Riding for Climate

Last weekend was our first taste of glorious spring weather, after tolerating a couple of weeks of gloriously bad spring weather (e.g., 40 degrees and raining). To fully take advantage of this, we rode the tandem from Boston to Amherst, MA (108 miles) on Saturday and Sunday, accompanying our new friends Dave and Bill. Dave and Bill are riding across the country doing presentations to raise awareness of climate change issues. Their website, www.rideforclimate.com, has all the details. Dave just finished a similar tour in which he bicycled from California to Tierra del Fuego (see www.rideforclimate.com/americas). Anyhow, we had an awesome time and hopefully I'll get some pictures posted on the blog. The tandem worked great and we look forward to outfitting it with real touring accoutrements and doing some more long rides.

Uinta Ski Hike

I went on a little trip to the Uintas. I skied till it was dark, and then kept going, all the way to gunsight pass to my high camp at 11,300. I got up at 5am and started over the pass and into painter's basin then back up some steep hills to King's peak. At 12,800 I had gained the long ridge where King's peak resides. I mistakenly thought Kings was south of where I was. Daytime heating made me leery of traversing a steep slope with a slide-for-life into an unknown drainage, so I bailed on fake Kings and decided to head up to a more accessible 13er which I thought was not King,s, but actually was! King's, shown above as the central peak that is recessed a bit in the photo. From the top I was able to see all over into several drainages that practically nobody goes to. I came down via an amazing ski pole glissade. When the angle slacked I skied the rest on perfect corn across miles of open terrain in these expansive mountain valleys. The only living thing I saw up there was a fox. Once back on the Henry's fork side I kicked back at my tent, melted some snow and made some tea. I let my socks dry in the excessive warmth and took a nap. Due to the excessive heat the thin snowpack was collapsing and unconsolidated. I could only travel successfully on the packed down ski track, and even then I fell into many a trap door. I decided to come down that night when the meager refreeze made the track more supportable. About every 30 steps I fell through and I needed my skins for the decent just to slow me down so I did not stray from the track into the vast sea of facets. I was very weak on the way down, but feeling ok. I skied for 14 hours that day and by 10 at night I was at my car. I spent 32 hours car to car for a 40-mile round trip hike. Great training for Elk mountain coming up in two weeks...

Bambi Left sent!

Just wanted to let you all know that the sick new bouldering problem I recently found was sent without incident last Thursday. "Bambi Left" a horizontally traversing V 0.4 presents unique and rapidly changing objective hazards. While the holds are easily found and represent little difficulty, a roof directly above the problem prevents full extension of the body and cramps style during ascent. For those into zen-like first ascents the atmosphere in which the problem is located is often crowded and loud interferring with concentration. Other boulders on the problem often block key holds on this route and may be unwilling to share the location due to a variety of perceived territorial threats ("I was here first") or xenophobia ("you're too big!").
Nevertheless, for those willing to work with the challenges, this route represents an expansion into the Park City region of the well-acclaimed workplace bouldering ticklist which is currently dominated by such classics as "Wearhouse hand crack".

Route Beta
Name:"Bambi left"
Rating: V 0.4
FA: Margaret Kimball
Acess: restricted, some sneaky antics may be required
(Acess Fund may be working with owners in the future to integrate access to this location)
Location: Snow Park Lodge area, Children's Center region, Bambi room wall
Directions: Enter through the main doors and follow the signs to the Bambi room drop off. "Bambi Left" is through the drop off and ski-school doors on the west wall of the play room. Caution: Either wearing all green or pretending to be 4 years old may be required to acess the problem
Notes: no crash pad required as floor is pre-padded.

Duct Tape Wisdom

'Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.'

- Carl Zwanzig

Google earth yurtagge!

oh, but it is ski season

Will said in his last post (and I'm way behind now that I don't work in front of a screen) that it was not yet ski season, but I would have to beg to differ. Deer Valley has been open since Saturday , and I've been skiing the icy cat-tread for a couple weeks now. Excuse me, "firm-pack granular", Deer Valley is, of course, too good for ice.

I've entered the world of fixed heel skiing. At times I like it, for example on runs where I finally get the hang of the turn. I love not needing my hands to get my bindings on an off. (and let me tell you, patrolling is all about taking your skis on and off 15 million times a day). However, I loath the hike up to the shack from the top of the lift, and at least once a day I lean down to pick up some large ackward item I'm about to drop only to discover my heels don't come with me. (Doh!)

We've had some selected nice skiing out there. We're preserving powder by posting closed signs in front of all the good stashes, and then ducking the ropes when no ones looking. (exception, lines which can be seen from the lift are strictly no-poaching terrain as if guests see the tracks we have to yell at the which decreases the amount of time we can ski.)

I've joined the world of mid-weeks off so if anyone wants to go cut some turns on Wednesdays or Thursdays, let me know

I'm building a rock wall

Here's a great way to kill time online:

http://www.xrez.com/gallery/yosemite/xRez_yose.html

Here's a great way to kill time online:

Friday, December 01, 2006

Pink Pine Powder Day

Click the title for a little movie. It might take a minute for it to load...

Sonny Trotter on Cobra Crack

http://www.getoutdoors.com/goblog/index.php?/archives/1153-Film-of-Sonnie-Trotters-First-Free-Ascent-Of-Cobra-Crack.html

Check it out,

W

New to the quiver

So last year I started skiing seriously. I am not very good hence I retain the title climbwill while the other Will gets the ski prefix. Contributing to my lameness was that my old skis weighed next to nothing and were only 90mm at the tip: My 190 lb. carcass would just sink through all that powder we had last year. My new Voile Carbon Surfs, mounted with dynafit comfort bindings and driven by the Scarpa Matrix boot will hopefully change that (both the sinking carcass and the bad skiing that is).

The Voile skis have snowboard inserts. To mount the dynafits you have to obtain this grey plastic mounting plate. On the mounting plate there are three hole patterns on the for the rear binding piece for small medium and large boot sizes. The hole patterns are spaced 1 1/8 inches apart. The dynafits can adjust about 1 inch, leaving two 1/8 inch gaps between binding configurations on the ski. My boot landed just shy of this gap. The binding adjustment screw at its limit will just barely accommodates my boot. Either the guys at Voile checked to make sure that no major boots sizes' land in those gaps or they were just plain stupid. Mondo point sizes are not exactily equivalent to centimeter sizing: e.g. my 28.0 dynafit evolutions are slightly shorter than my 27.5 scarpa matricies. So it seems unlikely that they could ensure that all boots will fit their skis...

-w

In Case You're Wondering, It's Not Ski Season Yet.

This afternoon I drove up to Alta to do a little touring in Grizzly Gulch/Twin Lakes Pass area. The new snow definitely made for some great kick and glide on the cattracks but all over there were exposed rocks or bumpy snow mounds with rock-like nuggets of surprise inside, even on the upper elevation north faces. After skining for 40 mins. I noticed that getting clean turns in was a lost cause and turned around and skied out on the skintrack. I nailed a few nuggets of surprise in the process and vowed not to return until another three feet has fallen.

-w

Cyclocross State Champs: I'm A Contenda!

I just got done with the Utah cyclocross state championships. Another fine day of racing at Wheeler Farm. Some of us on the blog do this funny sport. True, its somewhat strange, and it does not have the following that road or mountain bike racing has. Why do it? Well first off you have to like racing. Why cyclocross racing? If we make analogies to auto racing then Road racing would be like NASCAR or Indy, Mountain bike racing would be like Baja or rallying up pikes peak, Downhilling would be like monster trucks. Cyclocross is like formula one: Winding tracks with ups, downs, curves, hairpins, banks, continual accelerations and decelerations, and running. Most people know of cross for the running and jumping over barriers part but mountain biking can also have hike-a-bike sections. To me the running makes for interesting tactics and emphasizes different types of fitness, but the running makes up only a very small part of the race. The other thing about cross is that it is the winter time branch of cycle racing: When the other racing seasons winds down cross is the only race in town. The mud and snow make for suffering and challenging riding conditions: Do I run this muddy trenched section or can I ride it? The other great thing about cross is that its much more low-key: People come out to have fun. Antics abound and the courses are usually in parks where many people show up. Spectators can usually see much of the course and watch the progress of packs of riders and the race leaders as they go by different sections of the course.

Here is some pictures of the single speed and men's B race. The race was great for me. There was some good racing.


Check me out cruising on the runup.
On the last lap this other single speed rider snuck up on me and passed me, demoting me to third place. I passed him right back and we both got clogged up in a pack of B men riders. We all went through a wooded single track section. Once out of the woods I took an inside line that was bumpier than the smooth section, but the B men didn't mind me passing as I was not their problem.


The course closed back up on a corner and I safely had three guys between me and the other single speed guy. I unloaded all energy reserves on the flats going into the final stretch for the single speed silver. Steve Wasmund, the first place guy is like so much better that I never even saw him the whole race. Maybe next time...

-w

I'm all out of gears, AKA another thing you can do with a Voile ski strap

Two weekends ago a crashed out pretty bad on my cyclocross bike: Right off the start line and into a pile up. I dented my top tube on my thin-wall aluminum Cannondale frame, frayed rear shift cable, and busted my rear shift lever. This last Saturday I finally started to fix the dang thing for Sunday's race when I finally realized the extent of the damage.


I called up the folks at cyclesmith and I converted my bike to a single speed. Before the crash, this was my last bike to still have gears. But gears grind, bend, and eventually break before anything else does on a bike and so the single speed is a natural progression (regression).

In a cyclocross race gears confer only a slight advantage and this year the Utah cyclocross series has a single speed category that runs with the B male category. The single speed fields are about 10 people and the B men run about 40. The leaders of the SS category are usually in the top 10 of the B category (I got 6th overall last Sunday).

To make the single speed I bought some lightweight non-shift break levers and a Surly singlelator. The Surly singleator works to keep the chain tension on the rear cog. Rather than fiddle with jingus spring system I just used a good ol Voile ski strap to keep the chain tension. It works well and its bright orange! Ben also helped me out with a 18-tooth BMX rear cog: Muchas Gracias Ben!

I'm running a pretty tall gear: 48 chainring X 18 cog X 700c wheel X 32mm tire giving me ~72 gear inches. This seems to be a good choice for the flat winding courses of Wheeler farm that don't have too many hairpin accelerations.

Scroll down for Labrynth Canyon Post

Skiing

Erin, Christy, Leigh, and I went skiing up at Alta under the wildcat lift. THis was my first experience with fixed-heel skiing in several years and in the end it seemed to go ok. I may have to tape a sign to my tips reminding me to stop trying to lift my heel though! I'll be getting out both this weekend and next in preparation for starting work in less than 2 weeks, so get in touch with me if you'd like to join.

The heros of the day were two guys in AT gear who came up the cat track, and had a screwdriver, and knew how to adjust AT bindings. Yours truly borrowed Maura's AT rock skis forgetting that her feet are quite a bit smaller than mine. I got them adjusted and was able to head down. The first 2 runs were bad. Very bad, then is seemed to click and while not beautiful it became decidedly skiing rather than going downhill on skis.

Erin represented the telemark crowd on my 195cm rock skis and managed at least a few turns despite the fact that the skis were hugly too big for her. Christy and Leigh performed admirably in their 4th time on skis (ever!). I think everyone should start out earning their turns, it gives you so much more respect for the lifts.

The results of our debauchery? a 3min video shot on my camera featuring some of the amazing women of the wasatch check it out HERE (.mov file, about 6mb plays with Quicktime or linux)

Happy Halloween!

Paddling the 100 Year Storm

This last Fall break the unofficial Community Writing Center Environmental writing group (and friends) ventured forth on the a truly I'm-building-a-rock-wall-worthy trip down Labyrinth Canyon (Green River from the town of the same name to a takeout somewhere near Canyonlands ). The route covers 60+ miles of flatwater canoeing in 3 1/2 days. On Wednesday we drove down and did the shuttle. The Ranger at the takeout , joint hanging precariously from lips, said that the forecast called for rain. Of course we all thought that rain in the desert meant a heavy shower in the afternoon to cool things off a bit: No big deal. The next day, already raining outside, we were told by the grocery lady that Green River called for 3 inches in the day. Yeah right. It was oft remarked that morning and throughout the trip by our group that "It doesn't rain in the desert." "It will pass." "It can't hold much longer."

Well, the rain WENT FOR 48 HOURS STRAIGHT! Sometimes a sprinkle, but most of the time a deluge... Our launch was marred only by a very talkative boating ranger with a sphincter that could cause nuclear fission. For all you planning this put in: Have your ducks in a row for this guy, He's nice, just through.

The Team: 9 total, including 2 canine humans; Gnu Canoe: lis (team rhetoritian) and climbwill (team mathematician) of IMBARW, Yellow rental canoe: Randy (team linguist (possible CIA operative)), Gavin (team ceramicist, saveourcanyons operative #1), chester and basil (canine humans, trip leaders), Green rental canoe: Julie (resident Wisconsonite, did not know what she was in for), Dave (saveourcanyons operative #2), and Brooke (team tough-as-nails realist).

We finally launched amid dense skies and a light sprinkle. By the afternoon it was outright rain. We shivered and paddled and it was OK. We stopped for lunch beside this manmade geyser and the rain subsided: They were drilling for oil a long time ago and struck upon a high pressure aquifer. It didnt erupt while we were there but there was a guy there telling us that it goes 100 feet.


Even in the rainy cold I did'nt stop many of us from partakeing in some ice cold pabst blue ribbon et al, which leads so a beer logistical observaion: Chasing tail 16oz. cans are thin-walled and spontaineously spring leaks thereby making them non-rivertrippable.

By afternoon we were getting cold and we threw in the towel by early evening. The rain went to a sprinkle and Gavin and Randy brought us fire. We set up tents in the brush and actually dried off while drinking beer and telling jokes circled round the fire. By 9pm the rain started hard again. All night the rain went hard. Around 5am Lis got worried about the canoes and the rapidly rising river. I got out in my skivies, not wanting to get any of my clothes wet and found two of the boats, which were beached completely that afternoon, were completely floating, tied precariously on to some branches. There was paddles in the water and we lost a water jug to the rising river. That night the river rose about three feet.

The rain kept going that morning. We were all cooking under a small tarp. Lis and I just drank coffee from our rainfly stove setup, not wanting to get wet. We slowly packed up and by 11 am we shoved off, still raining cats and dogs.


Paddling and shivering, I was still drinking beer. We were finally into the labyrinth canyon part of our journey. There were waterfalls coming down all around us. The whole desert was flash flooding.

The river kept rising and there was not much river bank left. We stopped for lunch on this thin little silt bar under an overhanging cliff with waterfalls coming over us. We stuffed food in our gullets and did JUMPING JACKS to keep warm.

Later that afternoon the rain tapered off and after 16 miles of travel we found a bitchin campsite. Lighting a fire proved to be a challenge. Randy asked if anyone had some dry paper. I had brought a few academic papers to read on our journey, one of which was my draft paper that my adviser made comments corrections on. All of it burned!!!!!

No rain while cooking dinner, which was nice, but the second forks touched lips, KABAM!!!!!! We quickly ate and jumped in the tents of another nights worth of heavy rain. We kept our tent dry by digging a trench around it so that the water wouldnt flow under.

The sun finally broke by morning. Blue skies and another 3-4 feet of river. There was no banks anywhere hardly. Without paddling Julie's gps tracked us at about 5 mph. We had 35+ miles to the takeout. We paddled all day looking for a campsite with none found. We paddled past sundown as a full moon came up over the canyon. After 8+ hours paddling we did all 35 miles to the takeout in one day!

The ranger, still with joint hanging off lips, said that the road out of the canyon was finally repaired enough that we could get out. Some boaters were stuck for two days waiting for the road repairs to get out. The flood left silt all over the parking lot up the the rims of the trucks.

The storm supposedly dumped 3 inches or more over the desert. Many dams broke, roads washed out, and general havoc occurred. They say the storm broke records for the century in some places. I do not have data to back this up, but a 100 year storm has a nice ring to it...

I recommend doing this river. I have a canoe and people should borrow it.



-w

East coast cyclocross

Hey all - here's a quick summary of my first season of eastcoast cyclocross, so far. My first race of the season was a HUGE event by the seaside in Gloucester, MA. I found out a few things about how it's done out here - firstly, they follow USA Cycling rules, which means I had to buy a racing license and start out in the C race and can't move up until I get enough points. That turns out to be fine by me, because the B division is pretty darned serious. As it was, my field was 48 racers, with a total of 125 racers on the course (they run men's C division, masters B, and women's B at the same time). The men's B division got its own race, 125 riders. Yow. I got to the start line kinda late, so I spent half the race getting by other racers. The course offered plenty of passing opportunities, lots of wide-open grassy sections. I managed to claw my way up to 23rd out of 48 by the end of the race. This weekend Stacey and I headed up to Maine, where I did a bit better, mostly owing to my improved start position. From the second row, I managed to stay up with the leaders off the line, and at the end of the first lap, I was in the lead (see first picture). That didn't last, however; as we went up the asphalt hill past the start/finish, I was out-spun and lost a few places. After dodging a crash on the second lap, I contented myself with battling it out with one other rider, though I hoped that we could pull the leaders back in. Compared to other 'cross races I've done, this one had a lot of elevation change. The only barriers on the course were placed after a prolonged uphill. In the end, I managed to hold on to sixth place out of 40 racers. I handed my bike off to Stacey, who did her first cyclocross race in the women's B division. We stuck around to watch part of the men's B race - maybe with some work I can move up to the Bs next year. The only singlespeeders were me and Billy, whom I coerced into racing with me, and one rider in the B's. I was sorry I missed seeing the performance of the red-suited rider coming out of the mudhole (second picture) -- note his excellent form.
cheers
J

Pure Sweet Hell

I just ordered this DVD called Pure Sweet Hell. The film is shot all in grainy black and white and grainy color super 8 of cylocross races all over the country, including Utah. Stay tuned for a imbuildingarockwall screening...

-w

Cyclocross Prologue

Its Fall. The leaves are turning and that is when must of us here at IMBARW start thinking about skiing (see previous posts). However for some there is cyclocross, namely climbwill and bostin. This last Sunday Sunday Sunday was the first CX race of the season up in Pocatello. M and I drove up Saturday night for the race and also a climbing outing at Ross park, a basalt crag literally in a park with green grass and benches. I've been training for the race season seriously since about early July. In Friday Harbor I time trialed around the island. I even bought a HR monitor to get nerdy with...

A video of me at a barrier section can be found here. If anyone can show me how to flip the picture please let me know....

Or here.

Here are some pictures of me and others in the B race.




The guy in the cutoff jeans and tie die with the fixie was ripping...

For my efforts I won the most strange prize: An EPO fleece blanket.