In reply to Pedro50:
I saw this.
"Ed Webster has died. He died at home yesterday morning, Thanksgiving Day. I learned this from a post of Stewart M. Green’s (Stewart, so very sorry for your loss. Many of us will be in shock. So sudden, so unexpected). I will always cherish the time in 1995 when Ed spent a week at my home in Franconia, and Jon Sykes and I were helping him research his unpublished western edition to his iconic series of White Mountain guidebooks. The western edition never came to be, as Ed developed some very rare brain disease which took a few years to mend from. It is because of this unfortunate medical event that Ed handed off the baton to Jon and I to begin work on what later became Jon’s two guide books: Secretes of Franconia Notch, and later, The Notches. Ed graciously gave us all his research notes to jump start shaping the new guidebooks. Big shoes to fill. This is why the style and history of Jon’s books maintained a format and tradition that Ed established. Jon and I had the honor and pleasure to share a rope with him on several climbs. We put up the new route called Piss of Fear (5.10) with him at Echo Crag. I will always marvel at his ability to still crank down hard on climbs given he had two stumpy fingers sustained from Frostbite. This was sustained when he established a new route up Mt. Everest's Kangshung Face in Tibet in 1988. His climbing partners where Stephen Venables, who became the first Briton to summit without the use of bottled oxygen, and Robert Anderson (USA). Ed stopped just short of summit where he got the frostbite while taking a photo of Venables heading towards the summit. Ed made the wise decision to turn around, as his energy reserves were waning fast. Anderson had already abandoned his climb and awaited Stephen and Ed’s returned to the Col. All of them were climbing without oxygen. This is considered to be one of the most audacious unassisted mountaineering feats of all time. Besides the routes Ed established here in the White Mountains and the East Coast. He established many iconic new routes out in the Western desert regions. Ed was truly a iconic national and international climbing star who will be sorely missed. Ed may your star continue to shine bright in the Universe. Rest in Pease dear Ed!"
