NEMO on the Subway

For those of you in the NYC area, keep an eye out on the Metro N Line for NEMO. While we don't have enough pull yet to set up in the subway, our photographer friend Michael Hanson took the following shot while traveling to the salt flats in Bolivia. The image will be used as an ad for the NY Times travel section.

Climb #22 Completed for the Smiley's

The Smiley's, (who typically are all smiles) just uploaded a new video from their 50 Classic Climbs project. Check out the South Howser Tower in the Canadian Bugaboos.

~Kate

PFDs for your SUPs

Looks like there will be increasing enforcement of SUPers wearing life jackets when not in a designated surfing/swimming area. No new rules here, just enforcement of existing rules as the sports becomes increasingly popular.

That's something we didn't think about as we paddled down the Saco last week...

-Connie

Maine Climber's Body Found After 21 Years

The body of a mountain climber from Maine was recently discovered in a melting glacier more than two decades after he fell 1,000 feet to his death in the Canadian Rockies, a park official said.

The remains of William Holland, 38, of Gorham, were found in Jasper National Park in Alberta in August by a pair of hikers, said Garth Lemke, public safety expert with Parks Canada. Lemke said glacial ice preserved the body, which had a mummified appearance.

"If you look at where he was, he was basically in a deep freeze for the last 21 years," he said.Holland had reached the top of the Slipstream on Snow Dome Mountain on the Columbia Icefields in 1989 when an outcropping gave way, sending him tumbling. His climbing partner sought help from another climbing party, but an avalanche struck before searchers arrived the next day, Lemke said. The search was called off.

There are at least two other cases in which mountain climbers in Jasper National Park have disappeared since the 1970s and are presumed dead, Lemke said.

~Kate

Motorcyle in Mexico

Motorcycle journeyman Ben S. (who earlier in the year completed a 23,000 mile trip down to the tip of South America) is headed back on the bike. He's making an instructional video on motorcyling in Mexico, and will be videoing portions of his trip for footage.

Ben stopped by last week to pick up a prototype tent, get the lowdown on next year's products, and tell us a little bit about his journey to come. If you see him on his cross country journey first to California, and then down south to Mexico, give him a little wave for us.

-Connie

Third time is a charm!

This trip to the Franconia Ridge marks the third attempt Alyson and I have made to summit Mt Lafayette in the White Mountains.

Granted this is not a sheer cliff requiring 12 pitches, but the mountain is a challenge nonetheless. The first 2 attempts were cut short at a mere 1.1 miles from summit due to weather changes (total fog out, sleet/ice).

Finally, the summit of Lafayette!

This two day trip was about as perfect as you can get. Warm sunny weather, great campsite (Liberty Springs) and a long decent requiring a 3 mile walk out on the bike path back to the car. I'm not going to lie, my legs STILL hurt, but it was worth every second!

Camp at Liberty Springs Tent Site

-Bill

Jeremy Jones, Deeper in the Storm

We've mentioned NEMO ambassador Jeremy Jones's Deeper project. This isn't just another boxed dvd set of steep lines, big drops, and chest deep powder though; it's the journey, not the destination. JJ explains it best:

Over the past 15 years, I’ve shot over 45 snowboard movies. It was always about riding new stuff, finding new stuff, finding that ultimate terrain -- the ultimate mountains to snowboard down… About 4 years ago, I started to realize that I’m really going to the same zones and same faces year in and year out. It started to take the joy out of it. Over the years, I’ve realized that if I just went a little bit deeper, I’d be in this untouched, unridden realm. I’ve had a desire to really focus on quality lines and not necessarily quantity – those lines that take days or weeks or months to prepare for.

We basically picked locations that I’ve been going to for a long time that are some of the meccas for free riding – Tetons in Wyoming, Sierras in California, Wasatch in Utah, Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Alaska outside of Haines, and the Alps in Europe. In all the areas, there’s this small chunk of terrain that everyone is fighting over, but if you want to go and walk a little bit further, than you have the place to yourself. That’s the deal. Focus on the meccas, but go where no one’s going in those meccas because it takes too long to get there.

In anticipation of the 2010 fall release of Deeper, Teton Gravity Research has been spitting out episodes of Deeper Unplugged. Episode 11 is a doozy, with the crew in Glacier Bay Alaska as a major winter storm hits.

-Connie