get the girls out from Lynsey Ann Dyer on Vimeo.

SheJumps celebrates women and their ability to ski and enjoy adventures together. Bring your girl friends, dress up, and take the mountain by storm! Find locations and dates (even add an event if one isn’t already planned on your own mountain) at shejumps.org.

Image courtesy of www.moniquevandervorst.com

We’ve all heard about accident or injury leading to the end of an athlete’s career, but 27-year old, Paralympic hand-cyclist, Monique Van der Vost’s story has an ironic twist. While training for the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, Van der Vost lost control of her hand-cycle when another bike struck her from behind. After fourteen years in a wheelchair and over a decade spent defining herself as a world-class athlete, Van der Vost regained the ability to walk and subsequently found herself out of the Games. Here is her incredible story.

At thirteen years old, Monique Van der Vorst became paralyzed after a surgical mishap. Within two years, she tried hand-cycling—at first as a way to get around her small Dutch community in the Netherlands, and later, as an obsession. Seven-hour rides turned into dedicated training and led to her quest to compete at an elite level.

Five years later, her tenacity paid off; she won the World Championship and went on to defend her title in 2004 and 2006. But she wanted more. She wanted Olympic gold.

She spent the next year and a half in single-minded pursuit of achieving the top honor at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. Yet, just five months before the opening ceremonies, an elderly driver struck Van der Vorst while she was out on a ride and left her severely injured, unable to eat or hold up her head. Instead of giving up, Van der Vorst concentrated on rehab to regain as much function as possible in the short amount of time she had left before her event. She flew to Beijing, secured her neck in a brace, and garnered two silver medals for her country. Had she been completely healthy, she might have come home with the gold. Instead, she would have to wait four more years for another chance. And that opportunity would never come.

In 2010, while training for the 2012 London Paralympic Games, Van der Vorst sustained traumatic injuries in a crash with another bike. Rushed to the hospital, she noticed tingling in her left foot. For reasons no one can explain, the crash stimulated some type of neurological connection and within a few weeks, Van der Vorst could move her leg. From that moment on she rediscovered her body in stages: crawling, standing, and walking again. As exhilarating as it was to regain her mobility, Van der Vorst had to come to grips with the fact that she was no longer an elite athlete. Her entire identity as a Paralympian, and her dreams of competing in the 2012 Games in London, had been instantly derailed. It’s a bittersweet tradeoff, and one that most of us would accept readily. But Van der Vost isn’t like most people. She couldn’t give up her gold medal dreams or the sport that had saved her. She would ride again.

People like to say that something is easy by using the phrase: It’s just like riding a bike. In Van der Vorst’s case nothing could be further from the truth. Though Van der Vorst had the keenly honed mind and upper body of an athlete at the top of her career, her atrophied legs belonged to a person who hadn’t stood for over fourteen years. So when Van der Vorst took her first able-bodied ride at the beginning of 2011, she barely kept the bike and herself upright. It was a wobbly start akin to a child riding without training wheels for the first time and certainly not one resembling Olympic aspirations. But it was just that: a start. A beginning.

Van der Vorst recently told the media, “Sometimes you have to fall and rise to get to where you need to be.” That first trip back on a bike led to a 2,000-mile ride just two months later. Today, Van der Vorst is a member of the Dutch professional Rabobank women’s cycling team with a newly minted goal: to compete in road cycling at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

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Michelle Theall is the former founder and editor-in-chief of Women’s Adventure Magazine.  Her adventure travel, environment, health, editorial columns, and sports articles and essays have appeared in national magazines including, Health, UtneReader, Natural Solutions, Alternative Medicine, and 5280. She has also worked for VeloNews, InsideTriathlon, Recording, Dandelion, and Women’s Sports + Fitness magazines.  Read more from Michelle at www.michelletheall.com

Maragaret and her award-winning backcountry bib prototype.

Last week’s Outdoor Retailer Winter Market featured its eighth cycle of Project Outdoor Retailer, selecting six students to compete in a 48-hour competition highlighting the construction and design of a women’s backcountry ski bib.

The competition focused on improving problems women typically experience in the backcountry in a technical and fashionable way. One student, Margaret Mussman, completed the task with remarkable expertise and ultimately won the competition. Her design featured a breathable, waterproof, and temperature-regulating ski bib. Margaret, a Junior at the University of Cincinnati, designed the only women’s backcountry ski bib that included a removable harness, and impressed the judges with a safety whistle and avalanche beacon.

“Whether a technical or fashion-focused garment, a huge part of design is to help solve problems,” Margaret said. “I know women who backcountry ski and, because of my background, I’ve often been a sounding board for them, listening to their frustrations with a garment’s shortcomings. This competition allowed me to design a garment that solved some of those issues.”

Margaret’s innovative and functional design was inspired by a women’s sports bra, featuring halter-style bib straps; and included zippers on each leg of the bib, ideal for easy removal of the product. The bib used parts and fabrics from Polartec, Schoeller Fabrics, Ideal Fastener Corporation, and Duraflex.

Although still in college, Margaret is someone to watch out for in the future of the backcountry ski market. Her knowledge and skills used in designing the featured women’s backcountry bib will take her far in the industry, as fashion and functionality become more closely intertwined.

Outdoor Retailer, a tradeshow that promotes retail education, responsibility, and business initiatives in the outdoor industry hosted Project Outdoor Retailer in conjunction with the tradeshow in Salt Lake City. Look forward to the OR Summer Market’s design competition and encourage the young designers you know toward similar outdoor industry opportunities.

Giant boulders, Himalayan sized waves, and monstrous holes all stood in our way of completing the world’s first riverboard descent of the Sun Kosi River in Eastern Nepal. The Sun Kosi, or “River of Gold, is famous for its spectacular scenery and pulse racing stretches of whitewater. The 270km long river with its numerous pool-drop rapids has been one of the top ten whitewater destinations for rafters and kayakers for years. This intrepid expedition marks the first time it was conquered by riverboard.

Riverboarding can be defined as the sport of navigating whitewater on a personal, non-motorized watercraft – we used bodyboards. Currently there are only two places in the world where you can commercially descend a river on a bodyboard – the Zambezi River in South Africa and the Kawarau River in Queenstown, New Zealand. Prior to this expedition, I guided nearly five full seasons on the Kawarau River before retiring my board to find a “real job.” Not long after retirement I saw a message posted on Facebook by another riverboarding guide, inviting fellow riverboarders to join his expedition in Nepal. I signed up immediately. I might have hung up my fins from guiding, but I was not going to miss out on a first descent.

In the wee hours of the morning our team of ten international riverboarders, as well as our six man support crew from Alternative Nepal, loaded up a bus with our personal gear, two safety kayaks, two supply rafts and all of the supplies to go with them. We then squeezed into the remaining space and set off from Kathmandu towards Dolalghat, our put-in for the Sun Kosi River. Three hours later, after much anticipation, we caught our first glimpse of the mighty Sun Kosi River. With several grade 2-4 rapids, the first few days were a good warm up for the second half of the trip when we would be running large grade 4 and 5 rapids.

For the entire length of the river, we passed many beautiful green terraced fields and small villages. People often stopped working in the fields to watch as this strange spectacle swam by and the children would follow us downstream, running along the riverbanks shouting “Namaste! Namaste!” No matter how remote we felt, there were always several local children wandering around camp curiously inspecting our gear.

Day five was the ultimate test of our river skills as we reached the climax of the trip, the “Hakipur” rapid, a large and intimidating grade 5 rapid. “Hakipur” was actually a set of three rapids all named for the nearby village. The first rapid had washed out in the monsoon, but “Hakipur 2”, the largest of the three, hid silently several hundred meters downstream. We eddied out on river left to scout the rapid which we could neither see nor hear despite being less than fifty meters upstream of its entrance. We climbed out of the water and over the large boulders strewn along the riverside. At first glance, the rapid was just a churning monster of whitewater with no visible lines of travel. Upon closer inspection we were able to distinguish a green “v” at the top and determined that we needed to drop in on the far side on river right, skim past a boulder at the top of the rapid, then kick hard left to avoid several nasty holes that lined the rocky cliff on river right and kick even harder left to avoid the giant boulder that divided the bottom of the rapid into two channels. My stomach churned with as much force as the river in front of my eyes. This was the ultimate adrenaline rush.

Seven of us hiked back to the top, staring intensely at the river as we slowly and silently walked up to the put-in. I cannot describe how much my heart beat and stomach flipped and mind raced as I thought again and again how I was going to tackle the rapid. We knew that as long as we lined ourselves up correctly in the beginning we would probably be fine. However, if we dropped in too far right and didn’t manage to cross to the left, it was going to be an unpleasant underwater adventure as one hole lined up after another for the entire length of the rapid on river right. At the top, we all said one last silent prayer and then kicked off with much effort in order to cross over to river right and drop into the correct channel at the top of the rapid.

The serenely flat and unnervingly silent water soon revealed its hidden surprise as one wave then a second splashed us in the face. After the two first waves we knew to kick hard to the left in order to avoid the initial hole on the right. We dropped in, one after the other, and kicked behind the small boulder at the top. A moment’s respite told me we were nearly in the clear, but then I looked ahead as the giant boulder at the bottom quickly grew even more gigantic. Kicking hard to the left I cleared the boulder, duck dived under a small hole at the bottom and then popped up as an uncontrollable grin spread from ear to ear. I had made it. The seven of us were the first people to successfully riverboard the infamous “Hakipur 2” rapid. Our excitement was not over yet; less than half a kilometer downstream “Hakipur 3”, another wet rollercoaster, awaited. We tackled it with much enthusiasm, barrel rolling off the immense tips of the waves. Finally we had experienced the “Himalayan sized waves” that we had heard so much about.

Two days later we reached the enormous “Rhino Rock” wave train and then the twelve kilometer long “Jungle Corridor”. Once we entered the Corridor there was no escape and each rapid added to the excitement of the one preceding. The Corridor was littered with plenty of large waves to barrel roll off of, enough rocks and holes to scare us, and a few big whirlpools to spin us around and make us remember what we had for breakfast. At the end of the last heart stopping rapid in the “Jungle Corridor”, the majority of the infamous whitewaters of the Sun Kosi were behind us, only a few small grade 3 rapids remained. Nine days after we set out from Kathmandu, our daring expedition was over. We had accomplished what we came to do, we successfully navigated the waters of the Sun Kosi on pieces of foam less than three inches thick. It was an incredible adventure and an amazing world first.

Vera is originally from Philadelphia but moved to New Zealand for six years, five of which she guided  with Serious Fun Riversurfing on the Kawarau River outside of Queenstown, New Zealand. Vera is now living in Israel with fellow riverboarder Assaf Golan, who also guided with Serious Fun for three seasons.

You can read more about the Nepal expedition and see photos on their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/nepalriverboardingexpedition.

Last week southern cooking chef Paula Deen revealed that she had type 2 diabetes, and a backlash (including a recent NYT article by Frank Bruni) ensued. Today, Deen’s publicist of six years quit amid the firestorm. The crux of the public outcry seems to be that Deen had a responsibility to let her fans know that she was paying the consequences for eating her own cooking. Really? Is this what we’ve become? The Girl Scouts haven’t warned me that a single sleeve of Thin Mints (which I can eat in one sitting while watching The Biggest Loser) has over 600 calories. Shame on those cherubic cookie pushers for wreaking havoc on my blood sugar.

Paula Deen doesn’t run a healthy cooking show. We watch her because we want an excuse to indulge. We want to slather ourselves in butter-laden and gravy-rich side dishes. America is obese, and though we’d like to blame it on sneaky fast food chains with their 24-hour drive-thrus and subversive advertising campaigns, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

I don’t trust a skinny chef any more than I’d hand my body over to an overweight personal trainer. I’m aghast, and honestly quite fearful that we’ll start making Emeril divulge his cholesterol levels or have Rachel Ray tell us her body mass index. Do we need Paula Deen to tell us that dishes like one of her favorites, a burger sandwiched between two glazed donuts, might not be good for us? Have we really sunk so far as to attack a woman who has made us tremendously happy giving us recipes we love while she’s in the middle of dealing with a health crisis?

I’ve come to the conclusion that we aren’t really angry with Paula Deen for keeping her health problems from us. Quite the opposite: We’re furious she felt the need to tell us. Just like most of you reading this column, I didn’t want to know there were 600 calories in a sleeve of Thin Mints. But, I’m not going to yell at the ten-year old girl who sold them to me or blame her that I have cellulite. Plain and simple, we don’t want to be reminded that we can’t eat fried chicken and cookies every day because eventually it will kill us. It’s the truth. And it seems to me that Paula Deen’s only transgression was reminding us of it.

Michelle Theall is the former founder and editor-in-chief of Women’s Adventure Magazine.  Her adventure travel, environment, health, editorial columns, and sports articles and essays have appeared in national magazines including, Health, UtneReader, Natural Solutions, Alternative Medicine, and 5280. She has also worked for VeloNews, InsideTriathlon, Recording, Dandelion, and Women’s Sports + Fitness magazines.

Running and Hiking

ecco Biom Trail GTX

ecco Biom Trail GTX shoe. Rugged but cushioned, flexible but supportive, this Gore-Tex waterproof trail shoe grips on loose and muddy surfaces, perfect for shoulder season runs or wet treks. This Danish company also makes hiking and trail running shoes from Yak leather, which offers three-times the durability of leather. eccousa.com

SkirtSports Ice Queen Ultra Skirt. Updated for Fall/Winter 2012 is this fabulous windproof, water-resistant skirt and drawcord-adjustable tights with pockets on each thigh and zippered gussets. Keeps you warm and, with reflective details, visible on dark, cold days. $135; skirtsports.com

Other insulated skirts we love: puffy down skirts from Horny Toad and Bergans of Norway.

Yurbuds Focus earphones. Shaped perfectly for the inside of your ear, sweat- and water-resistant and sleek-looks, these earphones will keep you jamming while active outdoors. $30; yurbuds.com

IceBreaker GT Baselayer. A performance fit merino baselayer with all the bells and whistles you’d want in a full-fledged running jacket—a zippered pocket, thumbholes, a soft weave, and super energizing colors. us.icebreaker.com

I can’t pick just one item from Moving Comfort’s “kicksassy” Urban Gym and Foxy collections that keep you comfy and feeling feminine on the go. movingcomfort.com

CycleDog Latch-Lock collar. Finally, re-purposed bike tubes! Take your four-legged friend on all your adventures, using the collars, leashes, and toys made from old bike tire tubes. Bonus feature: A leash loop that opens beer bottles. $25; cycledog.com

Camping and Traveling

Princeton Tec customizable headlamps. Choose your lamp—from the basic Bot to the super bright and far-reaching Remix—then color it. It costs just a few bucks more for your custom color combo. spectrum.princetontec.com

Grand Trunk Goods. A hooded neck pillow (whoa!) and the first hammock-compatible sleeping bag were both stand-outs from this travel gear company. GrandTrunkGoods.com

Osprey FlapJill Pack. Cute, but technical. The interchangeable colored closure straps are a special touch. ospreypacks.com

Snow

Salomon Rockette powder skis. Kim Havell’s skis. Enough said. But, Salomon’s new AT binding made a splash too. Easily adjusted using just your pole, this binding proves burly enough for the resort but versatile enough for touring in the backcountry. salomon.com

Chaco Uma. Look forward to this lace-up skinny boot with a low-profile foot bed on sale in Fall 2012. chaco.com

Atlas Electra 8 Series snowshoes. The tried-and-true deck shape for a woman’s narrow gait but with updated features. $120; atlas.com

Pistil Trapper Hat. The Una’s fuzzy warmth and cozy earflaps make it the perfect après-ski headwear. $40; pistildesigns.com

Sun Bum Moisturizing Sunscreen. Endurance sunscreen for your endurance endeavors in the water, wind, snow, and—you guessed it—sun. The eye-catching graphics on each bottle made us want to apply sunblock right there on the tradeshow floor, even though we spent all day indoors. $15; TrustTheBum.com

Hydration

CocoHydro. Powdered (for sustainability and convenience) coconut water, this electrolyte drink offers healthy, lip-smacking hydration. Mix it in one of the re-usable bottles below. bigtreefarms.com

Blender Bottle

Hydro Flask. Keeps hot beverages hot for 12 hours, and cold ones cool for 24. I noticed it because the double-wall insulated bottle kept ice frozen for two days on the tradeshow floor. Plus, the company commits to giving Five Percent Back to charity. 18 oz. wide mouth Hydro Flask $23.99; hydroflask.com

Blender Bottle Sport Mixer. A wire whisk in ball-form perfectly mixes smoothies, recovery drinks, protein shakes, and even post-workout chocolate milk. $15; blenderbottle.com

Vapur Element. Collapsible, portable, and pretty, this “anti-bottle” (a bladder plus mouth and built-in carabiner) eliminates every excuse for not carrying a re-usable hydration system. $12 (0.7L), $14 (1L); vapur.us

Gadgets and Apps

Suunto Ambit

Suunto Ambit. The GPS for explorers, this so-called watch is for the woman who does it all—from mountain biking and trail running to skiing and orienteering. The user-friendly and intuitive design hosts a plethora of multi-sport capabilities, advanced training functions, and a full-featured GPS. $550; suunto.com

View Ranger. Turns your smart phone into a GPS, offering high-quality topo mapping, waypoint navigation, route planning, trail guides, and social media capabilities. Great for exploring new terrain. viewranger.com

Just over 2 years ago I was living in the very pretty but rather flat and benign world of West Sussex. After 18 months spent playing in the Canadian Rockies, the Highlands of Scotland and the Himalayas I now find myself permanently based in the French Alps and the village of Samoens in the Grand Massif.

The route to get here has taken me far and high but on reflection it always had a clear goal and direction: to head towards the mountains and always in the pursuit of adventure. I’m no Edmund Hillary or Kenton Cool but I do remember coming to Samoens in the early part of 2009 on a climbing course and leaving having acquired the knowledge of one fundamental fact right in the pit of my stomach – I wanted more of this environment that made me feel so happy.

I had no idea of what shape this would take but was pretty sure that if I started with only this one goal in mind, the rest of life would inevitably play out the way it was meant to. By combining fate and free will, I knew that I was simultaneously taking control of my own destiny and in so doing would be embarking upon a journey into the unknown: in itself the essence of true adventure.

So now I find myself living in an adventure playground surrounded by mountains, cliffs and crags all affording me the opportunity to ski, climb, trek, and play outside to my heart’s content. My bloke is made from similar stuff and we have been extremely fortunate to stumble upon the coolest little apartment from which to base our outdoor life together. You would think I’d be doing some pretty big self congratulatory thwacks on my own back right now. Job well done girl wouldn’t you say?

Except I’m not. Far from it.

My head should be full of fluffy powdery thoughts and my heart brimming with a sense of completeness. Instead it is rather more occupied with the overwhelmingly negative internal dialogue: I’m not a good enough skier, I’ll never be a good climber, I don’t know anything about the mountains, and basically that I’m crap.

I should know better of course. Everything that I’ve learned over the past couple of years was founded on the basis of the importance of doing your own thing driven only by that what makes sense to you.

For the past 18 months I have literally taken on the role of international ambassador for the ‘march to the sound of your own drum and you will fulfill your own purpose on this planet’ campaign so it is extremely frustrating for me to see how easy it still is to lose any sense of inner stability when change and new things flood into one’s life. I know that I am fortunate in so much that I can see what is going on inside and am aware of my pattern but somehow this makes the whole situation even more exhausting as it doesn’t stop me engaging with the negativity, especially when I’m hungry, tired or worse, hungry and tired. Being aware doesn’t seem to be enough to stop the relentless progress of the self-flagellation express.

What has happened of course is that I’m now pitching myself in the world that I live in but am not yet a part of. I mean literally everyone around me at the moment is either a pro rock climber, mountain guide, ski guru or professional yeti. I could retreat right now and submit to the nonsense that my head is spewing out on a daily basis but that is never going to happen. I am not a victim and I choose right now to use this as a tool for inspiration, motivation, and confirmation that I’m doing what I love.

The lesson is startlingly clear: if anything in life makes you feel an extremely strong emotion, whatever it is, you should use it as an inner compass. If viewed in this way, any emotion can then be seen in a positive light and as the most powerful inner tool steering you towards what you uniquely need from the world around you. It works in normal every day life for pretty much anything.

In this case, my feeling just a little bit useless can be translated into the fact that I want to be better than I am at the things that I love. And the only way to do that is to get out amongst it more often.

Right, where’s my skis…

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Sophie Nicholson is a freelance adventure sports and travel journalist from Scotland who is now living in the outdoor playground that is the French Alps. She has written regular adventure columns and features for leading websites and publications including Adventure Travel Magazine, Homeboy Ski, Trek and Mountain, and Adventure Sports Holidays. She’s also a regular columnist for Sportsister, a UK female specific publication/website.

In addition, remember to check avalanche conditions, wear a helmet, hydrate, wear sunscreen, and be considerate of other skiers and boarders.

Follow these seven simple principles to perfect on-mountain etiquette and safe skiing practices.
1. Always stay in control, and be able to stop or avoid other people or objects.
2. People ahead of you have the right of way. It is your responsibility to avoid them.
3. You must not stop where you obstruct a trail, or are not visible from above.
4. Whenever starting downhill or merging into a trail, look uphill and yield to others.
5. Always use devices to help prevent runaway equipment.
6. Observe all posted signs and warnings. Keep off closed trails and out of closed areas.
7. Prior to using any lift, you must have the knowledge and ability to load, ride and unload safely.

Jacket $215; tights $140. Visit the Nalini site for details on where to buy.

Whatever the reason, making old favorites last is a nice thing to do for our environment. I’ve been needing to upgrade to a pair of waterproof hiking boots for a while, but when Nikwax offered a package of cleaning and waterproofing products for WAm to test, I hopped on the job.

You can see the results above. While these boots won’t ever be totally waterproof because of the ventilation fabric on the front, the toe area and sides of my left boot are nicely clean and watertight (I left the right boot untreated so you could get an idea of its former condition). Just enough protection for some snowy, slushy tromping in our local forest preserve. These boots are suede – I was worried about discoloration and darkening from the waterproofing but they actually look brighter than ever.

Nikwax makes dozens of cool products including a sandal wash (you know the stink I’m talking about) and a waterproof renewal solution for GoreTex, eVent, and SympaTex type fabrics, too. The nicest thing of all about Nikwax is it’s chemically friendly to you and the environment.

We tested: Nikwax Footwear Cleaning Gel and Nikwax Nubuck and Suede Waterproofing (both $9.00). You can see their full range at www.nikwax.com and purchase at REI.