Teton legend Dick Pownall. Pownall's gentle recollections of climbing and guiding in the Tetons in the 1940s and '50s stole the show. Photo Courtesy Christian Beckwith

See all the photos from the event in our Media Galleries. 

On Thursday, December 8, Outerlocal presented “From Cleated Boots to Ski Descents: The Past, Present and Future of Teton Guiding” in Jackson, Wyoming. Over 300 climbers and skiers jammed into the cozy Snow King Lodge Room and over 400 people tuned into the livestream online through the Outerlocal, American Alpine Club, and Marmot Facebook pages to listen to seven Teton legends explore the development of American mountain guiding. While the audience feasted on Pinky G’s pizza and New Belgium beer, Himalayan author Brot Coburn moderated the panel discussions with Renny Jackson, Rod Newcomb, Andy Carson, Dick Pownall, Mark Newcomb, Rob Hess and Nat Patridge. Teton icon Dick Pownall was given the “people’s choice awards” for his compelling performance about the golden era of Teton climbing and over $3,000 in proceeds were donated to the Teton Boulder Project to help maintain the newly installed Guides’ Boulder.

If you missed this special event, watch the archived footage on outerlocal.com’s U-stream page. More photographs available on Outerlocal’s recap of the historic event.

In the autumn of 2008, American Alpine Journal Editor John Harlin III and the AAC organized a gathering of magazine and journal editors from around the world and dubbed the meeting the “First Editors’Summit.” Editors of print journals and websites gathered in Colorado, then Utah for climbing and discussion on a range of topics pertinent to publishing in the Internet age. The Second Editors’  Summit was held in September of 2011 in Munich, Germany. Lindsay Griffin—Contributing Editor to the AAJ and all-around walking alpine encyclopedia—traveled from Wales to represent the AAC. He sent us the following report, which details some of the bizarre climbing in Germany and the topics discussed at the Summit.

[Click to view Lindsay's Photo Gallery.]

“Sudriss,” said legendary German climber Bernd Arnold. “Oliver Perry-Smith weg, 1913.”  Arnold, the undisputed guardian of the Elbsandsteingebirge, was pointing to a soaring crackline on the 80m south face of the massive Falkenstein. In today’s currency it is VIIb, or around 5.10a—but with very little meaningful protection by modern standards. The sandstone towers of Saxoney have strict ethics: no chalk and no removable metal protection. Gear placements rely on slings over small spikes, the odd thread, and jammed knots—where the opportunity exists, which is certainly not as much as one would like. Harder routes have rings (large bolts) but often no more than one or two per pitch. Of course, a good knot is bomber; that is until you’re teetering 20-25′ above, when its brilliant novelty suddenly seems to lose all appeal.

In 1906 Perry-Smith, an American living in Dresden, established UIAA VI in the Elbsandstein. Prior to World War I, nowhere in the World were climbs harder than V, with limited protection— making Perry-Smith way ahead of his time. In fact it’s likely that in terms of boldness and technical difficulty, the climbing in Elbsandstein was unmatched until after the Second World War. It is an acquired art and even today relatively few climbers outside the local community visit these towers.

So what was I, a complete bumbly, doing there?

In the autumn of 2008 the First Editors’ Summit was held. It was an informal occasion, as befits all good meetings that involve climbers. There was an initial “sit down” in Golden the day after arrival, but most of the highly successful event took place in Utah—where discussion was relaxed and the climbing anything but.

The word “First” in the title presented an obvious challenge: Where was the “Second” to be? One or two people threatened, but it was Volker Leuchsner and Ralph Stoehr from Germany’s premier magazine Klettern that took up the baton. Sadly, although the event was initially well-subscribed, in the two or so weeks leading up to the late September 2011 start date, there was a significant number of drop-outs. This left a cozy nucleus, with fleeting additions from various editors who could only spare a day or two.

Having escaped classic North Wales weather to arrive in Munich’s scorching hot and sunny climate, it was ironic that the first day found us at the German Alpine Club’s [DAV] climbing wall (the biggest in the world, they say). The club had provided a small conference room and suitable refreshment. Suitable refreshment in Germany tends to mean beer.  Interestingly, most indoor walls—and there is a rapidly increasing number, particularly in north Germany where there are no crags—are now owned by the DAV, which gives discounted entry fees to its members. Olaf Perwitzschky, who edits the broad-based magazine Alpin, confirmed that in common with most European countries, rock climbing is growing (while, relatively, alpinism is declining), though perhaps not as fast as ski touring.

Much of our discussion centered on ideas for producing greater magazine sales—a topic less relevant to the AAJ—and website development. It appeared only Giulio Caresio from Alp had experimented with digital versions of his Italian magazine (downloadable at around half price of the paper copy) but noted that eAlp’s sales were very few. A couple of years ago I’d got the impression that most European magazines, and certainly those in the U.K., were struggling with declining sales (unlike the U.S., where the situation was stable). I was glad to hear that today sales are more or less stable. Later in the week we were joined by Piotr Drozdz, from Poland’s major magazine Gory, who confirmed our obvious conclusion: in his country a decreasing number of people read paper media, but the climbing community is growing, providing a fine balance.

Various perennial policy topics were re-visited and more or less agreed upon, such as the need to ask permission before using photos on a website. However, we came to the conclusion that our current group was probably too small to make meaningful “pronouncements,” and instead should produce a comprehensive summary document that, for the moment, would remain “in-house.”

One of my briefs was to bring up the topic of the AAJ to members only, which was proposed policy at the time. While only a few at the Summit had a direct interest in the sort of climbing the AAJ records, there was startling distress, and two noted they used to buy copies regularly around 10 years ago. [Ed.: The AAJ is available to all climbers. Read the details. ]

However, the conversation rapidly developed into the value of printed media when it comes to works of reference: there was simply far too great a risk of loss with digital register alone. On this even the website editors agreed. It reminded me of a chat with a professional photographer some years ago. His observation at the time was that the average “happy snapper” often stored photos on CDs, which were tucked away on a shelf or in the attic and generally forgotten. In a decade or so it would become difficult, expensive, or in some cases impossible to retrieve those images. Remember the three and a quarter inch floppy disk? 

I think we all found that first day rather shattering. I pleaded jet lag (Germany has one whole hour time difference from the U.K.), though this was met with a slightly confused stare from Hiroshi “Hiro” Hagiwara, chief editor of Rock and Snow, who’d just flown in from Tokyo. I offer this as an explanation of why we probably seemed less than enthusiastic during our specially organized tour of the DAV Alpine Museum later in the day. I can’t say I get too fired up about seeing a pair of Messner’s old boots, though I have to admit being impressed with Franz and Toni Schmid’s Olympic Gold medal, awarded for their first ascent of the Matterhorn North Face.

We ignored the distractions of Munich’s famous October beer fest, which had turned the city into a madhouse, and sped off to the famous crags of Frankenjura. These are generally one-pitch limestone walls, riddled with holes and pockets, where, if you make the former steep enough and the latter small enough, you end up with Action Directe, or the more modern Corona, arguably the hardest sport route in Germany. We spent a brief few hours with Corona  author Markus Bock, and Sarah Seeger, both employed by Marmot’s Europe branch. As we craned our necks below Corona, Bock waxed lyrically about the beauty of the “line.” Call me old fashioned, but I couldn’t see a “line” anywhere in this severely overhanging blankness, less could I see anything that resembled holds. I’m guessing he was referring to the fact there were just enough microscopic features to make it possible. Seeger, who has redpointed 8c, is involved with Marmot’s publicity and this started a discussion on whether the recent trend toward company publications, such as the 100-page Marmot Life, which are well produced and contain full articles by their sponsored climbers, will prove direct competition to traditional magazines. The answer from Seeger was an emphatic no—this was certainly not their aim.

After two days of delightful pocket pulling protected by closely spaced bolts, it was time to move to somewhere altogether different. We set off across the great agricultural plains to the former GDR, stopping briefly to visit the beautifully reconstructed city of Dresden, which gave Hiro the opportunity to satisfy the honorable traditions of the Japanese tourist by filling several 8Gb memory cards.

The Elbsandsteingebirge lent meaning to an “editors’ summit.” There are more than 700 sandstone towers in this scenic region known as Saxony Switzerland. Summits are important here. You are forbidden to put up a route on a formation that can be walked up. Vast and impressive escarpments with features and cracklines, dotted through acres of prime forest, remain untouched by climbers’ hands. Erosion over millennia has often resulted in the base of these towers being undercut, some severely, leading to fierce starts. Fortunately, we had a secret weapon in the form of Ralph to handle the hard bits.

For the average U.K. climber, making a direct grade comparison could sometimes be a problem: there are a lot of awesome chimneys and wide cracks here. Most British climb chimneys during their apprenticeship and then spend the rest of their career doing the utmost to avoid them. So, after three days of “interesting” climbing, hot sunshine, and relaxed gossip, it was time to head for our flights. Alpinist Magazine Online Editor Keese Lane’s hands were torn to shreds, and the whole of my body needed a break.

While there were proposals that we create a sort of international mountain media association, where site links are displayed on each of our home pages, and, more ambitiously we produce a printed annual, where each association member contributes one or two of its articles published in the preceding 12 months, the greatest benefit of these gatherings is always cementing relationships with old contacts and establishing new colleagues. Best of all was our determination to meet up again at a Third Summit, hopefully within the next couple of years.

Read more about Lindsay Griffin on ukclimbing.com.

The American Alpine Club is pleased to announce the launch of its newest informational tool: The AAC Guidebook Finder. Sponsored by Patagonia, an AAC Industry Partner, the Guidebook Finder provides a Google Maps-powered interface to make finding one of the thousands of guidebooks in the AAC Library intuitive, easy, and efficient. Check out the Guidebook Finder by visiting americanalpineclub.org/p/guidebook-map-usa.

The Guidebook Finder is one more way the AAC is implementing goals set in its Five Year Strategic Plan, announced in February. One goal of the Plan is to provide tools that give climbers better access to climbing information and Library assets. The Guidebook Finder is a next step in expanding digital access to the world-class AAC Library.

The new tool gives Members an easy way to find, reserve, and check out over 600 guidebooks to 200 different climbing areas in the United States. Guidebooks (or other collection items) are mailed to AAC Members for free—up to ten books and five DVDs at a time.

Other uses for the Guidebook Finder include: browsing climbing areas in your area or afar, learning about new climbing destinations, and plotting out your next road trip.

About The AAC Library

The Henry S. Hall Jr. American Alpine Club Library is an internationally known resource on alpinism, climbing, and mountain regions and cultures. Established in 1916, it is one of the oldest alpine research facilities in the United States, and the largest outside of Europe. A circulating collection of nearly 20,000 books and videos devoted to mountaineering and rock climbing is available for members to borrow. Rare and non-circulating collections include the AAC archives, John M. Boyle Himalayan Library, manuscript collections, photographs, and rare books dating back to the 16th century.

Boasting nearly 600 journals and over 500 videos and DVDS, the American Alpine Club Library has special strengths in American and foreign guidebooks, Mount Everest and the Himalayas, the Alps, and mountaineering history. The library serves members dispersed around the world, with mission to provide excellent service and efficient access to the collection to AAC members, the media, and others, wherever they may be.

Photo Courtesy Jerry Wingenter

We were halfway down a steep 400’ gully on our way to Deer Creek—intending to walk downstream to the Ghosts (a selection of WI 3+/4 routes). The gully is a popular alternative to the steeper, more involved approach that can be made downstream of the routes. Ten years earlier, we had taken the steeper route: a descent to the creek, and a brutal walk-out via the gully. On that day there were a few inches of dry snow on top of loose talus and what had initially appeared to be the easy way out proved to be an exhausting, two-steps-forward and one-step-back slog to the trail above. My partner forgot his new gloves at the base of the routes and was so beat when we got to the trail that he decided that they were not worth retrieving.

Remembering, this time I opted for a rappel from a group of six medium-sized trees. It proved unnecessary, as the snow on the slope was knee-deep and well consolidated. I went first and after getting off rappel, stepped to the side to avoid anything that might come rolling my way. There was a large fallen tree a few feet to my left that was held in place on the slope by three live trees that it had rolled up against. I coiled the ropes in a butterfly [coil] as my partner pulled them down.

Photo Courtesy Jerry Wingenter

Half of the first rope was on my shoulders when we heard a very loud noise in an otherwise mostly-silent space. To me it was like a jet had just dropped down on top of us; my partner says “freight train”. It took a moment before we realized what was going on—the next thought I had was, “where is it?” I looked to the top of the gully where blue sky was visible in the gap between the trees that line the sides of the chute. Almost immediately, sky was replaced by a burst of white, shining powder. It looked as if somebody set off a charge under the trail above.

I had previously witnessed only small slides, and at a comfortable distance.  I knew some things about avalanches; what factors increase the hazard and what to do if you’re caught in one. But I’ve never taken a class, and had so little experience with them that my reaction to the slide was more instinctual than educated. A few quick steps to the left and we snugged up against the fallen tree. In the brief seconds it took for us get into our positions, the slide was already on top of us.

My guess is that the event lasted 30–90 seconds, but there’s no way to know for sure. Crouched in complete darkness, a rumbling above me, feeling the vibration in the ground below me—it seemed to take forever. I can remember thinking “this should be over by now.” But it just kept rumbling on. In the center of the slide’s path there was a deep channel containing dark clusters of rock glued together by wet snow. It kept moving for at least a full minute after the rest of the slide had stopped. The rope that I had been coiling—the half still on the ground—got caught up in the debris and began reeling off my neck. The rope snagged on itself and pulled me away from the log, and into the slide. Luckily, I had my hand on a limb, and my outstretched arm kept me from being pulled further down the slope. Suddenly, the snow that had been flying over my back began to accumulate on top of it. It got very heavy, very quickly and pressed me down until I got a mouthful of snow. At that moment, I had the first conscious thought that I might be buried and die. It hadn’t dawned on me before this that the slide might stop on top of me instead of passing over.

Photo Courtesy Jerry Wingenter

But then, there wasn’t much conscious thought going on for most of the event; it was just pure experience, absent of thought or emotion. Very shortly afterward, the slide stopped. There was maybe only a foot or so of snow on my back and I stood up to find my partner and myself mercifully unharmed. The pile of debris at the bottom of the gully was roughly 20’ deep and 100’ across!

We went on to climb the Ghosts, and from the top of the routes we could see the dark, center part of the slide on the slope across the creek. Above the trail that we descended from there were a couple of wet spots on vertical rock with remnants of a frozen flow at their tops. It could be that one or both of these flows collapsed in the warm sun that afternoon, causing the slide. There was also substantially more snow than I had seen before in that drainage, or in the South Fork as a whole. It was a very warm and sunny day, with temperatures forecast for high forties—likely closer to 50 degrees when the slide occurred at about two-thirty that afternoon.

Considering both the greater than normal overall accumulation of snow, and recent large snowfalls—as well as the warm temperatures that day—I knew that there might be an elevated risk of avalanches. We had taken false comfort in the notion that the South Fork area is generally regarded to have a low risk for these events, and perhaps that’s something that needs to change.  Only one route, Smooth Emerald Milkshake, located in the Deer Creek drainage, is noted in the guidebook as being particularly avalanche prone, and we weren’t on it. On our way out we saw evidence of three other slides that started above, then crossed over, the trail. Avalanches do happen in the Cody South Fork. In retrospect, I am embarrassed to have ignored that the gully we were in was about 45 degrees and that it was a clear, treeless chute on an otherwise forested slope—prime avalanche terrain.  In the pictures of our belay at the top of the gully, there are numerous obvious scars on the trees we anchored to that are roughly 6 or seven feet off the ground. These, I believe, were caused by passing debris.

Photo Courtesy Jerry Wingenter

Know the conditions that precipitate avalanches, and be alert to your surroundings. Look for evidence of prior slides to identify common slide paths. Learn what to do if you are caught in a slide because they move very rapidly and you won’t have time to think about it once you find yourself in harm’s way. And do not let an area’s reputation for low avalanche hazard blind you to the indicators of higher risk that are present.

Have your own accident or incident to report? Accidents in North American Mountaineering—the AAC’s annual compendium of accidents and their analysis—is always seeking submissions. Contact Jed Williamson via email. Members of the Club receive the latest copy free with their membership.

Imja glacier, Sagarmatha (Everest) National Park, Nepal as seen by climber-scientist Erwin Schneider in 1956 (photograph courtesy of the Association for Comparative Alpine Research, Munich; archives of Alton C. Byers, The Mountain Institute).

Byers is the Director of Science and Research for The Mountain Institute. He’s also a mountain geographer specializing in mountain protected areas, integrated conservation and development programs, historical/contemporary landscape change, and climate change impacts on high altitude environments. Byers led climbs and treks in the Everest region in the 1980s, then spent a year there in 1984 doing field work for his Ph.D. (“when Imja lake, for example, was ¼ the size it is today”, Byers said). He then lived in the Makalu-Barun National Park region from 1993-95 assisting in the set up of the new park, and has been engaged in conservation programs in the Khumbu, Tibet, Cordillera Blanca, Russian and Mongolian Altai, East African Highlands, Appalachians, and numerous other mountain ranges for the past 16 years. A chunk of his work has involved the Alpine Conservation Partnership project, sponsored in part by the AAC, Argosy Foundation, UNDP, National Geographic Society, and other donors.

“What drew me to the Hongu valley in the Makalu-Barun Park was that 9 of the 12 potentially dangerous glacial lakes—as identified by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu—were located in the remote Hongu valley,” Byers told the AAC. “No scientific team had ever studied them since they were so difficult to get to–it takes 8 days just to reach the valley from Lukla, the nearest airstrip, and ascents over a 5,400 m pass and semi-technical 5,800 m pass to get in and out. Thus my interest in helping to resurrect the idea of the ‘climber-scientist’—people such as Fritz Müller, Charles Evans, Erwin Schneider, and Barry Bishop—who could not only get to these high altitude regions but also undertake first-rate scientific research.  Likewise, the majority of climate change/glacial lake/glacier studies to date have been done using remote sensing and modeling techniques alone, with little concurrent on-the-ground verification, which can lead to unfortunate and costly misunderstandings.”

The Imja glacier began to recede in the early 1960s, leaving behind today a potentially dangerous lake containing over 35 million cubic meters of water (2007 photograph by Alton C. Byers, The Mountain Institute).

While the NGS-Waitt project specifically dealt with glacial lake growth in Nepal, Byers said that, “The formation of new and potentially dangerous glacial lakes is not confined only to Nepal, but is happening and becoming of increasing concern in Bhutan, China, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan, Peru, Bolivia, Alaska, and Canada,” among others.

Byers has spearheaded efforts that will culminate in September 2011 in the Andean-Himalayan Imja Glacial Lake Expedition and Workshop in the Sagarmatha (Everest) National Park, Nepal. Andean glaciologists and engineers—with 60 years of experience in controlling and managing dangerous glacial lakes—will share their knowledge on-site with their Himalayan counterparts. Potential mitigation strategies to be discussed during the Imja expedition include the utilization of Andean technology to both control and manage potentially dangerous lakes (that is, lower the lakes to safe levels while using the water for irrigation or hydropower); early warning systems (that often fail, and which most local people interviewed by Byers did not want, vastly preferring that the danger imposed by the new lakes be removed); international/ interdisciplinary collaboration and information sharing; systematic remote monitoring of glacial lake growth; and hazards zoning–though, as Byers indicated, the latter “rarely works—more than 10,000 people were killed by glacial lake outburst floods between 1941 and 1950 in Huaraz, Peru, and when given half a chance, they always moved back to the flood plain or zone.”

Read details about the project by downloading Short Program Description (1). [Word]

In 2004 The American Alpine Club awarded Byers a grant and spearheaded other fundraising efforts to aid in the development of the Alpine Conservation Partnership and in 2006 he was awarded the AAC’s David Brower Conservation Award (Awarded this year to Tom Frost).  Byers hopes to re-energize the ACP this year with a recent $50,000 NGS-Blackstone Ranch Institute Challenge Grant award.  To read more about these projects, please download the Byers-final pdf (1).

The deadline for two of the AAC’s grants—The American Alpine Club/Nikwax Alpine Bellwether Grant and the AAC Research Grant—is a quickly approaching March 1^st. Coming up on March 31^st is the application deadline for the Lara-Karena Bitenieks Kellogg Memorial Conservation Grant, which awards funds to expeditions with plans to improve the health and sustainability of mountain environments and habitats. The AAC administers or is involved in several more award programs for conservation, research, and cutting edge climbing. If you have a project you’d like the AAC to consider for a grant award, please read more on our Grants Page.

If you haven’t renewed your AAC membership, or if you’re not a member, remember that a portion of your dues fund conservation projects like the Glacial Lake Project around the world. Read about the Deep South Section of the AAC’s conservation efforts in Peru.