Of all the things I saw at Outdoor Retailer while reporting for the trade show's daily paper, the most surprising was the news that a West Vriginia–based team is planning to launch a new climbing magazine this fall. Dead Point Magazine is a glossy bimonthly that will take aim at young climbers, with its first issue slated for October 15. With the tiny climbing market already crowded by four national magazines—Alpinist, Climbing, Rock and Ice, and Urban Climber—and magazine sales generally down, observers must ask: Are these guys smoking crack?
Maybe, maybe not. Dead Point hopes to gain a foothold through free distribution at climbing gyms and retailers, along with a hefty online presence. “We are definitely going after the youth market,” founder Matt Stark told me as we watched the Mammut Bouldering Championships. Stark explained that his magazine would have an “edgy look” and would take more chances with feature stories than the existing magazines do. “We’re not going shy away from risqué articles,” he said. “Our second issue is going to turn some heads.”
The free distribution model hasn't been tried yet by a national climbing magazine, and it makes good sense. Free distribution works by printing many copies and placing them where the target market is likely to pick them up, thus providing a large audience for advertisers. Dead Point will boost its readership by posting each issue online immediately, with hyperlinked ads. The climbing market seems ripe for this approach. The number of climbers visiting gyms each day dwarves the subscriber lists of all four existing magazines combined. For various reasons, these mags have yet to convince more climbers to fork over the ducats for a subscription. In fact, the only time many climbers likely see Rock and Ice or Urban Climber is when they scan the free copies on the couch or in the bathroom of their local gym. Why not target these folks directly?
Dead Point is clearly going after Urban Climber, which also targets the youth audience but charges $4.99 for a single copy or $17.97 for a seven-issue subscription. (Urban Climber is published by New York-based Skram Media, which also publishes Climbing and Climbing.com, one of my employers.) Urban Climber is well-established and appears to be well-liked; the latest editions are packed with ads. For Dead Point to steal this business, it will have to provide superb editorial content as well as mass distribution, because advertisers attach extra value to customers willing to pay for good editorial. Advertisers also must admire a magazine's content and feel good about appearing in its pages. So, while the new magazine's business model is intriguing, we'll have to see the first several issues before getting a better sense of whether the Dead Point will stick.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Publishing Follies
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Problem with Bouldering Comps
I hadn't been to a big-time climbing competition in quite a while, and I was keen to check out the Mammut Bouldering Championships in Salt Lake City, part of the Outdoor Retailer trade show. I've watched many comps since the early 1990s, including World Cups and national championships, and though they have little to do with the climbing I love most—the kind that takes place on cliffs and mountains—I've found the best comps to be heart-pounding, involuntary-screaming exciting.
Despite many, many positives, I thought last Saturday's event in Salt Lake fell short—which is disappointing because these NE2C comps represent the state of the art. At least 1,000 people had crowded onto the roof of a parking garage by the downtown Shilo Inn. There was food and beer; a DJ mixed live tunes. As the sun went down, concert-style lighting played on the four wildly overhanging bouldering structures. The climbers took huge falls and stuck outrageous moves. This was by far the best production of a climbing competition I've seen, and, at least at the start, it had a good festival atmosphere.
Yet the audience was surprisingly unresponsive. They'd cheer a strong move or a new high point, but there was little of the anticipation, the sense of tension, that a good live sport builds in an audience. By midway through the event, the crowd was listless. Despite the action-packed format (up to four climbers performing simultaneously), this had real drawbacks as a spectator sport.
Lead climbing may be boring to watch, but lead competitions are easier to understand than bouldering comps: Generally, whoever gets the highest on the final route wins, and since they send out the best performers last in the finals, the excitement tends to build. In bouldering the placing is determined by scores from multiple problems and attempts, so it's much harder to keep track of what's going on. The five-minute rests between each climber's attempts don't help, making it harder to follow along as the climbers move from one problem to the next. The Salt Lake comp had a live announcer and scoreboards updating the results, but they didn't keep up with the action or make enough sense of the developments for the audience.
Example: As the women's final neared its conclusion, the MC announced that last year's winner, Alex Johnson, needed to flash the final problem to win the comp. Johnson flashed Problem 4, everyone cheered, a couple of news guys (including me) corralled her for interviews. It wasn't until next morning that I learned that, in fact, Alex Puccio had won, because she matched hands on the highest hold she reached on Problem 3 in a single attempt; Johnson had needed two attempts to make this match. But there was no way we in the audience could have known this until long after the event was over. The men's comp was clearer, with Chris Sharma flashing three of the four problems. But Ethan Pringle, starting much later in the running order, also finished three problems. How close was he to Sharma? Was it possible for him to win? Was there a make-or-break moment in his performance? No one told us.
This is very much a friendly criticism, because I happen to think climbing comps are cool, and I want the athletes to get the exposure they deserve. The best comps I've seen have been thrilling, and I wanted this event to be just as exciting, but it wasn't. Climbing may make for rotten TV—most climbing shows are duller than dishwater— but it seems to need TV-style commentary and analysis to make it spectator-friendly. Large, immediately updated scoreboards would help, as would expert live commentary, though both would have to be used in a way that made the standings and the stakes clear.
Maybe for some fans it's enough just to see the sport's best do what they do—not so different from going to a golf tournament or a bike race, where you witness only a fraction of the action in person. But I think bouldering fans deserve more. With all the lights, music, spectacular outdoor setting, and lithe athletes making impossible-looking moves, the Mammut Bouldering Championships had the right ingredients, and the audience in Salt Lake liked what they were seeing. They just had no idea what they were seeing.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Wilderness Retreat
Last Friday I left work early to hike deep into Wild Basin for a climb of Mt. Alice, the striking 13,310-foot peak on the south side of Rocky Mountain National Park. We'd chosen Mt. Alice to escape the oppressive heat that has dogged Colorado's Front Range these Dog Days, and we ended up escaping the oppressive and depressing news from K2 that broke over the weekend. I've thought of writing more about the disaster on K2, but I've never been to Pakistan and I've never attempted a mountain as big and serious as K2. What could I add to the finger-pointing and second-guessing that has begun? 
So, Mt. Alice. Seven miles to a bivy above the Lion Lakes, then a long mile or so to the base of the 1,500-foot east face. A short slip-and-slide up a snowfield, several hundred feet of scrambling, six long pitches, and a hip-hop up teetering talus to the top of this superb peak. The joy of a climb like this lies not so much in the route itself, which was fine but nothing spectacular, but in the isolation and natural beauty of the setting. We shared the route with no one, and the entire glacial basin with just a few other souls. The 10-mile hike back out was painful but quick. As the inevitable public doubts and moralizing erupted over K2, we enjoyed a 24-hour dose of everything that is good about mountaineering.
Monday, August 04, 2008
The K2 Reports
Horrible news this weekend out of K2, where many climbers appear to have died after an avalanche hit the upper slopes while they were descending from a big summit push. A serac fall apparently wiped out the fixed ropes that safeguard a crux passage through the Bottleneck and across a delicate ice traverse at over 8,200 meters. Counting on those lines, many of the climbers had not carried their own rappel ropes, and apparently were not able to descend on their own, though a few managed to downclimb the steep ice and make it to safety, albeit badly frostbitten.
The young American climber Freddie Wilkinson wrote the best early analysis of the accident that I saw on Sunday morning at, of all places, the Huffington Post. Wilkinson provided a useful climber's perspective that stood out among the body-count "reporting" of the mainstream press. In general, the British media also seem to do a better job with stories like this than their American counterparts do, perhaps because of the long mountaineering tradition in the UK.
In my own reporting this morning, I was guided in part by the editorial stance of Explorer's Web, which chastised the media and mountaineers yesterday for racing to report deaths in the mountains. Explorer's Web's Tina Sjogren cited a very personal example to bolster her argument: In 1996, on Mt. Everest, she was in Camp 2 on her way down the mountain after the deadly "Into Thin Air" storm, and she and her partner were reported to have died. It was three days before they could get word out that they were OK. Mountaineering history is full of instances of climbers who were thought to be lost but somehow managed to survive. It certainly doesn't look good for the remaining climbers on K2, but the media, fellow climbers, and Pakistani officials ought to have shown more respect and restraint.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Best of Show: Innovative Gear Awards
I'm headed to Outdoor Retailer in Salt Lake next week to report for the trade show's daily paper. With gear in mind, here's a look at the most innovative new equipment from the European OutDoor show, held two weeks ago in Friedrichshafen, Germany, as chosen by a jury that reviewed 280 new products from 25 different countries. I haven't held a single one of these products in my hands, but they all look intriguing.
Gold Wiglo Tent Concept, by Bergans of Norway. A kind of tepee with a main post in the middle and three additional posts on the sides, providing generous floor area, large entrances, and great stability.
Gold Therm-a-Rest NeoAir from Cascade Designs. Super-light air mattress said to be warmer than any other non-insulated air mattress. Jury said: "Not only unbelievably light and beautifully designed, it is also extremely comfortable and very easy to use."
Silver Smart belay device from Mammut. A lightweight device designed to automatically catch much of the load in a fall, particularly useful for skinny ropes. Jury's opinion: "Smart is dynamic, quick, and simple. A convincing design solution with perfect functionality."
Silver Mamook GTX boot by Mammut. A full-function mountaineering boot weighing just 3.5 pounds a pair.
Silver Exos 46 pack from Osprey. A lightweight but stable backpack. Jury's opinion: "The sophisticated structural design provides excellent wearing comfort."
Silver Steel Blade shovel from Grivel. Super-light snow shovel with a steel edge for icy snow. Jury's opinion: "The shovel has been reinvented: small, light, and multifunctional."
Silver BH1 bolt from Bolt Products in Germany. Twisted steel bolt that "dynamically jams into the hole when pressure is applied to significantly increase its holding power."
Silver Orbit camping lantern from Black Diamond. Super-light, adjustable, pocket-size lantern with big candle power. Jury's opinion: "A good-looking, aesthetic, low-key product."
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Boulder No Longer Center of the Universe
Where is the "epicenter of rock climbing in the United States?" Yosemite Valley? Boulder, Colorado? Smith Rock in Oregon? Nope, it's Dallas, Texas, according to a story in yesterday's Carrollton Leader. Before you choke on your chimichanga, read on. The paper had interviewed Kyle Clinkscales, coach of Team Texas, a competition climbing team based at the Exposure Rock Climbing Gym in Carrollton, a Dallas suburb. Team Texas has won the team title at the U.S. youth nationals for the five of the last six years; eight team members will be traveling to the Youth World Championship in Australia in August, the paper said. So, sure enough, the Dallas area is a serious center of rock climbing achievement, if you count plastic holds as "rock."
In fact, Team Texas's 35 climbers, ranging from 9 to 19 years old, also climb real rock, despite the somewhat limited opportunities near Dallas. “We’re the only team in the country that travels and rock climbs outside," Clinkscales told the paper, with perhaps a touch of hyperbole. According to the Team Texas website, the team has logged more than 150,000 miles in road trips since 1999. They've probably even hit some of those lesser epicenters of U.S. climbing. In any case, you can't argue with success.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Master of Disaster
A backpacker named Brian Quines has started Hiker Hell, a blog that catalogues the myriad outdoor mishaps and tragedies that make it into the news. He has no shortage of material: In the last three days, Hiker Hell has covered a man stuck under a boulder for 16 hours, a missing father and son in Ohio, a hiker rescue in Phoenix, a fallen rock climber in North Carolina, a crevasse fall in the Alps, a rock climber rescue in Australia, a rock-fall death on Mt. Hood, missing hikers found in Colorado, a hiker rescue in Alaska, and a "drunk bastard who got what he deserved when he jumped down a 30-foot waterfall and injured himself." Makes you never want to leave the house.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Friday Morning Time-Waster
A great spoof from the Onion—all too realistic.
Plight Of Missing Hikers Will Make Great Movie
Tip of the hat to Pete Takeda.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Naming Rights
This lovely ice pyramid in the Hindu Raj of Pakistan is the mountain formally known as Peak 5,519m, now called Somerset Ski Club Peak. It received this rather unlovely name when an Italian expedition climbed the mountain last summer and then auctioned the name to the highest bidder: the Sci Club Somerset in Turin, which paid 8,500 euros (around $13,500) for the naming rights. The money will be used to help fund a new aqueduct to supply water to the village of Ghotulti in the Chhantir Valley, not far below the newly named Somerset Ski Club Peak.
Selling the names of mountains to benefit the nearby residents is all well and good. But why stop there? Here's how my quick-thinking boss, John Harlin, responded when I mentioned the naming of Somerset Ski Club Peak: "That could be a great business. Collect big bucks for naming peaks after people's deceased relatives (grieving parents should be easy pickings), companies, schools, clubs, girlfriends (Valentine's presents), chihuahuas, etc, etc. Then spend a month in Kyrgyzstan or Tibet or Yunnan collecting your 100,000 euros per year for doing what you love doing. Unfurl commemorative banners on summits, place pictures of loved ones in cairns, scatter ashes, say a poem, whatever they want. Totally cheesey, and yet a totally cool way to make a living."
Sounds good to me. I'm in.
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