Alpine Divorce

Alpine Divorce Outside Article

The phrase is all over the socials especially after a case in Austria delivered a verdict of "gross negligent manslaughter." This Reddit thread is pushing 1000 comments. What's your take?

49 comments on the thread here

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/202204967/partner-charged-with-manslaughter-after-girlfriend-freezes-to-death-in-austrian-

When an article cites the popularity of a TikTok video as to why its being written, it makes me question the publication -- since when do you have to legitimize a topic through social media? If it's important, it's important, whether or not it's got a viral video. It seems like folks have a fetish for virality these days; I tend to lean more towards the concept of judging ideas not exclusively through focus groups..(didn't we all hate focus groups?)

In this case I would argue them bring up social media isn’t to legitimatize the topic itself but to show how the idea of an ‘Alpine Divorce’ has started to enter the wider culture.
Culture right now grows out of social media so if an idea is trending on social media it is a great way to show it’s greater cultural relevance.

In case someone else didn't know what the term means:

"The Consequences of an “Alpine Divorce,” and Why the Term Is Trending

After a series of events, the term is on the rise. And some mountain athletes are debating whether or not it’s ever OK to abandon a partner in the alpine." 

. And some mountain athletes are debating whether or not it’s ever OK to abandon a partner in the alpine." 

The old becomes new again…

I was in the fence about this until I heard that the guy had left/ abandoned a previous girlfriend on the same route in more or less the same place.

In some sense I regret taking a WFR because I now feel like I have to be the adult in these situations...

I like to think about this in terms of abandonment in the medical context. Once you start care, there are limited scenarios in which you may cease care. I'm not qualified to teach them, but (for discussion) roughly they are: handoff to a higher authority, patient withdrawal of consent to care (this is a whole topic on its own), or it's unsafe for the provider to continue providing care. Really the rules are more complicated. 

Once you start up a mountain with someone, I believe you're committed to helping them down in a roughly analogues sense. 

Charles Winsteadwrote:

I was in the fence about this until I heard that the guy had left/ abandoned a previous girlfriend on the same route in more or less the same place.

100% seems super sus to have racked these two data points. I would never climb with or date someone that dropped two of their pervious partners, resulting in the death of one of them. Hell, I probably wouldn't even associate with them. May no one have to rely on him again. 

I'd like to hear something from his ex gf, honestly. 

Peter Bealwrote:

Alpine Divorce Outside Article

The phrase is all over the socials especially after a case in Austria delivered a verdict of "gross negligent manslaughter." This Reddit thread is pushing 1000 comments. What's your take?

I haven't read the thread.  I did read the court's judgment in the case in Austria.  The charge of gross negligent manslaughter arose from many more actions than the very last one, eg starting off poorly equipped and too late in the day, waving off earlier rescue inquiries, not turning back in a timely fashion, and not deploying the emergency blanket the victim had before leaving her.  The "abandonment" was the last in a sequence of alleged negligent actions.

The "abandonment" part raises all kinds of emotional issues, but seems to me to be entirely situation-dependent. There are definitely times when the best and sometimes the only possible course is to leave an incapacitated partner and go for help. Universal condemnation of such acts is unwarranted and even possibly dangerous, if the pressures exerted stops people from seeking help when leaving their partner is, in fact, the best course of action. Armchair mountaineers who have never been even remotely close to such trying situations should shut up, but of course that isn't going to happen.

I gather from comments about the cited Reddit thread that there are many stories of abandonment when a partner deserts the partnership without there being life and death exigencies involved. Sadly, the proportion of assholes in the outdoor community is likely to be the same as for the population at large. If such uncalled-for desertions result in serious consequences for the abandoned partner, I find myself sympathetic to legal recourses, understanding, however, the complexity of establishing the truth in such cases.

The idea that when someone brings along a less-experienced partner, the more experienced person automatically becomes legally responsible seems highly fraught to me, less so in the case of guides and clients, where the client is basically paying for a "guarantee" of safety provided by the guide, but in all those informal pairings in which one of the pair is doing some kind of mentoring. Even in the guiding context, no one can guarantee 100% safety. I think Will Gad has some commentary on his site to the effect that "I will do everything in my power, based on my extensive experience, to keep us safe, but still cannot guarantee that there will not be adverse outcomes."

Chouinard got out of the hardware business because a guided lawyer undid his harness to take a dump, in spite of the vigorous protests of the guide at the top of a pitch.  The lawyer improperly reinstalled the harness, and when he fell, the harness did not work, and he died. Chouinard was sued for the design of the harness. (I do not think the plaintiff won this one, but the case still had to be defended.)

I think it completely depends on the circumstances.

Scenario #1 I have a little bit of experience but not much and I am honest about it. look. I read a book . this seems really fun. lets try this rock climbing stuff. I barley know what I am doing but if you are game lets give it a try.   This to me is two noobs having an adventure. They may or may not live but neither one is criminally liable for anything that happens short of deliberately pushing someone off a cliff. 

#2 I present myself as an expert and offer to teach you. 

In this case if I do not  act like an expert and get you killed by doing something outside of normal climbing behavior /best practices I would  expect to be held responsible. 

#3 two experienced climbers go climbing. They are equally responsible. If something goes south its just an accident unless one of them did something really crazy that is obviously outside of climbing norms. 

#4 Guide and client. Guide is 100% responsible for  clients safety but accidents can still happen. If one does happen  it must be determined if the guide  acted within industry standards and performed their duties as best as possible and it was just an accident or if the accident was actually the guides fault. This will probably be quite relevant in the recent avalanche tragedy.  OSHA  will probably get involved in that one  as well  if the deceased guides were employees. 

That's just four scenarios. There are probably dozens more..  Each one with it's own idiosyncrasies. 

To paraphrase Outside's inner thought process on this: "So, we have a video of some rando crying, with no real context, and a bunch of other unrelated people who've never been outside in any meaningful context jumping on a bandwagon for clicks, a reddit thread maybe, and we are going to spin this into some attempt at a coherent narrative, and to validate this narrative, we are going to contact some guides out of the blue who haven't really been read-in on our secret project, get some quotes from them, even though they had no idea of the bigger picture, the context, how we are going to spin this, and then, and then, and then"

Good grief.

Clint Cumminswrote:

49 comments on the thread here

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/202204967/partner-charged-with-manslaughter-after-girlfriend-freezes-to-death-in-austrian-

It looks like interest in this topic has gone way past the Austrian case and become a global cultural phenomenon.