Diving and climbing

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Say trekking through virgin Yucatan to get to a spectacular cave for 1 month carrying everything with you
letting another persons carry everything with you when you just keep on complaining about all the bugs and how your favourite sofa was too big to be hauled there by the poor sherpas :rofl3: then leaving crap and empty scuba tanks behind because who would bother taking them back anyway, the Mexican government would clean up the jungle afterwards and take the trash with them :coffee:

As I see it the whole point of mountain climbing is the challenge. but what is the point of the challenge is one is cheating by making someone else do the hard work?
there is also the other point of having the main goal to reach the summit so that the journey is not that important but on the other hand one may still choose the hardest possible route to get there just because of the "challenge". A perfect example is the Eiger which by my understanding is a very easy trek/climb to the mountain top UNLESS you want to travel the dreaded North Face :poke:
with scuba diving it is more of a choosing the safest or the only possible route, not intentionally putting yourself to dangerous situations just for the thrill (unless being one of those persons doing bounce air dives with single tank to 120+ meters just for the sake of it and for it being dangerous) . a scuba diver would probably just use a helicopter to get to a mountaintop if possible or at least choose the easiest and safest route. Not go through the North Face just to get the constant fear of rockfalls and avalanches and added challenge for nothing. Or do a major cave dive without fins just for the challenge :p
 
As I see it the whole point of mountain climbing is the challenge. but what is the point of the challenge is one is cheating by making someone else do the hard work?

Hey I'm just trying to come up with an analogy not justifying anything

But for the record, those people who make the big dive, the really big dives (I don't include depth record dives here) for the most part don't do it solo. If a couple of WKPP divers are making a long dive, the actual divers rely on a large team of logistical support, hauling and setting gear before hand.

I'm sure climbers would carry their own gear, if they could drive a 4 x 4 somewhere close to the summit

The litter on Everest is a absolute scandal and all climbers who participate in leaving their gear should hang their heads in shame Although I appreciate that it's taken up by a team of sherpas who then come down, so the actual climbers don't have the means to get it down. But still.
 
Happens in diving that is for certain. I have seen so many divers who go from nothing to open water, advanced, deep, tech, rebreather and then dive wrecks that are over 60 metres deep and in total, they have not done 200 dives. Look at Dave Shaw, only 333 dives and diving to 270 metres! Some consider him an expert. This is like so many of the people attempting to climb Everest, zero to hero!
 
Last presidential election I actually voted for the one guy (running for office) who has climbed Everest.
 
This is kinda related to this topic because it's about climbing Everest, and scuba diving. It's a cool story that I wanted to share with everyone.

As many of you know the first people to summit Mt. Everest where Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. Well, a couple of months ago I had the pleasure of having Tenzing Norgay's granddaughter as one of my OW students.

What an amazing family of adventurers. :)
 
Dan G, as said, I have no personal experience climbing Everest. I do however have every reason to believe that media make it sound much easier than it actually is. It is not a walk, it is not being dragged up by guides. It is still climbing on fixed ropes for hours and days, using your crampons effectively and operating oxygen supplies and everything else. I actually think even the normal routes are not only physically, but also technically much more challenging than the vast majority of our technical dives. At some point the lines will of course blur, the length of exposure and the complete inability to control huge parts of the risk (avalanches have been mentioned, where even the most competent mountaineer has no "plan B" if it happens, see the recent accident of Lama, Auer and Roskelley) are really not comparable. The vast majority of dives can be planned to the level of realistically only having an accident if one is not well trained, fit, or equipped enough. Many climbs can only be planned to the level of not having an accident if bad luck does not strike.

I am not talking about the effort it takes to climb Everest. I am talking about the technical ability and mountaineering knowledge it takes to climb Everest, especially with a guide. To do so with a guide, there is no route finding, no setting up of belay stations or rope management. None of the guided climbers need to set any protection from a fall or fix ropes. The clients do not need to make any important decisions. There is definitely randomness to some of the dangers of mountaineering, just as you mention, that does not exist in diving.

That being said, one of the major problems with the guided expeditions is that there is not an even skill set or knowledge base among the clients and especially between the guides and clients. In diving we dive in pairs or even teams because we are all there to support another should gear fail or a problem occurs. The least experienced member of a technical dive team or buddy pair still has prerequisite skills and can support the team/buddy properly.

Many of these inexperienced climbers are not strong enough alpinists to come to the aid of another. Some do not even seem to feel as if it is their responsibility to do so, should a problem occur. To hear that people prioritize their summit bid over the life of another climber tells me that that person hasn't been climbing long enough. I see that person as dangerous and I cannot imagine sharing a rope with that person. Sorry, but sometimes we have to give up our goals for the welfare of another. That's just the risk you take when you go into the mountains. Your day may go from joy to a major rescue operation in a moment and there is no debate about whether or not you give up your goal for that fellow climber/mountaineer. It seems as if these guided clients consider themselves to be all parties of one rather than part of a team. That is a serious problem when you put a bunch of single-minded people all on a very dangerous mountain together.
 
Articles like this bother me - they represent consummate 'yellow journalism' and create mis-impressions about their topic focus, without offering any useful, or at least thoughtful, commentary. It is simply another 'The sky is falling, the sky is falling!' article, which sells newspapers, chock full of blame-mongering, whether it be in regard to 'fly-by-night' adventure companies (I would love to know the basis for the description) or supposed corruption in the Nepalese government, which is always good reading.

There are probably similarities between climbing and diving. But, in almost every endeavor, there are people with sufficient financial resources who try to buy their way to 'the top', or 'the bottom', whatever. People with money buy scuba equipment and end up dying because they don't know how much they don't know. People with money attempt to summit Everest, and die because they don't know how much they don't know. People with money buy airplanes that they don't have sufficient experience to fly, and die because they don't know what they don't know. What is the alternative? Close Everest to climbing altogether, as Danduraj Ghimire suggested? Have the government set standards and requirements? Or accept the fact that individuals ultimately have to use their own judgement, deciding for themselves if they have sufficient training, and experience, and stamina.

If someone with marginal experience joins an Everest expedition, and happens to do so in that incredibly rare year when there is a 4 day window in May of perfect conditions, chances are they will make it to the summit and back. But, if ANYTHING goes wrong, the chances of reaching the summit, and coming back alive, drop dramatically. That's just the way it is. And, the lamentations about the lack of empathy are simply naive. On Everest, you cannot count on ANYONE else. At 28,000+ feet every person has barely enough energy and resources to keep themselves alive. That includes experienced mountaineers and guides - e.g. during the 1996 season, where Rob Hall and Scott Fisher both died on the mountain. In technical diving, we plan every dive as if we will have to finish it solo. And, if we can't do that, we should not be doing the dive. In Rescue class, we emphasize the fact that a diver may reach the point of having to save themselves, rather than aid another diver in distress - 'don't turn one tragedy into two'. Possibly lacking in empathy, but nonetheless reality.

What intrigued me about the article, the commentary of Ed Dohring, and the picture of the line of climbers, was the fact that he may have been 'shocked by what he saw' at Base Camp, he may have thought it was 'like a zoo', but apparently decided to continue. If the weather had turned to crap, and he had been caught exposed near the summit and died, his family may have wanted to blame the Nepalese government, the company running the expedition, other 'inexperienced climbers, etc. But, the primary responsibility for his fate lay with HIM. Would a reasonable person continue the climb, after seeing that line and watching the minutes tick away toward what was a reasonable 'drop dead' turn-around time? Does the fact that he lucked out, and made it, mean that he made a wise decision?

I spent almost 20 years climbing in North America. I always applied a fairly conservative 'GO - NO GO' threshold (or, perhaps better put, a conservative 'turn back' threshold), although I had my share of close calls. I have lived to tell about it. Now, I am well past the age and fitness threshold to climb in the Himalayas, and I know it. At one point, I thought I would like to climb / trek just to Everest Base Camp, but the expense, and consistent reports of crowding and the general conditions discouraged me. I have been diving about the same number of years. I have done some deep technical dives. But, I also have a fairly conservative 'GO - NO GO' threshold for diving. In reality, there have been dives where, if everything had turned to crap, I wouldn't be here to write this. I hoped for the best, planned for the worst, and turned around when things didn't feel right, even when I had paid quite a bit of money to get to do the dive. Every diver, every climber, has the same opportunity, and responsibility.

Yes, it is appealing to blame depersonalized entities - governments, expedition companies, training agencies, etc. - and to lament the possibly judgement-clouding influence of money. And, yes, there have been recent examples of potentially poor professional judgement exercised by some instructors conducting Discover Scuba experiences. But, the reality is that scuba, and climbing, are inexorably associated with some risk. The individual has to decide whether that risk is worth it.
 
Read the book Into thin air. It discusses many of these issues. Basically when you read the book you will realize that many of these climbers are essentially on the equivalent of a trust me dive. The analogy is very striking and robust.

In addition, he makes it clear that success is also considerably impacted by random and uncontrollable factors, which present dangers that no amount of competence will completely ameliorate.
 
To be perfectly honest, I don’t think we can compare any activity to diving, especially technical diving, let alone climbing.

It’s simply a different environment altogether.
 
What is the alternative? Close Everest to climbing altogether, as Danduraj Ghimire suggested? Have the government set standards and requirements?

That's the easy one: then everyone climbing Everest automatically becomes an outlaw when they die it removes those criminals from the society and saves a ton on police and courts and jails. A clear win-win.

Thankfully the fees provide enough incentive corruption for Nepalese government to not go there.
 
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