Cold Splinters

“Put me out in the desert, I’m going to die. I don’t know anything about the desert. Put me on the seacoast, I can feed my family. I got that wired.”

Next week is the Bozeman Ice Climbing Festival, a 15 year old gathering of climbers who aim to promote and protect the world-class ice climbing in Montana’s Hyalite Canyon. In addition to a lot of crampons and a couple of live presentations, several films will be shown, including a filmed interview with Yvon Chouinard discussing ice climbing’s history. Check out the clip above.

People used to get together round a fire
Fishes were cooked, songs were sung
Moonlight used to guide our way through the dark
Do you find it hard remembering?

MP3: Donovan – People Used To

Cold Splinters recently spent a wonderful autumn weekend in Lumberland, New York, enjoying the property/project/fort that belongs to our extremely hospitable friends at Best Made Co.. To read more about their adventures and to see what else they’ll be cooking on a newly built outdoor oven, click here.

MP3: Sandro Perri – Changes

Boundary Rock was once a well-known landmark in southern Nova Scotia, a massive piece of granite that sat at the borders of several counties in the area. Fisherman and hunters, like the ones in the picture above, would take their picture at the rock while passing through. But over the last 100 years, Boundary Rock has vanished, sending people on quests into the woods to find out what happened. CBC’s Maritime Magazine did just that and you can listen to the podcast recounting their journey into the Tobeatic Wilderness right here. The pictures above are from the flickr of expedition leader, Philip Moscovitch. (Thanks to reader Andrea for sending this to me.)

Do they find it? Well, you’ll have to listen to find out.

MP3: Sibylle Baier – I Lost Something In The Hills

Anybody dressing up as an NPS ranger today? Didn’t think so.

Have a happy and safe Halloween and enjoy all the Fun Size candy you get to eat (or have already eaten) this week. Save me the Krackel.

MP3: Ween – Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off My Brain

On his 13th (!) hike along the 2,663 mile Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from British Columbia down to the California/Mexico border, Scott Williamson, a tree climber from California, set a new speed record, finishing the length in 64 days, 11 hours, 19 minutes. That is insane. He added 20 miles to his hike with only 12 (another !) drops for food and gear. Interesting part of a recent interview with Mr. Williamson:

“There is more trash, more impact on the water sources and fires have really adversely affected the trail in the 19 years I’ve been on it, particularly in the last 10 years,” Williamson said. “The trail, especially this first 700 miles through Southern California, is radically different due to fire and tree disease. There are stretches that used to be pine forest that now are just chaparral because the trees died due to different diseases or fire. The first 700 miles of the trail are now shadeless.

“The positive changes are that, since there now are about 500 plus people thru-hiking it each year, the preservation and maintenance of the trail is exponentially greater than when I first started hiking this trail,” he added.

“I think the positives in the last 20 years vastly outweigh the negative changes. The maintenance level that is occurring now is much greater than 20 years ago, and I feel there is an effort to preserve the trail from the various threats, the development, things of that nature.”

(via The Goat)

Cold Splinters is in Boston today, hanging out with the folks from Danner and Wilderness Workshop. Come on down if you want to drink some Sierra Nevada and eat pie and donuts. And really, who wouldn’t want to do that?

This past Saturday Nate Damm wrapped up his 7+ month walk across America, taking the ceremonious final steps into the Pacific at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Nate walked lonely roads and highways mostly alone from Delaware, pushing his gear in a jogging stroller. He kept a blog during the trip, and maintained a facebook page with some great photos, videos and anecdotes along the way.

Get caught up.

As some of you may know, I’ve been working with Danner for the last couple of months on the release of their new Stumptown collection of boots, all made out west in their Portland, Oregon factory. This Thursday, September 15th, will mark the official opening of their pop-up shop at Dunderon, which will be up until the end of the year. The pop-up shop will feature all 10 Stumptown styles currently available and a collaboration boot between the two companies, The Mountain Light Gothenburg.

To mark the occasion, we’re having a big ol’ party with beer, whiskey, and lotsa good food. So come on out, say hello, and grab some boots. I’ll see you there.

Thank you to Rocky for alerting us of the new section of the Continental Divide Trail, important to the few of us that thru hike it each year. The trail has long threaded through the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park, following a big old concrete road for some of the way. After months of work, the NPS has now dedicated a new 1-mile section of the CDT called the Bowen Connector, which pulls off the trail away from the road as it connects RoMo with Arapaho National Forest north of Grand Lake.

Read more about it at The Coloradoan.