Real-Life Decision Making
You are leading a party of inexperienced climbers up the north side of
Little Clubfoot, the smallest of three peaks in the Mariah Del Fancy mountain
range. It's your third day on this climb. You can usually conquer this
peak in less than 72 hours.
What's different this time? Well, apart from the fact that your party
has little climbing experience, one of them dislocated his shoulder on the
way up. That is slowing down the excursion.
You remember strutting around the guide office before you left on the morning
of this climb, boasting to everyone who would listen how you would make this
trip in less than 72 hours.
It's 5:20 p.m. and you're burning to get your party through the
climb before sunset. On the other hand, there is a large slab plateau just
below the rock face you're all scaling where the four of you can set
up camp for the night.
What are you worried about? What really are the chances that someone can
get hurt if you all pick up the pace?
Brian Morton is one guide who thinks the chances of catastrophe are not
all that removed: "The worst day I've had on the job was the day a group
we were rappeling next to on Mount Currahee, Georgia, threaded
their rope directly through their sling. The friction melted it.
"The climber fell about 60 feet down a large slab, and I had to give him
first aid and assist in his transportation back to the road. It was sad for
me to see so many unprepared climbers in one place and how catastrophic these
accidents can be," Morton explains.
What do you do?