Time & Date: Tuesday, August 5, 2014 @ 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.
Mark Thomas has been a lifelong outdoor enthusiast, growing up as an avid skier, cyclist, and hiker in Salt Lake City, Utah. Since moving to California in 2002, he has moved on to bigger and more technical mountain and rock outings, including two trips to Alaska, and a multitude of outings to Canada, Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, and Colorado, as well as many more in Utah and California. He seeks out everything from ice climbing and glacier travel, to rock climbing some big walls. He often tries to incorporate some ultra-endurance, exploratory, and photography aspects to his various trips. Mark specializes in days of gaining large elevation, lugging heavy packs, crack climbing (especially chimneys and offwidths), and he especially loves climbing in his beloved red rock country of the Moab area in Southern Utah. Some of his climbs include:
•W Buttress of Denali
•Mt Rainier by 4.5 different routes (DC, Emmons Glacier, Liberty Ridge, Ptarmigan Ridge, and failed on Curtis Ridge)
•Numerous winter ascents in Utah (e.g. S Ridge of Mt Superior, Everest Ridge on Mt Timpanogos, Mt Nebo Massif Traverse)
•All of the CA 14ers
•NWRR of Half Dome
•Every single SuperTopo Climb of the High Sierra (except for 3)
•Devil’s Tower
•Mega linkup of numerous routes in the Tetons
•About a dozen desert tower routes in Utah
•Surviving all 10 days of Bob Burd’s Sierra Challenge (and returning for several smaller doses!)
Mark Thomas will be presenting two shorter presentations of some unique and highly recommended outdoor adventuring: First, he will take us along on his 2008 month long trip cycling solo across western Canada, hiking and bagging peaks along the way. Next, he will share photos and stories of a possible first winter ascent of the East Ridge of Mt Carl Heller in 2011. Both trips were great, challenging, and aesthetic outings, that started off as crazy ideas. For both trips Mark had trouble finding anyone interested in attempting them, yet they turned out to be some of his most memorable outings. While they may not have been trips that are popularly regarded or commonly done, and certainly not a ’50 classics’ or ‘SuperTopo list’ trip, they were every bit as classic.
