[pct-l] Flotsam and Jetsam

[Brick Robbins]

One very stormy summer, I was climbing in France, and I finally left
Chamonix, along with a bunch of other climbers, for the south to go
rock climbing and get out of the rain and snow.

After a while, the weather cleared, and we returned to the Alps. One
very poor Brit among the group, had left his mountaineering gear
(boots, crampons, ice axe, etc) in trust of a couple of Spaniards who
stayed behind. When we got back to Snell's field where we were
camping, the Spaniards tent was there, but the gear was gone, and so
were the Spaniards.

A little bit of research revealed that the Spaniards had taken
advantage of a clearing of the weather to attempt a peak, and were
killed in a bad avalanche, wearing much of the Brit's gear.

I accompanied him to the morgue where the Brit identified his boots,
crampons, gloves etc, to the attendant, who removed them with some
difficulty from the bodies. They didn't find his ice axe, which really
annoyed the Brit.

Few of the other climbers would climb with this poor bloke the rest of
the season because he was wearing boots taken off a dead man.

Hows that for Flotsam and Jetsam?