Spotted...

At Stratton Open Space Saturday morning - a pickup truck with mountain biking decals down the side, and across the tail gate in large, easy-to-read letters:

"If my wife let me ride her as much as I ride my bike, I'd be home right now."

That is all.

Intertube prices set to climb 42%

From Bike Radar:

The shortage in butyl – used to make inner tubes – has resulted in a 42% price increase in tire prices as well as other components also set to increase. That could mean inner tubes climbing in price to about $8.

Foot of fresh in Vail

The robins in my yard and the butterflies on the trail keep telling me its spring, but not in the high country, where ski conditions are still prime. Vail got a foot Sunday, so did Aspen. Beaver Creek got 16". Most of Summit garnered at least 6". I've got to figure out how to get up there a few more times before this show is over.

Elk Mountain Traverse starts at midnight

This is the first time in a few years I won't be doing the 40-mile ski race between Crested Butte and Aspen. It filled up too fast and I missed sign up. After last year, when many racers turned back in a white-out with high winds and sub-zero temps, and others finished with full-thickness frost bike, I'm actually pretty happy I'm not there.

How did Captain Jacks get its name

The popular multi-use trail has a colorful history. This is from Zoltan Malocsay's Trails Guide, Denver to Pikes Peak:
Mrs. Ellen Jack was a prospector who found and
sold a valuable mine, then moved to early-day
Colorado Springs and built what would now be
called a motel on top of the High Drive. She always wore a
six-gun and a pickax in her belt and claimed to
bear a scar from a poisoned tomahawk dating from
the last Gunnison Indian uprising. The real
Captain Jack was her husband, who was just a
memory when Ellen arrived, yet people called her
Captain Jack. Nothing remains of her place but
the parking lot.

Gear up

Here's Out There's latest gear review. As someone who sometimes shoots photos for stories, I appreciate this one.

Digital Photography Outdoors’
c The second edition of this book by James Martin, a veteran photographer who has shot for Outside, Climbing and Rock & Ice, shows outdoor enthusiasts how to take their snapshots to the next level. Loaded with examples, this compact guide takes budding photographers through age-old rules of the film era and recent Photoshop tricks and tips for the digital darkroom, such as how to interpret histograms and use cloning tools.
Price: $18.95
Where to get it: Most bookstores
Bonus: Beautiful enough to be left on the coffee table.
Bummer: So beautiful you may be demoralized by your efforts.

Cheyenne Canyon spring sightings

Wednesday I ditched work and rode my bike all afternoon, and was delighted to see these signs of spring.
* 3 Colorado Hairstreak butterflies
* 2 painted lady butterflies
* 1 unidentified lizard
* 1 bunch of open pasque flowers

Get out, get busy and get stuff

At the start of January Out There published a list of 52 local outdoor adventures that Andy Wineke and I thought represented the best of living in Colorado. Then we threw down the bike glove with this challenge: the person who did the most of these adventures, and sent in photos proving it, would get a whopping gift certificate at Mountain Chalet. Pretty sweet.

Anyway, the year is a quarter gone. Time is running short to ski to a ghost town or go on a hut trip. However, there's still plenty of other ways to scrape a knee still waiting. Here are two for April:

-Bike, hike and ski the Imperial Challenge the last weekend of the season at Breckenridge. Bike from town, then carry skis to the top of Imperial Bowl at 12,998 feet, then ski down. First one down wins.breckenridge.snow .com
- Catch the songbird migration at Chico Basin Ranch. The trees of this massive ranch are a stopover for thousands of feathered wayfarers. chicobasinranch.com

Appalachian Trail Without Re-Supply

On March 21, Demetri Coupounas, (a.k.a. "Coup") the president and co-founder of Boulder-based GoLite, set out with a 127-pound pack to hike the Appalachian Trail for ith no re-supply.
Coupounas has no idea how far he’ll get claiming “That’s part of the adventure!” but he has targeted more than 620 miles, the current distance record. He added, “I’m carrying maps for over 1000 miles and considering that weight is an issue on this trip, it would be tragic to have carried something that far that didn’t get used!”

Learn that it's not as easy as it looks

Just in time for spring, bicycleetudor.com has free, illustrated guides to routine bike repair projects. You can do it at home. You won't save money, but it will make you feel better about taking your bike into the shop.

Lions back in Kansas after a century?

In November a man in Medicine Lodge Kansas resident was cutting wood on his property when he saw the mountain lion nearby. He walked to his truck, grabbed a rifle and shot it.

The last lion in Kansas was killed in 1904. So our flat neighbor the to east is all abuzz about whether lions are back, having wandered in from the mesas of southeast Colorado, or whether this was a pet lion set loose, like others that have been killed in the midwest.

According to the Kansas City Star, the Kansas Department of Wildlife plans to DNA test the lion to see whether it is wild.

Toyota gives $20 million to Audubon Society

The $20 million Toyota grant announced yesterday is the largest Audubon has received in its 103-year history. It will fund TogetherGreen a conservation program with three components:

• Innovation Grants to fund dozens of on-the-ground projects each year that employ creative approaches and engage diverse communities to help achieve measurable land, water and/or energy conservation results.
  

• Conservation Fellowships to train and foster up to 200 promising environmental leaders who can serve as role models, expert guides and organizers for engaging new and diverse audiences in effective conservation action.

• Volunteer Days to be offered at Audubon Centers and other locations nationwide, providing hands-on opportunities to address environmental problems and take part in restoration activities.

DB Cooper's parachute found?

The Seattle P.I. is reporting that a farmer found an old parachute in his field that may have belonged to D.B. Cooper, the criminal/folk hero who in 1971 hijacked a plane, collected a ransom of $200,000, the parachuted out the back.

Many think he died. None of the ransom money was ever circulated. But if this parachute turns out to be the right make, it could revive all sorts of speculation. Until then, I recommend listening to the Todd Snider song DB Cooper.

Sueing for wolves in RMNP

A nonprofit group sued the National Park Service on Tuesday because it plans to cull elk in Rocky Mountain National Park instead of reintroducing wolves to naturally control the herd..

WildEarth Guardians, a.k.a. Sinapu, claims that park officials did not adequately consider reintroducing gray wolves into Rocky Mountain National Park to solve the elk population problems.

Park Service biologists considered reintroducing wolves as one alternative to control the elk but nixed the idea because reintroducing a self-sustaining wolf pack was not feasible, because there was no regional wolf reintroduction plan. (The plan to cull elk took six years to finalize, so just imagine.)

But the lawsuit, the bureaucratic excuses, and the culling may miss the larger wolf point. Independent of any human plans, signs suggest the wolves are coming, from the north, and possibly from the south. Maybe it's best to just wait and see what happens.

A brewing battle over Battle Mountain

Folks in the small town of Minturn are mobilizing to oppose the proposed Battle Mountain private ski area that a Florida-based golf and resort company wants to build 1,700 homes, a golf course and 1,100 acres of ski terrain on 5,300-plus acres of Battle Mountain.

Here's the hitch: In order to develop, the resort must by annexed by the tiny town of Minturn. The city council approved the annexation in February. But some residents aren't so sure they want more congestion, more skiers, and more second homes in their little community, so they are petitioning to have a referendum. It only takes 73 signatures in the tiny town to get a referendum, and organizers say they're "75 percent there."

Another example of fake Rockies

I see it in adds all the time -- even adds that promote tourism in Colorado -- fake Rockies.  And by that I mean, other mountain ranges being passed off as our own.  Most recent example, from a gas station on Ute Pass.  Here we see what I believe to be Mount Raineer, behind an add saying Coors is so good because it's brewed with "pure Rocky Mountain spring water."  Why couldn't they have called up John Fielder and used a picture of Sneffels?

Have other fake Rockies examples?  Post a link below.

Priorities, priorities

In a besieged economy, the snow sports market is booming with $2.35 billion in sales representing a growth rate of approximately 13 percent over the same period last season.

“The subprime mortgage crisis, the falling value of the dollar, increasing prices for consumer goods, and the high price of petroleum have hit the economy very hard but when the snow is good nothing will keep people off the slopes,” said Kelly Davis, Director of Research for SIA.

Or... maybe people that signed up for subprime home loans (and the hapless investors who bought them) don't ski.

Ski area hits the skids

Plans for a ski area on the west side of Pikes Peak announced in February skidded to a stop last week when the developer failed to come up with a down-payment for the land.
John Ball of Boulder was supposed to pay land-owner Harvey Carter $1 million on March 20, but he said because of the dire economic atmosphere created by the credit crunch, his investors have been hesitant to write checks.
“I’ve got $1.5 million pledged by 22 investors,” Ball said Monday. “But it’s just taking longer to get the money together.”
In the mean time, Carter, who owns 320 acres near The Crags, said he is discussing offers from Ball and other developers who want to build a ski area on the site, including an unnamed real estate agent in Manitou Springs.
“I’m talking to both of them, plus another guy. There’s a lot going on but nothing happening,” said Carter.
He said he’ll go with the first party to make the down payment.

China clamps down on Everest permits

China is denying mountaineers permission to climb its side of Mount Everest this spring, a move that reflects government concerns that Tibet activists may try to disrupt plans to carry the Olympic torch to the world's tallest peak. Read more.

Google maps for bikes?

There's a movement afoot to get Google maps to add a bike routes to its mapping software. Sounds like a good idea to me, until you find yourself in a part of town where there are no good routes.

By the way, you can see a map of Colorado Springs Bike Routes here.