2016 Year in Review: Mountains, not working.
I'm not just a mountain guide. I am a climber and skier that guides. And I hope that the numbers show that. Well, the numbers probably show that I'm a "counter" that goes to the mountains. I hope that isn't true... Ha. These numbers are deduced mainly from my training log. So it won't necessarily jive with my guiding numbers, as posted just prior. For instance, I worked 34 days on trips that I considered "alpine guiding", but only spent 24 days alpine climbing. Lets look at a 2-day Grand Teton trip then... The whole trip is alpine guiding. But as far as my activity log is concerned, day 1 is hiking and day 2 is an alpine climb. Hence any sort of disparity.
First, the totals:
First, the totals:
- 24 days of alpine climbing.
- 90 days of backcountry skiing.
- 5 days of mountain biking.
- 15 days where gym climbing was my primary exercise
- 18 days of hiking
- 13 days of ice climbing.
- 84 days of rest.
- 58 days of rock climbing
- 13 days I noted I was sick.
- 9 days where the ski resort was my primary exercise
- 28 days of travel (these are not rest days...)
- 7 days in which weight lifting was my primary exercise
That should add up to 366. I'm not going to bother with the math. You get the gist of it. This notes the primary activity for the day. Many days I did something else. For instance, I lifted weights many more days than 7. But that doesn't make it into the primary activity column.
Some deductions and other data:
- 217 days of 2016 I spent in the mountains, in action. Yowza.
- 111 of those days in the mountains were for work. Approaching a 1:1 work to non-work fun-in-the-mountains ratio is pretty damn good, in my book.
- I'm not stoked on the 28 days of travel...
- 126 days of inaction isn't that bad.
- 980 hours of action, for the whole year. And that's just the body moving. An 11 hour day on the Grand Teton, for instance, is more like 6 hours of actual movement. And that's how it gets recorded.
- 543 pitches of climbing. That's all kinds: rock, ice, alpine, gym. Don't worry... Teton Rock Gym "pitches" count as .5.
- 326,800 vertical feet of ski touring.
- 50 nights camping in the backcountry.
- 104 nights away from home, but not in the backcountry. The bulk of this was camping around the west on the annual Rocktober pilgrimage. But I also visited family, toured Alaska, and worked from huts and hotels in Silverton, Cody, the Alps, Dubois, and Lake Louise Alberta.
- I've always been fascinated with athletic benchmarks in multiples of 5. Here's my list, with notes from 2016:
- 5000 foot ski tour in 5 hours, car to car. Becoming commonplace. I guided this multiple times in 2016.
- 15000 feet of ski touring in a day, on multiple peaks. Finally checked this box.
- 50 mile run. Not yet...
- 5.10 rock climbing. Tons in 2016. Climbing better than ever!
- WI 5 ice leading. Multiple pitches in 2016. Cody Wyoming and Lake Louise Canada.
- Skiing a sustained 50 degree pitch. Just a few times. This is rarer than you might think. Two Alaska runs and skiing the Briggs Route on the Grand Teton come to mind in 2016.
- V5 bouldering. Have yet to send a V5 outdoors. Though I can do it in the gym...
- M5 mixed/dry-tool leading. Didn't do any mixed climbing in 2016 actually.
- 5 minute mile run. In my dreams... this is the outlier... Will take coaching and dedicated training.