AT Boots and Bindings

I recently came across this video of a talk from last year's Northwest Snow And Avalanche Workshop. I don't often have the patience to watch something this long (about 25 minutes) all the way through, but I'm glad I did. The speaker, Jeff Campbell, is a lifelong skier doing PHD research on ski injuries and had some very interesting stuff to say on the topic of boot and binding compatibility. I think it's worth a watch for those who spend time in the backcountry on skis.

Mountain Craft - Video

Arc'teryx just released a great little video about mountain guiding. Visually it's just as nice as any well made climbing video, but what makes it a bit unusual is the narration. There's a bit of behind-the-scenes type talk about decision making and risk.

Steck-Salathe Video

Mark and Janelle Smiley are on a mission. They're trying to climb all of the routes from the book Fifty Classic Climbs of North America by Steve Roper and Allen Steck. Part of their project is to make a short video of each route.

Jed belays while I enter the most infamous pitch of the route, "The Narrows". Photo by Mark Smiley.

Jed and I were lucky enough to get to be their film crew for The Steck-Salathe route on Sentinel Rock in Yosemite Valley. This basically entailed me climbing the route as quick as I could, so as to keep Jed ahead of Janelle and Mark and in good positions from which to shoot video. I climbed this route for the first time a few years ago, and it was a pleasure to get on it again. See the cool movie Mark and Janelle made by clicking here.

Ten Days of Guiding in The Sierra

I've been fortunate to have been able to guide all over the High Sierra in the last ten days. I'm also especially fortunate that some of the folks I get to climb with are handy with cameras.

First was a trip up the East Buttress of Mount Whitney with two really fun guys, Dee and Stefano. The forecast was not promising, and it rained on-and-off for the whole hike in to our high camp at Iceberg Lake. Because we got up early, and because those guys are good rock climbers, we were able to sneak our climb in during a perfect spell of weather between storms. It was a first long multi-pitch climb for Stefano and a first alpine rock climb for both. Bravo gentlemen. Dee put together a short video on the climb. Check out his blog here.

After bidding those two farewell I had a rest day before a backpacking trip through some of the finest Sierra high country. Three Japanese gentlemen and I walked from Mammoth to Tuolumne. Thankfully they spoke English pretty well and were happy to indulge my feeble attempts to pick up Japanese. "Good morning" in Japanese is "ohio". We enjoyed breathtaking campsites at Thousand Island Lake and in Lyell Canyon, and got some fishing in.

On the way to Donahue Pass. Banner Peak is the pointy one above this gentleman's head.

The very next day found me back in the same region of the Sierra. After hearing a number of reports about good conditions in the North Couloir of North Peak, Bob and I made plans to climb this route. The couloir opened with a fun pitch on neve over the berschrund. Then we frontpointed, swung tools and belayed off ice screws like real ice climbers for five pitches. But this being California, we were in t-shirts.

Packing up and getting stoked at the trailhead.

In the couloir, sweet photo by Bob Thompson.