VertFest 2008

For serious suggestions: How about "sharing clinics?"   I missed Vertfest this year, but my whole family got good pointers in 2007.  Ideas:

Uphill Clinic:  Facilitator gets people started and they share their tips on how to earn most efficiently.

Turns Clinic:  figure it out.

Plinko, let's meet again at the summit to exchabge schwagerrific adventures.

I'll see you there! Are you gonna rent a U-Haul this time so we can bring home all our schwag? :

Thanks for the laughs, Scotsman! (& Lowell) Actually. I thought your safety competition ideas were pretty good...maybe also add team snow profiling and stability testing?

Feel free to send comments to me at Outdoor Research - kaj@outdoorresearch.com - and we'll put your ideas into the mix for '09. I'll also be checking this post once in a while, so you can drop your thoughts here too.

Being serious for a moment, I think a competitive "Skinning Bee" (a.k.a. Transitions Race) would be fun and a great learning opportunity. Transitions are my worst skill and I'm never close enough to the fast guys to see how they really do it. Here's how the Skinning Bee would work:

* Mark out a perimeter where the transition must occur.
* As a competitor enters the perimeter, the clock starts.
* Competitor must complete the required transition, then leave the perimeter.
* Clock stops as the competitor leaves the transition zone.

There are lots of transitions that could be tested. You could run them separately, or maybe chain them together--sort of like a steeple chase:

* From skinning to skiing (or reverse)
* From skiing to booting (or reverse)
* Harscheisen on (or off)
* Roping up for glacier skiing (or reverse)
* Deploying avalanche gear
* Others?

You could run this right next to the lodge where everybody could watch. It would be great to have a big clock running so the spectators could really compare the times. I can imagine a lot of funny situations developing, for example somebody (like me) untangling a pair of cluster-f***ed skins while the crowd is yelling and banging cowbells and tooting boat horns.

Transitions are my worst skill and I'm never close enough to the fast guys to see how they really do it.

Lowell, this is a really great idea.  It's about time you improved your transition skills so you can get closer to the "fast" guys     

Hello All:

Please pass the word that we have changed the day-of-race registration procedure and the date, time, and location of the pre-race meeting for VertFest Alpental.

We will NOT be having the pre-race meeting on Friday night at the North Bend Theater (although we hope to have some other events there later in the year). Instead, we'll have the pre-race meeting at Alpental on Saturday morning. This will allow us to offer day-of-race signups like we've done for VertFest Crystal.

We'll change the VertFest website to reflect this.

Thanks again for your support of VertFest.

More soon.

Kaj