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Italy’s Gavia Pass

One of the great appeals of Europe to cyclists around the world is the plethora of amazing passes to ride.  Most have been made famous by the Tour de France:  the Galibier, Tourmalet, Ventoux, Alpe d’Huez, and others practically became household names in the Lance era.  For Americans, the lure of passes is really only satiated in Colorado and California, where Euro-scale passes like Cottonwood, Independence, and Loveland challenge the ‘Rado-ans and California’s “Death Ride” that…

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“Lake” Powell Packraft Soiree

If you live in the West, you probably are aware of the severe drought that has plagued the Southwest in particular over the last few years.  What was not as well known, however, was that it was more than just a few years:  in fact, it’s been the worst drought in 1200 years, according to a study done by folks at UCLA that had its results published last year.  And considering how many people rely…

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Bikepacking (touring?) the Big Sur coast and mountains

Part III in a series of tales of bikepacks (bike tours?)  we did in the fall of 2021 on a multi-week road trip from the Pacific Northwest through California.   Our Lost Coast tour ended in Mendocino in what was to be one in a series of rain events that hit California in October, and we had to bypass the great riding between Mendocino and Marin county (even driving was a little challenging; Ashley got…

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FOMO in the Ascent Backcountry Journal

Over the last few years Paul Oelerich has been kind enough to let me opine on just about anything I want regarding backcountry skiing as the opening column “The Tour” in his beautiful Ascent Backcountry Journal. Like all print media, Ascent has been a challenging and not very lucrative endeavor, and when even venerable mags like Powder go away it’s a clear testament to Paul’s skill, creativity, passion, integrity, and determination that Ascent has continued…

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Bikepacking the Lost Coast

Part II of a series of posts about Bikepack adventures that we had on a recent long road trip from the Pacific Northwest to the California coast and its deserts. After a stellar tour of the John Day River/Ochoco Mountains area of Central Oregon, we did some great socializing in Seattle and Portland before heading to Southern Oregon to paddle the (formal) Wild and Scenic Rogue river (it was one of the originals designated as…

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Ochoco Overlander Bikepack

This fall Ashley and I had the unusual opportunity to hit the road for a fairly extended amount of time; she had finally finished up a fulfilling role in leading Wasatch Community Gardens for nearly a decade, so we loaded up the beige Forester, completed the all-important task of creating the hashtag #beigeforesterlife, and hit the road.  Our macro plan was go go to the Pacific Northwest first to take advantage of typically-nice fall weather…

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Doin’ the WURL

When I first starting hiking and running in the Central Wasatch after a few seasons of only really skiing there (and then in the summers mostly mountain biking in the foothills) I had a thought:  “Wow, it would be pretty amazing to traverse the ridgeline that almost encircles Little Cottonwood Canyon; maybe do it over the course of a buncha hikes over the summer. And you could call it something cool, like the LCC Horseshoe!” …

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Paddling the Flashy Paria

Our Paria adventure started as many adventures do:  a text message came in asking “hey, you busy tomorrow?”  For the first time in three years the Southwest monsoon cycles had been firing this summer, and they seemed to be making up for lost time and water, with more and bigger rain events than normal sweeping through all of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, and they were also stacking up on each other.  This caused a…

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Packrafting the Susitna and Talkeetna rivers, twice each!

If you’re a packrafter, or even someone who might be mildly interested in packrafting (or read the first of the series of articles I wrote about packrafting for American Whitewater; page 14) you know that Alaska is not only the birthplace but also kind of the motherland of packrafting.  Heck, for that matter, Alaska is practically the birthplace and motherland for nearly all outdoor adventuring; there’s a reason that tales of adventure from Jack London…

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