A noncomformist from Oregon (John Atherton 1963)

These past few weeks climbers that follow the news (whom are distinct from climbers that only climb, don’t follow the news and live out of a van) have been exposed to more headlines about Jason Kurk and Hayden Kennedy’s bolt chopping incident on Cerro Torre’s Compressor Route than on any other single subject. In fact, there has been so much chatter, figuring out where people stood on the issue became the most interesting point and to that end Patagonia mountain guide Rolando Garibotti collected leaders’ positions and quotes for Alpinist.com.

Except in the guiding space, like the American Mountain Guide Association, or competition-climbing world, there are few official standards in climbing. Equipment is built to exacting requirements for the good of the climber’s safety as they push the envelope — even if the limits are merely their own.

The standards we have are really a subjective set of ethics and style and in that vastness there is a lot of room for variances and dissent. I think that’s part of the appeal of climbing. We’re free to repeat routes and others accomplishments, explore lines previously untouched, and climb to the summit or just the ridge and call it a victory either way. They may not land in the pages of Climbing or the American Alpine Journal, but that’s okay for some of us.

But in that freedom come room for sincere controversy. We can argue about a lot of things. What is a first ascent? Was that really a new route or just a variation? Did they really climb unsupported? Or, in Kruk’s and Kennedy’s case, was it ethical and acceptable to remove the bolts on the Compressor Route?

The climbing culture is mainly a group tolerant of many things so long as it doesn’t interfere with the way they climb. There are anecdotes from expedition basecamps (one springs to mind of the 1996 Everest season I read about) where discussions of politics risked coming to blows and yet they climbed the next day tied to the same rope.

Until the AMGA or the International Federation of Mountain Guide Associations establishes some regulating body for terms and behavior, we won’t have clear answers. And that is wonderful! I would encourage them not to anytime soon. There is a great appeal to leaving the world of climbing style and ethics to human subjectivity. It’s a wilderness of our own making. Establishing rules should only happen out of a desperate situation stemming from anarchic danger. For now, climbing is exiting, controversial and dangerous enough.

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The field of outdoors recreation spans a spectrum that covers, surprisingly, diverse audiences. Both camping and fashion styles ranges from traditional “roughing it” to the highly sophisticated. The hardcore roughing it parts I embrace. Then there is the outdoor inspired fashions that are really only meant to be worn apres ski, for the most part.

As for camping, almost everyone has a different idea of what it is. A few years ago, a friend of mine, originally from Texas and drives a big diesel pickup, suggested he and I go camping in Shenandoah. He wanted to make a fire and cook our dinner while enjoying some beers outdoors. Sounded good to me. Our differences surfaced when we humped packs and carried a cooler three miles down a trail to land where campfires were permitted. He was cursing me the next day and we never went camping together again. He would have been fine pulling off the side of the road at some formal campgrounds. To me, that is not camping.

Then there is glamping. I don’t like this artificial conjunction, but the idea isn’t detestable. Glam or glamorous camping, is somewhere between the Four Seasons and my Shenandoah trip. Edelweiss would go for this! It’s actually an old aristocratic form of camping. If you think about an old African safari movie where the explorers have a big tent, a real bed, often rocking chairs and a full-sized porcelain bathtub within a tent, then that’s pretty close.

While glam camping is trendy now, some great explorers embraced it with panache. The great mountain explorer Luigi Amedeo, the Italian Duke of Abruzzi, brought a brass bed with him to Alaska when he lead an expedition to Mount St. Elias. However, he did have his practical limitations: Realizing the bed would be a hassle for porters to move at high altitude during his explorations in the Karakorum, he left it behind.

I like to think that we all seek the outdoors for the same reasons, and generally speaking, it’s essentially this: We want to see the world differently. But camping, in most forms is partly there to engage us more with the environment, whether its through Whistler’s porch facing Blackcomb mountain as opposed to our urban balcony back home, or tent walls to the Maine forest compared to the shared walls of our apartments. Taking it to another level, it’s about deprivation; only by separating ourselves from the luxuries from the world we are comfortable do we properly experience wilderness. It can be experienced at varying levels, depending on the level of separation from the world we know. As Andrew Skurka said during his 7,000-plus mile, bare-bones hike around Alaska and the Yukon, he felt the world he left behind was inconsequential to him and that he had more in common with the caribou during his trek.

Glamping is not everyone’s preference, but it is somebody’s comfort zone and I suppose that it’s a good bridge to bring the natural world a bit closer to them. Designers of all kinds have taken the adventurous and often romantic angle of the outdoors experience and tried to bring it into our world of urban and suburban luxuries. Eddie Bauer and the The North Face are my favorite examples — at least in the fashion area, but home stores like Crate and Barrel use the outdoors as inspiration too.

And then there’s this…

Teva stilettos from 2010. I think Evolv might unveil their version in fashionable Lake Placid this year.

Those that favor “roughing it” to get the wilderness experience balk at how Teva has made a stiletto version of the popular — and ultra reliable — sport sandal a couple of years ago. The original Teva was made for white water rafting, and people — like my father — have hiked significant trails in them. Now, you can wear them clubbing too, evidently.

I love art and I recognize the inspiration for these women’s shoes. They are, in some ways a tribute, to the Teva quality and a salute to the rugged ways. Hardcore hikers and climbers can’t usually surmount this idea, partly because the highly fashionable wearers usually balk at them for their chosen, grungy ways. Despite their different ways, my Texan, roughing-it buddy would definitely appreciate the wearer’s fine taste in the high heel salute to the wilderness and would honor her in return by asking for her number, thus transcending the cultural differences.

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At long last, I obtained my copy of Mountain, a hefty collection of images from the mountain world by Sandy Hill. I ordered it with the Barnes and Noble gift card from my parents after Christmas; it just arrived on Wednesday.

It’s an amazing coffee table book, both in size and scope. It includes work from Ansel Adams, Victorio Sella, Bradford Washburn and many others, some of which has never been published previously.

Paging through it is quite different than going through my latest issue of Climbing (which I am really getting a lot out of) or reading whatever climbing story, history or guidebook I have listed on my Recommended Reading page. It’s not like going on the Internet and searching page after page for images or Gasherbrum IV or Pangbuk Ri.

It’s a rather peaceful experience, just you and the mountain, one image at a time. In that calm, memories of thoughts, ideas and daydreams from when I was just entering high school return. They’re from when I sat in my aunt’s and uncle’s home during Thanksgiving break paging through an old coffee table book of Asia, including the Himalaya and Karakorum. I was thinking about setting out to be a mountaineer and explorer before I knew what that meant.

With Mountain, like the old Asia book before, it pulls at my restless qualities. As the ideas and thoughts of the climb surface I can’t help but just look. So here I encourage you to go buy it. It supports the American Alpine Club — and association dedicated to fostering climbing and supporting inspiring climbs. And then go climb where you dream about.

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An avalanche on Nanga Parbat down it's Diamir Face in milder weather (dreamX 2006)

A long time ago I claimed once or twice that climbing wasn’t competitive. That idea was one of the appealing parts of the sport. I mean sport in terms of it being an athletic activity but not necessary organized like baseball or hockey. (It’s also worth pointing out that it being a sport doesn’t preclude it from offering a wilderness or spiritual experience). I now know better.

Climbing, other than organized competitions like those at SportRock in the Washington, DC area or the ice climbing games at Ouray, Colorado, more about self challenge and measuring those personal bests against other climbers through tales in guidebooks, and word or mouth, but only if that matters to us. There are many that climb for themselves and don’t care how they rate against others’ performances.

Still, climbing is in fact a subjective contest of firsts — most notably in alpine mountaineering. If you do care about the ratings, the ones that really matter for the history books and to be included in the American Alpine Journal are the first ascents of peaks, new routes, the first alpine style ascent, and the first winter ascents, all of which that are lengthy challenges by being typically taking a full day’s effort or more. All other ascents may stand out for other merits, such as the climber, the style or the controversy.

But that’s not to say that the competition in climbing is exclusive of cut-throat pursuits or camaraderie. I think there is more camaraderie overall, but earning respect or “street cred” is important to participate; definitely don’t over sell yourself. Not everyone is worthy of partnering with Joe Josephson or Steve House.

The instances where people are desperate for success have ranged from embarrassing to down right ugly. One that comes to my mind was from 2010: Oh Eun-Sun, a South Korean alpinist, was in position to be the first woman to climb all 14 8,000 meter peaks without supplemental oxygen by summiting Kangchenjunga (28,169 ft./8,586 m.) Unfortunately, her claim to have reached the top was put into significant doubt and the honor of this first has gone to Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner of Austria.

In another race, Reinhold Messner — now a legend — was in an unofficial race with Polish alpinist Jerzy Kukuczka to be the first person ever to climb all of the 8,000 meter peaks without supplemental oxygen. In all honesty, it wasn’t ugly. For that, usually jealousy and suspicion had to come into play, like in another Messner ascent — the first ascent of the Rupal Face in 1970, or the distaster of the Frizt Weissner 1938 K2 expedition. Messner got his first, Weissner did not. Both returned to a lot of criticism.

I say all of this to put the news unfolding in the Karakorum into perspective. Four teams set out to be the first to top out during winter on three peaks: K2, Nanga Parbat and Gasherbrum I. While they aren’t involved in any organized races, the teams are seizing the moment to claim the historic first on their mountain-objective.

The Russian team that was attempting K2 has retreated. Their 15-person siege style expedition lost a life in basecamp earlier this week. The impressive Vitaly Gorelik had made it to 7,200 meters but died, ultimately of heart failure. As Alpinist Newswire says, Gorelik had summited K2 in 2007 and was nominated for the Piolet d’Or for a route up Peak Pobeda in 2009.

Two teams are working on Nanga Parbat. One, with just Simon Moro and Denis Urubko, are working summiting via an incomplete route on the Diamir Face. They are, with the other team of Poles, Moro’s and Urubko’s neighbors in basecamp, are being rather patient with the weather; there has been a decent amount of snow and some avalanches.

I haven’t heard as much as the Polish/International team working on Gasherbrum I, but I have heard the weather has caused delays. More to come, I’m sure.

I am trying not to give the impression that these are a competition between each other, though I am probably not doing a good job of that. These are really about exploration — probably more so about human endurance and persistence than the mountain itself.  Also, most successful winter ascents appear to put in the work in January and reap the rewards of the summit in mid-to-late February before winter closes out in March (that’s purely anecdotal). If you hear some more details, shoot them to me in an email or leave me a comment.

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Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona (Dru Bloomfield, 2010)

My business trip earlier this week to Scottsdale, Arizona went well. It was nice to finally take in the area from beyond the airport and airplane windows. But, it was ultimately much shorter than I thought it might be and there wasn’t any time for real exploration.

I might try to return with my family and more time to play. I’d like to pack my golf shoes and rent clubs next time. I actually packed my rock climbing shoes in the far-fetched hopes of bouldering around Camelback Mountain — which is smack in the middle of town and was just down a block from my hotel — or drop into one of several indoor gyms. Unfortunately, because of a full day of flying and skipping lunch because of time differences, I didn’t eat until what is ordinarily my bedtime. The daylight was gone and the southwestern food satisfied me but left me feeling full; very full. Bed it was. Morning came, the gyms wouldn’t open until after my flight departed, so I strolled momentarily in the dawning light nearby Camelback before I caught my ride to the airport.

I walked past some of the nicest residential real estate in the area and thought how neat it would be to live right here, have a necktie job like the one I have now, and walk across the street to these stones. Actually, for me, this idea was entirely novel. It gets 115 degrees (F) in the summer here. I’m miserable whenever Peaklessburg gets over 90. Average temperatures and snowfall can make or break the location’s appeal for me. But the trade off of heat for rock suddenly seemed appealing. At the same time, it’s not snow country. That’s a ways away, so skiing and other winter sports would still be out of reach.

During my brief walk I was taken by how dry and still everything seemed to be. According to my cab driver, it usually is. I say this because it’s amazing that in such a dry, rocky environment, the two forces that most shape the landscape is what it seems to lack most days — wind and water.

The notion of urban climbing was never more relevant than at this moment. Urban climbing on the east coast means gym training, really. But here — and doubtless other places in the western portion of North America — it means something more literal. You don’t have to pack up the Subaru and drive four hours to climb a little. Here, you can pull off the side of the road after work, then go to the Fashion Center on East Camelback Road for dinner and a drink or head home.

Of course climbing in the summertime would be impossible, I suspect. The rock would be too hot. So it it’s not one thing, it’s another.

It’s nothing like Vermont or Alaska — where I daydream the most. It’s different. I can’t tell if I am drawn to it because I like it or because I’m curious. By contrast from what I am accustomed to, it is a curious place.

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Denali's North Face as seen from a bush plane (TiresiasZ, 2006).

The best part about flying across the country is the time you get to shut off from the digitally-connected world to be left alone with your thoughts… Or your book. That is if you can resist paying the $7.95 for the WiFi connection. I didn’t give the airline the pleasure of having more of my money so I read some of Alpinist 37 and day dreamed about Alaska.

On that subject… there are several things that I like about Alaska above all other mountain-adventure destinations. It’s vast wilderness, it’s northern climate, and all the features that come with a remote, low-populated area. Compared to the Himalayas, Alps or Andes, there are few established communities that rely on and live in the mountain environment.

I don’t remember where I read this (though I wish I did at the moment,) but I realize its true, the Himalayas by contrast have several mountain villages scattered throughout the mountains. While those village residents rarely visit or rely on the mountains, they change the nature of climbing and trekking expeditions to the region. The villages provide milestones on a journey (if you’re romantic, they offer rustic culture). Alaska on the other hand, doesn’t have this. The Intuit, Haida and other Native Alaskans didn’t settle in mountain passes and consider such terrain simply white, treeless obstacles, but not the kind that dares you to overcome it.

Getting yourself to Alaskan climbing destinations in the Alaska Range, Wrangel Mountains or Revelations is often done by bush planes landing on glaciers or sand bars, depending on the time of year and conditions of the snowpack and river flow. This isn’t done in the Himalayas; helicopters are more common and the air density at the base of the mountains varies from route to route, and in some cases makes flight to that elevation too dangerous to attempt if not physically impossible. While the first glacier landing by bush plane was relatively early in Alaskan climbing history, in 1932 by Alan Carpe, there are routes that still necessitate starting the climb the old fashioned way… from the nearest road, on foot, oftentimes days away, with big packs. When David Roberts and Don Jenson and attempted Mount Deborah in the 1960s, they actually carried more gear than they could carry on their backs; they shuttled packs by carrying one pack at a time, dropping it off, returning for the other and repeat.

Dropping supplies by bush plane was a common practice through the 1960s for well-organized expeditions. This enabled a team to get part way up their chosen route without having to carry all the food and cooking fuel in their packs. However, it was inefficient and littering. Oftentimes the air dropped packages where smashed on impact, with canned goods opened and spoiling. Other times packages were never found. The practice has since been discontinued officially in some parts, like Denali National Park, and unofficially in others thanks to Leave No Trace ethics (which always makes me think of climbers choosing to leave a pack or extra ice axe up high out of a matter of convenience).
But walking in — what climbing guide author and former Denali Ranger, Jonathan Waterman, calls “Alaskan pioneer style” — is still necessary for access to Denali’s north face, Wickersham Wall, and long approaches from roads are required for other regions too, especially where there are no landing areas suitable for bush planes. And as Waterman points out repeatedly in High Alaska, it’s often the approach — especially the hazards or river crossings — that are more consistently life threatening than the ascents and descents.

Again by comparison, last I checked, the most common hazards en route to K2 or Broad Peak is the altitude and the food and water quality in Askole. Bears, river crossings, tussock fields, and an angry mother moose… They’re is nothing else like North America’s far north.

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With work and my new training schedule, I have struggled to find time to catch-up on what has been happening in climbing news lately, but one story has been inescapable. A simple passing over the headlines kept bringing me to news about the Compressor Route.

In case you’ve been climbing somewhere remote without your smartphone or stuck in endless business meetings, here’s the recap: The controversy began in 1970 when Cesare Maestri climbed the Southeast Face of Cerro Torre in Patagonia with the aide of a compressor drill weighing nearly 100 lbs. The route has been heavily bolted and the drill has hung along the route ever since. Since then, the route has become one of the most popular routes up Cerro Torre. The appropriateness of the bolts have been debated ever since.

Fast forward to January 2012 and Hayden Kennedy and Jason Kruk climbed the route and chopped about one hundred of the bolts on their descent. The reactions have been mixed. Some praised them for restoring the wall and others criticized them for ruining what was essentially a great sport route. The police detained the two alpinists for a brief time as well. Then, days later, David Lama with partner Peter Ortner successfully freed the Compressor (or is it Formerly Compressor?) Route, while the debate on the Kennedy-Kruk climb went on.

What I don’t understand is the acceptability of placing permanent bolts in the first place. I realize blank faces have few options for protection. This isn’t a subject I’m experienced in. The only place I’ve ever climbed with bolts is the gym. Plus, my focus on alpine mountaineering, for the most part, hasn’t discussed the ethics of bolting on routes. Perhaps you can shed some light on the subject for me.

News on the four attempts to bag the first winter ascents of the unclimbed 8,000 meter peaks has been harder to come by, at least through the main news sites. In short the stories are still unfolding. The saddest news, and most significant to date, came from the Polish expedition; one of their climbers died on Nanga Parbat. So there is more to follow with the Russians on K2, the two expeditions on Nanga Parbat and the international team on Gasherbrum I.

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However, with this winter being so mild here in Peaklessburg, so what…?

Fortunately, conditions have been right in some places. For the most part. Tim Emmett has been able to climb the unworldly ice cave at Helmcken Falls in British Colombia. Though the precipitation has turned to rain for a few days, changing conditions.

I expect next winter there will be plenty of snow, particularly in Vermont for the Stowe Derby. At least I seriously hope so. I can’t imagine two seasons in a row like this.

I am also about 90 days away from the 10K race I’ll be running in April. This run will be the first milestone on my year-long plan to go from sedentary Washington, DC professional and armchair mountaineer, to being an active and fit husband and father.

The challenge to continuing to workout and train throughout the year is really about consistency and not getting bored with routine. Great athletes in professional sports, like Derek Jeter, Alex Ovechkin or Tiger Woods for example, have a tolerance and appreciation for routine. It allows them to focus on their game performance because all the factors of life are worked into a steady, somewhat predictable routine. For the most part, they all establish their way to prepare for an event and they don’t deter from it. Same meal, same warm up, same schedule, sometimes even the same music.

Preparing for the mountains is a bit trickier because the challenges we seek vary from location to location — unlike ball parks and ice rinks. Are you preparing for an Alaskan peak or a Colorado 14er? The training may be similar, but the time in preparing and the time that you need to be at your peak performance will be different; Alaskan expeditions tend to require more time commitment and therefore you need a bigger base of strength and reserves.

I’m preparing for the 2013 Stowe Derby. It’s a wacky skiing event where you ski down Vermont’s Mount Mansfield and then through town to the finish line. You have to commit before the race to compete on either skinny skis (nordic) or downhill skis. I’m going to ride and skate on my nordics. At least that way I’ll have an easier time on the level ground.

The race isn’t until February 2013 but it’s a goal that motivates me. Hopefully, I can develop a routine around this that I doesn’t bore me and that I have an inner desire to return to even after I get injured, sick or when work gets too busy for a brief season. Right now, I’m just running and doing some modest strength training. I already see benefits from my initial training, but sticking with it may be the toughest part, for any of us.

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Not too long ago I was amused by a comment from Barbara Washburn — an alpinist and the wife of the late Bradford Washburn — in her book The Accidental Adventurer. She and her husband spent quite a bit of time climbing Mount McKinley/Denali around the 1950s, so she became quite familiar with it in terms of its size, mass and features. Later, when she and her husband made a pilgrimage to take-in Mount Everest, she quickly compared the two peaks and she sounded disappointed by higher mountain.

While Everest is an impressive three-sided pyramid (in its most basic form), Denali is a mutli-faceted gemstone, with big walls, mini-big walls, numerous hanging glaciers and several knife-edge ridges. It’s complex. Like Barbara Washburn, w recognize Everest’s significance as the world’s highest point and Denali’s as one of the Seven Summits — the “roof” of North America. Both are big destinations, but Denali offers a bigger playground.

It’s also so complex that it has a spectrum of challenging routes established. While the West Buttress (Alaska Grade 2: 50 degrees 13,100 feet) is acknowledged as the most conservative route, Denali’s temptations only start there. To get a sense of the range of challenges, I wondered what were the most difficult routes on the mountain. All but one are on the massive south face:

Cassin Ridge — This route is cliche to some, partly because it was listed in Fifty Classic Climbs of North America. It was listed because it offers all the elements of a great Alaskan climb! It offers 65 degree snow and ice, knife edge exposure and some 5.8 rock. The first ascent by Riccardo Cassin in 1961 pushed he and his team to their limit and it gave them a little frostbite with their glory. The Cassin Route is rated Alaska Grade 5: 5.8 65 degrees.)

Canadian Direct — This route is the newest on this list. Maxime Turgeon and Louis-Philippe “LP” Menard climbed this line in 2006. The line starts up from the Kahiltnak Glacier’s East Fork and up a pillar to the left of the Japanese Direct and right of the American Direct. The ascent is nearly 8,000 feet, and the rock quality reportedly decent (odd for much of Alaska), even though Turgeon reports seeing some rockfall. The route is rated as Alaska Grade 6: M6 5.9.

Slovak Direct — This used to be referred to as the Czech Direct and is the straightest line from base to summit on the mountain. It was first climbed in 1984 by Czecholslovakian alpinists Blazej Adam, Tono Krizo and Franktisek Korl, with the help of a support team on the south buttress. The ascent typically takes several days, and after the first two camps, the rest were mere ice ledges. More recently, the name appears to have been adjusted to reflect the climbers’ proper region and nationality. Interestingly, shortly after the climb, Adam commented that he had done harder routes in Europe. (I think Steve House would disagree.) Slovak Direct is rated Alaska Grade 6: M5 WI6 5.9, 8,500 feet.

Denali Diamond — The route was founded in 1983 by Rolf Graage who felt he had a lot to prove to himself as an alpinist. Graage and guide Bryan Becker climbed for 37 pitches including a 25-foot A3 roof. In 2002, Ian Parnell and Kenton Cool (who sent the first tweet from Everest’s summit, incidentally) did the second ascent in five days — much shorter than the first assault at 17 days. Only a handful of teams have completed the line since because it’s clearly committing and only the experienced or insanely ambitious (I think you can be both) make the attempt. It’s rated Alaska Grade 6: 5.9 A3, 7,800 feet.

Harvard Route — This is — in my assessment — the most dangerous route on the mountain. If the conditions are right, and it’s climbed competently, it might not deserve to be on the list with Slovak Direct and Denali Diamond. But the Harvard Route on Denali has not been repeated. The route is on the north face — on the Wickersham Wall, one of the largest continuous walls in the world. The Harvard Route is unstable. It’s subject to significant rockfall and frequent avalanches. The team that climbed it, from the Harvard Mountaineering Club, climbed in a pleasant state of being naïve to the real dangers. They had never been on a big mountain before and thought the hazards they observed were just all part of the adventure! The route is rated Alaska Grade 4+: 5.5, A1 50 degrees, 14,900 feet.

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Sources: 1) Waterman, Jonathan, High Alaska: A Historical Guide to Denali, Mount Foraker and Mount Hunter, AAC Press, 1996; 2) Beckwith, Christian, “Denali Diamond; The New Cassin?” Alpinist July 6, 2007; 3) Turgeon, Maxime, “Mt. Foraker and Denali,” Alpinist, November 27, 2006.