The North Face

Jan 27 | PRO SNOWSPORT ATHLETES VISIT SCHOOLS TO DISCUSS EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

By The North Face

Nick Martini

Winter is finally kicking into gear but the effects of a shortened season have already taken a toll on snow-based economies across the country. The widespread lack of snow wreaked havoc on mountain town businesses and ski resorts that generate an estimated 50 percent of annual revenue during the Christmas, New Year’s and MLK holidays.

This week,  while Aspen hosts Winter X Games 16, Olympic and X Game medalists are speaking out on climate change and sharing their unique perspective on the economic, social and intangible values of winter with students at Colorado high schools as part of nonprofit Protect Our Winters’ Hot Planet/Cool Athletes program, in partnership with The North Face.

Hot Planet/Cool Athletes is a partnership between Protect Our Winters (POW), the environmental center point of the winter sports community, and Alliance for Climate Education (ACE), the national leader in high school climate education.  The program pairs famous pro snow sport athletes with ACE educators to deliver an award-winning multimedia assembly on climate science and real-world solutions. The assembly features athlete’s personal stories about climate change, specific local consequences related to lower snow levels and inspires students to take action against climate change.

Hot Planet/Cool Athletes is part of a host of special events happening in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley high schools leading up to Winter X 16 in Aspen. During the four-days, Hot Planet/Cool Athletes is slated to reach 1600+ students. 

To help students create meaningful actions after each assembly, Bob Marley’s 1Love.org and POW will be providing starter grants to the Aspen-area students who submit results-based, sustainability ideas to POW.  Together, they’ll be awarding $250 per school to individuals and/or groups of students who submit their best ideas to POW by March 1st, 2012.

 “Part of POW’s mission is to make sure that the next generation is better equipped to address climate change. As athletes, we now have a relevant platform to reach young students and create a movement of passionate youth leaders,” said Jeremy Jones, POW’s Founder and professional snowboarder.

Since its launch last year at Winter X Games 15, Hot Planet/Cool Athletes assemblies have reached 10,000+ students at high schools in Colorado, Utah, California, Vermont, Massachusetts and Nevada.  With help from influential snow sport athletes, 

and partners such as The North Face, Clif Bard, Backcountry Magazine, The Quiksilver Foundation and 1Love.org, the assemblies have inspired students to lead environmental action teams that implement impactful climate-related projects in their schools and communities.

 

Jan 27 | Climbing and Filmmaking, a Life of Passion.

By Cedar Wright

When I went on a climbing trip to Brazil in 2009, with Renan Ozturk, I had just bought a video camera and loaded Final Cut Pro onto my rickety laptop.  A month later, I was loving Brazil so much, I ended up staying an extra two months, and shot and climbed the entire time.  When I came home I had SO much footage, and decided I should try to put together a short film to enter into film festivals.  This was the beginning of what has become a career within a career.  I've been lucky to shoot short films in Australia, Malaysia, all around the western united states since then!  Here is Pra Caramba!

 

Now three years later, I am still passionate about climbing and filmmaking.  I sometimes struggle with finding the balance between these two passions but in the end they are complimentary, and whether I am hanging off the side of a cliff filming or climbing, I feel like I'm living my own personal version of the DREAM!!!  Here is my most recent work, that features fellow TNF athlete Sam Elias defying gravity.

 

Jan 25 | James Balog :: "it looks like the world is hungry for a clear and compelling story about climate change"

By The North Face

 

It looks like the world is hungry for a clear and compelling story about climate change. 

 

"Chasing Ice," a 75-minute documentary about the Extreme Ice Survey, had its world premiere Monday night here at the Sundance Film Festival. The film reveals the immortal beauty of icy landscapes in Greenland, Alaska and Iceland at the same time it shows how fast they're being altered by climate change. 

 

27-year-old, first-time feature director Jeff Orlowski created the film. He is one incredibly tenacious, persevering guy--a truly extraordinary individual.

 

It was overwhelming...awe-inspiring...exhilarating...humbling to see and hear the passion in the audience's reaction. We had two standing ovations (Sundance regulars tell me that one standing ovation is rare and two are unprecedented). What a wild night! 

 

To give you a sense of the response, here are the very first press blurbs: 

 

"Chasing Ice is amazing. Definite Oscar contender for docs." Mina Hochberg / Outside Magazine & AM New York

 

“Beautiful and terrifying." Jad Yuan/New York magazine

 

“Amazing.  Wow. I'm so glad I came to this screening so I could hear the q and a.  It is very well done and powerful.” Jesse Hawthorne / San Francisco Bay Guardian

 

“It was really good. The debate about climate change is over.” Greg Reitman / The Environmentalist

 

“The doc really worked for me. It looks terrific and there's a solid character story as well.” Dan Feinberg / Hit Fix

 

“It is incredible.  It is such an important film.  I'm going to tell everyone about it.” Gilda Brasch/IDA

 

“An amazing film.” Kim Voynar/ Movie City News

 

One of Sundance's lead festival programmers told me "This is the climate change film we've all been waiting for."

 

Need I say more??!! 

 

More to follow in another day, as certain VERY interesting details unfold...

 

 

Nature photographer James Balog, left, and director Jeff Orlowski, from the documentary "Chasing Ice," pose for a portrait during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Victoria Will) 

 

Jan 24 | Mirror Reality: Rocky Mountain Boulder Send by Daniel Woods

By The North Face

On behalf of Daniel Woods

I first got word from Dave Graham in May of 2011 of a potential new project in Rocky Mountain National Park. The climb is located a few hundred feet past the moraine park turnoff, on the right hand side of the road. An obvious landmark to look for is the raging river filled with house sized boulders, running underneath the road bridge. You park in a pull out just past the bridge on the right and run a few hundred feet up the hillside into the woods.

Eager for new boulders, I decided to take a solo mission and check it out. The nature of the rock is glassy with large chunks of crystal seamed together, creating just enough friction to hold on. The beginning is steep (45 degree angle), but as soon as you reach the lip, the angle changes to a bulged out slab. You begin with a 4 move 8A+ which crux revolves around a low percentage first move. The theme of the problem begins (most of the time concludes) at the half way point of the boulder. Here you take a flat full pad edge with your right hand and a flat half pad edge with your left, place your right toe on a needle tip piece of crystal, and jump blindly over the bulge to a glassy sloper with your left hand. This one move in itself is around 8A and is tough to stick from this point, let alone from the beginning. The exit is a 4 move 7C/+ with a hard right foot rock over to the finishing edge. At this point you are relieved and can walk off to the right.

I tried this project on and off for a couple of weeks in May into June, but the conditions became too warm to succeed. At this point I was disappointed knowing that I was not able to return back until next spring of 2012. My plan was to travel to Europe and boulder for the fall/winter season. The whole time I was in Europe, I thought about this project and if anyone was going to go try it. I heard that a couple of climbers in Boulder were working it on and off, but there was still no success. My departure time in Europe arrived and I flew back to CO in Jan. of 2012. I had speculation if the project would be doable in winter because of snow levels. With a low snow season, the park was in the prime and I repaid the “Bridge Project” another visit.

It took a few days to remember the moves, but on my 5^th day I executed each move perfectly and grunted my way to the top. Dave Graham and Cameron Maire were there to support me and it felt nice to have friends to share this experience with. There are still more projects to be climbed. I am impressed with how much rock the park has to offer. It seems that gems keep popping up each year, get cleaned, and then become a reality.  

Jan 19 | Hilaree O'Neill :: Road Tripping Installation #11

By Athlete Parents

We drove the 400 mile stretch of Highway 50, also known as the Loneliest Highway, in one day. 

http://ponyexpressnevada.com/pony-express-loneliest-road.html

It was tough to do not so much because of the distance, but because of all the amazing things we saw and all the potentially cool places to stop. The amazing thing about this road trip is that it’s brought me to some really cool parts of the country. Even though I haven’t exactly had a lot of extra time to really explore the places I’m passing through, I know I want to come back. As a skier, it would be an amazing trip to come back to some of the mountain passes along Highway 50 and try for some winter ski traverses.  It looked like there would be some good adventurous rock climbing in the spring or fall and also just remote places to camp and explore and let the kids run wild.

Not only was the drive well beyond my expectations, pulling into the Great Basin National Park ended up being one of my favorite stops on this 4500 mile road trip. 

http://www.nps.gov/grba/index.htm 

Partly because there were no crowds and the camping was incredibly relaxed, partly because it was such an unexpected surprise but mostly because of the cave tours and how excited Quinn was about spending an hour climbing through massive cavern after massive cavern in the Lehman Caves.

"The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time."

-Henry David Thoreau

We spent two nights in the park and most of that time was at the main center where the Ranger station, restaurant and Lehman Caves are located. The kids obviously loved the caves, even though I was really nervous to take them on a guided, structured tour. Quinn only strayed from the group a few times and neither of them tore down any stalagmites or anything so, all in all, it went pretty well.

When I make a trip back to this area, I would really like to climb 13,065 ft Wheeler Peak and explore the limestone arches and cliffs that lie within the park. Truly, though, this was one of the best surprises of the trip and an amazing National Park.

Packing up the camper and the kids this time, I realized we only had one more stop before heading home. From the Great basin we were driving due east across southern Utah to a friend’s place in Boulder, Utah. Again, this was a slice of the country I had never seen before but had heard lots about. There is a high concentration of National Parks in this part of the country- Bryce Canyon, Capital Reef, Zion. I was excited about the drive though this wild and scenic area. Also, my very good friend, Kasha Rigby, was at the end of the drive and I always love any chance I get to see her.

Jan 16 | the north face sustainability ambassador james balog heads to sundance film festival!

By The North Face

An exciting new development in the life of the Extreme Ice Survey has just happened. The screening committee for the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, the world's premiere indie film event, has honored a new feature doc, "Chasing Ice," with a much-coveted slot at the festival. Created by first-time, 27-year-old director Jeff Orlowski, the film was one of 16 documentaries selected from the 9,000 entered in the competition. It focuses on the human drama behind our four-plus years of work documenting how climate change is causing the retreat of glaciers all around the world. There's a lot of adventure and psychodrama by way of delivering the climate change story in an engaging way. (BTW, the Everest IceCam project with Conrad Anker and The North Face unfortunately started too late for the video team that shot "Chasing Ice" to cover it. But we're getting killer material from those cameras—and you'll see more of it in the months to come.)  "Chasing Ice" will premiere at Sundance on January 23 and be screened almost every day for the next week.  We'll keep you posted.  Meanwhile, fingers crossed for good audience reaction in Utah!

 

 

Jan 12 | Hilaree O'Neill :: Road Tripping Installation #10

By Athlete Parents

Driving from Crater Lake National Park to Truckee, CA was ridiculously long. I still can’t believe I made it in one day with a 1 yr old and a 3yr old. I must have been really determined to sleep in a bed that night instead of rolling out the pop-up for another night of camping.

 After about 9 hours in the car, it was such a relief to see Jim Zellers and have a helping hand. The Zellers’ have a great house with a big yard on a quiet street so it was easy to let the boys run around while Jim and I sat on their big porch and drank a beer and caught up on life a bit. Jim’s wife, Bonnie, and two boys were on a camping trip and wouldn’t be home until the next day. 

Jim helped me line up a babysitter for the kids with his neighbor so we could go for one of Jim’s infamous mountain bike rides ( Jim is well known for sand-bagging, his idea of a 2 hr ride usually takes twice that!).  I was so psyched to get in a really long, hard ride after all the time I’d spent sitting in a car and trying to rationalize with a 3 year old; some old-fashioned suffering would go a long ways to clear my head.  Just as Jim and I were getting on our bikes, several of his friends pulled into the parking lot and we joined up into a group of about 8 people. It ended up being an amazing day, the kind you could never plan and the kind you don’t easily forget. 

http://www.tahoesbest.com/biking/local.htm

Bonnie and the boys showed up that afternoon and thanks to Jim and Bonnie’s input, our next stop was slated for the Great Basin National Park. Honestly, I had never even heard of this park and as it was in the middle of nowhere in Nevada, I was totally skeptical. Not to mention, the drive from Truckee to the Great Basin was so remote that the main highway, Highway 50, is also known as the Loneliest Highway in America; not entirely inviting but the Great Basin came so highly recommended that I had to give it a go. Check out the links below for some information on this part of Nevada. It is definitely worth the trip!

http://www.sunset.com/travel/southwest/highway-50-travel-guide-00400000021687/

http://www.travelwritersmagazine.com/RonBernthal/Nevada_loneliest_road.html

Jan 05 | Hilaree O'Neill :: Road Tripping Installation #9

By Athlete Parents

Alas, another excerpt from the never ending road trip. I left off in my last blog with hood River, Oregon; a fabulous place of water, mountains and sunshine. The hardest part of leaving Hood River, however, was that I was on my own again, just me and the two boys, our truck and our pop-up camper.

Just about all of the driving we have done on this epic journey has been on rural, single-lane backroads and going from Hood River to Crater Lake National Park was no different. I love this kind of driving but my boys were still too young to appreciate it and I often just wished I was going 80 mph on the freeway but freeways never seemed to go where I wanted to go. At any rate, our drive took a total of about 6 hours with a few stops for leg stretching and eating.

http://www.nps.gov/crla/index.htm

http://www.craterlakelodges.com/

For years, I had heard about Crater Lake National Park, about it’s incredible beauty and wildness but I really had no expectations upon arriving in the park. When we reached the first overlook I was totally blown away with how big the actual lake was and how crystal blue the water. 

We were really lucky to get a good campsite in the park. August is a busy time of year and. Although Crater lake isn’t one of the busier National Parks, I still think we were really lucky. It took a while to get the whole campsite set up. It’s tough with one person to manage all the things that go into camping plus keep an eye on two toddlers who always seem hell-bent on beating each other up.

The campsites are really pretty nice – spacious and private. The only problem was that in this part of Oregon, at this time of year, it is very dry and so the campsite was predominately covered in a lot of fine, dry dirt that my boys seem to think was amazing to throw and roll in and even eat; all things that I was helpless against stopping.

In our two days in the park we ventured on some beautiful trails and hung out along the rim with groups of other tourists. Quinn and Grayden were too small to hike the challenging trails that led down to the lake so someday we will have to make our way back. I also could only imagine coming to this park in the winter. The main lodge is open all year and I would love to stay in the lodge and ski tour all around the area. The skiing from the rim down to the lake would be incredible and the Crater Lake Lodge is simply amazing.

Our time in the park was too short but after a few days of camping with the kids I was ready to visit some more friends. Packing everything and collapsing the camper and strapping the kids into the truck was total chaos but my next stop was Truckee, CA and the Zellers’ house- good friends with two boys of their own.

Dec 20 | Wallisch Wins Dew Tour Slope

By The North Face

It was Tom Wallisch’s day Sunday as The North Face athlete kicked off the winter season with a win in slopestyle at the Winter Dew Tour in Breckenridge, CO.

After warming things up on run one, Wallisch came back in run two to grab the top spot.

His run included a 270 on the down rail, a blind 360 switch-up over the gap rails into a switch right 900 and a double cork 1080 high mute, a b450 off the top of the wall ride, and back-to-back switch double cork 1080 Japans.

The run was impressive and put Wallisch five points ahead of the field.

Catch the winning run below and be sure to check back for updates on Wallisch all winter.

 

Dec 19 | Megs Pischke on Why she makes Traveling with her Family a Top Priority

By Athlete Parents

To start I have been SO blessed with a career that has taken me around the world and back. I feel extremely lucky to have the opportunity to travel, and take my kids. I can't imagine not having them with me on my amazing adventures! 

It's definitely not always easy when your schlepping carseats, luggage, managing airport time, ect, but so worth it when you know you are giving them a gift to open their minds and hearts.

I remember Leighlis first travel. She was one month old, and we were driving from Colorado where she was born, to our home in British Columbia. I decided that we were going to call her carseat her “adventure chair”, and that I didn’t want to put her in it if she was crying or upset. So that’s how the week of travel went. If she wanted to hang out in the Chinese food restaurant in Spokane, or continue walking circles in a field in Montana, that’s what we did, no car seat drama. And perhaps it worked because by the time she turned one she had been to Costa Rica twice, to Quebec, Alaska, and 5 other States- all in her adventure seat with a smile!

What I have loved to watch transpire in my daughter when traveling is that there is no black and white definition to the world around her. I mean that there is no poverty, colors to peoples skin, etc.,  Its just one big community to her. And everyone is her neighbor. She really thinks that Costa Rica is “next door”, as she gets into her pajamas at grandma and grandpas in Colorado, then sleeps through the rest of the trip (security and all) down to Costa.

There's so much for her to learn and experience out there- and for me to learn with her. Bringing your kid along in your travels really keeps you in the moment and brings out the childlike wonder in yourself!