Sari and I are in France where she’s racing in the 24th annual Pierra Menta, an infamous, four-day randonee stage race, where 180 teams of two will skin up and ski down over 10,000 meters (32,000 feet) before the finish on Sunday.

And, because Sari seems to love any kind of race that involves an obscure sport, loads of expensive gear, days of suffering and virtually no prize money, this was a race she couldn’t miss.

I’m here as a cheerleader and I’ll do my best to blog updates on Sari and all of Team America each night.

So, here goes. …

Team America is present and accounted for – 12 boisterous Yankees that stick out like sore thumbs in this tiny town of Areches, tucked away deep in the French Alps where no one speaks any English and it’s perfectly normal to run around in a one-piece, skin tight ski suit and lime green boots all day. Read More »

Location – Reichenbach and Davos, Switzerland

Team North America – Howie, Schnitz, Ogle, Adam, and 2mas.

Team Europe – Thomas, Davos Dan, Erlend, Audun and Juju.

Goal – We have come to Switzerland to make good Freeride, compliments of Cloudveil, POC Helmets and Black Diamond. The plan is to visit Fritschi, Black Diamond Europe HQ, ski and have editors talk about skis, boots, bindings, trends and how the markets differ globally.

Eiger and Monch from the Gehrihorn

Highlights:

Day 1 - Tour of the Fritschi factory with Stefan Burki and Stefan Ibach. Introduction of the new Diamir Eagle AT Binding. Touring to the summit of the Gehrihorn from which we can see the distant summits of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. Trad fondue dinner. Weisbeer, Kirsch, white wine, don’t drop your bread in the fondue as this is a boys trip.

Day 2 – Train to Davos. Ski off piste pow testing next year’s product in Pischa. Davos Dan Caruso (DC) is our tour guide and shows us the goods. The deal is Tram to T-Bar to Traverse off piste, then knee deep freshies 3K plus to the valley floor. Hitch hike, call a cab, grab a bus and do it again. We make good Freeride yah!

Day 3 – More ski testing on Rinerhorn and Jakobshorn. Dan educates us to an emerging Freeride dialect that is similar to Swiss German. “Dude, he dry docked his ski and went totally Peggy Fleming-ing.” We witness the new school Howie-hawk and visit the legendary Wallhalla Telemark Freeride Bar.

DC hitching a ride back to Davos

Day 4 – A bit snowy and flat light for the absinthe-minded. We hit Parsenn for never ending piste runs and some leftover chowder. Also visit the SLF – the Davos based Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research. Dan is married to a local charger Pepe and they have two boys Rocco and Little Guy. The boys take after their parents – little rippers who also understand the importance of a good plate of pomme frites at lunch.

Little Guy scoping a line from the deck at lunch

Day 5 – Visit Black Diamond Europe and talk trends with GM Christian Jaeggi. Be very wary of the Baseler Festival.

Yeah, it was nothing like this at all….

I have been living in Innsbruck, Austria with my friend Cody Roth now for a couple weeks and attempting to do what could only be considered highly optimistic: film bouldering in Austria in December. Needless to say you have to be patient to get this accomplished, but the good news is that if the conditions are bad for bouldering, they are probably good for skiing.
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Switzerland is an amazing place. I have to say the people here have a very high standard of living. Things are expensive, but everything is clean and tidy and the trains are always on time. I have been filming Fred Nicole on some amazing stuff.

On Sunday, we went to an area where huge orange leaves blew across problem as Fred climbed. Certainly some of the best video I’ve ever shot… an amazing athlete in a perfect setting doing incredible things.

I have a ticket to take the train down to meet Fred’s brother Francios who is also a very strong climber. He will show me some new boulders he has and I am looking forward to adding another name onto the roster for Pure, especially someone so talented as Francois.

I have started my euro-English accent. Here’s some stuff I said today:

“Do you know where is the restroom?”
“He seems very sympatic” (french for ‘friendly’)
“What is the time of which these trains are running?”
“Perhaps we first take a coffee and after that we catch the train.”

Also part of the Euro-accent is speaking English slowly and more clearly than normal, so you all will have to forgive me when I get back to the US because I may speak to you as though English was your second language.

Sorry in advance.

Prolific climber and Cloudveil ambassador Chuck Fryberger is also a videographer and blooger. Check out his Web site.

According to Treehugger this morning, solar powered Pod cars may be the transportation fad of the future. I wouldn’t mind riding one of those to work in the morning instead of my gas guzzling Jeep. Add a bike rack on the back and a ski rack on the top and these little pods might just be the best solar powered idea I’ve seen in a while.

From Treehugger- Sweden has already built a pod car pilot on an old football field on the outskirts of the university town of Uppsala, while in West Virginia a small pod-like transport system has been shuttling students back and forth for many years. Now on both sides of the U.S. in Ithaca, New York, and Santa Cruz, California, advocates are working hard to convince city officials that pod cars are the way to go.

Heathrow is building what it is calling a pod car system to shuttle travelers around the airport. But what seems to be needed is for one or more cities – probably ones that hasn’t yet made the investment in light rail – to embrace a pod-car structure and show us all how lovely it might be traveling above the city streets in our very own sound-proofed pods.

Some of the best climbing in inland Spain is found at El Chorro, accessed by El Camino Del Ray. The “approach” is a stomach-turner even on video. According to Climb Spain, this walkway runs the length of the gorge and is suspended 100m above the valley floor. However it is over 80 years old and is now sadly slowly crumbling away, especially at both ends. However, this definitely adds to the “feel of adventure” to the rock climbing at El Chorro and calls for a high level of commitment in just getting to the start of some of the routes! It is this area, which gives El Chorro its own unique intimidating atmosphere, and not surprisingly this is where the long multi-pitch routes are concentrated (up to 10-pitches long). The majority of the routes here are 6b+ and above, and are either above or below the Camino Del Ray walkway.

This September I had the opportunity to travel to the Spanish island of Mallorca to try the insane and increasingly popular sport of Psicobloc, or deep-water soloing. Chris Sharma, one of the world’s best climbers, increased the sport’s popularity by sending routes in Greece and Mallorca in his newest movie, King Lines. He makes it look easy.

Just like other forms of climbing, the goal is pretty simple: to avoid falling off of whatever you’re climbing on.

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