Random Training Thoughts #2

So I bust out today's X-Fit workout as hard as I can. I'm doing squat cleans alternating with some sort of ass-backards situp thing that fully messes me up. I'm grunting, dropping weights, sweating like a pig and generally making a scene without even trying. It's about as much fun as I'm going to have in a gym actually, mega. But as I cooled down I started thinking why it is that I'm in a gym on a nice day. I also got a couple of email comments this morning from people asking about winter and training plans, with a few links to various programs. I'm going to rant now:

I'm going to get real blunt here: If you want to be a better climber then damn well go climbing. Especially a better rock climber. I would bet any amount of money that if a person spent, say, 20 hours a week training and climbing hard in a structured climbing program (rock gym and outdoors) and an identical person spent 20 hours a week in a weight gym (even one promising some sort of climbing-specific program) that the actual climbing effort would destroy the gym program. Absolutely destroy it, as in 5.12 vs. 5.9, as in sending like a fiend and falling off before the first bolt on the same route. I guarantee this.

For skill-based sports, as in Glassman's quote from yesterday, practicing the sport will likely provide the strength and fitness you need (especially at a relatively low level). If you want to be a better ice climber then climb ice. If you can't do that, and it's harder because ice isn't as common as a good climbing gym, then a weight training program will help. A specific program, not a general X-Fit sorta thing (which, while it will help, I don't believe it will help as much as a focused program).

There was one program on the web supposedly designed to improve one's performance for climbing desert cracks. That program was only slightly more useful than going to a 24-hour fitness and doing bicep curls. I would take somebody and put them on a crack box for three hours a week and he or she will absolutely DESTROY any sort of non sport-trained climber (given a reasonable base fitness level...). But the funny thing about training is that we become invested in one idea about it, and the more effort we put into that idea and program the more we become invested in that idea... I'm sure everybody felt like the program worked, but only because they didn't have a control group who spent their time climbing crack boxes to then publicly kick their collective asses. Or a group that actually went outside and got coached on how to climb cracks, even better...

I do Crossfit and other forms of training for a lot of reasons ('cause it's fucking fun being a good start), but not to be a better technical climber. Time to go stack some firewood on my deck (hey, Xfit will be pretty good training for that, or is it the other way around? That's what I like about Xfit...). I train in the gym and outside of it to provide a base foundation of strong movement for all my sports and life. I expect that, in the time I spend re-building this foundation every year, my technical skills will actually become worse. Yes, worse. But I will be able to refine my general strength into specific strength and "applied strength" in the form of my various winter and spring activities. And my training will become more specific as needed. I have beaten hundreds if not thousands of athletes over the years who spent a lot more time than me doing bench press (although I have also done some of that).

This is turning into a long post, but I think all of us need to think about what we are training for (very specific to very broad goals), and honestly look at our programs to see if they are producing the results we want. And we need to measure these results as objectively as we can. For example, is the bumbly who came into your climbing gym a year ago now climbing circles around you despite all the sets you've done of squats? If your goal was to be a better climber then the bumbly has just shown he has a better program than you do. If we don't do this examination and evaluation of results then the guy pumping his tenth set of bicep curls to look better on the beach next spring is not only training more effectively than we are but also with more honesty. In fact, I'd respect Mr. Bicep Curl a lot more than the guy or gal who is doing a set of weighted pullups and claiming to be training for hard sport climbing. Seriously.

Now train. Effectively.

WG

Random Training Thoughts #1

" The need for specificity is nearly completely met by regular practice and training within the sport not in the strength and conditioning environment."

-Greg Glassman, Crossfit guy, long interview here.

That's an interesting quote from the man behind Crossfit, which is, for those who aren't aware of it, a sort of physical self-torture program that claims to be all things to all people (yeah, I'm being a bit sarcastic). The more I play with Crossfit the more I realize that their training ideas both contrast sharply with my own training over the years and also meet it in places. For example, I have always trained as intensely as I can. I've bitched about the lack of intensity I see in training on past blog posts. I've always tended to train with "super sets." Doing combined sets of exercises just made sense to me, it's how my sports work. I don't do a pullup then rest on a climb, I do a pullup then a row movement then a leg press etc.

But I've never even thought about doing a deadlift--that shit hurts your back, right? So why I am so damn stoked to have deadlifted 265 (that's about like doing five pullups for those who don't know the weight. Maybe three pullups...). Why does my back feel better than it has in years? Why do I feel good physically despite all my nagging injuries?

Something interesting is happening.

Three Rules for Tough Trips

We've all been on outdoor trips where the whole situation gets a bit sideways, or at least requires operating at a high output level for longer than is comfortable. Here are three rules for these kinds of trips:

1. Move the team forward. If you're sitting on your ass or standing around blankly you're doing something wrong. Figure out what will keep the team and yourself moving forward, even if a very small amount, and do it. Multiple one to ten minute slow-downs add up to hours and days very rapidly when on a long climb or trip.

2. See and accept the situation as it is. Improve it. If it's really bad think of Shackleton. See, not so bad.

3. You can complain, but it's gotta be funny or it's just whining.

I remember reading a story years ago about a friend, Barry Blanchard, suffering on a climbing trip where he wasn't up to the climbing standard. He cooked more, dug more caves, stacked ropes, did whatever he possibly could to move the group forward. That story stuck in my mind as a standard to try and follow--Barry is normally one of the best alpine climbers going, but on that trip he wasn't. He was still a very valuable part of the team. My best climbing and adventure partnerships have all broadly followed the three "rules" above. A fourth rule is that sometimes you can't live up to the first three; try and do better when you can.

The World's Worst Workout

Crossfit should be banned. It's a drug, it's a form of self-torture, it's a damn curse on my body's weakest parts. I tried to do this today:

21-18-15-12-9-6-3 rep rounds of:
Handstand push-ups
L-pull-ups

Sounds simple, eh? That's only about 84 pullups and pushups. Oh, wait, that's L-sit pullups and HANDSTAND pushups... I cheated so hard on this workout. I piled stuff on the floor so I didn't have to go as deep on the handstand pushups. My elbow's still a bit sore so I did some other lat stuff, the cheating just went on and on... And it was still all I could do to "finish" it. Yeah, I know I could have scaled it etc., but I didn't. Damn. If you think you're fit have a go at this workout. Oh, and it's for time, meaning you go as hard as you can, not pretty little sets where do a set and then pose. Give 'er.

Escape from the Atnarko

I woke up this morning in a hotel room, but it took me a minute to realize that I wasn't going to put the same non-dry dry suit back on and beat through the woods for the day. I was kinda sad when I realized my day would be spent eating up the Trans Canada Highway instead. Right now there are big salmon spawning up the Atnarko, Grizzly bears feasting on fish, the cry of a loon and the roar of a river crashing through a burned landscape. Right now.

What was supposed to be a reasonable two to maybe three-day 40km river trip morphed into a four-day battle involving epic amounts of flatwater (couldn't drive as close to the river as I had hoped, so we paddled across a big lake), a really, really big grizzly bear with a salmon over a meter long in its mouth standing 5M in front of me in the river (and I didn't have anywhere to go but toward the bear in a creek less than two meters wide--I decided flipping over would be the best move if the bear got surly), more log jams than I can remember, hundreds of portages around log jams, getting lost in a swamp, loons, and the general realization that paddling rivers through recent burns is likely a bad idea. But I loved every minute of it. For some reason I need to get way off the grid both mentally and physically at least a couple of times every year. There's just something deeply meaningful about traversing wild country that resonates with me. Life gets very simple, and the goal everyday is very clear: to make progress, and to survive. That is enough, and everything.

South Tweedsmuir park and the Chilcotin have really seized ahold of me. It's a truly wild place with engaging terrain and a real frontier feel about it. I saw a few other things in the area I need to get back and check out, I'l get on that as soon as the bruises, cuts, and tendon issues heal up. I'm thumped, and slowly heading home. It's really amazing how comfortable and pleasant driving my truck can seem after a good solid bit of recreation. I definitely do not need any more recreation for a week or two.

Thanks to Mark at Redshreds in Williams Lake (cool store and owner, stop in if you're in the area), and our stellar driver, Clint Fraser with Pine Point Resort, and Rolly of the same. It was a rough trip, especially if you were expecting more of a vacation-style river, thanks to the team we got down the river with. It was not an easy situation; I think I often "recreate" with a group of people who come from an alpine climbing or general background of, "It's going to suck, the only question is can we handle the suffering or do we have to pull the pin?" I'm starting to realize this is not a normal attitude in the non-alpine climbing world. I don't go out into the bush or the edge my known mental operating zone looking for "easy," I go looking for what's there and then deal with what I find. The process only gets more interesting as what I expect and what I find become more divergent. For me it's all about seeing things as they are, not as I want them to be, believe them to be from the outside, would like them to be, or think I deserve. What it is is what it is, now get 'er done. I think this is a common ethic in very narrow climbing world, but perhaps not so much in the rest of the world. I will do better.

One thing I will say is that the last couple of months of hard Crossfit workouts were great training for the trip. Crossfit is all about moving things around, pulling yourself up and down, jumping, and general "power" fitness. I had another physical gear on this trip I haven't had in the past, and it really helped. I don't think Crossfit is the solution for very specific fitness needs, but it's damn effective at prepping for the unknown and the general demands of life. I noticed that doing everything from putting heavy boats onto the roof of the truck (a clean and jerk) to powering up a shitty hillside through thick brush was easier. I'll ease out of Crossfit as the climbing season develops, but it's a good base to start from for sure. It also really shows me how lousy I've gotten at certain fundamental skills (jumping, squats, deadlifts). It's really easy to compensate for poor strength and skills without even knowing you're doing it. But if you're following an organized plan then those weaknesses are immediately shown, and you can fix 'em. Cool, I have things to fix...

Note--I don't have anything to do with Crossfit other than having done it at various points in my training.

Atnarko River

Well, we’re headed northwest to try and run the Atnarko River! Five of us, boats on the roof, game on! The Atnarko is the river we flew along on the way in to scout Hunlen Falls last year. In January there was enough water to run the multiple drops and slides, so we’re hoping to have very low water in September—the Atnarko peaks at some insane flood level every spring, we're hoping to have literally a tenth or less of that water. The gradient is about 200 feet per mile for the first ten miles, and it looks like the drops comes in pool/drop form. I haven’t tried a first descent in many years, this should be a good one if the water level is reasonale. If you Google Charlotte Lake you can see where the Atnarko flows out of the west end. There’s enough resolution to see individual drops, pretty cool! We’re figuring three days on the river including the flatwater and a hike up around Hunlen Falls. I can’t wait to see what the falls look like in summer, they were so wild looking in winter when we had a go at climbing them.

Tweedsmuir Park has really gotten under my skin; this is my third 14-hour drive to the park this year, it’s just an amazing place. We made nice short film about the winter climb of Hunlen Falls, but we’re not making a formal film this trip, just a good crew heading down river! See ya in a week...

Congrats to Gordon McArthur

For sending his long-time climbing project. Yeah Gord! Now it's time to get back at the training, no slacking.

The Power of Youth

I've been paddling and climbing more than normally with youth of late. I've also been watching videos, reading blogs, and somehow "exposed" to a lot more youth than normal (not counting the two-year old that normally terrorizes my house).

And you know what? I like 'em, especially in contrast to some of my generation. My generation was too dark, too pissy, too steeped in nonsensical holdover Victorian ideals, and over-read in Nietzsche and Sartre (plus a few others). I'm going to write more on this 'cause I think it's time to take a hard look at the dark motivations of so many climbers and paddlers in my generation.

I'm going to give one example to illustrate the point: When we ran class V back in the 80s we ran the drop once, and called it done. We would never have enough to run it again, why bother? We had survived, we had triumphed, we had overcome our fears, and running it again would mean maybe it wasn't so bad-ass. Kids today? They run laps on class hard V drops just for grins. They set good safety that might actually do something, and they take the drops seriously, but they go up and run stuff again and again. Because it's fun. And that is the difference between light and dark, running out of fear and running for the joy of paddling moving water. Cool, the kids are better than alright, they're inspiring the hell out of me.

Ah, one more example. My generation starved ourselves to climb hard. Today's kids smoke (not all, and not Nicotine), eat organic burgers, drink microbrews and send way harder than we ever did. Who do you think is having more fun? Yeah, I'm going to bet Sharma has had a hell of a lot more fun than Karn (no disrespect to Jim--I modeled a large amount of my early climbing life off of him, surely the greatest compliment one can give, and still think of his climbing regularly).

Now I gotta go train, 'cause I'm not a kid, and 'cause I like it. Hell, I'm going to do an extra set just for the sheer joy of it. Bring it. The lightness of youth.

Dave Thomson

I went to Dave Thomson's memorial last night. I was surprised as I looked around the room at how diverse the people in attendance were; old, young, strong, fading, all walks of life, genders, just a total mix. I'm going to write about Dave for my Explore column next month as I feel his life and death really warrant recording. He was born into a place that might define normal if it weren't so over-the-top normal, and died in a most extraordinary way by his own hand. Most of the people I know who die do so in accidents. Dave went out on his own terms, which makes the death both odd and somehow socially difficult to understand. If you die in an avalanche it's a tragedy. Take your own life and it's somehow wrong. The result is the same, why does it matter how it happened? Except that in Dave's case it does, as his death was very consistent with his super-independent life.

I'm still figuring this one out; one of the reasons I have a hard time writing for "serious" publication is that it I often over-write by about a factor of 10:1. To fit Dave into roughly 800 words I'll write 8,000 then chop it down. In Dave's case the nature of his life and death deserve a book, an anthology, a movie series. Sometimes I see kids on street corners with loads of ink, piercings, whacked out clothes and so on. Dave looked kinda normal, but he may have been the most genuine, way out-there guy I ever knew. I always said I was going to write a big feature on him, and I never did. It's too late now maybe, but I'm about 3,000 words into an 800-word piece so that feature is in there... I'll let the Explore piece do the talking on Dave, but I just wanted to note the end of his physical life here.

And another viewpoint

Dougald is a friend of mine who also knew Craig. Nice piece of writing on a subject very much on the mind of myself and some friends.

Congrats to Greg T.

Women use a lot of nice words to describe my friend Greg's physique. Check out the picture I stole from his blog--he's built. I suspect he could never touch a weight and still run larger biceps than most of us. He's just not built like your average or even heavier than average greyhound sport climber, but he's into sport climbing. Or said he was... The rest of the story is here.

Congrats on finally climbing 5.13 Greg!

And nice write-up on what it took to climb 5.12. There's some real insight there, and I look forward to the write-up on 5.13.

Craig Luebben

I can't remember when I first met Craig. Maybe while working at Rock & Ice back in the day, maybe in Eldo Canyon, maybe in Canada. But I got to know him through working on some stories with him, sharing information about ice climbing (he was keenly interested in many of the same topics as me and did a lot of original research that effected anyone who climbs ice), running into him at various crags around North America, etc. etc. He's one of those guys who is just always around somewhere, part of the fabric of climbing. But now he's not-- he died while training for a guide's exam. His partner was exceedingly solid and by all reports the route was well within their limits, Craig just got hit by a chunk of falling something. Done, and a family shattered.

No one can make life risk-free, nor would a risk-free life be worth living. But risky activities are just that. This one is going to keep me up at night. Sometimes I yearn for a simplistic belief in an ordered cosmos, but accidents like this rip that idea right out by the roots. I think it's best to realize we are insignificant in the cosmic scope of things and play the game with that knowledge, it might prevent a few delusions about our own importance or sanctity. We are also as significant as any other mass of anything out there...

I know that, for as long as I live, I will listen to Craig's death both for the echoes of the life he lived and the knowledge he added to all of ours. Listen up.

A danger you hadn't thought of...

I've done a fair amount of running, riding and messing about in New York City's central park. But I've been worried about getting mugged, run over by a sprinter, flattened by a drunk on a pedicab, but I have never once worried about the trees. Who knew?

Actually, trees have fallen and killed a fair number of people over the years in the Rockies. A couple of kids near Marble Canyon, someone on the Banff Springs golf course, and likely some other chaos I don't know about. I don't mean to make light of dangers of trees falling over (and I've been fully terrified in the lodge-pole forest around here during a windstorm), but I think falling trees is really not a major concern compared to driving, eating, drinking, or walking down the sidewalk. But stay heads up out there, the trees have a real bad attitude...

Alaska, a challenge from Mr. Trotter.

Alaska in the summer is fun--back home now, still thinking about the super long days, glaciers, icebergs, rivers and all the other stuff I saw. I was working for an Australian TV program (I'll reveal more on that later, not sure they want their cover blown) doing a story on glacial recession and climate change. Basically my job was to climb, kayak and otherwise mess about on the glacier with their host, and then talk about the changes I was seeing around the world as glaciers recede and the climate changes. I really enjoyed the experience, good people and a great place.

And when I came home I found a challenge up on a certain Mr. Trotter's website:

"Beat that Will Gadd, I double dog dare you fool. Just because you climbed Mount Robson (3,950 m) in 17 hours, doesn’t mean you can beat ME, I’m the best, or maybe you’re scared? Wink. Wink."

Right Mr. Trotter, let's get 'er ON!!!! (say that in a Mr. T voice). While it sounds like he had a fun day out in the mountains and may be sorta fit for a youth, he doesn't know fast from 5.14 in the real mountains around Canmore. Prepare to suffer fool! No winking, no nudging, I'm seriously pissed off and looking to open up a can of speedy whup-ass on the escaped chalk-eating rock monkey who has been poaching lines around here us locals would climb if we weren't so fit for slogging up choss heaps in the summer. I know choss hiking like Tigger Woody knows golf, no contest fool!

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.