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Darwin
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 15, 2018 - 08:05pm PT
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And Treez, thanks.
So sorry for those who knew them both.
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shipoopoi
Big Wall climber
oakland
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Mar 15, 2018 - 08:07pm PT
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condolences to family and friends. this is a huge loss. i can still barely wrap leclerc's solo of the corkscrew on cerro torre. totally on par with the best of the best. so sad. ss
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Mar 16, 2018 - 06:28am PT
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Man... sad.
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Dapper Dan
Trad climber
Redwood City
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Mar 16, 2018 - 09:47am PT
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This whole story is incredibly heartbreaking. I don't understand how you responsibly pursue/justify cutting edge alpinism with young children at home.
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brownie
Trad climber
squamish
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Mar 16, 2018 - 10:05am PT
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those who don't understand probably never will, and those who did don't deserve to be judged..
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clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
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Mar 16, 2018 - 10:59am PT
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I refrained from making comments and maybe I should not.
For perspective, 15 Americans die on average crossing the street each day. An estimated 60 million souls were taken in WWII. Should only single and childless people be selected to become astronauts? What about other dangerous occupations?
I am glad that one of the climbers had a child. The child has a family. The family lost one of it's parts but life will continue. Part of the deceased parent lives through and in the child IMO.
We all know people who have lost parents, siblings, children and friends. Some have lost parents to violence, alchohalism, lung cancer...
There are many situations worse than losing your dad to an avalanche. From what has been conveyed, this dad's life and legacy is one to be proud of and honor, remember and live worthy of.
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RussianBot
climber
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Mar 16, 2018 - 11:03am PT
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Don’t hate the player. Hate the game, if hating is something you need to do.
We each play these seemingly stupid games of our own “choosing.” “Choosing” is just a seemingly genius belief game that we all like to play, but evolutionarily, it’s beating the alternatives.
If you need to find someone to blame, try taking a closer look at yourself.
My condolences to family and friends.
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Dropline
Mountain climber
Somewhere Up There
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Mar 16, 2018 - 11:16am PT
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There is broad consensus among child development researchers that children who grow up with both biological parents present and actively involved in their lives do better by every metric.
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quantum7
Trad climber
Squamish
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Mar 16, 2018 - 11:47am PT
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Enough with the judgement. It doesn't change what has happened and only serves to add more distress to those already suffering. Start a new thread if you must and continue the debate elsewhere.
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Mar 16, 2018 - 11:48am PT
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I was never concerned about risk, or objective hazards during my ~10 year run in Yosemite. Well, rarely... heheh
Having just had a baby girl a year ago, and being somewhat removed from the climbing scene, I have had time to reflect on my climbing career.
All I can say, over and over...."Glad I made it out in one piece"
For me, and my life....I will not engage in the type of climbing I once did. It is simply the best choice I can make to better the chances of me staying on this earth.
Happy that we all have that choice to make individually. I am sure those guys justified to their wives/families their need to dream....
It hurts even thinking about not coming home to my baby.
RIP
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Lennox
climber
in the land of the blind
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Mar 16, 2018 - 11:55am PT
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Mar 16, 2018 - 12:22pm PT
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I highly recommend for those unfamiliar with the area, that you watch the helicopter flight where the details of the accident were discovered. It will also allow you to appreciate how magnificent their accomplishment and how beautiful their resting place.
Hopefully you will also be inspired by LeClerc's family's courage in discovering for themselves and bringing closure to so many people. If they can accept it stoically and share for the benefit of others, surely we on Supertopo can be gracious about it too.
I know from my own experience of fatal mountaineering accidents that knowing what happened and where, can be tremendously healing. May it also be for those who knew these two. Only time can really put it all in perspective. Condolences to all.
Key Update: https://www.facebook.com/SergeJLeclerc/posts/10157225935404418
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Trad climber
Will know soon
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Mar 16, 2018 - 12:32pm PT
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mucci, my husband climbed and climbed fairly hard. We had 4 children. I knew there were risks but no way would I keep Dan from pursuing his hearts desire. I was just glad he didn't ask me (to often) to join him.
Again, as I said up thread, Johnson and Leclerc knew what they were up to as did their family and friends. At this point it's bad form for anyone on the Taco to tell them after the fact how they should have lived. It simply is not our business. What is our business is to give support to the grieving.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Mar 16, 2018 - 01:02pm PT
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It simply is not our business. What is our business is to give support to the grieving.
That's it.
All the judging on this thread, as though there is some objective fact of how these gentlemen should have prioritized some cost/benefit analysis, is flatly disgusting. Honor the dead. Comfort the living.
'Nuff said!
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RussianBot
climber
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Mar 16, 2018 - 02:51pm PT
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Dropline if you think that you, or anyone else, understands what “every metric” is, take a deeper look at why you want to believe that about yourself. These guys were living their lives by the metrics that mattered to them, which for each of us, are the only metrics that matter. Good for them - they make us proud.
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wbw
Trad climber
'cross the great divide
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Mar 16, 2018 - 03:29pm PT
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Sincere condolences and best wishes for the families and friends of these two inspirational men.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Mar 16, 2018 - 03:34pm PT
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Somewhere this weekend, someone's Old Man will be shot while working at a liquor store. Is it worth fifty bucks to leave your kids to grow up without a father?
A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are made for.
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AE
climber
Boulder, CO
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Mar 16, 2018 - 03:58pm PT
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Climbing is essentially a self-indulgent activity. It is mostly harmless, once one gains experience which reduces risks, if practiced within boundaries of objective hazards which can be controlled or avoided. That many who climb have avoided accidents for decades proves this to be so.
Moving beyond the safer realms, when active young independent climbers take large risks playing at grand expeditionary alpinism in remote regions, the odds of certainty and success dwindle, eventually into statistical red zones where failure may have the edge, but even more, where healthy survival is not a given. Their lives and deaths may make ripples in a small circle of friends, but everything changes once relationships and family responsibilities impose more real consequences of failure. Continuing at the same risk level reveals no real strength of high character at all, but rather an addiction to adventure perhaps stuck in some point of adolescent macho ideation. This attitude demeans and demotes the physical and emotional needs of others, making the value judgement that the climber's spiritual quest is morally superior to the menial tasks of living day to day without an adventure fix.
It is BS to state that somehow a child should feel privileged to have lost a parent who died doing exactly what he or she loved. This is the same BS that worships meaningless deaths in pointless wars, and tries to concoct a Spartan mythology where valor and heroism is measured in combat disconnected from their own world. How reassuring to know your parent loved you less than what killed them? How is this different from loving heroin or fentanyl more than family? I would like to hear exactly whether John Harlin would prefer to have an aging old mountain legend around today, or if he feels privileged to have lived for fifty years with the shadow of his father's story as his heritage? Beckey for all his flaws at least did not try to have it both ways; he chose not to fail as a father. He also made a lifetime of constant choices, to avoid dying while climbing.
We are being disingenuous when we try to claim that such losses are representative of the best, the greatest parts of human aspiration, but then still call them sad and tragic. Which is it? If the former, then surely we should be happy whenever someone "dies doing what they loved." Yet Harrer, Heckmair, Messner, and scores of others seem to have sensed the time and place to shift priorities, to actual personal sacrifice that meant abandoning the very pursuit that formed them.
The fact is, even the most high-risk climbing is voluntary, and done periodically when and how one chooses. It is nowhere near as courageous or exemplary as the lives of thousands who persist with physical limitations, terminal conditions, and burdens of responsibilities that a lot of climbers shirk.
The old tee shirt was funny, but not off the mark:
Climbing may be hard . . . but it's easier than growing up.
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Lennox
climber
in the land of the blind
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Mar 16, 2018 - 04:07pm PT
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Ya know, I can’t seem to find all this self-righteously reproachful handwringing about Jim continuing his high level climbing, after Layton was conceived, in the Bridwell memorial thread. Huh.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Mar 16, 2018 - 04:57pm PT
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I think we need a separate thread for discussing the responsibilities of parenthood for climbers pushing the limits. Spouses and SO's make a conscious decision to be with someone pushing the limits, children do not.
Having this discussion in this thread does not seem right somehow.
Peace to the family and friends of the fallen.
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