The Latest Adventure News: April
Photo by Ben Tibbetts
YOUR LATEST OUTDOOR ADVENTURE NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
It's a big internet out there. We’ve collected just a few of the coolest adventure things we stumbled on this month that we think you might want to cast your eyes on.
See this as your monthly goody bag of digital outdoor musings, cool adventure articles, events news, and other mountain stuff we have an inkling you'll like.
Events, events, events!
Crankworx World Tour
The Crankworx World Tour, the largest multi-stop series of mountain bike festivals of its kind, is back and heading to Cairns in Australia, Innsbruck in Austria, and Whistler in Canada.
The tour brings together the best mountain bike athletes to compete in elite-level competitions in a variety of disciplines. From slopestyle and speed & style to downhill and pump track - there’s an array of incredible mountain biking to be enjoyed.
WHERE: Cairns | Innsbruck | Whistler
WHEN: Cairns (May 17 - 21) | Innsbruck (June 21 - 25) | Whistler (July 21 - 30)
HOW: Sign up and read more info here
The trail running Film Festival
Get inspired by stories that celebrate trail running and wild places at this year's Trail Film Fest, a worldwide festival that kicked off earlier in April.
The aim of the festival is to celebrate running as a universal practice “to explore our collective and individual potential and pursue our wildest dreams,” as the festival organisers explain.
WHERE: Various locations around the world | Virtually
WHEN: In-person: April 16 - August 10 | Virtual: May 5 - 15
HOW: Sign up and read more info here
Winter Games NZ
If you’re not quite ready to say goodbye to winter in the Northern Hemisphere, head to New Zealand's Southern Alps to watch the world's best winter athletes compete in the Winter Games NZ.
The Games is the biggest snow sports event in the Southern Hemisphere. From high-octane alpine ski racing to thrilling freeski and snowboard park and pipe events to the adrenaline inducing freeride events, there is something for everyone.
WHERE: Southern Alps, New Zealand
WHEN: Aug. 27 - Sept. 8
HOW: Sign up and read more info here
Results worth noting
#1 Diez Vista
The 50km Diez Vista trail running race in British Columbia on 8 April saw Mercedes Vince come in overall first in the women's division in 4h56m24s and Simon Widmann first in the men's in 4h11m26s.
Diez Vista is one of the most historic ultras in Canada, running since 1997 and celebrating its 25th edition in 2023! Founded by local trail runners to showcase the trails and terrain around Port Moody, BC, the race has attracted some of the biggest names in ultra running over it’s storied history.
Runners experience over 2000 metres (6500 feet) of elevation gain & loss over roots, rocks, mud and some nice trail.
#2 OFFLINES Camp
Two-time freeriding world champ, Nadine Wallner, just finished running her freeriding OFFLINES camp in Arlberg, Austria for up-and-coming youths, and saw some fantastic shredding on the mountains.
During the four-day camp, a group of 14 up-and-coming athletes (aged 16 - 20) had the opportunity to polish up their freeride skills, hear stories from real pros and ask them questions about being a ski pro.
Photos by Tim Marcour
#3 Crankworx Rotorua
It’s a wrap for the mountain biking Crankworx Rotorua festival in New Zealand! Emil Johannsson came first in the pro-male Maxxis Slopestyle in Memory of McGazza, and Robin Goomes in the pro-female Speed & Style. If you keep scrolling, you’ll get the full highlights replay.
Between March 18 and 26, mountain biking pros gathered in NZ to show off their skills. The events included the Dual Slalom, Speed & Style, Maxxis Slopestyle in Memory of McGazza, Pump Track Challenge, Air DH, and Taniwha Downhill.
Get Your reading On
Ah, the humble article. Its words can crack your mind’s imagination open like an earthquake splitting the ground in half. You learn new facts and keep your brain active, all while being inspired. We love the below three articles and we have a sneaky suspicion you will too.
1 - Originally published in Backpacker
Heavy snow and trail damage have delayed the opening of the Grand Canyon's North Rim until June 2, essentially cancelling the spring rim-to-rim season. The delayed opening ensures the safe plowing of State Route 67 and allows park staff to reopen visitor facilities on the North Rim.
The delay also blocks Arizona Trail thru-hikers from reaching their destination.
The North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona received over 250 inches of accumulated snowfall this winter season.
More information here from the National Park Service.
Photo by Saad Chaudhry
2- Originally published in Outside Magazine
If you're a skier or rider who thinks it's cooler or easier not to use your chairlift safety bar, think again.
Some people insist to keep the bar up, others say bar down. Depending on the resort and the terrain, the preference can change.
Interestingly, the bar up / bar down debate is predominantly an American one. People skiing in Europe tend to put the bar down, no questions asked, it’s just part of the routine, per Snow Brains.
According to the National Ski Areas Association’s Lift Safety Fact Sheet, 71% of all falls from lifts in Colorado, for instance, occurred on chairlifts that had a restraint bar. No matter how experienced you are, putting down the bar isn’t a bad idea in certain instances. High winds, tall lift towers, and the occasional young rider should all encourage some sort of safety awareness.
Just make sure everyone is properly seated before reaching for the bar.
3- Originally published in Sidetracked
“‘Now through the narrowing between sharp rocks, I’m exposed to the full wrath of the Atlantic swell, meeting the wind-blown waves I’m almost surfing on. The ocean’s waves grapple against each other. Agonisingly rough seas throw me at all angles and force me to make constant corrections to keep my boat on track,” writes Aaron Rolph in Sidetracked.
Aaron’s goal is to combine a rugged mountain-bike route through the archipelago of the Outer Hebrides, carrying inflatable packrafts and making the sea crossings between these remote islands self-propelled.
In this story, Aaron takes us along on his adventure bikerafting in Scotland's Outer Hebrides. Savage headwinds, curious highland cows, and endless, rugged Scottish landscape gave this man an unbeatable sense of self-reliance.
April Adventure Movies
Have a little fun as you watch Max McCulloch pedal, jump, land, and swerve along Canada’s Jordie Lunn Bike Park’s mountain biking trails.
In Max’s latest Just For Fun YouTube video, scenes of him inventively and ecstatically biking take over your screen. It’s pure, unadulterated adult fun.
Another video for the MTB lovers, you can catch all the highlights of Crankworx Rotorua’s recent Downhill event in the above replay.
We can’t wait for the upcoming Crankworx events!
An adventure to wow all others
On April 6, Spanish trail running legend, Kilian Jornet, conquered one of his long-term bucket list goals: Linking up all seven summits of Romsdal on skis. The summits included Juratind, Store Vengetind, Kvandalstind, Romsdalshorn, Store Trolltind, Kongen, and Dronninga.
This route is particularly exciting because it involves an endurance challenge, some technical climbing, especially in winter conditions, and a lot of conditions and risk assessment. “I believe the cognitive load of the activity is bigger or at least equal than the metabolical load,” said Kilian.
This feat had been on Kilian’s to-do list - rather his to-redo list - since his first, and failed, attempt in 2017. Though, in true Kilian style, he did successfully run the route in 23h28m that same year.
In 2020, there was a second ski attempt but after about 10h, Kilian had to pull out due to wet snow avalanches.
This year, though, the conditions were good and Kilian gave it another shot. It turns out his calculations were correct - he completed it in roughly 21h.
Kilian’s key takeaways were as follows:
The happiness of achieving a long term goal: Seeing the end of the route, the attention level decreased. Often our risk attention is higher at the beginning of the activity and our attention goes down during its duration, specially when we are finishing and we think that in a few minutes we will be in the town. We believe that risks are bigger the further we are. The happiness of having (almost) achieved my goal made me lower my attention level and even if I knew that in those aspects it was pockets, like the ones I broke in Trollstigen, I thought that braking a small pocket so close to the town would not carry those consequences. In this study or this review shows how with high levels of dopamine and endorphins we are accepting higher risk levels.
The tiredness of 21h of activity: I don’t believe that fatigue per se has a direct effect on the risk taking. I think in general with fatigue we try to avoid risks, but if we get involved in a situation that we can’t avoid, in the moment of taking the decision, in the equation of risk possibilities, probabilities, consequences, the weight of the extra effort to avoid that risk (turning back, making a abseil, doing a longer route, etc) might be in a bigger that the same we would give it when fatigue isn’t involved.
Here is Kilian telling you his story in his own words and through his own vision:
See you out there!
Team FATMAP