SummitPost.org

drtbg wrote:BTW...could you please explain to us all what a "real climber" is and how you know that I am not one?

I didn't say that you weren't.

I'm not here to impress anyone and I have nothing to prove to anyone on this site. I'm not interested in spraying about my climbs or checking your tick boxes on some stupid list. I climb for me and no one else. Sorry if you lemmings can't seem to understand this.

So I ask again: why are you here? A few of your comments were quasi-constructive, but most have been nasty potshots from behind a shield of anonymity... seems like you have an axe to grind.

So let's begin with an example: why am I here? Well, I come away from this site nearly every day with some new, useful bit of information... about cars, snow conditions, gear, books to read. And I meet good people. Most of my equipment buys in the last 3 years were influenced by this site. I'm also here because I need the eggs.

Fletch wrote:Aron would be the first to tell you he acted carelessly, recklessly, and selfishly. He will admit he was stupid in not telling people where he was going and deviating from his plan.
. . .
I think he knows what he did was stupid. He ended up paying a very steep price for his stupidity (and all of us taxpayers paid as well - he was helicoptered out of Canyonlands) and as I said earlier, his stupidity and recklessness forced him to be strong and brave

I only quoted part because I want to focus on what he and maybe others acknowledge was a mistake. It is my belief that his only real mistake was not leaving a plan with anyone. Was there anything else?

The accident location was in a non-technical part of a slot canyon. No gear is required to reach the site, and the canyon in the vicinity of the site is one with only easy scrambling. Most of us who are comfortable with easy scrambling would also go solo to that point in the canyon; it is not even remotely difficult, so there is nothing at all reckless in the fact that he was solo at the accident site.

There is one easy (easy with two hands) rappel a short bit after the accident site, but that rappel had nothing to do with his accident. How could it? He hadn't even got there yet. And by the route he took, there is some more-difficult downclimbing a long ways before the site, but that section also had no relevance to his accident. He was long past it. (There are actually even class-2+ routes that bypass the downclimbs that I used when I took my wife there.)

So not leaving a plan with others was his mistake. But even if he had, he still would have lost his hand. His hand was dead long before he cut it off, if it wasn't already beyond salvaging the instant it was crushed. So cutting it off to escape was not the reason he lost it. He lost it because a boulder fell on it, and this fact would not change, even if he were hiking with an S&R team of three dozen and a helicopter spotting them from above.

So, about this "steep price he paid for his stupidity," in what way did "his stupidity" cause him to pay this steep price? This is assuming by "steep price" you mean losing a hand.

The fact that he suffered for five nights was because nobody knew where he was, so that was a price for being "stupid" (your word, not mine). But his losing a hand had nothing to do with his lack of informing others.

If he had remembered to wear his armor gauntlet, he could have removed his hand.

Seriously, loose rock scares the crap out of me. And Utah is full of loose sandstone boulders, waiting ... malevolently... to crush bones.

Damn sandstone boulders!

Good post Day Hiker. Really puts the incident in true perspective.

Day Hiker wrote: "poetic license" being used might drive me nuts when watching the film. ...

Hopefully, the movie won't be a bunch of people jumping, bikes flying, and bombs exploding, you know, the stuff made for 14-year-old moviegoers.

As long as that scene where he drops 100' into the crystal-clear pool (with Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara) is realistic, I'm pretty happy.

MoapaPk wrote:

Day Hiker wrote: "poetic license" being used might drive me nuts when watching the film. ...

Hopefully, the movie won't be a bunch of people jumping, bikes flying, and bombs exploding, you know, the stuff made for 14-year-old moviegoers.

As long as that scene where he drops 100' into the crystal-clear pool (with Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara) is realistic, I'm pretty happy.

Rick Kent wrote:Damn sandstone boulders!

It's a conspiracy!

There but for the grace of God* go I -- and most of us. I've had more than my share of big rocks peeling off and flying by.

---
*Or Allah, Great Spririt, Giant Turtle, etc.

I haven't seen the movie yet, it hasn't come to a theater near me yet. Form the articles I've read I get the impression that Aron is the real deal, Climbing is a priority in his life and he's deferred opportunities for career advancement and serious relationships to be able to pursue the life that he enjoys.

Since I haven't seen the movie yet I don't know what the criticism over the prosthetic ice-axe is all about. I do know that after his summer ordeal in Utah, he went on to complete winter acents of all of the Colorado 14er's. I understand that several attempts of developing suitable prosthetic arms eventually evolved into an ice-axe attachment.

I'm guessing that since the title is 127 hours it deals with his getting pinned by the boulder and subsequent self rescue but not much about his life afterwards.

I'll have more to say after I do my own viewing.

I watched it last night with another climbing friend. We both loved it. Very well done. I'll probably buy it on DVD when it comes out and put it on the shelf, right next to Touching the Void.