New Englanders - TGR's Deeper at Boston Aquarium Tuesday

Tomorrow night, the NEMO crew is heading down to Boston for the early showing of TGR's Deeper. As you may have gathered from past posts here, we supported the second year of Jeremy Jones' project with some of our mountaineering tents. We're psyched to see one of our snowboarding heroes on and off screen - it's rumored that Jones will be at the show. And, of course, we're hoping that the NEMO tents make the cut.

Here's some footage that didn't make it into the film, but some worthy Utah backcountry terrain all the same.



Hope to see you at the show.

~Kate

Interview With The Dusty Camel

NEMO friend Ian from The Dusty Camel was recently interviewed on CampingGearTV. While we love their choice for interview location (they're sitting inside a Moki), the segment offers a glimpse into their first long distance hike, the AT, what it was like being new to the trail and lessons learned.

Ian first introduced himself to us while preparing for that journey. He kept in touch throughout his time on the trail and his final summit photo from Mount Katahdin is actually included in the Photo Gallery of our 2010 Catalog. After completing the AT, naturally, he set his sights on another long-distance classic - the Pacific Crest Trail. Along with friend and partner Andy, the two created The Dusty Camel to mesh their love of the outdoors with their passion for protecting our environment. Partnering with Freedom to Roam, along with support from some of their favorite outdoor companies, they will be attacking the PCT next year in hopes of raising money and awareness for land conservation.



~Kate

Jpeg Goes to NEMO

We have a visitor in the office today. Meet Jpeg.


No there is not a missing image in the previous sentence, her name is actually Jpeg which seems extremely appropriate when you realize both of her (human) parents are professional photographers.

We'll give her the abbreviated profile since she's only here for the day:

Favorite Snack: Marrow stuffed bones
Pet Peeves: Balls getting stuck under couches
Favorite part of being at NEMO: The mountain bike trails right outside
First thing people notice: She is a licker
Wishes NEMO would make: Doggy doors in their tents
Aspirations: To catch a Frisbee in mid-air like Charlotte

-Suzanne

Death Race Redux

We first profiled the Death Race back in February, but this month's issue of Outside Magazine does a much better job describing the hellish tasks imposed on the folks who entered the race.

The next task is to run—with textbook, posthole digger, onions, knife, remaining pennies, and six heavy chunks of firewood—up and over another mountain to someplace called the Onion House. By this point it's almost 4 P.M. on Saturday, and the few of us still going have been at it for 19 hours.

I can no longer run. No act of willpower could put the pain in my knees out of my mind. I hike as fast as I can, following fluttering bits of pink survey tape straight up a trailless mountain thick with poison ivy.

At the top of the 1,000-foot climb, there's no Onion House. Instead, the survey tape turns and drops straight back down. Going up was manageable for my knees, but going down is excruciating. I should've paced myself, recognizing that, since this is a long race, an extra half-hour walking the downhills wouldn't have made much difference... When I finally reach the Onion House, the assigned task is to wheelbarrow firewood back and forth for ten laps, then chop up nine pounds of onions and eat a pound. If you still have enough money, you can buy yourself out of this torture, but then you might not have enough to avoid whatever comes next.

And that's just half a page of a 7 page article. If you're thinking about skipping your workout today, there's no quicker way to feel like a wimp than reading this.

-Connie

Sneak Peek 2011: Obi Elite 1P

Attention people who are tired of carrying lots a weight up a mountain!

Spring 2011 brings the NEMO Obi Elite 1P and a lighter load. We designed every feature of this little one person tent with weight savings on the mind. With a lot of hard work, this tent is nearly the lightest on the market, but still packed full of features and comfort. It was our goal to create something light enough that you wouldn't think twice about bringing as an emergency shelter on day hikes, and still maintain the comfort to call it home on a 2,200 mile trekking journey.


I think highlights include the large side vestibule (far bigger than others in its class), Jake's Feet hardware, and volumizing vents that not only let the air flow through but pull out the sides of your tent drastically increasing your living room.

Cons and I took the 2 person version of this tent (yes, for those of you who aren't into solo hiking there will be a double wide version with two vestibules) on our recent trip around Mt. Rainier on the Wonderland Trail for some late season testing. We ended up carrying about twice as much food as we needed because the guilt of how light our packs felt.

Start thinking about all the extra snickers bars you can bring next spring...

-Suzanne

November Beach Cleanup / Logging Waves

We were all happy to see that this November's beach cleanup only yielded 3 bags of trash (60 pounds total) for our adopted section of Jenness Beach, down from the 150 pound pickups of earlier in the summer. Whether this means that there's less littering or more people are out picking up--either way, it's good news.

Nate and I got lucky in our post-beach cleanup session. We were two of 4 people in the water who got to indulge in some beautiful waist high logging waves. We were pysched to meet Johna K., who caught this pic of me on a little left that seemed to never end.

If any folks want to join us on our next cleanup in December, please give a holler. We are hoping to get our friends at Grain Surfboards out with us with their demo van...

-Connie

You're Going to See This All Over the Place

Edinburgh native Danny MacAskill , aka Danny MegaSkill, hooked up big with Red Bull for his reprise to last year's YouTube ubersensation April 2009.

Though last year's video can be referenced in ways like "The One That Used The Band of Horses Song" or "The Guy That Does the Backflip Off the Tree", this year's video is just as impressive -- not just for the sick moves, but the location, soundtrack, and film style.



(via Wend )

There's a whole bunch of accompanying videos to the main one on the Redbull site, so you can immerse yourself in trials riding fever.

-Connie

First Ascents in the Miyar Nala

Long time NEMO ambassadors, Camilo Lopez and Anna Pfaff, have just returned from another successful trip to the Himalayas. Below is a brief trip report and video from their journey - what an amazing area!


"We just got back from our adventure in the Miyar Nala, Indian Himalaya and we couldn't wait to send out the news of our climbing. On the second of September we completed the First Ascent on the North Face direct of Dome Peak, 5700m on a very steep and technical face after a 19 hour round-trip push. Route: Lopez-Pfaff North Face Direct IV 5.9, 800m.

After enduring nine days of wind, rain and show, we finally got a break and climbed the First Ascent of the North Ridge of James Point, a 5200m rock pyramid. Route: Lopez-Pfaff North Ridge, IV, 5,10+, 600m."

Cheers!
Camilo & Anna

Doggie DNA

We're big dog fans here at the NEMO office -- that's no surprise. Check out this interesting segment Dogs Decoded that recently aired on PBS.

You'll have to battle through some of the leaps of logic that the show makes (can dogs really be the only animal to understand pointing, or have we just not done the research on cats, dolphins, octopi, horses?). But it is worth the 30 minutes or so to get to the second half of the show where they describe results of an ongoing 50+ year research experiment on fox domestication in Russia.

The total segment is about an hour long, so bookmark this for a time when you can sit down and digest it all.

-Connie

Calendar Time - Come and Get it!

NEMO's graphic designer, Bill K, moonlights as an artist, photographer, and all around amazing person. He's not one to toot his own horn, but every year he puts out an amazing wildlife calendar which showcases the fruits of his labor of love. Each one of the photographs he's picked for the 2011 calendar has an amazing story behind how he got the shot.

One of my personal favorites is the cover photo of the fox. One Monday morning in late May of this year, Bill told me he got the shot.

My coworker John told me about a fox den behind his wife's office in York, ME. I had already planned to be in that area for the weekend so I asked John to draw me a rough map of where the den was located behind the building. So on Sunday when I was headed back from the shore I swung by to check it out. It was a hot day so I took refuge under the shade of an apple tree, set up my long lens and waited. I knew the kits had to be around, so stayed there for 2 hours trying not to move despite ants crawling all over me. After several attempts at making mouse squeaks with my lips I saw a flash of orange. Finally! The first kit popped out and played in the tall grass for about 20 minutes allowing me to capture several shots before diving back into the safety of the den.

Pick up your calendar here!

-Connie

Skiing Everest - In Theaters Now

NEMO friends Mike and Steve Marolt have completed their latest movie, Skiing Everest, and are currently showing it in select cities around the US. Filmed over 10 years by the twins, Skiing Everest follows a group of close friends who grew up in Aspen skiing some of the surrounding 14,000-ft. peaks with their father, 1960 Olympic skier Max Marolt. They would go on to ski slopes in Alaska and the world’s highest volcanoes in South America before becoming the first Americans to ski above 8,000 meters (26,247 ft.), tackling the summit of Shishapangma in Tibet in 2000. This led them to Mt. Everest, skiing without supplemental oxygen, without employing Sherpas to carry their gear or hiring guides to help them up the peaks.


Skiing Everest follows the Marolts and their childhood friends, Jim Gile and Olympic cross-country skier John Calhoun as they climb and ski Everest under horrible weather conditions and thin air, dodging hidden crevasses and 10,000-ft. sheer faces that drop into Nepal and Tibet far below. And after all this, the snow doesn’t look any good.

“It is hard to do anything at such altitudes, where death lurks at every turn, let alone ski and survive to tell the tale,” wrote Forbes adventure columnist Jim Clash.

The film also touches on the history of high-altitude skiing, dating back to the 1930s, with interviews of Hans Kammerlander, the first to ski from the summit of Everest; Laura Bakos, the first woman to ski from the summit of an 8,000-meter peak, and Chris Davenport, the two-time world extreme skiing champion and avid ski mountaineer.



Check it out in a theater near you.

~Kate

Utah Mountain Biking

I recently returned from a work/play trip in Utah. Besides enjoying the beauty of the West, the main goal of this trip was to test out and photograph a few 2011 NEMO tents in the Wasatch mountains located near Midway, Utah for use in catalogs. The two tents featured in this set of photos is the new Alti Storm and the single pole Pentalite. The weather changed from calm and warm to very windy and bitter cold during the shoot.

While out shooting I met up with a dear friend and world famous mountain bike guru Doug Dalton. We we able to enjoy some of the best mountain bike riding in my life on the Wasatch Crest Trail which runs along the ridge between Big Cottonwood Canyon and the Park City area, then descends towards the Salt Lake valley via Mill Creek Canyon. 

On a final note... having recently purchased a Canon 7D and wanting to take full advantage of its HD video capabilities, we created this short video on Double D's very own backyard pumptrack.



-Bill

Long Treks on Skate Decks Episode 9: Pushing Downhill

Welcome to Episode 9 of the Peru y Boliva long distance longboarding trip from Adam, Paul, and Aaron, who have put in more combined longboarding miles than you have hairs on your head. After climbing to 14,104 ft they have a gnarly downhill with backpacks that drops them over 7,000 ft of elevation and put them into a gorgeous canyon cursed by a massive headwind. Warning: video contains cursing and should probably not be played at full volume at work (unless you work at somewhere like NEMO).



Fighting headwinds for 2 days while pushing downhill really defeats the point of riding downhill--yet, we do it smiling the best we can. Here, Paul busts out a tasty backside slide down the canyon.

All the downhill pushing led Aaron and Paul try some local moonshine and get magical powers. This is Paul's face after he is hit hard with moonshine.

-Adam