Frenchmen Claim New Climbing Route Up Nuptse’s South Face

There is plenty of action still going on in the Himalayas.  I know that many of my loyal readers have been following all the action on The Adventure Blog and ExplorersWeb, but now some interesting information is coming to us from UKClimbing.com, the UK’s biggest climbing network.

It looks like there may have been a new route put up on Mt. Everest’s smaller cousin, Nuptse.  This new route was climbed Alpine style by Frenchmen Stéphane Benoist and Patrice Glairon-Rappaz on the South Face of Nuptse.  If this holds, it could be the first new South Face route put up on Nuptse since 1961.  Since that time, there have only been two expeditions who made a successful South Face summit.  That is pretty remarkable!

Read more

PlanetMountain Interviews Alexander Huber

Alexander Huber has been scaling first ascents and climbing speed records since 1992.  He has scaled some of the world’s toughest routes (Om, La Rambla, Bellevista, El Corazon, Zodiac, Pan Aroma) and even put up a speed ascent record (with his brother) on El Capitan’s The Nose in 2007.

Alexander Huber’s climbing career has spanned many different disciplines.  He has faced some of rock climbing’s toughest walls, while also putting up a noteworthy alpine style summit on Cho Oyu.  PlanetMountain recently had the opportunity to sit down with Alexander and discuss his varied climbing career, as well as the current state of climbing. (Click here for the interview)

In PlanetMountain’s interview, Huber discusses why some route grades are drawing some controversy.  He also talks about Chris Sharma, Adam Ondra, and his future in Himalayan climbing and the future of the sport.

This is a noteworthy interview from a climbing legend.  Head over to PlanetMountain and check it out.

Dead Point Magazine: Free Climbing Publication Launches October 15th

There is a new climbing publication on the horizon looking to join the ranks of Climbing, Rock and Ice, Alpinist, and Urban Climber.  Dead Point Magazine will be launching on October 15th and promises to deliver something a little more different than what is currently on the market.  The biggest issue will revolve around price.  Dead Point magazine will be FREE and distrubuted through your favorite local climbing gym or swag shop.  Now you shouldn’t have an excuse to not know what is going on in the world of climbing-

Dead Point Magazine will be a bi-monthly publication aimed towards younger climbers with a hip look, to boot.  They are promising to deliver more in-depth features than publications currently on the market and are guaranteeing that they won’t shy away from controversial material-they list their second issue as one to keep an eye out for.

As is the custom these days, Dead Point Magazine will be building a community around the magazine with a vast online presence which will include trip reports, forums, climber blogs, video, the latest climbing news and a whole lot more.

I recently had the opportunity to stop by the Dead Point Magazine website (www.deadpointmag.com) and look things over.  It definitely looks to be heading in the right direction.  The front page conveniently shows the latest climbing news, gear reviews, and some climber blogs, including those of Joe Kinder, Chris Lindner, Jason Kehl, and Mikey William to name a few.  It should definitely be a new presence in the world of climbing.

Dead Point Magazine will be looking to push the boundaries and the sport in new directions.  Think you can climb like Ethan Pringle?  Dead Point has put up a $1,000 bounty to any climber that can repeat Ethan Pringle’s recent test piece, Jumbo Glass, which is rated at 14c.  They are looking to challenge and inform the climbing community to push their limits and see what they can do.  A nice money bounty is one way to draw a few looks from climbers, for the most part, they are broke as a joke and are always interested when it comes to making some cash.

Read more

How Safe Is Mountain and Rock Climbing? New Study Suggests It Is Safer Than Thought..

The Journal of Wilderness and Environmental Medicine recently published a study suggesting that climbing is relatively safe when compared to other outdoor sports. The study analyzed cases for 212,708 people who were treated in emergency rooms for outdoor related activities.

The study found that 72.1 injuries occurred among every 100,000 Americans, with 68.2% of injuries to males and 31.8% to females. Not surprisingly, the most dangerous outdoor sport is snowboarding, with 25.5% of all injuries, and most of those to young men. The next two most dangerous outdoor activities are sledding with 10.8% of injuries and hiking with 6.3%. Climbing, including both rock and mountain climbing, accounted for 4.9% of outdoor injuries. Of course, since the total number of participants in climbing is unknown, the relation of climbing injuries to total climbers can’t be accurately made.

That’s some interesting information.  I wonder if this has to do with there being WAY more snowboarders or wanna-be snowboarders than climbers?  It doesn’t exactly mention how each group was broken down. Another surprise is the number of hiking injuries.  Once again i will attribute this to shear numbers of those who hike compared to those who climbed.

This post was actually made on Stewart’s Climbing Blog for About.com.  Stewart Green who writes the blog decided to take this study a step further and research some numbers from the American Alpine Institute in regards to climbing accidents and fatalities.  To read the surprising findings, go check out Stewart’s Climbing Blog.

Climber On Middle Teton Rescued After Fall

Tom Wilkinson, 24, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was rescued today after taking a fall while climbing the Middle Teton in Grand Teton National Park.  Wilkinson fell about 150 feet, suffering a severe ankle injury in the process.

Tom Wilkinson was climbing with a partner and the two were in the process of descending along the South Couloir Route when Wilkinson fell.  He tumbled across and over several rock formations, injuring his ankle in the process, before finally coming to rest above a cliff at 11,300 ft.

His climbing partner, Christopher Leath, put out an emergency cellphone call to park rangers, which would lead to Wilkinson’s eventual rescue.

You can read the complete story by heading over to the Jackson Hole Daily

Julbo, Inc. Signs Host of Climbers To Contracts

WILLISTON, VT (June 19, 2008) – Officials from Julbo, Inc. are pleased to announce the signing of new climbers, including: Colin Haley, Freddie Wilkinson, Althea Rogers, Ben Gilmore, Kevin Mahoney, Johnny Copp, Micah Dash, Heidi Wirtz and Emily Stifler, all world-class alpinists, to its athlete roster.

Julbo has been setting the industry standard in lens and frame technology since the company’s inception 120 years ago. These new athletes embody Julbo’s heritage in core mountaineering performance optics.

“Julbo is happy to be working with such a young and talented crew of athletes who are currently testing the boundaries of what’s possible in the mountains,” said Nick Yardley, Julbo’s U.S. president. “Above all, they are a great people whose company we enjoy. We are psyched that these athletes are looking at the world through Julbo glasses.”

• Colin Haley, 23, from Seattle, Wash. Career highlights: First ascents on The Entropy Wall on Mt. Moffit, the first linkup of the Marsigny-Parkin, the West Face on Cerro Torre, and the first ascent of Patagonia’s Torre Traverse. “I’m stoked to join the team of Julbo athletes,” says Haley. “I honestly think Julbo makes the best sunglasses on the market.”
• Althea Rogers, 23, from Bozeman, Montana. Career Highlights: First ascents in the mountains of Western Greenland and Alaska’s Absaroka Range.
• Freddie Wilkinson from Connecticut. Career highlights: First ascents in Patagonia’s Cerro Poincinot, The Fin in Alaska and Mount Mahindra in the Indian Himalayas.
• Emily Stifler, 27, from Montana. Career highlights: Freelance writer, climber and skier who spends winters as a ski patroller at Moonlight Basin. She is headed up to Alaska this year to explore new route possibilities on a group of granite domes near Bristol Bay.
• Ben Gilmore, 36, from Sonoma, Calif. First ascents include: Moose’s Tooth in Arctic Range, The Fin Wall, and Mantok Group in All Talk Couloir.
• Kevin Mahoney, 39, from New Hampshire. Career highlights: First ascents of Moose’s Tooth in the Arctic Range, Alaska, and in 2004 awarded the Golden Piton Award
• Micah Dash from Yosemite, Calif. Career highlights: First ascents of the Regular Route on Half Dome and El Capitan’s Freerider, also Nalumasortoq in Greenland and the Eternal Flame on Nameless “Trango” Tower in Paksitan.
• Johnny Copp, 32, from Boulder, Colorado. First ascents include: Shafat Fortress in Kashmir, India, South East Face of Cerro Mascara in Torres del Paine, Chilean Patagonia, and Mount Andrews in Alaska.
• Heidi Wirtz, 36, from Colorado. Career highlight: First ascent of the S. Howser Minarette, has climbed many giant rock walls all over the world as “Air Voyage” in Black Canyon and “Qui Lombo” on San Rafael in Patagonia. Heidi has plans to climb in Europe, Tasmania and Greenland in the near future.

For additional information on Julbo eyewear, visit www.julbousa.com or call 800.651.0833.

JULBO – OPTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR ACTION SPORTS

source:  ABC or Mountaineering

The Alpinist Quiz

One of the Reader’s Blogs over on Alpinist.com has come up with an interesting little quiz to test your Alpinist knowledge.  “Are You An Alpinist?” asks 10 different questions related to Alpine Climbing, with the answers given a specific point value.

Don’t worry, this isn’t really a test of your mountaineering knowledge, but it is put forth in an amusing fashion, and a fun read.

Questions range from “What is the greatest unclimbed challenge left for human kind” to “You are in a third-world country and your partner falls into a crevasse, what do you do?”  It will take a bit of thinking, on your part, but a high score is achievable with simple evaluation of the multiple choice answers.

Anyways, it is a great way to kill a few minutes, test your alpine climbing knowledge, and…did I mention kill a few minutes?  Go check it out.

Reflections On A Glimpse Into The Life of Apa Sherpa

Apa Sherpa is to Mt. Everest what Michael Jordan was to basketball.  He has succeeded and excelled at every level.  Mt. Everest is his NBA Finals.  With finesse and strength, Apa Sherpa has slowly carved a reputation that will be very hard to surpass in the world of climbing.  He has successfully summited the world’s highest peak an unprecedented eighteen times.  An achievement that no other climber can lay claim to.

The Salt Lake Tribune recently had an opportunity to meet up with Apa Sherpa.  It is an insightful and unglamorous look at how Apa, although the epitome of climbing on Mt. Everest, struggles to live in his second home, the United States.

In 2006,  Apa Sherpa moved from his native country of Nepal to Salt Lake City, Utah.  The move was due, in part, to Apa wanting to help out his family who remained in Nepal.  He wanted to build a foundation that would help to keep his kids from having to embark on the same path that he chose on Mt. Everest, ushering up climbers to the top of the world’s highest peak.  A job, that by all accounts, could very easily rank right up there with the most dangerous jobs in the world.

Apa Sherpa, while recently being afforded the opportunity to actually climb on his own merits, struggled for many years carrying up climbing gear, tents, and oxygen for many of the world’s top expeditions on Mt. Everest.  The Sherpa people are known for their stamina and abilities to carry heavy loads at high altitude, offering many of them a steady job each spring.  Most make more money in a month than what they could in a single year, in Nepal.

For the past ten years, many climbers from the western world have relished in an unabashed celebrity status upon reaching the top of Mt. Everest.  Many have turned their successful summit into books, speaking engagements, and a whole slew of other means to earn a successful living after achieving what many consider the epitome of mountain climbing.  Apa Sherpa wanted a piece of the pie for himself.  Not just himself though, but for his family.

The article in the Salt Lake Tribune paints a picture that is insightful, yet a bit disturbing for someone of Apa’s stature in the climbing community.  He will no doubt go down in the journals of Everest history as one of the best climbers of all time, yet, in Salt Lake City, Apa Sherpa walks around unnoticed and struggles to survive monetarily on a day to day basis.  He lives with a close friend, Jerry Mika, who gives Apa room and board, as well as a job with his own company designing outdoor equipment.

Apa Sherpa is very intent on offering his own family a better means to survival.  I recently covered a few items, most notably a Poisk Oxygen canister, that were being featured on Ebay.   In the listing for this item, it was made very clear that all proceeds were going to help support Apa Sherpa’s family in Nepal.  Apa is pretty open about his wishes, yet, in the United States, he is finding the road to be a bit more rough than say, a Conrad Anker or Ed Viesteurs.  Both of these guys have been able to turn their love of adventure into full time jobs that goes to support even more adventurous expeditions.

Why Apa Sherpa has not been elevated outside of the mountaineering community to a higher status in the world, is actually quite dumbfounding.  He still struggles with gaining sponsors for his climbs, and even at that, is still looking to Ebay to make a few bucks so his family can survive.  This seemingly tells a tale of the difference between eastern and western climbers and how they are perceived in the media and the public.  I am not going to go as far as to make this a racially biased issue, but perceptions going out in the world would suggest that climbers can make a decent living in the United States with companies just throwing money around to potential expeditions.  This is just simply not the case for most foreign climbers who come to the United States in search of the ‘motherlode’ if you will.

All of this is quite sad, but does reveal some insight into the different perceptions that companies and the media place on ‘local’ climbers, as opposed to those that were foreign born.  Even with 18 successful Mt. Everest summits to his credit, Apa Sherpa is still finding life to be quite tough.

In the past couple of weeks, most people in the United States do not even realize that one of the best climbers in the world, Inãki Ochoa, died on Annapurna.  When Inãki first got into trouble, there was nobody around that could help the struggling climber at high-altitude.  Within two days time a call went out to all climbers in the area.  In the days that ensued, some of the top climbers in the world would race to Annapurna, risk death for one of their own, and still come up shorthanded.  It was an amazing effort from all fronts.  Even though the rescue was not a success, it did show us the heart and soul of many of the world’s elite climbers.  In the United States press, this story of heroic efforts and dubious tragedy has not even garnered a mention.  It didn’t feature American climbers or American Companies, so why would the public care?

The scope of all of this is really quite hard to understand.  I cover all aspects of many of these climbs, including those of Apa Sherpa in 2007 and 2008, as well as the recent struggle and death of Inaki Ochoa.  Many of my viewers come from all over the world, with it being almost a 50-50 split between American readers and those from foreign countries.  Perhaps the companies that throw their money to the American climbing community could find a bigger audience, a more productive business, if they would just follow along and treat the international climbing community with the same vigor and thought that they do with the American climbers.  In the United States, our climbers are thought to be the strongest in the world.  If people would just open their eyes, many would get a very different outlook at how these statistics are being played out by the press.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel like supporting our own climbers, especially those that rank in the upper tiers of the climbing community, should be fully supported to continue doing what they do.  On a different note though, how cool would it be to see Apa Sherpa, or a Ueli Steck sporting Nike shoes on the television?  They emphasis the “Just Do It” philosophy perhaps even better than a Micheal Jordon or Labron James.  On top of that, the money would actually be going to those who need it.  People like Apa Sherpa.

Video: Climbing the World’s Tallest Tree

Here’s a pretty cool video of a slightly different aspect of climbing.  Enjoy!

Search for Climber on Washington’s Mt. Baker

A Lynden, Washington climber failed to return from a solo climb yesterday on Washington’s Mt. Baker. Search and Rescue officials have currently restarted their efforts to find the lost climber after having to end their search yesterday. Bad weather and high altitude are both playing havoc with the search team.

The climber, 31 year old Kevin LaFleur, had told friends his intentions of climbing Mt. Baker a day previous. Others in the Mt. Baker vincinity are reporting winds in excess of 50 mph at the 5,200 foot elevation. Searchers were planig on going above 6,800 fet today in efforts to spot possible tracks that may have been left. This attempt may be futile though, as high winds and fresh snow blanket the area.

For more on this, head over to Seattle’s KIRO-TV Channel 7 for further reports.

Next Page »