Did you know that in 2006, Alaska had the highest rate of Chlamydia in the U.S., according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention? Fernie, British Columbia’s online Survival Guide sites B.C. as having one of the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases in Canada.

Don’t fret. There is a solution. And no, it’s not the Ski Condom, a neoprene sleeve that slides over your ski tip. In the midst of spring off-season trips to Nicaragua, breaking your bike out of hibernation, and warming up the BBQ, get tested. Because in our little mountain towns, the saying “It’s such a small world” really takes on a whole new meaning.

Megan is a former editor at Outside Magazine, and now an associate editor at Skiing and was crowned Telemark Freeskiing Champion in Alyeska in March. She lives in Boulder.

That was where I was at when I learned that Moonlight Basin was going to put on their 3RD annual Headwaters Race, a 1000ft time trial and a judged freeskiing competition. I had won this race once and placed second another time, so I was fond of this race. However, with the meager amount of training I had done this winter I was not mentally up for the challenge. This may sound lame, but I was reluctant to enter if I didn’t have a chance to win. So I resolved to not enter and finish out the season leisurely powder skiing. That was until my wife secretly registered me for the race. I learned a week before the competition that I was signed up, and I either race or forfeit my entry fee.

Left with little choice, I woke up on race day with only a vague idea of what line I would ski and no additional training days. It was brilliant, I had no expectations, I slept soundly with no sleepless hours wondering how I was going to stick the landing or how I was going to ski that technical section smoothly.
I woke up well rested and very casual about the entire event. It had snowed five to eight inches and it was a blue bird day. This couldn’t be better, a little exercise, a fresh line and a soft landing. I didn’t win the hike as I have twice before, I got second, but I did win the freeski competition. Outscoring both the top alpine skier, snowboarder and the rest of the telemark class to win the overall. It goes to show that when in doubt you might as well pony up and not sell yourself short.

Alex is a Cloudveil ambassador and lives in the Gallatin Canyon north of Big Sky, MT with his wife Suzy and 15-month old son. He is a sponsored telemark skier with four year’s experience competing in the US Telemark Freeskiing Series and was ranked second two seasons overall.

( That said as I write this it is currently snowing out my window…)

Steep skiing is the stronger, silent, older brother of powder skiing. You know, that guy, somewhat intimidating, quixotic and a bit misunderstood. Steep skiing is hard. It is dangerous, approaches tend to be heinous and it is alive and well in the Rockies this spring.

Capitol Peak, the hardest ski over 14,000 feet in Colorado has seen two new routes on it. Led by Ted Mahon of Aspen and Frank Konsella of Crested Butte, both parties have added proud descents and agreed they would likely never go back up and ski those lines again.

The Landry line on Pyramid saw multiple repeats, a new line on Thunder ( a sub peak of Pyramid ) was skied as was the Otter Body on the Grand Teton. There have been countless others, some purposely kept off the radar.

So what is it about steep skiing?

Well, it combines risk, challenge and physical exertion - all in a breathtaking alpine coliseum. And it’s intensity is shared among friends.Toque’s off to steep skiers, but remember she is a harsh mistress. Ski for yourself as the margin of error doesn’t equal bragging rights at the bar.

From SNEWS 04/24/2008- This year’s Capitol Summit, held April 15-17 in Washington D.C., brought to mind the 1964 song “A Change is Gonna Come” by the great Sam Cooke. “It’s been a long time coming, … but I know a change is gonna come,” he sang.

After two days of joining outdoor leaders in lobbying meetings with members of Congress and staff, it was clear to SNEWS® that folks on “The Hill” are hoping for big changes in government funding when the new president is sworn into office, be it Clinton, Obama or McCain.

At a breakfast held during the Summit, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) told members of the outdoor industry and the National Parks Conservation Association that the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has been “thrown overboard” by the Bush Administration. However, he added, “With a new president, we have a better chance to deal with bigger issues, such as re-baselining.” Basically, this means rearranging priorities and re-setting the base funding levels for things such as the LWCF, which provides funds to federal agencies and states to acquire and develop outdoor recreation areas and facilities.

If there is a big adjustment to funding priorities, OIA said it wants to be in the thick of things. “One of our strategies is to give a vision of what the recreation infrastructure needs to look like to support our economics,” said OIA President Frank Hugelmeyer. “We have a responsibility to bring that vision to the next administration, and we’re beginning to work on that.”

This year, Summit attendees were asking Congress to commit $125 million to the Stateside LWCF, which supports recreation areas near communities. Members of the lobbying teams reiterated this program is important because so many people, especially kids, get their first taste of the outdoors in a park near their home rather than remote forest. Members of Congress and their staff reacted to this request with nods of understanding, but it was generally understood that not much would happen in the nation’s current economic and political climate.

Still, some issues important to the outdoor industry seem to have some real steam, the event revealed. In meeting after meeting SNEWS® attended, Democratic and Republican members of Congress voiced support for the National Park Service Centennial Challenge project. Now in its second year, this provides $100 million a year for 10 years to repair national parks, hire more rangers and fund educational programs. The initiative also matches funds from the public, making this a $2 billion initiative. If one were to describe the plight of recreation funding as a forest fire, the Centennial Challenge is the final firebreak—a place where the outdoor industry and Summit attendees agree the country should draw the line and protect some of the most valued public lands in the country. Members of Congress seemed to understand that neglecting our most highly recognized treasures does not reflect well on anyone.

Another of the outdoor industry’s main talking points this year — the FLAME Act – also seems to be building solid support. The FLAME Act reduces the burden on the USDA Forest Service to fund fire-suppression activities by establishing a federal fund for catastrophic, emergency wildfires. About 48 percent of the USDA Forest Service budget goes to fighting fires, and huge, unexpected burns have diverted money that would normally go to other programs, including recreation.

In addition to the FLAME Act and LWCF, lobbying teams talked with members of Congress about the current high tariff on performance outerwear (the tariff level ranges from 7 percent to 28 percent, depending on the product). The outdoor industry is asking that the tariff be eliminated, as there is no U.S. production of this type of apparel. The legislation to remove the tariff also allows a 1.5-percent charge on performance outerwear to fund U.S. development of new textile technologies and more sustainable textile manufacturing practices.

All in all, organizers said this year’s Capitol Summit represented another solid step in the steady push for change. “Finally, after 10 to 15 years of doing this consistently, we’re seeing a change in the level of meetings we’re having and the duration of high-level meetings,” Hugelmeyer told SNEWS®. “They (members of Congress) remember the issues, and there’s an understanding of who we are that didn’t exist even three or four years ago.”

As a freelance journalist / itinerant ski bum, I am lucky enough to get to see the world’s most incredible mountains, sort of eking out a living. My usual beat: the Alps. For the last decade, I’ve spent the better part of my winters exploring mega-resorts that would dwarf my home hill (sometimes referred to laughingly as the “Big One”), as well as little-known mom-and-pop resorts with nothing but a few dodgy lifts and unparalleled access to big, uncrowded peaks. The feeling of exploration, and the amount of ground you can cover in Europe - be it by train, car, tram, poma lift, and of course, your skis – is staggering.

But this January, I had a different assignment: the World Cup. Hitting the ground in Geneva on Christmas day, I was on a month-long trail of “the classics”, the oldest and most revered races of the circuit. Adelboden, Wengen, Kitzbühel were all names I had heard and places I had seen on Wide World of Sports, but never in person. With a fresh press pass and course credentials, I was off to follow the White Circus for a month.

Ever since seeing Redford as David Chapellet in Downhill Racer, the Lauberhorn has been high on my to do list. While not as downright gnarly as the Hahnenkamm, at 4.5 km and over two-and-a-half minutes long, it’s the most demanding. You have it all: a sickening jump through a couloir (the Hundschopf), sections named after particularly bad crashes (Canadian Corner, the Kernan-S turns), the famous tunnel (where Redford stuffed his teammate Johnny Creech into the wall), and a finish jump about 2:28 into the race that has ended several real-life careers. And it all takes place in a train-only accessed Swiss village in the shadow of the Eiger and the Jungfrau. It’s an epic race in an epic venue.

I was staying in the Falken, a turn-of-the-century Grand Hotel in every sense of the word. And so was the entire Italian team, their technicians setting up shop on the glassed-in porch with hundreds of pairs of skis. Every night, the Canadian team would challenge all comers on the ice rink with pickup hockey games running until the lights went out. Wengen is a magical scene, and in the 75 years they have run the Lauberhorn, not much has changed in the town itself.

A half-meter of snow fell the day before the DH, and the Swiss Army struggled to clear the course. The next day it broke blue and perfect for the race at 1pm. I skied a couple of long, lazy pow laps off the top of Mannlichen, working toward Kleine Scheidegg. Nobody skis off-piste in Wengen, and we lapped the ridgelines just like the Sundance Kid. Outside the mid-mountain train station, I inhaled a rösti with US team motivator “Baby Huey” (the guy you always hear in the starthouse, screaming “COME ON BODE!”) and Team America coach Forrest Carey, and was having a Redford day with my girlfriend perfectly playing the part of Camilla Sparv, right down to the tight one-piece. And then it was time for inspection.

I scored a course pass for race day, and as I looked out of the starthouse, I could see what every racer sees just before they jump into the longest couple of minutes of their lives. The Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau; the triumvirate of fabled peaks with cascading glaciers, helicopters buzzing like mosquitoes, Swiss fighter jets. It was mayhem. I shoved off on the bulletproof icepack (note: do NOT ski a World Cup DH course on Fritschi’s) and headed into the top section of the course. Sweeping s-turns, wide-open and cruisy. Then a couple of jumps and the setup for the Hundschopf…they had it roped off until the race, but HOLY S%&T. The margin for error is non-existent. Racers easily go 100’-120’ off the lip and down into Canadian Corner, a fall-away carousel turn that pulls you toward the netting like a tractor beam. Then the Kernan-S, which provides another great opportunity to pack it into the “orange room” and under the Water Station tunnel. Then the gliding section and a few tough s-turns before the “Ziel-sprung”, or finish jump. The stands were still pretty empty, but I sat in the finish area huffing and reveling in the moment. Definitely a top-3 lifetime experience on skis.

I jumped back on the train to get one more look before the race began, and running late, I flashed my media cred’s and jumped on an empty car. Empty, except for the Hermannator and his coaches. Hermann Maier, at the end of his legendary career, has had a tough season. Struggling with equipment, not posting the results he is used to. The ride up was a quiet one, to say the least.

The race went off with a bang, and Bode Miller absolutely killed the course, taking his first victory of the season and surpassing Phil Mahre on the all-time list. Apparently going his own way from the US team was working well. And to quote Gene Hackman’s character from Downhill Racer, to Creech, sitting in a hospital bed, complaining that Redford wasn’t a “team player”… “Well, skiing isn’t exactly a team sport, is it?”

And just like that, I was off to Kitzbühel for the Hahnenkamm. But that’s another story.

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If you have always dreamed of being a DJ, take some private lessons and learn to spin, scratch and skip like a champ. Jet pilot courses, stock car racing, mountain climbing, bull riding, VIP dinners with sommeliers, or scuba diving with Great Whites, they offer it all, even my personal favorite, a day of bulldozer training. Sign me up!

For those sick of the dreary weather and in need of some new inspiration, try training for these three unique competitions.
The Mountain Culture takes no responsibility for injuries occurring as a result of this post

San Francisco’s Bring Your Own Big Wheel Race- On Easter Sunday, San Fran’s Lombard St. celebrates everyone’s favorite childhood form of transportation.

NYC’s Idiotarod- The Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. The IDIOTAROD is pretty much the same thing, except that instead of dogs, it’s people, instead of sleds, it’s shopping carts, and instead of Alaska it’s New York City. Teams of five race for cash, prizes and glory.

International Pack Burro Race- Leadville, CO August 1-3, 2008- 21 miles of dirt, heat, and asses.

Free Spirit Spheres, a company run by Tom Chudleigh in Qualicum, British Columbia manufacturs these hanging habitats from sitka spruce. Chudleigh says the idea came to him during a meditative “dreamspace” and he decided he had to try it out. These newfangled tree houses can be tethered, by 3 nearly vertical ropes, to each of 3 separate trees, or from buildings or rock faces.

The wood spheres are made of “uniwall construction”, two laminations of wood strips over laminated wood frames. The outside is then finished and covered with clear fiberglass to withstand life in the forest. Accessed by spiral stairway and a short suspension bridge, these spheres make living like Swiss Family Robinson fairly easy. They even have a standard power connection and insulation!

Although prices are not address on the website, and I was unable to get ahold of Tom because his new location is “out of range because the trees are better”, more information is available. Tom’s two spheres, Eve and Eryn, are also available for rent, going for $125 and $175 a night, respectively.

Watch CBS News coverage of Free Spirit Spheres or The Discovery Channel’s “Living Like the Ewok’s” story.