About snowmobiles

The family of a man who died while skiing by himself at Colorado’s Winter Park Resort is suing Intrawest Winter Park Operations Corporation, the company that owns the resort. The slide was inbounds in the Trestle Trees area, 40 feet wide and 60 vertical feet long. The man was found buried about two feet deep. Colorado shield laws limit damages of up to $250k in ski resort lawsuits. The family’s lawyer says that the low limits to damages effectively makes leaving open dangerous parts of the mountain a business decision instead of a safety decision. This is only the second avalanche-related in-bounds death in the state since 1991.

Comments (0) May 18 2012

Being a bit closer to the huge garbage gyre in the Pacific Ocean makes these issues more top-of-mind. The city council of Honolulu passed a bill to ban single-use plastic grocery bags on Oahu; they were the last county in the state to ban the bags, effectively making Hawaii the first state to achieve a complete ban. Hawaii isn’t exactly the first state that comes to mind when you think progressive environmental politics, but let’s hope this move will make its way to the mainland and the rest of country is saying “Aloha” (meaning ‘goodbye,’ in this case) to plastic bags. Well, actually that could get a bit confusing.

Comments (0) May 18 2012

Photo by Walter Siegmund

A 54-year-old hiker took an off-trail shortcut in Olympic National Park and promptly fell over and lost his glasses. He then bushwhacked blindly through the forest and couldn’t find or see the way back. “I’d see what looked like a meadow, and when I got there, it was a drop-off into an avalanche chute, so (I would) backtrack.” So yeah, he has a bit of a vision problem. On day four of his ordeal, he heard helicopters overhead and made his way into a clearing so they could spot him. The man says he plans to return to the mountains but will go “more sanely.” Hopefully he means with a phone, friend, and spare pair of glasses.

Comments (0) May 18 2012

Permin Bertle may not be a household name in the U.S., but in Switzerland the German-born Bertle has set more than one 5.14 and he’s just set a world-record, climbing two first-ascent 9a’s (5.14d’s) in just 75 minutes. Chromosome X and Chromosome Y, in Charmey, Switzerland, feature layback starts and serious crimpers and slopers. The Vimeo shows Bertle’s fine work. Via Rock and Ice.

Comments (0) May 17 2012

Permin Bertle may not be a household name in the U.S., but in Switzerland the German-born Bertle has set more than one 5.14 and he’s just set a world-record, climbing two first-ascent 9a’s (5.14d’s) in just 75 minutes. Chromosome X and Chromosome Y, in Charmey, Switzerland, feature layback starts and serious crimpers and slopers. The Vimeo shows Bertle’s fine work. Via Rock and Ice.

Comments (0) May 17 2012

Episode one of The Nomad features National Geographic adventurer of the year Erik Boomer as he wanders from the arctic to Baja and among the streets of Washington DC (perhaps he visited the NatGeo headquarters?). It’s an excellent video and well worth your time to watch it. And you can catch an interview with Boomer plus a photo gallery over at Adventure Journal.

Comments (0) May 17 2012

Episode one of The Nomad features National Geographic adventurer of the year Erik Boomer as he wanders from the arctic to Baja and among the streets of Washington DC (perhaps he visited the NatGeo headquarters?). It’s an excellent video and well worth your time to watch it. And you can catch an interview with Boomer plus a photo gallery over at Adventure Journal.

Comments (0) May 17 2012

Concussions take a greater toll on kids and women. In the early 2000s more than 150,000 sport-related concussions occurred among kids between ages 14 and 19 in the U.S. And, literally, adding insult to injury, comes new research that suggests that women of all ages recover more slowly from concussions, and all kids under 18 take longer to recover. The risks: Kids who compete in ball sports like soccer, but also, say, rock climbing or mountain biking, are more likely to get concussions and girls are especially likely. Cognitive tests bear out the longer recovery window than adults — and doctors don’t presently know to draw a distinction, so physicians may allow kids to go back into action too soon, risking re-injury. Via American Journal of Sports Medicine.

Comments (0) May 17 2012

Concussions take a greater toll on kids and women. In the early 2000s more than 150,000 sport-related concussions occurred among kids between ages 14 and 19 in the U.S. And, literally, adding insult to injury, comes new research that suggests that women of all ages recover more slowly from concussions, and all kids under 18 take longer to recover. The risks: Kids who compete in ball sports like soccer, but also, say, rock climbing or mountain biking, are more likely to get concussions and girls are especially likely. Cognitive tests bear out the longer recovery window than adults — and doctors don’t presently know to draw a distinction, so physicians may allow kids to go back into action too soon, risking re-injury. Via American Journal of Sports Medicine.

Comments (0) May 17 2012

Photo by chensiyuan

The Interior Department announced this week that any active-duty military personnel and their dependents will soon be able to enter all national parks fee-free. It will give access to the more than 2,000 parks and wild public lands without charging them $80 annual pass fee. The National Park Service collects about $150 million annually in fees, and they expect they’ll take a $2-6 million hit for the offer. I can’t think of a better idea that the government’s had in years. The tonic of wildness is something everyone, and especially vets, should have easy access to.

via GetOutdoors

Comments (0) May 17 2012