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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2011 - 01:05am PT
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No Kidding!! How Cool!
google earth: 15.435896° 36.415315°
The place is thick with climbing features, jesus.
AND it has giant baboons and aggressive vultures with chicks he says. And only a few climbers before now. That TR that Speigl cites was from UK climbers!
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Dibs on the splitter.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2011 - 01:14am PT
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What Ron? you belaying Donini??
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Speigl
climber
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The domes are on the Sudanese and Eritrean border; we were told that you must not descend the Eritrean side, as the slope is full of land mines.
Sounds like a great place.
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ruppell
climber
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Where do you guys find this stuff? That place looks amazing. Put the Sudan on my list. As a side note how do I oversize pages to make them really annoying to read?
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2011 - 01:41am PT
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More views from Kassala of Taka Mountain and its subsidiaries:
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2011 - 01:41am PT
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I wonder how much climbing the baboons are doing? We have threads on them doing incredibly hard stuff elsewhere in Africa of course.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2011 - 01:56am PT
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Eddie, did you notice that these Ruppell's Vultures fly up to 36,000 ft???? They are the highest flying bird in the world, having a special hemoglobin variant.
Not seeing your vulture streaks on Wikipedia, pls advise your link.
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ruppell
climber
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Holy shot you guys are cracking me up. You know there are only 600 of us in the US. Maybe we're looking at my great great great uncles birds here. Thanks for the laughs!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2011 - 02:08am PT
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Crazy isn't it Ruppell. Check out Wikipedia on your relative! They are also known as Ruppell's Griffins too. Weigh up to 20 lbs, 8.5 ft wing span, only 30,000 left.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2011 - 02:11am PT
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And, we also have in our archives, this crazy-assed business of baboons climbing way-hard stuff every evening and down climbing it in the morning, all to get away from leopards and hyenas:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=850043&tn=0&mr=0
Our Heason link doesn't go on about the resident baboons climbing Taka Mountain and her sisters, but they have to be doing it, don't you think?
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ruppell
climber
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So there are more of my possible great great great uncles birds left in existence then us humans with my last name in the US. Boy ain't that a hoot.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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your links on the page begining:
More views from Kassala of Taka Mountain and its subsidiaries:
show white on the faces at and below ledges...
36,000' is wild!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2011 - 02:30am PT
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I see what you are talking about now Ed. Killer links by the way. You are a stud!!
You have to wonder what was the adaptive purpose of flying so high. Or was it just not adaptive but a random variation. Jets have taken them in at that height according to Wikipedia.
So cool. Their hemoglobin has a hugely increased affinity for oxygen, allowing these immense altitudes.
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go-B
climber
Sozo
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Peter your first picture looks like you could belay off the plane!
They look like a herd of Camels!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 26, 2014 - 04:07pm PT
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So following up on this fantastic granite range (The Taka Mountains) above Kassala Sudan.
The American Alpine Journal on page 250, issue 2014, just now out, has a climb report by Jonathan Thesenga. He and his wife Brittany Griffith did several routes on these domes last December. Apparently it was 100 deg F midday, they report. And the vultures and baboons are still there.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Aug 26, 2014 - 06:12pm PT
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Pushing the Like button for Peter picking up this thread again.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 26, 2014 - 06:24pm PT
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again what this place actually looks like:
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SuperTopo on the Web
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Let us know!