Redpoint climbing shop in Oregon was cleaned out overnight. The owner opened the store on Sunday morning to empty walls. They took all the climbing gear, stuff from the display cases, and even a stack of Frisbees. The alarm system didn’t go off, and thefts of this kind are almost always an inside job. He’s reaching out to the local climbing community to try to recover the gear or at least find out who stole his stuff. I expected to read something along the lines of, “They repelled in from the skylight,” but it sounds more like they had a key. The worst part is that the guy didn’t carry theft insurance. My advice? You see someone with a bunch of new climbing gear, just start punching them. Don’t even say anything.

Whenever I get a new, really expensive piece of gear, I recognize the disparity in the high-end sickness of the gear and my lack of skills-at least for a little while. You buy new tele skis, boots, and knee pads for your first tele setup. People at the hill assume you know what you’re doing, and then you starfish down the off-loading ramp and into a padded lift tower. It’s awkward. Of course, those feelings go away once you beat up your gear a bit and get the hang of dropping a knee.

I imagine that the U.S. Ski Team does not suffer from this problem. I’d love to buy a ton of U.S. Ski Team Apparel and stand off to the side of the Olympic GS race course. I’d wear some sweet rental skis and maybe put a cowbell around my neck that I could ring to warn the racers whenever I’m about to cut across the course. Now you can buy all your U.S. Ski Team Gear from Backcountry.com. We also sell tele gear for starfishers.

A new bill introduced in California would require all the state’s ski resorts to publish injury and death reports as well as line the bases of all lift towers with padding. Additionally, it would require that all employees and minors wear ski helmets.

“We’re not in a position to do some of the things they would like to be done. … Ski patrols write up incident reports (of injuries) but they are not doctors,” Roberts said. “And we question why, when the state has a $20 billion budget deficit, they are paying so much attention to something that, when you talk to most winter sport participants, they know the risks and are comporting accordingly.”

I guess I deserve a bill that would require resorts to cover all their lift towers and trees with padding since I didn’t oppose the helmet law. Some people just don’t know when to stop. This law would also put ski resorts at a major litigation risk once skiers did injure themselves.

RandoSteve over at Teton AT pointed me toward this rad helmet cam work from Black Diamond athlete Colin Haley. The guy is floating around Patagonia for three months waiting for a primo 48-72 hour weather window to open up, and in the meantime he’s bagging some short routes. This POV climb comes from a speedy solo trek up Aguja Guillaument. The video is mostly raw footage accompanied by angry-person music, and the video offers a cool glimpse into what the terrain and weather is like on a Patagonian peak. If you want to see some other artistically shot and edited climbing videos, you can always check in at Vertical Carnival.

Backcountry.com is expanding their (objective) gear articles, gear guides, and trip reports with the Backcountry Beacon. The Beacon was actually launched about a year ago, but until today it’s been used solely as a repository for all the fantastic newsletter articles written by Backcountry.com editors. Beginning today, the Backcountry Beacon will be posting one gear-related article every weekday.  Make sure to add it to your reader, or just remember to stop there on the daily internet tour you devote to avoiding productivity at your real job.

Jason from Feed the Habit shared this video that made the blog rounds beginning with The Piton about four years ago. A look at a tele skier turned AT with a voiceover by a guy who sounds like Jeff Bridges. There’s even a cameo by the predecessor of Backcountry.com, BackcountryStore.com. There’s something about telemarking/AT that invites parody videos.

A study dug up by Science Daily has found that female athletes experience much higher rates of specific injuries compared to males. There can be a two- to six-fold difference between men and women in certain knee and shoulder injuries. The good news is that their research points to injuries happening because female athletes are following training programs made for teenage boys. Since women climbers rarely injure their shoulders while following teenage gym class routines, I think we can rule this out for a lot of outdoor-related activities. But if you are a woman looking for a workout program routine, I can offer you the same advice I offer everyone I know: Stay away from teenage boys.

via Outside

Backcountry.com Athlete Renan Ozturk has posted part 5 of his Tawoche 2k10 series from Nepal via a shaky satellite connection.  You can see the rest of the story at Vertical Carnival.

Just walked in the door after taking a red eye flight home from Outdoor Retailer. I was flying Jet Blue and the guy sitting next was suffering some kind of night terrors that caused him to jerk his arms while sleeping. I wouldn’t have minded, but he kept hitting the buttons on my armrest and changing the TV channels.

Turns out that while everyone else was at OR, The North Face Masters was going on. I was supposed to embed a video player in The Goat, but it was a good thing I forgot since the event was postponed due to weather. Can’t believe it was canceled! I was totally going to enter. We’ll get a live feed up if they ever get around to rescheduling it.