The American Alpine Journal is seeking volunteer translators to help produce the 2010 edition of the world’s “journal of record” for documenting long, significant climbs. This year, we particularly need help translating stories from Russian and Slovenian. Native English speakers and experienced climbers are preferred, but any person fluent in both English and these foreign languages may be able to help. Translators are needed for both short and long articles.

If you’d like to help out and be an essential part of this 80-year-old tradition, please contact the AAJ editors.

The deadline for electronic comments on Yosemite National Park’s proposed Merced Wild and Scenic River Plan has been extended until midnight on February 9. The previous deadline had been February 4, but the NPS experienced technical difficulties because of high volume, and some climbers’ comments were inadvertently rejected.

A notice at Yosemite’s Merced Plan web page states: “If you tried to send an electronic comment on the Merced River Plan and your email was returned to you as undeliverable, please submit your comment again. We will be accepting comments until midnight, Feb 9, 2010. When you resend your comment, please include a note in the subject line that this is a resent comment.”

Click here to learn more about the Merced Plan, which could affect climbing access and camping in Yosemite National Park. The Access Fund’s automated comment-generator is no longer active, but you can still comment online through the NPS’ Merced Plan site. Please note: This extension applies only to electronic comments.

Two AAC members are among the climber-activists recently honored by the Access Fund with 2009 Sharp End Awards. The awards celebrate individuals and businesses that stand out in their volunteer efforts to preserve access and the climbing environment.

Anthony Love
 received the 2009 Bebie Leadership Award as “America’s outstanding activist for the cause of 
preserving climbing access and the climbing environment.” As president of the Carolina Climbers Coalition, Love helped lead the recent effort to acquire the Rumbling Bald West Side Boulders in North Carolina, and has 
been instrumental in climbing-management planning for Laurel Knob and continued access to the 
privately owned Asheboro Boulders.

Aaron Gibson, co-owner of the Rocktown Climbing Gym and coach of the Oklahoma 
Climbing Team, won a Sharp End Award for his leadership in climbing-management planning and trail projects throughout Oklahoma. Gibson has been an Access Fund regional coordinator since 2004 
and has played an integral role in helping to preserve climbing access at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. He also provided lobbying support for the Access Fund’s meetings with Oklahoma’s congressional 
delegation in Washington, D.C.

Other awards went to Thomas Ling, founder of the Mid-Atlantic Climbers Coalition; Clif Bar & Company; and Brian Sabourin, founder of the new Northeast Ohio Climbers Coalition. Click here to read the full press release from the Access Fund.

The American Alpine Club (AAC) will present four major awards to celebrated climbers and conservationists at its annual dinner on February 20. The AAC’s Benefit and Awards Dinner, held this year at the Inverness Hotel in Denver, also will feature special guest speaker Jim Collins, the best-selling business author and rock climber.

This year’s winner of the AAC’s Robert and Miriam Underhill Award for lifetime achievement is Royal Robbins, perhaps the greatest figure in American big-wall climbing history. Robbins, from Modesto, CA, led the first ascent of the northwest face of Half Dome in Yosemite Valley in 1957, the Salathé and North America walls on El Capitan, and some of the first wilderness big walls ever climbed, in Wyoming, Canada, and Alaska.

The well-known climber Conrad Anker, from Bozeman, MT, will be lauded for another, lesser-known aspect of his career: his tireless work on environmental issues. Anker will receive the David Brower Conservation Award in recognition of his work with nonprofits such as the Access Fund, the Conservation Alliance, and the AAC; his influence on sponsors like the North Face in addressing sustainability and preservation issues; his introduction of environmental ethics to Sherpa climbers through the Khumbu Climbing School; and his use of his celebrity to bring greater attention to climate change and other environmental concerns.

Climber, guide, writer, and filmmaker Doug Robinson, from Aptos, CA, will receive the AAC’s Literary Award. Robinson, a pioneer of the “clean climbing” movement, wrote an essay in a 1972 Chouinard Equipment catalog that inspired countless climbers to abandon the use of destructive pitons. His pioneering instructional video, Moving Over Stone, was one of the best-selling climbing films of all time. Robinson’s A Night on the Ground, A Day in the Open collects some of his most influential and beautiful articles and essays about the Sierra Nevada and other ranges.

Mark Richey, a leading American climber for the past two decades, will receive the Angelo Heilprin Citation for service to the American Alpine Club. Richey, who lives in Essex, MA, was president of the AAC from 2003 to 2006—crucial years of growth and change for the club. He also chaired the fund-raising campaign for construction of the Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum, which opened in Golden, CO, in early 2008. Richey has chaired the club’s nominating committee, helping to build a strong board of directors, and he represents North America at the UIAA, the international association of alpine clubs. And he does all this while running a successful custom-woodworking business and traveling around the world on climbing expeditions.

All of the award winners are expected to be present at the AAC’s Annual Benefit and Awards Dinner on February 20. The keynote speaker at the dinner will be best-selling author Jim Collins, who lives in Boulder, CO. Collins was one of the top rock climbers in the world during the 1970s, and he still climbs at a 5.13 level. His business books Built to Last, Good to Great, and How the Mighty Fall have sold millions of copies, and he has worked as a speaker and consultant for dozens of corporations.

The AAC’s annual dinner is one of the great traditions of the 107-year-old organization. To learn more about the event or buy tickets, click here.

Thanks to the creative efforts of Scott Neel and many talented, comitted athletes, the AAC is proud to unveil a new trailer to share the message and heartbeat of the AAC. Let us know what you think!

The second year of the AAC’s Los Glaciares National Park conservation project, sponsored by Patagonia Inc., wrapped up successfully in early December. Over six weeks in the Patagonian spring, the eight-man Argentinean-American team, led by project coordinator Rolando Garibotti, with help from other volunteers, continuedwork begun in 2008 to restore heavily eroded trails in Los Glaciares, which is home to Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre.

First, however, the American trail experts led a nine-day field-work seminar in late October with 17 park rangers from various national parks across Argentinean Patagonia. Over more than 76 hours in the field, the rangers learned techniques for mitigating and stopping erosion, including steps, drainage, and causeways. Despite some initial difficulties due to the language barrier, the course was a major success, and similar efforts likely will be made in the future.

Once the trail course ended, work resumed on the heavily damaged Laguna de los Tres trail in Los Glaciares. Because of poor weather, work also was done on the lower-elevation trails leading to Rio Blanco camp and up the Cerro Torre valley. About 2,000 man/hours of trail work was completed.

In his report on the 2009 work, Garibotti said the project is having a much broader impact than new water bars and steps. “Our work, including the trail course, is inspiring some land managers to follow a much more deliberate approach toward trail building and maintenance,” he wrote. “One clear example of the above is that since January 2010 the northern area of Los Glaciares National Park has its own trail crew. As an initial experiment, the park decided to commit five salaries for four months (until late April) to the trails. It is the first time in the Patagonian parks that several people are specifically assigned to trail work.”

The Los Glaciares conservation project will continue until 2011. There is much more to this innovative international effort than can be described in a short article, and you can read Garibotti’s full report here. The video below offers a great summary of the first year of the project, in 2008.

The American Mountaineering Museum will induct four members of its new Hall of Mountaineering Excellence in April at a celebration of the lives and achievements of American climbers Yvon Chouinard, Robert Craig, Bob Bates, and Dr. Charlie Houston. At the awards gala on April 10 in Golden, Colorado, Chouinard and Craig are expected to accept their awards in person; the family and friends of Bates and Houston, who both have passed on, will accept their awards.

The evening will be filled with stories of each mountaineer’s greatest ascents and expeditions, memories of the inductees no longer with us, as well as an appreciative look at each man’s work beyond the climbing world. In addition to being a pioneering ice and big-wall climber, Chouinard has been one of the most important outdoor equipment and clothing innovators of modern times and a leading voice of environmental activism. Bates, Craig, and Houston are perhaps best known as climbers for their roles in the dramatic K2 expedition of 1953, but each has had profound impacts outside mountaineering: Bates as a beloved educator; Craig as founder and longtime president of the Keystone Center public-policy conference center; and Houston as a doctor and medical researcher.

Tickets for the April 10 event will go on sale February 15 through the American Mountaineering Museum website and at the museum’s Base Camp Adventure Gift Shop in Golden.

The American Mountaineering Museum opened in February 2008. The new Hall of Mountaineering Excellence will be located in a rededicated space in one of the museum’s theater rooms.

AAC Member Vicki Young tells the story of her family’s recent climb in Pinnacles National Monument. What did you put up last weekend? Tell it here.

January at home in the California Sierra can mean snow and cold. January in Pinnacles National Monument (just outside of Soledad, California) can mean sunshine, if you’re lucky. We braved the Central Valley fog to get in one last climbing day before the annual Raptor Closures kept us out of some of our favorite areas.

We had a specific goal in mind: my husband Brad wanted to get his 800th climb at Pinnacles. So we gathered up a group of friends – some vastly experienced climbers and some “newbies” – and hiked out to Crowley Towers to put up a few new climbs. The line that Brad had picked out to be “The 800 Club” went up fairly easily at 5.7 or so. Brad and some of the more seasoned climbers showed the new guys how to hand-drill bolts (on lead, of course) and everyone took turns being part of the crew. As Brad and Waldo were putting in the belay bolts on top, the largest flock of California condors we had ever seen showed up to circle above us – practically within touching distance! The sound of the wind in their feathers was incredible. We had seen the condors before, but always at quite a distance and never so many at once.

Once the anchors were ready, the ascent party began. And party it was! A grand total of 13 in the first-ascent group, with an age range from 7 to 60+, tied-in conga-line style.  The guidebook entry for the FA for this climb will be an essay.

Mark Richey, past AAC president, and his wife, Teresa, are planning a second shipment of tents to Haitians left homeless by this month’s earthquake. The first big load of tents and other equipment will leave the Richeys’ Massachusetts woodworking business, en route to Haiti, this week. The new deadline for sending good-quality tents (new or used) to the Richeys is February 12. Larger, family-style tents are best, but any shelter is welcome. Please ship tents to:

Mark Richey Woodworking
40 Parker Street
Newburyport, MA 01950-4056

Teresa Richey said sleeping bags are no longer needed and that tents are the primary need in Haiti, with untold numbers of people still sleeping outside without adequate shelter from the weather and mosquitoes. Mark Richey and past AAC vice president Jim Ansara are both in Haiti, assisting Partners in Health with building-related issues.

Ansara and his wife, Karen, are matching donations to the Haiti Fund of the Boston Foundation up to $1 million, through their own family foundation. The funds will provide immediate relief as well as a long-term focus on reconstruction and human rights. To learn more or make a donation, visit the Haiti Fund web page.

Pat Goodman and Dave Sharratt, winners of a 2009 Lyman Spitzer Award from the AAC, experienced a surprising and frustrating permit situation in Sichuan, China, effectively shutting down their expedition. Goodman had climbed in Siguniang National Park in 2005 and had researched the October 2009 trip extensively, but the two men were surprised to learn upon arriving at the park gate that they needed a special climbing permit. Back in the nearby town, officials told them they had to get their permit in person in Beijing; locally, they were only able to obtain an expensive camping and trekking permit. Despite a threat of fines and jail time, they made a brief attempt on unclimbed Seerdengpu (the “Barbarian”), but the wind had gone out of their sails.

Late, Goodman learned that the permit rules had been in place since the mid-1990s, but were only strictly enforced beginning in 2009. One team that obtained the proper permits in 2009 paid roughly $3,000 for 10 days of climbing. You can read Goodman’s full trip report and find more info about the permit situation at the AAC website. Sharratt’s account can be found at the Black Diamond site.