There appears to be no easy path to a planned mountain bike park at Timberline on Mt. Hood. This past week the Sierra Club joined a lawsuit brought by local environmental groups in Oregon against the planned construction of a 17-mile network of singletrack and downhill trails on the lower slopes of the mountain. The [ more... ]

San Francisco area photographer Eric Dugan managed to get an amazing image: a blackbird catching a ride on a red-tailed hawk’s back in mid-air. You can see the strange series on Eric’s website. The story’s gotten a bit of traction, and appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle this week. The blackbird wasn’t a hop on, [ more... ]

It has been a loooong time in the wilderness for the status of placing climbing bolts in federal wilderness. In June 1998 the U.S. Forest Service banned all fixed climbing anchors within the designated wilderness areas under its jurisdiction. This didn’t just mean permanent bolts: It meant that pitons, nuts, and pretty much any form [ more... ]

If you’re speeding on a county road in Utah, does a Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management ranger have the legal right to stop and give you a ticket? The state of Utah says no, and it just passed a law formalizing its position. But don’t get excited, it’s not your back that Utah’s [ more... ]

Malaria is a massive global problem. Although it doesn’t get much attention in the States, where it’s been effectively eradicated since the 1950s, about 660,000 people die from it every year, and more than 220 million are infected. But there might be a glimmer of hope: Scientists have found a bacteria that can make mosquitos [ more... ]

In Oregon the Department of Fish and Wildlife has decided to kill some cormorants to see if they’re feeding on young salmon. The young salmon are protected; and so are the cormorants under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Around 4,000 nest along the Oregon Coast, which is where sport fishermen have been pressuring the department [ more... ]

The EPA couched its jab at the State Department in bureaucratic niceties, but essentially what they’ve issued here is a very public smackdown of another government agency’s analysis of the Keystone XL pipeline. One of the pointiest arrows the EPA fired at State is a wholesale rebuke of the idea that cleaning up spilled bitumen [ more... ]

This May New York City will get the world’s largest bike share. It’s being funded 100% through private donations and advertising, with Citi Bank picking up a large part of the tab, hence the name, CitiBike. I figure it’s finally some payback for all the egregious charges that banks levy on their customers. Bike shares [ more... ]

Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. Marine biologist and whale-watching tour operator Nancy Black knew better than to feed killer whales in the Monterey National Marine Sanctuary off California, but she did it anyway and was filmed by a crew member. Oops. Yesterday, she pleaded guilty to a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and now faces [ more... ]

Under a pilot program from 2008 to 2011, the Legacy Roads and Trails program got rid of 640 miles of obsolete road, improved 235 miles of usable road, and upgraded 178 miles of trails in Montana. Advocates say the program was among the most successful in the entire Forest Service operation. The pilot program allowed [ more... ]