Hardwear Sessions

From Left to Right: Field Sparrow (Howard B. Eskin), Rufous Hummingbird (Howard B. Eskin), Northern Bobwhite (Ashok Khosla), Black-Throated Sparrow (Brad Fiero), Northern Pintail (Howard B. Eskin), and Boreal Chickadee (Jeremy Yancey).

By Cynthia Houng

This June, the Audubon Society released Common Birds in Decline, an alarming study detailing the precipitous decline of once-common North American bird species.

"These are not rare or exotic birds we're talking about--these are the birds that visit our feeders and congregate at nearby lakes and seashores and yet they are disappearing day by day," said Audubon Chairperson and former EPA Administrator, Carol Browner.

Mountain Hardwear is proud to support the Mountain Fund, a non-profit organization that seeks to alleviate the impact of extreme poverty and underdevelopment in the world's mountain environments.

Here, Scott MacLennan, the Mountain Fund's program director, describes the Mountain Fund's recent medical trek along Nepal's beautiful and isolated Tamang Heritage Trail. Located in Nepal's Rasuwa district, the trail sits about 120 km north of Kathmandu.

On this trek, the Mountain Fund team used MHW Space Stations as portable hospitals and the crew used Trango 3.1 tents for their quarters.

By Scott MacLennan, Program Director of the Mountain Fund

Moving Medical Camp Helps Nearly 1000 in remote area of Nepal

A team of health professionals traveled to Nepal in October with the ambitious goal of trekking the little known Tamang Heritage Trail and providing free health care to thousands of Tamang people living in the remote Rasuwa District. Visiting 7 villages along the trekking route the team established formal medical camps in Gatlang, Chilime, Timure and Syabru Bensi and saw additional patients in Tatopani as well.

The trip began for most of the participants with 24 hours of air travel from the US to Nepal. The Mountain Fund/KFK staff met the team at the airport and we boarded a rented bus to transfer to the Hotel Ambassador, our Kathmandu base.

This holiday season, send a little love to Alpinist magazine. On December 5th, Alpinist's warehouse burned to the ground. On their website, the folks at Alpinist write: "With nothing left to sell for our bread-and-butter season, we have a favor to ask. If you were considering giving Alpinist as a gift or renewing your subscription, now is the time to do so."

Here at Mountain Hardwear, we've all sent in our subscription cards, and we sincerely hope that you'll join us, and support Alpinist in their time of need.

Alpinist subscriptions make a wonderful last minute gift! You can purchase a subscription online, without wasting precious gas on a trip to the mall. It's a gift that's guaranteed to fit. And above all, you'll keep a wonderful independent publication alive. If you enjoy reading the stories on our blog, you'll enjoy Alpinist.

Jon and his team just wrapped up their scouting trip to Antarctica. Here's a small slideshow to whet your appetite!

By Jessa Goebel

Stone Fort, outside Chattanooga, TN, the final stage in the Triple Crown Bouldering Series.

As I walk through the boulder field on Friday helping set up the finishing touches for the competition, I can't help freaking out. The lines at Stone Fort are amazing: tall, short, crimpy, slopey, roofs, cracks, and aretes. It's all at Stone Fort. Best part of Stone Fort, the golf course that the boulder field butts up to. Where else can you go bouldering in the morning and finish the day with nine holes and a few beers in the club house?

Every first Saturday of December the Triple Crown comes to town for the final showdown in the series. This is the competition out of the series where you see competitors really start digging deep and fighting for a spot on the podium. Every category, men's and women's, had tough competition. Climbers came from all over the country to compete for the Triple Crown Title Belt. Yes, there actually is a belt for the winner of the Triple Crown complete with squeaky toy inside. For the men's there was speculation that Coloradan Paul Robinson would win, but for the women's the belt was up for grabs to the strongest overall. In the end it was Paul Robinson, and Kate Reece McGinness who would win the Series.

The Triple Crown also raised over $20,000 for the Access Fund, Southeastern Climbers Coalition, and the Carolina Climbers Coalition. All funds raised go toward the access and preservation of climbing areas such as Laurel Knob, Boatrock, and the Asheboro boulders in the Southeast.

Editor's note: Climbing magazine reported that Paul Robinson and Lisa Rands took first in their respective categories.

View Andrew's photos from Skyline, Utah

By Andrew McLean

The Skyline Snowkite Summit -- Skyline, Utah, Dec 7-9, 2007

The idea of getting towed on skis behind a kite has been around for many years, but in the last decade it has started to reach a critical mass. A big part of this has to do with advances in kite technology which make them easier to fly, cheaper to own and much safer to operate. The early days of kiting involved self-taught efforts, which in my case, often ended up with getting dragged through sagebrush or raked over barbed wire fences. It was also rare to see anyone else doing it as the equipment was hard to find and nobody really knew where to go for the best sessions.

Luckily, kite skiing survived its infancy and has a firm toe-hold towards becoming a legitimate sport as witnessed by the Skyline Snowkite Summit. This three day kick-off festival of the 07/08 season was held just outside of the small town of Fairview in central Utah and attracted about 75 participants. Although this event was mainly held for kiting retail-store owners, it had a mix of people, dogs, parties, kiting and clinics.

View More Photographs from the Bay Trail Clean Up

By Alex Baires, Mat Peterson, Valerie Antaki, Adrian Mateo, Amber Hoffman, James Gordon, and Douglas MacDonald

On the morning of Friday, November 30, 2007 a group of staffers from Mountain Hardwear, REI Berkeley, and Clif Bar & Company joined forces to work on a section of the San Francisco Bay Trail in Berkeley, California. This was the first project of what we hope will be many that the three companies work on as a group and eventually expand to other outdoor companies in the area. The "driving forces" behind this first project were ,Amber Hoffman from REI and Patrick Bush from Clif Bar & Company.

All told, 63 volunteers from the three businesses worked on about a quarter mile section of the Bay Trail for about half a day. Afterward, a group of six Mountain Hardwear staffers headed to Point Isabel (near the current Mountain Hardwear offices) where we cleared about 300 square feet of French Broom. Full day participant Kelly Kam said that "[it] was a lot of fun to have all those industry folks out there! Looking forward to the next project!"

By Mat Peterson:

Great event! Great turnout! Most Mountain Hardwear folks came by bike. A nice crispy cool morning ride was a great way to get started. We came armed with our warm Mountain Hardwear gear and after a lengthy strategy session on how to lock up the bikes we teamed up with REI Berkeley and Clif Bar & Company folks and it quickly turned into a spirited crowd ready to rally. The project consisted of picking up garbage and debris, trimming plants, as well as laying bark down. 60+ people did an amazing amount of work on about a quarter mile of trail. Groups came together beautifully with lots of laughter and zero bickering. Amanda Kawamura won the contest for most interesting find with the upper half of some used dentures. Other notables were a latex glove, a frying pan, and I came home with a coconut (go figure). The city organizer was very impressed with our effort and gave a nice speech telling us how grateful he was and that our group really set the bar. I think he almost shed a tear. Then it was off to a very festive and free lunch at the Clif Bar & Company offices, where we were served some delicious tacos provided by the three companies. A great time and a great cause. Sign me up for the next one.

We asked our volunteers to share their thoughts. Follow the "Continue Reading" link below to learn more about the day's most exciting finds (one man's trash is another's treasure).

View More Photographs from Read's Tower.

By William Meinen

Very early in my climbing career, as I pulled myself atop of the Devil's Tower in Wyoming, I was forever changed. Everything seemed different. The clouds were bigger. My hands had more character. I opened the summit registry to sign my name in the book with the rest of those who made it to the top. On the first page Todd Skinner had written a small paragraph before he signed his name.

It read something like this: "As climbers we have been given a key and are searching for the door. We may not know were the door is, but we know that it opens inwards. The search for meaning is not worth dying for, but is worth risking dying. Somewhere within this balancing act the door begins to open."

By Jon Bowermaster

November 30 -- Snow Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica

We reached as far as 65 degrees south two days ago -- roughly 50 miles north of the Antarctic Circle -- before turning back. During the past month the big ship -- the National Geographic Endeavor, a former fish processing boat converted to a tourist/research vessel 25 years ago -- had spent many hours crunching its way slowly through sea ice, squeezing through the beautiful LeMaire Channel and onto the Branfield Straits. Eventually the ice stopped us.

While still recovering from the shock and emotions of being the first ship to reach the sinking "Explorer" one week ago, the rest of my scout of the Antarctic Peninsula was a great success. I will return to the Antarctic Peninsula on New Year's Eve -- with five teammates -- to spend all of January sea kayaking along the eastern side, the Weddell Sea side. My prime reason for spending this past month here was to get a sense of how much ice surrounds the continent this year (each year is different) and talk to scientists and researchers here about expected conditions for the rest of the austral summer.

On Thanksgiving night we had pulled the ship into Fildes Bay, loaded my three, big (21 ft. 10 in.) kayaks onto rubber Zodiacs and ferried them to shore. There we were greeted by a small pack of leopard seals swimming in the shallows and the four-man team of Chileans that runs the Harbor Master's office on King George Island.

Regular readers of our blog know that Ryan Riggs has the ambition to highpoint in all fifty states. Ryan's already completed 26% of his mission (10 states on the Eastern Seaboard, plus Oregon, Washington, and Idaho).

Help Ryan decide where he should go next -- leave a comment with your two cents, and change the course of history.

Or at least make a small impact upon one life.

By Jon Bowermaster

November 23, 2007, In the Southern Ocean Twelve Miles South of King George Island, Antarctica, 10 a.m.

Aboard the National Geographic Endeavor, Captain Oliver Kruess was the first to sight the sinking Antarctic tourist ship, The Explorer, from about 15 miles away. The captain and his team had been on high alert for several hours, since the 1:45 a.m. distress was broadcast announcing to all ships in the region that the historic, 100-passenger ship had apparently hit an iceberg and was taking on water.

View More Photographs from Jodie's Travels on Flickr.

By Jodie Turnell, Columbia Sportswear

This would be a novel as long as War and Peace if I detailed every highlight of our South American adventure, so I'll focus on two of the most exquisite places, which just so happened to be the places we best utilized our Mountain Hardwear bags in Peru... Macchu Picchu and Taquille Island in Lake Titicaca.

October 12, 2007

We hopped the Peru rail to Macchu Picchu.

After three times trying to leave the San Pedro station in Cusco, we were Macchu Picchu bound. We zagged in and about the Andes, thru Urabamba and Ollantaytambo onto the Sacred Valley of the Incas where the Inca Trail begins.

View Andrew's Photographs from Previous Seasons on Flickr.

The First Day of the 2007/08 backcountry ski season in the Wasatch Mountains

By Andrew McLean

There is a lot riding on the first day of a new ski season. Technically, you could call sliding over sand, rocks or grass in the middle of summer a "first day," but realistically, the first day should be your best bet on when you can start reliably skiing day after day, week after week. The first day also serves as a gauge of the of the overall ski season, with an earlier start always being better. Late starts (like this year...and last year) mean you are pinning all hopes on a strong mid winter and spring, which can be demoralizing if they don't come through.

For me, the first day of the 2007/08 ski season in the Wasatch Mountains was yesterday, Dec 1st. I could have conceivably gone out earlier, but once I start skiing, that's all I want to do and the idea of starting and then getting shut down, even for a few days, is more than I can bear.