Robert P. Handler, Trustee/Assignee of Alpinist, LLC ("Trustee") will sell all of Trustee's right, title and interest in and to the following assets of Alpinist, LLC free and clear of all liens, claims and encumbrances: all trademarks, Alpinist.com web site, Alpinist subscriber list, Alpinist Film Festival, High Stone book in progress, all databases, works in progress, its website and film festival and all goodwill associated with Alpinist, LLC's intellectual property and other intangibles (collectively the "Assets").

The Trustee has received an offer in the amount of $30,000 and has executed an Asset Purchase Agreement (the "Agreement") with the initial bidder. The Trustee may consider higher or better bids for the assets provided such bids combined are at least $33,000. Any subsequent bids shall be $1,000 over the then-highest bid.

The Trustee requires that all competing bids be on terms and conditions substantially similar to the terms and conditions set forth in the Agreement. Each bidding party will be given opportunities to re-bid for the Assets until the Trustee in his sole discretion determines that the highest price for the assets has been obtained. Bids can be made anytime until December 22nd at 12:00 CST. Closing will take place shortly after the Auction is completed.

Please contact the Trustee for additional terms of sale, including qualifications of bids and bidders, deposit requirements and payment terms.

All inquiries should be directed to info@alpinist.com.

THE ASSETS ARE BEING SOLD ''AS IS, WHERE IS'' AND WITH NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, REPRESENTATIONS, STATEMENTS OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Robert P. Handler, Trustee/Assignee

f/b/o Creditors of Alpinist, LLC

Commercial Recovery Associates, LLC

205 W. Wacker Drive, Suite 1818

Chicago, IL 60606

The Assets of Alpinist, The Most Distinguished Climbing Magazine With The Most Fanatical Readers, Are For Sale!

If you are interested in acquiring any or all of the assets of this super-premium brand, please send your contact information to info@alpinist.com.

- Multiple Maggie award winner

- 14,000-paid circulation with over 8,500 subscribers

- 300,000 page views per month on website

- Distinguished advertising list

- Active wealthy male readers with average income over $91,000

Alpinist is being sold free and clear of liens and creditor claims.

On October 22, 2008, Alpinist LLC made an assignment of all of its assets for the benefit of creditors under Illinois law to the Trustee/Assignee Robert Handler of Commercial Recovery Associates. An Assignment for the Benefit of the Creditors is analogous to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The Trustee/Assignee is obligated to sell Alpinist's assets in order to raise the highest amount possible for Alpinist's creditors. Commercial Recovery will entertain all reasonable offers including bulk and lot sales of assets, which assets include the company's magazine, subscriber lists, website, film festival and trademarks.

From September 21 through 30, Chad Kellogg and I completed the first ascent of the southwest ridge of Siguniang (6250m), Changping Valley, China. The route began with 2,500 feet of steep rainforest, weaving through cliff bands to the base of a granite wall at 14,200 feet. Making three bivis on the 2000-foot wall, we climbed a direct line through vertical crack systems with free climbing up to 5.11 and much A2 complicated by grass and moss in the cracks.

We topped out the wall after seventeen pitches in the middle of the fourth day, and from this point onward, the route changed to remarkable alpine ridge climbing while the weather deteriorated to white out fog and snow flurries. The rest of day four and all of day five were spent navigating the crest, weaving between dozens of gendarmes. This rock ridge, which we dubbed "The Rake"(after a similar peak in our local Cascade Mountains), ended at camp 5 (16,800') just before the notch below the upper mountain.

Throughout day six the weather worsened to sleet with near zero visibility as we ascended through the notch and up a 500-foot verglassed rock step. The notch itself proved to be the crux of The Rake, with several outrageously slender gendarmes and much snow-covered rock. We chopped camp 6 (17,400') into the hanging glacier above the rock step.

Day seven included the mixed climbing crux of the route, two pitches of snowy rock (M5) to gain the crest above the seracs on the north side of the ridge. The weather continued to provide snow flurries and no visibility. We enjoyed absolutely classic alpine ridge climbing for the second half of the day. Hundreds of meters of happy cowboys (riding the crest like a bull) on both snow and rock, hooking tools on the crest, and navigating rocks and cornices. Camp 7, on a glacial shelf at 18,300 feet, offered the first flat ground we'd set foot on since base camp.

On the morning of day eight (despite being three days behind schedule) we cached our camp and set off for the summit amid yet another whiteout. We were quite thankful the ridge was so well defined, as we could climb in poor weather and stay on route. Snow and ice runnels bisecting the upper rock steps led to a happy cowboy finale followed by a mixed traverse on the south face. By mid afternoon we reached the summit seracs. A short vertical ice pitch provided access to the upper snow slopes, and we traversed north under the false summit, reaching the rimed summit at 4:35 p.m. Promptly encouraged by the darkening wall of hate boiling and flashing to the west, we began our descent. Just before dark we reached the happy cowboy as the lightning storm worsened and drew close, striking the ridge several times directly above our heads. We took refuge on the mixed traverse south of the crest and waited for the lightening to subside. One hour later we dashed across the happy cowboy and continued rappelling towards our high camp cache. By 11:00 p.m., at 19,000 feet in stormy weather, we could not find the gully leading down to the high camp cache. We spent the night climbing and down climbing the sixty-degree snow in an attempt to stay warm. At dawn, both encrusted in rime ourselves, the clouds parted and we saw the route down to high camp.

Delighted to find our cache and finally get some improving weather, we gathered our things and started to rappel the south face from a point directly below our high camp. Nine days into our seven-day supply, reversing the ridge to the cache to descend the gully south of the notch was out of the question. The climbing separating us from the cache was much more difficult and time consuming than we had expected. After approximately thirty rappels with our skinny alpine rack we touched down on the glacier at 15,600 feet with no pins, four stoppers, three cams, no runners and about 15 feet of tat left on the rack.

Anxious to avoid another night in our soggy down bags, we opted to descend to base camp that night. At 10:30 p.m., in the pouring rain, we found ourselves hopelessly lost in the brush at 14,200 feet. Lacking flat ground, we built a crude stone ledge in the talus, pitched the tent and settled in for a final, miserable night (forty-two hours had passed since our last bivi and fifty-two since our last meal).

The tenth day we hiked down to the Changping Valley, getting cliffed out in several locations and having to cross a gorge at 13,600 feet. The yak trail, as we saw from below, is on the north side of the valley, along the base of the walls. We reached base camp that afternoon at 2:30 p.m.

I lost over 30 pounds during the climb, Chad over 20. The route followed one rest day after a six-day acclimatization climb, a second ascent of a nearby peak by a 3000-foot rock climb (5.8, 12 pitches) topping out at 19,000 feet. Spanning a six-day weather window, sixteen of seventeen consecutive days were spent climbing.

News Flash: The following news flash is a preliminary report posted as a service to our readers. Alpinist has not confirmed the veracity of its contents but will post a story in detail when more information becomes available. --Ed

On October 12, Yuji Hirayama and Hans Florine broke a new speed record on the Nose (VI 5.9 A2, 2,900') on El Capitan, climbing the route in 2:37:05. Breaking the previous speed record set by the pair on July 2 (read July 8 NewsWire), Hirayama took lead and Florine belayed as the two simulclimbed the thirty-one pitch route.

On speedclimb.com, the pair reported that a previous October 8 ascent had at one point been on schedule to break their July 2 record, but "a few tiny rope snags and roughness on the top half cost us some 11 minutes." Their report added "all the marbles are in Sunday's basket."

Coming just three months after they regained their title as record-holders, this recent ascent will further safeguard Florine and Hirayama's speed-climbing claim on the route; on October 4 of last year, Alexander and Thomas Huber snagged the record which Hirayama and Florine had held since 2002 (see October 9, 2007 NewsWire).

Please visit www.sfgate.com and www.speedclimb.com for more on this story.

As previously reported on Alpinist.com, Italian climbers Enrico Bonino and Paolo Stroppiana opened a new route on Mont Maudit, Mont Blanc Massif. Just days before Bonino and Paolo Stroppiana's ascent of Reve Cache (5+ MR 4c), Bonino had been climbing two routes on Mont Maudit (4465m) when he noticed two nearby ice lines running down a steep rock spur 250 meters high. When Bonino later confirmed that no route had been previously climbed on that portion of Mont Maudit, he and Stroppiana quickly made the decision to pursue the new line.

Dividing their ascent into two halves, with Stroppiana leading the approach to the rock face and Bonino leading though the technical portions on the higher rock spur, the climbers began by crossing a crevasse that gives access to the face. Ascending two pitches of snow led the climbers to the base of a rock wall, with their anticipated line to the left, along a narrow, two-meter-wide gully. Ascending six pitches to the top of the couloir, the climbers reached the base of the rock spur where Bonino had previously spotted the two ice lines running down the feature.

Bonino then took lead, climbing a first pitch through mixed conditions and in some places encountering sections of ice no more than fifteen inches wide. The next pitch, "maybe the crux of the climb" said Bonino, required the climber to lead through sections of poorer ice without his ice tools, whereby they reached the bottom of the third pitch and chose to ascend a narrow ledge that would position them on the other side of the spur.

While climbing through the next pitch, a twenty-meter rock wall, Stroppiana was injured when a large stone fell on to his leg. The climbers persisted, Stroppiana following with difficulty throughout the remainder of the ascent, in an effort to complete the route in the diminishing sunlight. Reaching the shoulder of Mont Maudit, the climbers descended through the night, completing their return at 3 am. Though it "is not exceptional as a fact itself" Bonino said of the climb, "[it is] exceptionally rewarding to have found a small corner in 2008 in the Mont Blanc range to open a 700m totally independent climb".

News Flash: The following news flash is a preliminary report posted as a service to our readers. Alpinist has not confirmed the veracity of its contents but will post a story in detail when more information becomes available. --Ed

On September 29, Italian climbers Enrico Bonino and Paolo Stroppiana opened Reve Cache (5+ MR 4c) on Pointe d'Androsace in the Mont Blanc Massif. Met by an initial section of "winding stone walls", the climbers navigated through seventeen pitches of mixed climbing, then descending off the shoulder of Mont Maudit. The climbers had spotted the line on a previous climb, later verifying that no route existed there. Enrico and Stroppiana opened a new route on Punta (3095m) in Mont Blanc Massif with fellow Italians as reported in the Alpinist.com August 24 NewsWire.

Please visit Mountain Guide the Alps for more on this story.

News Flash: The following news flash is a preliminary report posted as a service to our readers. Alpinist has not confirmed the veracity of its contents but will post a story in detail when more information becomes available. --Ed

On October 5, Aymeric Clouet and Christophe Dumarest completed a link of eight summits in the Ecrins Massif, France. Beginning on September 25, the climbers summited La Meije, La Roche Meane, La Roche d'Alvau, Le Dome des Ecrins, Ailefroide, Les Bans, Le Pic Bonvoisin, and Le Sirac over the course of eleven days. The climbers told Agence France-Presse that they encountered particularly bad fog and snow conditions on Ailefroide. Kairn.com reports that the two climber's initial attempt in April was abandon on account of avalanche danger. Read about Dumarest and Clouet's variation of Afanasieff Ridge on Fitz Roy in Patagonia in the January 30 NewsWire.

Please visit www.kairn.com for more on this story.