The FKT better known as Fastest known time is a growing outdoor sports activity worldwide.
More and more people are getting off the beaten track to push themselves to the endurance limit in the middle of nature, across mountains, forests or deserts in all seasons….the tougher and most amazing the better……This is the new athletic frontier, bursting through the known boundaries of the usual organized athletic sports…and the outdoors industry is following with a suit of gear made for all the most daring want-to be endurance records setters. This is not for everyone. We must be careful to know our limits in order to avoid injury and in some cases even death.. Some professionals like Kilian Jornet, a Spanish mountaineer and ultra runner make a living out of breaking records in the wildest locations and he is recognized as the king of the sport.
As more people try to beat or set records in the outdoors, across little known trails or through the wilderness, on their own, we can only depend on their honesty in reporting what they actually accomplished. There is a web site where all self recorded records can be seen at http://fastestknowntime.proboards.com .
If you want to break and post your own record on the FKT web site than arm yourself with a GPS tracker and some witnesses (photos or video would help as well) so you have something to show for your effort.
Good luck on the trail – lets see what you got……send us some pictures!
California versus Italian Ski Resorts: One Girls’s Opinion
I am a competitive snowboarder and committed mountain lover; I take every opportunity I get in California to drive up to my favorite resort in Lake Tahoe to hit some of the best lines a snowboarder can find on the west coast. So when I decided to travel abroad to Italy for a semester, I chose a university partially based on how near it is to the ski resorts of Italy. Luckily, since coming over to Italy I have had the opportunity to go to two of the major Italian ski resorts- Cortina D’amprezzo and Canazei- and got a taste of the Euro- skiing way of life. And the differences I found may not surprise you.
Mountain Conditions
The major difference I found between the skiing in California and Northern Italy is the size of the resort and the grade of the mountain. The resorts of northern Italy are massive. Even visiting after peak season I found that I could ride different hills all day and never take the same route twice. Especially Canazei, which is part of a huge four peaks system where I spent two days trying to explore every nook and cranny and only scratching the surface.
However, I found that California has more diverse terrain to offer than both Canazei and Cortina. As a native Californian snowboarder, I spend a lot of my time on the mountain trying to find fun natural terrain like rocks, trees and cliffs to ride off of. Usually one can find a few decent powder caches on even the most crowded days in California. In Italy however, most of the rocks had been cleared and the trees cut down, leaving quick groomer conditions even in some of the less- traveled areas of the resort.
Culture
These slope differences play into the overall ski culture of the two locations. The average person skiing at Cortina or Canazei was a skier aged 25 to 60, wearing matching new snow pants and snow jacket from one of the top brands, executing perfect carves down the hill. In California there are a lot more young adults and children, a lot more beginners wearing clearly hand-me-down outfits, and a more even mix between snowboarders and skiers. Even the ski styles are different. American skiers seem a little faster and more reckless, hitting more jumps and terrain, and also wiping out more. European skiers are clean, smooth, and seem to enjoy long groomed runs. So in America I found more diverse terrain and more diverse riders, and Europe i found more homogeny of slope and skier, but the homogeny was at a high level or talent and quality.
Luxury
I found that Italian skiing had a much more ‘luxury experience’ aspect to it. The first thing that clued me into this was that our first chairlift to the top of the mountain was covered and had heated seats, something that I have never seen in California. Furthermore, while resort food in California is dominated by overpriced chilli cheese fries and cheeseburgers, when we stopped for lunch at a mountaintop spot in Canazei, we got locally made Italian food served with complimentary champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Clearly the mid-day lunch stops could not be more different between the two.
Before skiing in Italy I expected to have a strong opinion about which was better. But the resort style is so different between the two that it makes it impossible to decide. I think it comes down to the skier you are. If you like fast, beautiful, groomed runs with champagne waiting for you at the end, Italy is you destination. If you like to make your day your own and invent jumps and kickers with the natural terrain, topped off by a slice of pizza and a beer, then California is for you. In the end, there’s no wrong decision.
When we head into the great outdoors to practice our sports and follow our passions, we imagine the great adventure and physical challenges we will encounter when we go higher, faster and farther or try get the best photos and selfie moments in nature…. But what about when something goes wrong…unfortunately there are too many cases in which someone has to be rescued due to the increasing instability and uncertainty of climate phenomena and accidents that can occur when practicing sports outdoors—but these are not always due to dramatic events, but can also be related to other conditions.S
In 2018 the Aiut Alpin Dolomiti (helicopter rescue service) of Italy reported a total of 996 interventions, 529 in winter and 476 in the summer: while 220 were related to skiing, 128 were associated with excursions (mainly in the summer) and a third of the total—330—involved medical emergencies—only 11 were related to avalanches and 26 to climbing. Of the 1013 people assisted, 48 were fatalities. While these helicopter rescue statistics only reveal part of the story in only one part of the world where outdoor sports are practiced, safety can never be taken for granted—and hopefully our community will not have to rely on the heroic efforts of rescue services like the Aiut Alpin – or can at least make their efforts easier in case we do need them.
Safety should never be taken for granted, especially as climate change creates extreme phenomena that wreak havoc on the snow and ice cover and often leave outdoor sports persons at the mercy not only of avalanches, but flash floods, landslides, violent rain storms, “bombe di acqua” and sharp temperature fluxes. As the statistics show, many emergencies are due to medical conditions. Fortunately, besides following safety rules—respecting avalanche warnings, informing others where you are going, keeping cellphones charged and staying on marked paths if you are an amateur, and taking appropriate clothing and footgear, the market now offers many other options for safety—and if there is a need, aids in facilitating rescue. ISPO in February of this year featured a number of products aimed at safety: in the next few weeks we will be presenting a number of these products on HorizonSports.
My experience in this internship was focused on dynamic interdisciplinary capacities which are useful for marketing purposes, specifically, to expose Horizon Sports TV to a broader audience. My purpose as an intern was to bring Horizon Sports closer to people in order to engage our audience into healthier lifestyles. We believe that an outdoor sports channel motivates people to stand out and try something new, while discovering new types of sports and new places across the globe. In a more general sense, we provide a venue for people to explore their own meaning of wellness.
This internship made me reflect about my own meaning of wellness. And wellness can be just about anything: the quality of the food you eat, how you emotionally and physically feel and even the way you relate to people –doing sports, watching films, traveling, etc. After this internship, I interpret wellness as a point of balance in life. I learned how to produce a new image for wellness, one that empowers women to get involved into outdoor sports. I shared videos and images that showed women relating to outside activities such as mountaineering, hiking, or even marathons.
As a result, Horizons Sports TV’s social media engagement increased tremendously. I helped increase their number of Instagram followers by 50% over the time of my internship. I had the opportunity to attend to Trento’s world wide famous film festival. This was a life changing event in which I had the opportunity to interview and network with the festival’s director as well as with younger film directors who had the opportunity to compete in the festival https://jwp.io/s/fCHu7xOW. I filmed an unboxing video in which I tested an outdoor sports jacket for the prestigious sports brand Colmar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABYBtPrgC04 and created advertisements for more female outdoor-sports products for brands such as CTR.
Everytime after I met with my mentor to discuss my progress I felt more and more motivated to try new ideas for the company and I had a great sense of empowerment. During this internship, I felt like my opinion was always taken into account and respected. My mentor would give me full freedom to perform all of my initiatives. We worked together once a week, as I enjoy traveling around the world to create new content for our latest campaigns.
I think the most important aspect of this internship was that I discovered what wellness feels like. I was constantly surrounded by creative and active individuals who enjoyed sharing what wellness meant for them. From my behalf, I learned that wellness means combining my passion for promoting social justice by empowering women to engage in healthier lifestyles, my passion for photography and videography all along with a deeper understanding of the globalization process for companies, as I studied in my Global Economics courses at UC Santa Cruz. All together, this internship helped me find what makes me happy and go out into the world as an empowered leader who accomplishes her goals.
Portillo is a ski paradise in Chile , nestled in the Andes, not far from the highway to Argentina and can receive incredible snow dumps in the winter (Northern Hemispher Summer)
From Aug. 6 to 11, a single storm system had dumped seven feet (2.3 meters) of snow, and then the skies cleared to blue. Then between July 10 and 14, the first El Niño storm arrived and pounded the Andes with six feet (2 meters). Around Aug. 1, an even bigger blob of moisture, equivalent to more than four feet of rainwater, showed up on the regional radars. It was off the coast of Chile, still a week away.
We stood at the entrance to the Super C three days later, the first people to complete the hike from the ski lift above Portillo, in the Andes of Chile, to the top since the storm. The run — a basement-stairs-steep chute that descends more than 4,000 feet (from 12,729 feet to 8,398 feet above sea level) through a 30-foot-wide hallway of rock — was packaged in a nearly nine-foot-thick, untracked blanket of white.
Four narrow couloirs descend into the Lake Run, and there’s the crown jewel of the Andes, the Super C. From where we stood on the vertigo-inducing gendarme, or pinnacle, that divides the ascent and descent routes, the hotel and the road’s switchbacks were visible thousands of feet below. Behind us, with a flag of wind-driven snow kicking off its 22,837-foot summit, was Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Western Hemisphere.
On the 27th of September, the ninth edition of the 5k Race for the Cure, the non-profit organization named after Susan G. Komen and dedicated to raising funds for the fight against breast cancer took place in Italy with a massive turn out.
We all have the possibility to do our best stay healthy as long as possible. We should learn to take our well-being seriously. Taking care of our bodies, our minds and our environment helps keep us in a healthy balance. The results of laboratory and population studies in 1997, in 2007 and, more recently, in 2014 are in!
The focus of these studies was to determine the possible correlations between lifestyle and some chronic diseases, including cancer. To date, some of the results were confirmed, some not. Our knowledge and research continues to grow (we await the next report in 2017). Meanwhile some of the results are clear and can serve to consciously guide our daily decisions.
The World Cancer Research Fund and the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition are international scientific entities that have summarized the results of these studies in some RECOMMENDATIONS.
Ways to stay healthy
MAINTAIN your normal weight: we focus on abdominal (belly) fat, the one considered the most “dangerous”. The waist circumference should not exceed 88 cm for women and 102 cm for men. Avoid obesity and frequent blood sugar spikes
LIMIT HIGH DENSITY FOOD ‘CALORIE DRINKS AND AVOID SUGAR
BE MORE ACTIVE (I know that you who follow Horizon’s Sports are already active !)
EAT LOTS OF VEGETABLES: every day at least 600 grams of fruit and vegetables
LIMIT BEEF AND AVOID THE SAUSAGE: it is strongly recommended not to exceed 500 grams of meat per week; meat and sausages contain preservatives, namely nitrites and nitrates (E250 / E252) that are harmful to the organism, therefore … learn to read labels!
LIMIT USE OF ALCOHOL: max 1 drink per day for women and two for men.
NEVER USE TOBACCO.
LIMIT THE SALT: we Italians consume on average, and per capita daily, double the 5 grams that are allowed per day.
FOOD SUPPLEMENTS TO BE RESTRICTED TO MEDICAL REQUIREMENTS.
BREAST FEED YOUR CHILD.
FOLLOWING THE ABOVE RECOMMENDATIONS ARE EFFECTIVE FOR ANY AGE ‘AND AT ANY TIME OF LIFE.
GOOD HEALTH TO EVERYONE! Dr. Chiara Zaglia – Psychotherapist
Klättermusen is launching a range of down products created with plant-based fabrics. This is part of the company’s aim to be the first on the market with more sustainable outdoor innovations. The new products feature an outer layer made from 60% castor bean oil and a 100% traceable bluesign® approved down on the inside.
“Seeking out more sustainable alternatives and develop new materials together with our fabric suppliers is part of our philosophy when we create new products. Traditional nylon is based on 100% crude oil but we have replaced 60% of it in these garments” says Isabelle Malm, designer at Klättermusen.
The new products are the Bore 2.0 Jacket, Atle 2.0 Jacket, Atle Vest, Liv 2.0 Down Sweater and Heidrun 2.0 Down Shorts. They are created with non-penetrating seams and high-loft down for maximum warmth and comfort in cold weather conditions.
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