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I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while, but here is a picture of a chair that I took at a mountaineering equipment store in Boulder, CO a while ago. The chair is entirely made out of climbing equipment – belay devices, ropes, ice-axes etc. You could even sit on it, and it feels perfectly normal.

And in other news, I’ve been considering moving out of Cincinnati to Boulder, Colorado. My job lets me live wherever I want, and I figured that I’d much rather live in a place where I can pursue some of the activities that I enjoy.

I was reading the National Geographic’s Adventure magazine for May 2008, which had a fantastic article on the legendary mountaineer Conrad Anker.

I found this wonderful thread at the end, which I thought captured my thoughts on climbing quite beautifully:

“What we do as certified risk takers….” The sentence trails off unfinished, but then Anker picks up the thread.

“Kids need to know that there are still some badasses out there, doing incredibly demanding things to their bodies. Most people are so risk-averse. The world’s full of couch potatoes. Hell, we climbers should get government stipends for keeping the risk-taking gene pool alive.”

I couldn’t have put it any better, and that has got to be the quote of the year!

Sir Edmund Hillary
July 20, 1919 – January 11, 2008

Last week, one of the greatest explorers and adventurers of our time, Sir Edmund Hillary passed away.

In an age without goretex and spring-loaded cams, he and Tenzing Norgay managed to climb Everest against all odds.

As a mountaineer, I am still in awe of the climbs that they accomplished during a time when things must have seen a lot harder, and Everest a lot taller than it is today. In fact, for the longest time, I had a poster of the Hillary Step in my room that reminded me every day of perseverance and the motto “Carpe Diem” — seize the day, while you still can.

More importantly, Sir Hillary embodied a sheer force of will, respect for the outdoors and for other climbers — something that is sorely missing in a lot of today’s adventurers.

So here’s to Sir Edmund Hillary. Way to climb, just for the hell of it.

After spending my time sleeping in bivy sacks on my climbing trips, I finally decided to get myself a cheap-but-good tent for regular short climbs.

It’s a 7×7 foot Swiss Gear three-person, three-season dome tent. I do need to get some soft-shell spray-on to waterproof the tent before I take it out.

And the moment I got back home from work, I couldn’t resist putting it together to see what it looks like and snap up a couple of pictures. So far, I’m impressed, especially considering the price that I paid for it!

And oh, it looks a tad weird because I put it together on the concrete. So, the tent could not stretch out on the floor (which would have been possible on the ground by driving stakes through the base). But despite that, it seems to be a pretty good investment.

I’m a happy camper!