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Selecting Your New Hiking Boots

Selecting Your New Hiking Boots

I recently spent some time at our local REI store getting some new boots for the Chief Scout. The people there were very helpful in narrowing down our selection then helping us choose the correct boot.  With this post,  I’ll share what we learned. Types of Hiking Footwear First,  there are four general categories of boots: […]

North Face Explore Fund 2015 Grants

North Face Explore Fund 2015 Grants

2015 Winners The North Face recently announced the final winners of the 2015 Explore Fund $500,000 grants program funding 47 organizations throughout the U.S. The North Face Explore Fund chose projects that use outdoor exploration as the catalyst for positive, personal or societal change, provide experiences that nurture an appreciation of the outdoors or encourage participants […]

Ten Best U.S. National Parks

Ten Best U.S. National Parks

Top 10 Lists There is no correct list of the 10 best National Parks and monuments in the U.S. Everyone that is familiar with them has their favorite and rightly so. Your knowledge from visiting some parks, or just reading about them, informs your list and it’s your experience that counts. Nonetheless, various organizations have […]

Lightning Safety

Lightning Safety

Hazards of Lightning At 11:30am on June 28, 2015 lightning began striking Mt. Bierstadt  in the Mount Evans Wilderness of Pike National Forest.  Eight people were injured and three were hospitalized, a dog died.  They were 500 feet below the summit. On July 17, Ryan Pocius and his bride Kathleen Bartlett were hiking on Colorado’s Mount Yale during their […]

Orienteering

Orienteering

  Orienteering offers explorers two things: Practice using a map and compass.  Orienteers are given a map like the one above and must find their way from one control point to the next, not in a straight line, but along the fastest route.  They must quickly orient their map to magnetic north with their compass […]

Trees and Health

Trees and Health

Omid Kardan, Department of Psychology, The University of Chicago, and his research team took two data sets and analyzed them to find that the more greenspace available, in the form of tree canopy along roads, the better it is for health. Study Background The first dataset combined satellite data with a database of all trees […]

21st Century Conservation Service Corps

21st Century Conservation Service Corps

The Mission of 21CSC The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a public work program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men as part of the New Deal. Originally for young men ages 18–23, it was eventually expanded to young men ages 17–28. Since the days of the CCC, […]

Ranking Cities for Recreation Opportunities

Ranking Cities for Recreation Opportunities

What is Great Recreation WalletHub, a financial review website, recently looked at 27 factors that describe the entertainment and recreation facilities, cost of recreation, climate,  and quality of parks at the 100 largest U.S. cities.  Based upon this review, they ranked the cities relative to the recreation opportunities they offer.  The analysis was not limited to outdoor recreation so […]

Open Land Month in Montana

Open Land Month in Montana

Montana has a lot of open and public lands and July is Open Land Month there.  The point is to encourage Montana residents to reaffirm their way of life and get out and enjoy the open country that is so much a part of that life.  The project has a long list of sponsors and partners including: […]

Portable Air Conditioner for Your Next Camping Adventure

Portable Air Conditioner for Your Next Camping Adventure

If you go boating, car camping, to the beach, to your kids’ athletic events or even flying an airplane,  you’ll probably be bringing at least one big cooler with you to keep your food and drinks cold.  The IcyBreeze is a new idea that lets you take one cooler that also provides cool dry air – […]

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