March Madness Powder

Seems like each year the best days come in spring!  Here in central Idaho we always get pounded with snow in March/April.  Enjoy this edit from skiing at Sun Valley yesterday.  With over 30 inches of fresh how could you go wrong.

As always I stayed warm and dry in Mammut Gore Tex gear!  My Alagna jacket is my favorite for the resort.  I am rocking the Nordwand pant which is my go to for stormy weather.

Enjoy-Danny Walton

Sun Valley Powder

Blessings,

Life is good!  After the last storm I got the chance to go out and shoot with my friend Karl Weatherly at Sun Valley. It is always a good time when we get out and ski! These shots were taken 3 days after the storm. The sun came out and there was lots of freshies and face shots all day long. There is nothing like making sty-lee telemark turns in the pow!!!  I love it!

Be sure to check out Karl’s amazing website http://www.karlweatherly.com

Enjoy The Mountain Niceness-Danny Walton

Check out http://mountainniceness.com/blog/ for more images

Whiskey Gulch, Montana Bouldering

We got lucky today and enjoyed a guided tour of Whiskey Gulch. I'm originally from Bozeman, and been to Whiskey a handful of times back in 1999... and before I really even had properly started climbing. What a difference in the place: it now has a decently maintained road leading to it (flanked on either side by spur roads and dozens of homes) and clearly worn paths connecting the boulders - which now have chalk on them, and occasional shoe polish (if you look really hard).

In any case, I didn't remember anything about the place, climbing-wise. This day served as a great introduction to the layout of this maze-like area, filled with trees, knobs, and similar-looking boulders and rock fins.

We climbed for several hours, only stopping when we'd run out of skin. David's skin even managed to NOT bleed the entire time.

In case you were wondering, we returned to a house after climbing. Cooked dinner in a kitchen, and took a shower.

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We're hoping to head back to Whiskey as soon as the weather is good. David cleaned a semi-highball near The Wave Boulder that he wants to climb when we return. I have a short list of problems I'd like to try (with fresh skin), and we both would like to spend some hours wandering the area, looking for new problems.

View from the parking

A really fun V4 on The Wave Boulder, a classic warmup area

A non-hold sloper on a V5

David on Super Loose Tuna, V10

A storm rolling in

The look of surprise satisfaction and "Oh my, we have to come back soon."

150 Peaks Project - Mt Washington NH

The anniversary is on, Mammut is celebrating 150 years offering innovative products to outdoor and mountain enthusiasts.  To celebrated this event a selected team of climbers from all over the country arrived in NH and met at the Highland center on Friday evening. Our weekend plan was to climb NH's most beautiful mountain - Mt Washington. The team members were Bill - Mammut CEO, Kristen - Backpacker Magazine gear editor, Dave - Mountain Gear general manager, R D - Access Fund - legal council, Maureen and Mike - Paradox Sports, along with Jim and Matt - MMG guides and myself. 

The forecasted mountain weather was for temperatures struggling to reach 5 degrees with a 25 to 40 MPH wind from the west. We all were equipped with the Peaks Collection clothing and felt prepared for this cold, blustery climb. The initial climb to Lake of the Clouds surprised us with warm temperatures and no wind. Once we reached the alpine zone the clouds moved in and the temperature dropped quickly to the forecasted single digits. This was exactly what we prepared for and expected on Mt Washington. The team layered up in the 150 Peaks Collection pro shell and added face and eye protection to continue our climb into this amazing alpine area. We all continued up into the fog and clouds on the summit cone. We summited by mid day and the clouds broke treating us to a few moments of views to the south and east.

The lower Ammonusuc Trail was in good condition. This made for a fast ascent to Lake of the Clouds Hut.

The team in sync as we climbed together across the lower snow slopes. 

                                      

The fog and clouds moved in on the summit area adding excitement to our climb.

Our first views of the summit towers as the skies opened up on the final push to the top.

Bill and Maureen arriving at the top of Mt Washington. 

Thanks to Mammut for supporting us during this fantastic celebration. It was an awesome day on the mountain and an absolute pleasure to meet and climb with each of you.

Art Mooney

IFMGA Mountain Guide

Bozeman Area Climbing: The Hanta Virus Cave and Natural Bridge

I haven’t properly lived in Montana since 2000. A huge portion of the climbing here has been established in the time after I moved away. So on our drive north from Vegas, we started sending text messages to climber friends here – to see if we could tag along and get some guided tours of the area’s local climbing.

Our first day back in town, we followed friend, Kevin Volkening, to the Hanta Virus Cave in Gallatin Canyon. We enjoyed a fabulous and long warm-up route, and then a suberb ass-kicking on some steep-ass “jug” hauls.

Our first sport(/roped) climbing day since November: check.

The next day, Kevin took us to Natural Bridge (south of Big Timber), where we happened to run into Kyle Vassilopoulos and friend Jonathan Scott, the area’s main developers. For me it was too cold to climb (shade + wind), so I didn’t even mess around with it. (David and Kevin have manlier circulation than I, so they climbed a lot.) But we got a thorough area spray-down and look forward to going back.

It turns out that Montana is the perfect place to be in March... at least this year. This freakishly warm winter is providing us with amazing sport climbing and bouldering conditions. AND WE’RE NOT CAMPING ANYMORE.

COMING HERE WAS A GOOD DECISION.

Poopy butt after "eating sh*t" on the way out from the Hanta Virus Cave

Snowy approach to t-shirt climbing

Natural Bridge, Montana

Kevin Volkening climbing on Shipwreck Rock at Natural Bridge

Same

Notice the river flowing out through the rock at Natural Bridge

Goin' home

Best Ski week so far!

I just had my best week of the season so far at  Grand Targhee http://www.grandtarghee.com/ .  This is my third season riding for the Grand Targhee Team. The Ghee is special place where it dumps snow ALL the time. The vibe is mellow and the people are friendly! They have over 110 inch base now which means everythng is skiing great. I was filming this week with OnTheSnow.com crew. Should be blower over head footy!  I’ll post it when I get it!

Welcome to the White Room!

I am stoked to be featured again in ads for Grand Targhee!

Everybody loves Powder days!

Druid Stones, Morale Booster

The weather continues to treat us very well, and I've been having a great climbing trip here in Bishop. Looking back, I realize that (for the first time ever), I've enjoyed a full year of climbing without any major new injuries. This is huge for me, and I attribute it to nearly a year of focused training and stretching.

For the first time ever, I can try hard, and try hard having had more than a month or two worth of fitness under my belt. Here's to another year without playing catch-up!

That said, David has been suffering from non-stop, terrible, fingertip skin splits, as well as a minor hand injury. This has basically stopped him from trying any of the problems he intended to get on, and has even stopped him from climbing altogether for 10+ days. He really can't even warm up when his fingertips are bleeding before he can put his shoes on.

Needless to say that when one person is suffering from never-healing, bad skin, and the other is only climbing but four hours, every other day, this whole "camping" thing starts to seem pretty tedious. Especially when the nights are long, cold, and windy. And we (two people and one dog) are sleeping in a passenger car.

Given this, we considered bailing (16 hours) north to Montana to recover. But yesterday we purchased a small, cheap tent at K-Mart. Suddenly, for just $35 (plus tax), we now have a place to store our extra goods, and a shelter in which to cook. Though this sounds stupidly simple and obvious, our newly emptied car and our windless breakfast were hugely morale-boosting.

I'm at the beginning of a 4- or 5-day rest period. My body and mind both need a bit of a break. David climbed for the first time in a while yesterday, somewhat without pain. He did suffer from one split fingertip, but he still climbed himself sore. He'll climb tomorrow, and we'll both have our fingers crossed for good skin.

Below are some photos of our first trip to the Druid Stones, as well as a short video I took of myself when I sent the Croft Problem (a V8 on the Lower Smoking Boulder, in the Buttermilks) all by my lonesome a few days ago.

View of the Eastern Sierras through a boulder pile at the Druid Stones

The Druids

The trail up to the Druids

The family, with Steve in the lead

David does Prostrate to the Higher Mind (V5) at the Druids

A video of me doing the Croft Problem (V8) all by my lonesome at the Lower Smoking Boulder in the Buttermilks