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Paula Wright

Photo] Jay Mantri, courtesy of StockSnap

Researchers, activists and climbers respond to Trump’s withdrawal from Climate Accord

“I would like to see the climbing community speak about their experiences of witnessing climate change, and their love for the mountains with anyone and everyone…. I would like them to educate us, the public,” explains climate change researcher and anthropologist Pasang Yangjee Sherpa. In this roundtable interview, climate researchers and mountaineers Pasang Yangjee Sherpa, Becky Chung, and Knut Tjensvoll Kitching respond to Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.

A Berec headlamp used by Martin Mushkin from the mid-1950s until 1980. [Photo] Michelle Hoffman

TOOL USERS: The Headlamp

In this Tool Users story from Alpinist 57, Paula Wright shines a light on the evolution of the headlamp. Since some climbers were still carrying flashlights in their mouths as late as the early 1970s, it seems that we have only recently emerged into a more illuminated age.

The Alpine Luddites White Light/White Heat backpack with crampons and ice tools strapped to the outside. [Photo] Paula Wright

Alpine Luddites White Light/White Heat backpack: custom-made to contentment

Alpinist Associate Editor Paula Wright puts the Alpine Luddites White Light/White Heat backpack to the test, awarding it four stars. The company takes an a la carte approach to the gear it sells so that minimalists will have only the accessories they want, such as the foam layer that comes in a customizable thickness and doubles as a “bivy pad.”

Darwin’s Disappointment

In September 1833, Charles Darwin set out for the four peaks of the Sierra de la Ventana alone, lured by local murmurs of caves and forests and veins of silver and gold. The small range was barely visible from the port of Bahia Blanca, a notch in the north-central Argentine coast. There, the H.M.S. Beagle remained docked with Captain Fitzroy, who had invited Darwin aboard the ship to circumnavigate the globe as a scientist.

Off Belay: Darwin’s Disappointment

Before his theory of evolution made him famous, Charles Darwin was an enthusiastic, if somewhat picky, mountaineer. Paula Wright considers the significance of his most disappointing ascents.