I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Colorado peak questions, condition requests and other info.
Forum rules
  • This is a mountaineering forum, so please keep your posts on-topic. Posts do not all have to be related to the 14ers but should at least be mountaineering-related.
  • Personal attacks and confrontational behavior will result in removal from the forum at the discretion of the administrators.
  • Do not use this forum to advertise, sell photos or other products or promote a commercial website.
  • Posts will be removed at the discretion of the site administrator or moderator(s), including: Troll posts, posts pushing political views or religious beliefs, and posts with the purpose of instigating conflict within the forum.
    For more details, please see the Terms of Use you agreed to when joining the forum.
User avatar
oldschoolczar
Posts: 597
Joined: 7/18/2011
14ers: 45  1  1 
13ers: 7
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by oldschoolczar »

Always a tough decision! We ran into storms on the backside of Columbia a few weeks ago while doing the Harvard/Columbia traverse. We left Harvard about 9AM for Columbia and conditions looked great. The traverse took quite a bit longer than expected and conditions deteriorated and at about 11AM there were waves of storms coming in with heavy graupel. We spoke with 3 other groups that bailed down Frenchman Creek. We'd come up Horn Fork Basin and really didn't want to bail down Frenchman's unless absolutely necessary. We both had work trips on Monday and we could've potentially missed them if we bailed down Frenchman's. We had our tent and other gear at our campsite 4 miles into Horn Fork Basin. We holed up at 13k in the safest spot we could find and tried to wait it out. After about an hour we realized we hadn't seen any lightning and there was a gap in the clouds. It was a very stressful call and we ended up coming down off trail down the west face of Columbia back into Horn Fork Basin with intermittent storms (no lightning though) We came straight down the west face way off trail. Worst descent ever by far.. but glad we made it out! I think if we would've seen any lightning or heard thunder we would've bailed, but I think in this instance we made the right call as stressful as it was.
“what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire” -Charles Bukowski
theuglybear
Posts: 53
Joined: 8/30/2010
14ers: 12 
13ers: 28
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by theuglybear »

Some of your success rates are crazy!

For the summer, I have 5 DNS to 11 summits. My DNS are Pingora x2, Wham on Vestal x2 (although got it the third day), and the NW Buttress of Sneffels. They were all due to weather, and were all good calls, except perhaps Sneffels, which nothing ended up happening, although it sure seemed like it was going to. So maybe it was a good call as well.
User avatar
doggler
Posts: 561
Joined: 7/26/2005
14ers: 57  8 
13ers: 162 7
Trip Reports (25)
 

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by doggler »

theuglybear wrote:Some of your success rates are crazy!

For the summer, I have 5 DNS to 11 summits. My DNS are Pingora x2, Wham on Vestal x2 (although got it the third day), and the NW Buttress of Sneffels. They were all due to weather, and were all good calls, except perhaps Sneffels, which nothing ended up happening, although it sure seemed like it was going to. So maybe it was a good call as well.
Hah. Look at the mountains you listed - tackling Wham in adverse conditions is of a bit more consequence than hitting Quandary on a rainy morning. :)
User avatar
mtree
Posts: 1473
Joined: 6/16/2010
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by mtree »

Out of well over 120 13/14er summits, I have roughly 10-12 DNSs for varying reasons, weather being the most common. Also a couple where I just lost ambition or didn't have it that day. Other reasons:

Partner chickened out
Off trail/lost
Injury
Lack of equipment - winter hike

I don't count the times I go up without the full intention of reaching a summit. I've also had a few where I SHOULD have turned around!
- I didn't say it was your fault. I said I was blaming you.
theuglybear
Posts: 53
Joined: 8/30/2010
14ers: 12 
13ers: 28
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by theuglybear »

Yea, I've definitely noticed an increase in DNS as I've been taking on harder objectives. I probably only have about a 50% success rate for high technical routes. Does that seem low?
User avatar
bdloftin77
Posts: 1090
Joined: 9/23/2013
14ers: 58  1 
13ers: 58
Trip Reports (2)
 

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by bdloftin77 »

theuglybear, I haven't done too many technical summits, but that might not be as low as you'd think. Having good weather/conditions is much more important for technical routes, so you might decide to turn back where on an easy climb, you might decide to just push through.
User avatar
FlatLander89
Posts: 7
Joined: 4/28/2014
14ers: 27  2 
13ers: 15 1
Trip Reports (0)
 
Contact:

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by FlatLander89 »

Haven't been turned around on a 14er summit push, yet.. But I have had 3 DNS this summer alone. Two of those happening almost at the same spot heading up a 13er in the La Plata range. The first DNR was due to steep, deep, unexpected snow probably within 100' of the summit. The third was a bad call to keep pushing forward despite darkening skies which ended up unleashing a torrent of cloud to ground lighting strikes all around us as we ran/stumbled/rolled our way down the steep scree field back to tree line. On the 2nd DNS of the summer we were maybe 20 min from the car on our way up when we heard thunder and called it a day. After twice being stuck in a lightning storm above tree line it doesn't take much to get me high tailing it back to safety.

It's never worth pushing yourself and/or tempting fate when the odds aren't in your favor. As a wise climber once said to me at the summit of Blanca, "live to climb another day."
"The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
-Christopher McCandless

Don't judge me, monkey.
User avatar
Bullwinkle
Posts: 572
Joined: 12/25/2006
14ers: 43 
13ers: 1
Trip Reports (7)
 

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by Bullwinkle »

I am still 51 for 51 on 14ers to 18ers. Some of that is good planning & prep. A large part of that is just good fortune. I just as easily could have started 0 for 1 or 5 for 10. I always consider the next one as a possible first.

There is a concept I call "Investment Syndrome". In this, the probability of serious error increases commensurate with prior cumulative investment. At the nth degree, we see this on Everest with some frequency. In Colorado, we sometimes see this when people come long distances, at significant expense, with tight climbing windows. This principle carries into financial investment decisions, M&A activity, systems initiatives, etc.

After careful planning & prep, maturity and decision process discipline count for a lot.
As a mountain more fully reveals itself to a man, so the true nature of the man will be more fully revealed
User avatar
MonGoose
Posts: 1110
Joined: 8/14/2009
14ers: 58  16  17 
13ers: 51 11 1
Trip Reports (16)
 
Contact:

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by MonGoose »

mkrier wrote:Question: What is a typical successful summit percentage for some of the more experienced hikers on here? My sample size is quite small.
I'm going to count summiting a single 14er in a day as a success, even if I was hoping to summit two peaks that same day. So, (1 for 1) instead of (1 for 2).
If I did successfully summit two peaks in the same day, I am only counting them as a single success. So (1 for 1) instead of (2 for 2).
Overall, this is a measure of "successful" 14er days in the mountains.

Late Spring, Summer & early Fall
64 successful summits minus 13 thirteen multiple peak days: 51 out of 52 for a 98.1% success rate.
Turned around on Capitol because of weather concerns.

Winter
7 out of 8 for 87.5%. Snowed in overnight on Mt Sherman.
I expect this number to go down significantly as I have only climbed the easiest peaks in the winter. I honestly feel like every winter attempt is 50/50 at best. More data needed.

Spring Skiing
2 out of 3 for 66%.
Again, I have skied two of the easiest peaks. Got our butts kicked on Mt. Columbia. Definitely need more data.

Total Success Rate
60 out of 63 for a total success rate of 95.2%.

Looking at these numbers, I'm blown away by how fortunate I have been. I'm pretty conservative with the weather forecast, I always do my homework and I've been extremely blessed with a great group of climbing partners. I've never become ill on a hike or had to turn around because of a partner, which is pretty amazing. However, I do expect these numbers to go down significantly as I attempt more winter peaks and ski descents.

Special thanks to Bill and all of you guys on this website. Without 14ers.com, success rates would be much, much lower.
Sean Nunn
Posts: 857
Joined: 7/29/2013
14ers: 35 
13ers: 2
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by Sean Nunn »

At the risk of turning too far from the original poster's thoughts, and at the risk of being too morbid, I have analyzed the 14ers deaths the last few years (until the wonderful person who REALLY analyzed them and used to have a website about them had to stop updating).

The last three years the website carried information about had about 12 deaths per year. In my analysis (which is subject to my opinions), of the 12 per year:

4 were pretty much people who had no clue as to what they were doing (no disrespect to anyone in particular)
4 were really high level climbers who were "pushing the envelope" and just had the hammer fall, and
4 were simply in a bad place at the wrong time and/or made a bad decision.

Being a fairly casual climber (and a coach who takes high school kids with me up 14ers every summer), I was and am most concerned about the last 4. Reading the narratives carefully, it appeared to me that in many cases these people died from falls that were triggered by fear of impending lightning.

Hopefully, what we can all take from this is the following:
1. Start early.
2. If it looks like bad weather, turn around. The mountain will still be there next week, or next year, or next decade. A low DNS percentage means nothing if your last mountain end tragically.
3. If you are unfortunate enough to get caught above treeline in a lightning storm, to the best of your ability try to remain calm and think clearly. You are more likely to die trying to descend too fast than you are of the actual lightning.

Sean Nunn
Raytown, MO
"Thy righteousness is like the great mountains."
Psalm 36:6
Mark81-gd
Posts: 70
Joined: 6/24/2014
14ers: 58  1 
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by Mark81-gd »

Hope all is well !!!!
User avatar
Pops921
Posts: 116
Joined: 6/6/2011
14ers: 37 
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: I joined the DNS (did not summit) club

Post by Pops921 »

Joining the DNS club is critical to becoming an experienced (some might say old) climber.

My quick count shows 10 DNS's of peaks above 14,000' (three Colorado peaks). Rainier claims top spot at three. I think I am still over 90% overall 14,000' + success rate.

As a geologists, I know the mountain will not always be there, but it will be there for at least another 100 years....
Not as young as I once was and not as old as I want to be.
Post Reply