One year ago an avalanche took the lives of 16 sherpas on Mt. Everest. Last fall a team from ESPN went to the region to chronicle the story. The result of their journey was a film showing the events that lead to their deaths and the ways in which the Sherpa community responded. On April 18, 2014 just as the climbing season was starting, a bottleneck was created along the Everest route as Sherpas heading up to set the route for their clients waited to cross a couloir using a defective ladder. Without much warning, an ice and snow avalanche fell from above trapping the Sherpas. This incident highlighted the dangers of the job to the Sherpas and the rest of the world. In a region where most people are extremely poor, the Sherpas line of work allows them to double or triple the average income in just a few months of work.
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Companion forum thread to:
Lightweight Backpacking News: Digest No. 14
Folks should be aware that he hasn't actually done the entire route that he is proposing (he tells you this once he has your $25) over at High Sierra Topix there is an illuminating photo of King Col in a low snow year, I would hate to come across this in more normal conditions without an ice axe/ crampons. Steve Roper had decades of Sierra experience before publishing his Sierra High Route, checking out alternatives and differing conditions and produced a classic route which has stood the test of time. It seems Mr Skurka did most of his route in low snow conditions and wants our money to "see what he's got". The pre purchase "overview map" is a series of pins in a google map. I have no problem with people making money for their expertise and experience (Roper, Nancy Pallister's Wind River Guide) but people with much more Sierra experience are seriously questioning his route choices re King Col and the Enchanted Gorge.
Dave
Dave – is there a link to a discussion about this on the other forum you mentioned?
I read his online article about this and never caught the fact that he never did the entire thing.
Thanks for posting.
High Sierra Topix post.
This route looked really awesome until I realized it was the same miserable route through Enchanted gorge. Kings Col looks pretty nasty as well.
The Clever Hiker video on "How to safely ford backcountry rivers" is very good. One of the few "how to cross a river" videos or blog posts that covered all the basics, demonstrated most of the key points well, and didn't say anything stupid.
— Rex
Why title these with 13, 14 etc instead of a date? Like "Lightweight Backpacking News for the week of 4/15/15" Going to get real confusing and hard to look things up if these last a few years. Was #63 in March or May?
Clever Hiker has stepped things up substantially in their recent videos. Good stuff.
This guy Andrew sounds like some sort of a joke except his tactics could be dangerous. Why is BPL promoting him?
Do more research Terran. Don't make your judgement based on one thing,
+1 On what Ken T. said
BPLs own Luke Schmidt’s review of the Exped Lightning 60
Here
Leave No Trace from LNT.org
While I'll give him credit for past endeavers and I'm sure that he is quite respectful, promoting a route that he has never taken does leave a lot to question. Besides once a back country route is established, it is no longer "back country". We don't need more road maps.
Hi Ken and everyone,
We are in the process of rebuilding the BPL website and moving BPL to a new server. Once that is up and running we'll be better able to index the news digests by date which will make things easier for the future.
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