Thanks Bill. What a great story. We are, after all, only human. Sometimes we are super human.
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Thanks Bill. What a great story. We are, after all, only human. Sometimes we are super human.
Bill thank you so much for sharing this experience. It can be difficult for outdoors folks to talk about the inner struggle when things turn south, and it is reassuring to see you discuss it. It's a struggle that introductory level training glances over. The moment during a remote adventure when 'everything's great' changes to 'everything has completely taken a nose dive' can be jarring.
The thing needed the most at that point (TIME to process, to think) is exactly the thing that is missing. You guys must have been incredibly tired and drained, hanging there in the rain after such an experience. Thank goodness you had such familiarity and experience with the mechanics of climbing to fully express your instinct to save him, and then later process with him what was happening on your end :)
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The mods have just been talking between themselves about the balance between fear and action. For those who've not read this story, it's about a powerful and dramatic formative experience I had when I was still quite young, and lived to tell the tale.
A perfect example of letting life live to the full, in good choices first and foremost for others!:sun:
We do not have to wonder what choices we should make but we must now choose what to ask for ourselves:
What if you allowed yourself to let go of your fears? How would your life become different?
Escalating life we practice the continuity of the will.
A mountain of fear can become a mountain of responsibility for any spiritual being.
The responsibility begins with experiencing joy, a life full of meaning and to validate individual freedom we build with moral courage, the value of the unique work of paradigmatic art in equilibrium, in which our only participatory and conscious role is:
Emancipation of the awakening force of the spirit and soul, the great epochal awakening, the transformation of a cultural vision of consciousness, the exaltation of the spiritual revelation in this critical moment of evolution, the preservation of the sovereignty of our free will and the implication of our existence of all and only together in the magnificent life cycle and love in the gigantic and sensational steps of an entire cosmos and beyond.
Climb every day a mountain, fight for the joy of those around you, because, between the determinism of facing the "shadow" and the tension of the contradictions in society, there is the well-documented exception of our free spirit!
Listen to the song of your soul and stay in every second lovers of people and beautiful!
LIFE begins where fear ends! -Osho
Excellent story. I've read it many times now, and it never ceases to enthrall me.
Maybe a dumb question for you Bill. It's to do with rappelling down a mountain:
After your partner has descended the rope, and after you descend, how on earth do you remove the anchor from the rock when it's so high above you now?
What a hair raising adventure! I am glad that you both made it to safety...
I think that anyone with a rational mind, would immediately think the same thing that you did... Perhaps in a different way, but the end thought, no matter how fleeting, would be that he was more than likely going to die, and any extreme attempts to save him would take two lives, not just one.. And was that really fear? Or just a quick analysis of the true dire situation, with a rush of adrenaline involved??
It probably wasn't a self preservation thought, but more a realistic analysis of the situation, in the most condensed time frame imaginable. And of course you immediately tried to figure out how to save him, and did just that.
It reminds me of people that see their kids under vehicles, they panic and gain super human strength and suddenly lift cars up... Thinking their child is dead or dying...
Guilt at that point for having a thought, should have been washed away the moment you both safely touched down. The human mind is a strange thing... What we think, and what we choose to actually do, can often times be at opposite ends of the scale for various reasons. And often times we are shocked that our minds "Went there" at all...
But I am glad he said what he did, to put you at ease after all of those years of grappling with that guilt. Certainly you never should have carried that with you for so long, as you absolutely had nothing to feel guilty about.
Glad you went up again... Hope this time you decided what to bring for yourself ... :dog:
Ha. Good question.
What's supposed to happen is that the rope is doubled, passing through a karabiner (a metal snaplink) which is in turn attached to the anchor, whatever that might be.
So if the rope is 50m (165 ft) long, which is standard,, then the most you can rappel in one go is half that, i.e. 25m. Standard (automatic!!) practice is to tie a knot at the end, so you can't slide off the rope. :)
When you get to a safe place 20-25m below the anchor (maybe a ledge to stand on, and/or a place to insert another anchor), then you untie the knot and pull on one end of the rope. Then the whole rope falls down to you, and you can repeat the entire process. But the anchor you left above you has to stay there, as there's no way to retrieve that.
One thing that means is that you have to have enough anchors to make it all the way down what might be a very long descent. There are hair-raising tales of people having to resort to using their shoelaces, or other desperate inprovisations, to create anchors when all their other equipment ran out.
Rappelling is very often the most dangerous part of mountaineering, because (compared to holding on to the rock with your hands and feet) there's so little control: you have to depend on the anchor, and if it falls out or breaks that's the end of the game.
A chance rockfall can slice the taut rope in two (and that has many times happened to unfortunate people), and that's the end of the game as well. And sometimes the rope can get stuck (i.e. it won't come down when you pull one end to retrieve it), and then that's a whole other problem as you have to climb up again (if you can!) to get it back.
One time my rope got stuck, and I could only climb up part way to rescue it because it was all overhanging. So I had to cut my beautiful expensive rope with a knife — always have a knife in your pocket when rappelling! — and then continue the descent using an even shorter rope, which meant more repeated rappels, more lost anchors, more danger, and so on. It's all a pretty dicey business. :)
~~~
Here's one of the most epic, tragic mountaineering tales of all time. It's also a story about the will to live and what happens when one gives up.
This is what happened to Toni Kurz, who died on the Eiger in 1936. All his team mates had died in a terrible storm or were hit by rockfall, and there was an enormous rescue attempt to try to save him, as the only one left. He was frozen to the bone, had already been hanging there all night, and could only use a couple of fingers on one hand to do anything at all.
To save himself, he had to tie two ropes together.... which he miraculously managed to do, taking him many hours as everyone watched helplessly from below. In the end, he lowered himself down to his rescuers, inch by inch, and was VERY nearly there.
Then he came across another knot, which he could not move past. He was stuck, just hanging there, almost within arm's reach of safety, but no-one could do a thing to help.
Loudly, he cried out: "It is finished." He gave up his heroic fight, slumped on the rope, and died.
This is the most iconic photo in all of mountaineering history: :flower:
https://encorda2.com/wp-content/uplo...Eiger-1936.jpg
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Bill,
That is a deep and personal experience you shared. What I perceive is that you experienced a crucible moment. The decision was imminent, and you faced your shadow self. Which is a vital part of ourselves somehow. The better angel in you won the test. You had an opportunity to invigor Spirit over physical, and your spirit won. Your decision was not reasonable, made no sense, was not logical. It was spiritual. That's the beauty.
I will share something deeply personable. Most of my life, I have had the impression that I once had a crucible moment,in another time (life). And I failed. I'll stop pussyfooting around. I believe, for whatever reason, that I was involved in the Holocaust. And that I was on the wrong side. And that I turned my head. And I carry that reasonance with me in this life. I keep waiting for a crucible moment in this life... actually hoping for it. To give me another chance to do the right thing. I believe this deep inside. I don't know why. But its there. These are strange things for me to say: its a measure of my trust and faith in this community that I share this. Bill, you really got to reach deep inside yourself at that time. You pulled the gold from inside you. Surely you find courage and strength and peace knowing that's who you became in the crucible.
I don't know how I missed this thread before.
Many thanks.
Pamela