Another stokage reel from Ian Provo of Utah. This time on Hypodermic Needle in the Wasnatch. The 50 degree rip spills into a massive apron for a total drop of 5k. It’s these kinds of powder conditions that haunt your dreams on the off season.

Spend a bit of time in Denali working on the life-size equestrian statue of yourself or that hand-carved rocket ship you’ve dreamed of creating. Every year Denali offers several artists a chance to be an Artist in Residence and stay in the Muir Cabin for 10 days. In exchange you’re expected to donate one piece of art to the park and offer a presentation to park visitors. The rules here are vague, but they’d probably frown on your donation of a grizzly bear sculpted from outhouse collections.

Cold Splinters released part 2 in his series of escaping New York City for 70’s-themed day hikes. In this episode they hike to the Telephone Pioneers Shelter on the Appalachian Trail for a bit of swimming in ice cold water and camping not far from the city.

That’s cool that you’re going to climb indoors, but do you have to wear all the dorky ice climbing clothes here, too? Iceholdz, a funky fresh indoor ice climbing company, is selling these two-part bolt-on holds that mean to mimic the feel of climbing on real ice. I look forward to my favorite climbing gym installing them. Not only will there be a chance that someone steps on my foot while wearing crampons, but you can be assured that the wall around the hold will look like the wall around the dart board at a dive bar. The technology behind the hold is interesting. It relies on a hard outer shell with a soft inner (not unlike an M&M), but I’m sad to report that the outer plastic shell wears out and needs occasional replacing. Disposable plastic holds unfortunately don’t jive with the ethos of ice climbing.

via Gear Junkie

Here’s an idea - you design the graphics some skis for us and we’ll give you a pair for free (then we’ll sell your design and make billions - BILLIONS!). G3 is running their annual ski graphics competition, and this year the winning design of the Manhattan skis will be sold exclusively on Backcountry.com. It’s simple, just download the template, sign some stuff a lawyer wrote, and then collect your free skis (once they’ve received the most votes). Is there a rule against obscene graphics? There must be, otherwise I have no idea how any of these are in the top 5.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture took a break from writing corn subsidies checks to farmers to send out a press release detailing the estimates of carbon absorption by our national forests. The good news: about 11% of the greenhouse gas that our nation pours into the atmosphere every year gets absorbed by federally run land. More is soaked up by private and state land, and then a lot of it floats into the atmosphere offering us a cozy, warming coating.

According to the new data, 41.4 billion metric tons of carbon is currently stored in the nation’s forests, and due to both increases in the total area of forest land and increases in the carbon stored per acre, an additional 192 million metric tons of carbon are sequestered each year.

It works out to be the equivalent of about 135 million passenger vehicles.

via Get Outdoors

Folks who live on the other side of the pass and ski Targhee will get their own gate this year. Skiers will be able to legally cross the rope to access National Park land and get after some fresh snow. Targhee also added a Beacon Farm where people can practice finding buried avalanche beacons.

via Teton AT

Try not to get lost in the backcountry around Boulder, Colorado for the next few days. You’ll be waiting for the Sheriff to roll up on his ATV for awhile. First he has to file a claim with the insurance company and then go shopping around for the best deal. You see, some prankster (not me) stole the Sheriff’s two ATVs used for backcountry rescues out of his parking lot. I hope no crimes happen in Boulder this week because the Sheriff’s office is giving their complete attention to tracking down this ATV thief.

This litter-picking-up video comes to us from the newly renamed Adventure Journal (formerly known as The Adventure Life). The fine folks at Timberland spent the cash to put this together. Well, I guess I’ll pick up litter instead of feeding it to endangered seals from now on.