Trash Talk

June 24th, 2011
Mt. Everest Base Camp

Nearly 18,000 pounds.  That’s how much trash a team of 29 Nepali mountaineers brought down from Mount Everest this spring in a ground-breaking expedition.  According to the International Business Times, the group collected oxygen cylinders, tents, climbing gear and helicopter parts with the help of 75 yaks and 76 porters.   The trash on Everest has been an ongoing problem for years.  In 1990, the International Peace Climb, with local climber Wayne Baughman, was on the mountain in a monumental trash-collection project. At that time, the Nepal Mountaineering Association determined the mountain held about 60 tons of garbage.  The IB Times reports that it’s now thought that 120 tons of trash are left behind each year by climbers.

– Deb Acord

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Little Blue Climbing Pill?

May 12th, 2011

May is the busy season on Mount Everest, with nearly three dozen expeditions on the mountain right now.

There are hang gliders, paragliders, speed climbers, fund-raisers, and one group from the UK that is experimenting with the little blue pill.

For years, doctors have touted the benefits of Viagra for climbers. According to David Hempleman-Adams, leader of the Iceland Everest 2011 expedition, his team is experimenting with the drug and members hope it allows them to take in more oxygen at a higher altitude because of its ability to expand the blood vessels in their lungs (the same reason it helps with sexual dysfunction).

Go ahead…. You know you want to say it:  This is going to be one long, hard climb.

Deb Acord

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Taking a Big Fall from a Mountain

February 11th, 2011

A couple weeks ago Adam Potter, 35, was climbing near the summit of the 3,600-foot Sguss Choinnich Mor on the west coast of Scotland. He realized that he needed to get his ice axe out of his pack and to put his crampons on. Before he got them on he slipped and started sliding down the mountain.

He ended up 1,000 feet down the mountain. It wasn’t one big drop and he was sliding down the face much of the time but he took a few 100 foot drops.

Miraculously he survived and didn’t suffer any serious injuries. He had several bruises, cuts and scrapes and a minor chest injury. He was rescued by a Navy helicopter that was in the area.

Adam Potter gives a few more details of his harrowing ride in the this video. There’s also an article on MSNBC.

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Death on Little Bear Peak

June 18th, 2010

Little Bear Hourglass

A young man died from a fall on 14,037 foot Little Bear Peak in southern Colorado on Tuesday. It has brought up many emotions in me. Obviously it’s a sad accident but it also brings up memories of pushing my limits when I was young.

18 year old Kevin Hayne and his friend, 17 year old Travis, were climbing Little Bear Peak, which is one of the toughest fourteeners in Colorado. In fact the 14ers route page, says “This loose, dangerous route is probably the most difficult standard 14er route.” I did a few of the 14ers by non-standard, technical routes but of the standard routes I was on, I’d agree it was the toughest. (I finished climbing the 14ers in 1995, Little Bear was my 51st)

They were near the summit at a section called the Hourglass. Travis wrote on 14ers.com that “The hourglass was completely iced over and was unpassible, we decided to take a ledge on the left side of the hourglass and decided to wait and see if the sun would help melt anything out. 30 seconds after this decision was made, Kevin’s hand/foothold (i could not see all of him) broke lose and he fell several hundred yards down the mountain.”

Travis climbed down to Kevin. It appeared both arms were broken, he was breathing heavily and wasn’t responsive. Travis couldn’t get either of their Spot GPS Tracker to send an emergency signal. After 30 minutes, he made the correct decision and headed down the mountain to alert Search and Rescue.

Rescuers started in on foot. Meanwhile a military helicopter flew in and located Kevin. It’s not clear exactly what happened but it seems it may have it it’s tail rotor into the mountain and crash landed 2,000 feet lower. Fortunately no one in the helicopter as injured and some rescuers climbed to Kevin but it was too late.

My prayers are with his family and friends. I really feel for Travis. I can’t imagine how he feels after seeing it happen.

Last year Kevin had a close call on the Maroon Bells when he and a different friend got caught in a thunderstorm. They tried going down a couloir and Kevin slipped. They didn’t have ice axes which would be a necessity to go down a frozen couloir. His friend went back and Kevin was rescued after using his Spot GPS Tracker. They made a video that tells the chilling story in detail. The thread on 14ers.com mentions he also had another close call 2 weeks after the Maroon Bell one.

It appears Kevin had summited 33 of the 53 fourteeners. By the standard route, none of the fourteeners require technical rock climbing but some like Little Bear are rated Class 4 which is considered rock scrambling. Some people do use rope on Class 4 fourteeners because of long distance you can fall.

After watching the video about the Maroon Bells rescue, I have my doubts that he had the training and the skills to be climbing the toughest fourteeners at least with snow on them. On Maroon Bells he wasn’t carrying an ice axe. I nearly always took an ice axe except on easy peaks late in the summer.

I climbed Little Bear on the July 4th weekend and found the Hourglass tricky even with an ice axe and almost wished I had crampons with me. Photos from a trip report from the day before show slightly more snow than when I was on it.

Of course carrying an ice axe doesn’t do any good if you don’t know how to use it. My brother and I spent a day with a local guide on Pikes Peak doing roped climbing in snow and ice and also did another day of roped rock climbing training. We also did a day of training on a glacier in Alaska with a guide. My brother was 6 years older than me and also made me practice ice axe self arrests when we were on snow were we wouldn’t go too far if we didn’t get right.

If it wasn’t for my brother, I probably would have been out climbing mountains without any special training. I even thought that if I did fall on snow and ice I wouldn’t remember what to do.

I ended up falling from a rock pinnacle trying to reach the summit of a peak in Alaska. I don’t think the fall was much over 10 feet but was onto steep, frozen snow.

I want to encourage people to get out and enjoy the mountains. If you have any doubts though that your skills aren’t good enough to do something, don’t do it. Ask you local outdoor shop about guides or groups that offer classes and training so that you’re safe on your adventures.

UltraRob

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Action on Everest

May 24th, 2010
Everest, Lhotse and Nipse viewed from the Pumori base camp
Everest, Lhotse and Nipse viewed from the Pumori base camp
Photo courtesy of International Mountain Guides. Dave Hahn is a guide for IMG

As the wind buffets the Colorado Front Range today, it makes me think about Mount Everest and its legendary jet stream. 

This is the climbing season on the world’s highest peak. According to everestnews.com, there have been 401 summits and two deaths as of Sunday. On Saturday, Jordan Romero, 13, became the youngest person to reach the summit. Romero, from California, has now climbed six of the world’s seven summits – the highest peaks on each of the world’s continents.  He started with Mount Kilimanjaro when he was nine.

If the weather holds, more history will be made today.  Dave Hahn is climbing toward his 12th summit of Everest. At 11 summits, he already held the record for more summits than any other non-Sherpa climber.

Hahn is guiding Leif Whittaker, 25, the son of Jim Whittaker, who was the first American to climb Everest in 1963. 

He’s posting written and audio reports from the mountain. Read and listen to his comments via satellite phone on www.greatoutdoors.com

Hahn is one of the most respected mountain guides in the world, and he has spent much of his life on the world’s tallest peak. And he is continually asked why he keeps returning.

I remember reading his list of “Top 10 Good Reasons to Climb Everest” posted several years ago on mountainzone.com

 1. What else are you going to do with your life? It’s only life, after all.

 2. Because it’s still there.

 3. Can’t beat the food.

 4. It is hard as heck and the outcome is uncertain.

 5. Everest is a beautiful and aesthetic peak.

 6. Everest is higher than any other mountain.

 7. ???

 8. —

 9. !!!

 10. OK, so we occasionally run out of good reasons to climb Everest. 

Deb Acord

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Celebrating Women Mountaineers

May 4th, 2010
Woman\'s Place is On Top T-Shirt

Ladies, it’s time to schedule a trip to the American Mountaineering Museum in Golden, CO. May is women’s month there, and the museum is celebrating great women mountaineers with a buy one-get one museum and event admission for women. Also, Moms get in free on Mother’s Day.

The museum is featuring a special deal on the T-shirt that commemorated the 1978 all-women expedition team on Annapurna.  “A Woman’s Place is On Top” was the theme for the expedition led by Arlene Blum.  The group was the first all-woman team to summit.  Blum wrote about her life and that historic summit in her 2005 memoir “Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life.”

For more information on the American Mountaineering Museum, including directions, go to www.mountaineeringmuseum.org

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Cleaning Up the World’s Highest Mountain

April 21st, 2010

Mount Everest’s fabled “death zone” will soon be a cleaner place. A team of Nepali mountaineers left Kathmandu Tuesday with plans to clear tons of rubbish from the peak’s highest camp.

The climbers, lead by Mangyal Sherpa, will climb to 26,246 feet and will also remove the bodies of dead climbers, reported The Guardian on Monday Expedition members will use special bags to collect the bodies before lowering them down the mountain and carrying them to base camp. They plan on retrieving five bodies, including the body of a Swiss climber who died on the mountain in 2008. Mangyla says much of the trash is decades old, and has only become visible as the snow has melted due to global warming.

Deb Acord

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