Good news, budget cuts to the U.S. Forest Service hasn’t seemed to hurt their great ideas. Some National Forest centers are now renting bear canisters for $2.50 a day. This is the best idea since they began renting emergency locator beacons on Rainer for about $1 a day. Owning a bear canister is great, but stuffing it under your bed between trips and flying with it are huge hassles. Apparently these canisters are so successful at stopping bears, that it’s been reported the animals will walk away from a campsite as soon as they spot the canister. I’m going to make a sleeping bag that looks just like one of them.

The north fork of the Payette River in Idaho was experiencing record volumes when this video was shot. It’s a sneak peak at the coming film WildWater, which will be floating around mountain towns in fall of this year. The movie looks great in spite of the keytar synth that creeps into the soundtrack.

via The Adventure Blog

A woman who encountered an ‘aggressive whitetail deer’ barked a round from her .357 handgun into the forest floor to scare the animal off. It stayed quite close, but she was never attacked by the crazed animal. She reported the incident to an NPS ranger who didn’t give her a ticket, but did issue her a written warning. We all know that ‘written warnings’ are the adult equivalent of something in middle school going into your ‘permanent file.’ While it’s legal to carry a gun, it’s not legal to shoot the gun unless there’s imminent danger.

The U.S. State Department has already issued a travel warning on Mexico, and now the Feds are recommending that cyclists and hikers try to avoid certain border corridors. Mountain Bike Action posted the photos, which appear along Interstate 8 running along the border between California and Arizona. This doesn’t bode well for the International Peace Park we’ve been working towards.

via GetOutdoors

Either an environmentalist is trying to stoke the hatred or it’s actually raining oil in the South. This video was shot by a couple guys who found oily water pouring down. Oil is normally too dense to evaporate, but the use of a million gallons plus of chemical dispersant could change all that.

Thanks Ryan