Tag: Peter Bakwin

The Wind River High Route is possibly one of the best backpacking routes in the world. It runs along the spine of the Wind River Range in northern Wyoming, probably the most wild and remote range in the Lower 48, is modeled after the famed Sierra High Route, and thus is mostly off-trail and above timberline.  I put together the great team of Andrew Skurka…

June 21, 2014 - - - The “Tenmile Traverse” is a classic long mountaineering route near Breckenridge, Colorado, which links ten summits uncreatively named Peaks 1 through 10. But, the route covers only half of the Tenmile Range, and the lower, easier half at that. The true Tenmile Range Traverse” (TRT) is simply the entire range, which adds six high 13ers and some really gnarly terrain…

Spring is in the air. This can mean many things, but for Peter Bakwin and I, spring means, "go to the desert!" This year we were going for full value: a 3 1/2 day, 110 mile backpacking route starting from the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, thru the very remote country of Beef Basin and Fable Valley, and down into the bottom of Dark…

I never intended to become a runner. As a kid I hated running as a sport... I never really thought of myself as an athlete. I didn’t do organized sports at school. Fitness and “exercise” were things I associated with that old dude in the sweats on TV. But I grew up skiing, and have been doing it as long as I can remember. When…

Running into the tiny village of Guipry, in France’s Brittany district, on August 31, 2002, I was feeling pretty worn. It was the fourth long day of La Transe Gaule, an 18-day stage race across France. I’d run maybe 25 km already that morning, and had another 45 or so to go – a typical 70 km day. This was beginning to seem like a…

Being wedged into a mass of humanity is not a novelty in Japan, but the crowd my wife Stephanie and I were stuck in clearly wasn’t going anywhere for hours.  I had visions of a Who-concert-style stampede and trampling, but of course the Japanese are used to this kind of thing and take it in stride, with their seeming infinite patience and courtesy.  Us Americans,…

Wham Ridge is super-classic – the best alpine route in the San Juans.  While high and wild, the San Juan Mountains of SW Colorado are mainly giant gravel piles, consisting of massive talus slopes below crumbling ridges.  Wham Ridge is the opposite, being composed of beautiful, hard quartzite.  It is the north face of Vestal Peak, in the heart of the Grenadier Range, which is…

The Hardrock 100 mile race was started to honor the hard rock miners of the San Juans and the extraordinary mountains in which they lived and worked. The course is incredible – 33,992' of of elevation gain, with an average altitude of 11,186', including climbing over a 14,000' mountain - which is often done in the middle of the night, sometimes during a lightning storm. The…

Product testing is really important. This is how we make sure we create the absolute best best tools for the self-propelled person. It's also how we have fun in the mountains with friends. Last weekend, Peter Bakwin, Anton Krupicka and I went up to do the classic Kieners Route on Longs Peak. This involves a 5 mile trail run starting at 9,382' and ending at…

After my 2010 attempt people asked me if I was going to give it another go. I always said, “Nope. Too hard. I don’t see how I can do it better.” So, why one year later, was I sitting alone on top of Gemini Peak in a total friggin' whiteout at midnight? Navigating this terrain at night is really hard - it's all above timberline,…