Chad's 2009 route on Aconcagua - Medicine Buddah

Starting this weekend, Chad Kellogg will begin making his way up Aconcagua for a speed attempt to the summit, aiming to run and climb from the entrance of the park to the top of the peak in around 12 hours. Most guided groups who attempt the Polish Glacier Direct, the route Kellogg will climb, take 10 or 11 days to get to the summit.

Kellogg has already had a tremendous past three months by any climber’s standards, making the first ascent of Nepal’s 6,716-meter Pangbuk Ri in November 2011 and topping out on Cerro Torre via the Ferrari route in January. Those climbs, as well as his attempt on Aconcagua, are part of a series of around-the-world climbing adventures culminating in a speed attempt on Mount Everest in June 2012.

Kellogg will take two weeks to ferry loads up to the 19,000-foot high camp on Aconcagua and then descend and wait for a weather window to race up the east-facing technical Polish Glacier Direct route to the summit, up snow and ice as steep as 60 degrees. The Polish Glacier Direct is more technically difficult than the popular, non-technical Normal Route, but is shorter, and hopefully faster. Kellogg’s plan is to carry over the summit and spend the night as high as possible. The next morning, he’ll descend the Normal Route down the northwest face and head around to the French Camp on the mountain’s south side to look at conditions on the South Face routes. Ideally, he wants to attempt a complete circumnavigation of the peak.

Kellogg attempted a speed climb of Aconcagua’s Normal Route in December 2009 and made it as far as Berlin Camp at 19,200 feet, but discovered someone had found his gear cache and stolen his dry bag full of equipment (lightweight boots, crampons, dry socks, and food). Stopping 2.5 miles and 3,000 vertical feet short of the summit, the climb would have been 50 miles round-trip with 14,000 feet of elevation gain. Kellogg had made it to Berlin camp in 9 hours and 15 minutes.

The current attempt on Aconcagua is Kellogg’s last mountain training stop for his speed climb of Everest in June. Keep up with his around-the-world adventure from Pangbuk Ri to Everest here on VertiCulture.

Of note, Kevin Mahoney returned with Freddy Wilkinson over a week later for the second ascent. He linked our first two pitches into one extraordinary lead, and the pair added a final pitch to the trees.

By the light of the silvery moon

Whitewater is a mythical place for an American skier. Not too distant, but yet so far out of reach. As we drove north, I heard the boys talking of finding a Canadian girl to marry. There’s that option and then there’s ex-pat status. How does an American stay in Canada, land of epic powder for the winter? Or even a lifetime?

As we drove further north, our question went from how we could stay in BC to how we were getting into the country. With a house on wheels and amounts of ski gear that could outfit the entire town of Nelson, our odds seemed low. The border patrol was sure to find something wrong with our situation. But without even a mention of Ullr and his presence in the lower 48, we went north to the border anyways. It would be worth trying and getting turned around. At least we’d have tried.

We negotiated the border an hour before the crossing in rural eastern Washington closed, hoping the officer wouldn’t want to bother with questioning at the end of his shift. Of course, they pulled us out of our trusty old truck, Rusty Deluxe, and asked us to step inside while they inspected the tiny house and our bags of gear. The two solemn, but friendly (dare I say friendly? Canadians, it’s a stereotype to be proud of…) gentlemen threw our names in a Google search, watched the Sidecountry Sessions videos, laughed and treasured the spectacle of the tiny house, and sent us through to the land of “Neldor”.

Nelson, British Columbia serves up a fruitful combination of new age yoga/hippy culture, fresh prideful food, and Canadian quaintness. The Outer Clove, Baba’s, Oso Negro Coffee, and the two natural grocers in town could feed our crew for a lifetime without dispute. A vanilla chai from the town’s hobbit hole eatery, a.k.a. The Preserved Seed, could satiate our palette after every shred day. Life is easy in a ski town like Nelson. No desire goes unsatisfied.

More importantly than the food, is what quenched our skiing appetite. According to one local gent, “Whitewater gets more fresh centimeters than any resort in BC, eh?” Although this particular winter has been drier than last year’s strong La Nina, centimeters of fresh were common. The skies didn’t clear for our first week in the Whitewater parking lot. Every morning we peered out hoping to see Ymir Peak from the tiny house, but a low ceiling of clouds obscured any such view. We stuck to the trees and enjoyed the BC powder.

Our original schemes of staying in Canada for as long as possible panned out in an inevitable issue with Rusty D. After parking the tiny house in the first row at the ski area, we drove Rusty into Nelson, only to have the 1991 brown Ford catch on fire. Two extinguishers later, plus an appearance by the local fire department and police squad, and Rusty was totaled. We learned we weren’t just “stuck” to the trees. We also happened to be stranded in Canada, just fifty feet from the lift at Whitewater.

This kind of occurrence had happened once already in Silverton—a tiny house near epic skiing, with no vehicle to tow it away. Luckily, this time we’d fallen down the rabbit hole to Whitewater, a wonderland of sidecountry lines and charming characters—people who smile from ear to ear, yelp, and scream to their friends to come check out the little cabin on wheels.

The tiny house has made it home.

Follow along with the Sidecountry Sessions here on VertiCulture and with the video episodes on the Outdoor Research website. All photos, courtesy of Neil Provo. Next up… a little more time in BC, perhaps?

• Tiny house Silverton

  absoluteCenter

  http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/tinyhouse-silverton_WEB.jpg
  la

• Zack skinning up Sultan

  absoluteCenter

  http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Zack-skinning-up-Sultan.jpg
  la

• Sultan approach chute

  absoluteCenter

  http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Sultan-approach-chute.jpg
  la

• Ride walking in the high country

  absoluteCenter

  http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Ride-walking-in-the-high-country.jpg
  la

• Northstar couloir. 4,000' of fresh all the way back to town.

  absoluteCenter

  http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Northstar-couloir.-4000-of-fresh-all-the-way-back-to-town..jpg
  la

Silverton, Colorado is exactly the kind of place you want to spend the Yuletide season. Especially if you are a group of five ski bums living within 112 square feet—no shower and ski gear avalanching from every nook of space. The locals are blushingly generous, the streets caked white with snow, and the surrounding mountains a gift unlike anything that comes wrapped in waxy paper covered with Santas.

“People tour for miles and miles to get views like this,” said new friend and Silverton local Steve Mead. “Here in Silverton we get to walk to the grocery store with these sights.”

Surrounded by peaks like The Grand Turk at 13,160 feet and Sultan Mountain at 13, 368 feet, mountains towering thousands of feet above the town are the standard canvas. It’s precisely the kind of wall art we needed for the tiny house. Looking out of any of the teensy windows, snow-covered goliaths fill every inch of glass.

Two weeks ago the Outdoor Research crew graced the San Juan Mountain town of Silverton and parked the tiny house at a secluded 9,138 feet after an intense drive over Southern Colorado’s Molas Pass (intensified by a melted accelerator cable in a truck pulling a 5,000 pound trailer/house on wheels). The winding, icy mountain road ended abruptly in Silverton. Our planned five-day trip turned into over fourteen. At this point, we still don’t know our departure date. But, it has been apparent, there are worse places to get beached.

Built in the late 1800’s, Silverton never experienced a devastating fire like many mining towns in the West during that time. Many of the original buildings in the town are still standing (along with the secret underground tunnels from Main Street to the original Red Light District). There are two streets in the “business” district: Main and Blair Street. These days there isn’t much taking place. But, during the town’s glory days, Blair Street was the home to over forty saloons and brothels. Today only a few shops are open. Blair is where the tiny house has lived for the past two weeks, just down from the town’s hostel and the Avalanche Café.

With a year-round population of 500 people, the mornings are quiet albeit the occasional snow machine or dog sled drive by. Waiting for the sun to turn-up the valley furnace, we’ve woken up to many negative temperature days. But the tiny house has been toasty.

A few days up at Silverton Mountain and even more out in the San Juan backcountry, we’ve found rocks, the deepest facets we’ve ever skied, and challenging avalanche conditions with no patience for skier complacency. Every line feels like your running from the bank with bags of money only to evade the cops by chance. Maybe it’s just because we hail from places like Washington and Utah, but the snowpack makes you feel like you are getting away with something everyday.

Eventually we are going to need to escape Silverton, although being on a first name basis with the owners of the cafes, the guides at the mountain, and the ripping mountain folk that thrive in this place, is going to make that a difficult move. All we need is a biblical storm to hit Jackson, Tahoe, SLC, Whistler—Somewhere. At this point it’s the Jet Stream, or the mechanic’s decision, if the tiny house ever leaves the San Juans.

Molly, Zack, Neil and the Tiny House started their vagabond journey in Sun Valley a few weeks ago. Where are they going next? Keep posted here. Check out the latest webisode from the crew at www.outdoorresearch.com/scsessions. All photos provided by Neil. Find more from Silverton on his website, www.neilprovo.com

I got the phone call that Garrett had died in an avalanche at 5am on March 27th. Only a few days prior, my good friend Mitch unexpectedly put a gun to his head and killed himself. The spring of 2011 hit an all time depressing low when my girlfriend, Jewell Lund, fell nearly a thousand feet down a narrow couloir on the northwest face of the Pfeifferhorn. She and a friend were trying to ski the extremely steep vein of snow when Jewell slipped on ice and rag-dolled over two cliff bands. Her helmet saved her life but a severe concussion and her broken radius-ulna inhibited her from joining me on our summer adventure of bike touring and climbing through Asia.

I even doubted the appropriateness of going on the multi-month adventure. Work at the coffee shop I co-own in Salt Lake City was at an all time high. I felt more comfortable paying bills, managing employees, fixing broken appliances, doing building remodels, and making mochas than I did climbing on stone and ice. Even hiking through the mountains felt unfamiliar. On days I was able to make it out into the Wasatch mountains I felt displaced, my mind often focusing on my business or the recent events of friends and loved ones. Life felt chaotic. While on a hike one spring day, I tripped over a small rock and fell to my knees. Nature feels so foreign to my soul. My life needs to slow down. I must go to Asia, I thought.

The plan, at least on paper, seemed simple. Assemble my bicycle and trailer at the Manas airport in Bishkek Kyrgyzstan. Spend the next six weeks, solo and self sufficient, riding around the country exploring and climbing mountains and rock faces that inspired me. Then, ride through western China crossing over the Khunjerab pass at 15,397ft, into Pakistan and meet up with Coloradans Kelly Cordes and Hayden Kennedy. And finally, spend another six weeks climbing on the Charakusa glacier attempting some of the mighty peaks of the Karakoram. My psych for the adventure was palpable, my fears and hesitations were hidden and piled under a heavy blanket of intense stress.

During the first 10 days of the journey I pedaled hard. I woke up early. I ate lunch with one hand and steered my bike with the other. Often times I rode well into the evening. Kyrgyzstan was flying past me; I was physically there but didn’t see it. I had places to go, people to see, or at least so I thought. Pedal harder. Charge! I parked and locked my bike at the end of the road in Ala-Archa national park. In a heavy rain I packed my backpack and hiked for two days to Ratsek refuge at the base of the steep and icy Peak Free Korea (15,551ft). I had goals, and one of them was to climb the 1976 Barber route. Then things went wrong, as they had so often this year, and I got sick. But sickness didn’t matter; I had to experience ALL of Kyrgyzstan. I repacked my trailer, loaded up my panniers, and took off on a 430kl ride to Karakol.

The most important lesson I learned those first couple weeks in Kyrgyzstan, and quite possibly the essential education from my summer, was how to slow down. I thank the bike for that. ‘Round and ‘round the pedals went. Clouds over lake Issuk-Kul hovered in the immense sky, drowning in a vibrant orange and red late in the day. Thoughts drifted through my mind but I didn’t focus on any of them. There was time to think on that ride to Karakol but I just observed. Time away from a chaotic life, alone and in nature, was slowing me down, curing me. I stopped more to chat with people, observed their lives, and took pictures of things that created wonder within. I felt deep breath returning to my soul.

After a shower and grocery resupply in Karakol, I began a long climb on the bike into the Tersky Alatau range. A peak there, Djigit (16,961ft), had sparked my interest when I found a photo of it on Google Earth some months before. When the road became impassible on bike I locked it to a tree and hiked two days to the base of Djigit. The mountain looked like a mini Swiss Eiger. Peak Djigit was amazing! From a pointy summit the mountain triangled downward and contained pockets of snow, steep quartzite outcroppings, and trickles of rotten looking ice. After my first day of rest in nearly three weeks, I went for it.

Continue to Page Two»

Summit of Pangbuk Ri, Nov 11th

At the dead end at the top of a runnel, Kellogg and Gottlieb set up a rappel, the ends of their 60-meter ropes disappearing into the darkness below. They blindly rapped into what they thought was a large runnel to their left, hoping the ends of ropes reached something.

The rappel put them just above the 8 Ball. The route would go, in six more pitches, putting them atop the summit ridge at 2:30 a.m., 3,500 vertical feet and 22 ½ hours after they had started climbing.

“We took a chance rappelling into this overhanging terrain that we knew we would have an extremely difficult time climbing out of,” Kellogg says. “It was a game of poker – you gotta put in your ante, pay all your bills, and see if you can make the route go.”

As the men huddled into a crevasse at 22,000 feet to wait for daylight, they had 27.5 hours left – The anxiety of whether the line would go was over, but the battle to survive the climb had just begun. The sun would come up twice before they could lie down in a tent again and rest.

What followed put the Pangbuk Ri climb into the category of what Kellogg calls “Ultra-alpinism”:

“When you’re pushing over 36 hours, that’s where the word ‘ultra’ gets inserted,” Kellogg says. “The mega-push. Multiple days without sleep. You’re combining rock, ice, altitude, endurance, and you’re eliminating your standard camps, you’re eliminating oxygen. And pushing technical difficulty.”

After summiting at 8:30 a.m. November 11th, Kellogg and Gottlieb chose to descend via the West face, downclimbing and rappelling through seracs well into the next night, losing the full moon they had utilized the previous night, hidden behind the mountain for most of the night. Ropes got stuck. Headlamp batteries died, and they turned their lights off except when they put in rap anchors. For the overhanging rappels, Kellogg put in two v-threads for peace of mind, but otherwise left as little gear as possible. His calves began to lock up in the aftermath of their summit day, 3,500 feet of frontpointing. Neither of the climbers could spend any time climbing ice in the summer and early fall months leading up to the November climb – making Pangbuk Ri the “season opener for ice climbing” for both of them.

David trying to get in neighboring fluting

After 14 v-thread rappels and 14 hours of descending, Kellogg and Gottlieb were on top of the snow cone at the base of the face, both hallucinating. They began the 10-mile walk down talus-covered glacier back to their base camp. At hour 45, they ditched their packs under a boulder, packing only a few bars, cameras and headlamps.

“A 50-hour push in the Himalaya isn’t unheard of, but it hasn’t been done a lot,” Kellogg says. “A few teams have done it, but they usually bring some sort of bivouac gear with them. We just went all in, and brought clothes and a stove, and that was it. We knew the route was technical enough that we couldn’t do it with 40-pound packs. We needed 20-pound packs.”

At 5:58 a.m. Nov. 12th, 50 hours after they had started climbing on Nov. 10th, Kellogg and Gottlieb reached the cook tent at their base camp. Dowa, their cook – who had seen headlamps near the summit on Nov. 10th, had been ready for their arrival since the previous day – whipped up a batch of Dal Bhat for breakfast.

AS HUMAN-POWERED AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE
Kellogg and Gottlieb elected to walk into and walk out of their climb, an additional 50 miles and 20,000 feet of elevation gain on the way out, walking in via the Rolwaling Valley and out the Jiri Valley instead of taking a flight into the airport in Lukla – the standard approach for Everest and many other climbs.

The trek into and out of their climb was part of their effort to maximize their adventure and minimize the trace they left. In 14 rappels, they left only four pitons, two stoppers and one ice screw, and threaded their 8mm line through most of the v-threads they used to rappel. They used rechargeable batteries for all their electronics and solar panels to charge the batteries. Their food was locally made – no jars, minimal packaging. During the entire three week-expedition, the three men produced only five pounds of garbage.

THE SUFFERFEST CONTINUES
Next up for Chad Kellogg in his around-the-world adventure leading to Mount Everest is a month of climbing in Patagonia. Keep up with him here on Verticulture.

Tiny takes to the streets.

Session: noun \sesh-uh’n\ Any period of time devoted to a specific activity, such as slaying pow

“The opportunity to explore the accessible powder stashes with the most passionate locals is the mission. Getting it the best we can is our objective,” says Neil.

This winter, we’re subscribing to the gypsy life and taking off on a two-month tiny house road trip in celebration of a passion-driven, low impact, ski bum lifestyle. “We are refining the entire process of living as ski bums. It is really about figuring out what you do and don’t need. For me, I want to ski and there isn’t much else that I need,” says Zack. Over the next 6 weeks, OR ambassadors Molly Baker, Zack Giffin and Neil Provo, along with videographers Sam Giffin and Andy Walbon will be road tripping to North America’s most respected sidecountry areas in search of deep powder and influential snow loving locals.

Unlike any previous skiing road trip, the Sidecountry Sessions crew is on a mission to find the best snow and greatest communities in prominent powder territory while living out of a ski bum’s dream-home-on-wheels. Along the way, the team will be on the search for the most esteemed, enthusiastic and talented individuals to bring on as members of OR’s Grassroots Athlete Team. Could you or one of your friends be the next team member?

Based on recommendations of local skiers via Facebook (no, you can’t nominate yourself), Molly, Zack and Neil will ski, climb and adventure with chosen nominees in order to select the newest members of OR’s athlete team. “Being a part of Outdoor Research is really about being genuine with an honest devotion to a life in the mountains. It makes it really easy for the right people because they essentially continue doing whatever it is that they do and that embodies the mission of the company as a whole,” says Molly. To nominate someone you know? Post their photo to the Outdoor Research Facebook page. In the comments section, reference hash tag #SCSessions and include a brief description of why your person would be a great OR Athlete. If we come to their hill, Molly, Zack and Neil want to get in touch with them for a session of slaying pow.

Find out what it’s like to spend the season searching for new ski talent while living in 112 square feet of unconventional living space. Showcasing local talent, communities and mountains, watch video episodes of the Sidecountry Sessions releasing each week and find out what happens when these gypsy shredders occupy your parking lot.

The tiny house made its debut at Powder Magazine’s 40th Anniversary party in Sun Valley, Idaho, then headed for the San Juans in search of powder at Silverton. Watch the latest episode of the Sessions at outdoorresearch.com/scsessions and stay tuned to Facebook for their next destination.

Pumo Kangri with approximate line of ascent

Two unsuccessful attempts on Peak 6135 have left Janet, Kirsten, and I dejected. Knowing that high quality alpine rock may be out of the question, we have decided to check out the climbing potential near Saser Kangri II, the world’s second highest unclimbed peak. Our men’s team — Freddie, Mark, and Steve — have been describing this area as the “Baby Ruth” for its similarity to Alaska’s Ruth Gorge. So, trading dry glacier for ski mode, we make our way from base camp, up and over a high col, and down onto the expanse of the South Shukpa glacier where we find ourselves surrounded by stunning unclimbed peaks in every direction. With a new advanced base camp in place, this one at 18,000ft, we take to exploring potential climbs. But with only ten days left before we leave the mountains, choosing a new objective and timing it with a good weather window, is starting to seem improbable…

August 5
A fall now means certain death. Self-arrest on 55-degree water ice seems unlikely and so does surviving the 1000-foot slide down this giant face. I try not to think about such a fate but it’s hard not to while climbing un-roped, dizzy from exertion and altitude, and the lightweight mountaineering ax I’m using just keeps bouncing off the ice.

We (just Kirsten and I; Janet remains behind after spending the night with a barely-out-of-the-tent, projectile vomiting stomach bug) have completely misread this mountain. From our advanced base camp this peak appeared to be a straightforward, if not lackluster, snow slog followed by what we hoped would be a 40-degree, corn snow, ski descent. We estimated an eight-hour day and got a leisurely 7am start. An hour into the climb it becomes obvious that we won’t be skiing back down; too steep, too icy. We ditch the skis.

Kirsten on Pumo Kangri. The visible summit is still 8hrs away

Our next oversight is in the gear we carry…or lack thereof. Planning for skiing, while also planning to be ‘light and fast’, results in a tiny rack: one ice screw, one 60m half rope, two useless pickets, eight stoppers, and a handful of carabiners and cord. Determined to make it to the top of something, anything, we push on, silently acknowledging that it is both faster and safer to climb alone. I carry our one ice screw and Kirsten carries the rope; neither of us will get out of here without the other, we are fully committed.

Now, six hours into the day our calves burn from endless front pointing and the summit appears no closer than it did two hours ago. The scale here is enormous and I should have known this wouldn’t come easily. Throughout the day we have been traversing below a ridge of broken rock, rounding the toe of a buttress every so often, and I keep expecting to find a ledge to rest on or a decrease in slope angle but nothing gives way.

Four more hours go by. We run out of water and scorch under hot sun and windless skies until at last the summit pitches are within reach. Roping up for the final traversing section of easy but treacherous mixed climbing, we make the final ‘au cheval’ (French for ‘ride the horse’) moves onto the sharp, 21,000ft summit at 6:30pm. We snap a few photos and know that the time has come to confront a long, slow descent. In keeping with the theme of the day, I estimate an arrival in base camp at 2:30am.

As the sun sets over an endless landscape of jagged peaks, the temperature plummets and I’m forced into every insulating layer I carry. Donning my headlamp, I re-lead the traverse pitches and get us back below the rock ridge where we begin a series of sharply angling rappels that should deposit us below a recognizable buttress. From there we should be able to head straight down the big face, picking up our skis along the way and arrive in camp at a fashionably late hour. Though we’ve agreed to be safe and conservative on descent, the anchors are often questionable and we try desperately to keep more weight on our feet than the rope. A single tiny stopper in a gritty flare or a sling around a precariously balanced block is all we really have to work with. Losing track of rappels after eleven I continue leading the descents, increasingly shivery and exhausted, until we run out of stoppers and are forced back onto the icy face. The night is ink black and a sliver of moon offers no reflection on where we are; if we drop down too soon we risk ending up on an overhanging serac…this is not an option.

The beginning of a long night on Pumo Kangri. Emilie reversing the traverse. Photo: Kirsten

By now, we’ve been moving for nineteen hours and mental exhaustion has set in. Simultaneously, Kirsten’s headlamp starts to fade and I fail repeatedly at lining up the holes on a V-thread anchor. Our one ice screw keeps clogging and no amount of whacking it on my ax head will clean the plug. A hundred feet above me Kirsten calls down, advising me not to hit the threads or drop the screw. “I know!” I bark back, wondering if she thinks this is my first time ice climbing. “I can’t do this anymore, you take over.” We trade headlamps and I revert to a comfortably compliant role, even nodding off at one point, awoken minutes later by the Cheyne-Stokes breathing I’ve battled the entire trip.

During the next ten hours, Kirsten makes upwards of fifteen V-threads, lining up the threads on the first try every single time, and nearly getting us back to the glacier before we run out of all our anchor material. Luckily, we cross paths with Janet and Freddie who are on their way up the same ice slope to climb the distinct rock spire just above us. They’ve brought us hot tea and we beg a cordelette off of them, too. Making the final rappels back to the glacier and the short ski to camp, we arrive depleted and elated at once, relieved to have climbed to the top of something…and to have made it back down.

August 8

Two days later, with a stellar weather window in place, our whole team (minus Steve who’s been fighting an upper respiratory infection) reaches the summit of another peak. This one sits high above camp at the head of the glacier. We’ve been calling it Stegosaurus for the spiky rock spires that arch along the reptilian back of this prominent mountain. The climbing is pleasantly straightforward and after several hours ascending steep snow, a long and delicate corniced ridge leads us to a rocky platform below the summit. We take turns belaying each other up the fragile, overhanging cornice to the summit proper at 22,000ft, the highest altitude Janet, Kirsten, and I have ever experienced.

After an equally straightforward descent (neither headlamps nor warm clothing required), we pack up our high bivy camp, strap on skis, and are rewarded with the best skiing of the trip all the way back to our advanced camp. When we arrive in the late afternoon, two of our Indian Sherpas greet us with cups of warm, sugary Tang. They have been watching us climb and ski all day and are politely curious about skis and how they work. So we set them up with our equipment and give them a quick lesson but all they really want to do is go fast. With no background as skiers, their natural athleticism is immediately evident and I’m once again left in reverence of their understated talent, knowing this trip would not be the same without their support. It is in these last hours of our Karakoram journey that I am reminded how fortunate I am to be in such an amazing place, surrounded by a lifetime of climbing, and in the company of some of the best people and climbing partners one could ever hope for.

Post Expedition
For me, this was the trip of a lifetime. An expensive and timely venture that I may not be undertaking again anytime soon, even though lots of people ask me when I’m going back. And while I’ve already forgotten (or repressed) how often I felt miserable trying to climb (or sleep or eat) at altitude, that bit of suffering mixed with equal parts adventure, and success have only served to make me want more. The small, rugged mountains of my home in the Northeast proved to be a great training ground for the biggest mountains in the world, but some part of me will never again find complete satisfaction in cragging, no matter the difficulty. It has become a means to an end as I find myself daydreaming about big, remote mountains in faraway places. And so now I’m left with the hardest decision of all: where to go next?

First Ascents
Tsok Kangri, 6585m via the north face, July 31st, 2011. Richey, Swenson, Wilkinson.
Pumo Kangri, 6400m via the west face, August 5th, 2011. Drinkwater and Kremer.
SaserLing, 6200m via the south face, August 6th, 2011. Bergman and Wilkinson.
Stegasaurus, 6660m, via the South Shukpa glacier to south ridge, August 9th, 2011. Bergman, Drinkwater, Kremer, Richey, and Wilkinson.
Saser Kangri II, 7500m via the southwest face, August 25th, 2011. Richey Swenson, Wilkinson.

None of this trip would have been possible without the generous support of a Polartec Challenge Grant and additional help from Outdoor Research, Mountain Hardwear, Sterling Rope Company, and Petzl. And of course the most unsung heroes of all were our amazing Sherpas and staff from Rimo Expeditions.

Pangbuk Ri

On a clear day sometime around the full moon on November 10th, Chad Kellogg and David Gottlieb will try to punch up 5,000 feet of climbing in a single push on Pangbuk Ri, the last significant unclimbed peak above 6,500 meters in Nepal.

Only two attempts have been recorded on Pangbuk Ri, and both were in the 1950s, by a British expedition and a Japanese expedition. There are easier lines from the Tibet side, but every line from the Nepal side, on the 4,500-5,000-foot South Face, is technical – all involving rock, mixed, ice and snow sections. Kellogg and Gottlieb have studied Gottlieb’s photographs of the mountain and picked a handful of lines dropping down from the summit, and will decide where to go on their summit push based on snow and avalanche conditions.

“The adventure associated with an unclimbed peak is that basically, you have a map without any lines on it and you can create whatever you want from the mountain,” Kellogg says. “So the choice lines are there to be had and discovered.”

Kellogg and Gottlieb have spent the past four weeks acclimatizing and walking from Lukla to Namche Bazaar with porters, then walking with yaks to the village of Chule, and another two days up the Pangbuk glacial valley to set up a basecamp and wait for a weather window for their summit attempt. Kellogg says he’s pessimistic about finding a place to bivy anywhere on the face for the first 4,000 feet, so the men will likely have to hammer out the climb in one long push.

Every step on the climb is the first step any climber has ever taken – a base camp has never been set up where Kellogg and Gottlieb are heading. The climb of Pangbuk Ri is still true exploration, a mountain whose summit is still untouched, in an era when so many of the world’s big mountains have already been conquered.

The Pangbuk Ri climb is the first in a series of four climbing expeditions for Kellogg, a career alpinist, mountain guide, climbing ranger, and Outdoor Research ambassador. The four expeditions – including Pangbuk Ri, an expedition to Patagonia, and a speed attempt on Aconcagua – will culminate in a speed ascent, without supplemental oxygen, of Mount Everest in June 2012.

Keep up with Kellogg’s around-the-world adventure from Pangbuk Ri to Everest here on VertiCulture and on Human Edge Tech. We’ll be updating this post as we hear from Chad on his progress

Continue to Chad’s updates from the field»

Then I spent the next six months being slightly to wildly stressed about what I had signed up for. I even stopped using the word “cold” in my vocabulary. It would come to me as I went skiing in the Cascades or biked around Seattle in freezing rain. But I tried never to say it. “Chilly” or “Que fresco!” were allowed. Friends who’d climbed Denali with the same Park Service patrol program said it was not so bad; that you wear really warm clothes all the time and you get plenty of time to acclimatize. The park service patrol has camp set up at 14,000’ and a bare-bones camp at 17,000’. Our mission is to manage the mountain, meaning maintaining cleanliness and being prepared for search and rescues.

The 2011 season on Denali, especially the middle part, was an uncharacteristically deadly one. There were already seven deaths in the Alaska Range by the time our patrol flew onto the Kahiltna Glacier on May 26th. Climbers had fallen off Denali Pass, off the summit block’s Pig Hill, and in a serac fall near Base Camp. There had been a tracheotomy procedure to save a life above 17,000’ and a man was flown off of 19,000’ after a leg-breaking slide forced him to spend a night alone at that elevation. He survived.

We spent a week at 14,000’ at Camp Four, aka 14. It’s the mountain’s liveliest of the camps since climbing parties spend the majority of their time at 14 in order to acclimatize. It’s also the launching point for a few routes – the most-commonly used being the West Butt, but also the upper West Rib route, the legendary Cassin Ridge, and the big-line ski couloirs of the Orient Express and The Messner.

Portraits

So 14 Camp had everyone from a novice mountaineer from Tennessee who’d joined a guided party via an online match, to Colin Haley and his partner Nils Nielsen as they acclimatized for their attempt at setting a speed record on the Cassin (they were denied by poor snow). Most people would stop by the Park Service tent for anything from a weather check to a request for more biodegradable poo bags to treatment for HAPE or frostbite.

Mountaineering is a weird sport that can be both thrilling and ridiculous. We spent twenty-five days walking and waiting to get to a summit that we stood on for three minutes. Then we walked back down. That sort of elected suffering incorporates many things: patience, determination, ego, grit, money, time, gear, self-reliance, self-absorption, and an anti-stir-crazy syrum (in our case, Hearts and Bananagrams).

So I tried to meet the people who do this sport. In our week at 14 Camp I made portraits of climbers I met. I asked them the standard interview I’ve been collecting for almost a decade. Meet some mountaineering people…

Continue to Neda’s Portrait»