Photographer Jason Sutton captures snowboarder, William Hughes, riding in an LED suit in Tignes, France. Pretty amazing footage.

Here’s another item to add to your wish list for things over 50 grand. Mario Donovan, of Prescott, Arizona, has developed a camper that mounts on 4-door Jeep Wranglers. Given the Wrangler’s off-road capabilities, this means you can reside in style in lots of out-of-the places.

The 440-pound Action Camper has a pop-up roof with 6’3″ of clearance (perfect for basketball player Jeremy Lin, with his new-found fortune) and a solar panel that supplies power to the unit. The inside features a king-sized bed, a kitchen with oven, sink and refrigerator, and a dining area.

The damage: $53,500. That’s twice the price of a 2012 4-door Wrangler base model. So does that make the vehicle an accessory to the camper?

If you’re ready to pack it all up, quit your job and hit the dirtbag trail, be warned: this short documentary, A Desert Life, could put you over the edge. Directed by Austin Siadak, the film profiles Alf Randell, 53, whose spent nearly 10 years living and climbing the sandstone cliffs of Indian Creek, Utah. The audio is a bit faint, so turn up your speakers.

What happens when the Monty Python crew plans a mountaineering expedition? Mayhem, of course.

Don Starkell, in his happy place. Photo from www.paddletotheamazon.com

Don Starkell, a legendary adventurer who held the record for the longest canoe trip in history, died of cancer January 28 at his home in East Kildonan, Winnipeg. He was 79, according to the Winnipeg Free Press.

Starkell’s story is one of redemption through energetic communion with nature. Neglected by his parents as a child and subsequently shuffled through foster homes, he learned to canoe during a flood in 1950. He got hooked on paddling while shuttling food and people around in the aftermath of the deluge.

After his wife left him in 1970, he concocted a seemingly outlandish plan to paddle with his two sons, Dana and Jeff, from Winnipeg to the Amazon River. Ten years of preparation later, he and the boys launched their canoe from the banks of the Red River, headed for the Amazon.

They paddled the Mississippi and crossed the Gulf of Mexico. They were robbed, shot at and jailed. Fed up, Jeff left the expedition early, but two years and 12,000 miles after they’d left Winnipeg, Starkell and Dana reached the mouth of the Amazon in Brazil.

It stands as the longest canoe journey in history, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The trip was chronicled in a book, Paddle to the Amazon: The Ultimate 12,000-Mile Canoe Adventure, and a documentary film is in the works.

In 1990, Starkell set out to paddle 3,000 miles through brutal cold, from Churchill, Canada, through the Northwest Passage, to the Canadian town of Tuktoyaktuk. Three years later, 30 miles short of Tuktoyaktuk, he had to be rescued when his boat froze in the icy waters. He lost part of his fingers and some toes to frostbite. The book Paddle to the Arctic: The Incredible Story of a Kayak Quest Across the Roof of the World recounts the epic.

Throughout his life, Starkell preferred to live like he was camping, even when at home. He often slept on a roll-out bed in his living room, pretending he was next to a riverside campfire. “Don’s room looked like an old explorer’s cabin,” Chris Forde, a Starkell family friend, told the National Post.

Up until very recently, Starkell was on the water, paddling a kayak around on the Red River. Bon voyage, Don. Bon voyage.

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/