Kedrowski: 2016 Ski Project Controversy

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brett.t.burch
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Re: Looking at Lindsey Lately

Post by brett.t.burch »

AlexeyD wrote:I do, however, think that one needs to be honest about that risk level, both with themselves but especially when you are writing about your actions for others to read. Not doing so is a disservice to both oneself and one's readers, and in particular to aspiring climbers/skiers or whatever who hold the person in high regard. Like, when you trigger an avy and still insist you made the right decisions and write so publicly, what kind of message does that send to the young guy/girl just getting into skimo? It's not just about what you do and why, it's also about how you present it and what lessons you learn from it.
This is why Coombs left Alaska according to the STEEP film, if I am not mistaken. I think his big internal red flag, and possibly what JK has not yet noticed here, is complacency. I had a simple mis-step on the Mesa trail last month and sliced my finger catching a fall 3 miles out. I wound up with stitches. I was carrying nothing... heck, it's just the Mesa trail. I've done this 100 times in every month. I think a huge problem with repeated success in near-misses is not recognizing the possibility of the coin flipping the other way next time. Not talking to that for others to potentially learn from, as you said, is a dis-service to the community. To be honest, I haven't read all of his reports, but not recognizing near misses and/or continuing the same behavior to in effect tempt fate again, (a) leads very few to mourn when hubris causes Icarus to tumble to his death, as it were, and (b) leaves nothing for the rest of us to learn from to avoid repeating history.
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Re: JK's 2016 Ski Project

Post by BillMiddlebrook »

I agree with Otina that many people probably won't care about whether or not Jon's accomplishment is "apples-to-apples" with the guidelines used by previous 14er ski finishers. However, some will and hopefully Jon has considered the guidelines set by those who have put so much effort into skiing the 14ers. This isn't much different than climbers who get all of the 14ers in winter - they should respect the guidelines set by those who previously completed the same goal.

When skiing peak groups, I chose to ski each peak individually but I think the 1000-foot thing is an OK guideline if that's what people have done in the past. Obviously Jon doesn't have to ski each one individually since previous finishers have not all done that, but he should be making sure to get the 1000k and a continuous line (a bit of down-climbing or traversing dry terrain is accepted but not much) from the accepted summit spot. Again, it's skiing 14ers, not skiing ON 14ers as Otina has mentioned. It took me 4 different attempts on Blanca to find enough snow that I was comfortable to call a 14er ski descent.

If he sticks to the "rules" and gets it done, he will have a great story to tell, if that's what he wants. If he doesn't stick to the rules set by his predecessors, that should be clear when he documents his accomplishment. It would be pretty silly of him to claim a record of skiing all of the 14ers in one season if he didn't stick to the rules of what constitutes skiing a 14er.

Jon, I wish you the best and hope you safely complete your goal.
"When I go out, I become more alive. I just love skiing. The gravitational pull. When you ski steep terrain... you can almost get a feeling of flying." -Doug Coombs
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Re: JK's 2016 Ski Project

Post by moneymike »

I was just informed, by a friend, about this John Kedrowski (derailed) thread and thought I'd chime in with my two cents.

In his last trip report, John wrote:
As it turns out, no matter what you try to accomplish in life, people feel the need to criticize and belittle


This is true, John. The more you accomplish in life, the more critics you will gain. However, this thread isn't just about a bunch of s**t talkers s**t talking for the fun of it. You are being criticized because you are claiming to be doing something you are not actually doing. You are claiming that you are attempting to break Davenport's 14er ski record, but you are not going to do that if you don't live up to his standards, or Dawson's, or any of the other 14er skier finishers. I have seen first hand, and pictures of the peaks you have skied, and a lot of them were not in "skiable condition."

John then attempts to trivialize the criticism by saying:
At the end of the day I am doing this project because I am passionate about ski mountaineering here in Colorado, not because I am concerned with what others think or want out of this agenda I have set...At the end of the day I LOVE pushing myself in the mountains... I’m really just having fun
.

I don't think that's accurate. People would not be getting on your back if you were just having fun. If you were honest about what, exactly, you were doing on the mountains, people would be praising you for your effort and endurance. But you are not doing this just for fun. You are making a public claim. You are putting yourself in the limelight. You are attempting to make money off of your project. And you will use this claim to fame to get yourself further endorsements.

You are also trivializing a project that a dozen, or so, people have taken years to accomplish with a certain level of ethics. To quote bergsteigen:

If you are doing lists for fun, then you don't care how you do things. You also don't tend to push the risks either. If you want to be recognized by your peers for a specific accomplishment, a few standards/rules/ethics come into play.


I'm not trying to be a s**t talker here, I think John's project would be super awesome if he was a little more straight forward about what he's doing. I've skied with him a couple times and thought he was a cool guy. He's also rediculously fit and an extremely accomplished mountaineer.

As for his Lindsey avalanche, I don't think it necessitates criticism. Triggering loose, wet slides in new storm snow is quite common this time of year, and is easily predictable. I've done it many times, and think that anyone skiing the 14ers should have the skill to predict and purposely release these kinds of slides without getting caught. You may agree or disagree with me, but I won't criticize John for that.

As for the selfie stick...well, I better not comment on that. That'll definitely be considered s**t talking.
"Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right." -Henry Ford

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Re: JK's 2016 Ski Project

Post by youngk2844 »

In an attempt at a secondary level hijacking of my original thread (can you even hijack your own thread?). Justiner's reference to Laurence Gonzales' book "Deep Survival" got me thinking about another thread topic on dealing with Serious Survival Situations.
If you want a diversion from JK's 2016 Ski Project jump over to http://www.14ers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=49179
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Re: JK's 2016 Ski Project

Post by EatinHardtack »

Agree with many on here about various points raised. But honestly the avalanches and falls will be much better for the book. I mean adversity and potential death? People who don't do this type of thing will eat this crap up in a book. Same with sleeping on the summits, was that book really worthy for us that climb? No, but like Otina said, people like to live vicariously through others. To each his own, hopefully he's safe.

I'm glad that my goals are simple. To ski with great partners, be safe and have fun.
"In our youths our hearts were touched with fire" - Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Re: JK's 2016 Ski Project

Post by Cool Hand Luke »

While I wish Jon safe skiing, he needs to read the warning signs. After triggering a large wet slide he is more concerned with getting video footage of the slide than skiing towards a relatively safer rock rib. Sorry, but self-promoting is going to get him hurt.

Additionally, I did not enjoy finding his, once again, self-promoting "business card" on top of North Maroon this past summer. I kindly took his litter off the summit for him.
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Re: Looking at Lindsey Lately

Post by polar »

BillMiddlebrook wrote:
justiner wrote:OH, this is the sleeping on the summits dude?

This is the guy that did the trip report about finding the hurt person on Snowmass?

In 2014, I just missed him when I reached the summit of Yale.

He left his business card at the top. It said something like, "Let me help you summit your personal Everest" or something like that, which I thought was in bad taste, giving the tragedies on the mountain in that year. Who leaves business cards at the top of a 14er advertising the guiding/mentoring business? Barf .

I find this person less than appealing. Whatever, I don't care anymore, I hope he stays safe. From his writing, he sounded like some random 22 year old. But, I don't trust anything this guy says or does. Doctor my butt.
Oh my. I, too, just figured out this was JK. That Snowmass picture thing was one of lowest things I've ever seen related to mountaineering.

I hope it all works out for him and he finishes.
I wasn't involved in the Snowmass picture thread, but my interest was piqued so I did some digging. Good god, this guy has taken self-promotion to a whole new level. I'm pretty sure he wrote the Wikipedia page on himself too... yes DArcyS, we need more cowbells.
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Re: Looking at Lindsey Lately

Post by mountaingoat-G »

justiner wrote:I'm guessing Jon is lurking,

http://14erskirecord.com/peaks-35-36-gr ... l-25-2016/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

honest question here: the way he keeps looking back up the slope with the selfie stick, is he checking to see if he set off a slide that is about to catch him ??

I know that when I do steep lines like that, I don't like to linger....
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Re: JK's 2016 Ski Project

Post by justiner »

I can't help but want to find similarities to the Outside (yeah, I know, I know!) article that keeps floating around:

http://www.outsideonline.com/2070866/so ... t-crossing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've also been reading, "Get Sponsored" by Jeff Blumenfeld (local author, I can recommend the book).

Perhaps the elevator pitch to his main sponsor was by saying, "hey, there's a 14er ski record, I wanna break it!" and the sponsor was like, "Cool! DO IT". So maybe there's that pressure to finish the project, even if corners are cut, because reality sets in that conditions are far from predictable for this type of project, and just doing it without a time limit has only been done by a very small amount of people. Pure speculation on my part. That would also be why he's so defensive on that post from yesterday, and saying things like, "oh it's not REALLY a speed run", or whatever, even though everything else on the website contradicts this. After a while, there's so many layers of garbage like this, I'm uncertain of even the reliability or truthfulness of his reports.

Compare them to Davenport's posts,

http://www.skithe14ers.com/p-mt-lindsey.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Don't you get the feeling that things are in control, when something goes wrong (like his photographer's ski binding), they make obvious and intelligent choices, that the conditions are more than OK, and that it's this fun, sharing experience, without all the bravado? You can read it, and be happy he ticked off the mountain. Yeah, go Chris! It continues on like this, for even his most difficult descents ( http://www.skithe14ers.com/p-pyramid-peak.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ). I don't know the guy, but it sounds like he'd be a great person to hang out with, and talk mountains. All I want to do if I ever meet Jon is give back his business card he left on Yale and tell him to please stop doing that.
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Re: Looking at Lindsey Lately

Post by piolet »

polar wrote:I'm pretty sure he wrote the Wikipedia page on himself too
This. I recommend a quick look at his Wikipedia page (and all the disclaimers/warnings Wikipedia put at the top). Worth a chuckle
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Re: JK's 2016 Ski Project

Post by SnowAlien »

BillMiddlebrook wrote: When skiing peak groups, I chose to ski each peak individually but I think the 1000-foot thing is an OK guideline if that's what people have done in the past.
....he should be making sure to get the 1000k and a continuous line (a bit of down-climbing or traversing dry terrain is accepted but not much) from the accepted summit spot.
Bill,
I just wanted to get back to this "rule", since it seems to be an informal guideline. Dawson doesn't specifically mention it in his set of rules that Otina quoted.
I know this seems to be typical as a ski guideline for people on this site and in the reports I've seen.
That's why most of the ski reports on Tab is for dropping to the north and skiing out via Little Brown's creek drainage (at least that's what we did, including wading the creek, ha ha). Same with Belford and Oxford. After we dropped down into the drainage, we still had ~1,500 ft of reclimb back to Belford. With Decalibron, it's lovely to hear they are all skiable in a day, but for me it took multiple trips to gain at least 1k of skiable terrain on each peak. Those peaks are really hard to find in skiable conditions btw.
As I am getting ready to ski Redcloud and Sunshine, I'm mindful to drop at least 1k on each peak or ski them separately. But again, this seems to be more of an informal rule, that many skiers (or boarders), not just Jon, are not aware of - just see multiple reports of "skiing " on peak groups to the saddles on this website, typically from newer skiers/boarders.
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Re: JK's 2016 Ski Project

Post by Cruiser »

Bwaaa! That wiki article is pure hilarity. Thank god for guys like Jon whose ridiculous antics make the interwebz such an amusing place to visit. :iluvbeer:
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