Sierra Club launches a wiki for trails

by Kraig Becker on

Hikers, backpackers, and other outdoor enthusiasts in general now have a new tool at their disposal thanks to the Sierra Club. Late last week, the organization that has promoted outdoor adventure for more than 110 years, launched a new website called Sierra Club Trails that aims to become the online resource for the best hiking, biking, and paddling trails across the United States.

The new trails site follows the popular “wiki” model for generating content by having users contribute their knowledge and experience, and in the process, an online community is built with the idea of sharing that information. Users create an online profile and login, which gives them access to the Sierra Club’s tools for creating content on their favorite places to hike, including general information about the trail conditions, directions to the trailhead itself, and some thoughts on the difficulty level that hikers can expect. Best of all, using that wiki approach, the information can be easily edited and updated as it changes over time.

The Sierra Club is excited about building and utilizing this online community and to that end they’ve inclued some other resources to encourage hikers, mountain bikers, and paddlers to interact with one another online. They’ve built a set of forums for discussing various topics such as gear, trail food, and other outdoor hobbies. There is also a page dedicated to upcoming events, and another for sharing trail lore on a variety of subjects.

For now, Sierra Club Trails has been launched in beta format, while content is being filled in and users join the fun. But there are already a number of great trails in the wiki database, with more being added on a daily basis. You can add your favorite hiking, biking, and paddling trails by heading over to the site, createing a profile and sharing the places that are special for you.

Summer snow-tubing at Keystone Resort

by Tom Johansmeyer on

With the hot summer sun beating down on me, I actually start to miss winter. But, when that brisk chill turns into relentless cold, I start to think in the other direction. The Keystone Resort has found a way to give you the best of both. This summer, it will be the only resort to offer snow-tubing. Yes, you can roll around in – and glide on – the cold white stuff in July and August.

Keystone’s Adventure Point will offer two lanes of snow every Wednesday through Sunday this summer, from 10 AM to 2:30 PM, as long as the snow lasts. Each guest can spend $25 to get a one-hour tubing session with unlimited runs (including gondola rides up the mountain).

“With the success of the tubing hill in the winter, we wanted to try and offer our guests a unique and fun experience by tubing on the snow during the summer,” said Matt Hoover, tubing hill manager at Keystone Resort. “It’s definitely summer time here at Keystone, but at our high altitude we can offer the best of both worlds to give guests an unforgettable on-mountain experience this summer.”

Not far away, you can still hit the usual summer activities in Keystone, including the bike park (the River Run Gondola will take you back to the top), with an unlimited mountain biking season pass costing only $299. and, be sure to grab a meal at the mountaintop Alpenglow Stube and Der Fuondue Chessel. Everything tastes better at 11,444 feet.

2009 Tour de France is underway

by Kraig Becker on

The 2009 Tour de France got underway yesterday with an individual time trial through the streets of Monaco. The Prologue was a short and fast 15.5km (9.6 miles) sprint that started with a steady climb and ended with the riders screaming back down the hill towards the finish line. At the end of the day, time trial specialist Fabian Cancellara took the stage victory and the famous Yellow Jersey, while the real contenders for the race, such as Alberto Contatdor and American Levi Leipheimer, lurking just off the pace. Lance Armstrong, making his return to the Tour after a 3 year layoff, finished in 10th.

Today, the race heads out onto the road, leaving Monaco behind, with a 187km (116.1 miles) stage through southern France. The route will pass through some rolling hills, but will mostly favor the sprinters who will be competing for the Green Jersey, while the climbers will wait for the seventh stage, when the race moves away from Barcelona and into the Pyrenees, where they’ll begin their competition for the Polka Dot Jersey worn by the King of the Mountains.

Over the next three weeks the top riders in the world will compete in cyclings premiere event. In total, there will be 21 stages, covering more than 3500km (2175 miles). The race culminates on Sunday, July 26 on the Champs Elysees when the leader rides into Paris with the Yellow Jersey.

DreamTours makes your cycling adventures a reality

by Kraig Becker on

Have you ever wanted to go on an epic cycling expedition? Perhaps explore the Serengeti by mountain bike or maybe ride the Silk Road? Perhaps you’ve always wanted to go on a cycling adventure to some remote place, but just weren’t sure how to prepare or handle the logistics. If so, you’re luck, as DreamTours is here to help!

DreamTours comes to us from the same team that organizes the annual Tour d’Afrique, an annual ride from Cairo to Cape Town, crossing 7500 miles of African wilderness in the process. The concept behind DreamTours is simple, come up with a great idea for your cycling adventure, post it on the DreamTour website and invite friends, family, and cycling buddies to vote on the concept and weigh in on the idea. If you get enough people to join your tour, the DreamTeam will handle all the logistics and make the adventure a reality. The best part, you’ll get to ride for free!

The DreamTour website acts like an online forum for adventure cyclists. Once you create your account, you’ll be able to post your ideas for cycling adventures, vote on the tours posted by others, and leave comments or questions about those trips. If you see one that looks interesting, you can elect to join the tour, or recruit riders to join your adventure, and you’ll soon be off and riding. If your tour sells out, you’ll get to go along for nothing, or you can choose to apply your discount to the entire team, saving everyone money in the process.

With the DreamTour team taking over the planning process, there will be nothing left for you to do but train for your cycling adventure. Once they have everything organized, and the logistics in place, you’ll simply hop a flight to your destination, and hit the trail.

18 unique travel experiences for the well traveled

by Kraig Becker on

So you think you’ve been everywhere and done everything? Is their something missing when you travel these days? Is the sense of adventure gone? Never fear, because the Times Online has compiled an interesting list of 18 unique travel experiences that are designed to give us a special experience on our getaways.

The suggestions on the list run the gamut from adventurous to decadent to down right surreal. For instance, if you’re headed to southern Africa, then you might want to stay with the bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, where you’ll have the opportunity to go on an initiation hunt and spend the night in their village. If that seems like you might be roughing it a bit too much, than perhaps you’d prefer to spend the night on a private island and go sailing off the coast of Croatia. How about taking an exclusive tour of Nefertari’s Tomb in Egypt, where you’ll be one of just 20 visitors in the soon to be closed monument. Or, how about the workout of a lifetime when you’ll be training with the the toughest rugby team on the planet, New Zealand’s All Blacks, , for one very intense week.

Each of the travel experiences comes with a good description of what you can expect on your unique adventure. A link is included to the travel company that is offering the trip, along with expected prices, in this case listed in pounds. But be warned, these one-of-a-kind experiences don’t come cheap, but how do you put a price tag on this kind of excitement?