Outdoor Sports Blog

Trekking Poles Reduce Knee Pain The first study investigating the impact of trekking poles when hiking downhill was done by Dr. Neureuther in 1981. He discovered that the use of trekking poles reduces the pressure strain on our most important joint by up to 20%. US scientists from two different universities (Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL and Willamette University, Salem, OR) came to a similar result. Michael Bohne, Assistant Professor if Biomechanics at Western Illinois University and leader of the study praised the effectiveness of trekking poles, no matter if the hiker carried a backpack. The researchers engaged fifteen hikers from a nearby hiking club for the study. A special ramp was designed with built-in sensors to discover the impact when walking down the ramp. In multiple experiments, the hikers had to walk with and without hiking poles as well as with and without wearing either a light backpack loaded with 15% of the hikers body weight or a heavy pack with 30

The 12th annual Ouray Ice Festival was held (Jan. 10 -14, 20007). Ouray is a town in the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado. Originally a mining town where prospectors were digging for gold and silver, Ouray is nowadays better known for the world’s first artificial ice climbing park. The ice climbing park is located in Box Canyon and offers dozens of frozen waterfalls ranging form about 80 to 200 feet in height. Ice climbing in Ouray is free. The Ice Climbing Festival has become a major source of revenue for the area. The park is open until April 7, 2007. For more information visit the Web site of The Ouray Ice Park . Click here for the Ouray Webcam (updated every minute during daylight hours). Click here for more info on how to learn ice climbing .

The Great Backyard Bird Count is a four-day event on a yearly base. This year's date is February 16 – 19, 2007, the tenths anniversary. If you are a nature lover, you’re invited to participate. Join this great event that spans from the United States to Canada and help bird conservation. The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society. It doesn’t play a role where you live in North America. You can participate, be it in your backyard, on your next snowshoeing trip, at a local park or any other place. How does it work? During February, 16 – 19, 2007 schedule to count birds for let's say 15 to 30 minutes. You can do that at as many places (and days) you like. But keep in mind to keep separate lists of your sightings/counts for every location and day. Count the maximum number of each individual bird species you see together any one time. Take note of these numbers. Best is to bring a pencil (they work in f

If you plan snowshoeing trips in the bear country watch out! We live in bear country and snowshoeing is one of our favorite winter activities. Often we leave the beaten path on our trips to discover hidden treasures of the Canadian backcountry. During the winter months, we never expect to encounter any bears, but we wondered what would happen if we would stumble over a den and wake up a bear from hibernation. Well, so far we’ve been lucky and never had any troubles. However, two Canadian forestry surveyors from the Alberta Sustainable Resource Development were less fortunate. They were on a trip to collect data on trees contaminated with mountain pine beetles as they walked with their snowshoes over an unknown grizzly den, covered by brush and snow. The grizzly attacked and mauled both the man and the women. Both suffered injuries. The woman could manage to escape to a close by hill and radio for help. They were picked up by a helicopter shortly after the accident and flown to