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Above & Beyond
Feature articles found only on Climbing.com
A collection of climbing stories from climbers around the world. To submit your story to the Above and Beyond section, please send your story and photos to luke.laeser@gmail.com |
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 Footloose and Fancy Free
Videos by Djamila Proft - Andreas Proft is a 36-year-old globe trekker from Saxony, in Eastern Germany, who started climbing about 15 years ago. Andreas and his wife Djamila, are relatively stationary now and have been touring around European climbing areas in their campervan for the last six years. Typically they stay in Germany during the summer and travel to the south (France, Spain or Italy) when it starts getting cold.  FIND A GUIDE OR WHAT IT TAKES TO BE ONE
Updated 6/18/09 - Featured Guide Profile - Andrew Klotz of Southwest Adventure Guides lives in Durango, CO. To him, skiing is the ultimate mountain sport because it has the best elements of climbing and mountaineering, and once you get to the top, it eliminates the walking down-hill part. Read interviews with Mark Sedon, Ryan Waters, Marty Molitoris, Ryan Stefiuk, Joseph Vitti, Guy Cotter, Dave Elmore, Dick Jackson, Amos Mac Whiting, Adrian Ballinger , Pete Keane, and Markus Beck.  Spring Break in the Wallowa Mountains
As I made my way down the mountainside, some insightful notions became increasingly clear. The unstable footing and precarious slopes were irrelevant side thoughts in comparison to my feelings of leaving the mountains this day. It seemed a cruel joke that now, after just realizing the epic importance of such adventure, I would need to abandon it for the exact context in which I compared it to.  Major Phil Packer Climbs El Capitan for Charity: Help for Heroes
Major Packer captured the hearts and minds of millions of people in the UK and around the world when he started the London Marathon on crutches on 26th April, 2009 having taken his first unaided steps just 6 weeks earlier. Major Packer painstakingly covered just 2 miles/day and after 2 weeks, completed the 26.2mile marathon. Now he's climbed Yosemite's El Capitan.  The GOOD MEN PROJECT ANNOUNCES WINNING ESSAY ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A GOOD MAN IN AMERICA TODAY
“Iowa Black Dirt” by Perry Glasser Wins National Writing Contest - The Good Men Foundation, a charitable corporation dedicated to helping organizations provide educational, social, financial and legal support to men and boys at risk, today announced Perry Glasser as the winner of The Good Men Project National Writing Contest (www.goodmenbook.org/winner).  The Dirtbag Diaries - Episode 28: 60 Meters to Anywhere
By Fitz Cahall - “Is there a statute of limitations on finding something you’re passionate about? Is there a certain age when learning something new becomes too much to take on, or we become to afraid to fail or afraid to let others see us fail?” writes Brendan Leonard. A few Christmases back, Brendan received a rather strange gift from his brother — an old rope.  Layton Kor Signed Photos
Please the help iconic climbing legend — Layton Kor — by purchasing a signed desert climbing print for $50 plus $5 shipping and handling. ALL proceeds go towards Layton Kor's growing medical expenses. To purchase a print please contact Stewart Green at: LaytonKorPhotos@gmail.com  Two Seventeen-Year-Olds Summit Everest
In an amazing week of Himalayan climbing two seventeen-year-old Americans have successfully reached the summit of Mount Everest. A third seventeen-year old, Arizona based Erica Dohring turned around at camp III. John Collinson of Snowbird, Utah reached the summit on May 19th, 2009, followed by Johnny Strange of Malibu, California on May 20th.  Persistence Pays Off
By Guy McCarthy / watershednews.blogspot.com - Blasting winds, heavy snow and grinding ice destroyed three of his tents on the world's eighth-highest mountain. At times he endured temperatures 40 below zero Fahrenheit and colder, in a realm so devoid of oxygen those who go there call it the Death Zone. He assisted in two rescues and the elements contributed to at least one fatality.  Marooned in the Fisher Towers
Story and photos by Chris Van Leuven - It’s a storming March afternoon in the Fisher Towers, Utah. Four of us are huddled in a two-man tent at the base of a cirque of desert towers reminiscent of late-night dinner candles covered in chocolate-pudding-fight aftermath. The melting landscape, now, in a moment of suspended animation, is blanketed in white.  First Ascent Team Summits Everest!
On the morning of May 19, two legendary mountaineers on the First Ascent “Return to Everest” expedition reached the highest point on Earth. Ed Viesturs and Peter Whittaker stood on the summit with members of their production crew before descending to High Camp at 26,000 feet.  The Phil Schaal Interview
By Caroline Treadway (aka C-Note) courtesy of pimpinandcrimpin.com - Phil Schaal’s been killing it recently. In the past year alone, this Connecticut climber has ticked 15 V13s, including some rare repeats of hard East Coast lines —The Book of Bitter Aspects (V13) in Bradley, Conn., Agent Orange (V13) in the Gunks, and the Chelsea Smile (V13), Ty Landman’s new sit start to Divine Providence in Lincoln Woods.  Perfect Blocks in Ticino, Switzerland - Trip Report
Every year hundreds of boulderers travel to southern Switzerland to climb on the perfect granite boulders surrounding the small villages of Cresciano and Chironico in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. This year I joined up with Red Chili team members Dani and Phil Hrozek and the two youngsters, Sammuel Adolph and Lukas Bolesch. See a photo gallery from this trip.  ARCTURUS - Part 2
Remembering the agony of defeat and injury - They say that completing a goal isn‘t the best part of the experience, but that it ís the journey that counts. Unfortunately, my story is not one of great success. It is of pain, discomfort, and months of a climberís worst nightmare: rest and recovery.  The Dirtbag Diaries - The Shortz - The Great White Book
By Fitz Cahall / dirtbagdiaries.com - “Life isn’t a bolted sport route,” says writer Scotty Kennedy. “The gear is sketchy and the route is difficult to read.” In 2001, Scott and his wife Sophie were living in the States. Scott was interning at a magazine. Sophie was dirtbagging it in Camp Four. On weekends, they would meet up to climb in Yosemite’s high country, Tuolumne.  High-Altitude Rescues on Manaslu
Helicopters can't fly to the roof of the world. People who try to go there know this. When climbers in the Himalayas get into trouble they have to get themselves down. A 24-year-old climber from Hermosa Beach who is trying to climb the eighth-highest mountain in the world - Manaslu in the Nepalese Himalaya - assisted on two high-altitude rescues in the past few days.  The Dirtbag Diaries - Episode 27: The Cowboy and the Maiden
By Fitz Cahall - In September 2008, Chad Kellogg and climbing partner Dylan Johnson stood atop 6250-meter Siguniang in Western China after completing the 10,000-foot-long SW Ridge. It was a mind-bending ascent through a massive big wall, a razor edge ridge and high altitude ice climbing. The two friends endured days without water and several sleepless nights. Dylan lost 30 pounds over the course of their ascent.  ARCTURUS - Part 1
Attempting a First Free Ascent of Yosemite's Half Dome - July, 2006 - I am staring up at the black metal bars. Lying in the early morning light, the pain continues in my lower back and I hear folding papers in the distance. Mike Anderson is reading and I am silently crying. We have been here at Todd Skinners place in southern California over a week and the pain seers through the rest of my body.  A Trip Report from Patagonia and Valle Cochamó
By Camilo Lopez and Anna Pfaff - This season in Chile and Argentina, despite lots of snow and rain, we made good friends, partied, ate lots of meat, drank good wine, and most importantly, we climbed! Amidst multiple weeks of waiting out bad weather we beat all odds and climbed two spires in the Fitz Roy Range and spent eight days in Valle Cochamó — “The Yosemite of Chile”. Click here to see a photo gallery from this trip.  Destruction of our climbing areas at our expense
By Ann Schmechel - The environmental cost of fires and water contamination related to natural gas and oil drilling is simply unacceptable. Where we hike, climb, camp and bike are directly affected by the numerous toxic chemicals they use to extract the gas and oil, spills, improper run off and the resulting fires from ‘blow-outs’. Even more disturbing is the tax deductions for oil and gas companies and the cost of massive clean up and restoration comes out of our pockets. |
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