It Doesn't Completely Suck
The footage from my last Alaska trip was less than great, so I cut a ten-minute video set to suitably invigorating music. The iMac is compressing it now. Here's a teaser while I wait to get back there and film better.
Topic
climbing
A collection of 218 posts
Dinner is Served
Planning the Alaska menu: breakfast and dinner cover about 1,000 calories a day, leaving 3,000-plus to fill from lunch and snacks for twenty-five days. A real man would just bring sugar, lard, and protein, then throw up violently. I opted for variety instead.
High Altitude Brain Damage
The three of us bound for Denali are in a study on how altitude affects the brain, though they don't even consider Denali high altitude. It starts gently (what's today's date? I never know) and escalates to backwards numbers and re-telling stories from half an hour ago.
GPS Stagnation
Hand-held trail GPS units peaked with the Garmin GPSMap 60csx. Mine writes every location to a 1GB microSD card I couldn't fill in a lifetime of walking. The pretty touchscreen Oregons and Colorados still cap you at 10,000 tracklog points. Such a shame.
Traveling Light
My Brunton Solaris 26 solar panel charges my iPhone even through L.A.'s gross haze. Its four DC tips fit precisely zero of our gadgets. A rundown of the satellite phone, radios, and cameras bound for Alaska, and the temptation to ditch it all during the third 72-hour storm.
FindMeSpot Locator Alert
Apparently we're still alive. A Spot locator ping at 42.4876, -72.0183, with the closest point of interest being home in New York, 142 miles away.
FindMeSpot Locator Alert
Apparently we're still alive. A Spot locator ping logged at -71.2857, 44.3313 on the evening of February 25.
From Mountain Side to Blog Post
I won't haul blogging gear up the mountain, but Corey's bringing a Spot Locator. The plan: hit send, OS X Mail catches it and fires an AppleScript that hands off to a Perl script, which posts to Blogger. Profit. A walk through each step, including the gotcha that ate an evening.
FindMeSpot Locator Alert
Apparently we're still alive. Another Spot locator ping at -71.2857, 44.3313, logged the evening of February 25.
Sponsorship
Seeking out sponsors for our Denali trip never would have occurred to me, but Corey was on it. MyTopo came through with maps, software and a gift certificate in exchange for some logo photos at 17k camp. I just hope we sell the summit shots at a premium; those take so much more effort.