Climbers

Maryland mountaineer Chris Warner is already a seasoned adventurer. Next, he also might get to play one on TV. The Annapolis resident, who in 2001 conquered Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain, is taking aim this summer at No. 2, the much deadlier K2. He set off this past week for the Pakistan-China border, and is expected to return in August. When he does, Warner hopes to play host for a new television series, Risk Takers/History Makers, that its producers aim to make part of the History Channel's lineup.

El Capitan is an intimidating granite formation in California's Yosemite National Park, popular with climbers because its 7,573-foot vertical face presents such a challenge. Pete Davis has done the four-night, five-day ascent twice, which is an accomplishment in itself. And he did it with one hand. The native of Phoenix in Baltimore County was born without an arm below the elbow, but as he shows in the short climbing film "The Gimp Monkeys," he'd rather have "one hand and a good attitude" than two hands and a bad outlook.

Rock climbing has little to do with strength and everything to do with technique.Seventeen-year-old Nicholas Britz, of Laurel, is banking on that to turn a self-developed computer program into a big marketing hit. The Hammond High School senior's project employs complex math and scientific theories to show rock climbers how to position themselves more efficiently as they ascend cliffs.In essence, he's trying to turn the potentially dangerous, rugged and highly individualistic sport of rock climbing into a precise biomechanical science based on an analysis of the changes in torque, center of gravity, mass and force generated by climbers' bodies during ascents.

Ian Yarmus can spot them when he goes down to his favorite indoor climbing gym in Rockville or when he travels to Seneca Rocks in West Virginia, the place after which he named his now 3 -year-old daughter. "I remember being 100 feet up [at Seneca], and there was a guy up there who was freaking out, he was completely paralyzed with fear," Yarmus recalled. "He was in over his head. He didn't have the skills or the training to be in the situation he was in. I had to tell him everything to do, tell him where to put every piece of equipment and what part of his body to use and where to put it in the rock.A lot of these situations put rescue personnel at risk.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - At least nine climbers were reported dead yesterday on K2, the world's second-highest mountain, after an avalanche struck them on a steep gully at a height of about 27,000 feet, just below the summit, mountaineering officials said. Those who died included South Koreans and Nepalese, the Pakistani television station ARY reported. Serbian, Norwegian, Dutch and French climbers were also near the summit, according to ARY. Other climbers are believed missing. The accident occurred when a chunk of an ice pillar snapped Friday, breaking fixed ropes on the area of the peak just below the summit, known as Bottleneck, according to expedition organizers.

Kent P. Swanson Jr., a 25-year-old mountain guide who grew up in Baltimore County and found his calling rescuing wayward skiers and climbers in the American West, was killed in a helicopter crash Jan. 11 in southwestern British Columbia.The chopper was taking him and other students to an avalanche rescue class when it crashed on Mount Higgins in the Purcell Mountains. All five people on board were killed.Services for Mr. Swanson will be held at 3 p.m. tomorrow at St. James Episcopal Church on Monkton Road in Monkton.

GOVERNMENT CAMP, Ore. -- Wind gusts of up to 70 mph and blinding snow kept search-and-rescue teams about 4,000 feet below the last known location of three hikers missing near the summit of Oregon's Mount Hood yesterday, officials said. "Man and machine are at their limits there," said Capt. Christopher Bernard with the Air Force Reserve's 304th Rescue Squadron. The hazardous conditions kept search teams at about 7,000 feet, Bernard said, while signals from the cell phone of one of the missing men, Kelly James, 48, of Dallas, put his location in an ice cave a few hundred feet below the peak's 11,240-foot summit.

Bad weather kept climbers led by Maryland's Chris Warner from reaching the summit of Ama Dablam, a 22,584-foot peak in the Himalayas.The weekend attempt had an online audience: Maryland schoolchildren who kept in touch with the climbers via the Internet and e-mail through Shared Summits, a nonprofit educational program of Earth Treks, the climbing center in Columbia.Here is part of climber Jimmy Rockelman's report on Saturday's summit attempt, as filed on the Earth Treks Web site, earthtreks-climbing.

SEATTLE --The body of a climber lost on Oregon's Mount Hood was found yesterday in a snow cave near the summit, a week after rescuers began an intense but frustrated search effort complicated by brutal storms that hammered the Pacific Northwest. The identity of the man was not immediately released, nor was it clear what had become of two fellow climbers who set out with him last weekend to climb the 11,235-foot peak, part of the Cascade Range. The last contact anyone had with the three climbers -- two men from Dallas and a third from Brooklyn, N.Y. -- was on Dec. 10. Kelly James, one of the Dallas residents, spoke to his wife by cell phone that day and told her that he was stranded but taking shelter in a snow cave near the summit.

Every one of my handful of rock-climbing adventures has made me revisit several questions.First, do mushrooms have any nutritive value? I've only climbed in moist, woodsy areas, and I always pass a few mushrooms. Nature's gift, if you know enough about them not to die eating the wrong ones.But do they have any nutritive qualities, or do you get what you pay for?Second, why do scrapes take so long to heal? I always return with so many. A simple cut can heal in a couple of days, but the kind of abrasion you get on elbows and knees when you suck onto a rock face in fear for your life seem to take forever.

From : California Pice : $14 Serve with : Red meat, pasta This imaginitive California blend delivers excellent value at an attractive price. It's a medium-bodied red wiith gripping flavors of blackberry, blueberry and herbs — not complex but very satisyfing. It's not meant for extended cellaring so the use of a screwcap shows wisdom on the part of the winery.

I'm at that stage in my life where I really don't care about stuff like leadership, productivity and adding value. Sure, 10 years ago, I read "Getting to Yes," "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and "In Search of Excellence." I even skimmed "The One-Minute Manager" because that seemed apt. But now I don't aspire to build consensus, be efficient and achieve unparalleled success in the process. I just want to do the right thing. And I don't care if you follow me or not. I guess what I'm saying is: Go ahead and move my cheese all you want -- as long as you don't eat it, because I love cheese, particularly Havarti and Gorgonzola.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - At least nine climbers were reported dead yesterday on K2, the world's second-highest mountain, after an avalanche struck them on a steep gully at a height of about 27,000 feet, just below the summit, mountaineering officials said. Those who died included South Koreans and Nepalese, the Pakistani television station ARY reported. Serbian, Norwegian, Dutch and French climbers were also near the summit, according to ARY. Other climbers are believed missing. The accident occurred when a chunk of an ice pillar snapped Friday, breaking fixed ropes on the area of the peak just below the summit, known as Bottleneck, according to expedition organizers.

Last summer, Annapolis resident Chris Warner stood atop the world's nastiest rock pile. But even he couldn't tell me how today's NBC show about the expedition is going to end. When we talked Tuesday, the show about conquering K2, aka the "Savage Mountain," was still in final editing, with Warner on his way to New York to do some last-minute voiceovers. Chopping down more than 30 hours of high-definition video into 38 minutes of action - that's what's left after commercials and studio chatter - was an uphill battle.

Before he could realize his dream and stand atop the world's second-highest mountain, Chris Warner watched a man fall to his death. In a voice thick with exhaustion and broken by spells of coughing, Warner said yesterday that the physical and mental pounding it took to climb Pakistan's K2 "were definitely worth it." But in the next breath, the Annapolis resident and Mount Everest veteran admitted it will take some time to process all that happened during the more than 15 hours it took to push the last 1,800 vertical feet to the top. Just three hours into the summit bid on Friday, Nima Nurbu, a Sherpa working for the Korean team, slipped and tumbled thousands of feet in the darkness down K2, nicknamed the "Savage Mountain."

Under a cobalt-blue sky that seemed just beyond reach, Chris Warner placed his boots yesterday on the snow-encrusted summit of K2, the world's second-highest mountain, where few others have gone and that he had only pictured in his dreams. Just three days shy of his 43rd birthday, Warner, an Annapolis resident and owner of three Baltimore-area climbing gyms, became the first Marylander to stand atop both 28,253-foot K2 and Mount Everest, 782 feet higher. It took more than 15 hours for Warner and more than a dozen other climbers to cover the 1,850 vertical feet from Camp 4 to the summit, plowing through chest-deep snow, picking their way across ancient ice slabs and hauling themselves up slopes that reached an 80-degree pitch.

Under a cobalt-blue sky that seemed just beyond reach, Chris Warner placed his boots yesterday on the snow-encrusted summit of K2, the world's second-highest mountain, where few others have gone and that he had only pictured in his dreams. Just three days shy of his 43rd birthday, Warner, an Annapolis resident and owner of three Baltimore-area climbing gyms, became the first Marylander to stand atop both 28,253-foot K2 and Mount Everest, 782 feet higher. It took more than 15 hours for Warner and more than a dozen other climbers to cover the 1,850 vertical feet from Camp 4 to the summit, plowing through chest-deep snow, picking their way across ancient ice slabs and hauling themselves up slopes that reached an 80-degree pitch.

Everest has taken his dream, but it did not take his life. Chris Warner, who spent 20 years preparing to conquer the world's highest mountain, is on his way home to Maryland today without experiencing the thrill of standing on top of the world. After huddling for 18 hours at 25,000 feet in tiny tents being shaken apart by high winds and driving snow, Warner and seven other members of the party were ordered down Wednesday by expedition leader Russell Brice. They are believed to be the last team off the mountain this season.