A day out with the girls

I gotta get out and top rope more! Today was a relaxing day of top roping in Eklutna Canyon with the ladies. Sometimes it's just so much more fun to have a laid back day of playing around on the ice than to try to do something crazy. And we get to climb much steeper stuff when on top rope.



I don't know if I'll ever lead climbs this steep, but I really enjoy climbing steep ice (with a nice rope to catch me from above of course). I guess if I keep doing this long enough I will get to the point where I will be comfortable enough to lead something that has a sustained vertical, but right now it just seems absurd.

I climb this stuff on top rope and am pretty confident that I won't fall off. I feel solid with the safety of the rope. But put me on the sharp end on a hard climb and I might just freak out and fall. I guess I need more days like this with tons of laps on long vertical sections to get comfortable.



I look down past my feet and can see the ground down below and it freaks me out. The climb is just Ripple, I tell myself, one that I have led many times. But I lead up the right side, and it is a dramatically different climb on the left.

Anyway, today was about fun. And it always fun to get out with a bunch of girls that make me laugh for the day.





On the walk out we noticed the level of ash on the snow had increased. I don't think Redoubt erupted again, but there was high winds today and it seems like some of the ash got blown down into the canyon. Right now I'm dealing with some serious puffy, scratchy eyes as a result.

The bears are waking up...

The bears are waking up in Anchorage. A man climbed a tree this week after being chased by a black bear near Campbell Airstrip. I guess it didn't really sink in for me until I was riding alone in the park today on my way to meet up with some friends and I read this sign.




My mood had shifted a bit on the rest of my ride into the Smokejumper trailhead. I was fully aware of the black bear that was roaming around in there looking for food. Good times, good times. Maybe someday I will get used to knowing that bears are always just around the corner, but for now we begin about 7 months of pure unadulterated bearanoia.

When I proposed a Saturday afternoon ride this week, many were skeptical. It's been pretty warm and sloppy this week in Anchorage so I wasn't expecting a very pleasant ride, but had scheduled a 3 hour ride so I thought I'd try.



It turned out to be a perfect day. It was sunny and about 30 degrees. It was snowing lightly all day long, putting a nice fresh coat of snow on top of the frozen hard pack. And after a few miles of nice singletrack, I had forgotten about the bears. Winter riding is not over afterall.

A Redoubt post worth reading (not mine)

Most Alaskan bloggers have mentioned something about the volcanic eruptions of Mt. Redoubt over the past week, and most posts are pretty boring to read, but this one is worth reading (and watching).

The post includes a time lapse video that recorded one of the eruptions yesterday. On the same blog the day before she posted another time lapse video showing the ash falling in her front yard.

I mentioned on Facebook a few weeks ago that Redoubt was getting ready to blow and got a barrage of calls and emails from friends asking if I was okay. Relax people, it's 100 miles away.

I'm not going to Fruita

After much consideration, I have canceled my trip to Fruita. There were many factors that led me to this decision, but mainly because I didn't want to be traveling for 5 days in order to ride 2 days.

A huge snow storm came through Denver, where we were supposed to fly into this afternoon, and where Brian and the rest of the crew that went ahead are now stuck. I was supposed to come back next Tuesday, and the rest of them were staying for 10 days, so a few days of waiting to ride is not really a big deal for them.

For me it would have been a big hassle. So I got a refund of 25,000 miles which I plan on using at the end of May to go down to Washington state for a music festival and then over to PA to see my friend's Tammy and Brad get married.

I think I made the right decision but was feeling really bad last night after canceling my flight. I worked extra hours this week in order to not have to take much paid vacation, so now I have a long weekend to play with.

I used today to start work on a website that I have been thinking about starting up for awhile (details later).

I plan on getting out tomorrow for a long ride in the morning before the sloppy mess that is April comes to town. With the (relatively) warm temperatures, it seems like these will be the last few days of snow biking of the season. I'm looking into getting some slick tires for my mountain bike so that I can train on the paved trails while we wait for the dirt trails to dry out for a few weeks.

That's all right now, I just heard from Monkee and he and the Palmer crew have made it one hour west of Denver and got stuck so are in a hotel near Breckenridge. It may just turn into a ski vacation with all that new snow.

I'm going to Fruita!

View Larger Map

Tonight Brian and I leave for a mountain biking trip to Fruita, Colorado with a bunch of our friends from the Valley. I am preparing to get my ass kicked by a bunch of chicks on bikes for 5 days straight. Oh yeah, and maybe some guys too.

I'll post pictures when I get back next week.

Commence training

I hate routine, but if I did not plan out a weekly workout schedule I would probably just end up climbing in the gym every day and riding my bike around the easy trails of FNBP. This hasn't really worked out well for my racing ability, so it's time to step up to the plate and really train.

I bought this book a month ago and love it. I actually read "The Cyclist's Training Bible" first and then realized that they had a mountain bike specific one as well. The two are very similar.

I love this book because it guides me step by step through creating an annual training plan structured around when my key races are and then allows me to use a set of rules to set up a plan for each week. It allows me to be flexible according to how I am feeling, but have structure at the same time. It also helps me to chart my progress along the way.

I have never been a fan of using those one-size-fits-all training plans. They never seem to work. If I miss a workout because I am too tired, I feel guilty. Sometimes I give into that guilt end up overtraining. But, until know I didn't really know how to set up my own training plan.

So my training plan runs April through August. My priority race right now is the Soggy Bottom 100, which is on August 1st. The plan takes me through a series of periods where I create a base of endurance and speed, and then build on that by adding muscular endurance and force workouts.

In addition to hard workout weeks, the plan emphasizes weeks of recovery and rest. I have never had a problem finding time to rest. My general rule is, if I feel too tired to workout, I probably need to rest. If my legs are still sore a few days after a workout, I should push back my next hard workout a few days. I always felt like I was just being lazy when doing this, but it turns out I was actually getting this part right.

Hmm, we should work this recovery week into our work schedule. Wouldn't that be nice if we could rest our brains every 4 weeks as well. Three weeks on, one week off. Imagine how productive we could be if we knew we had a week off every month? We could avoid burnout and lack of motivation. Americans would never buy it. Maybe I should move to France?

I digress. Training. Right. Here we go.

Beware of the man with the camera

You can never be sure when he will strike, but if you've had a few beers and are acting like an idiot around a burn barrel after a winter bike race, you can be almost certain Tim will post a picture of you on his blog. The flashing light coming from his face should have tipped us off, but we were already too far gone to care.

The last Frigid Bits ride was an entirely new course never ridden by most of us before. It took us through the bowels of Spenard in Anchorage, in which we were harassed by the homeless on the railroad tracks, rode dangerously close to a tent that someone was sleeping in, maneuvered our fat bikes over glare ice, dodged a moose, and had a few swigs from a flask underneath a shady underpass. It was a truly unique ride for Frigid Bits, but eerily resembled a typical day of bike commuting in Anchorage.

We ended up back at the Frigid Bits burn barrel at West Chester Lagoon to close the season of winter racing with burnt pizza (well at least mine was), grilled nachos and lots of beer.

There we reminisced about past events, rubbed butts to keep warm, told stories that we will probably regret telling in front of a crowd, and rolled the final burn barrel in the newly fallen "spring" snow all while Tim documented it with his camera. Thanks Tim, you actually got some great shots and thanks Carlos for another great winter of events!

More Valdez Pictures

Here are some pictures taken by Kim from the weekend...

Steep, steep ice



Walking the dogs in Mineral Creek





Kim's smelly dog Milo and me, it was a long 5 hour drive

Gotta get out more - hanging in Valdez

Last week someone from the East Coast opened up their laptop and Googled, "Gotta get out more". They ended up on my blog. I've been checking all of the Google searches lately, because well, I find it comical what people type into Google.

I'm pretty sure what came up on this blog was not what that person had in mind, but to be honest I really can't figure out what they were looking for. If you wanna get out, then GO OUT. Get outside of your house and do something. It's not a good sign that you are trolling the internet for life experiences. It could explain why you feel so bored.

Anyway, the title of my post was inspired by that Google search but fits my weekend experience perfectly. But by "out" I mean, out of the Anchorage area. I love Anchorage, don't get me wrong, but traveling to small towns around Alaska is where you find the real Alaska. And I may even go as far as to say, sometimes, where I find the real me.

This weekend in Valdez was every bit as fun as it was last year. There was really good steep climbing. There was sunshine. There was salmon cooking on the grill. There was much laughter coming from women that I look up to and interesting women that I had never met before. There was good conversation. There was of course, lots of uninhibited dancing.

For such a small town, Valdez has a lot of energy. Maybe it's not the town at all. Maybe it's the energy that the Pixies bring to town, like the excitement of so many strong women entering town at the same time. Whatever it is, it's like an explosion of Good Karma.

After arriving in town at 2 am Saturday morning, and waking at 6 am to the bark of Kim's dog Milo, Kim, Jill and I got a pretty slow start to the day. We drifted in and out of sleep for the next few hours.



We ended up taking the dogs for a hike at Mineral Creek before getting over to the climbs at 3pm, a bit more than fashionably late. But there were many new beginners this year and lines of them waiting to climb on the three ropes that were set up on Keystone Greensteps. So, we hung out in the sun and ate some salmon while chatting with the women.

I finally got on the steepest line towards the end of the day and was amazed at the ease I felt. My feet felt solid, my technique felt efficient. I was moving slow, but not once did my arms get pumped, even when the climbed seemed to kick back past vertical. I felt the strongest I have ever felt climbing before. I was not falling off that wall.

I really admire the women who set this weekend up. They get out there and lead these super steep climbs to set up the ropes and then hang out all day helping beginners learn how to ice climb. They are very patient and really positive and supportive of everyone.

I'm sure this is not only in Alaska, but it seems to be more prevalent here. This idea that once you gain knowledge of something and master it, it is time to pass it on to those that are just beginning. This always inspires me to help people more and teach what I have learned. And there is something so motivating about women helping women. Especially in a sport like ice climbing, which is dominated by men.

Oh! And I finally met Sherrie, whose blog I have been getting ideas from for the past year. She is a really strong ice climber and a really nice person. Since I forgot to take my camera to the climbs, oops, you can see some pictures in Sherrie's write up.



After climbing for a few hours we headed back towards town around 8pm to have some dinner and go to the after party. We ended up dancing at the party until midnight and then heading over to a local bar, where a band was playing, and dancing there until 2am. Good times!

Off to Valdez again

This weekend is the Ice Pixies Festival in Valdez. A gathering of women climbers from around Alaska. This festival is pretty laid back with a weekend of climbing, drinking beer, dancing and yoga. Last year I was inspired by the energy these women had. They climbed all day, danced late into the night, and then got up early to do yoga and climb again on Sunday.

The ice climbing season will be coming to an end in a few weeks. Yeah, there is always ice to find, but after awhile it starts to feel desperate searching for ice, crossing sketchy ice bridges over creeks, and climbing little bits of falling down ice. The transition between Winter and Summer in Alaska is always hard. The old season lingers and the new season takes it's time getting here. And break up is generally a big mess until everything dries out.

But in the next few weeks I have my eye on something. I checked out Lost Chord in Hunter Creek last weekend while climbing at the AK Ice Festival, and it looked doable. It's rated a Grade 4, but right now looks more like a hard 3. I climbed this once before with Jayme, but never led it.

I sat underneath the climb on Saturday and stared up at the ice. I mapped out the route I would take and where I would place screws. I have been wanting to lead this climb for a long time and this might just be the time to do it. I know I can get most of the way up, it is just a matter of having the nerve and energy to climb the top curtain, which is vertical. The good news is that there is an almost flat deck before the vertical curtain where I could rest and figure out what I want to do. I am going to try to drag Brian out next weekend to give it a go.



Have a good weekend!

Staying Warm

While walking into the climbs on Saturday morning I did something stupid and ended up paying for it for the rest of the day. The first rule of staying warm while climbing in the winter is to not get sweaty on the approach. If you do and you have no means of drying out your gear, you will be cold all day.

On Saturday I broke this rule. Because it was such a beautiful morning, I kept stopping to take pictures and loosing my group. Then I was jogging to catch up to them. I never stopped to take a layer off, even when I started sweating. At 5 degrees in the canyon, I was pretty much cold for the rest of the day.

I have been thinking a lot about how to stay warm in winter when out in the mountains, and this day just made me think about it more. Sunday I was determined to not suffer the same fate, so I monitored myself throughout the day and used all of the techniques I have been taught for staying warm. I also talked to my friend Laura, who took a beginner class on Sunday and was freezing the whole time. It made her not want to ice climb.

Not cool. So, I wanted to share some techniques for staying warm in the back country. These are mostly related to ice climbing, during which you hike, stand around a lot and climb in small spurts, but these methods can be used for staying warm outside in the winter no matter what you are doing.

1. The key is to never get cold. Once I let myself get really cold, I don't warm up again until after I get home, take a shower, and bundle myself up in blankets by the fire with a cup of tea for a few hours. So don't let it get to this point!

2. Don't sweat on the approach. This sounds impossible to control, but it's easy. When you leave the car in the morning, you should feel a little bit cold. Don't wear all of your layers. Wear a light pair of gloves that you are not going to climb in. I try to monitor my temperature on the hike into a climb. If I start to feel like the pace that is being set is too fast, I slow down. Stop and take a layer off if you feel yourself starting to overheat. If you're with a group that is faster than you and you don't want to tell them to stop, take off your hat and unzip your pit zips and leg zips as you are walking.

3. Layer properly. I wear a wicking camisole, a wicking short sleeve shirt, and then a merino wool or Capilene base layer. I love Patagonia's Capeline tops, because they are long and extend down over your butt. On top of that I wear my insulating layer, which is sometimes a fleece, but usually a Marmot Driclime, which is amazing and also wicks sweat away from your body. On the very top I wear a Gore-Tex hard shell with pit zips. When I bike in these layers (an acitivity in which I sweat a lot) a layer of sweat is usually pulled out to the outside of my Driclime and trapped under my hard shell. If I undo the pit zips the sweat is free to escape completely.

On my feet I wear a wicking sock liner and expedition weight wool socks. Wool will retain their insulation even after it gets wet, so this is your best bet for feet. On my head I wear a light fleece liner hat under my helmet. I always carry an extra hat in my pack in case my head gets wet while climbing.



4. Retain the heat you create. Your muscles create a tremendous amount of heat on a hike with a big pack. That is why you hear people saying things like, "It's really warmed up." after hiking in. It hasn't really warmed up, you just feel warmer because your muscles have been working. Don't waste this heat you have created. When you arrive at the climb, there is usually a bit of standing around. You should immediately put on your puffy down or synthetic jacket. I wear a Patagonia Das Parka, which I love. Again it is long enough to cover my butt. On really cold days I will immediately put on my down pants. The biggest muscles in your body are in your legs, why let all of that heat escape? Down Mountain Hardwear Chugach pants are great for this. They are like a sleeping bag for each leg.

5. If something gets wet, dry it out. Sometimes my hands sweat so much when I climb that my gloves get wet from the inside. Keeping my hands inside of these gloves after they get wet is just asking for trouble. I change my gloves and dry out the wet ones inside my puffy jacket. All that heat that your body creates is great for drying out gear too. Always carry an extra pair of socks in case your feet get wet.

6. Eat, drink and be merry (and warm). Eating and drinking kicks your metabolism into high gear and causes you to warm up. Most of us know this, but still don't eat and drink enough, because we are not hungry. I bring real food out there that I can look forward too. No power bars please. My latest favorites are cold pizza, macaroni and cheese and burritos from the Burrito Factory. Mmm.

7. Move. As a last resort if you feel yourself getting cold, move around. Stomp your feet, swing your arms, pace back and forth. Do not stand in one place, and DO NOT sit on the cold ground. If you have to sit, sit on your pack.



It's kind of a long post, but I think this is an important subject and I want to have something to go back to for the next time I make a mistake and let myself get cold. You don't have to suffer even when it is below zero. But you do have to use all of these techniques, not just one or two.

Day Two - The Mixed Game

The sound of my breath is getting louder. I can hear the guys down below shouting beta which is meaningless to me now. I shift their voices to the background. All I can hear now is my breath. I look up and my arms are outstretched to picks matched on a ledge the width of my pinky. I have no leashes so my hands grasp the handles in a death grip. I look down past my knees that are bent in a monkey hang to see the front points of my crampons. Each is perched on a separate tiny flake of rock that are the size of a raisin.

My muscles are screaming for me to let go, but I hang on. I stand up on the raisin sized rock ledges and pull my hips into the wall. The pain in my feet deepens. I am careful not to move the angle of my right pick for fear of it popping off. I reach up with one long stretch of my left arm and start probing the wall with the end of the pick for anything to hang onto. I'm in a locked out position with my other arm so my time for probing is limited. I desperately scratch the pick up and down to the left and right until it catches in a crack. I give the handle a tug. My placement seems solid.

I look down at my feet again, searching for something to move them up onto. The wall looks bare. It's flat and smooth. It is taunting me and tempting me to let go. There is nothing here for my feet! Look harder. Breathe. My eyes focus in on a ledge that suddenly appears to me. This one is a bit bigger than the last. I move my right foot carefully, quietly and with precision as I place the tiny front point onto the tiny ledge. Amazingly, I stand up on it. It holds.

I pull up again intending to put my right pick directly above the left in the crack, but the crack angles left and I can't reach above. I feel my grip slipping as I try to make a decision quickly. I put my right tool on my left shoulder. Switch hands on the other tool and grab the tool on my shoulder with my left hand. I prepare to hook it into the crack. As I move past the hammer on my right tool, I pull out on the handle and pop! The hammer breezes past my face and I am falling through the air for a second before bouncing at the end of the rope.

Dangling at the end of the rope I stare down at the ground 50 feet below me. And I can't believe I have made it this far. Upon arrival I looked at the bare wall of rock that we were going to climb and laughed. I'm never getting off the ground, I thought. I turn to Harry, the instructor, who is setting up the rope and say, "What grade is this?" He says, "I don't know, it's never been climbed."

And it still hasn't. Well at least not without falling a few times. Harry came the closest with his attempt but fell once, maybe twice before reaching the top. The rest of us struggled to make it as far as we could.

I reach up and stick my pick back into the crack and swing myself onto the wall. I place my front points back onto the tiny raisin ledges. I look up and search for a placement.

I am hooked.

Alaska Ice Climbing Festival - Day One

I got on the road Saturday morning and realized after posting directions to the Festival site, including a detailed map, that I hadn't paid attention and did not know exactly where I was going. The festival was held in Hunter Creek Canyon, so I just drove in that direction and hoped that there would be signs for parking.

Waking up at 6am is not a part of my normal schedule and I'm convinced it is not good for me. I even went to bed early the night before and still felt like crap. I don't drink coffee when I climb, because it makes me anxious, which is not really a trait you want to have when ice climbing.

Despite being barely awake, I managed to find the parking lot and take the shuttle over to the canyon. Jayme had the giant Mountain Hardwear tent set up on the creek, just below the bridge. When I arrived my group was waiting for me. I decided to take the Basic Rescue Skills course in the morning, because I feel you can never learn too much about what to do when something goes wrong.

Over the course of the morning we learned how to escape a belay. The real life situation would be this. You are belaying a leader from the bottom of the climb or a second from the top. The other climber takes a fall and is unconscious or bleeding and you need to get to that person, or go for help, but are caught up in the belay. Lowering the person is not an option because you either can't see them or communicate with them and don't want to injure them further.



We learned how to secure the belay with a backup and free ourselves to start the rescue process. It is actually quite a complicated setup that took a few practice runs with guidance to get down. I learned some new knots, which is always good. I like adding to my "bag of tricks". Even if you never use these tricks in exactly the way you practiced them, it's good to get experience knowing many knots so that you can use them creatively in your own situations.



In the afternoon we walked across the canyon to the competition area. The comp was pretty casual with people signing up at the last minute as they watched others go up. It was a mixed route that became more of a rock route as the day went on, because the climbers were knocking down the available ice. I briefly contemplated signing up after seeing two woman go up, but since I had never climbed mixed before I decided against it. I guess my fear was that I wouldn't even be able to get off the ground. There were about 50 people watching so I just hung out and watched. Maybe next year.



I hiked out around 3pm before the competition ended and went home to rest up for the next day. I knew that we were going to be climbing on mostly rock the next day and was a bit intimidated by this. Last year I almost took a Mixed climbing course at Ouray, but realized at the last minute that it was called "Hard Mixed", so I ended up switching to a different course. After that I regretted not trying it.

This year I decided to just get it over with. As of Saturday night, my position was this. I don't have any high aspirations to climb a lot of hard mixed terrain. I just want to gain some experience in case I come across some rock while ice climbing. There have been a few times when I have gotten to the top of a climb and had to do a few moves on rock to get to a good anchor spot and I felt shaky. If I could learn the right way to do it, I would feel more comfortable.

I really didn't expect to like mixed climbing. I thought, just put in 8 hours, try my hardest and then I never have to do an entire day of mixed climb again. It kind of reminds me of the night before Brian convinced me to go ice climbing for the first time.

Alaska Ice Festival starts today!

Tonight at 6pm is the kick-off party for the first Alaska Ice Climbing festival. There will be dinner, dessert and a slideshow by Sam Johnson about his climbing adventures around the world. Check out the latest schedule.

I have spent a lot my free time, this week and last, making updates to the festival website and monitoring the online store to make sure everything is working correctly. The clinics are filling up. Kick-off party tickets are being sold online and at the door and you can sign up for the competition online. Online registration will close today at 4:00 pm.

It looks like Hunter Creek Canyon is go with the consistently cold temperatures we have had lately.

It's exciting to be a part of the inaugural festival. Tomorrow I'm taking a Basic Rescue course where we will learn how to escape a belay and rescue a leader after a fall. After that I'll go watch the competition. I briefly considered entering it just for fun, but wimped out and am going to just watch. It's an all top roping, all ability levels welcome competition, but there is some mixed climbing involved and I haven't really done much mixed climbing.

Funny I should mention that, because Sunday I'm taking the Mixed Climbing course. There are only two people signed up for this class so far with two instructors, so I think I'm going to get my ass kicked with 8 hours of one on one mixed climbing training. Should be interesting...

If you live in the Anchorage area, you should consider coming out to the slideshow tonight and out to watch the competition in Hunter Creek tomorrow afternoon. There will be a large tent at the entrance to Hunter Creek directing people where to go. There are also still some spots left in the clinics. For some of them, no experience is necessary.

I'll have pictures up from the weekend on Monday!

Powder, powder everywhere

Brian and I took some friends out to Byers Lake in Denali State Park this past weekend to celebrate our birthdays. We drove up Saturday morning in a snow storm that ended dropping over two feet of snow on the Lake on top of the many feet they already had.



We arrived in the parking lot to snow deep enough to almost bury the car and were excited to try and find some slopes up Kesugi Ridge to ski down. We rigged up the sleds that I made on Friday and skied in to the cabin. This was my first attempt at making a sled and only had a few hours to throw them together but they worked out well.


I decided to stay and hang out in the cabin while Brian took the dogs down to check out the slopes. The dogs had a great time running around on the maze of trails on the lake. They quickly found out that the area surrounding the lake was a big cliff and the ridge was pretty windblown and bare.

So we decided to hang out in the cabin all weekend. I love the cabins at Byers Lake. We stayed in Cabin #1 this time. They say it sleeps 6 people, but I'd say 4-5 would be perfect if you plan to stay the whole weekend. The lake is perfect for cross country skiing and snowshoeing. There were a few snow machines, but nothing like at Red Shirt Lake.



It was good to relax, because the month of March is going to be pretty busy. This weekend is the Alaska Ice Climbing Festival and next weekend it's off to Valdez for the Ice Pixies again! At the end of the month we're heading down to Colorado and Utah with some friends from Palmer to do some mountain biking.

Sunday we woke up and the storm had passed. It was clear and minus 10 degrees. I hadn't slept well as usual. I get kind of creeped out late at night in these cabins. It didn't help that I woke up at 4 am to someone walking around the cabin with a headlamp. I looked around and everyone we came with was inside. I ran to the door and locked it, because I couldn't imagine why someone would be lurking around in the woods in two feet of new snow at 4am in the middle of nowhere. Seriously. Can you think of any reason?



No one that I stayed with in the cabin actually believes that I saw this but I did. Whoever it was came to the front of the cabin, looked at our stuff and left. Maybe they were looking for somewhere to stay or maybe they were staying in one of the other cabins and were out for a very early morning hike.

We skied around Sunday and took pictures of Denali. We wanted to try to make it to the start of the Iditarod Trail Inviational that afternoon but took too long getting ready and missed it.