The Green Hiker

Since May, Homeless Gear founder Ken John has collected outdoor gear and then distributed it to the homeless throughout Colorado.

If you live in Colorado, Ken needs volunteers.

Any service organization can replicate the Homeless Gear model. It offers an immediate, hands-on way to help others in your community.

And let us know if you are starting a similar program. We’ll highlight your efforts here.

Now Go Outdoors! (And Help Someone Else Stay Warm)

Eco-Tourism

• Dream green with Vicki Godal as she glides about the planet detailing some of our world’s eco-tourism paradises. Here’s a taste:  “Hiking into the Patagonia mountains, fjords, volcanoes and ice fields are sure to keep ecotrekkers happy and awed at the beauty that is Patagonia.” Volcanoes and ice fields on a single trek!

Mountain Man

• How to be remembered? How to honor the admirable deeds of a full life that touched so many others? A portrait? Maybe a marble bust or a bronze statue? Surely anything more than just a grave marker.

How about a mountain.

Ira Spring passed away in 2003 at age 84. His legacy includes hiking guides, spectacular photographs, and the Washington Trails Association. And to honor this tireless wilderness advocate, the State Board on Geographic Names will rename Washington State’s Spring Mountain to the Ira Spring Mountain. Susan Gilmore of the Seattle Times details all here.

Now Go Outdoors!

Hiking and star-gazing at Mont Mégantic in Quebec …

• At a light pollution symposium, the International Dark Sky Association awarded Dark Sky Reserve status to a 5,500 square kilometer area around the Mont Mégantic Observatory. The Montreal Gazette has  Peter Leney’s detailed account of a “region …. palpably remote amid rolling Appalachian mountains spilling over from Maine”; a region that “combines hiking trails with astronomy facilities” rewarding all with ….

Or just staying dry near Mount Si in Washington State.

• Karen Sykes tries to stay dry on her first wet hike of the Fall season. Rain gear insights along the Boulder Garden Loop and Little Si Trails near Seattle.

Now Go Outdoors!

These folks just have to hike. Snow on the mountain trails? Who cares. Let’s go to the library!

Now Go Outdoors!

Can hiking, skiing and hunting coexist with Colorado’s surging energy industry? Check out David William’s article in realvail.com. Green and Black Gold?

Now Go Outdoors!