Olivia is in Garmisch!

Olivia has finally arrived in Garmisch after two very long rides in a pressurized capsule over the ocean and has arrived in Garmisch unscathed. On her first day in Garmisch I took her on a bike ride along the Loisach river where we found a place to lay down and sleep in the sun. After that we also found out that even city bike tires are burly enough to do creek crossings and that bike paths seem to go on for forever when your jet-legged from over 16 hours of travel. Good times were had and now she is asleep!
-Owen

Olivia with the Zugspitze behind

Kayaking the Loisach

I finally got out on the river with my new boat and had a great time! I met two guys at the takeout that were planning to paddle the upper Loisach and asked if I could join and they said that it would be okay. At the put in I was feeling a little tipsy in my new boat but after the first half of the river, two wet exits, and a lot of tips from the other kayakers I was feeling very good and flew through the class 4 part easier than the starting class 3 sections. It was a great day and I'm very happy with how my boat feels when on the river. I need to work on catching eddies faster and making deeper paddle strokes but that will come with time. Great day!
-Owen

The view from my boat on the Loisach

May update

May started with me getting hooked on kayaking due to a whitewater kayak course that was held here on the Loisach that I went to with Jeremy and a few other friends. After that I got a boat and all the gear for the sport which added up to a little bit of money but in the long run well worth it because after the initial purchase you don't need anything to get out on the river. Another deciding factor is that the Loisach is literally 20 minutes from my house (on a bike) so I think I will get tons of time on the water this summer!

Days after making that large purchase I decided that it would be hard for me to find another car for the price of putting a new engine in my old Subaru so I decided to drop the money to make my old car drivable again. Making the decision easier was the fact that the guy who is working on the car already has an engine that will fit into my car sitting on his lot so in a week or so I will have a car again! All and all I think these purchases are both good and well help me out in future adventures.

The car that will soon live on!

The new job is great and I like the people I'm working with and the hours couldn't be better if I had asked for them. I work 20 hours a week which is what I was working in Graf but here I work two 8 hour days and one 4 hour day instead of working 4 hours a day everyday of the week. This schedule is going to keep me free to do lots of stuff during the week and when ski season hits...you can only imagine!!

A little project that I'm working on right now is making a kids bike trailer into a bicycle trailer that I could put my kayak behind if I don't want to drive my car. I think that in the end it will become a cargo trailer for whatever we want to carry.

What I have so far

 I have seen many examples of what people have done to make these trailers great and I can't wait to see how mine turns out! Right now all I have is the frame so I'm currently searching for two 16in wheels and a hitch. After I get those two things I will have fun making it as creative as possible, maybe add some ski attachments for winter!!

-Owen

1st day shooting skiing with the T2i!

So I finally got around to taking my new DSLR up skiing with me and took some nice shots of guys skiing some fresh snow that was dropped here on the Zugspitze last Wednesday. There will be more to come but chances are more park skiing and riding because it looks like the powder season is over. Enjoy!

 -Owen

Hohe Munde Attempt

The day started with my mom and I driving out of Garmisch in the direction of Mittenwald so we could make our turnoff to Leatasch and on to our final destination of Moos, a small town with a big mountain right beside it called the Hohe Munde.

After making the drive on small mountain road we finally pulled into the parking lot around 8:45 and were on the trail by 9:00. The coverage was pretty good on the bottom half of the skin going up an cat track that was in use back when the ski area was functioning. We got to the Rauth hutte around 45min after leaving the car and began the real tour which goes to the left of the hutte and up the shoulder of the Hohe Munde. After climbing for 20 minutes I put on some sunscreen and took off up the mountain with mom following the skin track behind. At this point I got pretty far out ahead and wished I would have picked up the Motorola radios at home but as they say,"hindsight is 20/20" so I kept on moving getting little peeks of her slowly making her way up the skin track before I headed out on to the face to the left.

Zoom in to see many wet slides. This was shot from the
Rauth Hutte

At this point the snow was getting a little unfavorable for my taste due to a hard crust just underneath a very slushy layer that was getting more and more slushy every minute. I toured for 20 minutes more and decided to turn around within 200ft of the top. It was a bit angering to turn around this far from the top but with the snow getting wetter and wetter I could tell it was the right plan. After skiing down to mom and helping her change from skinning to skiing we started making turns down the face and back to the Rauth Hutte. After 20 turns we got to a small convex roll where we went skiers right and as we were turning all the snow that we had just skied on started to slowly roll passed us. Even after we had stopped to turn around (5 or 6 seconds) the snow was still rolling passed where we had just skied and had accumulated into a sizable mass of snow. The slide itself was nothing that would have hurt anyone because it was moving so slow but my mind was put to rest as to whether turning around on the much larger upper face was put to rest.

Dirt!

After making it down to the Rauth Hutte we eat our food, drank some water, and took a small rest before heading back to the car on the old ski run. On the ski run we were amazed to find that the terrain that we had toured up just three hours earlier was nothing but dirt now.We had to take our skis off for a 30 foot bare section before enjoying the slushy ski all the way to the car where some cold waters were waiting.
Overall this was a great day that tested me mentally and physically. I'm happy that my intuition in the mountains is strong and I can tell when it is time to head down or when it is time to head to the top.
I think for my mom this was a new experience because she has toured a few times with me but never in a place that getting a late start can mean the difference between safety or danger and because of our fairly late start we were close to that line.
If I had to redo today I would say that being in the parking lot at 5:30-6 would be top priority to make this tour as safe as possible before the spring conditions loosen up the snow.

-Owen

MTR 1-Lauterbrunnen Day 3

After finishing up glacier travel and rescue yesterday we moved on to avalanche rescue. For this we had Daniel and Chuck go ahead of the group and set up a scenario.

After the scenario was made we got radioed and skinned up into the scenario where we found a guy (chuck) who had lost his buddy in an avalanche. He said that his buddy was skiing without a transceiver on and there were two backpacks with transceivers in them because his buddy had left his in his pack. We quickly located the two backpacks and got started on a probe-line and found the buried victim.
All and all it took the group something like 12 minutes from the time we came upon the avalanche scene to the time we found the buried victim with the probe pole. Chuck said that it was the fastest he's seen and from my experiences in other avalanche classes and scenarios I have to agree.
From this exercise I learned more than anything how important communication is in a fast moving rescue environment.
-Owen

MTR 1-Lauterbrunnen Day 2

After such a long day the day before we were on schedule to meet at the bar downstairs at the hostel at 8 which left us enough time to make close to the first tram up to the Schilthorn.  Ben Reed and I made a quick trip to the bakery before meeting with the group and slowly making our way to the tram to start what looked like it could turn into a very wet day.

After taking the tram to the second exit point in Murren we walked our skis over to a lift and skied a few runs before after dropping our packs are the top of the lift. After one run we had decided as a group that it would be more fun to practice roping up than ski in the flattest light conditions I have skied this year so after regrouping at the top we skied to the side of the run and Daniel showed us how to rope up for glacier travel and how to ski in a group while roped up. This turned out to be a good lesson because the weather was flat enough that on a glacier I would have wanted to be roped up in these conditions. 

We did one small run while roped up to a nice place next to some tree to practice self arresting and glacier rescue. This was the best instruction for me in all of the four days and I got it pretty cemented into my mind how z-pulleys work and how the system works in general. With a little more practice I think I could stop a fall and get an anchor built all by myself if the person was around my weight. Of course thinking I can and doing are totally different and making an anchor in fry snow packs would have been more difficult than the cement we had on hand. We practiced the z-pulley three or four times and I learned something new every time I did the exercise. When I go out on a more glacier focused trip I will be sure to pick up a mini-traction because that tool made rigging a z-pulley extremely fast and hassle free. 

It was a great day and I learned a lot about glacier travel and rigging z-pulleys, good times!
-Owen