Pockets of Blue

2008 Ouray Ice Festival

January 14, 2008 in Climbing, Travel by alalonde | No comments

Tons of ice climbing. World-class competition. All-you-can-drink craft beer. Cheap gear. Sound good? Then you should’ve been at the ice festival this past weekend in Ouray, CO. Ouray (rhymes with hooray!) is a fantastic little mountain town in the heart of the San Juan Mountains of Southwestern Colorado. Its annual festival features the premiere ice and mixed climbing competition on this side of the Atlantic. That means the best climbers in the world congregate there, some taking part in the comp and the others teaching clinics and giving slide shows.

The Competition

I rolled into town after a 4am departure from Salt Lake, plenty in time to catch the main competition. At around 10:00 I took the shuttle a half mile or so up to the Ice Park. The comp was in full swing by the time I arrived. Some highlights:

Will Mayo cruising up the mixed part only to drop an ice tool at the beginning of the suspended log section. He made some gnarly moves with one tool, though, somehow managing to make it to the bottom of the plywood board (a 42° incline mind you) before falling.
Jeff Mercier coming out of nowhere to set the bar for the rest of the comp, methodically making his way up the route before sending the final dyno to top out. Awesome stuff.
Ines Papert blazing the route only to get stuck on the last move of the board. She’s pretty short and made a couple of static attempts at the top, but fell soon afterwards. She won the women’s competition nonetheless.
Evgeny “Jack” Kryvosheytsev (that’s a mouthful) also crusing the route but popping a tool unexpectedly on the third to last hold on the route. He was a favorite to win and ended up taking second instead.

Hot Springs

Ouray has dozens of natural hot springs in town, all of them of course have been scarfed up by various hotels. After six hours of hanging out in the cold I decided to

wander around and see if any of them would let me hang out for awhile. After a bit of inquiring I found the Wiesbaden Hotel (as if it wasn’t similar enough to Austria) and promptly paid 15 bucks to soak for a bit. Holy crap was it awesome! The receptionist recommended the vapor cave so I went downstairs and opened a huge, heavy wooden door to reveal a steamy, slimy, slightly stinky room. Wtf is this? I thought before hearing some voices from beyond, deeper into the weirdest dungeon ever. Beyond another wooden door was the real deal, a 105° natural sauna with a small wading pool filled with blazingly hot spring water.

Now I have been to several hot springs both here out West and in Europe, and this took the case. I am a naturalist and the whole layout was perfect: a cave bore out of bedrock with only a few unassuming planks of wood around the outside to sit or lie on. I wish I would have taken a picture, it was so sweet.

So I hung out down there for twenty minutes or so, sweating and chatting it up with a climber couple from Denver about the comp and whatnot. Then I migrated outside to yet another natural hot spring, a swimming pool filled with the same refreshing water! It was here that I really soaked all the gloriousness in, chatting with a bunch of people from BC, Colorado and even a (preliminary) competitor from the comp.

An Orgy of Beer and Lasagna

Next up was something I had been looking forward to for awhile: An Ouray volunteer fire department benefit dinner consisting of Lasagna and all-you-can-drink beer! They even had New Belgium reps go around and fill up your cup as you waited in line for food!! Only $15 and you got all this, plus the added benefit of a room full of funny, friendly, genuinely awesome people. They are really what make the event, I had never before experienced such an awesome community.

Will Gadd, the First Class Badass

Any ice climber knows about Will Gadd, one of the preeminent luminaries in the sport and frequent dominator of the Ouray Ice competition. After the lasagna dinner he put on a slideshow chronicling his climbing life including numerous significant alpine, ice and mixed routes all over the world. He’s also apparently a prolific paraglider and had some amazing footage of gliding all over the Rockies, from Boulder to Banff. Oh and the slideshow was all-you-can-drink New Belgium beer also. The know their clientele.

I hadn’t gotten a hotel in time and didn’t feel like shelling out 90 bucks for one, so I passed out in the car for the night. Colorado mountain towns aren’t so toasty in mid-January; however I had planned for it with my dual-sleeping bag system, in which I was nice and toasty.

Sunday Clinics

Another big reason I came down to the festival was for the clinics. Climbing ice is substantially more dangerous than rock, and unlike most things I feel like I need some instruction before going at it full-on. And not only are the clinics in a great locale, but they’re all taught by the premiere, sponsored climbing badasses of the day. Sunday morning was my easy/intermediate ice clinic taught by Kelly Cordes, another ice and rock strongman sponsored by several companies. His ascent of the Great Trango Tower with Josh Wharton is one of the most amazing stories I’ve ever read.

The clinic went well, I’ve gotten so much stronger since the last time I went ice climbing it was almost comical. I still need to work on my footwork but I’m feeling better and better on ice. In the afternoon I took an avalanche clinic put on my one of the guides for San Juan Mountain Guides. I already knew about half the material but the other half has definitely beneficial. Avalanches really creep me out and I do enough backcountry skiing and climbing that I need to learn as much as I can to be safe from the biggest objective hazard in the mountains. Already this winter I have learned quite a bit; I find it fascinating and am already an almost religious follower of the postings by the Utah Avalanche Center.

So if it’s not already obvious, Ouray was a hell of a time and I will definitely be back next year, hopefully with people that don’t back out the day before the trip (no names there)! For now I’m pretty psyched to get back on the ice!

Holy Snowness!

January 8, 2008 in Skiing by alalonde | No comments

Well, it’s been about five weeks since it started dumping snow in the mountains here in Utah. Alta got 12′ in December (that’s one tick mark) and January has started off with a bang with a massive storm that pounded the Sierras and Lake Tahoe area. Alta got 38″ from Friday til the skies cleared Monday morning. Pretty killer stuff.

So far I’ve had three awesome powder days, with this past Sunday being the best. The day I flew back to NY would’ve been even better I think, if it hadn’t been for a little debacle getting up the canyon. I tried driving up with my 2-wheel drive Acura (w/ snow tires), got pulled over and promptly sent back down the canyon. I didn’t get my first run in til 11am, and only got three in total (all wicked powder runs though) before I had to jet back to Salt Lake to catch a taxi to the airport.

But let’s talk about Sunday. The weather was unstable to say the least, and learning from that past experience I elected to take the bus up. Unfortunately I didn’t get to the park ‘n ride until 8:45 and it took two hours to get up the canyon due to a massive traffic jam (and cops checking cars for 4×4/chains undoubtedly) so my first run again wasn’t til 11. However, this time it didn’t matter because it snowed another 8″ while I was there, from 11 to 4. Almost every run was in knee deep powder and I found numerous stashes of untracked deep stuff each time. Some steep untracked tree runs had me grinning and whooping the whole way down. I wasn’t in the condition to huck cliffs due to a minor knee injury on Thursday but made the most of it anyhow. It was epic; the best ski day of my life thus far.

Best part is, it’s only gonna get better — hell, it’s only January! And I hear there’s another storm rolling in tomorrow night…

New Year

January 1, 2008 in Hiking/Backpacking, Salt Lake by alalonde | No comments

Well, the holidays are about over. I’m enjoying my day off much like I enjoyed much of last week: being lazy around the house. Sunday night (the 30th) I returned from NY so it’s back to real life.

New Year’s this year was a bit different. I had originally planned to stick around NY, but then I realized that New Year’s kinda sucks and I didn’t want to take time off just to be able to celebrate it at home. However, almost none of my friends here were back from their holidays so it was looking to be a pretty lame evening. Me being me, I thought, well hell I’ll just go climb a mountain to ring in the New Year. So I did.

At around 8:30 I took off for Mill Creek Canyon to hike Grandeur Peak. Since I still hadn’t purchased a pair of snowshoes I had a couple options: bareboot it with the hopes of an existing tracked out trail or ski it with my touring setup. I was a little sketched out with the snow conditions and it being night at all, so I opted for the former. To be honest, I wasn’t very optimistic about summiting, but a half hour into the hike it was looking pretty good.

Right past the trailhead I got a call from a friend inviting me out to a party for the night. I thought about it briefly and decided to go for the summit solo rather than spend the evening at some random party somewhere. Call me weird but I had my mind set on standing atop a 8300′ peak 4000 feet above my city to ring in 2008.

I was all smiles for the first mile. A perfect snowshoe track made barebooting a breeze, and the trail’s grade only forced me to kick a handful of steps in the snow. Conditions were perfect; there was no wind, it wasn’t too cold, and the sky was a pristine black dotted with stars in all directions. I made good time up to a ridge at about 7500′ and had my first glimpse of the Salt Lake Valley. Since it was only 11pm I figured I had underestimated myself again.

That is, until I continued on from there. The snowshoe track petered out and I was forced to follow a mountain goat track in my mountaineering boots. A quarter mile later I was panting through hip-deep snow along a mildly corniced ridgeline. The summit loomed a few hundred feet ahead so I plodded on, the hiking trail barely visible amidst the contours of the snow. By 11:30 I had reached the ‘summit,’ just to remember that it was just an intermediary peak and I still had another quarter mile and 600′ to climb. I made a quick decision to continue on, but after trudging through waist-deep snow for about 100 yards I reneged. I would just have to make it back to the ridgeline by midnight.

A little bummed, I plunge-stepped through the snow back to the snowshoe track and made it minutes before midnight. Soon afterwards I heard little ‘pops’ from the valley and saw tiny dots of light, the fireworks being shot off from downtown. Happy New Year Salt Lake!

I motored back down to the trailhead in an hour and kept thinking of all those alpinists over the years, spending nights out halfway up remote, committing mountains in Alaska, Greenland, Pakistan, everywhere. The main difference: Partners. A little companionship and traded encouragement goes a long way towards maintaining a positive mental state and pushing the other to top performance. However, a quality solo adventure can be sublime.

It Begins

December 2, 2007 in Skiing by alalonde | No comments

Yesterday I finally got to experience what I originally moved here for: a day of skiing at one of the best resorts in the world. Friday night we got about 5″ of snow here in the valley and over a foot in the mountains. When I woke up yesterday morning to see a nice blanket of snow covering everything, I was beyond psyched.

Due to some necessary preparations I didn’t make it up to the mountain until about noon, so all the main runs had been pretty chopped up already. Only about 1/3 of the mountain was open at that point (Two lifts actually) but it was still pretty sweet. They had a good variety of terrain open, from steep bowls to moderate groomers to hairy tree sections. People had set up a few kickers here and there, and I could already spot a few natural features that could give way to some awesome air, that is for those with a little creativity and a lot of balls.

It snowed all day which made visibility an issue due to poor contrast, but I did manage to get some fresh tracks with a little exploration into the tighter trees. Overall I got in a little over four hours of skiing. I took my fair share of spills, but that was expected on the first day of the season on such challenging terrain. What doesn’t kill ya makes you stronger, eh?

Today I came down with a cold, otherwise I would’ve headed up there again. Next week Brighton should open their night skiing, though, so I’ll probably head up there a few times. Man, I love winter!

Sonic Memory

November 8, 2007 in Music by alalonde | No comments

Today I was at work typing away and listening to Pandora when a song came on, a familiar one that flipped a mental switch. The tune was Loose Fur‘s ‘Chinese Apple,’ a soothing, wandering acoustic tune that took me back to my junior year in college, when I would go to Bristol every Tuesday night in the winter to ski. I would ski hard from about 4-10 and come back to my car to see that my iPod ‘s batteries had died due to the cold. A mixed tape of Evan’s would accompany me during the 45 minute drive back to Rochester, and ‘Chinese Apple’ was one of the standout tracks.

So there I am, sitting at my desk with headphones, and I’d be suddenly transported back, not to that time and place but rather that moment and feeling. A lonely but content feeling, just me and the road with the heat cranking and great tunes blasting during my favorite time of year.

Does this ever happen to anyone else? I can name several songs and albums that take me back to various points in my life, from recent situations all the way back to third grade. There’s The Beatles’ ‘Long long long,’ one of my favorites from the White Album that I played so extensively in my flat in Osnabrück, Germany; notably once at four in the morning when I stayed up all night before catching an early train to take me down to Bad Gastein, Austria. (Funny how both of these memories revolve, tangentially, around skiing. You can see where my mind is these days…) Eager anticipation tinged with some anxiety about the long solo trip ahead.

Then there’s Ben Folds Five’s “Whatever and Ever Amen,” taking me back to the summer after eighth grade and sitting in the back of a VW Passat with my family as we toured much of Southwest England. Specifically, pulling out of a parking lot on to a major street where some gracious Brit flashed his lights at us letting us go through (one of those random, insignificant but very vivid memories that stick with you over the years). And then, Stone Temple Pilot’s ‘Core’, the first album I ever listened to (not understanding any of the lyrics of course). I would sit on the floor next to my parent’s CD player with these old beater headphones for hours, taking in the music. I was no more than nine years old.

I could go on for pages about this stuff. Writing about one reminds me of three others. There’s Animal Collective’s ‘Sung Tongs,’ in my opinion the quintessential summer album. It’s warm, light and upbeat, much like our demeanor as Evan and I made our way in his car across the coast of Lake Michigan on the way back to spending a few days with our folks in the U.P. in July 2005. I don’t think I even liked it all that much (subconsciously, well, looks like that was another story)!

It’s an interesting reminder of the relationships between vision, hearing and memory. I’ve always considered myself a very visual person (still do) but I see there’s a substantial musical component too. Some experiences you’ll remember for a few years, but others with a great soundtrack you’ll remember forever. Not only that but a click of the play button can bring you right back there, if not physically than wholly emotionally. Now that the snow’s coming, I’m going to need pick up that Loose Fur album…

The Weather out West

October 4, 2007 in Climbing, Salt Lake, Skiing by alalonde | No comments

I haven’t even come close to understanding the weather out here. It was crazy hot all summer (upper 90s every day) and I was blasting the a/c all the time. Then, all of a sudden, it’s snowing in the mountains and freezing in the house. There wasn’t really a transition at all. Is there a spring and fall out here, or have we been reduced to two seasons?

Just this past weekend I went for a hike, and had to turn back because I ran into five inches of snow! It’s September, man, wtf?! Well, yeah, it was at 11,000 feet, but still! I guess the hiking season in the higher peaks consists of July and August.

I’ve gotten lazy the past couple of weeks and have started driving to work more and more. All summer I biked to work 70% of the time, but since it’s gotten colder I’ve stopped. Maybe I can get in the habit of riding Trax this winter. An extra half-hour of time dedicated to reading daily would be pretty sweet…

In other news, I’ve been climbing 3-4 times a week in the gym and at various crags in the Wasatch. I’m trying to beef up my endurance so I can stay on harder routes for longer. I am a member of Momentum so I have been lead climbing and bouldering quite a bit: I still need to rest once on the long overhanging 5.10 routes, but look forward to sending them with ease (and more!) by the spring.

I’ve picked up a new set of skis (fat twin-tips for the park and powder from a local company) and bindings, and am looking at an Alpine Touring setup next. Hopefully I can afford to pick everything up by the beginning of the backcountry ski season in early November…

Summer 2007

September 12, 2007 in Travel by alalonde | No comments

Since I’ve been quiet for so long I decided to put together a concise little geographical representation of my adventures this past summer. It has been, by far, the most fun summer of my life (even with a day job!):

View Larger Map

However, I highly recommend you download a KML overlay to be used in Google Earth here. Make sure to right-click and save as… Then just open it from Google Earth.

Enjoy!

Revitalization

September 10, 2007 in Uncategorized by alalonde | No comments

I’m baaaaaack! It’s been a few months, but things have started to slow down a bit and I’m feeling the urge to start ranting again. Woohoo!

This is the premiere of my new weblog at my personal domain, aleclalonde.com. My old weblog at alec.typepad.com will still exist for a little while, but all new content will be posted here. I still need to move all the old photo albums to my new photos site at photos.aleclalonde.com.

To those way out of the loop, I packed my bags at the end of May and moved across the country to Salt Lake City, UT. Yes, it was a drastic change. No, I didn’t move to be nearer to friends and family. I moved out of a growing urge for adventure that has been painting my daily activities for the past couple of years. I have discovered a mecca of outdoor activities here in Utah, of which I’ve merely scratched the surface.

To make up for my lack of postings, I’ve decided to create a post with a map of my travels and activities over the past four months. Each trip has a little blurb, and you can find photos from most trips on the photos page.

Look out for it soon.

Italy Bound

March 30, 2007 in Uncategorized by alalonde | No comments

Tomorrow night I’ll be somewhere over the Atlantic on my way to London. Soon afterwards I’ll be with my family enjoying succulent Italian cuisine (fresh seafood and homemade pasta ohhh baby) and wine in the heart of Tuscany. I can taste it already…

A few weeks ago we realized we’d be in Rome during the largest Catholic holiday there is: Easter Sunday. Not to mention Good Friday before that. The best part: None of us are Catholic. Should be interesting…

We return on the 9th of April.

Photos!

March 7, 2007 in Uncategorized by alalonde | No comments

I meant to say this at the end of the last post, but telling the failed summit tale always irritates me a bit. All our photos from the Mexico trip are here and all my future photos will be at photos.aleclalonde.com. Eventually I’ll migrate this blog’s content from here to aleclalonde.com (and stop paying for both) too.

I (finally) posted my Vegas pics there, too. Enjoy!

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