At the American Alpine Institute, we love mountains for their beauty and challenge, and for the livelihood they provide us as guides and teachers. But there are ample reasons for flatlanders to love mountains as well. Mountain ranges function as engines of water production, provide habitat for game, and supply resources for industry. In view of the universal value of mountains, the United Nations General Assembly established International Mountain Day on December 11th of each year to celebrate this shared natural heritage.
This year, we have decided to benefit the Central Asia Institute with our International Mountain Day activities. The Central Asia Institute is a non-profit organization with the mission to promote and support community-based education, especially for girls, in the remote mountainous regions of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Greg Mortenson, whose story was chronicled in the best-selling books, Three Cups of Tea and Stones to Schools, started the Central Asia Institute in 1993. Mortenson was inspired to develop a program to build schools at the foot of the Himalaya after he stumbled into a remote village in northern Pakistan following a failed attempt to climb K2. The villagers took him in, fed him, and gave him a place to rest while he recovered from his Himalayan failure. After Mortenson regained his strength, he vowed to come back to the village in order to help them to build a school. His return some months later marked the start of his quest to bring education to some of the poorest and most remote reaches of the world. Since 1993, Mortenson has helped build 145 schools throughout central Asia.
You can develop your personal climbing skills, your avalanche awareness skills and help us to benefit this important cause by participating in our International Mountain Day events.
You can now register online by clicking here. Registration is optional, but space is limited and those who register will be given priority.
Rock Rescue Clinics We will be offering four two-hour rock rescue clinics at the YMCA climbing wall in downtown Bellingham. The clinics will focus on the baseline skills required to perform a rescue in a high angle environment. We will be offering these from 8am-10am, 10:30am-12:30pm, 1pm to 3pm, and 3:30-5:30pm.
Avalanche Awareness Seminars We will be offering two avalanche awareness events to celebrate International Mountain Day. The first event will be at 7pm at Western Washington University on December 2nd and the second event will also be at 7pm on December 11th at the American Museum of Radio and Electricity in downtown Bellingham.
At all events we will be selling raffle tickets ($5 per ticket) to raise money for the Central Asia Institute. Many sponsors have donated to our event. To learn more about International Mountain Day and our events to celebrate it, please click here.
The American Alpine Institute just received the following email from Denali National Park:
The National Park Service (NPS) is examining approaches to recover more of the cost of the mountaineering program in Denali National Park and Preserve. As part of the public involvement process, the NPS is hosting two public open houses in December and two in January to provide information on the mountaineering program and how the special mountaineering use fee is utilized. The cities, dates, locations, and times of the open houses are:
Anchorage, Alaska – Wednesday, December 8, REI, 1200 W. Northern Lights Blvd., 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Seattle, Washington – Monday, January 17, REI Flagship Store, 222 Yale Ave. N, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Golden, Colorado – Tuesday, January 18, American Mountaineering Center, 710 10th St., 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Park staff will give two 20 minute presentations on the mountaineering program and fee at each open house, beginning at 15 minutes after the hour. Official public testimony will not be taken, but park staff will be available before and after the presentations to provide additional information and answer questions.
Currently each climber of Mt. McKinley and Mt. Foraker pays a cost recovery mountaineering use fee of $200. Income from this special use fee funds some of the cost of the mountaineering program, including preventative search and rescue (PSAR) education, training for rescue personnel, positioning of patrol/rescue personnel (including volunteers) at critical high altitude locations on the mountain, the CMC (human waste) program, and administrative support. Since the cost recovery fee was implemented in 1995, the number of fatalities and major injuries has decreased significantly. This is directly attributable to the increased educational and PSAR efforts made possible through the cost recovery program.
When the special use fee was initially established it covered approximately 30% of the cost of this specialized program. Even though the fee was increased from $150 to $200 in 2005, current fee revenue only covers 17% of the cost. McKinley/Foraker climbers make up less than 1⁄2 of 1 percent of the park’s visitors, and in 2011 Denali will expend approximately $1,200 in direct support of each permitted climber. The average cost for all other visitors is expected to be about $37. In recent years, the park has diverted funds from other critical park programs in order to fully fund the mountaineering program. This has negatively impacted funding available for interpretation, wildlife protection, resource management, and maintenance.
The NPS is seeking input and ideas regarding two key questions:
1) Is the current mountaineering program the most cost effective,
efficient and safe program we can devise?
2) How much of the cost should be recovered from users, and what
options are there for how those costs can be distributed?
Comments from the public will be accepted through January 31, 2011. Comments may be submitted via email to: DENA_mountainfeecomments@nps.gov or faxed to (907) 683-9612. They may also be sent to: Superintendent, Denali National Park and Preserve, P.O. Box 9, Denali Park, AK 99755.
For additional information on the mountaineering program or the cost recovery special use fee visit the park website at www. nps.gov/dena. If you have questions about the fee you may contact Chief Park Ranger Peter Armington at (907) 683-9521 or peter_armington@nps.gov. Media inquiries should be directed to Public Affairs Officer Kris Fister at (907) 683-9583 or kris_fister@nps.gov.
We recently wrote about this particular issue in a blog on November 5th. To learn more about the issue and what you can do to help keep mountaineering fees low, click here.
Pulling through the last few moves on “Lude Crude and Misconstrued,” a popular 5.9 located in the Black Corridor of Red Rocks, is not a particularly difficult thing to do. The moves at the top are easy. No instead, the scariest part of the climb is not the climb itself, but the anchors. So many people have put their rope through the chains at the top of the route and then proceeded to toprope or lower off the anchors that the sawing action of hundreds of ropes has nearly eaten them clean through.
This is a chronic problem at sport climbing areas across America. Chain and quicklink anchors are severely damaged due to ignorance or laziness. The problem is most visible however, in places where it is sandy. Once a rope gets sand in the sheath it literally becomes like sandpaper. The repeated sawing action of a moving tensioned rope -- especially one with sand in the sheath -- may severely damage anchor chains in as little as a matter of hours.
The question then must be asked, who is responsible for a newly damaged anchor? Is it the first ascent party's responsibility to replace the anchor? Is it the responsibility of a local guide service? Does it become the problem of local climbing conservation groups? Or are the people who damaged the anchor responsible?
There is no right answer to the preceeding question. I have personally replaced innumerable anchors out of my own pocket. I know a number of others that have the same. We do this because we don't want to see anybody get hurt. But it's not something that we want to do.
Most of us who put up new routes or repair existing climbs simply avoid toproping directly through the chains. Instead, we use a cordelette or a double shoulder-length sling in conjunction with locking carabiners.
To the left is an example of a rope threaded directly through the anchor. Do not do this for anything but a rappel.
On the left-hand side, the anchor is composed of quick links. These are easier to change-out when they are damaged. On the right, the anchor is made up of chain purchased from a hardware store. This is more difficult to replace when damaged.
The photo on the right provides an example of a properly set-up toprope. The anchor is composed of a double shoulder-length sling, tied into a pre-equalized eight. At the bottom, clipped into the power-point (sometimes called the master-point) are two opposite and opposed locking carabiners. This is the best possible system as it meets the requirements for a SRENE or ERNEST anchor and protects the anchor chains from damage.
There are two organizations that are currently replacing bolts and anchors throughout the country. The first is the nonprofit American Safe Climbing Association (ASCA) and the second is the Anchor Replacement Inititive (ARI) sponsored by Climbing magazine, the North Face and Petzl . It is possible to support the ASCA with donations and to support the ARI by purchasing items from their corporate sponsors.
Checking anchors to make sure that they are not damaged, replacing those that are or providing financial support to those who will replace them, and reporting damaged anchors to individuals who will fix them is the responsibility of every climber. But perhaps the greater responsibility is to simply avoid damaging an anchor to begin with.
So in the festivities of being thankful for my life, I forgot to get a video up for you guys today! Better late than never I suppose. Here is a great video of some notable climbers deep water soloing. Except it is over a river, and they are climbing on an artificial wall. Pretty cool idea if you ask me, I would show up to this event.
Surprisingly, there is one mistake that both beginners and advanced climbers alike tend to make. Many people will wrap a tree with a sling and then clip the sling. Often the sling is wrapped around the tree in such a way that it is loading the carabiner improperly. A carabiner that is loaded from three directions is often referred to as being triaxally or tri-directionally loaded. This is very very bad...
In this photo the carabiner is radically tri-loaded.
An impact on such a carabiner could cause failure.
A tri-loaded carabiner is crossloaded. It will not hold a high impact fall. As such, it is important to use slings that are long enough to tie off. In the preceding example, there is not enough sling material to get all the way around the tree, but even if there was enough for the carabiner to hang more loosely, it could still triaxally load it.
One could tie the sling off with a pre-equalized knot, but this isn't required. The following photo shows one quick example of a tie-off that eliminates the possibility of triaxal loading.
Triaxal loading is a detail that a lot of climbers don't think about. But it is just these kinds of minor details that can get you in the end. The phrase, "the Devil's in the details," didn't come from nowhere.
The American Mountain Guides Association recently held its annual meeting in Boulder, Colorado. In the past we have written about the AMGA and the events associated with it. In 2008, we covered the annual meeting at Smith Rock and the always popular Guide Olympics. This year was quite bit different, and the focus of the annual meeting was much more broad. It also coincided with the annual meeting of the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations (IFMGA, or UIAGM in French or IVBV in German) and this year that organization held it in the United States in conjunction with the AMGA for the first time in history.
Banners Advertising the Meeting Ornamented Boulder's Downtown District
The AMGA is one of the twenty-two member organizations of the IFMGA, and through it, American guides who attain the highest level of certification in all three American guide certifications (rock, alpine and ski) are provided with welcoming access and assistance in the mountainous areas of member countries from the regional organizations.
While the AMGA/IFMGA meeting was really a conference with dozens of smaller committee meetings and trainings all over the city, there were a handful of bigger events at which a large percentage of the participants got together. The first was a fantastic opening event at the Prana store in downtown Boulder. The second was the IFMGA General Assembly, the third was a guides parade in Downtown Boulder, and the last was the AMGA Main Event, consisting of dinner, talks, awards, and a climbing narrative presented by American IFMGA guide and world class climber, Vince Anderson.
I had the opportunity to attend the IFMGA General Assembly on the morning of the 14th. This particular meeting was the centerpiece of the entire affair, and was devoted to a range of business and guiding issues in the member countries. It was tricky to understand what was going on though. The meeting was presented in German and there were limited translation headsets. I ended up sitting near someone wearing one of them to get an idea of what was going on. This made it a bit difficult to follow the whole thing, but I got the jist through second-hand communications...
Herman Biner, the President of the IFMGA, talks to a group of Swiss Guides at the Guides Parade
The elephant in the room at this meeting was the fact that while American guides have access to Europe, European guides don't have the same level of access to the US. This has to do with the public lands permitting systems in the US. Each of the parks, recreation areas, forest lands, and BLM lands have different permits and rules in the United States. And unfortunately for the European guides, US permit rules do not make it terribly easy to get access to these lands. This is something that the AMGA pledged that they would continue to work on with the Europeans on over the coming years.
The city of Boulder pulled out all of the stops at the event. You're probably aware that Boulder is an extremely popular place for outdoor sports. Indeed, like our homebase in Bellingham, Boulder is considered by many to be one of the capitols of outdoor and adventure sports in the United States. Clearly, the business owners and residents of the city take pride in this perception and opened their arms to the visiting guides. There were meetings and dinners at numerous restaurants and shops. And for a few days, guides wearing IFMGA and AMGA jackets dominated the downtown scene.
Bergfuhrer is German for Mountain Guide. This specialty brew was created for the meeting and features European IFMGA guide Leo Caminada in the center. Leo was the president of the IFMGA when the AMGA was selected as a member.
On the afternoon of November 14th, all of the guides got together and walked in a parade down Pearl Street. This public event with guides from seventeen countries was perhaps the largest such event for mountain guides in the history of American guiding. Following is a short video from the parade.
The final evening of the conference was far more AMGA oriented than many of the previous meetings. The first part of the evening was dedicated to the memories of two guides that passed away this year. John Fischer and Heidi Kloos were guides from two completely different generations. Fischer was a pioneer in the guiding industry in the 1970s and was instrumental in helping create an organization that was the predecessor of the AMGA (the APMGA - the American Professional Mountain Guides Association). Kloos was a modern "big mountain" guide and one of the few women in the United States to complete her Alpine Guide certification. The community lost both of these guides this year, Fisher in a motorcycle accident and Kloos in an avalanche. As with every guide memorial, many tears were shed. Both John and Heidi will be missed.
At the centerpiece of the Main Event was a history of the AMGA. Doug Robinson sketched out the events that led to the creation of the APMGA, the predecessor to the AMGA, the original organization pioneered by a small circle of guides in California from 1979 to 1985. Dunham Gooding, AAI's president, gave a colorful history of the AMGA's challenging and ground-breaking first ten years. He detailed the events which led to where we are today. Dunham began the narrative in 1986 and talked about how the National Accreditation Program was established, how the National Guide Certification Program was designed and implemented, and how the US applied to the IFMGA for membership in that international body. Dunham served as AMGA Vice President for three years and President for six years during that formative time.
Former AMGA Presidents - From left to right, Alan Pietrasanta, Ian Wade, John Cleary,
former AAI guide Mark Houston, AAI President Dunham Gooding, Phil Powers, Dick Jackson, and John Bicknell. Missing was former AMGA president and AAI guide Matt Culberson.
Dunham related that some individual European guides were concerned that with US membership in the IFMGA, the Alps would be overwhelmed with American guides. He said he jokingly reassured them that "it would be at least 6 or 8 years before there were 1000 American guides in the Alps." The reality was and is that the certification process is a rigorous one, and the increase in numbers of American guides working in the Alps has been very gradual. The AMGA was officially voted into membership of the IFMGA in 1997. Now, 13 years later, approximately 30 American guides regularly work in the Alps.
In the historical sketch, Dunham noted that the leadership of the IFMGA was incredibly encouraging and welcoming to the American application. Representing the US through those years at the IFMGA annual meetings, he described how open and supportive the Europeans were to the candidacy, both on personal as well as on official levels. Dunham particularly noted the generosity of the Canadians, Hans Gmosser, and Karl Classen. Canada served as the US sponsor in the application process, led by the esteemed Canadian Mountain Guides Association President Hans Gmosser (known as the beloved "grandfather of guiding" in Canada, unfortunately now deceased) and Technical Committee Chair Karl Classen.
The AMGA Annual Meeting and the IFMGA Meeting were both great successes. This was a spectacular event, and the membership of the AMGA is thankful for the work of AMGA Executive Director Betsy Novak and AMGA President/former AAI Avalanche Provider Margaret Wheeler, in putting together the conference. This was a real opportunity for those of us who don't work in Europe to reach out to our foreign brothers and sisters in friendship. And now we can only hope that we have the opportunity to do so again. While this was the first IFMGA meeting in the United States, it will certainly not be the last.
Climbing, skiing and mountaineering are dangerous sports. When you undertake an outdoor, backcountry, or an alpine adventure without a guide, you assume total responsibility for your decisions and wellbeing. Conditions in the mountains are constantly changing, and no guidebook or computer web blog can take the place of solid training and experience. Though this site features descriptions of roads, trails, climbing routes, and other natural features, you cannot assume that because something is described here that it has not changed since last observed or that it will be safe for you or your party.
AAI assumes no responsibility or liability for your use of the information presented in this blog. With regard to all backcountry travel and climbing, you must make your own assessments and decisions, and you assume all risks in applying them.
