The Chief wrote:If you chose to go and climb, regardless of what and where, you best be prepared for the fact that shit can happen.... there is no such thing as luck.
I respect you for your experience, which is vastly greater than my own, but I have to respectfully disagree with you here.
A) If you were to prepare for every eventuality, you would be dragging a truckload of stuff with you for the most mild of climbs. Taking in the full scope of *everything* that can happen, it's simply not practical to prepare for it from a gear perspective. Mental preparedness will only get you so far in certain situations.
B) There absolutely is such a thing as luck. It's a bit audacious to suggest that we have some measure of control over everything that *can* happen on a mountain. The reliability of mountain weather forecats is highly dubious, yet you trust your life to meteoroligist-math every time you head out. You're actually far more likely to die in the car on the way there, not matter what your experience level. Anything at any moment can snatch the life right out of you.
Speaking hypothetically: Suppose the two missing climbers were actually the first to be injured, and the fellow that was found was forced to downclimb on his own, with predictable results. You can rope up all you like, but there is absolutely no garauntee that you won't be injured in a fall. People have been impaled by their own axes on relatively short tumbles. You can break a limb slamming against the side of a crevasse as you're safety line stops your fall.
Point: No safety preparations ever grant you 100% safety. I am a believer in the power of mountains, and absolutely believe in luck, and I've seen it go both ways.