Butte Boulder Bash

   Have to toss out the congrats to Tom Kingsbury for throwing another great bouldering festival out in the Batholith.  Tom creates such a low key atmosphere for climbers to go out and just have fun crushing.

Natty Bridge

   With temps starting to cool into the land of Sendtember and Rocktober, I made it out to Natural Bridge and Falls State Park with the dream team of Bozeman sport climbers: Jeff Ho, Kevin Macartney, Jon Scott, and Frank Dusel.  They put some work in on Isla De Los Locos (5.13d), an amazing and abnormal endurance fest.  We finished the day on the porcelin wall where the coming storm put some unique light on Pageant of the Transmundane.

Wind Rivers

   Since I have lived in Bozeman i have heard the Wind Rivers mentioned by a handful of people.  This small group of friends who have been into the range, primarily for climbing objectives, have always left grand detail to the imagination.  The common word ran through all the reports: Big.  This almost cult-like secrecy eventually made me decide that I need to go explore this range, and find the cult's secrets myself.

   So a few months back i pulled out the map and said where to go?  Places i had heard of where spread out all over the map, Gannet Peak, Titcomb Basin, The Freemont Trail, Cirque of the Towers, and Sinks Canyon.  So in a rapid bout of ambition I declared to myself, I am going to traverse the entire range.  With a long trip and my honed backpacking skills I would see the entire range in one foul swoop.  Before long the route was planned, starting above Dubois we would follow the glacier trail up and over Bonney Pass (possibly summiting Gannet on the way), and continue down the SW side along the Fremont trail, before crossing back over Washakie pass and down into Sinks Canyon, just above Lander.

95-100 Miles - 8 Days - and no clue what i was getting into


After routinely putting in 15-18 mile days on many of my Pacific Crest Trail trips in my younger days i thought this plan to allow ample time for handling a bigger range. I was wrong.

Here's the list of ass-kicking features that the winds include:

• a day of hiking in the winds is mellow if it includes 3,000 vert of climbing, tough means 6,000
• this elevation is all achieved and lost between 10,000 and 13,000 feet, so yeah - your suckin wind
• If you've never seen over 100 mosquitos swarming you at one time...  it's pretty impressive 
• they don't build bridges... ever
• scree fields, boulder piles, mud pits, moraines, and creek beds are all alternate names for "trail"
• all gear breaks in the winds... im serious there's some sort of black freakin magic 
• They could be called the "Bermuda Triangle Range", GPS units give you altitudes up to 1000 feet wrong, and tell you there are multiple un-paved roads 40 miles into the backcountry

So in the end, we made it onto the Fremont Trail, a little more than halfway, before having to pull the plug due to being too far behind schedule to make it to Lander (Kevin had to head out a day earlier due to a bum ankle and a broken pack).  We dropped down and turned back to elkhart trailhead (near Pinedale).  I have never had a range hand me my ass like that...   ...and it was great!  The Winds are so big, inspiring, committing, wild, unique, and peaceful.  I was thrilled to be humbled by such an amazing range, and am already itching to get back.

Cheers, to the last truly wild place in the West.

The Royal Couple

So following the beautiful wedding of two good friends Marge and Kevin Volkening.  Dave, Ryan, Kevin and I rolled out around noon (following adequate hangover recovery) to the King and Queen near Whitehall for a little casual trad afternoon.

Ride the Divide

After getting shut down earlier this summer by snow, I was excited this Saturday to return to the Bangtail Divide Trail in drier conditions.  The trail once again delivered, 22 miles of pure singletrack bliss... and combined with a bluebird day in the 70's and the company of a couple good friends, I can't resist calling it the best day of riding this summer.

A good one on the Great One

Still feelin the ski stoke from last weekend but not quite up for another 14 hour day,  Pete and I opted for a more casual mission to the Great One.  After exchanging pleasantries with a couple mountain goats and hangin for a bit on Sacagewea Peak, we headed over to the top of the couloir.  The skiing in the top was perfectly soft and filled in and we ripped fall line turns to the break.  Unfortunately a recect wet slide had removed much of the snow in the lower half, and some equal downclimbing and jump turning led to the apron with a debris pile of rock and trees.  This is such a classic line to have so close to Bozeman.

July 9th, Y-not?

Last weekend i finally hooked up with my friend Pete Tapely, who has found his ski stoke quite late in the season.  Pete put down his first tracks about a month ago and is now in ful summer ski swing, but hey i didn't argue, as it had been over 30 days since i had some quality time with my sticks.  We decided to go get after the classic Y-couloir on Black Mountain in the Absaroka Range.  After a looong approach with some intensely high water creek crossings we came upon the lake and the peak above.  The skiers right line looked out of condition and had some looming hang-fire, so we opted for the skiers left line, finding some great spring corn all the way down.  After cooking it back down the trail we hit the car at 9:45, capping a 14-hour day... whew!

Upper Pine Creek Lake, the Y-Couloir is to the right of the large face.

Pete also made a really solid edit of the day. 

Click the link below and go full screen, hit the HD button, and crank the volume!

http://vimeo.com/26307556

Breaking through a wall of Tourists

Over fourth of July weekend I had an extra day off, and was itching to finally get the backpacking season on the road.  The issue was the ranges around Bozeman didn't have more than five miles of trail that didn't lead into three feet of snow, so I decided to drive into the mouth of hell...  Yellowstone on fourth weekend.  After a seriously slow drive through musch of the park, and some training in keeping blood pressure level, I arrived at the heart lake trailhead.  This area is south of Yellowstone lake and is the southern border of the Caldera, meaning along about 8 miles of trail, you get hot springs, mud pots, and geysers with no RV's, Texans, or boardwalks.  It was a unique experience to get to explore these features on my own.

Fumarol

Heart Lake and the upper Rustic Geyser basin

Hot Spring under Deluge Geyser

Sandhill Crane

Perfectly preserved Grizzly Bear track

Nine Sleep, give or take one...

Been off the blog for a while now, but comin at ya with the back logs.  About a month ago now i headed down to tensleep with a crew for a few days of clipping bolts on high quality limestone (a rarity in Montana).  After a late night warp speed trip, complete with getting lost, we had some great days on stone, i'll have to make it back to this awesome sleeper area (pun intended) again this summer.  A couple images will be coming to the main site soon as well.

Hyalite Creek Week

Hyalite creek is running high this week, making it a temporarily good run.  So the last couple days i got out to photograph it with a bunch of local boaters.  Look for a couple new shots on the main site later.

Urban Pixel Sprawl

While doing some file organization I have come across some of my more "urban" work from the past, here's a few from the Adriatic coast, NYC, and central Amsterdam.

On the sixth day, god made gore-tex

So out of the long memorial day weekend, i managed to grab one afternoon of dry weather, and two days of trail runs in the drizzly rain.  On Saturday, the weather broke after noon and Dave, Tony and i nuked it for Pipestone, dodging dirt bikes and finding some flowy trail to boot.