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8 Adirondack Sports & Fitness BACKCOUNTRY SKIING continued from page 1 with ski touring in the valleys of the Adirondacks. Due to the demands of the terrain, true AT ski gear has more in common with alpine ski gear than it does the cross-country like setups common in ski touring. AT skis are essentially lighter versions of downhill skis, but many backcountry skiers opt to use a true alpine ski as the foundation of their setup. I myself have toured on a pair of heavy Volkl skis with an alpine touring binding for a number of years. AT boots are similarly heavy-duty. Hard plastic, three or four buckle boots are standard. Many companies now offer lightened versions of their fullblown downhill boots, with Vibram rubber soles and walk modes that make traveling up the hill a relative breeze. The popularity of alpine touring has grown substantially in the United States over the last fi ve years as a result of high tech alpine touring gear starting to be imported from Europe. Increased access to AT equipment opened the doors to backcountry skiing all over North America. The real key to the AT setup is the binding. It works just like a standard binding on a downhill ski – the skier clicks into it with toe and heal, but there is one key difference. The rear of the binding can be released, allowing the binding to pivot up and down at the toe giving it a cross-country like functionality when skiing on fl at ground and up the hill. It’s a hybrid between a freeheel telemark binding and standard downhill binding – offering better touring than a telemark, with the full performance of a downhill binding. The AT binding is only half of the equation for backcountry ski effi ciency however – once the skier adds a “climbing skin” to the bottom of the ski, he or she has effectively transformed a strong and safe downhill setup into an effective cross-country ski. Climbing skins are made of a Velcro-like material and clip to the ski on the tip and tail and allow the ski to grab the snow and only slide forward like a cross-country ski. Combined with an AT binding they giving the ski an uphill capability usually reserved for snowshoes. With the added strength, durability, and functionality of an alpine touring setup, comes one disadvantage: weight. If a skier isn’t planning on tackling the rugged steeps of the High Peaks, there’s little need for the additional weight of an AT setup. Most experienced AT skiers will agree however, that when standing at the top of a step chute on a remote High Peak, the added assurance of having strong and reliable gear underfoot is well worth the weight penalty on the way up. Archery • Photography • Soccer • Arts A popular alpine touring destination in the High Peaks is Angel Slide on Wright Peak. If you’ve toured into Marcy Dam in the past, you’ll know Angel Slide as the exposed rock face visible to the south west of the dam, on the lower portion of Wright Peak. Where the touring ski is likely only to get skiers to Marcy Dam, the AT setup, combined with expert skills and proper safety gear, will allow them to go through the backwoods off-trail to the slide itself. With an AT setup, the skilled skier can ski up the mountain, then have the chance to make turns on natural, and potentially deep powder from the top of the slide. It’s a rush that any experienced AT skier will tell you – well worth the work it takes to get there. Angel Slide is a great place for expert alpine touring, but please keep in mind that it is not a beginner objective. You’ll need to be able to ski double black diamond terrain at resorts, and also have the fi tness to spend 12 to 14 hours climbing in the High Peaks before heading out to a location like Angel Slide. AVALANCHE RISK An immediate word of caution must be heeded when discussing backcountry skiing on Adirondack Slides. It is critical to understand that avalanches are a reality in backcountry skiing, and Angel Slide is the key example. A skier was killed in an avalanche at Angel Slide in the early 2000s, and last season another pair of skiers nearly lost their lives when the snow avalanched off the slide while they were skiing there. Avalanche fatalities have been rare in the Adirondacks, but in recent years the number of incidents of people being caught in an avalanche and narrowly surviving has increased dramatically. I suspect this is due to the increased number of people traveling in the Adirondacks in the winter – with growth in adventure skiing, comes an increased risk of exposure to dangerous conditions. There are three key safety items you must have to safely complete backcountry skiing objectives on Adirondack slides: the avalanche beacon, a probe and a shovel. The beacon is the key element in avalanche safety. It is simply a homing transceiver that each person in your party needs to wear in the backcountry. In the event that you are buried in an avalanche, a beacon gives the rest of your party a chance of fi nding you, and digging you out before you suffocate. The probe and shovel are key elements in the process as well. None of these things are a replacement for common sense though. You need to have a good understanding of how the snow pack develops, what Sailing • High Ropes • Hiking • Rock Climbing • Bicycle Touring • Canoeing • Tennis Summer Camp Teen Adventure Trips 518-656-9462 chingachgook.org Leadership • Cooperation • Responsibility • Team Work • Compassion • Respect • Fun! Swimming • Community Service • Sports snow conditions are dangerous, and how to analyze the environment around you to make sure you’re safely traveling. I can’t possibly cover all of this here, so I’ll simply say it is critical to take an avalanche awareness course, which is offered in the region a few times each winter, and learn the necessary skills for safe backcountry travel before you plan on traveling in exposed parts of the High Peaks. SKI MOUNTAINEERING Not scared off yet by the risk of getting buried in snow? You may be ready for ski mountaineering, the big brother to alpine touring. Where AT adds challenging climbs and descents to the concept of ski touring, ski mountaineering adds the challenge of climbing and rappelling vertical cliffs and ice walls that are not skiable, in an effort to get to skiable terrain. In alpine touring, skins and an AT ski setup should get you anywhere you need to go. Once you start to mix in the need for crampons, ice axes, harnesses and ropes, you’ve crossed over into the fringe of the fringe – ski mountaineering. Traveling in the mountains and getting to the remote ski locations becomes a primary objective in ski mountaineering. Many ski mountaineers will set goals of skiing places no one else has skied. The accessibility of the objective typically becomes even more remote and diffi cult to get to with experienced ski mountaineers, and requires advanced ice climbing, winter camping and skiing abilities. In the Adirondacks, the classic ski mountaineering destination is Gothics. With a lengthy approach and steep rock faces, it requires a mixed bag of skills, from the ability to move quickly and effi ciently on the long approach, to ice climbing the north face W PHOTO BY SHAWN COMBS/ HIGH ADVENTURE SKI & BIKE of the mountain before skiing the True North Slide and heading back to camp. It’s doable as a very long single day, but to me the trip makes perfect sense to match with winter camping in the Johns Brook Area. It’s certainly not a trip for the faint of heart, but it can be a rewarding day or two in the mountains for the strong backcountry adventurer. If you’re like me, and you love winter and skiing but are tired of lift lines and $80 lift tickets, its time to check out the backcountry. Beginner and intermediate skiers should start out with ski touring. Expert skiers should look into getting an AT setup and venturing into the mountains. If you already have some AT gear, consider pushing yourself a little further by learning mountaineering skills, and pushing yourself even further this winter. The ninth annual Adirondack Backcountry Ski Festival is March 5-6 in Keene Valley with ski clinics, guided tours and presentations (mountaineer. com). For guide services, contact High Peaks Cyclery & Mountain Adventures (highpeakscyclery.com), Northeast Mountain Guides & Wilderness School (hallocksmarine@yahoo.com), NYS Outdoor Guides Association (nysoga.org), or Adirondack Mountain Club (adk.org). Try it and you’ll likely agree – backcountry skiing is the best way to spend a snowy day in the woods! Eric Schillinger (eric@schillinger-law.com) has been skiing in New York and New England for over 20 years. When not skinning to a remote slide in the High Peaks he practices law in the Capital District. ish your running were energy efficient and effortless? Tired of having your season interrupted by injury after injury? Lost the joy of running like a child? Playful and free? Dream of running like the wind? Easy, smooth, light, swift? It’s time you tried... Ann Margaret McKillop AnnMargaret@MyFitnessRecovery.com • 802.259.3617 • MyFitnessRecovery.com -America’s Oldest Ski Shop- New from ADK and Lost Pond Press S P O R T I N G G O O D S Huge Selection Ski/Board Clothing The North Face, Spyder, Mammut, Under Armour Top Ski Brands Nordica, Volkl, Rossignol, Full Tilt Top Snowboard Brands GNU, Tech Nine, Burton, ThirtyTwo Season Rentals $99.99 Juniors • $149.99 Adults Expert Factory Trained Staff Custom Boot Fitting • XC Skis 382-2037 98 Freeman’s Bridge Rd, Scotia GoldstocksSportingGoods.com Mon-Fri 9am-8pm, Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 12-4pm Adirondack Birding The first comprehensive guide to birding hot spots in the Adirondack Park—more than 60 sites. By John M.C. Peterson and Gary N. Lee, with color photographs by Jeff Nadler, $20.95, 240 pages. JOIN ADK AND RECEIVE A 20% DISCOUNT ON ALL ADK PUBLICATIONS 800-395-8080 www.adk.org LOST POND PRESS
www.AdkSports.com JANUARY <strong>2<strong>01</strong>1</strong> 9 RUNNING AND WALKING Reading on the Run by Laura Clark I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means. -Joan Didion hile running is basically a solitary Wsport, at some point even the loneliest long distance runner feels the need for a social life. Enter the casual running group, Internet blog and cozy bookstore. Joan Didion, essayist and early proponent of creative nonfiction, was correct: writing validates experience. But if those temptingly bound blankpaged journals or the latest blog site fills you with more terror than a stint of public speaking, do not despair. While we are all, as the running philosopher George Sheehan was wont to exclaim, “an experiment of one,” there is nevertheless a certain commonality of experience. Sample some of the books reviewed below and discover not only the latest training suggestions, but your own below-the-surface emotions. Outstripping all competitors is Christopher McDougall’s epic “Born to Run,” which broke the tape on the New York Times Best Seller List, advanced to the prestigious Notable Books Council Awards, and spawned a minimalist shoe revolution that basically overhauled the inventory of major shoe distributors. Superbly layered, this offering details the author’s compelling journey through cutting edge science to the desolate Copper Canyons, the last stand of the Tarahumara – an ancient tribe of super athletes. Along the way Christopher’s quest detours back and forth across time and space to the Western States Endurance Run, a persistence running hunt with Bushmen, and Bill Bowerman’s iconic waffle iron. While “Born to Run” is undoubtedly a tough act to follow, a sampling of three of the latest training tomes shortcut past the usual advice and into a New Age myth-busting frame of mind. In “The Runner’s Body: How the Latest Exercise Science Can Help You Run Stronger, Longer and Faster,” PhDs Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas advance beyond Dr. Noakes compendium, “The Lore of Running,” braving the final frontier in the mind over matter debate. Coach Matt Fitzgerald in “The Runner’s Edge: High-Tech Training for Peak Performance” takes us to the next level of heart rate monitor ownership, well beyond the basic stopwatch application where most of us stagnate, onto the fascinating world of data analysis. Bring on those charts and graphs! After all of that math, the prolific Matt Fitzgerald’s “Racing Weight” is a snap with its Diet Quality Score Chart, which requires a preschooler’s ability to count from one to two and back again. Best of all, Matt forgives a holiday weight gain below eight-percent of optimal training weight. No more January diets – for some of us, at least! Information, however, can only take you so far. Knowing what we should do is a far cry from actually doing it. This is where inspirational reading can pull you out of the doldrums and back into your running shoes even if it is dark and frigid outside. Like the proverbial mailman, neither weather nor a NYC transit strike could keep firefighter Matt Long from his appointed rounds – until he got crushed by a 20-ton bus making an illegal turn. In “The Long Run: A New York City Firefighter’s Triumphant Comeback from Crash Victim to Elite Athlete,” his physical and mental road to recovery – including finishing the 2009 Ironman Lake Placid – will make your run seem the privilege it truly is. Paraphrasing Ecclesiastes, “To every life there is a season,” so it goes with athletes. Overwhelmed moms often feel that the 24/7 demands of motherhood make the simple act of going for a run rival the logistics of an Ironman event. Enter freelancers Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea and their “Run Like a Mother: How to Get Moving – and Not Lose Your Family, Job or Sanity” with practical, humorous insights on how to get the job done. A perfect baby shower gift to accompany that jogging stroller, a revelation to husbands everywhere, and a vision of the marathon at the end of the changing table… Midlife, Rachel Toor in “Personal Record: A Love Affair with Running” details her journey from intellectual couch potato to competitor to dater on the run to best friend and pacer. “The pay is great: a thank you and a kiss… are much more compelling than a PR or a Shiny Metal Object.” And then there are the baby boomers, now on their downhill descent toward old age. But that doesn’t have to mean falls and infirmities unless the tumbles are taken on the trail and the infirmities have to do with sports injuries. In “Second Wind: The Rise of the Ageless Athlete,” Lee Bergquist profiles 70- and 80-year-old role models, demonstrating that despite the inroads of time, the human body still needs to be pushed to its true limit, whatever that particular threshold may be. While running is fun, those who do so without a break tend to get injured. Several recent offerings might just inspire you to take a more relaxed approach. Read “High Peaks: A History of Hiking the Adirondacks from Noah to Neoprene” and you will marvel at Tim Rowland’s irreverent parade of colorful guides, hermits and entrepreneurs, grand hotels and cutthroat lumbering, all coexisting as part of the public lands and private holdings patchwork that is the Adirondacks. While not a runner per se, Tim definitely possesses a runner’s mentality as he treasure maps his way to a 72-hour summit of Allen Mountain shortly after Hurricane Floyd chainsawed through. Getting down to business, Russell Dunn and Barbara Delaney’s latest offering is “Adirondack Trails with Tales: History Hikes through the Adirondack Park and the Lake George, Lake Champlain and Mohawk Valley Regions.” While you may have run Prospect Mountain’s 5.6-mile uphill road race, chances are you didn’t know that the trail crossing the memorial highway was constructed along the path of a funicular railroad that transported tourists to the now defunct Prospect Mountain House. While nature is its own reward, historical enhancement definitely adds to the experience. Who knows? After some armchair coaching and inspiration, you too, might feel compelled to jot down a few memories. Or at least open your running log once again. Laura Clark (lclark@sals.edu) of Saratoga Springs is an avid trail runner, snowshoer and cross-country skier. She is a child’s librarian at the Saratoga Springs Public Library. 2537 Main St, Lake Placid 518-523-5310 • thefallenarch.com Your Complete Running Store in The Adirondacks. BUNDLE UP iRUN Track Jacket & Performance Ponytail Beanie only $ 65 SALE .com Presents the Trooper Brinkerhoff Memorial Spring Race Series March 19, 26 & April 2 Coxsackie, NY Excellent Spring Training! Three Separate Fields Beginners Welcome Preregistration Only BikeReg.com $30 ($10 Juniors) New Members Welcome Visit CBRC.CC & Join Us! Tom Butler: butlet2@gmail.com
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