Marking Your Gear
by
Jason Martin
Posted in: Blog Posts in Rock climbing
The Facebook post was incredibly embarrassing. "It looked like a crime scene," my wife wrote. "An entire bottle of blood red nail polish spilled from the kitchen counter top ...
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A Climber Proposes to his Girlfriend in Red Rock Canyon at the
top of Geronimo (5.7, II+) in 2007. To read the story of this romance, click here .
Northwest: --Four bald eagles were found shot dead in a Granite Falls lake in mid-January, and Washington Fish and Wildlife has posted a reward for information leading to the conviction of their killer. It is likely that the birds were perching on tree-branches when they were shot. To read more, click here .
Sierra: --Bishop now has a new climbers advocacy group. Make sure to log onto facebook and "like" the Bishop Area Climbers Coalition .
--Yosemite National Park recently announced the release of the Draft Tuolumne Wild and Scenic River Comprehensive Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement (TRP) and will be presenting interactive public information sessions in Mammoth Lakes on Saturday, February 23rd. To read more, click here . Desert Southwest: --Construction will start next week to improve safety on Park Route 11, or Pinto Basin Road in Joshua Tree National Park Work will start Monday. To read more, click here .
--Trappers that have been trapping bobcats around Joshua Tree National Park have garnered a lot of attention in recent weeks. Bobcat pelts are worth $600 on foreign markets. To read more, click here . Colorado:
--Pitkin County sheriff's investigators turned over the results of their investigation into the death of a skier on Aspen Mountain to the district attorney on Friday. The district attorney is being asked to determine if charges will be filed in the death of Natalie Egleston. To read more, click here .
--A body has been recovered in Grand County during a search for a missing 85-year-old cross-country skier. To read more, click here .
--A 27-year-old skier from New Mexico died Friday after a collision with a tree at Keystone Resort. To read more, click here .
--Skiers and snowboarders have taken to helmets in record numbers. The National Ski Areas Association reports that, over the past 10 years, the number has risen from 25 percent to 67 percent.The use of helmets up, and brain injuries are down on Colorado’s slopes. Yet ski-related fatalities are at a record high, with 20 deaths last year. To read more, click here .
--Ski-area expansions in Colorado and other Western states may please skiers, but they rile environmentalists. The annual Ski Area Environmental Scorecard— prepared by an environmental coalition including Denver's Rocky Mountain Wild — found nearly a third of Western ski areas surveyed in 2012 either expanded terrain or planned to develop new terrain. The growth in ski-area footprints led the Ski Area Citizens' Coalition to assign a lot of D's,including four for resorts in Colorado. To read more, click here .
--A skier who had her camera stolen at Vail Mountain found it for sale on Craigslist and -- posing as a buyer -- persuaded the seller to email her incriminating photos of the camera that proved it was hers. The camera owner alerted the Eagle County Sheriff's Office and deputies arrested a 29-year-old Vail Resorts employee. To read more, click here .
--Two new speed records have been completed in Colorado this winter. Boulder climber Scott Bennett completed speed lines on the Naked Edge in Eldorado Canyon and on D7 on Longs Peak. To read more, click here .
Alaska:
--So a couple of skiers got together to put together a somewhat awesome video of a guy skiing through an abandoned building. Check it out below
Notes from All Over:
--Ang Nima Sherpa died at age 59 in late January. Ang Nima Sherpa was one of the longest-serving "Icefall Doctors," a group of high-altitude workers who maintain the line of fixed ropes and ladders through the Khumbu Icefall to Camp II. To read more, click here .
--Utah authorities say a backcountry skier was injured after he was caught in an avalanche and buried up to his neck. The avalanche happened about 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the Broad's Fork area of Big Cottonwood Canyon. To read more, click here .
--There is an extremely bold new initiative making waves throughout the snow sports industry. Tom Murphy, the Director fo the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education or AIARE, is trying to find a way to bring avalanche fatalities in the United States down to zero by the year 2025. To read more about this initiative, click here .
--A downhill ski racer competing in the Swatch Skiers Cup in Switzerland triggered an avalanche during the race and then did something completely unexpected. Sverre Lillequist did a backflip in front of the avalanche before skiing out of it and winning the race. To see the footage of the backflip, click below
--Is the Federal Government slowly selling off public lands? The answer is, yes. To read an editorial about this, click here .
--Two Austrian climbers have established one of the hardest traditionally protected mixed climbs the in the world. Senza Piombo is WI5, M10, 5 pitches. To read more, click here .
The American Alpine Institute will be a primary sponsor of the 9th Annual Red Rock Rendezvous in Red Rock Canyon just outside of Las Vegas. This will be the seventh time that our guides will be involved, teaching clinics and partying alongside everyone else at the event.
This year our guides will be running multi-pitch climbing trips throughout the event and beginner climbing days on the 30th. They will also be teaching a variety of programs on the proceeding days.
If you have never attended a Red Rock Rendezvous before, you are missing out. This is considered by many to be the best climbing event of the year. Everybody meets in the desert for three days of climbing instruction, clinics, food, and fun. It's a great place to rub elbows with the biggest names in climbing. But it is also a great place to just sit back and soak up climbing culture. Following is a video that was made at last year's event
Every year the event just gets better and I have to say that last year's was the most fun so far. Here is a blog with a number of photos and videos from the 2012 Red Rock Rendezvous.
Major climbing athletes make their way out to the Mojave Desert for the Rendezvous every year. Big names at the event include the likes of Beth Rodden, Peter Croft, Katie Brown, and Andreas Marin. But some of our best guides will also be on hand. These include people like Mike Powers, Kurt Hicks, Richard Riquelme, Alasdair Turner, Ian McEleney, Paul Rosser, Ben Traxler, Mike Pond, Chad Cochran, Andrew Yasso, Erin Smart, Dustin Byrne, Ben Gardner, Tad McCrea, Doug Foust, Quino Gonzalez, James Pierson, Mark Cionek and Jeremy Wilson.
"ICE"
by
Jason Martin
Posted in: Blog Posts in Rock climbing
At the 2013 Ouray Ice Festival, a film production company made one of the best ice climbing videos we've seen. No, it's not about "sick" climbers doing crazy things. Inste ...
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