This has been a very cool week for TeamNSC and we haven’t even officially kicked things off yet. We’re still in a sort of soft-launch mode with a lot of site content yet to come. The highlights so far (warning: overuse of the word awesome to follow):
- Winning a $40 Sun and Ski Sports gift certificate – That’s pretty exciting when you’re broke!
- Helene Barrette submitted the first entry in our “We Never Stop” series and it’s awesome.
- Helene Barrette submitted a second, even more awesome, entry about her first steps as a mountaineer.
- Cool tweeps started following us on Twitter.
- Mountaineer Alan Arnette surprised us with yet another “We Never Stop” entry – a totally awesome one at that. We hope this luck follows us to the mountains.
- This shout out from the tweeps and Sun and Ski Sports was pretty cool. We are not worthy but our contributors most definitely are.
So what’s next? Here’s the basic plan for the next couple of weeks.
Early next week we leave for Guadalupe Peak. We’ll spend two days on the mountain, including one night at over 7,000 feet. We’ll probably summit more than once and spend time at the high camp shooting photos and video. If we can get a signal (we think we can) you’ll know because we’ll post updates to Twitter.
We’re packing quite a bit a gear and large packs for this trip. Yes, we could travel much lighter but this trip is essentially a training hike for us and we want to spend some time at the high camp. We’re still getting into shape so the extra workout is a good thing.
Once we return (“if” we return as our friends are fond of saying) we’ll edit our video and make it available via our YouTube channel and Flickr, post our photos to Flickr, and work some of the content into the web site. We’ll also write up a detailed trip report. Once that’s complete we just have to roll out our bios and a kick ass climber interview that we’ve been working on (sorry, you have to wait – it’s worth it) and the site will be officially launched.
What then?
We have a couple of organizations that we’d like to support as our climbing skills progress and we’ll be starting those conversations in November. We might have something in place by launch but that will likely take a bit longer. The charitable component of this project is important to us and we want to get it right.
You’ll see regular updates as we continue to train. The site will feature a lot of fitness related content as we move forward. We also have our eyes on some mountaineering and climbing classes. You can expect extensive coverage of these events. We have a lot to learn but we’ll move forward as fast as our bodies and bank accounts allow.
Before the year is out we’ll be moving into the planning phase of our next climb and we’ll want you to join us. We don’t know exactly how that will work but we’re working on it. As soon as that plan solidifies we’ll announce it here. Remember, it’s never to early to start training.
