Mountain Clients

No Protection from Ineptitude

Climber magazine, Feb, 2001: ‘Avalanche a Survival Guide. On publication of a new edition of A Chance in a Million?, the classic text on UK avalanches, joint-author Bob Barton offers some tips on how not to become a statistic this winter.’ , shows a photograph taken by Alan Hinks of an ‘avalanche checker’  checking the scarpe slope below the cornice on Aonach Mor, the qualified checker (working for the multi-funded Scottish Avalanche Information Service ) is not wearing a – safety helmet. Apparently, the new edition brings a whole new meaning to – safety, statistics and survival.?

A grieving relative writes:   ‘The world depicted in your magazine (Climber – Nov, 1996) seems to be a macho affair, where it is appropriate to set out the achievements of individuals when faced with the challenge of the most inhospitable cliff faces. I note that the cover of your September issue features a climber not wearing a helmet, and that inside the issue there are four pictures at Los Mallos de Riglos featuring climbers not wearing any protective headgear. My son Mike lost his life on Los Mallos following a head injury caused by a rockfall. may I ask why your article and photographs encourage youngsters to disregard basic safety precautions? How many parents such as myself have to watch their children die after you encourage them to take unnecessary risks?’  R A Pinson, Helsby, Cheshire.

Climber magazine of course was / is not alone in encouraging young climbers to disdain the use of correct safety equipment. The so-called British Mountaineering Council (BMC) is the foremost organisation to encourage such an attitude both in print and via climbing photographs in its publications. If the BMC had put as much money into safety procedures as it has wasted in the promotion of bolts – so many young lives would have been saved and many more parents would be looking forward to a life with their children / grandchildren. Many parents, wish that their offspring had never heard about the – BMC.

The Times, March 17, 2000: “Is Chris Woodhead the most learned education expert in Britain, or just an anti-socialist climber?”  Was the caption to a half page picture of the top educationalist, rock climbing whilst not wearing a safety harness. One would have throught that someone with, supposedly, more than half a brain would want to protect it – apparently not. Just one month earlier (The Daily Telegraph, Feb 6, 2000) this ‘expert climber’ castigated the book: ‘White Death’, by McKay Jenkins a book about avoiding avalanches thus avoiding injury and possible death. Some how, I do not think Mr Woodhead to be qualified to comment as he did on the book, given his own blinkered attitude to climbing; outdoor safety.

Two Very Lucky Climbers

The tall, sun tanned person standing on the narrow topped pinnacle infront of us was resplendent the bright sunlight glinting on his UIAGM badge. He was stood there, unbelayed, lowering his female client down a short vertical rock wall on the Cosmiques Arete. The drop the left, 3,000 feet; the drop the right 700. The lady disappeared down the wall and traversed to the left, out of sight.

Whilst this was going on, I lowered a rope down the side of the wall to be used as a fixed rope, when our turn came. As the guide prepared to follow his client I motioned to him to use the already fixed rope. He looked at me, down his nose and waved me away with a solitary finger. Stepping forward, he tripped over his crampon; fell the full length of the wall disappearing fortunately as it turned out, to the right down a steep, snow filled gully. Fortunately, his female client had taken a belay (two turns around a rock) which eventually brought the guide to a shuddering stop. he fell at least eighty to ninety feet.

After a period of silence, the guide could be heard climbing back up the gully to finally join his client. He was totally unscathed considering that he was not wearing any head protection; he was not wearing a helmet. If his client, who likewise was not wearing any head protection, had not taken a belay, she would have been catapulted out from the mountainside and both of them would have been killed on the jagged rocks below. Ineptitude on a grand scale. Of course, had the guide been seriously injured then once again, we would have been involved in another (we had in fact already been involved in rescuing 30 other climbers only one of whom subsequently died) avoidable accident.

In a somwhat belated attempt to ’stop-the-rot’ in climbing / mountaineering (it has been left to the BMC for long enough) The Alpine Club has stated: http://www.normancroucher.co.uk/alpine_pdf_text/alpine_text

Talking about stopping the BMC rot: http://www.safercliffs.org/code/photos.html