mountaineering posts
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (20 hours ago)
Jun 18th, 2013 at 11:00AM: Sean McLachlan
Now that I'm wrapping up my series on Slovenia, there are a few bits and pieces that are worth sharing but didn't fit in any articles. While these observations won't be surprising to anyone familiar with the country, they were amusing to this first-time visitor.
1. As this photo shows, guys will always know where to go. Luckily the urinals are much more modern than the sign ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (2 days ago)
Jun 16th, 2013 at 8:00AM: We've seen some truly amazing time-lapse videos in recent months but it is difficult to top this one. It was shot on Mt. Everest this spring and delivers a true sense of the scale of that mountain. Many of the images were captured at various campsites along the route up to the summit and feature some stunning shots of the night sky above the tallest mountain in the world. It is a short, but ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (6 days ago)
Jun 12th, 2013 at 8:00AM: Project Gutenberg
Standing 20,320 feet in height, Mt. McKinley is the tallest mountain in North America and one of the most challenging climbs in the entire world. While it doesn't rival the big Himalayan peaks in terms of altitude, it more than makes up for it with a number of technical climbing challenges and notoriously fickle weather that can even be bad during the peak climbing season of May ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (19 days ago)
May 30th, 2013 at 9:00AM: EPA
A controversial plan to install a ladder on Mt. Everest has been met with a less than enthusiastic response from the mountaineering community. The mountain guides behind the proposal say that the ladder will help to alleviate traffic jams near the summit, while purists claim that it will detract from the overall challenge of the climb.
The plan was first made public this past weekend when ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (23 days ago)
May 26th, 2013 at 8:00AM:
"A Life Well Lived | Jim Whittaker & 50 Years of Everest" from eric becker on Vimeo.
As the first American to climb Everest, Jim Whittaker knows a thing or too about living life to the fullest. He was part of the historic 1963 expedition that broke new ground on the world's tallest mountain, which would be enough adventure for most people. But even now, at the age of 80, Whittaker continues ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (25 days ago)
May 24th, 2013 at 8:00AM: AP Photo
Yesterday, 80-year-old mountaineer Yiuchiro Miura successfully reached the summit of Mt. Everest, setting a new age record in the process. Miura, who has climbed the mountain on two previous occasions, is now the oldest person to ever stand on top of the tallest mountain on the planet. But just how long he'll hold that distinction remains to be seen.
There were some concerns about the ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
May 19th, 2013 at 2:00PM: Raha Moharrak
Raha Moharrak has become the first woman from Saudi Arabia to climb Mt. Everest when she made it to the summit yesterday after a grueling climb.
The 25-year-old climber first had to convince her family to allow her to make the attempt, and then had to undergo rigorous training to climb the world's tallest peak. She was part of a four-person team called Arabs on Top of the World. ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
May 18th, 2013 at 8:00AM: Kraig Becker
It has been a long and wild climbing season on the world's tallest mountain. Over the past few years, Mt. Everest has been widely criticized for being an over crowded stage for publicity seekers and tourist climbers who have no business being on the mountain. That hasn't changed much this spring, but when you add in the recent brawl between three European climbers and a mob of angry ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
May 9th, 2013 at 8:00AM: Two octogenarians are preparing to go head-to-head to determine who will hold the record for the oldest to summit Mt. Everest; 81-year-old Min Bahadur Sherchan of Nepal and his 80-year-old rival Yuichiro Miura of Japan are both currently in Everest Base Camp on the South Side of the mountain. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, the two climbers will set out for the 29,029-foot summit as they ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
May 2nd, 2013 at 8:00AM: Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the first American to summit Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain on the planet at 29,029 feet in height. That successful venture came ten years after Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made the first ascent of that mountain, but in the decade that had followed only four other climbers had managed to stand on top. The 1963 expedition would not only put an ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Apr 30th, 2013 at 8:00AM: The 2013 spring climbing season on Mt. Everest took a strange and unexpected turn this past weekend when a team of three climbers was assaulted by a mob of angry Sherpas. The incident first began at one of the mountain's high camps, then reignited further down the slope when tempers flared up once again. If it weren't for the brave intervention of other Western climbers, the conflict could have ...
by Laurel Miller (RSS feed) (2 months ago)
Apr 17th, 2013 at 11:00AM:
Bolivia is the least expensive destination in South America, yet it has an increasingly efficient tourism infrastructure. Going now, especially to the remote southwestern part of the country, means faster, easier, more comfortable travel than in the past (although you'll still have to be prepared for your share of bus rides on rutted out, unpaved roads, depending upon where you're headed). In ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (2 months ago)
Apr 9th, 2013 at 8:00AM: The spring climbing season on Mt. Everest is barely a week old and the mountain has already claimed its first death of the year. On Sunday, 45-year-old Mingmar Sherpa took a fatal fall into a crevasse while descending from Camp 2 on the mountain's South Side. His companions attempted to mount a rescue operation but it took several hours to retrieve his body from the crevasse, at which time it was ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
Mar 19th, 2013 at 8:00AM: We're big fans of Google Street View here at Gadling and over the past few months we've enjoyed the addition of the Grand Canyon, Great Barrier Reef and the Amazon River, amongst other destinations. Through the use of modern technology, Google has given us the opportunity to explore some very exciting places without ever having to leave the comfort of our own homes. Now, with its latest addition ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
Mar 12th, 2013 at 12:00PM:
It looks like money and privilege can't buy everything.
Princess Sarah Princess Sara bint Al Faisal of Jordan, niece of King Abdullah II, failed to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the Tanzania Daily News reports.
The 18-year-old princess tried to scale the famous mountain last weekend with a large entourage of assistants and Jordanian international students. She reached the Kibo point at 4,700 ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
Mar 12th, 2013 at 8:00AM: Triumph quickly turned to tragedy in the mountains of Pakistan last week when a team of climbers made the first winter ascent of the massive Broad Peak. The four climbers battled difficult conditions and extremely cold temperatures to reach the summit, but sadly two of the men died on the descent.
Last Tuesday, Maciej Berbeka, Adam Bielecki, Tomasz Kowalski and Artur Małek, climbing as part of ...
by Libby Zay (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
Mar 11th, 2013 at 6:00PM:
Filmmakers Rubén Sánchez and Cristina Fernandez from creative studio Factoria shot this fantastic video during a transmongolian and transsiberian train trip. The pair traveled about 7,500 kilometers (4,460 miles) on a journey from Beijing, China, to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and then from Irkusk, Russia, to Moscow. The second leg of that journey alone is more than 5,000 kilometers ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
Mar 11th, 2013 at 11:00AM:
British mountaineer Mark Roberts got more than he bargained for when he attempted to climb Snowdon Mountain last month. Roberts was using ice axes to make his way up the 3560-foot peak, which happens to be the tallest in Wales, when he was struck by falling ice. The force of the impact knocked him off the steep face and caused him to tumble more than 100 feet down the side of the mountain, all ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (4 months ago)
Jan 22nd, 2013 at 8:00AM: Eighty-year-old Japanese skier and mountaineer Yuichiro Miura has announced his intentions to attempt a summit of Mt. Everest this spring, returning to a mountain that made him famous back in 1970. If successful, Miura would become the oldest person to ever climb the mountain and the first octogenarian to do so.
This won't be Miura's first visit to the world's tallest mountain. He first climbed ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (5 months ago)
Jan 16th, 2013 at 8:00AM: There are two things you can say with certainty about polar explorer Lonnie Dupre. The man is certainly persistent in his pursuits and he has an undeniable affinity for the cold places of our planet. For the third straight year, Dupre has ventured to Denali (also known as Mt. McKinley) in Alaska to attempt a solo summit of the mountain in January – the coldest, darkest and harshest time of ...
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