Alaska, X Alps

I'm off to Alaska for a week of climbing, kayaking, paragliding and filming the same for a TV program. Stoked for that, I've never been to Alaska in the summer before, should be an adventure...

I'm also wasting way too much time on this, the Red Bull X Alps. I know the terrain well as I raced the X Alps in 2003, and covered it as a reporter in 2005. It's an amazing event, the "live tracking" can take over your life.

Sports: Had a good Sunday--we hiked into and ran the Pipestone, which had a surprising amount of water in it (good) and then went and mountain biked to Ross Lake. Super fun afternoon of just being out and about in the mountains, love it! If you haven't ridden to Ross Lake you've got to check it out, it's one of the best rides in the Rockies that I've ever done (if you're uber-fit bike nerd ride it twice or something). Most rides in the Rockies go up and then down; Ross Lake just rolls along for a little under an hour each direction, and it's all rideable with a few fun stream crossings and places to fall down. I know this because I fell down when my chain came off. I know my chain was off because I tried to hop my front wheel up on a little bridge thing and didn't have any power in my pedals. First time I've ever landed on my head mountain biking, kinda cool.

Plus some other rivers, hikes, bikes, and general activity. Summer, yeah!!

More Rivers

Thanks for all the comments, real opinions and historical smack-talk on the last post--yeah, I remember the Wave Sports days and Chan well. A great era, be fun to see Chan and a few of the guys again (ran into Jordy, also from the same era, on the Skook). More on boats later, but I've just gotta write about rivers for ten minutes when I should really be doing other things just 'cause I'm so fired up! I've run a bunch of new, for me, rivers lately: The Elbow, Ram, and Toby Creek. Photo at left on the Ram, thanks Shane.

Elbow River: Show up at the put-in at six p.m., meet a crew, start paddling toward the lip of Elbow Falls without looking at it. I'd scouted this once at higher water while on a climbing mission in the area and remembered it as a kind of four-foot flop into a pool. At low water it's a bigger drop, which I figured out as I hauled ass off of it with hard boof... Landed level-flat on green water, hurt my back/right little stomach muscle a bit more. Continued on down the river without actually having read anything about it in the guidebook as usual, so it was all a pleasant surprise. Super fun slide. Warm water. So stoked to catch this run with enough water in it, thanks to the crew for a fun evening paddle.

Ram River: The South Ram is one of those "Gotta paddle it man!" rivers, an epic two or three day wilderness run through some of the best canyon scenery in the foothills of the Rockies. For those who know the area it's sorta between Nordegg and Rocky Mountain House. The only problem for me is that I'm a family man without the wife part of the family at the moment--this means I'm limited to one-day runs. My mom is in the house to help out and could likely deal with a longer trip, but there's a fine line between help and abuse of same. The solution was to do the two or three-day trip in a day. About 45km of river, with three burly portages and enough action to make paddling that far in a day difficult. Especially because we've had a lousy water year here in the eastern Rockies, and low water wouldn't work. My bud Patch wrote a little story up on the trip here with some more photos from Shane. We had a magic rise in the water level thanks to perfect rains, and a magic run.

It was a really solid day, a sort of alpine climb on a river. I would paddle the river again instantly, especially with the same or more water. There are literally hundreds of little waterfalls pouring off the edges of the canyon, and a strip of green grass running along the rim above the black rock for what seems like the entire run. It's just a magical place to kayak, with enough gnar to keep it interesting but also a lot of nice cruising where you can just relax and look around while paddling and boat-scouting ledge drops. Our day didn't feel rushed at all, just a nice long and difficult but ultimately smooth day out with friends. I could write a long article about the day, we saw and did so much that it was almost impossible to believe everything happened in one day. So many cool canyons, big waterfalls, animals (it was like a safari film at times!), driving, moving in a wild place with solid partners... Yeah!

Out of Canmore at five in the morning, back at 10:00 or so, just in time to put the kidlet to bed. Thanks to Shane (the recon probe--send him in) and Patch (Logistics--I still have no idea where the river really goes, I just drove where he told me to) and Rachel (A fierce shuttle driver--farm kids always have cool skills like how to operate bolt cutters).

Toby Creek: So it was the Elbow on Wed., Ram on Friday, toilet replacement and work on Saturday, and then the Toby on Sunday. The Seven Canyons run is bad-ass, and unlike the last half-dozen or so runs I actually read Stuart Smith's guidebook before I put onto the river. I've been really enjoying the on-sight nature of the last few rivers, but I remember Toby Creek from when I did a race there when I was 14 or so and wanted a little info. The reputation of the canyon below the race course was huge then, and hasn't slackened much since, but we had a solid crew--Shane, Mark, Larry and myself. The run's reputation is well-deserved--the 7 Canyons on Toby Creek is one of the finest canyon runs I've ever done. We had a little excitement before we even hit the first real canyon. One of the first drops had a couple of big diagonal holes in it (Oh, the water was at a "solid" level--most people run Toby when it's low for smart reasons), plus a river-wide log right after the holes that was just off the water enough to slip under--a technical drop. I did a deep exploration of the pour-over on the left side of the second hole, but managed to reach up with my paddle onto the rock beside the pour-over and yank myself out. Cool! Mark wasn't so lucky, and went for the full rodeo in the same hole. I was eddied out behind a rock and couldn't see what was going on--Shane hopped out of his boat with a throw bag, and I decided to stay in mine in case I need to chase a Mark or his boat. Eventually Mark flushed free, and Shane hit him with a five-star throw-bag toss. Wicked. Mark manned up and ran the rest of the river cleanly; I might have walked out after the beat-down he took, but he's tough.

The rest of the run went smoothly except when I rolled right above the only must-make ferry, my first combat role in a bunch of runs. Toby is definitely a really serious run, with some must-make moves and gnarly drops/portages in awkward places. I'd have to say that it's my favorite river of the year so far in terms of its paddling in the canyons and just general in-your-face nature. I don't think you can paddle Toby at any level and not find yourself very deep into a hole or two, which is cool if you're not right above some "Well, you might live but I ain't paddling into that if I can help it!" kinda drop. Shane has been the man with the plan on at least three (Cataract, Yoho and now Toby) new rivers this spring that I've done, thanks for that.

OK, that's the last week's sports action. I really, really love running cool rivers with good people! And my elbow is healing up at roughly the same rate I'm destroying my back/stomach muscle as I learn how to boof modern boats off drops, and how not to lift toilets... The water is definitely low now in the Rockies, but all we need is a little more rain to make it all dreamy again! I've done six (seven?) new rivers this season, which is a record for me--modern kayaking is awesome!

Kayak Reviews

So I need a new kayak. Back in the day (15 years ago) I was a sponsored paddler (which meant free to cheap boats and free beers from Chan, great era!) with Wave Sports, but since I turned into a climber/paraglider pilot the days of cheap boats are well behind me. Anyone who wants to pro deal me a boat let me know, but I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen (Note--I just bought a boat--full retail pop, so it's too late anyhow). I keep reading reviews on-line for information about the new boats, but most of the reviews on-line are written by people who are sponsored by the company who made the boat they're paddling (gee, now that's unbiased and useful information!). How about this: if you want to write a review at least put on the TOP of the review thatyou're owned by the boat company and have no impartiality whatsoever--don't add that disclaimer sometime after the original review, way down below the meat of the text.

And then there are the reviews written by people who actually bought boats; with rare exceptions, everybody loves their boat. This is very sweet and nice, but for christ's sake it's the internet, be bitter, have opinions, mouth off, actually have an issue with something! The average kayaker on the internet is a pale shadow of the average climber, paraglider, mountain biker, hell, even phone user that uses the internet. I wanna hear that this boat SUCKS, and why!

But the worst reviews are written by those looking to get sponsored; they are desperate for free plastic like a junkie for heroin, and they will write nothing but flowers about the smelliest ass-product imaginable. You total chumps! Let's have a little integrity here; I understand if a sponsored athlete doesn't want to piss his sponsors off, but if you can't write something sort of realistic then don't write it at all. As anyone I work with at Arc'teryx or Black Diamond knows, I pull no punches on product design, and I'm not happy until the thing actually works like it's supposed to. If it doesn't work well then I don't go writing glowing reviews of junk on the net, that's not how it's supposed to work. Maybe kayak companies are different and expect total slave-like submission from their sponsored paddlers? Something is weird in kayak review land, and it makes finding real information about boats near impossible.

There's only one solution to a situation like this: I'm going to write my own reviews. I've paddled five boats in the last month, including the one I bought. Stay tuned for the first review, which will be short and not so-sweet, kinda like the boat it's about.

wg

The Twitter

So I just did a new-format interview... Kinda cool.

On-Sight: Carpentry and Rivers

Dropping into the unknown

One of the things I really like doing in life is on-sighting, a climber's term used to describe a climb where the climber starts at the bottom of a completely unknown climb and goes until he reaches the top or falls off. This is in contrast to a "redpoint," where the climber works all the moves, falls off lots, then climbs to the top without falling. Anyhow, climbs, carpentry, kids, school exams, rivers, whatever, it's just more fun to be in it all at once without a lot of knowledge. If the objective is really big then of course you research and so on forever, but then it often boils down to the "on-sight" effort anyhow. An onsight requires skill, in that you understand what you're doing and why based on similar sets of experiences from past efforts. In climbing you know a crack will accept protection, and that makes the onsight reasonable. It's that application of existing skill and knowledge to a new set of problems that's exciting to me. If I had to do the same climbs, rivers or flights over and over again I'd quit--it's just not interesting to do the same old thing again and again.

In the last week I've had a bunch of new onsights. A new railing on my parent's house (well, more of a fence, but it looks nice, thanks to Gravity Gear for the help with the drill!), new steps on my house, and a new river yesterday. All great, all "onsight." Love it!

The Yoho canyon was the run yesterday--I showed up at the put-in with exactly no idea of what we were up against. The looks on my old and new friend's faces showed that something serious was on, and by the time I pulled my sprayskirt tight I'd figured out that the run was kinda serious. The put in for the Yoho River is the best ever--there's a huge waterfall, Takkakaw falls, booming in a 1000-foot white rooster-tail off one wall, glaciers, it's just a rad place. The river starts bopping along in a fast but friendly enough way, but it's white from all the glacial rock flour. Glacial rivers always seem to move faster and slightly oddly to me, maybe because you can't see as much of the rocks and current due to to the color. I was paddling a new boat (full retail price!), and it took some getting used to. The river is fast, a bit pushy, and then it drops into a canyon that you supposedly can't climb out of. I'm pretty sure I could climb out of it anywhere if I were healthy, but not with a boat and not with a broken leg. And if you swam it would be bad, the river just rockets along. I began to have these memories from years ago, these little oral flashbacks of, "The Yoho, yeah, that's where X broke his leg, Y broke her arm, and Z lost everything but his underwear..." Holy shit, I'm on the YOHO!!!! I cranked my back brace down a bit and re-checked my sprayskirt, it's that kinda place.

But our crew was super solid, and everyone kept it together through one of the coolest canyons I've ever paddled. Big deep drops, pulsing no-stop canyons, so cool! Two of my friends knew the run, so it wasn't a pure onsight, but but it was a mega run! One broken paddle and a few rolls (I kept it upright if you count bracing with your head in the water as upright), but we all cleaned it. Modern boats and attitudes make the run easier than it was 20 years ago, but it's still serious. One rapid has a paddle bolted to the ball in memory a paddler that didn't make it out alive (I think we all gave it a touch for luck), and there have been more than a few rescues down there in the past. Most of the rapids are scoutable, but some are truly on-sight as the steep walls make moving around very difficult. Love it!

And now I've gotta figure out how to build a hand rail. Wish I knew more about carpentry, but it's onsight time again!

WG

Revenge

I'm up in Jasper for a few days. I used to live here, and learned to paddle, climb, cave and generally get amongst it in the mountains of Jasper when I was younger. Last night I paddled the Athabasca, the river I truly learned to paddle on, as well as raft guide on. As the trees, waves and water flowed by I had so many deep river flashbacks. I remembered individual rocks from over 20 years ago, people I paddled with, the texture of the light, the flow of the water around rocks, beautiful memories I didn't know I had. I love rivers as much as anything in the natural world, they are as perfect in their own way as any rock, ski or aerial line I ever experience. They are the pumping, alive arteries of the mountains to me.

Today I hooked up with some super solid Jasper/Mt. Robson boaters (Andrew and Sean) and had a go at the Fraser Canyon. This was THE bad-ass rig when I was in high school around here, and I only ran it a few times back then. Maybe because I took the worst beat-down of my life in the canyon below Overlander Falls. When I was about 19 I swam a half mile or so of vertical-walled class five canyon with a fair amount of water slamming through it. I'm still not entirely sure what happened before the swim; I have some ego-saving memories that likely aren't the truth, but the end result was that I swam what felt like ten miles of gnarly water, and I nearly blacked out in the midst of it all. Saw stars, puked, the whole experience. Broke an ankle... I didn't paddle that canyon again until today, 20+ years later...

Today we bombed it on down through numerous drops to Overlander. I kept laughing in the middle of the drops--I'd feel my boat get kicked a certain way, and then remember the drop. Not a sniff of any drop in my mind until I was in it and making a move, then it would come back to me like a smell from childhood. I've had good luck this year with following locals down rivers, just follow 'em and have fun, and soon we were looking at Overlander, which I was sure I wasn't going to run as it was the biggest, baddest thing in the area back when I was a kid. I had a look at Overland today and it looked feasible, which was worrisome--I mean, the legend, the monster OVERLANDER! I still walked it, just out of respect for the tradition of the waterfall... It's hard to explain what that waterfall meant when I was young; now it's probably had a couple of hundred successful descents, but I knew my business lay in the gorge downstream of Overlander...

Scout? Not with the locals, just line it up and go. I had to stop in an eddy above the canyon entrance and get my act together mentally. Just seeing the entrance to the canyon brought back a lot of memories, none of which were good. I even flipped over in a rapid just above the canyon, something I don't do a lot normally. But the Fraser just has more power and general ass-kicking lurking in its green water than most rivers I paddle. I can run a lot of class V creeks and not flip, but I remember having to combat roll once or twice back in the day on the Fraser, and today was no different. The water level was somewhere around 100, which Sean said was a solid medium. Andrew thought that was high. I have no idea, seemed like a good level to me.

Then I was following Sean's boat into the canyon, through the "Terminator" hole, surf the boiling eddy, couple more moves, into the big old eddy at the bottom I remember from when I was 19. I literally saw flashing coloured stars in that eddy back then, puked, and generally had some sort of near-death recovery from my swim. Today was definitely mellower, and I felt the weight of that beat-down from over 20 years ago lift off my shoulders. I'm definitely a better paddler than I was 20+ years ago, but I was also warm thanks to my drysuit and better clothing, with people who knew the river well, and generally fired up to give 'er. The Fraser isn't the raddest run I've ever done, but it sure was a nice day compared to the last time I had a go at it! Thanks to Sean and Andrew for a wicked day on the river. Kayaking good water with good people sure is fun!

Oh, and the kayak recovery program is working--my elbow is feeling way better, and all the kayaking is keeping me strong in the upper body... Yeah!!!

Now all I've gotta do is find a boat I love and buy it. I've paddled five different boats this spring... More on that later, I've got a completely pointless kayak review brewing up... Let's just say that not all "modern" boat design is much of an improvement on what I used to run back in the Wave Sports days.

Water Pics!

So much fun! Thanks to Becky, Shane and Jeff for a super fun run and taking these pics.

Yesterday was a quick evening session on the Kanbezi. Finally nailed a mystery move in the dreaded Widowmaker that had me gasping for breath by the time I came up. A mystery move is where you get the current of the river to suck you down under the surface for some period of time. Strangely, a successful mystery move means staying completely underwater for a really long time... It

seems so logical when you're doing it, but explaining does seem kinda weird.

And it's still raining in Canmore...

WG

Water: Best Invention Ever!

Water is the best invention ever. We really, really need it. Pure, fresh, water. But it's not a given. I always start thinking about water quality when I kayak. I'm in the water, drinking it whether I want to or not. We ran the Skookumchuck over in BC on the weekend, and it's a great river--seemingly crystal clean, beautiful granite boulders, fast, super fun run with a good crew. Not so "rad" but an all-time great river. The take-out is right beside some huge plywood factory or something. I have nothing against plywood really, I use it regularly for what passes as renovations around here, but seeing such a huge industrial facility so close to a river made me wonder. Maybe the plant does nothing to the river. Maybe it does. I think I need plywood. I've probably bought plywood from that plant. We are all hypocrites from an environmental perspective, but it's these little juxtapositions that make me think. Like pumping gas in the middle of winter to drive 1000K to go ice climbing on a climb that hasn't frozen recently, maybe due to global warming... Hmmmm.... Pump those dinosaurs man!

I like clean water. No real point to this post, just running a pristine river and then seeing industry made me think a bit. Not too much, I'm a pro athlete and all, but a little bit... Might look into some water quality issues.

Kayaks: Best Invention Ever!!

Yeah, I know I said wheels are the best invention ever a couple of weeks ago, and they are great, but kayaks are the real dream machines. I had one of my all-time super-fun kayak runs early this week with a few friends, Cataract Creek, in the southern Rockies. I haven't been creek boating much in the last ten years, but it sure was fun!

The day started off with a seal launch into a 20-foot plus waterfall. Now, if this were to occur in the middle of the day it would be cool, but it's a bit much right off the bat. I was fired up though and went for it, made it clean but landed a bit hard after boofing like I was in an old-school boat that doesn't boof so well...

The rest of the run was big smiles. We all ran the final rapid, "Leviathan," and had good lines. It was a bit of a mental push for me, but I felt good about it and ran it clean with a nice deep low brace at the end to keep the hair dry.

Cataract Creek is a great run both for the whitwater and beause there are no roads near it--it's a full wilderness experience, just bopping down a beautiful river valley with some friends. The big drops all have good lines, which I love.

All the sports I do involve "lines." Lines connect together to take you places whether it's on skis, rock, ice, in the air, or on a river. I think river lines are the most interesting to me because you can only see the surface of the river; it's all really a mystery, but there's enough going on visually to give you clues. Paragliding lines are also cool because they are almost totally invisible; you have to rely on very subtle clues and then feel the line with your senses as you're on it. Come to think of it, kayaking a big drop is a little like flying a rowdy line in the sky--you have to feel rather than see, and react smoothly rather than jerkily. Ski lines are more visible, strips of white between rock walls, or meaningless in a way, as in skiing a big bowl full of deep powder. Ice lines are a big reason I still ice climb, they just go through such insane terrain...

It's really all about the line in any of these sports I think.

Here's to "lines!"

WG

PS---and after a couple of weeks of kayaking, mountain biking and flying my elbow already feels better--I think it's mainly the kayaking, lots of motion without super-high gripping or curling forces. I've cured almost every serious elbow or finger injury I've ever had with kayaking, it sure works great!

Kayaking

I'm now on the Kayaking rehab program. This is what I do when I get injured--go kayaking. It's the first sport I truly discovered on my own, and in some way will always be my "first" sport. Check this article out, I think it does a good job of explaining why I like kayaking.

Shooting, Flying, nictone

It's finally warm again here in Canmore. Yesterday was a perfect day, one of those days with blue skies, little fluffy clouds, yeah! I ended up shooting video on a local peak yesterday morning for a reality TV show. A few of the west-coast rigging crew organized a really cool swing sort of stunt, and I was climbing camerman. This meant hanging on the side of a cliff until my legs went numb while wrestling a Z1 into submission (those who shoot in the vertical world with that camera will know what "wrestling" means all too well). Lots of fun though, I really like shooting and have done more and more of it over the last five years. I'm now to the point where I can actually keep the camera focused, exposed and on settings for most of the time while hanging in some silly place. A sort of 5.10 cameraman. I really enjoy shooting, it's mentally challenging to do well, there are always problems, it's just a big puzzle to solve especially in tough environments.

The shoot location was up high on a local peak (can't talk too much about the shoot as they have had problems with paparazzi, no kidding), and happily no one seemed to notice or care too much that my paraglider was in the tail of the machine on the way up. The shoot wrapped at 3:30 or so, and the sky was perfect to fly into. The only problem was finding a decent place to launch--lots of big rocks, big scree, not ideal. But right on top of a the ridge I found this perfect little patch of walnut-sized scree, and was in the air within five minutes. Pulled the glider up, YANK!!!, no need to turn to gain a couple of thousand feet in under a minute, flew all the way home and landed in my local school yard an hour later. Flying sure is fun, that was my first real flight of the year. I flew my older Rebel, which is a rock-solid DHV 2 machine, a lot easier to fly than my normal comp gliders. I had no vario, GPS or even watch on to tell me how high I got, but plenty high--swirlies of cloud forming around me, peaks WAY down there high. The snowy peaks were stretched out all around, with the lush green valleys below. I love flying in the spring!

The only problem I've got right now is my right elbow. Yep, blew it out somehow again... I want bionic parts, I really do! I'm so determined to fix this problem that I've done something really radical--quit nicotine. Those who know me well will be laughing, but I've got a serious habit. It started with Skoal years ago, then I quit that and chewed a oil tanker's worth of Nicorette over the years interspersed with Norwegian Snuss. But mainly nic gum--let's just say that I'm hip too all the Nicorette deals out there. Of course occasionally I'd run out of the nic fit gum and get back on huge quantities of Norwegian Snuss or the lip-buster. Anyhow, nicotine delays wound healing and doesn't seem to help inflammation either, so if I'm going to beat this elbow hassle it's no more nicotine. It's been almost three weeks now. The elbow isn't getting better, but I am staying off the dang nicotine gum. It was either that or take up smoking to get off the gum, only half-joking. Whoever thought up the idea of selling nicotine-loaded gum to get off nicotine was brilliant.

Have a great weekend, another nice one here, out the door...

Another one down.

Sometime in the last few weeks Johnny Copp died in an avalanche in China, likely along with Micah Dash and Wade Johnson. Johnny had spent some time in the basement Hilton at our house, and I'd known him for a bunch of years. I'd only met Micah a few times and didn't know Wade, but I'm sorry to hear that all three are permanently out of the great game of life. They added to it in a hugely positive way.

Every spring I involuntarily think of the springs of 2005 and 2006; during those two springs seven friends died in clusters only a few months apart. None of them died of old age. The older I get the less sure I am of the glib responses and justifications I've always used for living a risky life. I still believe that for me it's the only path I can ride, but the odds become more and more obvious as I age. I recently wrote about the odds of dying while climbing in Explore magazine (can't find a direct link to that story on-line, will look later). My conclusion was that climbing and most mountain sports are a lot riskier than we like to think they are. Sport climbing on good rock is probably the only form of climbing one can expect to do for a lifetime and actually die from something other than climbing in the end. And even in the controlled "sport" environment almost every long-term sport climber I know has hit the ground at least once, always in a "fluke" accident. As I read the on-line forums about accidents and death I keep hearing the words "Fluke" and "Tragedy." Both these words are nonsense when applied to accidents in mountain sports.

For me I'm never going to use the word "tragedy" in reference to a climbing or mountain sports accident again. A tragedy is when a whole family gets killed by a drunk driver. A tragedy is when a little kid gets abused. A tragedy is when a 30-year old mother of two young kids gets cancer and dies. Dying while climbing, kayaking, paragliding, BASE jumping or any other form of outdoor recreation isn't a fucking tragedy, it's a clearly predictable result of doing the activity. If I or anyone goes out while doing our sports with a clear understanding of the game we're playing then let's have a drink, cheer for the life lived, and move on as best we can. I know it's not that simple as death leaves huge craters in life, but I think that's the only sane response I can give to the continued and voluntary mountain carnage I keep seeing year in and year out. To celebrate the rewards without clearly understanding the risks is not only bad math but blatant self-deception.

So here's to all my friends who went out with their boots on. And to my two friends currently in the hospital, you're goddamn lucky, and I'm glad you were.

Booty

Booty, and not the junk in the trunk kind.

I spent a lot of my early climbing years on a continual quest for "booty" of all kinds (both the climbing and not climbing kind, but focusing on the climbing here). Most of my early racks were made up of carabiners, nuts, cams and other stuff that I'd found or worked for up to a day to extract. I learned from two master booty retrievers (Fitz and Dave)--Fitz in particular had mad skills including special little socket wrenches and shims for popping stuck cams out. To this day I get a thrill out of extracting some perma-fixed piece off a crack, even though I likely already have ten of the exact same sized piece in various stages of rusting decay. It's just the idea of getting something for free...

This all came to mind as I read this post on Supertopo from Tradmanclimbs:

When I first started climbing back in the early eightys I was taught the booty game. It was supposed to be fun and honorable. the rules went something like this. 

#1 Any gear that you lose due to incompetence, getting spanked, fear, lack of skill , retrete, etc. becomes booty the moment that you give up attempts to recover said gear. The exception would be if you let it be known that were returning the next day at first light to resume recovery attempt. Once you give up on recovery attempts it is in fact BOOTY;) 

#2 Gear left in the parking lot is lost and found, NOT booty. 

3# Any gear left in the process of a rescue is NOT booty and shall be returned to the rightfull owners or next of kin. 

#4 Finders of booty may offer to return booty to the spanked party but you will lose face if you accept the offer. 

#5 it is extremly poor form to ask for lost booty to be returned to you. If the finders offer and you refuse the offer and they offer again then you may acept the return of the booty but you will still lose face and owe them a debt of honor. This debt may be eased but not completly erased by a gift of beer. (You and they will know that you are their bitch) It is best to suck it up and just say, hey, thanks for offering but you guys earned it. 

The booty game is supposed to be fun and a way for strong poor climbers to build their rack at the expense of rich weak climbers. As soon as someone gets hurt it is not fun anymore so everyone should pitch in, help out and try to get everyones gear back at the end of the day. 

The best form is to solo up to snag the booty gear or lead up but rapping in is acceptable provideing that all recovery attemts by the loseing party have been exausted. 

I am sure that its different by region but that is how we felt about booty in the north east. 

Supertopo is full of self-righteous posing by has-beens, wanna-bees, desk jockeys and poseurs (I include myself in all of that), but occasionally a good gem such as the above sneaks through the usual commentary on republicans, guns, abortion, religion or the ever-popular 1,000-post bolting discussion. Worth checking out. Thanks to whomever tradmanclimbs is for that post, yes. I still keep a map in my head of where to retrieve some kind booty...

Wheels: Best Invention EVER!

In the last 72 hours I've had a lot of fun with wheels. More fun with wheels than I ever thought possible...

First off, I was just out in Vancouver to do a show for the Arc'teryx sales meeting. The show went well enough considering it was four p.m. on an absolutely stellar day and I was the only thing standing between the reps and freedom! Great to catch up with some old friends too. Anyhow, immediately after the show a plan developed to go do a classic North Shore mountain bike ride. One of those take the car to the top and rip it down rides Vancouver is famous for (I think it was called CBC or something for those who know the area). Arc. had located some hefty but not insanely huge mountain bikes for the outing, and soon we were off. Or not--it turned into a cluster for a couple of hours until the more HDD types eventually lost it and we went blasting off into the woods.

I've been a recreational mountain biker for a lot of my life, and sorta thought I knew how to ride. I can bunny hop curbs, and have the scars to prove that I've spent time on the trails. But I've never ridden a full-suspension bike with six inches of travel or more front and rear, big tires, full-face helmet, etc. And I've never even seen a trail like the one in the Vancouver woods, much less ridden anything so totally insanely fun. It was like a legion of gnomes had spent entire lifetimes in the woods building with rocks, trees, and magic. It was a sort of giant Gerbil maze (remember those things?) for humans, all put together with the same painstaking care that I've seen in centuries-old German cobblestone roads. The quantity of work is just truly incredible. Put a big, full-suspension bike on that kind of terrain and it's just mind-blowing what you can ride down. I was giggling within 50 feet, laughing within 100 and screaming like a mental patient  in the throes of a full-fledged hysterical fit within five minutes. And it only got better.

A lot of the fun is in the trail's construction--there aren't all that many surprise obstacles to take you out, unlike on more natural trails. The trail is built to be ridden--you have to fall to fail. But the trail is also hard; skinny logs a meter or more above the ground that you have to link up to other logs, all kinds of little ladder systems in the air, just so much fun! It took every thing I knew about riding to keep moving, and I had to unlearn a lot too--the downhill bikes are really laid back, so you can ride much steeper stuff without going over the bars. I kept hitting the brakes and looking down some drop that I probably couldn't walk up, and then just rolling off... It was full-on, a lot of  "I'm gonna die!!!" moments every few seconds, stellar. And that was before we came to the jumps.

I used to really like jumping my BMX bike, but mountain bikes weren't tough enough to really huck on so I gave up on that program 25 years ago. Sure, little hops, but not straight off six-foot drops--that would break the bike and me for sure--I've broken enough rims to know that... Then I saw our fearless leader huck it, and it was game on. I haven't had so much fun in years. I've never ridden off anything higher than a couple of feet; six feet looked like a pitch of climbing to me, then you huck it and it's just so nice. I just found a brand new drug...

The only problem is now I need a new bike! And I'm maybe going to have to move to Vancouver. A sunny day there is truly fantastic, a work of art. If the weather were just a little better in winter I'd move there, but I can't handle the swamp aspect of things in winter. But the biking sure is good, maybe...

Also hit the Grouse Grind with some free time, and a quick bouldering session too. I'm pretty sure you could ride down most of the Grind is all I've got to say--my mind sure has been expanded.

Hit the Red Bull X-Fighters on Saturday night in Calgary. This is freestyle motocross competition, meaning Red Bull built a bunch of insane jumps in the bottom of a big stadium and invited the best freestyle motorcycle guys in  the world to come session.  Whoever does the raddest stuff in a minute and a half or so wins. I've seen a lot of rad stuff over the years--BASE hucking, kayaking, surfing, climbing, but nothing comes close to what these nut cases can do on a motorcycle. There's a ton of video out there of the X Fighters, check it out. I'm really glad I didn't find out about this sport when I was younger, I would have been right into it. Yeah, moto X isn't the cleanest sport environmentally, but damn is it cool to see someone hanging by their knees from their handlebars 50 feet above the ground while a stadium full of people goes off. A friend said moto X is the most accessible action sport going to the general public, and I agree. Climbing 5.10 or 5.14 all kinda looks the same to the public, but a backflip 50 feet in the air without hanging onto the handlebars? Yeah, that's harder than a straight jump... 

So here's to wheels: Best invention ever!

New Web Site

It's still a work in progress a little bit, but thanks to all the offers of help after my whining post about web design I ended up with some help: www.willgadd.com is now live again. You can actually order DVDs, books, email me, it all works. And one guy did it... A few people thought I was bitching about them personally in regards to other sites I'm working on; I wasn't, the problem was with willgadd.com. Problem fixed. Thanks.

Machavok Creative did the work, we're trading some coaching and party favors to get it done. The coaching side of things is taking off these days. I think a lot of people know what to do, they just need some structure to help do it. I provide that structure and some insights from decades of doing a few sports at a decently high level. I really enjoy the process of helping people climb, fly or just move better in the mountains. I'm always thinking about this stuff myself, it's great to start sharing words and ideas with other people and make good progress together. I've been building "assignments" and analysis modules in the evenings, plus putting together a collection of various writings on physical and mental performance. There might be a new book in there...

The lousy spring has been great for getting office work done; now it's time to start going harder outside, at least as soon as the latest snow melts. Yesterday we had snow, but it was unlike any other snow I've ever seen. There were flakes the size of Pringles potato chips falling out of the sky like little parachutes. Amazing to think of all the vertical cycles those snowflakes must have gone through in the sky to build to that size. I had to go outside and have a direct look at the snowflakes; it wasn't easy to figure out their structure due to how warm it was, but I think they were accumulations of many snowflakes, more clumps than flakes. Anyhow, it was gorgeous as it came down even if I am cursing the very idea of snow at this point.

Web, GPS, Weather.

First off, thanks to the many people who emailed to offer their help with my web site. I had no idea I had actual talent reading these rantings, thanks! I've got a solution thanks to you.

I seem to be becoming a sort of technology nerd. I've always liked little black boxes that do cool stuff. Paraglider pilots are the biggest tech nerds on the planet with any claim to also be athletes. They use GPS tech, flight computers, the web, etc., and most seem to spend more time geeking out than actually flying. But I've noticed aerobic athletes are getting into that GPS use, along with guides, geocachers, even climbers. GPS units produce waypoints and tracks; those tracks are useful for everything from scoring paragliding competitions to building waypoint files (nice to have when you're lost inside the ping-pong ball on a ski traverse or descent). I'm working on a project involving popular hikes/scrambles and GPS tracks at the moment, more on that in a month or two, but check this site out, kind of a cool multi-sport track thing. Lots of stuff like this out there now based on both stand-alone GPS units and mobile  phones with GPS units in 'em... The Spot is becoming more popular too, and it's useful because it doesn't rely on a cell signal to call for emergency help. Many older outdoor types are leery of new tech, but if there's one theme I can see in the outdoor world that's changing it very rapidly it's satellite-based technology...

About ten years ago I did a trip into a remote area where one of our group went down hard with an unknown ailment. Luckily he lived, but that was the last big trip I did without a satellite phone--I don't want to ignore technology that could save someone's life, even if that means a less independent trip. I firmly believe in self-rescue, but not to the point where I'll stake a friend's life on that style of outdoor fun. I have mixed feelings about having communications in remote areas; obviously it's a resource that can be abused, but it can also save my life. I now have my own sat phone and also rent it out to friends (people who aren't gear idiots). I'm not sure where all this tech is going, but I am sure that it's going to change our outdoor experience both positively and negatively. I think it can be mainly positive if we embrace it and use it, or mainly negative if we fight it and don't learn to use it well.

Spring is now finally starting, after one of the worst Aprils I can remember here in the Rockies. I had a good ride yesterday with a friend, even though we were pushing through up to two feet of snow on a ride I've done snow-free in March almost every year I've lived here in Canmore. The rock on Saturday was warm even in the shade though, so it's time to get chalky, sweaty, sunburned, and all the other fun stuff that goes with warm temperatures. I am so glad for that!!

Happy Spring. I mean it this time.

Odds and Ends

First off, some poetry. I'm normally not a big poetry fan, but have a listen to this. I think it's pretty good writing about living a risky life. If that link doesn't highlight Nanci Lee's poem then scroll down to listen to her Icarus poem. Yeah Icarus! I heard Nanci Lee perform it on satellite radio while driving back from Jasper, it actually got me fired up to listen to it again. I haven't listened to any of the other poems on that page, one good success with poetry is a good day for me.

Here in the Rockies spring showed promise, then utterly failed to get the sprung part done. In fact, I think it's still frozen in place. If I were a poet looking for an image of spring I might say that spring this year is a returning robin who died when the water in the bird bath froze fast around his legs while he drank. Good thing I'm not a poet, but spring is ugly in the Rockies this year.

I'm stuck between seasons right now, and not liking it. I love training, but it's unclear what to train for at the moment--there is a civil war going on for my summer plan. Climbing, flying, kayaking, the factions are armed and fighting fiercely for their agendas. There's a river up north, an ocean to fly over, a mountain range to climb. I'd like to do all three trips, but each idea is a battle that will will be won after some mental blood is spilled. The crux of trip planning is not how much of what goes where but developing the "why" of the trip, the seed of an idea that grows into something so big and cool that it sweeps you along in its wake. I've always done trips that I basically thought would be cool to do, and then planned the logistics from there. Maybe that's just a short local ski tour, or a longer trip to a foreign country, but the idea is always, "Wouldn't it be fun to..." Spring normally sets some of those plans in motion, but the ice climbing is still better than the rock climbing, and the rivers have more ice than water in 'em.

I've had some fun getting the "hype", also known as PR, part of my life re-sorted. Th new demo reel is finally done, and after a long battle a new website (after dealing with several "designers" I got annoyed and put up something basic at www.willgadd.com, I'll refine that more but good enough for now). If anyone knows a web person who doesn't need to work with a designer, a coder, some proprietary BS software, a gaggle of elves and a blank checkbook to produce a solid site please drop me a private email, but I'm bitter on the subject at the moment and my interview process with any "web designer" will be confrontational and likely short. I did my first web sites back in the early nineties, on Frontpage. "Professionals" absolutely hated that program, maybe because it did as good a job as they could at the time, but it worked. Apple's latest offering, iWeb, is several years behind where Frontpage was in about, oh, '98. I used a pirated version of Dreamweaver for Gravsports.com, and rely on a friend I work with to do gravsports-ice.com. I've decided pirating software is lame, so I spent four hours yesterday downloading Rapidweaver, Komposer and several others with the hope that they would work half as well as Dreamweaver. I fired each program, they all suck compared to Frontpage '97... Anyhow, I'm getting well off topic. I used iWeb for willgadd.com, it does work but is a typical Apple consumer product in that it only wants to do what it wants to do, not what I want it to do. I like Apple's "pro" products (Keynote, Final Cut Studio, Aperture) but iLife drives me nuts, I know iWeb is headed to the same garbage can as iPhoto, Garbage Band and the rest of the junk in iLife.

Anyhow, it's time to go hike up a big hill as fast as I can, that usually improves my attitude and fitness level. I hope spring has sprung where you are, 'cause it's late to the party here.

Ice Climbing on Discovery

My friends Scott Simper, EJ Plimley, and I shot some video when we climbed Hunlen Falls in Tweedsmuir provincial park. Discovery's Daily Planet decided to do a six-minute piece with the footage. I selected some footage and sent it over, they cut a really nice six-minute piece--click here to check it out!

Doing climbing shows for television can be a risky business; there are a few small liberties taken with the footage and climbing, but overall I'm really happy with it as I think it shows the experience we had accurately--fun, a little dangerous, and in an amazing place with good people! Thanks to the crew at Discovery for doing a good job with a subject I really care about it.

WG

Shane McConkey, Focus.

My friend Shane recently hucked and it didn't work out. I've had a real down week thinking about his death and so many others over the years. I smile when I think about Shane (I don't think anyone who ever hung out with him for more than 20 minutes doesn't smile when thinking about Shane), but the aftermath for his family must be rough. Shane wasn't a super-tight friend, but we did some cool stuff together over the years through Red Bull, and had some ideas for trips in the future. I'm damn sorry it didn't work out for him, not because he died, we all die, but yet again for his family (wife and young kid). 

I had some talks with him about BASE jumping a few years back, and he was around the Twin Falls bridge scene for a bit when I was there and starting to dabble with BASE. He felt quite confident in the parachute, and I eventually came to share his view. The technology is pretty good now, likely far better in terms of consistent functioning than the human cargo under the parachute. I quit BASE jumping simply because I didn't think I could devote enough time at it to have a decent skill level, and because I know myself well enough to know that I fuck up regularly. I can often get away with a little error or two while climbing, kayaking or even flying my glider, but I make too many errors to be a good BASE hucker. With training I could probably develop the right skill set mentally, but I don't have time for that training. I reluctantly walked away from the edge of BASE despite Shane's opinion that it could be done relatively safely. I agree with him that it can be done with relatively safely with good risk management, but not for me. I hear his words today even though he's gone. He'll be missed, he was a good man. He used to always give me shit for tucking my t-shirt in; I'm gonna wear it tucked in a lot more in photos just 'cause he would have seen the photo and sent me a heckling email...

The way I often deal with the loss of somebody is to work on something around the house. I have the Chris Muller Memorial bark garden out front, the Karen McNeill back yard among other projects, and now the Shane McConkey coat rack. It's gonna be sweet, two rows of nice varnished VG fir with some stylie Lee Valley hooks. Hey Shane, you got a coat rack as a memorial, ha ha! Maybe I'll put something like, "World's Greatest Skier," or was it, "Greatest Skier in the World" on it? Shane loved sending himself up, might as well continue the tradition. Now I gotta go varnish it a bit more, might as well make it look good. Shane always made it look good... Unfortunately I didn't quite sand it perfectly, just like I wouldn't have quite got that pack job right every single time. Unless you're Shane you've gotta know your limitations, to mis-quote Clint Eastwood. Shane just never let something like limitations get in the way of a fun day, and that was cool. 

The Seasons are a'changing....

My friend dD has this theory that we "push" the seasons. In the fall, while it's still OK for rock climbing, we're itching for ice. We trash our ski bases on junk snow, then don't take advantage of the season's best conditions in late March and April 'cause we want warm rock... It's like we need to re-calibrate our seasonal aspirations about a month later, so we get the most out of each season. But no, we're not like that, and I'm out lusting after warm rock even though the ice hasn't melted out. I had hopes to get one more big ice rig done this season, but it has by all reports melted out, and, ah, I wanna go rock climbing... And fly my glider, and paddle my boat. In short, I'm fully over winter. OK, maybe a few ski turns on a warm spring morning when the corn is perfect, but I do not want to feel the claws of winter again. That said, this is Canada, and it can snow in August and probably will.

Happy Spring!!