Thanks, Echo Mountain, for the 12 years of free skiing
Skiing is expensive and we are cheap, so we invest a certain amount of time tracking discounts, deals and freebies accorded gray-bearded customers by ski resorts around the country. (We also notice when someone dramatically increases the prices on olds.) Thankfully, online ski magazine First Tracks!! has put together a...
Senate victory for pedestrians, cyclists
Yesterday, for the third time in less than two months, Republican senators failed to eliminate federal money for bike paths, bike lanes, walking paths and other transportation “enhancement” projects. In this instance, the “enhancements” also include pedestrian safety projects. So we’ll chalk this...
Bamboozling booze guidance for old Brits
Health advice used to be like cheap ball caps: one size fit all. Over the years, it has become more discriminating, with guidance that differentiates between ages, genders, ethnicity and more. And in the decades ahead, we’ll be making even finer cuts. Your doctor will run a DNA scan...
Is it safe to eat snakes?
Well, is it? We don’t know. This article from Outside raises and presumably answers the question. We don’t know because we haven’t read it. We don’t need to. Here’s why: Let’s say you’re on a long hike…no, call it a trek, alone, in a wilderness. A wasteland. And...
Olds just won’t stop running marathons
If you were out pounding the pavement yesterday morning, you might have missed the New York Times story on the aging world of competitive running. Writer Tom Sims notes that 30 years ago, “the median age for a marathon runner was 34 for men and 31 for women....
A nice bit of backwoods skunkworks
Over the past year, we’ve come across a couple of innovative projects—one was a documentary, the other a band’s throwback vinyl record—being funded through Kickstarter. Kickstarter, if you haven’t seen it, is worth a look. The web site says it’s the largest funding platform for creative...
Only seven months till the ice is off the northern lakes
There’s still plenty of good paddling left in 2011, but this is the time of year when people start looking ahead to the 2012 season. To accommodate that casting forward, canoe and kayak manufacturers are already making promises about what they’ll have available in the spring. (Pouring...
Car camping, the early years
You can be impressed by Thomas Coleman du Pont (1863-1930) because he supervised the construction of the DuPont Highway through Delaware, or because he was a two-term U.S. senator from that state, or because he had the good sense to be born a great-grandson of the founder of...
Even older dude swims the channel
Sorry, Matt Damon’s uncle, who once held the record for the oldest person to swim the cold, polluted, debris-cluttered English Channel. You’ve just been outdone by 70-year-old Roger Allsopp, who flailed his way across that miserable stretch of water in a little under 18 hours. Allsopp,...
Toughest old bird of the day: you decide
If you need to be reminded that even the most prosaic trip can have its risks, consider Dan Anders (61) from St. Petersburg, Florida. An avid outdoorsman, Anders was on a not-particularly-adventuresome trip through the West. Visiting the parks, driving aimlessly down back roads, collecting...
