December 2008
Looking for a way to share your live-action adventure with friends and family? Get a first-person view of your epic rides, and upload to laptop or blog as soon as you get home. Check out some of your options below: To capture those exiting moments, you’ll need a weatherproof camera system like those offered by…
Read More >By Brian Burnham The stage was set for some serious competition in the open categories. Both Jimmie Webb and Jon Glassberg had a victory under their belts, and Alex Johnson and Kate McGinnis each had one win as well. The mood was set on Friday night when everyone gathered to watch the new film Heart…
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Exploring the outdoors sometimes limits your ability to communicate or get help if needed. The new personal tracking device from Spot helps to expand your communications horizons. Spot is the world’s first satellite messenger, and gives you the ability to communicate without cellular towers. It’s a personal tracking device that allows you to alert 911…
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Drawback of the iPod or mp3 player? I can think of very few, but watery conditions definitely come to mind. Well, thanks to companies like H2o Audio and Otter Box, now you can take it all outside, conditioned be damned. Music can provide a great motivation while enjoying the things you like to do. Waterproof…
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On a snow-covered hill in West Virginia, there is a large group of men wearing skis and holding hands. I am one of those hand-holding men. We begin skiing together down the hill on telemark skis, and when our instructor yells “turn left,” we all drop our left knee, genuflecting in unison.
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Appalachian activists answer Al Gore’s calls for civil disobedience to stop coal. But can direct action do more harm than good?
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by Jay Hardwig “I’m hot, sweaty, thirsty, and smelly, but I’m having a great time.” The pronouncement came from my eight-year-old son as we scrambled up a small summit on the Mountains-to-Sea trail late last summer. It was hardly the deep backwoods: we were a scant mile from the Folk Art Center, a fifteen-minute downhill…
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Trails are about releasing the spirit, not simply training the body. I run “on” the road; I run “with” the trail. There is no activity more primal than running in the woods. It reminds me that we are animals.
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A proposed series of 500-kilovolt transmission lines that would run through three Mid-Atlantic states is raising concerns about the entire country’s energy future. Allegheny Energy and Dominion Energy, the two companies behind the proposal, contend that the mega-transmission lines are needed to provide more power to the Mid-Atlantic in order to prevent possible blackouts. Environmental…
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Bikes and wooden mallets may sound like odd bedfellows, but the sport of bike polo is gaining popularity across the U.S. and beyond. There’s even an international federation for bike polo (Pakistan is a member) that’s pushing to get the hybrid sport into the 2012 Olympics—surprising, since most Americans have never even heard of the…
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Traditionally, cyclocross is something that only the most dedicated cyclists did to entertain themselves during the cold winter months. This bizarre niche sport, which combines elements of road biking, mountain biking, and steeplechase, has enjoyed a loyal following for decades in Western Europe, while remaining a fringe sport here in the U.S. But over the…
Read More >Mile High State Park The state of North Carolina is purchasing Grandfather Mountain and 2,600 acres of surrounding wilderness in the Linville area for $12 million. For decades, Hugh Morton’s family has managed Grandfather Mountain as a private nature park. The 5,964-foot mountain has earned international recognition as a United Nations World Biosphere Reserve, and…
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Unlike most professional athletes, Alison Gannett was an environmentalist before she became a world champion freeskier. Gannett has been researching global warming ever since she graduated from the University of Vermont with an environmental science degree 20 years ago. In the 90s she provided the action shots in Warren Miller films and won multiple World…
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