Clarifications on Reflections

Greetings readers.

It has been two weeks since our return and more since an update here. Although most of everyone who knows the team has talked or been around us, I thought I owed anyone still reading this blog some apologies and clarifications. This comes after fully decompressing back into this society (it was very weird the first five days or so) and a good talk with one of the team members.

For those who do not know me well, I have a flair for telling stories with enthusiasm and drama. Our life stories are pure drama (even the ones perceived as mundane) and as such should be richly expounded upon. I don’t make up facts to better a story, but certainly aspects may be described as being more than what they really are. I am used to telling these stories to those knowing of my knack for storytelling and as such, did not think much when I posted my last post from Mendoza. I had forgotten of the greater audience as well as the scope of that audience (friends of friends, others families, etc) and the impact that my prose might have on them. I don’t regret phrasing it as such, for what has been said is done, and I can’t apologize for speaking as I feel at the time. I can apologize for not clarifying issues sooner than I am and causing extra, undue stress in people I have never met. But for continued readers, you sort of know the score now and what to possibly expect in the future. Hell, I’ve had wilder trips that I felt more out of control that only lasted half a day a few hours from my home. So when dealing with an alpinst you have to expect the unexpected as a normal occurance.

As most everyone knows, the entire team made it back safe and sound, and none of us actually died. The death of friends mentioned in the post would have been better worded as “death of partners of friends/acquaintances”. I had been looking to meet up with an online acquaintance of mine whom I knew would be descending the mountain as we were ascending. On our carry day to camp 2 I passed an individual who I quickly ascertained was geared for climbing the polish glacier route and I asked him how his climb was. “The climb was horrible. My partner died on the glacier. They are preparing to haul the body down.” I was floored and consoled the man who barely looked like he knew where he was (he didn’t really, later he told me his state of shock he was still in), but I didn’t recognize him as being the guy I was looking to meet at this time. It was sobering to later see the wrapped body up near our future camp, and feel the true potential of the fragility of life on this desolate warren of rock. This was the closest in relation that we had to the deaths. The next day we were witness to search and rescue airlifting Stephan’s body out of camp 1 where he had been painstakingly carried via the incredible rangers of the park. We also bared witness to the start of the search for the Italian guide’s group where the next two deaths this year occurred, although we did not it at the time. Again, after two weeks most of this has been understood by our friends and family, but in retrospect my wording at the time could have been better.

This was the first time for any of us experiencing the weather at those heights, let alone the weather patterns in that region in general. While the weather was “bad”, it personally wasn’t the worse storm I had been in, and even with my limited experience there, I feel I can intuitively say it was far from the worse that mountain could dish out. We were in a Viento Blanco (twice, at camp 1 and 2) that lasted some eight hours at camp 2, but it wasn’t a 4+ day storm we heard could descend upon the peak without notice. It was an annoyance that, combined with our inexperience in understanding it along with personal health issues, made things a bit more interesting than we had hoped for. I think what was tough was the (well, duh!) unpredictability of the weather during our ascent, at least after we made it to camp 1. Prior to that, clouds would descend on the mountain around 1600hrs and abate around 2000hrs, and there hadn’t been any lenticular cloud formations (indicating high winds) on our valley approach. Things seemed like they were in a “nice weather” pattern (heck, there was *no* weather at all on New Year’s Eve). I could see the lenticular forming on our move to camp 2 and had a vague sense what was brewing but not its full extent. While the weather was rougher at this time, it still had lots of potential to be worse. Despite that we all still felt it was a good idea to descend. We were trying to plan ourselves on a mid-morning departure from high camp on summit day; this is to allow the area to warm a bit from the sun. Upon reflection however we needed to radically change that plan to a very early morning (in the dark) departure for a reasonable chance at the summit due our speed up the mountain and the fact that the storms (as mild or wild as they were) begun blowing in earlier during the days of our ascent window. Combine that realization with the knowledge that the Italian guide team that lost two people tried to descend in on of those afternoon storms again made us feel better about our decision. I know we all had the physical strength to do the ascent as such, but there are so many other circumstances running through ones mind at the time (that none of us could ever fully explain to a non-andinista), that again, we felt we made the right call. It is excellent insight into how to plan one’s ascent next we find ourselves down there.

I am not a Doctor of medicine and will never profess to be. I do maintain a Wilderness First Responder certification which means I have some elevated knowledge of dealing with medical emergencies in the backcountry (anywhere more than an hour from civilization). Mostly it means I try to have an extra observant eye and mind to things around me, as well as maintaining a moderate flexibility in dealing with ambiguity. My phrase indicating the Matt had mild HAPE should have been phrased as “he appeared to show signs similar to mild HAPE”. Truth is there was no definitive diagnosis by a trained professional. The reasoning behind my original phrasing was my intuitive eye saw his cough become more productive (began to spit up more) that seemed to be affecting him more as we ascended, which then eased up fairly quickly after descending. But no, I could not say with absolute certainty that HAPE was what was happening. I apologize for any consternation I might have caused for leading family and friends to believe I had given an official diagnosis. In the future I’ll wait for further decompression and discussion after the fact before presenting too many details.

Thank you all who have bared with me through this long post, I hope I have made more sense here than I originally did during the semi-euphoric days in Mendoza. If anyone still reading this cares to comment on this, I’ll open up comments in the blog. They’ll have to be admin approved first, but I’ll be notified when they come in. Again I hope friends and family of my team members aren’t forever put off from my updates and I apologize for any misleading worries I created. Good learning experience for me - plan on comprehending the full scope of the audience before posting certain posts. I’ll begin backfilling posts on the blog here with excepts from my journal so everyone can start to get a (one-sided) view of what it was like on the mountain. I am also working at converting the video footage slowly into a usable format; thanks for your patience on this one. It’s been crazy enough dealing with work and normal life again as it is.

Cheers and Namste!