This month's question:
  • Have outdoor sports become too competitive?

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Miles for Mountains: Running End-to-End Across the Smokies

Miles for Mountains: Running End-to-End Across the Smokies

Yesterday, I completed a 72-mile, end-to-end run across Great Smoky Mountains National Park in just under 17 hours, a speed record. However, the real goal was to help bring an end to the devastating and deadly effects of mountaintop removal mining.
I followed the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) for the entire run. The Smokies section of the [...]



Happy Naked Hiking Day!

Happy Naked Hiking Day!

Today marks the summer solstice—the longest day of the year when the sun is highest in the sky.
Every year, a few ballsy hikers celebrate the summer solstice by shedding their clothes and hiking au naturel.
Naked Hiking Day is unofficially celebrated on trails and footpaths across the Southeast, including the legendary Appalachian Trail. Thru-hikers bare it [...]



Shenandoah Park Plate

Shenandoah Park Plate

Like most national parks across the country, budget shortfalls at Shenandoah National Park have left the regional treasure with a backlog of maintenance projects. Fortunately organizations like the nonprofit Shenandoah National Park Trust are stepping in to pick up the slack. For Virginia residents the Trust is offering a new scenic illustrated license plate, which [...]



Reinventing the Wheel

Reinventing the Wheel

Bikers continue to tinker with their favorite machine



Addicted to Exercise?

Addicted to Exercise?

Charlie Engle was a 30-year-old alcoholic. One day, he decided to go for a run. Soon, he found himself running marathons, then ultramarathons, and by age 40, he was one of the country’s premier long-distance runners. Two years ago, he led a team of three elite runners on an epic, record-setting 4,500 mile run across [...]



Family Tent Roundup

Family Tent Roundup

Swooping nylon and linked poles, zippered doors, screened windows, and stakes in the dirt holding it down — the humble formula for a tent has long prevailed as an ultimate outdoors habitat for humans in need of a temporary home. But today’s campground cabanas are far from the basic designs of decades past. Indeed, leaky [...]



Opedix Performance Apparel

Opedix Performance Apparel

Can apparel made for athletics add support to the skeletal structure? Yes, according to Smart Fitness Products LLC, a Vail, Colo., company that sells the Opedix line of tops and tights.
By stitching together swaths of fabric, then crisscrossing it and building it into a top and tights, the company (www.opedix.com) touts its futuristic clothing as [...]



Backpacks for Biking

Backpacks for Biking

The classic bike-messenger bag has been adopted the world over as requisite equipment for two-wheel transit with goods in tow. But for me a messenger bag’s single-strap setup — weight on one shoulder, the bag balanced on the arch of my back — has never felt comfortable or secure.
Instead, a backpack — two straps, a [...]



Esbit Stove

Esbit Stove

Invented in 1936, and applied toward the heating of water and food for millions of campers and backpackers since, the Esbit solid fuel tablet is a compact and quick alternative heat source to white gas and cartridge-based camp stoves. The tablets — based on a chemical compound called hexamethylenetetramine — ignite at the touch of [...]



Boa Products 2009

Boa Products 2009

Push in the small black knob and twist. That’s all it takes to operate the Boa Lacing System, a tightening mechanism that employs a reel and clicking gears to retract and cinch a thin cable in a tactile procedure touted to “render shoelaces obsolete.”
Indeed, over the past five years, Boa Technology Inc. (www.boatechnology.com), which has [...]



Insulating Paints

Insulating Paints

Dear EarthTalk: Do insulating paints actually insulate and save energy? If they do, are they environmentally friendly to use? – Bob Dibrindisi, Easthampton, MA
Paint additives that claim insulating qualities have been marketed since the late 1990s, but energy research organizations have not confirmed their insulating value. For its part, [...]



Do sunspots and solar wind contribute to global warming?

Do sunspots and solar wind contribute to global warming?

Dear EarthTalk: Don’t some scientists point to sunspots and solar wind as having more impact on climate change than human industrial activity? – David Noss, California, MD
Sunspots are storms on the sun’s surface that are marked by intense magnetic activity and play host to solar flares and hot gassy ejections from the [...]



Neighborhood Solar Power

Neighborhood Solar Power

Dear EarthTalk: I know of solar power systems that people can put on their roofs to generate electricity or heat water. Are there systems that serve whole neighborhoods? — Lee Helscel, via email
 Collective bargaining is a good strategy when looking to get the best price on a given product or service. Solar power is no [...]



 Recycling mattresses

Recycling mattresses

Dear EarthTalk: How can I recycle my old mattress if the place I buy a new one from doesn’t take it? What do mattress companies do with old mattresses when they do take them? Do they recycle any of the material? – J. Belli, Bridgeport, CT
A typical [...]



Charging Hybrids and Electric Cars

Charging Hybrids and Electric Cars

Dear EarthTalk: With plug-in hybrid and electric cars due to hit the roads sometime soon, will there be places to plug them in besides at home? And if so, how much will it cost to re-charge?
– Nicole Koslowsky, Pompano Beach, FL

Gasoline-electric hybrids, like the Toyota [...]



New River Trail State Park

New River Trail State Park

New River Trail State Park is a rails-to-trails success story. When Norfolk Southern donated a right-of-way, Virginia developed it into a multiuse pathway. Descending at a 1% grade for 57 miles from Galax to Pulaski (including a spur to Fries), it’s almost always within sight of the river, passing by farmland and natural meadows, [...]



Panther Creek Falls Trail

Since we’re still in the time when streams are at their fullest flow of the year, I thought it would be good to share one more waterfall hike with you before we get into some of the best summertime outings in coming weeks. For now, I’m going to direct you to northern Georgia.
Filled with trout [...]



Swallow Falls, Western Maryland

A couple of weeks ago I told you about the more than a dozen waterfalls along South Carolina’s Foothills Trail. If the pathway’s 75 miles is more than you want to do, head to western Maryland’s Swallow Falls State Park where a 1.3-mile circuit will take you past four waterfalls with little effort. You’ll also [...]



Foothills Trail, South Carolina

Foothills Trail, South Carolina

All of us know April showers bring May flowers. They also swell streams to what will probably be their highest levels of the year, making this the time to really enjoy waterfalls. One of the best places is the Foothills Trail along the Blue Ridge Escarpment. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says an escarpment is “a long [...]