Mountain climbing

OGDEN -- Two men from Ogden are well on their way to the top of Mt. Everest.

OGDEN — In the face of high winds, falling rocks and an enormous avalanche, two Ogden men are on their way to the top of Mt. Everest.

Friends Will Calton and Tom Burton, both 50, both of Ogden, make up half of a team climbing the Earth’s highest mountain. Team leader Jeff Reynolds, of Santa Fe, N.M., and fellow climber Rob Cassady, from Colorado, make four.

In my world, life’s greatest lessons have been learned through a competitive nature and the belief that if failure exists, it came from people who didn’t realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

To me, it is all about focus. If you plan to win, your dedication to the game plan and your desire to be the best you can be must be channeled so that they are not affected by distractions.

CLEARFIELD -- Petzl America Inc. has recalled a popular belay device because it is not functioning properly.

Even though only one device was sent back broken, courtesy of a Navy SEAL, the Clearfield company that ships climbing products worldwide is replacing each product.

Climbing legend Jeff Lowe and associate Malcolm Daly will lead a multimedia presentation of Lowe's life and climbs on Tuesday at Peery's Egyptian Theater.

The event begins at 8 p.m. The event will benefit the completion of Low's documentary, "Metanoia."

KATMANDU, Nepal -- A team of mountaineers led by a veteran Sherpa guide from Utah flew Wednesday to Mount Everest on an expedition to clear away tons of trash left on the world's highest peak.

Since Everest was first conquered in 1953, thousands of people have climbed it, leaving behind the empty oxygen bottles, ropes, tents and other garbage that made their journey possible.

Nepal has since required climbers to bring down everything they take up the mountain or lose their deposit, but debris from past climbs still litters the slopes.

Climber Jeff Lowe has pioneered and conquered some of the world's toughest routes, earning him a worldwide reputation in the climbing community.

Now, a legendary accomplishment of his that has yet to be duplicated nearly 20 years later serves as the centerpiece of a new film featuring the Ogden resident and internationally renowned master of rock and ice.

"Jeff Lowe's Metanoia" uses the Eiger, a famously challenging mountain in Switzerland, as a backdrop for Lowe's life story. For nine harrowing days in the winter of 1991, he pieced together a nearly impossible route up the very center of the Eiger Nordwand, the daunting north face of the monolith -- without using the expansion bolts climbers normally use.

Nineteen years have passed, and Lowe's extraordinary first ascent has never been repeated.