My folks came to visit us in Crested Butte last week. Not the normal Ohio kind, they kept things quite active. I wasn’t able to join them on everything, but here’s what we did do.
1) Rode our bikes down to Almont and back.
Category: Crested Butte
TR: Daisy Pass Hike (26 June 2010)
Posted by – June 30, 2010
My folks are in town visiting and after a few days of riding our bikes, we decided it was time to do something different. How about a hike? Now, keep in mind that Frank and I don’t really just hike. We hike to do something- to ski, to ride a bike back down. That’s just what we do. In fact, I mentioned to Frank that very morning, “We’ve never actually just gone hiking together.” “Yes we did. We went hiking along the tow paths along the Cuyohoga River when we visited your family in Ohio in October.” “That wasn’t a hike, that was a walk.” Daisy Pass was going to be a hike!
We parked at the Oh-Be-Joyful campground and began the hike with a bang- Nothing like a nice scary log crossing over a raging river to start off your day.
From there, we continued along the trail through a dry wooded area near Schuykill Ridge. Susan, Frank and I.
Rippin Chix Bike Camps
Posted by – June 28, 2010
On Friday I had the opportunity to instruct another one of Alison Gannett’s Rippin’ Chix bike camps. What a fun day it was!
Photo by Sherri Harkin at Ridgeline Images
For more pictures of Friday’s camp click here.
Instructing Alison’s camps is always a blast. I enjoy helping other women learn bike skills that they never thought they would be able to do. A few simple tips, like looking ahead, shifting your weight, and just believing that you can do it can go a long way. In just a few hours I watched a group of women grasp skills they knew barely anything about before the clinic and watched each and every one of them smile. Afterall, mountain biking is fun, especially when you’re with a group of girls who loves it too.
Too many women learn mountain biking from their significant other- usually a boyfriend or a husband. All too often, these men go out there and ‘charge it’- getting over things by brute force with little technique. Most women simply lack the ability or desire for ‘brute force’, but still want to mountain bike. I admit, I was a victim of this once. But, I eventually realized that I didn’t have to ‘ride like a guy’. I could still be aggressive, but ride controlled and smooth. I learned to ride those crazy lines using my own riding techniques. I learned to ride like a girl. That’s where Rippin Chix comes in. We want to teach women the techniques that allow them to ride both aggressively and easily over those burly obstacles, with both style and finesse.
Though Alison has not posted the dates on her website as of yet, she is planning on having other clinics this summer. If you’re a woman just starting out mountain biking or looking to improve your riding skills, I highly encourage you to attend one of her clinics. You will learn a lot and come back with a nice sized goody bag, a big smile, some new girlfriends, great memories, and a whole lot of great tips and tricks.
For more about Rippin Chix, please check out Alison Gannett’s website:
http://www.alisongannett.com/Alison_Gannett/Rippin_Chix_Bike.html
TR: Baldy, north (16 June 2010)
Posted by – June 22, 2010
Life gets hectic sometimes, and I haven’t been able to find the time to post up this TR from last week until now.
After skiing Baldy’s West and Southeast faces on Tuesday I wanted to go back for more. Somehow, along the way, I convinced Frank to come along as well. We decided to try to ski a chute on the north side of Baldy which we call Emerald Couloir, because it takes you right down to Emerald Lake at the bottom.
Gothic Road was blocked about a half mile or mile before Emerald Lake by some serious avalanche debris. We parked there and walked toward Emerald Lake.
When we arrived at Emerald Lake we took a look at our intended line, Emerald couloir.
Just looking at the picture, you can’t exactly tell the state that this line was is. But, it was full of avy debris and runnels, and looked really thin at the choke. So, we decided not to go for this line, and to go for another one that is still on the north side of Baldy, but is more east.
Our new line.
TR: Mt. Baldy solo (15 June 2010)
Posted by – June 17, 2010
Sunday’s ski on Grizzly was so incredibly good I couldn’t help but go back for more. Sadly, I couldn’t get anyone to join me. It seems that everyone has given up on skiing. But, I haven’t 
I chose to head out to Mt. Baldy, hoping to ski something on the west side- easy to access and fairly mellow terrain- exactly what I was looking for, especially for this solo ski.
I headed up Washington Gulch Road and was able to make it nearly to the base of the SE face of Baldy, but I couldn’t make it all the way due to a snowdrift. So, I parked there, and began walking around 6:45 am. Baldy in the distance.
The sun sent rays of joy my way.
Strand Hill Top Tube Cam 6.10.10
Posted by – June 14, 2010
Recently, 14erskiers acquired a new toy to play with and hopefully add to the quality of our trip reports:
A GoPro HD helmet camera.
Having seen footage from other users of this camera, we felt that the wide angle that this camera captures offers the best POV footage. I have another helmet cam, but more often than not I found that the battery was dead, or my video camera batteries were dead, or one of the many cables weren’t attached perfectly. In fact, the only really good footage I ever got with that camera was from Pyramid’s Landry line. One of my goals this summer is to edit up that footage and get it on the site, so stay tuned for that.
We found Microsoft’s Moviemaker to be incredibly awkward, so we ended up using a trial version of Cyberlink PowerDirector. It’s pretty good, and we may end up buying it for about $70. We would love to hear from our readers about other good, inexpensive editing software options. Our other question is what format people save their videos in, so the quality remains high but it doesn’t take hours to upload. We also noticed that our video lost considerable quality when uploaded to Vimeo and YouTube. We weren’t sure if this had to do with the compression format we used (wmv) or something else. So, any tips you could offer us regarding maintaining video quality while uploading to sites like this would be much appreciated.
Being just a small, stand-alone unit, the GoPro offers up a lot of unique mounting scenarios, and I decided to give a top-tube mount on my mountain bike a try. I’m not sure if it will be my go-to bike mount, but I thought it was kind of fun and different. We need to get a better SD card, so for now we just shot in regular, rather than HD, mode. The best version can be viewed here: Download Video
Otherwise, here’s the Vimeo version. Brittany gets the credit for the excellent editing job- I started freaking out after trying to use MovieMaker and had to take a time-out. 
“Easy”, by Lucy’s Fur Coat came up on my mp3 player when I rode Strand, and the size was right, so that’s the song we went with. Long-time MSP movie fans might recognize the song from the closing shots in their second movie, “The Hedonist”, one of my favorites. Oh, and it was only my second ride of the year…
Strand Hill June 10, 2010 from 14erskiers on Vimeo.
TR: I got a white rock on White Rock (26 May 2010) – a tale of Engagement
Posted by – May 29, 2010
After our attempt on Spider face on Sunday, I was itching to get something done. Our big ski lines had brought me too many failures of late- El Diente, Pyramid, and Spider Face. I was frustrated with failures and wanted to ski something relatively easy and fun- something I would enjoy and something that would end this streak of frustration and turn it around into success. I was debating which line to ski….
White Widow?
Or White Rock?
White Widow was obviously a more aesthetic line. But the skiing would likely be longer and better on White Rock. Both were accessed from the area that we call mini-Queen Basin.
I tried all week to find a partner, but had no luck. It seems that most people are “done skiing” for the season. Sensing my restlessness, Frank agreed to join me for a mid-week adventure, leaning toward White Rock as he had recently skied White Widow while I was off skiing Capitol.
White Rock it was.
Spider Face Attempt 5.23.10
Posted by – May 27, 2010
The Spider Face, photo taken on 5.9.09:
Pete Sowar has a photo of this face in his house, and it’s been on my list ever since. Pete and John Jasper were able to ski it after a number of attempts just a couple of weeks ago, so Brittany and I thought we’d give it a shot as well. We knew there was some ice on the route, but we were told it wasn’t too bad and we wouldn’t need a rope.
We headed up to the base of the route and quickly booted up to the first ice pitch. Brittany:
White Widow Couloir 5.8.10
Posted by – May 11, 2010
With this weekend’s opening of Gothic Road heading towards Schofield Pass outside Crested Butte, local ski mountaineers have a number of new options available. Or, to be more specific, they have more options that don’t involve an overnight pack or a huge day. With that in mind, Tom Runcie and I headed out towards one of Whiterock Mountain’s subpeaks with a couple different lines in mind. The first line we wanted to ski was the White Widow, a line I skied several years ago but hadn’t been back to:
Mayday, Mayday, We Have Powder! 5.1.10
Posted by – May 6, 2010
The last day of April ended with a bang, and the first day of May came in just as strong, with more snow and winter-like weather. Brittany and I were joined by usual suspects Rob Dickinson and Tom Runcie, plus Ron Pankey and Eric Freson. We considered a number of different areas, but in the end decided to check out a zone that Eric and Ron knew. While it isn’t the world’s most secretive zone, I tend to keep areas that people show me secret, therefore I’ll refer to this zone as “La Zona Rosa”, after the hip Mexico City neighborhood. It’s just fun to say “Zona Rosa”.
It was a bit difficult to get there at this time of year, and required some interesting snowmobiling (Eric):
There was a lot of enticing terrain to drool over and perhaps get to on another trip…
Lap 1, Tom:
Brittany:
Frank:
Ron:
With a tremendous looking “quarter slot” couloir above us, Eric, Rob, Tom, and I decided to head that way for our second run, while Ron and Brittany decided to take another quick lap. Looking down the slot:
I dropped in first, with slough chasing me down (photo Tom Runcie:)
Brittany got these shots of me exiting:
Rob (photos Tom):
Tom:
La Zona Rosa, muy bien, si?:
