6 ms·

Into Thin Error: Mountaineer Ed Viesturs on Making Mistakes (2010)

60 points by ColinWright 6y ago

saiya-jin 6y ago
I like that guy a lot, humble overachiever, he was described by other elite mountaineers as calm at practically every situation. Not huge ego like many in that business. That being said, there is survivorship bias with guys like him or Messner - they risked so many times and came out alive that they are by no means representative, rather an exception. Many folks like them lie frozen up there in some crevasse, just because of tiny mistake that you don't even realize you're doing, or simply unlucky with being at bad place at bad time.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Shorter "American Alpine Journal" (circa 1970s): we were tired, hungry, cold, low on oxygen, and that's when we made this stupid mistake and ${colleague} died. I don't know what current standards may be; around the turn of the century there was a proposal that a team should include someone at base camp radioing simple math questions "6 times 9" and timing the response. If the response time increased significantly, they'd say it was time to turn back. (Viesturs on how to train to climb without supplemental oxygen: he doesn't think he trained to do it, he's just lucky to be a freak)
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    > "6 times 9" Half the people I know in SF couldn't do that at sea level.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    42. Easy.
    - MontagFTB 6y ago
      This is the right answer. I read it in a book once.
- jmull 6y ago
  Not sure it's fair to bring up survivorship bias here. Ed Viesturs has been a high-profile mountaineer and guide known for his careful/conservative approach, for decades.
EdwardDiego 6y ago
> a mistake is a mistake even if you get away with it. I've had this exact same feeling making mistakes on a motorbike, didn't get hurt, but scared me shitless for a few weeks nonetheless.
- SethTro 6y ago
  This is something called "results oriented thinking" it can be very destructive to learning in noise environments (e.g. poker, investing)
  - EdwardDiego 6y ago
    Riding a motorcycle is generally the same as mountaineering or being a criminal - mistakes tend to be very expensive ;)
  - abduhl 6y ago
    Understanding that a mistake is a mistake regardless of the result is literally the opposite of results oriented thinking.
    - kazinator 6y ago
      It's the opposite of a strawman version of results-oriented thinking which says that, for instance, 64/16 = 4 is a good result even if it was obtained by crossing out and cancelling the two 6's giving 4/1 = 4. Result-oriented thinking has to include some reflection about whether results are being obtained in a way that is repeatable or will work in other situations.
      - abduhl 6y ago
        I agree that the point is to understand why your actions are either correct or incorrect. Hence why I wrote "understanding" in my post. There is something to be said about the false dichotomy of being either for or against results oriented thinking. As you note, understanding why your thinking is correct is a critical component; however, the best way to understand if your thinking is correct is based on results.
isaachawley 6y ago
I've done a bit of climbing. I think it takes more bravery to accept that conditions are bad and you need to turn around, than to continue on with the rest of the group. It's not clear-cut, either. If you turn around and the group continues, and they don't die, it's really hard to accept that you made the right choice. Just because they got lucky and survived, sometimes the right choice was still to turn around. But there's no certainty, and it's hard not to second-guess your choices.
- ericcholis 6y ago
  Same. Had a very successful expedition on Denali; until we reached high camp. Making great time, beautiful conditions, strong team, great chemistry, and very little issues with altitude. Then, the shiteth has hitteth the fan. Socked in for a few days with no weather window. Had to bail, with the summit in reach. Lesson learned, the mountain will always be there.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
    Try "the shite hitteth the fan" or "the shite hath hit the fan", although I'd probably go with "the shite doth hit the fan".
    - leoc 6y ago
      To wit: 'the shit hit the fan' → 'the shite hit the fan' 'the shit hits the fan' → 'the shite hitteth the fan' 'the shit has hit the fan' → 'the shite hath hit the fan' You could also throw in an archaic alternate spelling of 'hit' ('hitt' or 'hitte') or 'fan' ('fann' or 'fanne'). Or spell 'the' as 'ye', though that's really older than the Shakespeare/King James Bible thing, and it's always pronounced as 'the', with no 'y' sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter) .
      - carapace 6y ago
        "fan the shite doth hit"
calmoo 6y ago
I'd highly recommend reading Ed Viesturs' account of his ascent of K2 - "K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain", it also details the history of K2 mountaineering, amazing read.
- mbostleman 6y ago
  One of my favorite mountaineering photos is one of Ed Viesturs navigating a long traverse across a > 50 degree snowfield high on K2 with Scott Fisher kneeling in the background on belay. Can't seem to find it now but I think I first saw in this book.
  - calmoo 6y ago
    Doesn't seem to be in my copy of the book - there are a few of Viesturs and Fisher but none with belaying. If you're eager to find it, Viesturs seems pretty active on Instagram, he might be able to find it for you.
bernardlunn 6y ago
Love it, applies to many domains
mauvehaus 6y ago
Couple of book recommendations if you find mountaineering and its associated safety culture interesting: Forever on the Mountain is a pretty in-depth reporting of a spectacularly deadly mountaineering disaster on Denali (or McKinley), which Ed Viesturs has climbed ~200 times per the article. I know it's easy to say with the benefit of knowing how it ends, but you can just watch the mistakes pile up. From TFA: "These high-altitude mountains are one of the few places on the planet where there is literally no help. If you screw up and break a leg, it’s up to your partner to get you down." Touching the Void recounts an accident in which this was exactly the case. The author broke his leg on the way down at altitude, and things got (much) worse from there. Spoiler alert, he survived to write the book. Pick a time when you can finish it in one sitting. Once you get about 1/3 of the way in, you likely won't be able to put it down. Everest the Hard Way is a telling of a successful Everest expedition, but provides a good look into the planning and decision making that makes that happen. Deep Survival is also worth a read. It doesn't focus exclusively on mountaineering, but as I recall, some of the case-studies are mountaineering. Sorry, it's been a while. Into Thin Air, from which the article riffs on the title, covers the 1996 Everest disaster. It's been even longer since I read that, but it's worth a read. I'd be interested in a book recommendation if anybody has one that talks about how safety culture is spread. I'm a rock climber (as distinct from mountaineering), and one of the things I observe is that the safety culture in the sport sucks [0], [1]. I'd be curious what the climbing community can do to better spread or develop a safety culture within the rapidly growing sport, especially as fewer people are being brought in by experienced mentors and are instead getting into it via rock gyms. My admittedly outside understanding is that mountaineering has a much more developed and widespread safety culture, perhaps because the barriers to entry almost require getting into the sport via a mentor. [0] I saw somebody (top rope) belaying outside while lying in a hammock. This was on a single pitch route with ample space to stand. Even if you have to be anchored, there's just no reason to impede your hand and arm mobility like that. [1] A representative for a major gear manufacturer (if you climb, you've heard of them) was explaining a new safety feature on a new model of their belay device. He was telling me about it and started giving an example of where it would be valuable by saying something along the lines of "suppose you were climbing and your belayer didn't know what they were doing". It's telling and disappointing that a major gear manufacturer seems to have accepted that the safety culture in the sport has allowed this scenario to be plausible and/or common.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Charles Perrow's Normal Accidents addresses this concept of risk from a complex systems (and complex organisations) perspective. The title comes from the fact that accidents arise from normal operations --- these systems are always operationg at the borders of control, often previous incidents have reduced perceptions of risk, further shaving safety margins, until there are none. https://www.worldcat.org/title/normal-accidents/oclc/1102386873 https://www.worldcat.org/title/normal-accidents/oclc/1102386...
nogabebop23 6y ago
Alex Honnold has some great advice on risk mitigation and erros as well. For a guy who get's promoted as a huge risk taker it's just not really true when he explains what goes into a big wall solo. For example he stated that if he could only do one type of climbing it would be typical sport climbing so he could actually take chances and work right at the point of failure; not where you want to be in the middle of a free solo.
- rurp 6y ago
  I can't find a link right now but there's a great interview out there that Honnold and Peter Croft did together talking about their different approaches to free soloing. It was interesting to hear the contrasts in their styles.
awinter-py 6y ago
love how cool he is about missing his first attempt > The weather was deteriorating, we’d used all of the rope we’d brought with us, the conditions were getting worse and worse by the minute. That umbilical cord of safety was stretched and maybe almost broken, and we figured we might be able to get to the top, but no way were we going to get down. And climbing a mountain has to be a round trip. a plan isn't a strategy unless it accounts for resource trends and contingencies this is why people tabletop / wargame things when they're important + involve uncertainty
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
>> But on a mountain, sometimes it is black and white, right? I mean, you can be as rah-rah relativism as you want, but sometimes the world makes it very clear that you’ve made a mistake. All else being equal, if you survive and the other guy doesn’t, your decision was right and his was wrong. >> Yeah. But I make a point of not judging people. You can’t go up to them and say, “Nyah, nyah, I was right and you were wrong.” Especially if the other guy doesn't survive. Then, no, you can't go up to them and say that. I mean, presumably if they're dead they didn't even come back down the mountain, so what are you going to do? Climb back up and thumb your nose at them?

60 points by ColinWright 6y ago

I like that guy a lot, humble overachiever, he was described by other elite mountaineers as calm at practically every situation. Not huge ego like many in that business. That being said, there is survivorship bias with guys like him or Messner - they risked so many times and came out alive that they are by no means representative, rather an exception. Many folks like them lie frozen up there in some crevasse, just because of tiny mistake that you don't even realize you're doing, or simply unlucky with being at bad place at bad time.

082349872349872 6y ago
Shorter "American Alpine Journal" (circa 1970s): we were tired, hungry, cold, low on oxygen, and that's when we made this stupid mistake and ${colleague} died. I don't know what current standards may be; around the turn of the century there was a proposal that a team should include someone at base camp radioing simple math questions "6 times 9" and timing the response. If the response time increased significantly, they'd say it was time to turn back. (Viesturs on how to train to climb without supplemental oxygen: he doesn't think he trained to do it, he's just lucky to be a freak)
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > "6 times 9" Half the people I know in SF couldn't do that at sea level.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  42. Easy.
  - MontagFTB 6y ago
    This is the right answer. I read it in a book once.
jmull 6y ago
Not sure it's fair to bring up survivorship bias here. Ed Viesturs has been a high-profile mountaineer and guide known for his careful/conservative approach, for decades.

EdwardDiego 6y ago

> a mistake is a mistake even if you get away with it. I've had this exact same feeling making mistakes on a motorbike, didn't get hurt, but scared me shitless for a few weeks nonetheless.

SethTro 6y ago
This is something called "results oriented thinking" it can be very destructive to learning in noise environments (e.g. poker, investing)
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  Riding a motorcycle is generally the same as mountaineering or being a criminal - mistakes tend to be very expensive ;)
- abduhl 6y ago
  Understanding that a mistake is a mistake regardless of the result is literally the opposite of results oriented thinking.
  - kazinator 6y ago
    It's the opposite of a strawman version of results-oriented thinking which says that, for instance, 64/16 = 4 is a good result even if it was obtained by crossing out and cancelling the two 6's giving 4/1 = 4. Result-oriented thinking has to include some reflection about whether results are being obtained in a way that is repeatable or will work in other situations.
    - abduhl 6y ago
      I agree that the point is to understand why your actions are either correct or incorrect. Hence why I wrote "understanding" in my post. There is something to be said about the false dichotomy of being either for or against results oriented thinking. As you note, understanding why your thinking is correct is a critical component; however, the best way to understand if your thinking is correct is based on results.

isaachawley 6y ago

I've done a bit of climbing. I think it takes more bravery to accept that conditions are bad and you need to turn around, than to continue on with the rest of the group. It's not clear-cut, either. If you turn around and the group continues, and they don't die, it's really hard to accept that you made the right choice. Just because they got lucky and survived, sometimes the right choice was still to turn around. But there's no certainty, and it's hard not to second-guess your choices.

ericcholis 6y ago
Same. Had a very successful expedition on Denali; until we reached high camp. Making great time, beautiful conditions, strong team, great chemistry, and very little issues with altitude. Then, the shiteth has hitteth the fan. Socked in for a few days with no weather window. Had to bail, with the summit in reach. Lesson learned, the mountain will always be there.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  Try "the shite hitteth the fan" or "the shite hath hit the fan", although I'd probably go with "the shite doth hit the fan".
  - leoc 6y ago
    To wit: 'the shit hit the fan' → 'the shite hit the fan' 'the shit hits the fan' → 'the shite hitteth the fan' 'the shit has hit the fan' → 'the shite hath hit the fan' You could also throw in an archaic alternate spelling of 'hit' ('hitt' or 'hitte') or 'fan' ('fann' or 'fanne'). Or spell 'the' as 'ye', though that's really older than the Shakespeare/King James Bible thing, and it's always pronounced as 'the', with no 'y' sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter) .
    - carapace 6y ago
      "fan the shite doth hit"

calmoo 6y ago

I'd highly recommend reading Ed Viesturs' account of his ascent of K2 - "K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain", it also details the history of K2 mountaineering, amazing read.

mbostleman 6y ago
One of my favorite mountaineering photos is one of Ed Viesturs navigating a long traverse across a > 50 degree snowfield high on K2 with Scott Fisher kneeling in the background on belay. Can't seem to find it now but I think I first saw in this book.
- calmoo 6y ago
  Doesn't seem to be in my copy of the book - there are a few of Viesturs and Fisher but none with belaying. If you're eager to find it, Viesturs seems pretty active on Instagram, he might be able to find it for you.

bernardlunn 6y ago

Love it, applies to many domains

mauvehaus 6y ago

Couple of book recommendations if you find mountaineering and its associated safety culture interesting: Forever on the Mountain is a pretty in-depth reporting of a spectacularly deadly mountaineering disaster on Denali (or McKinley), which Ed Viesturs has climbed ~200 times per the article. I know it's easy to say with the benefit of knowing how it ends, but you can just watch the mistakes pile up. From TFA: "These high-altitude mountains are one of the few places on the planet where there is literally no help. If you screw up and break a leg, it’s up to your partner to get you down." Touching the Void recounts an accident in which this was exactly the case. The author broke his leg on the way down at altitude, and things got (much) worse from there. Spoiler alert, he survived to write the book. Pick a time when you can finish it in one sitting. Once you get about 1/3 of the way in, you likely won't be able to put it down. Everest the Hard Way is a telling of a successful Everest expedition, but provides a good look into the planning and decision making that makes that happen. Deep Survival is also worth a read. It doesn't focus exclusively on mountaineering, but as I recall, some of the case-studies are mountaineering. Sorry, it's been a while. Into Thin Air, from which the article riffs on the title, covers the 1996 Everest disaster. It's been even longer since I read that, but it's worth a read. I'd be interested in a book recommendation if anybody has one that talks about how safety culture is spread. I'm a rock climber (as distinct from mountaineering), and one of the things I observe is that the safety culture in the sport sucks [0], [1]. I'd be curious what the climbing community can do to better spread or develop a safety culture within the rapidly growing sport, especially as fewer people are being brought in by experienced mentors and are instead getting into it via rock gyms. My admittedly outside understanding is that mountaineering has a much more developed and widespread safety culture, perhaps because the barriers to entry almost require getting into the sport via a mentor. [0] I saw somebody (top rope) belaying outside while lying in a hammock. This was on a single pitch route with ample space to stand. Even if you have to be anchored, there's just no reason to impede your hand and arm mobility like that. [1] A representative for a major gear manufacturer (if you climb, you've heard of them) was explaining a new safety feature on a new model of their belay device. He was telling me about it and started giving an example of where it would be valuable by saying something along the lines of "suppose you were climbing and your belayer didn't know what they were doing". It's telling and disappointing that a major gear manufacturer seems to have accepted that the safety culture in the sport has allowed this scenario to be plausible and/or common.

dredmorbius 6y ago

Charles Perrow's Normal Accidents addresses this concept of risk from a complex systems (and complex organisations) perspective. The title comes from the fact that accidents arise from normal operations --- these systems are always operationg at the borders of control, often previous incidents have reduced perceptions of risk, further shaving safety margins, until there are none. https://www.worldcat.org/title/normal-accidents/oclc/1102386873 https://www.worldcat.org/title/normal-accidents/oclc/1102386...

nogabebop23 6y ago

Alex Honnold has some great advice on risk mitigation and erros as well. For a guy who get's promoted as a huge risk taker it's just not really true when he explains what goes into a big wall solo. For example he stated that if he could only do one type of climbing it would be typical sport climbing so he could actually take chances and work right at the point of failure; not where you want to be in the middle of a free solo.

rurp 6y ago
I can't find a link right now but there's a great interview out there that Honnold and Peter Croft did together talking about their different approaches to free soloing. It was interesting to hear the contrasts in their styles.

awinter-py 6y ago

love how cool he is about missing his first attempt > The weather was deteriorating, we’d used all of the rope we’d brought with us, the conditions were getting worse and worse by the minute. That umbilical cord of safety was stretched and maybe almost broken, and we figured we might be able to get to the top, but no way were we going to get down. And climbing a mountain has to be a round trip. a plan isn't a strategy unless it accounts for resource trends and contingencies this is why people tabletop / wargame things when they're important + involve uncertainty

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

>> But on a mountain, sometimes it is black and white, right? I mean, you can be as rah-rah relativism as you want, but sometimes the world makes it very clear that you’ve made a mistake. All else being equal, if you survive and the other guy doesn’t, your decision was right and his was wrong. >> Yeah. But I make a point of not judging people. You can’t go up to them and say, “Nyah, nyah, I was right and you were wrong.” Especially if the other guy doesn't survive. Then, no, you can't go up to them and say that. I mean, presumably if they're dead they didn't even come back down the mountain, so what are you going to do? Climb back up and thumb your nose at them?