Fred Beckey

Last Thursday,Fred Beckey came to speak at a special Outing Club presentation. This guy is a climbing legend! He was born in 1923.... so he's.... 84. And he's still climbing on stuff harder than I can (like 5.8).

His slideshow had more insane pictures of amazing rock and mountain climbs (Denali, Waddington, Rainier, Hood, etc.) than I could previously imagine. For many pictures, Fred would say something like "this was about ten years ago." And you're thinking.... so that means you were 74?!?! You were navigating a glacier as a 74 year old?

After the presentation I asked Fred what allowed him to climb so long into his years. He kind of gave me a funny look that said "I'm old?" And then explained that once he got started he just never stopped.

Wow...

SKIING!

This needs some serious updating!

Two weekends ago we began to hear rumors of snowmaking at Killington. With a bit of internet browsing we determined that they had been making snow on a run on the upper mountain in anticipation of opening day a week from now-ish. No lifts spinning... no problem! Killington is on state land so the "officially" can't kick you out (unless you're being ridiculous).

The crew (Tim, Jeff, and myself) got organized and got after it. Incredible first turns of the year.

The target is in sight.



YES!

Happy Halloweeeeeeen

Happy Halloween!

We celebrated the holiday last Friday night; I was Flava Flav (read as FLAAAAAAAAVAAAAAA FLAAV)

Good times.

What are you for Halloween?

For the second year in a row, RPI men's hockey is ranked in the top 20 in the nation (17th). We're coming for you Miami (maybe, if we're feeling lucky). It's good to go and feel victorious vicariously through the team. My intramural team on the other hand....

We started out the season with a stellar 4-0 victory. Then it was all downhill. Picked up a 9-0 loss. Then a 8-0 loss and tonight was a 8-1 loss. There's a couple of ways to look at this. We are, in fact, steadily improving. At this rate we'll be kicking uber butt by 2012.* Anyway, it's fun to play, so no worries.

*I didn't actually do the math.

Vocabulary

"I think I used to use bigger words before"

-Jeff Cain

This needs no explanation. He has been playing jump rope with a power strip in my room for ten minutes now.

Ah Engineering!

Catskillzzzzz and road biking

Two weekends ago I went hiking in the Catskills on the Escarpment trail. The leaves and colors are changing around here so it's a pretty clutch time to be outside. Here's some pictures:

Views!




Leaves!



This weekend I borrowed my roommate John's road bike and went for a cruising ride in the farm-ish area around Troy. This was my first ride on a true road bike and that thing was pretty darn squirrelly. Going from having tires that are more than 2 inches wide to tires that are a 1/4" wide is humbling. Gravel, potholes, and curbs all seem like imminent death. But that thing flies. I think I hammered out 20 miles in about an hour and a half. Not fast fast, but by mountain biker standards definitely ludacris speed. I hope everyone else is enjoying Fall!

Canoeing!

This weekend some Outing Clubers grabbed some canoes and headed to the Connecticut River for two days of chillin on the water. We started out pretty late and by the time we got to the River it was practically lunch time. We paddled for about a mile before stopping at an island for lunch. We saw a bald eagle flying around which was pretty darn neat.



We ventured forth and quickly found ourselves in a headwind. Our plan for the day was to paddle about 11 miles; we ended up running into dark before finding camp. Officially, we got to camp three minutes before sunset; the sight of campfires from other people was very welcome.

A Mac'Cheese'n'Ham dinner lead to S'Mores and a quality campfire. This inevitably lead to playing with fire.




It was stormy the next morning and we were VERY thankful the wind was going downstream. We even formed a raft and attempted to act as a sail.



We stopped for lunch at a picnic area and had an apple sauce eating contest. I was sadly beaten by Nathan. He may be the quickest apple saucer this side of the Mississippi.

At some point, you gotta have a waterfight.



We moseyed into the take-out by mid-afternoon and headed back to Troy. A quality weekend trip!

HOCKEY HOCKEY HOCKEY

Canoeing trip this weekend was pretty stellar.... photos and details should occur in the next couple of days....

Today was RPI's first hockey game of the season against the mighty foe that is Bentley College. Ha! In the usual RPI tradition we played a pretty worthless team the first game and walked away with a 4-0 win. Good to be back being obnoxious and yelling stuff.

I also just got the schedule for intramural hockey this season. I'm on The Pirates team with a first game tomorrow night at midnight (nothing like a good late game). I missed intramurals last year and am pumped to play. I'm not sure if I've skated in over a year so it could be a little funky....