dalius

Is that the scene where Chuck got the crap kicked out of him by Bruce Lee? Chuck sucks big wet farts, that's fo sho!

Chuck Norris VS Mahatma Gandhi

Though their web presence is small, they do have a pretty crappy website.... CCH Website Kind of gives you the feeling these things are made in some guy's garage.

Neither can I. And when you hold Alt and 0,1,7,and 6, you get nothing. Is there some secret key sequence I'm missing? Do I have to yell "Yummy toaster struddle" while pressing the keys?

mo betta. looks like a fun climb.

Dude! Resize that shit! You can't possibly view that whole photo on a screen, at least not at a normal resolution.

wow! that's some talent. those guys could probably make a good living as stuntmen. it's amazing that dropping a few stories isn't a problem if you land correctly. those knees can't last for long though!

Somebody enter that shit in the photo contest! nice shot.

eat a d*ck?

Temperature inversion = cold down low, hot and melting up high

I know Doug Tompkins (guy who started North Face) has been buying up land there for a long time (mostly in northern Patagonia, just south of the lakes district - *amazing area*). He actually does own land at one point all the way from the Pacific to the Argentine border (and then some in Argentina as well). Chileans have been freaking out about him for a long time - there always seems to be some sort of conspiracy theory on him in the paper, talking about how is buying land for this or that (everything from new Jewish state to nuclear waste dump- some hidden agenda). They can't get it around their heads that this guy actually really thinks this area is worth protecting. It's got loads of virgin temperate rainforest - insanely lush and rugged and wet. I believe he's transferred the land (or is in the process of) into some sort of non-profit organization set up to protect it from logging, etc. Hopefully the Chileans will eventually come around and see that this move is better than logging the hell out of and destroying the area. That who you thinking of?

Dude, that pic of Richie Simmons this early in the morning was just a little too much. That is one increadibly creepy individual.

Yeah, that fight over all that land in southern Patagonia is ridiculous. The Argys and Chileans really take it really seriously down there though. When I was down in Ushuaia I wanted to go climbing in the Cordillera Darwin (Chilean mtns. just across the border, in the middle of nowhere), but ran into tons of red tape from the Chileans and the Argentines didn't even want to acknowledge that the range existed. So freakin' stupid. I belive they're still trying to figure out how to divide the Southern Patagonia Icecap. I spent about a year down there and saw a fair amount of the andes from Tierra del Fuego to Bolivia. The most spectacular is definetely everything from the S.Pat.Icecap south, though north from there to the Lake District is quite beautiful as well and has tons and tons of mountains (not just volcano slogs). I've got my eyes set on the Darwin Range someday, or maybe some stuff near the Icecap. There's so much unexplored stuff down there!

I just installed Google "Earth" on my machine. It's a very cool tool. It link allows you to jump around the globe and check out pretty much any place you like. It's all in 3-D and you can zoom in/out, change you angle of perspective so you can really see things like elevation differences, mountains, etc. I'm guessing it downloads data from google's severs as it needs it because that is way too much info to store on your computer. Anyway, it's cool to be able to go check out different areas of the earth and get an idea of the terrain and general geographic layout. Urban areas in general have better resolution, non-populated areas have a ways to go in terms of quality, but it's a start! Gotta love technology. Grand Canyon...

Here's one for the SCENIC category - Sunrise over Fitzroy - Argentine Patagonia

How long is this izzle going on for?

Ouch.

or this... Trogdor the Burninator

Damn.... that sucks. It was that Italian climbers's 14th 8000m peak, just as it was for Viesturs A WEEK AGO!!! I imagine these were members of the same Italian party he was climbing with last week? Yeah, no wonder these guys quit while they're ahead. Let the search for bigfoot begin.

Go Ed. I guess MSN struck some kind of deal to host all the weblogs and pics for this climb. It's all on a website called "The ULTIMATE Climb" Lots of text/pics/audio

I guess he just summited Annapurna last night. See article here

I was in S.America for most of last year, travelled to all the areas that you're talking about and more. If you were just to stay in the Peruvian and Bolivian highlands (the andes and westward, aka not east to the jungle) then I think what you need is Hep A and Hep B at a minimum (you should get these). They'll keep you from contracting these nasty and totally avoidable illnesses that you can catch from general uncleanly conditions. If you descend to the lowland jungles (amazon), chances are you'll need some other shots and pills. As far as other vaccinations, you should consider typhoid and yellow fever shots. I needed a yellow fever shot to get a visa into brazil and typhoid is a good idea when travelling to any tropical s.american countries. Depending on where you go, you might want to have some anti-malaria pills with you. I had a whole bunch, but ended up not taking them. I did go to some really deep and remote areas of the Peruvian amazon, but I was told by locals that there was no malaria in that particular part of the jungle. Had I been a hundred or so miles in a different direction, things might have been different. The only way you find those things out though is by going there. The general statements put out by health officials will only tell you very generally what parts of the country have it and what don't. If you're headed up high, you might want to take some Acetzolamide with you to help with the altitude. I think I went to the Kking county travel clinic ( I think) downtown for my shots and meds. I also had a "consultation", which I thought was going to be a joke. It wasn't. The travel nurse sat me down and taught me about all the nasty diseases that I may encounter, what to look for, how to avoid them, etc, etc. There are a lot more than what you'll be getting vaccinated for. It was super informative. That took 45 minutes. The shots took 5. It was worth it. One more thing... you can look up all this info on the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) website. Here's the link to their S.American info... http://www.cdc.gov/travel/tropsam.htm They'll let you know about any current outbreaks of anything. Hope that helps.

Pub club still a weekly occurance around here?

The Yossi Brain book is kinda thin, kinda lame. Check out Alain Mesili's book "The Andes of Bolivia". The first version was only in espanol (Los Andes de Bolivia), this second one in english. The new version has lots more updates, great pics, and more routes than you can shake a stick at. He's a french guy (?) that's been living in Bolivia since the 70s or so and has put up tons of first ascents. He's the Fred Beckey of Bolivia. I used the book when I went and found it very useful.