ORMS Last Patrol Day 2010 Dulcified Bullies On Parade

These first two pictures are mostly for those who use my blog to ascertain recent conditions. The first was taken for Nethers the second was taken from Etlan.

Double click and use + hour glass for higher resolution.

Some vultures scared off a deer carcass.

Deep in Berry Hollow a little bit of brilliant color was still to be seen.

Learning to place anchors.

WISH I HAD A PICTURE FOR THIS QUIXOTIC MOMENT

DULCIFIED BULLIES ON PARADE

In the middle of our rappelling and ascending practice we heard quite a ruckus over on the summit. Chad decided to go check it out. After about 5 minutes I decide to check myself. As I approached up through the back of a semicircle of around 30 fraternity brothers I realized they were looking down and heckling someone down below them in what I knew to be a natural amphitheater. As I snuck up to the back of the crowd I could peer down to see Chad on center stage. The banter between Chad and "the boys" was on the borderline between fun and mean and I could tell Chad was using all his creativity to keep things "Happy". There were some in the crowd who seemed to want "Lord of The Flies". Suddenly "the boys" noticed I was in their midst. Across the semicircle from me someone tapped the shoulder of one of the chief hecklers and pointed to me. It seemed that they thought this somehow changed the dynamics of the situation. In the meantime, Chad was still working his magic turning every potentially mean comment into a lighthearted joke. He took the next opportunity to segue to an exit stage right. Chad had masterfully navigated potentially ugly to stay happy. Hopefully his counselling had some effect on the remaining part of "the boys" day and maybe live's.

.

MY CONTROLLED INNER BESERKER OR IS IT SKIER SKATER?

I have played very competitive hockey, high school level football and participated in beginning competitive martial arts sparring. I love extreme competitive physical contact when it is with a willing skilled co-participant. Win or loose it is just one heck of a blast to release primal passions and to revel in split second violent coordinated body skills when it is ethically ok to do so. Win or loose, pain or no pain, the contact and contest is just plain simple violent passionate fun.

.

Being able to honestly display that you can enjoy a good tussle while giving a problem child a face saving way out is sometimes a good way to diffuse a tense situation.

.

Like the extreme skier hurtling towards sure death who at just the right microsecond applies just the right amount of edge and sails inches past a mortal crash.

.

"When I held that gun in my hand, I felt a surge of power - like God must feel when he's holding a gun. " Homer Simpson

.

This next one is for my LE(law enforcement) friends who might be getting a little worried about me about now.

.

"When I first heard that Marge was joining the police academy, I thought it would be fun and zany, you know like that movie... "Spaceballs". But instead it was dark and disturbing, like that movie "Police Academy"." Homer Simpson

.

If Given A Choice Of Controlling Ugly Crowds, Participating In Violent Sports Or Enjoying Extreme Skiing......I Choose Extreme Skiing

In ugly crowd situations others can get hurt. In violent sports others can get hurt. In both there is a limited number of decisive moments that can give you the joy of exercising your skills.

.

In extreme skiing situations, only you, the skier can get hurt and the joyous skill testing comes continuously providing a gravity manipulating dance that lasts all day.

.

What a rush. What an affirmation of the joy of life.

LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW!!!!

.

But these are young person's games and I am no longer young. Time to .........

The next picture is of some ORMS Stewards practicing both rappeling and ascending.

Silver Spring Wanderer captures some light. If you follow her blog you will realize that her subjects are often the wild flowers of the Appalachian Mountains.

The next two shots are of new Stewards Ben and Gabby. Welcome aboard.

AN ORMS CELEBRATION EVENING

Some folks from the day camped out in anticipation of the next days Fun Day. Jeremy arrived for the night and in hopes of a competitive Scrabble game. We all enjoyed a blazing fire and had some good eats. Sorry LNT folks but I love a great campfire. Check out the following link http://www.bluedeer.org/sacredfirecommunity.html

.

Some highlights of the day's gourmet menu:

Home Made Cinnamon Buns

Olive Tampenade On Bread

Grilled Beef and Swordfish Steaks

Mashed Potatoes

Grilled Acorn Squash and Portobello Caps
Wine

Late Post Nov 6&7, 2010

Late Post
November 6&7, 2010
AWESOME WEEKEND

AN AHA MOMENT CONCERNING THE BLOG

The rescue was of the most interest to folks so it ended up on the EARLY POST this week. The events on the LATE POST all took place on Saturday.

OLD RAG CELEBRITY NEWS
Mark Sanford and his son were on the mountain Saturday. The following link has more information:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2010/11/rs-_sanford.html

The next two pictures where taken Saturday morning and will help folks have a sense for the progress of the seasonal changes.




This is a picture of of a tractioned femur splint. Notice the tensioned rope at the bottom of picture. Before the picture was taken there was a responder holding the patient from behind in order to provide back tension. Alternatively one could use another line or webbing to back tension the patient to another immovable object.

.

On this day our training also called for us to practice off trail navigation.

.

.

The following picture is of an old cement warning post on what is now an over-grown fire road that would never be followed by hikers looking for the trail but at one time obviously did just that.

At one point we found a puddle covered in ice and we wanted to get a picture. Folks expect that it may be windy and cold on top of Old Rag from now until well into Spring 2011.

A great off-trail view point.

A view of the Saddle Trail, Sunset Walls and the Western Summit.

Slabs that are not impacted by human traffic can develop the most wondrous moss gardens.

This is a picture deep in an Old Rag gully a long ways from any trail.

AHA MOMENT CONCERNING THE BLOG

Mutual of Omaha has a great site dedicated to the Aha moment found at:
http://www.ahamoment.com/

I use this blog for a lot of purposes:

• A personal photo diary
  
• A journal for family and friends
  
• An Old Rag outreach site
  
• A means to learn about new technology
  
• A means to exercise my creative side
• And lots of other reasons

I have been struggling with how to post on subjects that awkwardly fit within the focus of the main theme of Old Rag Mountain Patrols. This morning I had an AHA Moment as to how to do that.

I am going to create another blog or blogs with slightly different focus. Old Rag Mountain Ascetic could be an example. Anything that is more philosophical or spiritual in nature will have its writing on that blog. When appropriate I will build cross linkages between the blogs. This way I can keep the writing of the Old Rag Mountain Patrols focused yet still write about other subjects.

Once I thought of this solution it was so perfect and so easy to do I wondered why I was too dim-witted not to have come up with it right away. Oh well that is probably often how it is with Aha moments.

Personal Journal Reminders

mostly for me to remember the day months and years from now.

This was the day after I did something embarrassingly stupid:

.

To use an analogy, I was purposely causing and riding in avalanches of self indulgent emotion. No avalanche of emotion was too big. On one level, this is fine when the only bruises and pain are being caused to yourself or a willing partner. It is totally irresponsible when well meaning bystanders or unwilling participants become embroiled. On the plus side the catharsis provided immense amounts of self awareness and allowed me to escape a very powerful crush vortex. On the downside I probably cost myself a friend and may have hurt someone I truly care for in a very soulful way. I pray that I am wrong on both counts. We are not given operator manuals in regards to our bodies, conscious persons or spirits and there are times when On-The-Job -Training leaves much to be desired.

.

Thank goodness for good ORMS friends who were willing to help with my psychic healing. A mountain rescue of a different sort.

.

.

Memorable lines from the day:

.

"You did not press send did you??!!!" A.R.

(said with a touch of mischievous anticipatory schadenfreude)

.

"I am not gay or anything.... but that Oprah and Ricky Martin interview had me in tears. " R.L.

.

Upon finding a perfect fifteen foot house sized bouldering boulder miles from anywhere. "Oh I can not wait until I tell Chad about this one. I just know he is going to come out here and break his leg!" J.T.

AWESOME WEEKEND Nov 6&7, 2010

AWESOME WEEKEND & RESCUE
November 6&7, 2010

THE EARLY POST

Saturday Jeremy, Ann and I had a great day providing our normal help on the mountain followed by practicing a traction splint of a broken femur and then doing off trail navigation that was way, way, way off trail. More on that in the late post.

Sunday had scenario training scheduled. Kristan, Charles and myself were on with Jeremy.

The Shenandoah Mountain Guides (SMG) always provide awesome training. Chad and Jeremy are two of SMG's senior staff that provide this great training. They are great friends but they like to compete on things. Until yesterday, I think Chad was in the top spot for best training day with his session on the haul system last week but yesterday Jeremy rose to the occasion. Jeremy really stepped up his game with this weekend's scenario training. In my opinion he is now in the top spot. I am not sure that it counts since he had the advantage of getting help from a real incident on his training day.

Vectoring the bird.




The next picture is of one of our good Samaritans whose hiking party helped get hundreds of pounds of equipment to us, helped get the patient moved out onto the rocks for the helicopter pick off attempts and then was nice enough to take some pictures and videos using my camera while we were busy focusing on multiple tries at a very wind challenged lift off which in the end could not safely be done.

A you tube video of one of the helicopter attempts.
http://www.youtube.com/user/robertlook1?feature=mhum

With the wind nixing the helicopter lift off we had to bundle the patient for a very technical carryout down through the cave, over the first false summit and then down the switchbacks to the upper lot. Lots of rope work. Think about carrying a heavy litter across a ledge where the downhill litter carriers need to lean out over a vertical fall on a tensioned safety line and then doing a 25 foot vertical lift up a near vertical face. After this there is a long arduous carryout down through the switchbacks. The call had gone out for trained help and it is incredible the number of really super good folks who dropped whatever they were doing and responded to the call. Several search and rescue groups sent members. Some from hours away. By early evening I think we had over 20 responders and by the time we finished at midnight my guess is there were over 40.

October 30 & 31, 2010
The Late Posting

• SPIRITUALITY
• RULES &
• ETHICS
  Mountains are very spiritual places!
  
  The following memorial was on Old Rag's summit area.

MEMORIALS and THE RULES
Where do I start?
We could use the above picture as a starting point for hours of spiritual and ethical discussions.
For this post lets just stick to the SNP rules.
The Shenandoah National Park has a set of rules published under the title:

Superintendent’s Compendium
Of Designations, Closures, Permit
Requirements and Other Restrictions
Imposed Under Discretionary Authority
One could call this document The Park Rules (just keep in mind it is not that simple because of a plethora of Federal, State, Local, Tribal and International laws and public policies that may also apply).
A copy of the document can be found at:
http://www.nps.gov/shen/parkmgmt/upload/2009Compendium.pdf
Revisions to this document are periodically published so you should try and make sure that you are using the current one.
In regards to memorialization, this document states the following:


§2.62 Memorialization:
· (a) Erection of monuments (Requires approval from Director)
· (b) Scattering ashes from human cremation not in accordance with listed
conditions
· Contact Superintendent’s Office for special use permit.

This document contains additional writing concerning memorialization by the scattering of ashes of cremated human remains which can be found on page 16 of 18. This section describes the conditions under which the ashes from cremated human remains may be scattered without needing a permit.
So .... now that you know the rule .....
Let the ethical and spiritual discussions begin.
Please use this opportunity to ponder and talk among yourselves.

**********************************************************************

The higher elevations had lost all their leaves.

The view from near Etlan.

Speaking of mountains being spiritual places.........this was the color of the sky about ten or fifteen minutes after the equally stunning but different sunset colors found pictured in the week's Early Post.
What a glorious hour of natural beauty.
MOUNTAINS ARE VERY SPIRITUAL PLACES!

Saturday & Sunday
October 30&31, 2010
The Early Post




At lower elevations there was still some stunning color which was made all the brighter with the sun coming through the mostly open canopy and bright blue skies providing wonderful blue backgrounds.
The Stewards had a little bit of Halloween fun. I have a feeling that this tradition (which I understand was started by Steward Ben) is going to grow with time.

On Saturday we had an awesome haul system training session.

Old Rag often has stellar sunsets and Saturday's would have to rank up high on the list of the best.

Saturday and Sunday
October 23&24, 2010
An Estimated 3,000 Visitors

Still a lot of green for this late in October. On good weather days expect that the parking lot may be full and you will need to pay $10 per car to park in the neighbor's private pasture in addition to the park's entrance fee.
The following wind swept tree has always been a favorite of mine.

Chad and Jeremy fit in a little bit of filming for their climbing mockumentary.

YEE HA the weather was wonderful all weekend. To top it off we had a full moon.

Another wonderful Old Rag sunset.

Sunday sunrise from near Byrds Nest.

Very early morning light from the summit. Despite the record number of visitors there were no major incidents on Saturday or Sunday. ORMS treated a number of cramps and a very deep cut and got in lots of response training and high angle technical practice. As close to a perfect weekend as one could hope for.

The moon had not yet set.

I almost never see walking sticks until Fall and then I see lots. I assume that they come down from high up in the trees as the tempertures drop and leaves start to fall.