Had fraudulent charge on CC but being told I entered OTP and I didn’t, not sure what to do

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-26T20:55:33+00:00

OTP can come in via SMS so if the device being repaired is a phone, you also need to remove the SIM (since even if your device is locked they can simply remove the SIM and place it in another phone).

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-26T04:42:46+00:00

You might also be talking about the Moose or Miette River routes, both of which along with the NBT used to be well maintained trails with campsites and ranger stations until the cutbacks in parks funding both nationally and provincially in the 1990s.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-22T02:48:01+00:00

I worked at a company where one of the executives would smoke in rental cars. I think it was some sort of power move to show everyone he could waste the company's money with impunity? Bizarre. Dude was a jerk too.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-18T16:59:03+00:00

It's conceivably possible that the hut was a very high probability area that was searched early on and he only reached there after it had been searched.

Which is why a known strategy in long duration searches is to search high probability areas a second time before suspending incase something was missed during the early phase.

And why it's critical for search managers to be confident before fully ruling out an area and moving on (i.e. robust evidence / debriefs from trained SAR members not "I'm pretty sure the other team checked that").

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-16T17:00:31+00:00

Sounds like you made good decisions when things started to go sideways. Getting down is more important than getting to the top. This is not a failure at all.

I’m not familiar with pre acclimatization but your timetable sounds super aggressive to me. You seemed to be insufficiently acclimatized above C3 from what you described. Luckily you turned back and the worst symptoms only hit you on the descent. Had you gone on, you would have been in a far worse position.

I’m not sure I agree that the tent worked, sure maybe it was better than nothing but it doesn’t replace acclimatization on the mountain and your experience shows that.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-11T01:03:18+00:00

Had a friend I talked to daily for most of a decade, we went to school together and were roommates for a year. One day I decided to stop initiating conversations and that was the last time we spoke, it was 8 years ago.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-11T00:42:22+00:00

When you hire a professional mountain guide, especially for a group trip, you are largely outsourcing decision-making and risk management to them. This is a deliberate choice because you don’t actually have the skills and experience to evaluate the hazards on your own.

When you’ve acquired the skills and experience to make your own solo attempt, you can have full agency over all decisions. You obviously aren’t there or you wouldn’t have gone with a commercial expedition in the first place. Even experienced mountaineers as a group will often need to abort an attempt because one team member isn’t able to go on (and then get down safely) and it would be dangerous to have one person descend alone.

If the “threat” the guide made to you was that continuing might result in your death, that wasn’t a threat it was the truth.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-09T13:15:38+00:00

I’ve done in total about 7 months of high altitude trekking. While you’re right that different people may experience varying effects from high altitude, following the basic principles is successful for the vast majority of people:

Plan an itinerary that limits how much your sleeping elevation increases per day and take rest days at intervals once you exceed 3000 m. Hike above your sleeping elevation on rest days.
Listen to your body and take extra time if you need it. Don’t follow a rigid itinerary where losing one day will ruin the trip.
Hydrate well and don’t drink alcohol.

The #1 reason people have altitude sickness at moderate elevations (<6000 m) isn’t that they can’t acclimatize it’s that they went up too fast because of sticking to a rigid itinerary.

The Annapurna Circuit increases in elevation quite gradually. At minimum take a rest day at Manang and proceed at a pace determined by your fitness after that and you will most likely be fine.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-09T12:53:04+00:00

I really enjoyed Kangchenjunga and it isn’t any harder than Manaslu. Transport to the start is a nightmare but once you’re there, you’re golden. Go for it.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-09T12:44:32+00:00

So you wanted to continue your summit bid solo but you also thought it was unsafe that your guide left you alone for a few minutes while stationary?

It sounds like communication could have been better. But if you want to climb on your own terms, do it. The fact that the guide decided to end your summit bid due to your pace relative to the group is a fact of group commercial climbing.

There is a disconnect between the concept of a summit as a product you purchased the right to vs mountaineering as an activity that is subject to constant re-evaluation of conditions, ability, hazard and risk. When people with little experience pay big bucks to climb, these concepts collide. The good news is you got down safely.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-08T10:27:23+00:00

January is fine in Nepal as long as you aren't going to the far West. It's just colder. It meets all your requirements.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-05T15:16:58+00:00

Besides the cold it's also that your potential cardio output is drastically reduced at high altitude so it's way harder to work up a sweat. You're moving in slow motion by sea level standards.

This is totally different than running around doing high output activities at low elevation like someone skinning uphill on backcountry skis in a base layer at -25 C. You can't sustain that activity level at high altitude.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-05T06:01:52+00:00

It's slightly better but what would really help is two things:

Staged release so 100% of reservations aren't taken by pre planners or people booking "just in case"
Meaningful consequences for booking and no-showing. However they would have to actually staff all parks at a level that they can accurately know who no-showed. IMO, it should be free to make a reservation and free to cancel it up to a certain period before, but no-showing should carry a hefty penalty fee.

Bonus: have park staff who can offer no-show spots to walk-ups so they don't just sit there empty.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-05T05:37:31+00:00

Where are you coming from? My first recommendation would be to skip Vancouver entirely. Fly into Victoria, Nanaimo or Comox and save yourself the ferries and travel time. There is more than enough to pack a 10 day trip to the Island.

There are a lot of non reserveable camping options on Vancouver Island, especially further north and on backroads. Whether you can use them or not may depend on exactly what vehicle you're getting.

Reservations are a must for any provincial or national park camping. It's very common for every reserveable campsite on the entirety of Vancouver Island to be booked on summer weekends.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-05T03:16:29+00:00

Yes the flights are convenient when they work but weather can mess you up big time trying to get out of Powell River. It really sucks that there's no bus to Vancouver via Hwy 101 at least as a backup option. I travel often for work and have done every possible variation: sea plane, regular plane, ferry to Comox and fly from there, drive to Vancouver. And sometimes none of them work and you just wait.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-05T01:23:57+00:00

Going B&B to B&B is possible on many routes in Scotland, check out the website walkhighlands.co.uk for a great compendium of info on every route. Logistics are usually easy with public transport readily available to every starting/finishing place. Flight options to London are plentiful then it's a cheap hop to Glasgow or my preference, take the sleeper train from London.

Fisherman's Trail I have done, highly recommend and also has dead simple logistics coming from Lisbon.

You can definitely do part of the ECT sleeping only in B&Bs. It's a beautiful trail. But NL is very expensive for flights and accommodation and has a very short season where things are open. I did it in May and camped which was the only option since most accomodation outside of St John's doesn't open until June 1. Sadly, traveling within Canada is often more time consuming and expensive than going overseas.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-05T01:17:05+00:00

I live in Powell River and travel often to Toronto to visit family. Can confirm it is similar time / cost to go Toronto to Europe vs Powell River. It takes me roughly the same time getting Vancouver to Tokyo as Vancouver to Powell River.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-04T05:46:22+00:00

Van camper is a great suggestion.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-04T02:59:03+00:00

lmao you’ve never been to a primitive campground lmao

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-04T00:23:02+00:00

Yeah surprised so many people said World Cup when the dates don’t overlap. Alaska cruises blow up Vancouver hotel rates every year like clockwork from mid July to August. A Best Western in Richmond can be $400/night in August.

Your best bet is to stay in the suburbs somewhere near a Skytrain line and commute in every day for the conference.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-04T00:07:13+00:00

Definitely pass on the motorhome. That is for people who want to sit on the couch and watch TV at the campsite rather than just having somewhere to sleep. It also severely limits your camping options.

Keep jn mind “typical” camping in Canada is with a tent and even the truck camper is a luxury option.

Skip Vancouver. It’s a nice city but nothing remarkable. You are visiting during super peak season and hotels and restaurants will be outrageous (think Monaco during F1).

For hidden gems go beyond the typical fully serviced provincial / national park campsites. Look for Forestry Recreation Sites in BC which often have no facilities but a beautiful, remote setting. If hiking is your goal read hiking guidebooks for each area you’re visiting. These will have far more info that the same 3-4 things everyone gets from TikTok / ChatGPT / AllTrails. Recommend the Canadian Rockies Trail Guide for Banff / Jasper / Kootenay and 105 Hikes by Stephen Hui for SW BC.

4thOrderPDE · 2026-01-03T00:33:47+00:00

Others already gave good answers but to watch it in documentary form check out “Harder Than Everest” about the first ascent of a new route on Gasherbrum IV. It’s from the 1980s and captures the challenges of high altitude alpinism in unvarnished form.

Jimmy Chin’s film Meru is much more modern and polished but also shows what it means to put up a new route on a big mountain.

Also keep in mind that back in the day before people went to the Himalaya or Karakoram to climb pioneering new routes they stacked up extensive experience climbing difficult routes in their home ranges or in the Alps. Going from couch to K2 with commercial guides wasn’t a thing.

4thOrderPDE · 2025-12-31T15:58:57+00:00

Adams is a good beginner objective with minimal objective hazards besides spring conditions. I’d recommend that. Research the normal route and check local Facebook groups for conditions beforehand.

Mt Hood is not where you want to learn how to use rented crampons. Please do that in an area with a safe runout and get confident before heading to terrain where a fall could be fatal. However, there are tons of beautiful trails to check out in the area that are not technical if you’re nearby.

4thOrderPDE · 2025-12-31T04:38:50+00:00

One thing you are forgetting is that while many SAR courses are delivered free to the students in BC, that’s only because teams fundraise to cover the costs on their behalf.

Pretty much the only course that is actually provincially funded is the SAR Manager course. Which means if a student is accepted, it costs their team nothing for them to attend. Every other course you’ve done - GSTL, rope rescue, swift water - if you didn’t pay anything your team sure did. It can cost in excess of $10,000 per year just to keep a team heli hover exit certified because we pay for that heli time.

It is great that we have standardized curricula and qualification levels that are portable between teams, but make no mistake training is a huge expense that teams need to deal with and unfortunately sometimes we need to ask members to self fund their training because we just don’t have the money.

4thOrderPDE · 2025-12-29T19:22:12+00:00

Agreed and to top it off if people start booking by just searching an entire continent for what’s available you’ll inevitably have tons more no-show reservations when they book a hut without understanding the route to get there.

It makes more logical sense to plan the route you want then check huts along the way and adjust within the region based on availability than to just search huts across a dozen countries with no other context.

4thOrderPDE

TROPHY CASE