I am genuinely grateful that I am still here to tell you these things. After a lifetime of heading into the mountains, from 1962 onward in my case, the vast majority of it alone, I sometimes remark on my good fortune that I never met with any mishap so great that all of my adventures came to a sudden end. Mountaineering is inherently dangerous, more so than almost any other sport or pastime. Those of us who practice this craft don’t think much about that fact, especially if we have survived long enough to accumulate sufficient experience to feel comfortable in the mountains. Nevertheless, 60 years spent negotiating the slopes of almost 3,000 peaks have brought about some close calls.
A humorous observation was made a century ago about how picking the lovely flower edelweiss in the Alps can be a good way to get yourself killed. It was said that to pick it, you must approach from above. Descend slowly, clinging on to some small shrub. Lean slightly over the precipice, and as one hand grasps the lovely bloom, with the other hand pull hard on the shrub, which will come loose, roots and all. There will be a grating sound of loose, moving rock, the overhanging ledge will cave in, and one may soar, edelweiss in hand, into the void below. There will be three lines in the newspaper about it, and a caravan of expert guides will find the body. Personally, I’ve never seen edelweiss, let alone tried to pick one, but I think I’ll pass.
Lingering in an avalanche zone is an excellent way to get killed. Like most alpine mountaineers, I’ve seen plenty of avalanches and have even set off a few. And like most mountaineers I’ve never been killed in one, thankfully. There were times, though, when I chose to avoid situations which I felt could lead to getting swept away in one. Getting snuffed out in an avalanche has got to be an awful way to die. If the horrific force of the snow and ice doesn’t kill you outright, you could be buried alive. There could be so much pressure on your chest that you can’t even fill your lungs with air, and that’s assuming that your mouth, nose and airways aren’t already filled with snow. If there’s no pocket of air around your face, you’ll suffocate quickly (how long can you hold your breath?). Some types of avalanche set up quickly like wet concrete, making it impossible to move a muscle. You need to dig yourself out, and quickly. If you were lucky enough to have friends with you, hopefully they survived and are in good-enough shape to dig you out. The snow could be soft enough and you’re close enough to the surface that you can get out on your own – that’s the best-case scenario. It’s a fact that avalanches kill more mountaineers than anything else each year, world-wide, and it has always been that way.
Spending time in an area of rockfall hazard can be deadly. Even a small stone bouncing down a mountainside can hit you with enough force at high velocity that it might as well be a bullet that had been fired at you. It can break bones, cause internal injuries or kill you outright if it hits your head. Many climbers have died this way. You often can’t see or hear one coming, and so hanging out in a rockfall zone can be a particularly good way to be killed.
Here’s another way to get killed in the mountains – wear the wrong kind of footwear. If you can’t get proper traction on ice, snow or rock, you can easily slip and fall to your death. Ill-fitting boots can cause blisters, and if they’re bad enough, painful enough, all forward progress can come to a halt. It’s a common occurrence here in the desert where I live. Parties of undocumented border-crossers will abandon those whose blisters have basically hobbled them, as they will slow down the entire party. It’s a fact – blisters can kill you. I know, because I’ve come across such abandoned souls several times.
The very nature of a mountain means it is vertical real estate. We go for the summit, or try to scale a cliff. The second-greatest cause of death in the mountains is falling. The steeper the ground, the greater the possibility of a deadly fall. While it lasts, the sensation of falling must be quite extraordinary. I’ve often wondered what must be going through a climber’s mind as they fall, as I’ve had friends who’ve died in this way. Of course, it’s not the fall itself but the landing that usually does you in.
Here’s another good way to get killed in the mountains – don’t have the proper clothing with you. In desert situations, leave enough bare skin exposed and you’ll literally cook yourself to death. At the opposite extreme, they say that freezing to death is actually a fairly pleasant way to die. Once on a winter climb in 1967, I was at 10,000 feet on a big mountain. I lay down on the snow for a rest, and in the extreme cold I found myself becoming really drowsy – it would have been so easy to just fall asleep and not wake up. I forced myself to keep going, but climbers have succumbed to the freezing cold, lots of them.
Why not tempt fate by not wearing proper eye protection? Personally, I’m a big believer in wearing sunglasses in the desert. However, not wearing them in a snowy setting is really asking for trouble – going snow-blind is painful, and climbers can easily mis-judge their surroundings and fall off a cliff or wander into a crevasse.
Another good way to die is to glissade on snow but not do it carefully. By that I mean if you hit an icy patch suddenly, you could quickly find yourself sliding out of control. If you end up in a crevasse or slam into rocks, it could be your undoing.
Here’s another good way to get killed while climbing – get struck by lightning. You can increase your chances of this happening if you carry a metal ice axe.
Another proven way to die in the mountains is to ignore certain signs of danger. Trying to climb on verglas without proper gear or protection is a good way to go. Or how about not traveling carefully in an area of crevasses? If you don’t probe the snow ahead of you with your ice axe, you may be unaware of a hidden crevasse. If the snow covering it collapses, down you go into the abyss – if you’re not roped to a partner and the crevasse is deep, you’re probably a goner. The same risks apply to crossing snow bridges – if one collapses under you, you’d better hope you’re with several experienced friends who are well-versed in crevasse rescue and have the right equipment with them.
Climbing mountains in the desert introduces a different set of problems, any of which could prove to be a sure-fire way to die. Not protecting yourself from the sun’s burning rays with sunblock or proper clothing is a good example.
Easily the best way to die is to not drink enough to replace the electrolytes you lose through sweating. Years ago, I wrote a piece on that very subject. It is quite graphic, intentionally so in order to scare you into drinking enough, but if you have the stomach for it, you can read it here:
Here in southwestern Arizona, we have a particularly unique way to get yourself killed while climbing in the mountains. Large areas have been set aside for military use, where they drop bombs, shoot at things on the ground and practice hitting things with lasers. All you need to do is make sure you are in the wrong place at the wrong time to get a first-class ticket to the Promised Land.
If you’re not careful where or how you walk or sleep, we have any number of creatures that can sting or bite you with venom enough to kill you.
Another special and unique experience we have in these parts is running into armed and dangerous members of the Mexican drug cartels. On any given day, they can be found over wide swaths of our desert, bringing drugs or undocumented border-crossers into the country. They don’t take kindly to being interrupted in their work and people have been hurt or killed by them. They often will post lookouts on mountain-tops at the best vantage points, and that, of course, is exactly where climbers are headed.
Another way to get yourself killed in the mountains it to drive some of the perilous roads. By their very nature, roads in steep mountain terrain can be treacherous. I personally have done some things that were astonishingly stupid while driving along rough mountain roads. Put just one wheel off a steep edge and it could mean the end of your climbing career. Get stuck, break down or have an accident in a bad spot far from help and it could be the last thing you ever do.
Of all the ways to get yourself killed in the mountains, here’s one of my personal favorites – taking un-necessary risks while climbing on rock. By that, I mean when you are climbing by yourself with no rope or partner to protect you. There are many times that still stand out in my mind, even years later, when I climbed up steep rock and got myself into a situation where I feared I couldn’t continue, yet doubted if I could climb safely back down. Talk about gripped! Obviously I came through unscathed, but those were certainly brown-trouser moments.
Other times when I feared for my life were as follows: a close call in the heat of a 106-degree day one summer; retreating from Mt. Robson in foul weather; running head-on into 4 men carrying large bundles of marijuana in the remotest part of the Growler Mountains; dealing with an injury after being caught in a rockslide in a forbidden part of a military reservation.
I’m sure I’ve left out plenty of other ways to get yourself killed in the mountains, but I’ve tried to cover the highlights. It’s a risky sport, and not for the faint-of-heart.