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.
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.
Potts on America’s Top Ten Travel Spots
I get very wary of most Top Ten lists of places to travel. It is my unproven suspicion that most of these lists are put together by interns at magazines who browse the web and compile them for their bosses. Most, I would guess, have never actually been to all the places on their Top Ten lists.
But if there’s a writer I do trust out there to come up with a viable to ten list, it would be Rolf Potts. Potts now writes an excellent travel column for Yahoo, which I try to read as often as I can. But usually he writes about more international-based stuff. But today he’s got a piece on, yes, the top ten places to travel in America. And what I like about the list is that it’s eclectic. No Disneyland. No Hollywood and Vine. These are lesser-known, off beat spots where you can savor the flavor of American history and the American outdoors. For example, rather than suggest the old stand-by road trip like Route 66, Rolf suggests driving U.S. Highway 50, Between Maryland and California. And what about Pike National Forest,, Colorado? I’ll bet most folks have never heard of it, but Rolf says it’s where he “learned how to sleep under the stars, build campfires, read topographical maps, and rock climb”. And his favorite is probably my favorite as well. He recommends the epic Olympic National Park, in Washington, which I agree is one of the loveliest places around.
That’s only three of the ten. For the rest, check out the peice.
Nothing Says iGlove You Like This Gift
So the gift you bought a loved one didn’t go over well? Maybe this will be, er, more warmly received.
iPod lovers are rejoicing at Marmot’s new iGlove gloves and glove liners. Not only do they keep your hands warm and dry, but touch pads on the fingers of these glove liners allow you to operate your iPod click-wheel, without completely exposing your hands every time you want to skip past that last summer’s hit tune, which is not as appropriate to listen to while on the slopes.
The patent-pending fabric lets the electrical charge from your finger pass through the liner. And, of course, the liners work with any glove, or can be used on their own.
Not that some of us will be enjoying much skiing this year (there’s no snow in Europe!), but it’s good to know that somebody figured out how to make winter sports more compatable with the iPod.