March 9th, 2010 by admin

There aren’t a lot of details on this yet, but there is an interesting post today on the Outside Blog that proclaims that Outside Magazine is headed to the iPad, the latest wonder gadget from Apple.

Last night during the Oscars, the first iPad commercial debuted (watch it below), and last week it was announced that it would begin appearing in stores on April 3rd. The thin, lightweight device has a 10″ screen and will run a multitude of apps, while also serving as an e-book reader. Since it was announced at the end of January, a number of publishers have declared their intentions of having their magazines and books published on the device, some with very interesting “enhanced” versions. While there is no word as to when the iPad edition of Outside will appear, or if it will differ from the print version in any way, we are told that we’ll soon be able to “read the magazine anywhere, without having to worry about where you left your paper copy.”

The first commercial for the iPad offers a quick look at some of the things the device is capable of. But for a better idea, check out the second video below. It show off some books that are coming soon from Penguin Books, and just how they will be enhanced on the platform. It gives you a small glimpse as to why people are very excited about these new devices, which are so much more than just a “bigger iPhone”. Personally, I can’t wait to use an iPad when I travel. I think it has huge potential as a multi-use device.

March 9th, 2010 by admin

Wide World Magazine has another fun article online today, this time for the travelers amongst us. The online mag has put together their selection of 10 great rail adventures from around the globe, offering up some great suggestions on amazing places to visit by train.

The ten trips are not listed in any particular order, and fall under specific categories. For instance, they kick things off with the world’s most famous train ride, the Trans-Siberia, which stretches for more than 5000 miles through Russia’s most remote areas. The route can be completed in just a week or can be explored for months, depending on your itinerary, and there are side routes that travel through Mongolia, pass into Beijing, and glide by Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world.

Other classic train rides that make the list include the highest in the world in the form of the China-Tibet line, a historic route along the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, and their pick for the best train ride through Europe, the Bernina Express in Switzerland.

If you’ve ever wanted to make an amazing journey by rail, there are certainly more than a few great recommendations here. Personally, I think a long distance train ride would make for a fantastic travel experience, and I’d love to do just about every one of the trips on this list.

March 7th, 2010 by admin

Are you looking for new destinations to take an international backpacking trip this year? Then Off Track Planet has just the list for you, naming their selections for the Top 10 Backpacking Destinations for 2010. The list is meant to inspire young travelers to visit unique places that offer more than your typical Spring Break fare, but the list has something to offer anyone who is searching for new destinations to explore.

Rather than simply counting down the destinations as is typical with these kinds of list, Offtrack offers their selections by category. For instance, under the heading of “Cheapest” they recommend Cambodia, recommending it not only for it’s inexpensive options, but the fact that it is far less crowded than similar destinations, such as Thailand. For the best “Sightseeing” they give the nod to Italy for its rich history and numerous attractions, and in their “Adventurous” category they recommend the HImalaya, saying take your pick between Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan.

Other categories include ” Nightlife”, “Best Art Scene”, and “Nature Filled”, giving this list a very broad appeal to a lot of different travelers. Their selection for “Overall” best destination goes to Colombia, which has become a popular adventure travel destination again following years of high crime and deadly gang warfare. It seems to have bounced back onto the travel radar once again, allowing safe access to foreign visitors once again.

March 7th, 2010 by admin

I’ve written about endurance athlete Lisa Smith-Batchen in the past, most notably when she was taking on Death Valley both on foot and bike a few years back. That was an 810 mile odyssey that involved the Badwater Ultra and the Furnace Creek 508. Now, she’s about to embark on another long distance event that will wrack up even more mileage.

On April 19th, Lisa will kick off the Running Hope Through America event, which will see her covering 50 miles in all 50 states over a period of 62 days. She’ll get things started in Trenton, New Jersey and proceed from there, finishing up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on June 19th.

As usual, Lisa isn’t just running because she loves to run, although she obviously does love it. She’ll be running to raise awareness and funds for a variety of charities, such as the Orphan Foundation of America, the Caring House Project, Aids Orphans Rising. Lisa is also part of the Dream Chasers Foundation, a group of dedicated endurance athletes who work together to channel their considerable energies towards helping charitable organizations.

While two athletes have completed 50 marathons in 50 states (Dean Karnazes being one of them), no one has ever gone for 50 miles in all 50 states. Lisa is hoping to become the first, and judging by her past performance, i wouldn’t bet against. her. Good luck Lisa!

March 5th, 2010 by admin

National Geographic has an interesting story from the world of archeology today that says that a wall built by King Solomon has been unearthed, lending credence to a passage from the bible. Israeli archeologists discovered the ancient wall, thought to be more than 3000 years old, near Jerusalem.

While conducting the dig, researchers found that the wall stretched more than 230 feet in length and stood 20 feet tall. They also discovered that it was part of a larger compound that included a gatehouse, guard tower, and an adjacent building as well. Excavations are still ongoing, so it is possible that they’ll find more as they go.

In the Book of Kings, the Bible states that King Solomon constructed defensive fortifications, including a wall, near Jerusalem, but up until now, there has been no real evidence of this. Tools and artifacts found at the site point to a time frame of about the 10th Century BC. One of the researchers on the archeology team said that only two kings at that time would have had the resources to build such a fortification, Solomon and David. Further evidence narrowed the date further to Solomon’s era.

It’s fascinating to me that they are still unearthing these kinds of discoveries so close to a city that has been populated, more or less, non-stop for 3000 years. This is a very cool find, and it’s amazing that they are able to link it back to a point in history that is not all that well documented.

March 5th, 2010 by admin

We’ve been hearing rumblings about this for sometime, but now it’s official. According to this story from Matador Sports, the International Olympic Committee has accepted sport climbing as an event, which makes it eligible to be included in the 2020 Summer Games.

As the article points out, sport climbing has been growing in popularity across the globe, not just as by those looking to climb, but also as a spectator sport. It has a great following in Europe already, with televised events and solid media coverage. Here in the States, bouldering has begun to get similar attention as well, although it is far from a mainstream attraction. Of course, the sport has ten more years to build on its growing popularity before it appears on an Olympic schedule, so we’ll see how it falls on the cultural landscape in a decade.

Personally, I think climbers are superb athletes, and I enjoy watching them scale a wall, but I think the nuances and challenges will likely remain lost on typical television viewer. Still, I think it’s very cool that they have added it to the Olympics, and I know I’d tune in to watch. What are your thoughts on the subject? Is this good for the sport? I’m sure a lot of traditional climbing purists will not appreciate the move, but I suspect it’ll be rather popular with the community as a whole.

Update: Slight clarification on this story. The IOC is giving recognition to the International Federation of Sport Climbing, which has three years to convince them that climbing should be included in 2020. There will be a final decision in 2013 about the sports inclusion in the 2020 games. This is the first initial step to that happening though, and still a big deal for the sport.

March 3rd, 2010 by admin

Each year the Mountainfilm Festival, held in Telluride, Colorado, is amongst the top events for the outdoor adventure community. The four-day long event, which runs from May 28th-31st this year, is a showcase of art, film, culture, and while promoting environmental responsibility.

Now in its 32nd year, the Mountainfilm Festival has grown in size and scope and continues to offer a variety of activities for attendees. One of the centerpieces for the event is the day-long Moving Mountains Symposium that kicks off the festival. Each year the symposium selects a topic, and then invites a number speakers and dignitaries from the outdoor adventure community to weigh in on the subject. The result is a series of presentations, Q&A sessions, and panel discussions that are both fascinating and informative to attend.

This year, the subject of the symposium is The Extinction Crisis. This rather broad, but enormously important, topic is something that all of us should be aware of. On the symposium website it says that scientists estimate that by the end of this century, more than half of the species on this planet will extinct. That’s a pretty sobering assessment of the situation. Why this is happening and what can be done about is will be the subject of many discussions.

Some of the speakers that are lined up for the symposium include Greg Carr, who is working to rebuild a national park in Mozambique, Paul Nicklen, a photographer and journalist, and Cristina Mittermeier, who works with the League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP) who try to put a visual face on the beauty of our world and the dramatic ways it is changing.

Each week leading up to the festival the Mountainfilm Blog will be spotlighting one of these speakers. The first is up now and it is with mountaineer and environmental activist Rick Ridgeway who talks about what drove him to seek out adventure in his life, his thoughts on the extinction crisis, and what we can do to start to change the situation for the better. It’s a good interview, and definitely sets the tone for this very important topic.

March 3rd, 2010 by admin

Several months back I had the opportunity to test out a number of great gear items from Outdoor Research. At the time, I wrote a glowing review of the products that they sent my way, but little did I know that over time I would become even more impressed by those gear items. In fact, they are now amongst my most commonly used apparel when I head out on a trail, go climbing, or just kicking around town. That’s why I was so excited when I recently received a new OR Helium Jacket to review, although that jacket would have a lot to live up to from the other OR gear I was already using.

The Helium is a lightweight storm shell, and when I say lightweight, I mean very lightweight. In fact, the jacket is so thin that I actually had to weight for some warmer days before I could actually wear it and test it out. It has been unseasonably cool here in Austin, and while the Helium provides good protection from wind and rain, it isn’t the warmest jacket in the gear closet. That said, it isn’t meant to be either. This is the kind of jacket that compresses down to a very minimal size, and fits in your pack, without you realizing it’s even there, until you need to break it out.

Weighing just 6.8 ounces, the Helium is never-the-less, both waterproof and breathable, which is a great combination in any shell. Along with our unseasonably cool weather here in Texas of late, we’ve also had plenty of rain, and this jacket has weathered those conditions perfectly, keeping me dry, and comfortable in everything from a steady mist to a downpour. The water resistant zippers also worked well in all conditions and the hood served as a fine replacement when I managed to forgot my umbrella.

Like all the products I’ve used from OR, the Helium shows an excellent attention to details. For instance, the inside the zipper is a stormfap which helps to further prevent water from getting inside, and the stuff pocket is conveniently located on the inside of the jacket, which also makes for an excellent place to store small items that you want to keep dry as well. My iPod Nano fit in the pocket quite nicely, and continued to play away while the rain fell.

Perhaps best of all, this lightweight jacket does not constrict or hinder movement in any way. It is equally effective hiking a trail as it would be hanging on a rock face or in the seat of a kayak. On top of that, it looks good too. The first day I wore it out and about in town, I had a number of people compliment me on how it looked. While that’s not much of an indication on how it performs, nothing says you can’t hit the trail in style.

Outdoor Research’s logo is “Designed by Adventure” and personally, I think that’s pretty accurate. While it remains a somewhat lesser known brands when compared to the likes of Patagonia and the North Face, it’s is second to none in performance, fit, and function. The Helium definitely continues that tradition. (MSRP: $140)

Disclaimer: The Helium Jacket was provided to me by Outdoor Research for this review.

March 3rd, 2010 by admin

The 2174 mile long Appalachian Trail is a tough enough challenge for any backpacker to handle on a single thru-hike. The classic trail runs through the Appalachian Mountain range of the Eastern United States, from Maine to Georgia, and passes through 12 other states along the way. It is a truly epic hike with truly epic challenges. But now, according to this story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a blind hiker is going to take on those challenges for himself.

44-year old Mike Hanson set off this morning from the Georgia end of the trail, and hopes to complete his journey in seven months time, when he’ll cross the finish line in Maine. Along the way, he’ll use a special GPS device that connects to his phone to help him navigate and he says that the device offers him everything he needs, except for the view. In fact, the gadget offers 32-hours of battery life, which is vital to a hike such as this one, and verbally reads the GPS information to the hiker as he goes.

Mike plans on covering roughly 15 miles per day, with a stop once per week in a town to resupply. The entire journey is also being filmed so that a documentary can be made of the hike, which means that Mike will be joined by cameraman Gary Steffens, who says that he won’t navigate at all, he’ll simply be along for the walk, following Mike at every turn.

As the article points out, Mike won’t be the first person to make such a hike, but he might just be the first to navigate it himself. Of the 11,000+ hikers who have completed the thru-hike, 3 or 4 of them have been blind. Those have tended to go with others as their guides or used a guide dog instead. Hanson has programmed the entire route of the AT into his GPS device, and had already tested is route finding out on a 40 mile stretch to be sure that it all works. With success on that stretch of the trail, he’s now ready to uses his gadgets to navigate its entire length.

You can follow along with Mike’s progress on his website, with updates coming via Facebook.

February 27th, 2010 by admin

Recon Instruments and Zeal Optics are joining forces to bring us the most high tech ski goggles you’ve ever seen. Dubbed the Transcend GPS Goggle, the new eyewear incorporates a GPS chip with a built in heads-up display to give you on the fly information about your current location, speed, altitude, and a whole lot more. Navigation is handled by a couple of buttons located on the side of the unit, and data can be saved and viewed on your computer, as well as uploaded to the Internet to compare and challenge friends.

According to the promo video below, the goggles will include a camera for capturing photos and video on the mountain, as well as navigational information such as trail maps and resort specific runs, information on traffic on the slopes, queues for the lifts, tracking your buddy’s location, and so much other stuff that even James Bond would be jealous.Reportedly, the goggles will be on sale on October 1st of this year, and you can pre-order now. The regular version will set you back $350, but for $100 more you can order a pair with lowlight and polarized lens.

Reading through the marketing info on the Transcend googles leaves you with a lot of questions. For instance, how does it feed all of that information to the googles themselves? Does it have bluetooth tethering to a smart phone or does it require its own data connection of some type? Obviously the GPS stuff is loaded on a chip, but real time updates on conditions on the mountain require something more. Still, these look really cool, and would be a lot of fun to play with. They certainly seem a lot nicer than those GPS gloves I wrote about last week.