Ultrahiker Andrew Skurka's Nine Skills to Help You Pack Lighter

Photograph by Murfy Kristiadi, My Shot

When it comes to hiking lighter, we get our advice from the guy so serious about going fast and light that he uses a catfood can for a cooking stove—the master himself, Andrew Skurka. Skurka, our 2008 Adventurer of the Year, has covered more than 30,000 miles of long-distance trails, including the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide. Here Skurka shares nine skills you can learn right now to safely carry less and lighter gear on your next trip. These kinds of tips, plus much more, are covered in his comprehensive new book The Ultimate Hiker's Gear Guide (National Geographic Books), which comes out later this month. You can pre-order a signed copy from Andrew here.

Ultrahiker Andrew Skurka's Nine Skills to Help You Pack Lighter

1. Assess your true needs.
Where, when, and for how long you are going are the primary determinants of the conditions you will encounter. Research the temperatures, precipitation, sun exposure, water availability, snow coverage, hours of daylight, bugs, wildlife, and remoteness you will encounter. If you know the conditions you can realistically expect, you can pack accordingly. Uninformed backpackers justify poor gear choices on the grounds of unfounded “What if...” and “Just in case...” scenarios.

Gear Crush: First Ascent's BC MicroTherm Jacket Goes Everywhere

It seems like down jackets have been around about as long as geese. But in fact, the first commerical down jackets were made by Eddie Bauer back in 1936. By 1963, the company was keeping mountaineers such as Jim Whittaker and his expedition team warm as they made the first American ascent on Everest.

Roll 50 years a head and down jackets are better than ever. Case in point, the First Ascent BC MicroTherm sold out in three weeks this year. The jacket takes the joy of an 800-fill, cozy-but-not-hot down shirt and adds a waterproof breathable two-layer softshell. It's super light (just one pound), but very warm, even in Himalaya and Antarctic conditions. “A lightweight, high-performance piece that keeps me warm and dry on cold, windy and wet days. You don’t generally want to be out in those conditions, but sometimes the mountains have other ideas. This jacket was made for those days,” says mountain guide Melissa Arnot. For those of us who conquer our own mountains a little closer to home, it's one jacket that goes everywhere. And its slim fit is figure flattering without limiting mobility. —Mary Anne Potts

First Ascent BC MicroTherm; $299

Outdoor Advice + Tips: Identifying Injuries After a Fall (Videos)

By Casey Dean, National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) PR specialist and writer

I don’t like to imagine myself leaning over my boyfriend asking him what day it is, what his middle name is, and if he recalls what happened in the minutes prior. None of us does.

But best way to face the possibility that at some point in our adventures a companion will get hurt is to be prepared. The first step is to get an education in wilderness medicine, be it a wilderness first-aid course or a wilderness EMT course. The next step is repetition. Familiarity breeds calm, competent reactions in stressful moments.

If a wilderness medicine course is not in the cards for you in the near future or if it’s been a while since your last class, do some research online before your next adventure. The Wilderness Medicine Institute of NOLS (WMI) has a number of resources on hand for refreshing the medical mind, including scenarios and case studies online. Taking the time to study these will make all the difference should you find yourself in that dreaded aforementioned moment.

WMI also recently released two educational videos with a wealth of information based on the WMI curriculum. These are the first in a new “how to” series produced by NOLS and are based on a scenario in which a patient falls from a tree (a “five-tree” route). The two WMI instructors who respond walk viewers through the steps of identifying injuries. The scene is a winter environment, so warming techniques are also covered.

The second clip takes viewers through a focused spine assessment to determine if it is necessary to continue spine immobilization.

Happy studying!

 

Outdoor Advice + Tips: Fast, Light, Delicious Backcountry Grits

By Contributing Writer Aparna Rajagopal-Durbin, faculty member and Diversity + Inclusion Manager at the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS)

Whenever you travel into the backcountry, do you ask yourself: “Eat like a king but break my back with the weight; or eat like a squirrel and travel light and fast?” Well, you can stop asking yourself that question. Backcountry travel doesn’t involve a Hobson’s choice. Time and time again, our field instructors prove that you can have your cake and eat it, too.

This time, it’s breakfast. In the video below Casey Pikla and Amy Rathke show us that backcountry breakfast doesn’t mean choking down lukewarm flavored oatmeal—you can warm yourself with a savory cheesy spicy breakfast of grits and save some weight while you’re at it.

Dean Potter on Flying Like a Bird, the Art of Not Falling, and His Nat Geo Show (Airing 2/12 at 8 p.m.)

Photograph by Mikey Schafer, learn how he got the shot in our Extreme Photo of the Week gallery

Adventure: What were you thinking at this moment?

Dean Potter: On the highline my thoughts are simple and clear. Fundamental needs shine through the mental clutter. I focus completely on my breath, my connection with the line, and making it safely to the other side.

A: Where exactly are you and what are you doing? How high up are you?

D.P.: This highline was set up on the summit of Cathedral Peak, in Yosemite National Park, at an elevation of 10,911 feet.

A: Did the moon look like it does in the photo with the naked eye?

D.P.: Photographer Mikey Schaefer was taking the photographs from approximately 1.2 miles west of the highline. For him, the moon and myself looked exactly like you see it in this picture. From my vantage point on the summit of the Cathedral Peak, the moon was higher in the sky and it looked as the moon always looks to us mortals on the ground.

A: Looks like you don't have any protection. What would you have done if you had fallen?

D.P.: I’ve always been a "free soloist." Whatever I do, I long to be untethered and free. This desire for freedom goes far beyond the highline to every facet of life. Freedom is our most fundamental right. I am completely confident with my ability to catch the line if I were to fall. I’ve practiced this catch move successfully for the past 19 years.

Top Snowboarders Face Off in Travis Rice's Supernatural at Baldface, B.C. (Video)

By Samantha Cook

Starting today, 18 of the world’s top snowboarders will face off in the inaugural Red Bull Supernatural Contest, a competition unlike any before. Snowboarder Travis Rice, one of our 2012 Adventurers of the Year, has created his dream playground designed to determine the best snowboarder on the planet.

Located in the backcountry of Canada’s Baldface Lodge, the heli-access-only 2,200-vertical-foot “Scary Cherry” run has been enhanced with more than 80 man-made features that took Rice and his crew five months to build. The course is designed to test a wide range of skills such as navigation and the ability to ride natural terrain as well as overcome challenging man-made obstacles. The daylong competition will run sometime between today and February 8 to ensure the event takes place under the best possible weather conditions.

“Inspiration for the course design came from nature, straight up, and the crazy features that I’ve seen people ride,” said Rice. “Also, some inspiration came from what they are able to do with mountain biking courses, like building stuff through the trees. There’s no limit to what is possible with a little creativity and some will.”

Rice himself is known for his creative moves. In his film The Art of Flight, he and his friends performed breathtaking snowboard feats in previously uncharted terrain. Now with a course of his own design, Rice seeks to inspire competitors to show off their own ingenuity. His ultimate goal for the competition? “To crown the best, most well rounded snowboarder in the world.”

Gear Crush: Ice-Gripping Adidas Outdoor Libria Boot

I'm from Minnesota and grew up crossing slick oceans of ice in parking lots, on sidewalks, encompassing sledding hills, everywhere. Slipping on the ice was a mortifying prospect of growing up. It was just a matter of when. And it always bruised more than just the ego.

The Adidas Outdoor Libria is a lifestyle boot and light hiker with an antidote to ice slipping. Not only are they a flattering, water-resistant knee-high boot, but they're filled with cozy, water-resistant PrimaLoft. The outside is breathable softshell with a reinforced toe and knee cuff for extra warmth. But it's the outsole that really got us. It's made of gripping TRAXION and has strategically placed blue lugs (made of a material called Temperature Sensitive Compound) that actually harden when temps drop to freezing. So they really grip the ice. It's like having your light hiker sole transform into ice cleats just when you need them. We haven't tried them out yet (no snow here in New York City (boo)). But we're optimistic. Available in August for around $130. —Mary Anne Potts

Maestri Unbolted Update: Climber David Lama Frees Cerro Torre's Compressor Route

By Kathryn Sall; Photographs by Lincoln Else, Red Bull Content Pool (top, bottom) and Corey Rich, Red Bull Content Pool (middle)

On his way up the Compressor Route on Patagonia’s formidable Cerro Torre last month, Austrian climber David Lama was surprised to run into Jason Kruk and Hayden Kennedy (read our indepth report on the controversial climb) on their way down, chopping bolts as they went. Their encounter was reported to be a bit chilly. After all, it would seem that Kruk and Kennedy’s chopping unintentionally sandbagged Lama.

For the past three years, the twenty-one-year-old has been trying to make the first true free ascent of the southeast ridge. On January 21, 2012, he and climbing partner Peter Ortner finished the climb, despite “the fact that Hayden and Jason had chopped Maestri’s bolts a couple of days ago.” Lama said it “made my endeavor even more challenging, especially mentally, as the protection was poor.” The absence of bolts forced Lama into “long run outs.” He rated his challenging climb 5.13b. Kruk and Kennedy pegged their own mostly free route at 5.11, A2.

Hiking with Andrew Skurka: Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in 7 Days (Video)

This video feels like a hiking reality show (luckily the only annoying buzzing sounds come from mosquitoes, not Kardashians). Exhilaration. Exhaustion. Bugs. Sock issues. Witness a seven-day hike of the entire 224-mile John Muir Trail from Yosemite Valley to Mount Whitney. Hiking guru Andrew Skurka guides Gerry Morton, President and CEO of EnergyFirst, an industry leading natural products company that is home to the world's best tasting, highest quality all natural protein shakes. They keep it fast and light, Skurka's style. But nothing is fast enough to keep away the bugs.

Andrew has a new hiking/backpacking book, The Ultimate Hiker's Gear Guide, out this month from Nat Geo Books. We've already been reading. It's comprehensive and full of hard-won tips that Andrew was kind of enough to share from his 30,000+ miles of hiking. You can pre-order a copy here (and Andrew will sign it!). 

Patagonia's Cerro Torre Gets the Chop: Maestri Unbolted (Photos)

By David Roberts and Kathryn Sall; Photographs by Hayden Kennedy and Jason Kruk (seen here on the summit of Cerro Torre)

Read our follow up on David Lama's simultaneous first true free climb of Cerro Torre's southeast ridge.

On January 16, 2012, mountaineering history was made. The actors in the drama were two of the best young alpinists alive—a 21-year-old Coloradan, Hayden Kennedy, and a 24-year-old from British Columbia, Jason Kruk. Their deed took place on a savagely steep needle of granite and rime ice in southern Patagonia called Cerro Torre. Kennedy and Kruk knew that what they were trying to do was audacious in the extreme, but they could hardly have anticipated that it would trigger the most explosive mountaineering controversy of the last decade.

* * *

Although it rises to an altitude of only 10,262 feet, Cerro Torre has been called the most beautiful mountain on earth, as well as one of the most difficult. On the border of Chile and Argentina, the peak soars nearly 5,000 feet from base to summit. The indomitable French mountaineer Lionel Terray, who made the first ascent of nearby Fitz Roy, doubted that Cerro Torre would ever be climbed. The greatest Italian climber of his day, Walter Bonatti, failed on an attempt less than halfway to the summit in 1958.

Then in 1959, Bonatti’s bitter rival, Cesare Maestri, came to Patagonia to slay the dragon via its north face. His climbing companions were his fellow Italian, Cesarino Fava, and the Austrian Toni Egger, one of the outstanding ice climbers of his day. The three set out on their attempt and reached a gunsight notch that they named “The Col of Conquest,” 1,800 feet below the summit. Having agreed to act in only a supporting role, Fava retreated alone down to Camp 3. Maestri and Egger prepared an attack on the summit. Fava settled in to wait. After three days, gusts of warm air melted the ice near the top of the mountain and set loose colossal avalanches. After three more days without any sign of his climbing partners, Fava assumed the worst. On the sixth day, to his shock and surprise, Fava discovered Maestri, sprawled and helpless in the snow, a thousand feet from Camp 3.

Maestri had an extraordinary story to tell. After three bivouacs above the Col of Conquest, he and Egger had reached the summit of the mountain that Terray deemed impossible. But on the descent, an avalanche had caught Egger in mid-rappel and swept both him and the climbing rope off the mountain. With a desperate effort, Maestri regained the fixed ropes below the Col of Conquest. But just above Camp 3, he lost his grasp and fell. When Fava found him, he was barely conscious. Fava helped his exhausted teammate stagger the rest of the way down to base camp. With Egger, Maestri claimed, had gone the men’s camera, carrying the only documentary proof of the men’s landmark ascent.

Back in Italy, Maestri recuperated fully and boasted about his amazing climb. At first, the climbing world accepted Maestri’s account and showered the exploit with accolades. Lionel Terray called the first ascent of Cerro Torre “the greatest climbing feat of all time.” But doubts soon emerged. How had Maestri and Egger climbed so skillfully, especially given the horrendous weather? The sheer steepness of the final stretch above the Col of Conquest made the wall look unclimbable, even by the finest mountaineers of the day.

Once a pioneer of clean solo climbing, Maestri turned after Cerro Torre to a new style—bolting everything he touched—that only served to undercut his claim. After a crack British team failed even to come close to making the second ascent of Cerro Torre in 1968, the doubters came clamoring.

Today, Maestri’s 1959 “ascent” of Cerro Torre is widely regarded as one of the most blatant hoaxes in mountaineering history.