Scaling New Heights Can Be Tall Order

When it seems that all the mountains have been climbed, turn to the September issue of Outside magazine.

Of 448 peaks above 22,966 feet, the magazine reports, 146 have never been scaled.

There are reasons.

Consider the dozens of unclimbed faces and peaks in the Transantarctic Mountains. Why haven’t they been scaled?

Passage to the base camp from Puntas Arenas, Chile, is $25,000 per person, Outside reports. From there to the Alps, “tack on another quarter-million for fuel alone.”

Greenland’s southeast coast?

Thick clouds of mosquitoes and black flies.

“It’s just amazing the ancient Norse were able to survive there--even the Inuit for that matter,” climber Mark Richey told the magazine. “Without a head net, you would go insane.”

And what of the multiple unclimbed routes in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan, where Mount Nowshak rises to 24,581 feet?

“The Taliban has not yet embraced ecotourism,” Outside states drolly.

“Besides intense fighting between rebel factions and the odd U.S. missile attack, the terrain hides millions of land mines.”

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Trivia time: What is the elevation of the Eastern Sierra’s Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states?

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Gender equality: Newsweek magazine spent time recently with a girls’ club soccer team, the Bethesda (Md.) Fury, to examine the phenomenon of elite girls’ competition.

“Stop it! You’re pulling my skin!” one player yelled at another.

“No, I’m not,” the player retorted. “I’m pulling your fat!”

One of them, Carolyn Ford, was issued a yellow card, but her mother approved.

“When they step on the field, any friendship stops,” said Lisa Taverna, Ford’s mother. “The beauty of it is, it teaches them professionalism.”

Intoned Newsweek: “Judging from the Fury’s experience, it is fair to say that girls have achieved true equality in the amateur-sports arena, though whether that amounts to progress is a more complicated question.”

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D is for double-bogey: A British university is preparing the nation’s first degree course in golf.

A handicap of four or better is required for admission at the University of Birmingham, which will hold many classes at the Belfry, site of next month’s Ryder Cup.

The program will be similar to the 11 accredited programs in the United States, among them Penn State, Florida State and New Mexico State.

Students will take courses in equipment technology, analysis of swing theory, golf event management and psychology of golf.

One question: Is the student with the lowest grade-point average the valedictorian?

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Smart move: The player who wore He Hate Me on the back of his XFL jersey with the Las Vegas Outlaws is an Edmonton Eskimo now. But running back Rod Smart’s Canadian Football League jersey simply has his last name on the back.

“He Hate Me was something I did,” Smart told the Edmonton Sun. “That’s me. I’m that type of person. I can be different if I want to or blend in if I want to.”

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Whistling on Sunday: The NFL has begun looking for referees to work as replacements for the 119 officials whose contracts expired in March, and has targeted the college game as one source of officials.

Among the problems with that idea, Bloomberg News reports: There are about 67 major rules differences, among them pass interference.

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He’s the ace: Steve Garvey had a hole in one Thursday in the pro-am for the Senior Tour’s Utah Showdown in Park City.

The former Dodger first baseman used a three-iron to ace the 158-yard 14th hole at Park Meadows Golf Club.

A three-iron from 158 yards?

“I overclubbed to make up for an arthritic hip,” Garvey said.

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Trivia answer: Mt. Whitney is commonly listed at 14,494 feet, though some sources vary by a few feet.

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And finally: British mountaineer Sir Christian Bonington, quoted in Outside magazine: “You have to be clever to find the unknown. But it’s out there.”