Velcro Competitors Rewarded For Level Of Stick-To-Itiveness

Paul "Snoopy" Lawrence is a funny guy, but he may have never looked funnier than on Monday night when the 5-foot-9 comedian sprung off a mini-trampoline wearing a Velcro suit and stuck to a Velcro wall 116 inches off the floor to win a wall-jumping contest.

Once he came down, he pocketed $500 for his 46-inch effort (the highest point reached minus his height) that beat the seven other finalists at the 42nd Street Annex, a no-alcohol University District dance club.

In the monthlong contest, 29 men and five women each had two tries to log the highest face plant on the sticky wall.

Club owner Kelly Farnsworth said since he introduced the contest in December, interest has grown, especially since he acquired a second suit and added a ceiling harness.

Farnsworth, who will take his portable wall to some alcohol-serving establishments in coming weeks, said the harness helps stop people if they don't stick and helps take them down.

"If you take a 160-pound guy, it's going to take at least two people to peel you off the wall," he said. "It's kind of neat because you jump up and stick kind of like Spiderman. It doesn't hurt in any way."

-- TOUGH CLIMB: Who would want to climb a mountain billed as "an immense fang of frost-glazed stone" that is typically hammered by 100-mph winds?

Seattle residents Dan Cauthorn, manager of the Vertical Club, and Jon Krakauer, contributing editor of Outside magazine, would.

Krakauer's editor gave him the chance to climb any peak he wanted for a special Outside article. He picked Patagonia's Cerro Torre, an Andes spire recognized as one of the most difficult mountains in the world to climb.

Last month they lucked out with a rare 30-hour window of good weather and got to the top despite having to camp in what Krakauer called "a coffin-sized snow cave" 150 feet below the summit - without sleeping bags, food or water.

The pair will give a slide show about their experience Monday at 7:30 p.m. at the Mountaineers, 300 Third Ave. W. Cost is $5.

Said Krakauer: "I've done a lot of intense climbs but nothing like this. When the sun comes up, it's surreal. It's like something out of Tolkien - you expect Hobbits to be all around. It doesn't seem mountains can exist that sharp, that slender and that huge.

"It was far and away the coolest climb either of us has ever done."

-- NORDIC NEWS: Turnout for last weekend's Seattle Cross-Country Ski Festival was a bit lower than expected because of "iffy" snow conditions, but several racers involved weren't complaining.

Three local youths will advance to nationals, a group of about 30 Kongsberger Ski Club members are tuned up and ready for the world masters championships, and the Kongsberger Stampede left hearts racing with a close finish.

Leanne Woods, 13, of Seattle; David Laurence Jr., 16, of Bellevue, and Erik Carlson, 18, of Seattle secured the season-long points titles in their classifications and will compete at Rumford, Maine, March 6-14.

Kongsberger stalwarts Einar Svennson and Bert Larson both medaled last year at the worlds and will return to Anchorage to compete in the 60-65 age group.

Kongsberger may have the largest contingent of any U.S. club, said Dave Laurence Sr., the festival organizer who also will compete in Alaska Saturday through next Thursday.

In the Kongsberger Stampede 15-kilometer citizen's race, John Svensson, Einar's son, outleaned another Seattle resident, Scott Tucker, to win the race in 33 minutes, 29.1 seconds. Tucker's time: 33:29.2.

"It's unusual to finish that close in a race that long," Laurence Sr. said.

The race drew 42 men and 12 women.

-- NOTES: Don and Merilee Rees of Carnation teamed with Seattle's Mike Peterson to handily win the Jimmie Heuga Ski Express at Crystal Mountain last week and advance to the national finals in Vail, Colo., April 8-12. They skied a total of 65 runs in the four-hour marathon (54,275 vertical feet) and raised $7,710, an amount that was the decisive factor in the event that calculates donations with ski results.

-- By 8 p.m. Sunday, members of the University of Washington's Zeta Beta Tau fraternity may be bouncing off the walls of Edmundson Pavilion Addition, after bouncing basketballs for 36 hours in a marathon fund-raiser for Children's Hospital. Spectators are welcome.