This is why you keep a clean campsite in bear country.

Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle created this mock campsite in an effort to educate visitors (and the Internets) about the risks of camping in bear country and apparently, keeping chicken coops and charcoal grills on your patio. Most people who spend time in the backcountry understand the importance of avoiding risks like those portrayed here but there is something very primal about seeing how easily the bears get into the hard-sided cooler and then proceed to fold it like a grocery bag. Cool, right?

Oh, and it was intriguing to note the narrator’s acknowledgement of “five to 20 grizzlies” in the North Cascades.

I love bikes. I was a bmx-punk in my pre-teens, always zipping around town, inspired by the pages of BMX Action. I was always hitting the mail truck’s loading ramp and the corners of sidwalk blocks pushed up by the roots of chesnut trees. We tore ass. I can still recite the first five minutes of “RAD.” As an adult, sort of, I evolved into mountain biking.

A few months into knee rehab last year I picked up a single speed for trips to the gym and bank and Fresh-n-Easy to help with the non-impact component of rebuilding all those disintegrated ligaments. I know all about sharing the road. I bought my wife a nice mid-grade Raleigh road bike for her birthday and she’s a fan of rides into the desert and Red Rock Canyon NCA. So yeah, I’m familiar with the joys of bicycling and I’ll support every rule and law that encourages our increased use of two wheels.

I just don’t get the outfits.

If you’re in a race and have a local bike shop sponsor, awesome. Represent. Although, what if you’re just riding for exercise after work? Are you really part of the U.S. Mail/Specialized/Trek/Shimano teams? I also don’t get it when there are four or five of you sporting coordinated ride garb. This next question is legititmate but yeah, it’s kind of a jab too: Do you call each other to discuss outfits prior to the ride? I have to assume you do.

If I’m just ignorant about the inner workings of the road cyclist, please let me know. If I’m not, at least give me an explanation for the shorts.

I wasn’t expecting to see what I saw in this trailer. It starts off portraying the natural, native spirit of surfing in a remote coastal culture. It looks like the anti-surf movie, a story grounded in the roots of wave riding. Then it turns. And it turns hard. “Splinters” looks to be a true documentary, not a surf film intoxicated by tube shots and sponsored yacht trips to remote breaks. As the title implies, this is a story about what happens when the norms of an exotic, insular island culture clash with the harsh, jagged edge of commercial surfing.

Wow. This looks super freaking cool.

“The Highest Pass” is a documentary about seven followers of a contemporary spiritual guru named Anand who set out on motorcycles along one of the world’s most dangerous roads in northern India to witness, possibly, their teacher fulfill his vision of dying in an accident at age 27.

The trailer shows us the possibility for a film that seemingly exposes the innards of a distant mountain culture often shrouded by our pining for its surface-level wilderness and commercialized adventure. I would love to hike in this part of the world, no question about it. However, there is always something else going on in the places we love to explore beyond the places we love to explore.

Color me intrigued. It comes out in April and hopefully makes it to a nearby theater.

The beaches of southern California these days seem hardly like the ones made so famous by the Beach Boys.

L.A. County has outlawed throwing frisbees, footballs and “…casting, tossing, throwing, kicking or rolling any object other than a beach ball or volleyball upon or over any beach between Memorial Day and Labor Day.” Oh, and kids can’t dig holes more than 18” deep.

What do you mean California over legislates?

Wow. Tough kid. And who knew cougars were that active in Big Bend National Park?

Well, “mistaken” is a strong word here. Better stated, ” … used to deliberately mislead in an attempt to garner a bunch of attention on the Internet.”

As some folks who responded in the article’s comments section made clear, no camera today is that blurry from that distance. Plus, the true identity of the video’s subject is easy to grasp once you think about what a big brown bear looks like with a fish in its snout, like when you finally see the sailboat in one of those hidden 3D image posters. “Oh yeah, I see it now … ”

Still, it’s fun to think about what kind of mysteries still linger in our wildest places. I’m all about these kind of zany animal conspiracies, from Chupacabra to sewer gators to Sasquatch (I have my own encounter story, actually). I always want to believe the videos and tall tales but common sense always takes over.

Who knows, maybe someday. I wonder how much mileage Mammut’s marketing department could get out of this?

After a last-minute halt to the effort by the park service and a number of weeks of opposition-led petitions and public scrambling, the ban on plastic water bottles at Grand Canyon National Park will officially begin next month.

In the interest of full disclosure, Coke is a supporter of our National Parks, one of the most active, actually. While some may see that fact as justification for a benefactor to have influence in how its funds’ recipients handle operations, I see it for what it is: a corporate supporter of the environment lacking clarity in its philanthropic mission.

Is heckling from the chairlift an accepted component of resort snowsports or the domain of petulant assholes?

This is a question I pondered at Brian Head last weekend after overhearing a triple of baggy-coated boarders (disclaimer: I snowboard as well, so don’t go there) rain pejoratives on a kid struggling to right himself after a spill. At first I thought the target of their ridicule was a friend or pesky little brother, as the insults seemed to be the type that would originate from one of those jovial, it’s always-open-season male group dynamics. Like the guys on The League. Or my friends.

The lack of reaction from the poor kid sliding sideways into the powder and presence of a nonplussed supervising adult who swooshed in for assistance indicated otherwise. I’m sure the kid couldn’t wait for their chair to finally chug out of earshot, or for his mom to cease with the tired paternal encouragement and cliches about “not worrying about what others say.”

I thought about saying something at the drop but realized it would have no impact. Plus, I probably would have been tracked down by their parents and sued for my house. So maybe I wasn’t the responsible adult for a few minutes. I kind of regret it, to be honest.

In large resorts, most beginners are separated from the advanced riders and skiers. In smaller places, where all levels share lift lines, one has to learn under the bright lights of elevated pubic criticism and a general lack of compassion from those zipping by, around and sometimes, through you. That’s not easy to do, especially within the milieu of snow sports, in which the result of even the most controlled fall resembles a Lego tower getting hit with a bazooka.

So, is getting heckled from the chair lift a right of passage for beginning skiers and snowboarders? Or should perpetrators be choked by their Skullcandy cables? I think my stance on this is fairly clear but I’m afraid not universally shared. Thoughts?

photo from USA Today. 

Bear 71 from National Film Board of Canada on Vimeo.

Bear 71 is an interactive documentary that blends the realities of our ever-on, perpetually connected culture with what we believe is wilderness. Try as we might, we’re just not doing as good a job as we think in separating ourselves from the animal kingdom.

This is an incredible video to watch; or rather, to participate in. It’s smartly interactive and immersive, showing us at the same time it involves us, all told from the perspective of a captured, collared and clearly confused female grizzly bear. Very cool. And tragic.

The video here is only the trailer. Go to www.bear71.nfb.ca for the full 20 minutes.