Check out this disturbing mockumentary of the majestic plastic bag on its journey to its final home in the pacific. Created by Heal the Bay in support of California state senate bill AB 1998.
Via Heal the Bay:
Help stop our 19 billion bag-a–year habit in California and put an end to plastic pollution. Tell your [...]

It’s never too early to get stoked for the coming ski season. Here’s a good way to waste some time for all you office-bound suckers like me: a round-up of the 2010 ski film trailers from TGR, Matchstick, Warren Miller, Powderwhore and etc (in no particular order). There’s some good stuff in here. I’m particularly psyched for [...]

My condolences to friends and family. Frederik Ericsson suffered a fatal fall on K2 during an ambitious ski attempt. That’s a big blow after being so close. See below for a chronological news round up:
Progress reported on July 26 via The Ski Channel:
The Swedish skier Ericsson has already skied from just below Camp 2 to K2 base camp, [...]

2010 marks the second year of the now annual Wanderlust Festival in Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe. Wanderlust offers a combination of some of the world’s best yoga practitioners and a variety of musical performers, all set in nature and the beautiful mountains that surround Squaw.
My friend, Sonja, and I arrived late Friday night [...]

There is a new unified avalanche danger scale rolling out for the 2010/11 season that will create a common vocabulary between US and Canadian avalanche centers, according to Powder Magazine.
It’s not immediately clear to me what the major differences are here. It retains the Low/Moderate/Considerable/High/Extreme methodology with similar explanations for each danger rating.
Whatever the differences are, you can get accustomed [...]

NICE. Tioga Pass is set to open this weekend, according to MyMotherLoad. That’s surprisingly early, if you ask me, considering the massive amount of snow the Sierra received this season.
That’ll begin the annual pilgrimage to Mt. Dana and all that East-Side goodness. With Sonora Pass already open, we’ll then have full access. Get it now [...]

If you’re just not ready to let the resort ski season go, then you’re in luck. The Sierra has received a good amount of snow and the temps have stayed relatively cool, so the resort decided to spin the lifts one last time before closing for real.
Sounds like lift access will be pretty sparse, however, [...]

Congrats to Oh Eun-sun on this astounding accomplishment. Very few people can claim such a feat.
Via the AP:

A South Korean climber has become the first woman to scale 14 of the world’s highest mountains.
Seoul broadcaster KBS television showed live coverage Tuesday of Oh Eun-sun reaching the summit of Annapurna and affixing a South Korean flag [...]

Every year, right about this time, an internal clock begins ticking in my alpine-obsessed brain: the count-down to the opening of Tioga Pass on the east side of Yosemite.
For those of us west of the Pacific Crest, and particularly those of us in the Bay Area, Tioga Pass stands as a winter barrier to the [...]

Last week, an Oakland climber named Tom Bennet died while descending from the summit of Mt Shasta. My condolences to friends and family.
Via the AP and NY Times:
A rescue team on Thursday recovered the body of a missing climber who was stranded near the summit of Mount Shasta in Northern California. Rangers found the body of 26-year-old [...]