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This is cool for mountaineering fans (link, but could be a cool mountain thread)


tater

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https://mount-everest3d.com/de/live-tracking/

 

@mikegarrison @JoeSchmuckatelli

^^^ you guys have mentioned climbing before I recall.

No other place to put the link, maybe this can be a cool mountain thread?

I have been in Nepal a couple times, but only trekking (though over a 5400+ m pass in deep snow). Never made it to Everest region, was my plan for a return trip, then RL, and was gonna go with a buddy, then kids, etc, lol.

Not Everest region, but cool:

Kkbfm9V.jpg

(pic by me of Annapurna South Face from near ABC—not that high, think ABC is 13-14k feet up)

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Stunning!

I've climbed in CA, WA, CO, and bouldered all over - esp CA and AZ, although I did get a few scrambles in in UT and NV.  Got to climb an Austrian Alp, one time - and it was fantastic.  Never did get to see the Himalayas... although if I had been offered the opportunity I'd have not been there for the sight-seeing (and frankly, I'm kinda glad about that, because I'm one of those guys who feels that feeling you get when you are in the rugged mountains... so I don't want to taint that).

Looks like you're probably more experienced in the technical stuff than I.  My only multi-stage climb was a fairly easy 5.13 in CA back in '89.  Easy in that we were both prepared and really fit.  I've done some stupid stuff on rocks that I later found out I should have brought pro... but you know how that goes.

Where have you climbed?

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10 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Looks like you're probably more experienced in the technical stuff than I.  My only multi-stage climb was a fairly easy 5.13 in CA back in '89.  Easy in that we were both prepared and really fit.  I've done some stupid stuff on rocks that I later found out I should have brought pro... but you know how that goes.

Nah, I mostly have done 13ers, 14ers via non-technical routes. Mostly in northern NM and most of CO.

The class 5 I have done was mostly top roped, some 1 pitch leads, in a similar timeframe as you, late 80s, early 90s. Just messing around on weekends, I love scrambling, enjoy climbing problems, but getting really good takes more time than I ever had to dedicate. Being up above treeline... just love it, even on a slog on an easy trail up an anthill like Humbolt in CO.

Trekking in the Himalayas is totally worth it, though the urge to go higher is hard to ignore, it's just stunning.

Edited by tater
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I mentioned this once before - but my 'dumbest' mountain experience was on the Alp.  There were multiple ways up it, which I only found out later.  My friend and I decided to take a really steep path, bouldering and climbing small cliffs for most of the route - with the exception of one of those cabled goat trails that let you shimmy across the face of a big cliff.  It was a really big cliff.  We took that.  Cable was just something to hold on to - it was against the face, not like a guard rail or anything.  Views were stunning.  Got better the higher we got.

Watched the sunset.  Never forget that.  Fantastic.

Except that when it was time to go down... We had nothing but what we carried in our pockets.

...

You could say smoking saved my life! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lighter was all we had to illuminate the rock face during the goat-trail shimmy!  Flick... Scramble.  Flick... Scramble.

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9 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The lighter was all we had to illuminate the rock face during the goat-trail shimmy!  Flick... Scramble.  Flick... Scramble.

Ugh. My buddy and I decided to do the Crestone Needle—Peak traverse. Usually people do the Peak-Needle traverse, and the down climb off the Needle was sketchy AF. We decided to go light, and I used the cap from my Snow Leopard pack as a fanny pack, and we had a small rack, and a rope. The idea was to rope up for any sketchy bits (down climb off Needle was it, maybe some near the gendarmes. Anyway, a loose rock almost took my head off, and while I managed to barn-door away from it, I managed to do something to my knee. We ended up heading back to camp super late because my leg had decided it did not like bending, and had to spend the night on the ridge. Was late August, and really cold at 13k ft. We thought we were near the couloir we took up, but I threw a stick down it cause it looked wrong, and I heard click, clack—long pause—click... and knew it was the wrong one, so wait for light was the plan. Super light travel not ideal. Never been so cold in my life before or since. So profoundly stupid.

 

50 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

I've led a few pitches up to 5.4 or 5.5, but mostly I did class 3/4 stuff and snow. I haven't been out in the mountains now for at least about 10 years, and have gotten really out of shape. But when I was younger I climbed around the Cascades.

I was never a great technical climber. I top roped some harder stuff where falling a lot was expected (and I did not disappoint), but that low 5 range is probably about all the lead climbing I have done as well. I have only done a little snow, really liked it. We went up to the Uncompahgre/Wetterhorn area in CO, planning on a late summer hike... and it had already snowed. We set up camp in snow, and got like a foot overnight. It's just a walk up, so we did it in the snow. Felt like Everest to us, having not done snow before.

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52 minutes ago, tater said:

I have only done a little snow, really liked it. We went up to the Uncompahgre/Wetterhorn area in CO, planning on a late summer hike... and it had already snowed. We set up camp in snow, and got like a foot overnight. It's just a walk up, so we did it in the snow. Felt like Everest to us, having not done snow before.

Snow is your best friend in the Cascades. So much easier getting around when the brush and talus is buried under the snow.

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Trapped in a customer service chat, so out of boredom here are some mountain pics. (my issue only semi-resolved, grrr)

d8rV38F.jpg

Wife with Thorong La (pass) in background. Annapurna region.

 

N2XKglo.jpg

had just passed the above town, Jharkot. Little mountains in the background, Annapurnas are to the right off frame

 

Y8uEF7Q.jpg

A few days farther down the Kali Ghandaki valley, Nilgiri South from Tatopani. Another "little" peak in the region. The plus of being outside the US is I was better about pictures, weekend trips to CO I often forgot to bring a camera (or lacked film, etc). The above are all scanned prints or transparencies (I mostly took Kodachrome and Ectachrome back in the day)

 

Edited by tater
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  • 3 weeks later...

Forgot I scanned this:

P6iroD5.jpg

Me, below my buddy on Crestone Needle.(I think, could be Crestone Peak, we did the traverse—Crestones for sure, however—the lack of a lake to the right makes me think maybe Peak in retrospect).

EDIT: Could be the Needle, but before the Needle Peak traverse (on the way up the Needle) now that I think of it. So S or SW would be top of pic, regardless.

Edited by tater
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  • 2 weeks later...

Cool vlog of Everest Base Camp trek. This guy has some awesome drone footage (he's a drone youtuber, I guess—watch some Nepal vids, and let the algorithm do its work, lol)

 

Now I want to go back to Nepal.

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Cabezon (better images below) is pretty near my house (an hour drive?), you can see it after hiking a few minutes up the mountain behind my house (still images are all mine).

leTUZYD.jpg

It's the tiny bump on the horizon just left of center (bottom of tram in foreground, my house right behind/above tram building in there someplace (maybe 800m from this spot).

 

When you get closer:

UGDkc76.jpg

I try and climb this once a year anyway, always fun. 

2k9swK7.jpg

 

Found a decent YouTube (also with a drone to give perspective).

 

 

Edited by tater
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When I was stuck in LA and just had to get out - this was a favorite spot:

https://www.laparks.org/park/stoney-point

(although we called it 'Chatsworth'... It's the same place.) 

Sandstone boulders. 

Met a girl there a few times - she was on Days of Our Lives or some other show.  Cool chick. Good climber. 

 

 

 

On 2/6/2022 at 4:36 PM, tater said:

I want to go back to Nepal

Jealous! 

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2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Jealous! 

It's absolutely worth going. Hiking from village to village, stay in little inns. Heck, they have electricity now (none when I went). Drop the camera and it goes off accidentally? Frame the picture, it's that gorgeous.

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

When I was stuck in LA and just had to get out - this was a favorite spot:

I expect to see the Gorn attack :D

We have some cool places like that I see off the road sometimes, and always want to stop and never do. Might have to next time.

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5 minutes ago, tater said:

We have some cool places like that I see off the road sometimes, and always want to stop and never do. Might have to next time.

That was my life in Arizona.  Cannot tell you the names of almost anywhere I climbed; just spot some interesting rocks and drive as close as you can get then walk.  Totally worth doing!

 

(Once: Almost stumbled into a troop of Javalena, but luckily I smelled, then heard them - it was 123 and I NEEDED shade.  Decided to go another 1/4 mile to the next wash)

Edited by JoeSchmuckatelli
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2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

When I was stuck in LA and just had to get out - this was a favorite spot:

https://www.laparks.org/park/stoney-point

(although we called it 'Chatsworth'... It's the same place.) 

Sandstone boulders. 

Met a girl there a few times - she was on Days of Our Lives or some other show.  Cool chick. Good climber.

One of my friends in high school lived within walking distance of there, over on the other side of De Soto.

I did some rock climbing in high school. When I went to summer school at Andover they had an Outdoor Experience class I took, and we did a lot of rock climbing and rappelling. Ton of fun, met some great people there.

14 minutes ago, tater said:

I expect to see the Gorn attack :D

No, that was Vasquez Rocks, which is up the 14, past Santa Clarita. I have a great story about Vasquez Rocks, me, Eric, Andy, a realtor sign, a bottle of bad champagne, and a very poor interpretation of Kevin Reynolds' Fandango. But that should be told in another venue, if you know what I mean. :wink:

Edited by TheSaint
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Saw this on twitter just now, and it relates to my Nepal pics I posted, that were all in the area below. The image is a picture shot in 15 Dec 2020 from ISS:

FLaBQ7eVUAMcITi?format=jpg

North is down in this image, the ellipse is the Pokhara airport. The massif directly below that is Annapurna. Annapurna I is the large area on the right side of that continuous ridge of snow. The deep valley just right of center running up/down is the Kali Ghandaki valley. The right massif is Dhaulagiri (big peak almost to the right (west) edge of the pic.

The Thorong La (La means "pass") and Jharkot (pics I posted above) are on the north side of the Annapurna massif (middle left part of pic, valley sort of in shadow). Nilgiri (also pictured by me above) is the part of the Annapurna massif farthest right and down in the image right against the N/S valley.

 

High res link:

ISS064-E-12602.JPG

 

(open image in new tab and it's pretty huge)

Edited by tater
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Had a scanned image of Dhaulagiri I took. That N/S valley in the ISS image above runs diagonally up and right in this image starting deep, right in the center. It's literally about a 45° angle up to both E and W to 8000m peaks with the bottom at maybe 2500m between the Annapurna and Dhauligiri massifs, so a 5500m rise on both sides.

UK1KTAr.jpg

 

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  • 5 months later...

Not that I was ever capable of 8000m peaks, or serious ice climbing, but I follow this lightly...

Look at the crowd on K2, aside from that exponentially increasing danger (IMHO), it kind of defeats the purpose to me. I'd rather have a nice day with my buddies on a smaller peak than climb some 14er with 200 other people.

 

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4 hours ago, tater said:

Look at the crowd on K2

Not a phrase I'd ever expect to hear. 

 

I didn't see it mentioned, but have you seen the documentary on the Sherpa that did all 14 8k peaks in 7 months.    That's not a typo.

https://www.netflix.com/title/81464765

It's worth the watch, the man is an absolute freak of nature fitness wise, but you wouldn't know it to look at him, and an all around good guy it seems. 

Quote

Nirmal Purja (known as Nims or Nimsdai[13]) MBE (Nepali: निर्मल पुर्जा; born 25 July 1983[1]) is a Nepal-born naturalised British[5] mountaineer and a holder of multiple mountaineering world records. Prior to taking on a career in mountaineering, he served in the British Army with the Brigade of Gurkhas followed by the Special Boat Service (SBS), the special forces unit of the Royal Navy.[1][14] Purja is notable for having climbed all 14 eight-thousanders (mountain peaks above 8,000 metres or 26,000 feet) in a record time of six months and six days with the aid of bottled oxygen.[15] He was also the first to reach the summits of Mount Everest, Lhotse and Makalu within 48 hours. In 2021, Purja, along with a team of nine other Nepalese mountaineers, completed the first-ever winter ascent of K2

I've "out grown" my climbing days, but I still have my crag bag and duffle full of gear. 

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5 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

Not a phrase I'd ever expect to hear. 

Right?

5 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

I didn't see it mentioned, but have you seen the documentary on the Sherpa that did all 14 8k peaks in 7 months.    That's not a typo.

Yeah, watched it when it came out. Awesome.

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2 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Not a phrase I'd ever expect to hear. 

 

I didn't see it mentioned, but have you seen the documentary on the Sherpa that did all 14 8k peaks in 7 months.    That's not a typo.

https://www.netflix.com/title/81464765

It's worth the watch, the man is an absolute freak of nature fitness wise, but you wouldn't know it to look at him, and an all around good guy it seems. 

I've "out grown" my climbing days, but I still have my crag bag and duffle full of gear. 

Thanks for the recommendation!  Just watched it.  Could have been 3x as long! 

 

Amazing accomplishment 

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