title: Rocket propellant

text: Rocket stages that fly through the atmosphere usually use lower performing, high molecular mass, high-density propellants due to the smaller and lighter tankage required. Upper stages, which mostly or only operate in the vacuum of space, tend to use the high energy, high performance, low density liquid hydrogen fuel.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Solid propellants come in two main types. "Composites" are composed mostly of a mixture of granules of solid oxidizer, such as ammonium nitrate, ammonium dinitramide, ammonium perchlorate, or potassium nitrate in a polymer binding agent, with flakes or powders of energetic fuel compounds (examples: RDX, HMX, aluminium, beryllium). Plasticizers, stabilizers, and/or burn rate modifiers (iron oxide, copper oxide) can also be added.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Single-, double-, or triple-bases (depending on the number of primary ingredients) are homogeneous mixtures of one to three primary ingredients. These primary ingredients must include fuel and oxidizer and often also include binders and plasticizers. All components are macroscopically indistinguishable and often blended as liquids and cured in a single batch. Ingredients can often have multiple roles. For example, RDX is both a fuel and oxidizer while nitrocellulose is a fuel, oxidizer, and structural polymer.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Further complicating categorization, there are many propellants that contain elements of double-base and composite propellants, which often contain some amount of energetic additives homogeneously mixed into the binder. In the case of gunpowder (a pressed composite without a polymeric binder) the fuel is charcoal, the oxidizer is potassium nitrate, and sulphur serves as a reaction catalyst while also being consumed to form a variety of reaction products such as potassium sulfide.


title: Rocket propellant

text: The newest nitramine solid propellants based on CL-20 (HNIW) can match the performance of NTO/UDMH storable liquid propellants, but cannot be throttled or restarted.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Solid propellant rockets are much easier to store and handle than liquid propellant rockets. High propellant density makes for compact size as well. These features plus simplicity and low cost make solid propellant rockets ideal for military and space applications.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Their simplicity also makes solid rockets a good choice whenever large amounts of thrust are needed and the cost is an issue. The Space Shuttle and many other orbital launch vehicles use solid-fueled rockets in their boost stages (solid rocket boosters) for this reason.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Solid fuel rockets have lower specific impulse, a measure of propellant efficiency, than liquid fuel rockets. As a result, the overall performance of solid upper stages is less than liquid stages even though the solid mass ratios are usually in the .91 to .93 range, as good as or better than most liquid propellant upper stages. The high mass ratios possible with these unsegmented solid upper stages is a result of high propellant density and very high strength-to-weight ratio filament-wound motor casings.


title: Rocket propellant

text: A drawback to solid rockets is that they cannot be throttled in real time, although a programmed thrust schedule can be created by adjusting the interior propellant geometry. Solid rockets can be vented to extinguish combustion or reverse thrust as a means of controlling range or accommodating stage separation. Casting large amounts of propellant requires consistency and repeatability to avoid cracks and voids in the completed motor. The blending and casting take place under computer control in a vacuum, and the propellant blend is spread thin and scanned to assure no large gas bubbles are introduced into the motor.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Solid fuel rockets are intolerant to cracks and voids and require post-processing such as X-ray scans to identify faults. The combustion process is dependent on the surface area of the fuel. Voids and cracks represent local increases in burning surface area, increasing the local temperature, which increases the local rate of combustion. This positive feedback loop can easily lead to catastrophic failure of the case or nozzle.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Solid rocket propellant was first developed during the 13th century under the Chinese Song dynasty. The Song Chinese first used gunpowder in 1232 during the military siege of Kaifeng.


title: Rocket propellant

text: During the 1950s and 60s, researchers in the United States developed ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP). This mixture is typically 69-70% finely ground ammonium perchlorate (an oxidizer), combined with 16-20% fine aluminium powder (a fuel), held together in a base of 11-14% polybutadiene acrylonitrile (PBAN) or Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (polybutadiene rubber fuel). The mixture is formed as a thickened liquid and then cast into the correct shape and cured into a firm but flexible load-bearing solid. Historically, the tally of APCP solid propellants is relatively small. The military, however, uses a wide variety of different types of solid propellants, some of which exceed the performance of APCP. A comparison of the highest specific impulses achieved with the various solid and liquid propellant combinations used in current launch vehicles is given in the article on solid-fuel rockets.


title: Rocket propellant

text: In the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. switched entirely to solid-fueled ICBMs: the LGM-30 Minuteman and LG-118A Peacekeeper (MX). In the 1980s and 1990s, the USSR/Russia also deployed solid-fueled ICBMs (RT-23, RT-2PM, and RT-2UTTH), but retains two liquid-fueled ICBMs (R-36 and UR-100N). All solid-fueled ICBMs on both sides had three initial solid stages, and those with multiple independently targeted warheads had a precision maneuverable bus used to fine tune the trajectory of the re-entry vehicles.


title: Rocket propellant

text: The main types of liquid propellants are storable propellants, which tend to be cryogenic and hypergolic propellants.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Liquid-fueled rockets have higher specific impulse than solid rockets and are capable of being throttled, shut down, and restarted. Only the combustion chamber of a liquid-fueled rocket needs to withstand high combustion pressures and temperatures. Cooling can be done regeneratively with the liquid propellant. On vehicles employing turbopumps, the propellant tanks are at a lower pressure than the combustion chamber, decreasing tank mass. For these reasons, most orbital launch vehicles use liquid propellants.


title: Rocket propellant

text: The primary specific impulse advantage of liquid propellants is due to the availability of high-performance oxidizers. Several practical liquid oxidizers (liquid oxygen, dinitrogen tetroxide, and hydrogen peroxide) are available which have better specific impulse than the ammonium perchlorate used in most solid rockets when paired with suitable fuels.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Some gases, notably oxygen and nitrogen, may be able to be collected from the upper atmosphere, and transferred up to low Earth orbit for use in propellant depots at substantially reduced cost.


title: Rocket propellant

text: The main difficulties with liquid propellants are also with the oxidizers. Storable oxidizers, such as nitric acid and nitrogen tetroxide, tend to be extremely toxic and highly reactive, while cryogenic propellants by definition must be stored at low temperature and can also have reactivity/toxicity issues. Liquid oxygen (LOX) is the only flown cryogenic oxidizer. Others such as FLOX, a fluorine/LOX mix, have never been flown due to instability, toxicity, and explosivity. Several other unstable, energetic, and toxic oxidizers have been proposed: liquid ozone (O), ClF, and ClF.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Liquid-fueled rockets require potentially troublesome valves, seals, and turbopumps, which increase the cost of the launch vehicle. Turbopumps are particularly troublesome due to high performance requirements.


title: Rocket propellant

text: energy). In chemical rockets, unburned fuel or oxidizer represents the loss of chemical potential energy, which reduces the specific energy. However, most rockets run fuel-rich mixtures, which result in lower theoretical exhaust velocities.


title: Rocket propellant

text: However, fuel-rich mixtures also have lower molecular weight exhaust species. The nozzle of the rocket converts the thermal energy of the propellants into directed kinetic energy. This conversion happens in the time it takes for the propellants to flow from the combustion chamber through the engine throat and out the nozzle, usually on the order of one millisecond. Molecules store thermal energy in rotation, vibration, and translation, of which only the latter can easily be used to add energy to the rocket stage. Molecules with fewer atoms (like CO and H) have fewer available vibrational and rotational modes than molecules with more atoms (like CO and HO). Consequently, smaller molecules store less vibrational and rotational energy for a given amount of heat input, resulting in more translation energy being available to be converted to kinetic energy. The resulting improvement in nozzle efficiency is large enough that real rocket engines improve their actual exhaust velocity by running rich mixtures with somewhat lower theoretical exhaust velocities.


title: Rocket propellant

text: The effect of exhaust molecular weight on nozzle efficiency is most important for nozzles operating near sea level. High expansion rockets operating in a vacuum see a much smaller effect, and so are run less rich.


title: Rocket propellant

text: LOX/hydrocarbon rockets are run slightly rich (O/F mass ratio of 3 rather than stoichiometric of 3.4 to 4) because the energy release per unit mass drops off quickly as the mixture ratio deviates from stoichiometric. LOX/LH rockets are run very rich (O/F mass ratio of 4 rather than stoichiometric 8) because hydrogen is so light that the energy release per unit mass of propellant drops very slowly with extra hydrogen. In fact, LOX/LH rockets are generally limited in how rich they run by the performance penalty of the mass of the extra hydrogen tankage instead of the underlying chemistry.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Another reason for running rich is that off-stoichiometric mixtures burn cooler than stoichiometric mixtures, which makes engine cooling easier. Because fuel-rich combustion products are less chemically reactive (corrosive) than oxidizer-rich combustion products, a vast majority of rocket engines are designed to run fuel-rich. At least one exception exists: the Russian RD-180 preburner, which burns LOX and RP-1 at a ratio of 2.72.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Additionally, mixture ratios can be dynamic during launch. This can be exploited with designs that adjust the oxidizer to fuel ratio (along with overall thrust) throughout a flight to maximize overall system performance. For instance, during lift-off thrust is more valuable than specific impulse, and careful adjustment of the O/F ratio may allow higher thrust levels. Once the rocket is away from the launchpad, the engine O/F ratio can be tuned for higher efficiency.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Although liquid hydrogen gives a high I, its low density is a disadvantage: hydrogen occupies about 7 times more volume per kilogram than dense fuels such as kerosene. The fuel tankage, plumbing, and pump must be correspondingly larger. This increases the vehicle's dry mass, reducing performance. Liquid hydrogen is also relatively expensive to produce and store, and causes difficulties with design, manufacture, and operation of the vehicle. However, liquid hydrogen is extremely well suited to upper stage use where I is at a premium and thrust to weight ratios are less relevant.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Dense propellant launch vehicles have a higher takeoff mass due to lower I, but can more easily develop high takeoff thrusts due to the reduced volume of engine components. This means that vehicles with dense-fueled booster stages reach orbit earlier, minimizing losses due to gravity drag and reducing the effective delta-v requirement.


title: Rocket propellant

text: The proposed tripropellant rocket uses mainly dense fuel while at low altitude and switches across to hydrogen at higher altitude. Studies in the 1960s proposed single-stage-to-orbit vehicles using this technique. The Space Shuttle approximated this by using dense solid rocket boosters for the majority of the thrust during the first 120 seconds. The main engines burned a fuel-rich hydrogen and oxygen mixture, operating continuously throughout the launch but providing the majority of thrust at higher altitudes after SRB burnout.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Hybrid propellants: a storable oxidizer used with a solid fuel, which retains most virtues of both liquids (high ISP) and solids (simplicity).


title: Rocket propellant

text: A hybrid-propellant rocket usually has a solid fuel and a liquid or NEMA oxidizer. The fluid oxidizer can make it possible to throttle and restart the motor just like a liquid-fueled rocket. Hybrid rockets can also be environmentally safer than solid rockets since some high-performance solid-phase oxidizers contain chlorine (specifically composites with ammonium perchlorate), versus the more benign liquid oxygen or nitrous oxide often used in hybrids. This is only true for specific hybrid systems. There have been hybrids which have used chlorine or fluorine compounds as oxidizers and hazardous materials such as beryllium compounds mixed into the solid fuel grain. Because just one constituent is a fluid, hybrids can be simpler than liquid rockets depending motive force used to transport the fluid into the combustion chamber. Fewer fluids typically mean fewer and smaller piping systems, valves and pumps (if utilized).


title: Rocket propellant

text: Hybrid motors suffer two major drawbacks. The first, shared with solid rocket motors, is that the casing around the fuel grain must be built to withstand full combustion pressure and often extreme temperatures as well. However, modern composite structures handle this problem well, and when used with nitrous oxide and a solid rubber propellant (HTPB), relatively small percentage of fuel is needed anyway, so the combustion chamber is not especially large.


title: Rocket propellant

text: The primary remaining difficulty with hybrids is with mixing the propellants during the combustion process. In solid propellants, the oxidizer and fuel are mixed in a factory in carefully controlled conditions. Liquid propellants are generally mixed by the injector at the top of the combustion chamber, which directs many small swift-moving streams of fuel and oxidizer into one another. Liquid-fueled rocket injector design has been studied at great length and still resists reliable performance prediction. In a hybrid motor, the mixing happens at the melting or evaporating surface of the fuel. The mixing is not a well-controlled process and generally, quite a lot of propellant is left unburned, which limits the efficiency of the motor. The combustion rate of the fuel is largely determined by the oxidizer flux and exposed fuel surface area. This combustion rate is not usually sufficient for high power operations such as boost stages unless the surface area or oxidizer flux is high. Too high of oxidizer flux can lead to flooding and loss of flame holding that locally extinguishes the combustion. Surface area can be increased, typically by longer grains or multiple ports, but this can increase combustion chamber size, reduce grain strength and/or reduce volumetric loading. Additionally, as the burn continues, the hole down the center of the grain (the 'port') widens and the mixture ratio tends to become more oxidizer rich.


title: Rocket propellant

text: There has been much less development of hybrid motors than solid and liquid motors. For military use, ease of handling and maintenance have driven the use of solid rockets. For orbital work, liquid fuels are more efficient than hybrids and most development has concentrated there. There has recently been an increase in hybrid motor development for nonmilitary suborbital work:


title: Rocket propellant

text: Some rocket designs impart energy to their propellants with external energy sources. For example, water rockets use a compressed gas, typically air, to force the water reaction mass out of the rocket.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Ion thrusters ionize a neutral gas and create thrust by accelerating the ions (or the plasma) by electric and/or magnetic fields.


title: Rocket propellant

text: Thermal rockets use inert propellants of low molecular weight that are chemically compatible with the heating mechanism at high temperatures. Solar thermal rockets and nuclear thermal rockets typically propose to use liquid hydrogen for a specific impulse of around 600–900 seconds, or in some cases water that is exhausted as steam for a specific impulse of about 190 seconds. Nuclear thermal rockets use the heat of nuclear fission to add energy to the propellant. Some designs separate the nuclear fuel and working fluid, minimizing the potential for radioactive contamination, but nuclear fuel loss was a persistent problem during real-world testing programs. Solar thermal rockets use concentrated sunlight to heat a propellant, rather than using a nuclear reactor.


title: Rocket propellant

text: For low performance applications, such as attitude control jets, compressed gases such as nitrogen have been employed. Energy is stored in the pressure of the inert gas. However, due to the low density of all practical gases and high mass of the pressure vessel required to contain it, compressed gases see little current use.


title: Rocket propellant

text: In Project Orion and other nuclear pulse propulsion proposals, the propellant would be plasma debris from a series of nuclear explosions.


title: Gregory Sierra

text: Gregory Joseph Sierra (January 25, 1937 – January 4, 2021) was an American actor known for his roles as Detective Sergeant Chano Amengual on "Barney Miller", Julio Fuentes, the Puerto Rican neighbor of Fred G. Sanford on "Sanford and Son", and as Marruja in "The Castaway Cowboy" (1974).


title: Gregory Sierra

text: Gregory Joseph Sierra was born on January 25, 1937, in Manhattan. He was raised in Spanish Harlem by an aunt as his parents did not take charge of his care. After serving in the Air Force, Sierra went with a friend to an acting school audition in Manhattan. Mr. Sierra was only there to support his friend, but after performing some improvisation he was admitted instead of his friend.


title: Gregory Sierra

text: He began his career on the stage, touring with the National Shakespeare Company, and in 1967 appeared as the Duke of Austria in "King John" at the New York Shakespeare Festival. He then moved to Los Angeles in the late 1960s to work in film and television.


title: Gregory Sierra

text: Sierra's film credits include "The Flying Nun" (1969), "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" (1970), "Papillon" (1973), "The Towering Inferno" (1974), "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1979) and "The Trouble with Spies" (1987).


title: Gregory Sierra

text: In 1973, Sierra guest-starred in an unusually dramatic episode of "All in the Family" in the role of Paul Benjamin, who was a Jewish activist with the "Hebrew Defense Association" (based on the Jewish Defense League) fighting antisemitism in the neighborhood. In the plot, he volunteers in helping to chase away neo-Nazi thugs who spray-painted a swastika on the Bunkers' front door. He is later killed by a car bomb planted by the neo-Nazis.


title: Gregory Sierra

text: From 1972 to 1975, he had the recurring role of Julio Fuentes, a Puerto Rican neighbor of the Sanfords, on "Sanford and Son." After that he spent two years as part of the ensemble cast of "Barney Miller", as Detective Sergeant Chano Amengual. He starred as Dr. Tony Menzies on the short-lived 1977 sitcom "A.E.S. Hudson Street". In 1980 and 1981, for the fourth and unresolved final season of the soap opera parody "Soap," he played Latin American revolutionary Carlos "El Puerco" Valdez, Jessica Tate's lover.


title: Gregory Sierra

text: In 1984, he was hired for the main cast of "Miami Vice" where he played Lieutenant Lou Rodriguez, but he asked to be written out of the series after four episodes, not wanting to reside in Miami where the show was being filmed, according to the season 1 DVD commentary; he was subsequently replaced by Edward James Olmos and his character, Lieutenant Martin Castillo. He had regular roles on the TV shows "Zorro and Son" (1983) and "Something is Out There" (1988–1989).


title: Gregory Sierra

text: In 1992, Sierra played drug dealer Felix Barbossa in the Bill Duke-directed film "Deep Cover", which also starred Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum, and appeared in the comedy sequel "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid". The following year he played an Iraqi patrol boat captain in the comedy "Hot Shots! Part Deux". He also played a man named Villanazul in the low-budget 1998 movie "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit". He also appeared as Corbin Entek in the "" episode "Second Skin".


title: Gregory Sierra

text: His television credits also include "Mod Squad", "Kung Fu", "Alias Smith and Jones", "" (3 episodes), "Hawaii Five-O", "Gunsmoke", "The Greatest American Hero", "Midnight Caller", "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "The X-Files", "Murder, She Wrote", "Hart to Hart", and "Hill Street Blues".


title: Gregory Sierra

text: Sierra was of Puerto Rican descent. He married Eileen Defelitta in 1969, and they were divorced in 1972. In 1976, he married Susan Pollock, and they remained wed until her death in 1978. He lived in Laguna Woods, California with his wife, Helen Tabor. Sierra died on January 4, 2021, after a long battle with stomach and liver cancer, three weeks before his 84th birthday.


title: Via ferrata

text: A via ferrata (Italian for "iron path", plural "vie ferrate" or in English "via ferratas") is a protected climbing route found in the Alps and certain other locations. The term "via ferrata" is used in most countries and languages except notably in German-speaking regions, which use "Klettersteig"—"climbing path" (plural "Klettersteige").


title: Via ferrata

text: A via ferrata is a climbing route that employs steel cables, rungs or ladders, fixed to the rock to which the climbers affix a harness with two leashes, which allows the climbers to secure themselves to the metal fixture and limit any fall. The cable and other fixtures, such as iron rungs (stemples), pegs, carved steps, and ladders and bridges, provide both footings and handholds, as well. This allows climbing on otherwise dangerous routes without the risks of unprotected scrambling and climbing or the need for technical climbing equipment. They expand the opportunities for accessing difficult peaks as an alternative to rock climbing and mountaineering, both of which require higher skills and more specialized equipment.


title: Via ferrata

text: Via ferratas can vary in length from short routes taking less than an hour to long, demanding alpine routes covering significant distance and altitude ( or more of ascent) and taking eight or more hours to complete. In certain areas, such as the Brenta Dolomites, it is possible to link via ferratas together, staying overnight in mountain refuges, and so undertake extensive multi-day climbing tours at high altitude. In difficulty, via ferratas can range from routes that are little more than paths, albeit in dramatic and exposed situations, to very steep and strenuous routes, overhanging in parts, demanding the strength—if not the technique—of serious rock climbing. Generally, via ferratas are done in ascent, although it is possible to descend them.


title: Via ferrata

text: The origins of the via ferrata date back to the nineteenth century, but they are often associated with the First World War, when several were built in the Dolomite mountain region of Italy to aid the movement of troops. Over 1000 via ferratas currently exist in the European Alps. The majority are found in Italy and Austria. Others are found in a number of European countries and a few places elsewhere. Via ferratas have traditionally been associated with limestone mountain regions, notably the Dolomites and the Northern Limestone Alps, as the steep nature of the terrain creates the need for some form of protected paths, while the presence of ledges and natural weaknesses means relatively easy but rewarding routes can often be created. However, they are now found in a range of different terrains.


title: Via ferrata

text: Simple protected paths, with ladders and basic protection aids, have probably existed in the Alps for centuries, helping to connect villages to their high pastures. Construction of what could be seen as the precursors of modern via ferratas dates back to the growth of Alpine exploration and tourism in the nineteenth century. In 1843, a route on the Dachstein was constructed under the direction of Friedrich Simony; it included a range of climbing aids with iron pins, hand hooks, carved footholds and ropes. In 1869 a rope was fixed between the summits of Grossglockner, and in 1873 fixed protection was installed on the Zugspitze. In the Pyrenees, iron climbing aids were installed on the Pic du Midi d'Ossau in 1880, and in the Ordesa in 1881. The Northern Limestone Alps saw the first routes still in use today as via ferratas: the Heilbronner Way in the German Allgau Alps was constructed in 1899, shortly followed by the Eggersteig (1903) and Wildauersteig (1911) in the Wilder Kaiser in Austria. In the Dolomites, the climbing path up the West ridge of the Marmolada (German: Marmolata) was installed in 1903, and the Possnecker Path up Piz Selva in the Sella Group was completed before the First World War.


title: Via ferrata

text: In 1910, Gustav Jahn and August Čepl, a Viennese master locksmith, built the Hans von Haid Steig in the Preiner Wall(1.783 m) of the Rax, East Austria.


title: Via ferrata

text: In 1914 the Dolomites were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was part of the Central Powers during the First World War. In 1915, Italy joined the alliance of Britain, France, and Russia and declared war on the Central Powers. Austro-Hungarian troops were heavily committed in Russia and it immediately withdrew to a defensive line which ran through the Dolomites. The initially weak Austro-Hungarian troops were strongly supported by local old and very young men (Standschützen) who simulated a very strong line of defense for the attacking Italians. Only later could local elite troops such as Kaiserjäger and Kaiserschützen be relocated from the Eastern Front towards Italy. Until the Flitsch-Tolmein offensive (Battle of Caporetto) in autumn 1917 the Austro-Hungarians (supported by troops from Southern Germany) and the Italians fought a ferocious war in the mountains of the Dolomites; not only against each other but also against the hostile conditions. Both sides tried to gain control of the peaks to site observation posts and field guns. To help troops move about at high altitude in very difficult conditions, permanent lines were fixed to rock faces and ladders were installed so that troops could ascend steep faces. They also tried to create and control tunnels below the peaks to attack from there (see Mines on the Italian Front). Trenches, dugouts and other relics of the First World War can be found alongside many via ferratas. Since dangerous ammunition remains and the like can still be found today, warnings are given in the area of the former main battle line against digging and picking up old metal parts. There is an extensive open-air museum on 5 Torri, and around Lagazuoi, where very heavy fighting took place. This wartime network of via ferratas has been restored, although not until well after the Second World War: steel cables have replaced ropes, and iron ladders and metal rungs anchored into the rock have taken the place of the flimsy wooden structures used by the troops. Most of these routes are now maintained by the Club Alpino Italiano (CAI; Italian Alpine Club) and the South Tyrol Alpine Club (AVS).


title: Via ferrata

text: In the 1930s, the Società degli Alpinisti Tridentini (SAT) together with the CAI began working on shortening and improving access to the climbing routes in the Brenta Dolomites, by installing artificial aids and protection. Natural lines and routes in the rock were linked up and a system of routes began to be developed, work continuing after the second world war. The Via delle Bocchette was discovered by mountain walkers and gradually gained a classic reputation in its own right, a reputation which it still retains. In developing the Via delle Bocchette, a certain ethic was followed – climbing aids were kept to a minimum, and the routes deliberately do not access any summits, an approach which is sometimes but not always followed by modern via ferratas. The Via delle Bocchette helped establish the idea of doing via ferratas in their own right, rather than as access to summits or to climbs.


title: Via ferrata

text: Via ferratas have continued to grow in popularity. In the 1970s and 80s development remained focused on traditional areas (the Dolomites and Northern Limestone Alps). Routes were mostly developed by the climbing community often with active involvement of one of the relevant Alpine Clubs (although there was occasional controversy and opposition to some added routes). In the 1990s and 2000s, development became more commercial and involved more organisations: via ferratas began to be seen as a useful way to encourage tourism and increase the range of activities available to visitors, and so routes were developed by local communities, outdoor activity centres, cable car companies, mountain refuges and others, as well as continuing involvement by the Alpine clubs. Development of via ferratas has spread out of its original areas to the rest of the Alps and beyond. The first via ferrata in France was constructed in 1988 (Via Ferrata de la Grande Falaise, Freissinières, Grading C/D); by 2003 there were 100. While high mountain via ferratas have continued to be developed, the modern era has seen the rise of more "sporting" routes, sometimes closer to the valley and often more challenging in nature, with severely steep sections and requiring high strength. Routes have been built in dramatic locations, alongside waterfalls or in canyons. Other routes include features such as wire bridges and even zip wires, designed to increase their appeal to visitors. Climbing via ferratas has come to be recognised as a valid mountain activity in own right, with its own guidebooks, equipment, grading system and enthusiasts, with an increasing number of locations now available to undertake via ferrata climbs.


title: Via ferrata

text: Various grading systems exist for via ferratas. Most focus on the level of difficulty of the hardest passage, and use a 5- or 6-point scale. Miller use grades 1 to 5. The Kurt Schall guides ("Klettersteig-Atlas" series) use a primarily an A to E 5-point scale, although an F grade has recently been used, and intermediate grades are also used (e.g. C/D). The website www.klettersteig.de uses grades 1 to 6, although based on the Schall system. In France, the 6 classic alpine grades are used: F – Facile; PD – Peu Difficile; AD – Assez Difficile; D– Difficile: TD – Très Difficile: ED – Extrêmement Difficile (although these grades bear no comparison to their Alpine counterparts). An outline of a 5-level grading system is provided below, but clearly individual guidebooks grades should be checked against their own definitions.


title: Via ferrata

text: One criticism of these grading system is that they ignore the severity and length of the difficulties – a long, high mountain route with extensive passages of grade D is very different from a short valley route also graded D, but with only a brief difficult section. To overcome this, additional ratings on the seriousness of the route are often provided – the Kurt Schall guides use a five-level adjectival scale; Smith and Fletcher use a three-point scale A–C. The old Hofler/Werner guidebooks use a single general grade on an A-G scale. Most guidebooks provide some further information to help assess the nature of a route, such as the length of the route, the maximum height reached, and even a grade for the quality of the protection.


title: Via ferrata

text: For many years via ferratas were climbed using simple equipment – carabiners fixed to short lengths of rope or slings attached to a chest (or sit) harness, on the basis that one would not fall very far. However, it gradually became apparent that these systems did not prevent serious injury. With only a short length of rope to absorb the energy of a fall which can be much longer, the fall factor (which in rock climbing does not normally exceed two) can be high. These high factors generate considerable forces which the human body, as well as most items of climbing equipment, cannot withstand, leading to serious injury and equipment failure. To address this, a number of devices have been developed to act as shock absorbers or progressive brakes. They aim to dissipate the energy of the fall more effectively than a short rope length and so keep the climber and equipment intact.


title: Via ferrata

text: However, in spite of these equipment developments and the perception of via ferratas as being more secure and safe than rock climbing, people are more likely to injure themselves if they do fall, partly because of these elevated fall factors and partly because there are often rungs and steps on which to land. After a fatal via ferrata accident in August 2012 where both elastic lanyards on the energy-absorbing systems (EAS) in a via ferrata set failed, the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) worked with manufacturers to identify and recall several models of EAS systems.


title: Via ferrata

text: In the European Economic Area, energy absorbing systems for use in via ferrata climbing are classed as personal protective equipment (PPE) and are subject to the safety requirements and conformity assessment procedures of the PPE regulation (EU) 2016/425. The requirements of the Regulation are supported by a European Harmonised Standard, EN 958. This standard was revised in 2017 to include several redesigned tests to prevent the type of failures involved in the 2012 accident.


title: Via ferrata

text: A via ferrata set comprises a lanyard and two carabiners. The lanyard consists of an energy-absorbing system, two arms which connect to the cable with the carabiners, and a means of connecting to the harness. Modern lanyards use a "Y" tape configuration, which is currently the only type approved by UIAA, as it is simpler and safer to use and harder to use inappropriately. Using the Y lanyard, both arms should be attached to the steel line, although the system still functions if only one is clipped. However, some earlier lanyards use a "V" configuration. These were the first to be developed but suffer from a major limitation – it is essential to clip only one arm at a time onto the cable. If both arms are clipped, the energy absorber will not work. Some lanyards also have a short third arm which allows the climber to rest on steep sections. Some types of commercially available lanyards have retractable arms to keep them out of the way.


title: Via ferrata

text: The main type of energy absorber in use today is a tearing energy absorber. This consists of a length of webbing specially sewn together to allow progressive tearing in case of a fall. Such devices can only be used once to arrest a serious fall, and will exhibit visible damage afterwards. The advantages of this type of absorber are that it is compact and that it can be easily verified that it is not being reused after a fall (particularly valuable in the case of rented equipment); the disadvantage is that it can be used only once, leaving the climber unprotected in case of a second fall.


title: Via ferrata

text: The other type of energy absorber is a metal braking device with a rope passing through it and attached to the harness. Previously popular, these have been largely withdrawn after the re-evaluation of via ferrata safety that occurred after a 2012 accident. The device provides a high degree of resistance when the rope is pulled, thus gradually absorbing the energy of the fall. There were several variants of these absorbers. The advantage of such absorbers is that they can be used again after a fall, providing some protection while finishing the climb. Note that after any significant fall, the lanyard should be replaced. A length of the rope which passes through the plate hangs loosely from the plate while in use, so as to be available to be drawn through the plate if high fall forces occur. This "tail" tends to get in the climber's way; commercially made lanyards employ various methods to attach the tail to the harness and/or hold it in a compact bundle which can easily be pulled apart during deployment. However, if the climber, by seeking to secure the tail, impedes its ability to pull through the plate under load, excessive forces will not be dissipated and an unsafe situation is created.


title: Via ferrata

text: Carabiners are also made specially for via ferratas, their design typically allowing a larger-than-normal opening and having a spring locking mechanism that can be opened with one hand. They are also strong enough to withstand high fall factors. Such carabiners are marked with a K in a circle, the K standing for Klettersteig, the German term for via ferrata. These are the only types of carabiner that should be used on the end of the safety lines. A typical design uses a spring-loaded sleeve on the carabiner gate. While the gate is closed, the sleeve is held in place over the gate opening by its spring; to unlock and open the gate, the sleeve slides directly down the gate shaft away from the opening. The ease of opening these devices makes them suitable for via ferrata climbing, with its constant clipping and unclipping, but not for applications where more secure locking mechanisms (automatic or manual) are called for. However, locking sleeves on via ferrata carabiners have been known to hang up in the gate opening and prevent the gate from closing properly. Care must be taken to maintain (clean and lubricate) and/or replace the carabiners as needed to avoid this potentially unsafe situation. Also, these carabiners are not true "locking carabiners", as employed in roped climbing and caving systems, and should not be used as such.


title: Via ferrata

text: A normal climbing harness is used. Children and people with heavy backpacks are advised to use a full body harness or a normal harness combined with a chest strap.


title: Via ferrata

text: A helmet is generally strongly recommended, especially on longer or steeper routes, or where rocks may be loose. The helmet should be a UIAA approved climbing helmet, since the danger of falling rocks or hitting your head during a fall is always high. Other types of helmets can be dangerous as they are usually not designed to stay in place during a fall.


title: Via ferrata

text: It is a good idea to use tough gloves, as the steel cables may have some loose steel threads, and gloves help to protect your hands from abrasion caused by continuous contact with the steel rope and rocks.


title: Via ferrata

text: On difficult climbs, or when climbing with novices or children, a length of climbing rope and belay device may provide additional security.


title: Via ferrata

text: Other equipment will depend on the nature of the via ferrata, its approach and descent – so adequate weather protection should be taken on alpine via ferratas. Some via ferratas require headlamps because they travel through long tunnels; other routes may cross glaciers or snow fields and require crampons and an ice axe. On very difficult via ferratas some climbers use climbing shoes rather than the hiking boots normally used.


title: Via ferrata

text: Austria, with as of 2009 over 550 "Klettersteige," is arguably the country that has most enthusiastically embraced the via ferrata – with via ferratas promoted as a way to experience nature and with the regional sections of the ÖAV (Austrian Alpine Club) basing many of their harder walks around via ferratas. Via ferratas in Austria have a long history, with routes being established at the start of the 20th century in the Northern Limestone Alps. For many years route development remained focused in this area and it is only more recently that via ferratas have been built across the Austrian Alps. As a broad generalisation, routes in Austria fall somewhere between the long mountain routes of the Dolomites and the shorter sporting routes of France. That said, the via ferrata currently (2012) considered the hardest technically in the world is in Austria: the "Arena" variant of the Bürgeralm-Panorama-Klettersteig in Styria.


title: Via ferrata

text: The Northern Limestone Alps, which run from near Vienna to the Swiss border, remain at the heart of Austrian klettersteig, with routes concentrated in key mountain groups: the Rax (where some of the oldest via ferratas are), the Hohe Wand, the Totes Gebirge, the Dachstein, the Wilder Kaiser, the Karwendel. The Dachstein mountains in Styria, in particular, are home to several notable via ferratas, including the Ramsauer Klettersteig, the Jubiläumsklettersteig, and on the northern side of the Dachstein, the Seewand Klettersteig, which is one of the hardest long routes in Austria. However, perhaps the highlight is the long and difficult Dachstein Super Ferrata, recently created by linking three routes, and possibly the most challenging via ferrata overall in Austria. Other notable routes in the Northern Limestone Alps are the Innsbrucker Klettersteig in the Karwendel and the Tajakante Klettersteig in the Mieminger Chain just to the east (both routes are in Tirol, near Innsbruck).


title: Via ferrata

text: The Central Eastern Alps have seen more recent development, with large numbers of routes in the Otztal and the Stubai Alps, and on either side of the Hohe Tauern. Highly regarded routes are the Schlicker Klettersteig and Ilmspitz Klettersteig in the Stubai, the Tiroler Weg in the Otztal, and the Bella Vista Klettersteig on the south side of the Hohe Tauern in Carinthia. Other via ferratas in this area climb a number of 3000m summits. The Southern Limestone Alps in Carinthia and East Tirol are more traditional ground for via ferratas. Several routes lie near the Italian border (in the Carnic Alps) which formed the front line in World War I and some via ferratas pass fortifications from the conflict, including the Weg der 26er which ascends the Hohe Warte, the highest peak of the range.


title: Via ferrata

text: As well as historic via ferratas based on World War I fortifications, the Dolomites are particularly renowned for their dramatic high mountain via ferratas. Several of these provide challenging ways to reach some of the summits in the range. Among the more notable routes are:


title: Via ferrata

text: Probably the most unusual via ferrata is the via ferrata Lagazuoi Tunnels. Fighting for control of Mount Lagazuoi in World War I, Austrian and Italian troops built a series of tunnels through the mountains. The aim was to tunnel close to the enemy and detonate explosives to destroy their fortifications. A via ferrata now uses these tunnels, allowing one to descend into and through the mountain.


title: Via ferrata

text: There are a great many other via ferratas in the Dolomites, including many shorter routes such as the easy Via ferrata Averau, or the difficult Via ferrata del Canalone. There are via ferratas in the valleys around the dolomites, such as Via ferrata Burrone Giovannelli near Mezzocorona, in the Etschtal (Val d'Adige) which ascends a gorge.


title: Via ferrata

text: To the west of the main dolomites, on the other side of the A22/E45 road, are the smaller Brenta Dolomites, which are compact but dramatic, and rise above the town of Madonna di Campiglio. The Brenta contain a dense network of via ferratas, the core of which is the Via delle Bocchette system, consisting of several sections, including the Sentiero Bocchette Alte and the Sentiero delle Bocchette Centrali. The northern end of the range can be reached by lifts from Madonna di Campiglio, and it is possible to spend several days at high altitude on the network of via ferratas, staying at mountain huts. However, in accordance with the wishes of the region's climbers, the routes do not reach any major summits.


title: Via ferrata

text: There are over 150 via ferratas in Italy outside of the Dolomites, most of them constructed fairly recently. There are notable concentrations at the northern end of Lake Garda, in the Aosta valley, in the mountains east of Lake Como and in the Friuli region, split between the Carnic and Julian Alps.


title: Via ferrata

text: France saw its first via ferrata in 1988 – La Grande Falaise in Freissinière in the Ecrins. This was shortly followed by the via ferratas at les Vigneaux just to the north (the easier route, La Voie du Colombier, is the most popular in France with 15,000 climbers per year) and the Aiguillette du Lauzet, a little further north (a more traditional high mountain via ferrata). There are now some 200 via ferratas in France, located throughout the French Alps, and with a few routes in the Massif Central, the Pyrenees and even in Corsica. They are well distributed across the six French grades, with handful each of F and ED, the bulk falling within the four middle classifications. As via ferratas have developed across the country, some have identified a distinct "french style, with metal rungs driven into improbable overhangs", spiced with wire bridges, and an emphasis on thrill seeking – although some criticise French routes as having an excess of iron climbing aids. Dramatic features underpin many of the more notable routes: long suspension bridges (59m at the via ferrata de la Grande Fistoire), wire "monkey" bridges (via ferrata de la Chal); routes into and across gorges (the "spectacular" via ferrata Gorges de la Durance); routes up and around waterfalls (via ferrata de l´Adret: la Passerelle) or simply overhanging and strenuous (the neighbouring via ferrata de l´Adret: Le Bastion).


title: Via ferrata

text: Other routes facilitate visits to historic sites. Les Mines du Grand Clôt near the village of La Grave in the Hautes Alpes department takes the climber up a sheer cliff where a lead mine operated with little success between 1807 and 1925. This route is illustrated with sign boards in English and French telling the story of the struggle to extract small amounts of ore in very difficult conditions. Another via near Lumbin in the department of Isère, the Vire des Lavandières, passes an old section of route called the Échelle des Maquisards built in 1943 and used by resistance fighters during the Second World War.


title: Via ferrata

text: Responsibility for maintaining via ferratas in France lies with the commune in which the via is situated. Maintenance can be costly depending on location, with vias at higher altitudes being subject to damage by snow and ice through the winter months. Some communes have decided to fund this maintenance by charging an admission fee, but this applies to very few vias and most remain free of charge.


title: Via ferrata

text: The first via ferrata in Spain was built in 1954 (Canal del Palomo, Huesca, Grading D). After that, it took longer before a sporty route was created in 1993 at Montserrat in Catalonia. Today there may be around 200 via ferratas in Spain. Most of them are located in Catalonia, Aragon and Andalusia (around Ronda and Malaga). Due to the weather, they can mostly be used all year round. Only a few routes lead to a summit. The most difficult via ferrata in the world is on the Canary Islands (Via Ferrata Extraplomix, Gran Canaria, unique Grading G). A specialty are routes that lead through waterless canals (e.g. Canal de las Damas, Collbató, Grading D).


title: Via ferrata

text: Despite its central position in the Alps, via ferratas took a long time to arrive in Switzerland. It was not until 1993 that the Tälli Klettersteig, the first real Swiss via ferrata (and still considered one of the best), was created on the sheer southern faces of Gadmer Flue in the Urner Alps. Even then nothing much further happened for several years, but in this century there has been a rapid development of via ferratas, with over 150 now listed. According to the Rother guide, the Swiss via ferratas are typically similar in character to the "sport" via ferratas in France; however, they are usually not as generously engineered with artificial holds so that climbers have to make contact with the rock and think about where the next foothold is.


title: Via ferrata

text: Via ferratas are now spread across Switzerland, but particularly in the central and western areas. Areas with a large number of via ferratas are the Bernese Oberland with 32 routes and the Valais with 39 routes. In central Switzerland there are several routes around Lake Lucerne, in the Urner and Vierwaldstätter alps (15 and 17 routes respectively), with Engelberg developing into a notable centre for ferrata – here, the Fürenwand-Klettersteig is considered the "most spectacular".


title: Via ferrata

text: The range of routes is diverse: "action-packed" gorge routes (Alpine gorge in Saas Fee, Gorner gorge near Zermatt); panoramic routes onto 3000m peaks (Jegisteig <nowiki>[</nowiki>Jägihorn<nowiki>]</nowiki> and Mittaghorn Klettersteig, both near Saas Fee); high alpine challenges (Salbit-Kettenweg near Andermatt); and demanding athletic routes (Via ferrata San Salvatore near Lugano). The Rother guide considers that the most outstanding routes with regard to scenery and grading are the Braunwalder via ferrata in the eastern Swiss canton of Glarus and the Daubenhorn via ferrata near Leukerbad in the Valais. Also known as Leukerbadner Klettersteig (1&2), the latter is also the longest via ferrata in Switzerland.


title: Via ferrata

text: There are about 180 via ferratas in Germany, the easiest of which can be approached without special equipment.


title: Via ferrata

text: There are also many via ferratas in other areas – most notably in Saxon Switzerland. As opposed to via ferratas in the Dolomites, many routes were built in modern times and they have a sport character, and can be short and much more difficult than classics in the Dolomites.


title: Via ferrata

text: There are at least 7 vía ferratas in Bulgaria. One of the most popular was built in 2010 near Malyovitsa hut. There are also 4 via ferratas in the Rhodopes - near Smolyan, Rakitovo and Trigrad.


title: Via ferrata

text: There is a via ferrata system in the town of Děčín. It has an easy shared starting section at the end of which you can choose a number of different routes with a variety of difficulties.


title: Via ferrata

text: Another system of three via ferratas forming a closed circuit is near the village Vír and the eponymous dam.


title: Via ferrata

text: There are several via ferratas in the Rugova Mountains, near Peja. The Ari via ferrata was conceived in 2012 and constructed with the collaboration of Italian and Kosovar alpine clubs. The via ferrata Berim is near Zubin Potok and is the longest in and highest in the Balkans.


title: Via ferrata

text: Several via ferratas () are found in Norway, usually named by their Norwegian word "klatresti" which roughly translates as 'climbing trail'. The recent years have seen the construction of several new ones - via ferratas have less of a tradition in Norway than they have in southern Europe.


title: Via ferrata

text: There is a via ferrata "Tysso" in Tyssedal, starting at the Norwegian Museum of Hydro Power and Industry and climbing along the very steep hydropower pipeline. Kyrkjeveggen ("the church wall") is situated in Fjæra in the fjord of Åkrafjorden. The route of Kyrkjeveggen elevates 500 meters to the top. There is also one in Hemsedal. The most known is the Via Ferrata Loen in Stryn. It opened in 2012. This track contains the dramatic hanging bridge, Gjølmunnebrua. Trondheim boasts a via ferrata opposite the Trondheimsfjord on the Munken mountain, with views of the city. Since 2015 Straumsfjell in Setesdal is Northern Europe's longest via ferrata. The one in Lom starts from 380 m MSL to end in 1524 m MSL, a record in Norway both in vertical metre and for the highest end point. Another via ferrata also opened in Åndalsnes in 2017.


title: Via ferrata

text: As of 2022, there are at least twelve areas with via ferrata routes in Romania. Most routes are "sport" oriented, opened in recent years, with grades varying from A to E. There is a cluster of twenty-one routes near Peștera Muierilor, in the Baia de Fier commune, Gorj county, where the latest route was finished in December 2021. In December, 2021 Baia de Fier received the National Record for the largest cluster of Acrobatic Via Ferrata in Romania. Another cluster of five routes is called "Astragalus" (named after the Astragalus species of herbs) and can be found near Șugău River (Bicaz) – these routes were opened in Spring 2017 and are subject to a fee. The mountain rescue service in Bihor county built two routes near Vadu Crișului and one route in Pietrele Negre, near Arieșeni commune, in the Apuseni Mountains. The mountain rescue service in Harghita county built the route called "Wild Ferenc" in 2016, near Red Lake.


title: Via ferrata

text: Several via ferrata routes scattered in Slovakia, with the largest concentration located in a ski and via ferrata area in Skalka, close to the town of Kremnica. Skalka has two co-located, free public sub-areas. One is called via ferrata Komin which has one E rated (60metres), one D rated, one C rated, one B rated, two A/B rated and one A rated ferratas and several boulders. Second area, Via Ferrata Land, has one F rated (45 metres), one E rated, one D rated, three B rated and one A rated ferattas. Other via ferrata routes can be found in Martinske Hole (B & C), Kysel or Liptov where is via Ferrata Dve veze (3 routes - B,C & C/D).


title: Via ferrata

text: There are many via ferrata routes or route sections in Slovenia, though there is no definite list. In the western part (Julian Alps), a few have similar wartime origins to those in the Dolomites, all the rest being in disrepair or of later construction. Routes have evolved as protection has been added to trails in the "very difficult" category – difficulty tends to be more variable and protection tends to be less continuous than purpose built via ferrata elsewhere. Notable routes are the routes up Triglav from the Vrata valley (the Prag route, the Tomisek Route, and the Bamberg way), the Kopiščar "through the window" route up Prisank and the Slovenian way up Mangart.


title: Via ferrata

text: In 2010 the first sport via ferrata vas built near Vinska Gora, called "Gonžarjeva peč", difficulty D/E. Others were added in recent years, e.g., Lisca (Cerje), difficulty B/C (top-most part D/E), Mojstrana (Grančišče), and Češka koča (Jezersko).


title: Via ferrata

text: There are at least seven via ferrata routes in Sweden. One on the eastern route to the peak of Kebnekaise, one in Funäsdalen, one in Kittelfjäll and four on "Skuleberget" in the High Coast area.


title: Via ferrata

text: In the Lake District, Honister's via ferrata is based on an old miners' track up the steep face of Fleetwith Pike.


title: Via ferrata

text: In the Yorkshire Dales, How Stean Gorge's via ferrata was constructed in 2009 for recreational purposes and incorporates fixed beams and ladders over the river as well as rockface sections.


title: Via ferrata

text: To the west of the village of Elie, in the county of Fife, Scotland, the Elie Chain Walk was perhaps the closest thing that Scotland had to a via ferrata until the recent creation of that at Kinlochleven. The Elie Chain Walk comprises eight chains along a route which follows steep sea cliffs, and typical via ferrata equipment (lanyards, helmet, harness) is never used. Reputed to have first been installed to help fishermen reach their nets, it is now maintained by the local council and was recently refurbished. It is suitable for those aged about 10 and above (with supervision); it is not recommended at high tide due to the possibility of being stranded.


title: Via ferrata

text: Recently Scotland had its first Via Ferrata completed. Via Ferrata Scotland is located in Kinlochleven, near Fort William and Glencoe. This runs beside the third biggest waterfall in Scotland, The Grey Mare's Tail, it was installed and is operated by Vertical Descents.


title: Via ferrata

text: There is also an indoor via ferrata in Kendal Climbing Wall that takes a route around the climbing areas on steel ladders and rungs.


title: Via ferrata

text: "Via Ferrata Cornwall" in Halvasso, an area near Penryn and Falmouth, is situated in a quarry site and features metal rungs, ladders, suspension bridges and zip wires.


title: Via ferrata

text: There are many via ferrata routes in Portugal, the longest being Via Ferrata das Talhadas with a length of 2190m.


title: Via ferrata

text: There are several via ferratas in Canada, mostly privately operated. In 2002, the mountain guide François Guy Thivierge installed the first two via ferratas, with a zip line, in Canada, at the Canyon St Anne close to Québec City. In 2003, Thivierge developed 2 more via ferratas (with 2 zip lines) in Les Palissades de Charlevoix, 10 km north on 170 road from St Siméon. There is one in Arbraska Laflèche in Val-des-Monts, Quebec and a second one in Arbraska Rawdon in Rawdon, Quebec.


title: Via ferrata

text: Western Canada has eight routes. The largest via ferrata in Canada can be found on Mt. Nimbus in the Purcell Mountains of British Columbia. One of two operated by Canadian Mountain Holidays, this via ferrata is accessible only by helicopter. British Columbia's other via ferratas are at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort near Golden, at the Sea to Sky Gondola near Squamish, and at Whistler.


title: Via ferrata

text: Western Canada's first public via ferrata is on Mt. Stelfox in Alberta, halfway between Nordegg and the Icefield Parkway in the Rocky Mountains; the trailhead can be picked up at the parking lot on the east side of the Cline River. The climb is about 180 m (600 ft) long and takes around 2 hours to return to the parking lot. The other via ferratas in Alberta are on Mount Ernest Ross and on Mt. Norquay.


title: Via ferrata

text: In recent years, China's rise of a professional Ferrata construction company, called Yuehua Junning, the company's team mostly through the Cave Union and IRATA professional training, and has its own Ferrata components production lines and R&D institutions. Its team has built more than 20 Ferratas in the Hainan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Chongqing, Henan, Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Beijing and other places. The more famous lines are in Xiushui County, Jiangxi Province, and East Huhai Scenic Area.


title: Via ferrata

text: Mount Hua, near Xi'an in China, has at least two short via ferrata routes. , more than 10 ferratas have been built in China, including Beijing, Guizhou, Chongqing, Jiangxi, Yunnan, and Shanxi. Prisme through its Chinese partner Beijing Via Ferrata Development & Services Co. Ltd, built 3 ferratas in Beijing, Shanxi and Yunnan. A few local companies have begun to build via ferrata as well, although the safety standards of via ferrata built by local companies are not the same as Prisme or other European builders.


title: Via ferrata

text: On Mount Hōken in the Japanese Central Alps are mid-level via ferratas. At an elevation over 2900 meters they pass over sheer drops of 300 meters. Several people have died on this route and the via ferratas can unexpectedly ice over.


title: Via ferrata

text: In July 2012 a via ferrata developed by the Kenyan Wildlife Services (KWS), opened on Mount Kenya, providing safe passage on the Northwest approach to Point Lenana (via Austrian Hut), as well from the south side (Shipton). Christened "Olonana", was the world's highest via ferrata, at .


title: Via ferrata

text: In 2011 a via ferrata developed by Green Discovery Laos was opened as part of the Tree Top Explorer. It is an intermediate difficulty. Supported by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN, Netherlands) for its environment friendly approach and the involvement of local communities, the project also aims to give a boost to Laos' tourism diversification. Since its opening several other via ferratas have opened throughout Laos.


title: Via ferrata

text: The via ferrata in Malaysia is located on Mount Kinabalu in Sabah. At 3,776 meters, it was verified by Guinness World Records as the highest via ferrata in the world.


title: Via ferrata

text: There is a recent via ferrata in Mexico located in the Huasteca Canyon 30 minutes from the city of Monterrey, the largest in Latin America. Its difficulty level is intermediate.


title: Via ferrata

text: "Via Ferrata Drolambau Ice Fall", year of the construction 2017–2019, located in the Rolwaling valley at an altitude of 5000 to 5400 m, the first in the Himalayas and the highest in the world. This via ferrata was designed and created by Explora Nunaat International to allow the passage to the most famous Kumbu valley and to make safe the ascent to the highest refuge in the Himalayas.


title: Via ferrata

text: There is a via ferrata on the western face of Queenstown Hill. It comprises 12 routes covering over 300 vertical metres.


title: Via ferrata

text: A via ferrata in Wanaka is privately operated by a company called Wildwire Wanaka. The via ferrata includes a section running up a 60-meter waterfall, and is the highest waterfall via ferrata in the world.


title: Via ferrata

text: There are five routes in Oman; three are operated by the Ministry of Tourism; Jabal Shams, Wadi Bani Awf (Snake Gorge) and Bandar Khayran (Western Isle) which have been out of commission since 2012.


title: Via ferrata

text: Currently only two are operating; which are privately run by Alila Jabal Akhdar – one is level 2 and the second is level 5, that includes a suspended bridge walk (22 metres) across a cave mouth.


title: Via ferrata

text: Located in the Sacred Valley of the Incas (2,650 meters), between Cuzco and the Ollantaytambo fortress. The via ferrata reaches a vertical height of 300 meters, including a hanging bridge at 250 meters, and has a total length of 700 meters. Private route. Intermediate level. The exit is via a 100-meter rappel.


title: Via ferrata

text: There is one route in the United Arab Emirates, located in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah. The route runs along Jebel Jais and has a total length of one kilometer, with 3 zip-lines part of the route.


title: Via ferrata

text: One publication cited the "best" via ferratas in the United States to be: Waterfall Canyon, Utah; Torrent Falls, Red River Gorge, Kentucky; Nelson Rocks, West Virginia; Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Wyoming; Telluride, Colorado; Ouray, Colorado and Tahoe Via Ferrata, Palisades Tahoe, California. Other routes include Royal Gorge Bridge in Cañon City, Colorado; Picacho Peak in Arizona's Picacho Peak State Park; and Amangiri Resort in southern Utah.


title: 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification (inter-confederation play-offs)

text: The inter-confederation play-offs of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification will determine the final three qualification spots for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup. The play-off tournament will be used as a test event for New Zealand to host prior to the Women's World Cup. It will take place from 18 to 23 February 2023, and will feature ten teams split into three groups, with the winner of each group qualifying for the Women's World Cup. New Zealand and another guest national team to be determined will also play friendlies against participating teams and each other as part of the event.


text: On 24 December 2020, the Bureau of the FIFA Council approved the slot allocation and format of the play-off tournament.


text: The play-off tournament will be held in New Zealand as a test event prior to their hosting of 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup. It will feature ten teams, to be split into three groups of three (Group A and B) or four (Group C). The winner of each group will qualify for the FIFA Women's World Cup. Four teams were seeded into groups based on the FIFA Women's World Rankings. In Groups A and B, two unseeded teams will face each other in a semi-final. The winner of the semi-final will advance to the play-off final, to play against the seeded team for a spot in the Women's World Cup. In Group C, the two seeded teams will face an unseeded team in the semi-finals. The winners of the semi-finals face each other in the play-off final for a spot in the Women's World Cup.


text: New Zealand and Argentina will participate in friendly matches as part of the event, first against one of the seeded teams in Groups A and B, and then twice against each other. Friendly matches will also take place between the semi-final loser of Groups A and B, as well as the two semi-final losers of Group C, thereby ensuring that all play-off teams play two matches at the event.


text: New Zealand were confirmed as the sole host nation for the play-off tournament on 4 July 2022. Australia were originally planned as co-hosts of the play-offs, with their national team participating in friendly matches.


text: The play-off draw took place on 14 October 2022, 12:00 CEST (), in Zürich, Switzerland. Four teams were seeded into groups based on the FIFA Women's World Rankings of 13 October 2022 (shown in parentheses), with a maximum of one seeded team per confederation. The UEFA team was automatically seeded into pot 1, so as to prevent three European teams from being drawn into the same group in the final tournament. The highest-ranked team was placed in slot A1, the second-highest in slot B1, the third-highest in slot C1 and the fourth-highest in slot C2. The remaining six teams were unseeded and drawn into the remaining slots, with the condition that teams from the same confederation could not be drawn into the same group. In the draw, the six unseeded teams were allocated to the first available group sequentially (from A to C, before repeating). After a team was selected, a separate draw then determined the team's position within their respective group for the purposes of the schedule.


text: The match schedule and venues, without kick-off times, were confirmed on 4 July 2022. The kick-off times were confirmed on 5 November 2022, after the play-off draw. The semi-finals will take place from 18 to 19 February, while the finals will take place from 22 to 23 February 2023.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Slut-shaming is the practice of criticizing people, especially women and girls, who are perceived to violate expectations of behavior and appearance regarding issues related to sexuality. The term is used to reclaim the word "slut" and empower women and girls to have agency over their own sexuality. It may also be used in reference to gay men, who may face disapproval for promiscuous sexual behaviors. Slut-shaming rarely happens to heterosexual men.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Examples of slut-shaming include being criticized or punished for: violating dress code policies by dressing in sexually provocative ways; requesting access to birth control; having premarital, extramarital, casual, or promiscuous sex; or engaging in prostitution. It can also include being victim-blamed for being raped or otherwise sexually assaulted.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Slut-shaming involves criticizing women for their transgression of accepted codes of sexual conduct, i.e., admonishing them for behavior, attire or desires that are more sexual than society finds acceptable. Author Jessalynn Keller stated, "The phrase [slut-shaming] became popularized alongside the SlutWalk marches and functions similarly to the 'War on Women,' producing affective connections while additionally working to reclaim the word 'slut' as a source of power and agency for girls and women."


title: Slut-shaming

text: Slut-shaming is used by men and women. Women who slut-shame other women continuously apply unfavorable sexual double standards which were established by men. The term is also used to describe victim blaming for rape and other sexual assault. This blaming is done by stating the crime was caused (either in part or in full) by the woman wearing revealing clothing or acting in a sexually provocative manner, before refusing consent to sex, thereby absolving the perpetrator of guilt. Sexually lenient individuals can be at risk of social isolation.


title: Slut-shaming

text: The action of slut-shaming can be a form of social punishment and is an aspect of sexism, as well as female intrasexual competition. Slut-shaming is a form of intrasexual competition because the term "slut" reduces the value of a woman. Being termed a "slut" is against a woman's gender norms.


title: Slut-shaming

text: The social movement falls into the category of feminism. This raises controversy because gender roles have a significant role in the social movement. The topic of slut-shaming sheds light on the social issues that are associated with the double standard. This is because slut-shaming is commonly aimed toward women, and not men. Slut-shaming is common in America because it is such a high-context culture, which means it is easier to be victim blamed.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Researchers from Cornell University found that sentiments similar to slut-shaming appeared in a nonsexual, same-sex friendship context as well. The researchers had college women read a vignette describing an imaginary female peer, "Joan", then rate their feelings about her personality. To one group of women, Joan was described as having two lifetime sexual partners; to another group, she had had 20 partners. The study found that women—even women who were more promiscuous themselves—rated the Joan with 20 partners as "less competent, emotionally stable, warm, and dominant" than the Joan with two.


title: Slut-shaming

text: There is no documented date of origin for the term "slut-shaming"; nor the act of it. Rather, although the act of slut-shaming has existed for centuries, discussion of it has grown out of social and cultural relations and the trespassing of boundaries of what is considered normative and acceptable behavior. Second wave of feminism contributed significantly to the definition and act of slut-shaming. Tracing back to the Industrial Revolution and the Second World War, men's gender roles were that of the breadwinner. Men made up a majority of the labor force while women were socialized and taught to embrace the cult of domesticity and homemaking. Author Emily Poole argues that the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s increased the rate of both birth control use and premarital sex. Moreover, feminist writers during the 1960s and 1970s such as Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Kate Millett encouraged women to be more open about their sexuality in public settings.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Slut-shaming has correlation to an individual's socio-economic status, which is characterized by wealth, education, and occupation. In the 18th century, "slut" was a common term used by men and upper-class women to degrade lower-class female servants. The context behind upper-class women and men calling their servants a "slut" includes when the servants were being sexually assaulted by their male employers. Upper-class women calling other women "sluts" proved their adherence to their socio-economic status over their gender.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Slut-shaming is prevalent on social media platforms, including the most commonly used: YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Slut-shaming has occurred on Facebook in controversial exchanges between users that have resulted in convictions to menace, harass and cause offense.


title: Slut-shaming

text: It has been reported by The Pew Research Center that the most common targets of harassment on the Internet are often young women. Citing that 50% of young female respondents have been called offensive names and or shamed online. In particular, those who were 18 to 24 years of age experienced varying amounts of severe harassment at astoundingly high rates. Women who have been stalked online were at 26%, while the targets of online sexual harassment were at 25%.


title: Slut-shaming

text: In the "Women Studies International Forum", researcher Jessica Megarry used the Twitter hashtag campaign #mencallmethings as a case study of online sexual harassment. Women used the hashtag to report harassment they received from men, including insults related to appearance, name calling, rape threats, and death threats.


title: Slut-shaming

text: One example of a character in literature who has been described as being a recipient of 'slut-shaming' is the character Lily Bart in Edith Wharton's "House of Mirth".


title: Slut-shaming

text: The SlutWalk protest march had its origins in Toronto in response to an incident when a Toronto Police officer told a group of students that they could avoid sexual assault by not dressing like "'sluts'". Amber Rose's second annual walk in Los Angeles in 2016 had "several hundred" participants. A similar event occurred in Washington DC in 2014.


title: Slut-shaming

text: The Slut Walk movement has embraced the slut-shame label and has engaged in an act of resignification. Ringrose et al. call the Slut Walk a "collective movement" where the focus goes back to the perpetrator and no longer rests on the victim. This act of resignification comes from the work of feminist scholar Judith Butler. In her 1997 work, she argued that labels do not just name and marginalize individuals to categories, but also open up an opportunity for resistance.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Krystal Ball characterized the comments of Rush Limbaugh during the Rush Limbaugh–Sandra Fluke controversy as follows: "If you are a woman who stands up for your rights, you are a slut and your parents should be ashamed of you and we should all have the right to view your sex tapes online. This type of despicable behavior is part and parcel of a time-worn tradition of Slut-Shaming. When women step out line [sic], they are demeaned and degraded into silence. If you say Herman Cain sexually harassed you, you are a slut. If you say Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sexually harassed you, you are a slut."


title: Slut-shaming

text: Slut-shaming has been used as a form of bullying on social media, with some people using revenge pornography tactics to spread intimate photos without consent. In 2012, a teenager from California, Audrie Pott, was sexually assaulted by three boys at a party. She committed suicide eight days after photos of her being assaulted were distributed among her peer group.


title: Slut-shaming

text: James Miller, editor-in-chief of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada, wrote a controversial article defending slut shaming. The article was later taken down, but still received criticism from some libertarians, such as Gina Luttrell of "Thoughts on Liberty", an all-female libertarian blog.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Comedians Krystyna Hutchinson and Corinne Fischer of "Sorry About Last Night" host a podcast entitled "Guys We Fucked, The Anti-slut shaming podcast". This podcast has over 200,000 listeners on each episode that is on SoundCloud. The podcast exists to de-stigmatize discussing sex so that slut-shaming becomes less of an issue. Hutchinson told "The Huffington Post": "We want to make people feel more comfortable in their own skin. We just got a message from a girl from New Delhi, India, about how she loves the podcast because it makes her feel like it's OK to be comfortable with your sexuality and enjoy sex. And that made me so happy".


title: Slut-shaming

text: Activism against slut-shaming takes place worldwide. Participants have covered their bodies in messages reading "Don't Tell Me How to Dress" and "I am not a slut but I like having consensual sex" and march under a giant banner with the word slut on it. Activism has occurred in Vancouver, New York City, Rio, Jerusalem, Hong Kong, and others.


title: Slut-shaming

text: In 2008, hundreds of South African women protested at the local taxi rank wearing miniskirts and t-shirts that read, "Pissed-Off Women" after a taxi driver and multiple hawkers confronted a young girl about wearing a short denim miniskirt and penetrated her with their fingers, calling her "slut" repeatedly. Protesters wanted to make their message clear; they wanted men to stop harassing women, no matter how short their skirts were and that no matter how short it may be, it is never an invitation.


title: Slut-shaming

text: After the gang rape of an unconscious 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, August 2012, football players spread videos of the assault to other classmates, some of whom posted the videos to Twitter and Instagram. The pictures and video were later removed by authorities; however, that did not stop people from hash-tagging "Whore status" or "I have no sympathy for whores" in their tweets. Members of the collective Anonymous reported names of the rapists and classmates who spread the footage to local authorities. They took to the streets and internet requesting help from the community to bring justice to the Jane Doe who was raped.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Members of The Arts Effect All-Girl Theater Company have developed a play, "", in which they address the damaging impact of slut-shaming and slut culture. The creators state that their play "is a call to action – a reminder" that slut-shaming is happening every day, almost everywhere. "Slut" is inspired by real-life experiences of 14- to 17-year-old girls from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. The play was shown at the 2013 New York Fringe Festival.


title: Slut-shaming

text: In her statement on the production, and of slut-shaming in general, author of "Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation", Leora Tanenbaum writes:


title: Slut-shaming

text: After experiencing slut-shaming firsthand, Olivia Melville, Paloma Brierly Newton and approximately a dozen other Australian women founded the organization, Sexual Violence Won't Be Silenced, on August 25, 2015. The association seeks to raise awareness of cyber-bullying and online sexual violence. The founders also launched a petition to the Australian government, requesting that they better train and educate law enforcement officers on how to prevent and punish violent harassment on social media.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Gay and bisexual men are also victimized through slut-shaming because of their sexual activity. There has been research supporting that LGBT students were more likely to be bullied and called sluts than heterosexual students. Researchers discussed how these negative experiences of victimization by peers, friends and strangers can lead to physical harm, social shaming, and loss of friendships. Unlike heterosexual people, LGBT people are more likely to learn about safe sex practices from friends. Gay and bisexual men are at highest risk of HIV. Most of the education that young gay and bisexual men receive about safe sex practices is learned from friends, the Internet, hearsay or trial and error.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Criticism of non-heterosexual men's sexual activity can either be said in a humorous context or not. Judgementalism happens when someone mentions gay men's sexual risk behavior or that they have multiple sex partners. This implies that their behavior is "slutty" and dirty.


title: Slut-shaming

text: Street harassment includes cat-calling, victim blaming, and slut shaming. Judgmentalism is not a pejorative word compared to women, and slut-shaming may have a positive connotation with men depending on context and relationship.


title: Bill Richardson

text: William Blaine Richardson III (born November 15, 1947) is an American politician, author, and diplomat who served as the 30th governor of New Mexico from 2003 to 2011. He was also the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Energy Secretary in the Clinton administration, a U.S. Congressman, chairman of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.


title: Bill Richardson

text: In December 2008, Richardson was nominated for the cabinet-level position of Secretary of Commerce in the first Obama administration but withdrew a month later, as he was being investigated for possible improper business dealings in New Mexico. Although the investigation was later dropped, it was seen to have damaged Richardson's career as his second and final term as New Mexico governor concluded.


title: Bill Richardson

text: Richardson has occasionally provided advice on diplomatic issues pertaining to North Korea and has visited the nation on several occasions, including efforts to release American detainees. He has completed a number of private humanitarian missions, one of which secured the release of U.S. journalist Danny Fenster from a Myanmar prison in November 2021.


title: Bill Richardson

text: Richardson was born in Pasadena, California. He grew up in the borough of Coyoacán in Mexico City. His father, William Blaine Richardson, Jr. (1891–1972), who was of Anglo-American and Mexican descent, was an American bank executive from Boston who worked in Mexico for what is now Citibank. His mother, María Luisa López-Collada Márquez (1914–2011), had been his father's secretary — she was the Mexican-born daughter of a Mexican mother and a Spanish father from Villaviciosa, Asturias. Richardson's father was born on a ship heading towards Nicaragua. Just before Bill Richardson was born, his father sent his mother to California to give birth because, as Richardson explained, "My father had a complex about not having been born in the United States."


title: Bill Richardson

text: Richardson, a United States citizen by birth, spent his childhood in a lavish hacienda in Coyoacán's barrio of San Francisco where he was raised as a Roman Catholic. When Richardson was 13, his parents sent him to the U.S. to attend Middlesex School, a preparatory school in Concord, Massachusetts, where he played baseball as a pitcher. He entered Tufts University in 1966, where he continued to play baseball.


title: Bill Richardson

text: In 1967, he played collegiate summer baseball in the Cape Cod Baseball League, pitching for the Cotuit Kettleers; he returned to the league in 1968 with the Harwich Mariners. A Kettleers program included the words "Drafted by K.C." Richardson said: Richardson's original biographies stated he had been drafted by the Kansas City Athletics and the Chicago Cubs to play professional baseball, but a 2005 "Albuquerque Journal" investigation discovered he never was on any official draft. Richardson acknowledged the error, which he claimed was unintentional, saying he had been scouted by several teams and told that he "would or could" be drafted, but he was mistaken in saying that he actually had been drafted.


title: Bill Richardson

text: He earned a Bachelor's degree at Tufts University in 1970, majoring in French and political science, and was a member and president of Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He earned a master's degree in international affairs from the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1971. He had met his future wife Barbara (née Flavin) when they were in high school in Concord, Massachusetts, and they married in 1972 following her graduation from Wheaton College.


title: Bill Richardson

text: After college, Richardson worked for Republican Congressman F. Bradford Morse from Massachusetts. He was later a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Richardson worked on congressional relations for the Henry Kissinger State Department during the Nixon administration.


title: Bill Richardson

text: In 1978, Richardson moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and ran for the House of Representatives in 1980 as a Democrat, losing narrowly to longtime 1st District representative and future United States Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan (R). Two years later, Richardson was elected to New Mexico's newly created third district, taking in most of the northern part of the state. Richardson spent 14 years in Congress, representing the country's most diverse district and holding 2,000 town meetings.


title: Bill Richardson

text: Richardson served as Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the 98th Congress (1983–1985) and as Chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Native American Affairs in the 103rd Congress (1993–1994). Richardson sponsored a number of bills, including the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments, the Indian Dams Safety Act, the Tribal Self-Governance Act, and the Jicarilla Apache Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act.


title: Bill Richardson

text: He became a member of the Democratic leadership as a deputy majority whip, where he became friends with Bill Clinton after they worked closely on several issues, including when he served as the ranking House Democrat in favor of NAFTA's passage in 1993. For his work as a back channel to Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Mexico's president at the time of the negotiations, he was awarded the Aztec Eagle Award, Mexico's highest award for a foreigner. Clinton in turn sent Richardson on various foreign policy missions, including a trip in 1996 in which Richardson traveled to Baghdad with Peter Bourne and engaged in lengthy one-on-one negotiations with Saddam Hussein to secure the release of two American aerospace workers who had been captured by the Iraqis after wandering over the Kuwaiti border. Richardson also visited Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Peru, India, North Korea, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Sudan to represent U.S. interests and met with Slobodan Milošević. In 1996, he played a major role in securing the release of American Evan Hunziker from North Korean custody and for securing a pardon for Eliadah McCord, an American convicted and imprisoned in Bangladesh. Due to these missions, Richardson was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.


title: Bill Richardson

text: As U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations between 1997 and 1998, Richardson flew to Afghanistan to meet with the Taliban and Abdul Rachid Dostum, an Uzbek warlord. The ceasefire he believed he had negotiated with the help of Bruce Riedel of the National Security Council failed to hold.


title: Bill Richardson

text: The Senate confirmed Richardson to be Clinton's Secretary of Energy on July 31, 1998. His tenure at the Department of Energy was marred by the Wen Ho Lee nuclear controversy. As told by "The New York Times" in a special report, a scientist later named as Lee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory was reported as a suspect who might have given nuclear secrets to the Chinese government. The article mentioned Richardson several times, although he denied in sworn testimony that he was the source or that he made improper disclosures. After being fired and spending nine months in solitary confinement as an alleged security risk, Lee was later cleared of espionage charges and released with an apology from the judge. Eventually, Lee won a $1.6 million settlement against the federal government and several news outlets, including the "Times" and "The Washington Post", for the accusation. Richardson was also criticized by the Senate for his handling of the espionage inquiry, which involved missing computer hard drives containing sensitive data, and for not testifying in front of Congress sooner. Richardson justified his response by saying that he was waiting to uncover more information before speaking to Congress. Republican Senators called for Richardson's resignation, while both parties criticized his role in the incident, and the scandal ended Richardson's hope of being named as Al Gore's running mate for the 2000 presidential election.


title: Bill Richardson

text: Richardson tightened security following the scandal, leading to the creation of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA, not to be confused with the NSA and the NSC). This foreshadowed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in reaction to the 9/11 attacks. Richardson also became the first Energy Secretary to implement a plan to dispose of nuclear waste. He created the Director for Native American Affairs position in the department in 1998, and in January 2000, oversaw the largest return of federal lands, 84,000 acres (340 km), to an Indian Tribe (the Northern Ute Tribe of Utah) in more than 100 years. Richardson also directed the overhaul of the department's consultation policy with Native American tribes and established the Tribal Energy Program.


title: Bill Richardson

text: With the end of the Clinton administration in January 2001, Richardson took on a number of different positions. He was an adjunct professor at Harvard Kennedy School and a lecturer at the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West. In 2000, Richardson was awarded a United States Institute of Peace Senior Fellowship. He spent the next year researching and writing on the negotiations with North Korea and the energy dimensions of U.S. relations. In 2011, Richardson was named a senior fellow at the Baker Institute of Rice University.


title: Bill Richardson

text: Richardson also joined Kissinger McLarty Associates, a "strategic advisory firm" headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty, as Senior Managing Director. From February 2001 to June 2002, he served on the board of directors of Peregrine Systems, Inc. He also served on the corporate boards of several energy companies, including Valero Energy Corporation and Diamond Offshore Drilling. He withdrew from these boards after being nominated by the Democratic Party for governor of New Mexico, but retained considerable stock holdings in Valero and Diamond Offshore. He would later sell these stocks during his campaign for president in 2007, saying he was "getting questions" about the propriety of these holdings, especially given his past as energy secretary, and that it had become a distraction.


title: Bill Richardson

text: Richardson is on the board of directors of the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD), which was created after the 2011 Tucson shooting that left six dead and 13 wounded, including Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.


title: Bill Richardson

text: Richardson was elected governor of New Mexico in November 2002, having defeated the Republican nominee, John Sanchez, 56–39%. During the campaign, he set a Guinness World Record for most handshakes in eight hours by a politician, breaking Theodore Roosevelt's record. He succeeded a two-term Republican governor, Gary Johnson. He took office in January 2003 as the only Hispanic Governor in the United States. In his first year, Richardson proposed "tax cuts to promote growth and investment" and passed a broad personal income tax cut and won a statewide special election to transfer money from the state's Permanent Fund to meet current expenses and projects. In early 2005, Richardson helped make New Mexico the first state in the nation to provide $400,000 in life insurance coverage for New Mexico National Guard members who serve on active duty. Thirty-five states have since followed suit.


title: Bill Richardson

text: Working with the legislature, he formed Richardson's Investment Partnership (GRIP) in 2003. The partnership has been used to fund large-scale public infrastructure projects throughout New Mexico, including the use of highway funds to construct a brand new commuter rail line (the Rail Runner) that runs between Belen, Albuquerque, and Bernalillo. He supported a variety of LGBT rights in his career as governor; he added sexual orientation and gender identity to New Mexico's list of civil rights categories. However, he was opposed to same-sex marriage, and faced criticism for his use of the anti-gay slur "maricón" on the Don Imus Show.


title: Bill Richardson

text: During the summer of 2003, he met with a delegation from North Korea at its request to discuss concerns over that country's nuclear weapons. At the request of the White House, he also flew to North Korea in 2005 and met with another North Korean delegation in 2006. On December 7, 2006, Richardson was named as the Special Envoy for Hemispheric Affairs for the Secretary General of the Organization of American States with the mandate to "promote dialogue on issues of importance to the region, such as immigration and free trade".


title: Bill Richardson

text: In 2003, Richardson backed and signed legislation creating a permit system for New Mexicans to carry concealed handguns. He applied for and received a concealed weapons permit, though by his own admission he seldom carries a gun.


title: Bill Richardson

text: As Richardson discussed frequently during his 2008 run for president, he supported a controversial New Mexico law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses for reasons of public safety. He said that because of the program, traffic fatalities had gone down, and the percentage of uninsured drivers decreased from 33% to 11%.


title: Bill Richardson

text: He was named Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association in 2004 and announced a desire to increase the role of Democratic governors in deciding the future of their party.


title: Bill Richardson

text: In December 2005, Richardson announced the intention of New Mexico to collaborate with billionaire Richard Branson to bring space tourism to the proposed Spaceport America located near Las Cruces, New Mexico. In 2006, "Forbes" credited Richardson's reforms in naming Albuquerque, New Mexico, the best city in the United States for business and careers. The Cato Institute, meanwhile, has consistently rated Richardson as one of the most fiscally responsible Democratic governors in the nation.


title: Bill Richardson

text: In March 2006, Richardson vetoed legislation that would ban the use of eminent domain to transfer property to private developers, as allowed by the Supreme Court's 2005 decision in "Kelo v. City of New London". He promised to work with the legislature to draft new legislation addressing the issue in the 2007 legislative session.


title: Bill Richardson

text: On September 7, 2006, Richardson flew to Sudan to meet Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and successfully negotiated the release of imprisoned journalist Paul Salopek. The Sudanese had charged Salopek with espionage on August 26, 2006, while on a "National Geographic" assignment. In January 2007, at the request of the Save Darfur Coalition, he brokered a 60-day cease-fire between al-Bashir and leaders of several rebel factions in Darfur, the western Sudanese region. The cease-fire never became effective, however, with allegations of breaches on all sides.


title: Bill Richardson

text: Richardson won his second term as Governor of New Mexico on November 7, 2006, 68–32% against former New Mexico Republican Party Chairman John Dendahl. Richardson received the highest percentage of votes in any gubernatorial election in the state's history.


title: Bill Richardson

text: In December 2006, Richardson announced that he would support a ban on cockfighting in New Mexico. On March 12, 2007, Richardson signed into law a bill that banned cockfighting in New Mexico. Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands are now the only parts of the United States where cockfighting is legal.


title: Bill Richardson

text: During New Mexico's 2007 legislative session, Richardson signed a bill into law that made New Mexico the 12th state to legalize cannabis for medical reasons. When asked if this would hurt him in a presidential election, he stated that it did not matter, as it was "the right thing to do".


title: Bill Richardson

text: During 2008 and 2009, Richardson faced "possible legal issues" while a federal grand jury investigated pay-to-play allegations in the awarding of a lucrative state contract to a company that gave campaign contributions to Richardson's political action committee, Moving America Forward. The company in question, CDR, was alleged to have funneled more than $100,000 in donations to Richardson's PAC in exchange for state construction projects. Richardson said when he withdrew his Commerce Secretary nomination that he was innocent; his popularity then slipped below 50% in his home state. In August 2009, federal prosecutors dropped the pending investigation against the governor, and there was speculation in the media about Richardson's career after his second term as New Mexico governor concluded.


title: Bill Richardson

text: On March 18, 2009, he signed a bill repealing the death penalty, making New Mexico the second U.S. state, after New Jersey, to repeal the death penalty by legislative means since the 1960s. Richardson was subsequently honored with the 2009 Human Rights Award by Death Penalty Focus.


title: Bill Richardson

text: In its April 2010 report, ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington named Richardson one of the 11 worst governors in the United States because of various ethics issues throughout Richardson's term as governor. The group accused Richardson of allowing political allies to benefit from firms connected to state investments, rewarding close associates with state positions or benefits (including providing a longtime friend and political supporter with a costly state contract), and allowing pay-to-play activity in his administration. They also opined that he fell short on efforts to make state government more transparent.