Life is a series of choices. Everything has inherent risk, be it going for a walk down the road or base jumping. People often don't even think about the risks associated with more commonplace, 'benign' activities - the walks, swims, bike rides, and runs. The risks are few, the rewards comparatively high. These are what we like to call low consequence activities. Then you ramp things up. You start doing single track mountain biking, running ultra-marathons, long open-water swims. All of a sudden, the risks inherent to the activity increase, and the consequences start inching towards off-putting.
But the reward increases, too. The technical challenge of navigating terrain on a bike, the joy of the run, the endorphins from pushing yourself to your limit, the view from the top of the mountain, the exquisite isolation. To some, these things are worth the world. They are worth being halfway up a mountain in the middle of nowhere with no cell coverage at -40F. They are worth accepting the higher consequences if things go wrong.
My group of friends enjoys pushing ourselves and testing our limits; there are enough of us doing high-consequence activities that statistically, it's likely one of these days someone won't walk away. But at the same time, no one is cavalier about the risks we take. You control what you can, be aware of the risks, be willing to accept the consequences. Life is a series of risk-reward analysis. You have to be able to assess the situation, know the risks, be willing to accept them, re-evaluate, and call it off.
A few years ago, Nick explained his philosophy on accepting and analysing risk:
When you first get into mountaineering, there are two things that can keep you safe: experience and luck. You start with a full pitcher of luck and an empty pitcher of experience. As you climb, you pour some luck into the experience pitcher. Hopefully, by the time your luck runs out, you've gained enough experience to know how to stay out of trouble.
Basically, you can't control your luck, and when shit goes sideways, you can't count on getting lucky to pull you through.
Doing what we do, it's inevitable that we will have experiences survived due to more luck than skill. We do what we can, but climbing, rafting, mountaineering (not to mention skiing, biking, ultra-running, triathlons... to name a few) have risks associated with them that you have to either accept or be willing to walk away.
This year, two good friends had major 'oh shit' events. You can do everything right - have the training, the know-how, respond the right way, monitor the environment and make the safest choice you can - and still have things go sideways. Nature isn't something you can control, and sometimes it says fuck you.
Last spring, a close friend was fully buried in an avalanche during a mountaineering class. She's an experienced climber, and has done a fair bit of mountaineering. She's savvy, smart, and conservative on a mountain or climb. But during a traverse, the group triggered an avalanche, and a couple people got fully or partially buried. Everyone survived. No one had major injuries. Afterwards, my friend was (justifiably) shaken up. Coming close to death will do that to you. The odds for surviving full burial in an avvy aren't great, and it's pretty incredible that everyone made it out. She's very grateful to be here, and incredibly grateful to the students who dug her out and saved her life. It could have easily turned out very differently. And they probably would have made the same call (to do the traverse) again.
But as far as risk? Was it worth it? She was conservative to begin with, and says she's still willing to accept the same level. She won't let the fear win. The mountains are important to her, make up part of her. She'll be back on them this winter, being a badass, assessing, and doing what she loves. In her mind, if she accepted any less risk, she might at well take up tennis.
A couple weeks ago, Dakota was swept into the water on a whitewater trip on the Nenana River. The river was high and the rapids were class 4+. In his words:
'I came out of the boat and went through a wave train, then got sucked into a hole. I popped out and tried to swim to the boat, and saw the second hole coming. Right before the second hole, I realised I was out of energy and couldn't aggressively swim anymore. When I got sucked in, I made my peace with not getting out of this alive. When I popped out into the third wave train, I saw the boat and yelled. I got sucked under again as I passed the boat, and barely managed to get grabbed by the people in it.'
When I asked him about his take-away from his unplanned swim, he admitted some regret with how he handled the situation: 'You have to keep fighting until you're dead. I gave up in the second hole, and came out just by the hydraulic properties.'
But as far as the risk being worth it? He says it totally was. When you do something dangerous, make sure it's what you really want to be doing. Make sure it makes you happy. Make sure the reward outweighs the risk in your ledger. As Dakota said:
'Water sports make me happy, and if I go out doing that, then I went out with my boots on, and I was fighting every second to get back home.'
Both of these people are incredibly skilled. But their luck jars were seriously depleted when they walked away. They were surrounded by people who knew how to respond, who were able to act quickly and extract them. That's yet another facet of managing risk: surrounding yourself with the right people. People you trust, who are skilled, who don't crack or fold under pressure.
My ankle epic is a textbook example of a totally preventable injury caused by straight-up stupidity. I was a bit tired and unenthused about the approach. I didn't even plan to climb - I was just going to belay Ev, so we only had one pair of ice tools. When Ev started to walk around the falls to set a top rope, I sat down to tighten my boots. The ice at the base of the climb was (shockingly) sloped. I peeled both feet off the ground for easier access. And started sliding.
On the drive to the climb, Ev had lectured me on ways to not break yourself while ice climbing. The bit that flashed through my mind as I began my ill-fated decent was 'if you start sliding, keep your feet up so the crampons don't catch the ice and stop you abruptly.' Ev had taken both ice tools, so I grabbed at the trees and brush along the creek as I went past. They snapped off in my hands. When I went off the second drop, my crampon caught and I tore all the ligaments in my ankle, broke my fibula, and 'shredded' the deltoid ligament that runs along the inside of the ankle, controlling all the side to side motion and providing stability.
Ev saw me slide and heard the scream specific to people who just experienced earth-shattering pain. I knew immediately that I'd broken something and shit had just gotten real. Lucky for me (my luck jar took a real beating that day), Ev is good in a crisis and very, very skilled at problem solving and, apparently, getting broken people off of creeks a mile from the road.
So many choices were made going in to that fateful day that could have resulted in a very different outcome. If I'd had an ice tool, I could have self-arrested (I wasn't going very fast). I could have put my feet down when I started sliding and may have taken a jolt, but probably wouldn't have needed surgery. I could have engaged my damn brain and not sat down on sloped ice. We could have stayed home and watched Netflix.
For me, the consequence wasn't worth the reward. I knew the risks going in, and accepted them. I'm sure if I'd actually done some ice climbing, the reward may have offset the severity of the consequences and my take-away would be a bit different. I don't regret the decision to go out. It was a choice I made, I figured the risk of getting hurt was pretty low, and it was something Ev and I could do together that had potential to be a lot of fun. I may not have fully appreciated how shitty the consequences were, but if I had the chance to make the call again, I would still go. It was my choice and I accept the responsibility. That's something I can live with.
Everything has risk. The joking justification used by many sums things up pretty well:
You could fall on a hard climb and die.
You could get eaten by a bear on a hike and die.
You could get buried in an avalanche and die.
Or you could never leave the house, fall off the couch, break your neck and die.
Only one of these is embarrassing. Those who go out and live, make the most of the time they have, celebrate every moment, accept the risks and acknowledge the consequences because the reward is a majestic view only a handful of people will ever see, the satisfaction of running 100 miles through the Alaskan wilderness, the feeling of being a badass, the glory of the ascent... these people understand pride and joy and satisfaction. These people have very few regrets.
Life is a balance. What's worth it to me may not be to you. I may be willing to accept risks you aren't. You might have skills I lack so that the risks for you are lower and more acceptable. I'm the one who has to live with the consequences of the choices I make. And as long as the choice is mine, I'm happy to push my limits and reach for the reward that lies at the top of a multi-pitch climb, or the end of an ultra, or the view of the world in the middle of nowhere.
As cliche as it sounds, at least I'd die doing something that makes me happy.
But the reward increases, too. The technical challenge of navigating terrain on a bike, the joy of the run, the endorphins from pushing yourself to your limit, the view from the top of the mountain, the exquisite isolation. To some, these things are worth the world. They are worth being halfway up a mountain in the middle of nowhere with no cell coverage at -40F. They are worth accepting the higher consequences if things go wrong.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
My group of friends enjoys pushing ourselves and testing our limits; there are enough of us doing high-consequence activities that statistically, it's likely one of these days someone won't walk away. But at the same time, no one is cavalier about the risks we take. You control what you can, be aware of the risks, be willing to accept the consequences. Life is a series of risk-reward analysis. You have to be able to assess the situation, know the risks, be willing to accept them, re-evaluate, and call it off.
A few years ago, Nick explained his philosophy on accepting and analysing risk:
When you first get into mountaineering, there are two things that can keep you safe: experience and luck. You start with a full pitcher of luck and an empty pitcher of experience. As you climb, you pour some luck into the experience pitcher. Hopefully, by the time your luck runs out, you've gained enough experience to know how to stay out of trouble.
Basically, you can't control your luck, and when shit goes sideways, you can't count on getting lucky to pull you through.
Doing what we do, it's inevitable that we will have experiences survived due to more luck than skill. We do what we can, but climbing, rafting, mountaineering (not to mention skiing, biking, ultra-running, triathlons... to name a few) have risks associated with them that you have to either accept or be willing to walk away.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Last spring, a close friend was fully buried in an avalanche during a mountaineering class. She's an experienced climber, and has done a fair bit of mountaineering. She's savvy, smart, and conservative on a mountain or climb. But during a traverse, the group triggered an avalanche, and a couple people got fully or partially buried. Everyone survived. No one had major injuries. Afterwards, my friend was (justifiably) shaken up. Coming close to death will do that to you. The odds for surviving full burial in an avvy aren't great, and it's pretty incredible that everyone made it out. She's very grateful to be here, and incredibly grateful to the students who dug her out and saved her life. It could have easily turned out very differently. And they probably would have made the same call (to do the traverse) again.
But as far as risk? Was it worth it? She was conservative to begin with, and says she's still willing to accept the same level. She won't let the fear win. The mountains are important to her, make up part of her. She'll be back on them this winter, being a badass, assessing, and doing what she loves. In her mind, if she accepted any less risk, she might at well take up tennis.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A couple weeks ago, Dakota was swept into the water on a whitewater trip on the Nenana River. The river was high and the rapids were class 4+. In his words:
'I came out of the boat and went through a wave train, then got sucked into a hole. I popped out and tried to swim to the boat, and saw the second hole coming. Right before the second hole, I realised I was out of energy and couldn't aggressively swim anymore. When I got sucked in, I made my peace with not getting out of this alive. When I popped out into the third wave train, I saw the boat and yelled. I got sucked under again as I passed the boat, and barely managed to get grabbed by the people in it.'
When I asked him about his take-away from his unplanned swim, he admitted some regret with how he handled the situation: 'You have to keep fighting until you're dead. I gave up in the second hole, and came out just by the hydraulic properties.'
But as far as the risk being worth it? He says it totally was. When you do something dangerous, make sure it's what you really want to be doing. Make sure it makes you happy. Make sure the reward outweighs the risk in your ledger. As Dakota said:
'Water sports make me happy, and if I go out doing that, then I went out with my boots on, and I was fighting every second to get back home.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the drive to the climb, Ev had lectured me on ways to not break yourself while ice climbing. The bit that flashed through my mind as I began my ill-fated decent was 'if you start sliding, keep your feet up so the crampons don't catch the ice and stop you abruptly.' Ev had taken both ice tools, so I grabbed at the trees and brush along the creek as I went past. They snapped off in my hands. When I went off the second drop, my crampon caught and I tore all the ligaments in my ankle, broke my fibula, and 'shredded' the deltoid ligament that runs along the inside of the ankle, controlling all the side to side motion and providing stability.
Ev saw me slide and heard the scream specific to people who just experienced earth-shattering pain. I knew immediately that I'd broken something and shit had just gotten real. Lucky for me (my luck jar took a real beating that day), Ev is good in a crisis and very, very skilled at problem solving and, apparently, getting broken people off of creeks a mile from the road.
So many choices were made going in to that fateful day that could have resulted in a very different outcome. If I'd had an ice tool, I could have self-arrested (I wasn't going very fast). I could have put my feet down when I started sliding and may have taken a jolt, but probably wouldn't have needed surgery. I could have engaged my damn brain and not sat down on sloped ice. We could have stayed home and watched Netflix.
For me, the consequence wasn't worth the reward. I knew the risks going in, and accepted them. I'm sure if I'd actually done some ice climbing, the reward may have offset the severity of the consequences and my take-away would be a bit different. I don't regret the decision to go out. It was a choice I made, I figured the risk of getting hurt was pretty low, and it was something Ev and I could do together that had potential to be a lot of fun. I may not have fully appreciated how shitty the consequences were, but if I had the chance to make the call again, I would still go. It was my choice and I accept the responsibility. That's something I can live with.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everything has risk. The joking justification used by many sums things up pretty well:
You could fall on a hard climb and die.
You could get eaten by a bear on a hike and die.
You could get buried in an avalanche and die.
Or you could never leave the house, fall off the couch, break your neck and die.
Only one of these is embarrassing. Those who go out and live, make the most of the time they have, celebrate every moment, accept the risks and acknowledge the consequences because the reward is a majestic view only a handful of people will ever see, the satisfaction of running 100 miles through the Alaskan wilderness, the feeling of being a badass, the glory of the ascent... these people understand pride and joy and satisfaction. These people have very few regrets.
Life is a balance. What's worth it to me may not be to you. I may be willing to accept risks you aren't. You might have skills I lack so that the risks for you are lower and more acceptable. I'm the one who has to live with the consequences of the choices I make. And as long as the choice is mine, I'm happy to push my limits and reach for the reward that lies at the top of a multi-pitch climb, or the end of an ultra, or the view of the world in the middle of nowhere.
As cliche as it sounds, at least I'd die doing something that makes me happy.
