This pre-edit new gear round up by James Edward Mills was originally posted in the B.O.S.S. Report

In an industry driven for so long by innovation it’s ironic to discover that as technology changes a great many things remain the same. Equipment meant to get people outdoors aims simply to provide comfort and security while hauling supplies, creating shelter, preparing food or bedding down for the night. Of course new products introduced at the 2010 Outdoor Retailer Summer Market offered many of the technical advances one typically expects from the world’s leading gear manufacturers. But a recurring theme throughout most presentations included an apparent desire to return to the core values behind the creation backpacks, tents, cooking supplies and sleeping bags. The latest outdoor gear is getting back to the basics.

The Jansport Versteeg

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:37 — 14.4MB)

An interview with author Jennifer Jordan

In 1939 Dudley Wolfe was on one of the earliest expeditions to reach the summit of K2. An adventurer and one of the wealthiest men in the world he was left for dead with a rescue team of Sherpa after a devastating avalanche. Some say he was the victim of his own foolishness, others say he was abandoned by the members of his climbing party as they fled the mountain to save their own lives. And even though his body has been found there remains a great deal of controversy around Wolfe’s death that continues to this day. In her book “The Last Man on the Mountain” Jennifer Jordan gives us a close look into life of an American adventurer and the first to die on K2.

Jennifer Jordan

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A corporate training seminar left Maribel Fry in tears. Wiping her eyes, this sales specialist smiled as she watched 14 very happy children ride newly built bicycles around a large conference room of the CUNA Mutual headquarters in Madison. She and 90 of her colleagues from across the country gathered to boost their professional skills while dedicating their efforts to the benefit of area young people from the Boys & Girls Club of Dane County. But little did Fry realize that she would get something in return. Read the rest of this entry »

At Trackways National Monument, experts have excavated the best examples of Paleozoic era plants and animals on the planet.

“These different types of fossils are the best preserved and the most significant of their kind in the world,” said Jerry MacDonald of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History.

MacDonald has made his life’s work searching for and excavating prehistoric fossils in the Robledo Mountains just outside Las Cruces, New Mexico. His discoveries, starting in the early 1980s helped to establish the area as the 5,200-acre Trackways National Monument in 2009.

“It’s a concentrated fossil deposit that not only has track-ways but it has petrified wood, fossil leaves, marine fossils, he said And all of these things represent a window to the past.”

This public land in the American Southwest desert is one of the few places on Earth where evidence of the Permian period is exposed. The creatures who left these tracks in the mud almost 300 million years ago occupy a much different version of New Mexico.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:51 — 13.7MB)

I know. It’s been a long time since the last audio edition of The Joy Trip Project. But if you’ve been following the blog and the Facebook page you’ll know that I’ve been traveling on an extend Joy Trip. I just got back. Over the past several weeks of summer I’ve been conducting interviews and collecting stories about people and institutions hard at work making the world a better place.

I know that sounds like hyperbole or so vague that it sounds almost meaningless. But there’s really no other way for me to describe the athletes, artist and activists who find their way on this show. Yeah I know we talk a lot about climbing mountains or making movies about people who climb mountains or base jumping or kayaking or whatever, the point is these people work at protecting the planet and improving the lives of others by being actively engaged in the world in which they live. Through their stories about their adventures they stand as an example of how each of us can make a difference in the course our own lives and perhaps do some good.

A few weeks ago I was at the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride. And if you’ve ever been you’ll know this annual celebration of adventure culture through cinema is about a lot more than high altitude thrill rides and adrenaline induced mayhem. The collected speakers, authors, and filmmakers give us a look from their perspective into the many complex questions of life. One of the presenters and judge in the film competition was the actress Anna Deavere Smith. And while she’s not a climber or a skier or any type of outdoor professional through the power of storytelling she has the ability show us a glimpse into the lives others who ponder these same questions.

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Swirling high water on the New River in Fayetteville, West Virginia got me pumped for the summer paddling season. Though heavy concentrations of silt churned the rapids a shade of brown like chocolate milk, a daytrip on a dozen miles of fast whitewater was all it took and I was hooked. I just wanted to paddle! My own enthusiasm for the sport was mirrored by an up-tick in sales of paddling equipment and accessories at the local shop in town Ace Adventure Gear.
“We’re up remarkably from last year,” said assistant manager Brad Scott. “Some of it might be the economic downturn coming around. People might just want to recreate at something that doesn’t cost so much. It might even be because of the oil spill and people don’t want to go to the coast. Mainly I think it’s people who want to come in to learn a new sport.” Read the rest of this entry »

Lincoln Nebraska …11:25 PM CST

The inspiration behind the transcontinental bike ride across America, the Dom and Ernie Project, has died. Ernie Greenwald of Lompoc, California passed way after a valiant fight against Lymphocytic Leukemia. He was 74. Read the rest of this entry »

Among the rolling mountains of Southern New Mexico lies Fort Stanton Snowy River National Conservation Area. Once home to Billy the Kid, occupied by both Union and Confederate Armies, the Buffalo Soldiers and the Apache Mescalero tribe, its history and culture are rich. Today it remains largely as it existed 150 years ago, offering new opportunities above and below ground.

Directly beneath this postcard New Mexico Landscape is fort Stanton Cave, an obscure recreational caving site since the 1960s. But in 2001 spelunkers investigating signs of additional caves revealed Snowy River Passage, an endless series of tunnels whose floors are lined with white calcite deposits, the longest formation of its kind in the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Moab Utah 9:20 AM MST

The Red Rock Bakery

I have all the gear I’ll need for a long time. Making breakfast this morning while camped along the Colorado river near Moab I had my choice of three different stoves, two Teflon coated cook kits and four variations on the spork to prepare a bowl of oatmeal. All the excellent gear I have I’ve received from manufacturers for my consideration in a prospective story or product review. That’s a common practice in my line of work. But as I begin to expand my career to include stories that will likely be sponsored in part by the very companies I report on I wonder if my integrity as a journalist might be called into question.

A few days ago I ran into the very talented young photographer Becca Skinner at the MSR booth during the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market in Salt Lake City. There with her friend and my first mentor Ann Krcik Becca hoped to begin the process of building the critical industry relationships she’ll need to get a stove of her own. The folks at Mountain Safety Research have been very generous to me over the years and with Anne’s guidance I’m sure Becca will have no problems getting her first pro-deal.

“It was like walking around with the Queen of England,” she said, “Anne knows everybody.” Read the rest of this entry »

Salt Lake City, Utah 6:AM MST

The Outdoor Retailer Summer Market ended yesterday, but the journey continues. And in some ways, perhaps it’s finally just getting started.

I’m hitting the road today making my way back across the plains and prairies to Wisconsin. I’m pretty psyched to get moving on several new projects that gained some serious traction over the last few days. So it’s good to be heading home. But this morning I woke up to an exciting email that announced the post of a new video from my friend adventure filmmaker Dominic Gill. (Give a listen to my podcast interview with him recorded last year at the Banff Mountain Film Festival>> Take A Seat). He’s making his way cross Wyoming and South Dakota on a tandem hybrid up-right recumbent bicycle on course for an incredible experience.  In his first documentary feature Take A Seat, Dom road a tandem bicycle from Alaska to Argentina. For two years on his 22,000-mile trek across two continents he invited total strangers to ride along on the back seat of his bicycle built for two. And as I write this he’s currently cycling across the United States traveling from California to New York on a similar expedition, but this time all of his riding partners are exclusively people with a disability. Read the rest of this entry »