Hi guys, I wrote the part II to the first story I posted 3 weeks ago.
I think moving together is an interesting action. Basically what it means is that you are roped to your partner on perhaps easy but massively exposed terrain. Easy in this sense is usually also very relative to the ability level of the pair. It means that due to a lack of protection between you if one of the pair falls, you both fall. So you have to have ultimate trust in your partners ability. Indeed, just on Sunday I was talking to a mountain guide which told me about a fall on Aiguille du Peigne, while a rope team was moving together.
You often don't see ultimate trust in the modern world invested in to a comrade, perhaps outside actual warfare. This is part of the reason why I think Alpine climbing is basically a substitute of this for the modern man. You go in to dangerous places, to do risky things, you don't bring back cattle or women or anything useful for that matter. But perhaps, you show that you could, if the times were different. You seek the same valor and the status that comes with this. Which is why a lot of climbers look down on people using guides, they see it as stolen valor. The first Englishman, Charles Hudson who went up Mont Blanc wrote a book in 1856 titled 'Where There's a Will There's a Way: An Ascent of Mont Blanc by a New Route and Without Guides' which was the first written articulation of this sentiment.
I think the psychology of this sort of adventure seeking has much more to explore. But I haven't yet delved in to it too much yet.
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Notes -
As a hobbyist climber who is also an utilitarian, I think going roped without anything holding the rope to the mountain is not a belaying technique, it is a suicide pact. Like most suicide pacts, I think it is stupid.
I clicked through your article. (Protip: square brackets+parenthesis make a link on the motte.) The relevant section is:
I am fine with going roped over the safer parts for convenience's sake. Anyone climbing in alpine territory is taking some risk of serious injury or death. Going roped without belay is only increasing your risk by a factor of two compared to going solo (assuming that your ability is similar to that of your climbing partner). Always belaying even in easy territory would of course be safest, but will also take much longer, thus exposing you more to other dangers such as bad weather.
Rationally, you would allocate a certain mortality budget (say, a few 100 micromorts -- per Wikipedia, the Matterhorn weights in at around 2.8 Millimorts) for a tour, and then pick whatever strategy is most likely to see you finish the tour while staying in budget.
I concur that risk is likely a factor which makes mountaineering attractive to a lot of people (especially men), but for the adjacent field of rock climbing, I think that improvement in safety equipment is what let to it booming in the last two decades. In earlier times, only a small fraction of people was willing to pay the mortality price of being a climber. Today, it is a reasonably safe hobby.
Of course, some climbing regions insist on keeping the original number of bolts in the routes, so that anyone lead climbing the route will risk just as much (modulo better equipment) as the original climbers did. Personally, I find this notion silly: thought to its end, an early great climber could spent a week free soloing all the easy routes in a region, and out of respect for that achievement nobody would ever be allowed to put bolts in them afterwards. Instead, I feel that it would be enough to mark the original bolts in a different color, so the glory hounds can try to climb in the footsteps of the early great climbers, while the rest of us get to enjoy the routes without undue risk to life and limb.
It depends whether it is a suicide pact or not. If you are climbing a long unprotectable hard snow at high angle for hundreds of meters, than perhaps its good to put away the rope. But most of the time it is not like this. You are moving through a very large amount of terrain of varying complexity. You do not have the time to mess around with the rope. You should move together when possible, using terrain belays when possible and soloing if you cannot. This is the only way to really move in the Alpine. Otherwise you get benighted. Just last week I was listening to some French mountain rescue guys talk about a pair of British climbers who were stranded enroute on the Peuterey Integral having made it just past the technical difficulties. Its an astounding route, very serious but most parties complete it 2-3 days. These guys were on it for 5 days. Likely because the terrain requires a lot of efficient moving together. The subsequent rescue was quiet legendary and put a hell lot of people at risk with a storm nipping at their heels (helicopter could not be used due to visibility).
As for the milli and micromort strategy I think its a function of ability. Ueli Steck could jog up the Matterhorn and down before you got to the Hornli. It would also mean that during an Alpine season your chances of dying should decrease. But I find the approach interesting and I will use it for my next year fundraiser which will be 41 Alpine Peaks above 4000m through technical routes. I am curious what my chances of dying is.
Yea I am always kind of at two places with 'safe' outdoor route climbing. I generally think there should be a variety. Because usually things that are too safe or too gym like also become like a gym where you lose a lot of the outdoor element and there is a lot of traffic. Some sort of gating based on ability and risk tolerance is I think nice, also gives an additional sense of progression and accomplishment. I generally don't think having bolts but coloring them etc makes sense, not having the bolt there, and experiencing the real sketch is what makes the route the route. So overall I think a variety of climbs of differing boldness is good.
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