http://outsideonline.com/adventure/201009/adventure/travel-ta-marolt-brothers-high-altitude-ski-sidwcmdev_151522.html

http://www.wildsnow.com/biography/lou_fourteeners.htm

Much of my take involves matching or doing better than the one who came before you before you claim a legit descent. On the other hand, ski mountaineering sometimes involves downclimbing or rope work, so if a first descent seems complete but involved some of that, then someone comes along and does it without the downclimb, especially years later or with unusually good snow conditions, I still think the first person there has the “first.” The best example of this is Bill Briggs on the Grand Teton. If someone managed to get down the roped section without ropes, Bill would still have the first descent in my opinion. But the person who did it without ropes would certainly have a right to claim something new and different and cool having been done.

We might have to eventually have a bunch of terms for this stuff, like rock climbing does.

In the end, it’s really too complicated to ever have cut and dry standards as easy to agree on as simple climbing. And even climbing has some issues, like oxygen, or how far up on the mountain you land in a helicopter, or how much you get pulled along or helped by a porter, or how much work your guide does…

Where I see a big problem is in false and hypocritical claims. Kit Deslauriers widely claims to have ‘skied off’ the Seven Summits. Clever marketing speak to avoid claiming that she ‘skied’ the 7S, because she missed out skiing so much of Everest. But of course in the minds of so many in the mainstream she becomes the first woman to ski the Seven Summits. Even though she didn’t. That is one thing.

But she claims the first female ski descent of Vinson. Heather Morning (Scotland) soloed the mountain in Jan 2004 and skiied all but a short section at the steepest icy section at the top of the old ‘headwall’. Heather freely admitted this all along and never made ANY public claims – either to the solo or the ski. Then Kit comes along in Nov 2005 and skis all the route, apparently, and loudly claims the title. But then goes to Everest and claims the title for only skiing off the top – less than Heather did on Vinson, but still she makes the claim. Blatant hypocrisy and double-standards.

Not only that, it robs any future skiers, who are better/luckier/more honest than Kit of receiving the recognition for actually doing the thing. You may say ‘so what, who cares?’ about the recognition/fame/claims thing, and that is fine, but clearly a lot of people DO care or they would not make these claims and these claims would be valued like they are.

Kit also widely claims to be the fist person to ‘ski the Seven Summits’ (Google it)- no mention of Karnicar. Nitpicking aside, in skiing terms, Everest is the only one of the 7S that really matters, the rest have been done heaps of times (or are dirt and only Davo has skiied Everest.

I have nothing personal against Kit. I have met her and she seems very competent and a nice person. But I do have something against misleading claims. For a professional athlete it is not good enough to blame ‘the marketing department’. We have to take responsibility for how we are portrayed in OUR media. I think Kit has made a mistake here.

I’m surprised to hear people think Kammerlander skiied from the summit of K2, and the subsequent evidence. I remember at the time it was reported that he skiied down from lower on the mountain, but certainly did not ski from the summit. Of course that too may be incorrect. It would have been huge news at the time – it was not.

D