Climbing and Outdoor News from Here and Abroad - 2/4/10

Northwest:

--Super climber Will Gadd and partner Tim Emmett have climbed a steeply overhanging ice route behind an unfrozen waterfall in British Columbia. To protect the route, they were forced to aid up and place bolts, but there is no mixed climbing on the route. Gadd and Emmett claim the route to be WI 10...a huge jump from the other super hard pure ice routes routes rated WI 7. To read more, click here.

Sierra:

--Climbers are expressing concern over how a renewed effort to craft a plan that controls development along the Merced River in the Yosemite Valley could impact their access to certain routes. But while the climbers are worried about their access and calling for more camping areas, more parking spaces, and simply more infrastructure to support their enjoyment of the iconic valley, others are urging Yosemite National Park officials not to turn the valley into a "Popcorn Playground." To read more, click here.

Desert Southwest:

--A climber's campsite was raided by thieves while the climber was in Red Rock Canyon in Lovell Canyon near the Conservation Area. To read more, click here.

--Stand at the gate of the Mission Creek Preserve — part of the proposed Sand to Snow National Monument just outside the Coachella Valley — and you can practically feel the silence and space around you. Cholla cactus and Mojave yucca dot the desert landscape at the preserve entrance, while a single, snow-covered crag of the San Bernardino Mountains splits the horizon. To read more, click here.

--Planning a mid-February visit to Zion National Park? The rangers are looking for some hardy souls to help them delineate the park's wilderness boundaries east of Springdale, Utah. It was not quite a year ago that President Obama signed a bill into law designating more than 80 percent of Zion as officially designated wilderness. In celebration of the new designation, Zion rangers are looking for volunteers to assist during a Wilderness Work Day on February 19. On that date, from noon until 4 p.m., the rangers will be working on marking the park's boundary on the rugged hillsides east of Springdale. To read more, click here.

Himalaya:

Andrew Irvine
Missing for 86 years with vital information for Everest Historians.

--On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine left their camp less than a kilometer from the summit of Mount Everest on a mission to be the first mountaineers to ascend the world's highest peak (8,850 meters). They were never to be heard from again. Whether either man reached the summit—almost three decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's historic 1953 climb—has been an open question for nearly 86 years. Everest historian Tom Holzel believes that after decades scrutinizing maps and photos of Everest's north face, where the mountaineers are thought to have disappeared, he may have spotted Irvine's final resting place in a high-resolution picture earlier this month. Holzel has begun mounting an expedition he hopes will visit the site either this spring or, more likely, spring 2011. To read more, click here.

--About twenty Nepali climbers will venture on an Everest expedition led by Namgyal Sherpa. While struggling with very low temperatures and little oxygen, they will try to clean up two tons of garbage. Parts of Mount Everest have collected quite a bit of rubbish as more than 4,000 climbers have ascended the peak since 1953. To read more, click here.

Notes from All Over:

--A Utah skier buried by an avalanche in Big Cottonwood Canyon has died. Unified Police Lt. Don Hutson says the 51-year-old Utah man was buried four feet deep in a glade of trees for more than 15 minutes Wednesday afternoon. To read more, click here.

--Ueli Steck, a speed climber from Switzerland, has soloed the Ginat route (ED: V M4+ 85 degrees, 1000m), the classic north-face line on Les Droites (13,126')) in the French Alps above Chamonix. Steck completed his solo in a record 2 hours and 8 minutes. To read more, click here.

--The second year of the American Alpine Club’s conservation project in Los Glaciares National Park, wrapped up successfully in early December. Over six weeks in the Patagonian spring, the Argentinean-American team, sponsored by Patagonia Inc. and led by Rolando Garibotti, with help from other volunteers, continued work begun in 2008 to restore heavily eroded trails in Los Glaciares, which is home to Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. To read more, click here.

--The North Face and a parody company started by a local college student have been ordered to try and mediate their differences. Albert Watkins is an attorney for University of Missouri freshman and St. Louis native Jimmy Winkelmann, who launched a clothing line called The South Butt. "It is very important that the public understand this is about consumer choice, this is about freedom of the market place, and it's about the ability of a young man to pursue the American Dream," Watkins commented on the steps of the Eagleton Federal Courthouse following a brief hearing Wedneday morning. To read more, click here. To read an editorial written by an AAI guide about this situation, please click here.

We suspect that this new film about a climber/serial killer is incredibly bad.

--Just imagine, Vertical Limit meets Scream... We're not sure we want too. But someone did. A new horror film entitled, Kill Theory features a "Deranged Climber" as a psychotic Friday the 13th style serial killer. Apparently the killer is a climber who was forced to cut his dead friends away from a cliff-face in order to save his own skin. Somehow this turns him into a Michael Myers, Jason, Freddy Krugger type character. To read more click here, but beware there are graphic and bloody pictures on the review page.

--In early January Nick Bullock and Kenton Cool went searching for a moderate ice route on the Rive Gauche above the Argentiere Glacier in the French Alps. But upon getting to the route, they found a much more interesting and touch line. To read more, click here.