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Stephen Venables appears at Catlin Gabel School

Submitted by Nadine Fiedler on Thu, 11/12/2009 - 4:07pm
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Community event brings famous climber to poirtland

 

Stephen Venables, considered one of the world’s great mountaineers, spoke to a crowd of 160 students and adults from around the Portland area on November 17th at  Catlin Gabel School.  He is one of the very few Westerners to have reached the summit of Everest without supplementary oxygen. His night alone near the top, without tent or sleeping bag, has become one of the legends of modern mountaineering. In this stunning slideshow, Stephen recounted some of his many adventures around the world. Highlights include the North Face of the Eiger, Uganda’s Mountains of the Moon, explorations on Snow Lake, and several groundbreaking Himalayan climbs including the new Anglo-American route up Everest.

Venables is also an award-winning author, photographer, and public speaker. He wrote the screenplay for the IMAX movie The Alps and appeared with Conrad Anker and Reinhold Messner in Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure. His books about his mountain adventures have won the Boardman Tasker Prize, the King Albert Medal, and the Grand Award at Banff International Mountain Literature Festival. Venables’s special visit to Portland is the last night of a tour that has taken him to New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, New York, and the Western states. For more about him, visit www.stephenvenables.com.

Catlin Gabel’s outdoor education program focuses on educating the whole student. By providing opportunities for students to face and overcome challenges, learn group living skills, and understand the way the natural world works, the program supplements the academic rigors faced by the individual student. The program broadens the education of both Middle and Upper School students by fostering their self awareness, exposing them to new environments and challenges while providing important leadership opportunities.