Don’t you love the internet? Before YouTube, this live shot would have been seen once and then disappeared. I just wonder who won the race.

via The Trout Underground

I wonder if the one guy had the jacket on because he was trying to look like the gang leader in the original video. Either way, nice work, and a good way to kick off the weekend.

via GetOutdoors

Whitefish Mountain Resort in Montana is trying to pass off a decision to restrict uphill skiers as an exclusive move to make the mountain safer. The hill, which is on national forest land, has seen a huge jump in skiers skinning the hill to avoid lift ticket fees and ski after hours when there’s a full moon. They say there have been some close calls with afterhours grooming machines, so they’re restricting uphill skiers to one route during the day and banning them from skiing after hours. The National Forest Service is supporting the move.

The Government has been holding out on us. While they keep 24 global positioning satellites in orbit that we can access on our handheld GPS devices, they have three more floating out there that they’re not using. They keep them in a slightly different orbit so they can be dispatched to replace satellites that could break. Those three satellites will be put into place to offer better GPS coverage in forested canopies and deep canyons. Soldiers in Afghanistan have been losing signals on their GPS devices, and this better coverage will benefit civilians as well as them. They say calculations to move the satellites into place are lengthy, but that’s what the cable company says about getting you hooked up, too. Then they just flip the switch one day and they’re all on.

via Backpacker

An IT guy lost his way while snowboarding at Wolf Creek Ski Area in Colorado. After realizing he wasn’t going to make it out that night, he dug a small snowcave in a tree well and nibbled on an energy bar. On day two he rode a bit further down the mountain and happened to come upon a forest service cabin. He broke in and sat around for two days while waiting for the storm to blow over, and on the first day that weather would permit a helicopter search, he was spotted walking out of the cabin. Really a remarkably smart guy once he got lost, but also insanely lucky to bump into that cabin. It’s like on the TV show Lost how characters can’t go for a walk in the jungle without running into someone from their crew. (Sorry for the Lost reference, I just didn’t think stuff like this really happened.)

I swear, every really good boulderer I meet works a side job as a DJ. In the ABS’s defense, it’s tough to making climbing look rad on video, and these are some killer shots. These are some highlights from the Women’s 2010 ABS Open National Finals. Climbing Narcissist has the Men’s highlights, too.

The Four Season at Whistler Ski Resort is offering a “Ski with an Olympian” package that includes nights in the lodge, line-cutting privileges, and a few runs with a former Olympian (silver-medal-and-under). If a skier lands on the top of the podium at the Olympics and can string a few sentences together, they at least have a future as an NBC broadcaster every time the Winter Games come around. Being thrown into a ski package like a spa treatment at first seems like a sad fate for such high-caliber athletes, but really, it’s probably a pretty good gig. You get to ski, cut lines, and stay at the Four Seasons. I’d do that.

Details are sketchy at this point, but The Ski Channel is reporting that Skier CR Johnson has died in an accident at Squaw Valley. ESPN has confirmed the story through sources close to C.R. They say he hit rocks while skiing the Light Towers section of Squaw Valley’s famous Headwall.

CR Johnson was a 26-year-old Lake Tahoe native. He suffered a traumatic head injury back in 2005. He was in a coma for 10 days, and returned home to Truckee after 34 days in the hospital. I spoke with CR only once. It was for this interview I did about his 2005 ski accident, and he was a class act all the way. Truly a sad day for the Squaw crew and all of skiing.

Police in Arizona are crediting a family dog for keeping a 3-year-old girl alive while she was lost overnight. The girl spent the night in temps that dipped below 30 degrees, and she and her dog were spotted 15 hours after she wandered away from her family’s home. Whether or not the dog actually saved her is arguable; whether or not a cat would have saved her is not.