Overcoming Near-Death on a 3,000-Foot Cliff Face

ReALcLEARlIFE ^ | 15 Aug, 2016

[MtnClimber]

Canada’s Baffin Island is home to the highest concentration of unclimbed cliff faces on Earth. Naturally, the remote island has become a mecca for elite mountain climbers, known as alpinists. The pilgrimage is often made from Yosemite National Park in the United States, since the two attract a similar cadre of adventurers looking for a challenge. From the Yosemite mountaineering community, alpinists Cheyne Lempe and Dave Allfrey made one particular mountain the target of their climbing crosshairs: the Great Pillar. Even for a pair who are part of a young generation rising through the ranks quickly, a climb like the Great Pillar is deeply formidable. Beyond this, the two chose one of the most difficult routes, or “lines,” up the cliff face. Since the Canadian island straddles the Arctic Circle, heavy snow is possible any point, even in July, and the average temperature hovers below 15 degrees Fahrenheit. This climate is also ripe for polar bears. The more time spent on the ground, the more likely one is to come across them. It’s highly important to get on the cliff face as quickly as possible and stay there. This means sleeping while hanging from the side of the cliff. (Happily, this is something alpinists are fairly used to.)

[wardaddy]

You need some tonic Anton

Climber..,,pretend you have ignore button for mr sweetheart

I know mountains a bit

Reinhold Messner was my hero way back then

I follow Alex Honnold

I fear the longer he climbs it's just a matter of time

My wife gets emotional watching his YouTube climbs

I'm old now

I go to the San Juans and just drive my FJ up high

Still a damp shelf with a 2000 foot drop off gets the blood going at 12,000 feet

Good luck with your endeavors

My admiration and prayers

[wardaddy]

No kidding

Just like a nice ultra lightweight but warm sleeping bag

You get what you pay for

[wardaddy]

You’d be surprised

I spend at least a month a year up high

Two remedial open hearts and a pacemaker

And I function fine in Santa Fe and Aspen and Gunnison even Leadville and Alma and West Yellowstone

Give yourself a day or two to acclimate before you jog Argentine Pass near Leadville

Or Mosquito Pass

I go pretty high for me. 13,500

I wouldn’t want to live there but I do surprisingly well

And if I dropped dead

Prolly second best way aside from dying while cracking

That or sailing a nice Swan into the wave of the century

When younger I walked/climbed the Sierra Nevada near Santa Marta and some lesser peaks around Guat and Nica and Bolivia

I used to smoke marlboros at 17500

Got a bit light headed

I’ve seen tapes of Yosemite hippies on El Cap nose drinking and smoking herb and cigarettes while tied off or wall camping like that pic up thread

Crazier still is a film I saw with a Russian super aplinist on K2 or Annapurna smoking Russian non filtered cigarettes at 24-25,000 feet

Humans can do a whole lot

Most of the early white climbers and all the Sherpas smoked cigs back in the woolen and hemp era

[Karliner]

what you folks do is astounding! Stay safe( that’s an order).

[MtnClimber]

There is a shelf road like that going up to Yankee Boy Basin in Colorado. Going down I think I met Anton at almost the end for me. He would not back up and let me by so I had to back up the entire shelf road which was very dangerous. At the end I made sure I pulled to the inside. If this SOB tried anything I could push him off the edge.

[Mr. Mojo]

Some folks just don’t do well at high altitude. I’m one of them. Camped out at 11,000 ft. in the Sierras for about a week and had a helluva time acclimating. Hiking was real tough. So I spent more time fishing.

I just shake my head in amazement at a guy like Reinhold Messner, who was the first to scale all 14 peaks over 26,000 in the Himalayas without supplemental oxygen.

[right way right]

We FReepers are a harshly cynical bunch of banana nutz at times.

[Mr. Mojo]

At least they are living life on their own terms and not becoming elitist politicians wanting to control other people’s lives.

Hear hear.

[right way right]

These guys must have evolved from mountain goats. Wow. I might have given this a shot back when I was 25.

[wardaddy]

C41-43

[wardaddy]

I did Yankee Boy in 75 I think

I did a full circuit from Lake City to Silverton to Ouray in 76 with two other Mississippi hippies in a Honda Civic CVCC......stoned.....we were too young to know better

And we hiked and climbed too.....just leave the car at some turn out and hike off into oblivion with views to die for

Now I take my three youngest kids.....and I’m very cautious.....for that reason I haven’t done Black Bear yet for that reason

Tried to do Pearl in June....closed

Several of the Sangre de Christo passes closed too

Late snowfall

[MtnClimber]

Here is what the Eiger looks like in July, just barely out of winter conditions. I would not set foot there again. I have not even described the size of the avalanche and how close it came to us. Or on the next day where we were coming down from the summit and a rock fell from far above and clipped the fabric on the right shoulder of my parka, but did not touch me. It sounded like a bee it was going so fast and it went into snow below and skipped out and kept going.

[Pelham]

Any idea where that photo was taken?

[Daffynition]

I don't trim the edges off my maps to save on weight; but I do favor down

[anton]

Thrill seekers with outdoor gear are just self indulgent self centered spoiled brats. They frame a pointless exercise that most anyone fit with some training could do but has not yet chosen to do (over 4000 people have scaled Mt. Everest for example, including the blind and disabled - not exactly an elite club), add some risk factor to make it newsworthy, and then expose themselves, their families, and the rescuers who inevitably help them to unnecessary risks.

If it is a personal journey, why are there press releases, reportage, and weblogs to promote themselves? I would much rather lionize persons who deserve it.

I have no place for them.

[Sirius Lee]

I have no place for them.

We get it. Why don't you go find a couch potato thread.

[anton]

Drill down on most of these thrill seekers and you will find a California raised, parent sponsored, hard core liberal green weenie, too bored with reality to just show up for work every day. If your heroes are Dave Allfrey and Chyne Lempe, good for you. One does not need to be a couch potato to avoid being a self aggrandizing publicity hound (seven faces of the Captain in seven days?).

[wardaddy]

I think it’s an old pic from the 70s that was doctored or staged for a Jeep ad

Anywhere in the west with old blasted mining trails

The trees and brightness of the Rock is more Sierras just guessing but that’s a real reach of a guess

I saw that pic framed in a shop in Crested Butte last year

[wardaddy]

I’ve seen the Eiger from fairly nearby at a train station once

All the documentaries I’ve seen the climbers all stress the failing rocks are a steady threat in summer

[MtnClimber]

Yes, the Eiger is a crumbling pile of shale.