human powered adventures
As the snow melts away from ski runs and the rivers rise, it’s sorta fun (sad?) to see the waterfalls that take the place of ski lines. Here are a few of the standards from the south side of Little Cottonwood canyon, running thick and fast. The roar of running water is filling much of the canyon these days..
Coalpit.
By now most people know about energy gels – they’ve been on the market for a large number of years. In the 1985 Race Across America, Jonathan Boyer fueled his bicycle race on an 80% liquid diet. The reasoning? Simple: the human body absorbs energy from liquids far faster than it does from solid food sources. Not only that, but solid foods require blood to be diverted to the stomach to aid in the digestive process, which hinders performance. Athletes require as much blood as possible to be flowing to their muscles while they’re exercising.
GU’s relatively new chocolate raspberry flavored Roctane with 2x caffeine.
That fact has led to the widespread adoption of energy gels as a nutritive input. When exerting oneself at length, gels give a Continue reading ‘Power Up with GU Roctane’
C.A.M.P. is an acronym for some Italian words that mean, in short, ‘articles for mountaineering made in Premana.’ Premana is an Italian town. C.A.M.P. has been around longer than anybody on the planet has been alive. Solid performance. In that time, they’ve learned how to make some incredibly lightweight mountain gear. The ALP 95 mountaineering harness is no exception.
The ALP 95 awaits its turn to perform.
Weight:
How light is it? I measured my Men’s size medium harness at 123.5 grams. How light is that? Let’s put it this way: if you took a 9 foot length of one inch tubular webbing and used that to make an impromptu harness, you’d have a product that weighs less than the ALP 95. How much lighter? 1.5 grams. But you’d have a lot more difficulty using the webbing. It would Continue reading ‘C.A.M.P. ALP 95 Harness Review’
When Jon Swain mentioned that he’d like to ski the north aspect of the East Devil’s Castle, I was happy to join in. Further, I suggested that we approach via Flagstaff Mountain, which is in the complete opposite direction when one drives up the LCC road. Jon liked the idea of travelling by ridgeline around the head of Little Cottonwood Canyon, so up Flagstaff Peak we went.
Jon works his way down the Honeycomb Cliffs ridge while the rest of our day awaits in the background.
We made it to the top of Flagstaff without removing our skis, a proposition that looked dubious from the parking lot, as south facing snow is melting off faster than Continue reading ‘Flagstaff Mountain to East Devil’s Castle’
Holy Poblano! It’s a little spicy..
In keeping with the Mexican food naming theme of the Holy Molé Couloir right next to it, I took a guess that today’s line is called Holy Poblano. I’ll have to ask the first group through and get back to you on that.. But don’t hold yer breath, since I don’t have a clue who they were. I did see some old tracks heading down in front of me, but I suspect they led to the more standard Molé route. As it is, Holy Poblano has got some spice Continue reading ‘Holy Poblano!’
A ‘misunderestimation’ in full effect.
..And another view for good measure, this time from the summit of Patsy Marley.
Seemed like a great day to see if I could bite off a bit more of the fine, cliff laden features of Davenport Hill following a visit a few days prior. This time I headed to the Southern ridge, where the rappel action is a bit larger. Both the approach to, and the egress from Davenport Hill were able to be done without removing the skis (aside from during the rappels). However, with the amount of snow which has burned off in only two days, that bonus might be gone very soon.
Somehow managing to wake myself only an hour late after forgetting to press ‘save’ on the alarm, I still topped out before the sun had hit the slope. Works for me. Perhaps that is why the snow was quite frozen on the approach, despite above-freezing temps all week. After a few minutes of sun warming, the Continue reading ‘Misunderestimated* on Davenport Hill’