Osprey athlete Majka Burhardt is making her way with a team of climbers, biologists and filmmakers this week to Mt. Namuli, a remote granite peak in northern Mozambique. Their mission: to explore the cracks and recesses of Mt. Namuli’s 700-meter cliff face, searching for new species of life.

Here’s the latest post from Majka and her climbing partner on the trip, Sarah Garlick…

Day 1

MB: I say goodbye to Ethiopia (intentionally), and to my new ultralight Thermarest (unintentionally). My first-ever spotting of the Congo appears initially out of a plane window, and soon through a propped-open plane door during a re-supply. Malawi and Mozambique bound.

SG: It’s 5:30 a.m. at Boston’s Logan Airport. I have a bad reaction to my anti-malaria meds and vomit into a trashcan at the airline check-in desk. I can feel the stares of the hundred or so early morning passengers in line behind me. Please let this not be a sign for what’s to come.

Day 4

MB: We hike the wide side of a long arcing bend in the trail to see Mt. Namuli on its other side. I requisition a flask of whiskey from an already drunk porter. Herpetologist Werner Conradie confirms the presence of crocodiles in the Malema River while we are hip deep, midstream.

SG: It’s dark. We’ve been hiking for 6 hours already and there’s nowhere to stop until we get to the Queen’s hut at the base of the mountain. Our guide Cotxane (pronounced co-chan-ee) says it’s only 30 more minutes, but I don’t believe him. We are a group of thirteen—climbers, scientists, guides, and porters—hiking single-file through the bush, illuminated by the narrow light of four headlamps. I can’t help but think about lions and spitting cobras, the former apparently hunted out from this area, the latter we’ve already seen, but with any luck not active at night?

Read the rest of the story from Majka and Sarah over on The Lost Mountain blog…

Majka Burhardt is a writer, climber, and AMGA-Certified Rock Guide who lives in Boulder, Colorado… when she’s home. Lately she’s been spending a lot of time searching for stone in Africa. Stay posted on her adventures in Mozambique over on The Lost Mountain site.

Osprey Athletes, adventure, travel africa, Climbing, Majka Burhardt, Mozambique

As one of the best last ski frontiers on our planet, Antarctica is a remote ski destination. Slowly exiting the Beagle channel on November 9th, it took us two days to cross the infamous Drake Passage to reach shelter within the South Shetland islands, a chain that buffers the Antarctic Peninsula from the big seas. The islands also offer a first glimpse at some of the spectacular and easily accessible ski terrain.

We arrived to a place with no one else, with endless first descents and up to 9,000-foot peaks straight up from the ocean. This is a backcountry skier’s dream realm, but it also comes with some harsh realities. Antarctica is a moving target.

With endless route possibilities, Antarctica also puts forth challenging obstacles that have to be carefully navigated such as abrupt weather changes, tricky small boat “zodiac” landings, pack ice movement that can trap a ship, lurking crevasses in the glacier, and other objective hazards.

To read more about an Antarctic ski adventure and to check out some beautiful photos, please visit powdermag.com.

Osprey Athletes, Outdoor Activities, adventure, travel Antarctica, Expedition, kim havell, ski

It’s a beautiful Friday and a happy holiday week here in the US. Give your loved ones an extra squeeze and get outside to find some adventure this weekend.

Happy Friday!

Friday Round-up

A skier enjoys the powdery slopes of Crystal Mountain, which celebrated an unusually early opening day on Friday, as did Mount Baker. Photo courtesy The Seattle Times.

What happens when you sneak out for a Friday ski session on opening day? Sometimes you make the front page… so much for flying under the radar.

We’re loving this shot of a skier hitting the powdery slopes at Crystal Mountain — and the hot Osprey pack he’s rocking. Definitely has us thinking of ducking out early to catch some early season turns ourselves…

PHOTO via The Seattle Times frontpage Sat 11-19-11.

Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, Product news, Pacific Northwest, ski, winter

It’s that time of year to dream… snow is on the ground, yet only enough to possibly shatter a knee cap in between turns of glee. This year, I know I’m ready for ski season when our root cellar is full.

A year ago, we moved to Holy Terror Farm to try to grow and raise all our own food, with the important exceptions of coffee, chocolate and salt. Growing all that food for winter is quite a project!

I learn new things daily…

• that you can pull up cabbage root and all, and it will keep on the shelf for months
• that celery root doesn’t taste like celery and can keep all winter
• that my beets like to sprout in the dark in storage
• that making grape jam is easy after making grape juice
• that my freshly rendered pig fat makes scrumptious pie crust and the best ever hand lotion
• that our chickens can do an egg laying revolt, or can decide to run our rooster out of our place and into our neighbors’.
• that our rome apples turn red when you cook and preserve them.

So, in short, when all of the food is preserved and ready to keep our bellies full all winter, I’m ready to SKI!

I look forward to seeing you all out there filming on some remote mountain or at one of my Rippin Chix camps with Osprey demos! Happy winter and skiing!

Osprey Athletes, Osprey Culture, Southwest Colorado, adventure Alison Gannett, backcountry, cliff jumping, holy terror farm, Osprey Packs, skiing

Early season ski at Blackcomb British Columbia. Cold smoke and no lift lines… Photo courtesy Andy Traslin.

Unless you’ve been living in a deep, dark cave… You may have noticed that there is a lot of cool stuff going on out there. So, we thought it was high-time we started rounding up some of our faves each week. We call it the Osprey Round-Up… Happy Friday!

The weather has turned in the U.S. We can see our breath in the mornings as we bike to work, we can see the snow-capped mountains taunting us throughout the work-week and we’re already packing up the car to get a headstart on our weekend adventures.

We’re always psyched to see folks getting out there and getting after it, exploring and reconnecting with wild places and their own wildness — and putting our packs through the ringer. We’ve been loving all of the photos our Facebook fans have posted over the last couple of weeks, so we decided to highlight a few of our favorites today to inspire us all to head for the hills this weekend.

Happy Friday!

Osprey Culture facebook, photo gallery, photos

At the southernmost end of the Americas lies wild Patagonia, a still unexplored land of legendary natural beauty. Vast expanses of open space stretch out in all directions. A curious geological past has shaped this varied and dynamic landscape. Bordering the fjords of the Pacific coast, the world’s largest extrapolar icefields contain some of the region’s most impressive peaks, while to the east, the windswept steppes stretch out to the Atlantic coast. Glacier-fed rivers, full of some of the world’s purest water, tumble between jagged, never-climbed mountains. Herds of long-necked guanacos gallop across expansive grasslands as Andean condors, one of Earth’s most massive birds, soar overhead.

Six years ago, Conservacion Patagonica launched its most ambitious project yet: the creation of Patagonia National Park in the Aysen Region of southern Chile. When complete, this 650,000-acre expanse of grasslands, wetlands, mountains and rivers will secure permanent protection for an ecologically critical region of Patagonia. Spanning the Jeinimeni and Tamango Mountains and the Chacabuco Valley, the future park will mark a new chapter in Patagonia’s history: from failed sheep ranching to conservation and ecotourism. Simultaneously, the park will counter some of the threats to Patagonia, including desertification, habitat loss and industrial development.

This December, the Patagonia National Park project is opening to visitors. This gallery of photos will have you packing your passport and buying your plane ticket now…

The vision of an expansive wilderness area in Patagonia, where flourishing ecosystems support healthy populations of all native species, where visitors deepen their appreciation of wildness, and where ecotourism and eco-education help local communities thrive, inspires us. It’s a bold vision, but protecting the Earth’s last wild places and diversity of life demands that we think and act big.

One threat especially, requires bold action from not only the community in Patagonia, but the global community as a whole. Together, we must stop the proposed damming of Patagonia’s Baker and Pascua rivers. via Conservacion Patagonica:

Patagonia Sin Represas, the campaign that began in Cochrane as a small grassroots movement to oppose HidroAysén’s plan for five mega-dams, had blossomed into a series of large-scale demonstrations that swept through Chile’s major cities in May and June…

Yet despite these legal advances and the outpouring of opposition to the dams, HidroAysén has managed to push its project forward through the impressive series of obstacles the opposition has thrown in its path…

But the battle is far from over. From here, the case will go to the Chilean Supreme Court. So it seems there is still a chance to turn this roadblock into a dead end for the dams. For those who wish to stand in solidarity with the Sin Represas movement, the best advice is simple: don’t give up. From what we’ve seen so far, public opposition from both in and outside of Chile has been the strongest force in delaying HidroAysén’s agenda. Whether taking to the streets in Santiago, raising awareness about this unfinished story, or engaging in the growing dialogue around Chile’s need for alternative energy.

TAKE ACTION HERE.

Patagonia is one of those places that we cannot tame. It’s identity lies in its wildness. And it’s up to all of us to protect it.

Learn more about this special place and how you can protect it here.

Conservation, Osprey Culture, adventure, causes, travel Conservation, patagonia, patagonia national park, rios libres, sin represas, travel conservacion patagonica

This video spread like wildfire online over the last week or so, but if you haven’t seen this yet. Take a few moments to watch… we don’t need to say much more than that. Enjoy!

VIDEO by sebastien montaz-rosset

travel, video base jumping, highlining, slacklining, video

The Kendal Mountain Festival kicks off this week in the UK. The festival welcomes thousands of outdoor enthusiasts from around the world to celebrate mountain culture in film, lectures, art and literature. Their mission is to inspire audiences with stories, films and presentations from the outdoor environment encompassing the spirit of exploration and adventure.

Posing Productions is premiering their new mountaineering film, The Moonflower, featuring British alpinists Matt Helliker and Jon Bracey on their first ascent on the hallowed Moonflower Buttress on Mt Hunter in Alaska. Helliker is also an Osprey-sponsored athlete.

Sweetgrass Productions‘ SOLITAIRE will also be showing at the festival, featuring fellow Osprey athlete, Kim Havell. Director Nick Waggoner will be on hand presenting.

Whether you can make it to the festival or not, these films sure make us want to get out there! Enjoy!

Events, adventure, video film festivals, matt helliker, solitaire, sweetgrass productions

Unless you’ve been living in a deep, dark cave… You may have noticed that there is a lot of cool stuff going on out there. So, we thought it was high-time we started rounding up some of our faves each week. We call it the Osprey Round-Up… Happy Friday!

Osprey has long been a sponsor of Paradox Sports, a movement created by an eclectic group of individuals with a common desire to integrate the physically disabled into the outdoor community by providing inspiration, opportunities, and the adaptive equipment needed to participate in human-powered outdoor sports. It is the brainchild of Army Captain DJ Skelton and Osprey athlete and professional climber Timmy O’Neill.

DJ was wounded in Iraq and is still on active duty AND works as an advocate for wounded soldiers returning from Iraq. via ABC News earlier this year when DJ left for a tour in Afghanistan.

Capt. D.J. Skelton was blown up the night of Nov. 6, 2004…

Six years have passed since that night. After more than 60 surgeries, Skelton, 33, is back on the battlefield.

Skelton said he is missing one eye, has partial use of his left arm, is missing the roof of his mouth and has limited mobility in one ankle. He cannot eat or drink without a custom prosthetic.

“Those are the details,” he said. “The reality? I rock climb, run marathons, mountaineer, ice climb, pogo stick, hula hoop… I just figure out new ways to do the old!”

In his Paradox Sports Founder’s Statement, DJ said:

Life is too easy, folks. Once you get over the fact that life is not supposed to be but just is as it is right now, life becomes too easy. Deal with it and keep pushing forward. We are not teaching you anything you don’t already know. We are just reminding you that you are amazing and you have unlimited potential to achieve greatness in this life.

Live life on your own terms…

Thank you to all of the Veterans out there.

PHOTO via Paradox Sports

Friday Round-up, Outdoor Activities, causes Paradox Sports, Timmy O'Neill, veteran's day