The Continuum Project

Hey All,

It's that time again. The weather is cooling down and the ice is starting to form. I am super pumped this season to climb ice because I've been trapped in my basement for the last couple months editing my newest film, "The Continuum Project" From what I've been reading in the posts and forums and all that jazz people are pretty psyched to check it out. It ships Nov 27th, just in time for the holiday season so don't be shy. Get that certain someone a nice climbing DVD. He or she will thoroughly enjoy it. You can purchase it at alstrinfilms.com

Be sure to check out Alpinist.com for 6 exclusive shorts from the Continuum Project.

Win a free copy of the Continuum Project!!! E-mail me an exciting story about the outdoors, whether it's your first experience climbing or an exciting trip to Patagonia, I want to hear about it. The top three stories sent to me I'll send you a free Continuum DVD and post your story on my blog next month. chris@alstrinfilms.com

The Continuum Project follows some of the world’s best climbing talent around the globe to document bold new routes and daring repeats on ice, rock, and in the alpine.

Shot entirely in High Definition, watch as Guy Lacelle, Audrey Gariepy and Mathieu Audibert establish terrifying new ice routes in Norway and Rob Pizem and Mike Anderson crush brawny off-widths and delicate face climbing in Zion. Get on route with Ines Papert and Cory Richards as they blitz Kwangde Shar in Nepal and witness Majka Burhardt and Sarah Watson free the Beckey Route on Elephant’s Perch in the Sawtooths. Discover the rewards and risks of exploration with Jon Walsh and Ian Welsted as they establish a beautiful new mixed line in the remote Icefall Brook range of British Columbia and cool down on the difficult sport routes of Lions Head in Ontario with Sam Elias, Emily Harrington, Leslie Timms and Lauren Lee.

Extending the focus of Higher Ground, gain new perspective on the motivations and courage of some of the world’s top climbers through the superb cinematography and innovative approach of The Continuum Project.

Fundraising event in Crested Butte

Thanks to all of you who came out and enjoyed the film with us this past weekend. Rocky Kimball contacted me a couple months ago and asked if I'd be willing to show Luxury Liner in Crested Butte as a fundraising event for the Rocky Mountain Field Institute (RMFI). I immediately jumped on board for this. I think more climbers who recreate and climb in Indian Creek need to step forward and do their part for this area. For those of you who don't know RMFI began working with the Bureau of Land Management and the Dugout Ranch in 1989 to preserve Indian Creek Canyon and mitigate recreational impacts. In conjunction with groups from Outward Bound, Prescott College, Western State College, Colorado College, and Montrose High School, RMFI has built trails to many popular climbing sites and completed major restoration in several side canyons. RMFI has also completed a comprehensive trails and campsite inventory to assist the BLM and the Nature Conservancy in developing a recreational impact mitigation and management strategy for the area.

Saturday night we raised $1000 for RMFI to help with the continued efforts of Indian creek. Jim Donini with the American Alpine Club was there to talk about the trail day they are putting on with RMFI in Sept. So thanks again for everyone who came out to show their support.

Climbing in the Bugaboos

Woke up at 2:45am, brewed some coffee, loaded our granola bars and started our 3.5 hour approach to the Becky-Chouinard route on South Howser Tower in the Bugaboos Provincial Park located in British Columbia. The goal was to be back before dark.

Whenever you hear the words, "the goal was" you know it didn't go

as planned.

Let me start off by saying I finally went on a climbing trip without my video camera. It was a

shock to hike in somewhere without cords, batteries, laptop and my camera. Laura (my wife) and I decided it was time to take our first vacation together. We opted for the Bugs. I've always wanted to climb in the Bugs, the granite looks bomber and the climbs look amazing.

We warmed up on the Pigeon Spire, we got our alpine start. Left the boulder camp located

below the hut around 9:30am. It was a fun outing. The next day we left a little earlier 8:30am to climb the Northeast Ridge of B

ugaboo Spire. Maybe we got

off route a little to access the col because the guidebook says to scramble. We roped up for 3 pitches to access the co

le. The rock was super loose on fifth class climbing.

Once at the base of the route the climbing went super fast. I wish I would have taken the time to read about the traverse from the North to South summit. We did the tr

averse with a few rappels and some very exposed ridge traverses but made it back to camp just before dark.

We thought we hadn't had enough adventure yet and we really wanted a long day so we decided to climb the Becky-Chouinard route on S. Howser Tower. We took a rest day to figure a few things out and try to get some local beta from Sean Isaac who was in the cabin guiding.

As I mentioned earlier we were up by 2:45 and out of camp by 3:30am. We were doing very well getting

to the base and scrambling to the first pitch of the climb. There was a party ahead of us but by a few pitches and they motored on ahead pretty fast. We only saw them one other time throughout the day. The first ten pitches went very good. We were keeping a good pace and looking at our watch we knew we were going to be back at camp just afte

r dark....or so we thought.

Towards the upper pitches I decided to not read the topo description as closely and got off route on almost every pitch. We both started loosing

steam a little and next thing we knew we were a pitch from the summit and it was 9:45pm. Damn I thought. This sucks. Here we are with no extra clothing and we're about to spend the night on the summit of the South Howser Tower. I'm sure many people have done this but for me it was a very humbling experience. I've never been benighted on anything. To me this meant I failed. I didn't complete this route in a day and that was my goal.

This time was different though. I was up there with my wife. This is the first time I am doing a big climb without one of my regular "dude" climbing partners. I realized I had a lot more fun climbing the route with her. Sure, I would be at camp by now if I climbed it with a friend but now we get to experience the bivy together. I can't explain it much more but once I came to terms of being benighted I started laughing. We both started laughing once we decided to sleep on this exposed ledge with rocks digging into our hips and kidneys all night. Did we sleep? Not really. Did we freeze? Hell yeah we did. But we also made it down safely in the morning and in the end that's the success of the trip. You always want to come home from a trip.

Sport Climbing in Lions Head, Ontario

That's right. You heard it. Call me a sell out I don't care. I spent 8 days filming sport climbing and guess what. It was fun. It was walk up and steal the low hanging fruit sort of thing compared to my typical alpine, ice, and big wall filming. The crew was awesome. I headed up there with climbers; Sam Elias, Lauren Lee and Emily Harrington and of course accompanied by the man himself Keith Ladzinski as still photographer. We were the full on media circus. It was great. Actually the best part about shooting with Keith is his sense of humor. Here we are two fellows; Keith shooting stills and myself shooting video hanging from ropes at times and just talking smack the whole day. Thanks for those great rappell shots off Lions Head Terry!!

Talk about easy access. The approach is a mellow 20 minutes on pretty flat trails. You come up to the edge of the cliff and either rappell in to shoot or just hang out on top and shoot down on the climbers.

This trip really allowed me to get pretty dialed with my Letus Ultimate setup. I purchased a lens adaptor for my camera last year and haven't had a whole lot of opportunity to really shoot with it in the field because it adds a lot of weight to the setup. Because of the short approach and easy stances on the cliff I was able to use multiple lenses and zoom into these climbers at really cool and wild angles.

All of us concluded that the local climbing scene at Lions Head is the best. The people are the most psyched about climbing and they are all there to climb and push their friends to the next hardest grade. I have never been to a crag and experienced this type of warm welcome as a visitor. You guys are all the Bomb!!!

I recommend anyone thinking about climbing here to buy your plane ticket, gas up your car, or stick your thumb out, stop making excuses and get up there to climb. You will not regret it. Soon to follow a new short about the area but until then you can probably find photos by looking at any of the athletes blogs. Sam Elias or Lauren Lee

It's been so long

I apologize for the long long time of no blog entries. Those of you who know me understand completely I'm sure.

Lots of changes in the passed year but I won't bore you with that stuff:

For starters HG Productions is now doing business as Alstrin Films. Check out the new website. alstrinfilms.com We will keep this websit

e updated with the newest trips and video teasers.

Speaking of trips. I just got back from Namibia. Where the hell is Namibia you ask? That's the same question I asked when Majka Burhardt asked me to come along and film the expedition. Namibia is located just north of South Africa.

We spent three and a half weeks driving and climbing. More driving than climbing but that's the way things go sometimes. It was a very successful trip though. Our team consisted of Majka Burhardt, Kate Rutherford and Peter Doucette. The media circus on this trip consisted of Gabe Rogel - photographer and myself. You can view lots

more photos on Gabe's website. Click on recent trips - Namibia.

I flew into Windhoek, Namibia after 36 hours of traveling. I

immediately picked up my rental truck and started driving for 5 hours to our first climbing destination - Spitzkopp. Did I forget to mention I almost drove off the road twice by falling asleep at the wheel? Spitzkopp is an established climbing destination consisting mostly of bolted slab climbing. I met the crew, it was my first time meeting Kate and Gabe.

I'm not going to go too much into detail about the trip because it will be posted on Patagonia's Tinshed website in the fall. Look for it. I'll have a nice new trailer to watch on there as well.

I will say it was one of my better trips I have been on in a

while. I saw some amazing animals most of us only see in the zoo and spectacular scenery the type we see on National Geographic. I was able to film a first ascent climb on the highest peak in Namibia and walked by a tree full of African Killer bees and lived to tell about it. Ahhh yeah, but now I'm home and enjoying the garden, which by the way is doing good thanks for asking. In the mean time check out a very short clip of the climb they put up.