Mountain Hardwear Phantom 32: Packs Like A Peanut
Weighing just 1 pound, 7 ounces, this down-filled sack has no frills. No Gore-Tex or other waterproof coatings to repel moisture and no extra, hidden pockets for your snicker bars. It’s just a simple pairing of paper-thin nylon and 800-fill down.
Golden Decade: The Birth of 8000m Winter Climbing
Winter in the Himalaya is difficult for many reasons. Temperatures at base camp can plummet to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and much lower farther up. Because of the cold, climbing at night is virtually impossible, and the days are short. The winds are much stronger and more persistent because of the jet stream, which blows almost constantly from December through the end of March. Tents are constantly being destroyed or blown away. The wind also strips away the snow, exposing rock and hard ice, making easier slopes more technical and time-consuming. Lower barometric pressure leads to less oxygen in the air. The combination of these factors makes for an exhausting, and generally miserable experience.
Hungry First Ascent on Mt. Bradley
Mark Allen and Graham Zimmerman opened a new route up the SE buttress of Mount Bradley on April 5, 2010. The 4600 feet of sustained climbing over varied terrain was named Vitalogy (Alaska Grade 5, 5.9R A1 WI5 M6+) and consists of 29 pitches, 19 of which were M5 or WI4 or harder. The ascent took 66 hours, much longer than anticipated, leaving them without food for the 33 hour tricky descent to base camp.
Five Ten Grandstone Rock Shoes: Oldies, But Goodies
The generous coating of sticky rubber and a roomy toe box make the Grandstones perfect for chimneys and offwidths, but they flail on smaller cracks that require a sleeker profile.
Griffith’s Patagonia 2010
Alpinist reported on Jon Griffith and Will Sim’s great experience in Patagonia soon after the two returned to the UK in “East Face of Piergiorgio”. But the Newswire couldn’t capture the “full value” of the experience. Though it might take a little while to load, we at Alpinist think you will enjoy the following video. -Ed
Speed Series Part III: Ueli Steck
Recently, we at Alpinist picked the brains of the speediest climbers to learn more about speed climbing and how it fits into our grade-crazy community. “I think it is nice to be able to climb a peak in several hours instead of several days. You don’t have to suffer so much.”