--AAI guides Dawn Glanc, Forest McBrian and Danny Uhlman all successfully passed the extremely difficult and prestigious AMGA Alpine Guides Exam. The ten day exam pushes candidates to their absolute limits. We are very proud of our three new certified alpine guides!
--Bend climber Mitch Thompson traversed Oregon's Three Sister massif in 6 hours and 39 minutes. The fastest known time for the feat before Thompson was clocked by Max King and Kevin Grove who made a tandem traverse in about eight hours. To read more, click here.
Jesse and Josh Hummel Water-Ski on Snow Skis at the Slush CupPhoto by Gregory C. Louie
--The annual Slush Cup backcountry ski festival was held on August 16th. This crazy event requires backcountry skiers to dress up in costumes and attempt to ski down a slope and across a melted out pond. This year, the Seattle Times made an appearance to document the event. To read their article, click here.
--A hiker tracking a bear stumbled upon something quite a bit different on his trek along Taylor Mountain earlier this week -- a huge marijuana grow. He notified police, and the Eastside Drug Task Force has since confiscated 25,248 pot plants found in three separate grows on the slopes of the mountain, not too far from Tiger Mountain. To read more, click here.
--West Vancouver firefighters say a rock climber is lucky to be alive after falling thirty feet onto a rocky ledge in Lighthouse Park Tuesday. "Considering how far he fell, it's amazing he was in as good a condition as he was when we found him," said acting deputy fire chief Scott Jones. To read more, click here.
--As most people are aware, there is a lot of tension in the political world right now. The health care debate is dominating the news. One of the questions that has been posed by health care reform foes is whether the government has ever been able to truly do something right. Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times answers that question with what Ken Burns' new documentary call's America's best idea: the National Parks. To read the article, click here.
Sierra:
--Carma Roper with the Inyo Sheriff's Department reports that Edmundo Saenz, 52, has been found alive and well. The man reportely went down the wrong chute on Split Mountain above the town of Big Pine. Instead of heading to camp at Red Lake, he ended up in Tinemaha Creek. Saenz then followed Tinemaha Creek until he found a dirt road and was picked up by local residents. Roper reports that Saenz is in good condition and all is well. To read more, click here.
Notes from All Over:
--Jenn Fields, an outdoor blogger, has written a very interesting article about the art of using a pee funnel. For those of you who are not-in-the-know, this is the device designed for women that want to avoid dropping their pants in the mountain to urinate. To read this funny review, click here.
--Louis Rousseau and Gerfried Göschl recently climbed a new route on Nanga Parbat and made two attempts on K2. The team's goal was to establish two new lines on big mountains, one on Nanga Parbat (26,656') and one on K2 (28,251'). To read more, click here.
--Jordan Romero, the 13-year old boy from California who aspires to be the youngest person to conquer the Seven Summits has successfully climbed Carstentensz Pyramid on the island of New Guinea. Romero has just two peaks left, Mount Vinson in Antarctica and Mount Everest in Asia, before he becomes the youngest person to climb all seven summits. To read more, click here.
--Oliver Favresse, Nicolas Favresse, Stephane Hanssens and Sean Villanueva recently completed an extremely successful trip to Baffin Island. The Belgian team established three new routes and attempted to free climb an existing big wall route. To read more, click here.
--This story kind of stinks...For the second time, Gary Moody, 49, of Maine, was arrested for climbing into a pit toilet in the White Mountain National Forest, in the same location where he was arrested for the same crime in 2005. To read more, click here and here.
--CNN recently ran a story on minorities in National Parks. The article asks why there is little little diversity in outdoor activities like backpacking, cycling, and climbing. And the article traces a woman named Audrey Peterman's quest to create more diversity in our National Parks. To read the article, click here.
--Authorities say a sheriff's deputy shot and killed a bear in a residential neighborhood near the Angeles National Forest. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in a release Thursday that the deputy encountered the bear as it was trying to get into a yard in the San Antonio Heights area. To read more, click here.
