--Participants of the popular climbing forum cascadeclimbers.com are planning a picnic for climbers at Woodland Park in Seattle on April 30th. For more information, click here.
--Northwest climber, Colin Haley, will give a slideshow on his ridge traverse of the Torres in Patagonia in Kirkland tonight. Haley tagged the summits of Aguja Standhardt, Punta Herron, Torre Egger, and Cerro Torre with Rolando Garibotti in January. For more information, click here.
--On May 1st, Jennifer Lowe-Anker will talk about her new book, Forget Me Not. The event will take place at the Mountaineers building in Seattle at 7 pm. For more information, click here.
SOUTHWEST:
--Podclimber put together a couple of great reports on the Red Rock Rendezvous. Note that for some reason the host kept calling it the "Red Rocks Rendezvous." Highlights may be found here. The full report may be found here.
--There are a few videos on YouTube of this year's Red Rock Rendezvous. They're a bit amatuerish, but they both provide a taste of the Rendezvous. Find the first one here and the second one here.
MOUNT EVEREST:
Suprisingly enough, things are getting a bit hot in one of the coldest and highest places in the world. This week we decided to devote an entire section to the controversy surrounding the Olympic Torch on Mount Everest.The Chinese announced that they would carry the Olympic Torch to the top of Mount Everest a year ago. To read the original announcement, click here.
--To facilitate the Olympic Torch run, the Chinese upgraded a road to the mountain. They paved the previously dirt road, finishing it last wednesday.
--In March, the Chinese announced that they would close the north side of the mountain to keep protesters away from the Torch.
--NPR's mid-day news show, The World, had a great story about the Olympic Torch on Mount Everest last week. Scroll down to the middle of the page to find the audio clip.
--In the NPR report, they mention a high altitude protest that took place on Mount Everest last year. This protest was captured on video and posted on YouTube.
--Authorities in Nepal are holding climbers at Camp 2 on Everest until May 10th. A deal between Nepal and China was struck to keep climbers away from the Olympic Torch which is slated to summit from the North Side of the mountain during the first ten days of May.
--It appears that there is a partial communication ban on Everest imposed by the Nepali Military. Click here for more.--An Italian climber plans to protest China's human rights violations on a series of mountaintops throughout Europe in early May. The protest is set to coincide with the ascent of the Olympic Torch on Everest.
--The Group de Haute Montagne (GHM) -- one of the organizations behind the Piolet d'Or --recently came out against the ascent of Mount Everest with the Olympic Torch. To read a translation of their press release, click here.
--And things just keep getting worse up there. Nepal recently gave security people the right to use deadly force on pro-Tibet protesters on south side of Mount Everest. Read the story here.
--On Tuesday the Chinese banned the press from traveling with the torch to Base Camp due to the "weather." Read more here.
--Rock and Ice reported yesterday that an American Climber was kicked off of Mount Everest for having a pro-Tibet banner in his bag. To read more, click here.
--And with all this stuff going on up there, don't forget that we do have people on the South Side of the mountain. You may read the dispaches from our joint expedition with Adventure Consultants here.
NOTES FROM ALL OVER:
--KGNU -- a community run radio station in Boulder, Colorado -- has started a rock climbing radio show. Climbtalk "is the world's first rock climbing radio show and features climbing news, access info, beta, and interviews with members of the local and international climbing community." To learn more or to listen to the show, click here.
--The American Alpine Club recently announced the winners of two major expedition grants. To read more, click here.
--The month-long HERA Climb for Life event in Metro DC raised $59,000. To read more, click here.
--Over the last couple of years, controversy over the plastic used in Nalgene bottles has grown. Research indicated that a toxic ingredient called bisphenol-a (BPA) used in the plastic could leach into the liquid inside. On friday the New York Times reported that Nalgene would stop using BPA as an ingredient in their bottles. If you currently own a Nalgene bottle, it is likely that it has this ingredient. To find out more, click here. There was a lengthy discussion about the original report concerning BPAs and Nalgene on Supertopo.com back in October.
--The battle between autoblocking devices just got more interesting. First there was the Kong Gigi. It worked, but it wasn't a universal device. Then Petzel came out with the Reverso which was a far more rounded belay device. Not to be outdone, Trango developed the B-52 and Black Diamond developed the Guide XP. Arguably both of these were better than the Reverso. And so now Petzl's come back with a new device to compete with BD and Trango, the Reverso 3. Which one is best? Many of our guides will try out the new device this summer and let you know...
--Looks like there's a problem with size 1.5 Camp Tricams. Read more here.
--Need a new trail, a new outhouse or a new parking lot at your local climbing area? The Access Fund recently developed grants for just such high dollar projects. To find out more, click here. The first set of grants were awarded on April 15th. To see who received the grants and to read about the projects that they are going toward, please click here.
--In the summer of 1958, three English housewives drove 8,000 miles to India. All married to mountaineers they decided to have an adventure of their own. Eve Sims, Anne Davies and Antonia Deacock set their sites on Zanskar; a remote Tibetan Buddhist Kingdom in the Northwest Himalaya, the highest inhabited valley on Earth and one of the last unexplored regions on the map. A phenomenal video of their expedition was recently posted here.
--The 5 Point Adventure Film Festival will run in Carbondale, Colorado May 8th -May 10th. For more info, click here.
--The Outdoor Alliance -- a consortium of outdoor recreation advocates -- posted this video about outdated mining policies on Alpinist.com.
--Clif Bar announced an alliance with TerraCycle to promote the recycling of used energy bar wrappers. Used wrappers will be woven into materials used in outdoor adventure. To read more, click here.
