This one, on my first ever alpine climb: (Direct Exum)


http://www.summitpost.org/the-in-direct ... dge/379649

Daria wrote:Yikes! I went to Mexico to do the volcanoes this past December, and I spent 3 weeks hitchhiking through Mexico. So many repeated warnings from friends, and family demanding that I don't go and high probability I will be kidnapped/not come home/die, etc. etc. But I did not have any incidents down there, except for a dude trying to steal my mountaineering boots in a large grocery store-they were resting in my shopping cart, but I was able to chase him off before he could do the deed haha. Only extremely hospitable locals willing to open their homes for us and even take us out to all paid dinner at Casa Blanca before our Orizaba climb. Maybe it was just my blonde aura, haha.

My daughter is your age and spent a summer in Latin America. I was very concerned for her safety as well, but she had very similar experiences to yours. Maybe her blonde aura as well.

Daria wrote: But I did not have any incidents down there, except for a dude trying to steal my mountaineering boots in a large grocery store-they were resting in my shopping cart, but I was able to chase him off before he could do the deed haha.

What's wrong with that ? Maybe the dude had a fetish for boots.

Depending on a GPS to find the trail and camp...

Hardcore.

Daria wrote:.....carrying a GPS usually solves this. Simply leaving a waypoint for trail or camp, makes it impossible to get lost.

Then when you lose your GPS device, it fails to operate properly or it just dies, simply sit down and wait for the local SAR Crew to come find you, pick your ass up and then take you home. Simple.

Did Daria have a GPS with her on the 1.5 traverse of the Inyo Mountains trip?

After a cold, cloudy day climbing the NE Buttress of Goode in the WA Cascades, we made it down the glacier and into the slab n' shrub zone just as it got dark. We awkwardly traversed waterfalls and cliffs with plenty of "green spirits" for a couple hours then it started to rain. We knew our nice bivy sacks and sleeping bags were right around us, but we just couldn't find it. My buddy wouldn't give up and traversed the basin from one end to the other until 2 am. I just found a squishy patch of heather and settled in to wait for light, doing sit ups to stay warm. 'Round 5 am, we saw some neon blue things about 100 feet below us. Oh. So close, but so far!

However, sliding into that dry sleeping bag and sleeping like the dead until noon was one of the most luxurious experiences I've ever had.

ExcitableBoy wrote:Hard for kids your age to understand, but I grew up before color TV

My family had a color TV before you were born.

A GPS is a fun toy, but using your brain is much more effective at avoiding unplanned bivies (which are almost always caused by a lack of planning or making poor decisions.)

mconnell wrote:

ExcitableBoy wrote:... but using your brain is much more effective at avoiding unplanned bivies (which are almost always caused by a lack of planning or making poor decisions.)

There's NO lack of planning or poor decision making from anybody posting on Summitpost.

Everybody is ALWAYS in the right place at the right time, snapping that elusive photograph just like a well-oiled machine!

Oh, for crying out loud ... even Bear Grylls knows how to maneuver himself through the WILDS without depending upon GPS ..

This thread is on topic. This is about bad bivies, and as mconnell posted they are almost all caused by poor planning, poor decisions, or a combination of both. Reliance on a GPS to find camp or your trail is a perfect example of said poor decision making likely to result in another uncomfortable bivy. It's no coincidence that the SAR event several posts referenced above also contained similar contributing factors.

If I took my GPS and a bunch of gear and attempted to solo Liberty Ridge in the middle of an epic winter storm, and was the subject of a SAR as a result, would you say someone else should muster the juice to attempt the same, let alone complete it? Or that maybe I should have planned things out a little differently?

If you've had a bad bivy, you fucked up, and you're lucky you didn't fuck up more. To put it another way... this thread is about fuckups.

From what I have seen in the local hills (Eastern Sierra including the Whitney in a Day extravaganza) the last five or six years, so many are venturing into them hills with such a lackadaisical attitude concerning weather, navigation etc. They carry their cell phones and gps devices with the thought in mind those electronic devices will pull them through any situation that they do not have to use their brains concerning any vital decision making like navigation and pre-trip weather planning.

In most cases, the guys below get called up, end up putting their asses on the line and then going up there to save their asses via the last whisp of the charge on the victims cell....

The Chief wrote:From what I have seen in the local hills (Eastern Sierra including the Whitney in a Day extravaganza) the last five or six years, so many are venturing into them hills with such a lackadaisical attitude concerning weather, navigation etc. They carry their cell phones and gps devices with the thought in mind those electronic devices will pull them through any situation that they do not have to use their brains concerning any vital decision making like navigation and pre-trip weather planning.

In most cases, the guys below get called up, end up putting their asses on the line and then going up there to save their asses via the last whisp of the charge on the victims cell....

Do those helicopters have GPS devices on board?