20th Anniversary of 1990 Everest-Lhotse Expedition

Today marks the 20th Anniversary of the American Everest-Lhotse expedition led by Glenn Porzak. This was Glenn’s 3rd attempt at summiting having been shut down by weather in 1981 and 1989. Glenn and members from the team assembled at the American Mountaineering Museum last night to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this expedition. Team members include Glenn Porzak, Dana Coffield, Brent Manning, Wally Berg, Scott Fischer, Michael Browning, Peter Athens, Andrew Lapkass, Ron Crotzer, Dr. Charles Jones, Ang Jangbu Sherpa, Nima Tashi Sherpa and Dawa Nuru Sherpa. Berg and Fischer successfully summited Lhotse on May 13th being the first Americans to summit and securing the team as the first to climb two 8,000 peaks in the same expedition. Below is an interview with Glenn Porzak recounting his summit day on Everest.

We interrupt this blogspot for an important announcement…

Hi! My name’s Martha and I’m the new manager at the Base Camp Adventure Store here in the American Mountaineering Center in beautiful downtown Golden, Colorado. I’m really excited to work here and promote such a great collaboration of mountaineering organizations. We have some great holiday gift ideas here that you probably won’t find anywhere else: singing bowls; climbing- and nature-inspired jewelry like miniature ice axe pendants and snowflake earrings; and Colorado 14ers calendars, software, and t-shirts for starters. We also have fun stocking stuffers like prayer flags; Bonnie’s Balms salves; and pewter mountain summit benchmarks in paperweight and pendant sizes.

But there’s more! We have more climbing and mountaineering books than you can shake a gris-gris at, great quality CMC logo denim shirts and actionwear, and ornaments made from the shavings of oxygen bottles retrieved from Mt. Everest. Really.

For the kids? Cooperative board games like Search and Rescue, Explorers, and Berries, Bugs and Bullfrogs. Fuzzy stuffed animals like llamas, black bear, buffalo, and moose. Kid-sized CMC and AMC t-shirts. And ocarina flutes hand-crafted in Peru. How many of you can say you’ve heard Happy Birthday played on an ocarina?

For you art collectors, some of our proudest offerings are the photographs from the Jake Norton Collection. We’re fortunate to have Jake as our Museum Director and the images he’s brought back from his multiple summits of Everest and time spent in Nepal are spectacular. Alongside his work is that of Jessica Sarkisian whose photographs of the Colorado 14ers and the Himalayas are as inspiring as they are beautiful. When she’s not piloting an Airbus 320 out of Denver she’s logging miles on her camera from some of the 35 countries she’s visited and photographed.

Please visit me at the American Mountaineering Center at 710 10th Street in Golden. If you have any more questions, I’m here to answer them either at 303-996-2755 or at marthaperantoni@mountaineeringmuseum.org. We’re open today from 10 AM to 6 PM, Sunday from 11 AM – 4 PM, and Tuesday –Thursday from 10 AM – 5 PM for that last minute shopping. We'll be closed Christmas Day and most likely making some turns in the backcountry.

We now return to our regular blogspot programming. And Happy Holidays to all!

THIN AIR: An Exhibit on Altitude and Oxygen

The museum has been closed due to weather the past two days, but we are still preparing for our new exhibit coming in next week. THIN AIR: An Exhibit on Altitude and Oxygen starts next week, with the official opening reception to be scheduled soon!

MOUNTAINEERING takes grit. It takes tenacity. It takes energy. And, it also takes another fuel - OXYGEN. For centuries, mountaineers have been climbing higher. Beyond the physical endurance that it takes to reach these heights, there is the constant battle against ALTITUDE.
Whenever you go higher, you lose more and more of that crucial fuel: OXYGEN. The relationship between altitude, oxygen, energy, endurance and the climber can mean the difference between success and failure...or life and death!
What is THIN AIR? What happens to our bodies as we go up in elevation? What are scientists learning about the effects of altitude on our bodies and minds, and on those who call the high peaks their home?
When did mountaineers first use OXYGEN to climb mountains? How have they progressed? Is the use of oxygen considered a climbing aid, a performance-enhancing drug?
The answers are at the American Mountaineering Museum in THIN AIR: An exhibit on Altitude and Oxygen.

Moving Mountains

As you may know, we will prominently feature a very large model of Mt. Everest in the new museum. Fourteen feet square, the model was crafted using aerial images and maps created by a team under Bradford Washburn.

You may have seen the model in the past, as it was on display at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science some years ago. Since that time, it has been in the care of the American Alpine Club. Today, we handed the model over to Condit, a three-dimensional marketing specialist that will help us to restore the model in preparation for its installation in the museum.

The four sections of the model were in storage and needed to be brought to Condit's studios in Denver. Today, we literally moved mountains.