"Because it's there."

[stickwork]

That's because it was you and me climbing together, my friend.

How was the get together?

 

[Peregrinator]

How was the get together?

It had its ups and downs. Like all such things. It was great to climb with atmas again. It's been years since he and I tied in together.

 

[stickwork]

It had its ups and downs. Like all such things. It was great to climb with atmas again. It's been years since he and I tied in together.

Wish I could have been there.

Had to cancel my ticket.

Too much fear. What with atmas and poag there.

 

[atmas]

Wish I could have been there.

Had to cancel my ticket.

Too much fear. What with atmas and poag there.

I was reasonably well behaved.
She kept trying to drive into other cars or pedestrians she said looked "just like Stickwork."

 

[stickwork]

I was reasonably well behaved.
She kept trying to drive into other cars or pedestrians she said looked "just like Stickwork."

........................................
See.

 

[Peregrinator]

Wish I could have been there.

Had to cancel my ticket.

Too much fear. What with atmas and poag there.

Understandable. Either one of them could be pretty damn scary, but together, well, fuck, ya know?

 

[stickwork]

Understandable. Either one of them could be pretty damn scary, but together, well, fuck, ya know?

Yes.

Not the tag-team idea I'd envisioned when booking.

 

[Peregrinator]

Yes.

Not the tag-team idea I'd envisioned when booking.

I was afraid to get drunk around them. But you know, I persevered.

 

[stickwork]

I was afraid to get drunk around them. But you know, I persevered.

Always the gentleman.

 

[Peregrinator]

Always the gentleman.

True that. A gentleman ensures that there is enough booze at all times.

 

[stickwork]

True that. A gentleman ensures that there is enough booze at all times.

Did I mention "Scholar"?

 

[Peregrinator]

Did I mention "Scholar"?

...ensures there is something to talk about.

 

[glo33]

Wow, those pictures were awesome. It was not difficult at all to take really cool pictures, even if the quality of the climbing we did was not us at our best.
The quality of the great time we had was, however, second to none.

It's hard for non-climbers to appreciate what the climbing team means. That partnership is sacred and high and inviolable. You literally depend for your life on that person more or less constantly. At any time while one member is climbing, the other is holding the rope from a belay device, ready to stop a deadly fall in a split second. That sounds melodramatic, but it is literally factually true, and such a common situation in climbing that we beome decidedly casual about it and do things like drink, eat, smoke, and take pictures while literally protecting the other's life.

That's because it was you and me climbing together, my friend.

you two share such a beautiful friendship.
it is great to see on and off the board.

i love you both.

 

[thør]

K2 kills on the way down......

From adn.com

"An Anchorage climber is missing and feared dead on K2, the world's second largest mountain and perhaps its most dangerous. Witnesses reported seeing Gerard McDonnell, an Irish citizen who adopted Alaska as home about 10 years ago, swept off the mountain Friday when a large piece of ice fell and sliced through fixed ropes on a particularly perilous part of the climb.

At least nine people were confirmed killed and at least five more are missing, according to news reports of the Himalayan disaster.

McDonnell, 37, is an accomplished climber and musician who worked on the North Slope as a computer engineer, friends in Anchorage said Sunday.

He reached the summit of Mount Everest, the world's tallest peak at 29,035 feet, on a 2003 expedition and boasts summits of McKinley, Foraker and other Alaska peaks.

An attempt to scale K2 was thwarted in 2006 when he was hit on the head by a falling rock. He returned this year, and sometime early Friday became the first Irish citizen to reach the top of K2, according to a Web site run by Irish mountaineer and adventurer Pat Falvey.

McDonnell telephoned Annie Starkey, his girlfriend in Anchorage, on his satellite phone while atop the 28,250-foot peak.

Disaster struck on the way down.

According to reports from authorities in Pakistan and climbers on the mountain at the time, McDonnell and several others had reached a treacherous zone called "The Bottleneck," where climbers rely on fixed ropes.

From above The Bottleneck, an avalanche of ice reportedly crashed down, slicing rope as it fell. Climbers anchored to the ropes plummeted. McDonnell is believed to have been one of them, although he is not among the nine whose deaths have been confirmed."

 

[Karen Kraft]

I've heard some climbers say that they have to "carry a beaner" with them. That not only sounds burdensome, but racist as well. Can you explain this to me?

 

[thør]

I've heard some climbers say that they have to "carry a beaner" with them. That not only sounds burdensome, but racist as well. Can you explain this to me?

that's a biner, a carabiner.....
http://www.bentgear.com/images/CAM0006.jpg

 

[Karen Kraft]

that's a biner, a carabiner.....
http://www.bentgear.com/images/CAM0006.jpg

Doh! That explains it. It didn't make much sense the way I figured.

 

[thør]

http://media.adn.com/smedia/2008/08/04/01/362-4k2.standalone.prod_affiliate.7.jpg

"A helicopter plucked two frostbitten Dutch climbers from the world's second-highest mountain today after an avalanche left at least 11 people missing and believed dead.

The helicopter brought Wilco Van Rooijen and Cas Van de Gevel from K-2's base camp to a military hospital in Skardu, the nearest town, said Maj. Farooq Firoz, an army spokesman.

But stranded Italian climber Marco Confortola, also believed to be suffering frostbite, was struggling down the mountain today, still too high for a helicopter rescue, Firoz said.

Thin air generally prevents helos from flying above 19,700 feet. The avalanche struck more than 26,250 feet up the mountain.

K-2, which lies near Pakistan's northern border with China, is regarded by mountaineers as more challenging to conquer than Mount Everest, the world's highest peak. K-2 is steeper, rockier and more prone to sudden, severe weather.

The reported toll from the avalanche was the highest from a single incident on K-2 since at least 1995, when seven climbers perished after being caught in a fierce storm.

Shahzad Qaiser, a top official of Pakistan's Ministry of Tourism, said today that all climbers who had been caught on K-2 during the avalanche were accounted for.

Officials and expedition organizers said about two dozen people, mostly foreigners, in about eight different groups attempted to scale K-2's summit on Friday.

As the mountaineers descended, the avalanche cut ropes used to cross a treacherous gully 1,148 feet below the 28,250-foot summit, said Nazir Sabir of the Alpine Club of Pakistan.

Falling ice apparently swept some of the victims to their deaths and stranded others at a height where they would quickly succumb to exposure and exhaustion.

The Ministry of Tourism released a list of 11 climbers believed dead: three South Koreans, two Nepalis, two Pakistanis and mountaineers from France, Ireland, Serbia and Norway.

At least two of them fell on their way up the mountain, before the avalanche.

Sabir, a veteran Pakistani climber who helped organize one of the expeditions, also put the death toll at 11, including a Nepali sherpa and a Pakistani porter who died while trying to help others after the ice fell.

The two Dutch climbers and the Italian managed to cross the treacherous gully, known as "The Bottleneck." Other climbers met them en route and helped them descend.

Among the survivors were two members of the Korean group who also made it back to the base camp, which lies at about 16,400 feet, an organizer of their expedition said.

Chris Warner, an American who climbed K-2 last year, said the gully was the deadliest place on the mountain, with an unstable ice wall above and a fall of up to 9,000 feet below.

"You can see how, for people who were exhausted, it would have been nearly impossible for them to descend without the ropes," said Warner.

He said hope was fading for anyone still alive and separated from their group. "Once their hands and feet are frozen, they really are unable to move on their own power, and it takes other people to carry them down," he said.

K-2's peak is about 785 feet shorter than Mount Everest's, but is a "phenomenally dangerous mountain," said Alan Arnett, who climbed a nearby peak with at least one of the missing climbers.

Compared with Everest, "it's more technical, it's steeper, the weather is more intense," he said.

About 280 people have summited K-2 since 1954, when it was first conquered by Italians Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedell. Dozens of deaths have been recorded since 1939, most of them occurring during the descent."

 

[Peregrinator]

Thor: Thanks. I'm totally out of touch with the news of the climbing world lately.

Karen: You're adorable.

Getting ready for a big climbing trip is a trip in and of itself. Today we bought almost $900 worth of much-needed gear for our upcoming trip to the Bugaboos. Lady P needed lightweight hiking boots, crampons, and an ice axe. The hikers are actually for the week before the Bugs, when we'll be hiking in and around Jasper. The Bugs are week two, a series of granite spires that soar above a glacier. They're pictured on the cover of this classic, one of the great bibles of mountaineering:

http://media.rei.com/media/703594_9996Lrg.jpg


So we need sufficient gear to traverse a glacier and then climb on alpine granite. That means snow/ice gear for both of us as well as rock gear that will keep us safe up high on possibly insecure and crumbly spots. So I had to upgrade the "rack," the pile of ironmongery we'll be using to attach ourselves to the mountain. Here it is, the rack as it stands, complete with forty of Karen's Mexicans:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v649/Peregrinator/IMG_1908.jpg

I'm heading into this adventure basically "off the couch;" I haven't been climbing much at all for the last several years. This is the kind of place you want to go when you're at peak fitness and skill. Instead, I'm going as a weak slug with low endurance, so we're going to have to climb a lot smarter. The great thing about the Bugaboos is that there are really easy routes up almost all of the spires.

More about glacier travel in a minute.

 

[atmas]

Thor: Thanks. I'm totally out of touch with the news of the climbing world lately.

Karen: You're adorable.

Getting ready for a big climbing trip is a trip in and of itself. Today we bought almost $900 worth of much-needed gear for our upcoming trip to the Bugaboos. Lady P needed lightweight hiking boots, crampons, and an ice axe. The hikers are actually for the week before the Bugs, when we'll be hiking in and around Jasper. The Bugs are week two, a series of granite spires that soar above a glacier. They're pictured on the cover of this classic, one of the great bibles of mountaineering:

http://media.rei.com/media/703594_9996Lrg.jpg


So we need sufficient gear to traverse a glacier and then climb on alpine granite. That means snow/ice gear for both of us as well as rock gear that will keep us safe up high on possibly insecure and crumbly spots. So I had to upgrade the "rack," the pile of ironmongery we'll be using to attach ourselves to the mountain. Here it is, the rack as it stands, complete with forty of Karen's Mexicans:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v649/Peregrinator/IMG_1908.jpg

I'm heading into this adventure basically "off the couch;" I haven't been climbing much at all for the last several years. This is the kind of place you want to go when you're at peak fitness and skill. Instead, I'm going as a weak slug with low endurance, so we're going to have to climb a lot smarter. The great thing about the Bugaboos is that there are really easy routes up almost all of the spires.

More about glacier travel in a minute.

Get down from there you'll kill yourself.

I made a tele connection: a guy I outfitted to climb Rainier next month (and that was a considerable challenge, as it will be a shoulder part of the season) is a big tele dude out east.
And he has a friend who guides the Grand, which I've been off and on talking with a mutual friend of yours and mine about climbing.
Hey.
Do cardio...a lot.

 

[atmas]

And it looks like you have more 'biners than protection, goofball.

 

[Peregrinator]

Glaciers present a whole series of unique difficulties. They look like smooth flat snow for the most part, but they are in fact slowly flowing rivers of ice. As such, they crack, and great yawning crevasses can open up. Okay, fair enough; you just walk around them, right? Well, sure, if you can see them. Sometimes new snow falls and is enough to create a snow bridge across a crack, or completely hide one. Some great, experienced, and extremely skilled climbers have died from sudden falls into crevasses. Most climbers will rope up for travel on a glacier:

http://www.exo.net/~pauld/climbing/aspiring/glaciertravel600.jpeg

And "crevasse rescue" is a two or three day class that could save your life:

http://www.aai.cc/images/programs/crevasse_rescue1.jpg

My glacier skills are a little sketchy, and Lady P's are pretty thin as well. So we're hoping the glaciers at the Bugs are not too hairy. Being cautious climbers, though, we'll back off if they are, and won't do too much there.

Here's a pic of what is probably the most notorious stretch of glacier in the mountaineering world, the Khumbu Icefall on Mt Everest. This was the first serious obstacle on what is now the standard route. Every year Sherpas are paid to create a route through the KI, placing ladders and ropes to make the climbers safe.


http://www.neillaughton.com/laughtonpics/photos/deegan_large.jpg

Other glaciers are far more benign. This is "Kahiltna International Airport," the point of entry for Mt McKinley aka Denali up in Thor's neighborhood:

http://www.alaska.faa.gov/fai/images/COOKSU/KAHGL-a.jpg

 

[glo33]

i am sure you two know what you are doing. but be carefull!
if don't think you are in a good shape for it...do something else!

 

[thesorrow07]

I need to call pOAg again. I feel bad now.

 

[Peregrinator]

Get down from there you'll kill yourself.

I made a tele connection: a guy I outfitted to climb Rainier next month (and that was a considerable challenge, as it will be a shoulder part of the season) is a big tele dude out east.
And he has a friend who guides the Grand, which I've been off and on talking with a mutual friend of yours and mine about climbing.
Hey.
Do cardio...a lot.

Very cool. I need to get out on real tele gear before my knees start feeling fifty years old.

Too late. Leaving on Friday. But there's a week of hiking first, so I should be good to go. Stacked on top of three weeks of carrying a fifty pound combat load everywhere I go.

And it looks like you have more 'biners than protection, goofball.

Yeah, well, each piece requires two biners. But there's a set of hexes (upgraded to wired) most of the tri-cam sizes, a set of Stoppers, and six cams. Should be plenty. Trying to decide if I want to carry a pin or three and a hammer as well.

i am sure you two know what you are doing. but be carefull!
if don't think you are in a good shape for it...do something else!

Uh huh.

I need to call pOAg again. I feel bad now.

What?