used some skills yesterday.

G

gutsy

Joined
Sep 27, 2005
Messages
749
the other day i and a buddie of mine guided a climbing trip of four people up in the boonies . everything was great at first , good weather and good climbing. then the weather made a very sharp turn for the worst , it was in the fifties and the wind picked up real good ,then the rain came down in a down pour. well, as you can guess everyone got cold and started shivering . i got everybody under an overhang and sat and thought for a moment thinking about what my options were. hike back to the truck in this thunderstorm and get zapped by lightning ? no way . try and stick it out and wait for it to pass? not without a fire ! so i got to work finding wood and splitting it apart with my rd7 and making kindling with what ever i could find . fortunatly there is plenty of overhangs up there so it wasnt to hard to find small stuff . my tinder got just damp enough so it wouldnt light easily enough with a lighter :mad: just as i was starting to get fustrated with the tinder one of the clients picked up my sheath and said "hey this things heavy whatya got in here ". i said "give it here and ill show you" . i pulled out one my trioxane fuel bars , slid it under my now wet tinder and lit it . problem solved. i asked myself what i would have done with out it , id have been fine just a little more impatient with having to use my precious toilet paper and maybe even one of my two fire steels. plenty prepared for making fires , just need more practice and patience and .........rain gear. pretty good day overall , we had a great fire and we all dried out our clothes , the weather passed and we continued climbing , nobody got hurt and me and my buddy got tipped really well. any thoughts or comments are appreciated . just thought id share .:thumbup: :)
 
A little preparedness (anticipation) goes a long way. And can help your wallet, apparently :D . Love the trioxane. Got a case of it for "emergency" cooking and water boiling.

jw
 
Be advised that a shallow cave is a lightning trap. I don't know exactly what your "overhang" looked like, but it might not have been free of the lightning risk that you mentioned.
 
it was below the tree line and much lower down the mountain away from all the tall stuff .as for trioxane , im gettin some more really soon
 
in the mean time im gonna sharpen up my fire starting skills [and be a little more patient].
 
I've been working on the fire starting thing for a little while now with some good results. I've never been much at it so any improvment is good. I started out slow, with a lighter and natural stuff and I working on getting that right first, before I go to sparks and firebows.

I find that the most important thing is the materials and the construction. That's the stuff I never paid attention too before, a pile of wood should light right? LOL.
 
dont worry bishop you will love the rd7. its a real workhorse , ive beat mine through seasond wood and it always comes back for more . im not gentle on my knives and so far the rd7 has my complete trust . good on ya for gettin one . and yes some fritos would have been nice grampa.
 
whats even better is if you just role some fritos around in a napkin and in a few minutes you will have a good fire starter and plenty of fritos left over to eat . with out all the grease in them too.
 
The way we were tought to do proper fire construction in the Boy Scouts was interesting. We were split into teams. Each team was given a 12" piece of 2x4 and two matches. The first team to burn through a string 18" off the ground won. You had to split the 2x4 into each portion of the fire and not screw up with the matches. It really tought you how important kindling was. Teamwork too.
 
gutsy said:
it was below the tree line and much lower down the mountain away from all the tall stuff /QUOTE]

And it was probably a place to avoid. "Do not huddle in a slight depression, under an overhanging rock, or in a small cave." (A deep cave would be different.)
Click to expand...
 
so should i have crawled back up to the top of the cliffs ,took down the gear[ropes, webbing ,biners]while being in the most exposed and elevated area on the mountain, packed everybody up and death marched them along the exposed face of the mountain? every place is a place to avoid on that mountain during a thunder boomer , trust me . the "trail" is easily graded class 4-5th class climbing and doing so in the rain is an extreme hazard in and of itself . ive climbed and hiked this mountain for the past seven years and there are some things i will not do . maybe ill upgrade my membership one day and post some pics of this retched little mountain so you will better understand the situations one can face up there . the only place that is safe during a thunderstorm is off the mountain and in your vehicle on the road out of there . dont tell me where to hide my customers when you havent even seen the place .
 
gutsy said:
so should i have crawled back up to the top of the cliffs ,took down the gear[ropes, webbing ,biners]while being in the most exposed and elevated area on the mountain, packed everybody up and death marched them along the exposed face of the mountain? every place is a place to avoid on that mountain during a thunder boomer , trust me . the "trail" is easily graded class 4-5th class climbing and doing so in the rain is an extreme hazard in and of itself . ive climbed and hiked this mountain for the past seven years and there are some things i will not do . maybe ill upgrade my membership one day and post some pics of this retched little mountain so you will better understand the situations one can face up there . the only place that is safe during a thunderstorm is off the mountain and in your vehicle on the road out of there . dont tell me where to hide my customers when you havent even seen the place .
Click to expand...

Interesting additional facts.

I have lost faith in "telling" anyone anything. I only quote the advice of experts -- well-known advice that has been around for generations. You make your own choice - in this as in other matters. However, it is obvious that a bad situation is better than one that is even worse. Sarcasm not required.

It does sound like a place to avoid with thunderstorms in the forcast.
 
sorry for biting your head off :foot: :) and yes it is a terrible place to be caught when the weather turns for the worse . its hard to gauge the weather around there as there are many bodies of water that fuel the quick and nasty thunder storms that tend to come up when it gets warm. the wind is the hardest to deal with . this mountain is one of two mountains that are very close together with a small river that runs between them and thus it resembles more of a gorge and verily it channels wind like crazy . once again i appologize for what i said and quite frankly im suprised that more people didnt say what you said about the risk of lightning strikes . im all ears to any advice you have as all ways mr. linton. you seem very knowledgeble and i rgard your advice highly. im about to get a digital camera and would love to post some pics one day soon . people die up there every year and its claimed three this year so far [ people doing stupid stuff mostly]. :( but hopefully due to that people will wise up and take things more seriously up there . thanks and i hope you aint still burned at me .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top