Osprey is proud to announce that we will be attending the action-packed Dominion Riverrock Festival in Richmond, Virginia during the upcoming weekend of May 17-19. We’re super excited to be a part of the only festival of its kind, one that combines the best of both the outdoor adventure and the music worlds. Throughout the Fest, there will be endless competitions in biking, hiking, running and climbing, as well as performances by top notch artists such as Toots and the Maytals and many more!

Not only will there be on-going comps, music and fun, we’ll be there hosting our own events. One such activity will be the infamous Osprey Packs bola ball toss, which you can play to win a pack! All proceeds will be donated to the Blue Sky Fund, which makes your chance to win a pack that much better. We’ll also be selling packs in alliance with Blue Ridge Mountains Sports at a killer 20 percent off, and our very own Osprey Athlete Ben Clark will be guiding hikes with Virginia Trail Blazers and signing free posters throughout the weekend.

If you’re in the area and looking for a mind-blowing good time with loads of things to do, stop by our booth to check out the packs, get a poster or try your chance at bola ball for a good cause! Connect with the Fest on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and share the #riverrockrva love!

Bike, Events, Music Festivals, Osprey Athletes, Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, Retail Promotions, contest, travel ben clark, biking, Climbing, Dominion Riverrock, festival, hiking, music, Osprey Packs, outdoors, running, Virginia

If you are in the Big Apple May 3rd and 4th, don’t miss the chance to attend the Bike Expo New York as there will be more than 60 vendors attending, one of them being yours truly, Osprey Packs! This event is great for road bike aficionados, and we’ll be showcasing and selling our recently redesigned line of hydration packs.

Over 50,000 spectators are expected to attend and admission is free and open to the general public. Hours of the show will be from Friday, May 3rd from 10 a.m. -8 p.m. as well as on Saturday, May 19th 9 a.m.-7 p.m., so come after work and check out the product tonight or head over first thing tomorrow. The event takes place at the Pier 36, 299 South Street, Basketball City, New York, NY.

Want to know a little bit more about what to expect? Here’s the rundown from last year’s awesome Expo:

In keeping with its mission to provide free bicycle education in New York City, Bike New York held several of its signature Learn to Ride classes throughout the event. Garnering more than 43,000 attendees, Bike Expo New York 2012 presented by Eastern Mountain Sports was the most attended inaugural consumer bike expo in the country.  BE NY carried an unmistakable New York flair with street signs, carpeted bike lanes and even a massive Verrazano Bridge suspended from the ceiling.

We hope to see you this year!

Bike, Events, Outdoor Activities, Product, Retail Promotions, Uncategorized Big Apple, Osprey, Osprey Hydration, Osprey Hydraulics, Osprey Packs, road biking, Roadies

Osprey Athlete Beth Rodden poster signing at the booth.

The 10th Anniversary of the Red Rock Rendezvous not only had a great attendance rate by pro climbers and climbing enthusiast alike, but also had the best weather it has seen in the past years. The tormenting desert winds took a hike the weekend of the festival, which left climbers with the perfect conditions for enjoying the festival events and outdoor activities.

The weekend was filled with various clinics from wilderness first aid, multi-pitch climbs, trad leads and even mountain bike clinics by our very own Osprey athletes Jeff Fox and Alison Gannett. Osprey provided demo packs to attendees for a chance to test out our new hydration packs and reservoir as well as our climbing specific packs, the Mutant and Variant.

As the festivities began to wind down and outdoor enthusiasts returned from their adventures, Red Rock Rendezvous continued the party with events like the Dyno Competition, where individuals would miraculously dyno to holds 6-9 feet above, and with guest speakers including Conrad Anker and Malcolm Daly who spoke about some of their landmark climbs from the past years, to bumping beats from various DJs later into the night.

Whether you were a local from Las Vegas, a dirtbag from different parts of the country, or a newbie just checking out the scene for the first time, Red Rock Rendezvous offered experiences for all skill sets and allowed strangers from all walks of life to celebrate climbing and outdoor community.

Events, Osprey Athletes, photos, travel Beth Rodden, Climbing, mountain biking, Mountain Gear, mutant, Osprey Packs, Red Rocks, Varient

The cold, dark month of January is plodding along after the madness of the holidays and a New Year Celebration. And that can only mean one thing, Winter Outdoor Retailer is nearly upon us again! The show kicks off with an all mountain demo on the 22nd, and the trade show will take place from January 23rd through the 26th. Of course, we’ll be there to showcase our brand-new packs and innovations, roosting at  Booth #5011. We hope to see you there!

We’re excited for the show as always, but we’re also stoked to announce that this OR, The Conservation Alliance Breakfast will welcome the incredible Cheryl Strayed, author of the incredibly powerful memoir WILD, which details Strayed’s journey as a 22-year-old solo-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State. Strayed will present on Thursday, January 24th from 7 to 9 a.m. at The Marriott, Salons F-I in Salt Lake City. This is a breakfast you won’t want to miss, and we hope to see you there!

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MoveShake is a series of films that tells personal stories of movers and shakers creating positive change in the world around them. Follow MoveShake on Facebook to catch all of the updates on new installments and more.

In the latest MoveShake installment, Alexandria Bombach of Red Reel tells the story of Gregg Treinish, founder of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (ASC). ASC is an organiztion that works to change the way that people spend their time outside while creating “an army of citizen-scientists” who can gather the information necessary to prove to decision makers that the right management choices must be made.

Last week, the MoveShake crew went grizzly bear tracking in the Tabacco Roots in Montana. Turns out if solid evidence of grizzlies in the area is found, there could be stronger protection of this beautiful area. What’s more, this week ASC is taking inner-city kids from West Oakland middle school to the Desolation Wilderness for pika monitoring with their Osprey-donated packs! The photos here are just a sneak peak from the latest MoveShake installment, but the upcoming film will certainly be worth waiting for. In the meantime, check out more images from the grizzly tracking expedition here.

And don’t forget to check back here for the upcoming MoveShake film that tells the story of Gregg and ASC!

Conservation, Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, adventure, causes, film festivals adventure, Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, art, Conservation, film, grizzly bear, MoveShake, Osprey Packs

I only wish this was a real cover of me on Outside Magazine, but alas, it is just a fun promo souvenir from my participation in Outside In Aspen.

In addition to lots of fun activities at the event, I was asked to be a member of a pro-athlete panel for the closing event Adventure Saves the World.

At first I was put off by the title, as I am always mortified by the carbon footprint of even my human-powered expeditions. Then I received an outline, from moderator Mike Roberts, executive editor of the Outside — and to my surprise and delight, this guy wanted to dig deep! He had quotes from Will Gadd, spouting about the BS of many expeditions with a cause, to the polar opposite — powerful athletes really making a difference, like Jake Norton, fighting for clean drinking water. Were we going to have to put on boxing gloves and fight it out? Were many people just using expeditions to raise money for their hedonistic activities under the fake umbrella of a cause?

Turns out, all the world champion athletes at this symposium were all in favor of philanthropy, but all had some key points that charity givers should note…

Polar Explorer Eric Larsen talked up the benefits of bringing nature’s gifts into the classroom with social media, and noted that donated money should go to the cause — not to fund an expedition’s travel expenses.

Willie Kern responded eloquently regarding how effective we were in reaching millions, saying that if even one person was inspired or changed, that made it all worthwhile. Olympic snowboarder Chris Klug mentioned that he is flooded with emails from organ donation recipients like himself, inspired to do even more with their new lives.

How do we recognize if an expedition is doing the right thing? Of course you can check if corporate sponsors are funding expenses and donation money is going directly to causes, and check to see the validity and rating of a nonprofit, but there really is more. At the end of the forum, I had an epiphany regarding the issue… maybe what it boils down to is authenticity: in the days of Google, one can really check to see if an cause-driven expedition is really true to that person’s heart and soul. Based upon the passion I saw and heard at this symposium, I was inspired to keep saving the world, one snowflake at a time!

Alison Gannett is a World Champion Extreme Freeskier, founder of The Save Our Snow Foundation and an award-winning global cooling consultant who has spent her life dedicated to solutions for climate change.

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Spring is here, and I’m currently building a new hoop house for the tomatoes at our farm, but I can’t help but thinking about powder today. Water is going to be desperately short here in Colorado this year for us farmers, and for those of us farming powder this past season, it was a bit of a rough winter. I’m usually the person that just misses every storm, and is stuck listening to everyone spout on about last week’s epic while I watch it rain. This year was different, maybe some good karma long overdue, or not, but regardless, I was beyond blessed on every ski expedition. Sixty-three feet of fresh in Silverton, too much snow to count in Canada at Red Mountain and Whitewater, then seven feet at Kirkwood covering almost all the rocky nastiness.

Me with my herd of Scottish Highland cattle. We move them everyday to fresh grass, improving the health of the cows and our fields. Photo by Halffro Productions

I hope some Osprey folks out there got some great turns in this winter, while staying safe in the scary backcountry. I was just demoing Osprey’s new sidecountry ski pack, the Karve — it’s so sleek and convenient. I am wearing that my Karve in the above photo. Best part, aside from the look, is that it contours so well to your back that you forget about it, and don’t even notice you have something on, even on the chairlift!

Editor’s note: Colorado, especially counties in the Northwest part of the state, is heading into what may be the worst drought in more than a decade — partly due to a much below average snowpack as Alison mentioned. Learn more about what you can do to help stop climate change over on Alison’s website.

Alison Gannett is a World Champion Extreme Freeskier, founder of The Save Our Snow Foundation and an award-winning global cooling consultant who has spent her life dedicated to solutions for climate change.

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Teaching mountain biking skills seems so straightforward… I’ve been teaching women during my Rippin Chix Camps with Osprey Packs since 2003. Watching the confidence build and the fears fade changes women’s lives, and not only in skiing, biking and surfing. It permeates into family, jobs and dealing with whatever life throws your way. At Red Rocks Rendezvous, Jeff Fox, the bike marketing manager for Osprey, and myself were in charge of teaching men’s and women’s mountain bike camps. Most of these participants are climbers, looking to do something in addition to all the amazing rock climbing camps at the event.

Read more…

Bike, Events, Osprey Athletes, travel Alison Gannett, Hydration Packs, KEEN Rippin Chix, mountain biking, mtn biking, Osprey Packs, Red Rocks Rendezvous, Rippin Chix

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

Osprey Packs and KEEN Footwear teamed up for a Rippin Chix skills camp at the Fruita Fat Tire Festival.

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Bike, Events Alison Gannett, Ambassador, Fruita Fat Tire Festival, Hydraulics, Jeff Fox, mountain biking, Osprey Packs, Rippin Chix, Save our snow, Skills Camp, Talon, Verve