Video: Free climber Steph Davis does the wingsuit
Steph Davis
Awhile back, I posted a video of Steph Davis doing some seriously technical free solo climbs in Utah and on the Diamond on Longs Peak in Colorado. If you haven’t seen those, just type in her name in the search function on the main page and it will take you there.
Anyway, its seems this woman is pretty fearless when it comes to challenging gravity and big air. She’s now into wingsuits. This video is about 9 minutes, but it has some pretty cool footage of Davis doing her latest adrenaline act in the Swiss Alps. BASE jumping, wingsuit flying, well, you can’t say that we’re not trying to entertain you! Have a look and enjoy.
Children of the Sky from steph davis on Vimeo.
Bob Doucette
bdoucette@opubco.com
Trip report: Hiking at Beavers Bend State Park
A good-looking stream along the Skyline Trail in Beavers Bend State Park. (Matt Patterson photo)
I like it when my friends write about their experiences in the outdoors. Friend and co-worker Matt Patterson went to southeastern Oklahoma for a few days of hiking in Beavers Bend State Park. This is a good report, and I hope you enjoy it. And if you have some stories of your own, feel free to e-mail me your story and photos at bdoucette@opubco.com. Have a read…
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Beavers Bend State Park
Skyline Trail
Oklahoma may not be Colorado when it comes to its sheer trail miles, but there are a few hidden gems within our borders.
One is Beavers Bend State Park near Broken Bow. The park is home to the David Boren trail system and its 16 miles of wilderness adventure. With leaves peaking with color, fall is as good of a time as any to visit.
This was my second trip to the park with my hiking buddy Dale Moody who lives in Hartshorne, about two hours away.
The first time we did a section of the trail that is less strenuous. This time we took on the full might of the David Boren system – a three-mile section of Skyline Trail which runs about 4.5 miles total.
The sign at the trailhead says “For experienced hikers only” and they mean it. They don’t do switchbacks at Beavers Bend. There are tons of up and down, including two sections on the inbound hike that were close to a mile each straight up hills.
And when you aren’t battling hills, you’ll be battling ankle-busting sections of trail that wind around the mountains. Trekking poles are a must for these spots and negotiating the many gulleys along the way. Foot bridges not included.
A look at the trail system map at the trailhead. (Matt Patterson photo)
On this trip our destination was Bee Creek which, was about 3 miles from the trailhead, but we stopped just short of the campsite since we found out on the way in from people we passed it was occupied by a troop of Boy Scouts.
There are several places that would make nice backcountry campsites along the way, with water sources in the form of creeks fed by Broken Bow Lake.
This system doesn’t loop so you backtrack on your way out, and our trip out was generally easier than it was going in. But regardless, it’s fun to test yourself on these trails. And when you’re not hiking you can throw in a line at the river where the trail begins. On the days we were there the banks were loaded with fly fishermen.
Red tape: There are no fees for overnight camping at Beavers Bend, but campers are encouraged to register with the park office before setting out. As with most state parks, fires are prohibited.
How to get there: From Oklahoma City the park is about 250 miles. Take Interstate 40 east to Henryetta. At Henryetta get on the Indian Nation Turnpike south. Exit at Antlers/Atoka State Highway 3 for 52 miles then get on US 259 north a short distance to reach the park.
Bring: A good pair of hiking boots with plenty of ankle support. In the fall, a 20-degree bag and a decent single wall tent will do. On the night we spent on the trail the temperature hovered in the mid 30s. It can get a little cooler if you overnight on top of one of the mountains.
Wildlife: This is bear country. Black bears, to be precise. We didn’t see any, but they’re out there. There were a couple of dumpsters along the way that looked like they had been raided the night before. If you see a bear count your blessings and enjoy the experience as most in our state are fairly timid and avoid humans.
The park doesn’t require bear cans or for campers to hang their food, but it’s probably a good idea not to keep food in your tent just the same. Besides bears, other assorted animals like raccoons and opossums populate the area.
– Matt Patterson
Kevin Durant challenges Bear Grylls to daring alley-oop
Yes, this is a marketing deal for a deodorant manufacturer. But it’s still at least a little rad. It has Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant challenging TV survival star Bear Grylls (“Man vs. Wild” fame) to perform a different kind of stunt: running off a 50-foot cliff into a net dangling from a moving helicopter. Check out this video…
And here’s a short behind-the scenes video…
Anyone up for Kevin Durant’s alley-oop challenge?
Bob Doucette
bdoucette@opubco.com
Driving the Alpine Loop over Engineer Pass
Low on the Alpine Loop in southwestern Colorado, this snowy peak appears.
Nobody likes a traffic jam. Sitting in traffic, waiting for someone to move so you can get on your way. Yeah, not the best way to spend your time.
Traffic jams are a little different on the road over Engineer Pass. You see, the Alpine Loop byway gets pretty narrow, steep and rough as you go along, and traffic jams are more likely to be impasses. You’re going up, and someone else is going down. And the narrowness of the road (I use the word “road” loosely here) won’t allow two-way passage.
What to do? Slam it in reverse, back up slowly and carefully (those dropoffs are a doozy) and find a wider pullout to let the other driver through.
Traffic jam solved, and two drivers going opposite ways happily bounce along in first gear/four-wheel drive.
Did I mention the whole thing about first gear? As in, the road over Engineer Pass and Cinnamon Pass is so rough that the Jeep I was driving didn’t get out of first gear for about 65 percent of the five-hour drive. And I was totally OK with that.
Johnny Hunter takes some pics atop Engineer Pass.
The Alpine Loop winds its way through miles of high country deep in the San Juan range of southwestern Colorado. I started the drive in Lake City, a small town an hour south of Gunnison. Both passes I drove topped out at 12,800 feet or higher. From Engineer Pass, sweeping views of Uncompahgre, Matterhorn and Wetterhorn peaks greeted me and my passenger/climbing buddy Johnny Hunter. To the west, Mount Sneffles and its spiny ridge. And to the south, miles and miles of high summits graced with early autumn snows.
Lower on the road (and cruising somewhere between 5 and 10 mph), the road takes you through a mix of pine and aspen forests. At this time of year, the aspens have lost their green, trading it in for brilliant yellows and fiery oranges. The contrast of those colors with the greens of the pines, the blue in the sky and the occasional puff of white clouds is stunning. Still lower I drove, and opening up to the side of the road were deep, rocky gorges. Somewhere down there, a couple of hundred of feet down, a snow-fed river keeps carving into the rock, making the gash in the earth just a little deeper every day. I can’t hear it roaring, however. Not with all the jostling of the jeep as it crawls slowly over the one-lane path that bears a strange resemblance to Bolivia’s El Camino Muerto, the infamous road of death that seems to claim a bus or two every year.
Not that I think we’re going to hurtling over the edge anytime soon. The Jeep is pretty small, and everyone obeys those unwritten mountain road rules pretty well.
A stunning view of American Basin.
The scene of the day comes late in the afternoon, approaching American Basin. High above the basin is a jagged ridgeline, stubbornly holding on to snow that pounded the range just a week before.
Back at home, we drive past less spectacular scenery every day at 70 mph, not really noticing what may be out there. I’m not going to compare what I see on my daily commute to the majesty of the Rocky Mountains. And certainly traffic jams on Interstate 40 are nothing like meeting another four-wheeler head-on along a rural mountain byway. But slowing things down sure helped me take it all in.
We hurry a lot. Multitask a lot. When you’re forced to slow down, however, purpose becomes more focused. Distractions fade as you’re compelled to concentrate on the road. That’s when you can see the world as it is at that time. Not in a blur, but as it is.
Bob Doucette
Climbing Colorado’s Matterhorn Peak
Matterhorn Peak.
It was 1 a.m. and I’d barely gotten a wink of sleep. A 5 a.m. wake-up call was just ahead, as well as a busy and difficult day in which I’d planned to climb two peaks in the San Juan range of southwestern Colorado. Both would be a little tougher than some of the mountains I’d done previously, though the technical side of the climbs were things I could deal with.
But it was going to be a long day. Two mountains, somewhere around 10 miles of hiking and climbing above 10,000 feet, big dropoffs and hopefully big payoffs in terms of views, solitude and, to a degree, a sense of accomplishment. Indeed, tagging the summits of Wetterhorn Peak and Matterhorn Peak would mark my best day of climbing in the Rockies.
But as the clock ticked past 1, I knew something was up. I was plagued by a persistent headache and a mind that wouldn’t shut off. And by the time I’d eaten breakfast, dressed and hit the trailhead, I realized I was just feeling off. The ambition that fueled my plan had ebbed. I was tired before I stepped foot on the trail.
I knew I had to pick one. Two wasn’t going to happen. So would it be Wetterhorn Peak, a gorgeous 14,015-foot spire with its airy summit, or would it be its smaller neighbor, Matterhorn Peak, beautiful in its own right, but not as difficult?
Going up the grassy slope toward Matterhorn's summit. It's steeper than it looks.
I’d made up my mind somewhere on the trail, but decided to wait to tell climbing buddy Johnny Hunter when we got to a split in the route where you went toward either Wetterhorn or Matterhorn.
“Johnny, I’m just not feeling it today,” I told him. “So let me offer this. Neither of us have been up Matterhorn (he’d already climbed Wetterhorn a month earlier). Let’s get Matterhorn and call it good.”
‘Stately’ Matterhorn
Thankfully, he was agreeable, so we turned northeast to follow a less-traveled trail toward Matterhorn’s southeast slopes. At 13,590 feet, Matterhorn is little brother to the aforementioned Wetterhorn Peak and, further east, the hulking mass that is Uncompahgre Peak. But it’s beautiful. It’s grassy slopes angle upward to a rocky summit while its craggy west ridge give the mountain an edge just hard enough to inspire awe. Gerry Roach, renowned Colorado mountaineer and author of “Colorado’s Fourteeners,” described Matterhorn as “stately” in his must-have guidebook. When the peak first comes into view, the description becomes believable.
Below Matterhorn's rocky summit. Class 3 climbing begins here.
Matterhorn is rarely climbed by itself. Most of the time, it’s climbed in combination with Wetterhorn or, for the people who are insanely fit, it’s a part of a three-peak day in which it, Wetterhorn and Uncompahgre are all climbed. Since it doesn’t hit that magic 14,000-foot mark or have the gnarly ascents some other 13ers have, Matterhorn doesn’t have the allure to make it a singular focus of many climbers’ attention.
But it does have its charms. First, because it’s infrequently climbed, you can bet on having the mountain mostly to yourself. That was my experience. Only Johnny and myself were on the peak that day.
Second, its scenery is spectacular. I wanted pictures from Matterhorn’s summit because I knew the views of the neighboring mountains would be amazing. I was proven correct, which made me feel a little better about forgoing Wetterhorn.
Lastly, Matterhorn has a little of everything. It’s a beautiful hike, and just enough challenge toward the end to add a little excitement to the day.
The ascent
Looking at its southeast slopes, the hike seemed pretty straightforward. And it was, but the slopes were much steeper than they initially appeared. Since all of that portion of the hike was above 12,000 feet, it got rather grueling. I’ve experienced some steep hiking on Mount Belford and Mount Yale, and Matterhorn’s slopes felt every bit as steep. I’d worked on my conditioning quite a bit over the past few months, but still came up short of my own expectations. Translation: I was slow going up that hill.
Looking up the final pitch. It's pretty steep, and the hiking portion ends here.
But eventually we got to the end of the hiking portion of the ascent and into some actual climbing. When you first see Matterhorn, you notice it’s capped by a jagged, steep final section. I was hoping for some solid rock up there, but that didn’t happen. Instead, what you have are lots of boulders and loose rocks along with some dirt.
I saw two obvious routes to the top. I could go straight up a steeper, rockier portion of the summit pitch or angle off to my right toward a slightly easier but less interesting route. I chose the former.
We ditched our packs there and started our scramble toward the summit. In so doing, I spied a more vertical and interesting looking line. So I swung over to my left to take a peek.
A gouge in the side of the mountain made a small but nice-looking gully that ended abruptly at the top with a couple of chockstones wedged in place. At the foot of the gully were loose rocks and dirt. Below me, an exposed dropoff that ended a few hundred feet below.
The footholds were junk. But I figured if I could get some good handholds up higher, I’d be OK. As I climbed up, I saw the only readily available handholds were those dang chockstones.
Looking down an exposed portion of the climb.
I’ve been reading Aron Ralston’s “Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” and noting that he had to cut off his own arm to free himself from a fallen chockstone, my current situation gave me pause. Ralston quoted Roach (the guidebook author mentioned earlier) as saying, “Geologic time is now.” A nice way of saying that a rock can move or fall at any time.
Looking back down, I saw that dropoff. The exposure didn’t bother me. But I knew that if I put all my trust in the handholds above and that rock moved or fell toward me, I’d be tumbling at least 200 feet before my body came to rest.
Oh, and I’d likely be quite dead.
So I backed off and backed out. Once back to my original line, the climb to the top was short but fun, and the summit was ours.
A good day
As it turned out, the climb ended up being quite satisfying. It lacked the flair of my original plan, but it ended up being a really good time. The weather was perfect: nearly cloudless, a light breeze and mild temps. I got the photos I wanted. Johnny got to throw snowballs at me. And the peace of being able to hang out on a high peak with no one else around was a treat.
Summit view of neighboring Wetterhorn Peak. Stunning.
And that brings up a point about hiking, climbing and mountaineering. For the most part, it is an individual endeavor. You have to think about your partners and such (being safe and keeping them safe), but the merits are pretty much based on what the individual wants. I saw people on the summit of Wetterhorn half a mile away or so, but I did not envy them. Wetterhorn will be there for another day, as will hundreds of other mountains I have yet to ascend. This particular day was all about Matterhorn Peak. And it was a good day.
Bob Doucette
Video: Man descends into live volcano
One more post for the day. Let me just say, this is some crazy footage. Have a look at this video of Drew Bristol descending into Marum volcano in Vanuatu. You can read a short writeup about this in the Los Angeles Times Outposts blog here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2010/10/daredevil-adventurer-climbs-into-live-volcano-.html
And you can watch the video here:
Bob Doucette
Out There taking a break
Headin' to the high country. See you soon!
Sometimes, you just have to go lose yourself in a wild place for awhile. And that’s what I’m going to do starting Friday. I hope to come back with some good trip reports and some photos of the San Juan Mountains, and if that happens I’ll be sharing with all of you.
I probably won’t be near a computer anytime soon. So posting will be difficult. However, feel free to e-mail me with any ideas you have, or possibly any stories of adventures you’ve had, be it here in Oklahoma or in some faraway place. Send me a story and some photos and I’ll publish it here.
Have an awesome week, folks. Enjoy the great outdoors and I’ll talk to you soon.
Bob Doucette
Quadruple amputee Philippe Croizon swims English Channel
Talk about an overachiever. Below is a story from The Associated Press about a Frenchman – and quadruple amputee – who swam the English Channel. I’ve got two functioning arms and legs, and I’d struggle to swim a couple hundred meters. Anyway, read this and let me know what you think.
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WISSANT, France (AP) — Just days after swimming across the English Channel, quadruple amputee Philippe Croizon is already dreaming of a new challenge: crossing from Europe to Africa in the Strait of Gibraltar.
Croizon, who swims using leg prostheses with fins attached, also has an inspirational message for anyone discouraged or facing difficulties.
Phillippe Croizon swims across the English Channel.
“You only need to want (something), and then it becomes possible to go beyond your limits,” he told Associated Press Television News on Monday, two days after crossing the English Channel, which is 21 miles (34 kilometers) at its narrowest point.
Croizon, 42, had expected his weekend swim from Britain to France to take up to 24 hours. Instead, he reached the cliffs of Wissant in northern France on Saturday night after only 13 and a half hours.
He uses specially designed leg protheses, which end in fins, to propel himself through the water. His truncated upper arms go through the motions of the crawl, and he breathes through a snorkel.
Upon reaching the French shore, a wave threw him into the rocks, before being pulled out of the water.
“The guys on the boat were shouting, ‘Get out of there!’ The waves were huge,” Croizon recalled. Then he saw his two sons up on the cliff above, cheering him on.
“I broke down in tears … it (was) pure happiness,” he said.
The swimmer’s arms and legs were amputated after he suffered an electric shock in 1994 as he stood on a ladder adjusting his television antenna, which touched a power line.
While he was recovering, he saw a news report about an English Channel crossing.
“I watched the TV screen and said to myself, ‘Why not me?’” he said. “So 16 years later, the ‘why not me’ became a reality here.”
He added: “I can’t even realize it myself, it’s crazy!”
Croizon said he hopes to be able to cross the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco, perhaps in a year or two after more training to adapt to the different conditions there. While the strait, at about 14 kilometers (9 miles) at its shortest point, is shorter than the English Channel, it has busy traffic and strong currents.
Croizon is an avid scuba diver and also made headlines for going skydiving. He wrote a book about his experiences called “J’ai decide de vivre” (I decided to live.)
He said the main message of his cross-Channel endeavor is that “we can all make it.”
“We all have it in ourselves but it is well hidden, in our daily routine,” he said. “When a big problem occurs, we can still pick ourselves up. If I can show other people that life is not only suffering, I would be happy. We suffer, but we get back up again.”
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Online:
http://www.philippe-croizon.com/
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What an incredible story. I really need to take some swim lessons.
Bob Doucette
Oklahoma outdoors: Geocaching at Beavers Bend State Park
A stream at Beavers Bend State Park in McCurtain County.
I had this information forwarded to me from a co-worker. It looks like the people who put this out are trying to find ways to pump up tourism in McCurtain County, but I’ll take it for what it’s worth.
I have friends who really enjoy geocaching, where you use a GPS to find places or things that are mapped out with coordinates on a map. Call it a GPS treasure hunt, if you will.
Though I’ve not been there, I’ve heard Beavers Bend State Park is one of Oklahoma’s finest. So it’s on my to-go list for sure.
If you’re into geocaching and are looking for some fun in a scenic part of the state, read on. This sounds like a pretty good time.
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BROKEN BOW – How do parents get the whole family out to do family activities, especially if you have teens or tweens? The answer is geocaching. Especially geocaching in the Beavers Bend State Park area in Southeastern Oklahoma.
What is geocaching? Geocaching is a worldwide game of hiding and seeking treasures. Geocachers place…or identify a geocache in the world, pinpoint its location using GPS technology and then share the geocache’s existence and location online. Anyone, especially families, with a GPS unit, can then try to locate the geocache.
In the Beavers Bend State Park area, there are hundreds of caches. The park has mountains, lakes, pine trees, rivers and hiking trails.
Before coming to McCurtain County, log on to the official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site:
Type in ZIP code, 74728, or other ZIP codes in McCurtain County and view the descriptions of caches and select several in the Beavers Bend State Park area. Most have a difficulty rating from easy to difficult.
Charity O’Donnell, Executive Director, McCurtain County Tourism Authority, http://www.mccurtaincountygetaways.com/, said, “People love treasure hunts, particularly kids. In McCurtain County, families can enjoy an exciting treasure hunt that combines technology, outdoor recreation and family time together. September is a perfect time to head to our cool mountains, beautiful lakes and refreshing rivers and enjoy fun and challenging geocaching.”
Located in the heart of the Kiamichi Mountains, just across the Texas state line, McCurtain County is home to Broken Bow Lake, Pine Creek Lake, the Mountain Fork, Eagle Fork and Glover Rivers and Beavers Bend State Park. For more information about that park, go to http://www.beaversbend.com/Info.htm.
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So there you go. Check out the links and the park. Try geocaching while you’re there and have a good time outside.
Bob Doucette
Op-ed writer wants safer wilderness areas, but maybe people should just be better prepared
There’s a recent New York Times op-ed piece by a guest writer that is causing a bit of a stir in the outdoor community. And for various reasons, I feel compelled to jump in as well.
The writer, attorney Ted Stroll, is complaining that the U.S. Forest Service is being too strict in how it enforces laws regarding wilderness management. His case is that of some hikers who got in trouble and could have died after getting lost in a Minnesota wilderness area. Their complaint: not enough signs to direct them safely on the route they were supposed to be following.
No handrails or signs here. Just good, Oklahoma wilderness.
Stroll points out that in 1970, a cross-country skier also got lost in that same area and died. After that man’s death, signs went up, but those markers have since fallen into disrepair. The Forest Service chose not to replace them because the agency wanted to keep the area’s wilderness state intact.
His complaint is that such strict observances of the 1964 Wilderness Act make American wilderness areas less accessible to the public and more dangerous. He also hints at the possibility that the agency should allow more than just foot and horseback traffic through wild lands.
I can admire Mr. Stroll’s desire to look after the public’s safety, and for free access to its wild lands. But he must realize there are certain things about “wilderness” that are inherently wild, untamed and risky. Here’s how I view it:
If people construct a building for public use, there has to be some expectation that the public should be able to use that building – an office, stadium, school or home, for example – with the reasonable expectation that it’s a safe place to go.
We expect playground equipment to be safe for kids to play on. Our streets should be solid and safe to drive on. Places that have the hallmark of civilization are all designed by people, and those people should be held accountable for their projects’ safety.
Wilderness, on the other hand, is not designed by man. The religious among us will say that wild places are designed by God, and designed with specific purposes and plans in mind that don’t necessarily cater strictly to humans and our civilized societies. A more naturalistic outlook will note that wild places are created by things like tectonic forces, erosion, glacial advances and retreats, climate and the proliferation of flora and fauna, to name a few.
Wilderness areas are not designed by man. They are not up to code. They don’t have ramps, handrails and airbags. They lack phone service, water lines and proper sewage management. They don’t have storm shelters, thermostats and covered parking. If you walk into a wilderness, you have to realize that it ain’t Disneyland.
A trail, a person, and very little else. The Wilderness Act purposefully took a minimalist approach to signage in wild areas.
There is a certain level of responsibility that goes with venturing into wilderness areas. Go visit a city park, yeah, there’s a reasonable expectation of safety. Venture into the Grand Canyon or try scaling the Tetons as casually as you might stroll into that same park and you should expect trouble.
We have to get to a point where people are responsible for their own safety. Study your routes carefully. Learn how to navigate WITHOUT a GPS device. Bring enough food and water to sustain you in case you get lost. Wear the right clothes and have some form of emergency shelter and a first-aid kit at the ready. Tell people where you’re going, for how long and when you expect to return. Take some courses on wilderness survival.
Lots of things can go wrong in the wilderness. Simply going into wild places carries risks, but some of those can be mitigated by taking the right precautions before venturing out.
So before we start littering America’s wild places with signage, paving our trails and flooding them with bikes, ATVs and so forth, let’s first think about what people should do when they decide to interact with nature on its terms. And let’s let the wilderness stay wild. If this is asking too much, then the unwary – or unwilling – should think about sticking to the regulated, well-signed safety of civilization.
Bob Doucette
