Remember those giant camping lanterns that weighed ten pounds and didn’t fit into your pack…. I do! I also remember the 5 D batteries that they took…
Enter the Black Diamond Orbit Lantern… This thing is tiny… the lantern weighs in at a scant 3 oz but packs enough Lumens(45) to light up an entire tent camp site! With adjustable brightness settings this Adventurer highly recommends that you pick this up for about $30 next time you go on a car camp or extended backpacking trip when camp fires arent permitted. I Used it to brighten up our lean-to on Mt. Washington!
Which Would You Rather Carry 
Hi All,
I just got back from an 11 day Grecian Adventure! I had a blast sampling traditional food, seeing ancient sights, and Hiking! Stay tuned for Samaria Gorge Hike Recap and plenty of photos!
Survey… Let me know your favorite piece of Gear or what your go to brand is.
Rock Climbing… Not as tough as ya think!… Unless you’re a forearm
Have you ever been fifty feet off the ground, trusting a rope and some padded webbing to keep you from becoming a victim of gravity? NO?… your missing out. I started rock climbing while I was living in NH. It started out with a little bouldering around a stone bridge near a swimming hole and blossomed into a full-fledged hobby that had me scaling the 1000ft walls of Seneca Rocks.
So When I relocated to DC I needed to find a place to climb! Enter Sport Rock Climbing Centers… This is a great local Climbing Gym with two locations in the area (Sterling and Alexandria). I frequent the Alexandria location because of its proximity to Arlington and have enjoyed every vertical foot climbed there. Since the Alexandria location, or SR2’s, expansion they have doubled their capacity and increased their ability to offer climbing routes that accommodate all different ages and abilities.
Sport Rock isn’t just a wall with holds either. If you fancy canceling that membership to Bally’s you can get a full time membership to SR, which offers yoga classes, crossfit, and exercise equipment too. SR is a 1 stop shop for a good time, good work out, and a great intro to the sport of climbing. Now Rope Up And Get Vertical!
In a little over a week I will be traveling to Greece for a not so average adventure. In truth I will be relaxing on black sand beaches and sampling all kinds of traditional Greek Fare. However there is one outdoor activity that I am really looking forward to on my trip. I will be hiking the Samaria Gorge, one of the longest gorges in Europe. The Gorge is located in the Southern part of Crete and is 16 kilometers long. The typical hike takes you from the foothills and ends up on the sand of a small beach town where you catch the ferry back to your original point of departure. I will be following up this post after the actual hike with photos and reactions!
Just got my FREE Hat From First Ascent in the mail for being a runner up in their Mustache madness Contest!
If you are into outdoor sports you’d better have a lot of closet space. Each new hobby that you pick up probably comes with sport specific gear!… In full disclosure I have a mild obsession with Gear… But right now my favorite piece of gear is probably the least expensive item in my pack!
A while ago I picked up a Buff from Eddie Bauer’s Technical Mountaineering Line First Ascent. There is nothing technical about this piece of gear but it has so many uses that it comes with me on all of my weekend adventures.The Buff is just a piece of technical fabric, that will provide wind and sun protection for all your activities. Costing only 20 bucks and being so light that it’s almost Imperceivable. I highly recommend that you pick one up. You will be glad you did when your boarding the backcountry or hiking your local trails.
You Have To Remember The Descent
Have you ever had a fever?… that’s a silly question we all have… but this is a different kind of fever, this fever starts with a burning in your toes , moves quickly through your limbs, floods your heart with a searing heat, and eventually makes it to your brain. The heat starts affecting your judgment and blinds you to your true reality. I like many of my climbing partners suffer from SUMMIT FEVER and there is no cure or inoculation that can subdue it… you can only learn how to manage your condition…
About a year ago I was standing on Mt. Rainier with seven friends at 13,500 feet. My team had made an early summit push because of impending weather. We were slowly and methodically moving up our way up the Upper Mountain ascending the standard route. When the storm we were trying to avoid started
pummeling us with hurricane force winds and stinging ice pellets. I looked over at my friend Andrew Reamer and in his Oakley goggled mirrored face I could see that there was a fire in his mind that matched mine. If no one told us to stop moving and turn around we would have marched right up to the summit and probably to serious injury. But it was at this moment that our main guide From Alpine Ascents International, Craig Van Hoy addressed our group and in one single line extinguished my fever. Van Hoy said, “We have to remember the decent you guys, THE DESCENT”…. A hard pill to swallow… but we must learn to turn around. Every climbing party must have the person that calls the shots whether your rope team likes it or not.
I learned this on Rainier and put it into practice only a month ago on the slopes of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. You can fit two Mt. Washingtons into one 14ner but it is well underestimated. Gearjunkie.com has it listed as #8 on its Most Deadly Mountains list.
#8. MT. WASHINGTON (6,288 ft), New Hampshire
To experience a killer mountain a little closer to home, look no further than this New Hampshire peak. The rapidly shifting weather, hurricane force winds, and summer ice pellets scouring this slope have claimed more than 100 lives. Temperatures at the peak can descend to -50 degrees Farenheit. In fact, the strongest wind gust ever measured on Earth was recorded on this peak, a gale of 231 mph.
Eight of us set off from Joe Dodge Lodge early on a blue bird day to tackle Mt Washington. My team this time was made up of half experienced climbers and half newbies. We made good time to the tree line, and the blood was starting to boil in us all. We pushed hard on the upper mountain, breaking trail through waist deep snow, the fever percolating through our adrenaline filled blood. When the weather started to roll in we were already on the upper mountain. Eight men with addled brains kept climbing…. “according to my altimeter” we were 100 vertical feet of the summit in a complete white out with no sense of where the trail to the famous summit was supposed to be. At this moment Craig Van Hoy was continually ringing in my head…whispering “You have to remember the descent.” Everyone was thinking what I knew had to be said. I broke through my foggy fever and yelled up the line “We have to go down!” Shortly after that eight pride filled men about faced and plunged stepped down the mountain with visions of pizza and beer dancing in our heads.
I remembered our descent, when you’re on the mountain an extra hour of exposure, a wrong turn when you’re tired can lead to a disaster. This is a lesson from the mountain. If you are climbing with a group swallow your pride and squelch your fever, because it’s better to have a few friends mad at you for speaking up and making the right decision then lose fingers or get caught in an avalanche(that story will be posted later!) We climb mountains to sit on the summit and see the panorama of God’s Glory. We climb to challenge ourselves against nature. We climb Mountains because as Mallory put it “… it’s there”. Climbing Mountains is inherently dangerous but we climb to stand on the top and come all the way back down to celebrate with our friends…. and probably have a good picture….to post on Face Book
The Average Adventurer
Hey all,
Welcome to my blog… this is my first foray into the blogosphere so it may take a couple of post for me to figure this whole thing out!…
So A little about me…and the blogs intent
I am a 27 year old guy living in the greater Washington DC area…. I titled the blog The Average Adventurer because I fancy myself a weekend warrior when it comes to the outdoor sports. I am not particularly good at any one of them (rock climbing, kayaking, mountaineering) but I do enjoy doing them all and they keep a prematurely aging body relatively fit and focused.
I will use this forum to recount some tales from the past few years and discuss new adventures as they happen! I will also rate and review the gear in my closet as it used! And give my opinions on anything new I pick up… So… here we go! and stay tuned for more informative posts…
Thanks
The Average Adventurer
The Average Adventurer 