Everything else

Call it “digital parity.” Toes, long maligned as stubby, incompetent fingers, are finally getting some respect. . Vibram now offers its Five Fingers line of toed shoes and since 2004 Injinji Footwear makes “toesocks” that give each toe its own cozy sleeve. Injinji claims that separating the toes is this way prevents between-the-toes friction and...

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...

The SPOT Connect, unveiled at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, connects smartphones like iPhones, Blackberries and Android phones to satellites when they are off the cell phone grid. This provides a cheaper way to communicate from the backcountry than buying a full-on satellite phone.. The Connect, which is 3...

Portrait of the sun taken on March 30th by the recently launched Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Shown in false-color, the composite view covers extreme ultraviolet wavelengths and traces hot plasma at temperatures approaching 1 million kelvins. Credit: NASA / Goddard / SDO AIA Team. The sun is awesome. It gives life. It blasts us with...

Spot has recalled the SPOT Satellite Communicator (on the left) because it fails to send messages in cold weather.. Spot is recalling its SPOT Satellite Communicator, a device that was supposed to allow the DeLorme Earthmate PN-60w GPS to send and receive text messages from the backcountry via satellite.. A part which “does not...

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...

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.....

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....

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...

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,...

During their years as nomadic climbers, Amee Hinkley and Renan Ozturk carried an unusual form of survival equipment. Packed in their bags, with food, shelter and climbing gear, were art supplies.. The couple roamed the globe together for half a decade, living from a car for long stretches and changing crags with the seasons....

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...

Benoît Mandelbrot, a mathematician with a rogue streak who found beauty in the roughness of nature, died last Thursday at 85.. By all accounts, Mandelbrot was an iconoclast, willing to follow his own curiosity when the field of mathematics was headed in a different direction. Instead of joining the herd in pursuit of more accepted...

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...

False-colored photograph taken in the 1930s of hikers on snow field returning from Grinnell Glacier, in Glacier National Park. Photo: National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection . Tomorrow marks 100 years to the day since Glacier National Park in Montana officially joined the US National Parks system.. On May 11, 1910, President William H. Taft...