One of the year’s BIGGEST events for ice climbers is coming up. The Festiglace du Québec lures some of the biggest names in ice climbing and mountaineering. Sponsored by the North Face, this year’s event will be held from from February 16 to 18, 2007 in Pont-Rouge. on icy walls of the Jacques-Cartier River in Pont-Rouge. If you are a fan of ice climbing, this is your big event. They will have gear manufactureres there, courses and workshops and just about anyone who is anyone in ice climbing. Here’s the schedule.
Gadling Podcast: Mike Marriner of Roadtrip Nation
What do you do for a living? Do you have the job you love or did you join a career for financial expedience? Perhaps you chose your job as a result of family pressure? The big questions is: do you do what you love? Did you take the time to think about it? (OK, that was two questions).
No matter. The point is that we sometimes rush into big life decisions without the kind of careful consideration that would help us be more happy. This exact thought was on the mind of Mike Marriner and his friends when they graduated from college, and rather than make a rash decision about what to do next, they did the sensible thing: Road Trip.
In this new podcast I talk with Mike about how he took the road trip that changed his life and that led to the creation of Roadtrip Nation, a massive national roadtrip program that seeks to get young people to think before they leap into the great, slimy, deep, cold, creature-infested pond of life (or the warm, bubbly, Swedish-model-filled jacuzzi of life in you happen to be Hugh Hefner). As Mike explains, Roadtrip Nation exploded from a cross-country Winnebago ramble into a full fledged national program with TV shows and books attached. It is very cool and very inspirational and, well, why don’t you just go ahead and listen.
Oh, by the way, we are also on itunes, so feel free to subscribe for your ipod.
And if you’re interested in any of our other previous podcasts besides those mentioned above, here is a quick list
-Diver and explorer John Chatterton
-Undersea explorer Fabien Cousteau and, most recently Josh Davis, author of The Underdog.
– James O’Reilly, Executive Editor of Traveler’s Tale
– Lonely Planet’s Don George
– Eric Stiller, kayaker and the author of Keep Australia on Your Left
– Jim Benning, co-editor of the online travel site Worldhum
– Dean LaTourrette and Kristine Enea, travel authors
– Cafe Reggio
New Backpack?
This is one of those advances that could have serious repercussions in the outdoor gear industry. A researcher has developed a better backpack, one that promises to make lugging crap into the wilderness a whole lot easier. I mean, how long has it been since you heard of radically new backpacking technology? The whole padded belt thingie, sure. Those elastic pull string locks, yeah, those are cool too.
But this new model, developed by biologists at the University of Pennsylvania, works by shifting the weight of the pack up and down with your body. The backpack is based on a rigid frame pack, like we all know and love/loathe, but rather than being rigidly attached to the frame, the sack carrying the load is suspended from the frame by bungee cords. The pack supposedly remains suspended in place with the bungee cords and stays almost motionless while your body moves around. Of course, it was not devised with you, dear gadling reader, in mind. Not to help pack in more water or your back country skis, but rather for soldiers and emergency workers. You were an afterthought. But, hey, that’s how a lot of our technologies come to be. The Internet?
Anyway, I thought, perhaps it was a bit of a gimmick and did not live up to its promise, but media outlets as prestigious as Science Daily and NPR did pieces on the new pack, so I suppose it’s got some cred. We’ll have to see how long it takes to come up with a viable commercial version you can get at REI.
Nat Geo’s Six Places to Go
National Geographic Adventure is probably my favorite among outdoors magazines. Outside comes in a close second, and can often be better than NGA, but overall, I like the range of stories in the sister glossy to the famous yellow bordered geographic mag. If you haven’t checked out the December 2006/January 2007 issue, you should.
The editors provide an interesting list of countries that you should visit NOW. Among them are China, South Africa (especially the Samara Private Game Reserve), Morocco (I’ve done Marrakesh and think it’s a wonderful place to visit) and Canada (yes, you heard it, Canuck country). For the latter, they pitch an 11-day Canoe Arctic trip in the Barren Lands that, I confess, sounds absolutely killer. Actually, as always the whole issue is good, but to start off the new year, the list here is a great place to start.
Santa Monica Mountains to (Possibly) Allow Camping
The closest mountains to my home are great for short hikes, but unfortunately, anyone interested in more than that is not allowed to camp for the night.
The Santa Monica Mountains, which run along Santa Monica, California and up through Malibu, have long banned overnight camping for a variety of reasons. Although the most important is fire danger, the most powerful reason for no camping is due to the celebrities and millionaires who live nearby and don’t want a bunch of commoners increasing traffic and ruining their paradise.
The rich might be losing the battle, however. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has just pushed through a tentative agreement which, if passed, would allow camping in the hills of Corral Canyon and Charmlee Wilderness Park–both of which lay at the far end of Malibu near Ventura County.
If everything goes accordingly, I’ll soon be able to spend the night in Malibu in my own private residence–albeit, a two-person tent.