You've probably read this somewhere else. Mountaineering is full of exploits, heroics, and going beyond limits. Eduard Burceag perished while protecting his family from a severe snow storm. This via The Seattle Times.

Cristian Burceag said his older brother, Eduard, moved to America eight years ago from Romania and fell in love with Seattle, its mountains, its opportunities.

Cristian still can't believe his brother, the one who taught him how to live life, could die on Mount Rainier.

"He is and will be the one who taught me to build my life with my own hands," said Cristian Burceag in an e-mail message.

Reached by telephone in Romania Thursday, he said it's difficult to talk about the tragedy that left his brother dead, leaving behind a wife and two young sons.

"I can't find words about him," said Cristian Burceag, who is 18 months younger than his brother. "When he left for America, he took his life in his hands and made a great career."

All of us at GoBlog extend our best to his family.

All of you know that I'm a superlative investor, right now, I'm profiting big time off the fact that you Nebraskans can't stay out of your cars. Oil, energy, commodities, oh, and also on the international markets as well, Brasil mostly, yeh baby. I'm outperforming the best performing index (DOW) by 18 pts, biatch. I'm picking financials long, thought I found a bottom, but sigh* WAMU has been a complete debacle for me and no, the bottom I found was not the floor for financials. I should have followed Heebner and shorted it (WAMU). But enough about me. Here we have two sort of outdoor retail companies, in a similar market - retail/apparel/footwear. Let's look at the chart for CROX:

and then DECK:

While CROX has lost almost 80% of its market cap, DECK, while it hasn't grown much since a December high, still trades within 10% of its April high - not bad.

As you know, CROX is often seen on the feet of various jackass demographics everywhere, anywhere. DECK, is Deckers, the holding company for Teva and UGG boots, among others. The recent trending of the two is similar, but that's heading into summer and a 'recessionary' period. Deckers has been a financial darling because of the strong stock price, hefty market cap, and ability to gauge correctly its market. While Teva has languished, mostly due to knock-offs (Nevados can be had for $15), UGG has remained solid, mostly because of supply/demand issues. UGG boots have 1) remained a hot fashion item 2) have been somewhat hard to get, i.e. limited supplies. CROX on the otherhand has flooded the market, you can buy Crocs virtually anywhere, the strategy to saturate was great short term, but any type of sustained growth is impossible - 1) supply chain/distribution costs for a relatively small company balloon 2) attempts to diversify products remain half-hearted at best 3) market share remains static. UGG has remained true to what got it popular, Crocs would be better served to do the same. Also, last point, what are Crocs made out of? Yep, that's right, a petroleum based plastic. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

This from the Alpinist. A 'climber' fell 2,000 feet off the Butt. A Quebecois, aptly named Claude, rhymes with 'Clod.' Well, not really, it would be more like Clode, Cload. Anyway, enough about me. You can click over to the article about the exact location of the fall, but honestly, this area is actually semi-dangerous. While most of the 'hard' parts of the West Buttress are fixed, i.e. the Headwall, the fairly flat exposed ridge leading into the Headwall (on descent) is indeed a place to fall. I believe that some climbers have literally been blown off this part. Well, actually, all of Denali is fair game for a fall under any conditions, but still, when the Bomb says this is area 'could' be dangerous, then ... Regardless, the climber survived with fairly minor injuries, the face trauma implies that this was a face first fall and the climber couldn't get turned around to self arrest ... well it happens. In other news, the Japanese team on the Cassin is still missing and the aerial search was suspended, there is no new news since the 29th.

Editor's Note: The following news release was submitted to Alpinist by Maureen McLaughlin of Denali National Park and Preserve. McLaughlin confirmed that no new information is available regarding the two missing Japanese climbers on Denali's Cassin Ridge (see her May 29, 2008 NewsWire for the most recent information).

Denali mountaineering rangers led a life-saving technical rope rescue of a fallen solo climber on Denali (20,320’), Alaska Range, Alaska the evening of June 3.
advertisement

Claude Ratte, age 44, of Montreal, Quebec was descending the West Buttress route from the 17,200' high camp to the 14,200' camp when he fell almost 2,000 feet down to the Peters Glacier. The climber fell from an elevation of approximately 16,400' down a 35-40 degree snow and ice slope, suffering facial trauma and a leg and ankle injury in the fall. Ratte was able to use his satellite phone to dial 9-1-1 shortly before noon on Tuesday. Alaska State Troopers connected the distressed climber with Denali National Park rangers who initiated a ground rescue. The high-altitude Lama helicopter was unable to fly due to heavy cloud cover.