I was recently in an aircraft accident caused by very bad pilot error. The pilot had a minimal number of flying hours and owned the helicopter himself. He used it just for playing around in and sometimes to go to work. It was in effect a very expensive toy of a rich man. In speaking to a friend and aviation instructor, he said that in that industry there is a saying and it goes like this: beware of pilots with thick wallets and thin log books.
There is a similar phenomenon in the world of climbing. South Africans from time to time put together expeditions to the greater ranges of the world. Over the past years, I have made several observations of these trips and have also taken part in some. Unfortunately, much of what I have seen is not good and carries strong resemblances to my air crash. The basis of this is that South Africans have a bad habit of heading off to climb in remote and wild places with pitiful little skill to either gain the summit they are aiming for and even less skill to get down safely. Now climbing in the bigger ranges is an expensive undertaking and very often it’s the rich and not the skilled heading out there. I am surprised that there has not been a major disaster involving South Africans thus far.
The lack of skill is most prevalent when it comes to snow and ice climbing and to glacier travel. That is to say, many South African climbers know little or nothing of some of the most important aspects of staying alive and of keeping their fellow team members alive while on big mountains, yet they venture out into these environments with scant knowledge or skill.
To show just three examples:
On one expedition while at over 5000 metres, on a Himalayan peak, the leaders could not find a good abseil point, as the little bit of rock that protruded through the glacier was too shattered and loose. They did rig up an abseil point using wired chocks in the loose rock and somehow made it down. Yet the point here is all around them was hard glacier snow they could have used for a belay in the form of a snow bollard. When I questioned why they did not use such a method, they simply replied that they did not know how. This means that these climbers did not possess the most basic snow climbing skills, yet they were out to tackle a major 7000m peak!
Secondly, there is a case of a South African person on a Himalayan peak, asking to be shown how to clip to an abseil rope, because they were a bit “rusty” in the skills of abseiling. The mind boggles how people spend huge amounts of time and money to climb some of the world’s most dangerous peaks, yet they cannot abseil without supervision.
I had personally been descending an Andean peak, in a rope of four, moving on steep ice, and I looked back to see persons two and three with their axes dangling from their wrist loops while they enjoyed the view. These two had little situational awareness of the potential for disaster that climbers are in, when in this sort of terrain.
Lastly, and also irritatingly so, on these trips is how people write their climbing CVs. Very often the expedition is advertised and people join up and are asked for their previous climbing experience. But it is unfortunately our human nature to over sell our skills. Lets call the applicant “Bob”. The problem being is that Bob says he has been climbing for 20 years and has climbed a whole list of peaks. This seems fine at first glance. But what Bob did not mention is he has climbed perhaps once a year over a 20-year period. Secondly, that he did not lead any of these routes. Friends or perhaps guides dragged him up to the summit and back and he took no part in the risk assessments or safety measures and hard skills. In other words, on an expedition, he will just be a liability to himself and others or in climbers’ terms just “baggage”. And yes unfortunately Bob normally has a thick wallet.
Let me make it clear, unless someone is actually leading climbs regularly on rock or snow or ice they are not gaining skill and do not possess the qualities to be on any mountain unless heavily supervised.
So, one asks how and where can these skills be learned and what should one know? It is a vast subject but here are a few pointers:
Firstly, there are personal skills; how to cut steps with an ice axe, how to self-arrest with an ice axe. (There are about 4 ways one ends up sliding down a slope and it is a vital skill to know how to stop). Then how to walk properly up and down slopes with crampons and an ice axe. It is a skill and needs practice before it can be done properly.
Slightly more advanced but absolutely essential is the skill of making and using snow and ice bollards, T-slot belays, seat-bucket belays and the essential for stopping a sliding climber, the ice-axe-boot belay.
Many South African climbers have little knowledge of how the roping configurations work in big mountains. That is to say the way parties rope up on steep snow is different to steep rock or rocky ridges. On glaciers the rope configuration is completely different and differs depending on the number in the party and the surface conditions at the time. How to extract yourself and others from a crevasse is also essential and can be learned to a great extent in non-glacial environments.
Avalanche assessment is not something we in southern Africa encounter very often. But it is still possible to gain valuable knowledge just by watching a training video or going out into thick snow and practicing the basics.
Gavin Raubenheimer
MDT Mountaineering Instructor and NQF Mountaineering Guide
Peak High Mountaineering