Tag Archives: Kate Brown

Ski Season Begins

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Its finally beginning to snow in Switzerland! Last weekend we kicked off the season with an easy day in Flumserberg.

Some of the other resorts like Davos have been using machines to create artificial snow but luckily in Flumserberg the snow was 100% natural. Although there wasnt much of it – there was enough for a day of fun!

First Ski Tour Race
Next Saturday I will give the Night Attack a go. Just for fun. It will be my first skitour race! The altitude gain isn’t extreme (about 700mtrs in total) and I have absolutely no expectations for my performance and have chosen to ignore the provocative message my friend Kate sent me, with her time from last year!

Snow Safety
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was going to attend an LVS Course being organized by Mammut and Thomas Scheuner a mate of my boyfriend who runs the mountain sports shop called Kundalini in Zurich.
The evening was great, we got to practice using our avalanche transmitter receivers and learned some new things about searching for multiple bodies in snow. The topic of snow safety is really important for me. I don’t have a huge amount of freeride and touring experience but this year I am especially keen to get out there as much as possible and start notching up tours. So the more I can learn about avalanche search and rescue the better. Which brings me onto Thomas’ avalanche experience this year.

Watch This
Thomas Scheuner is a friend of my boyfriend`s from way back. Last year I met him for the first time just after the accident documented in the below video happened. Since then he has recovered completely and created a great video of his experience that brings the viewer through the avalanche thanks to the headcam recording. Afterwards he slows it down and recounts step by step how it happened and goes as far as showing us the avalanche signs he ignored.

Watch it…

Avalanche Accident in Engelberg from Thomas S. on Vimeo.

Cowtails, Chocolate and AR World Championships

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Its Friday the 13th. I have just eaten and entire bar of Lindt chocolate because I think I got gently (read cowardly) let down by a guy. Bad luck. But all is fair in love and war. I have a weekend of sleeping, training and gear lists to work on and keep my mind off of it!

Friday Let Down Chocolate

So. The AR World Championships are underway in Portugal. Today race report from Sleepmonsters can be found here and the Leaderboard for the result listing.

With Mike Kloser, Team Nike on top (below) closely followed by Lundhags, Helly Hansen and Orion Health, the race could be anyones as it seems as though there have been a number of tight cut offs and bonus cps to contend with so excellent race tactics and strategy are essential this year. Im excited to see if Nike can hold on to their top position. I was asked by Grant Killian before this years world champs who I thought would dominate and my guess was it would be betwee Nike and Orion Health but I am surprised to see Lundhags up there. Fair dues to them as they have had a rough year since The Turas last year and a few injuries to contend with. Respect also to Mike Kloser who also had a bad MTB accident this summer. That guy is inspirational.

Team Nike/Beaver Creek

Team46

#1  MIKE KLOSER
#2 MONIQUE MERRILL
#3 CHRIS FORNE
#4 GEORGE CHRISTISON

Weekend Plans

 This weekend I will concentrate on a heavy (ish) weekend of training and try to fit in a long run, a long bike and a long kayak. Ill try to keep this volume up into next week and then begin to wind down in advance of my trip to Abu Dhabi. I will also start to get my gear together. I still have some bits and pieces to get but luckily I have most of my stuff together. If I had more money and free postage and packing I would look into most of the wonderful stuff always updated to Gear Junkie but I think Ill swing by the local Bächli Sports outlet in Oerlinkon tomorrow morning and check out if there are any special offers on there.

Tricks of the trade for Abu Dhabi

We have talked about some tricks of the trade to keep us more comfortable while on the go in Abu Dhabi. A little wire to support the water tube from our water bladders so we dont have to stop to drink while paddling, access to food, sand gaitors from Raidlight , maybe we will get split paddles for facility of transport to Abu Dhabi. Things like whether or not to bring our own bikes or just use the ones provided by the organization, whether or not we can use flotation devices for the swim. I also need some specific climbing gear for the Via Ferrata section of the race but PT Kate will lend these aptly named cowtails to me:

 IMG_0955

 Unfortunately every above theme involves £££ and without sponsorship its costly to indulge in these ideas. But we will get there, and hopefully get some results in the end also!