I met up with a new climbing partner on Saturday to climb Martha, a moderate snow/mixed gully that splits the S. face of Mt. Lady Washington. I have been wanting to climb this route for quite a while and though it was in thin shape, it didn’t disappoint. We simul-soloed the lower portion of the route, which started off with some fun thin mixed moves to gain access to a lower-angled snow ramp that leads up to a thin couloir, interspersed with a few interesting rock/ice steps, which we belayed in three long pitches. Good styrofoam mixed in with snice, ice, rotten rock, and deep unconsolidated snow made for a fun all-around outing… we even got to place a couple of stubby screws! [Read More]
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Kick skins: the most useful handful of gear since GORP. These BCA Skin scraps I use weigh in at 65g, including the tip clip. Add a hyper light stuff sack and total weight is 77g. Unless you’re skiing the Red Lady, just about every backcountry ski tour in Crested Butte requires a fairly flat valley approach of 1 to 3 miles. The tried and true method for these laborious tours is to slog in and slog out with big fatty skins on those big fatty skis that are so much fun in powder. I’ve tried other methods, too. One day I skied home from Snodgrass with one skin on, one skin off, like some kind of seizing, lurching skateboarder. Granted, I made it back to the car before my ski partners, but when I got there I was so off balance I could only walk in counter-clockwise circles for a good four minutes. I’ve also tried kick wax, but that stuff’s too gunky; if you use it before the climb it’ll mank up your skins and then kill your downhill buzz. Enter kick skins. In a nut shell, kick skins kick ass. I learned about them from all [Read More] All Women's Hike This fall I gave an all-women’s backpacking workshop at a small liberal college outside of Asheville. Several of the flyers promoting the event were graffitied before my arrival with indelicate comments suggesting the sexist nature of an all women’s event. Thankfully, the workshop went off without riot, I loved my time spent with the young women on campus, and I collected the profanely decorated posters as souvenirs. I have always believed that all women’s backpacking outings and workshops are often beneficial in a way that coed gatherings are not. The fact is that women’s time in the woods is often very different than that of men. Women have to deal with the fact that we are outnumbered by men in the outdoors, which comes with specific social challenges. We also have different body shapes, separate gear needs, and we have gender specific issues that men frankly don’t empathize with, let alone want to talk about in co-ed clinics. Triple Falls This past weekend I led an all-women’s day-hike at Dupont State Forest. Together, a small group of girls spent four hours skidding over snow and ice, spending time at the base of four [Read More] Maybe this time… Nineteen minutes… It has become my four-minute mile, my El Dorado, my white whale. Every time I peek through my apartment’s solitary window, I see the trail up the “M” hill that presides over the town, unmoving and unmoved. Its serenity taunts me. Someday soon, the stars will align. A light snow will cover all of the icy patches. A tailwind will hasten my every step. My footing will be sure and my gait strong. The trees will come and go just a little bit faster. The hill will feel just a little bit smaller. I’ll reach the last switchback where the wooden bench finally comes into view, and my watch will read 18:15…18:16…18:17. With renewed but restrained hope, I’ll charge ahead. Each second will remove another pound from my pack until I’m racing, weightless, against the clock, against myself. I’ll reach the bench at the top of the hill – the man-made reminder of failure after failure – and check my watch with the same innocent enthusiasm as each time before; only this time, I won’t be disappointed. “18:56,” it will read. Lo, the City of Gold! I’ll ditch my headphones, and Van Halen [Read More] The Chimney Dribble Reading Justin Harkins blog gets me psyched on ice. I’m always hatching plans to move up to Bozeman or down to Ouray for a full season of endless water ice pitches. There’s not much ice around Fort Collins, there’s some up the Big Thompson , and plenty of ice up in the Park (Patagonia Training Center) – but trips up there can hardly be considered for “cragging” and I’ve ended up just “taking the tools for a walk” a few too many times already this season. Isn’t there any ice closer to home? Driving up Poudre Canyon, going for trail-runs up different gulches, I’m always searching for ribbons of ice, or where I think they might form. Right now I know of four climbs that are “in” up the canyon. Most, if not all of them are very small and require long approaches that in my (lazy) opinion aren’t worth the effort. I do have hope for one little mixed climb I’ve been eyeing from the road. The approach is easy – park car, walk across frozen river, scramble up scree for about thirty feet – There’s a thin line of ice gracing a wide [Read More] Girlie Push-ups My husband and I do not belong to a gym. I think gyms are great, but as principle, we try to exercise outdoors as much as possible and save all our extra pennies for hiking excursions, thus gyms currently do not make the cut. Most of the year, I am fine not belonging to a health club, but during the cold months of winter there are days when I am simply too much of a ninny to exercise outdoors. For example this past week was the coldest week in Asheville since 1970, every time I ventured outside I came back indoors without sensation in my fingers, toes, or nose. For eight straight days we had negative wind chills and during that time I only once braved the cold for a 9-mile run, all the other days I exercised in our home gym. Now some people really do have a home gym, but we just have a carpet. That said, I have enjoyed some of my best workouts on that carpet. So for those of you who are unable or unwilling to venture outside in the cold, dark, winter months, here are some of my favorite indoor [Read More] |
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