Hardwear Sessions

By Ueli Steck

Ringgenberg, Monday, June 2, 2008

Simon and I are back in Switzerland and we will try in the next days and weeks to get some rest and we hope that we will work up the happenings of the past weeks.

When we received the distress call form the Romanian [climber] Horia Colibasanu, it was clear for us that we would go up and help them. For us it was just obvious. We didn't hesitate one second. At the same time we knew that afterwards the expedition would be over.

Annapurna will be watching over the valley of the Modi Khola forever. We as human beings, we will have only one life to live for. I have been at the Annapurna twice. But I can go there another 20 times, if I wish to do so. But both of us, Simon and I, we would have never been able to live with the fact, that we didn't go up and help our friends in need.

We did our best. Unfortunately our help came too late.

But Inaki was never alone. Horia was near him all the time, helping him until he had to go down himself. When I reached Camp 4 I hoped Inaki would make it. But all the Dexamethason I gave him, all my efforts to keep him alive, failed. Inaki didn't have to die alone. This gives me consolation.

On Friday, May 30, 2008, Ueli received the 2008 Eiger Award. The award is part of Grindelwald's annual Eiger Live festival. The Award honors Ueli for his achievements as an alpinist and mountaineer.

Read Jo Adams's report on Ueli's Eiger Award.

Andrew Lock, the Australian mountaineer and Mountain Hardwear athlete, summited Mt. Makalu ("8479 meters, world's 5th highest mountain, and the 13th summit in [Andrew's] quest to climb all 14 of the world's '8000ers') on May 21, 2008.

A steep, massive peak on the border between Tibet and Nepal, Makalu is considered a challenging climb. Only 5 of the first 16 attempts to summit Makalu were successful. In 1955, Jean Couzy and Lionel Terray claimed Makalu's first ascent.

Read about Andrew's 2008 expedition to Makalu Shisha Pangma on his blog.

We make tents. So, in the wake of the terrible earthquake in Sichuan, China, it's only natural that we should send tents to help house those left homeless by the quake. On June 2nd, 2008, 628 two- and three-person tents arrived in China. The UPS Foundation paid for the shipment. In total, the UPS Foundation moved 125,216 pounds of donated supplies.

Tents and other relief supplies, exiting the hold

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Original German text by Edi Estermann, first published in the "Schweizer Illustrierte", Issue No. 23, June 2, 2008.

Translated by Patricia Bamert, with assistance from Cynthia Houng

Big stories begin with small coincidences. A coincidence that Ueli Steck switches on his phone once again on that evening, just before he gets into his sleeping bag.

Base camp, Annapurna South, Nepal, 4200m above sea level: It's Monday, May 19, 7pm. It is snowing slightly at the foot of this 3000 meter tall wall of granite. Ueli Steck, 31, from Ringgenberg (Canton of Bern) and Simon Anthamatten, 24, from Zermatt, (Canton of Valais), came to climb this wall. In the following days the climbing will start. Both are very fit and highly motivated. Dry meat and cheese for dinner - perfect. The chocolate cake is ready. But today there will be no dessert.

"One missed call," reads Ueli's Handy display. Horia Colibasanu, a 31 year old dentist from Rumania, tried to call him. At that moment Horia is up at Camp 4 on the ridge of the Annapurna at 7400 m. On Friday Horia, Inaki Ochoa de Olza, 40 (Spain), and Alexey Bolotov, 45 (Russia), climb over the east ridge towards the Annapurna Summit (8091m).

This summer, David Horton, a Mountain Hardwear and Montrail athlete, will run the Continental Divide Trail. He aims to cover 2959 miles in 69 days. Follow David's journey on Clark Zealand's Eco-X blog.

View Jessa's Photographs from Red Rocks

By Jessa Goebel

Winters in Boone can be grim. Every year as soon as spring hits and the weather is warmer off the mountain it is time to make an exodus to the warmer sunnier Western US. The spring is usually means it is time to go out west and climb something 'big'. This year I was lucky enough to be able to go to Red Rocks outside Las Vegas, NV. For years I have had friends tell me how great the climbing in Red Rocks was, this year I would go see what it was about.

More Photos from Will & Cory's big adventure

By Will Meinen

When a couple of New England athletes came to the Rockies for a Mountain Hardwear Photo Shoot, photographer Cory Richards asked me if I would rope gun for a day and help him set up his riggings. Although it's more glamorous to be the subject in photos, someone also has to be the behind-the-scenes man to help prep the stage (so to speak).

Over some pints Cory and I discussed different climbs in hopes of finding something worthy of Freddie and company. We eventually decided on Hydrophobia. It's long, sustained, remote, dramatic, and exposed. It had all the ingredients we were looking for.

"Do you want me to drive?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it," Cory said. "We'll take my truck."

I always end up driving into the ghost because most of my partners don't have suitable vehicles so I figured it would be a nice change to be the passenger for once.

Everyone loves comic books. Our friends at IDEO sent us a wonderful little comic book detailing their adventures during "Operation Tahoe Fondue Drop." I won't spoil the fun for you. To read the comic book, open the PDF (click on the link below) and enjoy!

Into the Wild: Operation Tahoe Fondue Drop

By Cynthia Houng

This spring, 3 Mountain Hardwear-sponsored teams headed to the Himalayas. Two teams chose to tackle Annapurna (Ueli Steck and Simon Anthmatten went for Annapurna's notoriously treacherous South Face, while Ben Clark and his crew were aiming for the first ski descent of Annapurna IV), while the 3rd team, composed of Kenton Cool, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, and Rob Casserley, were Everest-bound.

The 2008 season ended with a mixture of triumph and heartbreak.

Going camping on a rocky island? Not sure how to keep your tent from flying away? You could try this technique:

Anders Holmberg took this photograph while camping/kayaking on the west coast of Sweden.

Summer's here and we're ready to hit the road. Call us old-fashioned, but we like to tuck a few books into our luggage, for those in-between moments in the airport, or the quiet hours after dark, when we're safe in our tents. We like everything from high literature to noir, with a little classic mountaineering literature thrown into the mix. What are you reading this summer?

Sam Magro, Alpinist/Climber

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates--by Tom Robbins

If you expect to be spending some time in a tent I would suggest some of the wild fiction by Tom Robbins. This particular novel takes place all over the world from the jungles of Peru, to the deserts of Syria, and even passes through the Vatican in Rome. After reading this book during on a road trip I later named some new rock routes after the title as I had just returned to Montana after some hot climbing in California.....enjoy.

Freddie Wilkinson, Alpinist/Climber

Solo Faces - James Salter

I know, I know: climbing fiction is hokey, no doubt about it. But this tale, loosely based on the life of the beatnik alpinist Gary Hemming, defies the typically underwhelming standards of the genre. The reason probably has to do with Salter's mastery of language -- he's a writer, not a climber. Yet alpine climbing is a pursuit that dovetails nicely with the post-modern themes prevalent in Salter's other works: the moral void that fosters excessive risk-taking, self-loathing, suicide, and lots of steamy, meaningless sex. His is a world where individuals wander through life alone, strangers to themselves as much as the alien world around them. Set primarily on the cold, grey north faces of the Alps, this is simply the best book ever written about the darker side of alpinism.

Andrew McLean, Ski Mountaineer

A Man on the Moon - Andrew Chaikin

The adventure book to end all adventure books! If you think being stuck in a small tent in Antarctica is a wild adventure, try strapping yourself to the top of a 300' tall tower of explosives and getting blasted into space where rescue isn't an option. This book reminded me of a 2,000 person expedition to the wildest location possible with the astronauts acting as a summit team with a huge basecamp support crew which included some of the most brilliant visionary minds of the time.

By Will Meinen

It pretty much rained the entire month of May here in the Rockies, so I headed South to Utah with my buddy Brent for a relaxing trip up some classic Zion big walls.

It's still snowing in the Canadian Rockies. I'm headed to Squamish, BC for some sunshine and granite cracks on the Chief.

Enjoy the video.

Jon holds up a photograph of Thor Heyerdahl.

By Jon Bowermaster

Tenerife, The Canary Islands -- A collection of seven islands 100 miles west of Morocco, the Canaries were named not for a species of yellow bird but rather a wild dog. The Latin Insularia Canaria means "Island of the Dogs." Romans gave them the name, due to an endemic breed of fierce dog said to live on the rocky, wind-swept isles. Some years later known as the Fortunate Isles (maybe the dogs had fled?), thanks to a reputation for an oft-pleasant climate. (The same year-round sunshine that today attracts more than 2 million tourists, most from the UK and Europe, to the commune of Spain.)

Until the 15th century the islands were otherwise occupied only by the cave-dwelling Guanches, who claimed the islands until slavers began arriving, capturing them and selling them on the continent. Other than some Stone Age tools, geometric cave etchings and a handful of ruins, it remains an essentially lost culture. They appeared only as small specs on the edge of navigation charts until conquistadors took possession of them, one at a time. The tiny island of La Gomera, for example, is where Columbus stayed on his voyages, and is still unspoiled today.

The islands are the tips of hundreds of volcanoes that first erupted from the seabed 14 million years ago. Teneguia on La Palma is the last volcano to erupt here, in 1971. Tenerife, the largest of the islands, is triangular -- 50 miles by 30 miles, rising sharply on all sides towards a 4,500-foot summit -- lushly vegetated in the north, sunny and arid in the south. Its biggest town, Santa Cruz, is lined with vacation condos and permanent home to 215,000.

It was to the outskirts of Santa Cruz that Thor Heyerdahl escaped in 1991, to escape the glare of fame that had built in his wake after nearly a century of innovative world exploration. Known worldwide for his exploration of the Pacific by wooden raft -- the Kon Tiki -- and early excavations on Easter Island elsewhere, he came to the Canaries to write and relax during his final days.

MHW athletes Dawn Glanc and Kevin Mahoney have started their Big Expedition for Cancer. Follow their journey on the Big Expedition's website.

By Kit Herrod, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Team arrives in Reid Inlet and moves onto Brady Icefield

Aboard the 26-foot Alaska Dream fishing boat, Matt Farmer, Dawn Glanc, Kevin Mahoney and Bayard Russell reached the starting point of the Big Expedition for Cancer Research under cloudy skies at noon, Alaska time, on Saturday, June 14. In addition to Captain Jim Kearns, the team was accompanied by Kit Herrod and Dan McConnell from the Hutchinson Center Organizing Task Force. Ten large duffels, four pairs of skis, utility sleds, satellite equipment and a computer were quickly unloaded on the rocky shore in comfortable 50 degree weather. The team immediately began to reorganize and repack the gear for the ascent of the glacier to the location of their first overnight camp. On Sunday, the planned four day journey to base camp for the attempt on the unclimbed, unnamed mountain, known only as Peak 8290 begins.

On Monday, June 16, the four mountaineers on the Big Expedition for Cancer Research were on the Brady Icefield and picking up their pace toward base camp. Via satellite phone, Matt Farmer, who likes to be called Farmer, said that the team was in good shape and moving toward the Southeast corner of the icefield where they will get their first look at Peak 8290 from the ground.

Since arriving at Reid Inlet on Saturday, the team has had two good days for travel. On Saturday, they moved all their gear approximately 1.5 miles up to the top of Reid Glacier. The terrain was too steep to use their sleds so they each had to make three round trips with only their packs to reach their first overnight camp.

Not 5 minutes after they brought their last load to the campsite, the "Visitor" appeared.

By Kit Herrod

The Big Expedition, up in lights over NYC's Times Square.

View Julia's photographs from Alaska

By Julia Niles

There is something about Alaska that is magical. Alaska is a warm, gooey amoeba that envelops you sucking you in to great times and good people. Strangers are unreasonably friendly and friends show up in the unlikeliest of places. This trip to Alaska proved the theory.

This weekend, dry lightning ignited a swarm of wildfires in Northern California. By Monday morning, Cal Fire (the California agency responsible for tracking and fighting wildfires) counted approximately 90 small fires in Mendocino county, and another 75 in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. (View Calfire's map of current, active wildfires.)

Fires burned closer to home, in Napa County, in Santa Cruz (the third devastating wildfire in recent weeks), and in Brisbane, a small city south of San Francisco.

Last night, we drove up into the Berkeley hills and sat near the top of Grizzly Peak, "just because." (We were also out on a hunt for banana cream pie, but that's irrelevant.) From Grizzly Peak, we could see an enormous plume of smoke rising from the peninsula. It was the smoke from the Brisbane fire.

By Monday morning, the Brisbane fire had been contained, and firefighters reported that their containment efforts, aided by cooler weather (and the return of the Bay Area's usual summer fog), were beginning to rein in the Napa and Santa Cruz fires.

As of this moment, the air is still hazy with smoke, a reminder of fire's undeniable place in the California landscape. It is not a pleasant experience. The particulates cloud the air, sting the eyes, and settle in the throat. As global warming continues and Northern California's climate grows hotter and drier, scientists expect more wildfires in our region.

By Kit Herrod

The metaphor for cancer research is complete. There are more unclimbed mountains to challenge.

Late on Saturday, our team of Farmer, Dawn, Kevin and Bayard on the Big Expedition for Cancer Research determined that they had reached the safe limits of their attempt to climb one of Alaska's unclimbed peaks. For 9 hours, they battled unstable snow, ice and rock to move within 500 vertical feet of the summit of Peak 8290 in Glacier Bay's Fairweather Range. The two rope teams huddled at the high point and called an end to their attempt of the unclimbed mountain in the inaugural Big Expedition for Cancer Research.

Lee Hartwell, president and director of the Hutchinson Center, when receiving the news said ""The climbers are to be congratulated for going so far under trying conditions but especially for putting safety first. It is a true reflection of a principle that governs the research we do in each of our clinical trials. We are proud of the team for their successful challenge of this unclimbed mountain."

"Extremely hazardous" were the first two words out of Farmer's mouth when he made the sat phone call back from base camp to Seattle. "We gave this mountain everything we had within the boundaries of safe, rational mountaineering standards. Sometimes the mountain sets the limits and we have to accept them," he said.

View Mat's photos on Flickr

By Mat Peterson, Mountain Hardwear Planning Team

My wife and I made the quick drive up to Lake Tahoe to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary and renew our vows at the top of Mount Tallac. In my mind Tallac is the by far the most majestic of peaks shooting up of the base of Lake Tahoe.

After working out the early morning kinks from our previous days Mountain bike ride on North Shores Spooner Rim trail we got started on our journey up Tallac, an absolutely stunning peak that shoots up off the lake about 3,800 feet and peaks out around 9,800 feet. It was a perfect day for hiking, 79 degrees and balmy. The plan was to get to the top, renew our vows, eat lunch, hang out for a bit, and make our way back. Little did we know there was bit of adventure in store. About half way up just after we passed of the ridge over looking beautiful Falling Leaf Lake we met Frank.

By Janet Bergman

The owls woke me as they called loudly to each other, just a few feet outside of our loft window in New Hampshire. The sound of their cooing is eerie, but comforting.

Sitting up to look out the window, I think of my previous night's sleep, on the SFO-Boston redeye. After I climb a big wall I often have odd, unsettling dreams, usually having to do with sleeping in a portaledge or being umbilicalled to a hunk of granite for days on end. In this case, every time the plane jarred, I'd woken with an intense urge to put my carry-on backpack, which I'd stowed about four seats behind me, into a haul system and haul it up to me.

The loud nocturnal hunters, whom I had heard so many nights before, were so much more pleasant of a wake up in comparison. As I listened sleepily, the call of one of the owls, and then the other, fades. I picture one landing on a branch and hooting, and the other flying toward it in this all night game of tag.

Then I think of Freddie and I just a day before, climbing the 3000 foot Nose of El Capitan.

View Janet's photographs from the Nose

In January 2008, Mountain Hardwear athlete Neil Gresham set out to Iceland with a small team of British climbers to investigate rumours of sea cliffs with ice climbing potential. They were blown away by what they found. The cliffs of Kaldakin in the North West turned out to be an ice climber's paradise and the team climbed several new routes, including a freestanding WI 6 pillar, that was set dramatically against a backdrop of the crashing ocean. There were no other visitors to the cliffs during the duration of their trip. The short video attached shows what happened.

This lovely silent movie was produced by Neil Gresham, with additional help from Ian Parnell.

Last fall, when I first came across Sunset's One Block Diet blog, I dismissed the project as an albatross. The idea of a one-block diet seemed completely out of line with our contemporary lifestyles. In this age where tomatoes come from Mexico and peaches from Chile, how can we ever hope to eat food grown and processed within "one block" of our homes?

In her introduction to the One Block Diet, Sunset editor Margo True rhasphodized over the "pleasures" of local food. Margo then outlined the Sunset project: "We're using our garden expertise to grow, in a plot about the size of a large backyard, just about everything we'll need for a feast we'll cook at the end of summer. It's the ultimate made-from-scratch meal."

Margo means well. But she kind of turned me off.

Who has the time to grow their own food? Press their own olive oil? Make their own cheese? And who has the money to shop exclusively at the farmer's market, or search out all-organic produce? Plus, she sounded so bossy, and I don't deal well with authority.

I read a few blog entries, and then moved on. I dismissed the One Block Diet as another lark. Oh, the foibles of the wealthy, living high down in Menlo Park, with all those Silicon Valley multimillionaires. I grumbled to my friends that if I had retired at age 28, I, too, could grow all my own food and start my own organic olive farm. Instead, I spend 40 hours a week in the office, sharing my life with a computer screen. When am I supposed to tend my garden?

Something changed this spring.

Last week, Telluride, Colorado's Plum TV aired an interview with Ben Clark. On the interview, Ben discusses his recent trip to Annapurnia IV.

Watch the interview.

For the first time in its history, the Western States 100 has been cancelled. (Montrail, Mountain Hardwear's sister company, sponsors the Western State 100.) The organizers cancelled the race for 3 reasons: "1. Proximity of the fire to the race course...2. Air quality deterioration...3. Safety of our runners."

This photograph, by Kari Niles, a Western States 100 volunteer, gives us some idea of the air quality in Auburn, California. You can't see the smoke here, just haze, but you can see that the particulates have shifted the light, transforming the sun into a reddish disk.