“The adventure for the race was unknown, and it could have been over my head,” Craig Muderlak says. “With most of my illustrations, I don’t know how they’ll turn out and I have no guarantee of a good outcome.”
I’ve been wearing the Mountain Standard Hooded Down jacket practically nonstop for the last three months. It came with me up El Cap this winter, and kept me warm and comfortable at hanging belays and when climbing through the night.
A few weeks ago, we published Matt Van Biene’s black-and-white portraits of climbers in El Chalten, Argentine Patagonia. This week we bring you chapter 2 of Biene’s project–this time with continuous scrolling–with his remaining images.
They call the Canadian Rockies’ Mt. Temple the Eiger of North America. Both peaks offer sheer north faces with steep imposing headwalls that soar 1500 meters above the valleys below, both feature compact limestone, both are regularly subject to tempestuous weather that can appear out of seemingly calm skies. Perhaps most importantly, both are steeped in mystery, lore and ominous histories.
Bluebird days are so rare in Vermont that an overnight low of -18 degrees didn’t dampen my enthusiasm for a day of ice climbing at Smugglers’ Notch on Mt. Mansfield. I wore a Big Agnes Dunkley Belay Jacket, a slim-and-trim synthetic belay parka, to keep warm if our pace slowed or we lost the sun.
