This video has been making its rounds throughout the mountaineering community. If you haven't already seen it, you need to. What you are about to see is truly mind blowing.
"On the 28th Dec 2008 Ueli Steck blasted his was up the north face of the Grandes Jorasses in another record time. Moving on from his 2.47hrs ascent of the Eiger north face in February earlier on this year he arrived in Chamonix on the 27th with his eyes on the north face classic- the Colton-Macintyre (VI,6)... Steck climbs up a 1200m face, with some very bare and tricky mixed at the top and sections of 95 degree ice in the middle, at an approximate ascent rate of 10m a minute."
-Summary from Alpine Exposures (Jonathan Griffith)
Throughout my athletic career, I’ve heard the “weights or no weights” debate too many times to count. I’ve heard many comments from fellow athletes along the lines of:
“You don’t need to do strength exercises if you’re a runner.” The best way to train for climbing is to climb.” “I’m already strong enough.”
Having experimented with lots of different exercises and weight training programs for a variety of activities, I’ve come to a few conclusions:
1. Core strength (abs, lower-mid back) is important for almost any athletic activity. Whether you’re trying to keep your form intact at the end of a long race, perform a powerful heel hook or swing a bat, you will benefit from solid core strength.
2. Flexibility is underrated and underutilized. It’s important for injury prevention and it allows you to build muscle without getting muscle-bound, a condition that limits range of motion and can lead to injury. Flexibility also improves performance and energy efficiency. If you’re a runner, an extra inch on your stride multiplied by thousands of steps equals a materially faster time. If you’re a climber, being able to raise your leg higher means reaching that foothold that was previously out of reach (without pulling your hammy).
3. For athletic activities that require lots of strength, you will reach a natural “plateau” without strength training. Your body will get used to performing the same movements over and over, and you won’t get any stronger. At some point, you need to mix up your training with strength specific exercises to reach the next level.
4. Context and balance are key. Everyone has seen the local gym rats that only lift upper body. It’s a wonder that their chicken legs can support their teetering massive upper bodies. It’s nonsensical and nontransferable to athletic activities. Match your training to your activity. If you’re a runner, focus on core strength, not your biceps. During my junior year in college, I started lifting too much upper body (I was an XC runner). I was 6’2, 160lbs and I could bench press 230 lbs. I got slow. As soon as I started doing only core strength exercises, I lost 10 lbs and dropped a minute off of my 8k time. Now that I’m a mountaineer, I would love to get back to 160lbs and 230lbs on the bench press.
5. Focus on building strength (not “getting ripped”) and keeping opposite muscles in balance. If you train your quads, be sure to train your hamstrings as well. Imbalances among opposite muscle groups can lead to injury. Good climbers, mountaineers and backcountry skiers should aim for solid overall strength and cardio conditioning.
While I realize that the debate is still open, I’m personally convinced (based on my own experiences) that supplementary strength training is very helpful for sports like climbing, mountaineering and backcountry skiing. Alex Lowe agreed and his climbing partners said that he was a “level above everyone else.” Perhaps he was on to something. In Jackson, WY and Boulder, CO, there is a gym called Mountain Athlete that subscribes to a training philosophy for climbers and mountaineers that is similar to mine. On their website, they have links to a variety of videos (36 to date) that feature strength exercises that are geared toward climbers. Below, you can see an exercise called “Alligator Pushups.” It’s not hard to see how this one would be useful for climbers.
Buffalo Mountain has been climbed, skied and helmet cammed. Eric Lee and I enjoyed a fantastic bluebird day and an excellent ski line down the Silver Couloir. The Arizona red dust was present, but not nearly as bad as in the San Juans. Despite our relatively early start, the snow was starting to get a bit soft toward the end of the couloir. Here are a few pictures and a video to tell the story...
Given the miserable state of the global economy, it seemed appropriate to show you how to save some money. Here's a short video that I created to show you How to make a "homemade" V-thread hooker (while listening to Beethoven's 6th in F major). Enjoy.
Disclaimer: Ice climbing and using sharp objects and rotary tools are inherently dangerous. Make and use at your own risk. You assume all responsibility for any injuries that result from the making or using of a V-thread hooker as shown in this video. No animals or ice climbers were harmed in the making of this video.
Since watching his award winning film (The Unbearable Lightness of Skiing) at the Banff Film Festival this year, I've been following Greg Hill's many ski-mountaineering adventures from time to time. Here are a few of his videos:
Long time, no post. The last couple of weeks have been very busy. I recently joined Aurora Photos as a contributing photographer and it's taking longer than I expected to complete my first upload (since I have about 100 initial submissions that all require a long process of entering IPTC meta data and meeting other technical requirements). Additionally, I've been getting my financial statements and other paperwork ready for taxes.
In the midst of the madness, I've been able to sneak away from the desk for a few hours to solve my ski dilemma. I recently moved my Dynafit F12's to some '08 Black Diamond Kilowatts (175cm) and I picked up a 32L Black Diamond Covert pack that should carry skis much better than my floppy REI pack. Since the Kilowatts are significantly fatter than my previous skis, I had to get some new skins as well. I got some STS skins that should work much better than my ClipFix skins that never did stay on very well. I thought that I would share a video that I used to fit my skins flawlessly. It's much better and easier to understand that the directions that come folded up on a small paper in several languages.
I recently had a conversation with a photographer that insisted that shooting in RAW was a waste of time and disk space. I’m not going to spend any time refuting this point as it is well known that there are all kinds of advantages to shooting in RAW (from editability to data retention, etc). That said, I recently found a video that shows what .jpg compression does to an image over time. Watch closely as the image is compressed up to 600 times. Obviously there is no practical reason to compress an image up to 600 times, but it’s still interesting to see...
The Petzl GriGri is one of the (if not THE) most popular auto-locking belay devices on the market. It works great for sport climbing where weight isn’t an issue and falls are imminent. I don’t do much sport climbing, so I don’t use my GriGri all that much for belaying. However, I do use mine for the lower ascending device on static lines (works great for adventure photography). Some of the features that make the GriGri so popular also allow for some dangerous situations if not used correctly. Petzl recently relooked at how to avoid operator error and came up with a new set of instructions in the form of a video (see below). If you use a GriGri, it’s worth watching.
Recently, one of my friends and climbing partners made a self-guided attempt (in a party of 4) at climbing Aconcagua (6,962 meters/22,841 ft). Since he was carrying a SPOT satellite beacon with him, I was able to track his progress throughout the trek. Once he reached camp 2, his position did not change for several days. The next time that his position updated, he was back in Mendoza. Given that he was not going to descend the mountain via the same path that he used to reach camp 2, I knew that something must be up. Not long after I began to worry, I heard news that there had been several deaths on the mountain in the past few days. As the news gained details, I learned that three people (a guide and two climbers) had perished. Upon returning to Mendoza, my friend wrote the following on his blog: ------------------------------------------ Hello constant reader. Bad weather, developing sickness, and death of friends above us led us to pull the plug. Lots of snow and viento blanco forced us down from our high point at camp 2 (5800m). I have a respirtory issue and Matt was getting mild HAPE (all of us are sick now). Crazy week on the mountain. Back safe and sound in Mendoza now and we will be enjoying wine, steak and showers until we return next week. We love and miss you all, but thanks to smart decisions we will all be coming home to see you. More updates later. Cheers and Namaste! ------------------------------------------ A few days ago, some footage of a failed rescue attempt was released to the media. It caused an uproar in the mountaineering community. The video shows a rescue team reaching the injured guide:
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