Self arrest?
Your snippet (No. 243, Off the Wall) on Ana Alicia Salas, who claims to possess the ice axe used to murder Trotsky, intrigued me. While
it doesn’t surprise me this would-be debutante from Mexico City would rather auction off the piolet for maximum profit, her carelessness in going public is astounding. She must not have consulted her attorney before announcing to the world she has a murder weapon in her possession.
Sra. Salas claims she received the axe from her father, who was a Mexican secret policeman at the time of the murder. One can presume that her father came into possession of the axe under the auspices of his official duties, however unsavory, and therefore the axe is the rightful property of the Mexican government. At a minimum, Sra. Salas has admitted to possessing material evidence from an unsolved homicide. The Mexican authorities are unlikely to prosecute anyone so long after the crime — since the perpetrator is most likely deceased by now — but that doesn’t necessarily close the investigation. The Mexican Federales can seize that axe as evidence without rendering Sra. Salas any compensation. Once DNA testing has been finished and the investigation is concluded, the ice axe’s final disposition must have the chief prosecutor’s approval, even if the case never goes to trial. If the DNA doesn’t match, Sra. Salas will likely get her worthless ice axe back and be labeled publicly a fraud. If the DNA does match, then she may have to come up with a mordita (bribe) to effect the return of such an historically significant artifact. And that would seriously cut into her profit margin.

Homeland insecurity
Thanks for your review of camping stoves, but your article neglected to mention one thing: the difficulty of getting a stove onto an airplane in the United States. Forget carrying bottles of fuel or even sealed canisters — that’s a given no-no. But these days it’s increasingly unlikely you’ll even get the stove on board.
The first time I was made aware of this was a year after September 11. I washed out my MSR bottle multiple times. Seeing my backpack at the check-in, the clerk asked me if I had a stove. I showed her my washed-out fuel bottle, which was capped and wrapped in a plastic bag for extra protection. A manager came up, stuck his nose into the bottle and said, “Sorry, I can still smell gasoline.” As if that lingering odor, sealed as it was inside the empty capped, bagged bottle, might somehow cause a threat to the airplane. Fortunately they let me keep the stove part of the unit, and I bought a new bottle on my arrival in Salt Lake City.
The second time I got smart and mailed a fuel bottle to the campground where we were staying in Colorado (the postage cost was only a little less than it would have been to buy a new bottle). On the way back the clerk demanded to see the stove (sans fuel bottle), looked it over, and told us we’d have to mail it home via FedEx. We’d have to pay a special hazardous device fee of around $80, she explained. I told my friend to try to sneak it on board anyway and, sure enough, no one at the security counter said a word.
I should note that this was the same flight where I carried two full bottles of beer on board, which would have made pretty snazzy weapons, especially if I had been clever enough to fill them with gasoline or toxic gas and re-cap them before entering the airport.
The rules of flying are getting more and more confusing, and pity the expedition whose monthlong trip to the remote Himalayas requires several working stoves. Even a book of matches was once removed from my luggage. (A nice note explaining the problem was left, like a fortune cookie fortune, in my bag in its place.) I’d like to see any physicist explain how a closed book of matches in an unpressurized hold could somehow ignite itself. But of course, these are rules by geniuses who once saw toe clippers as dangerous weapons.
A set of standards regarding stoves for all airlines to follow would be much appreciated by the climbing/camping community. And if those standards had a bit of logic applied to them — i.e., an empty fuel bottle that’s been washed out is not a threat! — so much the better.
If the folks at Climbing have any other suggestions for dealing with this, I’m sure lots of travelers would love to hear them.

Liquid-fuel stoves with built-in fuel reservoirs (e.g., Coleman Peak 1) also will not pass. For bottle-reservoir stoves, pack new, rather than used, fuel bottles. If you’re feeling lucky you can thoroughly wash your used bottle with a solvent that removes petroleum residue and allows the bottle to pass the sniff test. Pack bottles with lids off.

Bad rap
While I understand that the premise behind the Alpine Tech Tip [October, No. 243, p. 74] was to show ways of rappelling that use minimal gear, neither the picture nor the article mention the risk of lowering on a rope fed directly through cord or webbing. A climber takes a huge risk when implementing this practice because the rope can wear through the anchor. A rappel ring or carabiner between the rope and the anchor will avoid this dangerous scenario.

Free shot
Regarding the free climbing of Spaceshot: What the Anderson brothers accomplished is very commendable, but I believe that to say “Spaceshot freed!” is invalid and not true. As you all well know, there are five established routes within 200 feet or so of each other on that wall. To say that Ron Olevesky’s original route Spaceshot was freed when alternative features, lines, and added bolts were used to make this “free” ascent, is totally inaccurate.
Fame and ego are becoming an excuse to capture attention and the way that folks are going about it is inaccurate and not honest. Can’t we keep all the misvirtues that this society pushes onto us out of climbing ... Please! Can’t we be honest and keep just a little of integrity in the one aspect of life that some of us have to remain true and sincere to our character?

Rick, we think you’ve overreacted. Yosemite routes such as the Steck-Salathé on Sentinel, the Northwest Face of Half Dome, and the Nose of El Cap also have significant variations that follow the more natural free-climbing weaknesses. Isn’t it even more of an ego trip to rename the route, with variations, when it goes free?