Scottish Winter Climbing ... another retirement bucket list item

After a late-1970s winter trip to Scotland with Jon Waterman and Jim Balog, I have never been back.  It was a memorable, even dazzling trip, with crappy weather eventually chasing us to Chamonix. However, two "warmup routes" - Aonach Eagach and Tower Ridge - were so different than anything in America that a return visit has always been in the back of my mind. At the time we were incredibly disappointed, only getting up a "piece of piss," Scottish grade II & III climbs; however if I get to go back this time that will be the clear ceiling of my climbing. Perhaps, this book should be a birthday or Christmas present so I can scheme how to return. 

https://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/publications/guidebooks/chasing_the_ephemeral_by_simon_richardson-8995

Video documentary about the 1968 Fun Hog Trip

Read the short essay, watch the trailer, and see the schedule of showtimes at your local Patagonia store.

https://www.adventure-journal.com/2018/10/patagonia-re-releases-underground-film-mountain-storms/

View from the back pasture

BLAST FROM THE PAST ... 1991 World Disabled Ski Championships

Back in my relatively youthful days (35-40) I helped coach for the U.S. Disabled Ski Team, which is now called the Para-Olympic Team.

I met Joe Raineri, a super fit, blind racer, out in Lake Tahoe one year while I was skiing in the National Championships. The following winter he showed up in Lake Placid for a training camp, his race guide was too slow, and so the team coach asked me to jump in and guide him on a time trial on the Ladies 5K.

We were a good team, and I coached and guided in two world championships ... one in Seefeld, Austria and the other in Jackson, New Hampshire. In 1991 we had two really good races at the Worlds, just missing the podium in 4th and 5th. (As a warmup for those races I guided Joe on the Lake Placid Loppet, which with NCS students manning the aid stations gave him lots of cheering and special attention every time he came through.)

Glen Coe Skyline Race ... on my bucket list

A mixture of ultrarunning and mountaineering. I have done the Anaoch Eagach Ridge in winter, and it is quite exposed, and of course the ridge on Stob Dearg is even harder.  This movement towards a synthesis between two disciplines - running and mountaineering - is fascinating to watch. 

Great new mountain resource

https://elevation.alpsinsight.com/

Dealing with injuries

Good general advice on overuse and trauma injuries, on one of my favorite websites. 

https://www.uphillathlete.com/dealing-with-injury/

Best climbing film ever

Sam gave me two tickets to the premier of Free Solo, which I then passed along to Manhattan Trustees.  (Unfortunately I had to head back to Lake Placid.)  The word from my Trustees was that the movie was awesome, as the enclosed review attests.  A week ago Sam had bumped into Honnold and his mom while he was doing a walk-through of a property he manages. 

https://www.outsideonline.com/2347246/free-solo-documentary-el-capitan-yosemite-alex-honnold-review

Getting psyched for Chamonix

This short video about three mountain mamas spending the summer trail running in Chamonix is sure to get you fired up. Amazing scenery. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aQHzYLeQOkk

Leaves starting to change ...

This past weekend hiking up Mount Van Hoevenberg, I snapped this picture of Whiteface with the leaves starting to change on the last official days of summer.

Pioneering women skiers

On the retirement bucket list

ONLY IN SWITZERLAND DO YOU SEE GRAPHIC NOVELS ABOUT SKI MOUNTAINEERING!  

The Patrouille des Glaciers (PDG) is a ski mountaineering race organised every two years by the Swiss Armed Forces, in which military and civilian teams compete. It takes place once every two years at the end of April, in the south part of the canton of Valais below the summits of the Pennine Alps.

You must be able to complete the races in the following times, given normal conditions: Zermatt – Schönbiel within 3h; Zermatt – Arolla within 8h 30min; Arolla – Riedmatten within 1h 45 min; Arolla – Verbier within 8h 30 min.

BLAST FROM THE PAST ... 1991 RMNP

Well our Fossil Club numbers are dwindling, and over the next few months I will try and post some memories of our time together with Lewie, Michael, and Brian.  So, 27 years ago in the summer of 1991, we had this wonderful trip to Rocky Mountain National Park which included Brian and Michael.

BLAST FROM THE PAST ... 2013 Tahoe Trip

Winter isn’t that far off ...

It was thirty degrees this morning and they have fired up the snow factory to get it ready for the upcoming season. Stash and I ran a lap of the Ladies 5k trail.

7th grade overnight in natural shelters

Stash and I ran on the Olympic trails to a wooded spot on Dave Steckler's property where the students teamed up to build a variety of structures, out of deadfall and brush he had cleared on his land.

Mountain paintings ... an eclectic history

http://footlesscrow.blogspot.com/2016/11/mountain-painters-and-shan-shui.html

History of the ice axe

https://americanalpineclub.org/library-blog/2018/3/27/the-ice-axe

Bridger-Teton National Forest

A spectacularly beautiful little video.

https://vimeo.com/289341363

A haute route disaster

A good and well balanced article; it is particularly good in reminding us how to be safe vis a vis heuristic mental traps.  

https://www.outsideonline.com/2329041/chamonix-zermatt-alps-haute-route-disaster?utm_content=buffer74594&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=tweet

Great hike ...

Stash and I got out and about before it was too hot. We hiked from our back pasture over to the Ladies 5k and to the summit of Mount Van Hoevenberg and back. On the way down from the summit I bumped into the NCS hiking group, just above the start of the bob run ... 15.5k and 1500' vertical.

Quote of the week ... Leslie Stephens

Thinking of climbing ice this winter drove me to read four chapters in the definitive northeastern climbing history - YANKEE ROCK & ICE - by the Watermans. In reading the chapter entitled, "The First Ice Age: before 1927" I was entranced by the 1905 epic on the Great Gulf Cirque. In Whipple's account in APPALACHIA he quoted a passage by the Victorian alpinist-author Leslie Stephens writing about the Eiger:

"The result of a slip would in all probability have been that the rest of our lives would have been spent in sliding down a snow slope, and that the employment would not have lasted long enough to become monotonous"

Spectacular Mountain Website ... Footless Crow

A wonderful, and quite literate, British blog about all things connected to the mountains ... adventure, history, art, literature, and the environment.  Excellent guest authors.  This new, about to be released, anthology of women's adventure writing seems like a must read. 

http://footlesscrow.blogspot.com/2018/09/waymaking-review.html

Understanding the UTMB

https://www.outsideonline.com/2342051/how-i-learned-to-care-about-ultrarunning-utmb?utm_content=buffer0f3d0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=tweet

Young children’s book about climbing ...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7VIirVTLz9g&time_continue=93

How dangerous are mountain sports?

Well at 66, I think the bigger dangers are strokes, heart attacks, cancer and turning into a couch potato!  

Great trail run ...

Next week I will start from our farm, which will make it an even 15k and 1500' vertical. The route is: biathlon trails to the stadium, flatland to nordic stadium, Ladies Five to the snowshoe trail, and on to the Mount Van Hoevenberg summit. All but 3-4K will be runnable. As you can see the view is outstanding.