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blabbage here

off we go

I like bikes with a purpose...



Full story next week.

Good wine

Bad news came this week than an Avalanche killed Jonny Copp and his climbing partners in the Chinese Himalayas. I was lucky enough to meet Jonny very briefly while on a bike tour detour in the Cerro Torre area of Patagonia in 2002. He and his partner Dylan Taylor had just put up the gnarly alpine route "Southern Cross" on the back side of Poincenot adjacent to Fitz-Roy. Being a fellow Coloradian at the time they welcomed me into their tent vestibule to share their insanely high stoke level and to polish off a box of cheap Argentinian box wine and dulce de Leche with crackers. The guy was psyched about everything and was living the climbing dream. Over the years since I'd seen his name pop up all over the place in the climbing world doing incredible routes in remote places. I always thought back to that evening and just knew that he was simply having a good time doing what he loved, invigorated by the mountains.

Your spirit will live on Jonny.

If you have 10 min check this out.

Flute - at last...

"Alpine hot line calling - which couloir in the high Chugach will you be climbing this weekend?" was Billy's voice mail. With a quick call back, weather check and all reason thrown out the window, it was decided for a one day climb up Flute.
Flute has been haunting and heckling me for some time now. It greets me everytime I head back to the Flute glacier. Last may I got to within 50' of the summit by by myself before having to turn around due to the exposure on the last rock section. Then Dan and I tried it a few weeks ago, only to get stormed away with out ever seeing the peak.
Stars aligned and we headed in under thick fog and cloud cover, with the anticipation (and fingers crossed forecast) that it would burn off.



Julie and Luz left us at Eagle lake and Billy Yvonne and I kept heading back the valley to the first step. The fog and cloud band was just sitting up there, so up we went into it..



Now it got interesting and our moral was starting to drop, making our way to the glacier we did a complete 360 totally disorientated in the fog.


Finally we headed up the steeper snow ramp and popped up onto the bench at the toe of the glacier, just as we did that the sky got super bright and we emerged into a big sucker hole - za zing- hell yeah!


a quick snack and up the left side we went, immediately the fog socked in again and visibility was dropped to 50' "it will burn off..." then it parted again just as we needed it too so we could find our route over the pass to the Organ glacier. Here we left the fog & clouds behind for good.


Over the pass and down to the Organ Glacier and our first view of the climb ahead of us. Basically up the right side of the snow, crossing the bergschrund ( a particularly nasty German Crevasse) angling up and left.



It was hot! softer snow slogging up the Organ glacier..


Finally back in the shade and up the Couloir.





at the saddle,


Now for the rock section. The other time I was up here it was pasted with a bit of ice and just felt much more serious. Wearing plastic boots and crampons didnt help any. So with a rope and we cruised up the pitch placing a cam for protection on the crappy crumbling rock.

ze summit..




It was a good day to do a 6,000' peak, they were the only ones above the clouds!
Yvonne heading down


Billy and Yvonne descending the snow.


Down the Organ...


Up over the pass, down the flute and back to the world of Green...


15 hrs, 22 miles and 6,500 vert later we got back to the truck thoroughly thrashed.
A good day to call the Alpine hotline!

Performance Nutrition

There has been some good recipe sharing on the internet these days. Especially among some people the endurance bike in mountains crowd. So I thought I would share my version of multi-day power fuel.

It all starts here, go Organic if you want to be healthy:


Then get this stuff out of the cupboard...


you should be here by now:

or here if you're slow (its ok if this is your first time)

While that is still going - get a big pot and throw in some of this. the more of the brown stuff the better.


double check the stove gain. 1 1/2 to 2" is optimum. Dont slack off and forget to measure. this is key!


now comes the fun part...

Untitled from Eric Parsons on Vimeo.

Throw in some of this for good measure:


it has been proven that caffeine helps with endurance performance - just ask the people at Gu and all those other food companies.



Zing!!!

if you followed all the steps right your resulting food product should have a nice even glaze to it. That's what you're going for.


done - Food for 4 days.


This stuff is field proven - just ask Dylan!

Untitled from Eric Parsons on Vimeo.

crankin'

Lots and lots of bags going out lately. This bike packing thing is catching on I tell you ;)





total postal run junk show. all I needed was a few kids and a random grandma hanging off. maybe one day I'll get a big dummy / xtracycle. The people behind me in line loved me...