James Stone (Clach Liath)

Mountaineering and the Volcanic Seven Summits

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Archives for December 2018

Two more Volcanic Seven Summits hopefuls

30th December 2018 by James Stone Leave a Comment

Mount Sidley from the air

It’s that time of the year again when various people will be preparing for their expedition to Mount Sidley.  Mount Sidley, by way of reminder, is the highest volcano in Antarctica and therefore one of the Volcanic Seven Summits.

Mount Sidley from the air
Mount Sidley from the air

As I have previously blogged, the Volcanic Seven Summits challenge is becoming more popular and this year’s expedition is likely to see at least two more people complete the challenge.  Up to now Russians and those from predominantly English speaking nations have dominated.

We may now be starting to see a change in this.

The first of the two to whom I refer is Satyarup Siddhanta.  He is a 35 year old Indian who currently lives in Bangalore but is originally from West Bengal.  He is a software engineer.  Satya has been focused on the Volcanic Seven Summits since completing the continental Seven Summits on Mount Vinson in December 2017.  So he has made quick work of the remaining volcanic summits, even climbing Kilimanjaro for a second time in June 2018.

Assuming he summits Sidley he will become the first Indian to complete the Volcanic Seven Summits.  He will also be the youngest person to do the Volcanic Seven Summits/Seven Summits combination, beating Australian Dan Bull.  He will also be only the eighth person to have done the Volcanic Seven Summits together with the Carstenz version of the Seven Summits.

Satyarup Siddhanta on Pico de Orizaba - December 2018
Satyarup Siddhanta on Pico de Orizaba – December 2018 (copyright Satyarup Siddhanta – used with permission)

So much for the stats.  From a UK perspective it is interesting to see how much interest the press in India are taking in Satya’s endeavours.  There is a large degree of national pride which is rarely seen in the UK – or perhaps Satya just has a good PR machine behind him.  But a Google search reveals numerous articles in both national and local press on each climb he undertakes.

His sixth volcano was Pico de Orizaba in Mexico, which he summited earlier this month.  That climb was quite an epic.  Snow conditions on the Jamapa glacier, which covers much of the upper northern reaches of the mountain, were a bit lean.  On the descent rockfall struck him and his guide and his guide broke his pelvis.  Satya escaped with fairly superficial injuries.  A third member of the group was unhurt.

Another interesting fact about Satya is that he was, unwittingly, the centre of a controversy regarding an Everest ascent.  He had shared his Everest summit photos.  During the same 2016 season, a husband and wife (who were also Indian as it happens), claimed an ascent of Everest.  They photoshopped an image of the wife on to Satya’s photo as “evidence” of their ascent.  The husband did the same on someone else’s photo.  The couple were soon rumbled.  Nepal imposed a 10 year ban on climbing on the couple.

The true photo of Satyarup Siddhanta on Everest
The true photo of Satyarup Siddhanta on Everest
The falsified image on Everest
The falsified image on Everest

The second person is Sándor (Sanya) Tóth, a 41 year old Hungarian.  Sanya started out by climbing Kilimanjaro in January 2016 with his sixth volcano being Mount Giluwe in August 2017.  So Sanya is hoping to be the first Hungarian to complete the challenge.

Sanya Tóth on Elbrus - August 2016
Sanya Tóth on Elbrus – August 2016 (copyright Sanya Tóth – used with permission)

Even the Hungarian press is taking some interest in what Sanya is looking to achieve.  Like me he has not attempted the Seven Summits.  He is also not a professional mountaineer.  He is a stonemason by trade and married with kids.

Best of luck to the two of them and the others on the Sidley trip.  The weather in Antarctica has been a little abnormal during the early part of the season.  ALE only managed one flight to and from Union Glacier during two weeks in the middle of this month.  Whilst delays of two or three days are common, this is unusual.  Anyone contemplating journeys into the depths of the continent needs to have flexible arrangements!

Ultras of the World

22nd December 2018 by James Stone Leave a Comment

Pico de Orizaba

Ultras?  A blog on football fans known for ultra-fanatical support?  Often with violent tendencies?  No, this is about ultra-prominent mountains, or “Ultras”.

WHAT IS A MOUNTAIN?

One of the great mountaineering goals is to climb all of the Earth’s 8000m peaks.  There are 14 of them.  Only 40 people have ever, indisputably, climbed all 14.  Everest’s South Summit lies at 8749m metres in elevation.  But the list of 14 does not include it.  This is the case notwithstanding the fact that there is no  higher summit on the Earth’s surface, other than the summit of Everest itself.

Why is this?  The answer is that when descending from Everest’s main summit to return down the Nepalese side of the mountain it is only necessary to re-ascend 11m in order to pass over the South Summit.  In other words this summit is a mere pimple on the side of Everest.

So somewhere along the line a judgement is being made as to what should constitute a separate mountain.  In the case of Everest’s South Summit that judgement is because its lack of prominence, it has insufficient definition in its own right to be regarded as a separate mountain.

So should these judgements be subjective or objective?  In other words should a fixed physical and measurable criterion be used to determine what constitutes a mountain (and by extension a hill)? If so, what should this be?

Returning to the UK (or more accurately Scotland) for a moment, by the 1930s three hill classifications had been developed.  Each used different criteria to determine whether or not a particular summit merited inclusion in the classification.  The summits included in these classifications became known as the Munros, the Corbetts and the Donalds.

The Munros are a list of summits in excess of 3000 feet, but do not include all such summits.  Indeed the compiler of the list, Sir Hugh Munro, did not leave us with guidance on how he came up with his categorisation beyond the minimum height requirement of 3000 feet and the fact that there had to be “sufficient separation” from neighbouring peaks.  So he split his list into “mountains” and subsidiary tops.  Indeed he stated “the exact number of mountains could not be determined owing to the impossibility of deciding which were the most distinctive peaks”.

The Corbetts are a list of summits of at least 2500 feet in height but less than 3000 feet in height.  However, the compiler, John Rooke Corbett, required his summits also to have a drop all round of at least 500 feet.  This is a prominence criterion to which I return.

The Donalds are defined as elevations in the Scottish Lowlands of at least 2000ft in height with a drop of at least 50ft between each elevation and any higher elevation.  Furthermore, elevations separated from higher elevations by a drop of less than 100ft are required to have “sufficient topographical merit”.  The compiler of this list, Percy Donald, did not define what he meant by that phrase.

So there we have three different ways of categorising mountains or hills.  Only one, the Corbetts, uses wholly objective criteria.  The others are a combination of absolute height, subjective assessment and (in part) drop.

I return to the question “what is a separate mountain”?  The answer must combine absolute height and some distinguishing feature of the summit one is considering.

Roseberry Topping
Is this a mountain? Roseberry Topping

 

In the UK we tend to think of any summit in excess of 2000 feet or 610 metres as being a mountain.  Of course, that elevation would count for nothing in the Alps or the Himalayas.  But the elevation gain from Wasdale to the summit of Scafell Pike is 2½ times that of the Eiger by its easiest route.  Is the Eiger therefore not a mountain?

Elevation must be seen in the context of the surrounding land form.  Absolute height cannot be the sole determining factor as can be seen from the Everest South Summit example.  If subjective criteria are not to determine the categorisation, then there is really only one objective measure that really works.  This is the concept of “prominence”.

It is arguable also that “isolation” is relevant.  In other words how far a particular summit is away from its nearest higher neighbour.  But that cannot be the sole determinant, otherwise a remote island atoll would meet the necessary criterion for a mountain.  Think of an island in the Maldives for example.

PROMINENCE

Prominence is a term that represents the elevation of a summit relative to the surrounding terrain.  It is defined as the elevation of a summit relative to the highest point to which one must descend before re-ascending to a higher summit.

In other words, prominence is calculated as the difference in elevation between a summit and the highest saddle that connects that summit to any higher terrain.

Put yet another way, prominence is the elevation difference between the summit and the lowest contour that encircles it and no higher summit.  It is the minimum height by which one would have to descend from a summit along a ridge in order to re-ascend to a higher peak.

The concept of prominence has gained a large degree of acceptance in the world of peak bagging.  In the UK Alan Dawson published in 1992 “The Relative Hills of Britain: Mountains, Munros and Marilyns”.  Here he listed what in Britain were hills that were relatively high by reference to their surrounding terrain.  There was no absolute height requirement.  All he did was to adopt a prominence criterion of 150 metres (roughly 500 feet).  He called these hills Marilyns as a play on words with Munros.  There are 1557 of them in the British Isles (excluding the Republic of Ireland).

You can read about my journey around the English Marilyns here.

Of course that begs the question as to what the prominence value should be if prominence is to be the objective measure to be used to determine whether or not a particular summit is to be regarded as a separate mountain or hill.  In UK terms we have a number of listings that use different prominence values – Nuttalls (15 metres of prominence and a minimum height of 610 metres), Hewitts (30 metres and a minimum height of 610 metres), HuMPs (100 metres, no minimum height), TuMPs (30 metres, no minimum height) – in addition to the Marilyns.

A significant piece of work on the concepts of prominence and isolation by Andrew Kirmse and Jonathan de Ferranti is available here.  The paper mentions others whose contributions to research in this area should be noted.

THE ULTRAS

That brings me to the purpose of this blog.  Without determining what I might consider to be the appropriate measure to define what constitutes a mountain (because it is unlikely that there would be agreement on this), I come to the concept of Ultras.

As mentioned above, Ultras are the ultra-prominent peaks of the world.  These are summits that have a prominence of at least 1500 metres (approximately 5000 feet).  In other words, topographically, they are significant summits.  Coincidentally there are around 1500 such summits (a few more in fact).

The table below compares the ten highest mountains in the world (which are all in the Himalayas or Karakorum) with the ten most prominent mountains in the world (which have a much wider geographical spread).  Only Everest is in both lists.

K2, the second highest mountain in the world, is a lowly 22 in the prominence listings.  High points of continents and of islands and volcanoes feature highly in this top 10.

Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier, Washington – the 21st most prominent peak in the world and one with a greater prominence than K2

 

Rank by absolute height Height Rank by prominence Prominence
Mount Everest (Nepal/China) 8848m Mount Everest (Nepal/China) 8848m
K2 (Pakistan/China) 8614m Aconcagua (Argentina) 6962m
Kanchenjunga (Nepal/India) 8586m Denali (USA) 6140m
Lhotse (Nepal/China) 8516m Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) 5885m
Makalu (Nepal/China) 8485m Cristobal Colon (Colombia) 5539m
Cho Oyu (China) 8188m Mount Logan (Canada) 5247m
Dhaulagiri (Nepal) 8167m Pico de Orizaba (Mexico) 4922m
Manaslu (Nepal) 8163m Mount Vinson (Antarctica) 4892m
Nanga Parbat (Pakistan) 8125m Puncak Jaya (Indonesia) 4884m
Annapurna (Nepal) 8091m Elbrus (Russia) 4741m

There are no Ultras in the British Isles.

Ben Nevis
Ben Nevis – not an Ultra

 

A whole host of information on the topic of prominence can be found at the peaklist.org website.  I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the information there in producing this blog.  Since the Kirmse/de Ferranti paper referenced above, further detailed analysis and the availability of satellite information has enabled the Ultras list to be updated.

ULTRA BAGGERS

Peak bagging in the UK is a well-known pastime now whether it is the Munros, the Wainwrights in the Lake District, the Marilyns or one of the many other lists.

But does peak bagging extend to bagging Ultras?  Well the answer to this question seems to be yes.  A couple of mega baggers have climbed in excess of 300 Ultras, though there is no complete list of people who have climbed numerous Ultras.

Pico de Orizaba
Pico de Orizaba, Mexico, the 7th most prominent peak in the world. Shot taken from Volcán Malinche

 

There is, however, an attempt to list those who target the top 50 most prominent mountains in the world.  At the time of writing this blog, the “leaders” (at least so far as they are known) in this endeavour are:

Matthew Holt (UK/South Africa) with 36.

Jaime Viñals (Guatemala) with 33.

Gerry Roach (USA) with 30.

MJ Kim (South Korea) with 30.

Petter Bjørstad (Norway) with 30.

Geri Winkler (Austria) with 30.

Junko Tabei (Japan) with 28.

Bob Packard (USA) with 27.

Father Morgan Batt (Australia) with 26.

Gerhard Schmatz (Germany) with 25.

Rob Woodall (UK) with 24.

Ken Jones (USA) with 24.

In the list there is just one woman, Junko Tabei (the first woman to climb Everest).  There is a Roman Catholic priest and a South Korean with the rest being European or North American but with a British South African resident leading the pack.

Elbrus
Elbrus, Russia – the 10th most prominent peak in the world

 

Research on and collation of the lists of those who have climbed significant numbers of Ultras (and other prominence categories) has over recent years largely been undertaken by Andy Martin of Tucson, Arizona with the help of climbers from around the world and other written sources.  Much of the information for the lists comes from a few websites, though it is difficult to obtain information about Asian climbers because of the language and script barriers.  So it is likely that certain individuals may have been missed from the lists.

Andy maintains his lists for inspection at his oldadit website.  He is always happy to receive updates and corrections.  This can be done direct or via me if any reader is aware of any person who merits inclusion on any of them.

Another Volcanic Seven Summits Completer!

13th December 2018 by James Stone Leave a Comment

Ted Fairhurst

I am able to report on another person who has completed the Volcanic Seven Summits.  That person is Ted Fairhurst from Canada.

Regular readers of my blog will recall that I mentioned in February that Ted was having difficulties with the weather on Ojos del Salado.  Ultimately the weather defeated him at that time.

But Ted has been back to Chile and he managed to reach the top of Ojos on 9th December 2018.  In so doing, Ted has become the oldest person to complete the Volcanic Seven Summits and also the oldest person to complete the Volcanic Seven Summits/Seven Summits combination at the age of 71.  Yes 71!  He is also the second Canadian to complete the Volcanic Seven Summits after Paul Nicholson.

Ted Fairhurst
Ted Fairhurst on Ojos del Salado (c) Ted Fairhurst (used with permission)

Here is a short video he took at the summit.

Ted’s original hope was to climb all seven of the volcanoes whilst he was 70.  He started out by climbing Elbrus for a second time (it is also one of the Seven Summits) on 2nd June 2017.  So he has actually climbed all seven volcanoes in around 18 months.

So I have updated the list of completers and this is set out below.

We can anticipate at least two more completers in January when ALE run their trip to Mount Sidley.  I will post another blog or two about this trip later in the month.

[Note that this list has since been updated here]

Climber, nationality and age at completion Date of final summit Final summit Date of first summit
Mario Trimeri (Italy) (58) 24th January 2011 Mount Sidley 23rd August 2005
Crina Popescu (Romania) (16) 24th January 2011 Mount Sidley 23rd July 2008
Vyechaslav Adrov (Russia) (50) 18th January 2013 Mount Sidley 8th January 2010
Aleks Abramov (Russia) (47) 13th September 2013 Mount Giluwe 3rd May 1991
Olga Rumyantseva (Russia) (36) 9th December 2013 Ojos del Salado 14th August 1994
Vitaliy Simonovic (Russia) (42) 19th December 2013 Ojos del Salado 26th February 2012
François Bernard (Fr) (49) 17th January 2014 Mount Sidley Not known
Sophie Cairns (UK) (32) 10th June 2014 Elbrus 28th December 2013
Paul Nicholson (Canada) (50) 5th December 2014 Ojos del Salado 7th August 2005
Liana Chabdarova (Russia) (28) 12th January 2015 Ojos del Salado 29th August 2013
Andrey Filkov (Russia) (49) 16th September 2015 Damavand 2nd May 2007
James Stone (UK) (59) 14th January 2017 Mount Sidley 23rd February 2014
Daniel Bull (Australia) (36) 27thApril 2017 Ojos del Salado 6th March 2006
Katie Sarah (Australia) (49) 14th January 2018 Mount Sidley 3rd September 2010
David Hamilton (UK) (56) 10th February 2018 Ojos del Salado April 1992
Ted Fairhurst (Canada) (71) 9th December 2018 Ojos del Salado 25th January 2012

Aleks Abramov, Vitaliy Simonovic, Dan Bull and Ted Fairhurst have also completed the seven continental summits (both Carstensz and Kosciuszko versions).

Mario Trimeri, François Bernard and David Hamilton have completed the seven continental summits (Carstensz version).

Andrey Filkov and Katie Sarah have completed the seven continental summits (Kosciuszko version).

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Recent posts

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  • Top 50 Ultras
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