I'm building a rock wall

Storm in the Buttermilks

2010-10-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

A three day storm in Buttermilk Country.

We saw quite a few photography tourists in the area, and as the storm moved through, the reason for their presence became clear.

There were enough breaks in the storm that climbing everyday day was still possible.

The right wrong turn on the Great Western Trail

2010-09-06T15:53:00.000-07:00

I have a multi-year continuing obsession with a theoretical Trans-Utah north-to-south bikepacking route from the Salt Lake area down to the Boulder mountain area in southern Utah. The theoretical route follows more or less the Great Western Trail. In past years my friends Ben and skiWill and I have done various sections of the route, from the northern Wasatch range (here), the Southern Skyline drive section, and the Fish Lake region. I had big plans this year of actually completing it all. However, trivial and not-so-trivial things conspired to derail those plans.

The trivial derailment was that we took a wrong turn on a section in which we did not have a map. This section was the very first bit of our route, coming out of Utah valley on Hobble Creek road. What's more, we screwed ourselves on the very first turn, which routed us north rather than south. After climbing 3000 feet on four-wheel-drive road, I discovered our error when the next supposed turn-off at 13 miles was not where I had planned. That's when we figured we were screwed and we rode into town after 55 miles of riding.

If the trivial problem did not get us, the not-so-trivial problems would have. One is that we were three people with vastly different paces on different grades. We all traded places who was fastest at different sections, but the overall pace was only as fast as the slowest rider. The second was that I was not acclimated as well as in previous years. Third was our lack of planning (read: no map). This was a failure on my part mostly, but Ben and skiWill helped by trusting me. Why such bad planning? Well, I had a paper revision that I submitted hours before I left for this trip. I had no time to get a detailed map purchased and studied in time so I went on some scribbled notes, but I did not write down all forest service road numbers for the route. skiWill has a bad case of grad school, so he's no good. And Ben? Ben goes on adventures like this every weekend I imagine, so he did not care at all what actually happened.

And that was just fine, because the day of riding we did have was excellent. We attacked the non-route with reckless abandon with smiles the whole way. Here are some pictures.

So for next year, if the stars align, I'd like to do things differently. First is to get a GPS. Second is to do it with full touring gear, so I have all the food I need and don't have to rely on shuttles or caches and go at my own pace. This is a better self-supported style, and as a bonus, when things don't go as planned I/we can stop and rest were we feel like, not where the car is. Third is to do it with gears, so I can realistically haul all the touring gear I need. Fourth is to get all my work done long before I start and go backpacking at 10000 feet for a few days to get completely acclimated. I'm sure Ben and skiWill have their own take on how to do it. Next year, hopefully, we can figure out a real plan.

Here's to next year!

How to win ugly goggles and fail randonee races

2010-03-14T17:53:00.000-07:00

So a couple weeks ago I decided to enter the Wasatch Powder Keg in the tele race division. I did this despite a perfect storm of personal and grad school events that wiped out December, but fortunately, ever bedraggled, I got sick and all this led to losing over 10 lbs (which as you well know I could not afford to lose) fortunately February was riddled with hideous avalanche conditions so training was, well non-existent. I figured what the hell, it's a new course at Brighton which I know pretty well so I would at least have some fun and learn something. Here's how it went down:

We gathered at the base of Millicent for the start at 7AM. The racers went out together in their skis while the rec division started about 10m back with a Le Mans style start which I regret not being able to see. The gun went off after the 30s warning (no countdown) and a drag race ensued across the flats towards the main lodge and then climbed past the bottom of Snake Creek up to the top of the Great Western lift. On the climb up I tried to keep a reasonable pace and hang with the main group. The real racers were off on their own.

Upon reaching Great Western I realized several fatal flaws. First my hydration tube was frozen solid and my Gu packs in my jacket pocket were not faring much better so no food or water after the 1800 foot lead off climb. Then, I realized that the snaps on my skin tail attachments were stuck and I could not get the skins off of my skis. At this point I quit counting how many people were passing and just took my skis off and went caveman on the skin attachments with my skis poles until they were freed, which worked, because, well I look like a caveman. Finally done with the transition I stuck my hydration mouth piece in my zipped up jacket and headed out of Brighton down cheese grater into hidden canyon which was really fun on low cut tele boots with lots of tracks.

At the bottom I rejoined the cluster and started the climb out of Hidden back to the top of Western. By now, all of the people that had passed me had not had to perform any difficult ascending maneuvers like the dreaded kick turn. Granted the track was a bit thrashed, but there were people falling everywhere and really thrashing the track taking other people out and impeding the progress of a large number of racers when this crusty dude with a rocking snot-sickle behind me grunts, "If you can't make a kick turn get out of the way and get in the rec class!"

At this point, I just thrashed through the trees and started breaking my own trail leaving as much chaos as I could behind me, but at this point, we were really in a heated battle for position between irrelevant and who cares.

Returning to the top of the Great Western lift we tucked down the groomer on the ridge and skinned up past the Snake Creek lift top station and then dropped a southwest facing slope from the summit. As you can imagine, it was a stellar shot (which is past tense of another word) complete with breakable crust and littered with splitboarders who hadn't had to do the route into Hidden Canyon. I managed to find a supportable bit and channel my inner snowboarder and side slipped past some carnage to the next transition where I successfully managed to dodge a tele ski that had had enough and was headed to Heber sans skier.

This climb took us up to Pioneer Ridge and then down a chute back into Brighton. The chute skied well and I learned another valuable lesson. Racers don't use Life-Link probe poles to save weight. They just pack a probe and use real poles. The reason for this I found is that if you have a particularly zealous pole plant, you can deploy your probe pole and find yourself well downhill of your pole with grip still firmly in hand. Sadly, Mr. Snot-sickle and some guy from Voile passed me on my way back up to retrieve my pole.

The decent continued down towards the base of Millicent on a mix of groomers and rocky bump runs (hooray 70% snowpack) to the next transition. At this point my water was still frozen and the attempt to thaw a Gu that I had opened had merely resulted in welding a pocket shut. Despite the lack of water and nourishment, I was still feeling pretty good going into the last climb and was making ground on a Voile employee on some prototype skis. I passed him on the way up Millicent and picked off a few more. Then my right skin fell off my ski and everyone passed me. Then I passed them all again and my left skin fell of my ski and everyone passed me again. I used the ski edge of one of my skis and successfully managed to squeegee enough moisture out of the skins to get going again. Most people were probably hating life by the time they got to the booter, but I was thrilled since it meant that there would be no more issues with the climbing skins that I was about to maniacally destroy. I think that single thought gave me the motivation to overcome the massive calorie debt and motor up the booter in time to see the Voile prototype skis exiting the checkpoint. Since it was no use trying to eat or drink anything, and my skins had handily fallen off at the bottom of the booter, I was able to quickly jump into my skis and head for stupid chute. The battle for irrelevant place was on.

I passed my foe on the side step up to stupid chute from the saddle between Mt. Millicent and Mt. Wolverine and dropped in. The skiing was genuinely good, but a cold front was moving in and visibility was getting pretty bad as opposed to my legs which were completely fresh and therefore the thought of straight-lining it on lightweight tele gear across the bowl above twin lakes seemed like a brilliant strategy. This brilliant strategy resulted in what I can only imagine must have been the most epic over the bars tomahawk of my life. Sadly, there was no one there to capture what must have been quite a spectacular site of a gangly 6' 1" skier with skis flapping and snow flying everywhere. Somehow, I did not hurt myself but I had lost my sunglasses, which I found covered in snow and ice as my foe passed me by again.

Not to be denied, I headed down and across the lake with my glasses in my pocket hoping to defog them a bit. Luckily the graupel meant that I could not really keep my eyes open, but fortunately it also meant that it would freeze eyelashes together welding one's eyes shut thus avoiding that tricky decision of skiing with eyes open or closed. Using my remaining brain cell, I decided that glasses would be a good idea so I tried to clean them off, and then I had a crystal clear view of whatever was caked on the inside of the lenses. Somehow, I managed to see that I was closing in on regaining my irrelevant position so I motored up the side step at the dam, danced through the moguls and trees, and crossed the line hungry, thirsty, and able to see about 10 feet in front me by firmly in irrelevant place rather than who cares.

The reward for all of this? The new bar has been set for ugly, steezy, free goggles:

So, what did I learn?

1. Take two pairs of skins. One for speed and one for tricky technical sections. Alternate between the two and you will not have adhesion issues. This apparently is a well known strategy amongst the fast guys.

2. Do not use a fancy tail attachment for your skins.

3. Do not keep Gu packets in an outside pocket. That stuff will be just about solid.

4. Keep your water in liquid form. Doing 5,000 feet of ascent by chewing on ice sucks. Seems like the really fast guys have a water bottle and the inconvenience of opening it is a small price to pay for the insurance of a water supply while choking down "food."

5. Those croakie things in the schwag bag are so you don't lose your shades tomahawking down the final decent.

6. It's worth it to feel like you're going to throw up on the first climb to stay ahead of the transition chaos at the beginning of the race.

All in all, I was pleased with the race and actually had a lot of fun. I think the guys that set up this new course did an awesome job, and hopefully they can keep it for next year because the course itself was brilliant. I'm looking forward to not being in terrible shape and not fighting with gear so I hopefully post a respectable time next year.

Bells Canyon

2010-03-07T10:14:00.000-08:00

Ed foolishly agreed to head up Bells Canyon with me yesterday. The tour essentially amounted to an uphill endurance festival, but thankfully had 5500' of steep descending in stable powder to make up for it. Heading to Bells was calculated - there was a high west facing slope (off N-Peak) that I had been eying for a while, whose aspect and elevation would hopefully result in stable snow. Since it was a bluebird day, we also gambled that any crust that might have formed the previous afternoon would soften by the time we got there.

Additionally, while skiing out Bell's Canyon is quite sporting, we hoped to find stable conditions allowing an exit out Coalpit #4. The surface hoar problem pervasive in Millcreek and BCC hadn't been seen much in LCC, and there appeared to be slide debris at the bottom of Coalpit #4 when viewed from the road a couple of weeks ago.

That said, there was a risk of deeming the high west slope too unstable or crusted to ski, then backing off Coalpit #4 and sking out Bells through the scrub oak. We planned to be very cautious, as this year's thin El Nino snow pack has been trouble, and this would be the first time we have had enough confidence in the snow pack to play in bigger terrain.

Ed skinning low in Bells, still skeptical about finding snow.

Passing Middle Bell Tower.

Nice views of Lone Peak

and Lisa Falls.

Higher still. Perla Peak marks the entrance to Coalpit #4, which thankfully had been climbed and skied by Volunteer Stability Testers earlier in the day.

Finally on top.

The run off of N-Peak. We weren't yet confident enough in our snowpack to center punch the slope. It was hard staring down 1400' feet of consistent, open, 37 degree powder and not skiing it, but we opted for the skiers right edge of the path.

Ed below Perla peak, preparing to exit 3000' down stable, slightly cut up powder in Coalpit #4.

Me, tired and done.

Scary Stories From the Trail

2009-10-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2002 I had just moved to Salt Lake City. This was the summer when the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart was making national news (young girl from prominent family). Anyway, I was exploring the trails above the city (dry creek trail) when a guy is walking down the trail with a giant beard, wearing a monk-like burlap cassock, balancing a stick over his shoulder that carried a load of something from a tied sheet on the end, just like Huck Finn. Eyebrows raised in puzzlement, I pedalled on, and he smiled and gave me a very affirmative "hello."

Meanwhile, over the next year, there was no word on the Smart case and everyone feared the worst. The prime suspect they had in custody died mysteriously in jail, and the topic faded from awareness. However, the next Spring she was rescued miraculously. It turned out she was kidnapped by a psycho-cult polygamist couple, the man had a giant beard and wore a cassock. Once I saw the picture I recognized the guy from the trail immediately. It turned out, that after the couple kidnapped her, they took her up a side canyon of Dry Creek canyon to initially hide out. He must have encountered me when he was coming down for supplies or something...

The sad part was the weird bearded cult guy was a person of interest for the police, but because they were so focused on the wrong guy, the never bothered to release descriptions of the other possible suspects. If they had, I would have called the police right quick, cuz that guy was unmistakable, and the case would have been solved in two weeks, not almost a year!

Ottawa Cyclocross in Pictures---Race 1 Cat B

2009-09-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

Before my race, I got behind the lens and snapped these (the full set of 145 pictures is here)

Cross Rebuild

2009-09-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

I put gears back on my cyclocross bike. I am weak of will. In Ottawa, not many ride single speed cross and there is no category for it unlike other race series I've been in. I felt there was no use handicapping my self anymore.

My Cannondale is getting on in years. The frame has a dent but is still good. The dura ace/open pro rims are doing terrific. I outfitted it with a big 12-27 cassette, which will come in handy on the steep climbs at the Almonte course. I bought a new old-stock ultegra 9spd shifter which works like a dream. I also got new Avid brakes and a new chain. All the new parts pretty much constitutes a full rebuild. After an afternoon of tinkering the bike rides like a dream.

Tomorrow is the first race. Unlike previous years I have not done any specific training. All my rides this summer have been long long long. As usual, I'm planning on hitting my stride when the weather gets really really crappy.

Paul's Dirty Enduro 100k

2009-09-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I awoke to frost on my sleeping bag after a night under the stars in the Ganaraska forest, just north east of Toronto. After getting my stuff in order, I lined up at the start, half shivering in the 10C dewy morning.

Through the eight and a half hours of riding it warmed up to comfortable weather. Riding, riding, riding. 100k (62 miles) of continuous single track snaking through the woods. I've never seen so much single track. Over 7000 feet of climbing, mostly up little hills, 10-20 feet at a time, like a thousand paper cuts.

Near the end they marked on the map something called the Never Ending Hill. In a dark shady valley, on a totally flat and quiet section of trail, there marked the sign for the "Never Ending Hill: back by popular demand." The trail remained flat as I rode further a minute or so. I was thinking that my tired brain was getting paranoid. Clearly the event organizers were messing with me---lulling me into complacency. These woods were definitely haunted. Probably a massacre or something a long time ago... Then the trail gradually kicked back. Not really a climb, but a few minutes on it got a little steeper still. Finally the angle required getting out of the saddle. I rounded a corner and a few hard grunts and I crested the top. The organizers did mess with me, but in a good way. The hill did end, and was a pice of cake. Out of five single speed riders doing the 100k, I came in 4th. The fastest single speed was only 20 mins behind the leader, clocking in at 6 1/2 hours (winner was 6:10)!

15 minutes later I passed the finish line. Great course. No, amazing course. And an wonderful cause, since proceeds go to suicide prevention for the Canadian Mental Health association, in honour of the eponymous Ganaraska rider Paul who befell that sad fate many years ago...

Great Western Trail Bikepack

2009-09-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

I wrote up a trip report on bikpacking.net

Race Report of 24-Hours of Great Glenn

2009-08-12T06:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Justin and I rode our guts out in the heart of the New Hampshire White Mountains. Our team name: The Rockwallers. Our main rivals in the two-man single-speed category was Billy and Nate of Team Mullet. Both Billy and Nate are great riders, and were a blast to camp next to. All race long we trash-talked.

The course was 1/2 gravel road with some steep climbs and 1/2 single track. The single track varied from mellow flowing courses to extreme mud and slick rooted hike-a-bike. Some of the best 4-man teams could manage to ride all or nearly all of the technical sections and make up big time. Energy demands and riding skill required strategic choices as to what sections to try to ride. For my lowly technical bike handling skills, I opted to hike more sections and save some energy.

After a Lemans start run around the pond we rode lap for lap, Justin posting the fastest lap time of our category on his second effort out the gate. After trading laps through the afternoon, we switched to two-lap turns. This gave a bit more rest time to eat and clean the bike for the non-riding teammate. Once the sun went down things got interesting. After maxing it all day, you start running on the food you ate while riding. You can't burn the candle at both ends forever. You have to find a new equilibrium of calories in, miles out, all the while your motor wears down slowly over the night. For some reason everyone epics a bit at night. After Justin's late evening set, I took the first three-lap graveyard shift 12:30-4:00 am. In the deep darkest of night you can ride ok. I was not sleepy per se, but I was slowing down a lot. Most of my lap times were under an hour, but after 12 hours of racing I was wearing down, posting 1hour+ laps, stumbling through the dark single track with a head lamp. Comical to watch I am sure. I was glad to get my three laps done first, so I could go to bed for a few hours knowing the big trauma was behind me.

Or so I thought. Stacey woke me up at 7:00am mountain dawn. Again, sleepiness was not my issue in so much as pure gut-wrenching fatigue. While I never puked on course, that dawn lap took me to a dark sickening place. I got real slow. The negative thoughts took over. My whole of life, it seemed, was a disturbing folly. The thing is though that these thoughts were familiar. They tend to pop up at times like these. I had been there before and succumbed to them. But experience can make you wiser. Finishing endurance tests like this race they say is very mental. Such platitudes like that get thrown around a lot, but its hard to appreciate till you actually experience it. Its not just about being mentally persistent. Quite literally, when you exercise too much, your brain squirts out too much bad negative awful neurotransmitters or something that induces an acute chemical depression. Its the only way I can describe it. Anyway, once you realize that it is a chemical aberration, your reasoning faculty can deal with the negativity better. You tell yourself that whatever you are feeling right now, you have to actively fight against it. On my second dawn lap, the fog lifted. I sped up a bit, and got my psych back. After another rest, I got altogether giddy. I did two more laps and the mid morning was over and I only had one more to do to launch Justin off to the finish. On the last lap my legs came alive. My lap was almost as fast as my first ones. I relished every minute of it, and even rode some single track sections that I hadn't cleaned all day.

I had a great time. Through the whole race we never caught Team Mullet, but we were going lap-for-lap with them, and at the end we closed the gap to eight minutes. My hat is off to the great effort by Billy and Nate. The little race we had going was super fun. And special thanks to Stacey's pit crewing and cooking, especially that awesome burrito you made, made all the difference.

Ragar Relay

2009-06-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

Starting Line, Logan, UT

Having had a week's rest to forget the more painful moments I've deicded to post a few pictures from the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay. Note this is not the same as the Wasatch 100 - here we run in teams and on roads (vs by your self and on trails) Race was Logan to Park city via, ... well about every small community you'd forgotten about which has Wasatch mountains to the west. Logan, Liberty, Snowbasin, Mountain Green, Oakley, Kamas, Heber, Park City
team Human Test Subjects, "downwind of Dugway since 2008" (all employees of Dugway Proving Ground) finished in a respectable 31:25:50.8 (yes, that would be over a day) for the 188 mile race. As runner #2 I ran 13 miles, split as 6.9, 3,3.3. First leg went fairly well, went out to fast and ended up walking a hill with some sweet wheezing. My IT band decided that it did such a good job in it's SLC Marathon 2008 appearance that it wanted in on the action so I limped my way from the Junction in Mountain Green to the pass under I-84 for leg number 2. Several kids with a hose along the route provided some nice cooling. Then it was into the darkness as I cheered on my teammates in our bid to East Canyon Dam and Exchange 18. As van #1 we got some nice sleep between midnight and 5:30am. I fell asleep in the van which meant when I was woken up in the morning by my cell phone (other van saying they were 30 min out) I had no idea where I was (answer, somewhere in Oakley) Survived my last leg out of Oakley with less knee pain than expected.

Net result - it's definitly on my list for next year!!

Summer vacation plans...

2009-06-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

I'll be going here:

for two weeks in August. It will be fun.

New Hampshire Rockwalling

2009-06-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos from a recent Rockwaller reunion expedition in New Hampshire. Bobby made the trip east, and Will came down from Canada, to celebrate Robert and Margaret's nuptials. Since they came all that way, I took them up the standard route on Whitehorse Ledge in North Conway.

Setting off from the hotel parking lot.

Bobby, Cadel, Stacey, and Crowder at the bottom of the slab.

Here's our climbing team at the lunch ledge about halfway up. Bobby's enjoying a mid-climb stogie.

Here's the view from halfway. You can see Mt. Cranmore's ski trails and Echo Lake, where Stacey, Cadel, and Crowder went for the afternoon.

Here is Bobby leading the pirate pitch, scrambling over the windward rail with a draw between his teeth.

I won the race, but Bobby and Will sprinted it out for second place.

And they're off.

Will stumbles and Bobby takes an early lead.

Will can't make up the deficit and Bobby wins!

Smiles all around. We built, I mean climbed the 1000' wall in just over 3 hours.

The route roughly follows the whitish stripes alllll the way up.

Everyone enjoyed the beautiful day in the mountains.

rockwallers HUP

2009-06-04T16:25:00.001-07:00

Justin and I (Will) are signed up for the double-single category. Apparently there is stiffer competition than in previous years. I hope to not repeat the event of signing-up-then-not-training-then-epicing situation from Elk Mountain.

So I ride...

Early Season Riding

2009-05-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

Ottawa is great if you think that you basically trade in a normal USA winter for a nasty brutish -10F-lows winter, but in return you get mild wonderful temps through April-June. July and August get a little humid, but its not Atlanta humid.

Riding has been in fits and starts, but I've been riding more than ever. Early season you might hit a few patches of snow in Quebec, but all that is gone now.

Racing season is here: crits (well, try to stay in the pack at least) on Tuesdays, and Race Mt. Bikes on Wednesdays, and other group ride type things on weekends...

Desert Season

2009-04-15T19:47:00.000-07:00

I haven't been down south this season, but it's getting to be about that time. This line in the Swell still needs a free ascent.
The top part is a bit foreshortened in the picture, but the corner is about 100' long of #4 to #6 Camelots. I blew my lead attempt on it last fall, but then figured out how to cruise the route via foot cams, hip/shoulder scums, and hand stacks on top rope. The correct technique definitely lowered the difficulty from 5.11 to 5.10, which is significant for me in the desert (5.11 there is hard).

The Heart of Darkness

2009-04-11T16:41:00.001-07:00

Due to the lack of any real, good skiing to do, Will and I went up to ski into the Heart of Darkness. I'd wanted to ski this ever since I first heard about it - the aesthetics of skiing a narrow line between 80 foot rock walls just always sounded like fun.

On the approach - heart of darkness improbably cuts through the big cliffs at left.
Me about to ski down into (and hopefully through) the heart of darkness. Note how close the tips and tails of my skis are to the walls.
Looking down the chute (without me standing in the way). It looks much wider than it actually is. At this point, Will has realized that his skis are 7 cm longer than mine, and having already cursed the extra length is busy snapping photos in an effort to stall for time.
Me "skiing". At this point, I was through the choke and the chute had widened to and then beyond a spacious 3 meters. The choke was more like 2.5 meters. Turning there was quite sporting - your only chance was to try to jump and turn a complete 180 degrees (otherwise you'd get to know the walls a little too intimately). The picture clearly shows that I've read the steep skiing tips from the Chuting Gallery, as I've successfully managed to get all 4 limbs moving in different directions.
Looking back up:
All photos shot by Will Morris.

March Roads

2009-04-07T11:58:00.000-07:00

The spring thaw has allowed longer rides finally. Two weeks ago I took an 80-miler to Merrickville and back, a small town in the country along the Rideau river canal-lock system that allowed the barges of old to travel from the st. Lawrence to reach Lake Ontario without brushing against the border where they would be easy prey for those pesky raiders from the southland. By the time the locks were built, US-Canada relations warmed and the canal was not needed. Now it is used by gaudy motor boats chuging up and down the lock-system all summer from Ottawa to the Thousand Island archipelago in Lake Ontario.

You pass through miles and miles of bumpy country roads along streams, barns, and corn fields as far as you can see.

Not bad for April

2009-04-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

Saturday:

Sunday:

More photos and details to be added once I have eaten my way out of calorie debt.

Magic Mountain randonee race report

2009-03-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

It's been an exciting winter here on the East Coast. All 5 of my ski days have been great. Here's the rundown:
1 day pulling Cadel through 8 inches of powder in a pulk, at Weston Ski Track
2 races involving the use of skate skis, leading to serious ego bruising
2 days racing on telemark skis through the wilds of Vermont

Perhaps someday I'll go back and recap all of these experiences for y'all, but I'm just going to keep to the recent stuff for now. I wish I had some pictures, but I don't.

I trekked north on Saturday for the inaugural Magic Mountain randonee race, in Londonderry, Vermont. Magic Mountain has a touring-friendly ethos, and they were very welcoming to us racers (all 13 of us). The race organizer, Jonathan Shefftz, put together a low-key, simple, and fun event. The race course consisted of three clockwise laps of Magic Mountain, for a total of 5100' of vertical. Jonathan had originally intended to make it a bit more exciting, but snow conditions dictated that the course be scaled back.

It was a beautiful day for racing. The sky was sunny and the frozen granular surface softened up just a tiny bit during the morning. The race began with a 20 yard dash up the slope to our skis. I latched in with a minimum of fuss and got off the line in second position. I had sized up my competition based on a few bits of information. The most serious threat was Jonathan, the race organizer. He was in full rando-race getup: lycra skinsuit, nordic poles, Scarpa F1 boots with "speed holes," and he had chosen kicker skins over full-length skins for this course. Jerimy, whom I had met at the Mad River Glen randonee race in February, also had a pretty racy setup with Dynafits and F1s. He beat me by a couple of minutes at Mad River, before he got his F1s. There was one other fellow on Dynafits, a couple people on heavier AT gear, and the balance were telemarkers. My friend and former U of U chemistry grad student Greg Mercer, with whom I shared many a Wasatch adventure, was there on his Fritschis, as well as his college buddy Corey, on tele gear.

So out of the gate, I was in the "lead group," although with a field of 10 racers doing the full 3 laps, the term loses most of its meaning. With such a small group, it could easily have turned into ten individual time trials, but there proved to be some spirited competition in store for us few.

On the first climb, Jonathan, Jerimy and I traded places as we huffed our way up the green and blue trails on the climber's left periphery of the ski area. The skinning was mostly straightforward. There were just a couple of pitches where Jonathan was at the limit of his grip, but it was clear that he was saving some energy on the flatter sections. It looked as though the three of us had opened up a decent gap by the top of the first climb, but a Russian fellow on Naxos made up some time on the descent and joined us at the bottom. I chatted with him for a while on the second climb before Jonathan and Jerimy went speeding by. I was able to pick up the pace while remaining conversational, so I bade good-day to Dmitriy and shuffled on to stay within reach of the Dynafit duo. I was feeling pretty decent at this point, and used some brainpower to sneak past Jerimy, saving some distance by cutting across a grassy corner on a steep section. I caught Jonathan and we chatted for some time as we shuffled upwards, keeping a pace that was just barely conversational. My hip flexors were starting to complain, this being their second excursion of the year, but my brain was able to convince them to keep chugging along. Then, without much ado, Jonathan simply walked away from me as the slope angle slacked off near the top of the hill. Rationalizing that I had one more lap to go, and convincing myself that I had a choice in the matter, I allowed this to happen.

As I put on my skins for the final climb, it became clear that Jonathan had turned the knob to the "race" position. To my legs' chagrin, so had I. I reasoned that my best shot at making up time was on the steepest portions of the climb, where Jonathan had to spend more energy to avoid slippage and I could turn my brain off and just "lay down the power." So lay it down I did. I slowly reeled him in and was able to re-use the strategy of skiing across the grassy corner to take the lead. Shortly after I did this, Jonathan started making dramatic wheezing sounds. I could tell he was working hard to keep up, and I could tell exactly where he was. This was great until the wheezing started getting louder, and louder still. Sure enough, at the top of the hill where the angle slacked off, he wheezed his way right past me and try as I might, I couldn't make my legs shuffle any faster to keep up. Despite my best efforts at a smooth transition, he was gone and had the win unless he happened to crash in dramatic fashion, which he didn't.

So, I rolled in one minute back for second place and a bar of Swix glidewax, courtesy of the West Hill Shop in Putney. Thanks to our intense competition on the last lap, Jonathan and I had put ten minutes between us and the next finisher, but everyone came in within an hour, respectable performances all.

I'm looking forward to more rando racing next year, and I've been glad to meet those few in New England who show up to these types of events. I'll try to get one last ski day in up on Mount Washington before summer sets in.

haiti b sides

2009-02-15T22:51:00.000-08:00

at the hotel sterling, we had one house computer, shared among all the volunteers. this meant there was enough time to read emails, not enough to respond to them. since i have returned to the states and a slightly different situation, i have been on a disgusting interweb binge, first catching up on old emails, then reading friends blogs, then moving on to imdb, checking for new facts about chuck norris, anagramming carbamazepine, researching the origins of rochambeau. it is a terrible thing to happen to a human being, the best remedy i have found to halt the descent into this abyss is to get up and run to boone park, and mount the reliable swingset. when i am swinging the clouds blow off, and limpid fewer thoughts come into focus. i can think about where i just was, what the experiences meant, where i am now, what is essential and what was, what happened, what next. distillation is the issue of suspension. after the angusta and the augusta, there is the dvd bonus material: the outtakes, the alt/misc, the odds and ends – all of the colorful memories that are still floating around, like intransigent cards in a gin rummy hand. where to dump all that stuff? imbuildingarockwall seemed the obvious choice. just because as it happened, said outtakes consisted of: wheelbarrows, sledgehammers, zwabbering, overloaded motorvehicles, bilingual rap battles, fire poi, goats, found obamamania, magnificent sunsets, aggressive haircuts, and lots and lots of mud. all of these labels i identified immediately as the provenance of imbuildingarockwall (i have no idea why, but the association was as obvious to my intuition as it was obscure to conscious rationalization). then there was the bicycling, especially all the bicycling over roads that werent on the map, all the bicycling over roads that were on the map but werent actually there, and all the bicycling that wasn't actually bicycling: it was carrying the bike on my shoulders up a rocky 25 degree goat path. everyone knows that a lot of bikes and biking show up on imbuildingarockwall, so along with my gut feeling on all the other stuff, this blog seemed definitely the right place. but the real clencher was: the rockwall building.

on the north side of gonaïves is a prominent brown mountain, and that is where i found the rockwall builders. one thing you can say about it is that it hasn't any trees, which accounts for its colour. its a curious mountain in several respects. a visitor will be drawn to the limestone cliff cut into the slope near the northeastern flank of the mountain, the approach to which takes you through some winding picaresque neighborhoods, mud walls and tin roofs, passages of garbage and chickens, rockier mazes picked through by the goats who seem to roam freely and even aberrantly, amazingly having no issue with whom they belong to. if you slow down in a gully that gets more narrow and sticky, a dweller among the scree will call and ask if you aren't a lost white person, and you can tell her you want to see the rocks. the woman will indicate you should go that way, which is a steep winding slope, marked out by some goats browsing among unlikely thickets of acacia & plastic. certain boulders present limestone of an outstanding quality. the cliff itself is largely broken by cactus seams and hollows and slim perches where even more goats are sunbathing and waiting for more nourishment to develop in the environment. the cliff is not too promising for climbing due to a lack of clean steep faces. but it is a fun ramble-scramble cliff to pretend you are sir edward whymper on, and have just lost two of your team to the unforgiving justice of the mountain when your rope snapped on a sharp edge and they plummeted into the howling abyss. it might have even been severed on one of these cactus branches, because those are sharp motherfXrs and god knows what that rope was made of.

there is a 5.6ish bulge and groove leading to the top. a single bolt stands testament to the curiosity of a previous party. onlookers gather at the base, and call out to the immoderately bold climber. its the sort of rock where you're optimistic about most of it but positive about very little of it and there's enough rather good stuff that you can avoid the worst of it with a little care. there are ledges that provide more than one rest to turn around and take in the streets that you're distancing yourself from surely enough, and the view from up there is a little bit pretty, taking on the color that the roofs of an unhappy and battered city take on from above, while losing the sordid details. what is most satisfying, as you top out onto the broad plateau at the summit of the cliff, is to be so close to 300,000 callblancs so eager to harass you, yet safe from the reach of their unceasing summons & idle demands. there are still the onlookers at the base who have laid aside their crowns of fresh laundry, but they cannot make you hear them.

you turn around and you can see how the brown mountain spreads out in a pattern of three ridges, and you can see rock walls in tiers one above the other up the steep slopes strung between the ridges. what is surprising is the colorful crawling insect forms in the distance that resolve as not only people, but large, concentrated groups of people, not only on the mountain, but on the steepest and highest slopes on the mountain. i discern two such groups of perhaps a couple dozen each, past the middle ridge i can see into a gully where a third large group traverses the horizontal rock bands that score it.

hot sun, no shade, no trees.

a. cohorts of slow penitents in the helical progress of purgatory.

b. scorched wilderness, azazel into which draws of their town the convoys of secondrate goats.

c. backcountry skiers in the first half of a budweiser commercial.

d. what is this are these folk, so many, and so high on the brown mountain?

...and their story had better be good, as i half had in mind to attain a something solitude for a couple hours as i walked up the mountain. the closer perspective, meanwhile, revealed the tiers of rock walls weren't for to buttress an access road, but rockwalls for rockwalls sake, an erosion prevention project. they barred the earth from bowling right downtown. they barberpoled the left bowl and the right bowl. to the left were promising looking boulders. i took to the left.

i came to the people among the rock walls. they said salut and thought i was hysterical. i said hello and passed them, walking toward the larger boulders. the people on top of the rock walls were building the rock walls. they had strings and their straightness was masterful. i saw no bladder: did they labor all day, as it appeared, without any water? as curious onlooker i thought of offering to help, it would have been a fine ploy to stay a while and watch, but you know how those situations are: look at how straight their walls are with the aid of the line, and they might have a way that they do things. on top of that there's the language barrier. i thought of the curious locals who would accumulate at our worksites and stare dumbly for hours in bored fascination at the blancs shuttling mud, and how it would irk the volunteers, especially the newly arrived, that they would watch and watch for durations so extensive without helping, and almost always refuse when offered the opportunity . i was tempted, but prevented by a sense of shame, to accumulate a few feet away and stare dumbly for a spell, watching the rockwall builders at their work. thats a lie: it was no decency or sense of shame that prevented me: it was knowing that any curiosity i had about them was a poor match for theirs about me, and that wallbuilding would be with all dispatch suspended to allow for a very lengthy, monopsonistic interview. it was so hot! so dry! i was not in the mood for such a thorough going over. i was already thirsty myself just from walking the mountain, and i wanted to see about these boulders up ahead. how do you do? i would say to the workers. so surprising to behold, a white person, so far up on the brown mountain, but if they would ask i would just say: i'm going to look at the rock up there.

they turned out to be the sort of boulders that were just a little closer and therefore smaller than if they had been large enough to be of a good size for climbing when you saw them from a distance that you could not yet determine but had hopes it was not too slight. higher on the mountain a few were tall enough to climb on and i stopped for a looksee at a steep junglegymish thing.

i made one attempt in my sneakers before some assistants came around the corner and asked me what i was doing. i was climbing the rock. but why had i come up here to this rock? i was walking all over the mountain. i wanted to see the mountain. they didn't believe me. why did i want to climb the rock? i wanted to go to the top. you can go around this side. we'll show you. but i wanted to go up this way. i would fall and hurt myself. and indeed, there were prickly plants that endangered the landing, as they covered much of the mountainside. why did i pass all those people back there and not speak to them? i did, i said hello to them. which house was i going to? not to a house: through, over, around, but not to. they could show me to a house, its just around the corner. but i wasn't going to a house, and eventually they gave up and let me climb my rock. alas, i should have listened to them! up high on the mountain the limestone was a rusty color and it was that prickly texture, like coral. i took my shoes off to take advantage of some pockets, but i barely made it down to the base, so painful was the footing on the descent. miniscule to avoid the gauntlet of lances and thistles encroaching from every crevice were my steps, and slow my advance.

i was altogether impressed by the industry of the people building the rock walls and the extent of the rockwalls they had built. there was so much mud in the houses in the poor city! it was a pity if all those rockwalls were the right idea, but not enough.

***

the storm of the morning after battaile de vertieres day was the only rain i saw in gonaives. the most advance hodr volunteers had been there since the start of october and it was the first that they had seen. at twilight insubstantial clouds would gather and a breeze would strengthen into a wind, blowing from the east, from the mountains across the city and into the gulf. from the black mountains beyond which lay enneri and st michel de l'attalaye and couleuvres, but i had not explored them yet, and they were still an axiomatic presence whose farside was mystery. a solitary figure or a cocktail party of yabbering silhouettes would scramble onto the roof of the hotel sterling to watch the sun set and the sky clouds heat up over the point of land at the end of the bay. the wind would begin to calm down. before the gledes died, in a runaway victory over her dimmer counterparts, the smokingdeck star would race into view, and simultaneously, with twice the brilliance, the smoking deck planet, which must be by now the powerline pole planet, and whose identity i am not sure of. he was a palm below and at about 4:30 to the smokingdeck star when i arrived, at the full moon. he puzzled me because he wasnt so far to the south, and if i took him out of the picture, the smoking deck star appeared to be the head of a familiar origami creature who moonwalked across route 120 each night back home. i was slow to catch on to his game. he had been gradually narrowing the gap between himself and smokingdeck star. he had risen to her level and just passed to the left when a young quick moon went sailing right through the two of them during not many minutes one evening.

the electrical grid was not up until the first or second week of december, and until then the night was profoundly rich and the stars were crazy million clear. hanover had been all mizzly before i left, cold to discourage spending time outside at night, and lately a lot of getting ready to go crap had been keeping me in all the time. but in gonaives we lived outside because the night was pleasant and the rooms were hot and stuffy, the air was dry, the trees were not there, the skies were huge and cloudless: it was like discovering a tremendous inveterate curtain. it wasn't quite bishop, but it was uncanny to think you were witnessing this spectacle, clearer than that from any vermont farm, above a city of 300,000. if you went walking at night, there were the headlamps of the motorbikes, and the amber candles of the streetsellers, like a vigil of elves in a dark chapel, and a veil of near blackness. the barking chorus of blanc! blanc! that i heard during the day diminished to the occasional call of a kid who caught me in the right light at the right time, and sounded more hello? than gotcha!. from the apex of the roof, i would look down on the city below, and see a diamond of mild light in the middle distance on a field of true darkness extending in all directions: the walled confines of the minustah compound at the base of the brown mountain. since the balcony looked toward casseiopeia, you could see the tropical lunette only also from the ridge of the roof, across the garbage field, at the tip of the horse mountain where it prayed to the water: a tea kettle blooming over the horns of a Y. orion was soon in full season, rising at night fall, setting at dawn, sweeping enormous and fast around the penultimate lane, just inside the equator.

some times a dream fit or times when the close keen drone seized my head then would open my eyes to his progress, commanding the hours, and the shadows of mountains and seas, and hear the sounds of the night, the dogs and the songs and the cockcrows, and the huzzbizz of the miniscule mosquitoes infinitesimally numerous and invisible to my earhole, and their many tiny irritating nipneeps & pinches and bites at my face. the roof is concrete and very slanty but there is a narrow ridge at its apex tucked under the banked border wide enough for a mediumsized person to lie down with a conservative arrangement of limbs and leaning a little toward the restraint of the bank so as not to roll off the long pitch into the watertank wall.

the night i was in petionville i crossed paths with the santacruzans K&J who were on their way home from gonaives and they had brought mafia to the hotel sterling, and it had been immensely popular, and the volunteers played every night. unfortunately the mafia craze had ended since we arrived and the santacruzans had left and we only played one night while i was there. i was killed or voted out in the first round of every game, because vol lancelot had it in for me. in scattergories, which was played more often, mr X had it in for me.

the santacruzans also reported that there was a rule against sleeping on the balcony, that it was he, J, who had first ventured this sensible innovation, leaving the sweltering poorly ventilated crowded dormrooms to sleep in the fresh dry cool air outside. (many) others had followed suit, and the popularity of the practice led to its prohibition. volunteers, & especially not the triumvirate, rarely use the word rule. people arrive at the project whenever they arrive, and stay for a week to several months, so the volunteer population is always sliding. the rules are typically introduced once, when an issue arises, at a nightly meeting. new volunteers are greeted with a ten minute walk through & there is a heres the setup sheet posted, but many of the rules are spread by word of mouth. therefore there are rules in the hodr code to cover small details which typically dont come up, whereof most people are in excusable ignorance most of the time.

one night ref arthur was in a meeting at the un compound with other ngos, vol lancelot was i think in the states for a couple weeks, and so it fell upon merlin, referee emeritus, to conduct the nightly meeting. the nightly meeting proceeds in this order: salutations (usually only on tuesdays and fridays), field reports: each of the three or four trip leaders says things like "yeah we moved some mud, its a tough site, team worked really well, got two rooms left, day – daynahalf...yep." (unless newcastle andy speaks, who pauses for half a beat and says coolly: "smashed the granny out of it ... unbelievable ...") after field reports, review of the next days jobs. last of all will come signups for dinner dishes, lunch dishes, and housekeeping, and (mondays and thursdays) valedictions. but the heart of the meeting, following the job overview, is "meeting notes" a numbered list of agenda items added to the board by any volunteer during the previous 24 hours. merlin (in this case, but typically the ref) goes down the list and reads off the items, usually cryptic, telegraphic mnemonics, whose author comes forth to identify and explicate. sometimes these are just headsups about power or water usage or an IIBFID/IIYLIM type thing, dont sit on the tables, etc. in other less routine cases, a roundtable discussion ensues.

merlin once told me a funny story about our plastic patio furniture, which comprised a few dozen chairs which were for sitting on, & several small tables. he told me: you were sitting on one of the patio tables. you were doing your foot thing with some moleskin and white powder. and you were kind of staring into the sky: you were staring at the moon. (how could that be? i was supposedly sitting just outside the entrance to the computer room) so i asked you, robert, please dont sit on the table... & then i pulled over a chair. robert? hey, can you use the chair please? you got up, and you brought the chair over, and you sat back down on the table, propped your foot on the chair, & continued

Deep Snow

2009-02-14T17:22:00.000-08:00

It's been an interesting winter in Utah - for a while, there was some question that Utah may have somehow turned into Colorado or the Northwest. These last couple days have made things clear it's still Utah.

Yesterday before work, I made a solo ski of Coalpit #4. It turned out to be the best conditions I've yet encountered in a chute - 3000+ feet of stable, soft snow about knee deep. It wasn't blower powder as some sluffing had occurred, but it was incredible snow to be skiing in a chute (and my skin track through the choke was comical).

Today Will and I skied the Cabin Run on Gobbler's Knob - visibility wasn't so good and the wind was picking up, so we only took one run (the weather forecast for tomorrow calls for clear skies, so we'll be going back with a camera in tow). This was the probably deepest skiable snow I've ever encountered - thigh to crotch deep but still turnable. Amazing.

Winterlude

2009-02-08T16:38:00.000-08:00

This Sunday, La Lissa and I got on to the ice with hundreds of thousands of other Ottawans: the Byward canal is frozen over and coffee and cocoa stands line the 7 km route from near our house and on into the down town. We don't have skates, but walking was fine. Through most of February the Winderlude festival goes on with events all over the ice. For the most part, La Lissa and I are pleasantly surprised by the Ottawa Winter. The cold is not bad and the sun shines A LOT.

Cross Country Rambler

2008-12-26T08:35:00.000-08:00

There is this article in the Salt Lake Tribune about a itinerant cyclist whose been traveling cross country for the last 8 years by way of three-wheeled recumbent and a trailer. He's seen 41 of the lower 48. He has no plans to stop after he's seen the last 4.

Fortress of Solitude

2008-12-17T05:23:00.000-08:00

My basement is set up as a training facility where I find new levels of "sensations" in my legs, or so Justin would call it. I sooped up my magnetic resistance trainer by adding extra magnets. Because I am heavier than the average cyclist, I pump out more Watts, and it throws me outside the calibrated linear power band of the resistance unit. I can get plenty tired, but the only way to redline myself is with high cadence speed work. All low-cadence out-of-the-saddle climbing on the thing is fairly mellow till I figure out a way to add more resistance.

Pedaling in a basement is sometimes boring though. I parked a laptop with speakers and either pop in a DVD, or blare music.

For variety, once a week I go to a spin class, where I can do a more power oriented workout on the big bikes that do big resistance. I am lucky enough to live down the street from Cyclelogik, a bike store/coffee shop/art gallery that caters to racers and triathletes, selling bikes, hosting spin classes, providing coaching, and biometric assays like lactate threshold and VO2max-type stuff.

Non Supportable Crust

2008-12-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

In the morning everything was still icy. The best way to go fast was to stay upright, and if you wanted to pass someone, you waited for them to crash while trying not to crash yourself. This, of course, took supreme focus. If you could stay on the hardpack you could go far and fast. Otherwise, game over.

As time went on the ice turned soft. Corners could be taken faster. Grip was perfect. The challenge then was dealing with lapped riders. To pass you went off the line and became a fishtailing snow plow.

By the end it was warm and the crusty snow became twice-baked mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. Lap times went up again as perfect grip gave way to slop.

At the finish I was rewarded with fifth place in my category, a season best at season's end.

Cross Update

2008-11-17T15:27:00.000-08:00

I was bummed to be financially unable to come down and race south of the border with Justin, but I've been keeping busy crossing in Ottawa. I race in the masters A category (now that I am in my 30s), which races along side the elite men and women, and the extremely fast juniors. Since giving my bike two gears, I don't think I've gained much of an advantage. It has made riding a bit more fun though. The high gear I had on was painful on the accelerations, and I really feel the difference there. However, on the bad weather days I keep it in the low gear almost all the time, a de facto single speed. Ottawa cross is a great scene. Very friendly people. I have a fan base consisting of two guys I bumped into at the Madison event who yell "go Utah, go Utah" when I roll by, in reference to my yet-to-be-changed license plate. I finish each race somewhere in the middle of the pack. Every race I aim to not get lapped by the leaders, and so far I have been successful, in part because the laps are Looooooong, like 10 minutes or more. The courses are awesome. Check out the run up on that hill people (photo credit to bobotron)!

The Great Western Trail: Salt Lake to Boulder--The Gauntlet Thrown Down

2008-11-08T17:56:00.000-08:00

I am throwing down the gauntlet. I've been researching and compiling a Great Western adventure. The last one was Mantua to Layton on the worst of possible game trails (see link on sidebar). This new version starts from Salt Lake City and heads into the mountains on single track trails, ATV paths, four-wheel drive roads, and gravel roads, all the way to Boulder, Utah. The route should take 4-5 days with two resupply points.

The first leg of the tour goes through the northern Wasatch via Mill Creek canyon to the Crest, over Brighton and down into Provo Canyon, back up to the southern Wasatch at Vivian Park through motorcycle paths. Camp somewhere in the mountains and head over a pass and down on forest service roads to cross highway 6 at Trucker, Utah (ghost town), and then south on the famous Skyline Drive (see below Google Earth image).

Ride the Skyline drive till you want to camp somewhere, and ride it the next day for about 100 miles, till you meet the fork for the Great Western Trail ATV (GWT) route. Take the route down a huge elevation drop till you run into I-70 and ride about 10 downhill till you are out of the mountains to the town of Salina, Utah. At Salina get a motel, buy a whole pie for yourself at Mom's Cafe, and watch crappy cable TV for as many days as your legs need. When you are ready, head back into the mountains via the I-70 frontage road till you meet back up with the GWT. Head south east on the GWT ATV trail network for 80 miles or so till you roll into Teasdale, Utah. Rest. Go south of Teasdale on 4wd roads up Boulder mountain to Donkey Reservoir and take various forest service roads and trails that rim Boulder mountain till you drop down onto the highway 12 and ride it out a few miles to the Hell's Backbone Grill in time for dinner.

There are a few mystery sections that sources say there is a trail/road there, but I could not spot it on Google earth. And there looks like there are two passes that may include some helacious cross country bushwhacking for a mile or so. More research needs to be done. I have already ridden about 1/4 to 1/3 of the route, and for some of the other places I have a good sense that they are going to be great riding. From Boulder, one could easily ride on Hell's Backbone road all the way to Escalante, and from there keep going on the recently devised Trans Utah Escalante to St. George route listed on bikepacking.net and the brainchild some St. George riders at 2-epic.com.

Two-Speed Cyclocross Bike

2008-11-01T16:33:00.000-07:00

The cross courses around Ottawa ironically have more hills than the ones in Utah. As the weather is getting worse, I needed to take down my rather steep 48 X 18 gearing, which is good for flat courses, to something more middle range for bad mud and steep hills. I had recently got a hold on a Paul Components Melvin chain tensioner that can be used not only for single-speed, but also as a "dingle-speed" two-speed set up, where you employ two chainrings and a single cog. One of my principal and primary reasons for switching to single speed for most riding was because I hate rear derailures. Front derailures on the other hand, I have no problem with, as I've never had one brake on me (in the middle of a 90-mile ride in the middle of nowhere, with no chance of fixing it. Long story, whatever...). The original reason I converted my cross bike over to SS years ago was due to a crash during a race: I broke my rear shift-lever. Shift-levers are obscenely expensive, so I spent a modest amount of money converting to SS (see previous post).

First of all, the Paul Melvin is far better than the Surly Singleator for chain tension. As per my cited post above, the Surly unit needed the help of a Voile ski strap to actually keep my chain from falling off. The Melvin, with its two chain wheels keeps everything real snug, no problem. I had the other still functioning rear shifter and all the cables and housing so it didn't have to take any trips to the bike store. While I was attaching it I said "what the hell" and went dingle. I had mixed feelings about doing it. I did like the simplicity of SS. But purity didn't win out. I am a competitive person, and nobody around here rides SS, and it was getting frustrating racing in a different world from everyone else. I am also somewhat an iconoclast to a fault, and now I have a bike that matches. Also, it was fun setting it up. Now is have a high/middle-end 48 X 18 good for cruising, but still a tad slow for pavement flats, and I have a middle/low-end 38 X 18 for acceleration, bad mud, and hills. The Melvin is supposed to fit a 20-tooth difference between chainrings. With my set up I only have a 10 tooth differential. Paul Components only mentions a two chainring setup, but I wonder if it would work on a mountain triple 44-34-24? That would be a nice maintenance-free set up longer mountain bike rides in remote places...

Regarding single-speed riding, my friend Bobby Hanson once said, and I paraphrase "when I had gears on my bike, I always felt I was in the wrong gear, with my single-speed, now I know I'm in the wrong gear." Now that I have a two-speed, if I feel I'm in the wrong gear, I can go to the other wrong gear.

Take That Bitches

2008-10-23T07:23:00.001-07:00

Gatineau Loop

2008-10-19T19:59:00.000-07:00

I did my link up again. This time with no mechanicals and so I was much faster. It was also much colder. I wore neoprene booties and a skull cap much of the day, but it warmed up enough in the afternoon to melt my GORP. While most of the trail is smooth fire road, there are some noteworthy technical climbs, and after six hours of riding I can actually get in about 4,800 vertical feet, which is comparable to the vertical X time profile of the Wasatch Crest to Mid-Mountain loop in Park City. After this second visit, the rustic equestrian path section that rides through the lowland cow fields south of the park is now my favorite place in Ottawa.

Ottawa Madison Event

2008-10-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

My first cross race of the season was a madison event: two-man teams, alternating laps. I paired up with a guy (Bob) with a 29er and we blasted around the fast, mostly flat, but long course. The field was about as large as the Utah races I'm more familiar with. I have to say though, that the Canadians are a nice bunch of riders, and I think it might have been one of my favorite cross races I've attended as a result. I have also discovered that single speed riding is just not that big up here. I was the only one-gear rider that I could see out of a group of about 150, and I've yet to notice another trail rider sporting one (there are a lot of fixies in town though, which includes a bike polo club, but that goes along with the whole hipster contagion of tattoo, flea market-going lookalike contest). There are eight more races in the season. I'll keep you posted.

charrrrge!

2008-10-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

Man, I love this sport.

Skiing Volcanos in May (Condensed Video Version)

2008-09-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

Mt. Hood - only 5000 ft above us.

Looking up at the Mazama face. Skiing 3 inches of powder above a massive smoking crater turned out to be pretty fun.

Skiing Mt. Hood.

Retreating from Mt. Adams.

And finally, one of the reasons that we didn't ski Rainier.

Gatineau Tour

2008-09-20T19:38:00.000-07:00

I just got done riding in the Gatineau hills. Using my increasing knowledge of the trail network, I pieced together a route through most of the park, riding in a loop, and attempting mystery section on a rustic equestrian path. I got lost a bunch on this section as the trail petered out into open fields every once in a while. However, the section made me a happy, but a bit homesick because it reminded me of the mountain west. About three hours into it I sheared the bearings in my eggbeater pedal. This is the second time this has happened. Those pedals are trash. I think I'll switch to ATACs? Any suggestions on a good pedal would be appreciated. I rode for the last three hours with a removable clipless pedal. On the return leg I snapped my chain as well, but I was able to piece together the remaining strand to get home.

Bike tool fun

2008-09-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

I ended up having some interesting bike tool fun in the past week. It all started with the seemingly simple operation of installing a freewheel and rear brake on my cross check so that I could race 'cross this fall.

Removing the cog and lock ring went well - I now know why there is a couple of millimeters of space between the cog and the lock ring on Phil Wood hubs. While it makes it difficult to use a lock ring wrench on a wheel alone, when the wheel is on a bike with a chain, the spacing is absolutely perfect, and the frame makes holding the wheel steady simple.

Installing a freewheel was easily done as well, but things became more interesting when I went to install the brake. One side went in easily, but for some reason the bolt wouldn't start on the other side. I inspected the bolt as well as the post, and everything looked fine; I even tried the bolt in the other side just to be sure. After a few minutes of complete confusion a crazy idea occurred to me. I grabbed a flashlight, and sure enough my hunch was correct - the canti mount on that side had never been tapped.

I went down to Wild Rose with my conundrum, were it came to light that Surly, in measures to keep costs down, also didn't use removable brake bosses (no simple solution here). A while later, I devised a clever solution involving zip ties (safe for the rear wheel in the event of a failure), but still wasn't really that confident in the zip tie solution.

After some research on SheldonBrown.com to confirm that tapping the rear bosses would be possible, I called around to a few more shops armed with more information, but didn't have much luck. Cyclesmith said they would give it a try, but would have to run down to the hardware store to buy a tap. I wasn't about to let them have all the fun, so I went to the hardware store myself. 6x1 mm turns out to be a standard size, so a tap was only $5. Five minutes later (thanks to the late Sheldon Brown's directions) I had successfully tapped my first threaded hole and had a beautifully functional brake mount.

Altitude and Encounters at the End of the World

2008-08-17T09:34:00.000-07:00

They always say that training at altitude gives you all these cardio benefits. The flip side, I have found out, is that a good night's sleep near sea level after a big ride leaves you a lot less sore in the morning...

Last night La Lissa and I saw this movie about Antarctica Encounters at the End of the World. Its a Werner Herzog film, the guy who did the "Grizzly Man" movie that I never saw but heard a lot about. The film was really great for a variety of reasons. The film profiled scientists as the McMurdo research station, a 5,000-person NSF station which studies everything from molecular biology of seal milk, underwater ice creatures, volcanos, to high-energy particle physics. But far from being a feature-length version of a NOVA episode, the film avoided the clichés of nature documentaries, and was more like a meditation on the universe while driving 80 Km/hr on a snowmobile over an ice sea on some mild hallucinogenic. Whatever it was, it was really good, and I recommend all rockwallers go see it.

Update

2008-08-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

After six days of driving we arrived to Ottawa, which is pronounced in Canadianese with drawn out vowels as "OAuutaawaa." After brisk and stressed out apartment hunting we found a place on I think the third day of looking: big backyard, huge basement for a climbing wall and bike storage, nice molding and old hardwood floors. The only problem is that the move in date is Sep. 1! Hence, we are currently living in a hostel, sharing a kitchen and bathroom with some college guys. Not the greatest situation, but it will do. We haven't spent much time here yet though. I had a conference to go to in Montreal all last week. I presented my paper, which I recently found out got accepted to PRL, and heard a bunch of talks on Theoretical Neuroscience. We also checked out some great restaurants there. After waiting in line we got a smoked ham sandwitch and frites at Schwartz's deli, and had a "nice" meal at the somewhat famous L'Express, a traditional French bistro type place. L'Express was kind of over hyped, but I had a pretty good plate of steak frites... The best place we went by far was Boulangerie Kouing Amman. We kind of missed the Kouings at Les Madelines in SLC, so we gave it a shot. The Kouings were great and so was the espresso and the croissants and the whole damn thing. The place has only three tables and is housed in a rustic log cabin type thing right in the middle of old town Montreal.

I've also been doing some exploring by bike. Today I went on a tour of the Gatenau park. Gentle rolling hills can sap you, over time at least. I still have all my bikes in storage except my steel single speed, so with flip flops and a rain parka I spent about four hours going down every road I got lost on. I must still have some of the Utah RBC count in me because I was going pretty fast. None of the other road bikey dudes passed me, but I passed a lot of them. The bike path system here is very extensive. I traveled on routes with cars only a small percentage of the time.

Well thats enough for now. When I get my gear out of storage and it stops raining I'll give a report on the climbing here....

Why Me?

2008-08-01T20:06:00.001-07:00

That's the name of the route.

More here: http://nostartues.googlepages.com/

El Norte

2008-07-29T06:10:00.000-07:00

There is a land to the north where people live in peace and harmony, have guaranteed medical care, and commute by jetpacks. After the long dark night that we call the Bush administration, many of my fellow americans have spoke longingly of this land. A shangri la that we all, at times, have threatened to move to out of sheer frustration. A land where the palementary discussions sound more like a PTA meeting. A land where gay marriage was legalized one day with no fuss or acrimony. A land where they put pictures of kids toboganing and playing ice hockey on their money. They call this place Canada.

Truckin

2008-07-28T06:12:00.000-07:00

We are in Iowa City currently, which is about half-way there. Yesterday there was a tornado warning and a big storm. Roughly 8 inches/hour was falling and the most beautiful lightning I've ever seen. Today we are picking up Bobby Hardage (Blog name: mark twain) who has been gutting flooded houses in Cedar Rapids with a volunteer organization. We are taking him to Toronto because he wanted to see Toronto.

When traveling across the country you have got to have a good ipod playlist. For Wyoming we had lots of James McMurtry and Sonic Youth. Nebraska: Bruce Springstein and alt country. Iowa is Willie Nelson country. Next up is Illinois, which should be based on Chicago blues. We drive a bit through Indiana and head to Michigan, which seem to me to be good states for Rock and Roll. After that, we have selected a bunch of Canadian bands, like Arcade Fire and Bran Van 3000, both based in Montreal.

The North Woods

2008-07-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

For our defacto honeymoon, La Lissa and I went to North Idaho and Washington where the temps were cooler than SLC. On our tandem we checked out the route of the Hiawatha, an old rail line traversing Montana and North Idaho that has been converted to a bike path. The route starts with a two-mile long tunnel, which was cold and dark. After that the route slowly descends through the mountains over many old trestle bridges and smaller tunnels.

We spent a week in Seattle bumming around and doing city things. On our way back to North Idaho we stopped in the western Cascades and backpacked up the middle fork of the Snoqualme River about 12 miles to a hot springs. The upper cascades were totally snowed in still. The ranger said that trail openings are postponed about 1.5 months from normal.

Justin Cox Photo in Dirt Rag

2008-07-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

In the latest issue of Dirt Rag I found an add for the Granny Gear races. I saw that old Univega bike, then noticed the single chainring, then noticed the Hup United jersey... Its Justin!!!!!

The Tour Divide or the Great Divide Race, you pick.

2008-06-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Good morning sports racers. Lately I've been following the various and sundry races of the Divide:
The Tour Divide
and
The Great Divide Race
At first I was confused why there was two simultaneous races going on. The difference is that the TD starts in Banff, the GDR starts on the Montana border. For those with less time, smaller legs, or no passport you do the GDR, else you start in Banff...

Depending on how work goes, I am toying with the idea of preparing for next year's race. Based on my experience with Elk Mountain, I have verified that PhDs and endurance races don't mix (actually, thinking that going skiing 20 or so times as preparation is not enough). If I were to enter, I would be testing the conjecture that post docs and long races can work. But seriously, I'd have to start focusing now if i do it. Quit climbing, get a coach, ride a lot, ect... I don't want another sad performance like Elk Mountain...

AT race gear and EMGT

2008-04-07T19:33:00.000-07:00

The top three teams in this year's grand traverse were on AT race gear - there's a cool write up here:

http://www.teamcrestedbutte.com/page.cfm?pageid=1414

I especially like the part about getting lost in the dark...

Bear Tag

2008-04-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

Tag, you're it. My buddy Chad forwarded this set of pictures.

The Land of Milk and Honey

2008-04-03T13:57:00.000-07:00

After the defense La Lissa and I went on vacation to the Buttermilks.

I think this is like the 6th time I visited Bishop in last 8 years. Every year I go I think that i've nearly climbed out the boulders at my grade level (v0-v7), but each year I find new gems. After buying the very thorough new Bishop guidebook i'm sure I could spend another 6 years there. Because of the frequent visitations, Bishop has a unique place in my life. Every time I visit the environment is the same, but I am different. I take stock in life, gauging the past by the present, and look to future. This time was no different. With just defending and now done with school (I've been in school all my life, save 4 years before Kindergarten), with getting a job and moving to Canada on the horizon, as well as getting married, I had plenty to think about.

However, mostly I just climbed everyday (i'm still sore), read books (fiction), went on runs and hikes (everyday), and relaxed in the hot springs (once). Here are some photos and a sideways video of me climbing the wave boulder "roof" at the Druid Stones.

Lone Peak

2008-03-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

Ski Will and I made the trek up Bells canyon to ski the Northeast face of Lone Peak. Unfortunately we were not aware that there were two chutes down the middle of the face and will be forced to return to ski the other. We skied the climber's left chute (you can just make out the tracks on the apron in the photo), but still need to return to ski the one to climbers right. To make matters worse, there are several other very nice chutes further North along the ridge as well that also warrant a return trip.
Someone snapped a photo from Coalpit of the face with our tracks and posted it on telemarktips, so I stole it to add to the blog. The track from our ascent is visible to the far left.

Defense Onsighted

2008-03-13T22:09:00.000-07:00

I stayed up till 3:30 in the morning the night before, getting my talk aced. I bought a nice bakery spread from Les Madeline's and some coffee for the committee. Got my (one) suit on and drilled away at my talk for an hour, dispatched some questions from the committee, then got my hand shook and called "Dr. Will."

I thought the whole thing would be somewhat anti-climactic, but I actually really enjoyed it.

First Craging

2008-02-29T08:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Dave and I post-holed into the Secret Garden area. There is still some snow. We needed tarps to cover the large puddles forming on top of the ice/slush so our crash pads would stay dry. We saw others out bouldering, and also heard someone crack climbing up higher on what looked like mostly dry rock. I'd say in a few more weeks of good weather and conditions will be perfect.

Rocks and creative skinning techniques

2008-02-25T18:14:00.000-08:00

With a bit of a cessation in the snowfall earlier this month and the onset of predictable and stable snow conditions, (ski) Will and I opted for some chuting to break up the powder skiing.

With cloudy conditions up high, we choose a low elevation objective for our first exploit - a memorial couloir on Mt. Olympus. We had incredible luck with the weather, as temperatures that day rose above freezing, but 10,000 foot clouds kept the snow from becoming overheated which would have led to a hasty retreat.

Unsure of the approach, we avoided what looked to be a potential terrain trap in the lower Norths fork of Neff's canyon (it isn't), and instead detoured near the Chadbourne craig and crossed over into the main North's fork drainage via a saddle. Initially we had been planning to ski the shot to the climber's left of the Olympus couloir which was reputed to be the most skiable, but our view from the saddle revealed a very long, very aesthetic couloir beginning just north of the north summit (it was also closer and had already sluffed out, two additional benefits). We traversed in to the top of the apron (a corkscrew gully), and found ideal booting conditions in the gut of the couloir.There was a sandbox of graupel lining the bed surface, but otherwise, we quickly climbed about a thousand feet to a higher section of couloir that had not sluffed. This made a notable difference in our ability to boot, as postholes were suddenly waste deep, so we stomped out a spot above a tree, donned skis, and began some creative skinning. This usually involved about five paces followed by a kick turn (I was often grabbing the tip of my uphill ski while turning to make it easier to get it around - this didn't require bending over...). A few hundred more feet of skinning and a great many switch backs latter, we were at the top of a 50 foot wide 1700 vertical fool long couloir that stayed consistenly near 40 degrees in steepness (with the yet to be discovered apron, the line was to yield about 2,200 vertical).

Will and I leap frogged through the slightly treed upper third of the chute, then skied the beautiful and continuous lower 2/3rds. In lieu of a real picture, I snapped a camera phone shot of Will skiing the main couloir. Despite the soft slide debris, the low angle of the apron was a relief for our burning legs (lack of recent practice meant that it took me a while to get into a good pedal-hop turn groove, and Will briefly paused to point the bases of his skis up the chute at me). The apron also contained a rocky ice bulge, which required 20 feet of tips and tails side stepping followed by hopping and pointing skis straight down over 10 feet of water ice (another camera phone shot). Fun.
With cooler temps and stable snow, we naturally decided to ski the largest slide path in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Stairs Gulch the next weekend (just shy of 5,000 vertical). We approached via Bonkers as we did not want to spend any extra time in the gulch.

I had heard one second hand description of the run as "rocky", and wouldn't turn out to be let down. Stairs is an amazing slide path, underlain but massive amounts of rock which never allow the snow to pile deeply upon them. It's not a consistent pitch, but rather a series of gullies, rocky break overs, and rock slabs, with a creek bed finish. There was about a foot of generally wind effected powder over a crust or rock base (but it was nice and stable). Will snapped a shot of me in the mid section of the gulch, surrounded by some photogenic snow.
Stairs was definitely a unique run - not as good as Coalpit headwall, but definitely a worthwhile endeavor.

Carpe Diem

2008-01-20T14:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Will-squared paid a visit to Dry Creek. Conditions were perfect for some higher-altitude fun: For the previous five days the Wasatch received 12 inches through continuous very light snowfall. There were a few warming periods that caused the deep faceted weak layers to heal, leaving a very stable snowpack with the benefit of fresh but "packed" powder on top of it all. Over the pass at 10,000 there was some thick clouds early day completely enshrouding the Phiferhorn. We skied down Dry creek to warming temps and clearing skies. On the skin up we kept eyeing the receding clouds on the Phiferhorn. We decided to have a look into Hogum at western base of the Phif where I snapped this photo of the other Will

, showing the very imposing north headwall and couloir. After digging yet another pit, we decided to go for it. With a little rock climbing, some kick steps, and some piolet work, we were on the top.

After a long-ass ski decent from Phif into dry creek. We skined up and back over the pass in the aplpenglow to a dim ski descent into the red pine drainage. Then we had some tree-dodging-by-headlamp fun down to the car.

Packed Powder

2008-01-18T20:50:00.000-08:00

Here's another one. Future web-star Dave demonstrates his snowboarding prowess, and gives a detailed post-mortem on what happened.

EastCoast SnowFun

2008-01-15T18:53:00.001-08:00

Rather than just being jealous of y'all's snowfall out there, we decided to have fun in the snow here, too. Here's an outstanding demonstration of the ski somersault by Justin, Mariah, Brian, and Brendan, with help from Crowder (video by Stacey):

Enjoy that one for now. More to come.

After a few hundred inches the sun came out

2008-01-15T15:23:00.000-08:00

Two dufuses, both named Will.

After a run in Soldier fork, we hopped over to Wilson fork. We completely farmed out the Wilson chutes, shown in upper right, of which I got first tracks...

Someone Broke The Switch On The Wasatch Snow Machine

2008-01-07T08:57:00.001-08:00

The Christmas Bacon Bar

2008-01-07T08:50:00.000-08:00

Delicious. Salty, sweet, chocolatey. Lis got it for me for ludichristmas. The bacon taste is faint but discernible. More of an accent to the chocolate than an outright flavor...

The war has ended

2007-12-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

Yes you all know the war I'm talking about. There are no hot deserts involved (although possibly hot desserts!) that endless ephemeral debate of what to add to your meal. Yes the condiment war to end all wars

BACON VS CHOCOLATE

Well the problem is no more thanks to this amazing substance BACON CHOCOLATE bless their souls for solving all our problems and creating a chocolate bar with the bacon cooked right in.

chocobacon

Bouldering in Zion

2007-12-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

Wall climbing is good in Zion, but hey, the bouldering is nice to. This is like going to Wimbledon to play table tennis...

Turbulence and Coffee

2007-12-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

So am flying to Chicago today amid the big snowy system covering all USA. The flight is so early that I don't have time for my morning coffee. United's computer system is down so the ticketing line is fucking long, and I barely make my flight. So I'm on the plane without coffee or breakfast. After waiting forever to take off we are aloft with too much turbulence to get any coffee in economy class. All the while the bourgeoisie class is getting showered with what looks like lattes and mochas. Finally, the turbulence subsides and the guy comes around and I ask for not one but two cups of coffee for good measure. He obliges and goes on to the next row and BAM, more turbulence and the drink guys pack it up.

So there I am with two cups of coffee, one in each hand, hovering over my laptop. I am trapped in a prison of my own making. I can't put down either cup anywhere and I don't want to spill anything on the computer. And so begins the dance. Bobbing and weaving, putting the cups on a linear trajectory through space while the plane (and me) bounces around them...

Two Seats, Twenty One Gears

2007-11-11T10:36:00.000-08:00

We just got this kick-ass ride off of craigslist as our mutual birthday present. We paid 400 for it, which is a good deal for a tandem, I think. It should be nice for dirt roads and touring. Ever since we rode one on Friday Harbor we wanted to get one but most are really expensive. We are going to get some racks and sew our own panniers for it. I have no idea where we are going to store it in our house. I'll probably have to reconfigure my office to make it fit.

I will also entertain myself on it by riding it solo on the shoreline, which will make that old trail interesting again. I'll also see if I can ride it solo from the back seat using strings to control the brakes and steering. I bet two coordinated people could pull off a rolling chinese fire drill on it: switch seats while rolling without touching the ground. I wonder how many people we could have riding on it at the same time? I am open to any suggestions on entertaining things to (try) to do on it.

lcc and diverse media

2007-11-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

thanks for the invitation, will.

remember that day we went climbing in little cottonwood canyon this summer?

here is a picture of you.

here are some more:

LCC

i had just been in the wind rivers. i also posted some pictures of that trip:

Wind Rivers

here is a movie:

Wind Rivers movie 1
Wind Rivers movie 2

while we're on the subject of pictures of things i did that these are links to, here are links to pictures of my trip to china, in 2005:

Beijing
Shangha
Yangshuo
yunnan
szechuan

here is a movie of my bike ride in yunnan and szechuan:

ride video

thats all for now.

peace and sunshine upon you.

--bobby in nh

Rock Hounding in Triassic

2007-11-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

I went bouldering with a whole crew of folks down in Triassic this weekend. I went with John, Christine, Scott, and the Benster.

From these unnamed friends I learned some new words to enhance my climbing vocabulary

Crank and spank ---- lock off and slap indiscriminately for unknown holds.

Hippie climbing ---- Trads

Hippie skiing ---- Telemarking

That Weird Time of the Year for Sports

2007-10-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

Every fall is that weird time of year when all four major professional sports are in season: baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Similarly, fall is that weird time for imbuildingarockwallers when all major unprofessional sports are in season: climbing, hiking, skiing, and cyclocross. All of the following pictures were taken in the last month. We start with Gavin Noyes' "Homespinin on the Homestead" annual event which takes place at his primitive cabin between Hanksville and the Henrys.

Gavin is a professional potter. The cabin is on the left and his giant kiln, built into the side of the hill, is on the right. On the same trip M and I went bouldering at Triassic and hiking at Goblin Valley.

From my last post many wanted to know my secret bike-bouldering pad transportation technology: You take a stick and jam it in your bike frame and tie it down with string and straps. Done.

Fall is fun: go skiing one day and climbing a few days later, both in the Wasatch.

More racing!

2007-10-19T09:22:00.001-07:00

I got some more racing in last weekend, this time in Gloucester, MA. The course was fast and the weather was really nice, and while those things don't swing the 'cross pendulum in my favor, I had an awesome time and got good results. I was 17th/104 on day 1 and 18th of 98 on day 2. Here are some pictures of me building a rock wall on day 2. Thanks to Chris (via Tom) for the pictures!

east coast cyclocross, 07 season opener

2007-10-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

So I got my 'cross season started last weekend, what fun! I may be able to post some pictures, if I can get them from my interweb friends.
I drove up to Biddeford, Maine on Friday evening with Stacey (now my wife!) and my friend Colin. We stayed at my friend and occasional MTB teammate Billy's house. Colin and I headed over to Rotary Park in Biddeford early Saturday after stopping for greasy breakfast sandwiches and coffee at the corner store. Given enough digestion time, I recommend this nutritional prerace strategy, but take a look at the weekend scoreboard and decide for yourself. We got to the venue with plenty of time to get our numbers and preride the course, which was an unusual circumstance for me. We met up with Josh and Sarah and Tom in the parking lot, who are teammates on my new team, HUP United. I won't go into a lengthy course description, but I'll summarize by saying it had fun grass twisties, a high-speed grassy descent, some technical sandy sections, and a log barrier before the final gravel climb. On our pre-ride, I hopped the log, making full use of my chainring. I heard a small "chk" from my handlebars, which I ignored (but must have filed away for some reason). I lined up for the 9am C race, and of course had some start-line repairs to effect. Colin helped me add some toe-in to my front brakes, and at the last minute I decided to tighten up the faceplate bolts on my stem. Hmmm, the bottom one felt a little funny, oh well . . . At the start, I got clipped in well but had not gone three pedal strokes when my bars gave me a subtle but unmistakable sign that all was not well. Sure enough, I had stripped one of the faceplate bolt holes and was left with a worthless stem. I watched wistfully as the field disappeared up the hill and around the bend. After fiddling and confirming that all was lost, I tried to be tranquil about not getting to suffer severely for the next thirty minutes. Of course it took very little urging from Colin and Josh to decide that I could probably get the bike fixed in time for the 12 o'clock 3/4 (B) race. I stuck around long enough to see Tom sail in to win the C race, and then off I went to find a new stem. I picked one up from the fine folks at Cape Able in Kennebunkport (where Billy used to work), and was back at the venue in time to get a number and line up behind Colin and Josh. Now you'll probably be disappointed because I can never remember the details of my races - they go by in a blur and I hardly even know what lap I'm on during the race, let alone recall correctly afterwards when anything happened. I started off in some sort of pack, and moved up and down in it for quite some time. I was hoping to keep Josh and/or Colin in my sights for a little while, but that was not to be - Colin ended up winning the race, and I saw Josh wheeling his bike off the course early in the race, victim of a broken chain (those 10speed chains seem pretty fragile for cyclocross, in my opinion). I realized I need to work on a few important technical skills, namely holding my line in a pack, laying off the brakes in fast corners, and getting my feet back in my pedals. My dismounts and remounts are fair, but it takes me forever to clip in! The sand pit gave me some trouble on a couple of laps, but mostly I was able to ride it smoothly. I made places on the gravel climb on a couple of occasions, but lost time where I had trouble clipping in. I ended up in 17th out of 39, which I was very happy with.
Sunday was a fun day too - Colin and I again arrived at the venue (New Gloucester, ME) with plenty of time, having stopped again for gut-bomb breakfast sandwiches and coffee, and were joined shortly by Josh and Sarah in the parking lot. Three of their Colby teammates showed up for their 'cross racing debuts, and judging from their post-race chatter, I think they'll be back for more. After picking up my number and warming up a bit, I lined up for the start, for once getting my choice of position on the front line. I chose the far-right side - the start section consisted of a 30-yard pavement climb to a 90degree right hand turn, whereupon we descended on pavement to join the main course at the start/finish. Owing to my one-speededness, I figured I'd have to give a pretty substantial effort on the climb in order to not get dropped on the downhill that followed. The officials gave us the race instructions - 30 minutes or 3 laps, whichever came first. So we'd be racing at most 3 laps, which seemed pretty short, but it was good to know this going into the race. At "Go", I had a good clip-in (to my surprise), and found myself rounding the corner in the front with a couple of other riders. Up front with me, I recognized Deke Andrew - he won the Saturday race last year at this venue. The first tricky section in the course was a wicked down-up sidehill with no really good line, and I knew that on the first lap it was going to be trouble. Sure enough, a rider came inside on me and promptly washed out, forcing me low so I had to dab and shuffle my way out of the corner, losing a couple of places. I made up a place or two on the fire-road section going into the woods, then employed a bit of "tactics" on the next off-camber section, coming to an abrupt halt as the path tipped upwards and I lost my momentum, causing the following riders to pile up behind me. Again I shuffled out of the trouble spot and called out my apologies to those behind, and stood up to catch #1 and #2. I caught #2 without too much trouble, and it was three of us heading into the pine-needle runup. We held our positions there through the grass twisties and over the barriers, but I got past #2 on the pavement climb to the start/finish. I began to work on closing the gap to Deke, who seemed pretty comfortable out in front. I rode the first off-camber fine, though awkwardly, though the second off-camber still gave me a little trouble. I closed the gap to Deke by the pine-needle runup, and held his wheel until a short pavement climb between sections of grass switchbacks, where I made a move that could be construed as an "attack." I got past him cleanly, and tried to concentrate on not riding stupidly. I knew my weak points were in the transitions (esp. clip-ins), so I knew I needed a buffer going into those parts. Finishing lap 2 in the lead, I felt comforted by the knowledge that I had only one more lap to go. Things seemed to come together for me technically that lap, and though I wasn't especially speedy through the tricky sections, I also didn't flub anything badly. Deke made up ground on me on the transition after the runup, but I held enough of a buffer to come across the line ten seconds up to take the win! I managed a two-arms-up finish to show the world that I dominate men's category 4 cross. The race seemed very short, as indeed it was - I finished in 21:32, which means that I could have done one more lap and still been well under 30 minutes. Who am I to complain, though. The result gains me 10 upgrade points for a total of 24, so I'll be moving up to category 3 - after Gloucester! I think the category 4 race, with a field of 125, will be plenty entertaining, thanks. Races being too short will never again be an issue for me.
After my race, it was awesome to watch my friends Colin and Josh battle in the 3/4 race at noon, and then see the elite races, the highlight of which was a wicked fast junior racer bunnyhopping the barriers on lap 1, at full speed, to rocket from 4th to 1st.
Cheers
Justin

Sticky Granite

2007-09-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

Mr. Hardage stopped into town a few weeks ago. Bobby (AKA little Bobby) now hails from Verhampshire, but is always traveling. He dropped into SLC via a trip up to the Wind Rivers.

Without a car, going out to the boulders is an all day affair.

I hope to do more climbing in combination with bike touring this year.

Russian Free Soloing

2007-09-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

The whole village, Mom, Pop, and the kids out for a day of free soloing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwCyM84HCcA

September is basically ski season

2007-09-03T13:51:00.001-07:00

September is here and that is ski season for all intensive purposes. You see, in September it starts cooling off, the caterpillars start growing that extra fur, animals start gathering nuts and such, and people start gathering the necessary supplies for ski season. Bobby has purchased some new skis, I have a new set purchased last spring, and Lis is canning everything she can find at the farmer's market in advance of the Winter.

September is a long time to December you say? Not really, if you see it with the following Seinfeldian logic: September can get a freak snow storm like last year, but more to the point, September is climbing season, and we all know that climbing time goes much faster than normal time. This makes the 30 days in September more like 2 1/2 hours. The same logic applies to October and November, adding up to about 30 minutes after you factor in sleeping and time in the bathroom.

northwest waterways or how to become a man

2007-08-17T06:40:00.000-07:00

In Will's family there seem to be a lot of rights of passage.

First, to prove your "manliness" you are required to submerge your head into a cold mountain stream. So, as Will and his dad proved their manliness one more time in the Wenatchee River, I couldn't be shown up.

I feel very manly now, thank you.

The other way to become a man, or I should say right of passage since Will has a sister, in Will's family is to build a boat. I am pretty sure that this is just an excuse for Will's dad to get a bunch of watercraft. Will built a sailboat, his brother built a catamaran, and his sister built a kayak. It's a beautiful kayak, which we took out for a cruise of Priest Lake.

With the emphasis on manliness in Will's family, you need a way to retreat to boyishness which Will did with his new hobby of tree-moving. In both Couer D'Alene Lake and Priest Lake, he found big logs (one a nearly entire tree) near the shore which he proceeded to move out into more open waters. This required swimming underneath the logs and getting huge back scratches. He spent hours trying to move the logs. And he seemed pretty delighted the whole time. 9-year-olds are easy to entertain.

A longish bike ride

2007-08-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

Recently I sold my car. I did it partly because I couldn't afford the insurance premium, registration, and the price of fucking gas these days! Some amount of enviro do-gooderisim also factored in to the switch. I also didn't like the terrorist-per-gallon rating that my car, or anyone's, had. M has her car of course, but she uses it for work, so for the most part it's all pedal power.

I went on a mountain bike ride last Sunday. Now I ride to the mountains, but I caught to Wasatch Crest Shuttle up to Gardsmens. I did the crest, then the mid mountain, then down to Park City for a snack, then I rode home, taking part of I 80 from Parley's to East Canyon, to Emigration, then home. I consider this a longish ride according to the classification system devised by Sukow:

a ride <6hrs
longish <8-9hrs
long <16
redicuride no limit

I may not have the numbers right. I'll have to get back to Sukow on this. They are just a ballpark. This would also vary with terrain, or if you were racing at the time ect...

Elk Mountain Traverse

2007-07-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

During the busyness of Spring I still got out to do some skiing. To be efficient I concentrated all that skiing into 16 hours called the Elk Mountain Traverse. True to form for all my ski races, I did'nt finish the whole race. I had seven miles to go and collapsed after jettisoning all cargo from my innards. I think I got dehydrated early on and never fully recovered. Oh well. There is always next time. Here are some pictures...

The Paria

2007-06-27T17:09:00.001-07:00

About a week ago I got done walking through the canyons of the Paria river down in south Utah and north Arizona. It was a great way to unwind from a busy first half of the year. With my first paper published and second paper submitted the day before I left it was a much needed mental break.

The hike took four days. It was HOT, but the river provided the needed cool-down. We entered the area via Buckskin canyon, which is a thirteen-mile rock hallway till you reach the confluence with the Paria.

Our first day in the Paria was the best aesthetically. The walls were wider but you still felt enveloped. The canyon was a lush oasis from the gently flowing river and the perennial seeps.

As the canyon became wider and deeper with the increasing miles the sun became a bigger deal. Hiking in the afternoon was out, so we scaled back the hiking time and found camp and shade by noon. We read and ate snacks. I build a rock wall in the river and laid down in the resulting cool pool.

Although, my watch read 127 F after I left it out in the sun, I think the afternoon temps were about 107 F tops.

If I were to recommend one hike to do in the Utah desert this would be it.

Riding for Climate

2007-04-24T06:13:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-01-07T12:56:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-10T07:06:00.000-08:00

'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!

2006-12-07T15:26:00.000-08:00

oh, but it is ski season

2006-12-07T10:06:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-05T21:11:00.001-08:00

Here's a great way to kill time online:

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

I'm building a rock wall

2006-12-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a great way to kill time online:

Pink Pine Powder Day

2006-12-01T16:02:00.000-08:00

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

Sonny Trotter on Cobra Crack

2006-11-29T18:49:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-15T19:14:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-11-12T14:58:00.001-08:00

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!

2006-11-11T16:52:00.000-08:00

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

Errands Are Fun

2006-11-11T10:02:00.001-08:00

I've made some bigger trips on the long-bike lately. I wanted to write about them and wax poetic about how cool it is to bike downtown to pick up toilet paper, cat food and big plastic bins, whatever ... and then through it all on your bike and peddle home. But I've tried to do that twice now, and each time somehow the post gets deleted. Arrgghh! So here are some pictures, enjoy.

The plastic bin I bought at Big Lots, then before returning home used the drawers in them to store groceries and take-out dinner from Wild Oats and Noodle & Co.. The other picture is from the night I bought a 20 pound bag of cat food and three and a half gallons of on-sale soy milk. As you can see, are excited to see what I bring home.

Running errands sure can be a lot of fun.

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

2006-11-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

Skiing

2006-10-31T11:22:00.000-08:00

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

2006-10-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

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

Bike commuting goes big

2006-10-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

First, way back in April I got a hold of these pedals. It all started with these pedals and a seat I took from a friend who was trying to sell them in my yard sale. How dare he. With these I gathered motivation to build up Matt Clay's old bike in such a reasonable way to trade it my office mate for his old Bianchi road bike. This complicated proposition seemed worth it because In the Bianchi I could see the perfect fit for my pedals. So I made frequent visits to the bike collective and learned on the fly all I could about bicycles - ones with one fixed gear in particular. I had a wheel built because I was lazy, but sawed off some drop down bars, ripped off the derailleurs and cables and used lots of cotton handlebar tape to really make the bike my own. I spent one afternoon alone in Ben,Will and Rob's house with Ben's bike tool cussing like a sailor. The process was long and the learning curve steep, but the result totally changed the way I get around town. I like to say that it put the 'one' back into cycling for me. I never was a racer, or even a mountain biker. But I like to whiz up and down the streets and to not have much between me and the road. So here is the result.

Of course that wasn't enough. While in Leadville, CO visiting Matt training for the Leadville 100, I saw a bike that had an xtracycle attachment on it. An xtracycle is an extension to your bicycle which allows you to haul lots of stuff. Pretty soon it was all I was thinking about. (Did I mention I'm not graduating this year?) So a few weeks later I talked Jes into letting me buy one, the deciding factor being that I can tote her around town when she doesn't feel like riding. The building process was again long; I first bought mustache handlebars, then switched to the albatross bars that are now on it, I put on friction bar-end shifters which are way fun, a new derailleur which I have since learned that I didn't need, and I even installed a mini handlebar for a passenger. I bought some "footsies" which are foot rests for the passenger, and they sent an accessory "wide-load" bar to compensate for some trouble there was with shipping. I'm sure I will still use the car, but I'm also sure it's going to be a lot less. I'm already planning a car-free ski tour up Porter fork this winter. (Who's In?) Pictures are below and if you have some time on your hands there are lots more on my website

East coast cyclocross

2006-10-17T12:06:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

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

2006-09-25T12:52:00.000-07:00

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.

First Tracks

2006-09-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

Well there will have to be more posted about these first tracks as not all of the pictures are on this computer. Friday night, Me, Boston Ben, Christy, Greg, and Rob went up and camped at Alta to wait for snow. we didn't wait long as there was already an inch when we got there. Here are some photos of the adventure in random order.

Here is me and Rob looking cold in the snow

Ben Rainville lovin' the start of Utah winter and his inagural Turns all Year

Christy in more snow than Tennesee will ever get

Greg Putting up the tent at the campsite- under the sunnyside lift

This next one is me getting some turns in- with a tractor

Snow?

2006-09-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

This morning I was super psyched to see the weather channel forecasting temperatures to cool through the weekend. As it's finally gotten down into the 70's I feel like my body has woken up again. All of a sudden I want to run or hike or climb or do all those things that I didn't really do while I spent August sweating on the couch. In fact just yesterday I was looking up ski mountaineering races online (schedule is still on last year, so don't bother) thinking of additions to the powderkeg I could do in the upcoming months. I got into school this morning and was greeted with a "Have you seen the forecast discussion!?!??!" "No" I said and I grumbled mentally " I just got here 2 seconds ago, I'm trying to figure out if I'm supposed to teach a 90 min graduate class in radiation starting in 3 min, instead of working on my thesis, no, of course I haven't read the forecast discussion!" Well here it is for all those of you who may be interested:

MUCH COOLER AIR WILL SPREAD ACROSS THE FORECAST AREA BEHIND THIS FRONT SATURDAY...WITH GFS PROGGING 700MB TEMPS DOWN TO -6C BY 18Z SATURDAY. SHOULD SEE FIRST SNOWFLAKES OF THE SEASON ACROSS HIGHER TERRAIN OF NORTHERN UT LATE FRIDAY NIGHT INTO SATURDAY.

So even though much of me has been looking forward to snow for a long time I feel a kind of a sigh. I haven't done all the huge hikes I wanted to do this summer. In fact I haven't hiked nearly as much this summer as last. For good reasons- I've been climbing a bunch. Been working on thesis like crazy, been on tons of rescue calls, oh yea, and actually had people to hang out with instead of spending all summer evenings hiking Millcreek by myself in disgust. Still, I might have to get a last push before the snow flies in this weekend, . . Start waxing your rock skis, it's nearly here!

News flash - 24 hour racing is actually fun!

2006-08-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

. . . if the weather is great, you have a good support crew, the course is fun, you have no mechanicals, you win your division, and you only bonk really hard once during the race.
Happily I can report that all of these conditions were met. Billy and I each completed twelve laps of the 8.25 mile course - the other two teams in the two-man singlespeed division each did only sixteen laps. We were third out of all the two-person teams, and 31st overall out of >100 teams.

We started the race pulling two laps at a time, and we were able to do ~50 minute laps for the first six or eight hours. This allowed us to bank a bunch of time against our goal of averaging 1-hour laps. Happily, we maintained our riding pace at about that level throughout the night, so we took a 1-hour break for breakfast (bacon and eggs, mmmmmmm). We each pulled a 3-lap turn overnight, to allow for more rest between turns. My loaner HID light set was really nice - my lap times overnight were not hampered by visibility, only by fatigue. I made a conscious effort to not hammer on the carriage road sections of the course, knowing that I could burn myself out too early. The consistency of our lap times from 8pm to the finish suggests that this was a good strategy, though it begs the question, should I have pushed a little harder? I bet we coulda' gotten 25 laps in. . .

I was extremely pleased with the reliability of our equipment - the only issue was Billy's one flat tire. My just-built rear wheel (with a fancy White Industries ENO eccentric hub) performed just fine, and my chain didn't fall off once (goodbye tensioner! Ben, I'll send yours back, I don't need it anymore - thanks for the loan).

It was great to be so well matched as a team - our lap times were within a couple of minutes of each other throughout the race, and we each pulled our weight. Billy was running a 32/18, and I ran a 34/18, and I think our gear choices reflected our relative strengths. Billy's a marvel at the technical stuff, and I was able to haul on all the carriage road sections. There were a couple of singletrack sections that I never really got wired, but it was fun to ride the same trails 12 times in a row and settle on the best line. The course was about 70% carriage roads and 30% fun singletrack.

The race was a great excuse to eat a lot, too - we had a huge variety of goodies, because it's hard to say what you might crave after a 24 mile bike ride in the middle of the night. My appetite stayed elevated well after the race, but I think now I'm just using it as an excuse to overeat - I don't really have to replenish any more calories because of the race.

Next up, 'cross season! And the daily excitement of Boston traffic, of course.

Climbing and Narcissism

2006-08-14T10:26:00.000-07:00

There is this really good Radio West interview with David Roberts, author of On the Ridge Between Life and Death: A Climbing Life Reexamined that can be found here. I found the interview really compeling and a very trenchant critique of climbing, climbing culture, and why people climb. He strikes on many troubles I have presently with climbing and cuts through many cliche notions people pass off, he argues, to cover up indulgence and narcissism. I'm not sure what I think of his entire thesis (I'm not going to go into everything that I think about it), but it certainly stimuliates thought.

-w

Fat tire "fun"

2006-08-11T08:13:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd share my nervous energy with y'all - I'm racing in the 24 hours of Great Glen starting tomorrow at noon, teamed with fellow single-speeder Billy Vandervalk of the Cape-Able bike shop in Kennebunkport, ME. I've had about a month to prepare, which is when the training guides all say "your endurance base should be all set, now just do some fast rides and keep motivated." And this week has been all tapering. Ben, you'll recognize my training strategy - it's been loosely based on the one we used in preparation for our stellar performance in the Elk Mountains.
In the name of conditioning I did do a mountain bike race last weekend, a 24-miler that consisted of approximately 18 miles of barely-rideable root-fest, generally laid out such that if you put your foot down it meant walking the next 1/4 mile until the next reasonably smooth and flat section. So that happened. It was actually "fun," though.
I'll let you know how it goes. Today I'm just trying to keep my fuel tank topped off and not daydream too much.