Hillary angered by lack of help for climber
tvnz
5.24.06- Sir Edmund Hillary has spoken out against climbers who ignored a dying British man on Mount Everest.
Up to 40 mountaineers, including New Zealander Mark Inglis, are reported as having passed 34-year-old lone climber David Sharp as he ran out of oxygen near the summit. Sharp had finally reached the summit of Everest after two unsuccessful attempts and was on his way back down when he ran out of oxygen.
Double amputee Inglis has defended his climbing team against the criticism that it should have stopped its ascent to help the dying British climber. He told TVNZ's Close Up programme the climber did not have oxygen or proper gloves.
"I was like what do we do...we couldn't do anything."
Inglis said it is a "fair point" that he should have helped the man but that at 8,500 metres it is extremely difficult to keep yourself alive, let alone anyone else.
"On that morning over 40 people went past this young Briton, I was the first... radioed and Russ said 'look mate you can't do anything... he's been there x number of hours, been there without oxygen, he's effectively dead,' so we carried on," he said.
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7 Summits: Everest Acclimatizing
Russian Team Ready to Head to BC
by Alex Abramov
Mountain Zone
Nyalam, Tibet 4.18.06- Yesterday, 16th of April, we have celebrated the Easter of the Western world. We ate at breakfast cooked eggs. A part of group, that stayed in hotel Snow Land, has bragged of night adventures. At night a monkey has occupied a toilet, terribly showing canines and loudly growling. Nyalam - a surprising place: here on streets - dogs, monkeys, yaks, children in a tatter. The poor houses, the water drain in general is absent, or the pipe from a house comes to an end in 2 meters from a wall. Thus there are excellent internet-cafes equipped with the newest computers, headphones, webcameras.
At 11.30 we have left Nyalam and directed to the true Tibet, to Xegar. In one hour we have passed fivethousands pass, with spectacular view on Xixa Pangma. Through a pair of hours we have stopped in Old Tingri for lunch. After lunch we have bought bananas - unexpected luxury found in nearest shop. After we fed cows and yaks with rinds from bananas.
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Pigeon Spire Winter Ascent
by Dougald MacDonald
posted 3.22.06- Sean Isaac and Marc Piché made the first winter ascent of Pigeon Spire in the Bugaboos via its north face. The two flew by helicopter to just outside the park boundary on the Bugaboos’ west side, then skied over the Pigeon-Howser col to the base of their line: the 1948 Beckey-Hieb-Widrig route. Although this wet, mossy gully is seldom, if ever, repeated during the busy summer season, the two Canadians hoped it would offer good alpine mixed climbing in winter.
After a frigid snow-cave bivouac, the two started up the north face on March 12 in subzero (F) temps and climbed the route in eight pitches (up to M6). They found steep snow, thin ice, dry tooling and some rope tricks near the summit, topped out at 5 p.m., and rappelled to their bivy. The next day they skied out to the road. According to Isaac, this is only the fifth winter route to be climbed in the Bugaboos—Snowpatch Spire was climbed in 1975, South Howser Tower in 1981, Bugaboo Spire in 1985 and a second route on Snowpatch in 1999.
Expedition Watch
C2ore.com
posted 3.22.06- Curious about where top climbers are headed this summer? Here’s a short list of interesting expeditions planned by well-known North American and British alpinists. Note: The list is drawn from public sources; some plans may have changed.
• Kenton Cool, Ian Parnell and John Varco will attempt mighty Gasherbrum IV this summer. The trio aims to repeat the Robert Schauer-Voytek Kurtyka line on the West Face and finish it to the top of the 7,925-meter peak.
• Kelly Cordes and Josh Wharton, who climbed an enormous new route on Great Trango Tower in 2004, will return to Pakistan to attempt the fantastic 5,000-foot north ridge of Shingu Charpa.
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Explore and Hike (and Climb) the San Andreas Fault
New Book From USGS and NPS
by Stephanie J. Hanna
Outdoor Newswire
Reston, VA 4.17.06- When Dr. Philip W. Stoffer, geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, Calif., learned he had cancer of the lymph system in 2004, he was not sure if he was going to live. The statistics for survivors were grim. He knew he had to do whatever he could to try to survive.
For four months during that summer, Stoffer underwent rounds of chemotherapy and a stem cell implant while in isolation at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. At the same time, he authored a first draft of, Where's the San Andreas Fault? A Guidebook To Tracing the Fault On Public Lands In the San Francisco Bay Region, which is being unveiled today by USGS and the National Park Service (NPS). The book features more than 50 destinations along the 800-mile fault featured in the guidebook, including 20 different hiking trips in national and local parks. Stoffer wrote the field guide to encourage people to live life—not just through maps, books, television, or the Web—but in person.
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Mammut Bouldering Championships
by Dougald MacDonald
Climbing Magazine
3.29.06- Daniel Woods and Lizzy Asher won the third and final stop of the Mammut Bouldering Championships, March 24-25 at the New Jersey Rock Gym. Woods flashed three of the five final problems in the Gravity Brawl for his second victory in the East Coast tour, which had earlier stops at Earth Treks in Maryland and Metro Rock in Massachusetts. Asher, who flashed all five final problems, also won two of the three comps in the tour.
With a second-place finish and two third-place results in the tour, Sasha DiGiulian was named women’s series champion. Vasya Vorotnikov, with fifth-, first-, and fourth-place finishes, was the men’s series champion.
To see video from the 2005 New Jersey Rock Gym Gravity Brawl, visit
http://www.boulderingcomps.com/
gravityvideo05.html.
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World Cup Bouldering Kicks Off
by Dougald MacDonald
posted 3.22.06- The 2005 runners-up in World Cup bouldering came out firing on opening day this season, as France’s Jérôme Meyer and Russia’s Olga Bibik dominated the year’s first comp in Birmingham, England. Meyer bested Austria’s Kilian Fischhuber, last year’s champion, in the first of six World Cup bouldering competitions, while Bibik topped a women’s field that was missing last year’s champ, Frenchwoman Sandrine Levet.
In what may be a first for international competition climbing, the entire comp was narrowcast live on the Internet on www.247.tv, in cooperation with the British Mountaineering Council. The sound and picture (3” x 4”) occasionally had the herky-jerky quality of early 1970s moon-landing video, but with split-screen action, instant replays and decent commentary, the coverage offered a unique opportunity to watch World Cup action from thousands of miles away. DVDs of the comp are available by emailing office@thebmc.co.uk.
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