Skiing In The Shower: Happiness is a new pack: Why we love Northern Lights Trading Company!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Happiness is a new pack: Why we love Northern Lights Trading Company!

One of my goals this year is to build a good, light, efficient ski mountaineering kit so that I can explore more and more places to ski! I am really enjoying climbing (of all kinds, but here I'm talking about the ascent before the ski descent), and have always loved multi-day trips (my longest so far being 28 days in Nepal about a decade ago).

We are fortunate here in Bozeman to have an AMAZING outdoors store, Northern Lights, with incredibly helpful people who really know what they are talking about! One of the best parts of shopping at Northern Lights... the total lack of ego in the employees. Every single time I've gone in looking for something or needing to learn about something, the employees have always been knowledgeable, welcoming, and really happy to explain anything you are curious about!

Before our trip to the Beartooths, Kurt and I stopped by Northern Lights and one of the "upstairs" employees, Lauren, helped us out with maps and tips on visiting Cooke City. It was a great experience, Lauren was nothing but helpful and informative, there was no elitist additude that one can run into in so many shops (I really don't think you should ever have to "trot out your resume" to get good customer service...).

Anyhow, I ran into Lauren again while I was looking for a new backpack, and he happily helped me learn all about the proper fit of the pack I was in love with.

Here it is, in all its glory: the Osprey Atmos 50: super light weight, big enough for multi day trips, loops for skis (I wish they were fastek buckles, having to slide the skis in is a bummer), it has a shovel pocket made out of some sort of soft, stretchy pocket, and two mesh zipper pockets on the super light weight waist harness, where I can put my camera and Gu, so I don't have to stop hiking to take a photo.

The pack fits more snugly even than my CamelBak Isis, which I run with, and I took the Osprey for a run up the M Trail, and it was perfect! The mesh panel on the back not only keeps the air flowing, but it keeps the lumpy load off your spine.

The only complaint I have is that the hydration pocket, while large enough for a 3 liter bladder, takes up a huge amount of space inside the pack, so there isn't so far a great place to stow ski boots. Because the pack fits so well, hanging them around my skis to dangle puts them in an uncomfortable position. But I am pretty sure with some wrangling I'll get it figured out.

Climbing up and skiing down with this pack was amazing: I forgot entirely that I was wearing it, an experience I haven't had yet with a pack!

Thanks, Northern Lights for the terrific selection and great help!

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Kate's Team 2016: Technical Skiing Coach: Jonathan Ballou

Kate's Team 2016: Mentor - Megan Harvey

2-term National Alpine Team alum, Megan was the first person to step in and help me believe I could achieve my goal of making the National Team. Megan combines an incredibly giving heart, with an insatiable drive and problem-solving bug. Megan has taught me how to be a great trainer, how to give my time to others, how to be an integral part of the ski school. She has taught me about budgeting my time, how to be professional in this industry, and how to help others. She is also willing to give it to me straight, working with me both on and off-snow. Her no-nonsense direct feedback is to the point and never couched in cuddles or bubbles. She has an opinion. She shares it. I do what she says. Megan is one of the most incredibly dedicated, giving, loving, caring people I have ever had the pleasure to meet, and I am grateful to count her amongst my friends, and honored to have her as an official member of my team.

Heros and Inspiration

These are people who I am learning about who inspire me, make me feel like I'm not crazy to love what I do, and who broke trail ahead of me so I can ski, too...

Bill Brigs:

The first man to ski the Grand Teton, he skied it alone, with no witnesses. But a newspaper plane took him to the top the next day and the evidence was still there: solo tracks in the snow from the top of the Grand. "You dream up what you want to do with your life..."

Stefano De Benedetti:

"In the Perfect Moment, I was so concentrated there was no space for other thoughts. When you want to make a turn, and you are at the top of a steep vertical wall, I mean, when you are in the situation that if you fall you die, everything changes. You think very much about turning. You think very much about WHERE to turn. And you do all this in a very special way.

You act like a different person.

You act with all your self.

You are making a completely different experience, and in some way, you are discovering yourself.

This is the magic of the mountain. You can except to die for this. You don't wanna to die. But to live so close to the possibility of dying, you understand what is really important, and what NOT.

And this makes you a better person. Its probably the highest moment of my life because in the perfect moment I was, or I felt to be, a little superman."

Anatoli Boukreev:

An incredibly accomplished high altitude climber and guide, Anatoli also pulled off one of the most spectacular high altitude rescues single handedly in a blinding snowstorm after having not had significant rest for 35 hours and after summiting Mt. Everest. He saved the lives of three climbers from his team, the ill fated Scott Fischer Mountain Madness expedition in 1996.

"Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion...I go to them as humans go to worship. From their lofty summits I view my past, dream of the future and, with an unusual acuity, am allowed to experience the present moment...my vision cleared, my strength renewed. In the mountains I celebrate creation. On each journey I am reborn."

Quotes That Help

"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Castena

"A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and virtue, will purge the eyes to understanding her text." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world." ~ Buddha

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Mary Oliver

"You are right where you need to be. And where you need to be to learn what you need to learn is not always comfortable and can be quite unpleasant." Amy Keefer

"There is nothing new in the world; everything has been done before, sometimes hundreds of times. But our perspectives always change. There are always new perspectives." - the Dalai Lama

"Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrong doing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean." - Aldous Huxley

"The Chinese character for "Crisis" is comprised of two characters: the character for "Danger" and the character for "Opportunity"."

"If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." - Nick O'Neil

"Take your face out of your hands and clear your eyes. You have a right to your dreams, and DON'T BE DENIED." Ben Harper

"Praise and blame. Gain and loss. Pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all." - Buddha

"Failure is not falling down, but refusing to get up." Chinese Proverb.

"A venturesome minority will always be eager to set off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks, for godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American." - Edward Abbey

"Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right." -Henry Ford

"A centered human mind is a powerful tool. An uncentered human mind is a tremendously inaccurate instrument." Kurt Fehrenbach

"What we do with our days is what we to with our lives."

"Practice makes PERMANENT, not PERFECT." Megan Harvey

"Nothing is so difficult as when it is done reluctantly." unknown

"This is hard enough without asking people to throw baseballs at you while you are doing it." Kate

"Don't surprise your skis, and they won't surprise you!" via Charlie Stocker.

"If you are walking along with nothing but a bamboo cane, and someone attacks you with a sword, you should take their sword from them. This, then, is already your victory." 15th Century Martial Arts Master (from the book Secret Tactics of the Martial Arts Experts)

"Those who say you can't shouldn't get in the way of those who are doing it" - unkown via Alyssa

"Somewhere, someone is training harder than you are. And when you meet them in head to head competition, they will beat you." No Fear

"Its not nearly as High and Tight as you think it is, Kate" - Josh Spohler

"No Sacrifice, No Victory" - Sam Witwicky (Transformers)

"With great victory comes great sacrifice." - T. Roosevelt

Pages

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Happiness is a new pack: Why we love Northern Lights Trading Company!

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