Customer Reviews

Colorado 14er Disasters:: Victims of the Game

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was glued to the book once I started it. As an avid hiker and backcountry skier, I found this book to be a sobering reminder of how simple decisions can quickly lead to catastrophe. Mark does a tremendous service to us all by providing insight into how easily one can be trapped in irreversible and potentially fatal circumstances by just one or a few careless choices. I recommend this book to all that love adventuring in the mountains.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Colorado 14er Disasters Victims of the Game by Mark Scott-Nash. Living in Colorado and very active in the mountains both hiking and technical climbing, these stories resonated with me. His insight and honesty into the motives and circumstances that caused both novice and experienced individuals to become the latest "Victims of the Game" is refreshing.

Very well written, an easy read, insightful and honest makes this book worth every penny.

I have read many true life adventure books over the years. It's one of my favorite genres. This book is right up there with one of the best I've ever read. I guess it doesn't hurt that I work in Boulder, live in Colorado, and hike the same mountains that he's written about here. He doesn't write just a few pages on a lot of different topics. Rather, he writes on a few incidents and provides important background. The newspaper accounts of these events I've read in the past leave much to be desired. After reading this book I feel I better understand the hazards and conditions these people faced. Best of all, he shows how these disasters happen in similar situations, whether at the same place or on nearby mountains. You come away with a better understanding of how to avoid a similar fate befalling you as well; although nothing is guaranteed in the mountains.

Besieged with 14er Fever in the 90s, I climbed half of these 54 Colorado peaks. I once hiked up a trailhead in the Wilson Range with an experienced climber, who that afternoon, slipped while descending a coulouir on El Diente and fell to his death. So this book has great personal relevance to me. Rather than recounting a large list of disasters, or spectacular falls down cliff faces from great heights, Scott-Nash writes from a rescue team member's perspective and picks a handful of incidents that are representative of the kinds of accidents that often happen on the 14ers and in wilderness in general: exposure, hypothermia, disorientation, getting off route. The book is admittedly on the thin side. But there is something absolutely fascinating about climbing accidents and the stories recounted here. I found this book very hard to put down while reading the accounts of "Talus Monkey" or the woman who disappeared near a ridge on Mount of the Holy Cross. I have to take issue with the reviewer below who titled his review, "Morons in the Mountains" I'm sure most people, including the experts, who have spent time on the 14ers or other high Colorado peaks, have made errors or have had at least one close call. Taking risks is part of the nature of climbing. It's very easy to do Monday morning quarterbacking when climbing accidents are involved. No doubt, hubris and human error are the primary causes of climbing accidents, and this cautionary book may well help 14er enthusiasts avoid disastrous situations. But let's not reduce tragic deaths in the mountains to the Darwin Awards. Imagine how a family member or friend of one of the victims feels, reading your clever title.

I pretty much concur with the other reviewers: Scott-Nash writes well, although most of these true stories of tragedy mostly tell themselves. For anyone who has hiked and climbed in the mountains, especially in Colorado, these are grim cautionary tales. If we cannot save these victims, at least maybe we can avoid becoming one of them.

Many times while hiking with my companions, we have had discussions about how to avoid making bad decisions, and what we would do if such a disaster befell us (it's easy to think we'd all be calm and heroic, but panic and pain can bring the strongest man to a bad conclusion). We have often said, "You know, just one careless slip on this cliff or trail, and this outing would change from carefree to nightmare!" We try to always carry emergency and survival gear, because nobody goes out planning to get lost or injured, do they?

But when climbing 14ers, it often goes beyond being careless. It involves being poorly informed, or poorly prepared, or a poor judge of your own abilities, or worse, a poor judge of your companion's abilities or character (hence the wife who let her husband lead her deeper and deeper into the worst possible route up Holy Cross...).

Even if you have never climbed a 14er, this book will hold your attention.

This is an excellent book, however it is too short, it could have been put in a two part magazine series. He should have dug up more incidents and described them.

This book makes you think before you even take a moderate hike, a badly sprained ankle could require a rescue and require you to stay on the trail overnight, if you can't walk.

I was hoping for a more encylopedia type chronicling of accidents on 14ers with some personal anecdotes.

This book is a tale of disasters on the road to attempting to summit all fifty-four of Colorado's peaks higher than 14,000 feet. The book is well researched and very well written and I found it enjoyable to read, yet was sad at the poor outcomes of many of the stories. From bad decisions to bad luck the book retraces the steps of novices getting themselves in trouble from which some cannot be extricated. The Colorado rocky mountains can be lonely and unforgiving if you are unqualified or unprepared to take them on.
A worthwhile read.

My friends and I (who all hike and climb in the Colorado wilderness) really enjoyed this entertaining book. All of us had personal stories that were eerily similar to the accidents described, although with happier outcomes, which made the book particularly gripping. And if you're new to climbing 14ers, especially if you're buying one of the popular guidebooks like Roach's Colorado's Fourteeners, which I'd also recommend, Mark's book could help keep you safe. It shows how easy it is to get yourself into serious trouble on a mountain through a series of small mistakes and poor decisions, and conversely how easy it would be to avoid the trouble in the first place.

From an entertainment perspective I really enjoyed this book. The stories are fascinating and well presented. In addition, the book is packed with lots of practical advice (read: disaster prevention) for hikers, climbers, and mountaineers. A must read for any outdoorsman, but to be enjoyed by anyone for its real-life, suspenseful, CSI-like stories. My wife, who has no interest in climbing peaks, enjoyed the book as much as I did.

This slim volume presents in-depth stories of accidents and rescues on 14,000' peaks in Colorado. Every single story illustrates avoidable human error.

Weather is the single biggest threat in the mountains. The top of a 14er is a blast in the warm sunshine; it is a terrible place in hail, snow, rain and wind and dark. Most of the stories in this book involve people who intentionally or obliviously risked bad weather or ill-equipped overnights at high elevation, and the lesson from the book is: don't climb these mountains when bad weather is predicted, and summit early before the afternoon thunderstorms have really formed. If it's taking too much time, or the weather looks chancy, turn around and walk safely back to the parking lot.

It's also probably not a bad idea to know where you're going and how to find your way back.

Disaster is my favorite branch of mountaineering literature. Mr. Nash writes well, and I consumed the book in one sitting. He wisely saved for last the most intriguing story in the book, involving what appears to be a Colorado Bermuda Triangle located at Mt. of the Holy Cross. It's amazing -- when I hiked the mountain, the route seemed straightforward, and my memories are of the great beauty of the area. (Mr. Nash does make me want to go back and climb Notch Mountain for the views.) Yet this is the site of practically annual cases of lost hikers, including the one featured, when a first-time 14er climber simply disappeared without a trace on a beautiful day with other climbers around. Her partner had abandoned her so that he could get his summit.

The book also makes a good point about the tendency of the blind to lead the blind on internet 14er forums. A hero of one of these forums, having never bothered to learn even the rudiments of dealing with snow in the mountains, chose to glissade down an avalanche gully on Humboldt Peak to a slow and painful death, accompanied by a difficult and large-scale rescue effort. Oops.

My one disappointment was the small number of actual stories of accidents Mr. Nash relates. I admit to being spoiled by the annual cornucopia that is Accidents in North American Mountaineering, published by the American Alpine Club, where the accounts are briefer and much more copious (and which no mountain climber should miss). But this book, even at a skinny 184 pages, felt padded in places when I was looking for more accidents. For instance, I can't believe there aren't some great accident/death/rescue stories from the Diamond on Long's Peak, or the infamous Deadly Bells.

Mr. Nash has done climbers a service by showing a few examples of what not to do in the Colorado 14ers. Maybe a follow-up volume with the accent on quantity?