It looks like Matthew Lee will win the 2009 TourDivide today. Seventeen days pedaling 150 miles per day. What a machine.

As remote, unsupported backcountry races go, the TourDivide has been a ball to spectate from the LCD. Competitors carry GPS tracking devices, updated online constantly. A good many phone in daily reports; Joe Polk assembles them into an entertaining 20-30 minute podcast at MTBcast.com.

Their stories are familiar, unique and rich. Helpful cowboys, dubious bears, shortcut intrigue. It’s been a rainy year along the route. The recordings paint a portrait of the collective cyclo-tourist soul: a constant reminder of disheartening conditions without sounding disheartened. (There’s a lot of laughter in the background.)

Take Jill Homer’s call from Steamboat Springs. Her brakes failed. She crashed hard. From the confines of my iPod, whose sound-seal earphones blocked the roar of a power mower, the delicate arch of Jill Homer’s emotions made me cease my athletic endeavor of battling tall grass and sit down for a bit. She’s a clear thinker on her feet and probably a superb writer.

Other MTBcast delights:

Paul Howard started off a bit whiney about the ol’ route-finding/map-making conundrum. Now he’s filing goofy, charming bits, like adopting a Russian accent as he files from Kremmling, Colorado.

Deanna Adams rambles amusingly.

Jackson Hole locals Jay and Tracey Petervary are the big draw. Their tandem mountain bike, the Love Shack, sounds like it’s been relatively bombproof. I made a wisecrack early on that I came to regret as callous, about the potential disadvantages of Tracey’s riding position from an olfactory point of view. Turns out I was merely empathetic; hear Tracey’s call from Del Norte.)

The Petervary’s are currently running third overall, a real feat of endurance and companionship. They should hit the Mexico border finish at Antelope Wells, New Mexico on Wednesday.

Matthew Lee closes in on the Mexico border, 18 days from the Canada start. Source TourDivide.Org.

To be updated as soon as DS can wrest himself from an estate on Lofty Lane.

Everyone loves to go to summer camp.  Nobody likes to get cancer.  Cancer sucks.

Going to summer camp if you have or had cancer still rocks.  Especially when you get to be outdoors pushing your limits.

I feel very fortunate to have volunteered with Camp Good Days and Special Times for the last 12 years.  Camp Good Days provides summer camp opportunities to children, young adults, and adults.  I have volunteered with the week-long kid camps for 11 summers.

Camp is great because it is a place where kids living through cancer can just be themselves.  If they look different, if they lost a leg, if they are tired … their peers understand.  It is a place where you get to be a kid- and people get you.  Most campers seem to look forward to camp all year.  I know I do.

Camp Good Days personally helped me out also.  Six years ago I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease and I underwent chemotherapy and radiation.  From volunteering at Camp and watching the kids live a full, adventurous, and loving life that I could also.  That was a gift that no amount of volunteer hours and repay.

Cancer is a really big deal.  It affects everyone- survivors and their loved ones.

The reality is scary.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. accounting for 23.1 percent of all deaths 559,888 (US Mortality Data 2006.  CDC).  The leading cause is heart disease at 26 percent.

The 2009 estimated U.S. cancer deaths are 292,540 men and 269,800 women and the estimated cancer diagnosis are 766,130 men and 713,220 women (American Cancer Society, 2009).

That is a heck of a lot of people.

Many people will undergo chemotherapy- liquid hell and radiation- burns.  The treatments are tough.

I don’t know how to cure cancer.  I’m not that good at science.

I am good at being outside and active.  Everyone is.

This spring, I attended the Young Adult Cancer Survivor Weekend.  We pushed our boundaries.  We faced our fears, not of dying, but of living.

We did the high ropes challenge cheering each other on.   We did the zip line.  We climbed the climbing wall.  And when it rained, we played Wii Bowling.  When it kept raining, we went outside and played disc golf in the rain.

Nobody chooses cancer, but we can choose what to do about it.

Everyone has a gift.  Share yours.

Postscript:
My mom and aunt both had breast cancer and they went to Camp for a woman’s weekend on Keuka Lake in New York State.  It was a great bonding experience for them both.  My aunt has since passed away from a relapse and my mom is as I write in the other room in her home recovering from the Whipple Procedure to cut a pancreatic tumor off her pancreas.  My father is a prostate cancer survivor.  I am a Hodgkin’s disease survivor.

Camp Good Days and Special Times, Inc. is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for children, adults and families whose lives have been touched by cancer and other life challenges. All of the programs and services provided by Camp Good Days are offered free of charge for the participants, which is only possible through the generosity of so many individuals and organizations and the success of our many special fundraising events.

Andy Fleming is an Inspired Mountain Athlete.

On a sunny Saturday morning several weeks ago, my brother, Jack, our friend, Mike, and myself packed up the car and set off toward Rainier from Seattle. The view of the mountain was irresistible. Excited to get to there and start our climb we may have been going a little faster than was legal. After a short chat with officer Krupke, our perfect day began when we pulled into the parking lot.

I was excited to see Paradise bustling with smiling mountain enthusiasts. The energy was contagious. Every direction I looked there was a group starting out, grabbing a quick caffeine fix or strapping their snowshoes to their packs. Although, I could not help glancing up toward the quiet snowy mountain as I suited up and checked my gear.

We clipped into our AT gear at 9:15 and started toward the ridge. The snow had not yet softened under our skis, allowing for easy navigating and a smooth glide. This was fortunate because I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the panoramic view of the Tatoosh Range. It seemed like a rare privilege to be ascending a sun-soaked Rainier mountain wearing a thin top base layer and sunglasses.
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It was touch and go there for a while. Where are they? Lost? Eaten by bears?

No. They had lost their GPS doodad.

Jay and Tracey Petervary, a Jackson Hole couple, are riding a tandem mountain bike from Banff to the Mexican border. Last Friday at 10 a.m. in Banff, Alberta, Canada, the Petervary’s and 41 solo cyclists took off heading south to follow a 2,700 mile route to Antelope Wells, New Mexico along the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.

On Monday, Steve Romeo posted on Facebook a casual mention that the Petervary’s were running fourth. With that I instantly became addicted to tracking their progress, neatly packaged online with an elegant amalgam of Google Maps, Spot (a GPS tracking and messaging service) and all sorts of time-trial slice’n'dice computations.

Later Monday JayP and T-Race had dropped to fifth due to a 30-mile wrong turn. Then on early Tuesday, around Lincoln, Montana, they seemed to have come to a complete halt. I found it difficult to get any work done. After all, another couple had reported having to bully a grizzly and brown bear from the trail. Thankfully, JayP phoned from Helena, Montana at 3 pm to report they had lost their Spot handheld unit. Any panic was mine alone, fueled by incessant mouse-clicking.

The event is called Tour Divide. It’s not an official race so much as concurrent individual time trials, the cyclotourist’s version of the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. The rules are few, designed to add up to one thing: a lean, low-impact bike trip of pluck, luck and long-distance grace. No sag wagons. No caching food and supplies. No drafting. You feed and shelter yourself along the trail as you would on any bike tour.

As of Thursday evening, Matthew Lee, who set the record last year in 19 days, 12 hours, is leading the pack by a hefty margin. (Both Lee and Jay Petervary have set Tour Divide records.) The Petervary’s progress is back online and they’ve resumed fourth place, about a day behind Lee.

The route dips into Jackson Hole via the Ashton-Flagg road, follows a good chunk of pavement to Moran Junction, heads over Togwotee Pass and heads south along the Union Pass Road. The Petervary’s should hit this section over the weekend. Cheering section, anyone?

As of 4:44 a.m. Friday, Matthew Lee was on the the move into Jackson Hole. Jay and Tracey Petervary, on a tandem mountain bike, are about a day behind Lee:

David J. Swift is a photographer, writer and now, filmmaker. He’s also an excellent cheerleader.

I’ve taken to bringing art back from my trips abroad. Usually paintings. They’re full of local flavor, better than any photograph my point-and-shoot could ever take, and, most important, are compact enough so as to not require me to break my rule of never checking luggage. They also can allow for hours of procrastination once back home.

An oil I got for $3 from an artist in Malawi? A quick glance at it can easily turn into an hour of daydreaming about ocher anthills the size of Andre the Giant and the surprisingly soft sand along the shore of Lake Malawi. A peek at an ink drawing of Mt. Nevis forces me to relive the 5.10 “hike” up a 1,500-foot ladder of exposed roots to its summit. In Marrakech last week, researching some articles about foodie vacations where you don’t need to worry about getting fat – the High Atlas are an hour from delicious downtown restaurants like Le restaurant at La Maison Arabe – I got my most unique art yet: two X-rays. Of a collarbone I broke into four pieces on Day 4 of my eight-day trip.

Having sworn off mountain biking numerous times in the last few years as my balance has deteriorated, I should have known better than to give in to the suggestion to do this devil sport while in a foreign country. But, despite a fairly loud voice in my head telling me it was a bad idea – especially after realizing my guide didn’t speak any English – I gave in. Ten seconds later – perhaps even five — I was ragdolling down a 45-degree scree slope still holding onto the bike’s handlebars (as it rolled over and under me). Awesome.

Finally, thanks to a tree about 40 feet downhill, I came to a stop. With the bike on top of me. At first, I didn’t think I had done any permanent damage. My left shoulder hurt, but I swung it around a few times. Then, the last swing, there was very noticeable crunching and grinding. The crunching and grinding felt, for lack of a better word, gross. I had never broken my collarbone, but the crunching and grinding, along with the giant bump threatening to poke out through my skin, made me pretty sure I just had. Again, awesome.

But not nearly as awesome as my initial experience at a clinic in Marrakech four-some hours later. After handing over my passport, someone in a white coat asked if I could move the fingers of my left hand, the side on which I maintained I had a broken collarbone.

Me: “Yes.”

White coat: “Well, if you can move your fingers, you can’t have broken anything.” (Since this guy’s English was spotty, I’m paraphrasing a bit here.)

Despite the hard science behind this statement, I still insisted x-rays be taken (and crossed my fingers that this dude was not my doctor).

Several years ago, after a minor car crash in Bulgaria, I met the world’s oldest x-ray machine. The one at this clinic was a close second. And of course no one cared to ask if I might be pregnant, had me sign any forms, or gave me any sort of lead apron to wrap around the parts of me that weren’t being zapped.

Long story short. I rocked the world of my initial examiner with x-rays that showed you could in fact have a very broken clavicle and still move your fingers. They rocked my world by insisting I needed to spend the night. FYI: “No fucking way” seems able to cross any language barrier. “Painkillers” and “narcotics” seem not to translate however. Three doctors (the initial one at the clinic, one at a hotel in Casablanca and one at a hotel in Fes) over the next four days gave me nothing more than Tylenol. And the first prescription was Tylenol mixed with caffeine. As if I wouldn’t already have problems sleeping. And isn’t caffeine generally (and universally) regarded as detrimental to the healing of broken bones?
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This week Chuck Fryberger and I are going through pre-trip manic phase, in preparation for a month bouldering and filmmaking in South Africa. Luckily there’s so much to do before a big trip like this you get so worn out you can sleep over the 3 flights and 26 pure flying hours between Colorado and Capetown!

Top of the agenda on arrival is to visit our friends at the Elizabethfontein Primary School. This school is located right in Rocklands, about three hours northwest of Capetown. During our last two trips we’ve become good friends with the staff and learners at the school, which serves the children of farm laborers in the Cederberg region.

The kiddos are between seven and 13-years old. There are 230 students total, many of them living at the school during the week, returning to farms up to 30km away on the weekend.

Chuck and I got involved because we saw an opportunity to do right by the kids. Funds are tight, but they do the most with what they’ve got. Seeing a sparkling clean facility, rice and veggies on the stove (serving 230 square meals three times a day) made me feel tired just to think about it, but motivated to help out in my own small way.

In late April, Chuck and I held a fundraiser at the School of Mines in Golden Colorado, and showed his new film Pure. Cloudveil was a key sponsor of the event, and threw down an amazing amount of gear for our raffle. With all our sponsor support, and the support of the climbing community, I’m happy to report we’ll be handing over $1,700 to the school. They want to hire a kindergarten teacher for the youngest kids, and this will get the ball rolling. It’s our small way of helping out a place that inspires us both in climbing but also in living.

On your next big trip, keep your eyes open for ways you can contribute. We were both amazed at how big a difference we can make, and how easy it’s been to get people on board. Best thing is, when we lock the door and head to the airport next week, there are 230 smiling friends waiting for us on the other side.

Philanthropist, boulderer, world-traveler and architect Sarah Marvez is a Cloudveil-sponsored athlete.

It is not often that you are given a large chunk of time to do whatever you want, within economical reason.  Loving climbing, I generally gravitate toward a climbing oriented trip.  So when a couple of my friends mentioned a surf trip to the East Cape of Baja, they caught my attention, but they didn’t sell me on the idea.   I am not a surfer, not really even a water person, and really don’t care for the sensation of drowning.  Why would I want to sit on the beach for two weeks, with an occasional venture into the ocean to try surfing, when I could be climbing in Bishop or Red Rocks?   After a lengthy inventory of reasons why it was not a good idea; I decided to go for it and try something new.  After all, we would still have time to climb and bike in the Southwest after we returned and a little relaxing never killed anyone.

Staring down on the desert from the plane window, I started to doubt my decision. The never-ending dryness and lack of color was startling.   I reminded myself that people LOVE Southern Baja and everything was going to be great.   We landed, packed our rental car with four adults, groceries, gear and boards, gobbled up a few fish tacos and started down the washboard road towards Nine Palms.

First thing in the morning we headed down to one of surf spots.  We had the beach to ourselves; it was a beautiful bluebird day, the ocean was a gleaming turquoise, and the waves looked semi-friendly.  I was starting to understand why people loved being down there.

The only thing left to do was ‘surf’.  We had a range of experience in our group; from completely novice to nearly expert.  The more experienced plunged into the ocean and paddled out as if the waves welcomed them.  They made it look so easy. From my very limited experience I knew it wasn’t easy, but thought maybe things had changed.  I paddled with all my might and managed to make out past the break with only a few tosses.  The next step was to try and catch one of the waves.  Again, I was paddling with all my might, but this time towards the shore.  I missed the wave; however the next wave did not miss me.  It came crashing down on my head and sent me into what we came to term the ‘mixer.’  The mixer can basically be described as a human washing machine; first the brunt force of the ocean flips you, shoves you under, tosses you round and round, until you don’t know which way is up or down.  You are released for a brief moment, allowed to surface for a gulp of air, grab your board just in time for another monster wave to smack you down and send you back under.   Needless to say, it dampens your spirit and courage.

I did not manage to stand up on my board and ride a wave that first day, but that wasn’t for a lack of trying.  Despite the time I logged in the mixer; I wanted to keep trying.

Day after day, we would throw ourselves at the ocean and hope for success.  I came to discover that learning curve was quite steep.  My confidence level looked like a sine wave, rising high, only to sink to the bottom, with each toss in the mixer.  But progress was made, and eventually I did catch a wave just right and stood up on both legs, without falling off.  I even got to enjoy a few rides to shore and what a great feeling.  This did not come without a lot of punishment, and fear – lots of it.  It also came with plenty of Tecates, avocados, Baja Fogs, pink sunsets, lazy afternoons, walks on the beach, and campfires.  And ‘sitting’ on the beach turned out to be quite enjoyable.

The East Cape of Baja turned out to be a pretty wonderful place.  Just palms, sand, ocean, surfers, some very tame donkeys and good friends.  I didn’t leave Nine Palms a ‘surfer, I will always be a climber.  But, I would go back for more.

Environmental engineer Mariah McPherson is one of Cloudveil’s Inspired Mountain Ambassador.