Johnson and Cooper dead, Aconcagua

[ex-powderbroker]

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcas...=1000640796018

this was a pretty interesting listen even if no conclusions were reached.

the story has some shades of Maestre in Patagonia.

I’ve read High Crimes, are there any other examples of notable foul play in the mountains?

“there’s a frayed end on your rope, i’m cutting it out”

[John_B]

Man, I really thought that was a shitty article that only served as pointless supposition of what could have happened. The odds of a double murder at 21k from hypoxic and hypothermic climbers who were poorly acclimated is damn near zero.

[mcski]

“there’s a frayed end on your rope, i’m cutting it out”

Love that movie

[ex-powderbroker]

Man, I really thought that was a shitty article that only served as pointless supposition of what could have happened. The odds of a double murder at 21k from hypoxic and hypothermic climbers who were poorly acclimated is damn near zero.

i need to read the article then. the podcast made it seem like the injuries were very inconsistent with a fall. iirc the puncture wounds were not through clothes and the injuries were on faces? and in the pictures, the soft snow made long falls unlikely. two of them did come back down to give conflicting accounts. i don’t think we will ever know but it’s easy to see how theories outside of the official narrative developed.

john branch is a great writer, i’ll dig it up.

[old goat]

I’ve read High Crimes, are there any other examples of notable foul play in the mountains?

The Eiger Sanction?

[MakersTeleMark]

i need to read the article then. the podcast made it seem like the injuries were very inconsistent with a fall. iirc the puncture wounds were not through clothes and the injuries were on faces? and in the pictures, the soft snow made long falls unlikely. two of them did come back down to give conflicting accounts. i don’t think we will ever know but it’s easy to see how theories outside of the official narrative developed.

john branch is a great writer, i’ll dig it up.

The physical evidence points to slides for life and getting maytaged and impaled. I see no basis whatsoever for foul play.

[ex-powderbroker]

“Johnson reportedly suffered a fall down the glacier, her colleagues said. But her body was found in 1975 with a battered face, blood stains on her jacket and a rock on top of her body — in the middle of an ice field. Her arm was left in the ice at the time by the recovery team.

Cooper died on his own descent to camp, seemingly frozen onto the mountainside. But the autopsy later found a hole in his abdomen. It was round, dispelling talk that he potentially fell on his ice ax, and it reached all the way to his spine.”

[MakersTeleMark]

“Johnson reportedly suffered a fall down the glacier, her colleagues said. But her body was found in 1975 with a battered face, blood stains on her jacket and a rock on top of her body — in the middle of an ice field. Her arm was left in the ice at the time by the recovery team.

Cooper died on his own descent to camp, seemingly frozen onto the mountainside. But the autopsy later found a hole in his abdomen. It was round, dispelling talk that he potentially fell on his ice ax, and it reached all the way to his spine.”

Ice screws can do that.

[ex-powderbroker]

The route is 20-30 degrees and the party reported soft snow conditions. Since 2000 the fatality rate is 0.77 per 1,000.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mountaineer...eb2x&context=3

It's hard to imagine this guy impaling himself on a gentle slope descending to camp in soft conditions.

We'll of course never know but I don't think the physical evidence you mention makes it open and shut which is exactly why people still talk about it.

Did you listen to John Branch?

[MakersTeleMark]

The route is 20-30 degrees and the party reported soft snow conditions. Since 2000 the fatality rate is 0.77 per 1,000.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mountaineer...eb2x&context=3

It's hard to imagine this guy impaling himself on a gentle slope descending to camp in soft conditions.

We'll of course never know but I don't think the physical evidence you mention makes it open and shut which is exactly why people still talk about it.

Did you listen to John Branch?

I've read and heard everything he has to say on the matter. It's pure drama being stirred up from the past. Absolute nonsense.

[ex-powderbroker]

That sounds like something the guy who did it would say.

[stealurface831]

MTM, where were you in January of 1973? Can anyone confirm this for us?

[MakersTeleMark]

MTM, where were you in January of 1973? Can anyone confirm this for us?

I plead the 5th.

[EWG]

I plead the 5th.

Aconcagua isn’t America, man, you can’t plead the fifth.

And you seem to know a lot about ice screws and their use as weapons…

[Muffcabbage]

He's a stone cold killer at altitudes above 28K.

Just ask the weather.