Haven't seen this in a while! I ran up the Third Flatiron this evening with Kelly Cordes, who was celebrating a clean bill of health from his doc after knee surgery. While we were rapping off the back, we both heard a burst of laughter from the top. We were coiling the rope at the base when a young guy who had just downclimbed the descent route ran by us wearing nothing but shoes and a chalk bag. I'm not saying I looked closely, but it was awfully cold in the shadows below the cliff and I'll bet he didn't have to worry about excess flappage as he ran down the trail.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Warm Coats for Pakistan
The American Alpine Club is leading a coat drive for victims of the earthquake in Pakistan and Kashmir, which has killed more than 50,000 people and left millions homeless, just as winter is approaching. Climbers and skiers almost always have extra coats lying around that seldom get used—here's how you can do something useful with them. Send your surplus fleece and down to the American Alpine Club, 710 10th St., Suite 100, Golden, CO 80401. The AAC will bundle the coats for shipment to Pakistan, where the Alpine Club of Pakistan will ensure they reach needy people in the mountains. The AAC also has established a Pakistan Relief Fund, which already has raised thousands of dollars for aid to mountain villages. Make a contribution online at the AAC website.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Mt. Taylor Photoshop Practice
I just got Photoshop Elements and have begun learning to use it—hence this route line. This is the East Face of Mt. Taylor in Rocky Mountain National Park in late winter of 2004. Greg Sievers and I climbed this line in early April that year. It's pretty big: It took us eight stretcher pitches plus a shorter crux pitch through the summit headwall. Very poor snow conditions (deep and warm); we really shouldn't have been up there. Minimal ice and some sketchy mixed climbing. The approach took two hours longer than expected, we didn't top out until around 10 p.m., and the ski out through disintegrating snow with a malfunctioning headlamp nearly broke my will. All in all, it took us nearly 23 hours car-to-car. This face doesn't get many ascents, but in the right conditions it would be magnificent—certainly one of the biggest and most "alpine" mixed faces in the southern Rockies.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Dawson Enters Skiing Hall of Fame
Lou Dawson was inducted into the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame last Saturday night—the first honoree in the hall of fame's 28-year history whose accomplishments were primarily in ski mountaineering. Dawson was the first and only person to ski all 54 of Colorado's fourteeners, a quest that took him 14 years to complete. He also wrote the best guidebooks to the fourteeners and an inspiring volume of ski-mountaineering history called "Wild Snow." Of personal interest to me, he publishes the web site wildsnow.com, which is packed with useful information and opinion on backcountry skiing, gear, global warming, you name it—and which was the insipriation for the blog you're reading now.
I wrote a short profile of Dawson that will appear in the December issue of 5280. Congratulations, Lou!
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Swell Hiking
Just got back from a few days of canyon hiking in the San Rafael Swell—so beautiful and yet almost empty compared to nearby Moab. We did the classic Little Wild Horse Canyon-Bell Canyon loop, with 8 miles of fantastic and varied scenery and some good bouldering to climb past pools left by a recent flash flood. Some moron(s) had scrawled names and other gibberish in the sandstone walls—even big arrows pointing up or down the canyon—every few hundred yards for much of Little Wild Horse, nearly sending me into apoplectic seizures.
A day later we hiked into towering Black Dragon Wash, where some cretin who failed second-grade art class had scratched an outline around the large, pale-red pictographs on the canyon's Navajo sandstone walls. What is with these people? I get so saddened by the thought that these mysterious images, which have lasted untouched for centuries, can't survive a decade or two of modern "adventure" tourism. I wonder if any Anasazi or Fremont images will remain unscarred in another decade or two.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Going to Banff
Well, how about that: Just got word that my book on Longs Peak is a finalist at the Banff Mountain Book Festival. I've never been to the Banff book and film festivals—I've never even been to Banff—so I think I'll use this as an excuse to go check it out. And I'll pack my ice gear to check out the early-season ice.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Makalu Solo in Winter
It's fantastic to see Jean Christophe Lafaille headed to Makalu to attempt its first winter ascent, and even more exciting to see him try it as a true solo, without teammates, Sherpas, or even basecamp support beyond a single cook. Makalu has been soloed several times, but it's increasingly difficult to find yourself alone on any 8,000-meter peak these days. By going in winter and eschewing any support on the mountain, Lafaille is playing the game at its highest level. He soloed Shishapangma in similar style last year but summited on December 11, before the start of calendar winter, and then made the mistake of claiming the peak's first winter ascent, a claim most observers disputed. (An Italian-Polish duo then made a calendar-winter ascent of Shishapangma in January.) Lafaille will put his experience on Shish to good use on the world's fifth-highest peak, and he has scheduled his attempt so it will take place after December 21. One must wish him, "Bon voyage et bonne chance!"
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Caldwell on Burke
In light of Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden's free ascent of the Nose on El Capitan, there's been lots of internet chatter about whether this is the second, third, fourth, fifth, or whatever free ascent of the route. Here's the history:
1993: Lynn Hill. First free ascent, four days, traded leads but led the hardest pitches.
1994: Lynn Hill. Free ascent in 23 hours, leading every pitch, 3 falls on Changing Corners pitch.
1998: Scott Burke. Led every pitch free over 12 days except for the Great Roof, which he toproped free as storms threatened to end the climb.
2005: Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden. Each climber led or followed every pitch free over four days.
2005: Tommy Caldwell. Free ascent in 12 hours, leading every pitch, 1 fall on Changing Corners pitch.
So, did Scott Burke free the Nose? Did Beth Rodden? Neither led every pitch free, which is the "Euro standard" popularized in Yosemite by the Huber brothers. By that standard, Lynn's FFA shouldn't count nor should Tommy's climb with Beth, because they didn't lead every pitch. And don't count Skinner and Piana's free ascent of the Salathe, the 1988 climb that opened the door to modern El Cap free climbing. In fact, don't count the Hubers' early El Cap free climbs—they swung leads on El Niño, for example. By this standard, only Lynn and Tommy's one-day ascents of the Nose really count. Come on! When it comes to big-wall free climbing, you have to respect the great tradition and technique of swinging leads, which has been used for generations to pioneer big free climbs. And if you accept this standard, then what's the difference between Burke following the Great Roof on toprope and Caldwell following Beth's lead of the Great Roof? Essentially none.
Not convinced? Here's what Caldwell had to say about Scott Burke's climb a couple of weeks before he and Beth climbed the Nose: "I give him credit. I feel people should be able to do what they want up there, as long as they report honestly, which he did.... There’s so many variations of what people count as a free ascent, in terms of stance to stance or ledge to ledge or in a push or one person or two—there’s a bazillion different variations. There’s no way you can police that and say what’s legitimate, I don’t think."
Tommy and Beth are headed back up on the Nose next week for a photo session with Corey Rich. I'm looking forward to seeing those shots in Climbing #245.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
A Walk in the Park
I hiked up to Chasm Lake below Longs Peak's East Face this morning, hoping to find some ice. Not much there. My camera is in for repairs, unfortunately, but here's the verbal report. The Smear of Fear is probably 50 to 75 feet or so from being climbable by the 5.10 rock start. Alexander's Chimney was climbed a couple of days ago, but it looks very, very thin. Martha is nonexistent. There's nothing visible on Meeker. There are some mixed lines forming on Ship's Prow, but they seem a ways off, and there's decent slabby ice above Peacock Pool, so I guess if you were desperate....
I started up the Flying Dutchman, a nice snow gully that sort of parallels Lamb's Slide, with a short wall of ice near the top. But I had some problems with my crampons. I bought La Sportiva Trango S Evo GTX boots this summer, and although I've only hiked and scrambled in them so far, I think they're fantastic. (I'll do a real review once I've done more climbing.) However, the boots have no welt for a toe bail, so they require so-called "new-matic" or "semi-automatic" crampons, and most of my crampons are full step-in, with toe and heel bails. For today, I thought, I could just use my old SMC strap-on crampons. Although they have obvious disadvantages (the straps are fiddly and can make your feet cold), they also are very light and never ball up with snow. They seemed to fit well on my new boots when I adjusted them at home, but as I started plunging up the unconsolidated snow at the base of the route, I discovered a real problem: The heels of my new boots are so narrow that they eventually worked backwards past the heel posts on the crampons, loosening the crampon in front. I tried tightening the straps a couple of times, but the setup was so dangerous that I eventually bailed. (Just as well: Some wind slab had formed in the gully.) Most crampons now come with a heel bail or a strap/cup assembly , but if you're buying modern boots with narrow heels, double-check to make sure they fit securely in your old crampons as well as on your feet.
I noticed on SMC's website that these crampons (still in production, 26 years after I bought mine!) now come with a stainless-steel heel wire to prevent just the problem I'm describing. This would be an easy retrofit, but I'm going to spring for some modern crampons!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
