Back from the Ouray Ice Fest

Every year my job working in the ARC'TERYX Marketing department takes me to Ouray Colorado for the Ouray Ice Festival. http://www.ourayicefestival.com/

It never fails to be an incedible experience. Snow was in the forecast for the week leading up to the Ouray Ice Festival. 170% of the annual snowpack had already fallen, and the town looked like a labyrinth with channels dug by snow plows through the streets. Snow is proportional to ice in these parts so of course this means conditions at the Ouray Ice Park are phat! Climbers scrambled out of bed on early Friday a.m. and headed to the Park to get demo gear. The line ups for Ice tools, crampons, clothing, and harnesses likened that of rock fans cueing for tickets to a concert. New demo gear in hand, and smiles wide as barns, climbers then grouped up to meet their instructors for the day’s clinics. The likes of ARC’TERYX athletes like Will Gadd, Ines Papert, Rich Marshall, Roger Strong, Jack Tackle, Dale Remsberg, Audrey Gariepy, and Guy Lacelle were on hand to show climbers the ropes, on the latest ice and mixed techniques. Friday night is always festive in Ouray. The sponsor trade fair and enchilada and beer feast brings climbers out in droves. A silent auction with gear from the climbing industry’s best was held and proceeds from all the sold product goes to raising funds for this world class venue. The mood is definitely festive! Following the trade fair was a fantastic set of slide shows presented by Stephen Koch of PETZL and Ines Papert of ARC’TERYX.

The feather on the cap for the Ouray Ice festival is definitely Saturday’s Mixed Comp. Having gone to this festival for the past five years, and the comp always impresses. This year was no different. The comp route this year started out with 4-5 meters of friendly water ice. Then… wham, a 20 meter wall of overhanging rock slowed competitors down, with hard mixed move after move. This leading to a moon shaped chunk of overhanging ice that piloted up towards the final two sections of manmade, dangling steepness. Two floppy, hanging log structures were the next obstacles to overcome.

ARC’TERYX athlete Kristie Arend, hitting the Wall

ARC’TERYX Athlete Audrey Gariepy gunning for the ICE.

Then a long 42 degree plywood plank with sparse plastic holds directed the few who got to this point, to the top, a place referred to as the diving board. A select few were allowed passage on to the diving board. The first to make it this far was ARC’TERYX Athlete Rich Marshall from Golden BC. He smoothly made it on to the plywood section and in transit onto the first plastic hold dropped a tool. A collective moan roared from the spectators all wishing Rich progress up through this section, but Rich was definitely impeded by his lack of equipment. He inched his way up to the next plastic hold, lost his grip, and fell.

Rich Marshal – Still has two tools!

Only five other climbers made it through the proverbial log gate and onto the diving board. Boris Bihler from France, Spaniard, Carlos Garcia Bello, Evgeny Krivosheitsev from the Ukraine, Jeff Mercier of France and Germany’s Ines Papert, the comps only female to make it that far. In the end only Jeff Mercier made it to the top to win this year’s comp. ARC’TERYX athlete Ines Papert was so close in making it to the last hold but literally 3 centimeters of reach blocked Ines from topping out. Her amazing ascent got her got her top spot in the female category and second overall. Last year’s winner Evgeny, had the last attempt and all expected him to best Ines and Jeff, but half way up the diving board a tool popped and Evgeny was denied from a second win of this comp. Another noted finish was from Audrey Gariepy who ascended to the logs, which got her second place in Women’s and 7th overall.

ARC’TERYX Athlete Ines Papert on “The Diving Board”

Will Gadd’s slide show was next on the agenda. Will’s hi-energy chronicles of red-bull inspired trips the world over. 30 trips in 50 minutes was the title and living through Will’s roller coaster ride of happenings was the experience. Paragliding, climbing, ice Bergs and underground frozen waterfall climbing in Sweden were just a few of the stories.
The ARC’TERYX / PETZL Party was the next attraction of the festival. A “Dress to Impress” theme inspired all to reach deep into the tickle trunks to pull out their favorite skanky outfits for a night of grooving. Kings, queens, and lots of folks dressed in cheetah print donned their dance shoes as DJ Givens was on hand to stream the tunes, disco lights and all. In the ends many shirts came off and melody reigned til the wee hours of the night.
Sunday came a bit earlier then people would have wanted given the late night prior. But most were on hand again to scoop the demo gear and get out climbing and partake in clinics again, on the kilometers of water ice that lead into the gorge outside of Ouray. The weekend tapered and the finale to another great festival was held at the Ouray Theatre. Top prizes for the competitors and accolades for the great support of volunteers and sponsors were handed out. Then Josh Wharton dazzled the crowd with accounts of his exposed feats and ascents the world over.

All in all was another incredible event. Great to be a part of it. Try to get there next year to check it out!

Deep Winter Photo Challenge

Last night, Whistler/Blackcomb and ARC'TERYX hosted the 2nd annual Deep Winter Challenge at the Fairmont Chateau Hotel in Whistler. http://www.deepwinterphoto.com/.

What an event!!! This happening brings together 6 pro photographers and gives them a window of three days to go out and shoot skiing and riding on Whistler Blackcomb (W/B) Mountains. These Fotogs can choose the theme of their slide shows and the athletes they work with. In the days that the fotogs were working to gather images, the weather and wind turbulently stirred, and 120 cm of snow fell in these mountains. This makes for a tough conditions for a photographer. Photographers need light and there was none to be seen during these three days. Some of the guys resorted to artificial light and other used the ambient light available. In the end 6 great slideshows were created by these guys, and each of them had their own style and flare. 600+ people filled the ballroom of the Fairmont and all were treated to 6 truly inspiring slide shows. This year’s winner was Jordan Manley of Vancouver. In my opinion he was the most creative in his use of both the flashes, and the little ambient light. His images were greatly composed and they told a story of great skiing, amazing terrain and deep winter. His use of the flashes was by far the best and he filled the subjects of his images from all angles, creating some really dramatic imagery. Second place went to the cagey veteran Paul Morrison who again brought out his consistent compositions and techniques. There was also a bit of a narrative to Paul's show. He featured Mike Douglas, Mike's Son, and an older gentlemen. Each of them letting us in on their passion for living in Whistler, and the pursuit of gliding through bottomless snow. Great dialogue and images inspired all to get out and rip. Third place went to Bryan Ralph who dazzled all with the nature of his images, but also the technical quality of his slide show. He used a series of images of the same scene and rallied a bunch of exposures of subjects working their way through a scene. The result was movie like sequences of riders blasting through a run, or scenes of chairlifts hoisting skiers up into the dramatic skies. This show was unique in that it really gave a sense of time and motion. Phil Tifo, Dano Pendegras and Ian Coble were the other shooters and each of them gave incredible renditions of three hard working days in very challenging conditions. Congrats goes out to all of them or being a judge and trying to decide on the three best shows must have been a real challenge.

December HDR

Happy New Year all!

OK. Im back on this blogging thing with a vengence. Hopefully with some consistency in the coming months. I wanted to share some HDR (High Dymnamic Range) photo experince I have picked up on, in the last month. Took a great course at Vancouver Photo Workshops which featured instruction from a pioneer in HDR imagary named Dan Durkholder. http://www.danburkholder.com/

I learned so much, and would highly recomend taking this course should he pass through your neck of the woods. I was impressed with his knowledge of HDR but was enthralled with his post processing Photoshop Prowess. There was no way to take it all in in the three day course. Luckily he provided us with some workbooks to take home and practice up. For those that dont know what HDR is check ou tthis great link that does a great job of explaining all. http://www.cybergrain.com/tech/hdr/. Basically speaking it is a process whereby you take multiple bracketed images of the same scene. Then you merge these images in photoshop into one 32 bit image. To complete the process you make the image inot a 16 bit image and tone map the image using a fantastic plug-in produced by a company called HDR Soft. They do an great job of explaining the process...much better then I. check it out.http://www.hdrsoft.com/.

I have been using this process trying to get the hang of it this past month...and here are some of the results.

Vancouver Sunrise from Cypress Mountain

Glimmering Trees

Stawamus Creek

I am really excited about this photo technique and look forward to experimenting with it in the coming year. Will keep you posted on my experience. Thanks for reading!