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.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Boulder No Longer Center of the Universe
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.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
2008 AAJ Off to the Printer
Each year I've worked on the American Alpine Journal, I've vowed that I'll get my sections done earlier—that I'll spread the enormous workload over more months. And each year I and the other editors endure an exhausting push to complete the 500-page book sometime close to our deadline. Now this year's book is finally done—late, as usual—but off to the printers at last.
The AAJ is the Grade VII big wall of climbing and mountaineering publications. Although there are brief moments of excitement and even joy in producing this book, most of the process is just painstaking, seemingly endless labor. And, like those who've never done a big wall, people who haven't worked on projects similar to the AAJ can't really understand what's involved. It's just very, very difficult, in ways that surprise me each year. The sheer volume of work and the weeks of brain-frying attention to minute details are not compensated with anything like a professional salary, given the time invested. Yet I wouldn't trade this work for anything else. For one thing, I get to work with fascinating individuals from around the world—this year, in my sections of the AAJ, I worked with authors from 17 different countries. (How cool is that?) I get to collaborate with an extraordinary team of fellow editors and designers: John Harlin, Kelly Cordes, Lindsay Griffin, Steve Roper, Joe Kelsey, Adele Hammond, and Dan Gambino—a dream team. And there is a great sense of pride that comes from working on a journal that's been continuously published for 79 years and is absolutely unique in the world. Truly, it's a privilege.
Now, pour me a drink. I need one.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Dropsies
I did a nice link-up of seven pitches on Hallett Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park last weekend, but I don't have any pictures. Why? Because I dropped my camera from about 300 feet up the cliff. This is the fourth mini-digital I've lost in about three years: I dropped one in the mud along the Little Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, left one on the roof my rental car as I drove away from Frankenstein in New Hampshire after ice climbing, had one stolen in Spain, and now dropped one off Hallett's northeast face. Years ago I dropped another camera off the Diamond on Longs Peak. The good news is that it's remarkably cheap to replace these cameras. The bad news is I'm a confirmed moron.
Ironically, I was experimenting with a new system for carrying my tiny camera while climbing. This new system cannot be recommended. If anyone has a great method for carrying small cameras—keeping the camera secure and out of the way while leading or following, yet quickly accessible (and secure) for shooting—I'd love to hear about it.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Waste Case
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Hooky on Neva
Paul Gagner and I skipped out of work (he's the president of Sierra Designs) and did a little dawn patrol yesterday—we headed into the Indian Peaks to explore a route I'd been eyeing for a couple of years. I'd been drawn to the elegant spur that seems to split the east face of Mt. Neva, a 12,814-foot peak on the Continental Divide, as seen in this photo from June 2004 from the trail to Arapaho Pass. When we arrived at the base after a two and a half hour walk, we realized the spur was chossier and less defined than I'd hoped, but the 600-foot face just to its right had a narrow strip of solid golden granite. Although a large cornice sat over the face, we were confident it would fall to the left of our line if it broke off. Anyway, it was still early and cool, and we figured we could climb the line quickly before the morning got too warm. And that's what we did.
The route went in four long pitches, with moderate rock climbing broken by pleasant scrambling. Neither of us was wearing climbing shoes, so it's tough to grade the difficulty precisely, but the line we followed was probably 5.6 or 5.7. Many of the difficulties could be skirted by deviating into rubble- or snow-filled gullies, but by staying close to the narrow rib that splits the face we found some lovely face and crack climbing. After topping out via a boulder problem just to the right of the cornice, we plodded up a short steep snowfield to Neva's summit, and then descended via the fourth-class north ridge.
We saw no sign of a prior ascent and I've never read of a route on this face, but it's very unlikely that such a prominent feature would not have been climbed at some point in the popular Indian Peaks. Colorado mountaineers who enjoy moderate alpine-y routes like Sharkstooth or the Spiral Route on Notchtop in Rocky Mountain National Park would love this climb. It's probably at its best in June, when there's still lots of snow around to give it an alpine ambiance and to cover some of the junk left and right of the rib, but it might be a bit safer once that cornice drops off. Either way, this is a climb that deserves attention.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Fewer Climbers = Bigger Fees on Everest
This week China announced that it may limit the number of tourists on and around Mt. Everest next year, ostensibly for environmental reasons. "We need to limit the number of people who want to climb Mt. Everest, who exert a negative impact on the environment," Zhang Yongze, the director of Tibet's Bureau of Environmental Protection, said to China's Xinhua news agency. "We will also need to strengthen management of commercial activities involving (the mountain). We don't want so many visitors to disturb the peak."
The Chinese said they are planning a major clean-up of the Tibetan side of the peak in the first half of 2009, and indeed visitors have said the Tibetan approach to Everest is trashed. But the Chinese share full responsibility: Last year the government completed a paved road to Everest base camp—hardly a way to limit environmental impact. As laudable as a clean-up would be, a more likely explanation for limiting the number of visitors is continuing concnern about adverse publicty at a time of Tibetan unrest. China closed Tibet to mountaineering completely this spring after protests in Tibetan cities erupted into riots in mid-March. Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's flight from Tibet, and Chinese authorities are likely to have Lhasa in a virtual lockdown.
Here's another possible explanation for restricting numbers on Everest: supply and demand. The Chinese may be hoping to raise peak fees again by limiting the number of permits. Currently, peak fees on Everest are much higher on the Nepali side of the mountain, starting at $25,000, with discounts to $10,000 per person for multiple climbers. In Tibet the fee was just $4,900 per person in 2007, the last time the mountain was open. But the fee jumped more than 60 percent that year. If China reopens Everest to mountaineers in 2009, expect smaller numbers to yield much bigger fees.
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