Night Of The One-eyed Devils- 1962 Grand Teton rescue

[Tye 1on]

52 years ago today, the group started up the Grand...

"This is a story of tragedy and heroism, of simple folly and hallucination, of a youth paying with death for his devotion to duty. It is a story of in a national park, a terror that struck at a party of vacationers out on what they thought would be a day of small adventure, a day filled with the stimulation of doing the almost dangerous, while actually being safe. You, if you have the least bit of the intrepid in you—and who does not?—might have been there. It is a story of 10 climbers who were stranded without food or shelter on one of the highest peaks in the United States and who—with their last reserves of energy and while rescuers tried to reach them from below—struggled even farther up, instead of down. It is a story of a horrified climber going berserk in the darkness and trying to kill those who would save him. Finally, it is the story of what is probably the most technically difficult large-scale mountain rescue in American history. It happened three summers ago in Grand Teton National Park, but until this two-part series, which is based on official reports and extensive interviews with the survivors, it has been an untold tale of the Tetons ."

By James Lipscomb, published in Sports Illustrated June, 1965.

[ill-advised strategy]

wow...that was gnarly

[zion zig zag]

Thanks for posting this. Thoughts to come.

[grubbers]

Wow, that's an intense read. They should have made us read that article when I was on my NOLS course. A classic example of how the group mentality can make things go south quickly. Definitely resonates a bit more strongly with me since I'm hoping to climb the Grand while I'm out there in August.

[JTrue]

Thanks for posting, good read. Shit gets real quick in the Tetons.

[happytimefunbox]

Harrowing! I can't even begin to put myself into the minds and thoughts of the appies.

[old goat]

Refreshing to hear of the anger and contempt felt by the rescuers--unlike the usual heroic, smiling fantasy image. Credit to the writer, and of course to the rescuers. Brings to mind the Bonatti et al disaster on the Central Pillar of Freney on Mt Blanc, where one of the party, descending for days in a blizzard, tried to kill other members and had to be tied into the middle of a rope and and held off from both ends--eventually he was abandoned to die. Classic hypothermia. A lot like dementia--you don't recognize you have it. A lot like dementia, you don't recognize you have it.

[homemadesalsa]

There's a good treatment of this same story in We Aspired, by Pete Sinclair, jenny lake ranger.turned english professor.

On other GT.rescue notes, just got.tickets to jh opening of The.Grand.Rescue, story of epic north face rescue. $18@, July 9, Center for.the.Arts.

Sent from my Milestone X2 using TGR Forums

[smitchell333]

Jeez,

What a moron that Blade guy was. Bad weather, large group, too difficult to descend, so lets keep going up, that'll be better.

Be careful when people claim leadership - often its mainly because they are egotistical morons. Always be prepared to abandon your objective and always be prepared to rebel against moronic leadership.

I've been in the mountains a few times with leaders who in the end didn't know what/where they were going.

[old goat]

A good mountain leader isn't someone who gives orders and expects everyone to follow. He/she is someone who makes sure that decisions are made by the group, rather than by inertia, default, or accident--The classic avalanche scenario where no one is in charge so people keep going because no one says let's make a decision. One good reason (of many) for not climbing in large groups is that the difficulty of decision making increases exponentially with the number of people. The scenario in this case is identical to the plane crash scenario where the copilot is either afraid to say something or the pilot ignores or dismisses him, a scenario the airlines now try to train people to avoid. (Surgeons also get the same training but we're pretty much untrainable.)