All that stuff about the new Adventure magazine and I forgot to mention the fun last-page photo of Will Gadd climbing an iceberg off the coast of Labrador. Sure, it's a stunt, but it's a cool one! Check out the photo and video clip at Adventure's website or watch the six-minute Discovery Channel piece at the Arc'teryx site. I noticed that Will was using leashless tools on one of the bergs. Brave man—it's one thing to drop a tool at the crag, but out at sea it's goodbye ice tool! I suppose that's what sponsorship is for.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Wednesday Morning Time Waster
What's Left to Do?
Yesterday's rant about the meaning of adventure got me wondering about truly meaningful "firsts" still out there to accomplish. A quick web search yielded a couple of Top Ten lists. This one, compiled in 2002 by Australian mountaineer Greg Mortimer for the Sydney Morning Herald, tilts toward the Southern Hemisphere, but it's a good start:
1. Climbing in the Siachen Glacier region in northern Kashmir, which has the world's greatest concentration of high unclimbed peaks and the largest glaciers in the world outside the polar regions.
2. Circling the globe on the Arctic and Antarctic circles. These are variations on the theme but would represent marvellous adventures.
3. Parachuting from space to Earth. It is possible and it is being seriously considered. The concept involves going to the edge of Earth's atmosphere in a massive helium balloon, then jumping out.
4. Searching for and finding Shackleton's ship Endurance, which was crushed in the ice in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica during the explorer's 1914 expedition.
5. Walking on the moon, in a privately funded, nongovernment expedition.
6. Repeating New Zealander David Lewis's circumnavigation of Antarctica by yacht, as he broke his original journey to return to the warmer latitudes.
7. Walking unsupported from west to east across Australia, as per Jon Muir's south/north crossing.
8. Walking from Commonwealth Bay (Mawson's Hut) in Antarctica to the South Pole.
9. Visiting the deepest trenches of the oceans, such as Mariana Trench.
10. Climbing in the beautiful mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula—this will become the alpine playground of the 21st century.
What else? Only eight of the world's 8,000-meter peaks have been climbed in winter. None of El Cap's main lines has had an onsight free ascent. Literally thousands of unclimbed peaks remain on Earth, especially in the vast reaches of China and Tibet. Huge expanses of winter terrain have never been traversed by skis. Got more ideas? Post a comment.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Adventurer of the Year? Hmmm....
National Geographic Adventure magazine's "Best of Adventure" issue is out, and it names Ed Viesturs as "Adventurer of the Year." Ed's a master at high-altitude moutaineering, and he certainly deserves kudos for bagging all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter peaks safely. (I interviewed him about training for 8,000-meter peaks for an Outside magazine story slated for January). But Viesturs was the 12th climber to polish off the 8,000'ers, not the first. His only claim to fame is being the first American to do it. If that makes you adventurer of the year, then 2005 wasn't a great year for adventure.
Adventure's other climbing and skiing choices were on target: "Elites" included Josune Bereziartu, the only woman in the world who is rock climbing on par with men, and Greg Hill, who last season skied 1 million vertical feet under his own power—no lifts, no choppers. (Think of the last time you climbed a couple of thousand feet on backcountry gear. Felt like a lot, didn't it? Hill climbed more than 10,000 feet on 37 separate days last winter and spring, according to Adventure.) In Adventure's "Iconoclasts" category, Michael Reardon made the list for free soloing Romantic Warrior (multipitch 5.12b) in the Needles and soloing the Palisades Traverse in 22 hours. Now that's adventurous.
It's too bad because Adventure magazine usually gets it right with climbing stories, especially in the last couple of years. This same issue includes a decent reporting job by Dan Duane (marred by a few factual errors) on the Tomaz Humar helicopter rescue in August and its aftermath, and the magazine often features good investigative essays by David Roberts. In mountaineering and skiing alone, Adventure could have chosen from half a dozen other superb exploits this year to find its "Adventurer of the Year." Selecting Viesturs—as accomplished as he may be—only reinforces an unfortunate truth in mainstream journalism: The more famous you are, the more the media love you.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Advanced Road Tripping Solutions
Don't you hate tipping over in the passenger seat when you fall asleep? You know how your head keeps snapping up each time you nod off? Dave Goldstein came up with the solution to this annoying problem during an all-day drive to Arizona: The Passive Head Restraint System for Road Trips. Remember, you saw it here first.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Robo-Climber
News from the Brave New World department: A guy named Anurag Sehgal at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy has written a thesis proposing "A Modular Wearable System of Mountaineering Devices." Sehgal imagines a chest harness that could holster a cell phone, sat phone, GPS unit, altimeter, walkie-talkie, digital camera, avalanche beacon, and PDA or laptop computer, all integrated so they are easy to use while, say, descending the Bottleneck on K2 in a whiteout.
Fingers too frozen to call basecamp? No problem: Your glove acts as a joystick to control all the gizmos. Can't see the next wand in the whiteout? C'mon! You've got a heads-up display mounted on your goggles!
I don't know. I feel like I go to the mountains to escape all the electronic noise that bombards us. But even on the simplest days in the hills I already carry a digital camera, electronically controlled headlamp and altimeter watch, plus a digital avalanche beacon in winter. There have been a couple of times when I really wished I was carrying a cell phone on a climb or ski tour to call home and let my wife know I was OK but going to be late. I laugh a bit at the guys with their walkie-talkies in Eldorado Canyon, but when I'm screaming "off belay!" over a chinook wind I sometimes wish I had a walkie-talkie too. And I've been intrigued to learn that a GPS unit is now standard equipment on certain remote climbs, not just for techno-wankers but even for some of the world's best alpinists. As we add more and more electronics to the pack, the basic point Sehgal makes in his thesis abstract becomes increasingly valid: "Mountaineers currently carry a number of devices, which were never specifically developed for the context. The interfaces, software architecture, ergonomics, storage, wearability and power source on all the devices pose some form of problem to the users." So, who knows? Maybe Anurag Sehgal has seen the future of mountaineering. Just don't expect me to be an early adopter. I spent an hour and a half yesterday just trying to get a new cell phone to work.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Packing for Pakistan
I spent Monday morning at the American Mountaineering Center in Golden, Colorado, where a small crew of American Alpine Club staff and volunteers were starting a two-day push to ship mountains of winter gear and clothing to earthquake victims in Pakistan. The gear was donated by AAC members and a number of outdoor companies; it lined the walls of the center's two large lobbies and a long corridor five to ten feet deep; I think it would have filled my house. Midway through the morning, a UPS truck pulled up and unloaded two dozen more boxes. We just added them to the pile and kept sorting and packing. Six TONS of gear will be shipped to Pakistan today, courtesy of DHL and Pakistan International Airlines. Although there was the usual junk (a pair of flip-flops, a climbing tank top), the majority was at least winter-worthy and quite a lot was expedtiion quality and nearly new. (Bags of clothing unsuitable for winter conditions were donated to Goodwill in the Denver area.) It was a great way to start Thanksgiving week.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
242 Months And Counting
Talk about dedication: In September, Mike Scherer carried skis to a minuscule patch of hard snow in Colorado's Indian Peaks and carved a short series of telemark turns during a sleet storm. Why bother? Because Scherer skis at least once every month, and there aren't many choices in autumn. September was Scherer's 240th month of skiing in a row. That's 20 years. (My story about Scherer's streak is in the December issue of 5280 magazine.) To be sure, it hasn't all been untracked powder and bump runs. The skiing in Colorado often is wretched in late summer and early fall, and some of his outings have been pretty contrived. To keep the streak alive one autumn, Scherer had to tour along a dirt road on about an inch of new snow, with his car's headlights pointing the way. But Colorado has good skiing for eight or nine months of the year. And if nothing else, Scherer says, the streak gets him into the mountains at least once each month. Nothing wrong with that.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Maestri Debate: Case Closed
On November 13, Alessandro Beltrami, Rolando Garibotti and Ermanno Salvaterra completed a new route on the northern flanks of Cerro Torre in Patagonia and, in the process, put to rest a nearly 50-year-old saga of deceit.
In 1959, a team led by Italy's Cesare Maestri claimed the first ascent of Cerro Torre via a line that started on the East Face and finished on the North Face and North Ridge; only Maestri and Toni Egger were said to have summited, and Egger died during the descent. The ascent soon was questioned, and in 1970 Maestri returned to Cerro Torre to bolt his way up the Southeast Ridge and install the infamous Compressor Route, now the standard line up the tower. 
Apparently, plenty of people still believe Maestri climbed the peak in 1959. Check out this photo of a Maestri T-shirt I purchased in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, about five years ago. It says, in part, "Twice on the top of the most difficult mountain in the world."
Garibotti and Salvaterra are two of Patagonia's most experienced and successful climbers; Salvaterra, for example, had already done two new routes on Cerro Torre and made the peak's first winter ascent. Both felt deep personal interest in the truth behind the great tower's first ascent. This year, they made two major assaults on the northern route; they climbed nearly 1,000 meters on the first attempt, and then reached the summit after two days, in alpine style, on their second try. During these climbs they followed Maestri's claimed line for hundreds of meters and crossed it many other times. Their verdict? There was not a single sign of Maestri's presence above a gear cache left in 1959 very low on the East Face, at the base of a prominent snowfield about 300 meters above the glacier. Above this, there was not a single 1959-era piton, rope, sling, rappel anchor or bolt, despite the fact that Maestri said he placed dozens of bolts on the upper face and ridge. The debate is over, folks, if one even remained. Maestri did not climb Cerro Torre in 1959.
Interestingly, as Garibotti points out in a comprehensive analysis of Cerro Torre's first ascent in the 2004 American Alpine Journal, Maestri didn't climb Cerro Torre in 1970 either. (You can read Garibotti's story here.) Although he is often credited with the first ascent via the Compressor Route, Maestri stopped climbing atop the headwall he bolted into submission, about 35 meters below the top; he did not even step out of his aiders onto the icy summit ledges, let alone climb the snow mushroom that caps the peak. Therefore, Garibotti concludes, the first ascent of Cerro Torre was in 1974, when Italians Daniele Chiappa, Mario Conti, Casimiro Ferrari and Pino Negri succeeded via the West Face. "History," Garibotti writes in the AAJ, "has yet to give this ascent its rightful place." Now, perhaps, historians will finally get it right.
Friday, November 18, 2005
Department of Humiliation
So, I was attempting Direct North Buttress in Yosemite with Charlie Sassara, and I was stuck below one of that insecure climb's run-out face sections, four or five pitches up. I kept stepping up from a good foothold, groping at the slippery holds, and then stepping back down for more chalking up and wistful tugging at the bad nut by my knees. After two or three rounds of this, as I lingered on my foothold, a park ranger cruised below Middle Cathedral and briefly touched his siren to make one of those bleats designed to warn pedestrians or scare cyclists into the bushes. Without missing a beat, Charlie looked at me, assumed a PA voice, and said sternly: "Sir! Step away from the ledge!"
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