Everest reduced to 'dangerous rubble' makijng it dangerous to climb
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Despite the fact its just been climbed by a 13 year old. Yeah, sure, its really dangerous now. After all in the good old days people could just stroll up it!
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
After all in the good old days people could just stroll up it!
Actually you are technically correct, the Himalayan orogeny is ongoing, but only started about 10,000,000 years ago. Relatively new mountains, and has one of the highest uplift rates of about a centimeter a year.
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
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No, its not impossible. Its just the utter attention grabbing stupidity of this story. Climbers have always climbed on icy rock. So having less of a covering of show/ice isnt going to scare climbers any. Snowy rock is not that dangerous, its just annoying because your crampons skid around a bit, but they still grip OK. By comparison lots of show is bloddy awfull. Avalanches, falling through cretes. Loosing your way. Falling through new ice bridges over crevases. In terms of mountaineering, when its -30`C, any increase in temperature is welcome!
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
In terms of mountaineering, when its -30`C, any increase in temperature is welcome!
What about an increase by the temperature of the surface of the sun?
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fat_boy wrote:
In terms of mountaineering, when its -30`C, any increase in temperature is welcome!
What about an increase by the temperature of the surface of the sun?
That would have very little effect, it would still be very cold on the top of a mountain.
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
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That would have very little effect, it would still be very cold on the top of a mountain.
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
Not 'of' the temperature of the surface, but 'by' the temperature. As in, the temperature at the mountaintops increases by ~4000K...
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Not 'of' the temperature of the surface, but 'by' the temperature. As in, the temperature at the mountaintops increases by ~4000K...
'Of Visiting Tourists' Actually I knew exactly what you meant. I was being facetious, just for the hell of it.
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
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'Of Visiting Tourists' Actually I knew exactly what you meant. I was being facetious, just for the hell of it.
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
Stop mocking my inability to communicate effectively! ;P
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fat_boy wrote:
In terms of mountaineering, when its -30`C, any increase in temperature is welcome!
What about an increase by the temperature of the surface of the sun?
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'Of Visiting Tourists' Actually I knew exactly what you meant. I was being facetious, just for the hell of it.
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
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Silly? No, I was genuinely curious as to whether any temperature increase would be welcome.
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Silly? No, I was genuinely curious as to whether any temperature increase would be welcome.
I think you could answer your own curiosity on that one. I cant comment on Everest, I have only climbed to 18000 ft, but thats bad enough, and cold enough. Really really, cold. If GW had happened and it was even 4 or 5 degrees warmer it would only be safer, not more dangerous.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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I think you could answer your own curiosity on that one. I cant comment on Everest, I have only climbed to 18000 ft, but thats bad enough, and cold enough. Really really, cold. If GW had happened and it was even 4 or 5 degrees warmer it would only be safer, not more dangerous.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
I think you could answer your own curiosity on that one.
:-D :badger:
fat_boy wrote:
I cant comment on Everest, I have only climbed to 18000 ft
18000 feet is still pretty good - let's face it, climbing Mount Everest is just showing off.
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'Of Visiting Tourists' Actually I knew exactly what you meant. I was being facetious, just for the hell of it.
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
Dalek Dave wrote:
'Of Visiting Tourists'
Heh... Again, DD, with the subtle H2G2 references :) *ties a towel around his head, just to be safe*
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
fat_boy wrote:
I think you could answer your own curiosity on that one.
:-D :badger:
fat_boy wrote:
I cant comment on Everest, I have only climbed to 18000 ft
18000 feet is still pretty good - let's face it, climbing Mount Everest is just showing off.
My mate I went with climbed up to 24,000 in Peru. Aconguaga. Its the highest outside the Himalayas. Its not technical, just high. A slog. But the he IS mad. And he only has one arm! We did Mt Blanc and Popocatepetal together. Mt Blancs the best, more technical although lower. Mind you you get a great view of lake Texacoco from Popacatepetal as the sun comes up. Awesome. Mind you smoking joints on Mt Blanc in the sunset was pretty cool too. We were above the clouds looking at the sun sinking between some moutain peaks also poking through the clouds many miles away.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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My mate I went with climbed up to 24,000 in Peru. Aconguaga. Its the highest outside the Himalayas. Its not technical, just high. A slog. But the he IS mad. And he only has one arm! We did Mt Blanc and Popocatepetal together. Mt Blancs the best, more technical although lower. Mind you you get a great view of lake Texacoco from Popacatepetal as the sun comes up. Awesome. Mind you smoking joints on Mt Blanc in the sunset was pretty cool too. We were above the clouds looking at the sun sinking between some moutain peaks also poking through the clouds many miles away.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
Did you know that velociraptors had feathers?
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Did you know that velociraptors had feathers?
Feathers McGraw The crook penguin from the wrong trousers? I thought he was in jail
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
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Did you know that velociraptors had feathers?
It is also very likely that a large group of the sauropods had trunks. No one ever brings this up though.
If I have accidentally said something witty, smart, or correct, it is purely by mistake and I apologize for it.
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My mate I went with climbed up to 24,000 in Peru. Aconguaga. Its the highest outside the Himalayas. Its not technical, just high. A slog. But the he IS mad. And he only has one arm! We did Mt Blanc and Popocatepetal together. Mt Blancs the best, more technical although lower. Mind you you get a great view of lake Texacoco from Popacatepetal as the sun comes up. Awesome. Mind you smoking joints on Mt Blanc in the sunset was pretty cool too. We were above the clouds looking at the sun sinking between some moutain peaks also poking through the clouds many miles away.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
We did Mt Blanc and Popocatepetal together. Mt Blancs the best, more technical although lower.
fat_boy wrote:
My mate I went with climbed up to 24,000 in Peru. Aconguaga. Its the highest outside the Himalayas. Its not technical, just high. A slog.
So you have done some climbing. I kind of wondered about your discounting rockfall. I've done some couloir routes that were just suicidal when the rocks were coming down. Soloed Lyell in Yosemite one time - highest peak in the park. It's 3rd class - not terribly technical, but you do get a nice sense of exposure when you get above the bergschrund and move up to the final band of cliffs under the summit snowfield. I went bopping up the ice at really good speed, totally digging the exposure, and got into a little gully that breached the cliffs. Sat on a ledge and started taking my 'pons off, when a big freaking slab on the other side of the gully - only 10 feet away or so - chose that instant to exfoliate and launch itself into space. It fell, struck the cliff and bounded out and down the glacier. It bounced just a few feet beyond my tracks where they crossed the 'schrund. If I'd been just a couple of minutes slower climbing the glacier, I'd have been instant pate. Probably would have had just enough time to look up and eat the boulder. [edit] Another rockfall tale - Mt. Sill in the Palisades in Ca. The Palisades are an awesome little range in the central Sierra, with the biggest glacier in the range (IIRC) and a cluster of tough 14ers. Sill has a couloir route - North Couloir - that's 4th class, and just spectacular. My partner and I took a crack at it a few years back. The preferred routes were all advised against because there was a serious drought and heat wave that had melted a lot of upper elevation ice. The headwall of the couloir was affected - we got to a spot where a boulder had torn out on a guy doing a layback and crushed him a week earlier and decided it was too dicey to continue. [/edit]
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
modified on Wednesday, May 26, 2010 3:21 PM
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fat_boy wrote:
We did Mt Blanc and Popocatepetal together. Mt Blancs the best, more technical although lower.
fat_boy wrote:
My mate I went with climbed up to 24,000 in Peru. Aconguaga. Its the highest outside the Himalayas. Its not technical, just high. A slog.
So you have done some climbing. I kind of wondered about your discounting rockfall. I've done some couloir routes that were just suicidal when the rocks were coming down. Soloed Lyell in Yosemite one time - highest peak in the park. It's 3rd class - not terribly technical, but you do get a nice sense of exposure when you get above the bergschrund and move up to the final band of cliffs under the summit snowfield. I went bopping up the ice at really good speed, totally digging the exposure, and got into a little gully that breached the cliffs. Sat on a ledge and started taking my 'pons off, when a big freaking slab on the other side of the gully - only 10 feet away or so - chose that instant to exfoliate and launch itself into space. It fell, struck the cliff and bounded out and down the glacier. It bounced just a few feet beyond my tracks where they crossed the 'schrund. If I'd been just a couple of minutes slower climbing the glacier, I'd have been instant pate. Probably would have had just enough time to look up and eat the boulder. [edit] Another rockfall tale - Mt. Sill in the Palisades in Ca. The Palisades are an awesome little range in the central Sierra, with the biggest glacier in the range (IIRC) and a cluster of tough 14ers. Sill has a couloir route - North Couloir - that's 4th class, and just spectacular. My partner and I took a crack at it a few years back. The preferred routes were all advised against because there was a serious drought and heat wave that had melted a lot of upper elevation ice. The headwall of the couloir was affected - we got to a spot where a boulder had torn out on a guy doing a layback and crushed him a week earlier and decided it was too dicey to continue. [/edit]
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
modified on Wednesday, May 26, 2010 3:21 PM
Yes, and to reply to the mail you deleted... :) Yes, ice keeps loose rocks glued together. THe peak itself is usually solid though, or so cold still that no amount of GW would affect it, or an ash cone, which is just a big pile of nasty sand and a bitch to climb. As for rock falls the famous coulouir on Mt Blanc is a clasic. Come the afternoon its a 200 meter wide shooting gallery. And you are the target. And the rocks can be big , like car sized. And its fun. A LOT of fun! :) Anyway, like I said, when has mountaneering ever been safe. If GW looses a few more rocks then what the hell. It couldnt get any worse.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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Yes, and to reply to the mail you deleted... :) Yes, ice keeps loose rocks glued together. THe peak itself is usually solid though, or so cold still that no amount of GW would affect it, or an ash cone, which is just a big pile of nasty sand and a bitch to climb. As for rock falls the famous coulouir on Mt Blanc is a clasic. Come the afternoon its a 200 meter wide shooting gallery. And you are the target. And the rocks can be big , like car sized. And its fun. A LOT of fun! :) Anyway, like I said, when has mountaneering ever been safe. If GW looses a few more rocks then what the hell. It couldnt get any worse.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
Yes, and to reply to the mail you deleted...
;P :laugh:
fat_boy wrote:
or an ash cone, which is just a big pile of nasty sand and a bitch to climb.
Only active volcano I ever climbed was Shasta, which, on the side I climbed, anyway, is a tourista walk-up. Surprising amount of rockfall, though - the whole thing is a loose pile of junk.
fat_boy wrote:
And its fun. A LOT of fun!
Damned straight.
fat_boy wrote:
Anyway, like I said, when has mountaneering ever been safe. If GW looses a few more rocks then what the hell. It couldnt get any worse.
When the slab fell on Lyell from right beside me, I watched as it bounced and slid for over a mile down the glacier, thinking the whole time that if I came off from there, I would probably follow pretty much the same trajectory as the rock. Then I realized I was going to have to descend through the same gully, unless I wanted to spend half the night hiking back to my camp. It really did ruin my enjoyment of the summit - I was scared shitless on the descent. :laugh:
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
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fat_boy wrote:
Yes, and to reply to the mail you deleted...
;P :laugh:
fat_boy wrote:
or an ash cone, which is just a big pile of nasty sand and a bitch to climb.
Only active volcano I ever climbed was Shasta, which, on the side I climbed, anyway, is a tourista walk-up. Surprising amount of rockfall, though - the whole thing is a loose pile of junk.
fat_boy wrote:
And its fun. A LOT of fun!
Damned straight.
fat_boy wrote:
Anyway, like I said, when has mountaneering ever been safe. If GW looses a few more rocks then what the hell. It couldnt get any worse.
When the slab fell on Lyell from right beside me, I watched as it bounced and slid for over a mile down the glacier, thinking the whole time that if I came off from there, I would probably follow pretty much the same trajectory as the rock. Then I realized I was going to have to descend through the same gully, unless I wanted to spend half the night hiking back to my camp. It really did ruin my enjoyment of the summit - I was scared shitless on the descent. :laugh:
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
LunaticFringe wrote:
Only active volcano I ever climbed was Shasta, which, on the side I climbed, anyway, is a tourista walk-up
Popocatepetal is a 5 hour climb up sandy ash. OIne step up, slide back 11 inches. Hour after goddamned hour. God damn its a depressing climb. Mind you coming down was a hoot. Just run like hell! Striding 15 feet at each step, falling over, rolling. That was fun. Mind you it only lasted about 40 minutes before we were back on the path. Hey ho, havent done that for a while. OnMtBlanc there is a log at the gautier hut (or is it tete rousse, I forget). Anyway, one entry in English describes car sized pieces of rock coming down the couloir, which starts about 2000 feet above you, and continues down about another 2000 below you. So when you are crossing the 4 inch hwide ice path, on a 70 1 slope, those rocks are doing hundreds of miles an hour. Get hit by the smallest pebble and you are screwed. Its a long slide down to the crevasse field at the base. And certain death. Mind you, you do have plenty of time to contemplete getting your ice pick in to try to stop. Or to contemplate your death. Another entry described helicopters pulling bodies out of that crevase field. There is a wire that goes across the couloir. My two mates had roped themselves to it. One of them got hit by a small peble, and slipped. He dropped about 15ft, but being roped on managed to get back up to the 'path' (ledge more like). I came across unropped, just keeping an eye out, and an ear, for stones, and dodging them. Scarry shit, but fun. Oh look, I found a youtube link to a 'near accident on the couloir' http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&ei=omf-S8PCN9yf-AaozcSFDw&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CB0QBSgA&q=mt+blanc+couloir&spell=1&fp=6657b7514d3df09b[^] Thats what my mate did who was roped to the wire. Here are some photos of the ledge you cross, you can hardly see it. http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&resnum=