From: mwj@beta.lanl.gov (William Johnson)
Subject: Re: Cairns, Flags, and Fixed Wands
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 20:41:37 GMT

In article <Bs463C.6KA@cup.hp.com> markd@cup.hp.com (Mark_Donohoe) writes:
>mwj@beta.lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes:
>: The precise problem on this mountain is that route finding is NOT half the
>: fun.  It is absolutely essential to a safe climb, but it is *not* fun.
>: Compounding this problem is the fact that the standard guidebooks are starting
>: to reflect the fact that a relatively safe -- marked -- route exists, and
>: therefore that would-be climbers are expecting to find that route and are
>: looking for it.  
>
>Sorry, but you are mixing things up.  Even on the supposed well marked trail
>you could have problems and carins will NOT prevent them.  In fact they could
>also cause some...what if I made a carin off route, thinking it was the
>'right' route, or was marking my way in case I returned that way??

Then you would have screwed up.  But -- and this point seems to have been
overlooked all through this thread -- there is a difference between building
a cairn where none existed before, and refraining from knocking down one that
does exist.  I am NOT advocating cairn building, on 14ers or elsewhere, except
under most exceptional conditions that do not exist in most of the Colorado
high country.  I also don't advocate bolting on climbs or earth-mover-style
digging in recreational caving.  But when these practices occur, they have to
be dealt with on a highly case-by-case basis.  Apparently you didn't see my
earlier post alluding to the evils of indiscriminate cairning to mark routes
on more representative Colorado 14ers.  I need no reminder of these evils;
they are presented to me every time I do a walk-up 14er.  But Pyramid is not
a "representative" 14er.

>In situations like this, there is simply NO best thing other than experience
>and sometimes even that won't help.  You are mixing things up because 
>Mountaineering IS DANGEROUS.  Know the risks.  Oh yea, if you think that
>you are not mountaineering when doing the 14'ers you have much bigger problems
>and a carin will not help you.

[A brief digression:  Of course there is no substitute for experience.  But as
for the last sentence, I propose a vote: how many people think running the
Barr Trail to the top of Pikes qualifies as "mountaineering"?  How many
people think the standard route on, say, Crestone Peak is *not* mountaineering?
I will vote "no" to both propositions: the Barr Trail isn't, and the Red Gully
on Crestone is.  Your mileage may differ.  The best climbers I know don't think
of the Red Gully as "mountaineering;" for them it's just an outing.  Most
non-climbers I know would call the Barr mountaineering, connoting something
incredibly far beyond their normal experience.  Gerry Roach has interesting
things to say about the "mountaineering" nature of Colorado 14ers -- 
interesting because he *is* a world-class mountaineer and presumably knows
whereof he speaks.  I may try to dig his comments up.  But I digress.]

>Sorry, but you have chosen to be in the mountains, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR
>YOURSELF...it was YOUR CHOICE.

I don't dispute this at all.  But so what?  *I'm* not the one who's going to
have problems if I take out a cairn; it's the people that come after me, and
they may not feel the same way.

>: How would you like to carry the moral -- possibly also legal,
>: if you were caught -- burden of having knocked down a cairn on Pyramid and
>: then had some climber, expecting to find a cairned route but having to "wing
>: it" in the cairns' absence, make a route-finding error (very easy to do on 
>: the Red Elks) and die as a result?
>
>This is so bogus!  What if there was a good avalanche or some such and the
>carins are all gone, and I'm the 1st one up that year?  Gee I guess I should
>sue nature :).

Get a LIFE, man ...

I repeat: Pyramid is a particularly difficult 14er for route-finding that has
been simplified somewhat in recent years by the emergence of an ad-hoc trail.
The existence of that trail may or may not be a good thing, depending on your
attitude; but it is REAL.  It has passed into the collective wisdom of those
who have climbed the mountain, to the point where it is starting to appear in
guidebooks -- precisely the same guidebooks that, in earlier editions,
counseled extreme care in route-finding on that mountain.  IMHO it is totally
irresponsible to take so extreme a position on cairns that people will get in
trouble.  What's your justification for that position?  Defend it.

If you would like a scenario: You go up Pyramid and bash a cairn or two.  Joe
Tourist, who is over his head on that mountain, follows the cairns you missed
until he gets in trouble when he didn't turn where he was "supposed" to.  He
falls off.  Joe's heirs happened to watch all this from the bottom of the
mountain, via binoculars, and sue you for willful wrongdoing or reckless
endangerment or whatever the right legal language is.  How are you going
to reply to this lawsuit?  Don't just cite principles to me; defend
yourself against the suit.  Come up with some grounds for claiming that it
was *not* reckless and unncessary for you to take out the cairns, grounds that
will stand up to the prosecution's assertion that it was a wanton act that
contributed to Joe's death.  You'll probably claim that it is lunacy for the
legal system to tolerate such a suit, what with the issue of personal
responsibility, and I will cheerfully agree with that position; but IT DOES
HAPPEN.  Plan your defense; if you can't find one, than practicality, if not
principle, suggests you'd bloody well better leave the cairns on Pyramid alone.

-- 
Bill Johnson				| "This is a bit complicated, so let
Los Alamos National Laboratory		| me explain it backwards."  (first
Los Alamos, New Mexico USA		| line of a memo from a fellow Los
!cmcl2!lanl!mwj (mwj@lanl.gov)		| Alamos physicist who will go unnamed)
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