A Look Back: Backpacking in Banff, the Prettiest Lake Ever, and the Town of Jasper, AB

In the last "A Look Back" Post, we'd survived an "encounter" with an elk and were on our way out of Jasper National Park and into Banff. We found, thanks to a friendly Parks Canada Ranger, an amazing backpacking route and stunning scenery.

Our destination in Banff National Park.

Instead of staying in another relatively tame campground, we opted to stop at the Columbia Icefield Visitors Centre to investigate overnight backcountry trips. It took us at least ten minutes to convince the friendly Parks Canada ranger of our desire to see the real Banff National Park and our willingness to walk more than one kilometer uphill. After he decided we were worthy of real advice, he pointed out Glacier Lake on a large map, describing views of one of the most beautiful, pristine spots within a day’s reach of the Icefields Parkway. More than convinced that this was our trip, we secured a backcountry camping permit and were on our way.

Gear Review and Contest: My Chalk Bag is Cooler Than Yours, Thanks to practical climbing!

My practical climbing bag and I! (D. Brenan)

Most of our climbing gear purchasing decisions aren't based on how the piece of equipment looks. Though there are dozens of color options for things like belay devices, the appearance of the gear is less important than its effectiveness at helping us stay safe. Aside from clothing and crash pads like those from Organic Climbing, there aren't many pieces of climbing equipment we can choose that makes a statement about who we are. Tammy Opalka agrees, and has set out to create some of the most durable, unique chalk bags out there to help us all express ourselves.

Tammy started sewing custom chalk bags for herself and friends, then founded practical climbing in 2009. Her bags are handcrafted in the United States and her company is the only I've found that will repurpose old fabrics to create custom bags. (practical climbing and Friksn have a newly formed partnership to upcycle some of Friksn's old shirts.) This doesn't just ensure climbers get chalk bags that say something about who they are; it's one of the ways Tammy ensures practical climbing is a socially and environmentally responsible company.

Guest Gear Review: Getting Clean Water to Trekkers in the Himlaya with SteriPEN

The SteriPEN and solar recharging case. (J. Brown)

We first met JB, professional climbing guide for SWS  and adventurer extraordinaire, back in February when he shared his path to what most of us would consider a dream job. Now he's back, sharing some intimate knowledge of a very important piece of gear for him and his clients during expeditions!

 

Almost a decade of guiding and climbing in the Himalaya has turned me into an old, bitter skeptic when it comes to water filtration.  For almost every year I've spent in those high mountains, I've experienced an equal number of “water purification” misadventures.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, ruins a great Himalayan trip faster than almost-purified water.  Whether it’s en route in Kathmandu or in the Tea Houses on the approach, bad water can have serious consequences.

For a guide in a third world country, perhaps the greatest issue we face is clean water.  We constantly struggle with how to provide copious amounts of safe, clean water to a dozen clients every day affordably and in a manner that minimizes our environmental footprint.   You can buy “mineral water” from tea houses and roadside shops, but this can be expensive (up to $4.50 a bottle).  Furthermore, most developing nations still don’t have recycling facilities; these bottles will just end up as roadside garbage.   

We have tried water filters, but they can be bulky and are often clogged by the glacial silt that is common in the waters of the Himalaya.  We even tried the Steripen™, which uses UV light to kill the bacteria and viruses.  This has been readily shot down in the past; the first models used AA batteries that were expensive and despite our best efforts would likely end up next to the water bottles as roadside garbage.

This year as we prepped for the Himalaya, I was provided with Steripen’s™ new recharging system.  Though it looked complicated, this simple system consisted of the traditional FDA approved pen with two CR123 rechargeable batteries and a carrying case that doubles as a solar recharging system.  The charging system is supposed to attach to the top of your pack and recharges the batteries as you hike. (SteriPEN's website says the batteries fully recharge in 20 hours of direct sunlight.)

 

For fourteen days this year we traveled the Khumbu with throngs of other trekkers and the system worked almost flawlessly.  The “bug-zapper” or “light saber”, as it was named by some of our European counterparts, is swirled in the water bottle for up to two minutes while “the wand” emits purple UV light, killing germs. This treatment system coupled with a bandana, to filter out the silt and macro particles, constitutes a pretty effective system.

I couldn’t recommend this single system for more than about five people as the batteries needed to be rotated almost daily, but it worked well for our application.  For days that we found snowy or overcast the second battery was enough to get us through and in the event that it wasn’t the system also comes with a plug that can be used in outlets (though we never had to use it).  The greatest flaw we came across is the pen tends not to work as well in cold, higher altitudes above 14,000ft. The “bug-zapper” tended to cut out mid-use.

This system isn’t necessarily the best system for every application but can be the perfect system for the international traveler and backpacker.  As long as the user can remember to keep it in the sun charging and provided the weather isn’t too extreme for cold and altitude.  It works in almost any situation that calls for clean water.  I gave it an A-, which isn’t bad for an old skeptical guide.

GirlBeta.com: Fueling Psyche in the Women's Climbing Community

Logo courtesy of Mercedes and http://www.girlbeta.com

After spending time with Alison Vuocolo discussing her efforts to get more women out bouldering, it seemed no less than necessary to profile Mercedes Pollmier. Mercedes launched Girl Beta back in January, a website dedicated to igniting passion and inspiring the women's bouldering community by sharing knowledge through written posts and videos. It's definitely a site you'll want to keep your eye on!

Mercedes on Authentic Battle Damage Stand, Boulder Canyon.

Mercedes hasn't always been a climber, but has a significant amount of experience as an elite athlete. After amassing a number of accolades as a tennis player, including an NCAA Division I scholarship, she started strength training with Dave Wahl out of the Paradise Rock Gym in Denver and became a member of the National Mauritian Tennis Team. Despite her love of tennis, she couldn't resist bouldering on plastic while spending so much time in a climbing gym and learned to love the sport. Mercedes says she climbs because it's "a personal challenge, a problem to solve, [and] requires a lot of body awareness. The climbing community is a great thing to be a part of." Now, Mercedes is a strong, talented climber with ascents of problems like Dark Continent (V7-V8) and Authentic Battle Damage Stand (V8).

Mercedes was inspired to start Girl Beta during a road trip to Red Rocks. She'd searched for videos of women climbing the boulder problems she wanted to do, but couldn't find any. "Generally, there are not enough women climbing together and I would love to see more of that," she says. "I think [it] would take away some of the shyness, hesitation and fear of failure...sometimes, having the boys around can be intimidating and may be a limitation for some women."

Mercedes recognized a clear lack of resources specifically for women to help them achieve their climbing goals. With that in mind, her aim was to create a blog that would help female climbers and generate buzz about women in climbing. Mercedes wants to help women unlock beta and sequences for specific problems they might not otherwise be able to work through.

Mercedes climbing hard in Joe's Valley.

Pretty soon, Seattle-based women's-specific rock climbing clothing company Vertical Girl took notice, and is now the website's sponsor. According to Mercedes, the partnership makes complete sense. "Vertical Girl and Girl Beta share the same philosophy and goals in growing the female climbing scene." she says. The two organizations are now working together to develop Girl Beta and hope to reach more of the climbing population. So far, Girl Beta provides information on problems in five states ranging from V4 up to V10.

But Girl Beta doesn't just exists as a medium for sharing videos of hard climbing. In keeping with the site's tagline, "Inspiration. Information. Improvement," Mercedes and the Vertical Girl team work together to share training tips and other knowledge with the women's climbing community. Recent additions in that section of the website include discussions about women's physiology and using video analysis to improve climbing technique with Flannery Shay-Nemirow.

The women behind Girl Beta and Vertical Girl are working to inspire women who love to climb, and to help us all achieve our goals. You can help by contributing information, training tips and beta, by suggesting a problem to them, even by climbing with them! For more on how you can get involved, visit GirlBeta.com or send a note to info@girlbeta.com.

It's Not What We Do That Defines Us...Or Is It? Reflections on Identity

After reading posts by Brendan, Elizabeth and Dave about what it means to be a climber, I spent a good bit of time pondering the concept of identity and the difference between saying, "I am a climber" and "I love climbing." The differences, though subtle, are important. One phrase implies an effect on identity, and that can be incredibly complicated. It got me thinking a lot about how I've defined my own identity in the past, and brought back some slightly painful memories.

Amie and I after an awesome afternoon of climbing!

Back to My Roots
This past weekend, I had the chance to climb at the gym where I first donned a pair of rock shoes - the Lindseth Climbing Wall at Cornell. I went with Amie, a high school swimming friend I'm convinced will change the world someday. After spending so many hours in pools with her as teenagers, it was amazing to be able to share climbing with her. She was a perfect partner.

It was also a joy to get back to my climbing roots, and back to where my excitement for the sport came from. It certainly didn't hurt that, in addition to climbing for the first time with one of my best friends, I ran into the instructor who taught my first climbing class, Women's Basic Rock!

My passion for climbing ebbs and flows - something I've learned to accept. I don't remember feeling love at first sight when I started in the fall of my senior year of college. Until that point, climbing was completely off my radar of possible activities; I didn't know what I was missing. As it turns out, the sport wasn't something I couldn't live without, just a really enjoyable way to spend a few hours. It made me feel strong and powerful. I didn't immediately fall in love, but climbing did awaken something in me; something that completely shook my world. 

"It isn't just a sport. It's my life. My Identity."

Doing what I loved - competing! (J. Lucia)

The first semester of senior year marked the beginning of my 13th year as a competitive swimmer. Swimming was something I completely fell in love with; I was obsessed. I saved every single meet program and heat sheet to go over my progression and my competition from 1995 on. Practice was all I cared about. I switched teams in high school in favor of a coach with a reputation for devising some of the hardest workouts possible. (He was also a strong male figure in my life when I needed one, and an incredible human being.) I picked colleges to look at based on whether I could swim at them or not, and the quality of the coaching. I was never an all-star, never an Olympic or NCAA caliber athlete; swimming was just something I couldn't live without.

And then, along came climbing. I don't think getting on the Lindseth climbing wall is the sole reason I started questioning my path - all of college was about learning and growing - but it was certainly one of them. After 13 years of eating, sleeping and breathing swimming, I was getting burned out. I didn't look forward to practices and couldn't find the motivation to push myself as hard as I used to. That November, I sat down with my coach for one of the toughest discussions I'd ever had. He told me to take a week off to really think about whether I wanted to finish out my senior year or not.

I sat out an entire week of practices. It felt like an eternity for someone who'd only go without swimming one out of every seven days. I'd count down the minutes until each workout, thinking about my teammates about to jump into the water. They'd survived another day of classes, homework, sleep deprivation, and everything a college athlete has to manage, but I wasn't there. Despite the fact that the week of wasn't designed to end my career, just to help me reflect, there was a hole in my heart. It felt like I'd already lost something incredibly important, like someone or something had died.

"Where did that girl with the passion go? She'd hate seeing anyone work harder than she did. She wouldn't back off for a single yard. It was never enough. And it still isn't. Of course I was relieved, Coach finally told me it was okay, that everything I've felt doesn't make me an awful person. I don't want to let the team down, but by being in the pool with the attitude I have, that's precisely what I'm doing. But so what? It's just swimming. Shit, it's never just swimming. Ever. It's 90% of who I am. Who will I be if I'm not an athlete?" (Journal excerpt, 11/14/2005)

The Path to Understanding

Loving climbing, Nov. 2005. (D. Herscovitch)

I made a list of things that comprised my identity over the course of that week. I described myself as a student, a woman, a fighter, a perfectionist, an individual, a sister, a daughter, a friend, and a competitor. I made a list of reasons I should swim. The list included things like, "because I love it, because I love achieving my goals, and because I love being part of a team." 

During that same week, I finished a roof route in the climbing gym for the first time, something I'd worked at for two months. (The picture on the right was taken right afterward!) I made peace with my relationship with swimming and finished out my senior year. It wasn't the best five months of my career, but I did it. Despite achieving a lifetime best in one of my events, the 100 breaststroke, during a time trial, I failed to make the team of swimmers who would represent Cornell at the Ivy League Championships that year.

Moving Forward and Moving On
It's taken me a long time to understand that, though I might have been a swimmer, it didn't define who I was. I fought against it for so long, and the internal battle wreaked havoc on my performance in the pool. Swimming was something I did, something I was passionate about, and something I devoted an incredible amount of time to. But it was okay to stop caring so much, to release some of the pressure I put on myself, when the time was right. It didn't make me any less of a swimmer, or change who I was. In fact, when I moved to Alaska after graduation, I joined a masters swim team in Anchorage and even competed in a meet. It didn't last long, though...I found so many other things I wanted to try and had both the physical and mental freedom to do so.

I'll always be a competitor. I'll always be happier when I'm active. I'll always love learning and trying new things. But there's a lot of pressure to live up to the expectations that come with saying, "I'm a swimmer," or "I'm a climber." That's why I hesitate to identify as anything but myself, anything but just plain old Katie. I want the things I'm passionate about to help me learn and grow, but not define my identity.