Sick-Gnar Hidden Backcountry Spot

Synopsis: We secured funding through a variety of grants to complete a quest that was so epic that the likes of Powder, Outside and other  magazines were too scared to even cover this ground-breaking trek into the unknown.

Date of Ascent: February 19th, 2011

Expedition Team: Gathered from around the world each specialized in specific skills:

• Trent from Oklahoma. Specialty is eating spicy foods.
• Tweak from Virginia. Specialty is not picking up girls at the bar.
• Caitlin from Minnesota. Specialty is pretending to be blond.
• Bethany from lots of places. Specialty is dog handler.
• Arthur from England. Specialty is being English.
• Danielle pretending to be from England. Specialty is withstanding English humor.
• Mike from an unknown location. Specialty is surprising people.
• Andy from Colorado. Specialty is talking about how awesome he is.

Expedition Map (click for Larger): Below is the specialized satellite photo that we received from NASA of the basecamp. They were our only sponsors and provided us with instantaneous views of the changing weather, erupting volcanoes, and movements of the native (and extremely hostile!) tribes.

Interactive Expedition Map (click for Larger): http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=203858300141676234019.00049e9d29873c006d6dd&ll=39.628045,-106.077688&spn=0.006445,0.013733&t=e&z=17&ecpose=39.63537586,-106.07009034,3258.7,-141.401,61.105,0

Expedition Video: Brain Farm Cinema was on hand filming the expedition using a number of their highly specialized (and retardly expensive) cameras including the CineFlex. One of the crew members had to hike nearly 28,000 vertical feet with a 27 lb camera attached to their helmet to get this awesome POV footage.

Silverthorne Colorado Backcountry Gnar! from AndyLibrande on Vimeo.

Select Photos from the Expedition:

Skiing the Icy 70+degree couilor:

View of the vast untamed wilderness that surrounds this 45,000 ft peak:

On the twelfth day this Ferocious Beast (which I believe is a Yeti?) nearly killed every expedition member and managed to eat most of our dwindling supplies:

I hope all of you take this serious…

Link to Original Post: http://andylibrande.com/news/2011/05/sick-gnar-hidden-backcountry-spot/