April 1999 SCREE

General Meeting

Date: March 11, 2007

Time: 7:30 pm

Where: Caliper Life Sciences

605 Fairchild Drive

Mountain View, CA

Program: Gangsthang and the Thirot Shivling

Presenter: Arun Mahajan

In fall-2007, an expedition from the UK spent close to three weeks, climbing and exploring in a small section of the Indian Himalaya that is in the Lahul-Spiti district of the state of Himachal Pradesh. In the process, the splendid pyramidal peak of Gangsthang (6162m/20,200+ ft) was climbed and 6 members stood on the tiny summit, having made a new route up the West Face, finishing up the normal SW Ridge. Prior to this, for acclimatization, the subsidiary rock peak of Thirot Shivling (5324m/17,500ft) was also reached. The team also enjoyed a superb journey into the area, taking the night sleeper from Delhi, the amazing narrow gauge railway to Shimla hill station, beautiful roads through the verdant valleys of Kullu and Manali, and a breath-taking drive over the 13,000 foot Rohtang Pass into the spectacular Chandra-Bhaga valley.

Directions: Park for the Caliper cafeteria on the south side.

From 101: Exit south on Ellis Street. Take the very first left (100 ft) on Fairchild Drive. From 85 northbound: Exit and turn right onto Moffett Blvd. to get to Hwy 101 southbound.

For a Google map click http://tinyurl.com/2k8ugr

Editor’s Notes

Advance Trip Planning Calendar

This month we are returning to a requested format for advance trip planning. We present a list of trips with no details so that you can see well ahead of time what people are thinking of doing this year. Permits have yet to be acquired so plans are not yet final. This is a preview. Leaders should not be contacted until 2 months before the trip when trips are listed in the Trip Details section of Scree.

Leaders

Trips are our “most important product”. Clearly the more trip leaders we have the more trips we can offer. We encourage anyone wishing to lead trips to pursue becoming a leader. We need leaders for a variety of different trips, especially less ambitious, single peak, 2-day weekend trips. Let us know if you wish to become a leader so that we can set you up to co-lead one of our outings.

The club requirements for leaders are specified on page 10 of the leader handbook at http://tinyurl.com/3apgpo. To see what you need to know to be a Sierra Club leader, start with the Basic Training page at http://tinyurl.com/3a6btc. You will find links to the 14-page curriculum which contains everything you need to know to lead day trips. It has links to many supporting pages. There is also a link to the web-based training which includes tests that you can take to satisfy club requirements for insurance coverage. The PCS plans to offer a course OLT 201 (Outings Leader Training 201) for overnight trip leaders.

To log in for access to these pages, use “clubhouse, explore” for the username, password entries. There is so much information on the Sierra Club “Extranet” pages that it can be confusing. For help sorting it all out send questions to Scree Editor at screeditor@gmail.com.

From the Chair

Lisa Barboza

We Love those Peaks!

We started to host Steering Committee meetings on a monthly basis, and our next one will be announced on our webpage soon. Everyone is invited, and depending on the group size, we even have dinner. Kelly Maas, last year’s chair, has graciously agreed to serve as our Training Chair, and we’re still looking for a publicity chair, which will complete our steering committee roster.

Kelly, Rod McCalley as vice chair, Louise Wholey as Scree Editor, Joe Baker as webmaster, Alex Sapozhnikov as treasurer, and Charles Shafer as mountaineering committee chair are a strong team and I really appreciate all of their, and your, support.

We’ve set goals for the PCS in 2008: 50/50/10 - 50 trips, 50 new members, and 10 new leaders. While these goals will be difficult to achieve, we have to remind ourselves that peaks are difficult as well and we have to aim high. This is a transition year and we need to grow the club in many ways.

PCS Meetings – I’m pleased to say that we had 38 attendees at our January meeting where Mike and Andrea McFadden regaled us with their Scottish climbing tales and over 50 at our Everest North Ridge slide show with the engaging and funny Bill Tyler. I encourage all of you to meet and greet new members and let’s get them on some of our climbing trips.

On 2/19/08, we had a very successful Trip Planning meeting, coordinated by Rod McCalley – We have over 30 trips planned for 2008, and I’m sure there will be more. If you’re a PCS Leader not leading a trip in 2008, I encourage you to lead a trip, and we actually could use more trips that are a weekend in length, and are CL1 or CL2.

Leader Training; All leaders are required to take OLT 101, a Sierra Club class, by July 2008. New leaders must take OLT 201, but existing leaders are exempted. To make this class easy and fun, we’re going to host a weeknight OLT 101 class in March and also a series of weeknight OLT201 classes in May – keep your eye on the website and Scree for upcoming details.

Finally, I have a poll question for our membership: It’s been suggested that we need to change our meeting format to have more talk, and less formality. Someone even suggested that we have a kegger 4 times a year. So we need your input. Send thoughts to pcs.chair@lomaprieta.sierraclub.org or catch me at the next meeting.

I really appreciate all of your help and good ideas – see you at our next meeting.

Lisa

Events

Banff Film Festival

The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour Comes to the Bay Area!
March 14&15, 2008 7:00 PM

Los Altos High School Eagle Theatre

201 Almond Ave.

Los Altos, CA

Tickets $15, REI Mountain View Customer Service $18 nonmembers, will-call, or at the door

REI is pleased to host these special evenings of award-winning adventure films and videos from the 2007 festival in Banff, Alberta. Tickets go on sale February 1-for the Berkeley shows at REI Berkeley*, Concord and Fremont; for the Los Altos shows at REI Mountain View*, San Carlos and Saratoga; for the Rohnert Park* show at REI Santa Rosa; for the San Francisco shows at REI San Francisco*; and for the San Rafael show at REI Corte Madera*. Will-call tickets will be available any time through the host store (with asterisk) or venue box office-for designated venue only. Doors will open half an hour before show time for open seating. Net proceeds will benefit the following nonprofit organizations: Berkeley shows-UC Berkeley's Cal Adventures Youth Scholarship Program; Los Altos shows-Snowlands Network; Rohnert Park show-Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition; San Francisco shows-California Academy of Sciences' Junior Academy; San Rafael show-Marin Conservation Corps.

Additional Dates/Venues:

7 pm, Saturday & Sunday, March 8 & 9, Cowell Theatre, Fort Mason, San Francisco

7 pm, Monday, March 10, Spreckels Performing Arts Center, Rohnert Park

7 pm, Tuesday, March 11, Smith Rafael Film Center, San Rafael

8 pm, Wednesday & Thursday, March 12 & 13, Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley, Berkeley

NOLS Wilderness First Aid

Sat / Sun April 26/27 NOLS offers a Wilderness First Aid Course at Auburn Ski Club on Donner Summit. Contact Carl at (530) 426-3313 or carlxc@gmail.com.

More on NOLS WFI courses can be found at

http://www.nols.edu/wmi/courses/wildfirstaid.shtml
Trip Planning Meeting

We have results!

2008 Advance Trip List

This is a tentative list of trips planned for Spring and Summer. Please do not contact the leaders until the trips are officially announced in the "Scree" or on the broadcast list. If you would like your trip to be listed in Scree send official trip notices to Rod McCalley, vice chair scheduler, and private trips to the Scree editor. Contact info is on the last page of every Scree.

DATES	PEAKS	LEADERS
MAY
Fri 2- Sun 11	High Sierra Route with peak bagging (private)	Louise Wholey
Sat 3- Sun 4	Sirretta, Taylor car-camp	Lisa Baboza
Sat 3-Sun 4	Mt. Hood (private)	Tim Hult
Fri 9-Sun 11	Olancha	Lisa Barboza
Fri 16-Sun 18	Cloudripper (backcountry skiing)	Louise Wholey
Sat 17-Sun 18	Mt. Shasta (private)	George Van Gorden
Fri 23- Mon 26	Mineral King (backcountry skiing and peak climbing)	Louise Wholey
Fri 23- Tues 27	Thompson, Powell, Wallace, Haeckel (private)	Lisa Barboza
Sat 31-Sun 1	Moses, Maggie (south of Mineral King)	Joe Baker
Fri 30-Sun 1	Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne (ascent)	Kelly Maas
Fri 30-Sun 1+	Striped, Cardinal, Goodale via Taboose Pass	Louise Wholey
JUNE
Sat 7- Sun 8	Dunderberg, Excelsior	Lisa Barboza
Fri 13- Sun 15	Eisen, Lippincott (Mineral King)