SNEWS® Live: Climber Kitty Calhoun laments great ice routes lost to climate change
Professional climbing guide Kitty Calhoun talks with SNEWS® Live about her life ascending vertical ice and shares her thoughts on the loss of classic routes due to climate change.
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This edition of SNEWS® Live is brought to you by Patagonia
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SNEWS® Live: Kitty Calhoun is a pioneering woman in climbing. In a career that spans almost 30 years, she has achieved many first female climbing ascents, including the Himalayan summits of Dhaulagiri in 1987 and Makalu in 1990. Born Catherine Howell Calhoun, she has worked as both a guide and a sponsored athlete, and climbed all over the world. A talented ice climber, her most recent project was an ascent of the Diamond Couloir in the African nation of Kenya.
At the 2008 annual meeting of the American Alpine Club in Golden, Colo., SNEWS® Live met with Calhoun to talk about her career in climbing. She also shared her views on the future prospects of great rock and ice routes. The advancing impact of climate change, she said, threatens to wipe out columns of high vertical ice that may never be climbed again.
