Rules / standards in the alpine?

rgold wrote:Alpine climbing is not safe. That's the first thing to understand clearly. You can't replicate the security of short routes on waterfalls and crags, and you have to move fast or you're screwed. That said, the one thing to strive for is adequate belays. The whole party is attached to them. It is the one place where one might put in some extra time to try to make sure the party is safe. ...

What Mr. Gold is writing is sage and accurate advice.

That said Josh, go get yourself a copy of Twight's book "Extreme Alpinism". The dude may not be on the current cutting edge, but he and his partners did some serious, hard, and unsafe climbing in the big ranges of the world. Guess what he stresses? Bomb proof anchors and protecting the belay whenever humanly possible (go read some Alpinist articles and you will read about folks like Steve House taking the time to pound in 5 pins just to make sure that the anchor is truck...and he clearly ain't no puss climber). Is there a time and place for "non" anchors because of speed constraints? Yup, but as I think Buff pointed out, you are best to solo at that point because at least when you fall you don't take the whole crew to the deck with you. Garbage anchors and roped climbing make zero sense under most circumstances (though obviously what constitutes a garbage anchor is totally situational dependent...e.g. boot axe is fine in some situations, but stupid and pointless in others.)

When you go alpine climbing (especially with new partners) you need to make damn sure you are on the same page as far as what constitutes acceptable risk. If you and your partners have vastly different tolerances and needs in this department, then it best not to leave the ground together. There isn't a safety standard that is necessarily "right" or "wrong", just different, and you need to be on the same page before leaving the ground.

....and to specifically answer one of your questions. If I got to a belay and my partner didn't have anything in for an anchor and in under a minute I was able to sink a couple tools shaft deep, tie them off and in the process secure the party....wooo, you're damn right I would be pissed. That is some caviler bullsh*t for no purpose other than laziness.

+1 for "Extreme Alpinism"

I am not an extreme alpinist, but among my group of partners, I generally climb harder and will take on bigger objectives. I also tend to have higher risk tolerance.

I think part of it is that being more risk tolerant to start with means that you are more likely to tackle objectives that a timid climber might not, which also makes you better. And being a better climber also helps you feel more comfortable with exposure and your ability to not fall.

I don't think there's a right or wrong answer in terms of the level of risk to take. Certainly climbing at the cutting edge of alpinism requires some serious risks, but that doesn't mean that every alpine outing needs to be a near-death experience.

The most important thing in my mind is that everyone on the team is on the same page. This basically involves two things. The starting point is having similar risk tolerances (or at least be willing to climb at the lower common denominator). After that, it's important to communicate so that everyone understands the decisions being made in terms of risk.

In the body belay example, the fact that you were surprised by the lack of an anchor means you weren't on the same page. Maybe it was just a matter of poor communication. If the leader had told you "I expect this is easy climbing for all of us so I'm not going to take the time to build anchors", would that have made it ok by you? If not, that would indicate a more fundamental difference in risk tolerance.

Caveat lector, the only thing Elleanor is qualified to give advice on is escaping a straitjacket...

Everything you describe may be the only good option available depending on the alpine terrain you're in. But, it does seem as though the choices weren't being dictated by the terrain.

Perhaps, these dudes were unnecessarily extending the comfort level they've developed with sketchy situations into situations that didn't need to be sketchy. But, I think many of us do that within a range of our ability/comfort level.

I've become more comfortable with a two-point anchor after having to rely on them in a few alpine situations. And, I'm sometimes satisfied with a two-point anchor even when I could build a three-point anchor.

I probably wouldn't be comfortable in the situations you describe. But, I'm not climbing with the experience your partners apparently have and I can imagine how they could be comfortable.

Is it an acceptable level of risk tolerance? We all climb big chunks of rock, snow, and ice unnecessarily, knowing that we could die. That's a silly question.

I appreciate the input. Most of it makes complete sense to me and is along the lines of what I was thinking. I needed confirmation and you guys helped me out.

I was shocked about rapping one nut being common though. I bought a bunch of used nuts for $3 each on here. Those are my rap nuts. I guess I shouldn't have given them such a hard time about the one nut bit.

I've read Twight's books, Long's anchors, etc and they were good. I have no intention o trying to climb like Twight's though. Running it out and barely having enough gear, food, and so on.

Scuba diving is a much more fun way to vacation.

Yes, there's the issue of mismatched expectations. But a belay that won't hold a fall (I'm not saying that was necessarily the case, but the OP's description makes it seem likely) isn't a matter of higher risk tolerance, it's a matter of higher stupidity: all it achieves is increasing the number of people that will get injured or die in the event of a fall.

As for rapping off a single nut, I've done that once or twice, but off a really bomber nut, NOT like the one in the picture. It looks like a size or two up placed deeper in the slot would be much more secure.

Those DMM offsets aren't cheap - no way would you want to rap off more than one! ;)

We rapped off the nut pictured. It had been place by an earlier party. We didn't back it up, but I assume the previous group did before they rapped earlier in the day.

Josh Wood wrote:I was shocked about rapping one nut being common though.

Survivorship bias and laziness/cheapness is surely skewing results. The people who rap'd on one nut that failed largely have not lived to regret it, so you will probably never talk to someone who says "Yeah I rap'd off one nut but it failed, I rap on two now".

In this case, "common practice" probably isn't enough. I think we know better, but the survivorship bias combined with our natural laziness/cheapness nudges people. "It'll be ok, everybody else does it, and you could save $8!" If you want a real answer, you'd probably need to read the accident reports.

For me, as far as saving $8- a second nut is cheap insurance compared to the cost of a helivac.