Outdoor Video Magazine

Having just started running (training for the death race in fact) I know that a half-marathon is a fairly long way. Not too bad though. OK….so do one with a 50lb pack (that’s 23kg). Well it’s still not THAT bad, because now we’re talking about hiking. Hmmm…well how about one of them (or longer) every day, for 50 days, in the mountains, still with that 50lb pack on. Ouch. Now that is endurance.

This is what Lucas Poznanski has planned for this autumn. He is going to hike the 1200km-long Great Divide Trail to raise $50,000 for the search for a cure for cancer. You can check out his pretty snazzy promotional video for it below, and also check out his trip website here:

The Great Divide trail runs from close to the US border, up through the Canadian Rockies, crossing the Continental Divide 80 times or so…finishing 1200km later at a town in North-Eastern BC. This website has some details about the trail, including a trailer for a film made about the trail. Their trip report/blog can be found here.

Good luck Lucas!

Length: 3.2km
Time: 2 hours round trip.
Height: 1400m-2050m
Book: The David Thompson Highway - A Hiking Guide Book
Date done: Easter 2007 (April 9th)
Location: 32km West of Nordegg, Alberta on the David Thompson Highway.
Rating: 8/10

This very short outing is surprisingly entertaining. Its an off-trail hike/scramble up to a little rocky summit above Lake Abraham. If you like rock, you can find a lot of interesting (not exposed) scrambles on the way up. If you don’t, nearly all can be avoided and hand-use becomes necessary on only a few occasions.

Park 1km West of the Mt Michener view point…right before you go round the bend through the rock-cleft. Cross the road, and climb the trail that leads to the rocky bluff directly above the road. Then just pick a path directly up the ridge until you reach the obvious knob that is the hikes high-point. Big sheep are more than likely to be seen here, one of their favourite haunts. Consequently beware of ticks! They are all over the place on this hike. The scrambling is very easy and basic, but you can make it more entertaining if you wish. There are some wicked dead trees to be found, that seem to have been twisted round and round.

This ridge is free of snow very early due to it’s south facing, wind blown nature. Its called Windy Point for a very good reason. Bring something windproof.From the top you can also make your way along the narrow ridge that leads to the base of ‘The Buckle’. A popular place for climbers. See photo below top-right.

Last night I went to the Edmonton Section ACC (Alpine Club of Canada) monthly meeting which featured guest speaker Will Gadd, from Canmore, Alberta. For those of you who don’t know, Will is a professional outdoor adventure athlete. This means he thinks up cool, crazy stuff to do (mostly involving paragliding or ice-climbing, his two specialties) and then gets funding to do them. He then makes money from the outdoor films he makes, the sponsorship/gear testing he does, the competition wins, the books etc. Will holds the world record for distance paragliding, among many other things. Check out his full and rather impressive biography.

Will has both a website and a blog…and after having a quick scan through both of them I would say he comes across a lot better in person than he does on his blog. I think some of what he writes sounds a little bit conceited, but honestly he comes across as a really nice guy in his talks! I would thoroughly recommend going to check him out if he ever does a talk near you.

His recent escapades have featured climbing ice-bergs, paragliding across the Grand Canyon and ice-climbing in abandoned Swedish mines. It’s absolutely crazy what this guy gets up to, and you can’t help but feel motivated and inspired by his passion for what he does. One of his future trips he mentioned is paragliding from Vancouver to his home in Canmore. He’s already done Golden to Canmore.

This video shows Patagonia climbing ambassador Dean Potter free-soloing Heaven (5.12d/13a), a 40-foot overhanging crack that starts over 2,500 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor. It’s a really good quality video. Kind of erie because of the lack of any sort of sound..makes it very atmospheric though.

Heaven was first freed by Ron Kauk in the mid-90s. Another of Potter’s free-solos is Dog’s Roof (5.12b). When asked about this climb, Dean recalled his late friend Jose who he used to climb finger cracks with, “Somehow soloing Dog’s Roof brought me closer to Jose. We had the same size paws [Jose and I]. He always thought I’d enjoy Dog’s Roof. I could hear his sarcastic laugh and brutal honesty while I trained on it.” Besides rekindling the memory of his friend, Dean felt an attraction to the route. “I was drawn to solo it and could barely slow myself down, resisting the temptation to solo it before I was ready. This solo scared me because near the top it has a finger lock where sometimes my fingers would just pop out.”

Here’s a nice compilation video showing a number of different free-soloing routes from Dan Osman. That means no ropes by the way.

Dan Osman trying his hand at some rather late-season ice-climbing. I.e. he’s in a goggles with a snorkle climbing up a very flowing (very cold?) waterfall.

Check out last years Warren Miller flick. This is just a trailer but I have to say it’s one of the best. The movie is definately worth the money, it’s around $40 Canadian. It was shot in HD as well which makes it look amazing. You can buy it at www.warrenmiller.com or just go to your local ski shop.

Well it’s been a long while since my last post about my Death Race training. And for good reason. It’s been sucking!! My back problems got worse, it went from hurting during the night/days after a long run, to hurting during my run. In the end I had to stop during a 13km run because I realised it had gone beyond discomfort and was a serious issue. So I decided to take a break from running, and concentrate on doing lots of stretching do ease my pain/tension in the lower back. Then I planned to ease back into the running, gradually increasing the days per week after a good two weeks rest. Luckily this rest coincided with a visit to Canada from two of my English friends. We spend 10 days doing downhill skiing, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing etc in Jasper, Banff, Lake Louise and Panorama. So I kept in fairly decent shape with all that

Well back from my trip, I did a couple of runs in the first week…nothing too long. I also have started to mix in some biking so I can limit the running days to two per week for now. My strict running schedule I was doing has been thrown out of the window for now…and I’m just trying to listen to my body. You can see what I’ve been up in my Death Race training diary.

I am starting to lead into a more strict workout regime because I think my back is feeling pretty good. I aim to have one long run per week (13-16km), one short run (6km), and one long hill session (1hour), and hopefully I will also mix in one long bike ride (40km). My times are still pretty good, despite the gap in running for a while. I managed to get PB for both 6km and 13km this week.

The moral of this story is the importance of stretching.. I would always stretch for 5mins before and after running…and I got injured. Now I stretch for around 20mins before and after running, and every day. It really does help kids!

I’ve also found my team on www.godeathracer.com (a forum for Death Race runners). We have the wicked name of Dazed and MORE Confused….the second team to Dazed and Confused. I am running the Hamel Assault, Leg 4, because I fancied something hard (I wanted to do two legs but with back-issues I don’t think it’s wise). I think my leg strength is good compared to my general long-distance running, so will be suited to the big climb. A buddy of mine is down for Leg 2, and I don’t know the other 3 team members. Hopefully will find something about them soon!