K2 First - Lino Lacedelli dead at 83
He and Achille Compagnoni were the first two men to summit K2 on July 31,1954 - a year after the first Everest summit. He died in his hometown of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
Their summit brought great pride to Italy. However, as is usually the case in significant mountaineering events, this first was also immersed in controversy.
Lacedelli and Compagnoni made their way up K2 establishing a high camp at 8,100 meters. Two additional climbers providing support by carrying additional oxygen bottles were supposed to rendezvous with them at the high camp.
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November 28, 2009
Ski B.A.S.E. Jumper Matthias Giraud
Pro skier Matthias Giraud, 26, was the the first to ski B.A.S.E jump off Mt. Hood, Telluride's Ajax, and southwestern Colorado's Engineer Mountain. With his trademark charm-your-pants-off French accent, he dishes about managing fear, losing his mentor Shane McConkey, and how to take the leap yourself.
The Powder Feed: It's early season. What have you been up to?
Matthias Giraud: I've been cruising all over the Northwest and hitting all the cool spots along the way. I just jumped off a 700-foot radio tower antenna in eastern Washington at night, then I went to Seattle. I had some epic days on Mt. Baker and Mt. Hood, then I had a call from some friends who were going to go jump a cliff near Stevens Pass, so I got four hours of sleep, jumped in the car and next thing you know, I'm standing on top of 370-foot cliff with a parachute on.
Finding yourself on a cliff—does that happen often? Are you doing more skiing or ski B.A.S.E. jumping?
I've been focusing on first ski descents and first ski B.A.S.E. jumps. It's been a lot of fun to be able to ski something and you know you're the first person to do it. The fear factor is way higher but it's really exciting.
Ski base jump of Mt. Engineer from Josh Stephenson on Vimeo.
A lot of people would ask, why do it?
Why do it? I mean, why not do it? It's the coolest thing you can do, literally. You are jumping off things and plummeting to your death but then you fly away with a little piece of nylon. Skiing is so great by itself, then you put the two sports together, and it's all even better. You can ski things no one else can ski. With a parachute, all of the sudden these impossible lines are survivable.
So give us a sense of why the experience is so cool.
What I love the most about it is that it allows you to ski the fastest you would probably ever ski and really get to that point of no return. And when you think you're skiing as fast as you can and the edge of the cliff is only 100 feet away, you point it and go even faster. The last thing you know, you hit that edge and you're flying 100 or 200 feet away from the wall before you can pull your parachute. You're flying in mid-air. I think a lot of people are kind of bashing ski jumping. They say 'oh it's not skiing.' Well, it's more skiing than skiing would ever be. You're pushing skiing as far as it can be, you're going as fast as you can, as long as you can, then you get a cool parachute ride out of it, too. You look at the line you just skied and you go 'oh my god, it's outrageous, not in my wildest dreams did i think i could ski something like that and come out of there in one piece.'
That does make it sound really awesome...and terrifying.
It is. I'm not going to lie. Before each jump I'm absolutely terrified. I have to push myself to do it. You have to be in that Zen mode and tell yourself 'everything's ok, you've got it, you've done this before.' You've got to be really focused. But as soon as you drop in and start making a few turns, it's just another day skiing.
How do you get into ski B.A.S.E. jumping? It sounds a bit, well, specialized.
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November 27, 2009
Black Friday Gift Special: How to Avoid Stores
It's Black Friday, a time to avoid stores if there ever was one. To aid you in this effort, we here at the Powder Feed put together a cheat sheet of items you can buy online for the ripper that holds a special place in your heart. After polling dozens of skiers and snowboarders on their wish lists, the results are in. Need more ideas? Check out Outside's interactive gift finder.
TOP TEN WISHES FROM SPORTY BABES:
1. A fully planned weekend away. Bonus points for powder days and spa treatments. "Fond memories are very reinforcing for liking a guy," says one gal. If you're coming up blank on ideas, enlist the good folks at Ski.com to help you plan.
2. A cozy down jacket. Our pick: Cloudveil's Inversion Hooded Jacket ($200), which is the best of all possible worlds: warm, comfy and cute.
3. Anything made of cashmere. "It's elegant, it's nurturing, it's decadent, it's sensual," attests one mountain woman. "Whenever I wear cashmere I find myself constantly squeezing and stroking it. If it's a sweater that [my husband] bought for me, well, that bodes well for his evening." J.Crew has some nice items to choose from. May we suggest the Ribbed Cashmere Scarf ($98) for apres purposes?
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November 25, 2009
Video: Skier Escapes Avalanche with Parachute
My friend Steve Casimiro, former editor of Powder magazine, writer and photographer extraordinaire, and the brain behind The Adventure Life blog just reminded me of this insane video of Frenchie Antoine Montant skiing out of an enormous slide with a parachute. It's not new—from MSP's Claim—but it's worth watching again. Here's the replay. Sick!
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Come Out Alive: Practicing Survival Skills
Like free throws or music scales, survival skills can be practiced. If you repeat the exercises needed for a life or death situation you can increase your chances of survival—whether you're a father perfecting a friction fire in the backyard or a soldier simulating an underwater escape from a helicopter crash in a pool.
While reporting a graphic inspired by Ben Sherwood's book The Survivor's Club, I had the chance to interview survival psychologist Dr. John Leach. He studies what happens in the brain when people are put in extreme environments. His scientific papers include such verbose titles as Restrictions in working memory capacity during parachuting: a possible cause of no pull fatalities and Why people 'freeze' in an emergency: temporal and cognitive constraints on survival responses. He wrote the book Survival Psychology. His goal is to find out why so many people die when they are put in survival situations.
"I spent my early days in this looking at shipwreck survivors and concentration camp survivors and I was looking for the survivor personality," said Leach. "What is the personality that allows these people to survive when all around them die?"
"I got absolutely nowhere and couldn't identify any survival type. It also dawned on me that I was asking the wrong question: Why is it that these people survive such horrendous circumstances and everybody else dies around them? When the question I should have been asking is: Why do so many people die when there's no reason for them to die?"
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The Wonk: A Special Deal on Nau Clothing
Over the past few years, we've written about and reviewed a bunch of gear from Nau, makers of stylish and eco-conscious technical outerwear and clothing for men and women, like the jacket the bearded gentleman is wearing above. If you're not familiar with their stuff, check it out here. And if you see something you like, type in the promo code “NEW2NAU”, which is good for 10% off anything on the site, including sale items. That's it: Nau asked me to pass along this code to all of our readers, and now you've got it. Happy shopping, and happy Thanksgiving. —Sam Moulton
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Eight Women from Eight Countries Ski to South Pole
There may not be much powder skiing in Antarctica. Nonetheless a team of eight women from Commonwealth countries set off on skis toward the South Pole yesterday. Hailing from Cyprus, Ghana, Singapore, India, Brunei, New Zealand, Britain, and Jamaica, they are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth with the aim of spreading the good word of cultural exchange and the power of women. They expect the 500-plus-mile journey across Antarctica to take about 40 days, depending on blizzards and such.
"I don't think I could put in words how empty it all seems," reported Stephanie Solomonides, an expedition member reporting after day one. To follow their progress, check out their podcasts and updates on the Kaspersky Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition's website.
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November 24, 2009
The Good Route: Picturing Climate Change at COP15
©Daniel Beltrá, courtesy of The Prince’s Rainforests Project and Sony
Some of Daniel Beltrá's photographs are shockingly beautiful, but many are just plain shocking. And it's the latter group—which illustrate burning, drought-stricken and clear-cut rainforests of Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia—that just may push our political leaders toward making real progress at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) to be held next month in Copenhagen.
The Prince's Rainforests Project, an effort that Prince Charles of Wales established in 2007 in order to raise awareness about rainforest destruction and raise funds to support rainforest preservation, appointed Beltrá (through the Sony World Photography Awards) to photograph the world's largest and most important rainforests as part of the campaign. Now, some of these images—which show not only wide-scale damage to the rainforests but also vignettes of pristine sections (after all, leaders need to know what they're fighting for)—are collected in a book, Rainforest: Lifebelt for an Endangered Planet, which key world leaders at COP15 will receive.
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First Jet-Wing Intercontinental Crossing
Yves Rossy will attempt to become the first person ever to complete an intercontinental crossing via jet-wing on November 25. He plans to take off in a Pilatus Porter aircraft from Morocco, ascend to a height of 2,000 meters, then exit from the plane to deploy his jet-wing and lift off for southern Spain. The distance will be about 40 kilometers, and he'll be traveling in speeds up to 300 km/hr through the air. You'll be able to watch him live at webtel.mobi.
--Aileen Torres
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Yuichiro Miura: 80 on Everest
One never to give up, the former record holder for the oldest Everest summit, Japanese climber Yuichiro Miura, is now targeting another summit at age 80 - in 2013. This according to a report today from AFP. He wants to climb the north this time after previously completing two successful south-side climbs.
Late last week he lost his record to Nepalese Min Bahadur Sherchan who produced birth certificates to verify his claim that he was the oldest person to top out Everest with his summit last year. He was 76 at the time.
Miura-san is most famous for being the man who skied down Everest in the 1970 documentary, "The Man Who Skied Down Everest." It reveals what climbing Everest was like before the crowds and commercial expeditions.
He did not ski Everest proper, he actually skied the Lhotse face. Using a parachute as drag, he skied 6,600 feet in two minutes and 20 seconds, and then fell another 1320 feet when he stopped just below the bergschrund at the base of the face. You have to rent the film. Sadly, eight Sherpas died during his expedition, which left Miura-san devastated.
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