Cerro Torre in Patagonia. Photo by Alex Proimos.

If you’re looking for a spirited conversation, go chop some bolts off a famous mountaineering route. And by “spirited,” I mean prepare for a verbal smack down.

Case in point: the recent ascent of Patagonia’s jagged peak, Cerro Torre, by 21-year-old American, Hayden Kennedy, and 24-year-old Canadian, Jason Kruk. The pair reportedly climbed the route in mid-January using remarkably few bolts and in a speedy 13 hours.

But what’s gotten more buzz is that Kennedy and Kruk removed numerous bolts from the route, known as Compressor. The route was set in in 1970 by a team led by Italian mountaineer, Cesare Maestri. The team placed more than 400 bolts using a gas-powered air compressor that they hauled up the mountain — a highly questionable style of climbing then and now.

In 2007, a group of international climbers met to consider whether to remove the bolts the bolts, but in the decided to leave the route in place.

The reaction to the news that Kennedy and Kruk chopped the route has been mixed and intense. Some cheered their unilateral decision to rid the Cerro Torro face of protection placed by dubious means, while others are pissed they chopped the bolts that other climbers use without consulting the climbing community.

Upon hearing the news of the pair’s ascent, Gregory Crouch, who wrote about climbing Compressor in his book, Enduring Patagonia, offered a tempered response. While acknowledging the difficulty of the style in which Kennedy and Kruk climbed Cerro Torro, he questions the rashness of removing the route.

“I think all climbers can agree that Maestri’s Compressor Route is — or was — a world-renowned piece of climbing history, and I think all of us deplore the style and ethics of its first ascent,” Crouch wrote on his website. “However, I find myself lamenting its loss, and I’m hurt that members of my community have taken it away from me without giving me an opportunity to voice my opinion about whether or not it should stand. Without giving ANY of the rest of us that opportunity.”

Reaction to the news that they removed the bolts reached such a fevered pitch that Kennedy and Kruk felt compelled to respond with a press release chronicling their ascent and explaining their decision to clear the route.

“As long as the hardware remained it was justification for the unreasonable use of bolts by others,” they wrote. “We are part of the next generation, the young group of aspiring alpinists. This is a statement we felt other young alpinists needed to hear.”

For an in-depth and balanced primer on the history of the Compressor route and the bolt-chopping controversy, check out David Roberts and Kathryn Sall’s article in National Geographic Adventure.

And for pure entertainment’s sake, please, PLEASE, check out this video of Kruk getting his knee stuck in a crack while climbing.

Surfers testing out the new wave pool at Wadi Adventure, a new water park in Al Ain, the second largest city in Abu Dhabi. The pool is capable of making waves over 10-feet high. The park also features three artificial whitewater runs for rafters and kayakers. Now that’s oil money put to a good use.

Petzl recently unveiled its new Nao Headlamp, with a self-adjusting beam that reacts to light conditions. This means that the beam dims and narrows when your working up close and brightens and widens when your looking at something in the distance.

Pretty cool idea. So cool, it’s surprising somebody didn’t think of it sooner. Maybe the technology wasn’t small enough yet to slap on a person’s head comfortably…

The Nao features a light sensor above its two lights that analyzes reflected light and adjust the beam accordingly. Petzl claims that in addition improving night vision and reducing the need to manually adjust the beam, the Nao increases the charge life of its recharable batteries by using light more efficiently.

Not happy with the factory settings? You can download software from the Petzl website that lets you change the brightness and distance settings to your own preferences. You can also save specific settings for different activities.

Of course, all this technology comes at a cost. This isn’t one of those headlamps they give away inside Nalgene bottles (has anyone else seen those?). The Nao will cost $175, when it become available in July 2012.

Here’s the promo video:

Camping on the beach and launching Chinese sky lanterns — a fine way to bring in the Year of the Dragon. Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Southern California is better known for its warm weather offerings, but several ski resorts are located within a few hours drive of both Los Angeles and San Diego.

Resorts Near Big Bear Lake

These neighboring ski resorts are found on the mountain slopes surrounding Big Bear Lake in San Bernardino National Forest. In decent traffic, they are about two hours from downtown Los Angeles and a two and a half hour drive from downtown San Diego.

Bear Mountain

Website: http://www.bearmountain.com

Vertical Feet: 1,665 feet

Ski Terrain: 198 acres

Average Annual Snowfall: 100 inches (13 yr average)

Freestyle Park: Yes

Snow Summit

Website: http://www.snowsummit.com

Vertical Feet: 1,200 feet

Ski Terrain: 240 acres

Average Annual Snowfall: 100 inches

Freestyle Park: Yes

Snow Valley

Snow Valley is located off the Route 18, as you drive to Bear Lake from the suburbs of Los Angeles.

Website: http://www.snow-valley.com

Vertical Feet: 1,041 feet

Ski Terrain: 240 acres

Average Annual Snowfall: 100 inches

Freestyle Park: Yes

Mount Baldy

The closest ski resort to San Diego and Los Angeles, Mount Baldy is located in the San Gabriel Mountain in Angeles National Forest just northeast of LA. It’s not the fanciest resort, but after a big snowfall can be a great place to get some power line — albiet over some generally thin snow cover.

Website: http://www.mtbaldyskilifts.com/

Vertical Feet: 2,100 feet

Ski Terrain: 800 acres

Average Annual Snowfall: 150 inches

Freestyle Park: Yes, but small

Mount High Resort

Located just north of Baldy, Mount High is about two and a half hours from San Diego, in the Big Pines area of Angeles National Forest. It’s split into three areas, East Mountain, West Mountain and North Mountain, which are about a mile apart. The ski resort offers night skiing 7 days a week.

Website: http://www.mthigh.com

Vertical Feet: 1,600 feet

Ski Terrain: 290 acres

Average Annual Snowfall: 142 inches

Freestyle Park: Yes

Mammoth Mountain

Okay, so this one isn’t actually in So Cal. But…if you’ve got some time, Mammoth is a world class ski area and well worth the drive, or a short flight. Located west of the town of Mammoth Lakes in Inyo National Forest, Mammoth Mountain is roughly a 6-hour drive from LA and a 7-hour drive from San Diego.

Website: http://www.mammothmountain.com/

The BioLite CampStove burns twigs to cook food and generate electricity.

How about a camp stove that cooks food AND charges your smartphone? Please meet the CampStove from BioLite, a company that started out making clean-burning wood stoves for people in developing countries, but has now turned it’s attention to a more affluent, but still resource-constrained population — outdoors enthusiasts.

The $129 CampStove, about the size of a typical Nalgene bottle and weighing 2 pounds, burns twigs, pine cones and other bits of biomass. A fan on the side of the burn chamber makes the stove more efficient by providing more oxygen for the fire. The company claims this reduces smoke by 95 percent, compared to an open fire with no forced air.

A thermoelectric device mounted on the side of the burn chamber coverts heat from the fire into electricity to power the fan. The excess electricity can be used to charge electrical gadgets such as smartphones, lights and GPS devices. The power pack slips inside the burn chamber for storage.

They offer a video demo of the stove on their website.

The catch with the stove is that it requires some form of biomass, which might not be available in more rarefied environments. Mountaineering comes to mind.

The company points out that the stove burns wood pellets, which could be acquired ahead of a backcountry trip, but the bulk and weight of such pellets may not match the efficiency of petroleum fuels.

Then again, in areas where burnable biomass is available, a backpacker would be able to collect fuel as she goes, eliminating the need to carry an entire trip’s worth of fuel at the beginning of an outing.

BioLite is now taking pre-orders for the stove, and plans to ship them before the “2012 camping season.” You don’t have to pay until it ships, according to the website.

The fall of 2011 was a bit of a disappointment for California surfers, with few solid swells rolling in from the Pacific. But winter 2012 already looking more promising.

A pair of solid northwest swells lit up the California coast over the past couple days, with the peak of the second and larger swell arriving earlier today.

Here are a few shots:

The same swell has big waves surfers in Hawaii testing nerve and skill on the famous mega-breaks of Oahu’s Waimea Bay and Maui’s Jaws. For pictures and videos from Hawaii, check out Surfline’s feature.

Fluid Kayaks, the South Africa-based kayak manufacturer, plans to start producing a sit-on-top whitewater kayak for beginning boaters next year. Dubbed the “Do It Now,” the boat will be made of the same pastic used in Fluid’s skirt-enclosed boats. The founder of Fluid, Celliers Kruger, says the boat will be in production in the United States beginning in February.

“It is unique, it is innovative, and it will change the way would-be paddlers are introduced to the sport of whitewater kayaking,” Kruger said in an email.

The big idea behind the boat is to remove the fear factor of being trapped inside a kayak, a big obstacle to keeping new paddlers in the sport. Presumably, the boat will feel more like a real kayak than “duckies,” the inflatable single-person rafts that many a would-be kayaker has paddled in whitewater.

According to Fluid, the boat also feels more like a normal kayak than previous sit-on-top whitewater boats. “This was achieved by raising the knee area of the sit-on-top high enough for the knees to push against, with short thigh straps to keep the knees in position,” Fluid writes in a press release on the boat. “This allows the paddler to control the kayak properly by edging the boat accurately when needed, and it also allows the paddler to roll the boat.”

If your still on the lookout for stocking stuffers, here’s another nifty — and cheap — piece of outdoors gear. Rescue Bands makes bracelets, key holders, rings and dog collars out of parachute cord — that gear mainstay of all survivalists.

When you need some strong cord — to stake a tent, hang a bear bag, lash down some cargo, whatever — just untie the bracelet and you’ve got 20 feet of paracord at your disposal. Weaving it back together…well, that doesn’t look as simple.

Carl Pope

Pope leaves as the group is suffering shrinking membership and amid concerns that under his leadership the club got too cozy with industry, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Of course, shrinking membership could have something to do with the crappy economy. The LA Times is also reporting that the Wilderness Society, another leading wilderness protection group, laid off 17 percent of its staff due to budget pressures.

Can we blame all this on the pepper spraying cop?