The picture is very busy, lots to look at.  This is the gear I use for touring and ski mountaineering.  Sometimes I bring more, sometimes less.  I omitted little things like sunglasses, lip balm, compass because there was too much to fit in the image.  I included 2 pr of skis and boots because sometimes there is rad powder and sometimes there is rad ice.

Starting on the left are K2 Darkside with Dynafit bindings, this ski is super fun, floaty, has some rocker up front so it handles wind/sun affected snow and crust easily.  It also has camber under foot and a flat tail so it is not scary on ice.  There is no metal in it so it's light.  I use the K2 skins with these, the tip/tail attachment is bomber and the grip is great, the glide however is not as good as some others but makes up for it in durability.

The other skis are my spring/summer boards.  The K2 Wayback is my go-to when things are icy or when I have to climb with the skis on my back for many hours (too steep to skin).  These skis are super light and fun to ride, they hold an edge well and have a little rocker up front.  I use the 174 length, small, turny and light.

Dynafit TLT5 are the boots I use with the waybacks, killer set-up.  The boots are really low profile and volume.  It's like wearing a plastic rock shoe.  The boots are light, have great range of motion in the cuff, are easy to ice climb in and feel suprisingly stout while skiing.  The Dynafit Titan Ultralight are the other boots in the photo (lower right).  I use these boots with the Darksides and all of my alpine skis.  Nothing but high praise for this boot, light and powerful.  I've used this boot for ski patrolling the last 2 seasons and it is holding up well with 250+ days on it.  The stock liners in both boots work just fine, I just add a custom footbed from Superfeet.

The clothing is from the Mammut Eiger Extreme collection, love it.  The Nordwand Jacket is Gore-Tex Pro Shell, the best hard shell fabric available.  It pretty much lives in the pack, unless I am guiding or skiing in a storm.  I feel shitty when I overheat so I climb in thin layers and put a shell on when there is wind or precip.  Sometimes I'll swap the Nordwand out with the Felsturm pullover (lighter, different fabric).  The pants are the Eisfeld, a soft shell with schoeller fabric.  They are stretchy and breathable, great for climbing, shed snow well, plenty of pockets, awesome pants.  I also carry the Nordwand pants in my pack in case of rain or wicked high winds.  Jackets I use to keep warm are Mammut Rime Pro (synthetic) and the Broad Peak Hoody (down), both are hooded and work well as belay jackets, compress down nicely so they don't take up much room in the pack.

The pack shown is the Mammut Nordwand, classic top loader with a full length zipper down the front so access to gear in the bottom of the pack is easy.  I also use the Mammut R.A.S. Rocker pack, it's an avalanche airbag pack that is a bit smaller, I really like the low profile design but hope I'll never need to deploy the airbag to save my life.  It's an insurance policy, not a substitute for sound judgement.  As with all of the Mammut gear, the features are too numerous to list so check their site with the link on the left of the page.  Their gear has never let me down and I am extremely grateful for their support.

The other items in the photo are small but still important.  2 sets of gloves, 1 thin pair for the skin/climb and 1 warm pair for the descent.  Goggles, I'm using the Oakley Canopy.  They are the best googles I've ever used, max peripheral vision, comfort and a great selection of lenses.  For sun and high altitude I use the Fire Iridium lens and for stormy flat light/night action the High Intensity Yellow is my choice.  Mammut Zephir Altitude is a great harness, ultra light and able to be taken off/on while wearing skis.  I also carry a couple of cordelettes, 3 spare carabiners, 2 slings, 2 ice screws (1 larger titanium screw, 1 stubby), 1 DMM revolver carabiner (built in pulley) for crevasse rescue and sometimes a snow picket.  The rope is 5 or 6 mm and 125ft.  It can be used for glacier travel but is mostly used for rappelling.  The Petzl axe and crampons round out the collection. 

I posted this info because these are some of the items that let me go into the mountains and be safe, this is gear I trust my life to.  Many people will post pics of gear they just got and talk about how stoked they are to use it, well this stuff has been used and I'm even more stoked now.  Very few pieces of gear are perfect, gear doesn't need to be perfect, just like my grammar and spelling don't need to be perfect.  But gear does need to perform well enough that we are psyched to keep using it and trusting it.  I hope you find gear that gets you so stoked you want to tell people about it.

In November of last year, I went to Switzerland to be a part of the Mammut Eiger Extreme Test Event.  We were briefed on the new product line and tested the Nordwand jacket and pants on the Eiger. Because of the size of the team and the time constraints (weather), we climbed the West Ridge to the summit then traversed the summit ridge and dropped down onto the summit icefield on the North face.  It was a fun experience.  I'm the guy on the bottom right of the X.

Photo courtesy of George Dijmarescu

For day to day posts, pictures and news I use Facebook and Twitter, find me on there to check out stuff that I think is cool enough to share but maybe not appropriate for this site.

I try to only post the things that I find to be significant from a broad interest or historic perspective.  Recently the climbing/ski community has been rocked by the passing of several highly experienced athletes.  Fellow East Coaster and K2 ski company teammate Kip Garre was killed in an avalanche in the Sierras that also took the life of his girlfriend, Allison Kreutzen.  In the Bernese Alps, Swiss legend, Erhard Loretan died in a fall on his 52nd birthday.  Deepest condolences to the families and friends of all the adventurous souls who have passed in the last few months.

The spring climbing season in the Himalaya is going strong, with climbers acclimatizing on Everest and other peaks.  Swiss athlete Ueli Steck just blasted up and down Shisha's South Face in a blistering 10.5 hours.  This guy is so awesome, I'm stoked to see what he does next.  He's got permits for Cho and Everest North side. Hopefully we will see him float the Everest Super Coulior (Japanese>Horbein) to end what could be an amazing season.  American skier of the Gnar, Chris Davenport is currently on the south side of the Big E guiding a friend, perhaps he will find time to ski a line or two.  

There may be some other ski descents going on, I haven't heard of any except for the Lhotse Ski Expedition. This is a trip no doubt put together by Jamie Laidlaw.  Jamie skied from over 8000 meters on Lhotse in 20??. He's been on the route before so he knows what's up and if the conditions are remotely reasonable I think he'll send it.  With Jamie on the trip is Kris Erickson, who is a total badass as well.  Kris has skied on Cho, Shisha and G2 among many others.  These guys are a class act and I expect they will come home with mind-blowing imagery that The North Face will use in future campaigns.

This post is loaded with links, check them out, all are interesting.  Please send positive vibes to all the folks out in the hills now.  Remember, "The mountains don't care who you are" and "There is no conquering going on here, just pure fun".  I feel like someone older and wiser must have said those phrases before me, but I don't know who.  Peace

A "ripcord" handle is attached to the shoulder strap, when pulled, it releases the compressed air from a small cylinder which inflates the 150 liter airbag in less than 3 seconds.  The idea of avalanche airbags is that of "inverse segregation", which means that the largest particles of a moving fluid make their way to the surface.  The bag increases the volume of the user while reducing density and increasing buoyancy.  Simply put, it will keep you on top of the avalanche debris, so even when your legs are broken, at least you won't suffocate.

The weight of the airbag and cylinder is approximately 1,500 grams (3.3lbs), roughly the weight of a liter and a half of water.  This will soon become standard kit for anyone traveling in avalanche prone terrain.  The likelihood of surviving an avalanche increases dramatically if the victim is not buried.  I must say that these tools are not a free ticket to get rad and be free of consequence.  The whole idea is to use good judgment and not be caught in a slide, but we all know that shit happens and it is best to be prepared for the worst.  These packs will retail for nearly $800.  Yes, it's pricey but not nearly as expensive as a funeral.

Please consider taking an avalanche education course.   It is likely you will learn a lot, and you'll also be putting in that much needed practice time.  American Avalanche Institute.

Other adventures include, summiting Everest, downclimbing into an active volcano, swimming with great white sharks, and kayaking off 180 ft waterfalls.  This is one heck of a list and a great database for future vacations. The see the story, go to National Geographic.

New line of Petzl Charlet ice tools - QUARK NOMIC ERGO from Petzl-sport on Vimeo.

"AZADI: Freedom" Official Trailer from b4apres media on Vimeo.

I'm excited to see this movie.  Seems like it will be a great look into a very complex situation.  The battle for Kashmir has been a long and difficult one.  Anthony Bonello and B4apres will give great insight into the current situation and how the locals are carrying on with their lives while living in the shadows of tanks and fighter jets.

First Korean Oh summits Annapurna becoming the first woman to climb all 14 8000 meter peaks.  Then the Spaniard Pasaban tops out on Shisha to become the second woman to send the 8000ers.  Now on K2, Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner is in position to be the first woman to climb all of the 8000ers without the use of supplemental oxygen.  Reinhold Messner was the first to accomplish this in 1986 and since then only 10 people have been able to pull it off.  

Another amazing attempt is going on as well, Swede Fedrik Ericsson is going for a ski descent of the Cesen route.  Fred is back for another attempt after his trip last year was cut short by the death of his partner.  He is super strong and has already skied sections of the mountain that were previously unridden, the most dramatic of which is the huge bowl that drops off of the shoulder.  It starts at 7800 meters on the lowest point (top of the S-SE spur) and extends up and over to the Bottleneck at 8300 meters.  This feature on the south face is probably one of the most appealing slopes to ride on K2, huge, steep, exposed, super dramatic no-fall skiing. Huge respect to Fred for riding this.  I had dreamed so many times of dropping into this wall, a 3000 vertical foot shot hanging on the south face, I'm so happy he got to ride it.

The usual weather window for K2 occurs around the 1st of August.  This is not like an Everest window where the winds die down and the weather is good for a week or two.  This is a K2 window, 3 days maximum.  From the forecasts that I've seen, it looks like the 5th and 6th have low winds up high (14 km p/h).  That would mean that the climbers would leave base camp on the 2nd or 3rd depending on if they were skipping camps on the way up.  Some climbers choose to climb from bc direct to camp 2, stay the night, climb to camp 3, rest for a few hours, then start a summit push from there.  This may be the strategy for a few of the strongest people but since no one has reached the bottleneck, there are no ropes fixed.  I'm sure there has been a collective discussion in bc to sort out who will fix the ropes.  The folks fixing the ropes will most likely follow a more conservative ascent schedule, launching a summit push from the traditional place, camp 4 on the shoulder.

The next few days will be very interesting ones, as this will likely be the last attempt of the season.  With many teams already on their way home, there are few left.  If the weather doesn't hold, most will be forced to leave due to depleted resources on the mountain (food, gas, O2) or to travel agendas.  Hopefully the weather cooperates and all top out like in 2004.  If so, we will see, the first complete ski descent, first woman to climb all 14 8000ers w/out O2, first couple to summit together (George and Lakpa).  Maxut and Vassilli will complete their project of climbing all 8000ers w/out O2.  As well as some other stuff that includes frisbees, golf clubs, hacky sacs, beer bongs, etc.

Positive vibes to all the the folks out there!  Check out Fredrik's site for the details on this expedition

FREDRIKERICSSON.COM