Next up, the team will head down south for the Desert Winds Expedition outside Las Vegas, which is currently the biggest expedition race race in the country (also apparently staged to the music of Phil Collins and Pat Benatar, if you visit their web site … not that there’s anything wrong with that … strange things happen when you get near the limits of physical endurance).
Heat, canyons and the Colorado River will undoubtedly stretch these gals and guys close to those limits over five consecutive days of racing 24/7. Stay tuned …
Here’s a thorough video in which Carol Roberts, aka, the Hiking Lady, walks you through what’s in her pack for a backcountry outing. A good refresher on all the things you should have in your pack, even if not everything on her list is on yours, or vice versa. I find it’s always helpful once in a while to assess and reassess what’s in your pack.
Because you know you always forget something … at least I do.
Yes, some folks like to suffer for their recreation. Count adventure racers among them, but, hey, most of us who like to be outdoors can relate to that at some level or another …
Over the weekend of July 14, the team was at it again, this time with a 24-hour race up in the Sierras (shorter 24-hour races are places where Gregory’s Active Trail packs are right at home), where they logged second place, despite a self-described sufferfest during the bike section. Besides being gifted athletes, another talent these folks apparently have is the ability to self-shoot photos while simultanously suffering (see left).
Team Captain Cyril Ray-Jayon said that Team Dart is now up in the national rankings and well-positioned to finish on the podium at the end of the year.
Here at Gregory we were psyched to get notice of the Baltoro pack being included on the UK-based Outdoor: Talk’s “A list kit” for backpacks, not so much simply because of the great accolade (though we’re always honored when folks recognize the detail we put into our packs), but because they really nailed what we believe regarding suspension and how comfortable your backpack is when you do what you do with a backpack - load it up and carry it.
As they point out, if you pick up the Baltoro and it’s not the lightest weight pack measured against many on the market. But the measure of a great pack, and especially one made for many consecutive days of trekking, is how well it carries the weight on your back. As we’ve said many times, and we’ll say again now, it’s worth a little bit of extra weight put into the right part of the pack (the suspension) in order for the load to be dispersed equally and transferred in the most effective way possible to your body.
Said more simply, it’s actually comfortable with weight in it. And that’s something you’re most likely to be aware of after you’ve carried some packs that don’t distribute the load so well.
As they write, “The development and weight have gone into areas that somehow spread the load in such a way that it doesn’t seem to concentrate in any one place. … There are undeniably lighter heavy load bags on the market, and some very good ones, but when you’re on a long trail what really matters is comfort and that’s more than just a matter of grams carried and you’d be hard pressed to find anything more comfortable than this arm chair of load haulers.”
In 2008, EMS organized a big outdoor festival/party up in the northeastern U.S. appropriately named the Nor’Easter. Now, during this event, there was a wee bit of rain, which only makes the name more appropriate.
This year, here in just about two months time, the Nor’Easter is back, and this time there will be no rain - they promise. Here at Gregory, we’ve signed on again as a sponsor, and we’re psyched to be making the journey from Sacramento out to Loon Mountain, in Lincoln, N.H. for the event, which is Sept. 24-26.
Part festival, part rock concert, conservation event, and part outdoor clinic, the Nor’Easter is designed more than anything to bring outdoor types together for a week of fun. While the lineup of clinics hasn’t yet been set, the bands playing have been named, the final event of the season of the Unified Bouldering Championships takes place Saturday night, and the event is right by Rumney, N.H. and some great cragging. Besides climbing, they’ll be a cyclocross race and trail running.
Here’s a little video shot with Gregory athlete Joe Kinder at 2008’s event. It was a homecoming of sorts for Joe, who learned to climb on the crags in the area.
Here’s the word from team captain Cyril Ray-Jayon: “We are moving up the National Rankings after our win (several) weeks ago and are looking at moving further up (if all goes well of course) at our next national 24 hour series race in Lake Tahoe at the end of the month, We’ll keep you posted.”
Follow DART’s progress on the Gregory blog and on their website.
No one beats up on gear like climbers. Whether it’s schlepping stuff to base camp or hauling up rock walls, alpine climbing in particular doles out the abuse.
The upshot: “The Gregory Alpaca is one of the best all-around duffels on the market.”
Climbers are notoriously meticulous, and this review is nothing if not that. Tabs on the review include Editor’s Picks, Rating Overview, Buying Advice, and How We Test, along with the individual writeups on seven duffles, which was a list already culled from a bigger list as climbers’ favorites.
April and May are fine times in the Sierra, just an hour or two east of Gregory world HQ, depending on where you’re headed.
It’s about this time of year that some of the folks in the design department keep talking about the need for ‘testing trips.’ (OK, well, they actually talk about those pretty much year-round.)
Nonetheless, April and May are known far and wide in the Sierra for serving up vertically enticing spring corn descents. Only this year, like a lot of places around the West, it’s not exactly spring skiing yet.
Nonetheless, with eyes toward powder rather than corn, and with some new and forthcoming designs in Gregory’s JetStream DTS pack line on which to do quality-control work, a few of the crew headed out this past week to make sure these packs earned the seal of approval that is the Gregory logo.
So … enjoy a few shots of what we like to call our back yard. The red line below shows one of the couloirs the crew skied.
Adventure travel is close to the heart here at Gregory. We find it’s one of the main things many of our customers end up using our gear for.
On the adventurous end of adventure travel, British adventurer and author Simon Reeve loaded up a Gregory Z55 and headed into Burma recently (sneaking in without approval of the ruling military dictatorship), as part of his BBC series Tropic of Cancer. The series is a six-part installment on the BCC where Reeve travels the Tropic of Cancer for some 23,000 miles around the globe. He’s done similar BCC series on the Tropic of Capricorn and the Equator, routes that take his through some beautiful - and dangerous - places.
In Burma (which he recounts in a story in the UK-based adventure travel magazine Wanderlust), Reeve struggles with the fact that the National League of Democracy has called for a ban on tourism in Burma, because of political issues with the military regime there, and the fact that tourism dollars support a repressive government.
ARA-ranked racing in the U.S.
t at some level or another …
ing (see left).
Earning mostly first and second place since January, DART adventure racing team, sponsored in part by Gregory, is cued up for a lot more adventure with upcoming races in California, Washington, Colorado and Arizona. Races on the roster include, 
n, we here at Gregory were psyched to have the 
Adventure travel is close to the heart here at Gregory. We find it’s one of the main things many of our customers end up using our gear for.
When it comes to 8,000-meter peaks, you only get so far looking at photographs, and reality becomes a lot clearer when you get to the mountain.
