Working on a trip report to be posted later today. For now, I just want to thank everyone for the fantastic comments on the past week’s blog posts. If you have not checked the comments, now is the time! Great stuff!
Also, a word about “judgment.” It seems every time a mountaineering accident occurs , and some of us express our opinion about it, we’re accused of “judging” in a negative sense. Let me just say that judgment can be a positive process. It is what keeps us alive in the mountains, and judgment is learned by, yes, “judging” ours and other folk’s mistakes. Sure, we’ll never have all the facts. Yet so long as we have a scenario to work with, we can form opinions and yes, judge it.
As facts about an accident come to light our opinions and judgment may change (as they do during our own trips), but the process of forming those opinions is what’s valuable. Judgment keeps us alive in the mountains. Judgment is a process — a verb.
That said, I have no wish to go overboard on forming opinions that might be detrimental to a person’s reputation (either in blog posts or comments). We’ve already asked for re-writes of a few comments for that reason, and will continue to try and balance the judgment process with sensitivity to people involved in mountaineering accidents.
As much as anything, Wildsnow.com is about learning and discussion. That will continue, as we all work on our mountain judgment.
Thanks for the comments (and carry a shovel when you’re in avalanche terrain, it could come in handy)!
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
