If you’re cruising through the UC Santa Cruz, CA area in the next few weeks consider stopping for
what sounds like a great film festival. Well, maybe not great, but worth giving it a
look. The Banff Mountain Film Festival makes
a stop in the community at the Rio Theater from February 25-27. If aren’t familiar with the fest or the
films haven’t made it to your neck of the woods, the showcase will consist of paddling, climbling, hiking, and
everything to excite the adventure traveler in us all.
Ice Climbing Upstate
It’s dangerous, and can be rough going, but ice climbing isn’t just for die-hard Eiger Sanction fanatics anymore. In
fact, upstate New
York has got a class for beginners and intermediates who want a taste of clawing their way up a vertical face of
slippery frozen waterfall. The
Adirondack International
Mountainfest offers clinics at about $125 a pop. They are taught by both longtime
Adirondack guides and world-renowned climbers and are scheduled througout late February and early March.
NY on Foot on Slate
Damn, there goes another idea I had.
I’ve always thought walking the entire island of Manhattan would make a great little story, let alone a great series
of dispatches. Well, like so many ideas, looks like
someone has beat me to it. Inigo Thomas is writing a
really superb series of dispatches for Slate as he foots it around the greatest island in the world. His series on
Greenwich Village, where I live, told me several things I didn’t know, for example the illustrious past of the Cedar
Bar, where I’ve been a few times for apres work beers.
I’m linking to the Monday dispatch, but there are five
delightful days. Read them all.
Slacklining for Dummies
I confess. I had no idea what “slacklining” was. My guess is most other folks don’t either. Then I watched this
quick little video
from Greatoutdoors.com, and I got the idea.
Slacklining is basically tightrope walking…on a slack climbing rope. Rather than walk over hungry lions at a
three-ring circus, however, they do it over a waterhole, that way if you fall you get wet, not eaten. Which makes it
easier to get back up and try again. It’s pretty cool. But don’t take my word for it. Go
watch it
yourself.
GPS Helper
Backpacker Magazine has got a list of routes they favor
with the GPS coordinates available on the site so you can follow the exact path Backpacker did. For example, the
Primrose Trail in Alaska or even the
Bell Canyon – East Ridge Loop in LA. Kind of a
cool little list that makes me wonder about all the amazing stuff like this we’re going to see because of GPS (audio
tours of an ascent by Sir Edmund Hillary as you’re climbing Everest?). We’ve posted here about
geocaching, just one of several “games” that people are
playing with GPS. Truly a cool technology.