Geo-tree-icicling has arrived!
For more rigged trees click here
Check out Schweitzer Ski Resort for one of the best kept secrets for people who love to ski.
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Geo-tree-icicling has arrived! |
Now you can combine some of your favorite sports: Skiing, Ice Climbing, and GPS Orienteering! You can find rigged trees in North Idaho at the following GPS coordinates. | ||
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For more rigged trees click here
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Check out Schweitzer Ski Resort for one of the best kept secrets for people who love to ski. |
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Geo-tree-icicling (GTI) involves skiing or riding a mountain bike (generally with a 30 lb pack) to really big dead tree's). GPS is an aid to navigation and identification of the target tree. Upon arrival at the dead tree, the
Geo-tree-iciclers unload and rope up to climb the tree with regular ice climbing gear.
In ideal, drizzling conditions an icy sheen or rime will cover the tree, but not the ground. Pushing the tree-icicling season later in the year may require studded tires or snow shoes. The real beauty of the sport begins in the dreary fall off season
when the biking is difficult and the skiing marginal. As the snow pack improves more terrain can be accessed easily and the climber can have a great day skiing and still get a healthy upper body work out together. The subject tree can be climbed for
its training effect or to improve the climber's performance on ice later in the year. Other GTI participants may enjoy tree-icicling on its own terms for the pure joy of sinking the tool into seasoned wood, for the solitude of the high mountain
forest, for the giddy-child joy of tree climbing, for comradely with other geo-tree-iciclers, and for competitive purposes. Trees can be newly dead which offer the challenge of picking routes around dead limbs (cutting branches as you go up is
perfectly legal and encouraged), or trees can be dead for a few years which involves dealing with peeling bark (very strenuous) or trees can be found which have been dead for many years leaving a bark-less surface usually sun baked to steel gray. At
this point the anchoring of the tree to the ground and integrity of the main stalk becomes a factor in the tree climbers many challenges.
GTI rallies are held to pit the orienteering, skiing, biking, and climbing skills of the competitors against the clock, while a head to head format is under consideration by the International Geo-Tree-Icicling Association (IGTIA) to bring our
sport to the Autumn X-Games. The committed geo-tree-icicler invests in precision GPS tracking gear and maintains a minute by minute log of ascending and descending performance; downloaded into PCs, these logs form the basis for virtual training camps
where the tree-iciclers share war stories, training tips, and competitions asynchronously over the web. Many dedicated GTI enthusiasts are thrilled to offer advice to newcomers and maintain FAQs for newbies elsewhere on this site on such topics as:
How to pick a tree. How to rate a tree climb for difficulty. Best packs for tree-icicling. After the climb, how to insure you make it back to the lifts on time, or how to descend the mountain on your bike, heavily loaded, with toasted forearms."
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