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Aiguille Du Dru
The Aiguille du Dru (also the Dru or the Drus; French, Les Drus) is a mountain in the Mont Blanc massif in the French Alps. It is situated to the east of the village of Les Praz in the Chamonix valley. "Aiguille" means "needle" in French. The mountain's highest summit is: * ''Grande Aiguille du Dru'' (or the ''Grand Dru'') 3,754 m Another, slightly lower sub-summit is: * ''Petite Aiguille du Dru'' (or the ''Petit Dru'') 3,733 m. The two summits are on the west ridge of the Aiguille Verte (4,122 m) and are connected to each other by the ''Brèche du Dru'' (3,697 m). The north face of the ''Petit Dru'' is considered one of the six great north faces of the Alps. The southwest "Bonatti" pillar and its eponymous climbing route were destroyed in a 2005 rock fall. Ascents The first ascent of the ''Grand Dru'' was by British alpinists Clinton Thomas Dent and James Walker Hartley, with guides Alexander Burgener and K. Maurer, who climbed it via the south-east face on 12 September 1878 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great North Faces Of The Alps
The six great north faces of the Alps are a group of vertical faces in the Swiss, French, and Italian Alps known in mountaineering for their difficulty, danger, and great height. The "Trilogy" is the three hardest of these north faces, being the Eiger, the Grandes Jorasses, and the Matterhorn. Six north faces The six great north faces are (sorted by date of the first ascent): * Matterhorn, first ascent in August 1931; * Cima Grande di Lavaredo, first ascent in 1933; * Petit Dru, first ascent in 1935; * Piz Badile, first ascent July 1937; * Eiger, first ascent in July 1938; * Grandes Jorasses, first ascent in August 1938. Making the first ascent of each of these six faces was a major preoccupation of the best European climbers in the 1930s. Gaston Rébuffat, a French alpinist and mountain guide, was the first to do so, chronicled in his 1954 work, ''Etoiles et Tempêtes'' (''Starlight and Storm''). the Trilogy Three of these north faces — the Eiger, the Matterhorn, and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argentière
Argentière () is a picturesque skiing, alpine walking and mountaineering village in the French Alps, part of the commune of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, at an altitude of . en.chamonix.com. Geography Argentière is located near the head of the Valley of Chamonix approximately from Chamonix town. It is connected by road with by the pass over the and the to |
Aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has a great affinity towards oxygen, and forms a protective layer of oxide on the surface when exposed to air. Aluminium visually resembles silver, both in its color and in its great ability to reflect light. It is soft, non-magnetic and ductile. It has one stable isotope, 27Al; this isotope is very common, making aluminium the twelfth most common element in the Universe. The radioactivity of 26Al is used in radiodating. Chemically, aluminium is a post-transition metal in the boron group; as is common for the group, aluminium forms compounds primarily in the +3 oxidation state. The aluminium cation Al3+ is small and highly charged; as such, it is polarizing, and bonds aluminium forms tend towards covalency. The strong affinity tow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Our Lady Of Lourdes
Our Lady of Lourdes (french: Notre-Dame de Lourdes) is a title of the Virgin Mary. She is venerated under this title by the Roman Catholic church due to her apparitions that occurred in Lourdes, France. The first apparition of 11 February 1858, of which Bernadette Soubirous (age 14) told her mother that a "Lady" spoke to her in the cave of Massabielle ( from the town) while she was gathering firewood with her sister and a friend. Similar apparitions of the "Lady" were reported on 18 occasions that year, until the climax revelation of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception took place. On 18 January 1862, the local Bishop of Tarbes Bertrand-Sévère Laurence endorsed the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes. On 1 February 1876, Pope Pius IX officially granted a decree of canonical coronation to the image as ''Notre-Dame du Saint Rosaire''. The coronation was performed by Cardinal Pier Francesco Meglia at the courtyard of what is now part of the Rosary Basilica on 3 July ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Harlin
John Elvis Harlin II (June 30, 1935 – March 22, 1966) was an American mountaineer and US Air Force pilot who was killed while making an ascent of the north face of the Eiger. Biography Harlin graduated from Sequoia High School and Stanford University. Having established himself as a top-rank mountaineer with the first American ascent of the Eiger North Face's Original Route in 1962 and the American Direct on the Dru, he conceived of climbing the Eiger by the ''direttissima'' (Italian for "most direct") route. Two thousand feet from the summit, his rope broke and he fell to his death in 1966. The Scottish mountaineer Dougal Haston, who had been climbing with Harlin, reached the summit with a German party which joined forces to follow the same route, afterwards named the "Harlin route" in his honor. The story of the climb was recounted in the book '' Direttissima: The Eiger Assault'' by British author (and ground team member) Peter Gillman and Dougal Haston. In 1965 Harlin h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Robbins
Royal Robbins (February 3, 1935 – March 14, 2017) was one of the pioneers of American rock climbing. After learning to climb at Tahquitz Rock, he went on to make first ascents of many big wall routes in Yosemite. As an early proponent of boltless, pitonless clean climbing, he, along with Yvon Chouinard, was instrumental in changing the climbing culture of the late 1960s and early 1970s by encouraging the use and preservation of the natural features of the rock. He went on to become a well-known kayaker. Notable ascents * 1952 First free ascent (FFA) of Open Book (Tahquitz), the first route to be rated 5.9 in the Yosemite Decimal System. * 1957 '' Northwest Face'' of Half Dome, Yosemite, CA. First grade VI climb in America. With Mike Sherrick and Jerry Gallwas. * 1960 '' The Nose'', El Capitan, Yosemite, CA. With Tom Frost, Chuck Pratt, and Joe Fitschen, Second Ascent completed in 7 days * 1961 ''Salathé Wall'', El Capitan, Yosemite, CA. Hardest big wall grade VI climb in wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gary Hemming
Gary Hemming (December 13, 1934 – August 6, 1969According to his gravestone (sefindagrave.com.) was a noted American mountaineer. Together with Royal Robbins he made the first ascent of the American Direct route on the Aiguille du Dru in Chamonix in 1962, and was widely known in France for his role as a rescuer of a party on the same mountain in 1966, earning him the moniker "le beatnik des cimes". Hemming was also part of the group which put up the first ascent of the south face of the Aiguille du Fou (with John Harlin, Tom Frost and Stewart Fulton) a spire of sheer rock long deemed to be unclimbable. Hemming died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound outside the Jenny Lake campground in Grand Teton National Park in 1969. Hemming is widely thought to be one of the models for the character named Rand in the James Salter James Arnold Horowitz (June 10, 1925 – June 19, 2015), better known as James Salter, his pen name and later-adopted legal name, was an American novelist an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Bonatti
Walter Bonatti (; 22 June 1930 – 13 September 2011) was an Italian mountain climber, explorer and journalist. He was noted for many climbing achievements, including a solo climb of a new route on the south-west pillar of the Aiguille du Dru in August 1955, the first ascent of Gasherbrum IV in 1958, and, in 1965, the first solo climb in winter of the North face of the Matterhorn on the mountain's centenary year of its first ascent. Immediately after his solo climb on the Matterhorn, Bonatti announced his retirement from professional climbing at the age of 35, and after 17 years of climbing activity. He authored many mountaineering books and spent the remainder of his career travelling off the beaten track as a reporter for the Italian magazine ''Epoca''. He died on 13 September 2011 of pancreatic cancer in Rome aged 81, and was survived by his life partner, the actress Rossana Podestà. Famed for his climbing panache, he also pioneered little-known and technically difficult cli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Allain
Pierre Allain (7 January 1904 – 19 December 2000) was a French alpinist who began climbing in the 1920s. In the 1930s he was joined by several others at Fontainebleau, where his group of "'Bleausards" developed a love of bouldering that went beyond simple training for the Alps. The famous Allain Angle (Grade (bouldering), V2 - V3), done in 1934, is a testament to their dedication and to the resulting elevation of standards. In Allain's 1949 book, ''Alpinisme et Competition'', he expresses his appreciation of this simple and understated climbing specialty. To facilitate the rock-climbing experience he developed – in the 1930s - the first rubber-soled, soft shoes specifically engineered for serious rock work. He wore these on the sandstone boulders as well as on the granite walls of the Alps, where he made several famous first ascents, including the north face of the Aiguille du Dru. These shoes, known as "PAs", became the model for future generations of climbing footwear. Indeed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rockfall
A rockfall or rock-fallWhittow, John (1984). ''Dictionary of Physical Geography''. London: Penguin, 1984. . is a quantity/sheets of rock that has fallen freely from a cliff face. The term is also used for collapse of rock from roof or walls of mine or quarry workings. "A rockfall is a fragment of rock (a block) detached by sliding, toppling, or falling, that falls along a vertical or sub-vertical cliff, proceeds down slope by bouncing and flying along ballistic trajectories or by rolling on talus or debris slopes." Alternatively, a "rockfall is the natural downward motion of a detached block or series of blocks with a small volume involving free falling, bouncing, rolling, and sliding". The mode of failure differs from that of a rockslide. Causal mechanisms Favourable geology and climate are the principal causal mechanisms of rockfall, factors that include intact condition of the rock mass, discontinuities within the rockmass, weathering susceptibility, ground and surface water, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
