January 29 2010

At the suggestion and impetus of another gear geek working in the climbing industry, exactly one year ago today I made my first blog entry.

I had just returned for my first OR show in over two decades and  was again very excited about being a part of something bigger and not just the climbing, which I obviously love.

A year ago I had no clue how register a blog,  let alone write a blog.  I'm at least registered now ;)  And I am learning to use the spell checker.  During the month of January 2011 alone we had over 65K page reads from virtually every country in the world on the north or south side of the Equator.  CRAZY that!

Today I have 99 members following the news and editorial content here .  I am getting more involved in the industry daily.  I've designed and had Randy Rackliff @ CCW build 3 of my my own pack designs now.  At least as exciting is the work I am doing with Bill Amos at NWAlpine to build a clothing system that really works,  specifically for, cold weather technical alpine climbing.   No high fashion ski gear on my list!   I haven't seen gear done this well or this specific for the use.. ...since Wild Things was all in back in the early '80s.

We http://coldthistletools.blogspot.com/ have been working on super durable picks for Black Diamond tools for several years now and the end result while frighteningly expensive is by far the best pick ever made for a ice tool...and that by the actual measurement of the Black Diamond testing of our product!  There is a reason Colin Haley used them on his solo of the Cassin and his and Bjørn-Eivind Årtun's new route on Foraker, "Dracula".   Same reason Bjørn-Eivind Årtun used our Nomic hammers from http://coldthistletools.blogspot.com/  as his weapon of choice on his Nomics on the same climb with Colin.

Climbing with my own hammer design on the Nomic is a pure point of genuine pride. They work for my own climbing which is all I cared about!

So it has been an amazing year for me!  Thank you all for making it possible and so enjoyable for me to be able to share some of my experiences with you and your adventures with me!  Hopefully you have gotten something out of this blog.  I  know I have and it is making me a better climber while generally keeping me entertained as well.   If nothing else for the great videos that are so easily found on the Internet these days.

Although it is genereally my voice this isn't "my blog".  It truly is every alpine climber's blog that whats to share their stories and insights.  I've been blessed to have guys like Gregg Cronn, Ken Glover, Jesse Huey, Mark Westman, Gwian Oka, Ed Cooper share some of their stories and comments here.  Bjørn-Eivind Årtun, Colin Haley, Ken Glover and Jon Griffith have allowed me to republish their photos over and over again.  Without them the content here would get pretty boring.  Thank you once more gentlemen for that help and encouragement.   Hopefully others will join in during the next year and we'll all gain something more from other's experiences.  It you want to publish anything alpine climbing related feel free to send me an email and likely we can make that happen  A big THANK YOU to all that have added content by the questions and comments in every blog.

Black Diamond, Petzl, La Sportiva, Cold Cold World, NW Alpine and Arcteryx have all supported my efforts here in one way or another even while they might have thought I was a total lunatic.  

So happy 1st birth day to Cold Thistle!   Cheers to all of you!!




 My primary goal for the Spring? 

Easy answer, but  not so easy to get done!   More to come on this one.  Photo courtesy of Colin Haley http://colinhaley.blogspot.com/