We decided to call it off. No Elbrus this year. The situation is just too unreliable and the area may be closed when our July climb comes. So instead, we’ve been suggesting our clients to go to Iran’s highest peak, Damavand. Yeah, just go climb Damavand this year – it’s fantastic and it’s cheaper than Elbrus. It’s a bit easier due to there being less snow, less cold… despite Damavand having a slightly higher summit.

Why climb when you can ride Damavand? Nah, you can't really do that.

I swear there is NO photoshop involved in the above picture. The sky really is THAT blue. So, which do you think is a better ‘party’: Damavand or Elbrus?

Hey guys, we just beefed up our Grossglockner Climb page with a few new fancy pics. Check out the Climbing Grossglockner page on our website. Better yet, check out the mountain for real.

Grossglockner is Austria’s highest peak at 3797 meters and is probably the most-climbed mountain. If you want a good climb in the summer and avoid crowds, try climbing on a weekday. Otherwise, start out from the hut as early as possible. That way you’ll only run into traffic jams on the way down. If you’re a gnarly climber and can handle UIAA III-IV ridges with scary drops, go for the Stüdlgrat variant.

This is probably the shortest post on this blog, ever. Check out this stunning trek to a country with a very bad brand.

Fun jeep rides in Iranian mountains...

One of the most unrecognized high peak treks on the globe is Iran’s Mt. Damavand (5671 m). Just yesterday, we threw a really sweet Mt Damavand climb package on the website. We’re pretty good at doing Iran; Daniel, our mountain guide has been to and travelled accross the country on several occasions – mostly doing photography and guiding.

He’s really at home when it comes to Persian (that is…: Iranian) culture and customs. Here’s an extract from our website on what to look out for in Iran in terms of culture.  For starters, don’t refer to them as Arabs… They’re Persians, which is a different people.

There is no need to bring shorts – you shouldn’t wear them in this country. Bring a light, breezy pair of pants.

Local Customs which are Interesting and Should be Respected

You are visiting a country with a very special – and for Westerners, unusually strict – Islamic culture, conduct and customs. Here is what to keep in mind: long pants for gentlemen, scarf for ladies at all times, even on lower regions of the mountain. The scarf can be any color and material as long as it covers your hair. For you ladies, a long sleeve shirt is highly recommended to avoid ridiculed stares. Please respect these basic things.

Here are some other customs:

• Western women can talk to anyone and can shake hands with men as well. Wesetern gentlemen can only shake hands with Persian (Iranian) women, if she initiates. Men can flirt with women as long as they’re in a smaller group. However, private conversations are forbidden. As a basic rule, men shouldn’t touch Iranian women.
• It’s customary to reject favors and invitations three times. If you’re offered the favor for the fourth time, you should accept. Exceptions: tea and smaller favors.
• Money isn’t everything! If you’re shopping, do engage in the conversation with the shopkeeper about where you’re coming from etc. It’s rude to ask about the price right away.
• Iranians are very interested in the West, and in you. If you show them pics from home, give them postcards, and just chat with them, they’ll be enormously happy.
• When getting into a taxi, be sure to get crystal clear on the destination and the price. Otherwise, they’ll rip you off in the end.
• If you run into trouble, just start shouting. In no time, a crowd will form around you and they will take your side (and do justice to the other party) – Iranians love tourists. They are among the most hospitable people in the world.
• Bring a photocopy of your passport and visa with you to town. If a cop asks for your papers, give him the photocopy first – just in case they aren’t entirely friendly and benign, it’s better to keep the original passport on you and give him a photocopy instead.
• Alcohol and drugs are strictly forbidden in this country. Both are easy to obtain, but if you are found possessing or using them, you risk serious fines, jail and in extreme cases, a death penalty. We cannot take responsibility for you in this respect. Save the beers (and the joint) for celebrating your climb at home.

Food-drinks

The most popular food on the street is the sandwitch. This can be kebab, falafel. If you’re a hard core try-it-all, you have your pick of hot-dog, liver and brain-filled sandwitches. We haven’t yet dared try the latter.

You won’t be disappointed with local food. If your a veggie, it’s a bit more difficult, but you can get along fine. Forget alcohol and go for fruit shakes, among which – in our opinion – watermelon ice-shakes are the peak of fine gastronomy. There are all the Coke imiations, too: Farsi-Cola, Zamzam-Cola, Mecca-Cola. You’ll get to drink a bunch of tea, too. Bottled water can be purchased almost everywhere.

…but nonetheless, we are optimistic!

Approaching Elbrus summit with the lower, eastern summit in the background

It’s been written at several places that Islamic terrorists killed foreigners and exploded bombs at ski resorts near Mt Elbrus. The area is currently closed for climbing.

That’s bad news for the thousands who want to climb the peak every year. Like us. We have a fun and very successful Mt Elbrus climb every year. It’s set to take off early July. We may postpone it to August, however. We really hope the Russian secret service will be able to clean out the area and make it safe again. It’s really a question of prestiege for them as well, since the 2014 Winter Olympics are set to take place in nearby Sochi.

Let’s hope for things to settle very very soon! Needless to say, we’ll keep you updated.

Approaching the summit of Rysy in the High-Tatras

To kick things off for the new year, the boys and girls at ClimbBigMountains.com have decided to compile a list of some observations from the past 5 years. On what? Why people we know have failed to reach their desired summits. We’ll leave out the obvious ones, like bad weather because you can help that with a little planning. The list has a few surprising items and tips on how to overcome them…  Here is part 1 with a very much overlooked reason:Reason #4: Failing to make it to the mountains

You shouldn’t overlook this, really. Many people have plans in life and as such, they have plans to climb mountains. But, we’re not always good enough at planning and making things happen. This means, you lose out on much of the fun you deserve.

The solution’s easy. You have to put all your important goals in writing. This is something you might have heard before, but HOW you do it is just as important as doing it. So, along with your other possible new years’ resolutions, I want you to:

1. 1. take a piece of paper
2. 2. write down the top 8-10 goals for the year – personal, career and travel/climbing goals.
3. 3. next to each goal write down the answer to the following questions: 1) why is it important to me? 2) what is the biggest obstacle to this goal? 3) what/how do I need to change in order to reach this goal?
4. 4. stick this paper above or next to your computer monitor where you always see it
5. 5. cross off the goals you’ve achieved

By the way, when you dig deep enough on “what’s the biggest obstacle to this goal” – you’ll almost always boil things down to YOU being the obstacle. Or rather, you not having enough time/energy etc. to get the things done. Now, Uncle Dan has a solution for this one as well.

1. 1. make a checklist of all the things you need to get done for each desired goal
2. 2. go through the list and ask yourself: is this REALLY necessary? Cross off any items that don’t directly impact the result of the goal
3. 3. go through the list and ask yourself: who can do this for me?… I mean, you can outsource a huge portion of your life and have friends/family/a colleague/some stranger you hire do much of the things you don’t want to do but are necessary. Make a list of all the activities you can outsource. A convenient example: you really have to rake the leaves in the yard over the weekend. It takes half a day, so no climbing for you Mr, if you choose to do gardening on Saturday. Isn’t it worth it to pay 10 bucks to the kid down the street to do it for ya?

This may seem like a self-help blogpost, but hey, getting a few spare days each year to make the trip to the mountains really is a hard task. Just doing the simple process above can win you an extra vacation where you climb a really awesome peak. Not to mention attaining other goals of yours.

Can you relate to this, or is it just us!?

I’m really interested on your experience. Do you have a similar system? Please comment away and feel free to disagree too.

I’ll be back with Reason #3 in a few days.

I’m really in the mood for ice climbing now. It’s always like this in the fall. You know, rocks are always wet from rains, snow is a few more weeks off… But it’s always the ice I yearn for the most.

I was drooling over the Petzl movie below, just yesterday. It features – along with funny French dudes – speedclimbing sensation Ueli Steck doing their things on Ben Nevis:

Scottish Icetrip – English from Petzl-sport on Vimeo.

OK, this is mixed climbing, which is even more fun.

Of course, when it comes to Europe, the talk is normally about Chamonix- at least for most of us. Even our company can’t miss the opportunity and do a couple Chamonix Ice Climbing workshops this winter.

Hey, almost half the readers on this blog are from the US, so it ain’t fair that we always rave about Europe, right? Here is a good NG blogpost on a perhaps less well known US spot way up in Montana… in their Best American Adventures series.

Have fun and share with us here some of your favorite ice climbing locations and

There are only a handful of the 14 eight thousander mountains which are skiable almost all the way from top to bottom. Cho Oyu is one of them and it is also one of the “easier” 8000 meter mountains on Earth.

Of course, we have the “first ski descent of K2” and “skiing Everest” sorts of news… As many of us know, rock is unpleasant, if not impossible to ski on and these descents are only skied in a small proportion. The brave adventurers are often forced to unmount and tie the skis on their backpacks and rapell… But when we talk about skiing Cho Oyu, you’ll know that it’s real from top to bottom (not that Everest/K2 descents aren’t real – hands down for anyone who carves turns at those altitudes)… Cho Oyu can be tour skied almost all the way up and down.

Ski touring at such altitudes is pretty demanding as you can imagine – it’s actually tougher on your body to carve turns in deep snow or frozen firn, than it is to slowly inch your way in crampons on the ridge. Plus, on the ascent, you have all the mounting/unmounting to do which also takes a whole lot of steam.

Also, when you tourski way up there, you run into a whole lot of issues with gear. Especially footwear. High altitude climbing boots are pretty good already with insulation and keeping your feet dry, but the same cannot be said for ski touring boots. So you need overboots and those sorts of things. So it’s really a lot more complicated.

As you might imagine, the whole equipment issue ends up being a weight issue. When every gram counts, it’s a real pain in the ass to have to carry a 1.7-1.8 kg skiset on your back, heavy skiboots on your feet and the extra “gaiters on steroids” for protecting your feet. Not to mention the wind occasionally catching the skis every now and then.

But then, in deep snow when the slope isn’t too steep, you advance with less effort. You’re also a lot faster on the way down (unless you’re forced to rapell a lot and carry your skis) which adds a great deal of safety to the descent. What diminishes that presumed safety advantage is the condition that instead of going on in a group where you are near one another and can easily help, ski descents are more lonely. At this altitude, if the top guy takes a spill and the others have skied down a few hundred meters, it’s a real crappy situation if they have to climb back up to assist.

The whole reason I’m typing this post now is beacause on of our mountain guides, Laci Mécs is over on Cho Oyu right now, going for a ski descent, so I thought it’s a timely thing to share with you some of the issues we discussed before his departure. Wishing him and the rest of the team the best of luck and plenty of backwind for the descent… and wishing you a long ski touring season:

Dan Bergstein

You know, how you’re always told as a beginner climber that you should place your weight over your feet and use as much of your leg strength as possible? Well, yea, you say, logical thing… BUT if you’ve gotten along in improving your climbing skills, then you’ll know that it’s easy to THINK you’re doing it right. Unless there is someone who really looks after you and cares about your climbing, you only realize that you’ve been doing it wrong when you start to do it right – accidentally.

Here are 2 quick pointers to help you if you’re at this stage in climbing. Try these and you’ll see arms getting less tired, moves become easier and you’ll just plain have more fun on the rocks…

• 

  Her butt and upper body should lean out more - above her feet

  The first tip is trying to place your center of gravity (which is approximately your butt) over your feet. Now, there are obvious exceptions to this rule, such as being on a reibung step, but in the beginning, make sure you don’t lean too far into the wall (see pic) if the wall is not vertical. In this case, it takes some extra energy for the lady to keep her feet on the rock, because the force from her center of gravity actually pushes her feet away from the wall (see the blue arrow?) She should lean a bit further out so that her body is above her feet and she’s in a vertical position.

• 

  Experiment with pushing your legs apart, like an opening scissor...

  The second pointer is spreading your legs, using them to sorta wedge your body. That is: not just simply standing on your feet, but with an outward force on your legs, you can stand more stabil and take even more body weight with your legs. Initially, on a small wall, try to experiment in every move with pushing your legs apart and seeing whether you’re able to stand more comfortably.

If this stuff looks fun, consider a fun alpine climbing trip with a mountain guide.

Via Mountain Hardware: This time, our hero, Ueli is going for a speed climbing record on El Cap. Watch some preparatory footage here:

Alex and Uli speed climbing The Nose on 5.20.10 from Chris Falkenstein on Vimeo.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, here is how Ueli made himself a brand name in speed solo climbing: