Author: Ultimate Direction

We know you're eager to hear what's coming in 2018 from Ultimate Direction so we sat down with our icicle-haired designer Ally Juhasz (...don't worry, it has fully melted) to find out what's coming in the new year and what inspires UD product. Ally is a super talented designer with experience at sportswear brands Under Armour and Obermeyer. She's motivated to design the finest products for self-propelled athletes. Let's meet Ally... how…

“Skimo" - the word is now part of the ultrarunning lexicon. Killian has always done it, many ultra runners have taken it up, Mike Foote and Rob Krar are on their National Teams, it’s the coolest new thing … so what the heck is skimo anyway? Here is the best answer possible:  some of the top people in the sport will tell you all about it,…

How hard is it to set a new Fastest Known Time? Really hard as it turns out. In April we awarded four Grants to people undertaking interesting and ambitious projects. How did it go?  Some great attempts, some not so great … and none succeeded! But do any of these constitute a real “failure”?  Is learning, growing, and exploring a failure or a success?  Read…

By Matthias Messner There is not much information about the LA Freeway. The most I ever found was in  Anton Krupicka’s Ultimate Direction blog post, Schemin’ and Dreamin’. According to Krupicka’s post, Buzz Burrell, who named the route, was the only one to ever complete it. In two days. Nobody had ever completed in one day. I thought, no wonder, after reading the specs for…

Fastest Known Times have become really popular - as we found out when Ultimate Direction, along with partners La Sportiva and GU Energy Labs, announced the intention to award four Grants to people attempting FKT projects - and we received 315 Applications!  After screening those 79 projects were still left - and each one was totally worthy and really interesting.  I planned to crush that down to 20…

Written by MAX TAAM Living in Aspen it's hard to not know about the Grand Traverse. I race the biggest skimo races in the world in Europe but when I am at home everyone is always asking about the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse. It's a one of kind race and on many Colorado (and beyond) residents bucket lists. The Elk Mountain Grand Traverse is a backcountry…

On April 10, Peter Bakwin and I ran from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon to the South Rim. “R2R" of course is now quite normal; a bucket-list route for many. But this took us 11.5 hours. Why so long? Because we started on the North Rim of the Little Colorado River, descended the fabled Hopi Salt Trail, ran and thrashed down the LCR…

by: Buzz Burrell NEW ZEALAND ("Aotearoa" in Maori) is a fabled recreation destination.  Everyone you know has been there or wants to go.  Including you. One week into our 3 1/2 week trip to New Zealand this January, my companion said, “I can see why people want to move here.”  Indeed: great beaches, mountains, lakes, food, wine, and people - what’s there not to like?…

The Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) recently recommended that the Outdoor Retailer Shows, the two major events (for Summer and Winter) showcasing outdoor recreation gear, be moved from their location in Salt Lake City to a new city. This was in response to the governor of Utah’s policy that some public lands be sold off to private interests, and that the recent designation of Bears Ears…