The three Boulder, Colorado climbers disappeared on an expedition to the Gongga Shan massif in China's Western Sichuan Province. Earlier this week, a Chinese search-and-rescue team found the bodies of Copp and Johnson, as well as some of Dash's gear, among avalanche debris. They have not yet discovered Dash's body.

The trio left base camp (ca. 3000m) on May 20 to climb a new route on the southeast face of Mt. Edgar (6618m), a peak lying northeast of Mount Gongga, aka Minya Konka (7587m). After leaving base camp, they made no further radio contact.

On June 3, the climbers missed their flight out of Chengdu, China. Copp had directed the Adventure Film Festival; his producer Mark Reiner coordinated search efforts from the Boulder office. The Sichuan Mountaineering Association quickly rallied four Chinese climbers to begin a search on June 4. Additionally, about twenty Chinese troops gave ground support. Three American teams (Eric Decaria and Nick Martino, Pete Takeda and Steven Su, Mick Follari and Nick Rosen) subsequently joined the rescue attempt.

The Chinese team located Copp's body first, below advanced base camp (ca. 4000m); his body was identified on June 7. They found Johnson's body the next day. "Necessary precautions have been taken" with their remains, adventurefilm.org reported.

It appears an avalanche struck the climbers while they were approaching their route. The cause of the slide is unknown.

At first light today, Decaria, Martino, Takeda and Su began another search from base camp. Follari and Rosen arrived in Chengdu yesterday and are en route to Moxi, where they will establish an ad hoc headquarters to support teams on the mountain as necessary.

Copp and Dash, alpinists of the highest level, had traveled the world establishing new routes, often as partners. They'd received the Mugs Stump Award to attempt the line on Mt. Edgar (Dash also applied a deferred Lyman Spitzer grant toward the expedition). Two years before, the duo had made the first ascent of Shaffat Fortress, in India's Zanskar range, via the Colorado Route (VI 5.11 M6 A1, 21 pitches, 1100m), displaying the combination of technical difficulty, alpine style and remote location that became their trademark.

From new routes on home crags like the Black Canyon and a winter speed record on the Diamond to linkups and first ascents in Patagonia (Southern Cross [V 5.11 A1, 950m] on Aguja Poincenot with Dylan Taylor in 2002), Pakistan (Freebird [VI 5.11d A1, 1060m] with Mike Pennings on Cat's Ears Spire in 2000) and Alaska (Going Monk [V AI6 M6, 4,300'] with Kelly Cordes on Peak 13,790' in 2003), to name just a few--Copp represented alpinism at its most impeccable and most futuristic, bringing the traditional philosophy of a rope, rack and a pack to some of the world's most challenging peaks and walls. Copp wrote about some of these hard, fast and light adventures for Alpinist in Issues 0 and 11. In addition to his regular photo contributions, he served as an invaluable resource and inspiration.

Dash made a similar strong impact on climbing, with his alpine-style blitzes at home in the Rockies and abroad in Pakistan (Super Cat [VI 5.11 R A1, 1060m, 27 pitches], a variation to the Copp-Pennings line on Cat's Ear Spire for its second ascent) and Greenland (the first free ascent of Nalumasortoq's right pillar via Non Ca Due Senza Tre [VI 5.11+ R, 800m, 21 pitches]).

Though Johnson did not plan to summit Mt. Edgar with Copp and Dash, he was also an avid climber, as well as an associate producer for Sender Films. He had accompanied his good friends Copp and Dash to film a number of their recent adventures.

On Supertopo.com, in a thread entitled "To Those that have Fallen in the Field," user philo wrote, "I would argue that [climbers die] defending our freedom. At the very least the freedom of individuals to choose. Certainly they were not sent forth into battle by orders of a command structure. They choose of their own free will to enter the fray. Certainly they were not sent to destroy an enemy. They went to expand the human potential. There is a poignant grace and greatness to that."

A memorial page for Copp, Dash and Johnson has been set up at Facebook.com. Media contact Robb Shurr said earlier posts about a June 21 memorial service have been revised; services will be held later.

The rescue effort is still moving forward. A fund to assist in search and rescue and an informational blog have been established at adventurefilm.org. "We have such a great community," Shurr said, "and though the families have been contributing, we want to do the rescue effort as independently as possible." Fund money collected that exceeds rescue fees will support memorial services.

Alpinist.com will post updates as more news becomes available.

Sources: climbing.com, adventurefilm.org, dailycamera.com, supertopo.com, Robb Shurr, Mark Reiner, Kristo Torgersen

Founded by Christian Beckwith and Marc Ewing and operated in Jackson, Wyoming, until the autumn of last year, the quarterly Alpinist features a timeless, clean design with minimal ads. Publishing only the highest quality and most authentic climbing art and writing, Alpinist portrays the essence of the climbing life, inspired by an ethos of beauty, purity and style, and a dedication to help preserve the natural world that makes all adventures possible.

"My aim is to continue to explore the heart and soul of the climbing experience," says Kennedy, "building on the incredible foundation Alpinist has developed over the last six years." Widely known in the climbing community for his work at Climbing Magazine from 1974 to 1998, Kennedy served as an advisor to Alpinist since its inception in 2002. In over 35 years of climbing he has ventured far and wide, from pioneering Colorado ice climbs to lightweight alpine climbs in Alaska and the Himalaya, and he remains an active rock climber and backcountry skier today.

Independent publisher Height of Land Publications was founded in Jeffersonville, Vermont in 2002 and currently owns and operates Alpinist, Backcountry and Telemark Skier Magazines. "Our mission is pretty simple," says co-founder and Height of Land Publications Editorial Director Adam Howard, "to publish about that which we live. Michael is climbing, and he understands little companies like ours. It's a perfect fit."

Subscribe to Alpinist online or call 888-424-5857.

We topped out the wall after seventeen pitches in the middle of the fourth day, and from this point onward, the route changed to remarkable alpine ridge climbing while the weather deteriorated to white out fog and snow flurries. The rest of day four and all of day five were spent navigating the crest, weaving between dozens of gendarmes. This rock ridge, which we dubbed "The Rake"(after a similar peak in our local Cascade Mountains), ended at camp 5 (16,800') just before the notch below the upper mountain.

Throughout day six the weather worsened to sleet with near zero visibility as we ascended through the notch and up a 500-foot verglassed rock step. The notch itself proved to be the crux of The Rake, with several outrageously slender gendarmes and much snow-covered rock. We chopped camp 6 (17,400') into the hanging glacier above the rock step.

Day seven included the mixed climbing crux of the route, two pitches of snowy rock (M5) to gain the crest above the seracs on the north side of the ridge. The weather continued to provide snow flurries and no visibility. We enjoyed absolutely classic alpine ridge climbing for the second half of the day. Hundreds of meters of happy cowboys (riding the crest like a bull) on both snow and rock, hooking tools on the crest, and navigating rocks and cornices. Camp 7, on a glacial shelf at 18,300 feet, offered the first flat ground we'd set foot on since base camp.

On the morning of day eight (despite being three days behind schedule) we cached our camp and set off for the summit amid yet another whiteout. We were quite thankful the ridge was so well defined, as we could climb in poor weather and stay on route. Snow and ice runnels bisecting the upper rock steps led to a happy cowboy finale followed by a mixed traverse on the south face. By mid afternoon we reached the summit seracs. A short vertical ice pitch provided access to the upper snow slopes, and we traversed north under the false summit, reaching the rimed summit at 4:35 p.m. Promptly encouraged by the darkening wall of hate boiling and flashing to the west, we began our descent. Just before dark we reached the happy cowboy as the lightning storm worsened and drew close, striking the ridge several times directly above our heads. We took refuge on the mixed traverse south of the crest and waited for the lightening to subside. One hour later we dashed across the happy cowboy and continued rappelling towards our high camp cache. By 11:00 p.m., at 19,000 feet in stormy weather, we could not find the gully leading down to the high camp cache. We spent the night climbing and down climbing the sixty-degree snow in an attempt to stay warm. At dawn, both encrusted in rime ourselves, the clouds parted and we saw the route down to high camp.

Delighted to find our cache and finally get some improving weather, we gathered our things and started to rappel the south face from a point directly below our high camp. Nine days into our seven-day supply, reversing the ridge to the cache to descend the gully south of the notch was out of the question. The climbing separating us from the cache was much more difficult and time consuming than we had expected. After approximately thirty rappels with our skinny alpine rack we touched down on the glacier at 15,600 feet with no pins, four stoppers, three cams, no runners and about 15 feet of tat left on the rack.

Anxious to avoid another night in our soggy down bags, we opted to descend to base camp that night. At 10:30 p.m., in the pouring rain, we found ourselves hopelessly lost in the brush at 14,200 feet. Lacking flat ground, we built a crude stone ledge in the talus, pitched the tent and settled in for a final, miserable night (forty-two hours had passed since our last bivi and fifty-two since our last meal).

The tenth day we hiked down to the Changping Valley, getting cliffed out in several locations and having to cross a gorge at 13,600 feet. The yak trail, as we saw from below, is on the north side of the valley, along the base of the walls. We reached base camp that afternoon at 2:30 p.m.

I lost over 30 pounds during the climb, Chad over 20. The route followed one rest day after a six-day acclimatization climb, a second ascent of a nearby peak by a 3000-foot rock climb (5.8, 12 pitches) topping out at 19,000 feet. Spanning a six-day weather window, sixteen of seventeen consecutive days were spent climbing.

On October 12, Yuji Hirayama and Hans Florine broke a new speed record on the Nose (VI 5.9 A2, 2,900') on El Capitan, climbing the route in 2:37:05. Breaking the previous speed record set by the pair on July 2 (read July 8 NewsWire), Hirayama took lead and Florine belayed as the two simulclimbed the thirty-one pitch route.

On speedclimb.com, the pair reported that a previous October 8 ascent had at one point been on schedule to break their July 2 record, but "a few tiny rope snags and roughness on the top half cost us some 11 minutes." Their report added "all the marbles are in Sunday's basket."

Coming just three months after they regained their title as record-holders, this recent ascent will further safeguard Florine and Hirayama's speed-climbing claim on the route; on October 4 of last year, Alexander and Thomas Huber snagged the record which Hirayama and Florine had held since 2002 (see October 9, 2007 NewsWire).

Please visit www.sfgate.com and www.speedclimb.com for more on this story.

Dividing their ascent into two halves, with Stroppiana leading the approach to the rock face and Bonino leading though the technical portions on the higher rock spur, the climbers began by crossing a crevasse that gives access to the face. Ascending two pitches of snow led the climbers to the base of a rock wall, with their anticipated line to the left, along a narrow, two-meter-wide gully. Ascending six pitches to the top of the couloir, the climbers reached the base of the rock spur where Bonino had previously spotted the two ice lines running down the feature.

Bonino then took lead, climbing a first pitch through mixed conditions and in some places encountering sections of ice no more than fifteen inches wide. The next pitch, "maybe the crux of the climb" said Bonino, required the climber to lead through sections of poorer ice without his ice tools, whereby they reached the bottom of the third pitch and chose to ascend a narrow ledge that would position them on the other side of the spur.

While climbing through the next pitch, a twenty-meter rock wall, Stroppiana was injured when a large stone fell on to his leg. The climbers persisted, Stroppiana following with difficulty throughout the remainder of the ascent, in an effort to complete the route in the diminishing sunlight. Reaching the shoulder of Mont Maudit, the climbers descended through the night, completing their return at 3 am. Though it "is not exceptional as a fact itself" Bonino said of the climb, "[it is] exceptionally rewarding to have found a small corner in 2008 in the Mont Blanc range to open a 700m totally independent climb".

On September 29, Italian climbers Enrico Bonino and Paolo Stroppiana opened Reve Cache (5+ MR 4c) on Pointe d'Androsace in the Mont Blanc Massif. Met by an initial section of winding stone walls, the climbers navigated through seventeen pitches of mixed climbing, then descending off the shoulder of Mont Maudit. The climbers had spotted the line on a previous climb, later verifying that no route existed there. As previously reported on Alpinist.com, Bonino and Stroppiana opened a new route on Punta (3095m) in Mont Blanc Massif with fellow Italians as reported in the August 24 NewsWire.

Please visit Mountain Guide the Alps for more on this story.

On October 5, Aymeric Clouet and Christophe Dumarest completed a link of eight summits in the Ecrins Massif, France. Beginning on September 25, the climbers summited La Meije, La Roche Meane, La Roche d'Alvau, Le Dome des Ecrins, Ailefroide, Les Bans, Le Pic Bonvoisin, and Le Sirac over the course of eleven days. The climbers told Agence France-Presse that they encountered particularly bad fog and snow conditions on Ailefroide. Kairn.com reports that the two climber's initial attempt in April was abandon on account of avalanche danger. Read about Dumarest and Clouet's variation of Afanasieff Ridge on Fitz Roy in Patagonia in the January 30 NewsWire.

Please visit www.kairn.com for more on this story.

Amurita, situated left of the waterfall and comprised of ten pitches, was completed over a period of seven days with the climbers making two camps on the wall. Encountering sections of loose rock and overhanging vegetation, the pair worked through mostly E5 and E6 sections of wall with the exception of two E4 (5.11d) pitches and a relatively dangerous 50m section, which John Arran rated at E7 6b. The two climbers placed only three bolts, as reinforcements on belays.

John Arran said of the climb, "It was a serious and committing venture for just the two of us, but the climbing was superb and the feeling when we finally made it was brilliant." John's trip report noted that the two climbers "decided there wasn't time to try a line directly behind the falls, which certainly has potential for the hardest and most 
overhanging big wall free climbs on earth."

Sources: John Arran, www.climbing.com

Intotherocks.com reports that Slovenian alpinist Miha Valic died on Sunday, October 5, having fallen after summiting Cho Oyu (8201m) in the Tibetan Himalaya. Among his many other mountaineering accomplishments was the record-breaking 82x4000 in the Alps in 102 days, reported in the April 16, 2007 NewsWire. Valic's death on Cho Oyu comes fewer than two months after fellow Slovenian Pavle Kozjek disappeared on Muztagh Tower (7284m) in the Karakoram (read the August 28, 2008 NewsWire for more information).

Please visit www.intotherocks.com for more on this story.

Anne and John Arran have recently completed a first ascent of Amurita (E7 6b) on Amuri Wall in Venezuela. After a multi-day approach through the Venezuelan jungle, the pair spent seven days climbing the route's ten pitches in capsule style, bivying in two locations. The pair climbed all but one of the mostly 5.12-rated pitches onsight, placing only three bolts total to reinforce belays.

A year ago, Alpinist.com reported on the Arrans's route Welcome to Crackistan (5.12d A3, 500m) on Zang Brakk (4800m) in the September 19, 2007 NewsWire. And read Ivan Calderon's take on the Venezuelan tepuis in "Gods of the Elements," featured in Alpinist 22.

Please visit www.climbing.com and www.planetmountain.com for more on this story.