Rad
-
Posts
2928 -
Joined
-
Days Won
25
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by Rad
-
-
Perhaps climbers should pack a kayak for the descent back to the trailhead...
or, if you time it right, you could surf the wave...
Hang ten.
-
Times piece on Peter Potterfield paints pleasing portrait of popular prosaicist:
........................................
Books
Seattle author, outdoorsman takes readers on his favorite hikes
By Craig Welch
Seattle Times staff reporter
KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Peter Potterfield, hiker/climber and author of "In the Zone" and "Classic Hikes of the World," is seen here at Discovery Park.
E-mail article
Print view
Search Most e-mailed
Most read
RSS
Beginning in the 1990s, the era of the Mountaineer as Pop Star, it seemed that every great climber was shadowed by a writer. Or four.
The toothy, raccoon-eyed faces of high-altitude alpinists graced mainstream men's magazines. Big-wall climbers like Lynn Hill — who once fed herself by sneaking food from tourists' plates in Yosemite — were featured in fashionable, picture-of-grace coffee-table tomes.
Behind the scenes, Seattle journalist and author Peter Potterfield took turns riding — and steering — that wave of celebrity.
He's been an author of guide books, an editor of mountaineering anthologies, a biographer of American climbing's reigning high priest and the co-founder of a Web site that made instant icons of alpinists who found an icy corpse.
Today, by some measures, climbing has backed down from the pinnacle of outdoor pop-culture hipness. Athletic cult heroes now include aerobic machines firmly rooted at or near sea level — cyclist Lance Armstrong or triathlete Lokelani McMichael. Mountaineering's top celebrity, Seattle's own Ed Viesturs, is famous for his caution.
Potterfield, whose athletic pursuits often mirrored those of his generation, is counting on this nuance in the outdoor world's Zeitgeist. At 55, he's going back to his baby-boomer roots, trading tales of the Death Zone for the wilds of New Zealand and Patagonia and even Washington state.
Author appearance
Peter Potterfield will present a slide show and talk on his book, "Classic Hikes of the World," at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the main REI store: 222 Yale Ave. N., Seattle.
He's hoping his new book "Classic Hikes of the World," a coffee-table-style guide to 23 of what he considers the greatest backpacking trips on the planet, proves to be an antidote for readers suffering an extreme-sports hangover — those wanting to blend wanderlust with simpler activities.
"There no longer seems to be the same focus on the super extreme things," Potterfield said recently over coffee as he favored a knee banged up while climbing. "It's not the same phenomenon it once was. People want to read about things they can get out and do."
A defining moment
It's not at all striking, really, that an athlete's ambition can crest in a moment — a moment after which all goals are recalibrated. What's striking is that in Potterfield's case that moment can be pinpointed: July 26, 1988.
Cooking instant oatmeal at 5,000 feet at 5 that morning, he was a half-day's journey to the 7,680-foot summit of Chimney Rock in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area. By midday he was stranded on a ledge surrounded by too much blood. Shards of bone protruded from his elbow. His left leg curled at an incomprehensible angle.
The story of Potterfield's fall off Chimney, and his now-legendary helicopter rescue, anchored 1996's "In the Zone," his collection of horrendous climbing-accident stories, and highlights the everyman persona that makes Potterfield's writing so accessible.
"I can report that it [his nearly 150-foot fall] happened with lucidity," he wrote. "Nothing blurred or was lost to velocity. I registered the impacts, felt my bones break, remained aware the whole way down."
Potterfield had been climbing and hiking since the mid-1970s, while he worked as a reporter for newspapers from Atlanta to Santa Fe. He'd found his way to Seattle in the late 1970s while feeding an obsession with Mount Rainier, and spent the 1980s as a writer and editor with (now-defunct) Pacific Northwest, the glossy regional magazine founded by Harriet Bullitt.
There, Potterfield intuitively grasped the pull of mountains to the culture, once telling friend Jim Nelson, the owner of the University District's Pro Mountain Sports, that he made a point to put Rainier on the magazine's cover twice a year. "When we have Rainier on the cover, we sell more magazines," Nelson recalled Potterfield saying.
There was no better time to be a journalist with a passion for mountains.
Things had changed
Potterfield continued to climb after his fall, but he was different — and not just because doctors put steel in his arm and leg. He married, grew less arrogant, took fewer chances.
"As a climber, I was never among the best of the best," Potterfield says today. "I was always a journalist first, and a climber second."
When he left the magazine (which folded in the early 1990s) Potterfield made it easier for Northwest climbers to find their way to fabled peaks, with his "Selected Climbs in the Cascades," co-authored with Nelson.
In the mid-1990s, he wrote "In the Zone," which featured golden-haired Seattle mountain guide Scott Fischer's ascent of treacherous K2 with Viesturs.
"Peter always recognized how to reach a mainstream market," Nelson said. "He knew that accidents were always compelling, and that people were interested in the highest mountain in the world. Put those two together and you had a grand slam."
Yet it was in 1999, as a founder of MountainZone.com, that Potterfield steered himself to ground zero in the collision between mountains and media. Potterfield and his Web site became New Media pioneers, airing the first dispatches from Everest via satellite phone as a team led by Washington-based mountaineer Eric Simonson discovered the frozen body of George Mallory, the British climber who disappeared near the summit in 1924.
"The biggest thing was the Webcasting, and the instant ability to put news out there," said Matt Stanley, a former MountainZone.com staffer, now an editor at Climbing magazine. "The only real sort of popular outlets were National Geographic Adventure and Outside, and often the news you'd get in there was several weeks or months old. Peter helped fuel people's appetite for on-the-spot news."
After selling MountainZone.com in 2000, mostly in stock, which collapsed in the dot.com bust months later, Potterfield got a call from publisher W.W. Norton: Could he spend three years researching the world's best hikes? "Sure, twist my arm," he told them.
For outdoor lovers, the resulting 224-page volume is a mouthwatering package of stunning photographs and descriptions of everything from Rainier's Wonderland Trail to a North Cascades' hike near Lake Diablo, and to a romp along the British Columbia coast. His favorite: A solo hike across the tundra of Arctic Sweden.
"What I found totally reset my threshold for what constitutes wilderness," Potterfield said in an e-mail interview. "The Arctic wilderness of northern Sweden is big and wild and pristine, you can drink the water out of any creek, camp wherever you wish, I felt like I could walk for days and not run out of room."
Even though kids today spend hours with video games, Potterfield believes that backpacking is coming back in vogue, at least among some.
"I've noticed that when I go hiking, I'm more likely to see people my age," he says, adding that he's convinced the mean age of backpackers was 20 when he was 20, and hit middle age when he did.
And history would suggest that Potterfield knows his audience.
Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.com
-
Can anyone recommend good climbing films AVAILABLE FROM NETFLIX?
I'm willing to suffer through poor plots/scripts to see quality climbing sequences, unbelievable mtn/nature scenery.
No Everest flicks please. Others off the list (because we’ve seen them recently) include Touching the Void, which was excellent, and The Eiger Sanction, which is much more campy than you may recall.
Was there ever a film made of Lynn Hill’s nose climbs? What about old BMFF films, and the movie that started me off: Moving Over Stone?
Laud your favorites and pan the dogs!
-
Wazzup w/the softcore porn?
An interesting piece, but why in Alpinist? What if it had been written or illustrated by a guy? Would that make it less acceptable?
I thought we were supposed to get inspired (aka turned on) by alpine climbing tales...
-
Most of the (powerade, gatorade, your-favorite-ade) are available at the supermarket for less. Buy powder in bulk to save $ and be more enviro friendly.
-
Looks ripe for a lethal injection of 'freedom' and 'liberation' from our flaming Bush. Oh wait, there's no big industry interest to protect. Guess he won't be bothered.
-
Likely flash from photo of a photo.
For example:
-
Yes, an excellent, well-written, sincere article. Thanks for the link.
Oddly, the faces are familiar:
NPS ranger Craig Brouwer helped me and my wife get NPS approval for a cliffside wedding ceremony in Stehekin in 03. He moved over to Marblemount that fall.
Dr. Lisa Taitsman is someone I went to high school with years ago and had lost touch with. I'll have to drop her a line.
Meanwhile, I'm counting my blessings for having safely gotten up and down Forbidden.
-
Earplugs to deal with bagpipe blowing boneheads.
Spouse/significant other is other much better than smut mags. What better was to christen that summit?
-
Bring:
1 - Digital camera as navigation aid: shoot when weather and angle are good, refer to image (digi zoom very helpful) when you're in the thick of it and aren't sure which dihedral/gully leads where. Also useful for future extortion of partners.
2 - Coin for making important strategic decisions.
3 - Knife for cutting rope if traveling with Joe Simpson.
4 - Beano for your partner.
5 - Aluminum foil instead of pot lid and heat xchanger.
6 - Your satellite crackberry to link to CC when things get dull.
-
Pros and cons either way, as many have said.
Go try them out yourself and see what you think before sinking $ into membership. Punch cards at VW could help you do that, not sure if SG has same. Single vists are spendy at VW. Student discounts used to work at SG.
I like the non-hold textures at VW better than SG. The old SG walls were like slick wooden slats with holds bolted onto them. It's better now but still not up to VW IMO.
Have fun.
-
I find that redirecting also makes belaying much more strenuous and slower.
I will redirect if I don't want to be pulled downward/off a stance or if my partner (plus pack) is large and/or expects to hang a lot.
In most cases, I find straight off the harness is faster and easier. As was mentioned above, when doing this it's important to any remove slack between you and the anchor. Otherwise nasty scrapes and worse may ensue. ouch.
-
A little to the South...
-
Photo.
Foil on side should be wider and wrapped loosely around the zone between pot and flame with an opening on one side.
Sorry, that's the only photo I have handy.
-
Aluminum foil as wind shield, lid, and heat exchanger for your stove. Saves time and fuel and is incredibly light.
Years ago I had an MSR stove with this heavy heat exchanger, designed to make more heat go on your pot and less off into the alpine air. It worked great but was heavy.
To get the same benefit (boil twice as fast and use half the fuel) take a generous piece of aluminum foil, fold part over the top of your pot (as a lid), wrap the middle around your pot extending down to your stove (heat exchanger), and have the last bit on the upwind side of the stove (wind shield). The stove needs oxygen to burn so don't wrap too tightly down there, and make sure the part around your pot is not completely tight either, because you want hot air to draw up past your pot.
Leave your usual pot lid (and exchanger) at home.
If anyone is interested I'll look for a photo to illustrate.
-
U.S. information line
The U.S. State Department established a toll-free telephone number for inquiries about U.S. citizens affected by the Asian earthquake and tsunamis.
The public may call toll free at 888-407-4747. Overseas, people may call 317-472-2328.
Those seeking information also can contact the department’s Office of American Citizens Services and Crisis Management, 202-647-5225.
General information about disaster relief, preparation and emergency services to U.S. citizens abroad can be found at the State Department Web page http://travel.state.gov/travel/crisismg.html.
-
U.S. information line
The U.S. State Department established a toll-free telephone number for inquiries about U.S. citizens affected by the Asian earthquake and tsunamis.
The public may call toll free at 888-407-4747. Overseas, people may call 317-472-2328.
Those seeking information also can contact the department’s Office of American Citizens Services and Crisis Management, 202-647-5225.
General information about disaster relief, preparation and emergency services to U.S. citizens abroad can be found at the State Department Web page http://travel.state.gov/travel/crisismg.html.
-
I'm also interested. I'll send you a pm.
Rad
-
If there is a locker on one of those biners (perhaps the one on the bolt?) then it should be fine.
Clipping two non-locking biners together is inviting them to unclip from each other in a fall. Bad news.
Why not just clip the locker to the bolt and run the rope through that?
Also, check out the unclipped bolt 6 feet back!
-
Corporal Honeynuts
Too bad I'm not flexible enough to see if it's true....
-
Lard lifter
-
Inspired by CC poets
Somewhere between off the cuff and long in the rough.
So don't y'all have any stories of wipe-outs?
Forget the rhymes. Make us laugh.
-
Their karma ran over their dogma.
Spike Lee would be proud.
-
Often the best wipe-outs have nothing to do with climbing, ropes, or failing gear. Got a story to share? Here's one of mine:
.................................
She’s more kitten than Tiger, I had said to my friend,
Who replied we should run to the top, to the end,
And so it was that he and I
Braved the deluge of a December sky,
And traveled the well-trodden interstate route
To the gravel lot crouched at her misty old foot.
The cool 206ers with gear from the net
Were really not keen on getting all wet,
So while they chatted on cell phones and headed for bars
In their sleek heated, all-wheel drive, subaru cars,
We stripped to our shorts, no we didn’t complain,
We laced up our tennies and ran in the rain,
Prancing off through the puddles in search of the summit
Hoping we'd find our own Gene Kelly moment.
We danced up the trail through the glistening woods,
Pretending we still got the looks and the goods,
We’d hoped to hold pace and not have to stop,
To be strong and save face on our dash to the top,
But as the trail slowly steepened,
My body was weakened,
And despite all our stories and jokes in the rain,
I could feel my thighs burn in splinters of pain,
We kept on though my vision was starting to blur,
Is my mind playing tricks or did that kitten just purr?
My friend is quite chatty and never complains,
He smiled through the mud, through the drizzle, the rain,
I listened and nodded, just glad to be there,
But in truth I was sucking that cool misty air
Down into my lungs just as fast I could,
Pretending a stop would not really feel good.
At last came the top, we were weary but proud,
Though the summit was shrouded in a bank of low clouds,
So we stood and just dripped, more from sweat than from dew,
With no one else present to share the non-view,
We were chilled by the wind that now shrieked in a howl,
And that not-so-tame cat was just starting to growl.
It was on the way down that I found my true stride
On a small, nearly hidden route off to one side,
I shot down the chutes of that muddy old trail,
Riding wet roots like a skate punk rides rails,
Cold, wet, and wired we were tripping on laughter,
Sliding and slipping, averting disaster,
It was then as we launched off small rocks over gaps,
Swung round the tree trunks, our hands marked with sap,
That I felt that old magic of boyhood return,
Careening me back through the years with each turn.
At last came the flats and we dashed through the forest,
Moss, fallen leaves and mud raced before us,
Then one final bridge and the day would be done,
Pulse pounding glory, if not in the sun,
As a nod to Gene Kelly and our wonderful day,
When I crossed that last bridge I thought I would play
And bask in the moment of one long good slide,
Twas part moonwalk, part skateboard, part side-slipping glide,
But instead I soon learned when my feet left the ground,
That the wood was quite slicker than any I’d found,
With no time to react, I fell flat on my back,
And continued my slide like a train off the track
I went straight off the bridge and into the mud,
The tiger had roared, and I was no stud,
I brushed myself off and dabbed at some blood,
And my friend had to laugh as any friend should,
We soon reached the end, stretched our legs and departed,
More than a little light-headed, but also light-hearted,
As we stank in the car, drenched in sweat, blood and rain,
We were wondering aloud when we’d do it again.
wHERE'S A GOOD PLACE TO GO
in Climber's Board
Posted
Saw a bundle the other day in puddles along the Monte Cristo Rd within 3/4 mile of the gate, croaking away.