[at-l] Into The Void

[RoksnRoots at aol.com (RoksnRoots@aol.com)]

         Hellish experience by those climbers. I'm sure all the foolish moves 
have been covered by someone else already, but a few were obvious:

             Never climb a remote and extreme mountain with less than 3 
people.

            Simple point of no return mistake. If they had too little gas for 
the extra time needed to climb the Andean powder snow at the summit then they 
needed to turn around. This literally caused the accident because they would 
have snow-caved that night and waited for light the next morning to proceed. 
Because they had no stove gas they thought they needed to keep going in the 
dark and didn't see the cliff.

            Not being a mountain climber I could be wrong, however couldn't 
it have been possible for Simon to clamp the lower section of rope just before 
the belay device with some kind of climbing equipment. From there he could 
have cut the rope on the upper side of the belay. With this cut upper section he 
could have tied on to the lower section beneath the clamp. Bracing this new 
union with an improvised carabiner belay he could have then cut the knot in the 
belay freeing the rope and lowering it down for the rest of its length?

            I suppose this would have been a lot to ask of an exhausted, 
freezing, and slipping climber in an emergency. Also, Simon must not have known 
how much distance lay beneath. He could have ended up succeeding with the new 
splice only to end up in the same situation with no rope.   

            The guy with the broken leg was a tough b&%tard...

          My final analysis says they panicked under pressure and tried a 
foolhardy night descent. Since Simon survived just fine that night and made it 
down, they both could have.

          They should have snow-caved...