http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=361030

An informative story even if you're not a climber. As usual, their epic resulted from a synergistic combination of multiple factors. Having an informed relative who called the Park Service helped.

Royal Arches is an awesome route. It is pretty easy for the most part but it is 14 pitches (50m rope lengths)long and if you take too long you are either rappelling some 14 pitches (not he route but hagging rap stations to the left of the climb with a bunch of trees trying to snag your ropes)in the dark or trying to find North Dome Gully in the dark. NDG is straight forward in the light of day (there is only one spot where you may want to rappel) but in the dark it is a KILLER. They did the right thing to stop and bivy.
Many climb in Yosemite are quite committing and you always need emergency gear even in summer but you can't take too much or it hinders climbing.
They probably started too late for son's experience. There is always a line up even at dawn.
The time I climbed the route we were at the start at 5:30am waiting for first light. We even climbed the starting pitch in the half-light. We topped out aroung 1:30PM and were drinking beer by 4 at the Awanhee Hotel Bar.
Not to sound to harsh but getting rescued by YOSAR is an embarrasment; I would call YOSAR only if I thought I was definitely going to die. Most climbers have a self-rescue philosophy but in the recent years a lot of folks have become soft. These guys whimped out. They should have waited for first light and found the North Dome Gully.
If they were going to climb to the rim of the Valley in mid-April they should have expected a possible epic and prepared better.
Late start, too long a rope and the BS walkie talkies had everything to do with their problem. They should have used as shorter rope (the route was put up using a 50m rope; they had a 70m. This is inefficient.)and left the electronics. That way they would not have had to get YOSAR to come get their sorry butts.

I have personally witnessed the walkie talkie climber type fumbling the whole way up a route and wasting time talking to their partner. They should learn the old school proven method of yanks and tugs mixed in with a lot of yelling.

I am a memeber of Supertopo.com but have not been visiting the forum as of late. I was suprised to see how encouraging the responses were a few years ago they would have got flamed like crazy.

Let me condense this a bit:

"I became steadily concerned that we weren’t moving fast enough to make the descent gully in daylight... We completed the final pitch...as the sun was setting... The next few hours were spent hiking...to look for the...descent in the moonless dark of night with a headlamp and a flashlight...frustration and increasing concern over not finding any resemblance of a trail or a cairn to follow...we ended up bushwacking through acres of madrone... I grew increasingly concerned that we were depleting our remaining internal resources... Around 11 p.m. we found meager shelter under a nearby boulder... Shortly after bushwacking through acres of madrone the night before, we passed an ideal bivouac location under a large granite boulder, where we could have stayed dry and built a fire. Because I hadn’t given up hope of descending at that time, we had passed on this opportunity. In retrospect, that was a mistake."

He seems to have made a lot of mistakes, IMO. This guy climbed in Yosemite "three decades ago". If he was twenty when he did it, he's fifty now. And he thought he could move as fast on a complicated, demanding climb as when he was twenty? DUMB.

Sunset that day was 7:35 p.m. He passed good shelter because he couldn't seem to understand that conditions had changed, and didn't stop for the night until 11p.m. Tired. Cold. DUMB.

He put himself and his son into a dangerous, possibly life-threatening situation so he could feed his ego and impress his son, then had to call for help so he could put other peoples' lives in danger. DUMB & STUPID.

Before you get into that situation, you really have to have a "turn back" time established. Usually it's associated with folks doing a summit attempt. If they haven't summitted by a certain time, everyone in the party starts heading back down.
That time is usually set to allow a decent, in daylight, to basecamp, with some safety margin.

In addition, a well organized group will have in their mind a "hunker down for the night" time. If you aren't back to camp by some point, you find or make shelter for the night. That isn't 11pm for sure.

It's kinda like a rescue chopper on a SAR mission reaching Bingo fuel over water. If you don't turn back at that point, well, you're inviting another set of issues, like ditching at sea, and creating another set of victims for someone else to search for.

Yes, Unfortunately this happens in Yosemite Valley a lot.
Some climbers think that because they are so near civilization they can be casual about their climb. But the walls of the Valley get very cold very fast at night especially when you did not prepare. I have seen folks out with no shirt and no backup gear. Even on the hottest days I always carry a mylar bivy (now the AMK Heatsheets bivy), a jacket and a micro-weight balaclava because things do go as unplanned when you climb.
Even on climbs I have done before I know there is a possibility of an epic; ropes get stuck, gear gets dropped, parties in front are slow as sh**, you name it.

I was very suprised that no one at Supertopo has called out the guys stupidity; it looks like he got a talking to by Keith Lober.
He is a notorious personality in the Valley. He is LEO and a YOSAR leader; I am told he loves busting climbers for anything he can. I bet he gave this guy an earfull.

Well, I'm not a climber by anyone's definition, so this is purely an outsider's point of view, but I am not comfortable with the increasingly "holier than thou" tone that seems to be becoming the norm on this site.

The fact that he last climbed in Yosemite three decades ago doesn't mean he hasn't climbed in three decades. Heck, there are 70-year olds climbing Mount Everest; what's your evidence that this guy wasn't up to the climb? (For all you know, that climb 30 years ago may have been with *his* dad. In fact, where in his story does he indicate that that was the last time he climbed in Yosemite?) He sounds to me like an experienced climber with 30 years experience, not some yahoo trying to relive his glory days.

Granted, he made mistakes. He also had the courage to post publicly about those mistakes, and he had no problem admitting to them.

BillyM just scares me. If I did climb, I sure wouldn't climb with him after reading his post. The idea that he would put his son's life in danger to avoid the "embarrassment" of calling SAR is just - well, it scares me. In fact, it seems to be precisely that "can-do" attitude which got Vic and Sascha in so deep in the first place.

True, it's easy to talk smart and laugh at those climbers but such things could happen to any of us. Obviously the father made several critical mistakes but that's much more obvious now with the benefit of hindsight than it was in their particular situation. With a little luck they could still have made it on their own. If they had found the trail they would probably have completed the descent, surely arriving back tired and a bit scared but with a good war story to tell. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that way.

Things go awry all the time, all the more likely if you let your ego get in the way of your judgement. We all know that's wrong but I can freely admit that it's happened to me before too, only the consequences were never so serious. Partly because I always managed to get out of a sticky situation on my own somehow, partly because I was plain lucky. Our ego often gets us in trouble. There's plenty of opportunity for that in the mountains. Everyone wants to complete the climb and get back home a "winner". I don't think anyone (males in particular) is totally immune to that.

Be scared and stay off the rock if you can't be responsible for yourself.

When I started climbing there was no cell phones, walkie talkies or PLBs being carried by climbers;we were on our own.
The climbing community has always held a self rescue ethic that means you got yourself into the situation so get yourself out of it. It is an ethic that I hold very highly as a climber. Just because things go sour does not mean you are going to die and it does not mean you should put others in danger to come get you. Sometimes you have to suck it up and put up with a little misery.
I have climbed for years in Yosemite Valley and have watched a "new guard" of climbers who do not take responsibilty for themselves.
I have broken my hand leading a climb with a partner who was not skilled enough to lead the rest of the climb. Did I cry for help and a rescue? Hell no I carried on the best I could (pain) and finished the climb and descended under my own power.

Climbing is a risky and unpredictable undertaking even on the "easy" routes; you HAVE TO BE responsible for yourself.
The fact that you are upset by my attitude means you know nothing about climbing and should probably not comment on what climbers do. The potential "embarrasment" I expressed would be the same if I had to be rescued under almost any circumstances; the embarrasment in not being responsible for myself and causing others to get in harms way to bail me out.
I have work SAR and been involved in many rescues; most are people who had little experience and did not plan for the worst.
We volunteer to go into harms way but them who created the situation that put folks like me in harms way.

Vic and Sasha did exactly that; they caused others to get in harms way because they did not start early enough, moved slow, didn't turn back, used too long a rope, did't bring enough survival gear and kept moving when they should have stopped.
I WOULD BE EMBARRASED IF I DID ALL THOSE THINGS WRONG you would probably be too.

I am an experienced climber, mountaineer, SAR volunteer and outdoorsman who has NEVER needed a rescue because I am responsible for my own actions and with a little good luck have never been in such a situation to cause others to come get me. If for some reason someone was going to die I would certainly call for help but short of that I would extract myself from the situation under my own power.

The evidence that they were not up to the climb is in the story.
THEY NEEDED TO BE RESCUED ON ONE OF THE EASIEST CLIMBS IN THE VALLEY. It is a cakewalk.
Hell the elite climbers free solo Royal Arches at dusk and don't epic.
This guy had almost all day and screwed it up. Yea that's 30 years of experience for ya. Oh and climbing Everest means nothing; it is a trade route for rich elitists to get ferried up by high paid guides and has nothing to do with rock climbing.
Everest is 99% a snow slog and is no longer considered to be anything special by the climbing community these days.

This forum often critiques other peoples mishaps and sometimes the citique is harsh. This process helps others from making the same mistakes.

As far as "holier than thou" look at your post and try not to miss the hypocricy.


Oh and the first time I climbed Royal Arches I started before dawn, researched the climb and descent and was prepared to have difficulties finding North Dome Gully. Because of that I had no problem. Vic should have done a bit more preplanning and research.
North Dome Gully has a long history of epics. Vic should have known about it and planned for it. Obviously he didn't.

Billym,

I've seen the term "epic" used in several places regarding this story. Could you please define what it means in this context?

Thanks.
-Blast

Hi Blast,
To a climber an epic is when things go wrong and keep going wrong so that you are not going to finish the climb under normal circumstances, may need to bail or in worst cases get rescued.

Some examples would be getting off route and having to spend the night in a hanging belay, dropping a rope or your rack and not being able to go up or down, an injury that makes it impossible to continue, a major weather change and you are dressed for summer and suddenly it is winter. As you can see an epic is when things go so bad you wish you were anywhere but there but as soon as you are safe again you are bragging about it at the nearest bar. The possiblitiy of an epic is part of the allure of alpinism but you must work like hell to avoid one or life will get hard real fast.

Lucky for me I have only experienced minor epics such as running out of water, a broken hand, off route etc.
Some climbing epics have taken lives like the guys that got frozen solid in the middle of El Captian a few years ago. It stormed so hard their lines were encased in ice and they were stuck for days. Some died most self rescued and some were airlifted off the rock.
Those were true epics.