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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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May 30, 2011 - 08:25pm PT
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Chief....the first shuttle went down because of politics...the shuttle wasn't ready to fly but someone got in a big hurry , to make himself look good , and the thing was launched with defective o-rings that caused the explosion......to make matters worse , a scapegoat was chosen to take the blame for the shuttle explosion...sorry no links but i have an inside story from a reliable source...if i quit posting on the taco you'll know why...
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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May 30, 2011 - 08:36pm PT
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Heart of darkness or rear ended while driving a vega..what's the diff..?
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2011 - 09:00pm PT
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rottingjohnny
The O Ring situation was well known and if I have my info right, one of Morton Thiokol's senior people committed suicide in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster.
There were immediate concerns after the Columbia's takeoff re damage from the foam that broke off the fuel tank. Flight control went with computer models based on conservative estimates of debris size, quantity and impact velocity to decide there was no significant damage to the orbiter. In the aftermath of the accident, tests recreating actual circumstances (50 lb. debris pieces impacting at 500 mph) showed catastrophic damage to the leading edge of the shuttle's wing.
Although many people were concerned about this, precautionary options were ignored including a spacewalk inspection which would have found the damage. There were viable rescue options and at a minimum, a modified re entry profile might have mitigated the lethal vulnerabilty due to the damaged wing edge. In retrospect, it can be rightly said that the loss of the Columbia crew was avoidable.
Hence my umbrage and trout like response to the specious and bigoted opines of a previous poster.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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May 30, 2011 - 09:26pm PT
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Chief... I get it..I'll ask my friend about the O-ring story and get back to you one of these days...RJ
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2011 - 09:59pm PT
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Nice work Jim,
Those photos are worth thousands of words.
Looks like the Nooksack Tower and Shuksan in the deep bg.?
Mighty? BK? Anyone?
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Topic Author's Reply - May 31, 2011 - 03:02am PT
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Perry can't you elaborate on the HOD or is it too freaky to recall? I heard something like its a miracle you all made it down
BK, it wasn't quite that bad.
We had an amazing adventure trying the route in near ideal conditions.
Peder lead a grade 4 waterfall pitch to get into the gulley proper, very cool.
Surprisingly low angle trudge to a poorly protected mixed pitch, Joe Wayoutski's lead.
Narrowing and steepening neve and ice to the base of the real steep section where we bivied.
I ventured up to the start of "The Business" next morning in deteriorating weather and decided we should get the hell out of there, FAST! With the oncoming storm and snowfall the spindrift was unreal, hissing over the overhang above us and down the left wall and growing into a narrow but powerful stream down the gulley.
By the time we rapped the waterfall pitch at the bottom the spindrift was a roaring plume and the Bear, last man down, got sucked into it. It tore his glasses off leaving him blind and rocketing down the rap lines and spit out at the bottom.
He had snow packed in places where most people don't have places.
Once Joe and I knew he was OK we howled with nervous laughter.
We chuffed a fatty and bailed back to Vancouver.
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JFrimer
Trad climber
BC
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May 31, 2011 - 02:14pm PT
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I am the only living member of the team that got to the existing high point on the Heart of Darkness. Guy Edwards was my partner on the adventure.
If I recall, it was an extraordinarily dry February. After a warm spell, the weather cleared for a week. So conditions were ultra-firm. We didn't even use skies to get to the base... just walking on rain crust. Guy had tried the route a few times previously with the similarly late and similarly great John Millar. They hadn't got past the bergschrund before getting avalanched.
We bivied near the base then hit it, single push style, in the morning. Guy broke trail to the bergschrund:
My camera then ran out of film (oops). The rest is only in my memory.
I led up the first pitch (AI 3 or 4). Not much ice worthy of an ice screw. I thought to myself "what have I gotten myself into?" Guy said "if every pitch is like that, this'll be a classic!"
Next, a bunch of 45 degree snow. Very few cracks on the rock walls... Another ice pitch in the WI4 range then more snow gully, which brought us to "the business".
My anchor was two medium length screws in good ice, but bottomed on rock 2/3 the way down. Guy took the sharp end. Up some WI4, he placed a good screw (the last good piece on the pitch). At 30m, he equalized two small pins. Then, he went for it. The wall above was coated in 4" of alpine ice. Tap. Tug. Rip out. Tap. Tug. Rip Out. Tap. Tug. Hold. Commit to it. This went on for 30m more. Two hours later, I called up to Guy. He yelled down, nervously: "Almost finished shitting myself." Had he fallen at the top, he would have falled 60m onto the bad pins, pulled then, fallen another 30m onto the good screw. Had that not held, it would have been another 30m onto my two so-so ice screw anchor.
When I joined him at the belay, I was feeling rather unsettled by the situation. Guy admitted that he hadn't been that scared in a long time. He later called the pitch M5X.
Above was even more business. Snow mushrooms on rock, followed by an 8m gentle overhang. No obvious cracks. Looked a bit like Skaha... upside down staircase. Guy offered me the lead. I declined. He scratched his way up the mushrooms, hand drilled a 1/4" bolt, and asked me if I wanted to tag in. It looked like we'd need to drill a bolt ladder. I didn't. So he left his brightest piece of tat so that others would see, and lowered off.
Rapping was interesting... bad anchors. One was a pin and an RP, in the same crack. The RP wire was threaded through the eye of the pin.
Walking out, we agreed to the following: that my comfort with risk was lower than Guy's, which was, in turn, lower than that of Lena Rowat.
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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May 31, 2011 - 02:41pm PT
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Beautiful model plane, great stories and an awesome mountain, enjoyed the thread!
I witnessed a plane crash (OV-10A Bronco)in the Sierra many years ago and had to build a model as well. It hangs in the garage and isn't nearly as nice as yours.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 31, 2011 - 07:03pm PT
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Thanks, Jeremy! Do you remember which year your attempt was in? Sounds like quite the adventure - I vaguely recall running into Guy when he was at MEC to get 1/4" stainless bolts for it.
Kit made a memorable presentation on their winter ascent of the northeast buttress at the "John Howe slideshow" in autumn 1986 (?). Including on the "dead lycra faggots" pitch. One of the few major technical routes in the Coast Ranges (OK, and Cascades) to have had a winter ascent.
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JFrimer
Trad climber
BC
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Anders, our attempt would have been around 2003 (+/- 1).
GF, Agreed. RIP Fast Eddie.
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MH2
climber
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Beautiful plane and model, fascinating thread.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Does Fred's Cascades North guide say anything about the geology of the area? He tends to be pretty good about that sort of information.
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Tobia
Social climber
GA
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In my SAR days, the #1 airplane to go down was,,,,,,beechcraft bonanza, followed closely by the cessna 414 and cherokee 140. I was personally at five bonanza crash sites.
Beechcraft Bonanza aka " The Doctor Killer" because of the rate of in flight break-ups and the # of hobby pilots that purchased Bonanzas due to prestige of owning the V tailed aircraft.
My boyhood friend's dad owned one and I took many a ride in it. You still see them flying today even though there are no longer produced with the V tail.
Buddy Holly's last flight was in a Bonanza.
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Slabby D
Trad climber
B'ham WA
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Great thread.
A while back, at CC.com, Bryan Burdo posted a short TR of his first ascent of "The Navigator Wall". This is a big, steep chossy route to the South Summit that passes very close to actual crash site. I climbed this route about 7 years ago in deteriorating weather and somehow missed seeing the wreckage high on the peak, a big disappointment in retrospect...
Original Post on CC.com
"When I climbed Navigator Wall with Pete Doorish (almost 20 years ago!??!!), we camped below the South Peak. I never saw any "Bone Cairn", but there was plenty of debris. I remember being most struck by a compact leather kit. I unzipped the top and opened it to find an electric shaver, it's cord neatly coiled around it. I thought about how some businessman had meticulously laid it out on a bed the morning of the flight. The sense of small-scale order amongst the chaos was a last flicker of humanity that we were privileged to find, and replace respectfully.
Near the top of the climb, on the third day, we noticed a massive amount of wreckage, including what looked to be a tail section, on the southern satellite summit, climber's left of the South Peak. Does anyone have information of the exact impact point of the crash? I remember being astonished at so much material being so precariously perched that high on the mountain. It looked like it must have been strongly embedded by the impact.
Finally, on the descent, there was yet more debris on the col above where we saw the wreckage, south of the South summit. It was here that, amongst some wiring and electronics, I reached down and picked up a three-inch diameter ring of metal. On it was inscribed the points of the compass. It was a floating compass, used for general navigation, usually mounted above the dashboard in the cockpit.
Considering the real serendepity in linking that route together, sometimes tenuously linking disconnected crack systems on a large and ever-steepening wall, I felt like I was drawing a bit into my personal bag of karma that trip. Amid the ruggedness of the situation, there was a benevolence of happenstance, as the weather was perfect and the route unfolded wonderfully (this karma came to a dramatic end on the East face of Steinbock a few days later, but that's another story).
It's hard to put a finger on any direct connection of our climb and ouselves with the tragedy, although the coincidence of the accident's occurence only a few weeks before I was born is one tiny thread. We were definitely involved in a positive psychic connection up there that weekend. I like to think that it was mainly the bond of friendship between me and Pete, which endures to this day, but if there were spirits still lingering up there, they were smiling with and upon us as we made passage."
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MH2
climber
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Thanks to Slabby D for the Bryan Burdo re-post. Another connection among climb, crash, and person, is that his Dad was a test pilot for Boeing.
And the cc.com link takes us back to that great post on the Bone Cairn by dberdinka.
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 2, 2011 - 04:01pm PT
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While it's great to see this thread draw posts on the broader subject of Slesse, it's climbing history and geology, I'm thrilled by Slabby D's post re Bryan Burdo's experience on the Navigator route and more information on the crash of the Northstar. The story of the crash has been of increasing fascination to me and I have marveled at the doorways that have opened to a network of almost serendipitous connectivity amongst people affected by by this event. I tracked down Jack Clarke's son Jay and have had informative discussions with him and inadvertently shared a chair lift ride with Paddy Sherman and Fips Broda a couple years ago. When I commissioned the building of the scale model, my hope was that it would promote discussion and greater understanding of the crash. So far this thread is validating that hunch. Thanks for the input.
Slabby D, if you have contact info for Bryan Burdo could you please send me a PM. Much obliged.
PB
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Perry
I see Bryan reasonably often at the gym. If you can't get contact info elsewhere, let me know and I'll tell him you want to talk to him.
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 2, 2011 - 04:37pm PT
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Ghost,
Thanks for that, just got a PM from Mark re contact info fro Bryan and will track him down.
Wenatchee Bluegrass Festival June 18-19?
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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The crash was apparently at or just below the notch between the main and the south summits, on the east side. (It shows well in the photos that Jim posted.) Pigou's party was climbing the normal route on the main summit, but got off route and ended up at the gap, finding wreckage there. There are two photos in Cloudwalkers at and from the notch, showing hanging wreckage etc. There's probably still some there, but most of it by now must have fallen down the east side. If you are in the area in early summer, there's often debris left on the winter snow below the east side and northeast buttress.
I haven't done the south peak, but believe that it follows the same route as that for the regular route on the main summit. Where the main summit route goes up and left out of a gully, you go right.
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