Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa
Time & Date: Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 @ 7:30 PM (Social hours and free beer for members at 6:30)
Directions: From Highway 101 at Santa Rosa go west on Highway 12 to Stony Point Road Exit. Go straight from the middle lane at the light onto Occidental Road. The Round Table Pizza is on the right just down the road.
Patagonia is a land trapped between angry torrents of sea and sky. It is a place that has fascinated explorers and writers for centuries, discouraging all but the most devoted pilgrims. Gregory Crouch is one such pilgrim. With vivid narrative detail and National Geographic caliber photography, Gregory will be telling the tale of the first winter ascent of Cerro Torre’s West Face in Patagonia in 1999 with three Swiss climbers: Thomas Ulrich, Stefan Siegrist and David Fasel.
During this expedition, four peripherally acquainted people were able to overcome hugely different individual motivations and an immense language barrier and coalesce into a unified team. After several difficult weeks and one nearly-crushing failure, they found success and survival in the face of some of the most outrageous natural obstacles on earth.
Gregory Crouch is an author from the San Francisco Bay Area who specializes in adventurous and historic subjects. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he studied military history. He completed U.S. Army Airborne and Ranger Schools, and led his infantry platoon in combat in Panama, where he earned the Combat Infantryman’s Badge. Crouch left the Army in the post-Gulf War downsizing in order to pursue his passions for rock, ice and alpine climbing, with a particular fascination with the majestic peaks of Patagonia.
His work has appeared in National Geographic (“Stone Cold Ascent,” March of 2000, and “The Caves of Oman,” April of 2003), National Geographic Adventure, American History, Outside, Climbing (where he has been a senior contributing editor) and many others. Crouch’s book, Enduring Patagonia (Random House, 2001) was selected for the Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” program, and his upcoming China’s Wings: War, Intrigue, Romance, and Adventure in the Middle Kingdom During the Golden Age of Flight will be published by Bantam in March 2012.
