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Thin Air is the news letter for the High Altitude Mountaineering Section of the Colorado Mountain Club. There are five issues of Thin Air each year: January, March, May,September, and November.
Join Ron Spoerl and Doug Kruesi for a slide show on their ascent of Mt. Waddington (13,208 ft.). An intimidating mountain, sometimes referred to as the Mystery Mountain, Mt. Waddington is located in the remote Coastal Range of British Columbia.
Ron, Doug and Bob Monnet shared an exciting adventure in this seldom visited area, which culminated in a successful summit ascent of this technically challenging mountain on July 12, 1995. Mt. Waddington is the highest mountain in British Columbia as well as in the Coastal Range of Canada.
The presentation will be made during the January HAMS Program, in the American Mountaineering Center Auditorium, located at 710 10th Street, Golden, CO on Monday, January 15, 1996, at 7:00 PM. Public invited, no admission fee.
When we polled the HAMS membership earlier this year on the option of doing away with HAMS dues in exchange for discontinuing Thin Air, the response was an overwhelming affirmation that the membership wants the newsletter. HAMS dues, currently $5.00 per year, basically covers the cost of reproducing and mailing Thin Air.
As you know, the cost of paper and postage has increased significantly since HAMS was started in 1988. We have been keeping our costs as low as possible by using a low cost "self serve" reproduction service. We are starting to have problems with this approach. The steadily increasing HAMS membership is now near 500. This is beginning to make the "self serve" approach to reproduction, collation and addressing unmanageable. Also, some copies of Thin Air have gone out with less than appropriate reproduction quality.
Our intention is to switch to a better quality reproduction service with the next issue of Thin Air. In addition to improving the overall print quality this will allow us to include good quality photographs. To pay for these improvements in Thin Air and to allow us to serve our increasing membership, we are increasing dues to $7.00 per year effective January, 1996.
Ward Hobert
The following people have recently completed the requirements for the 1995 High Altitude Mountaineering School:
Samuel Klaus Al Kassa
Tom Stocker Thad Stocker
Information about the CMC, including articles in recent Thin Air issues, is now available on the WWW at URL http://www.cmc.org/cmc/info_srv.html
Chairman Ward Hobert
Past Chairman Steve Bonowski
Secretary/Treasurer Kay Miller
Programs Committee Beth Schlichter*
Jennifer Sears
School Director Terry Root
Social Keith Jenson
Newsletter Committee John/Kris Wallack*
Terry Root
Linda Grey
Kim Shaner
Publicity Paul Wilson
Data Processing Paula Engel
Equipment Committee Ken Yarcho*
Craig Patterson
Expeditions MalcolmWentling
Research Tom Maceyka
Dener Group Council Liaison Christina Jude
CMC AAC Liaison Steve Bragg
* = Committee Chair
Thin Air
Submissions are welcome! Our job is easier if you put
it on a disk in any common DOS format and include a hard copy. But feel free to
type or handwrite if you wish, make sure it's legible. Send submissions to the
CMC, Attn: Thin Air Newsletter, 710 10th Street #200, Golden, Co. 80401
DEADLINE NEXT ISSUE
February 8,
1996
A recent book K2: The 1939 Tragedy. The Full Story of the Ill-fated Wiessner Expedition by Andy Kaufman and William Putnam, exonerates Jack Durrance, Denver climber, and is critical of Wiessner.
The American Alpine Club (AAC) received permission from India for 1938 and 1939 to climb K2. Fritz Wiessner had recently climbed Mt. Waddington, which was at that time, one of the hardest climbs in North America. (See the January HAMS Program on Mt. Waddington) Wiessner was offered the leadership of the AAC expeditions to K2, but could not make the '38 expedition. So Charles Houston became the leader of the '38 expedition, which climbed to about 26,000' elevation before deciding that they had reached the limits of strength and resource, and turned back.
The '39 Expedition included Fritz Wiessner, Jack Durrance, Dudley Wolfe, Eaton Cromwell, Chappell Cranmer and George Seldon (non of the climbers were from the '38 team). The wide range of climbing experience, illness and conditions resulted in the party becoming widely spread out on the mountain. Wiessner chose his friend Wolfe, who had less experience than some of the other team members, to join him for the summit attempt. Exhausted, Wolfe retreated to Camp VIII, while Wiessner and Pasang Lama climbed on to a height of about 27,500'. Wiessner could not persuade Pasang to climb on into the night, so they returned. Exhausted, but still determined to make another attempt at the summit, Wiessner and Pasang left Wolfe alone with food and a stove at Camp VIII when they climbed down to get more supplies. Finding the camps stripped, they ended up back at Base Camp.
Wiessner had been gone so long during the summit attempts without communication with the rest of the team, that Tony Cromwell, second in command, believed he must have died. Cromwell ordered Durrance to strip the upper camps and return to Base Camp. In spite of attempts to rescue Wolfe, he and three Sherpas were stranded on the mountain, never to be seen again.
Since that time there has been analysis and criticism of the climb. Initially, Wiessner was blamed. Then Wiessner had published an article blaming Durrance and Durrance remained silent. In their recent book, Andy Kaufman and William Putnam have gone back to the original accounts of the climb as well as reviewing Durrance's diary and film footage that had not been considered before. Their conclusion: -- Jack Durrance, after 56 years, is exonerated and Wiessner may have placed the burdens of his mistakes on the shoulders of others in his interpretation of the story.
Have you checked the World Wide Web (WWW) lately for mountain or outdoor information? One really great source of hot links has been collected by the Peak Climbing Section of the Sierra Club, Loma Prieta Chapter in the San Francisco Bay Area. The address to reach their home page is:
PCS Home Page
http://reality.sgi.com/csp/pcs
The links that PCS has collected can be found from the above home page or directly with the following address:
Mountain Hot Links
http://reality.sgi.com/csp/pcs/hotlinks.html
And for the skiers who are looking for the best chance of new snow, the Colorado Snow conditions can be found at:
Ski Conditions
http://www.rsn.com/bin/rsn/snorpt?state=CO
DOWN
1. Mt. Whitney is the highest peak in the lower 48 states.
2. Denali means "great one" in the Athapascan language
3. George Mallory disappeared on Mt. Everest in 1924 leaving the mystery whether he summited.
4. Biblical Noah's Ark reputedly came to rest on Mt. Ararat in modern Turkey.
5. Cotapaxi is near the Ecuadorian city of Quito.
6. Annapurna IV is the target for a CMC sponsored trip in 1996.
7. Mt. Cook in New Zealand received it's name from the famous 18th century explorer.
8. The two summits of Kilimanjaro are Kibo and Uhuru.
19. Clint Eastwood survived in the 70's movie thriller, The Eiger Sanction.
ACROSS
8. K2 is second to Everest in height but generally regarded as the harder to climb.
9. Ama Dablam presents a spectacular view to trekkers to Everest base camp.
10. Mt St. Helens erupted violently in May of 1980.
11. A HAMS led trip in the summer of 1994 successfully climbed Mt. Elbrus.
12. Edward Whymper became famous in the 1800's after climbing the Matterhorn.
13. Many a climber has suffered through the Canaleta gully on Aconcagua.
14. Orizaba in Mexico is the third highest peak in North America.
15. The giant volcano, Mt. Rainier, dominates the pacific northwest.
16. Albert Ellingwood was the first to climb Lizard Head Peak, the hardest summit in Colorado.
17. The graceful lines of Mt. Fuji make it one of the most photographed mountains in the world.
18. Cho Oyu is the seventh highest peak in the world.
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