Archive for the ‘Featured Stories’ Category

Golden, CO—Today The American Alpine Club—dedicated to knowledge, inspiration, conservation and advocacy for the climbing community—released a chance to win a prize package so unique that it cannot be bought. The giveaway will offer one winner the following items, redeemable in Boston at the 2012 Annual Benefit Dinner on March 3:

Enter by February 6 for a chance to win special AAC Annual Benefit Dinner prizes and access

Every person who buys a ticket to the 2012 Annual Benefit Dinner by February 6th automatically will be entered to win this giveaway package!

GIVEAWAY DETAILS: http://www.americanalpineclub.org/p/2012-annual-benefit-dinner-giveaway

The Annual Benefit Dinner is the AAC’s signature and largest annual event. In addition to fine dining and entertainment, the Dinner mingles climbers of all generations and abilities to celebrate the vibrant state of this 110-year-old organization. The event will be held in Boston at the Seaport Hotel and will celebrate a year of change and success through the theme of Partnership: Climbing through the Generations.

“In line with our theme, the weekend’s feature presentation will share the inspiring story of men and women from different generations climbing together in one of the world’s last uncharted places,” said Erik Lambert, Information & Marketing Director for the AAC. “The giveaway is an added incentive to bring younger climbers and more seasoned explorers together, celebrating the shared experience of the climbing life.”

Following dinner, Boston native Mark Richey (age 53) and climbing partners Freddie Wilkinson (age 32) and Steve Swenson (age 57) will share inspiration from their August 2011 Saser Kangri II expedition. They reached the 7,518-meter summit of the second-highest unclimbed mountain in the world—one of the last frontiers of Himalayan climbing. 

Every ticket sold helps The American Alpine Club raise funds to improve its programs: protecting and preserving the places we climb, bringing climbers together, expanding information resources, grants, lodging, and more. Founded by a Boston native in 1902, the AAC has advocated for climbers throughout the generations, with a progressive implementation of new programs. In 2011 the Club:

• Hired staff around the country to ensure that the AAC is vibrant in your backyard. These Regional Coordinators regularly connect with Members by hosting local events, conservation projects, and more. Sarah Garlick supports the Northeast Region from North Conway, NH.

• Expanded its Member benefits to include rescue insurance, gym and gear discounts, and new and improved places for climbers to stay, such as the rebuilt Snowbird Hut in Alaska and the new AAC Clubhouse in Kathmandu, Nepal.

• Purchased 40 acres of land on the rim of West Virginia’s New River Gorge. The AAC is
working with local conservation and climbing organizations to break ground this year on a Climbers’ Campground with amenities walking distance from popular crags.

• Launched a new website, bringing local communities together in a more
user-friendly and attractive online space.

• And in 2012, the Club will break ground on a new Climbers’ Campground with easy access to climbing in New York’s Shawangunks.

“The AAC is at its best when we can be helpful to climbers where they climb—in their own backyards,” said Executive Director Phil Powers. “Our Members in the Northeast raised their hands to host the Annual Dinner this year. Regional staff and volunteers are working together to make it a truly top-notch event with a great local flavor. This is just one example of how the AAC is changing. We’re listening to our Members and helping them build what they want from the ground up.”

For more information and tickets, visit americanalpineclub.org/2012dinner 

About The American Alpine Club
The American Alpine Club provides knowledge and inspiration, conservation and advocacy, and logistical support for the climbing community. The AAC advocates for American climbers domestically and around the world; provides grants and volunteer opportunities to protect and conserve the places we climb; hosts local and national climbing festivals and events; publishes two of the world’s most sought-after climbing annuals, The American Alpine Journal and Accidents in North American Mountaineering; cares for the world’s leading climbing library and country’s leading mountaineering museum; manages the Grand Teton Climbers’ Ranch as part of a larger lodging network for climbers; and annually gives $80,000+ toward climbing, conservation, and research grants to adventurers who travel the world. Learn about additional programs and become a member at americanalpineclub.org. Join the AAC’s online community at facebook.com/americanalpineclub.

WINNERS of the Drytooling Comp

Friday Night at the Cranmore Climbing Wall, North Conway NH

Kevin Mahoney climbed strong to win the Men’s division

Kevin Mahoney about to enter the first crux of the climb – Photos by Doug Millen

 Click photos to enlarge

Janet Bergman makes it to the last obsticle to win the Women’s division

Janet Bergman on the last obstacle to win – Photos by Doug Millen

Comp Results

Men’s

1st – Kevin Mahoney

2nd – Bayard Russell

3rd – Ivan Tighe

Women’s 

1st – Janet Bergman

2nd – Andrea Charest

3rd – Lindsay Fixmer

Many thanks to Cranmore for hosting the climbing event and to IME and IMCS for making it all happen, and to the sponsors…Thank you!

Ice Fest Blog

Gros Morne National Park

Michael Wejchert starts up a pitch of WI5 on an 800-foot route in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland.  Stay tuned for more as their trip unfolds!

Cox Cove

With the sea rocking below, Rockytop and  Michael Wejchert top out on a WI4 route in Cox Cove, Newfoundland.

Michael Wejchert traversing to the route at high tide.

More photos in the NEice Photo Post

Photos by Alden Pellett  & Ryan Stefiuk, Bigfoot Mountain Guides

Standing at the first belay, I’m staring up at the crux of the route right off the deck.  Protection will be questionable.  I’m sure I’m strong enough to pull the moves, but is it worth the risk?  I’ve got time to decide – I can always wait until Matt’s up the first pitch before committing one way or the other.

I’m up and down on the column of ice below the small roof of ice above like a slow-motion sewing-machine needle.  Each time I suss out some of the moves and try to figure out how I can protect this section.  There’s a pin on the right, but it’s questionable at best.  I get in a 16 but neither this nor the pin will keep me off the deck if I blow the moves.  I think I might get in a 10 a little bit higher, but getting into a position to do this would mean committing to making the moves through the roof.

I’ve climbed this route a thousand times in my mind.  It sees multiple ascents each day, often in conditions far more difficult than those I’m looking at.   It’s been on my tick list for several years now, and though it may not be unfinished business at this point, the way it has captured my imagination is something right out of Inception.  I’ve seen every photo of it on the photopost.  I’ve even searched photos of it with various misspellings.  I can’t get this route out of my head.

Article by Patrick Cooke

The ice is hard and brittle.  The overnight lows were somewhere around -10.  The outer bit of the column is hollow, and the inner section is solid feeling, but candled.  Just below the roof is a section of the most hacked up, thin, and seemingly nasty looking ice I’ve seen all season.  Swinging into it seems like a bad idea.  Will hooking it rip it right off of the rock behind it?  It’s obviously been getting climbed, all I have to do is focus and move upward.

Some days the route just isn’t ready for you.  But in this case I’d be lying if I made this claim.  Self-doubt and fear erased any confidence I had in myself and my abilities.  Others have climbed the route in far more difficult conditions.  Hell, earlier this season I had made harder moves on far more dangerous terrain.  Regardless, I wasn’t ready that day and we quietly rapped down to the ground.

*****

Some days, in a fit of delusion, I actually convince myself that I’m a hardman.  Or at least, I think I want to be?  Do I? $#!&, what the #$@% am I thinking? Sobering up from my fantastical delusions, I’m pretty sure that a: I’m not a hardman, and b: I’m not really sure I want to be one.  Sure, it would be awesome to solo WI6 and figure-4 my way across magazine covers, but am I really cut out for it?

In fact, it seems that I have an internal battle going on each and every day within my own mind.  In one corner we have my ego  - inflated with an unwarranted and largely unearned sense of of talent and self-worth. Repentence?  Should be a breeze.  MindBender? I’ll hike it, no problem.  Run-out trad M8? A figure 4 here, a stein-pull there…  You get the point.  Mid-week, comfortably within the confines of my home, there’s nothing I can’t climb.

Yeah, I could be this guy, but not this day... that's my set of ropes on the right!

In the other corner is my sense of humility.  The part of me that thinks “it doesn’t matter what grade I climb” as long as I’m out swinging the tools.  This is the part of me that would think a romp up Mt. Webster, or linking pitches in Stony Clove is a hell of a way to spend an afternoon. We can call this my inner-everyman.  Although my inner-everyman lacks the sense of adventure and the potential for glamour that could accompany the inner-hardman, it is the safer avenue: There are no crushing defeats, no scary run-outs, and no moments of sheer terror.

More comfortable terrain - Odell's Gully

So much of my identity as a climber, and indeed my identity in its own right is tied up in the dichotomy between my my ego and my sense of humility.  Sure, grades don’t matter, but there’s a sense of accomplishment and euphoria that accompanies climbing something hard.  When I look at some of my best days climbing, it’s the days in which I pushed myself harder than I thought I could that stand out above most of the others.  Climbing a hard route in good style perhaps panders a bit to my own inner elitism, but damn is it satisfying.  The danger in this, of course, is the crushing return to reality when the desired result doesn’t happen.

*****

I’m back for another run at the route.  We get an early start to beat the crowds that will be out and about on IceFest weekend.  Of course, there’s someone there already as we arrive.  Rather than wait, we jump on another route nearby.  It’s sufficiently hard (in fact, it’s probably even harder), and this time the sense of daring wins out over the fear.  Although we don’t finish the route, the two pitches we do climb are stellar and involve some good, committing moves.  We turn around and retreat when the third pitch is a raging waterfall, and I’ll keep telling myself that this is a justifiable reason for doing so.  Of course now I have two routes to finish…

Equilibrium? Leading pitch 2 of 20 Below Zero Gully