Gregory Goes There

With Wayne Gregory’s background in scouting and other youth-oriented causes, helping kids get outdoors has always been a passion at Gregory. Because of that, Gregory will be a fixture on a couple of upcoming climbs of California’s Mount Whitney, organized by the Bay Area Wilderness Training’s Climbing for Kids program. Gregory recently donated 20 of its new Baltoro 70 packs for the upcoming climbs, and has donated many packs over recent years for BAWT’s gear loaner program for youth groups.

If you’re not familiar with Climbing for Kids, it’s a fundraiser through which participants who take part in climbs of Whitney and five other North American summits raise money for Bay Area Wilderness Training. BAWT, in turn, uses that money to get underprivileged and at-risk kids from more urban parts of the Bay Areas outdoors, helping them learn new skills and learn about themselves in the process.

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Where’s Gregory’s new Jet Stream suspension at home? The Sahara Desert, for one.

A couple of Canadian athletes, Meagan McGrath and Adwin “OJ” Gallant, recently got back from the Marathon Des Sables - or Marathon of the Sand - which bills itself as the toughest footrace on earth. What with all the endurance sufferfests out there today, one does wonder if there isn’t something out there that tops it in difficulty, though I’ll be the first to concede that 151 miles in sand over six days with temperatures up to 120 degrees F° is certainly no holiday. Appropriately, they have a web site entitled crazy-canuck-trekkers.com.

McGrath and Gallant used Gregory Z30 packs to carry all the gear they’d need over the race, ideal because of their back panel ventilation system, Jet Stream suspension, which not only allows air flow across your back so sweat can evaporate, but will carry more substantial weights (like 25 pounds) exceptionally well for a minimalist and lightweight suspension.

In a race where dropping out isn’t infrequent - this year 53 people out of a field of 800 called it quits in the heat - McGrath and and Gallant did what they came to do, finishing the race 287th and 504th respectively. That after McGrath - also an Everest summiter - admitted that her training hadn’t been quite up to par. If you’re interested, check out a report on their adventure here on the Candian Forces web site, where they both have a day job.

Heard of hypoxic training? It basically means simulating being at altitude to improve athletic performance – exercising or sleeping in a chamber that contains oxygen-reduced air, like you’re high in the mountains.

Lots of mainstream athletes take advantage of it for training – Lance Armstrong to Dean Karnazes to David Beckham. Gregory-sponsored climber Brian Oestrike hopes to put hypoxic training to use in the very place where the idea came from. He’s trying to climb Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world, in less than 30 days (most people spent two months or more for such a climb), and show that pre-acclimatizing with hypoxic training before expeditions can reduce the amount of time climbers spend sitting around in camp waiting to acclimatize.

 Brian already put his theory to a slightly lesser test on 22,841-foot Aconcagua in South America in December, where he pre-acclimatizing before his trip and reached the summit in 63 hours, versus 12 to 18 days for most people who haven’t been at altitude and need to carefully acclimatize.

Brian’s in base camp for Lhotse this week, after facing difficulties on his intended climb (as are lots of climbers), the result of closures resulting from the Chinese effort to carry the Olympic torch to the top of neighboring Mt. Everest. Since the Chinese succeeded in getting atop Everest yesterday, Brian’s amongst many climbers in the area hoping that restrictions will allow him to move forward in coming days. He may be packing up his Z55 right now. When he’s able to get a link out, he’s posting updates on his site.