Monday, April 30, 2012

COLDFEAR Photo Contest

I am excited to announce the first Coldfear Photo Contest which will be held on the Coldfear.com Facebook page found here - COLDFEAR.COM FACEBOOK PAGE.
 1. One photo entry per person.
 2. Must a be a winter climbing/life shot, Ice, alpine, rock, hiking, camping etc.
 3. Send your photo with caption to aaron@coldfear.com by May 14, 2012.
 4. All photos will be put on the Coldfear.com Facebook page on May18th.
 5. The photo with the most likes wins the contest.
 6. Top 5 photos will win swag. First place winner gets first choice then second etc.
 7. The contest will end June 4th and the winners will be announced soon after.
 8. Photo entries will not be used for anything other than the contest.

 Prizes gathered so far include:
Rab- Men's Boreas Pull on or the Women's Aurora Pull on- Both of these pieces won the Backpacker Editors Choice Award. $80 value
Cilogear- 20L NWD $150 value
Grivel- 5 pack Plume Draw $150 value
Sterling Rope- $50 Gift certificate

 More great prizes to be announced but these are some of the big ones!

I look forward to all the entries and please share this contest with friends and Facebook.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Tapout - First Ascent

Still trying to catch up from last seasons festivities and also maintain this seasons. Tapout was a First Ascent I did last year thanks to Alli Rainey and Kevin Wilkinson who spotted the magnificent pillar in a new area they were developing for Rock Climbing. I quickly packed the car and tempted Tanner Callender to come join me with promises of an FA. We found the pillar and it was very impressive but was not connected at the top and had a huge window in the middle. I contemplated for over an hour sizing it up and depending on what side you looked at it from it looked good or it looked bad. The weather for the next week looked nice and cold so we opted to come back next weekend to claim our prize.


Aaron Mulkey Marching up Tapout





Mulkey testing the pillar for sound and vibration.

I climbed up the pillar a ways to see how it felt and it made a horrible drum sound with every swing.



Tanner and I returned to the area with Chris Guyer and our Photog Tyson Bednarz. The pillar had grown tremendously and the connection point was super good now. Below are a bunch of photos taken of the route! You can also see this climb featured in The Regualtors Video Episode 5







The pillar Tapout was great, not hard but incredibly gorgeous!


Tanner Callender coming to top



Kevin Wilkinson working on his projects. This area was named the Octagon for it shape and serious nature of climbing. One of the cooler places I have ever climbed.



This cave is in the climbing area and is pretty damn cool. You had to crawl into this room and then it opened up into a massive room and went awhile back before you had to crawl again.


Someone discovered this cave a long time ago and celebrated well ! This can was before my time im sure of that. I havent seen a pull top like this ever. ha


After claiming Tapout we rushed over to one of the other climbs in the area up Ten Sleep Canyon and it began to nuke snow on us but the climbing was great and we had a nice full day.


These are to ride right ?

Thanks to Tyson Bednarz and Tanner Callender for the photos.

One of my favorite days of climbing last year!

Friday, April 13, 2012

Box Elder Fools Day

After the Deer Creek mission we decided our second day of paddling and April Fools day would be well spent on Box Elder. Box Elder is another Casper favorite with a nice 50 foot hike to the put in and a 800ft elevation gain hike out that really sucks. Anyway here are a few shots from the run!












Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Wyoming Creeks Kick Off Early


Chris Johnson checkin for blue sky in the "Vortex"



Hiking to the put in seems to becoming a normal pre requisite on my trips. I think Gary Edgeworth said it best "When Mulkey calls dont pick up the phone" See Video HERE. Well I would like to think my percentage of successful trips far outweighs the bad ones and even the bad ones provide such great stories that perhaps they are worth the pain and suffering.

Warm temps spread throughout the state of Wyoming and the ice began to melt at alarming rates so it was time to start checking the water gauges of Wyoming to see what creeks would be first to start kickin. The Laramie range around Casper, Wy is usually first to begin its melt, given its relatively low elevation snow pack. I had been in the area a week prior and noticed the creeks were beginning to rise but the gauges were not correlating very well to what I was seeing in the river bed so this was a bit concerning. So a week later warm temps were still holding and my thoughts were the flows had to be starting to rise with the days temps. Rallying kayakers early season always seems to be easy, like starved bears out of hibernation searching for a meal they gather with only a hope. Lucky for us this time we scored and we were handsomely rewarded with good flows and the third descent of the entire run of Deer Creek. You can see the story on the second descent HERE




Let the hike begin....


Kayaking in Wyoming !


Nathan Danforth psyched to make it through one of first big drops. Its drops like this that keep me coming back to Deer Creek. Its one of the very few runs around that can be run with zero portages. On my first trip through the canyon Ben Stookesberry ran the waterfall but with the right flows it will go again. We were able to do the 8 mile run with just one portage (the waterfall).


Part of the crew talking about how much they like hiking with there kayaks


The Waterfall- At high flows the waterfall fills in more so its not all dumping into a corner.


The one and only portage around the waterfall isnt too bad.


Randy Binder gettin off the couch finally for this run and enjoying every minute other then the hike


Chris boofs to wall. I dont believe this one has a name yet but it is indeed memorable


The large rock marks the entrance to the "Vortex"


Aaron Mulkey about to get his turn in the "Vortex"


Nate Winning charging the the 'Vortex"


Tom sunderland gettin ready for a beat down in the "Vortex" Love this pic with the elevation drop in the background.


Mulkey in one of the many drops in Deer Creek


Mulkey in the the midst of the run. Deer Creek has very little flat water and is for the most part non stop action.


Nate got the Booty beer for the day but the guy absolutely crushed the run. Lucky for us the last big hole of the day only chose him. Nate was paddling incredibly well this trip and I believe he said it was one of the best runs of his life.


The whole crew psyched after a great run in last days of March creek boating!
from the left- Tom Sunderland, Chris Johnson, Randy Binder, Nathan Danforth, Nate Winning, Aaron Mulkey

The next day we paddled Box Elder and I will have pics up soon....