From: eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: [l/m 4/15/92] learning (2)	Distilled wisdom (4/28) XYZ
Followup-To: poster
Organization: NAS Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 11:20:13 GMT
Reply-To: eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)

Panel 4

The "Ten Essentials:" [no particular order]

1) Map
2) Compass
3) Matches
4) Fire starter
5) Sunglasses
6) Knife
7) Flashlight
8) First aid kit
9) Extra food and water
10) Extra clothing

The list is intentionally short, we've not mentioned details like
it helps to have a waterproof container or a spare bulb and batteries.
It's not material things you have, it's the skills you have to know how to
use the above.  Real skills, not ones you THINK you know.
Having the skill means knowing these details.
Beware of long "lists."

KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid.

Chouinard's list of advice from Climbing Ice [useful in several ways]

1. Push yourself: desire to move faster.
2. Get into good physical conditioning by training [unless you are English].
3. Learn about local weather conditions to avoid being pinned down in storms.
4. Memorize the ascent and descent, leave the guidebook behind.
5. Get an early start, to avoid the party ahead of you, the afternoon
avalanche, the inevitable thunderstorm, the soft snowbridge which must be
bypassed, the swollen river, and the evening freeze which forces you to crampon
down the slope you could have glissaded before.
6. Adopt a steady pace that you can maintain for hours without stopping or
perspiring.
7. Let the strongest lead all the way thru. [Depends]
8. Eat and drink frequently to conserve energy.  Rather than stopping and
"brewing up," carry a vacuum bottle.
9. Carry light packs.  Leave most of the "ten essentials" and other impedimenta
home.  Remember: if you take bivouac equipment along, you will bivouac.
10. Arrange the pack so that the items you most likely will need are
easily available.
12. Avoid using complicated harnesses requiring tedious untying to remove or
put on clothing.
13. Use chocks and natural pro instead of pitons, use bollards instead
of deadmen and ice pitons.
15. Think twice about putting on crampons for that short section.  Cutting a
few steps might be faster.
16. Learn to put your crampons on in two or three minutes.  Carrying in a
convenient place and forget about rubber tip protectors.
17. Keep your tools sharp.
18. Learn to crampon quickly across dangerous avalanche chutes and
stonefall gullies.
19. If really pushed for time, follow on tension.
20. Depend on balance.
21. Avoid cutting long ladder of steps.
23. Solo snow climbs using ice axe self-belay.  Do more difficult climbs
roped, but move together.  Stop and belay only if absolutely necessary.
Avoid ropes of three.
24. In the winter, know the snow conditions so that you always travel
on stable wind pack.
25. Down climb.  Don't rappel unless absolutely necessary.
26. Face outward when descending when ever possible. Only when it gets
really steep should you face sideways.  Face inward as a last resort.
27. Learn to be an excellent glissader.

Personal opinion:
What alarms me (and I know others) the most about recreational use
of the backcountry is biting off more than one can chew: really big climbs,
big rivers, etc.  This does not mean the newcomer can't do
such, there are many exceptions, but these aren't the rule.
It is sort of like a variation on the "richman's price" comment:
If you have to ask, maybe you aren't capable.
THINK ABOUT DOING SOMETHING A BIT EASIER, FIRST.  Do not be too
influenced by "50 Classic Climbs," trade rags, technology, or "friends."
Why do I mention this?  Because I've lost non-climbing friends in this way.
It's not that I'm interested in rescue.  I gave that up years ago.
The woods need more bodies in fact to make one think of the value of life.
It's that I don't believe in engendering non-real "heros."
The climb will always be there (almost) after you survived something easier.


% /usr/games/fortune
Q:      Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?
A:      To prevent the sensible ones from going home.


Driving to the backcountry:
1) Use turn-outs.  If you are driving slow, let others pass.
In many states, the law requires YOU to pull over (when safe) after
five or more (the law is 3 in colorado -- ted@NMSU.Edu)
vehicles had accumulated behind you.  This is posted in
some states like Idaho and not posted in states like California.
Does not matter if you have a Winnie (you just reinforce stereotypes)
or a slow VW (ditto).

2)  When descending steep mountain roads, use lower gears.  Save the
brakes for an emergency.  Automatic transmission?  That's why the
lower gear setting are there.  You don't hurt the transmission.  Save your
brakes.

3) Sightseeing?  Don't "rubber neck" while driving.  Pull off.  Don't
stop in the middle of the road.  The sights are better when you stop,
anyway.  Plus you will remain alive.

Quiz:
4) Do you remember the Right of Way rule for vehicles travelling in
opposite directions meeting on a one-lane road?

GENERAL

Your strengths will be your weaknesses.
Your weaknesses will become your strengthes.

Do not envy, the gear the more experienced or the more well-to-do have.
Do not mimic.
You will acquire some of it in time.  Material things are a distraction.
Don't be an equipment freak, it will only delay learning longer.
An example of a strength (money) creating a weakness.  Patience.
Before you adorn that other person's down jacket, tent, sticky rock shoes,
learn that people did what you are doing before any of that existed.
The point isn't comfort.  That's an urban concept.
Patience, a different time scale here.  Somethings can't be rushed,
others must be rushed.  You have to learn which of each.

Adventures and excitment are for those who are ill prepared and unskilled.
The dead are those who didn't make it.

Learn to make do.  Salvation thru suffering.  Like Ken Thompson said.

The positions I take are not meant to be popular ones.
The herd can have its fads.  This is not a popularity contest that is
what has caused the situation of loving the wilderness to death.
It's not to try and gain political support of favors, rocks
don't have rights in the eyes of the public.
Do you take Frost's path less travelled?  Are you one of Thoreau's
people who listen to the beat of a different drummer?

The point isn't to read and gleam information.
The point is that one experience and understand a situation
for themselves.  You will get different perspectives depending
where you are coming from and conditions also change.
It is that you get the information, for yourself.

So Fletcher's comment about learning through trial and error.

 ...

Urggh!  You would ask...but as it happens, I have it.  To quote from
Masao Abe's book, "Zen and Western Thought":
        The following discourse given by the Chinese Zen master Ch'ing-
        yuan Wei-hsin (Ja: Seigen Ishin) of the T'ang dynasty provides a
        key by which we may approach Zen philosophy.  His discourse reads
        as follows:

             Thirty years ago, before I began the study of Zen, I said,
           'Mountains are mountains, waters are waters.'
             After I got an insight into the truth of Zen through the
           instruction of a good master, I said, 'Mountains are not moun-
           tains, waters are not waters.'
             But after having attained the abode of final rest [that is,
           Awakening], I say, 'Mountains are really mountains, waters are
           really waters.'
        And then he asks, 'Do you think these three understandings are
        the same or different?

The citation for the above says:
        Wu-teng Hui-yuan. (Ja: Gotoegen) ed.  Aishin Imaeda (Tokyo: Rinrokaku
        Shoten, 1971) p. 335.

Unfortunately, I can't easily type in the diacritical marks (circumflex, etc.)
And there are a couple on the proper names, if you need them.

                                        Alan Pope <alpope@Eng.Sun.COM>

CVC 21661. Narrow Roadways
[...] the driver of the vehicle descending the grade shall yield the
right-of-way to the vehicle ascending the grade and shall, if necessary,
back his vehicle [...]


That which does not kill you will make you stronger.
			--F.N.


TABLE OF CONTENTS of this chain:

4/ learning II (lists, "Ten Essentials," Chouinard comments) <* THIS PANEL *>
5/ Summary of past topics
6/ Non-wisdom: fire-arms topic circular discussion
7/ Phone / address lists
8/ Fletcher's Law of Inverse Appreciation and advice
9/ Water Filter wisdom
10/ Words from Rachel Carson
11/ Snake bite
12/ Netiquette
13/ Questions on conditions and travel
14/ Dedication to Aldo Leopold
15/ Leopold's lot.
16/ Morbid backcountry/memorial
17/ Information about bears
18/ Poison ivy, frequently ask, under question
19/ Lyme disease, frequently ask, under question
20/ "Telling questions" backcountry Turing test (under construction)
21/ AMS
22/ Words from Foreman and Hayduke
23/ A bit of song (like camp songs)
24/ What is natural?
25/ A romantic notion of high-tech employment
26/ Other news groups of related interest, networking
27/ Films/cinema references
28/ References (written)
1/ DISCLAIMER
2/ Ethics
3/ Learning I