Losing a Fellow Climber

It’s been quiet here in the blog. One reason is the good weather – I’ve been out on the rocks or doing stuff around the yard… This weekend it’s kitesurfing, for a change…

I’ve meant to post this week, but bad news hit. Wednesday. Fellow friend and climber, Levi Szabo died in the Nepalese Himalayas on Manaslu (8154 meters) whille descending to C4. Extremely tired, he slipped on relatively easy terrain and couldn’t regain his control after a slide and went over a 500 meter cliff at 7300 meters.

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Everest Basecamp Avalanche Video

Avalanches on the Khumbu icefall above [tag-tec]Mount Everest[/tag-tec] BC (Nepal side) are more or less common, but few are as powerful as the one in this video… Even smaller ones sweep ladders and fixed ropes away. If you google Everest BC avalanches, you’ll find a few videos – this is probably the longest and most exhibitive of all. On most of these videos, the avalanches originate from the left side of the Khumbu glacier and as far as I know, the route up the glacier avoids this side…

Still, it’s scary as hell. I witnessed an avalanche…

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How to rappel with three people fast and sound

A really cool blog: Alpine Awakening by mountain guide Kurt Hicks recently featured a really good article on how to rapp quickly and securely with a party of three. It’s clever and definitely makes rapping faster and more secure when with a group of 3. Just make sure that the anchor points are strong enough to hold 2 climbers while they rapp simultaneously! Check out the post here.

Update: I got the idea for this post via onthesharpend.com

Say, where are you climbing?

The tourskiing season is coming to an end here in Europe and everyone is seriously starting to look at their climbing targets for the summer.

Thus came the idea of the survey – who is going where? I’m dying to find out – and I bet you are too – what’s hot and what’s not this year… Let’s focus on the birthplace of mountaineering for now – Europe, more specifically, the Alps. If you want, we can do similar a survey for you Americanos and Americanas as well afterwards

Right after we get enough data, I’ll share the results – which may be surprising…

So, here we go…!