--Last week a large group of skiers and snowboarders got together in Mount Rainier National Park to participate in the sixth annual Turns-All-Year Slush Cup. This event requires wildly costumed participants to ski down a slope and across a body of water. The following photos of the event were provided to us by Andre Nguyen:
--Two Seattle teenagers were pinned under massive blocks of snow and ice for five hours this last Thursday. Alessandro Gelmini and Alec Corbett were exploring snow caves near Snoqualmie Pass when one of the caves collapsed. Both boys sustained serious injuries, but survived.
--Three teenagers were rescued from Three Fingers mountain yesterday. Two seventeen year-olds and one sixteen year old from the Marysville area spent the night at the 5,500 foot level. They were found by a SAR team early in the morning and were hiked out shortly thereafter.
--AAI Guide Alasdair Turner recently launched a website that features his mountain photography.
--Northwest climber Steph Abegg put together a website that compares mountaineering photos from today with those that her parents took nearly thirty years ago. In some cases the glaciers look radically different, in others they don't.Alps:
--A massive avalanche swept down Mont Blanc on Sunday capturing fifteen climbers. Eight climbers were killed in one of the most serious tragedies to hit the Alps in decades.
--A small team of Italians established a new rock route on the east-southeast face of Punta (10,154'), a granite tower on the east flank of the Dent de Jetoula (10,846') above the Rochefort Glacier. The new line requires climbing up to 5.11b, A0.
Himalaya:
--Slovenian alpinist Pavle Kozjek is missing on the Muztagh Tower (23,897') in Pakistan's Karakoram range. Though the details are scarce, it appears that Kozjek and his partners set-up a tent near a cornice. Kozjek approached the edge and fell.
--On August 1, 2008, Spanish climbers Alberto Inurrategi, Ferran Latorre, Jose Carlos Tamayo, Juan Vallejo and Miguel Zabaleza made the fifth ascent of Gasherbrum IV (26,000'), in the Karakoram of Pakistan.
Notes from All Over:
--Fifty-Nine year old New Zealand climbing guide, Gottlieb Braun-Elwert died while guiding the New Zealand Prime Minister and her husband. The group had just returned to their hut after a day of ski touring when Braun-Elwert collapsed, the apparent victim of a heart-attack. The group performed CPR on the man for two and a half hours to no avail.
