Backcountry Nomad – Page 15 – Backcountry Nomad: An Adventure Blog

Monster Movie Mosquitos over 26 miles of Canoeing the BWCAW

Let me take you to a place where there are more fish than people, where every campsite has a lakeside view and a swarm of mosquitos takes on a whole new meaning. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) is located in the most Northern reaches of Minnesota. Where regulations restrict motorized boats, there are no roads and the basic luxuries of a campsite latrine and fire ring provide primitive access while protecting the pristine environment. The regulations go so far as to allow no more than four canoes and nine people to gather at any time. This is wilderness.

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10 Things I Won’t Bring Next Time to the Bugaboos

Annie after a successful ascent of Surf’s Up, Snowpatch Spire

Guest Post by Ryan George

“The Bugaboos is a magical alpine playground of wild weather, pristine wilderness and towering granite spires…”
– Atkinson and Piche, The Bugaboos guidebook

I truly believe that if you want something bad enough for long enough, it’s bound to happen. Eight years ago, while, climbing the majestic Cook range in New Zealand, I asked my mountaineering instructor where he went for vacation. As he described granite soaring over glaciers in the Bugaboos, I began to love a place I’d never been. It took me eight years to acquire the friends and skills to make it a reality, but this July I finally got to climb in this alpine wonderland.

When people hear the name of this park, they laugh; when they search it, they gape. Since there’s no place quite like it, it’s truly unimaginable, and I found myself at a loss for how to prepare. In particular, what should I bring up the short but steep approach to camp? Having made the mistake of bringing a far too heavy pack, I’ll share my hard-won wisdom on what not to bring to this committing location. (Disclaimer: consider conditions when packing up; we had near-perfect weather)

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Intoxicated Climbing on the North Shore of Minnesota

The North Shore as seen from Shovel Point. Palisade Head is the raised lump of land in the distance.

Staring down at the cover of climbing magazine I was intoxicated. A snaking shoreline in the distance. A couple feet of dark gray rock exposed from the vast, pristine, clear and fresh water. The rock acting as a boundary between two great seas. The other, a thick wood of green spruce and birch covering all visible land. The green sea washing down from small rolling hills to meet the water.

In the foreground, a man is halfway up a larger section of this rock boundary. A sheer granite cliff in shades of gray rising 120 ft out of the huge fresh water lake. Where is this magical place? Minnesota.

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Higher than Three Half Domes: Mount Sir Donald

On Mount Sir Donald’s Northwest Ridge (5.4), I accomplished my first car-car summit, my first ~7,000 ft day and set a new record for my longest ever rock climb (2,400 ft). I barely stopped moving except to wait for my turn to rappel over the course of the entire 18 hour day. The views were astonishing, the exposure and grade sustained and the legs very, very tired.

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Climbing Takakkaw Falls: The Most Special Place

A spray of cool water settles across my face as I lean against my climbing rope to get a better look at the billowing, glacier-fed waterfall next to me. Despite being nearly impossible to pronounce, Takakkaw Falls is one of the most picturesque waterfalls in Canada and right now I’m a few dozen feet away from where its torrent bounds up and away from the eroded shale into the form of a rooster tail. I have been excited for this exact experience ever since I found this climb next to Canada’s second highest waterfall. The kicker is the climb ends in a several hundred foot long cave from the route to the top off the falls. I could not predict it would even blew away expectations.

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I Will Never Climb Brewer’s Buttress Again

A reasonable person only needs one reason not to do something again, “I didn’t like it”. I know I can be unreasonable, so I have eight: chossy rock, leader fall, lightning storm, lost hikers, hail, steep loose scree, attacking rodent and a dead headlamp.

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Six Strenuous Days Climbing Deep in the Cirque of the Towers

View of Wolf’s Head (center) from the base of Pingora’s South Buttress approach.

50 mosquitos swarm the car, waiting to sadistically assault me in vampiric fashion as I stop the Subaru at Big Sandy trailhead. They know no limits. I would get a dozen bites at 11,500 ft on the side of a climb, evade one on a 12,000 ft summit and use copious amounts of bug deterrent in a campsite surrounded by snow. It’s all worth it to climb the dozen 1000+ ft peaks in the Cirque of the Towers within the Wind River Range of Wyoming. To reach this backcountry lake basin wilderness you must drive two hours from the nearest town, 20 miles on dirt road and then hike all your gear 10 miles in by foot. All of this with no cellular service to call for rescue.

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The Easiest Place to Camp in Yosemite is 1400 ft Up a Wall

Here I was, sleeping 1400 ft above the valley floor on a forested ledge. Drinking unfiltered, fresh water directly out of a granite spring. Not a soul around except for a midnight food attack by a resident raccoon. All I had to do was ascend the longest single day climbing route I’ve ever completed and cross the worst traverse I’ve ever encountered.

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How to Deal with Injury as a High-Performance Athlete

Guest Post by Noam Argov

I know this sounds crazy, but I’ve been a serious athlete since I was 5. A gymnast from a family of gymnasts, I was practicing 6 days a week for 5 hours a day at the peak of my ten-year practice. Gymnastics was everything: a lifestyle, friendships, self-worth and more. I didn’t know how to live without it, but then the unthinkable happened… I got injured and had to quit the very thing that encompassed my entire life. That experience taught me more about who I really was and how to keep moving my life forward.

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Thunder, Rock and Ice on the East Buttress of Mt. Whitney

Approach to Iceberg Lake with Whitney in center

I was flying down an icy, personal sized halfpipe with walls reaching up to three feet wrapped around me in the darkness of a moonless night. A few lights in the distance softly glowed from the town of Lone Pine 10,000 ft below, but here my speed descent was only illuminated by a narrow headlamp beam ahead. Every ten minutes or so I would have to stop to recoup my energy as it took all my effort plunging my heels and the pick of my ice axe into the slick icy chute to keep my speed to a reasonable level. Now 9 pm, I was glissading down the mountaineer’s route of Mt. Whitney, the tallest point in the lower 48 at 14, 505 ft.

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