Mountains

More than a Century of Mountain Research

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 07:00:00 +0000

More than a Century of Mountain Research Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/06/2023 - 00:00

Christie Sounart

A Few Courses:

A Few Courses:

Art and Environment
Forest and Fire Ecology
Field Ornithology
Field Methods in Vegetation Ecology

Research Examples:

Microplastics in Mountain Ecosystems of the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Front Range
Temporal dynamics of plant-pollinator networks
Scaling the consequences of extended summers to arthropod communities at Niwot Ridge
Causes for the hybridization of black-capped and mountain chickadees in areas disturbed by humans
Spectroscopic measurements of chemical composition of organic aerosol particles collected at urban and rural locations

Just over eight miles north of Nederland, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ, and nestled off the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway lies a serene area dotted with tiny cabins, peaceful walking trails and ample forest land. And while the setting is very different from the bustle of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder’s main campus, the amount of groundbreaking work happening there is the same.

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder’s Mountain Research Station, located 25 miles from campus, is an interdisciplinary facility associated with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, which serves students and scientists interested in mountain-based study. The scope of projects is wide — ranging from arthropods to microplastics to weather — and as many as 80 people can be studying at the station at once.

“The Mountain Research Station is a place where,for over 100 years, scientists, students and the public have come together to advance our understanding and appreciation for mountains, which are inspiring, formidable and increasingly at risk,” said Scott Taylor, director of the station.

Key Dates:

1920

Mountain Research Station established in its current location

1945

Five professors taught 80 students.

1953

Former director John Marr founded the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), now the oldest institute at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder.

1980

National Science Foundation starts its Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, which funded the Niwot Ridge LTER.

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ owns 190 acres with an adjacent 1,775 acres of U.S. Forest Service designated research land

Located at 9,500 feet

Other Facts:

short interpretive trails open to the public

25–45

students conducting research, depending on the summer

110

largest amount fed in the dining hall at once

seasonal cabins

students in courses over a year

labs on the property

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Photos courtesy Mountain Research Station and William Bowman (mountains)

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder’s Mountain Research Station, located 25 miles from campus, serves students and scientists interested in mountain-based study.

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75 Years of Rocky Mountain Rescues

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 07:00:00 +0000

75 Years of Rocky Mountain Rescues Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/07/2022 - 00:00

For 75 years, the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group (RMRG) — a solely volunteer organization — has served as the main response agency for mountain search and rescue in Boulder County. Beginning in 1947 with its first headquarters in the basement of the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder engineering center, RMRG has held close ties with the university for decades. There is an RMRG student volunteer group at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ that is one of the university’s longest-running student organizations. Many alumni are also volunteers.

“Being a part of RMRG means being a part of a long history of excellence in mountain search and rescue,” said Steve Dundorf (CivEngr’97; MS’01), an RMRG volunteer for almost 30 years. “It is about helping those in need and saving the lives of people in our outdoor community. And it is about working in the outdoor environment that we all love.”

Technical mountain search and rescue can include:

Scree evacuations
Snowmobiles
Helicopters
ATVs
Avalanches

RMRG’s main priorities:

Technical mountain search and rescue
Outdoor safety education
Disaster response

Dog rescues happen at least once a year

First meeting: Feb. 3, 1947 (celebrating 75 years this year)

Works with more than 40 other emergency response agencies around Boulder County

Everyone is a volunteer and there is no charge for rescues

RMRG funding sources: 18% grants, 30% donations, 52% government contributions

RMRG covers 450 square miles of Boulder County, where there are 10M+ visits to open spaces a year

200 search and rescue calls per year on average

15,000+ volunteer hours a year

8,100 search and rescue calls since its formation in 1947

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Photos courtesy RMRG

For 75 years, the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group (RMRG) — a solely volunteer organization — has served as the main response agency for mountain search and rescue in Boulder County.

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ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ's Campus from Afar

Anonymous — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 13:42:35 +0000

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ's Campus from Afar Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/29/2021 - 07:42

The ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder campus nestled at the base of the Rocky Mountain foothills and front range. (Photo by Glenn Asakawa/University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ)

From miles away at an overlook in Longmont, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder’s signature red clay tile roofs — which cover at least half of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ’s 3 million square feet of rooftop — are prominent against the mountainous landscape. Behind campus, the sun shines on the front range of the Rocky Mountains. With views like this, it's no wonder National Geographic named Boulder the happiest city in the U.S. in 2017.

This landscape photo captures the view of campus from miles away at an overlook in Longmont.

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Climbing the Seven Summits

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 17:18:00 +0000

Climbing the Seven Summits Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/30/2018 - 10:18

Christie Sounart

Over seven years, Kimberly Hess and brother Steven climbed the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents. Next up for Kim: A trek to Earth’s poles.

At 17,000 feet, enveloped by clouds, Kimberly Hess (IntPhys’07) nursed a broken wrist in the snow. She sat on the most challenging slope of Alaska’s 20,310-foot Denali mountain, which she’d summited the day before. Her gloved left hand was facing the wrong way and she couldn’t feel her fingers.

It had happened in an instant: On the descent, the snow broke away beneath her feet and she fell. Her climbing rope pulled tight around her wrist, snapping it in three places.

As if the wrist wasn’t torment enough, Hess had been climbing on a broken foot: She’d injured it about a week earlier, dancing at a wedding in Denver. But she’d refused to cancel the July 2013 Denali climb, the fourth adventure in her quest to complete the challenge known as the Seven Summits — climbing every continent’s tallest mountain.

“I could get my foot into a boot,” said Hess, now 34. “So I went.”

“Seven summits in seven years...[seems] as likely to go to the moon.”

Hess and her climbing partner, her eldest brother, Steven, spent two days in a tent on the mountainside before rescuers arrived by helicopter. The weather was bad. All Kim had for pain was ibuprofen.

It would take six surgeries and more than two years before she’d attempt another peak. During that time, putting her hair in a ponytail or opening toothpaste often required help. But she remained fixed on the mountains.

“The Seven Summits were all I ever thought about,” said Hess, a scrappy adventurer who gave nearly a decade to the endeavor, including planning. “They were there when I woke up in the morning and when I went to bed at night.”

Five years later, on March 11, 2018, she and Steven made their way to the top of the final mountain, reaching the crest of Australia’s Mount Kosciuszko. The first known brother-sister duo to climb all seven summits, the Hesses joined a group of more than 400 individuals worldwide to have done it. In all, they’d traveled 109,600 air miles, climbed 133,480 feet and spent 180 nights in a tent.

“I’ve been lost ever since,” Hess half-joked in an interview. “You work so hard to get there, then you attain it, and when it’s done, it’s like, ‘What’s next?’”

Chasing Adventure

Hess grew up in Denver with three older brothers and a thirst for escapades that often landed her in the doctor’s office: Among others, she broke an arm racing her bike, both feet from excessive running and her thumb tagging out a softball player.

At ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ, she was in the Delta Gamma sorority, loved anatomy labs with real cadavers and enjoyed trail running. After graduation, she and a friend bought one-way tickets to Sydney, Australia.

“I thought I’d figure out my life for four months,” she said. “I stayed two-and-a-half years.”

Between bartending gigs in Australia, Hess traveled to Southeast Asia, Africa and South America.

“Everest was the hardest.”

During her first Christmas home, in 2009, Steven, who’s seven years older, proposed the Seven Summits challenge as they sat in their parents’ hot tub in Taos, N.M. Aside from hiking a few ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ 14ers, neither had done any serious climbing, but they thrived on adventure.

“My life had become one-dimensional with work,” said Steven, then in mergers and acquisitions with a health care company. “Kimberly had finished school and traveled the world. I thought we could do something in between.”

The pair began planning immediately: Hess from her new home in Steamboat Springs, Steven from his in Atlanta. They chose the 22,831-foot Mount Aconcagua on the Argentinian-Chilean border for their first climb because of its high altitude, lack of technical difficulty and relative inexpensiveness. Hess worked at a ski shop and a bar to finance the trip.

“For me, it was a wake-up call of how hard it was going to be,” Steven said of that first climb. “But we were definitely hooked.”

Kim Hess at Mount Everest’s Camp 1, located at 19,500 feet.

Everest Challenges

After Aconcagua in 2011, Hess poured herself into training and raising money for the next three mountains: Europe’s Elbrus, Africa’s Kilimanjaro and Denali. She sometimes worked three jobs at a time, a mix of tending bar, pet and house sitting, promoting ski resorts, sealing asphalt and other gigs with flexible schedules.

As she ticked off the summits, one mountain continually loomed largest in her mind — Earth’s tallest.

“I’d always been obsessed with Everest,” she said.

The Denali accident forced her to sit out a planned Everest climb in 2014. She tried again in 2015 and went to Nepal without Steven, who was traveling elsewhere with his then-fiance.

Once there, she and her group made it to Camp 2 at 21,000 feet before a 7.8 earthquake struck the country on April 25. Nearly 9,000 people died, including about 20 at Everest’s basecamp, just 3,000 feet below Hess’ location. Helicopters evacuated her group from the mountain.

“That was the closest thing to a war zone I hope I ever see,” she said of the devastation. “I don’t know how we survived, but I came home with the sense that I had a second chance at life.”

Steven sent his shaken sister an email from Peru, ending with a promise: “Rest assured, you can go back and I’ll go with you.”

Over the next year, Hess grappled with intense emotions related to the earthquake.

“I wanted to finish what I’d started,” she said.

She was back on the mountain in March 2016, this time with Steven. After 7.5 weeks of acclimating and climbing and a 10-day wait for good weather to attempt the summit, they reached the top of the world on May 21.

Elated, Hess returned to Steamboat to work toward a trip to the 16,050-foot Vinson Massif in Antarctica. She and Steve summited in December 2017, dragging sleds of gear.

The siblings finished the Seven Summits challenge three months later at 7,310 feet on Mount Kosciuszko — an “easy” climb, Hess said. Steven’s wife and the siblings’ parents flew to Australia to celebrate with them.

“Seven summits in seven years — [seems] as likely to go to the moon,” said Caryn Hess, their mother. “I have earned every face wrinkle and gray hair.”

In all, the challenge cost Hess $338,000, not including medical bills. She’s still paying it off.

To combat feelings of loss following her triumph, and encouraged by a friend she met in Steamboat, Hess has begun planning a new adventure — this time with a cause beyond the adventure itself.

The friend, Eirliani Abdul Rahman, a Singaporean woman who works and advocates for adult and children survivors of child sexual abuse, suggested the pair ski to Earth’s poles as a way to raise awareness about the abuse. Starting in April 2019, Hess will attempt the Explorer’s Grand Slam, which involves treks to the North and South Poles in addition to her already completed Seven Summits. Less than 15 women in the world have completed it. Hess would be the youngest American female.

For most of Hess’ life, adventure has been its own reward. Adventure with a social purpose is new terrain, and she likes it.

“I’m willing to suffer day after day in the harshest and coldest environments on the planet if it means someone else doesn’t have to,” Hess said.

Contact Christie at sounart@colorado.edu.

Photos courtesy Kimberly Hess, Illustration by Anurag Paul
Source for Elevations: Encyclopedia Britannica

Kimberly Hess and brother Steven climbed the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents. Next up for Kim: A trek to Earth’s poles.

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Adventure Dentist

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 18:35:00 +0000

Adventure Dentist Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/01/2017 - 11:35

Clint Talbott

John Warner has climbed and skied mountains in the United States and abroad, raced motorcycles and mountain bikes and, by the way, also served as a mayor, search-and-rescue volunteer, orchestra backer and dentist-of-mercy in Guatemala.

If life is what you make of it, Warner (Bio’73) knows the drill.

As a ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder student, Warner liked the natural sciences and initially planned to pursue medical school. But as an undergrad, he happened to work with a group of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ dentists who were pioneering a protocol to stimulate dental-bone growth using bone marrow that Warner harvested from cadavers. He went on to dental school instead, at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ’s School of Dental Medicine, and later opened a practice in Breckenridge.

When Warner and his wife, Carre, moved there, Breckenridge was a lot smaller and his practice didn’t keep him too busy. Civic engagement filled the gap. He led the Breckenridge Music Institute and volunteered for the Summit County Search and Rescue Group. He also founded the Summit Huts Association, a nonprofit that rents backcountry cabins, and served multiple terms on the town council and as mayor.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he provided free dental care in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward. Later, he volunteered similar services in Guatemala.

The Guatemalans Warner treated lived far from dental clinics. Many had never seen a dentist. His patients sat on bags of grain while he mostly pulled teeth and filled cavities. He did this without basic diagnostic tools, such as an X-ray machine.

Like many Coloradans, Warner, who spent much of his childhood in Denver, answers to yet another calling: The outdoors.

He and some buddies have skied hut to hut in Austria, France, Switzerland, Italy and Canada. They’ve trained at Mount Rainier and climbed Denali and Aconcagua — North and South America’s highest peaks, respectively.

Living at 9,600 feet gives Warner an edge at altitude, he said.

Recently, he completed the Double Triple Bypass, a cycling event in which he rode 220 miles and climbed 22,000 feet in two days.

He’s also a seven-time finisher of the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse, a midnight ski race from Crested Butte to Aspen. In 2015, he and teammate Jack Wolfe became the oldest team — combined age: 123 — to complete the race.

In his mid-60s, he skied the Cristo Couloir, which tumbles down the southern flanks of Quandary Peak, a fourteener. He also skied down Torreys Peak, descending a route no more than 50 yards wide in spots, with rocks lining both sides.

That might sound like a daredevil stunt; Warner insists he’s careful.

“I don’t want to make a mistake,” he said, adding that he doesn’t want his former search-and-rescue colleagues to have to collect his body.

When not pushing limits on skis, peaks or bikes, Warner channels his energy into community service. It’s “helped me professionally,” he said, “and helped me be a better person.”

Read a longer version of this story in ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Arts & Sciences Magazine online.

Photo courtesy John Warner

John Warner has climbed mountains, raced mountain bikes and served as a mayor, search-and-rescue volunteer, orchestra backer and dentist.

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Mountains

More than a Century of Mountain Research

Located at 9,500 feet

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