- ARCHIVE / AUTHOR ARCHIVE
- WATCH: Shangri La Ski Expedition
Jimmy Chin, Ingrid Backstrom, Kasha Rigby and Giulia Monega climb and make the first ski descent of Redommaine , a 20,000ft peak in the Minya Konka range in Tibet. Some great photos and back story on Jimmy’s blog.
- WATCH: Messner
Reinhold Messner has always scared me a little bit. The big Bavarian castle, the wild hair, missing toes – it just all adds up to a Force Not to be Messed With.
- WATCH: The North Cascades
Always a place that held both good memories and no small amount of mystery to me, Washington’s North Cascade region is a pretty unique. Many of my first climbing mis-adventures took place in this part of the state, and I have a lot of respect for those hills. This video gives a tidy little overview of the area and features a quick couple of minutes on the indomitable Fred Beckey… Someone I’ve had the pleasure to meet a couple of times and hope to see out there someday!
- WATCH: Scotland in the Seventies
A few clips from Paul Cunningham’s YouTube channel featuring some wonderful vintage footage of Scottish routes… Great stuff. The first clip is my favorite – the whole process of traveling on the bike, across the ferry, ending up at the pub – just makes me smile. According to the comments, much of the footage, including the ferry ride is from different areas and climbs, but it ultimately tells a story and that’s what I like.
Rare footage by Yvon Chouinard, initially created for National Geographic featuring John Cunningham climbing an unspecified climb on Ben Nevis in 1976.
John Cunningham and Creagh Dhu climbing The Cobbler in 1978.
- Outdoor Retailer 2010
So I thought I should get some details about this year’s Winter Outdoor Retailer show down before they completely escape me… I’d been looking forward to the show for some time and managed to prepare a bit better this year, self-promotion-wise. For waaay too long my portfolio site had been nothing other than a single page production with a contact form and no real links to my work. Long story short, I managed to get something somewhat organized up and running before heading down to SLC to walk the aisles of the Salt Palace with my friends Dean and Eric. I also came down with a stack of postcards with my contact info and a little illustration that will hopefully be the theme of a future post.I drove the four hours straight into town and picked up my badges before heading in and saying hi to Graham at the CiloGear booth. I’ve been helping out CiloGear for a few years with a variety of web projects and it was nice to get to meet some of the full-time crew from Portland. Making just a quick circuit though the booths in the main climbing area I picked up a handful of stickers before escaping out into the suburbs of Herriman to Dean’s house.
The next morning we met an old high school friend Eric back at the show and basically worked our way through nearly the entire main floor, checking out the goods at the various booths, talking to vendors, and handing out my postcard to folks who were interested. It was fun to watch people try to figure out the illustrations and I managed to pick up a good stack of cards from potential future clients. We dropped our business cards into as many glass fish bowls as we could find in hopes of bringing home some good schwag. At the Rock & Ice booth I managed to win the three of us each a copy of Steve House’s latest book, by answering a handful of trivia questions. I also picked up the Shepard Fairey poster for 180º South which now looks pretty sweet on my wall. They had a copy of the 180º South book at the Patagonia booth and it’s definitely going to be added to my collection once it comes out.Friday night Dean and I went climbing at the Momentum gym south of downtown. They were having a competition that night so we had to wait a bit, but it was fun to watch a few really good climbers peel off the routes for a bit before doing the same ourselves.
Saturday afternoon we headed back into the fray and hit the smaller businesses off the main floor, picking up more samples and stickers and handing out cards. A highlight was running into Jim Bridwell and sharing my postcard – he really liked it – and it only got more interesting when I helped him figure out how to take photos with his new cell phone.
I also saw Tommy Caldwell and Timmy O’Neill, but I don’t think they needed any help with their cellphones.
Overall it was a productive weekend – catching up with friends, a handful of solid contacts for projects and collaborative efforts, and plenty of gear to look forward to…
- Back in the Saddle
I can’t believe I only managed to squeeze in 4 posts in for 2009.
With everything that went down last year though, I guess I’m not that surprised. Web surfing and Flickr posting declined sharply after making the transition from full-time art director for a Seattle agency to self-employed designer/developer, but now with nearly a year at this under my belt I think I’m ready to step it up a bit and commit to some consistent blogging again.
First up – a report on this year’s Winter Outdoor Retailer show – only 1 week late… as soon as I get a chance, I promise.
- Back in the Day
A handful of advertising scans from a 1978 copy of Climbing, as well as some older issues of Summit and Mountain. All good stuff.
- To Heck with Skis…
- Outdoor Retailer Detailer
So like I said – with CiloGear’s kind assistance, I made it down to the 2009 Winter Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake. After having driven down Friday morning through the snows of Wyoming and into the amazingly thick smog of an atmospherically inverted Wasatch valley, I stopped by the Salt Palace to pick up my passes from Graham and was then going to go connect with my friend Dean Mathews. Graham and I had been in communication for a year or so, working on different web projects for CiloGear, but this was the first time we’d had a chance to meet. We caught up on things as we walked the aisles of the show and slowly the scale of the place dawned on me and it suddenly became quite surreal. I say surreal as it’s not very often you get a chance to see so many climbing ‘celebrities’ in such a short time span. Dean Potter was walking around the show both days we were there, but we never really crossed paths, other than a quick shot with the iPhone. Shortly after seeing Mr. Potter for the first time though, I found myself in line to meet Royal Robbins and his wife Liz, both of whom graciously autographed a photo for my sister Maija and I. Then just a few moments later, we ran into Steve House. Graham introduced us, which was pretty cool. Steve’s one of those climbers I’ve enjoyed following for the last few years and I appreciate his outlook and approach to climbing and all that being a sponsored climber entails. He was really nice and down to earth, and I was wishing I’d had a business card on me to pass along. I left Graham to his booth after meeting the other CiloGear folks, and then called Dean. He was close by, so we decided to bag that evening’s plans of heading up into the drizzle and slush and walked around for a few hours checking things out before heading back to Herriman and dinner at home.
The next morning before heading back to the show we climbed on the garage wall for a bit and then stopped at a copy shop and made up a handful of postcards to hand out along with my business cards. Nothing spectacular, but hopefully those who ended up with them will hang onto them for at least a few days before throwing ‘em away. Next time I’ll have to come a bit better prepared, but I think they did the trick for this weekend. I talked to quite a few people – mostly small business owners with new products and really basic marketing materials who just looked like they could use some help and got a good number of positive responses. The size of the place made it easy to wander, and after eating some lunch we kept on trolling through the rows and rows of stuff – shoes, outerwear, skis, socks, underwear, stoves, snowball-chuckers – you name it and it was represented. Lots of stickers, a few goodies – a few products noted and tucked away for birthday and Father’s Day lists – and we were outta there. On our way to the exit, we stopped by the bouldering wall where we’d dropped a business card into a ski boot earlier in the afternoon, and realized it was time for the drawing.“And the winner of the pair of Scarpa climbing shoes is…
Seth…
Neilson!”
So there you go – there will be at least one good thing coming out of those cards, even if I don’t end up getting any business out of the trip… but I’m feeling pretty optimistic. It was nice to go hang out with the Mathew’s for a bit and get a little wall time in, and it was inspiring to see what’s new in the industry and generate a little hope for cool projects this year.
- Live from Salt Lake…
It’s the Outdoor Retailer Show! Thanks to Graham at CiloGear, Dean and I are walking the floor this weekend and picking up stickers and handing out business cards left and right. The size of this place is slightly overwhelming, but it’s been nice to be surrounded by people who don’t think that the only thing worth doing in the woods involves guns and snowmobiles.
