Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa
Time & Date: Tuesday, March 1st, 2011 @ 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.

Join Steve “Crusher” Bartlett on a tour of the spectacular, colorful climbs of the Colorado Plateau. The only thing better than succeeding on a great climb is to discover that said climb finishes atop a tiny summit, far in the sky. The desert of southern Utah and the Four Corners area holds hundreds of such wild summits, none easy to attain, many climbable only by difficult, seldom-ascended routes. Steve Bartlett has enjoyed 25 years of climbing these towers and has stood on top of over thirty previously unclimbed formations. For this show he presents highlights from these climbs.

Ever since 1982, when he quit his job in rainy, gray Britain, bought a one-way ticket in London and stepped out into the bright sun of California, Bartlett has been enjoying exploring and climbing all over the West. He has lived and worked in Boulder, Colorado, for the last 27 years.

The Colorado Plateau became his favorite place to explore and climb. The canyons and pinnacles are the most colorful and spectacular in the world–we in the western U.S. are privileged to have such beauty so close. The towers and pinnacles have drawn rock climbers for 50 years, and these climbers, Layton Kor, Harvey Carter, Bill Forrest, Chuck Pratt, Fred Beckey, Stevie Haston, Rob Pizem and many more, have left us a legacy of spectacular, difficult climbs.

Steve Bartlett’s contribution to this legacy is to have climbed over thirty previously unclimbed towers–none easy, some unrepeated after a decade or more–and to have recently written a book that tries to capture something of the flavor of the art of desert-tower climbing. Whatever the future holds for the desert, the history is now preserved in one coffee-table book.

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa
Time & Date: Tuesday, Feb 1st, 2011 @ 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.

Chris McNamara is arguably one of the most influential Northern California climbers today. His big wall climbing career began as a young teenager and he quickly amassed an incredible resume of hard and fast ascents in Yosemite and Zion. From those experiences he launched the very successful SuperTopo brand which publishes popular climbing guide books and has one of the most viewed rock climbing websites on the internet. After having clipped hundreds of bad bolts he founded the American Safe Climbing Association whose goal is to return classic climbing routes to their original danger level by replacing deteriorating old fixed anchors, usually bolts, with modern camouflaged gear. The ASCA has replaced over 6000 bolts in popular climbing areas across the West.

Recently Chris got into BASE jumping from the world’s tallest cliffs with a wing suit and an HD helmet cam. On February 1st will be sharing footage of both the heart stopping jumps and his climbing exploits with the Rock Ice Mountain Club. All proceeds from our raffle this month will go directly to the ASCA to help with bolt replacement at our local North Bay crags. Chris will have copies of his recent SuperTopo titles as well as the Book of BASE (Matt Gerdes with sections by Chris McNamara, Steph Davis, and Dean Potter) which details the technical and ethical evolution of the sport of BASE jumping.

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa
Time & Date: Tuesday, January 4th, 2011 @ 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.

James will be showing numerous images from different parts of the country and discussing the discoveries that he’s made on his previous 2 trips. He will be inviting people to participate on his next planned expedition to climb the big granite wall in the Erongo mountains. After that, he will be showing Majka’s 30 minute video about similar experiences with the culture and climbing in Namibia.

BIO: “I started climbing when I turned 16, got my drivers license and knew where I wanted to go, drove straight to Lover’s Leap! I’ve gone in and out of climbing a lot, really hard stuff and then not climbing for a couple years but I always describe myself as a rock climber.

I’ve been an editorial/magazine style photojournalist for about 20 years, trying to tell stories, convey my experiences in images that try to capture all that is there, culture, beauty and ruggedness of that place. Most of my photo trips have been international but in 2006 I self-published my first book; “The Islands of San Francisco Bay”. I spent 5 years and a little over $100 to produce it. Recently I gave my 75th “Islands” slide show and I’m almost sold out of books! I’d like to do another book on my magazine work but we’ll see!”

www.jamesmartinphotos.com

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa
Time & Date: Tuesday, December 7th, 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.

Pretty funny…

Jim Thornburg has spent his life climbing rocks and taking pictures of people climbing rocks.

He hasn’t done much else. It’s a little sad.  Now he has all these pictures lying around.

The upside is that if you’re looking for a great picture of a climber climbing a rock, anywhere in the world, at any time of the day or the night, dressed or undressed, in good weather or bad, Jim is likely to have it.

Additionally, if you need someone to take a picture of someone climbing a rock, say… wearing your company’s fancy rock-climbing clothing, Jim is probably the best guy to do it.

www.jimthornburg.com

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa
Time & Date: Tuesday, November 2, 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.

Come join us for a show by our own Dan Morse, who just returned from Nepal, visiting Kathmandu, Pochura, and completing a trek in Lo Manthang of 130 kilometers (about 80 miles) over 16 days.

Lo Manthang is a medieval walled city and Village Development Committee in Mustang District in the Dhawalagiri Zone of northern Nepal. Even though foreign visitors have been allowed in the kingdom since 1992, tourism to Upper Mustang remains limited, with just over 2000 foreign tourists in 2008. To step through the gateway of the fabled walled city of Lo Manthang is like stepping into Tibet 5 centuries ago, with its Royal Palace, aristocrats on splendid horses, and its culture and customs. Although the modern world is rapidly catching up with this remote kingdom, much of its traditional way of life still remains. The city is surrounded by a rocky desert of wind-eroded red-gold cliffs and pinnacles, a testament to the ingenuity of the Lo-ba, as the inhabitants call themselves, as they were able to develop a prosperous community in the midst of this barren desert, mainly through their trade.

FUTURE SHOWS and TRIPS
November 6: American Alpine Club Climbing at Castle Rock and Party
November 11 (Thursday): Warren Miller’s Wintervention at LBC
December 5: AAC Holiday Dinner at Spengers’s
January 28-30: AAC Lost Trail Lodge Ice Climbing

See here for all info on the AAC events.