"Because it's there."

[trysail]

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lk1mzxpty31qzjk2xo1_500.jpg

Every one of these looks uncomfortable.

A friend has a pack basket like that and it's surprisingly comfortable. It wears like the early generation internal frame packs. I'll never forget my Snow Leopard:

http://dankohn.info/~trail96/equipment_img/Image10.jpg

I had an even earlier version than this one, and god I loved that thing.

I'll never forget my discovery that there were distinct advantages to a rucksack and distinct disadvantages to a "camper pack on aluminum frame."


It was a boulder field that did it. As you know, one of the objects of a "camper pack on aluminum frame" is to get the center of gravity of the load relatively high. When scrambling about a boulder field, the physics of that relatively high center of gravity has the unfortunate effect of a tendency for inertia to operate and pitch one head over teakettle when a sudden stop is what is required to avoid rather nasty and ungraceful headlong swan dives.


The empirical nature of my illumination provided enormous amusement to my Swiss guide who was more suitably equipped with a traditional rucksack.

 

[thør]

Where is that?

I dunno. Europe, I think. Hi-res photo.

 

[thør]

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqehjkvoGb1qdt1yc.jpg

Don Whillans

 

[Peregrinator]

I'll never forget my discovery that there were distinct advantages to a rucksack and distinct disadvantages to a "camper pack on aluminum frame."


It was a boulder field that did it. As you know, one of the objects of a "camper pack on aluminum frame" is to get the center of gravity of the load relatively high. When scrambling about a boulder field, the physics of that relatively high center of gravity has the unfortunate effect of a tendency for inertia to operate and pitch one head over teakettle when a sudden stop is what is required to avoid rather nasty and ungraceful headlong swan dives.


The empirical nature of my illumination provided enormous amusement to my Swiss guide who was more suitably equipped with a traditional rucksack.

I know of a NOLS instructor who suffered a dislocated knee--not patella, knee joint, a true osteo emergency--for similar reasons. High center+deep tallus hole=bad, bad shit.

I dunno. Europe, I think. Hi-res photo.

Christ, but it has to be the Alps, and it's spectacular.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqehjkvoGb1qdt1yc.jpg

Don Whillans

Don't you wish we could go climbing with him and then sit around a campfire and make him tell stories?

 

[thør]

Don't you wish we could go climbing with him and then sit around a campfire and make him tell stories?

Just don't piss him off.

 

[Peregrinator]

Just don't piss him off.

Yeah, no kidding. Though it was Petzoldt who supposedly stabbed a porter to death...

 

[thør]

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqef5ea7Om1qfqiruo1_400.jpg

Tourist activities......

 

[Peregrinator]

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqef5ea7Om1qfqiruo1_400.jpg

Tourist activities......

Top-roped on a glacier. Whee!

 

[thør]

Top-roped on a glacier. Whee!

Awesome for city folk or farmers.....

 

[Peregrinator]

Awesome for city folk or farmers.....

It's like packaging the very least interesting aspect of mountaineering...

 

[thør]

It's like packaging the very least interesting aspect of mountaineering...

Take a city boy or girl, put crampons on them, put them on the ice, and they'll be talking about it for years.

 

[thør]

Then again, some folk feel different:

"Had a fabulous vacation in Alaska. The only sour note was a glacier trek with MICA Guides. I believe the ice trek has great potential but our experience was not good.
The day of our trek had light rain and it was only my wife and I on the trek. The guide started by telling us the ice was too hard and dangerous for there normal trek route and he would find another trail, so for the next hour we walked on ugly black rock looking at the glacier. Finally I asked when do we get to walk on ice and see something beautiful. So for about a half hour we did walk on the glacier and I can see how this could be a great experience.
By the way- The ice was very soft as this was the middle of August- so much for dangerous. The guide was apparently too lazy to take just 2 people on the normal trek on a rainy day.
To tell us it was dangerous was treating us like fools.
Great potential- You might want another guide service
Frank from Pa "

reviews

 

[Peregrinator]

Take a city boy or girl, put crampons on them, put them on the ice, and they'll be talking about it for years.

Oh, for sure. Been there, done that. I had a student once who told me all about his great climbing adventure--"you know, we used clampons and everything"--before class the first day. I think by the end he felt a little sheepish about telling me about climbing as if he were the only person in the room who knew anything about it. It did make quite an impression on him. I think he had no idea how popular climbing really was...and all this was in Mt Washington Valley, the Chamonix of New England.

 

[Peregrinator]

Then again, some folk feel different:

"Had a fabulous vacation in Alaska. The only sour note was a glacier trek with MICA Guides. I believe the ice trek has great potential but our experience was not good.
The day of our trek had light rain and it was only my wife and I on the trek. The guide started by telling us the ice was too hard and dangerous for there normal trek route and he would find another trail, so for the next hour we walked on ugly black rock looking at the glacier. Finally I asked when do we get to walk on ice and see something beautiful. So for about a half hour we did walk on the glacier and I can see how this could be a great experience.
By the way- The ice was very soft as this was the middle of August- so much for dangerous. The guide was apparently too lazy to take just 2 people on the normal trek on a rainy day.
To tell us it was dangerous was treating us like fools.
Great potential- You might want another guide service
Frank from Pa "

reviews

Ha! Because there's nothing dangerous about soft warm ice...and there are no lazy guides...

 

[thør]

Oh, for sure. Been there, done that. I had a student once who told me all about his great climbing adventure--"you know, we used clampons and everything"--before class the first day. I think by the end he felt a little sheepish about telling me about climbing as if he were the only person in the room who knew anything about it. It did make quite an impression on him. I think he had no idea how popular climbing really was...and all this was in Mt Washington Valley, the Chamonix of New England.

But, it was a great adventure. All is relative.

Ha! Because there's nothing dangerous about soft warm ice...and there are no lazy guides...

Some folk aren't happy unless they are bitching.

 

[Peregrinator]

But, it was a great adventure. All is relative.



Some folk aren't happy unless they are bitching.

Exactly. That's what I told him; "I'm glad you had so much fun with it."

Too true. Tourism seems to bring that out in people.

 

[thør]

Exactly. That's what I told him; "I'm glad you had so much fun with it."

Too true. Tourism seems to bring that out in people.

I like it when people find out about themselves........

Mountains have a way of doing that.......

 

[Peregrinator]

I like it when people find out about themselves........

Mountains have a way of doing that.......

They sure do. There's a reason people are drawn to them like that, and a reason they make such great experiential classrooms.

 

[thør]

The tooth traverse

 

[Peregrinator]

The tooth traverse

What a list of names. Still out there, waiting for the right window and the right combination of talent and style.

 

[Peregrinator]

At more than 28,000 feet, K2 is the second-highest mountain in the world. And when Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner reached its summit this week, she became the first woman to climb all 14 of the world's tallest peaks without using any supplementary oxygen.



http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/08/26/02_img_0953_m.zhumayev_wide.jpg?t=1314366731&s=4
Maxut Zhumayev of Kazakhstan (left), Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner of Germany and Vassiliy Pivtsov of Kazakhstan pose for a photo after reaching the top of K2. Each of the three alpinists now have summited all of Earth's 14 major peaks without using supplementary oxygen.


http://www.npr.org/2011/08/26/139955163/woman-reaches-k2s-summit-and-a-place-in-history

 

[thør]

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1390/5705868/11310500/398268860.jpg

 

[koalabear]

Climber rescued in Rocky Mountain National Park
updated 1 hour 5 minutes ago


ESTES PARK, Colo. — A 29-year-old man has been rescued after he fell while climbing Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Park rangers say they were unable to send a helicopter to transport the man for more than three hours because of weather conditions.

Park officials did not identify the climber, who was flown to a Denver hospital for treatment.

He never lost consciousness and his injuries were not life-threatening.

 

[thør]

Climber rescued in Rocky Mountain National Park
updated 1 hour 5 minutes ago


ESTES PARK, Colo. — A 29-year-old man has been rescued after he fell while climbing Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Park rangers say they were unable to send a helicopter to transport the man for more than three hours because of weather conditions.

Park officials did not identify the climber, who was flown to a Denver hospital for treatment.

He never lost consciousness and his injuries were not life-threatening.

oooooooooooooo

3 hours.....


Really, I hope the guy's okay.

 

[Disgustipated]

In massive Tahitian waves, the most incredible day of surfing ever?


Linkage.

Pretty fucking incredible.

Kelly Slater this week won a major surf competition in large waves at a notoriously treacherous venue in Tahiti. But the buzz around the Billabong Pro still is mostly about what transpired during an off day in the middle of the event, when more than a dozen tow surfers took over in gargantuan surf and participated in what some observers described as the most incredible and intense big-wave session ever recorded.

http://www.surfermag.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/teahupoo-tow-ins/alex_gray_joli_tw15980.jpg