Andes6000 wrote:It's hard to judge if you weren't there, especially in the mountains. That said, there's plenty of jerks who think they can fool everyone. Does anyone remember Christian Stangl?

http://www.planetmountain.com/english/N ... eyid=37578

whoa. actually, I missed the whole Stangl thing. That's just sad; i thought we went out there to challenge and find meaning in ourselves, not to invent opportunities for others' praise. still, i wonder how far up he actually did get - that in and of itself would be no mean feat; seems like there'd be no need to exaggerate a summit after coming so close on K2

MoapaPk wrote:I'm concerned that anita doesn't care.

Does anyone care that MoapaPk cares that anita doesn't care?

Brad Marshall wrote:

MoapaPk wrote:I'm concerned that anita doesn't care.

Does anyone care that MoapaPk cares that anita doesn't care?

I'm concerned that you don't care that MoapPK is concerned that Anita doesn't care.

JasonH wrote:

Brad Marshall wrote:

MoapaPk wrote:I'm concerned that anita doesn't care.

Does anyone care that MoapaPk cares that anita doesn't care?

I'm concerned that you don't care that MoapPK is concerned that Anita doesn't care.

Anita doesn't care about the OP or MoapaPk but MoapaPk does care about Anita but Brad and Jason do you care?

I care. Because I'm a very compassionate person.

anita wrote:I certainly don't

You wound me to my sensitive-guy core! It will take some powerful LOLcats to make me at peace with the world.

Marmaduke wrote:I care. Because I'm a very compassionate person.

i don't believe you

.



SILVIO!

We're waiting on you to reply to the questions you were asked. What, are you out whacking someone?

Marmaduke wrote:

JasonH wrote:

Brad Marshall wrote:Does anyone care that MoapaPk cares that anita doesn't care?

I'm concerned that you don't care that MoapPK is concerned that Anita doesn't care.

Anita doesn't care about the OP or MoapaPk but MoapaPk does care about Anita but Brad and Jason do you care?

I care. Because I'm a very compassionate person.

I care that you're a compassionate person but don't care if you care that I care about...wait, WTF were we talking about?

F*ck it, who cares anymore!

Ok some precions are perhpas needed.

I was there in 2007 along with a climber, Michael Ybarra, that you might know. We met on Summitpost and climbed in the Mont Blanc in 2006 and in Peru in 2007 for about one month, including around Siula Grande.

I do not believe the full story because there are too many strange things. This does not mean it is all false. I believe it's not all true.
It's just there are some holes in the story. Here the list

- Why Simon remains so many days in the Base Camp. They had limited provisions and he knew Joe was died. Would you remain so many days, rather than packing up and head back. Would you have spent almost a week taking the sun overthere? I do not even think they were so long on food supply and gas.
And I don't believe he was just waiting for the donkey to be there to leave. I have climbed there and the distance from the closest village is not that big.
- It always sounded strange to me those donkeys arrived exactly the day after Joe returned to the camp.
- I cannot believe that Simon hold Joe for such a long time before taking the decision to cut the rope. And even then I do not understand why he did not even try for example to tie a prusik on the rope in order to release the tension on the belaying device and pass the knot. Indeed Simon was too much of a good climber to do such a stupid thing as giving all the rope to the belayed partner and find himself as a stupid with the knot blocking the belaying device.
- Simon does not check where exactly Simon is after the fall in the crevasse. Now I am a very stupid person but I would have made an anchor (may be the day after) to secure the body to a rope for future recovery.

I don't know what exactly happen, it's just the story as it is has too many holes for me.

PS I am late with the answer because I am 10 hours ahead California

knoback,

I once felled in a crevasse (it was in July 2006 Swizerland) and I was absolutely OK. I managed to ascend the rope a few meters but it was extremely difficult and I was not injured / not dehydrated and in quite good shape.
I cannot imagine Simon believing something like that.

Again, I don't think the whole story is false, I think it is not all true.

Silvio1973 wrote:Ok some precions are perhpas needed.

I was there in 2007 along with a climber, Michael Ybarra, that you might know. We met on Summitpost and climbed in the Mont Blanc in 2006 and in Peru in 2007 for about one month, including around Siula Grande.

I do not believe the full story because there are too many strange things. This does not mean it is all false. I believe it's not all true.
It's just there are some holes in the story. Here the list

- Why Simon remains so many days in the Base Camp. They had limited provisions and he knew Joe was died. Would you remain so many days, rather than packing up and head back. Would you have spent almost a week taking the sun overthere? I do not even think they were so long on food supply and gas.
And I don't believe he was just waiting for the donkey to be there to leave. I have climbed there and the distance from the closest village is not that big.
- It always sounded strange to me those donkeys arrived exactly the day after Joe returned to the camp.
- I cannot believe that Simon hold Joe for such a long time before taking the decision to cut the rope. And even then I do not understand why he did not even try for example to tie a prusik on the rope in order to release the tension on the belaying device and pass the knot. Indeed Simon was too much of a good climber to do such a stupid thing as giving all the rope to the belayed partner and find himself as a stupid with the knot blocking the belaying device.
- Simon does not check where exactly Simon is after the fall in the crevasse. Now I am a very stupid person but I would have made an anchor (may be the day after) to secure the body to a rope for future recovery.

I don't know what exactly happen, it's just the story as it is has too many holes for me.

I've been there also (the base camp area only, in 2008), but that doesn't really mean much.

I think Simon was exhausted after getting back to their base camp and needed a couple of days rest before packing up and heading back. He was probably also a bit depressed by the events and had a hard time getting going. I don't know that they were at all short on food at their base camp and they didn't need gas there because they used a liquid fuel stove there.

Tying on a prussik while holding the belay sounds a bit tricky to me. Easing the load off of the prussik and onto the belay device also seems like it would be a bit difficult since retying the knot would probably result in a good bit of slack between the prussik and the belay device. Of course, a long prussik loop and possibly two prussik loops would help that situation, but maybe Simon only had one short prussik.

As far as any concern for recovering the body, that seems a bit absurd given the time frame. Things were different when they were there than they were in 2007 or 2008. In 2007 the Sendero Luminosa was no longer around and it had become easier to get to and from the Cordillera Huayhuash. What would be done with the body if it had been recovered? Fly it back to England? Who would pay for that?

Sorry, I just don't see the holes that you do.

knoback wrote:I don't know, I've seen smart, well educated people pumping on a person's chest an hour after that person went into cardiac arrest. Under extreme pressure, people don't always behave rationally, especially when they are faced with a no-win situation.

Also, Simon might have contemplated telling a BS story about how Simpson fell. He did cut the rope, right? That adds to the pressure in this situation. I'm not a climber so this is a true question, but didn't Simon explain that he could not make an attempt to get the rope through the belay plates because his hands were cold and his position too precarious?

I have to imagine there are some embellishments with regard to detail. He was writing a book after all.

I think it all comes down to what we want to believe. Everyone enjoys a good story, the more incredible the more legendary it becomes. If Simpson is a good writer then it's irrelevant if the story is 100% true or not, most people will identify with the human condition he is describing. I still think it's good to have a skeptical approach to anything we read, especially if it has commercial purposes.

I'll give him one thing, if his leg was that bashed up it's amazing he survived, recovered, and kept climbing. In Bolivia at least, what Peru must have been like 20 years go, there are no evacuation/rescue services. It must have been quite the ordeal to get him out of there, anyone who's had a bad accident just grimaces at the suffering this would involve.