by Andy Selters
In this way, it seems that because crevasses generally are not hazards inherent to “climbing,” because the odds of falling through a weak bridge are irregular, and because many glacier excursions are incident-free, we don't view crevasses with the same wary eye as we do other climbing hazards like falling, fatigue, or even avalanches and rockfall. We forget that a single crevasse fall can become the major issue of a mountaineering endeavor. With the hazards not well thought out, our perception of playing crevasse roulette at a conservative level becomes a pleasant illusion compared to our real odds.
Most people who have died in crevasses were climbing unroped, and the overwhelming majority of those people were surprised—they were either naive about the risk or they denied the risk they knew. We can guess that most who've died while climbing roped assumed that the precautions they were taking were adequate to save them from the fatal situation. Very few went out fully aware of the risk and fully ready to take it.
This is not to say that we should travel glaciers with the least possible risk—which would be to anchor-belay every step. Our goal is to play crevasse roulette at a level of risk as close to our choosing as possible.
When we have an intimate knowledge of and intuition for crevasses and snowbridges, we can play at a more informed, aware level. When we know how to avoid the worst case and how to rescue from it, we can play at whatever level we want, up to the conservative level that most people desire.
We all know that one person's acceptable risk is another's suicide mission and yet another's confining security blanket—it's important that we preserve this freedom to climb in the style we choose. Just as important is to accept full responsibility for whatever style we choose. The crucial task is not eliminating risk, but knowing more clearly just what risks we take, and just how effectively our precautions will serve us. Given this knowledge, glacier travelers almost always make prudent choices.
Experienced glacier travelers know the stakes are high, and relative security from crevasse death comes with precious little investment. An experienced party on a typical alpine glacier can be quite secure with just a pound or two of gear they wouldn't carry anyway, and perhaps 15 minutes of added procedure. Mostly it's the weightless, time-free items— awareness and ability—that are our best investments, for in crevasse roulette they both reduce the hassle and improve the odds.
“Negotiating the countless stretchmarks on a large Alaskan glacier is often the most vexing and frightening aspect of a mountain adventure.”
—Fred Beckey. From Alaska Ascents, 1996. Bill Sherwonit, Ed.
REMOTENESS
From the top of Good Neighbor Peak, the 15,600-foot east summit of Mount Vancouver two very experienced climbers looked over much of the Saint Elias Range, one of the world's great ice wildernesses. They started a half-mile ridge-walk to the main summit, but midway across a harsh wind with a scud signaled a storm. Then one member started feeling altitude sickness. They ducked down Vancouver's northwest ridge to a campsite at 12,500 feet. Here they waited out a windy day of storm.
When the tempest eased they broke camp and reinstalled themselves at the one-third points along their 50-meter rope. Although they were on a high ridge they took precautions for crevasses with prusiks on the rope, anchors and pulleys handy, and they traveled with the rope extended. Wearing crampons on the wind-hardened snow, they crested a subsidiary summit on this ridge, and the first climber walked across a bridge near the end of an obvious crevasse. The second followed in his prints, but the steps broke through and dropped the climber in to his knees. He shouted, and as his partner turned around the bridge failed completely.
After a 10-foot drop, one of the climber's crampons caught on the wall of the crevasse and flipped him upside-down. The rope ran somewhat oblique to the crevasse wall, and so he swung and kept falling upside-down, dragging his partner, in ice-ax arrest, toward the lip. When the arrest finally held, the falling climber was flipped upright by his fullbody harness. He shrieked with pain from his lower leg because it felt like someone was pouring boiling water into it. He was 40 feet down, with severe artery and muscle damage, and his leg was filling with blood.
He'd been traveling with a sling ready on his pack and with this he got the load off his back and onto the rope. A few feet away there was a block of ice wedged between the walls of the crevasse, and he pulled himself over to rest on that. With the rope no longer weighted, the partner above was free to set an anchor, which he did by burying his entire pack in the dry snow. Then he belayed himself with a prusik out to the lip. His partner yelled up that he would like his pack hauled, and this was accomplished.
The victim decided that prusiking could further traumatize his leg, but feeling like a trapped animal he wanted to start getting out right away. He felt that with a tight belay and two ice tools he could climb the Styrofoam-wall of the crevasse and keep his damaged leg out of harm. So with tension from the belay he heaved and hopped up the crevasse wall, to where the upper wall overhung with an eave of loose snow. He made some more progress by clearing away scoops from the overhang, but more tricks were needed. The surface climber tied off the belay and sent down the other end of the rope with a series of loops tied into it. With this the fallen climber climbed up another couple feet. Then he just held tight as his partner heaved him the last meter.
He was shivering from cold, shock, and adrenaline, so they immediately set up their tent and assessed the damage. Although they shrank at the thought of the 7,000-foot descent and then 20-plus miles of valley glacier to their base camp, they were grateful for every bit of crevasse preparation they had made.
The next day they splinted the leg and started down. Easy ground was torture for the injured man, but on steep ground he could be lowered on the rope, though this meant that the healthy man suffered the hazard of circumventing the steep area alone and unroped. One time the injured man was lowered out of view into another crevasse, requiring another extrication. Down on the valley glacier the man limped as best he could, mostly in exquisite pain. Too often a breaking crust would hyperextend the damaged leg, and convulsing agony would send his body into spastic somersaults. It took them five days of belabored travel to reach their base camp on the Seward Glacier. Two days after that a plane retrieved them for the trip home.
APPENDIX 1
RESCUE PRACTICE SESSIONS
One of the paradoxes of glacier travel is that safe, uneventful trips do not prepare you for the eventuality of crevasse rescue. Therefore, competence at crevasse rescue demands setting up practice sessions on a glacier.
It's usually more convenient to first practice on a crevasse in a glacier's ablation zone. Here, on the icy lower reaches, you don't have to worry about genuine crevasse falls before you've learned how to rescue people from them, the anchors in ice are safer and you don't have to worry about genuine lip problems.
First, find a flat area with a nice deep crevasse. Set up bombproof anchors and lower a mock victim into the crevasse with a belay device. (The “victim” can be a pack full of gear or snow instead of a person.) He or she or it should go down tied to the end of another rope, which becomes the rescue/haul rope. Once the victim is a good distance into the crevasse, set another bombproof anchor pull the rescue rope taut, connect it to the anchor with a prusik, and commence rescue procedures. As you haul the victim up, someone takes up the original lowering rope as a backup belay.
To practice prusiking, have your partner lower you with a brake on the anchor and tie off the belay with a mule knot. Then prusik out on the same rope.
Once your group is practiced at rescue procedures, it's a good idea to head up to the snow-covered reaches of a glacier and practice in more genuine conditions. Here again, choose your practice site carefully; try to find a flat work area next to a good crevasse with at most a modest eave of snow. You don't want to walk onto a huge, unstable marquee that might collapse or might require the adrenaline of a genuine rescue to get back over If you're in the Cascades in July or August you should h
ave no problem finding a suitable crevasse, but if you're in the Alaska Range you might just decide to stay out of as many crevasses as possible. Again, set bombproof anchors and lower a mock victim, then haul out on another set of anchors.
APPENDIX 2
SOME USEFUL KNOTS
AND IMPROVISATIONS
Here are three additional tricks that can come in handy.
KIWI COIL TIE-IN
Guides in New Zealand have developed a method for people to tie in that links the seat harness with coils over the shoulder The method is good for traveling together on a shortened rope on any terrain, and it allows for a convenient transition to technical climbing on a full-length rope. The coils also provide a bit of upper torso support when you fall in a crevasse.
Start by marking the appropriate span and tie-in spot with a knot, and then by tying into the end of the rope as you would for technical climbing. Now, wrap even coils around your neck, with the bottom of the coils just above waist level.
When you wrap coils up to your marker knot, put your arm through the coils so they rest on your shoulder. If wrapped the right size, they should be comfortably snug. Untie the marker knot, and, with the rope heading to your partner, feed a bight through your harness belay loop and the original tie-in loop.
Pull that bight all the way through the coils, and tie an overhand with it around the strand running toward your partner For a final backup, clip the knotted bight into a locking carabiner on your harness belay loop.
When you hang from this tie-in, most of your weight should bear on the seat harness. The coils should reach out from your torso somewhat, slightly supporting your upper body. Test-pull the rope to make sure that the seat harness will take most of the weight, and do it over if necessary.
Figure A.1a A kiwi coil tie-in: wrap coils around neck and hand at elbow distance.
Figure A.1b A kiwi coil tie-in: use bight to tie overhand knot around coils, including the rope to your partner too.
Figure A.1c A kiwi coil tie-in: clip bight into carabiner on seat harness.
The best way to carry a pack with this method is to tie it all up first, then pull the coils off your head to hang on the harness, put the pack on, and replace the coils over your head and the packstraps. If you're traveling with prusiks on the rope, clip the harness prusik to a separate locking carabiner.
BUTTERFLY KNOT
This knot serves the same connecting function as a figure-eight on a bight, but in situations where there might be tension coming from both directions it is a better and stronger knot that is easier to untie after loading. In glacier travel, the two classic situations for the butterfly are the tie-in for a middle person, and for adding drag knots to the rope (see Ch.4.)
Start with a loop hanging from your hand, and give it a full twist. This creates a 3-segmented “man,” with a “head,” “abdomen” and “legs.” (See fig. A.2a)
Fold the “head” down between the “legs” (see fig. A.2b) and bring it back up through the “abdomen.” Pull the “head” bight all the way through, and this becomes the loop you can connect to (see fig. A.2c).
Figure A.2a Tying a Butterfly Knot: note three segments separated by two crossses.
Figure A.2b Pull “head” between “legs” and back up through “abdomen.”
Figure A.2c Clip carabiner into bight.
KLEIMHEIST WEBBING “PRUSIK”
With a runner of 1-inch or 9/16-inch webbing you can improvise a prusik by tying it around a climbing rope in a kleimheist knot. Hold an open bight of the webbing free, and wrap it down the rope barber-pole style, making three to four wraps. Then feed the tail back up through the bight you've held open (see fig. A.3), pull the tail back down, and the kleimheist is complete. This can be used anywhere a prusik is used, except as a ratchet at the anchor of a hauling system.
BACHMAN KNOT
Familiar to Europeans, the Bachman knot is a prusik-type knot that actually performs better than the tried-and-true prusik. With its wraps cinching around a carabiner's spine as well as the climbing rope, the Bachman grabs at least as tightly as a prusik, yet once the load is removed it slides more readily. The carabiner also adds a convenient handle for moving the unweighted knot, although you cannot pull on the carabiner and expect the knot to grip.
Figure A.3 (left) Kleimheist knot tied with 1-inch webbing: top, wrap bight down rope barber-pole style; (right) feed tail back through bight
To tie the Bachman, simply clip a prusik loop onto a carabiner; and then wrap the doubled cord around both the climbing rope and the spine of the carabiner, working down the carabiner barber-pole style. Three wraps will usually suffice, depending on the diameter of the rope. The Bachman grabs when you load the remaining loop; unweighted, it slides when you push or pull the wraps and carabiner directly. The Bachman knot can be used anywhere a prusik would be used, except that it will take a load only in the direction it was tied for; unlike a prusik, it is not bi-directional, therefore, it is not recommended for a self-belay (see fig. A.4).
Figure A.4 Bachman knot
INDEX
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Ablation zone
Accumulation zone
Age hardening; simulating
Alaska
Alps
Altimeters
Anchors: bollard; deadman; equalizing and backing up; fluke; ice screws; one person setting; picket; in poor snow conditions; preferred system; prusik; shock loading of
Andes, the
Ascending systems, mechanical; prusiks; Texas
Attitude
Autoblock
Belay: basics; boot-ax; devices; dynamic; self; sitting; tying off
Bergschrund
Bernese Alps
Bolivia
Bollards
C-pulley
Camping
Casarotto,Renatto
Climate: Alaska; Cascades; continental; European; Himalayan; maritime; New Zealand; polar; subarctic; subtropical; temperate;
Clothing
Compression zone
Crevasse roulette
Crevasses, circumventing; crossing; marginal; origin of; radial; recognizing; size and depth of; transverse
Drop loop system, Canadian
En echelon travel
Falls, holding
Firn
First aid
Fluke: design; placement; setting
Foot loops, constructing
French braid
Garda hitch
Gathering together
Glacier: movement; skiing
Harnesses: chest; full-torso (body); improvised with pack; seat; support, importance of
Hauling, ratchets; sleds; victims
Hauling systems, additional power; C-pulley; straight pull; Z-system
Himalaya, the
Hypothermia
Ice ax: as pad; as probe; use in belay
Ice screws
Icefall
Johnston, Dave
Karakoram
Kiwi coil
Knots, Bachman; butterfly; Kleimheist; Penberthy; prusik; ratchet
Latrine
Leaps, of crevasse
Lip, of crevasse: preparing; rescuing over
Lowering a victim
Map and compass
Melt-freeze snow
Messner Reinhold
Middle person in
Moats
Mountaineering skills
Münter hitch
Nepal
Overhang, of crevasse
Pennine Alps
Peru
Picket
Porter Charlie
Procedures, surface-member; victim
Prusiks, ascending with; making; as self-belay
Pulley systems: basics of; C-pulley
Rappelling
Ratchets, hauling of
Rescue gear
Rescue procedures: anchoring rope; hauling; holding a fall; middle person in; practice; preparing; crevasse lip
Risk taking
Rope, position of: oblique to crevasse; paralleling crevasse; perpendicular to crevasse; slack
Rope teams: distance between members; four-to five-person; leader; members per rope; speeding and slowing; three-person; two-person
Routefinding
Self-belay
Seracs
Skiing, glacier
Sleds, hauling: ascending past; danger of; descending with
Snow, characteristics of; processes affecting
Snowbridges: crossing; formation of; strength
Solo glacier travel
Speed, as safety
Tension-release mechanism
Tension zone
Texas system
Third man
Transverse crevasses
Two-person parties: double-rope technique; general considerations; tying together
Victim: anchoring; hauling; lowering; unconscious or semiconscious
Yukon
Wands
Whiteouts
Z-system
Z×C system
ABOUT THE MOUNTAINEERS
Founded in I906, The Mountaineers is a Seattle-based non-profit outdoor activity and conservation club with I4,000 members, whose mission is “to explore, study, preserve, and enjoy the natural beauty of the outdoors” The club sponsors many classes and year-round outdoor activities in the Pacific Northwest, and supports environmental causes by sponsoring legislation and presenting educational programs. The Mountaineers Books supports the club's mission by publishing travel and natural history guides, instructional texts, and works on conservation and history. For information, call or write The Mountaineers, Club Headquarters, 300 Third Avenue West, Seattle, Washington, 98119; (206) 284-6310.
Send or call for our catalog of more than 500 outdoor titles: