Inaugural Team In Training Snowshoe Event
This past Saturday, the Rocky Mountain chapter of Team in Training participated in the first-ever winter snowshoe event. The 18 participants raised over $30,000 to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society! What an inspirational group! Phil and I led a group of 10 to Loch Vale. We had beautiful weather and wonderful views. Everyone was impressively dedicated to the hike and cause. Check out our pictures:
A Recap of our Slideshow at Ed’s Cantina
Check out our recap on Kokatat’s blog:
http://blog.kokatat.com/index.php/go-wild-expedition-presents-first-slideshow-2220/
A big thanks to Justin and Carla at Ed’s Cantina for hosting our first slideshow!
Rocky Mountain National Park Guided Snowshoe to Andrews Glacier
On Sat, Feb 27, I led a snowshoe hike for Kirks for a strong young couple from Denver. At 10 a.m. we met at Kirks and decided on a route to Loch Vale and beyond. During our 6-hour snowshoe we had spectacularly warm, sunny weather with hardly any wind. We made great time and made it all the way to Andrews Glacier, which lies between Otis Peak and Taylor Peak. We passed some awesome alpine climbing along the way including Spearhead.
Looking up at the warm rock made me excited for climbing season. Also looking forward to guiding Longs Peak again this summer.
Kayak and Canoe Races and Events all over the U.S.
It’s time to start dusting off your kayak or canoe and start planning which paddling races you’re going to attend this year. If you’re new to our website, we search the web to find kayak and canoe races, events, festivals, triathlons, and paddling challenges all over the United States. We list them on our Kayak, Canoe [...]Thurs, February 25 – Slideshow at Ed’s
Just a quick reminder that we’ll be presenting a slideshow on our Inside Passage trip tonight!
Date: Thurs, Feb 25, 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Ed’s Cantina, Estes Park, CO (map)
We’ll share pictures and stories from our 1,200 mile trip from Washington to Glacier Bay, Alaska, answer questions, and talk about the issues facing the wild Pacific salmon.
Run, Kayak, Bike Triathlon, South Carolina
Sunday, March 7th is the Clemson Off Road Triathlon in Clemson, South Carolina. This event is held in the Issaqueena Forest. According to their website: You can enter the Sprint race or the Endurance race. The Sprint race: is a 3 mile trail run through the Issaqueena forest, then a 2 mile kayak paddle on the Issaqueena Lake, [...]Repairing and Customizing Fiberglass Kayaks: Part 1
The hull damage above is ugly but by no means unusual, overly difficult to repair, nor beyond a first-timer's repair skills. Over the next several posts, we'll watch Brian Nystrom transform the fiberglass and gelcoat damage into a smooth and slick, strong and virtually invisible repair.The first step is to understand what makes up a damaged sea kayak's matrix of gelcoat, resin, and
Repairing a Damaged Sea Kayak Part 2: Rasp, Grind, Sand
Above: The photo is pretty overexposed, but you likely get the idea. Brian Nystrom gets down to the most unnerving step in repairing a damaged fiberglass sea kayak: rasping the cracked, crazed and broken gelcoat. That's a rasp he's working with as the tears off all the gelcoat around the damaged area shown below and in the previous post:You need to rasp aggressively to gain access to the
Repairing a Damaged Sea Kayak Part 3: Back and Fill and Patch Again
Above: Deep damage to the gunwale of a Romany Explorer. Note the differences between damage to the gelcoat and damage to the fiberglass. Doubleclick this and all other images to enlarge. During the rasping and grinding stage (step 1), you need to make make a hole in the side of your sea kayak quite a lot larger than the gash and crazing shown above. You'll need to grind off a lot more gelcoat,
Avy Conditions in RMNP
We went up into RMNP yesterday (Feb 18) and skinned to the top of the “Otis Redding Couloir“, at the base of Otis Peak on the south side of Chaos Canyon. I am not an avalanche expert, but we are definitely wary and keep an eye on things. It wasn’t pretty, and we bailed. Here’s the report I sent to CAIC.
We approached from the south (Loch Vale) and emerged just below the top of the gully. Decided to skin up and check out the steeper slopes. We noticed significant fracturing and set off a few small slides (~6-10″ deep) especially when cutting switchbacks near the top of the gully, north and northeast aspects. Dug a pit and found about four inches of powder with a 6″ thick soft slab below it. There were some crusty layers below, and then the rest of the snowpack below (4′?) was facets. The slab layer on top failed easily and cleanly after three or four thumps on an isolated column, AND we observed a natural slide (more of a slough) on a steep slope west of the couloir, and a big crown on a south-east aspect across Chaos Canyon.
We didn’t ski the gully due to conditions, but rather descended through trees and set off sloughs on most steeper slopes. Throughout much of the descent there was an obvious slab layer just below the recent snow with facets below.
It’s been snowing on and off since in Estes, and we’ve gotten 3-5 inches here in town since we got down…and it’s still coming down hard. Things are looking up for the early spring backcountry ski season!
