Ask Bôté Ánchouré

Mountaineering and Climbing Q & A from the Famous French Alpinist

Noted French alpinist Bôté Anchouré has agreed to answer mountaineering and climbing questions from Scree readers when he returns from the mountains.  He has just returned from first ascents of Grade-6/5.14 AD (Absurdly Difficult) routes on Shishkaboob, the spire in Farflungoffistan.  He climbed and named the routes "The Spy Who Grabbed Me" with noted American climber Ursula Undress and also "For Your Thighs Only" with noted French climber, Rebecca De Hornay.  Relaxing in his own private mud bath in his own private Idaho summer home, he graciously answers questions from an enquiring mountaineering community.

Question #1  Me and my boyfriend, James Pond, we climb regularly in the crags near our home.  Recently, I have been noticing a change in his demeanor.  He seems to be too much in touch with his feminine self.  Previously he hated it when I kicked his ass in climbing, now he applauds me.  It is like, he has become sensitive all of a sudden.  The other day, he was like, sobbing, at the end of an episode of 'Sienfeld' and I was like, OMiGod.  What is going on?  Please help. - Concerned Chichi from Chechnya

Dear CheechMarina, Normally, I would have asked you to take his inner child and kick his ass, but this is a matter of great sensitivity and must be handled with delicacy, just like the final move on 'BlunderBall'.  I suggest that you stop sharing your 'Lemon Luna Bars' with him as they are only for women.  That may have been the root cause of this strange transformation.  Continue to keep a close watch on him and ask him to stay away from your 'Vanity Fair' catalogues.

Question #2  I have read recently that Viagra may be useful in reducing the susceptibility of an individual to high altitude effects such as edemas and may in fact promote faster high altitude acclimatization.  Do you have any news or experience with this? - Uma Knurlmann

Dear Uma, The great Bôté would never need such a chemical boost as my many lady acquaintances can verify.  However, I have a French American friend, Legrand Johnson, who claims to use Viagra while couloir climbing.  He says that in addition to providing a faster acclimatization it simplifies the placing of ice screws.  Without the Viagra, he has to prop himself away from the ice with one knee and stand on one foot.  With the Viagra all he has to do is lean forward somewhat and gets to stand on both feet.  This is supposedly a much more restful a stance.

Question #3  I have spent many years pursuing alpine routes in the California Sierra and the regulatory trend has been to require bear canisters on more and more trail heads.  I never have any problems with bears and this requirement is annoying.  Are there more bears out there or am I missing something? - Konrad Bär

Dear Konrad, Here in Europe there are no bears so I passed your question on to an American working for the Department of the Interior.  He is Bure O'Crat and is the Undersecretary of Bears and Other Mammals (UBOM).  His answer is that there are indeed many more bears running amuck in North America.  The bears have splintered into many sub species.  The state of Illinois is about run over with chicago bears.  California has a bazillion golden bears and more than one or two badnewz bears.  The Nasdaq has more bears than can be counted.  It is an epidemic.  He recommends following the bear canister rules explicitly.  The toughest part seems to be to get the bear into the canister.  This will usually cost you some of your food or maybe another Madonna CD.

Question #4  I maintain the e-mail lists for my rock climbing and mountaineering group.  They are divided up into mountains-north-class1, mountains-north-class2, and so forth all the way to mountains-south-class5.  Another set of lists is outdoor-cooking-cutlery-knife, outdoor-cooking-cutlery-fork, etc.  The people using these lists just cannot put the correct message on the right list.  They even put knife messages on the fork list!  Can you believe it?  This makes me so mad I want to remove them all from my lists.  The only problem is then nobody would use them.  What do you suggest? - Ana Lyre Tentive

Dear Ana, My guess is you haven't taken a dump in a decade.  According to my calculations you should weigh 450 pounds.  Drink a gallon of mineral oil and eat a pound of Ex-Lax.  If this doesn't make you feel more kindly toward the list miscreants then a quick trip to the proctologist is indicated.  Make sure he doesn't keep any nitro, Viagra, or Madonna CDs around.

Questions to Bôté Ŕnchouré may be forwarded through Rick Booth at rwbooth@attbi.com or Arun Mahajan at arun@tollbridgetech.com.