May Showers bring more May Showers

We are still caught up in the ice age known as Spring here in the Pacific Northwest...rain, rain and more rain. Desert Winds was a nice refuge from the cold temperatures and a great race. I made a slew of navigational errors that cost us heavily in the results department but overall we had a blast. The highlights for me was swimming in the canyons and being able to bike throughout the night in shorts and a jersey...simple pleasures. It was also nice that my ankle survived a 24 hour race without issues.

Here are the pics:

Desert Winds

Couple of other random thoughts:
Beast Race coming up tomorrow...get out there if you are not already planning on doing so.

Check out this awesome video Matt posted on his blog.

Vetted the Trioba 6-12 hour race course last weekend near Index...This race is going to be sweet.

heading to Norway next week to hike some Fjords and do some surfing ;-)

New Friends....

So we are traveling to Australia, and for those of us that have never been there, a whole new chain of the evolutionary animal kingdom exists. What type of creepy crawlies are we going to come accross in the rain forest, outback and Islands? Here are a couple that have been pointed out to me...thanks Maria!

The Southern Death Adder...hoping to avoid this guy and his a group of highly venomous Australian elapids.
Kangaroo and Joey! That's right, hopefully we don't have to box any of these littel buddies
This little guy is high on my list of animals to photograph...not sure how easy that is going to be.
I hope not to step on the Thorny Devil Lizard.
And of course this post would not be right without the Wombat!

The camera will be charged and ready for action...look for a media frenzy coming from yours truly while I am over there. Just wait until the adventure racing form of Jaques Cousteau comes out!

Inside Passage - En route to RTN

We made the ferry ride up the inside passage to Prince Rupert yesterday and into last night and it was a memorable ride. Very beautiful and the coast line is very rugged and majestic . The mountains began to climb higher the further north we got on the ship and there is definitely snow around on the higher mountain tops.

I will be posting more updates through the DART-nuun news blog and Erik will be posting some updates as well. Today we will be getting our gear in order and trying to figure out the order of events and logistics involved with them.

Taper...the Methow way

With just days before we take off for Raid the North it is time to let the body rest up and taper. Which is usually a great time, filled with eating and resting. This weekend lived up to my expectations, JVG and I road tripped up to Winthrop and spent some time in the Methow Valley. It was perfect. We drove the Mountian Loop Highway which is a big loop connecting I-90 and Highway 20 with Highway 97 over Blewett pass.

As is usually the case, the west side was grey and wet and the East side was high and dry...an occasional rain drop fell in WInthrop, but nothing consistent.

The final update is in for RTN, and it looks like we will be racing out of the Queen Charlotte Islands now for a 3-4 day section and then finishing the race with a 24-36 hour section out of Prince Rupert. I've heard nothing but good things about the Queen Charlotte Islands and am looking forward to getting up there. Especially the ferry ride up there through the inside passage.

Here are a couple of pics from a side trail run/walk we did out of the West Fork of teh Methow river. Beautiful trail with lots of scenery. A fire blazed the landscape a year or two ago and it is interesting to see eveything making a comeback. Just when I had given up on flowers we found a couple that added some color to the Burned Black and Green ground cover. There are soo many trails off of Highway 20, it has inspired me even further to get up there and explore!

Memorial Adventures

What a weekend! Why can't they all be that long? We also lucked out with the weather in our all star list of events. Saturday morning Aaron, JVG and I headed north to tackle Mt. Galbraith, near Bellingham, and on the approach we thought we would try something new. We had heard about some new trails in Anacortes, near Whistle Lake, and thought we would give them a try...thanks for the idea Kathy! We stopped in Mt. Vernon and picked up some trail maps for $4.99 and headed out for 3.5 hours of good riding. The trails are very well kept and fast. We probably speant over 30 minutes in total looking at our maps to route find our way through the maze of butery trails.

After that Rinn and I hit Galbraith for over an hour of fast paced riding. He broke his seat post on the first feature we rode (horizontal ladder) and stayed out of the saddle for the rest of the ride, good thing most of it was at race pace!

Saturday night we camped near Grouse Mountain...in someone's front yard. We got kicked out of our camping spot at midnight by the grouse mountain parking patrol and headed down the street for some real car camping. We were going to run the Iron Knee trail race from Grouse Mountain to Deep Cove on the Baden Powell trail. It turned out there was no race day registration so JVG and I ran half of it backwards and snapped photos of the runners and Rinn (who was smart enough to pre register) as he passed through. It was a great way to see the race and the trail, which was unbelievably beautiful. We also saw lots of familiar faces from the canadian AR scene and some new faces as well. Lots of cool peeps.

Post trail run we headed up to Whistler for an all out assault on the cross county trail Saturday afternoon and the down hill park on Monday. We hit up Danimal, Bob's re-bob, whip it snip it, and a bunch of other trails that were below the snow level of 3200ft. Monday was an absolute blast in the Whistler Park and we tore it up. We enjoyed all of the trails, I think we had the most fun on the captain insano super tech trails that were made much easier with our rental bikes which had 8 inches of travel up front and in the rear. They were Rocky Mountain RMX's...quality bikes. I was a bit worried about getting injured but made it through with a sore foot and a couple fo scrapes that will go away soon. Only a couple of falls and lots of good times. For any bike rider that has ever thought about hitting Whistler....get up there and check it out. They make such sweet trails and focus so much of their energy on the bike scene it is a must do on your adventure travel checklist.


here is Aaron ripping it up on joyride...big rock drop.

Full Bloom

This weekend we hit up Hood River and spent over 8 hours in our saddles. The flowers were in full bloom and we had a great time. The trails are all very fresh and there is very little dust out right now. That made for some aggressive cornering and fun rides.


The only downside was that the Poison Oak was out in full force. I scrubbed hard post rides and wore some preventative lotion but expect to be hit hard based on the amount of Oak where we were. I think I saw the largest Poison Oak plant ever after we popped out of Little Moab.

We had a fun crew hanging out with us including JVG, Rinn, Maria, Gill, Frenchy, Amanda and Matzke. We forgot the Pinata for our Cinco de Mayo celebration but luckily Gill had some Tequila. Being in good shape makes for a bunch of lightweights and good times around town. Is there a better way to taper for a big race coming up this weekend than good times!

Hood River is really developing into a recreational mecca and it was fun to see outdoor enthusiasts of all sorts outside, around town and on the trails. Look closely at this last picture and you will see a couple of riders on the trail along the cliff's edge. What a trail!!!

Here is a link to my photo album for some more pics...

Hood River May 2007

Adios AK-St Patricks Day

We flew for a fourth day and once again we got extremely lucky with the sun. The temperatures got a bit warmer and the snow changed a bit over night. Some of the firm wind buff actually loosened up and turned into light dry pow. We hit a run called Girls 3 times as it was soo good.

Here is Chad ripping up a gully half way down Girls Our guide Steve checking out a line down Sailfish
Heath celebrates St. Paddy's day in style.

Overall it was a great trip and I highly recomend it to anyone with the skiils and drive to get in the big mountains...lots of fun. Now back to AR with Baja Travesia right around the corner.

March Madness continues

Another fly day recorded today...we started off with partly cloudy skies and had some great breaks with lots of sun. More people have showed up and ABA is now servicing 3-4 groups of skiers/snowboarders. They still are doing a fantastic job of providing great service and they have a large group of experienced guides that can attend to each group.


This picture is from the top of a run called "Lisa's". We are looking down at the glacier that we spent flying around for most of the day and accross the valley at "Easter Basket" which we finished the day off with.

Here is the view from the back of the heli. Frank the best heli operator/captain ever is up front and one of the guides is always sitting shotgun...see the mountains out the window?

Here is our guide, "JW", digging a pit on Easter Basket, our last run of the day. Notice the massive cornice above him. The top 1/3 had variable conditions and the bottom 2/3 had bottomless pow.

Today was filled with lots of new terrain and we had a blast exploring it with our trusty guide. The temperatures are going up and we were very comfortable not dealing with -30 made the day a bit more enjoyable. We are looking forward to hopefully getting out for another great day tomorrow.

Bluebird!

We got lucky today and the sun gods shined their sweetness down on us for an absolutely stunning day. Blue skies all around and the winds died down to make for some great conditions.

This is my cousin getting ready to drop in on our first run called Avery's Alley, which was named after on of our guide's daughters. It turned out to be great and the pow was top to bottom. The high winds have created a lot of wind buffed sections which are more firm so you have to be aware of what you are riding in.
That's me all smiles before dropping into little Kiwi, which was high angle up top and pow glades out on to the glacier...good times.
This picture was taken for the LZ (landing Zone) of Avery's Alley. The heli is typically landing on something that is no smaller than the size of a car and then we strap on and go. Here we strapped on our boards and cut down the ridge before heading into the big bowl in the background...great run with two big windlips for a little boost-a-fonte (air) into pow field. You can see one of the guides ointhe background digging a pit at the top of the pow field.

We got very lucky today and were the only clients so we rode in two groups with 4 guides. It was like having our own ski patrol out with us. These guys are constantly gathering information and assessing their current situation. This reminded me of a navigator making his/her way through an adventure race. It was amazing to watch them constantly taking the temps of the snow, punching in hand pits, ski cutting and analyzing snow in every which way. The guides seem to be an all star line up of individuals from Montana, Jackson-WY, Tahoe, and Alaska.

Clouds began to move in fast after our last run (5:00pm) so now we are hoping for some snow tonight and more blue bird tomorrow. Not sure that will happen but our fingers are crossed again.

Alaska Backcountry Adventures

The day got started off with a hearty breakfast and some buzz around the thought that this could be the first fly day...depending on the weather. The winds were still nuking this morning down in Valdez so we assumed that up on the pass they would be a little worse, and our trusty contact Dave at ABA told us to hang tight.

We tinkered around town and did some gear shopping for the boys who forgot face masks and decided to head up to the pass to get our safety stuff out of the way, regardless of whether or not we would fly. They run you through a small set of avalanch beacon tests and inform you of the dangers of being in the back country as any good outfit should.

The skies parted and things started looking good by about 12:30. by 3:00 we were in the bird and heading up into paradise...

We were able to squeek in two 4,000 vertical foot runs in about an hour and a half and were loving it. Up high the peaks have been scoured by wind and the snow is a hard packed, but off of the peaks we were treated to some serious fluff. The first run was Girl Mountain and the second was Sail Fish or something like that. The landing zone on sail fish was on a peak that was no bigger than a small truck, this got the heart pumping...then I looked down our steep descent and was pumped up. These guys are serious about their terrain and I love it.

Temps today were below zero farenheit and the wind chill brought it to -30...exposed skin was in danger of frostbite, just after the picture above the guide told me to cover my nose at is was starting to freeze...brrr.

Now we just keep our fingers crossed for good weather and look forward to getting deeper in the chugach range, which is filled with the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen.

AK-Thompson Pass

I was soo excited about my trip that I had a tough time sleeping last night. Instead I read about rappelling and setting snow anchors in my mountaineers book and hoped that would put me to sleep, it did. I met up with my cousin at Sea/Tac airport and we flew to Anchorage to hook up with our college buddy Shay and two of his friends. We drove the 4 hours to Valdez in our rented Navigator and were taunted by the beautiful Chugach Range the entire way(pictured above). We stopped to take pictures a couple of times and gauk at some monstrous glaciers that were pouring out of the range.
We made it to Thompson Pass (Above), where ABA is headquartered, and proceeded to get the navigator stuck in a snow drift. Nothing our shovels and some pushing couldn't get us out of...but it is VERY cold here, the car was saying it was -2 Farenheit. It's a good thing I brought the full quiver of Arc'Teryx layers to keep me warm. It was snowing and blowing very hard at the pass.

We filled out our forms and spoke with Dave who runs the Heli operation we are riding with...he was very excited about the snow that fell today and thinks it shold be good the next couple of days. The wind has been heavy in Valdez and we are hoping it will calm down a bit for us..our fingers are crossed.

On the road

On the left is Matty G hydrating with some nuun on our boat ride to the wedding!

Well yesterday went by way too fast and I got most of what I wanted to get done before taking off done.

Turner and Second Ascent came through in a big way. While I was in Mexico Turner shipped a new front triangle to Second Ascent and Andrew did a bike build for me over the weekend. The bike is back in action and ready to roll. I also went with a new chain for the race as I don't want to deal with break issues and the chain I had has been through a lot.

I went by the offices of nuun and picked up some branded gear to give away and wear while we are at the race and took care of some odds and ends.

Evidently the you need to make an appointment a month ahead of time at the UW travel center so I did not get the Yellow Fever shots. Evidently it is'n't a huge threat and not required by the government but just recomended. I read that Dengue Fever is more of a threat but no vaccine for that and it is not life threatening. Moral of the story is wear lots of bug spray! Keep the infected mosquitos at bay.

pictures coming later...off to the airport!