As much as you might want to make fun of a guy for entering a sport where the word “Extreme” is still thrown around, you have to give a pass to ‘Extreme’ unicycler (I know, I know) Lutz Eichholz. Or at least I hope that’s his name. I don’t speak German so it may simply be the name of his website. He’s one Red Bull sponsorship away from the big time unicycling. Man, I wonder what this guy could do with two wheels.

Mount Ashland of Oregon has been running labor camps with 12 to 14 year olds for the past 18 years. Parents drop their kids off in the morning, and kids toil up and down the mountainside learning the joy of sweat in their eyes during manual labor. The Youth Summer Service Program runs from 7:30am to 4:15pm, and gets the kids 20 hours of community service (I presume most of them apply it towards shoplifting charges) and a couple free ski passes for the following year.

Photo by blahedo

The federal government has written Hawaii a $400k check to improve outdoor recreation in the islands. You’re thinking what I’m thinking, right? Just use all that cash to buy everyone on the island a Razor scooter. Nope, instead the Hawaii DNR will use the cash to pay for shoreline park improvements on Oahu and some nearby trails. Hawaii better hurry up and cash that check before it bounces.

A new study has found that climate change will cause more frequent wildfires like the one that burned Yellowstone in 1988. By 2050 it will be extremely unlikely that a season could pass without a massive wildfire, and by 2075 it will be considered the norm. Some of our National Parks in the West will go from dense forests to more open plains and grasslands with fast-growing firs and shrubs. Basically, climate change means that the 400sq mile burns seen on a regular basis in the American Southwest will work their way into Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, etc.

The owners of the Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort are seeking U.S. Forest Service permission to expand their 70-acre ski resort to 500 acres with 50 trails and 10 lifts. The $32 million plan seems especially ambitious considering that Las Vegas can’t even afford to finish their downtown city center monstrosity. The idea of a ski resort near Vegas is baffling. You go to Vegas to drink beer and lose money at craps, then maybe you take a day off to climb Red Rocks if you’re going to do anything outdoorsy. You want to ski on vacation? You go to Utah or Colorado. People don’t usually bookend gambling benders with a day on the slopes.

Wildlife officials in Oklahoma studying the growing black bear population have an update: bears love donuts. They’ve found that donuts are the most reliable bait to stuff into bear traps, which they’ve been using to catch and tag the animals. What these wildlife researchers have failed to realize is that once bears develop a taste for donuts, normal bear food will never again suffice. They’ll roam the wilds of Oklahoma ever on the lookout for Dunkin’ Donuts to plunder, and when they do, we have only Oklahoma wildlife officials to blame.

A National Park Service report supports the idea that Rhode Island’s Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor could become the state’s first National ‘Historic’ Park. It’s almost as good as having their own regular National Park. The new park would run between New Hampshire and Rhode Island and allow the historic park to receive consistent federal funding.

A grizzly bear and her cub mauled several teens taking part in a 30-day survival skills NOLS course in Alaska. Two among the group were badly injured, but they all survived. The group was on day 24 of their trip, and no instructor was present at the time. This is in accordance with the skills taught, as the goal of the class is for these kids to not only survive on their own in the backcountry but also to be able to take other people into the backcountry. The group applied first aid to each other, set off their personal locator beacon and stayed put until they were able to get the proper help in for evac.

Three members of a church group visiting Yosemite climbed over a protective barrier to pose for a photo 25 feet before the drop off of Vernal Falls. One slipped and fell in the swollen river and the others also went in while trying to reach each other. They went over the 317-foot waterfall and are presumed dead. The group had apparently ignored the safety railing, several signs telling them not to get into the water and cries from other hikers at the top of the falls. So far this year six people have died in Yosemite’s rivers, which are running especially high with melting snow from the winter’s unusually heavy precipitation.