May 20th: Leave Michigan’s beautiful Keweenaw Peninsula and head south towards civilization. We will spend most of a week with each of our parents to unload our chickens and dog to their summertime babysitters and do a little visiting (A-C on map).

May 30th: Fly out of Detroit to New York City (it makes the tickets to Moscow way cheaper, plus we’ve never been) where we will meet up with Anya, the third member of our Baikal team, and spend a couple days seeing what NYC has to offer (D and E on Map).

June 2nd: Fly to Moscow. Spend 3-6 days getting our visas registered and checking out Moscow, as well as visiting with Anya’s grandmother who lives in the city (F on map).

June 8th: Board the train for a 6 day journey to Irkutsk, then spend 6 days looking out the window. Hopefully Matt can master his motion sickness.

June 13th: Arrive in Irkutsk (city on the south-western corner of Lake Baikal). Here we will pick up our sea kayaks which the Great Baikal Trail Association will be storing for us and complete some last minute tasks (like grocery shopping) before setting out on our kayak trip (G on map).

June 15th: Let the paddling begin! Our goal is to be on the water by June 15th. We will then paddle for 50-70 days.

August 5th – August 25th: Complete our circumnavigation of Lake Baikal, landing back in Irkutsk (G on map). We will then get our affairs in order and board a train headed East towards the Mongolian border (about 1.5 days from Lake Baikal). Our visas will expire August 30th, so that’s our deadline for getting out of Russia.

August 30th – September 25th: This is where our plan gets pretty loose. Depending on time and money we want to do a little traveling in China and Vietnam. No matter what we will be traveling to Beijing (H on map) because one of our goals for the trip is to complete a West to East trip across Northern Asia via the Tans-Siberian and Trans-Mongolian rail roads. If we have run out of time or money we will just spend a few days in Beijing and then depart (via airplane) and head home. However, if we have not yet encountered limitations we will continue south through China, mostly by rail to Vietnam. If, upon reaching Hanoi, we have run low on funds or time, we will spend a couple days in Hanoi (I on map) and then fly home. If not, we will still spend some time in Hanoi then travel south, maybe get in a little paddling, gain a lot of new experiences, eat copious amounts of delicious food, and end up in Ho Chi Minh City (J on map). At this point we will be traveling home no matter what (at least that’s the plan).

If you want to see a weird little animation Matt made of our travel plans it’s in our Kickstarter video. You can watch it at:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/44957095/lake-baikal-skimming-the-surface-a-kayak-documenta

Last week we posted about the film we wanted to make during our kayak circumnavigation of Lake Baikal.  We told you all about our dream and the obstacles we are facing in realizing it.  You can read that post here. It’s worth it.

We mentioned in that post about our Kickstarter project.  Kickstarter basically sets up people who need help funding a project with people who who want to help out. In exchange for their financial support the backers get some sweet rewards because reciprocity is the way the world works.  Well, we threw our lot in with this site and launched our project hoping to raise at least 4,000 dollars for our film.  You can find our project here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/44957095/lake-baikal-skimming-the-surface-a-kayak-documenta?ref=live

You can see all the cool rewards we thought up; from stickers to the honor of hanging out with us for a weekend and doing some paddling.  If you feel so inclined, please back our project.  Kickstarter is all or nothing. Which means if we don’t get the whole enchilada we go home hungry.  It’s $4000 or $0. So please back our project. And on top of backing us please help spread the word. Post it to Facebook. Tweet it. Eschew this world of rampant social media and call your friends and tell them all about us.  Scream it out your windows. Whatever you like. Just tell someone, or a lot of someones. The more people we reach the more potential backers and the more likely we are to reach our goal.

Here I’ll try to help the sharing. Just click the links, they should guide you on the path.

Tweet our Project

We even made a video to help share our vision and our need.  You can watch here:

Or you can watch it in better quality on our Kickstarter page HERE.

So help us out. Please. There is a ton of information on the Kickstarter page and if you have any questions please ask us. And back our project. And share it with your friends. Jeez, are we asking a lot.

If you didn’t see it above, our kickstarter page can be found at:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/44957095/lake-baikal-skimming-the-surface-a-kayak-documenta?ref=live

Sounds like common sense right? It is. Or it should have been. We should have done this a long time ago. But we didn’t.

This summer in Russia we want to shoot a short adventure film. It will be our first real foray into the realm of video. We think it will help take our trip from some words and pictures to something people can experience with us. It will help capture not only the incredible highs but the daily humdrum and deep boredom that can come with expedition adventure. We want to use the film to highlight the lake and our interactions with it, as well as give a brief glimpse into the culture that surrounds this amazing body of water.

We even came up with a great title: Lake Baikal: Skimming the Surface. Sounds good right?

There’s only one tiny problem. We don’t have any gear. We’ve never shot a video before. Especially a video deep in the backcountry of central Siberia. We have still cameras but nothing to shoot video.  And it takes a lot of gear. On top of new cameras we will need a solar charger for batteries, storage for the huge video files and cases to keep it all safe and dry. We’re guessing the whole lot will run about $3,500, which is pretty steep when we’re already paying for an expedition.

So what to do. We seem stuck. If we buy the gear we wouldn’t be able to take the expedition (not going to happen), and if we take the expedition we won’t be able to document it fully. It’s a catch 22. So we’re asking for help. Later this week we plan on launching our project on Kickstarter.com. It’s a site that helps connect endeavors like ours with financial support through donations.  We’ll post another update when it launches and hope you’ll check it out. In addition to kickstarter we would be happy to take support from people or companies in terms of film equipment. If you think you might be able to help please drop us an email.

On top of financial and gear support we could use some advice. We have a vision but we’re new to this. What would you like see in a film of this type? What are you interested in? More paddling? More scenery? More traveling? We’re open to suggestions. Please leave us some feedback in the comments and share this with your friends. We want to make a movie people will enjoy.

We did a lot on our little break. We just never wrote any of it down. Here’s a little catch up of the last 12 months before we leave the past in the past and move on to newer, if not better things.  Hannah took up road biking and got a job as a Spanish teacher. Matt took up fly fishing and got a job at a gear shop.  We got chickens, worked on our house and gained, then lost, a few roommates. Matt ran a whole lot in an attempt to finish the Leadville 100 ultramarathon. He tried but didn’t quite finish the race (53 miles is still pretty good, right?). We spent a month living in our sweet 1987 Toyota campervan down by a river in Colorado. Hannah decided the responsible world of full time employment wasn’t her bag and quit her job as a Spanish teacher.  Matt spent a total of six weeks on Isle Royale trapping beavers and building aquatic moose exclosures (not as fancy as it sounds). We hiked, biked, paddled, made some friends and generally lived the good life.

Oh, and remember that thing we said about going to Russia to paddle around the other largest lake in the world?  We’re still doing that. We’ve spent a lot of time forming connections, planning travel, getting gear, and making an expedition happen.  We decided to make a film about the trip, more on that soon, and worked a lot to pay for this whole endeavor.

So welcome back, to all of us.  The next few months should bring a lot of updates with information about Lake Baikal and about the adventure at hand.  It’s going to be AWESOME!

Hannah and I drove the three hours down to Munising on Friday night. We intended on getting down there with enough daylight to put in a few short climbs on the lakeshore but you now how those things go.  Packing took for ever and then a few things came up and all of the sudden we were rolling out of town at 4PM with only a few hours of daylight left.  We pulled into Munising just as they were starting the nightly presentation and hurried to get some food and spot to sit and watch.  It seems like there are more and more people every year and this year was no exception. Sydney’s Restaurant, the perennial host of Ice Fest, was bursting with people.  The presentation by Sam Elias was pretty good. It was a little too much rock climbing for the ice fest but it was definitely cool to see a Michigan climber present.

After the presentation we hung around in the warmth of Sydney’s and then went out to find a good campsite because we couldn’t afford a hotel room.  Being broke tends to help lend to memorable experiences. I have spent a lot of nights in hotel rooms for work and never really remember them, they all blend together and become pretty generic. Camping on the other hand, is always unique and while not always great, it tends be at least memorable.  We drove down to the public boat launch and the summer location of the ferry dock to Grand Island. We threw the tent up in the bed of our truck and settled in for the night. The weather was warm. Really warm. After a few minutes I checked the thermometer on my watch and saw that it was above 40 degrees in the tent, making it only a few degrees colder than our house in Calumet. Crazy. I slept so well.

It was tough getting out of bed on Saturday morning becuase I was so warm and comfortable. We met up with our old friend Jarrod and new friend Chaz at Hardee’s for a bit of breakfast. They had camped in the Hardee’s parking lot. The weather was perfect with a bit of sun and the temperature hovering right around freezing. The ice falls on the shoreline tend to get a bit crowded on Saturday and we wanted plenty of time to climb so we were looking for a bit more remote real estate. We parked at the boat launch and trekked off over the ice toward Grand Island. Grand Island sits in Munising Bay about a mile off shore. Sometimes the bay freezes, sometimes it doesn’t. There was open water nearby but a few locals had given us positive ice reports so we decided to risk the crossing.  There was plenty of half frozen slush sitting on top of the ice and we got pretty wet on the walk but no one fell in so I’ll call it a success. We crossed the narrow bit of land that separates Murray Bay from Trout Bay and headed to the east shore to find our climb. There was plenty of ice dripping from the cliffs and we set up on climb called “Glad She’s Fat”.  It is a classic Munising Pillar. It is a forty foot tall column of ice hanging over the sandstone into an amphitheater.  It had a big hole in the center that split the ice into two columns near the top. The belay was on a narrow shelf of ice that was mighty close to the open water of the bay. The four of us climbed for about 5 hours until we were all sorts of tired. It was a fun piece of ice that offered up a lot of options. The walk back was exhausting and wetter than on the way out but I was feeling good about the day.

We grabbed some dinner at the surprisingly good Thai restaurant in town and went back to Sydney’s for the evening presentations.  Majka Burhardt and Steve House both gave awesome slideshows showing some amazing places and things I can hardly dream of doing.  It’s always cool to see slide shows from people who do this for a living. It helps us improve the ones we give and inspires us to keep reaching for bigger and cooler trips. After the presentations they raffled off an unbelievable amount of sweet gear. The last few years we have won big but we didn’t get so lucky this year. We ran into a friend after the raffle and he offered us the extra bed in his hotel room and we couldn’t resist. I love camping but the convenience seemed too great to pass up.

Sunday morning broke clear and warm, but we were inside so we didn’t really notice.  Hannah headed home to Calumet to get some things done at the the house and I stayed around to get some more climbing in.  Jarrod, Chaz and I headed out Lake Shore Trail in Pictured Rocks to a climb called Midnight Rambler.  I have been wanting to climb this piece of ice since I first saw it a few years ago but it is one of the more popular climbs and is always super crowded during Ice Fest. Sunday usually quells some of the crowds as most people make long drives home and when we got to the stream that feeds the waterfall we were the only ones there.  We rappelled down the 60 foot column and spent a few hours climbing. It’s another Munising classic that is almost a carbon copy of the ice we were climbing the day before.

We headed home around 5PM and I immediately fell asleep in the car.  It was another great weekend in Munising.  A huge thanks to Down Wind Sports for putting the even on and to all of the sponsors for their support.  It is always one of the highlights of my winter. If you have never been ice climbing this is a great place to try it out. If you climb all the time this a great place to get on some really fun and challenging ice falls.  You can get more info and see more photos from the weekend at their website: www.michiganicefest.com

Check out more photos below.

I’ve since put some miles in on the pack and here are my thoughts:
In general I think it’s a great bag if you’re looking for something small, light and unobtrusive. The Hornet 24 is ideal for day hikes (assuming you aren’t one of those people who brings everything you own – just in case) and seems well equipped for adventure racing with its compartment for a hydration bladder, pockets on the shoulder straps for gel, and awesome mesh hipbelt pockets. I can’t say enough good things about the hipbelt pockets – they’re just the right size for a granola bar/map/water treatment/headlamp or any of the other things that you like to have close at hand during a day hike. The compression system is pretty cool and works really well, but I think it could be more efficient – it feels a little bulky on such a small pack and sometimes gets in the way of the zipper. The size of the main compartment is perfect for raincoat, some lunch, a water bottle, etc. I wouldn’t want a day bag bigger than the Hornet 24 – Osprey really hit the size of this pack right on with just enough room for the essentials and not a lot of extra space and bulk. I took it out to go ice climbing and found the ice axe set up wasn’t as complete as I had hoped – the pack has a loop at the bottom, but it doesn’t have a convenient strap or daisy chain to attach the tool handles at the top of the pack. Also, I was definitely pushing the limits of the bag with a belay parka, extra sweatshirt, extra gloves, crampons, ice tools, climbing helmet, a sandwich, and a water bottle – but that’s way more than I expected to be able to fit in there, so I was really impressed. The fabric on the Hornet 24 is also really nice – it’s lightweight without being wimpy. I hadn’t thought about my ice tools scraping against the lighter fabric for 7 miles of snow shoeing and when I arrived at my climbing destination I was happy to find that there was no visible abrasion despite the harsh treatment. The mesh pocket on the front is one of my favorite features of all the newer Osprey bags, it’s a great place to stick wet stuff on the way home or, if you’re like me, it’s a good place to stuff in those extra layers that you didn’t really think about fitting in your pack until you got hot and took them off. All in all I really like the bag for day hikes, the only drawback being that the compression system sometimes gets in the way of the zipper. I’d like to see what the next generation brings for these packs because Osprey is definitely working towards a really nice super light pack – in the future I’d like to see Osprey be a little more conservative on the bells and whistles.

After a few months off we are back with a brand new look.  And to go with this new look we have a new trip planned! We’re going to Russia!

We are taking this summer off from big trips and focusing our efforts on planning and funding a trip to Russia to attempt a kayak circumnavigation of Lake Baikal. Baikal is the largest Lake in the world by volume as well as the oldest and deepest. We’re planning on going over there in June of 2012 and being on the water for a few months. It should be a nice sister trip to our 2009 circumnavigation of Lake Superior.  You can see more details about the lake and our trip in the “Lake Baikal” tab at the bottom of the page. Over the next year we will be posting about the planning process and our preparation. If you have any contacts in Siberia or know anything about Lake Baikal drop us a line. Any information is useful to us.

In addition to planning for our kayak trip Matt is preparing and training for the Leadville 100, a 100 mile ultramarathon held every year in Leadville Colorado. He should be posting about his efforts and about the race itself.

We know we have been pretty much absent for the last six months but we are back in full force now. The new website is just the beginning. We are going to add all sorts of new content from our daily adventures to new gear reviews. We haven’t just been sitting on our butts the last six months either.  We will go back and post about some of the trips we have done.

If you find anything on the site that doesn’t work, or have any good ideas let us know.

Things are starting to get interesting. Stay tuned.

]]> http://asuperioradventure.com/2011/02/20/a-new-website-and-a-new-plan/feed/ 0 http://asuperioradventure.com/2010/09/08/were-home/ http://asuperioradventure.com/2010/09/08/were-home/#comments Wed, 08 Sep 2010 22:27:58 +0000 Matt http://www.asuperioradventure.com/?p=598

Ok. So we have been home for like two months. But I am finally getting back to the website after putting it off.  My journal from the PCT hike is finished. I just need to put the photos into it but all of the photos are up as well. With any luck Hannah will finish her journal up tonight and we can finish up this whole trip.

The website should be back in full swing soon with regular posts and some gear reviews from our hike.

Since coming home we have laid low for a few months. We finally got our plumbing after over a year and a half and know we can take showers in our own house and have hot water. We have left the third world.  Hannah has started working as a bartender at the bar across the street and I settled in to a job managing a small lodge in Northern Wisconsin for a few months.

We have been out in the woods and on the water and will have stories to tell and we have started scheming about another big trip so stay tuned.