Best wishes to Andy Knapp

A long-time fixture of the outdoor industry, Andy Knapp, is about to undergo the fight of his life. We wish Andy the best and wanted to share his recent e-mail with readers of Expedition News.

To my industry friends:

As many of you may know. I am taking a leave of absence to enter the hospital for a lengthy stay to receive a bone marrow transplant procedure that has a chance of attacking and setting back the renal cell cancer I have been fighting for six years. There are more details on my blog listed below. There are mortality risks with this therapy, but as I see it, it's no worse than the odds of staring down bears, crevasses, cliffs, towering waves, rapids, endless highways, and so on.

I have enjoyed your camaraderie and support over the years and I hope to return to the industry as soon as I can, but the doctors say no crowds, camping, or airline travel for almost a year as my immune system returns to a normal state. At that point, I will receive my childhood immunizations all over again and hopefully be good to go.

I will continue to be in touch via my andy@midwestmtn.com address, although while in the hospital, I cannot use my cell phone because this is an ICU facility. I will be in the hospital for about four to six weeks, then quarantined at home for another three months. At around 100 days, I will be able to get out more, perhaps biking, using a hospital mask. For those of you with MM business, you can work with Will in the camping department, or Peter in boats/ski, or contact me if there is a problem. Rod and the folks at MM have been very supportive, and I'm sure we will have a great year, with no major changes in direction planned.

I may even do a program at the April Expo via remote if I can figure out the technical details.

Feel free to spread the word to others in your organization/group, as I don't have everyone's email address.

Here is the link to my blog, comments OK:

http://www.andytknapp.blogspot.com/

and my rudimentary website which I am adding to almost daily as I now have more forced time on my hands:

http://www.andytknapp.com/

There are also or will be soon, links from the Midwest site:

http://www.midwestmtn.com/

I also have a mailing address at the hospital (absolutely no flowers or plants are allowed):

Andy Knapp
University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview
PCU 4B - Room 4-233
500 Harvard St. S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Thanks for the good times and memories,
Andy

Midwest Mountaineering
309 Cedar Ave. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55454
612-339-3433
www.midwestmtn.com