RE: [pct-l] Into Thin Air and The Climb

My view is that these books have everything to do with the PCT.

What I learned from "Into Thin Air" is that the leader must protect himself
so to be ready for the emergency. The leader must not "falter near the
summit due to exhaustion" because then the party is leaderless. If the
leader tries to do everything he may wind up unable to do the job that only
he can do when everyone is depending upon his leadership and judgment --
make the hard decisions needed to avoid/overcome emergencies.

This is a lesson that everyone who takes novices into the semi-wilderness
needs to consider.  For example, if you wear yourself out while taking a
six-year-old on an extended backpack, who will make the decisions to protect
that child's life when an emergency hits.

Lets go a step further. If a thruhiker wears himself out in the process of
thruhiking, who will make the decisions to protect/save his/her life when an
emergency hits? 

I have read many journals of thruhikers. Just reading their journals I could
see many problems that were easily solveable but the thruhiker simply didn't
recognize either the problem or the solution. However, I was "just reading
their journals". I wasn't walking 30 miles a day on snow, crossing rivers up
to my ears and subsisting on a diet of cardboard and corn pasta. I wasn't
exausted. They were.

When you thruhike the PCT, particulary if you go ultralight, you focus on
hiking as opposed to camping. To reduce weight many, even most, of the items
that make a camp comfortable and enjoyable are sacraficed. That makes it
hard to stop. You can't relax in your tent and read your book because you
brought neither. You can't catch a couple of Goldens in the stream and have
a fresh trout dinner because you left the frying pan, fishing rod and even a
decent stove home to save weight. You can't put on clean clothes and just
relax in your chair because you don't have a change of clothes. And a chair?
Unthinkable! 

So you walk, and you walk, and you walk....doing 30 miles a day when the
most you have done previously was 10. Your body rebells and you are
suprised. Your feet turn into one big blister and you wonder why. This party
is hungry, dirty, tired, cold and hurting. It's time to make some hard
decisions but the leader of this expidition has exausted himself. This party
is now leaderless.

Let's look at a PCT disaster:

"Several hikers turned back at Forester Pass due to the conditions. One got 
stuck trying to cross the pass and had to get rescued. John Lowder took a 
more prudent course, and elected to descend to Lone pine.

Looking at the map, New Army pass is a shorter route to the trailhead at 
Horseshoe lake, but that pass is difficult in the best conditions. A much 
more prudent (and probably faster, though longer) route is Cottonwood or 
Trial Pass. The journals indicated that he was encouraged to go to 
Cottonwood, if he had gone that way, he might be alive." -- From Brick's
post

Sitting in my arm chair it is incredibly obvious that if Forrester Pass is
virtually impassable then New Army Pass is absolutely impossible. I am a
mountaineering novice and I can see that. John Lowder had 1000 times the
experience I have. Unfortunately, John Lowder was not himself or he, an
experienced thruhiker, would never have made this kind of mistake. What
killed John was not the lack of an ice axe, it was the lack of a functioning
brain. That's what exaustion does to you. 

That is what I learned from "Into Thin Air" 

Tom

PS: Am I speaking ill of the dead. Certainly not. I honor John Lowder and
try to learn from him. If he could speak, is that not what he'd say?
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To:            "'Kenneth Knight'" <krk@mail.speakeasy.org>, PCT-L@backcountry.net