Friday night Mel and I represented the WR crew at the Expo. We ate some African food at the Kilimanjaro Cafe and went to hear Mike's talk about the K2 tragedy. He did a good job presenting the facts and what likely happened from his perspective. Brief overview, there was no one catastrophic event, lots of small things, like timing and unfortunate incidences like ice falls happened in untimely ways and good people died. There was no whole team wiped out but 2 from Norway, 2 Serbs, 2 sherpas, 3 Koreans... 11 souls in all. Another pause to consider the amount of risk each of us is willing to take.
Afterward we went to Big V's to hear Noal's Band Digby Jones. I think I would call it Alternative Folk Rock. They were pretty good. The bar was a dive. VE was moderately represented.
Saturday, Mel and I took our hubbies out on the town. Carl and I went to a talk on the Wind River Range. I went on my first climbing trip there in 1975 (yeah, I was 2) I seemed the crowd had been the too, maybe even before me. The speaker did a good job of presenting the reality of a high altitude backpacking trip, some parts are just plain hard.
We went to Kilimanjaro cafe again for dinner, didn't get rave reviews from the guys but who told them to eat meat. not me! I liked it ...again.
Then we were off to the film festival. My fav was The Sharp End a bunch of hot shot young American climbers go and learn a thing or two from some bold and old climbers in the Czech Republic. Point being, you don't always get old being bold. Anyway, these were the guys that climb barefoot and use knotted ropes for pro. Very bold. I recommend this film. We also saw one about avalanches, very scary. But it did make me want to go skiing...very soon. Next film, The Eskimos are angry with us but Mel says she thinks they might enjoy being warm and they should give it a try. Cut to Patagonia. There were 2 Englishmen that made an attempt on an scary looking Fitz Roy in Patagonia, in the winter. They tried like mad, it looked terrible, this film was however quite amusing. There was a film about life in Aspen as well, an old artist told me "If you like something, do it more" so that's what I plan to do. So if you don't see me at the gym, I'll be skiing, or hanging out with one of YOU! If you want film titles or facts go to http://www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture/tour/
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