Into Thin Error: Mountaineer Ed Viesturs on Making Mistakes (2010)

It's not clear-cut, either. If you turn around and the group continues, and they don't die, it's really hard to accept that you made the right choice. Just because they got lucky and survived, sometimes the right choice was still to turn around. But there's no certainty, and it's hard not to second-guess your choices.

I've had this exact same feeling making mistakes on a motorbike, didn't get hurt, but scared me shitless for a few weeks nonetheless.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/normal-accidents/oclc/1102386...

> The weather was deteriorating, we’d used all of the rope we’d brought with us, the conditions were getting worse and worse by the minute. That umbilical cord of safety was stretched and maybe almost broken, and we figured we might be able to get to the top, but no way were we going to get down. And climbing a mountain has to be a round trip.

a plan isn't a strategy unless it accounts for resource trends and contingencies

this is why people tabletop / wargame things when they're important + involve uncertainty

That being said, there is survivorship bias with guys like him or Messner - they risked so many times and came out alive that they are by no means representative, rather an exception. Many folks like them lie frozen up there in some crevasse, just because of tiny mistake that you don't even realize you're doing, or simply unlucky with being at bad place at bad time.

>> Yeah. But I make a point of not judging people. You can’t go up to them and say, “Nyah, nyah, I was right and you were wrong.”

Especially if the other guy doesn't survive. Then, no, you can't go up to them and say that. I mean, presumably if they're dead they didn't even come back down the mountain, so what are you going to do? Climb back up and thumb your nose at them?

Forever on the Mountain is a pretty in-depth reporting of a spectacularly deadly mountaineering disaster on Denali (or McKinley), which Ed Viesturs has climbed ~200 times per the article. I know it's easy to say with the benefit of knowing how it ends, but you can just watch the mistakes pile up.

From TFA:

"These high-altitude mountains are one of the few places on the planet where there is literally no help. If you screw up and break a leg, it’s up to your partner to get you down."

Touching the Void recounts an accident in which this was exactly the case. The author broke his leg on the way down at altitude, and things got (much) worse from there. Spoiler alert, he survived to write the book. Pick a time when you can finish it in one sitting. Once you get about 1/3 of the way in, you likely won't be able to put it down.

Everest the Hard Way is a telling of a successful Everest expedition, but provides a good look into the planning and decision making that makes that happen.

Deep Survival is also worth a read. It doesn't focus exclusively on mountaineering, but as I recall, some of the case-studies are mountaineering. Sorry, it's been a while.

Into Thin Air, from which the article riffs on the title, covers the 1996 Everest disaster. It's been even longer since I read that, but it's worth a read.

I'd be interested in a book recommendation if anybody has one that talks about how safety culture is spread. I'm a rock climber (as distinct from mountaineering), and one of the things I observe is that the safety culture in the sport sucks [0], [1]. I'd be curious what the climbing community can do to better spread or develop a safety culture within the rapidly growing sport, especially as fewer people are being brought in by experienced mentors and are instead getting into it via rock gyms.

My admittedly outside understanding is that mountaineering has a much more developed and widespread safety culture, perhaps because the barriers to entry almost require getting into the sport via a mentor.

[0] I saw somebody (top rope) belaying outside while lying in a hammock. This was on a single pitch route with ample space to stand. Even if you have to be anchored, there's just no reason to impede your hand and arm mobility like that.

[1] A representative for a major gear manufacturer (if you climb, you've heard of them) was explaining a new safety feature on a new model of their belay device. He was telling me about it and started giving an example of where it would be valuable by saying something along the lines of "suppose you were climbing and your belayer didn't know what they were doing".

It's telling and disappointing that a major gear manufacturer seems to have accepted that the safety culture in the sport has allowed this scenario to be plausible and/or common.