Word: climbed
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...paragraph stories that appeared in most of the nation's press didn't tell much. As usual, Hersey, 36, an Englishman who lived in Boulder, Colorado, had been climbing alone. No one knows what went wrong, at what height, on a route that should have been relatively easy for him. It was a private death, leaving too few scraps to make a puzzle. Cearley's fall seems easier to understand. He and two companions had made the arduous climb to the 20,320-ft. summit and back down to 18,500 ft. As they stopped to rest and rope...
Crowds are worse on Colorado's 14,255-ft. Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park. Last year some 29,000 hikers reached the top, a rise of 53% since 1990. This is a nose-to-tail wilderness experience. Permits are assigned by lottery to climb Mount Whitney, above California's Owens Valley, at 14,494 ft., the highest summit in the Lower 48 states. The limit is 50 people a day in the favored period of late summer, and by the end of April all the slots were assigned...
...fashion, the entire Western high country is yours for ski mountaineering. Perhaps because tent, stove, food, fuel and avalanche beeper weigh 65 to 70 lbs., you and your partner are likely to have the horizon to yourself, with (the thought occurs spontaneously after a seven-hour, 4,000-ft. climb) no other fools in sight...
Bonding sounds ominous, if it means posting big bucks to be forfeited (as with a bail bond) in case of calamity. But it would be hard to argue against voluntary hiking-and-climbing insurance, perhaps offered at modest extra cost along with park entrance fees. In Austria insurance comes with membership in the Alpine Club, which costs little and also gives unlimited opportunity to climb with experts...
Splendid talk about freedom can't argue this away. There is no reasonable way to justify risking your life in the mountains. You climb at the mountain's sufferance, and get back down if the mountain lets you. Why this is important is not clear, especially to those of us who do it. Once, in a pompous mood, I wrote, "We climb for the same reason that smoke rises and poodles bite doormen: it is our nature." This is baloney, but true baloney. The expert strung out below a featureless overhang knows it, and the ignorant weekenders...