By Alex Baires

Mountain Hardwear and Montrail are teaming up with the Hilltop Family YMCA of Richmond once again for the second annual Home Front Festival 10k and 5k fun run/walk. The fun run/walk will be held on Sunday, October 5, 2008, along the beautiful San Francisco Bay Trail. Lucky returns as event sponsor and REI joins with additional support this year.

San Francisco Bay Area runners and walkers are invited to come out and join fellow runners/walkers. The run benefits the Hilltop Family YMCA, a great organization that serves the Richmond community with a wide range of health and wellness related activities. Please come join us for a day of fun that will start with the 5k or 10k run or walk and get a free Mountain Hardwear shirt as well as free entry into the Home Front Festival. To top it all off, category winners compete for some great prizes and everyone has a chance to win - we will be raffling out various prizes.

We are also looking for volunteers for the event, so if you want to participate but running/walking is not for you, please email Hardwear Sessions -- blog (at) mountainhardwear.com.

YMCA Home Front Festival 10K and 5K fun run/walk

• Date: Sunday, October 5, 2008
• Start Time: 9 a.m.
• Start/Finish: Historic Ford Assembly Plant (right outside Mountain Hardwear's offices and friends and family store).
• Address: 1414 Harbor Way South; Richmond, CA 94804
• Additional Information: After the run stay and enjoy the Home Front Festival. Your race bib number gets you in for Free! Music, food, rides and booths. Festival starts at 11:00 am.
• Online Registration Closes: October 2, 2008
• Register online: http://www.onyourmarkevents.com
• Proceeds benefit the Hilltop YMCA youth fitness programs.
• Course: Beautiful Richmond Marina Bay and the scenic Bay Trail. Flat and perfect for new runners and walkers. For experienced runners the course is ideal for attaining a new personal best.
• Fees: Individual Adult $25 per person; 18 years and under are $20. Families of 4 are $72; $18 for each additional family member. Day of registration is $30 per person. Fees include a Mountain Hardwear shirt and refreshments/snacks.
• Check In and Race Day Registration: Opens at 7:30 a.m. Race numbers will not be mailed out in advance; please pick-up on race morning.

Continue reading "2008 Home Front Run"

This weekend, we drove up to Yosemite National Park to meet some friends from out of town. We spent the day in Tuolumne Meadows, then met our friends at Curry Village for dinner. The high-summer crowds were out in full force. Curry Village felt like an amusement park, festive and a little claustrophobic. As we stood in line for our buffet dinner, I picked up a flyer with an intriguing headline.

"Park Planning Underway Now!" read the flyer. "Get involved."

Upon closer inspection, I realized that the flyer was an invitation to participate in the planning process for the Tuolumne and Merced River Plans, the management plans that guide the National Park Service's day-to-day operations along the Tuolumne and Merced River corridors. Both the Tuolumne and Merced Rivers are protected under the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act, and the Park Service is required to preserve the rivers' Wild & Scenic character, while providing park visitors with adequate services and amenities.

The NPS is currently creating comprehensive management plans for the Tuolumne and Merced Rivers, which both run through Yosemite National Park. As part of the process, the NPS must solicit public comment on its proposed management plans.

The flyer invited park visitors to read planning documents on the NPS website, and then submit comments for the public record.

Producing these management plans is no cakewalk. Planners must balance multiple agencies (from federal agencies, like the Bureau of Land Management, to local agencies), often with conflicting interests, and comply with federal legislation. The planning documents are arcane and difficult to understand, and the Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) are even worse.

This may all seem like a tedious bureaucratic exercise, but the resulting Tuolumne River Plan/Tuolume Meadow Plan and New Merced River Plan will both have a significant impact upon our experience of Yosemite National Park. These plans will guide future development within Yosemite, and may change or even limit visitor access to certain areas of the park.

Continue reading "Help Plan Yosemite's Future"

By Cynthia Houng

We're just heading into the dog days of summer, but I'm already thinking about my cool-season kitchen garden. For Northern California gardeners, Sunset recommends starting seeds in August and September.

Over the weekend, I thumbed through seed catalogs and garden manuals, dreaming.

As I plan, I find myself drawn to the rare and the unusual. Heirloom varieties move me the most. There's something tender and wonderful about maintaining that living connection to the past, to taste the same flavors as someone who lived a hundred years ago.

Sentimentality aside, there is a very real and very sensible reason to preserve heirloom varieties of domestic plants -- their survival ensures that we conserve genetic diversity, providing insurance against outbreaks of diseases, pests, and other disasters.

Continue reading "Sense and Sensibility"

In California's tinder-dry environment, even the smallest spark can ignite a wildfire.

Fire fighters blame target shooting for the Telegraph Fire, an intense wildfire burning just west of Yosemite National Park. (See a map of the fire, courtesy of the Firefighter Blog.)

The fire started on Friday afternoon (July 25, 2008), near the junction of Telegraph and Sherlock roads, and quickly spiraled out of control. The fire jumped quickly from 1,000 acres to 16,000 acres. As of Monday morning, the fire has spread to cover 26,000 acres. Residents of Midpines and Mariposa received evacuation orders. Authorities cut the electrical power to Yosemite National Park. The Park remains open, running on generator power.

The Telegraph fire joined with a second fire (the Mt. Bullion fire). Cal Fire deployed 268 fire engines, 12 airtankers, and 12 helicopters. Blackhawk aircrews were called in to help work the steep, treacherous terrain. According to the Modesto Bee, 2,000 firefighters, some "from as far away as San Diego," were called into Mariposa County.

The Telegraph fire burns hot and furious, due to the dense, brushy terrain (filled with oily chaparral plants like manzanita) and the heavy fuel load (the area hasn't burned in over a century). Residents describe the fire as akin to an atom bomb. Thick, mushroom shaped clouds loom over the foothills, while white-hot flames lick the sky. Ash and soot have drifted as far west as the cities Fresno and Modesto.

Firefighters anticipate a difficult battle. The Merced River Canyon is a rocky, narrow river canyon, complicated and difficult to navigate. As of Monday morning, only 10% of the fire has been contained. Dry, hot, windy conditions, coupled with a high fuel load, present fire crews with significant challenges.

Continue reading "Massive Fire Burns in Merced River Canyon"

Scientists at UC Berkeley hope to study the water cycle by tracking raindrops. Learn more about their project in this short video documentary, produced by KQED's Quest.

Continue reading "Tracking Raindrops"

Yesterday, American Public Radio's "Marketplace" ran a short, provocative story about alternative fuels.

Listen to the story, "Driving Past the Biofuel Pump," on Marketplace's website.

Continue reading "Biofuel--a true "alternative"?"

Agriculture in action Story by Gail Franklin / Photo by Christopher Weddle For the Centre Daily Times Local residents helped fill rice bowls at the dinner tables of 11 orphanages in Myanmar after deadly Cyclone Nargis hit the country May 2. Donations from local residents totaling more than $20,000 were collected in the weeks after the storm at Calvary Baptist Church in State College and the Lifetime Orphaned Children’s Ministries in Lemont. The money was used to buy food at a time when the price of rice, a staple of the Burmese diet, has at least doubled. The government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, estimates that 138,000 were killed in the storm that also wrecked the Irrawaddy Delta region where about half the country’s rice is harvested. “One of the main implications of the storm is its impact on rice production and the impact it’s going to have over the next 12 to 18 months,” said Ricky Bates, who visited the country for two weeks in June. “It’s going to make life difficult not just for orphanages or rural people. Everyone has a difficult road ahead.” Bates, an associate horticulture professor at Penn State, has made four trips to Myanmar in the past three years, both as a member of Calvary Baptist and a volunteer with the Lemont ministry and for agricultural development work. He had already scheduled a visit for early June to observe farmer training in the Irrawaddy region, among other agricultural tasks. When the storm hit he knew that wasn’t going to happen, but he was able to visit orphanages north of the storm, where he has been an adviser on some farms and growing fields. The effect the cyclone has had on food production has made his work and research there even more important. He said he found cause for hope when he saw a rice paddy that was purchased in January by one orphanage through donations by Calvary and the Lemont ministry. Bates said the paddy was not affected by the storm and will be ready for harvest in three to four months. “Clearly, they’re in a position now where they can provide for some of their needs,” he said. “So that’s all very encouraging in the face of devastation.” As a foreigner, he was not allowed to visit the hardest-hit areas, including the Irrawaddy region, but he listened and talked with Burmese people and aid workers who went to those regions. He said teams were sent from the orphanages to visit the affected areas of their country to deliver aid and, although it was weeks after the storm, they stayed to help bury bodies. “From my time in Yangon (the capital) I know a lot of people were still in a state of shock,” Bates said. “People are still dazed by the death toll and the amount of devastation.” Bates said he saw home-movie footage of the disaster that showed whole villages wiped out by the cyclone. Larry Snyder, founder of Lifetime Orphaned Children’s Ministries, said orphanage directors have been handing out rice to people in their villages who have nothing to eat or can’t afford the skyrocketing price of food. They have also been able to feed the hundreds of orphans under their roofs. As a horticulturist, Bates said the storm has shown what can happen when a society relies heavily on one crop. That’s why he spent much of his time last month working to introduce a nutritious plant called moringa to the orphanage farms. “It’s really one of these God-given plants,” he said. The subtropical plant’s leaves provide amino acids, four times the calcium of milk, three times the potassium of a banana, and other nutrition. It grows well in Myanmar, Bates said, and can grow into a tree to provide seeds for future plantings. While it’s readily used in the food of the Philippines and Africa, it’s not a part of Burmese culture, he said. Bates had already introduced moringa to a couple of orphanages on previous visits, and used his June trip to assess whether they were still growing it and to see if they would use it in their food. “In Myanmar, it takes an effort to get them to understand the nutritional value and use it in recipes,” he said. “At one orphanage they served me soup using moringa.” Bates said it was a rewarding moment to see his agricultural advice in action, making the lives of other people healthier. He plans to continue to introduce different plants and more efficient methods for growing rice, and teach children at the orphanages who are interested in working as farmers. He emphasized that his work with the orphanages through his church is separate from his agricultural work, but he has found the orphanages to be a perfect farming training ground. “The orphanage directors act as natural liaisons with the community, almost like our cooperative extension program,” he said. “They’re in a good position to take this technology and transfer it to other farmers in the community.” A 31/ 2-acre plot of ground was purchased near the new 13-acre rice paddy at one orphanage, and Bates dreams of turning it into a farmer training center with a library and a place for children who become too old to be cared for by the orphanage to learn to support themselves and their future families. “They’ll start working in their communities and be centers of information for moringa and new ways of growing rice,” Bates said. “These small orphanages can become agents of change within their communities.” “That’s the goal,” he added. “For these benefits to extend well beyond these individual orphanages.”

As California's population approaches the 40 million mark...what is the future of water in America?

Read the Producer's Notes on this documentary.

Continue reading "KQED's Quest covers Water in California"

Illustration by Karl Urban. To see more of Karl's coloring book drawings, visit the National Park Service's Northwest Wildflower Drawings Coloring Book website.

Story by Cynthia Houng

Sierra hikers with a sharp eye for detail may have noticed strange, skull-shaped pink blossoms dotting the subalpine forest floor.

These flowers belong to the longhorn steer's head (Dicentra uniflora), a close relative to the familiar bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa), a common garden plant.

Only an inch or so in height, the Longhorn Steer's Head is a jewel-like plant with lacy green leaves and delicate, almost dusty rose blooms. It is an early season bloomer, and like the snow plant, is often found near patches of retreating snow.

Continue reading "The Longhorn Steer's Head Plant"

This morning, Freddie Wilkinson revealed that he's recently began writing for the Huffington Post's "Green" page. He has a nice opinion piece on China's "Olympic" summit, and another on "Yard Sale economics."

These pieces show a different side of Freddie. if you've enjoyed Freddie's pieces on climbing, you'll like these pieces.

Continue reading "Meet Freddie's Green Side"

"Urban farming" is the hip new thing.

Maybe it's the economy. Or maybe Americans are just going through a "green" phase. Suddenly, urban farming is everywhere--it's in the news, in magazines, on television. Artists are getting on the bandwagon, too. Urban farming is so trendy that the New York Times even ran an article about hip young urbanites who replaced their lawns with home orchards. Composting is sexy now.

The urban farming concept is simple: grow good food close to home. Advocates of urban farming argue that the practice eliminates unnecessary fuel consumption, reduces our carbon footprints, and encourages good eating habits. For some families, a successful kitchen garden helps stretch the paycheck. Some families even manage to supplement their paychecks by selling extra produce at local farmers' markets.

In these hands, gardening becomes more than a leisure activity, rejoining the household economy. Before the 19th century, only the very wealthy could afford to keep decorative gardens. You and I would have spent our time digging around in our kitchen gardens, growing herbs, fruit, and other edibles to supplement our diet. Certain garden forms--such as the English cottage garden or the Italian courtyard garden--once existed not for pleasure, but for sustenance.

Today, advocates of "urban farming" hope to take us back to gardening's utilitarian roots. Whether we call them "urban farms," "kitchen gardens," "Victory gardens," or some hybrid of these terms, these spaces are supposed to produce useful things, like food.

Continue reading "Urban Farming"

Last fall, when I first came across Sunset's One Block Diet blog, I dismissed the project as an albatross. The idea of a one-block diet seemed completely out of line with our contemporary lifestyles. In this age where tomatoes come from Mexico and peaches from Chile, how can we ever hope to eat food grown and processed within "one block" of our homes?

In her introduction to the One Block Diet, Sunset editor Margo True rhasphodized over the "pleasures" of local food. Margo then outlined the Sunset project: "We're using our garden expertise to grow, in a plot about the size of a large backyard, just about everything we'll need for a feast we'll cook at the end of summer. It's the ultimate made-from-scratch meal."

Margo means well. But she kind of turned me off.

Who has the time to grow their own food? Press their own olive oil? Make their own cheese? And who has the money to shop exclusively at the farmer's market, or search out all-organic produce? Plus, she sounded so bossy, and I don't deal well with authority.

I read a few blog entries, and then moved on. I dismissed the One Block Diet as another lark. Oh, the foibles of the wealthy, living high down in Menlo Park, with all those Silicon Valley multimillionaires. I grumbled to my friends that if I had retired at age 28, I, too, could grow all my own food and start my own organic olive farm. Instead, I spend 40 hours a week in the office, sharing my life with a computer screen. When am I supposed to tend my garden?

Something changed this spring.

Continue reading "Sunset's One Block Diet"

This weekend, dry lightning ignited a swarm of wildfires in Northern California. By Monday morning, Cal Fire (the California agency responsible for tracking and fighting wildfires) counted approximately 90 small fires in Mendocino county, and another 75 in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. (View Calfire's map of current, active wildfires.)

Fires burned closer to home, in Napa County, in Santa Cruz (the third devastating wildfire in recent weeks), and in Brisbane, a small city south of San Francisco.

Last night, we drove up into the Berkeley hills and sat near the top of Grizzly Peak, "just because." (We were also out on a hunt for banana cream pie, but that's irrelevant.) From Grizzly Peak, we could see an enormous plume of smoke rising from the peninsula. It was the smoke from the Brisbane fire.

By Monday morning, the Brisbane fire had been contained, and firefighters reported that their containment efforts, aided by cooler weather (and the return of the Bay Area's usual summer fog), were beginning to rein in the Napa and Santa Cruz fires.

As of this moment, the air is still hazy with smoke, a reminder of fire's undeniable place in the California landscape. It is not a pleasant experience. The particulates cloud the air, sting the eyes, and settle in the throat. As global warming continues and Northern California's climate grows hotter and drier, scientists expect more wildfires in our region.

Continue reading "Lightning Strikes"

By Will Meinen

It pretty much rained the entire month of May here in the Rockies, so I headed South to Utah with my buddy Brent for a relaxing trip up some classic Zion big walls.

It's still snowing in the Canadian Rockies. I'm headed to Squamish, BC for some sunshine and granite cracks on the Chief.

Enjoy the video.

Continue reading "Space Shot"

Going camping on a rocky island? Not sure how to keep your tent from flying away? You could try this technique:

Anders Holmberg took this photograph while camping/kayaking on the west coast of Sweden.

Everyone loves comic books. Our friends at IDEO sent us a wonderful little comic book detailing their adventures during "Operation Tahoe Fondue Drop." I won't spoil the fun for you. To read the comic book, open the PDF (click on the link below) and enjoy!

Into the Wild: Operation Tahoe Fondue Drop

Continue reading "Into the Wild..."

Shivering on the summit of Mt. Russell.

A few weeks ago, a reader sent us this photograph. Read about the climb--and the shiver bivy--on the Alaska Mountaineering School's blog.

Continue reading "Shivering on Mt. Russell"

By Cynthia Houng

The American West has never been a lush, verdant place. From the Plains west, we enter a land of little rain. The Pacific Northwest, with its temperate rainforest and ample moisture, is an exception.

California is famously arid. Here, in the San Francisco Bay Area, the average annual rainfall is a scant 20.4 inches a year.

This past March and April were some of the driest on the record. March was the 6th driest March in 89 years. As of this week, the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), the water district that supplies Mountain Hardwear's offices--and my house--with water, began rationing water this week.

The EBMUD would like to reduce overall water use by 15 percent. Although California received ample snow this winter, spring has been unusually hot and dry, and water reservoirs are low.

These new restrictions on water usage, coupled with the possibility that we are entering another extended drought cycle, made me reconsider my gardening practices. This past weekend, I sat down with a nice fat stack of books on gardening in dry climates, and tried to make sense of my options. I was determined to start my own kitchen garden this summer, but the new water restrictions added a new wrinkle to my plans. And would the food that I grow at home truly be better for the environment than what I pick up at the store? Would I really leave a smaller carbon footprint?

Continue reading "In the Land of Little Rain"

Barn Owl, by John James Audubon, courtesy of the Huntington Library

By Cynthia Houng

Last week, we came across an owl pellet on our front patio. After a bit of research, we decided that the pellet probably came from a Barn Owl (Tyto Alba). Smooth, with bits of embedded fur and bone, the owl pellet reminded me of petrified dirt.

We haven't seen the owl. Not yet.

Owls are actually quite common near rural residences, and will even nest in some suburban neighborhoods, but their nocturnal habits render them elusive. I've caught occasional glimpses of barn owls, flying low at dusk, diving for prey. With their heart-shaped faces and duff-colored wings unmistakable, especially here in northern California, where we have no other large, light-colored owls. Once, walking alone, one flew towards me, swooping low overhead, and for a moment we looked eye-to-eye. It's easy, once you've looked into a barn owl's face and seen those marble-like eyes and that almost human face, why the barn owl is also known as the "monkey-faced owl."

Continue reading "Of Owl Pellets and Barn Owls"

Yesterday, Ueli wrote a little about camp cuisine.

Today, we want to know: what do you crave at altitude? What do you eat when you need to keep going?

Leave us a comment with your favorite foods--and a recipe or two, if you like--and let's find out what folks eat when they're on a big summit push.

And no, your office desk does not count as "altitude."

Continue reading "What Do You Crave at Altitude?"