Everything else News

A scene from In Nansen’s Footsteps, a film featured in the 2009 Banff Mountain Film Festival.. Spring and fall seem to be the times for adventure film festivals. Maybe the festival organizers know that during the warm summer months the audience for movies about adventure, travel and the outdoors would rather be doing than watching.....

It’s foggy and windy, my feet are soaked through and I’m cold to the bone.. Jeff Hofer, Johnny Poole and I have been hiking up the trail for three miles. The Appalachian Mountain Club calls it a trail, yet it feels more like a waterfall of rocks. The weather was sunny then cloudy, changed to...

Petzl recently unveiled its new Nao Headlamp, with a self-adjusting beam that reacts to light conditions. This means that the beam dims and narrows when your working up close and brightens and widens when your looking at something in the distance.. Pretty cool idea. So cool, it’s surprising somebody didn’t think of it sooner. Maybe...

They thought they’d packed everything.. Nicole Grohoski and the brother and sister she’d teamed up with, Tom and Pam Perkins, had carefully assembled the food, clothing and shelter for an epic canoe trip.. Tent? Check. Camp stove? Check. Fuel? Check.. “We should have double checked,” Nicole recalled. “The first night we camped on an island....

There are SO many books out there — how’s a reader to choose? Well, literary competitions aren’t a bad place start, and if your looking for outdoor adventure reads, the annual Banff Festival offers up some good suggestions.. This year’s grand prize went to Freedom Climbers by Bernadette Mcdonald, a “passionate and literary tale of...

Surfers get pretty nerdy when it comes to predicting waves. And powder hounds will endlessly debate which mountain range produces the best snow for skiing or snowboarding. But no one geeks out about snow like a scientist. . Kenneth Libbrecht, a professor of physics at Caltech, is so enamored with the delicate beauty of snowflakes,...

Offshore oil rigs as seen from Huntington Beach California.. President Obama is expected to propose today that areas off the southern US Atlantic coastline, in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska be opened to oil drilling, according to news reports.. The new Interior Department rules would end a longtime ban on East Coast oil...

With the economy in the hole, seems people are seeking solace in nature. About 10 million more Americans and foreign tourists visited U.S. national parks last year than in 2008, according to statistics release last month by the Department of the Interior. That’s around a four percent increase and ranked 2009 as the five busiest...

The new GENUS is the first smartphone to offer dual terrestrial/satellite calling ability.. AT&T has teamed up with satellite phone service provider TerreStar to produce a smartphone that offers both terrestrial cellular capability and satellite connectivity for remote wilderness travel.. Called the GENUS, the phone costs $799, and will be available in retail stores later...

It’s a sad state of affairs when you can’t even escape into nature for some respite from the bad economic news. . Last week, officials in New York began contacting people who had reservations to camp in state parks to tell them that the parks would be closed, according to the New York Times.. The...

A 3G wireless Internet hub was installed at the Mount Everest basecamp in Nepal to help trekkers and climbers communicate on and around the world’s highest mountain. . The facilities were installed by Ncell a private Napali telecom company and will provide residents of the area and visitors with the conveniences of the web, including...

It’s a little difficult to describe America’s Great Outdoors, the Obama administration initiative to revisit America’s conservation policies, mostly because it’s such a huge topic.. In launching the initiative this spring, Obama invoked President Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1908 held the first White House conference on conservation.  So broadly speaking it’s about conservation and everything related to...

Benafsha, a young Afghan woman, tops out on the new Skateistan rock climbing wall in Kabul, Afghanistan.. Not all news from Afghanistan is bad.. The capital of the war-torn country, Kabul, just got its first indoor climbing wall, installed at a facility run by Skateistan, a non-profit that runs skateboarding and educational programs for Afghan children.....

R. Kelly yodelling. Need we say more?. When my family gets together at holidays, talk inevitable turns to YouTube. Somebody will say, “Did you see that video of [insert funny/strange/disturbing topic here]?” Before you know it we’ve all been circled around someone’s laptop for an hour howling in laughter or disgust.. This Christmas, in addition...

New U.S. park policy would put limits on setting new fixed climbing anchors. . New regulations proposed by the National Park Service seek to limit the placement of fixed climbing anchors and the replacement of aging anchors in wilderness, including iconic climbing areas such as Yosemite, Zion, Black Canyon, and Rocky Mountain national park.. The...

Fewer children participated in outdoor sports and activities in 2009 than in 2008, but a steady drop in youth participation in recent years appears to be bottoming out.. Among children ages 6 to 12 years, 62 percent participated in some form of outdoor recreation in 2009, a decline of 2 percent from 2008, found the...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has blocked a West Virginia mountaintop removal mining project, raising speculation that the agency might put an end to the destructive strip mining technique long criticized by outdoors recreation and environmental groups.. Citing the Clean Water Act, the EPA announced on January 13 that it would veto the permit for...