Blast from the past ... Very old skis

Brian was on a business trip to Europe and sent back this picture of a 1200 year old ski tip, from a Stockholm museum ... Now this is truly fossil gear!

Still skiing on Whiteface

The ski area is closed but there is still snow. A bunch of our students hiked up to "Wilderness" on the upper part of the mountin with Nick and John. A couple of hours later when I showed up I found a patch of snow to do laps on, it was about 150' high and took about 7.5 minutes to ski in randonee gear.

Brief history of early Female mountaineering

CLICK HERE TO READ THE SHORT ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN.

Issues of the Alpine Journal from 1960-2008

A fantastic resource for the alpine climber. Click here and read the full text issues of the Alpine Journal for the past 60 years. Articles by Haston, Scott, Bonnington, Patey, Shipton, Clough, Marshall, Tasker, Renshaw, Boardman ... They are all here. In addition to trip reports of cutting edge Alpinism, there is historical research, science, literature, and the arts.

Interview with Ueli Steck

CLICK HERE TO READ THE SCARPA BLOG.

North Ridge of The Grand ... Fond memories

I never linked them up, but back in the mid-1970s I did all these routes on Teewinot, Mount Owens, and the Grand ... Fabulous alpine routes in a spectacular setting.

Yearning for Chamonix

Just a year ago Carter and my college buddies were cruising these mountains ... however a return trip is in the planning stages for 2013.

A gut busting warm-up for the National 50 and 30K Championships

Click here to read some interviews with racers before they head up the final hill climb.

Elk Mountain Traverse

After the race overview, there are some great tips on what to take for a rando race or your next light and fast alpine ascent.

Decision Making In The Mountains

Click here for some good advice from Will Gadd.

More Nordic Racing!

It seems that the World Cup nordic heavyweights did not fare as well as one might expect in this hybrid race. Hellner, Northug, Newell, and Cologna did not get on the podium, although Kikkan Randall just missed a medal (and big check) finishing in fourth. Now that the Canadian Nationals are finished, all eyes in North America are on the Super Tour Finals in Vermont.

Still Nordic Racing on the East Coast

For the past 3 days (and 4-5 to come) they are racing on man-made snow up in Craftsbury Vermont. The Super Tour Finals and the National 50k and 30k races will be hotly contested with almost all the best from the US and Canadian Ski Teams onboard. In the first race Jesse Diggins, just back from a successful stint on the World Cup, destroyed the field in the 3.3 k prologue. (Of course, Kikkan Randall was still in Europe as she got an invite to ski the 2012 Red Bull Nordix race, where she finished in fourth.)

Climbing Above The Arctic Circle

Nikon - Deep North from Corey Rich on Vimeo.

Ueli Steck Video

A few weeks climbing with Ueli Steck... from Jonathan Griffith on Vimeo.

THANKS TO THE ALPINE EXPOSURES WEBSITE.

Ueli Steck

CLICK HERE TO READ THE NEW OUTSIDE MAGAZINE ARTICLE ABOUT HIM.

Great White Icicle

Logging more vertical

With well over a week of weather in the 60s and 70s, it's getting harder and harder to find a place to ski. Whiteface is closing on Sunday and even Tuckerman's Ravine is losing snow over quickly.

Hard winter route on the north face of the Jorasses

CLICK HERE TO READ THE TRIP REPORT FROM A FOUR DAY, HARD MODERN ROUTE, ON THE CROZ SPUR. SUPERB PICTURES ON THE ALPINE EXPOSURES WEBSITE.

Desperate for snow

Only the third week in March and it is getting harder and harder finding an accessible workout on snow. Mentally, it is far too early for me to put my skis away. Mount Pisgah has closed, but as you can see they have plenty of snow which provides some easy laps skiing up, and casual turns going down.

Nordic Crystal Globe

America has won alpine World Up crystal globes, but not since Bill Koch in 1982 have we nabbed one in a Nordic discipline. Congratulations to Kikkan Randall the 2012 Nordic Sprint Champion. She was also fifth in the overall World Cup totals.

Umbilicals, homemade tethers, leashes, and leashless from Cold Thistle

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON THE SUBJECT

Counting all forms of skiing - lift served, randonee, backcountry, and Nordic - I have passed this benchmark for the season. It is true that possibly half of those days were a simple 40 minutes on waxless rock skis, but on the other hand, there are well over two dozen outings of 2.5+ hours. No matter how you slice and dice it, I feel like I made the best of a rather poor season ... and I still have three days in Alta coming up!

Hard to believe its March!

In 30+ years in the Adirondacks I have never seen a run of warm weather like this!

A nice patch of snow!

Despite the unseasonable weather, and the low snowfall this winter, there is skiing to be had, if you know where to look and do not mind a little hike. I spent 45 minutes skiing on a 1k hill out on the Porter Mountain Loop.

Nordic World Cup Drawing To A Close

Dynafit TLT 5 ... Skiing the Trap Dike

As I mentioned previously, these boots show up on many a challenging hard tour. The enclosed picture of the Waterfall Pitch on the Trap Dike was taken Monday.

Superb spring ski at Whiteface

Dynafit TLT Boot review

After a week of use, I am a true believer!

Last year before I headed to the Alps, Jan in the Mountaineer told me that these were killer boots. (He had two stipulations, first could you get a good fit, and second could you afford the $1,400 price tag.) Well, when I was in Chamonix I started noticing that a bunch of the hard-core types were outfitted with these white and red boots. Then on my return home last Spring, I started to see all sorts of trip reports on various blogs, where guys were climbing big north faces in these boots. Then Dane came out with a two part rave review in Cold Thistle ... my desire was unbounded.

Fast forward to this winter, and Dynafit has expanded the line, to include a white and yellow "performance" ($1000) model, and a green and white "mountain" ($750) model. The latter is a tiny bit heavier but the sticker price was still a deal breaker. So, I started trolling eBay and various discount suppliers and final nailed one at $450.

Last Saturday I did a two hour ski tour, Monday I ice climbed with them, Tuesday I did a bit of rock climbing in them, and this afternoon I spent three hours riding the lifts at Whiteface. They are superb.

One of the dangers of ice climbing

Eisprinz Chapter three (with Markus Bendler) - Big Icefall collapse from Berni Kogler on Vimeo.

I Hurt Therefore I Am

In a take-off on Rene Descartes' famous line, Matt demonstrates his existence by elevating his pain level during and after our 2.5 hour fast paced ski on the Olympic trails.

Early sun on Algonguin

Sunrise on the farm

Testing new boots on the rock

Last day of ice climbing this winter

Matt made a short visit to the 'dacks to start his training for Peru. We did an afternoon of laps on P-right, which was rotten and sun baked. We kept the belay uphill in case the entire column fell down. (My new dynafit AT boots worked superbly for this moderate ice climbing.) Tuesday we spent the morning in the sugarbush and then 150 minutes (1400') of Nordic skiing. Wednesday morning we did some easy rock climbing on Owl's Head with our double boots.

Great gondolas of the Alps

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS SHORT ESSAY AT THE TETON GRAVITY RESEARCH WEBSITE.

Chamonix: ski mountaineering capital of the world

Heading up the Whiteface Toll Road

Adirondack Paintball Race

I spent the morning classic skiing at Dewey Mountain while Lucy was racing ... She hit 14 of 15 targets and skied quite well ... The thaw is on and the good snow conditions will not last long.

Glen Plake At NCS

Skifest Saturday 2012 from ADKBCSKI on Vimeo.

Chamonix Trip Report

It continues to be a great season in the Alps, and clearly this was the winter to be over there, and nt stuck here in the Northeast. Oh well, next year will include a winter excursion to the Alps. CLICK HERE TO READ A SMAPLE TRIP REPORT FROM THE PAST MONTH.

A Nordic racers worst nightmare

Shortly after the start of the semi-final sprint in the Drammen World Cup race, kikkan Randall had a binding break. Needless to say, after she got a quick ski change, she was not able to catch the lead pack, and advance to the finals ... However her 11th finish yielded enough points for her to clinch the 2012 World Cup Sprint Title ... Congratulations Kikkan and way to go USST.

Massive thaw in the north country

Temperatures today hit the mid-fifties and they will stay there tomorrow too. Great for sugaring but not great for the Lake Placid Loppet which was cancelled. However, there is full coverage on the Porter Mountain Loop, and as you can see -from my new app- I had a slow, waxless ski yesterday. Still, skiing in a T-shirt on a sunny day wasn't too shabby.

What you can learn at the start of a ski rando race

This picture was taken at the start of the 2012 Vail Winter Teva Games. There are at least four key things that a ski mountaineer can learn from this picture, and its depiction of the randonee race scene. (Click on the image to enlarge the photograph.)

1. The white/red boots are Dynafit DyNA which weigh in at under two pounds each and are super stiff. That means you save 3.5 pounds compared to the Black Diamond Prime boots.

2. Notice that nobody uses fritschi style bindings, but instead use the much lighter tech bindings, as in Dynafit low tech rave bindings; weight savings are another couple of pounds, that you do not have to carry up the hill when you are skinning.

3. If you look closely they all have Nordic racing poles, and a pair of "smallish" classical aluminum Nordic racing poles cuts another half pound off the weight you are carrying.

4. Look closely and see the bungee cord sticking off the tip of the ski, cut a notch and bungee cord your skins so you can remove them without taking your skins off ... On a all day tour it probably saves 20-30 minutes.

Finally, I have not even gotten around to mentioning the occasional green (CAMP) helmet that you see which weighs in at 7 ounces, the lightweight rando racing skis that weigh in under 5 pounds per pair, and then there is the super lightweight soft goods (my 3 ounce windbreaker, or my 11 ounce) pack ... THE POINT IS, IF YOU WERE GOING TO DO A REALLY LONG BIKE TOUR OR A MULTI-DAY CLIMB WOULDN'T YOU WANT TO TRIM TEN POUNDS OFF THE LOAD YOU WERE CARRYING?

Wet Snow Slab Avalanche

While in the Rockies and Pacific Northwest the avalanches have been due to underlying layers of depth hoar, in Europe the intense warm, sunny weather has released a spate of wet snow avalanches. Watch this video of a deep slow moving avalanche that crossed , and demolished a series of lift towers.

Video Message From Glen Plake

CLICK HERE TO READ THE LOCAL NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ABOUT THE EVENT.

Ski Track-GPS Recorder ... Fantastic iPhone app

I read about this amazing free iPhone app, and tried it out today on one of my laps on the Ladies 5K course. Seemingly very accurate, as it logged the distance as 4.9k, it was almost spot on for the total accumulated climbing, the altimeter correctly logged the high and low points of the course, and the graphs are awesome. For a bean counting, fossil geek, this is the cat's meow.

GREAT ADVICE

South side of Mont Blanc in Winter

CLICK HERE FOR A GREAT TRIP REPORT AND FANTASTIC PHOTOGRAPHS.