I’m not sure if today is the best or worst day to discuss protecting our winters. Regardless, here’s Jeremy Jones stating his case for keeping snow around.

Viva la snow!

I’ve spent the last few weeks fighting general malaise, mostly with general anesthetic, who is much more interesting if less useful than general semantics. Love that joke. Anyway, I don’t mean to get overly personal but I’ve had trouble finding much inspiration recently which is not a happy place to be. Last night I was digging around on Netflix and found 180 Degrees South. It’s a documentary chronicling a six month journey to Patagonia taken by a young man named Jeff Johnson. Jeff and some friends are following a path that was laid out on a journey undertaken 40 years earlier by Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins, the founders of Patagonia and The North Face respectively.  The stated goal of both trips was to climb the treacherous peaks of Patagonia and find some tasty waves to surf but both journeys ended up being something more for the travelers.

The film really got my juices flowing, it reminded me that an untamed and untouched world still exists out there.  That adventure and experience can still be had if one seeks it out.  It was precisely the kind of thing I needed to see and has helped to re energize my spirit of adventure.

A major focus of the film is on the abuse and depletion of the earth’s, and in particular, Patagonia’s natural resources which is never an uplifting thing to see.  Despite those saddening conditions the main thrust is that of a wild eyed freedom and engagement with the natural world.  It was very cool to be able to see old footage and  hear present day interviews with Chouinard and Tompkins.  Always fascinating to  get into the heads  of old seekers.  Check out the website, you can dig thorugh some old footage and interviews and then go watch the movie.  Did me a world of good.

There is plenty of information in the mediasphere on how you can donate to help the victim’s of the Haitian earthquake, though there is little discussion that I have seen on practical solutions for implementing the financial aid that is pouring in. But then this morning, I noticed the Dangerous Mind’s post on Chicago’s Vinay Gupta’s Hexayurt project.

Cheap, extremely portable, and able to be constructed quickly by a single person, the Hexayurt is a remarkably efficient solution to creating a temporary shelter for disaster areas, refugee situations, construction sites, military installations or festivals.

Vinay developed this for his camp at Burning Man and has been pushing them for the better part of the past decade. We had several plans to interview him for the Viking Youth Power Hour, but never saw that plan to completion though I wish we had. There’s little I enjoy more than seeing an elegant solution to a difficult problem and Vinay’s Hexayurts clearly fit that bill.

Don’t lose hope dear internetting ones, we still have every intention of launching the full Outsider’s Almanac website in the near future, it just won’t be quite as soon as we had hoped. We’re pretty insanely busy these days, between writing projects, client needs, body/mind/spirit rehabbing and the pursuit of winter in it’s many splendered and distracting forms, but you should expect to see the site live by around April 1st, 2010.

We’ve got our sites on making Outsider’s Almanac the most exhaustive and user friendly site for all Outsider activities by combining tutorials with expert articles, videos, web based and mobile communication apps, up-to-the-minute live and critical information on sites and conditions, gear reviews, site reviews, events, and so much more.

Like you, we love the Outside, it’s beautiful out here, and boy is it easy to get distracted. We wouldn’t want it any other way.

Film maker, OA Woody Creek correspondent and all around American Hero Wayne Ewing sent me an article today about a new movement taking foot in the shadows of New York City. Self-proclaimed urban cavemen sustain themselves solely on red meat and some vegetables and fruits. In addition, they eat in a manner that would mimic the hunting and gathering of that time, gorging on red meat and then fasting for one, two or three days. Their thought is that primitive man – though he was typically lucky to live to 30 – was in much better shape than the pudgy, modern, air conditioned nightmares that haunt the earth presently.

“Mr. De Vany’s blog promotes what he calls Evolutionary Fitness. Like his disciples in New York, he believes that ancient humans could perform physical feats that would awe the gym rats of today.

His followers believe that he too is capable of fearsome feats. When Mr. Durant told a gathering of New York cavemen that he had seen Mr. De Vany at a seminar in Las Vegas, Matthew Sanocki, 34, asked if Mr. De Vany looked as muscular in the flesh as in pictures on his blog.

“He looks great,” Mr. Durant said. “You feel like he could, at a moment’s notice, charge at you and trample you.”

Already, the New York cavemen are getting attention from the patriarchs of the paleo movement. One such figure, Erwan Le Corre, a Frenchman whom the magazine Men’s Health said “may rank as one of the most all-around physically fit men on the planet,” stopped by Mr. Durant’s while visiting the city in December. The men sealed their friendship with what both described as a bare-chested — and in Mr. Le Corre’s case, barefoot — run across the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges on a frigid night.”

It’s not a rare occurance any more to find a stark reminder in just about every populated pocket of this tumbling rock that pretty much everyone drawing air these days is out of their friggin’ minds, though I am encouraged by the particular brand of crazy these cavemen are bringing to the table. It’s almost like, quietly, in a distinctly macho manner, old mother gaia is blushingly making amends for all the lame vegans skulking about our fair neighborhoods.

Ah, what balance emerges when the collective consciousness gets goose pimples from vertigo.

Read the whole article here.

Matty and I are heading out early in the morning for our first XC ski outting of the season. It’s supposed to be fairly cold tomorrow so we’re trying to find an alternative to the lake front which can be downright vicious on a good day.

We’ve done Herrick Lake in the past, but for the love of Pete there is something seriously creepy about the tangible air of puckered butt around there. It’s not like cross country skiing attracts the best and brightest of the laid back set as it is, in fact it seems to attract the terminally white like serial killers and sedans. But these friggin’ maniacs out in the Western suburbs take that wound up waspiness into new olympian fields. Bump that.

Bemis we’ve been to, also. That’s much nicer than Herrick and has a little spot you can duck into and make out with your sweetheart or play quarters or smoke crack or whatever teenage kids do these days.

But I’m sure there’s more, and better, spots. So I scrubbed this list from this real handy list of Cook County trail maps. Click on the links below to view maps.

Arie Crown Ski Trails map (85KB)

[The] trail located in the Arie Crown Forest [...] is especially suited to the beginner and the intermediate skier. The majority of the trail is wooded, with gentle sloping to flat terrain. For access to the Arie Crown Cross Country Ski Trail, you may use the Sundown Meadow parking lot located on the West Side of Mannheim Road (Route 45) North of 67th Street. Lake Ida, located north of the Sundown Meadow parking lot is open for Ice Skating as soon as safe ice conditions exist.

Bemis Woods Ski Trails map (56KB)

The gently rolling terrain at Bemis Woods offers excellent skiing for beginners and advanced skiers alike.

For the non-skiers Bemis Woods also offers sledding, coasting and tobogganing.

Bemis Woods is located on the North side of Ogden Avenue — West of Wolf Road.

Beverly Lake Area Ski Trails map (32KB)

These trails begin at Beverly Lake and travel north. The terrain is hilly and suitable for intermediate skiers. The trails pass through mature oak forests and open savannas with superb vistas.

The Beverly Lake area is located on Higgins Road about one mile west of Sutton Road (Illinois Route 59).

Camp Sagawau Area Ski Trails map (109KB)

A complete Nordic Ski Program, including lessons for all ability levels, nature ski tours, school group programs, and ski rentals is available at Camp Sagawau. The Camp is open when snow conditions are adequate. Call 257-2045 for a complete ski program brochure.

The trails traverse a scenic area of forest and prairie. The Sag Trail is gentle and well suited to the beginner while the Ridge Run is more rolling, appropriate to intermediate or advanced level skiers. Ski information and a warmup area is available.

The trails are groomed and tracked as snow conditions warrant. Skiers must obtain a free trail pass in the Farmhouse before skiing.

Camp Sagawau is on Route 83 east of Archer Avenue or four miles west of the Swallow Cliff Winter Sports Area.

Deer Grove Ski Trails map (141KB)

The mature oak and maple forests and hilly terrain at Deer Grove offers excellent skiing and the wooded areas provide protection from the severe winds on cold days.

For the non-skiers Deer Grove also offers sledding, ice skating, coasting, tubing and toboggan slides. Deer Grove is located on the west side of Quentin Road just north of Dundee Road.

Swallow Cliff Ski Trails map (106KB)

The rolling terrain of the Swallow Cliff area offers excellent skiing for beginners and advanced skiers alike.

Swallow Cliff provides a warming shelter and heated rest rooms. This area is located near the intersection of Illinois Route 83 and U.S. Highway 45, just west of Palos Park.

Holy crap this is awesome! ThinkGeek is offering a tauntaun sleeping bag this Christmas season complete with gut filled liner and a light saber to open the tauntaun with.

I totally need one of these so I have the proper receptacle to pee my pants from excitement in!

I scrubbed this off the Backpacker.com blog. It’s a delicious soup that is easy to haul with you on hikes or multi-day bike rides.

Quinoa-Mushroom Soup
Serves 2-4,

1/2 cup dry shiitake mushrooms, sliced
2 cups baby chard
2 cloves garlic, sliced
12 snow peas or green beans, cut in thirds
1 cup quinoa
1 cube vegetable bouillon
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. salt

At home: if you buy quinoa in bulk, you should wash it before cooking to remove the bitter-tasting coating. Wash with five changes of cold water in a strainer and let dry. (If you buy it in-box, pre-washing isn’t necessary.) Cut up the mushrooms, garlic and carrots and place in a bag. Store the spinach and snow peas separately.

In camp: Place the quinoa, bouillon cube, mushrooms, and garlic in 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Cook for 10 minutes, until the quinoa has begun to soften and the vegetables are cooked through. Stir in the baby chard and snow peas and cook a few more minutes over low heat until wilted. Salt and pepper to taste.

EDIT: I just made a variation of this for lunch and it’s great. I added 2-3 cups of a Belgian Ale, some leeks, carrots, and green onions. Awesome.

Here’s a really cool tutorial on how to make shelves from mushrooms found while hiking. I’m pretty excited to give this a try.