Cameron Pendleton

When I was 10, I spent my summers at camp in Bemidji, MN where I hiked, canoed, pretended to like archery, and learned to play the guitar. And while I'm not knocking the "outdoorsiness" of camp (I still think about my time there very often), it seems like city living compared to Cameron Pendleton's adventures. The kid started the AT with his dad when he was 10, turned 11 three weeks into the ordeal, and six months later, made it to the top of Katahdin. Boys' Life interviewed Cameron, now 12, about his experience on the trail, the challenges he faced, and of course, the origins of his trail name. (Hint: It's "Chili.")  You can listen to the audio right here.

Bozeman Ice Climbing Fest

"Put me out in the desert, I'm going to die. I don't know anything about the desert. Put me on the seacoast, I can feed my family. I got that wired." Next week is the Bozeman Ice Climbing Festival, a 15 year old gathering of climbers who aim to promote and protect the world-class ice climbing in Montana's Hyalite Canyon. In addition to a lot of crampons and a couple of live presentations, several films will be shown, including a filmed interview with Yvon Chouinard discussing ice climbing's history. Check out the clip above.

BOUNDARY ROCK

Boundary Rock was once a well-known landmark in southern Nova Scotia, a massive piece of granite that sat at the borders of several counties in the area. Fisherman and hunters, like the ones in the picture above, would take their picture at the rock while passing through. But over the last 100 years, Boundary Rock has vanished, sending people on quests into the woods to find out what happened. CBC's Maritime Magazine did just that and you can listen to the podcast recounting their journey into the Tobeatic Wilderness right here. The pictures above are from the flickr of expedition leader, Philip Moscovitch. (Thanks to reader Andrea for sending this to me.)Do they find it? Well, you'll have to listen to find out.MP3: Sibylle Baier - I Lost Something In The Hills

PCT RECORD

On his 13th (!) hike along the 2,663 mile Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from British Columbia down to the California/Mexico border, Scott Williamson, a tree climber from California, set a new speed record, finishing the length in 64 days, 11 hours, 19 minutes. That is insane. He added 20 miles to his hike with only 12 (another !) drops for food and gear. Interesting part of a recent interview with Mr. Williamson:

“There is more trash, more impact on the water sources and fires have really adversely affected the trail in the 19 years I’ve been on it, particularly in the last 10 years,” Williamson said. “The trail, especially this first 700 miles through Southern California, is radically different due to fire and tree disease. There are stretches that used to be pine forest that now are just chaparral because the trees died due to different diseases or fire. The first 700 miles of the trail are now shadeless.“The positive changes are that, since there now are about 500 plus people thru-hiking it each year, the preservation and maintenance of the trail is exponentially greater than when I first started hiking this trail,” he added.“I think the positives in the last 20 years vastly outweigh the negative changes. The maintenance level that is occurring now is much greater than 20 years ago, and I feel there is an effort to preserve the trail from the various threats, the development, things of that nature.”

(via The Goat)

Danner Party in New York

As some of you may know, I've been working with Danner for the last couple of months on the release of their new Stumptown collection of boots, all made out west in their Portland, Oregon factory. This Thursday, September 15th, will mark the official opening of their pop-up shop at Dunderon, which will be up until the end of the year. The pop-up shop will feature all 10 Stumptown styles currently available and a collaboration boot between the two companies, The Mountain Light Gothenburg.To mark the occasion, we're having a big ol' party with beer, whiskey, and lotsa good food. So come on out, say hello, and grab some boots. I'll see you there.

New Section of CDT

Thank you to Rocky for alerting us of the new section of the Continental Divide Trail, important to the few of us that thru hike it each year. The trail has long threaded through the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park, following a big old concrete road for some of the way. After months of work, the NPS has now dedicated a new 1-mile section of the CDT called the Bowen Connector, which pulls off the trail away from the road as it connects RoMo with Arapaho National Forest north of Grand Lake.Read more about it at The Coloradoan.

Encountering Space

Encountering Space: The Fire Lookouts of Montana:

Working deep in the back country of Montana's rugged Rocky Mountains, Pittsburgh-based photographer Tom Persinger photographed three men who spend their summers perched high atop peaks keeping watch over some of our nation's most pristine places miles from the nearest road or modern convenience. Day and night they scan the horizon for curly gray wisps of smoke rising from the forest below: a tell tale sign of fire.Through photographs and recorded interviews this project seeks to better appreciate each of their choices, understand their sense of place, reveal the perceptions they have of their surroundings, and offer each of us the possibility to better understand ourselves."

Check out some some great stills from the film over at Tom Persinger's site.

18 Miles Per Hour

Not sure if the guys over at 18milesperhour.com have any of these handsome stickers left, but it's worth going over and finding out. I'm trying as hard as I can not to stick mine on personal items, but I might have to cave soon. Defeats the purpose, I know, but what can you do?

See, we watch all the grand tours just like you. Then, when we head out and ride our local hills, we always wonder how they stack up against the ones the big boys are on. So we came up with these.