NOLS Wilderness Mountaineering

NOLS

Wilderness Mountaineering

Third Edition

NOLS Wilderness Mountaineering

Third Edition

Phil Powers

A publication of the National Outdoor Leadership School and

STACKPOLE

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Third Edition

Cover design by Caroline Stover

Cover photo by Ignacio Grez, NOLS instructor

ISBN: 978-0-8117-4529-1 (ePub)

The print edition of this title was manufactured to FSC and Rainforest Alliance standards using paper from responsible sources and sustainable practices.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Powers, Phil.

NOLS wilderness mountaineering / Phil Powers. — 3rd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

A publication of the National Outdoor Leadership School.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8117-3521-6 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8117-3521-4 (alk. paper)

1. Mountaineering. 2. Mountaineering—Equipment and supplies. 3. Mountaineering—Safety measures. I. National Outdoor Leadership School (U.S.) II. Title.

GV200.P68 2008

796.522—dc22

2008017301

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THIS BOOK cannot and does not alert you to all the hazards of the mountains. It is a learning tool and should be read and studied as a supplemental source only. It is not a substitute for professional instruction, an experienced mentor, or, most importantly, the wilderness experience itself. If you decide to participate in the activities described in this book, the risk and responsibility for the outcome are solely yours. No one associated with the publication of this book, including NOLS and Phil Powers, accepts responsibility for any injury or property damage that may result from participation in such activities.

THE NATIONAL OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP SCHOOL

The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) is a private, nonprofit school based in Lander, Wyoming. NOLS bases are located in the Rocky Mountains (Wyoming and the Teton Valley), the Pacific Northwest (Washington), the Southwest (Arizona), Alaska, Mexico, Canada (the Yukon and Baffin Island), Patagonia (Chile), India, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil (Amazon). Since our founding in 1965, we have graduated more than 100,000 students.

Our mission is to be the leading source and teacher of wilderness skills and leadership that serve people and the environment.

Correspondence and catalog requests may be addressed to:

The National Outdoor Leadership School

284 Lincoln Street

Lander, WY 82520-3128

Telephone: (800) 710-NOLS

www.nols.edu

[email protected]

This edition is dedicated to close friends lost while climbing: Tom Walter, Jim Ratz, and Pete Absolon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phil Powers began climbing in Oklahoma at the age of fifteen. Since then, his achievements include the first ascent of the Wash-burn Face of Mount McKinley, the first winter traverse of the Cathedral Group in the Grand Tetons, Lukpilla Brakk’s Western Edge (VI, 5.11, A3), and a couple of 8,000-meter peaks. He began as a NOLS instructor in 1981 and later served as the school’s chief mountaineering instructor and development director.

Powers currently serves as the executive director of the American Alpine Club, a member of the board of the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA), and an owner/guide with Jackson Hole Mountain Guides. He lives with his family in Denver.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Rob Hess, author of the steep ice essay in chapter 3, has been a mountain guide and instructor for NOLS since 1980 and has led expeditions to Aconcagua and Denali, in addition to leading numerous instructor seminars. He summitted Mt. Everest as a member of the 1994 Sagarmatha Environmental Expedition, making him the third American to summit Everest without the use of supplemental oxygen, and he has climbed on K2 and Gasherbrum II. As a guide, he has led clients to the top of Broad Peak, one of the fourteen 8,000-meter peaks. He is a fully certified IFMGA/UIAGM mountain guide, the technical director of the American Mountain Guides Association, and codirector of Jackson Hole Mountain Guides.

Don Sharaf cowrote the section on avalanches in chapter 2 as well as the essay on testing snowpack. He has been an instructor with NOLS since 1988 and has served as the school’s winter coordinator at NOLS Teton Valley. He has worked every winter course type the school offers, including thirteen avalanche seminars and four winter instructor seminars, and is widely credited with shaping the winter program at NOLS.

Nate Ostis is a senior field instructor for NOLS and a swiftwater rescue technician instructor. He wrote the river crossings essay in chapter 2. In addition to his work with NOLS and the Wilderness Medicine Institute (WMI), he has taught at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire and at an international whitewater kayaking academy.

John Gookin, author of the lightning essay in chapter 2, is NOLS’s curriculum manager. He develops NOLS educational resources, making sure the school’s 500+ instructors have access to the latest tools in wilderness education. Of his many outdoor interests, his local National Association for Search and Rescue branch keeps him busy.

Dave Anderson has been a NOLS instructor since 1996, is the author of the NOLS Climbing Instructor Notebook, and provided the climb ratings in chapter 3. He is also a professional photographer whose photos have appeared in Climbing Magazine, National Geographic, and the Patagonia catalog. His adventures on some of the world’s most challenging rock and ice include first ascents in Alaska, Newfoundland, and Pakistan.

Paul Koubek is a coeditor of NOLS Wilderness Mountaineering and authored the essay on transitioning from climbing gyms to wilderness mountaineering in chapter 10. Paul has been working as an outdoor educator since 1995 and for NOLS since 2000 as a field instructor and head mountaineering program supervisor.

Illustrator Jon Cox also drew the art for NOLS Wilderness Navigation. An artist living in Riverton, Wyoming, Jon is also the president and director of Proform Technologies. He has won numerous national and regional art awards in media such as painting, sculpture, and print making, and has worked numerous years as a freelance graphic artist creating corporate logos as well as commercial and consumer product introduction campaigns.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Wilderness Mountaineering

A Note on Wilderness

The Elements of Mountaineering

The NOLS Priorities

Climbing as a Lifestyle and a Lifelong Pursuit

2 Mountain Hazards

Objective Hazards

River Crossings by Nate Ostis

Backcountry Lightning Safety by John Gookin

Testing the Snow by Don Sharaf

Subjective Hazards

3 Climbing Movement

Fear

Risk Management

Ratings of Climbs by Dave Anderson

Movement on Rock

Movement on Snow

Movement on Ice

Steep Ice by Rob Hess

Movement as a Safety System

4 Equipment

Ropes

Other Types of Cordage

Carabiners

Belay Devices

Helmets

Harnesses

Knots

Protection

Conclusions

5 5th Class Climbing Systems

Tying In

Belays

A Typical 5th Class Climb

A Closer Look at the Belay

Rope Systems: A Progression

Conclusions

6 Leading

Leading Free Climbs

Leading Aid Climbs

7 Descending

Rappelling

Lowering

Risk Management on the Descent

8 Improvised Rescue

Ascending and Descending Fixed Lines

Tying Off a Belay Rope

Escaping a Belay

Reaching a Fallen Leader

Reaching a Helpless Second

Lowering

Rappelling with a Patient

Clipping Patients into Anchors

Passing Knots with the End of the Second Rope

Passing Knots with a Cordelette Alone

Raising

Conclusions

9 Glacier Travel and Crevasse Rescue

Route Finding

The Belay

Roping Up

Rescue

Conclusions

10  Style and Ethics

Inside to Out by Paul Koubek

Self-Reliance and Caution

Environmental Ethics

The Principles of Leave No Trace

Wilderness Begins with You

Conclusions

Bibliography and Further Reading

Glossary

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This edition would not have been possible without the support of the National Outdoor Leadership School, publications manager Joanne Kuntz, and the editorial input of Paul Koubek, Marco Johnson, Drew Leemon, and John Gookin. Thanks are due to all the NOLS mountaineering instructors because what is in this book comes from them all.

I thank the NOLS board of trustees and the school’s administration for realizing the book’s importance and for providing the support to keep it current.

Without John Cox’s drawings, this book would be twice as long and not nearly as useful.

My coworkers at Jackson Hole Mountain Guides (JMHG) have been vigilant in keeping themselves and, therefore, me well acquainted with the most modern techniques as they develop. This is in large part due to the hard work of Rob Hess, JMHG’s chief guide and the technical director of the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA). Rob has been my business partner, climbing partner, and friend for a quarter-century of adventure.

The American Alpine Club (AAC) has been supportive of me since my early days as a climber. The AAC library—especially head librarian Gary Landeck—has been extremely helpful in this edition. I also thank the AAC board and all of my coworkers. And certainly, this edition would have been impossible without the support I receive from my wife, Sarah.

Most of all, I thank the people for whom this book is written: the students. It is the students who challenge us to strive for excellence, who keep us inspired, and who will keep climbing alive as a healthy lifestyle for future generations.

Phil Powers

April 2008

INTRODUCTION

NOLS mountaineering courses offer the aspiring mountaineer a combination of skills, decision making, and leadership experience taught within a conservation philosophy. This tradition has value for those who do not have the opportunity to benefit from NOLS expeditions directly. We hope this text helps share some of that knowledge.

This field text is written for NOLS mountaineering course participants and other aspiring wilderness climbers. It is not a substitute for professional instruction, an experienced mentor, or time in the wilderness.

THE MUST KNOWS AND THE SCOPE OF THE TEXT

NOLS founder Paul Petzoldt used the term must know to describe any information or knowledge fundamental to an activity. This book is a collection of must knows for wilderness mountaineering. Jim Donini, president of the American Alpine Club and one of our nation’s leading climbers, refers to this as a climbing IQ—the basic versatility and awareness that comes from a great deal of practice on the rock and in the mountains. When it comes time for you to make a decision in the mountains, knowing and practicing the techniques offered here will give you a fuller understanding of available options and solutions.

Many of the must knows that are prerequisites to safe wilderness mountaineering are not in this text. Camping skills are easily as important as the mountaineering information found in these pages. The key to climbing Denali, North America’s highest mountain, is impeccable camping. Mountaineering decisions depend on the ability to sense and interpret data quickly, analyze potential risks, and decide upon and take appropriate action. Warm, fed, hydrated, and acclimatized climbers are safer and more successful.

Basic backcountry travel and navigation skills are other must knows not covered in this text. The book offers insight into moving over difficult terrain, negotiating glaciers, and avoiding various mountain hazards; it does not include crosscountry navigation, topographic map reading, compass use, or the intricacies of getting from the trailhead to the mountains. I encourage you to read The National Outdoor Leadership School’s Wilderness Guide by Mark Harvey for a comprehensive introduction to camping and traveling skills and NOLS Wilderness Navigation by Darran Wells for an in-depth look into map reading and compass use.

Think carefully about everything you do on land. A commitment to reduce impact on the backcountry must be among the goals of any wilderness expedition. The final chapter, Style and Ethics, is devoted to wildland ethics and Leave No Trace practices for the mountaineer.

Finally, the wilderness is remote from medical facilities. Backcountry climbers need wilderness first-aid training. NOLS Wilderness Medicine by Tod Schimelpfenig is a leading resource on those skills.

Each NOLS mountaineering course is unique, varying in location, terrain, weather, navigation problems, and expedition members. The order of topics in this book follows the progression of climbing instruction on an ideal course. Such a course would introduce skills from glacier navigation to steep rock climbing.

PRACTICE AND PREPARATION

Mountaineers often say speed is safety. It would be more appropriate to say that a mountaineer must make decisions and accomplish tasks efficiently. There are always time limits: Snow conditions change, weather threatens, and night is always on the way unless it’s June in the Alaska Range. Increased efficiency and speed come only through practice. Practice should take place in a safe environment prior to challenging yourself in wild terrain.

Ultimately your skills must become second nature. Mountaineering cannot be learned without the rope and the rock or ice right there in front of you. As with riding a bicycle, you won’t learn until you actually get on the thing and try. Some day, tired from a long adventure, with a descent yet to do, you will be glad of skills learned through long practice.

Approach mountaineering in the wilderness at your own pace, with respect and patience. Master one technique before going on to others. Skills build on one another; most complex activities demand a mastery of the basics. These skills will become your bag of tricks, which should include everything from climbing movement techniques and a knowledge of rope systems to how to analyze avalanche hazards. You will be adding more tricks to your bag throughout your life as a mountaineer.

THE ROLE OF EXPERIENCE

Safe, enjoyable mountaineering depends most on what is inside each of us. Our values and reasons for climbing, our frame of mind, and the decisions we make are far more operative in creating the mountaineering experience than are the specific skills and equipment.

A mountaineer’s most important tools—judgment, decision-making skills, and what some call mountain sense—are also the hardest to learn. They develop with experience, preferably guided by a mentor or teacher, in the mountain environment. In The Mont Blanc Massif, French climbing technician and teacher Gaston Rebuffat wrote, I wish all alpinists a big brother, a man to inspire love and respect, to keep an eye on you roping up, to take an almost tender care of you while introducing you to that tough and arduous life. Your teachers should include Rebuffat’s big brother or sister.

Instructor Tom Walter gave this advice on learning about mountaineering: The way to gain important experience, and hence, develop judgment, is through a constant ‘turning outward,’ an incessant process of awareness of the environment around you.

NOLS teaches mountaineering on month-long expeditions. The weather, the terrain, and the remoteness do most of the teaching. Our goal is to help students become self-reliant by providing them with both the knowledge to make the right decisions at the right time and the ability to remain comfortable and healthy under any conditions, for any duration.

Do not let the amount of learning ahead or your lack of experience daunt you. If you want to climb the wild, high peaks, you will.

CHAPTER

1

WILDERNESS MOUNTAINEERING

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, a chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issue from that decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way if he was still doing his thing. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

—William H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951)

The great explorer Eric Shipton wrote that mountain climbing has its roots in mountain exploration. People toiling with heavy loads over high passes, shepherds with their herds in alpine summer pasture—these were the first mountain travelers. Remote backcountry travel is the heart and historic soul of mountaineering. Concerns for the style of an ascent and its level of difficulty are modern additions.

The pursuit of mountain summits is embedded deeply in many cultures. Incas reached high Andean peaks, Shoshone tribesmen traveled high into the Wind Rivers on vision quests, and Moses went to the mountain in search of guidance. Safe in the American Alpine Club Library’s rare book room is a work from 1541 by a man named Gesner who extols the virtues of the mountain world. The modern, summit-oriented pastime began in Europe. By the time Mont Blanc was climbed in 1786, Europe was already populated and hardly wild. Ascents in the Alps were one- or two-day climbs made with guides. Today people commonly ride trams rather than hike up tedious approaches. The European experience, which was the foundation of the technical development of modern mountaineering, is often not as remote as on other continents.

Elsewhere, mountains might be deep in the wilderness, invisible from the road and miles from cell phone coverage. Reaching distant, untamed summits requires a comprehensive understanding of the environment and all manner of mountain travel. This is the case in much of North America. Ascents in the Alaska, Chugach, or Saint Elias ranges may take weeks. In the Wind River Range of Wyoming, climbers travel the better part of a day before gaining a view of their objectives. Asian and Antarctic summits are even more remote. Many high peaks in China have never been climbed.

Expeditions of this scale require that mountaineers be capable campers and self-sufficient travelers, practiced at sustaining a comfortable life in the wilderness. This sort of mountaineering, grounded in mountain travel and expeditioning, has been taught by NOLS since 1965.

Expeditioners in the remote wilderness leave most of the crutches and aids of the modern world behind and rely on only themselves. Team members become cook, doctor, navigator, rescuer, friend, competitor, and companion. The rewards, from physical health to feelings of real freedom and independence and, some would argue, opened doors of perception, are reserved for those who spend the time and energy traveling far into the wild. As Walt Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass, Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth.

A NOTE ON WILDERNESS

Wilderness can mean many things. It has become a legal term developed from an American consciousness that valued remote alpine summits, lakes, and forests. Our first wilderness predated the Wilderness Act of 1964, and much of it became national parks. Some of the earliest places we preserved—the Grand Tetons, Yosemite, Mount Rainier, the North Cascades, and Denali—are classic mountain terrain. Our idea of wilderness worth preserving is still tied to the cirques, tarns, and peaks of the American West.

In the United States, government-designated wilderness is a roadless area in which motorized travel is prohibited, where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain (section 2[c], Wilderness Act of 1964). The wilderness I refer to in this book has a more traditional definition: the wild, natural world remote from the aids and safety nets on which so many of us rely each day of our lives.

Such places are vanishing quickly. On clear, windless days at one of earth’s wildest spots—the upper flanks of Alaska’s Denali at 20,320 feet—cellular phone calls and air-assisted rescues have become common. On other days, when storms pin helicopters and rescue rangers down, it remains as forbiddingly wild as ever.

Approximately 5 percent of America’s land is designated as the National Wilderness Preservation System. This land is managed by the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Fully 60 percent of this land is found in Alaska. Many American wilderness areas have been loved to death by excessive visitation and poor camping and traveling practices. Roads and support systems of all kinds creep ever deeper into the Himalaya. Antarctica has become the new destination for hundreds of climbers and trekkers.

Fortunately, we can still experience remote wilderness. The only requirements are the skills and understanding to venture there safely, confidently, and with a minimum amount of impact upon the land.

THE ELEMENTS OF MOUNTAINEERING

Mountaineering refers to the act of reaching or attempting to reach mountain summits. Broadly, the term includes both technical and nontechnical approaches. Nontechnical mountaineering, what the British sometimes term hill-walking, does not demand the use of specific climbing technique nor safety systems involving ropes. But the self-reliance and a comprehensive understanding of terrain and mountain hazards are just as important.

Technical mountaineering—especially in the higher peaks—demands a wide variety of climbing skills across a number of disciplines and the safety systems to protect the climber in the event of a fall. This category of climbing is often referred to as alpinism. This text addresses both the technical and nontechnical aspects of our craft. The bulk of the text—chapters 3 through 9—describe techniques and issues facing the technical mountain climber, the alpinist.

Some important underlying themes in mountaineering are worth an early mention—commitment, caution, leadership, teamwork, skill, and ethics.

COMMITMENT

Mountaineering requires a subtle mix of commitment and caution, even more so if you seek summits in remote, wild lands. Without a certain commitment, many obstacles, both small and large, keep the finest dreams from becoming reality.

CAUTION

Read climbing magazines and journals for stories of modern climbers on extraordinarily difficult routes, soloing the highest peaks, and taking some very big risks. In The Art of Climbing Down Gracefully, Tom Patey wrote, Modern climbing is becoming fiercely competitive. Every year marks the fall of another Last Great Problem, or yet another Last Great Problem Climber. Amid this seething anthill, one must not overlook the importance of Staying Alive (Mountain Magazine 16, 1971).

Every activity entails risk. Mountaineering, especially in remote locales, is dangerous and demands caution at all times. Mountaineers must ask, "What could possibly go