High Altitude Navigation

Given that there are a lot of "commercial" trips to the mountains nowadays,
would many - or any - of the "clients" know how to use them?!
"AndyP" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Just been reading a book about the events of May1996 when
several people died in a storm on Everest and the way in
which returning people were wandering around trying to
find their tents on the South Col after coming

to

Quoted message said:

the bottom of the fixed ropes down from the summit ridge
and also a potential rescuer unable to find the bottom of
the ropes from the tents. Can anyone shed any light as to
why basic navigation techniques like

compass

Quoted message said:

and GPS wouldn't get used? All they needed was a bearing
to walk on for a few hundred metres.

"AndyP" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Just been reading a book about the events of May1996 when
several people died in a storm on Everest and the way in
which returning people were wandering around trying to
find their tents on the South Col after coming to the
bottom of the fixed ropes down from the summit ridge and
also a potential rescuer unable to find the bottom of the
ropes from the tents. Can anyone shed any light as to why
basic navigation techniques like compass and GPS wouldn't
get used? All they needed was a bearing to walk on for a
few hundred metres.

Perhaps their brains were not working properly. They tend to
go a bit wonky if you spend too long >8000m or less!

I would imagine the navigation in a South Col hooly would
be testing, thick gloves, cold etc. Add the altitude and
big trouble.

Of course, having never been >5100m in great weather, I
cannot possibly begine to imagine a raging
gale/blizzard at 8000m.

Richard Webb

[email hidden] said...

Quoted message said:

Just been reading a book about the events of May1996 when
several people died in a storm on Everest and the way in
which returning people were wandering around trying to
find their tents on the South Col after coming to the
bottom of the fixed ropes down from the summit ridge and
also a potential rescuer unable to find the bottom of the
ropes from the tents. Can anyone shed any light as to why
basic navigation techniques like compass and GPS wouldn't
get used? All they needed was a bearing to walk on for a
few hundred metres.

Was GPS technology readily available to climbers in 1996?
--
Fran If you need my email address please ask.

In article <[email hidden]>,
Fran <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] said...

Quoted message said:

Just been reading a book about the events of May1996 when
several people died in a storm on Everest and the way in
which returning people were wandering around trying to
find their tents on the South Col after coming to the
bottom of the fixed ropes down from the summit ridge and
also a potential rescuer unable to find the bottom of the
ropes from the tents. Can anyone shed any light as to why
basic navigation techniques like compass and GPS wouldn't
get used? All they needed was a bearing to walk on for a
few hundred metres.

Was GPS technology readily available to climbers in 1996?

Yes. Garmin was producing consumer receivers that were
approaching £200 at the end of 1995. I bought my first
Garmin (GPS38 same form as the common GPS12/XL but not as
good) at the beginning of 1996.

Prior to that I had used a couple of models of Trimble
Ensign at work from 1993 onwards. They were still portable
enough though about twice the size of the Garmin and they
only had a text/numeric display - no map.

The first receiver I used was in a Magellan Nav 1000 in
1990. That cost several thousand pounds, was the size of a
brick and consumed 8AA batteries rather rapidly IIRC. That
would not have been very well suited to consumer use in
the wilds.

Now would the people concerned have wanted the extra weight
of a GPS receiver when they were already planning to be out
near the limits of their ability. And would they have had
the mental / physical ability to use one later when they
needed to get back to shelter in extreme conditions at the
end of a long day...

--

dscs.demon.co.ukdscs.demon.co.ukOpen ↗

Richard Webb said:

"AndyP" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Just been reading a book about the events of May1996 when
several people died in a storm on Everest and the way in
which returning people were wandering around trying to
find their tents on the South Col after coming to the
bottom of the fixed ropes down from the summit ridge and
also a potential rescuer unable to find the bottom of the
ropes from the tents. Can anyone shed any light as to why
basic navigation techniques like compass and GPS wouldn't
get used? All they needed was a bearing to walk on for a
few hundred metres.

Perhaps their brains were not working properly. They tend
to go a bit wonky if you spend too long >8000m or less!

I would imagine the navigation in a South Col hooly would
be testing, thick gloves, cold etc. Add the altitude and
big trouble.

Yes the difficulties of walking on a bearing in a storm need
to be taken into account. Night, snow very high wind speed
and I reckon it would be hard to walk in a straight line
even with a compass to guide.

Quoted message said:

Of course, having never been >5100m in great weather, I
cannot possibly begine to imagine a raging gale/blizzard
at 8000m.

As for GPS, 1996 was four years before SA was switched off
so GPS would have been useless.
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the
"Westminster Gasworks"

Phil Cook said:

On 10 Mar 2004 03:15:37 -0800, Richard Webb wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Can anyone shed any light as to why basic navigation
techniques like compass and GPS wouldn't get used? All
they needed was a bearing to walk on for a few hundred
metres.

Yes the difficulties of walking on a bearing in a storm
need to be taken into account. Night, snow very high wind
speed and I reckon it would be hard to walk in a straight
line even with a compass to guide.

Plus you'd have to know exactly where you were before you
set off on your bearing; triangulating your position from
the South Col, in a white out, blowing a hoolie; nah, I
don't think so!

Quoted message said:

As for GPS, 1996 was four years before SA was switched off
so GPS would have been useless.

Actually, and perhaps perversely a GPS in this situation,
even one who's accuracy had been degraded by SA might have
been [much] better use; that is until you throw in the
precise environment, debiltating effects of altitude, load
carrying capacities because of same, people involved and the
conditions.

I think the original poster can answer his own question by
re-reading the book (assuming its Krakauer's, or similar)
and thereiin lies the reason why nav-ing wasn't possible.
Not dissing the original post, more that the answers mooted
around here simply recognising that attention is drawn back
to the original text(s).

SteveO

NE Climbers & walkers chat forum;
thenmc.org.ukindex.phpOpen ↗

NMC website: thenmc.org.ukthenmc.org.ukOpen ↗

<Steve Orrell> wrote

Quoted message said:

I think the original poster can answer his own question by
re-reading the book (assuming its Krakauer's, or similar)

Off the top of my fragile little brain I can think of 4
books written by people who were in that party
(Krakauer, Wethers, Gammelgaard, Boukreev) and there
might easily be more.

The ones that I have read are hardly similar. They all blame
others. Boukreev basically implies that Krakauer saved his
own skin at the expense of everyone else for example.

And if you go by the descriptions given by Krakauer, most of
the party were babes in the wood who would have had
difficulties surviving getting up and down Mam Tor on a
sunny day in July from the upper car park....

--
Mark South: Citizen of the World, Denizen of the Net
<<Tiens! Ce poulet a une grenade!

Steve Orrell said:

On Wed, 10 Mar 2004 15:18:58 +0000, Phil Cook <urwalk@p-t-
cook.RfErMeOeVsEeCrAvPeS.co.uk> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

On 10 Mar 2004 03:15:37 -0800, Richard Webb wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> Can anyone shed any light as to why basic navigation
> techniques like compass and GPS wouldn't get used? All
> they needed was a bearing to walk on for a few hundred
> metres.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Yes the difficulties of walking on a bearing in a storm
need to be taken into account. Night, snow very high wind
speed and I reckon it would be hard to walk in a straight
line even with a compass to guide.

Quoted message said:

Plus you'd have to know exactly where you were before you
set off on your bearing; triangulating your position from
the South Col, in a white out, blowing a hoolie; nah, I
don't think so!

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

As for GPS, 1996 was four years before SA was switched off
so GPS would have been useless.

Quoted message said:

Actually, and perhaps perversely a GPS in this situation,
even one who's accuracy had been degraded by SA might have
been [much] better use; that is until you throw in the
precise environment, debiltating effects of altitude, load
carrying capacities because of same, people involved and
the conditions.

Plus the difficulties of getting batteries to deliver
enough voltage at those temperatures, plus the difficulties
of getting LCD displays to display at those temperatures.
You need to be well-organised and practised to use a GPSR
in seriously adverse conditions when it's probably as
difficult to think straight as it is to walk straight. You
can't just switch it on, and then describe the display to
Mountain Rescue on your mobile phone so they can tell you
where to go :-)
--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
["]http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

<Steve Orrell> wrote

Quoted message said:

Plus you'd have to know exactly where you were before you
set off on your bearing; triangulating your position from
the South Col, in a white out, blowing a hoolie; nah, I
don't think so!

I'd have thought making sure you knew where the tents were
in relation to the bottom of the ropes would have been an
obvious thing to do before you set off incase of visibility
problems on your return.

Quoted message said:

I think the original poster can answer his own question by
re-reading the book (assuming its Krakauer's, or similar)
and thereiin lies the reason why nav-ing wasn't possible.
Not dissing the original post, more that the answers
mooted around here simply recognising that attention is
drawn back to the original text(s).

It just suddenly struck me whilst I was reading that I don't
think compasses have ever been mentioned in any other
similar books I've read when people at high altitude have
been overtaken by bad weather.

I can certainly see why walking on a predetermined compass
bearing would have been extremely difficult in such
conditions but I don't see why it wasn't even attempted or
why compasses don't appear to be standard things to take.
Surely a better option than walking around blindly trusting
your intuition? If people can change oxygen cylinders, tie
ropes, use headtorches etc. at altitude then why can't they
use a compass? White out blizzard conditions on Ben Nevis at
night wouldn't be any different as far as visibility goes
and anyone getting into trouble up there without a compass
would be universally criticised.

"Mark South" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

And if you go by the descriptions given by Krakauer, most
of the party were babes in the wood who would have had
difficulties surviving getting up and down Mam Tor on a
sunny day in July from the upper car park....

Most of the members of Scott Fischer's team were pretty
experienced mountaineers.

Mark South said:

And if you go by the descriptions given by Krakauer, most
of the party were babes in the wood who would have had
difficulties surviving getting up and down Mam Tor on a
sunny day in July from the upper car park....

Kraujauer's book was spooky. Who on earth would turn up to
Everest base camp either never having worn their boots
before or never having used crampon? !!!

Mark South said:

<Steve Orrell> wrote

Quoted message said:

I think the original poster can answer his own question
by re-reading the book (assuming its Krakauer's, or
similar)

Off the top of my fragile little brain I can think of 4
books written by people who were in that party
(Krakauer, Wethers, Gammelgaard, Boukreev) and there
might easily be more.

The ones that I have read are hardly similar. They
all blame others. Boukreev basically implies that
Krakauer saved his own skin at the expense of
everyone else for example.

This is immaterial and supposition.

Mark, you've taken my quote out of context. To reiterate,
but perhaps state differently, the purpose I saw in "re-
reading the book" was to reassess the descriptive passages
in whichever book the original poster had been reading in
the context of the, broadly speaking, similar comments
made in here.

I was not commenting on any particular recollection of
events or the people involved, rather what might be read of
the _conditions_ (should I put that in capitals?) that were
experienced.

SteveO

NE Climbers & walkers chat forum;
thenmc.org.ukindex.phpOpen ↗

NMC website: thenmc.org.ukthenmc.org.ukOpen ↗

"AndyP" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Mark South" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

And if you go by the descriptions given by Krakauer,
most of the

party

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

were babes in the wood who would have had difficulties
surviving

getting

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

up and down Mam Tor on a sunny day in July from the
upper car

park....

Quoted message said:

Most of the members of Scott Fischer's team were pretty
experienced mountaineers.

<quote> And if you go by _the_
descriptions_given_by_Krakauer_ .... </quote>

Should I have typed in capitals?
--
Mark South: Citizen of the World, Denizen of the Net
<<Tiens! Ce poulet a une grenade!

<Steve Orrell> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Mark South said:

<Steve Orrell> wrote

Quoted message said:

I think the original poster can answer his own
question by

re-reading

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

the book (assuming its Krakauer's, or similar)

Off the top of my fragile little brain I can think of 4
books written

by

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

people who were in that party (Krakauer, Wethers,
Gammelgaard,

Boukreev)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

and there might easily be more.

The ones that I have read are hardly similar. They all
blame others. Boukreev basically implies that Krakauer
saved his own skin at the expense of everyone else for
example.

This is immaterial and supposition.

That's the neatest, sharpest, and most breathtaking
dismissal I've had all week. I'm very, very impressed. Do
you mind if I file it for future use?

Quoted message said:

Mark, you've taken my quote out of context.

It is nice to receive recognition for one's skills :-)

Quoted message said:

To reiterate, but perhaps state differently, the purpose I
saw in "re-reading the book" was to reassess the
descriptive passages in whichever book the original poster
had been reading in the context of the, broadly speaking,
similar comments made in here.

Absolutely.

Quoted message said:

I was not commenting on any particular recollection of
events or the people involved, rather what might be read
of the _conditions_ (should I put that in capitals?) that
were experienced.

Let me try: CONDITIONS ... hmm, doesn't help.

The conditions experienced and described by the participants
(who were in widely ranging physical conditions) were very
different, and the weather was changing moment by moment.

The books only combine to create a consensus on on fact:
that everyone has an interest in maintaining their version
of the events, and that subjective factors dominate the
overwhelming majority of statements made by all.

But if you can extract a universal agreed description of the
conditions, please do.
--
Mark South: Citizen of the World, Denizen of the Net
<<Tiens! Ce poulet a une grenade!

"Andy Howell" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Kraujauer's book was spooky. Who on earth would turn up to
Everest base camp either never having worn their boots
before or never having used crampon? !!!

I haven't read this book, I have assumed that your question
relates to an incident in it. I'm just going to tut, shake
my head and say it's no wonder the mountain rescue get
p*ssed off rescuing such ill-prepared idiots :-)

KRO

"Mark South" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Most of the members of Scott Fischer's team were pretty
experienced mountaineers.

Quoted message said:

<quote> And if you go by _the_
descriptions_given_by_Krakauer_ .... </quote>

Should I have typed in capitals?

Just trying to offer a bit of helpful info. By writing..."I
can think of 4 books written by people who were in that
party (Krakauer, Wethers, Gammelgaard, Boukreev)" I assumed
you were a bit sketchy on the details because Gammelgard and
Boukreev were in one party (Scott Fischer's) and Krakauer
and Wethers another (Rob Hall's).

And surely it was more Krakauer's book blaming Boukreev
rather than Boukreev/DeWalt's book blaming Krakauer.
Boukreev tells it more just as a statement of events without
any blame. Krakauer on the other hand was pretty critical of
Boukreev's actions as a guide.

"AndyP" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Mark South" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Most of the members of Scott Fischer's team were
pretty

experienced

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

mountaineers.

Quoted message said:

<quote> And if you go by _the_
descriptions_given_by_Krakauer_ .... </quote>

Should I have typed in capitals?

Just trying to offer a bit of helpful info. By
writing..."I can think

of 4

Quoted message said:

books written by people who were in that party (Krakauer,
Wethers, Gammelgaard, Boukreev)" I assumed you were a bit
sketchy on the

details

Sketchiness on the details is something that is clearly
characteristic of everyone still alive. Us included.

Quoted message said:

because Gammelgard and Boukreev were in one party (Scott
Fischer's)

and

Quoted message said:

Krakauer and Wethers another (Rob Hall's).

The party on the mountain. They were mixed up as hell.

Quoted message said:

And surely it was more Krakauer's book blaming Boukreev
rather than Boukreev/DeWalt's book blaming Krakauer.
Boukreev tells it more just

as a

Quoted message said:

statement of events without any blame. Krakauer on the
other hand was pretty critical of Boukreev's actions as
a guide.

Last sentence, agree. Direct criticism. First 2 sentences,
reread Boukreev. Criticism by implication is rife.

Even assuming someone out there knows the truth (doubtful),
no-one has an interest in telling it. Expect the saga to run
and run, especially after the movie comes out.
--
Mark South: Citizen of the World, Denizen of the Net
<<Tiens! Ce poulet a une grenade!

Andy Howell <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

On 10/3/04 5:21 pm, in article
[email hidden], "Mark South"

Quoted message said:

And if you go by the descriptions given by Krakauer, most
of the party were babes in the wood who would have had
difficulties surviving getting up and down Mam Tor on a
sunny day in July from the upper car park....

Kraujauer's book was spooky. Who on earth would turn up to
Everest base camp either never having worn their boots
before or never having used crampon? !!!

My first day's hill walking was over the Langdale Pikes,
with a group from work, one of who wore a lounge suit, and
ordinary shoes, and (sensibly!) a smart raincoat. He made
the full trip. Another guy had brought along his
girlfriend, forgetting to mention that she had an
artificial foot. She made it as far as the tarn,
(Stickle?), before letting the leader know she was
struggling, bless her heart, and they had to be escorted
down to the valley before we continued around the tops,
although we had to abandon the planned walk.
--
Gordon

In article <[email hidden]>, AndyP <[email hidden]-
spam.co.uk> writes

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Now would the people concerned have wanted the extra
weight of a GPS receiver when they were already planning
to be out near the limits of their ability. And would
they have had the mental / physical ability to use one
later when they needed to get back to shelter in extreme
conditions at the end of a long day...

Cameras are commonly taken and used.

I don't think one would need to be Paul Saunders to find it
a necessity to take a camera on a walk like that!

--

dscs.demon.co.ukdscs.demon.co.ukOpen ↗