The North Face

Nov 04 | Kami Semick Wins, Michael Wardian Takes Third, At The IAU 50K World Trophy 2009

By The North Face

Kami Semick Wins, Michael Wardian Takes Third, At The IAU 50K World Trophy 2009

Gibraltar, Spain, set the stage for The North Face athletes to take top honors in 50K race

 

The North Face athlete Kami Semick took first place, women, in the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) 50K World Trophy 2009, in Gibraltar, Spain. She won with a time of 3:29:48. The North Face teammate, Michael Wardian, took third place, men, with a time of 3:00:56, just 41 seconds behind the second place winner. This is the first time running the race for both.

 

Held on a slow, rolling 8K loop, the course boasted many sharp turns and a handful of steep hills, forcing runners to slow down in places. Conditions were hot and humid at 77° F with 86 percent humidity. The race started at 2.30PM, smack in the middle of the afternoon heat.

 

“The conditions were difficult and the course was challenging, but I felt relaxed and strong through most of the race,” Semick said. “I focused on running for place instead of time because of the challenging conditions.”

 

Semick took the women’s lead at around the 10K mark and continued to build a steady lead by more than eight minutes. Wardian led the men’s close competition for most of the race, and despite being passed at the 43K and the 47K, he was able to lock in his pace and secure his best finish ever for an international competition and representing the United States.

 

“I am so pleased with the effort and winning a Bronze Medal,” Wardian said. “I have some work to do to improve and come back with a Gold Medal next time for the USA—I can't wait to get back training and look forward to competing again in the near future.”

 

The IAU 50k World Trophy is an invitation-only event. Athletes qualify through races held throughout the world.

Nov 02 | The North Face® Ski Challenge Presented by GORE-TEX® Opens New Website for 2009-2010 Season

By The North Face

The North Face® Ski Challenge presented by GORE-TEX®, Europe’s premier ski event for young freeskiers, opens up a brand new website for the coming season. New functions will make the riders’ lives easier: applications, event information, videos, photos and a lot more !

 

The North Face® Ski Challenge presented by GORE-TEX® is growing and its new website reflects the event’s evolution and growth. New functions and services have been added to improve ease of use for the riders.

 Applications, messages, latest news, services such as riders’ messages to each other are now online on www.thenorthfaceskichallenge.com

 Follow each event online.  Find and download videos or photos for each stage. Find the immediate links to organize your trip to the qualifying events. Relive your weekend of competition and share your results with friends and family. Plan your trip to the next qualifying stage.  Get information about each event and understand the rules. Follow the pre-qualified riders’ list. And much more! The information available on www.thenorthfaceskichallenge.com is made for riders by riders.

 

An Event Near You

 

The North Face® Ski Challenge presented by GORE-TEX® will travel across Europe and come to a location near you. If you don’t qualify the first time, just go to the next stage and, hopefully, you’ll meet all your pre-qualified friends in Val Thorens, France for the finals in March.

 

An Event Dedicated To Young Freeskiers

Launched during the 2006-2007 winter season, The North Face® Ski Challenge presented by GORE-TEX® grew over the last three years to include a roving pan-European qualifying tour, concluding with event finals in Val Thorens, France. Open to all European residents—both boys and girls—born between 1989-1997, The North Face® Ski Challenge presented by GORE-TEX® is arguably the most important competition for younger skiers hoping to break into the circuit. The event promotes all mountain skiing, as each kid competes in both big-mountain freeride and park & pipe freestyle contests. The event also places increased emphasis on avalanche awareness and mountain safety.

 

The tour schedule is as follows:

 

National Qualifying Events

Ruka, Finland Dec 20, 2009

Grasgehren-Obermaiselstein, Germany Jan 23-24, 2010

Donovaly, Slovakia, Jan 23-24, 2010

Ped Pod Snežkoum Czech Republic Jan 30-31, 2010

 

International Qualifying Events

Flachauwinkl (Austria) Jan 30-31, 2010

Hemsedal (Norway) Feb 13-14, 2010

Åre (Sweden) Feb 20-21, 2010

Chamonix (France) Feb 27-28, 2010

Alagna (Italy) Mar 6-7, 2010

                         

Final

Val Thorens ( France ) March 26-28, 2010

 

 

The North Face® supports big mountain sports around the world.

Follow our partner events on the snow around the world, including The North Face® Ski Challenge in Europe, The North Face® South American Freeskiing World Championship, and in the US both The Masters of Snowboarding and  the Subaru Freeskiing World Tour.

Oct 27 | THE ADVENTURE FILM FESTIVAL BOULDER

By Cedar Wright

WOOHOOOO Renan and I have both had our original films selected for the Adventure Film Festival in Boulder Colorado!!! We are honored to have made the cut with over 300 films screened! This will the world premiere for my short film "Pra Caramba" that features the best footage you never saw from Brazil!!! Renan's award winning film about suffering in the center of the universe is called SAMSARA. If you have the time we'd really appreciate you coming out for the festival. GET TICKETS AND FIND OUT MORE HERE!!!

Oct 27 | Get Inspired - See Amy Run

By The North Face

World record set at The North Face Endurance Challenge Mid-Atlantic Regional. Amy Palmerio Winters crossed the Gore-Tex 50 Mile finish line in a time 10:18, setting a new world record for below the knee amputees by almost 2 hours! Amy also qualified for Western States by completing the 50 mile course in less than 11 hours.

Click here to read Amy’s race recap.

Oct 20 | Sustainability: Climate Change

By The North Face

We’ve learned a lot in our efforts to become a more sustainable organization over the years.  We’ve learned that this journey is not just about us and our own internal sustainability efforts, but also our direct involvement in global causes that have a significant impact on our company and the millions of people who use our products every day around the world. 

Most recently, we’ve taken a leadership role in communicating the importance of adopting immediate policies and actions that will halt climate change. It’s is an extremely important issue for us. And not just because the future success of our business is linked to a healthy planet. Climate change directly affects everyone that comes in touch with our brand. Our athletes, consumers and employees see the negative affects of climate change in their expeditions and everyday lives.

The world we fervently explore is affected daily by climate change in terms of droughts, decimated forests and more. It has to stop. A strong climate change policy is necessary to affect real, meaningful change, and we are leveraging our global brand strength to help ensure that it does. But we cannot do it alone. We want you to come join us.

Urgently, we need you to contact your legislator and tell them we need a strong climate change policy NOW. We need you to join in the movement. Our planet’s health, and the health of its citizens, depends on it.

Oct 19 | MALLORCA PSICOBLOG 8 "FIRE OR WATER"

By Cedar Wright

With a few days left in the trip, James Pearson and Alex Honnold climb the hardest route yet, a wild roof encounter over 50 feet above the water.  After some exciting plunges into the water, they finally pulled it off!  Super proud!  Stay tuned for two more "Psicoblogs."  Cheers.  Cedar!!!

Oct 17 | Shangri-La: Summit Dispatch

By Kasha Rigby

(Click on images to view full-size)
Photography: ©Jimmy Chin

We slept amazingly sound for being sardined head-to-foot, four people in a three person tent. The good night’s rest helped us put an optimistic spin on the (again) mixed bag of weather in the morning.  The climb started with an open snowfield for a bit, and then proceeded to a series of rocky ridges—the combo of loose rocks, exposure, and deep sugary snow quickly slowed us down, and halfway through the first ridge we were setting anchors, both ropes in use.  After the rocks, the pitch mellowed out a bit into a long, snowy ridge, bordered on the left side by a sharp overhanging cornice, and thousands of feet of exposed slopes on our right.  

The weather steadily got worse as the few blue holes turned into just the lighter grey patches against the dark of the rest of the sky.  Snow was blowing sideways—but the limited visibility may have been a boon mentally in that we could no longer see the exposure so much—out of sight, out of mind, right?! Jimmy led up and over a small steep pitch topped with a cornice, then belayed the rest of us up.   

We took our first real rest at a rock outcropping and decided that, given the worsening weather and limited visibility, the wise thing to do would be to turn around, so we did.  For about 200 feet.  Getting ready to belay back down the corniced pitch, suddenly we were all like those old guys that sit on the balcony in the Muppets, totally changing our tune. “Well, the weather has never really been that good since we got here, but it’s never really been THAT bad, either.  It’s snowing, but not really accumulating. The winds aren’t too terrible, and we’re all feeling pretty good.  We should keep going!”  About face!   

We roped up in teams of two to negotiate the wide, crevasse-striped slopes, and the next several hours were a blur of one foot in front of the other. The trail breaking was fairly brutal and we switched out positions from time to time. There were a predictable series of wider, flatter, crevassed slopes where the deeper snow made for slower going, followed by shorter, steeper, icy humps.  Kasha was wanded the route with zen-like precision, marking any holes and significant spots, and Giulia took waypoints on her GPS every so often.  We stopped every hour or so for water, Clif Bloks, and some particularly tasty organic pop-tarts, but never for more than a few minutes because we had momentum--we could all feel that without even having to discuss it—and we didn’t want to break it.   

After what seemed like an eternity of trail breaking, our altitude was finally reading over 6000m and we knew we had to be getting close.  It was snowing and daylight was fading fast. The steep but manageable snow slope we were on suddenly gave way to a steeper, icy bulge. We knew we had to make up time for all the slow trail breaking in deep snow. So, we decided to unrope and punch for the top, each soloing, using both tools to clear away the rotten ice on top and get a solid bite in the watery ice beneath.  You just couldn’t go too far left (steep overhanging cornice), and you really didn’t even want to look down right (ice cliffs, Exposure with a capital E), which made it easy to focus on getting every point solid before moving the next one.  Thankfully that part wasn’t too long, and a few hundred feet later we were back on deep, lower-angled snow, and then on top of a flat knob. Beyond that was a huge crevasse, separating our bump from another bump like a big wide butt crack bisecting the two massive butt cheeks that made up the summit block—we were there!   

At this point, visibility was really poor. We couldn’t really see anything, so a photo or two and we had clicked into our skis, made the glory few pow turns at the top and then side-slipping, side-stepping, one tool and one whippet, not saying a word to each other, down the ice bulge.  What had taken us 12 or so hours to climb up took less than three to ski down (very carefully in the low visibility and now dwindling daylight). We basically skied by Braille and scanned the white out landscape in front of us for crevasses, major drop off’s and wands. A little sketchy for sure. We eventually made it most of the way down the ridge with some clever route-finding, one skis-on rappel, and a short rocky section where we had to take our skis off and downclimb for about 150 feet or so.  The further down we got, the more the weather abated until there was only a haze in the sky and still air all around us.    

As a bonus, on the way up we had seen a potential ski route that would allow us to avoid the longest section of rocky ridges—on belay we sussed the one part where we didn’t know if it went or not, and then once we knew it did, we skied pow under a full moon on the open snowfield right to the tent.  A celebratory meal of Italian cheese and salami put everyone out cold—and the next day we downclimbed one more rocky section and ripped mushy turns over the barely covered talus all the way down to 15,500 feet.   

That evening, after hauling our huge packs back to base camp, we were eating tortellini in chicken broth, in disbelief that everything had gone so smoothly.  And of course, the next morning as if to taunt us, the top of Reddomaine showed her face for a sunny half-hour.  The summit block looked far far away and tiny compared to what it felt like when we were on top. Then she went behind the clouds for the remainder of our stay. After a day of rest and packing, we got the horses loaded. We eventually shouldered our packs and hiked slowly down valley towards civilization, always looking back over our shoulders towards Redommaine and smiling.

Ingrid, Giulia, Kasha, Jimmy

Oct 15 | 350 Pass it On!

By The North Face

This October 24th, join The North Face and thousands around the world as we hike, climb, march, dive underwater, kayak, dance, or stand with banners to call for strong "Climate Action".
Visit: http://bit.ly/2L8dMz

Oct 15 | Brazil Jungle Marathon Update

By The North Face

We just heard from The North Face team in Brazil at the Brazil Jungle Marathon. Nikki Kimball, Tracy Garneau and Mike Wolfe are rocking the grueling 200K course.

Nikki and Tracy have been running together so far, finishing roughly a half an hour ahead of the next woman each day. It's speculated they have a two hour lead right now. Both Nikki and Tracy are feeling really strong, and are becoming crowd favorites, with race crew members and locals cheering them on as they wrap up each day. Both are in the top ten as of this posting.

Mike has been running in the top three each day, switching off lead with South Africa's Ryan Sandes. Mike took a time hit on day one with a violation (no details yet) and lost half an hour, but reports show he is steadily making it up, predicted to finish in the top three if he keeps his current pace.

Today is the long stage, about 80K, so it will be a challenging one. From our photo team on location: "This thing is a killer!"

A good race report can be found in today's article from The Times Live: http://bit.ly/4w0gTl

Oct 15 | Introducing the 2009 Brazil Jungle Marathon

By The North Face

The North Face at the 2009 Jungle Marathon from Hennie vJ on Vimeo.