I was interested in your comment on ratings in climbing. I spent a lot of time around rock climbers in the 80s and a little in the 90s.

Is it your opinion that in absolute terms that top climbers are better today than twenty years ago? If so, why do you think this has happened? If a climber can do tougher climbs than someone twenty years ago, does that automatically make him or her a better climber?

After a <very close call> in the Troll Wall, I decided to stop doing alpine stuff. The rule at the time, was to do sports climbing as training for alpine and big walls, so I broke with the tradition. Many didn't, and quite a few I knew back then, died with the boots on.

The most tragic accident was in 1984, they made it to the summit of Trango Tower via the east face:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...

which at the time the most impressive Himalaya climb, a 1500m wall. The week before they went to Pakistan, we drove out and climbed together at one of the local crags.

Some weeks later, Hans and Finn was dead. I still had the jokes fresh in memory. Hans was our #1, a complete climber, he did it all: cliffs, ice, big walls, alpine and had no weaknesses or fear. What kids do today, can be more impressive from a sporting point of view, but a comparison for me is totally bogus. Later on, I did harder sport climbs than all of them, but my talent and drive was far less than those guys. They had already introduced some modern ideas, broken barriers of their time, my generation just carried on that legacy and broke some new barriers.

Yes, they are for sure better today. It's big sports now, "everyone" has tried it. 30 years ago it was a closed community and in Norway it was mainly an activity performed by the intellectual elite.

Today they have better equipment, they have better training facilities, easier access to information, more knowledge, easier to travel and we have higher living standards. More money in the sport, and some can actually make a living of it. We couldn't, and had finance each trip, take an education and get a job.

Big big change, regardless the young can today make the same climbs as we did, and see for themselves, by using the same rating system.

<If a climber can do tougher climbs than someone twenty years ago, does that automatically make him or her a better climber?>

No it doesn't, and some of my youth climbing heroes will stay there forever, whatever the young do these days. However, I remember very well the next generation and who became the new #1 (Robert) after my friend. Robert started out in the school gym at age 15, and had a totally different environment to take out his potential than us.

Later on he put up the first Norwegian 9+, and made some spectacular ascents in Antarctica, including Ulvetanna http://www.climbing.com/news/hotfla...

Yeah, Great Trango is really something for the eye, and HUGE. The steep top-wall -- is bigger than El Cap (Yosemite), in fact to imagine the full size of the climb, you can picture 2x El Cap and will get 300 m short. :)

The seriousness, is due the altitude, the remoteness, the difficulty, the size and winter conditions. This is far more pleasant

http://www.gdargaud.net/Photo/v1024...

Here is the 1984 line at Great Trango

http://www.climbing.com/news/hotfla...

A friend of mine always talked about the wall of Gasherbrum IV (not far from the Trango Towers) as being really huge. But maybe it's not a vertical wall in the same sense as the Trangos.

for an indication of how steep, I look at how much snow/ice the face has. Gasherbrum IV looks steeper than K2

http://media-2.web.britannica.com/e... but not as steep as Great Trango.

There are bigger walls, for example the north face of Jannu is 2600m: http://www.explorersweb.com/sitemed...

And for a short moment i caught myself breathless and totally jawdropping.Which is more and more rare - in my life , this happens..

Is it you ,our zarg , who once,conquered these walls ? And which ones ?

I rest my case.I thought chess was an extreme sport -but this !!??

I bowe and I see that poor slomarko hasn´t got a chance :)

And BTW I am glad you stopped when the call was close !

<zarg: ...Ulvetanna (Wolfs Tooth) ain't that big (1x El Cap) or have same altitude, but it's a NORTH WALL>

In the Andes, it's Patagonia in Argentina, that blow away my breath. Yeah, Cerro Torre and Fitzroy is beautiful

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/45/1...

but are famous unstable weather conditions

As to alpine summits, I've made it a long-term goal to attempt an ascent of Denali, but such an expedition would be far more committing than anything I've done in the past. To date, the most dire situation I've been in was an overnight stay without bivouac gear on a ledge near the summit of a mountain on Kvaløya, last fall, which rendered me mildly hypothermic (had there been rain, we would've been in more serious trouble for sure). Denali kills well-prepared people every year.

Altitudes for the mountains in Peru:
Huandoy South 6070 meters.
Huantsan 6395 meters.

Looked as a long snow/ice walk, in some awesome surroundings. In good weather, I wouldn't expect it to be that dangerous, but being so high -- you never know when the bad weather arrive and the avalanche danger come.

Wow, that was really high. My last trip to the alps, I was here (ca. 4400m)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...

Really beautiful, but not as high as those big mountains. Here from a distance

I can see why, I've not closed that picture after first opening the link. :) Is really the normal route over that glacier? The glacier looks not that friendly..

How about taking the ridge from the left hand side, over the first summit, then to the top.. or that is perhaps way too long?

Here's the east side of the mountain:
http://www.lotusexpeditions.com/ima...

It's not that famous really because it's right beside Yerupaja (6634m), the highest peak in the Amazon Basin: http://www.greatwalks.net/siteimage...

It's possible climb up beside the icefall on Chopicalqui (in the shadow of Huascaran) for quite a ways. Then you do have to move through an icefall, not difficult but unstable. From that point it's not real difficult, one 45 degree slope of maybe two rope lengths, a lot of exposure, but not on anything steep.

To the left of the summit is a real narrow ridge. And it's a technical climb to get up there. There are several routes, the best-known by a French climber named Eric Dossin in the early 80s.

One of the funniest (afterward) events of my meager climbing career occurred on that icefall. The woman in the middle of our 3-person rope fell into a crevasse, maybe down six meters, unhurt and supported by the rope.

You, the photographer? Congrats, that's a really fantastic photo!

<Here's the east side of the mountain>

Impressive mountain, no doubt, that east face looks scary.

<Then you do have to move through an icefall, not difficult but unstable. From that point it's not real difficult, one 45 degree slope of maybe two rope lengths, a lot of exposure, but not on anything steep>

OK, but I didn't fancy that ice-fall.. the darkness could indicate rock-fall and unstable conditions indeed, but I guess the photo is taken too far away to tell.

<There are several routes, the best-known by a French climber named Eric Dossin in the early 80s.>

Where does Dossin's route go? Along the ridge from the r.h.s. of your photo??

<She could only speak Spanish, our leader, who could see her and guide her out, could only speak English, and the translator (me) was down below and couldn't see a thing. You can imagine the dialogue.>

The Dossin route, and a Yugoslavian route, more or less go up the face to the secondary summit (on the exteme left in the photo), then up the ridge to the summit.