Warren Miller sold the rights to his voice in a 1995 deal with Warren Miller Entertainment. Since then he’s communicated by building dioramas. Then last year he started speaking again into a Level 1 Productions microphone. They later used his utterances, such as, “If you wait until next year to do it, you’ll be one year older,” in their ski movie “Refresh.” Now Warren Miller Entertainment says they’ve been “irreparably injured and damaged” by Level 1’s unauthorized use of the Warren Miller and his voice. They’re suing to try to stop the movie from being release, but have so far been unsuccessful and are waiting their day in court.

This is like when John Fogerty changed record labels and then his old label sued him for plagiarizing himself. Except in this case I guess that Miller had agreed to only do voiceover work for his own former company, so he might have hit a snag. It’s still bad to see this stuff spill into court; you’d think the old guy would be able to work something out with his old production company.

Thanks Bryant

The Environmental Protection Agency has sued The North Face over anti-bacterial claims made on some of the company’s shoe tags. The EPA claims that The North Face violated federal pesticide laws. The shoe tags claimed that the footbed would prevent disease-causing bacteria and fungus, and the EPA argues that this is an unverified public health claim and could lead people to believe they are protected from disease when they may not be.

The North Face sounds pissed about the whole deal.

“We immediately, without being asked, went to work to get those tags off the shoes,” he said. “We agree that we used four words on a hang tag that we should not have used.”

This reminds me of the scene in Ghostbusters where Peck goes and shuts down the ghost containment unit. Not because the two cases are similar but because that’s my only experience with the EPA.

Regardless, don’t stop washing your feet because you bought special North Face footbeds.

Germany of all places will be getting an 11-mile nude hiking trail. The same country that started two world wars within 30 years is promoting itself as a destination for people who like to hike naked.

“I think it’s a great way to promote tourism here,” Ludwig told Reuters on Tuesday,

Oh yeah, Ludwig? You realize that nude hikers don’t have any place to keep their wallets. Or maybe you plan on making some extra cash renting paintball guns to tourists who want to take a shot at the nude scramblers? You crafty Germans. Some thing never change.

via Backpacker

I’m not sure if I went backpacking for a weekend or just had a seizure after watching this video and woke up two days later. All I know for sure is that my computer’s dead and I’m really hungry. A group of backpackers edited their weekend trip to Desolation Wilderness into a two-minute highlight reel.
via Get Outdoors

It’s one our links to the more primitive days of the West that wild horses are still roaming the plains. The way that herds can double their population in a year, seeing as how the invasive species has no natural predators, is a good reminder of how far we haven’t come. The Bureau of Land Management protects and manages the herds, and each year they gather up thousands of the animals and offer them up for free to anyone with enough land to support them. I suppose the ones that don’t get adopted end up at the glue factory. My landlord won’t let me have a dog, but I’m going to looking into getting a horse for my place. National Adopt a Wild Horse Day is this Saturday.

via Cold Splinters

Todd Carmichael is suiting up for a solo, unsupported walk across Death Valley and back that will begin December 9^th. He built this rig to drag the 33 gallons of water he’ll need for the walk. I hope that includes enough for him to take an occasional bath since that desert gets pretty hot, plus it’ll be nice to just soak after a long day of walking. He built The Pig ox-cart with things from his local hardware store, and says anyone can make one. Nice, the final barrier to my 400 mile double-traverse of Death Valley has come down.

via The Adventure Blog

A federal court declared on Monday that pressures from climate change and hunters have forced the 600 grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park to go back on the threatened species list. It’s illegal to hunt grizzlies, but about 20 of the animals died last year when hunters shot them in self-defense or simple mortal terror of the 8-foot-tall, 800-pound animals. Climate change? It’s a bit difficult to explain. Apparently climate change, forest fires (also brought on by climate change?), and a tree beetle (more climate change?) have caused a shortage of the whitebark pines, which grizzlies rely on for food. Now grizzlies are forced to forge father for food, which pushes them into more humans where they’re more likely to get shot as nuisance animals. The circle of life.

In August, Dean Potter dropped 9000 feet out of the Eiger for the longest (almost three minutes) BASE flight ever recorded. Yawn. Not sure how BASE jumping can be boring, but for whatever reason it doesn’t hold much interest for me. I found this year-old story about Potter while looking for more info on his record-setting base jump.

Potter split time between a pub and a cave for a month while waiting for a weather window to FreeBASE the route Deep Blue Sea (5.12+) also of Switzerland’s Eiger. He climbed without ropes but wore a 5lb BASE jumping chute in case he peeled off of the slightly overhanging route. If he fell during the first hundred feet before the chute would have had time to deploy there wouldn’t have been a chance for him. Minor details like this still make Potter the most fascinating climber to read about.

via GetOutdoors

Canada’s iron grip on all things ice is tightening as the Olympics draw nearer. Speedskaters, lugers, bobsledders, and skiers are all being denied access to the site of the Vancouver Games for training, and instead being told to go home for practice. This must be devastating to Canada’s luge-based economy, but sacrifices must be made. Preparing for the Olympics is as close as this country will ever get to preparing for a World War. American Olympians are pissed, and they say that the Canadians were given an extra 60 to 90 rides on the luge prior the Salt Lake Olympics. A gentleman’s agreement means nothing to these ruthless ice people.

via Deadspin