Field Guide to Australian Humor

[baltoro]

For those of you residents of the Northern Hemisphere who find Australian humor odd, confusing, indecipherable, irrelevant, or, just plain weird,...I have found the Rosetta Stone,...that provides a foolproof method of translating and decoding this indigenous media type into something comprehensible and fun. 
This happened quite by accident,...I was perusing my favorite bookstore, when I stumbled upon a copy of: "Postcards From The Ledge", copyright 1998, by Greg Child.   
You've probably never heard of Greg Child,...but, he's one of those super-human, world-class mountaineers, that's always climbing some impossible route on some Karakorum peak, or, defying gravity on one of Yosemite's 3000 foot high monolithic, glaciated walls.
He's definitely,...OUT THERE,...and, he's an Australian native (his 'mum' still lives in Sydney).
Mountain climbing is a young man's sport. It's the exact opposite of assembly programming. :eek
If you've never attempted climbing,...then this is the perfect armchair introduction. You don't have to endure the agony of a two-week near death experience, or, suffer frost bite on several vital appendages to enjoy this book. And,...it's hilarious. The chapter where Child takes his 'Mum' climbing is a classic. I was laughing throughout almost the entire book,...except, the parts where people died.
Greg Child is probably one of the all-time best adventure writers out there.

[hutch--]

Its double edged, i watcxhed this documentary a year or so ago of 2 imbeciles from Melbourne who wanted to trek across an archipeligo in Antarctica so they scraped together the bare minimum to get to South America then across to Antarctica. Everything was done wrong, or too slow and they ended up there a month too late.

One of their plans was to kayak across a straight but the current was so fast the guy was still going backwards while paddling at full speed. After floundering from one PHUKUP to another one of the guys fell down a crevass and had to be rescued by his mate and a passing cruise liner with its helicopter.

They guy who fell survived but after a day of laying injured at the bottom of the crevass it did some circulatory damage to the bone in the broken leg and it is atrophying. last interview I saw was from country Victoria where the guy was hobbling around and complaining about not being able to support his family and being in debt.

[baltoro]

One of the stories in Greg Child's book is similar. The typical mountaineer understates the actual degree of danger and the agony of injuries suffered when he writes up a report for a journal or magazine.
Child relates a tale of deepest shit about two climbers travelling across a glacier after a first ascent of a remote peak in Alaska's St. Elias Range. One of the climbers fell into a crevasse, injuring his leg,...but, his partner who was roped to the fallen climber was able drag him out of the crevasse, and, after an eleven day ordeal they made it back to basecamp and rescue.
About a year and a half after the event, Child persuaded the climber who suffered the accident to meet him at a Seattle tavern, where after a couple of pints, the climber tells Child the real story:
When the climber initially fell into the crevasse the points of the crampon on his right foot dug into the smooth ice, forcing his right foot upward and hyperextending his knee, tearing a number of ligaments, ripping muscles, and, rupturing a major artery,...after which he continued to fall forty feet into the crevasse (screaming the whole way down in excruciating pain), where he was arrested by the rope tied to his companion. The force of the fall dragged his partner backward about twenty feet. Hanging upside down in the crevasse, suffocating under a forty five pound pack,...the injured climber experienced pain like boiling water pouring on his leg, which was swollen to twice its normal size. His partner was able to pull him out of the crevasse and onto the surface of the glacier. His leg was purple and swollen horribly,...he was writhing and screaming,...and, he was in shock. His unijured partned set up the tent, got his boots off, and into his sleeping bag. Every move was agony. The next morning they took inventory of their gear, food, fuel, and painkillers. They were at 12,000 feet, they had four days worth of food, and the weather was bad. Their radio was at basecamp, so rescue was impossible.
The injured climber found that he could hobble (barely) if they tied two ice axes together and he walked on his heel,...but, he was in complete agony. The uninjured partner took charge of the 7000 foot descent to the Seward Glacier, carrying an extra-heavy load and lowering the injured climber down 25 pitches. It took them 19 hours to descend the rest of the mountain. The injured climber walked some of the way, and was dragged through the snow by his partner,...he was in severe pain and moaning and groaning. Since the accident, the uninjured partner had been doing everything; making camp, cooking, dressing and undressing the injured climber, getting his boots on and off, breaking trail, lowering him, dragging him, and carrying everything. The stress was incredible.
It took three days to walk the sixteen miles to basecamp. During their foodless march, the uninjured climber carried and dragged both packs while the injured climber guided them by compass through a white-out. At basecamp, they were able to radio the bush pilot for a pickup, and they were evacuated.

[hutch--]

Sounds great, at least the guys who climb Everest don't have problems like that, if you fall you don't survive and are rarely ever found after. I saw a documentary some time ago on the support folks near Everest who handle severe medical problems and often very healthy people suffer severe problems at high altitude and have to be flown out in helicopters. I wonder at the virtue of doing seriously dangerous things in places so remote that there is often little chance of getting out if anyone is injured.

I understood explorers who went to the south pole for discovery or the team that did the first recorded north west passage as there was something to learn but I have less respect for thrill seekers who often end up making a pest of themselves.

[baltoro]

Yeah, that is a common sentiment among the search and rescue people, who typically are thrust into extremely dangerous situations because of the incompetence of climbers attempting something way beyond what their experience qualifies them for. I remember reading an article somewhere about how much it costs the Park Service in Alaska to successfully rescue injured foreign climbers on Denali, Alaska. For some reason, Denali gets a number of these every season; here is an article: about a recent Denali rescue.
This is also a big problem in Yosemite, which is famous for it's big walls. The park service says that more than 100 climbing accidents occur in Yosemite each year; of these, 15-25 parties require a rescue. Here is a recent article: Three Climbers Rescued on El Capitan.
Here's what El Capitan looks like to the average tourist.