Neel Parikh

Not much to say today except, check it out: Spirit Sentient Evolved Clothing – sweet designs, wicked material, and created by Mr. Fonceca himself.

… another tick that is, for Will Stanhope – this time it’s the 5th Ascent of the Cobra Crack. I was up there last week and got to catch the man in action taking a couple runs at it, some valiant attempts, but to no avail. Well Sonnie Trotter posted a couple days ago that Will finally sent it – so congrats to you Will! Even with fingers torn to shreds, he can still send like the best of them. It’s like watching an artist paint. ..ahem.. an artist with bloody flappers packed full of chalk.

I don’t think I’ll ever climb the world’s hardest 5.14 trad lines, or even be the
world’s fastest table boulderer, but it’s just awesome and incredibly inspiring to watch these guys do what they do best – if anything, I’ll give me that extra push to put in another session on the hangboard, and to stop worrying about falling 10 feet on some bolts… after watching a 30 foot whipper on a sketchy umbrellaed cam placement. yikes.

A couple days ago a message appeared in my Facebook inbox.  Climbers Micah Dash and Johnny Copp had gone missing from Mt. Edgar, China along with Sender Film’s Wade Johnson who was filming a new piece. Donations were being accepted to help in the Search and Rescue, and immediate there was a huge outpour of support from the community.

From Adventurefilm.org’s blog:

• At midnight last night, a notoriously impoverished local climber – and good friend of the team – showed up at search headquarters, threw his passport on the table and said that for the first time in his life he has two thousand dollars to his name, and he wants to spend it on a flight to Chengdu to be one of the first Americans on the ground to help out with the search.
• This morning at 9 AM, a guiding client of Micah’s wired $25,000 to search headquarters to make sure the search did not slow down due to a financial bog-down.
• Companies who compete with the sponsors of these athletes are paying for their own athletes with Chinese visas to get to get to China as quickly as possible.
• People have offered up the 65,000 frequent flyer miles needed on United to get to China.
• Senators have pressured the Chinese embassy to expedite visas for American search volunteers.

It’s so incredible to see a community get together under times of stress, but it saddens me to hear that the bodies of both Johnny Copp, and Wade Johnson have been found, burried by an avalanche. Blizzard conditions are hampering the search efforts, but here’s hoping for the safe return of Micah. I have never met any of them personally, but this event has resonated across the climbing community. As my own personal tribute, I’ll be throwing my copy of The Sharp End and having a drink in their honour. Rest in Peace.