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Deep inside the Lærdal valley of southwestern Norway lies the Kjørlifossen, a real Goliath of an ice climb. At over 1,500 feet long an 200 feet wide, this eight pitch WI 5 (half the pitches are WI 5), this is a true world classic and is unsurpassed by any water ice climb in the Western Hemisphere in sheer magnitude and volume of ice. As with most climbs in this remote valley, there was no one else around for miles. Vivek & I had it all to ourselves.
There were dozens of other climbs in this valley, but this was definitely the biggest one. I presume many of the others are still virgin (and this is a lean year, we’ve been told).
Here’s a few pics from the day.

A SWEET WI 6, Haugsfossen, in the Mael Amplitheater near Rjukan, Norway!

Pat Murphy on the steep first pitch of Canada’s Replicant.

The Trophy Wall, Replicant in center, in lean conditions.

The 7th annual Crested Butte Classic covered 100 miles of mountain biking in the Colorado town famed for the sport. I was able to complete the task in 9 hours, 25 minutes on my lovely Misfit Dissent FE single speed 29er. I enjoyed this event a bit more than the Breckenridge 100 because: a) I had a better idea of what to expect and b) the scenery was much more spectacular (which helps to keep ones mind off of the pain). Speaking of the latter point, I’ll post several photos here. I can’t take credit for them as I was too busy sharpening my ax on the grindstone of pain to busy myself with photography. My wonderful wife, Colleen, took these photos as she was (much more sensibly) able to enjoy some of the single track around there without being in a race.

My goal was to finish in under 10 h0urs so I succeeded in that! This gave me a tie for 16th place overall and a 3rd place finish among the single speed crowd. I beat the 4th place single speeder only during the “coast” finish (it’s a coast on a single speed since you can’t pedal fast enough to keep up with the wheels once the bike gets going about 15 mph) down Kebler Pass. I was able to get just a tiny bit better aerodynamic position and had larger wheels (29″ vs. 26″) which seemed to help. It was cool having this race to the finish down the final 10 miles with the only thing either of us could do to try and go faster was get into a tighter tuck. I was even able to catch a geared fella at the finish line, hence the tie for 16th.

The course took us on three loops around the town of CB, each roughly 30-35 miles. There was a fair bit of road, but I found it to be a respite where I could eat and drink. The rugged single track took all one’s focus and attention so snacking and even drinking was not easy to do. The first lap went out Brush Creek to the Aspen strewn Strand Hill trail, then on up to the 20+ mile Deer Creek trail to near Gothic and back to town.

Lap two was out the Lower Loop from town, up the Slate river past Pittsburgh to a super fast DH on the 403 trail, then up to Schofield Pass and down the brakeless 401 (CB’s signature single track!) This loop was by far the hardest for me, but it also had by far the funnest riding. It was an absolute blast just totally gunning it down these classic trails that I’ve ridden many times before only at a much more mellow pace.

Each lap would pass by the check point in town at the biker friendly Brick Oven Pizzeria. Avery Brewery supplied ample post race re-hydration support here, as well.  I had been given the directive by my fellow Cloven Hoofed Shark (and ally in battle) Mark Twight to “leave nothing in the tank” at the finish, to “pick up the pieces later.” I took this to heart, especially as I started lap three. I wanted to see where I really stood and what I was worth. I gave it all I had when I left town starting the last lap.

The third and final lap went up the Wagon Trail along side Kebler Pass road. This trail is nothing to write home about, but it’s better than riding the road and by this time I was so cooked I was just looking for the simple path anyway. Atop Kebler, we headed toward Lake Irwin and hopped on the Dyke trail which winds through one of the largest aspen forests in the world. This weekend was the peak of the autumn colors as far as the aspens are concerned so you can imagine how nice it was on the Dyke trail: mind blowing! In my exhaustion induced hallucinatory state, the golden aspens were a bit lysergic in their brillance.

After pushing the Misfit to limit on the Dyke, there was a 30 minute sprint of sorts back up to the top of Kebler pass. This is where I picked up two more single speeders. I blew up with a mile to go. I found the bottom. One of them passed me and this gave me some small amount of mental drive to try for a little more. This got me up an over but I was 1/4 mile behind him by then. I pedaled a bit until the cadence was more than I could keep up with, then got into my best tuck position and tried to maintain it for the next 20 minutes down the pass. This was a difficult game of “blending and balancing pain and comfort deep within me ’till I would not want it any other way.” I can not state enough how much  it hurt to hold my body down over my front wheel after nine hours of going hard. It Fucking Killed! The pieces were being scattered now, but as I mentioned, I was able, by some stroke of aerodynamic efficiency, able to overtake the guy I was passed by for third place by a narrow margin.

The pain during this race was again pretty hard core, but I think I was much better prepared for it than the last 100 miler I did. The same things hurt, just not as bad. This is the last race I’ll do for 2010. I’m excited to do some more endurance races next year and will probably put a bit more focused attention towards training to do so, as well. I guess I was sort of testing the waters this year to see how I could do and how I would like it. I did well and I liked it! Hey, what a surprise!

For the rest of this season, I’ll just enjoy the fine riding and rock climbing around here in the Colorado Desert before succumbing to the pleasures of winter late in the year.

Cherie Oates keeps kickin’ ass! Today, she climbed l’Index, a delightful, alpine rock tower in the Aiguilles Rouges above Chamonix. It was her first time ever on rock at 69 years of age. No sticky rubber for her, either. She climbed it all in trail running shoes!
It was another amazing day that taught me a lot about how much the right attitude counts in life.
Oh yeah, her 32 year old son Cody did well also.

After a fun filled week long mountain bike across the Swiss Alps with my wife, I’m back in Chamonix for some mountain climbing.

I’m now climbing with the mother and son team of Cherie and Cody Oates from Aspen, Colorado. Cherie, 69, is the oldest person I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing a rope with. The weather forecast for later in the week looked a little dubious so we decided to get right after it and head up to the Cosmiques hut, our starting point, right away without any prior acclimatization. Since they both hail from a Colorado ski town, the altitude was not too much of an issue for them. I think is suffered more from the hastened schedule than they did.

We covered over a mile of vertical on our round trip to the summit from the hut in 6 hours up and 5 to return by the same route. It was quite windy up high, which made for some cold conditions and much drifted, soft snow covering the track.

Where’d day 5 go? It rained, so I’ll spare you the details about hopping on a train to Zermatt & skip right to the final day riding in Zermatt.
The weathered cleared, but the temperatures stayed cold. We decided to spend our last day sampling some of the many mountain bike trails accessible by trains and lifts here, all of which have great views of the Matterhorn. In half a day of riding, we coveted over 8,000 feet of vertical in descent! For our last trail of the day, we tried out a lap on the local World Cup downhill course, which was humbling. Needless to say, our XC bikes were not ideal for this and we walked several of the wild, steep section and gap jumps. It was pretty cool to see firsthand, though and a great way to finish a fantastic tour through the Swiss Alps.
I can’t wait to do this one again! Maybe next year? Now it’s back to Chamonix to begin a Mont Blanc climb.

The Queen stage! I know, that term is over used, but this day’s ride really was the best of the entire tour for us. It was also one of the most difficult. We crossed from Evolene to Grimentz by way of the Pas de Lona & Basset de Lona (another pass).
This involved over 6,000 feet of climbing (no lift assistance on this one), 1,000 of which was hike-a-bike & some of the best riding of the trip. 30 minutes out of Evolene found traversing nice, forested single track to the small village of Eison. After an obligatory stop for a shot of espresso, we continued up on steep roads, gaining another few thousand feet to above treeline. More climbing on single track through high, alpine meadows brought us to the steep scree path to gain the Pas de Lona. At 2,800 meters (9,200 feet), this was the highest point yet along the tour and allowed passage into a magnificent, wide hanging basin replete with a small, blue alpine lake. 2 miles of flowing alpine single track through this fairy tale like mountain landscape brought us to another short climb up the Basset de Lona.
We descended on a steep jeep track for over 2,000 feet to the turquoise lac de Moiry, formed by a large dam to generate hydro-electric power. Below the dam & within sight of Grimentz, we hopped on to more technical, rocky yet rideable single track through the forest into town. Grimentz was another beautifully quaint Swiss village that, like many of the others we had already passed through, is off the radar screen for most foreign tourists.
This was a first rate ride in it’s own right & a great part of our tour thus far.

Brutal! So much for counting on stopping for food and drinks at the various villages along the way. Little did we know that most cafes are closed on Tuesday. We climbed over the big hill known as Sex Pey (yes, that’s right) with only remnants of food from the previous day.
The morning started by waiting for the light rain to let up. By 10:00 it did and we were off for the next village of Vaysonaz. A cable car took us up 2,000 feet to where we hopped on some forested single track and on down towards the bottom of the big climb. The 3,000 foot climb involved a lot of paved road, but we had no complaints as it offered relatively efficient climbing. Eventually, we hopped on single track to finish the climb. Out of food and long past lunch time, we were feeling hammered.
The next section of single track was a two mile traverse of an alpine hillside on a technical and skinny track. Normally, we’d be pretty psyched for this type of tricky, obstacle strewn trail, but being famished made it difficult to appreciate. The traverse ended on a long, windy road down to the lovely Swiss Village of Evolene, where we promptly found some tasty raclette!