#myalpinelesson
„We tend to focus on the superficial aspects, and rarely apply much critical thinking. We dive straight back into our busy lives and by the time we start planning our next outing, we've forgotten the lessons we should have learnt from the last.“
All too often when we return from the mountains, we focus on what went well, toast to a great day, and head home without much reflection or deeper analysis.
The idea
In winter 2020, while in Patagonia, with my friends Babsi, Raphaela, Laura, Jonas, Rolo, and Maud, we discussed the importance of taking the time to address this “blind spot”. Our sport takes place in an environment that is inherently dangerous, so safety is paramount. One basic reflection after any climb should be to ask ourselves which decisions kept us safe, and which decisions might have posed a threat. If there was a near-miss - what did we do to mitigate the circumstances and bring the situation under control?
These type of analysis are called “experience feedback systems”, and hope to help us reflect and learn from past endeavors. Both negative and positive events should be openly reevaluated. Such an approach does not intend to establish big rules about what is dangerous, but rather encourage us to engage more critically, reflecting and learning.
In our talks in Patagonia, we wondered if we might be able to start discussing situations that were a little too close for comfort, perceived poor decisions, what stressed us, dangers that only became evident in retrospect, moments of “sheer dumb luck”, near misses, accidents, and the like, more openly. We also hoped to discuss openly what we did right to handle a certain situation, as well as the decisions that might have lead to our success. Our hope is to encourage a broader, more encompassing form of „storytelling".
We thought of using the hashtag #myalpinelesson to link such posts.
Experience feedback systems are not a new concept. They have been implemented fruitfully in a number of fields, but in the mountaineering field, they are rare. Databases tend to focus on accident reporting, with little large-scale reporting on near-misses. “Continued in comments”
A big thank you to the whole #myalpinelesson team for sharing the same spirit and helping with this post. A recent initiative, the Camp-to-camp SERAC database, focuses exclusively on this. Beyond using the #myalpinelesson hashtag, why not consider entering the details of your own near-miss in their database.
I believe we can all learn a lot from each other. In future, I will be trying my best to share more honest and reflective accounts of my adventures. I hope that you will join me!
