It all started at Road 34...

Blue Sun Athletes like to climb mountains.

Thank you all for your encouragement and confidence in us, it meant a lot that so many of you came out to celebrate our trip and hang out with us last night. And it was only appropriate that our going away party was at Road...as that is where our first "can we do this?" meeting was, and all the other meetings for that matter.

Las Escalitas showing off the new shirt design.

As you can see, we finally got our Las Escalitas shirts, and they are going a lot faster than we anticipated! In fact, we are thinking about printing another round if enough people are interested in a sweet Las Escalitas shirt, and we are charging just enough to cover printing/shirt materials which comes to about $10. Let us know if you want one, so we have an idea if there are enough people or not.
The days are dwindling...2 more days until we get on that plane!

A Woman's Place is On Top

 Fellow adventurer, South American traveler and co-worker Sue and I wore our "a woman's place is on top" shirts to celebrate my last day of work before Las Escalitas take off for Ecuador! Thanks for your support, Sue!
 


 





 Want your own "a woman's place is on top" shirt from the first all-women's expedition to Annapurna? Visit Arlene Blum's website.

Post-ice climbing Training Tips from Heather

 First, get the restaurant owner's attention as you walk in, tell him you are in a hurry since Happy Hour ends in 5 minutes. You want a plate of half-priced nachos, two house margaritas, and two glasses of water.

Second, enjoy in style....

A limerick for las escalitas

In what has become a tradition around here, there will be an official "las escalitas" limerick posted here soon.

GEAR GEAR GEEEEAAAAR! and thoughts

I conveniently gave Ben (my Fiancee) a nice file in his ski tuning
set for Xmas, I'll be taking that.

Anyone who knows me, knows I love gear....and right now...Im kind of gearing out, in a good way! I totally freaking scored for xmas, new crampons, complete with a crampon case,  and a new ice axe (I was borrowing some *very* used items before--most of them have done a lot more climbing than I have).

I made a sweet stretchy leash for my axe (Thank Loren), bought myself some toasty warm intuition boot liners for my doubles, got a DAS parka for graduation and am currently waiting for the UPS guy to finally bring me a new version of my favorite Black Diamond mitten & light-glove hand warming system (I missed his delivery for the 2nd time today :'(....).

 I also started packing this huge North Face bag full of group gear, collecting random food items: like my favorite Starbucks instant coffees and individually packaged Toblerone pieces, and I even got some headphones for the plane ride(s). Im totally set!!!!!

Don't get me wrong, I know gear won't get me to the top of these mountains......but I still love GEAR!!! This time next week, I will be on a plane to QUITO! Now I just have to keep up my training, pack and say goodbye to Fort Collins for 17 days.

I've waited my whole life for this jacket, please disregard
the naked girl on a bike in the background....boys.

As a spinoff of what Melissa was saying about gear, when I went to buy my boot liners from Neptune Mountaineering in Boulder CO (who is definitely the best boot fitting operation I have come across, they spent 3 hrs with me perfecting my liners/fitting me), I was also interested in trying on several pairs of mountaineering boots, and possibly interested in purchasing a very expensive pair of boots (YAY GEAR!).

 However there was a little snag in my plan. They had NO boots small enough to fit me in the store. Yep, no size 38 or under.....bummer, as I am really a size 37.5. Now, this was probably for the best, because now I have some extra rent money saved up, BUT.....I also called Bent Gate (Golden, CO), who to my knowledge only carries size 40+ in the store, The Mountain Shop (Ft. Collins, CO) who did not have adequately warm boots/or boots in my size, Outdoor Divas (Boulder, CO) doesn't even carrie double boots, and even the manufacturers were out so no one could order me a pair either.

Now, this is just looking for a boot small enough to fit me, not even a women's specific double boot ...which I saw none of in any stores either (only a few women's single boots). Everything worked out OK, and I am happy with my intuition liners, but it would be sick to walk into a store and be able to get the mountaineering boots I need. Ladies, I guess we will just have to keep rocking it until the demand is high enough.

Happy Holidays

Well the holidays have been an awesome break for me, and for once Denver is looking white for Christmas! I ran up and down the basement stairs 100X yesterday & climbed at movement, Heather went ice climbing in RMNP, and Im sure Mel was busy moving/training too, so we are still maintaining our fitness, but we will have to begin tapering a little before we leave in 9 short days! We just have one more "official" meeting to go over some technical details, and shop for food then we are OFF. And who knows, maybe the holidays will bring some last minute mountaineering swag for us!

We are also working on getting a t-shirt together for our group, and we may have a few extras if you are interested, they will probably only be about $10.

Here is a random little animation with Las Escalitas to brighten your holidays. CLICK HERE

Love,
Las Escalitas

I Believe in You



Left to right: Rodney Ley, Heather Lindsey Young, Natalie Berve, Melissa Oberg.



There comes a time when the torch passes to others. That time is now---take it to the limit.

small rant.

Hello all!

Just got set up as a new admin on the site, which is pretty exciting! Im Melissa, one of the Escalitas! First of all, thanks to all of you who have been checkin in on us! We love the support!

Second of all, I wanted to rant. Just a little.

Why do they make "women's" gear that doesn't fit real women? Why do I have to get the Mens Guide Gloves from BD because the women's just don't fit. Why don't they make gear warm enough, tough enough, big enough for real women who want to get out and play like everyone else?!

Through out the last few years, I have continually run into that problem: boots, pants, gloves, etc. and thats just the way it seems to be. I appreciate companies that make the effort to make gear for women, its just a bummer when I apparently am not the 'right' kind of woman to wear the stuff!

Today has been a big day, between the group meeting, Nick breakin in my gloves with his big hands (thanks!) and Natalie getting new boot liners! Things are coming together quickly!

Tonight was a good night!

Tonight the tres escalitas got together for some dinner and some serious planning!

Houston Hotel- Check!
Quito Hostel- Check!
Travelers Insurance- Thanks HTH and American Alpine Club!
New Black Diamond glove layering systems - Check!
Final gear list review- Check!
Final gathering date set- Check!

And the passing on of an old tradition- Thanks Rodney! Wouldn't be doin it without you!

It was a pretty productive night and we couldnt be more excited to leave in TWELVE DAYS!!!

Holy COW.

We leave in 17 days and are getting SUPER PSYCHED and ready to go. There is still quite a bit of planning/logistics/general craziness that must occur before we leave, but it's right around the corner. I just put up some pics from Melissa's super rad ice climbing day (in training trips/photos) with local heroes Rodney Ley and Jim Davidson, so check those out...

Bios: check!

Ta-da! ALL of the Escalitas are now on the "Meet Las Escalitas" page, so feel free to read a little bit about each of us. Also, a photo from another great day from the medicine bows popped up. If you want to subscribe to the blog, you can enter your email address in the bar up top, and it will send you an email when the blog is updated.

P.S. I heard that a few of the Escalitas are graduating this week! (YAY Nat & Mel)

...stay tuned. **21 more days till Ecuador...** 

Its getting close...

Just posted some of our epic training days from Grizzly Peak and Twin sisters! Oh, and 22 days until we leave for Ecuador!

What are Escalitas?

Las Escalitas is a name we have adopted because...well it fits! It is a little hard to translate but it basically means "our favorite climber girls". We are a team of three women climbers from Fort Collins, CO who are in the process of planning and training for our own self led expedition to Ecuador to climb some big mountains. We have our eye on Cotopaxi (19,347 ft), Chimborazo (20,565 ft), and Cayambe (18,996 ft) so we have our work cut out for us for sure. Soon bios of Las Escalitas, updates on our training trips, and other exciting news will be posted here, so check back often!