Jed Brown, along with Kyle Dempster and Bruce Normand, were honored for the first ascent of the north face of Xuelian West by being awarded the most coveted Piolet d'Or in 2010. The three men were among the first climbers to explore the north side of the impressive Xuelian massif in the Chinese Tien Shan. After climbing several virgin faces during acclimatization, they did the first ascent of the 2,650-meter north wall of Xuelian West, with five days of difficult and insecure climbing.

What makes this slideshow and Jed Brown exceptionally interesting is that Jed was still a Graduate student of Glaciology at ETH Zurich when he did the climb. Now he is a scientist at Argonne National Lab.

The Caltech Alpine Club is hosting this event on Thursday, December 15th, 2011, at 8 pm for free (no tickets required) ; there will be food, drinks, good company, and an awesome talk! There are more details including location and driving directions on the event page.

You can RSVP on facebook if you wish - that will help me make sure to have drinks and snacks for you.

We really look forward to seeing you!

This is some good stuff. Wish it was closer to the Bay Area.