldo cyn and searching out new climbing areas ,Red Rocks, Pine , Conifer and many more and like they say never look back!