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I don’t get it. Who was it that came up with the idea of making avalanche shovels out of plastic? Have they ever seen an avalanche from up close? I don’t dare asking whether they have tested these shovels at all…
How fast will this thing break?
You’ve got to have respect for Russain mounaineers. In Europe and North-America, they get too little attention. I just read on the English pages of mountain.ru (great site, by the way, full of priceless information) that a team of five ascended the 560 m wall of Fisht’s Western Face straight on the fall line. The conditions were incredibly crappy for them, but the tough, Prussian-style schooling paid off: they were able to ascend despite the poor conditions – despite hardly even being able to reach BC in the snowy and ici days of the Caucasian February.
Check out the dispatches here and lament over what it must have been like to climb this baby in early March: 
Just started making plans making the trip this May to Chamonix and skiing/climbing some of the “mandatory stuff” with a fellow mountain guide. But, as you may have heard in the previous weeks, another bad accident hit – involving expert Italian mountain guides. Four of them. The fine article at climbing.about.com outlined some of the reasons for the vast number of tragedies on the mountain.
Can you guess it? Before I give you the answer, consider a very serious finding from ScientificBlogging.com concluding that by far, the most [tag-tec]climbing[/tag-tec] deaths on [tag-tec]Everest[/tag-tec] occured during the descent. That’s understandable, isn’t it? After all, descending is often more technical, you are more tired and tend to be more careless than on the way up…
“Wait a sec, what’s the no. 1 cause?” The primary mortal cause on the world’s highest peak among [tag-tec]mountain guides[/tag-tec], [tag-tec]climbers[/tag-tec] and sherpas is caused by symptoms such as confusion, loss of physical coordination and unconsciousness… all of which can be associated with cerebral edema. Cerebral edema is the scary consequence of the brain’s blood vessels leaking, resulting in the swelling of the brain.
The scientist gals and dudes who prepared this study were surprised to find that pulmonary edema – which is getting excessive fluid in the lungs – has been pretty rare.
OK, so many of you will never deal with the really high altitude stuff- that is, “death zone” climbing – or over 8000 meter climbing, so cerebral edema only leads deaths on high mountain expeditions. So, on to the number 2 cause of death on mountaineering, hiking and trekking excursions… Which is: [tag-tec]hypothermia[/tag-tec]. Hypothermia occurs, basically, when your body temp drops to around 32 deg. Centigrade, or just below 90 deg. Fahrenheit.
In this state, you do not yet freeze, but will experience cognitive deficiencies – loss of coordination, speech disfunctioning, illusions-seeing things etc. People have been reported getting rid of all their equipment and clothing when entering severe stages of hypothermia. Often, corpses found in the wilderness are actually discovered bare naked.
What to do and what not to do, when the danger of hypothermia sets in…
Do:
Do not:
Needless to say, you should make every effort to get the victim in a hospital.
Tags: climbers, death zone, high altitude, Hypothermia, mountain, mountain travel, mountaineering, TrekkingWhat’s the thing that challenged you the most when you started [TAG-TEC]rock climbing[/TAG-TEC]? I bet it was finger strength – definitely. And possibly your initial fear of heights. Or so you thought.
What you may or may not have realized as you advanced in your skills is that [TAG-SELF]rock climbing[/TAG-SELF] is so much about BALANCE. It’s a balancing act. You were probably told very early on that it’s all about placing your bodyweight on your legs.
CLIMB WITH YOUR LEGS, darn it!
…shouted your coach, if you had one of those better coaches called “close friends”. But what is placing body weight on your legs and turning your feet for proper placement? It’s all balancing, baby! Sure, if you’ve gotten far enough in climbing, you may have realized this.
The thing is, when I started climbing, I never understood guys telling me that it’s all about balance and so, so much less about finger- and arm strength. But if you’re a newbie at this wonderful sport, pay close attention to the effect that every small move has on your balance. That is, the way it becomes more or less difficult to stay on the wall depending on the angle you place your feet or turn your shoulders or move your hips…
If you’re a beginner, balancing is probably more important than you think, and you can never get good enough at it.
If you want to improve in rock climbing, one thing that can help you is fine tuning your balance. Here are some good resources…
Do this kind of stuff even if you”re into alpine climbing, mountaineering doing relatively easier stuff. It’ll help tremendously, believe me.
Eventually, this is where you want to get…
Is this stuff helpful? If you’re a more experienced climber: how did you get good at balancing?
Tags: Climbing, mountaineering, Rock ClimbingOK, of course, it’s not mandatory. But one thing’s for sure. If you’ve gotten your hands dirty with [TAG-TEC] mountaineering [/TAG-TEC] and were under the impression that “OK, I want this stuff,” then sooner or later you’ll want to nail one of the most emblematic peaks on the Planet: the big, bad [TAG-TEC]Matterhorn.[/TAG-TEC] Am I right?
Seriously. No matter if you’re a young titan or a 40-ish dude with a small beer-belly who started climbing a bit too late, you probably want this mountain – or have it already – on your list. (Or you ,may have scaled it already.)
Pretty high up on the Hörligrat
If you’re a Brit or a Euro, don’t think you’re the only one crazy about this peak. Check out the “toplist” on the most visited climbing social site on the web, summitpost.org. Here you’ll see that on the list of “most searched for mountains”, the [TAG-SELF]Matterhorn[/TAG-SELF] comes in at no. 2 outside the American contintent (the most popular is Mt. Blanc). And it’s the sixth most popular peak all-in-all on Summitpost.
Thus ariseth the question: what do you need to climb the Matterhorn? More »
Tags: Climbing, Hörnligrat, matterhorn, mountain, mountain guide, mountaineering, Pollux