Never Stop Climbing
Adventures of a Novice Mountaineer

This video was shot by a guy who climbed Belford a couple of weeks after I did last year. It doesn’t look like he had much more snow to contend with but the wind sounds worse – and it definitely looks colder. We had awesome weather with only a few heavy gusts in the last few hundred feet.

YouTube scouting continues. This series certainly looks less sketchy than some of the other Wetterhorn videos that I’ve posted.

More on Mr. Brown from Wikipedia:

Brown is widely regarded as the outstanding pioneering English rock climber of the 1950s and early 1960s. He established an unprecedented number of classic new routes (especially in Snowdonia and the Peak District); that were at the leading edge of the hardest grades. Examples on Dinas Cromlech in the Llanberis Pass include “Cenotaph Corner” (1952, E1, with Doug Belshaw) and “Cemetery Gates” (1951, E1, with Don Whillans). As well as creating pioneering routes, he often helped create new types of “protection” to improve safety on climbs, and is acknowledged to have created some of the first “nuts” by drilling the thread out of nuts and threading the centre with a sling. So famous was he that the Post Office would often deliver letters simply addressed to “The Human Fly, UK”.

In this context, Brown’s mountaineering achievements in the Alps and Himalaya have often been overlooked: he made many significant ascents in the Alps in the 1950s with Don Whillans and other members of the Rock and Ice climbing club and, in 1955, the first ascent of the third highest mountain in the world, Kangchenjunga in the Nepalese Himalaya, with George Band. In 1956 he made the first ascent of the west summit of the Mustagh Tower in the Karakoram with Ian McNaught-Davis. The other members of the team, John Hartog and Tom Patey, reaching the main summit the next day.

Apart from his numerous classic rock climbs in Britain, and his considerable mountaineering achievements abroad, Joe is remembered for televised rock climbs in the 1960s, three in Snowdonia, and then, in 1967, of a spectacular new route on the Old Man of Hoy, a Scottish sea stack, with luminaries of the climbing world Ian McNaught-Davis and Sir Chris Bonington. Fifteen years later Brown repeated the climb on the Old Man on a popular TV documentary with his second daughter Zoe. Her bubbly personality led her to being chosen as a presenter on the children’s TV show Tiswas.

My YouTube scouting of Wetterhorn Peak continues. This one has bit of a, um, pucker factor. By the way, thanks to Jeff Valliere for emailing me some background info on this climb.

A really impressive video for an impressive first 14er summit:

Blanca Peak is the fourth highest summit in Colorado and highest in the Sangre de Cristo Range. It is most easily accessed via Lake Como trail, a.k.a. the “Trail of Tears” by the King family. Most of this video was shot in September of 2009, though there are shots of Blanca’s east face from the Huerfano River side shot in June of that year and a nice time lapse shot from companion peak Little Bear in 2007. This was brother Matt’s first 14er summit; a worthy accomplishment coming from Lincoln, NE. Look for very cool time lapse of Little Bear as seen from Blanca.

There’s more on Blanca over at 14ers.com.

Reinhold Messner is probably the greatest climber ever – definitely one of the toughest. It’s a must watch if you wonder why accomplished climbers do what they do.

Found over at Alan’s blog.

If I attempt Wetterhorn this summer it will be my first class 3 climbing. It looks challenging – mentally and physically – but if training continues to go well this summer I think it’s within reach.

A nice view from Wetterhorn Peak in Colorado – possibly my next summit attempt later this summer.

This is just a short series of clips shot on a recent 15 mile training hike around Huntsville State Park.

The park is pleasant enough but these hikes are really just endurance workouts. We load up the packs, I carry about 30 pounds, and knock out some miles and about 600′ of elevation gain. It’s not real challenging but challenging terrain isn’t easy to find near Houston.

This was also our first test of the awesome new Flip MinoHD which we’ll probably be taking with us on future climbs.

Messner’s accomplishments include the solo ascent of Mount Everest (without supplemental oxygen) and being the first climber to all fourteen 8,000 meter peaks. In the video he discusses his motivation, the evolution of climbing, and his work to preserve alpine environments.

There’s much more background information in his Wikipedia entry.