Thursday, June 11, 2009

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Missing In China

It's what we didn't want to hear... Sadly it appears that the Boulder based climbers that were attempting Mt Edgar in China have been claimed by an avalanche. One body has been discovered in a fan of avalanche debris near the advanced basecamp of this remote peak. Everyone is holding out hope that perhaps at least one of the 3 survived.

From a previous news thread:

June 5, 2009, Boulder, CO—Three Boulder, Colorado climbers—JonathanCopp (age 35), Micah Dash (age 30), and Wade Johnson (age 24)—areoverdue, having missed their flight on June 3 from Chengdu, China.

The three traveled to Mount Edgar (6818 meters/22,368 feet) on theMinya Konka massif, Western Sichuan Province, China. They embarked from base camp on May 20, 2009. There hasn’t been any contact with the climbers since.
Copp and Dash are highly experienced alpinists and professional climbers who have many years experience tackling big unclimbed mountains around the world. They received the Mugs Stump Award grant for this expedition from the American Alpine Club in 2008 but had to delay the climb until now, due to political unrest in the region. Johnson (a photographer with Sender Films) was accompanying Dash and Copp to base camp and did not intend to attempt the climb to the summit.

From this mornings news:

The latest news from China is that Xinhua News Agency, China’s official news organization, has named the three American climbers—Jonny Copp, Micah Dash, and Wade Johnson—as the victims of an avalanche. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing is, however, not confirming the identities but says they are American citizens.
Li Zhixin, an official with the Chinese Mountain Association, says that one body has been found and Chinese climbers are searching for the other two in avalanche debris. The body was located at 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) on Mount Edgar in the Minya Konka massif. The mountain is a sub-peak of 24,790-foot (7,556 meters) Mount Gongga, the highest mountain in the Sichuan Province in western China. The rescuers did not move the body because the surrounding area was unstable, instead taking photographs for identification later.

Of the 3 of them, I only know Jonny as he is the founder and energy behind the Boulder Adventure Film Festival. Jonny is a great character and advocate within the climbing community, but especially here in Boulder. Would be a huge loss.

And now confirmed:
June 7, 2009, Boulder, CO—The body found in avalanche debris at 4000 meters on Mount Edgar (6818 meters/22,368 feet), China, has been positively identified as Jonathan “Jonny” Copp, age 35 of Boulder, CO.

For more details and to help in the search...go to the Adventure Films website.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Member of Explorers Club

Just learned this morning that I have been selected as a Member of New York City's prestigious Explorers Club.
What an honor.

A bit about the Club:

The Explorers Club was founded in New York City, New York, in 1904. The club as explained in its charter was formed to further general exploration, to spread knowledge of the same; to acquire and maintain a library of exploration; and to encourage explorers in their work by “evincing interest and sympathy, and especially by bringing them in personal contact and binding them in the bonds of good fellowship” (TEC, Certificate of Incorporation, October 25, 1905). The Explorers Club is a sister organization of the National Geographic Society, and one of the Honorary Directors of The Explorers Club, Gilbert Melville Grosvenor, is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Geographic Society. Further, the two organizations share many board and general members.
Today, The Explorers Club is a multi-disciplinary society dedicated to advancing field research, scientific exploration and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore. The club's mission is to encourage scientific exploration of land, sea, air and space, emphasizing the physical and biological sciences. Its headquarters is the Lowell Thomas Building on East 70th Street in New York City.
Membership in The Explorers Club is open to qualified individuals and corporations that are leaders in science and exploration. The Club counts 3,000 members representing every continent and more than 60 nations. Over the years, membership has included polar explorers Roald Amundsen, Robert Peary, Matthew Henson, Ernest Shackleton, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Sir George Hubert Wilkins, and Frederick Cook; aviators Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, Richard Archbold and Chuck Yeager; underwater explorers Sylvia Earle, Jacques Piccard, Don Walsh and Robert Ballard; astronauts John Glenn, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, Kathryn Sullivan, and cosmonaut Viktor Savinykh; anthropologists Louis Leakey, Richard Leakey and Jane Goodall; mountaineers Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay; former U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover; and thousands of other notables including journalist Lowell Thomas, newspaper cartoonist Mel Cummin and pioneer explorer Thor Heyerdahl.
Today, the club serves as a base for expedition planning, presentations, meetings, and events. The Club invites returning explorers to share their experience and findings in public lectures and member events, and in its quarterly periodical, The Explorers Journal.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Documentary Film Compilation - MVX Style

Here are the 3 documentary films that have been made in conjunction with Jeff and MVX over the past couple of years...
ENJOY!

Walk Your Own Path

A film by Joshua Levine. A documentary that follows Jeff guiding Bill Barkeley (blind and deaf) to the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro.


A Travelers Footprint

A film by Alex Williams. A wonderful short documentary on the impact and influence of travelers while on a MountainVision Expedition.

A New Yorkers Guide to Climbing Mountains

A film by Emeka Ngwube. A documentary that illustrates the contrasts and parallels between Manhattanites and ambitious Kilimanjaro climbers being guided by Jeff Evans