Past Featured Articles

Just to be clear, when Blake Herrington wrote Mark Twight is Wrong, it was one of the foremost young climbers of the Pacific Northwest engaging with a man who is perhaps the most important spokesman of late 20th century American alpinism. It’s an important debate and he had a right to weigh in. I, on the other hand, am some random guy on the internet spouting off about things I’ve only read about.

That said, I am going to disagree strongly with Herrington and argue that he has missed the point about “cheating” entirely. Mark Twight climbed and wrote about climbing with a religious fervor that made him to climbing in the 80s and 90s what Walter Bonatti was to climbing in the 50s and 60s. Conventional mountaineering history will probably remember Bonatti as the more important figure, but in intellectual terms, in the way they thought about climbing, they are peers. Herrington recognized this ideology with his original one line preface: “Forgive me Mark, for I have sinned,” the term “religious fervor” is Twight’s and he referred to his own climbing as jihad. Given this understanding of the man’s work, it is disappointing that Herrington didn’t give Twight’s logic a little more benefit of the doubt, and instead made a snarky, sarcastic commentary on another man’s purism. This is not to say that I have anything against snarky, sarcastic commentary in general, I’m just beginning to notice that it is only actually convincing, or even very funny, if you already agree with the point being made. What I am therefore going to do is not defend Twight’s logic per say, which is, as Herrington pointed out, flawed, but rather show how both of them are addressing the wrong issue, the question is not of what is allowed, but rather of what is the goal.

I dedicate the present article to the stunning POTD/POTW of Mont-Blanc, Trango Towers, arches, mushrooms, foxes, butterflies and garden flowers that every day inspired me to climb the office stairs instead of taking the lift.

I hope that this article will not hurt anybody’s feeling. I think that we should just be able to laugh about ourselves once in a while. And, most important, please keep voting on my pictures, as I would also have a chance to savour the incomparable taste of being POTW once in my life…

Each SP member has been dreaming about reaching the immortality by accessing to the exclusive club of the POTD award winners…

I live in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. It’s not an area known for having mountains or gorges or much in the way of exciting topography. The name means, after all, “Foothills”.

Living here the best you can generally expect when it comes to mountains or chasms are long-distance views of the Blue Ridge from various points along the roads and byways. Close enough to give you the fever, but not near enough to satisfy your jones for the high country. However, when I get really desperate for a taste of the vertical, there is one spot where I can go and at least pretend I’m around something that can be called a mountain:

Crowders Mountain State Park.

The Yosemite Decimal System is a complicated entity fully worthy of dissertation-like exploration. But the YDS is an empirical system not a intellectual one, and any attempt to reduce it to research and discussion is bound to be flawed. If you are new to the Yosemite Decimal System, a good place to start is an article that provides a basic understanding of its history and of its general grade ratings.

There is much discussion, particularly between the older and younger generations, about a particular YDS phenomenon in the climbing and alpine world often called grade inflation. I work occasionally as a route setter at a local climbing wall. After designing and executing a project I was sure (and was confirmed by three other climbing friends, all of which can onsight 5.10 and one of which who can onsight 5.12) was 5.10b/c, a climber that was 48 years old and has several decades of climbing experience suggested 5.9+ as the rating. Surprised by this, I voiced my doubt and had him try another climb nearby which I originally rated 5.11a but after a few ascents downgraded to 5.10d. Again, this was confirmed by the same three friends. After struggling a bit but finishing the climb, this 48 year old climber suggested once again that this climb was 5.9+, only adding this time that it was "maybe" 5.10a. I was shocked, and this time I protested saying that this rating was simply impossible. After a lengthy discussion, at best I could convince him that it was at least 5.10b but he would concede no higher. While I was thinking "sandbagger," he suggested perhaps the difference was due to "a different generation" in a smug tone I interpreted as elitist.

One morning in January 2013 I noticed that the score of one of my pages had gone from 90% to 95%. What took them so long to see the true value of my writings, I said to myself. Life was good. For a while anyway. Until I saw that some of my scores had gone up and some had gone down. I had an uncomfortable feeling of confusion. The sticks didn’t fit together. Something had to be done to find out what had happened.

Starting today (Friday, February 8th, 2013) a new editor will be in place as the default editor for creating and editing pages. It is a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor. We're hoping that this is going to be a huge improvement for everyone, especially for those users with limited knowledge of HTML.

A few highlights of the new editor are listed in the aticle, along with video tutorials.

Please report bugs and give feedback in the New Editor Feedback & Bug Reports thread.

You folks are climbing remarkable mountains and rock faces, using superior technical ability, sporting years of experience, traveling to some of the most remote, beautiful, and dangerous places on earth. So what can I contribute to such an impressive community?

I realized as a newbie on Summitpost that I am somewhat unique. I started climbing at 13, never worked with a guide, lived on the east coast of the United States all my life, and until recently did not own or have much access to any gear. Even facing these challenges, I still found a way to get a wide range of experiences on a zero dollar budget.

Now, I do not claim to be like Bradford Washburn, who 60 years ago achieved some impressive first ascents in Alaska as a college student. He was merely a few years older than I am now. And, I am way behind the young phenoms, like Ashima Shiraishi, who learned to climb at 6 years old at Rat Rocks in Central Park, and at 11 could become one of the best young competition climbers in the world. Wow, she has corporate sponsorship.

This is the story of a Man and a Glacier, whose existences have been tightly woven together since the early sixties. It is a story that, unfortunately, does not have a happy ending; in fact, they both . . . no longer exist!

We want to tell you about it because it's all that's left to us, good memories and the images. If you can still admire the glaciers of your mountains, take away a lesson! On my Alps, glaciers are dying. I'm not able to tell you whether it's the end of a cycle or our fault. Whatever is causing it, I do not like it. We must remember that the glaciers are not only a wonderful show, a legacy of the past to see and explore, but they represent a valuable reserve of water for all of us.

Have you ever been on a glacier in western North America and noticed worms coming out from the top of the glacial ice? Have you ever wondered how worms are able to survive in such an extreme environment? Have you ever considered what worms might eat on such seemingly barren terrain? Have you ever imagined why such worms might require a cold icy home rather than a warm environment? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, then this article might be suited for you. Yes, as illogical and improbable as it might appear, there are species of segmented worms that live their entire lives on and in glacial ice. They are appropriately named ice worms, small organisms that are more abundant in western North America than most people probably realize. But despite their tiny sizes, ice worms are important to glacial ecology.

There has been a lot of discussion with respect to the recent changes on SummitPost, which is being considered SummitPost version 3, but most of that has been either individual conversations or open discussion in the forums. Since many members do not read the forums here is an overview. Nor do I expect any of you to weed through all that crap! Montana Matt did a huge amount of work here to assure the site was fast. Several members have noticed without even being aware this was worked on. I’m not going to bore you with the details (as if I knew them), but thanks Matt for the good work here!