Other Stuff...

Anything that did not fit under another heading...

Contact Us

If you have comments, questions, corrections, praises, or whatever, or just want to get in touch with us, please send us E-mail (feedback at ericandlucie.com). We respond to all e-mails. Sometimes, if we're in the bush, it can be a few days (weeks?) before we get to our mailbox, so be patient.

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We have Sponsors Again!

Omega Pacific is helping us to gear up for some of our snow and ice climbs. If you haven't tried their ice screws, go get one: the latest model has an aggressive tooth design that makes them easier to start than the famed BD Express. The non-foldable crank knob does get a bit in the way for racking but actually provides a more positive cranking action. They are the only screws we carry on technical waterfall ice anymore.

GU Sports has also agreed to help us with preferential pricing on their GU products. We've been addicted to their Chocolate Outrage GU energy gel ever since we first tried it several years ago. Eric in particular had always had trouble maintaining a steady blood sugar level on long climbs, and energy gels have made a tremendous difference. We would never get on a long route without a good supply of these. Besides, chocolate GU is just sooo yummy! We also like their Lemon Sublime during those hot summer days!

Cuckoo Covers was nice enough to agree to give us a sizeable discount on their spandex bike covers. Since our bikes will spend most of their time in the sun, rain, and exhaust gases and soot from the bus, we wanted some way to keep them protected. Cuckoo covers are tight-fitting, stretch spandex covers that look good and are easy to install on any roof-mounted bike. Hopefully, they'll survive the fairly harsh use well expose them to.

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Links: Climbing, General

• Our previous trip's website
• Gary Clark's North American Classics. A very nice collection of top quality climbs with photos and trip reports.
• Brad's PiquaClimber site has trip reports and really good pictures of climbs throughout the western US.
• The Los Alamos Mountaineers. They introduced us to climbing. Great site with links, trip reports, etc...
• SummitPost is a mountain climbing oriented info exchange site. Covers mountains worldwide.
• Chris McNamara's SuperTopo site has up-to-date (and free) info about various climbing areas in the Western US. His topos (which you must buy) are the most detailed ever produced (actually sometimes too detailed... the forest from the trees sort of thing).

Links: Climbing Conditions, Route Information, and Weather

Cascades Climbing:

• The best source of up-to-date info is of course the well-known Cascade Climbers site.
• NOAA Weather forecasts for the western and eastern slopes of the Northern Cascades.
• Ceiling height forecasts (aviation) for the next 72 hours or so
• Webcam in the North Cascades National Park (visitor center, Newhalem, WA).

Southwestern Colorado Ice Climbing:

• Very nice Ice conditions page from Skyward Mountaineering.
• The Ouray Ice Park, a great resource for ice climbers in the Southwest. There's no better place to quickly and safely learn ice climbing. They also have a few words about current conditions, both in the park and around the area.
• Avalanche conditions report for the Southern mountains, from the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC).
• Ten-day weather forecast for Ouray, CO, from the Weather Channel.
• This Ouray web cam shows the entire town from the south.

Wyoming Ice Climbing:

• Ice conditions in Cody, WY, with pictures, from coldfear.com.
• Another conditions page at Southfork.com.
• Ten-day weather forecast for Cody, WY, from the Weather Channel.
• Downtown Cody web cam.

Canadian Rockies: Conditions

• The best source of local climbing conditions is the "live the vision" message board.
• Will Gadd's page gives conditions (winter only) and other info about ice climbs in the Canadian Rockies.
• New conditions page by Rockies Ice Specialists, a local guiding company.
• Polaris Guiding also has a very useful conditions page on their site. Mostly general observations (i.e. not about specific routes) organized by area.
• Check out our Canadian Rockies Ice page for links to avalanche and weather forecasts, and web cams.
• Another message board at waterton.blog.
• Infrequently used message boards can also be found on the websites of the Calgary Mountain Club and the Alpine Club of Canada.
• Dave Stephen's site has a good collection of trip reports with pictures for a good number of climbs in the Canadian rockies..

Canadian Rockies: Weather and Avalanche Forecasts

• Access detailed forecasts from Environment Canada for several locations in the Canadian Rockies directly from our clickable area map.
• Weather system maps from:
  • Environment Canada
  • The Weather Network (current and forecasted weather systems, covering 24 hours)
• Satellite image animations for Canada from:
  • The Weather Channel (covers usually about 24 hrs but with irregular intervals, and often not up to date).
  • Weather Underground (good IR image animation, covers the last 3 hours or so).
• Avalanche bulletins from the Canadian Avalanche Association (CAA). Also accessed from our clickable area map.

Red Rocks:

• Useful beta and climbers' comments about the most popular routes at climbingredrocks.com.
• Real time weather observations at the visitor center, and Weather forecast for Blue Diamond.
• Web cam: looking Northeast at the Calico Hills from the visitor center.
• Official site for the Red Rocks National Conservation Area. This site has detailed information about camping and climbing (including the phone number for late exit permits).
• Official site of the Clark County library.
• There have been some good news recently, but Red Rock Canyon in Las Vegas, one of the best multi-pitch climbing areas in the US is still in danger of being severely impacted by developers (even more than it has already, that is)! More info at www.redrock.org, or when at Red Rocks, stop by the Blue Diamond library or the Post Office.

Links: Climbing Advocacy, Access, Conservation, etc...

• There have been some good news recently, but Red Rock Canyon in Las Vegas, one of the best multi-pitch climbing areas in the US is still in danger of being severely impacted by developers! More info at www.redrock.org, or when at Red Rocks, stop by the Blue Diamond library or Post Office.
• The Access Fund, of which every climber should be a member.
• The Natural Resource Defense Council.
• The Nature Conservancy.
• The Sierra Club.

Links: Life on the Road

• If you have a laptop, wireless internet access (WiFi) is quickly becoming the easiest way to access the web while on the road. Hotspots are all over the place, some free, some not.
  • Flying-J truck stops have one of the least expensive pay service we found, provided by TON Services.
  • Directory of free hotspots by location.
  • Another directory here, that includes both free and paid services.
• Incomplete, yet useful state-by-state directory of free RV dump sites across the US and Canada. No longer available for free on-line... you can buy it on a CD ROM. F%#k!
• So, you want your own bus? Check out the ads at busnut.com, or busconversions.com, or Coach Conversion Central. On that last link, find Paul Gaboury's second bus for sale: a gorgeous GM4905!! The conversion is almost identical to ours, which was Paul's first.