The purpose of this study was to determine whether age, gender and experience level of climbers and mountaineers have a relationship to the type of accidents or the immediate cause of accidents occurring in Colorado. Through examination of the relationship between climbing and mountaineering accidents and the selected variables, insight into accident prevention, as well as information that may be useful in developing training and curriculum on rock climbing and mountaineering practices can be gained. Categorical data on five variables from 114 accident reports were collected to conduct this study. The accident reports came from the American Alpine Club's publication Accidents in North American Mountaineering 1997-2007. All accidents that occurred in Colorado from 1997 through 2007 were used for this study. The study found that males had more accidents than females. It also found that climbers in the "experienced" category had more accidents than climbers in the "little or none" category. The study found a relationship between experience and type of accident, with more experienced climbers having more accidents. There was also a relationship between experience and cause of accidents, with more experienced climbers having more accidents.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 328-346). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

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In 1808, a French maid-servant, Marie (or Maria) Paradis, became the first woman to ascend Mont Blanc, thereby establishing her place in women’s mountaineering history. Paradis’ success was followed by that of a wealthy French countess, Henriette D’Angeville, who successfully summited Mont Blanc in 1838. In her French narrative of the ascent, Mon Excursion Au Mont Blanc en 1838 (translated into English in 1992 by Jennifer Barnes as My Ascent of Mont Blanc), D’Angeville urged women mountaineers to write narratives of their mountaineering, arguing that it was important that they write the “feminine stamp” (xxiv) or feminine experience of mountaineering. Histories of women’s mountaineering, for example, Shirley Angell’s history of the women-only Pinnacle Club, Pinnacle Club: A History of Women Climbing, Bill Birkett and Bill Peascod’s 1989 book, Women Climbing: 200 Years of Achievement bring into the public domain a largely hidden history of women’s mountaineering but provide only tantalising glimpses of the feminine mountaineering experience. Drawing on life-writing scholarship, this thesis explores women’s mountaineering from the early nineteenth century to 1960, reading a range of published and non-published life-writings of women mountaineers including autobiographies, letters and diaries to explore the myriad and complex nuances in women’s mountaineering beyond descriptive history. The thesis also draws on wider women’s mountaineering literature in the form of articles published by women mountaineers in the Year Books published by the Ladies’ Alpine Club, the journal of the women-only Pinnacle Club and occasional articles published within other mountaineering publications such as the Alpine Journal. Taking Paradis’ achievement as the historical starting point, my thesis reads women’s mountaineering narratives through a critical lens which explores the feminine experience of mountaineering using discourses of gender and domesticity. I specifically examine how women mountaineers challenged the culturally constructed values informing their role and identity as women and how they variously narrate their experience to write the “feminine stamp” in mountaineering literature. Whilst the term “feminine stamp” might suggest a universality of experience both in women’s mountaineering and in their narratives – and could therefore claim to be representing a form of essentialism – my thesis will follow the work of Alison Stone in suggesting that whilst the women in this thesis have a common gender, their experience of and relationship to mountaineering is individual. As Stone writes, women need to be “reconceived as a specifically non-unified type of social group” (2) in order that their individuality may be represented. However, Stone also points out there are specific historical instances – women’s suffrage for example – which show that “women can still exist as a determinate group, susceptible to collective mobilisation” (25). For that reason, the focus of my thesis ranges from case studies of individual women mountaineers – for example, Paradis, D’Angeville, Gertrude Bell, Dorothy Pilley and others – to an evaluation of the role played by collective initiatives such as les cordées feminines (women-only ropes in mountaineering), mobilised as a result of membership of a community of women mountaineers. My thesis will examine the role of the Ladies’ Alpine Club and Pinnacle Club in enabling and progressing collective developments in women’s mountaineering and fills a gap in existing research studies of women’s mountaineering literature by reading and considering the previously un-researched diaries of Dorothy Pilley alongside collective achievements. These narratives are placed within wider life-writing discourse and specific cultural and historical contexts such as the fin de siècle in order to offer insights into how women transcended their gendered role in order to become mountaineers. The primary focus of this thesis, for reasons of space and focus is on the life-writings of UK and European women mountaineers. This thesis notes the inter-disciplinary and international nature of research into women’s mountaineering in the fields of leisure and sports studies, geography, feminist and women’s studies, sociology, history and literary studies and, where appropriate, draws on this wider literature for comparative purposes.

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Title of master thesis Effect of ski-mountaineering equipment on energy expenditure of skiing. Work objectives The aim of this study was to determine the effect of weight ski equipment energy performance when walking on snow. Methods The study included 6 skialpinists a mean age of 30 ± 5.5 years. Energy intensity was measured on the basis of breathe oxygen (VO2) and exhaled (VCO2). The measurements were used 3 types of ski-hiking equipment (light - medium x 3160 g - 7754 g x heavy - 9600 g). Each test first completed section in a time of 6 minutes flat terrain (0ř), after which he immediately set out to climb the 360 m long route at an angle (20ř). These two sections (0ř and 20ř) graduated in random order for each type of equipment and at a constant speed of 1 m·s-1 . Results The results show that energy intensity decreases significantly when using ultralight ski equipment. We found that the climb at an angle of 20ř is the difference in oxygen consumption (VO2) between moderate and light equipment 9.6% between heavy and light equipment 17.7% and medium-heavy and heavy equipment 7,4%. The average VO2 test with light equipment was 44.4 ± 3.7 ml·kg-1 ·min-1 , with moderate equipment 48.7 ± 5.6 ml·kg- 1 ·min-1 and heavy equipment 52.2 ± 4.8 ml·kg-1 ·min-1 . At 0ř inclination and moderate use of heavy...

Sojourns at high altitude are often accompanied by weight loss and changes in body composition. The aim was to study body composition before and after 40 days high-altitude exposure. The subjects were four women and six men, non-smoking, healthy and active students and a scientist from Mid Sweden University in Östersund with a mean (SD) age of 26 (10) years. All subjects volunteered for a six-week trek to the Mount Everest Base Camp via Rolwaling in Nepal. Before the sojourn subject’s height was 177 (10) cm and weight was 71.9 (10) kg. Body composition was measured with Lunar iDXA at the Swedish Winter Sports Research Centre in Östersund before and after the trek. Total body mass (SD) decreased from 71.8 (10.0) kg before to 69.7 (9.4) kg after the trek (P=0.00). Total fat mass decreased from 14.7 (5.9) kg to 13.8 (4.6) kg (P=0.01). Fat percent decreased from 21.6 (7.9) % to 21.0 (7.2) % (P=0.03). Total lean mass decreased from 54.0 (10.0) kg to 52.9 (9.7) kg (P=0.01). Bone mineral content was unchanged, 3.04 (0.5) kg before and 3.03 (0.5) after (P=0.13). Thus both total body mass and total lean mass had decreased after a six week trekking in Nepal.

Humans can only survive the low barometric pressure of altitudes above 6000m by making a complex series of adaptations. The energetics of human survival at such extreme altitudes have not been widely studied. Objectives were to compare the doubly labelled water (DLW) and intake-balance (IB) methods to estimate daily energy expenditure while climbing between 6000 and 8046m and to investigate the putative metabolic cost involved with the process of acclimatization to extreme altitude. Reliability of the DLW method to provide an accurate and portable means to measure human energy expenditure depends upon a series of assumptions regarding the flux of tracer and tracee across the physiological compartments of measurement. Additional objectives were to review and examine the proficiency of these assumptions to account for perturbations experienced while using DLW while climbing at extreme altitude. Findings suggest that the use of DLW at extreme altitudes requires special consideration towards elevated rates of fractional isotope loss, inter-subject isotope transfer, alterations in total body water, changes in background isotopic abundance, and choice of sampling technique. Revised strategies directed at achieving these aims are calculated. Results from extreme altitude indicate that IB and DLW techniques each provide similar estimates of group mean energy expenditure despite substantial changes in body weight and composition and that the metabolic cost for the process of acclimatization accounts for roughly 12% of total daily energy expenditure. Problems associated with maintaining energy balance while climbing at extreme altitude are related to low energy intakes, approximately only 70% of energy demands, and energy expenditure values that are comparable to those of highly trained endurance athletes at sea-level.