Climber Falls to Death: Mt Rinjani, Lombok

“never…go headlong racing off and joking about”? “Joking about”?!?! Were you there?! How could you type–and imply–such an insensitive comment? Shame on you for trivializing this tragedy.
This man happened to be one of the most careful and prepared men I have ever met. Maybe he lost his footing, or the wind picked up, or some “…quirk freak of nature…” affected his judgement.
Your point is well taken, but perhaps you could have been a tad more sensitive to the issue–especially considering how recent and fresh it is. Imagine it was your best friend: would you have chosen the same cold words? I think not.

Hi Shocked,

If you had read the article properly then you will have seen that the advice given was about scaling peaks and not an insinuation or disparaging comment against the deceased person.

Wombat,

I did read the artice properly, and I know what advice was given; that is not the issue. The issue is the WAY in which you gave this advice–the less-than-sensitive words you chose. Did you read MY response carefully?! It seems not, so I guess I should spell it out more clearly for you.

When you wrote “There is a lesson to be learnt from this tragedy and that is never attempt to climb step [sic] peaks alone or go headlong racing off and joking about”, there is an implication–whether you intended it or not–that Paul Ohashi was “headlong racing off and joking about” at the time of the tragedy, ultimately implying that his careless “racing” and “joking” was the cause of his death. Such an implication is insensitive and hurtful.

You referenced the tragedy and advised people not to go “racing off and joking about” in the SAME SENTENCE; how could such an implication not be presumed? I understand that you may not have intended such an implication, but couldn’t you have given your word choice more thoughtful consideration? Honestly.

Furthermore, to dismiss my response so quickly, coldly, and, quite frankly, antagonistically: “If you had read the article PROPERLY…”, [emphasis mine] is disparaging and uncompassionate.

Give advice all you want, but please don’t make careless implications about someone you don’t know who has JUST died tragically. As I suggested before: imagine you read this about your best friend. Or, imagine you read this about your son or daughter. How would you feel?

I hope next time you are more careful and thoughtful about your comments, and your responses to the comments of others–especially if the issue at hand is as sensitive and potentially hurtful as this one is.

Barrie and Wombat,

Barrie: just recently, I realized that I answered your comment under the assumption that you were Wombat. I apologize for my misunderstanding, and thus for the misdirected anger and tone of my most recent response.

Wombat: I apologize for mistakenly answering what I thought was your response to my comment, and thus for the misdirected anger towards you.

That being said, I stand by my arguments, and still believe that your original comment, Wombat, was insensitive and not well thought out. And Barrie, I still strongly believe that you should not have made your comment because, in addition to missing the point completely, your comment was unnecessarily antagonistic.

Once again, I apologize for my mistake, yet I still firmly support my arguments.

A year later and my thoughts go back to rinjani of June last year - and the shock of what happened on the mountain, after climbing the mountain 9 years ago with 2 fantastic dutch girls, we decided( my wife and i ) to have a go at climbing rinjani, paul the canadian came past with his friends halfway to the summit - a brazilian lad and an austrian and english girl i remember, all i can say is that he was super fit and it was a great sight to see him lead the others in storming fashion up toward the final summit, the final summit climb from is undertaken from 3am to enable you to see the sunrise from the summit at 6 am - this is 3 hours of the toughest trekking / climbing, however on this night there were unusually strong winds at the top - i remember the sound of the those winds very vividly - like a jet plane engine, it was said for me to climb rinjani a second time could be considered a bit of a masochist but after a few years you forget the pain and tend to remember what an amazingly spiritual place this is - it draws you back, second time round if anything it was felt more deeply, it may sound a little starnge but i would suggest that any souls still out there who need closure on this lost life should go here. Anyone who has done this has truly lived, And for me its a deeply spiritual place and a testement to those make the tough journey.

Andrew