Colin Haley Versus the Snail

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

Let me put this time of year in perspective. I’m not referring to the holiday season. This time of year is a little slow for me in the way of climbing news that typically interests me, and maybe you too. With Alaska and the Himalayas, it’s all about winter ascents on Denali, Mount Foraker and Mount Hunter — which are few and far between.

Ordinarily, for those of us geographically limited to North America, the fun is typical winter fun — skiing, snowshoeing, ice climbing, skating, hockey (preferably outdoors) — is all we have. No breaking news from there.

So thank goodness for the Andes, Patagonia and Colin Haley’s progressive climbs! The summer season is on now down there and Haley, as usual, is seizing every moment he has.

Haley and Jorge Ackerman of Bariloche, Argentina, worked the “un-finished” route on the south face of Cerro Standhardt. It was originally attempted by a 1977 British team, but remains a line that hasn’t brought alpinists to the summit.

The photos on his report are quite nice (see link below) but my favorite part of what these guys did was improvise on their objective and still came away with a decent prize. These climbers intended to ascend the O’Neill-Martin route on Cerro Egger. However, conditions were poor; they planned on a rock route, but lingering winter conditions required crampons and tools. Slow advancement and limited supplies made the decision to abandon the attempt clear.

They shifted their energies and efforts on Standhardt. Needless to say, they finished the job on the 1977 south face route — now the Haley-Ackerman 2011 route! They named the completed route El Caracol, meaning the snail, both for the spiral pattern of the snail shell and their weaving route and also because of their slow pace due to some route finding challenges and errors.

So going forward this winter, we’ll be monitoring whether the Russians make a winter ascent in the Karakorum on K2, any projects in Denali National Park, and of course, the attempts in the southern hemisphere. If you hear anything interesting, leave me  comment or shoot me an email. I’ll do the same here.

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Source: “Cerro Standhardt, El Caracol” on December 6, 2011 on Skagit Alpinism, Colin Haley’s blog.

Avalanche Safety and Passion in Snowstruck

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

This past summer, when it was over 100 degrees and muggy here in Peaklessburg, I stayed cool by reading about snow, avalanches and hazards in Alaska. In the spring I picked up Jill Fredston’s book Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches (2005) on a whim and put it on the shelf. After reading it I can say that it won’t spend as much time there as others in my library because I plan to reread it.

Fredston tells the story of her life and her studies of avalanches. It’s a dazzling story of her career along with her husband, another expert, Doug Fesler. Together they are best known for being the authors of Snowsense, a guide for surveying avalanche risk.

I can’t say that I love many books, but this one was full of what I crave presented in a terrific, compelling narrative. Fredston weaves her life story in with the accomplishments of her career along with the science of snow and avalanches, the muddiness of professional relationships, detective work and nonprofit work, all around the cause of preventing future deaths and property damage from avalanches.

My experience with avalanches growing in the northeast were mostly limited to the little ones that slide off roofs, so this story was insightful. For instance, even when I ice climbed in the Adirondacks, spindrift was all I really ever suffered from. In Vermont — where I visit almost every winter — the rescue groups don’t respond to too many avalanches either. Avalanches happened there, but not with the severity and frequncy they occur out west. But, as Fredston explains, the majority of slopes — even at a gentle incline — are built to unleash fury under the right conditions.

Through reading the story you learn about the chances of survival, how the most critical moment for survival is when the lost person in the avalanche is found, and how our own personal psychology can lead us into danger. Fredston also talks about how being swept away in an avalanche is avoidable, how even on commonly tread ground — like Flattop outside of Anchorage, Alaska — has attracted more rescues than elsewhere in the Chugach Range, how avalanche beacons and cell phones are often a false sense of security, among other things. I also found this statistic from Fredston chilling: 71 percent of avalanche victims die on slopes they know.

I was also amused by a moment when her Subaru got stuck on the long driveway to her home. I guess Subaru’s symmetrical all-wheel drive can’t overcome all adversity after all.

She gives you a sense of what the best avalanche experts consider when inspecting slopes, and she does this by telling you the stories of how she and Fesler discovered these issues. Questions like what is the slope? What type of snow is it? When did hoar form? Which way did the wind blow last week? Why does the snow sound hollow here? Is the snow cracking? In all, it comes down to the three factors of snowpack, terrain and weather, often represented in a triangular chart.

Snowstruck is well written, romantic, informative and suspenseful all at once. But above all, it’s about enjoying the adventure of living a life with challenges: “[I]f you are taking no risks, you are dead, and without risk, we might forget that we are alive.”

Thanks again from dropping by. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following The Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. Happy reading and carpe climb ’em!

Old, Seasoned Gear, Far Mountains

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

At long last, the weather is more seasonable. Peaklessburg had 11 days this November over 70 degrees (F). Yesterday morning I wore a jacket and gloves and steam rose off my coffee.

I’m already looking forward to my winter getaway later in Vermont’s Green Mountains and I was making a mental list of what I would pack. It struck me that it’s mostly the same stuff I’ve been packing for winter fun for ten or more years, that I bought primarily as body armor for Adirondack ice climbing and that I now employed for snowshoeing and skiing.

There is the long, old-style shell, the ice climbing gloves bought on discount and the fleece insulation with the old EMS logo getting compressed, but not yet stripped at the knees and elbows. I wondered whether a refresh was in order.

This thought struck me because shortly before Thanksgiving I read 36 — that being issue 36 of Alpinist magazine. I really enjoyed it and already reread my favorite articles and sidebars, like Derek Franz’s fiction piece and Joe Josephson’s history of ice climbing in Hyalite Canyon in Montana. It’s enough to get really excited about the Bozeman Ice Climbing Festival next week!

I also enjoyed perusing through the three catalog inserts 36 came with from Mammut, O.R. and Bent Gate Mountaineering (BMR). For a moment, I was succumbing to the marketing genius and contemplated buying a three-layer Gore Tex hard shell in some bold, bright new color.

Some of you might remember that the popular color for new gear in the late 1990s and the early 2000s was a muted purple. That bright green — like on the jacket that Jimmy Chin zips up in that populist commercial from The North Face — I don’t think was even invented then.

My gear, minus my original shell, does the job of keeping me warm, dry and protected from the wind as appropriate, so from a practical standpoint there is little reason to make serious upgrades. I bought a new shell a couple of years ago that I am reasonably pleased with, but it is not nearly the hardcore climbing shell my original parka was.

Besides, having signed onto the Common Threads initiative recently — which I take seriously — there is no functional need right now to make big changes to what I am putting in the back of my Subaru for Vermont. Perhaps if I was heading for climbing in the Revelation Mountains or the Cirque of the Unclimbables I would get outfitted with brand new layers. Then again, maybe I would just sew patches on the threadbare areas and play up the old, veteran-of-the-hills look.

So, I could definitely use a bit of a refresh at some point. But I might wait until just before I might embarrass Wunderkind one day; I’ll be picking Wunderkind up from school or skating practice in the future wearing some ridiculously muted purple jacket with patches. Yes, that would be the right time.

Thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. Happy reading and carpe climb ’em!

Snow or the Lack Thereof

/ Andrew Szalay / 1 Comment

The other day, Edelweiss and I were talking about the absurdly warm November we’re having here in Peaklessburg. Actually, she talked, I grumbled.

We really don’t get enough snow and my neighbors annoy me when they shun — often vehemently — the thought of the white stuff. Rain could be flooding into their basements ruining their beloved, extensive and valuable collection of classic rock LPs and they would sigh and say, “Well, at least it isn’t snow.”

So Edelweiss, in her endless wit, suggested a very appropos statement to put on my tee shirt:

Let it
SNOW
Dammit

I grew up in snowy Upstate New York, and I probably have an unusual appreciation for snow, even among Upstaters. But for me, winter was always more exciting. Summer existed solely for short-wearing activities: hiking, rock climbing and baseball. But winter was for greater endeavors, including skiing, ice climbing, snowshoeing, snowball fights… And there is nothing quite like Tim Horton’s coffee and a donut on a cold, snowy day! Yes, even on the grey-sky slushy kind.

I’m jealous of anyone with regular access to some mountains and wintry precipitation. Or maybe you’re fortunate to have time to take off and head to Bozeman, Montana for the ice climbing festival (December 9 and 10). Enjoy!

So if you’re someplace cold that gets the flakes en masse, be grateful. There are snowless children at the equator.

Thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. Happy reading and carpe climb ’em!

Climbing Books that Bind Us Together

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

The other day something really interesting happened during my commute to work in Peaklessburg. I actually came  across someone reading a climbing book. Well, I thought that was pretty remarkable, at least.

The crowd around me during my ride to and from the city usually blends and blurs into the tracks, tunnels and sidewalks. I usually read my book or review white papers from work and mind little else. The passengers, including me, rarely interact with one another except to say excuse me unless you are travelling with a colleague or friend.

When I come out of my self-focus and raise my eyes to observe my neighbors, I usually see them with their smartphones, iPods, e-readers, Grisham novels, Wall Street Journals, business magazines and trade papers. I never see anyone with anything related to climbing. But then, suddenly, I did and I struck up a brief conversation about the book on the history of climbing in Yosemite.

For me, these chats are normally confined to the virtual world and the rare occasion I can attend my Section meeting of the American Alpine Club, so the face-to-face was invigorating. It made me really want to go to the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival next year.

Our talk was short so we only had time to mention important points, like how the routes developed, the gear Royal Robbins and Yvon Chouinard used and what people really meant by “dirtbag climbers.” While we had our preferred specialties (rock versus ice and alpine,) we were both sufficiently well read to hold a substantive conversation. After ten minutes, I passed my card for this blog and I got off at my stop.

This reinforced for me why mountaineering nonfiction matters. This includes literature, like Steve House’ Beyond the Mountain, to guidebooks, like Jonathan Waterman’s High Alaska, and the American Alpine Journal. These works are not only the stories about climbers like us or those that we admire and insight into climbing opportunities, they reinforce the platform of where climbing as a sport is today and help us advance what’s possible as well as give us a common language.

Climbing books allow us to see what has been done by others, stare at the   possible and how the impossible later became possible often a combination of innovation, naivety, boldness or arrogance, knowledge and experience, and luck. The knowledge of other’s experiences of all of those factors can enable us to be inspired as well as connect with other climbers better.

Climbing is not truly a spectator sport and climbs are personal things. Their stories — written — give more insight than photos and film. What’s in our hearts and what binds us is captured on the routes we ascend and the stories we share.

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The First Flatiron, a Naked Climber and Some Mushrooms

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

By now you have probably read about the infamous half-naked climber of the First Flatiron. He’s been rescued and he’s been charged with possession of a controlled substance: a mushroom, believe it or not. But the amusement hasn’t stopped there.

This has been a source of light-hearted humor for me in what has been an otherwise hectic week at work. It’s also made me think of controlled substances in wilderness, be it alcohol or drugs.

Immediately I thoughts of David Roberts bringing the “victory brandy” on his Alaskan expeditions spring to mind. (Yes, I know, it’s scary that my mind jumps right into climbing history!) I also think of Jon Kraukauer smoking a joint on the Stikine Ice Cap during his solo trip to Devil’s Thumb. In both instances, there was some regret from enjoying them, mainly brought on from exhaustion and some level of dehydration. Not that there is ever a perfect condition to partake, of course.

Bringing the intoxicant of choice into the wilderness (or the fringe in the case of the First Flatiron,) sounds tempting and really ought to left to a rest day. This “half-naked” climber clearly was not resting. I have this horrible image of Zach Galifianakis (the character Alan) running around the apartment from The Hangover running through my head.

To the half-naked climber, in the future I would recommend doing what I prefer to do: Enjoy the day in the backcountry, only carrying the essential gear, and after completing the route or hike, guzzle some water and go back to town for some pizza and beer.

There are few things as satisfying as those two things! I think you’ll be hard pressed to disagree.

Thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. Happy reading and carpe climb ’em!