Elevation Outdoors Magazine

You are browsing the archives of 2009 December.

Leftover Salmon celebrates 20 years with New Year’s shows in Boulder and Denver and EO gets in on the party with a little retrospective and essential discography. If any band defined the Colorado trend of taking traditional bluegrass and beating it over the head with rowdy long-hair revelry, it was Leftover Salmon. When Vince Herman [...]

Sometimes the danger is part of the allure. High in the San Juans, the steep white gash of the Mongoose opens at the top of the north face of 12,800-foot Reconnoiter Peak. The line spirals down a 1,000-foot couloir, pinches into a 45-degree slot—the likely trigger zone should the slope unleash—and then spills out into [...]

Yeah, we know . . . you rip, you shred, you schuss. But as you sip that yerba mate, consider this: Colorado is one of the greatest alpine playgrounds on earth, and chances are you haven’t done it all. Curious to try tele? Heli? We’ve got mountains of local experts just waiting to light a [...]

Here in the Rockies, we experience a powerful converge of epic powder days and big games. Almost all of my most vivid football memories, especially those of the Broncos’ six Super Bowl appearances—two glorious wins and four heart-stabbing losses—are inextricably tied to the wind-in-your-face sensation of speeding down a snow-covered hill. I was in Salt [...]

Despite the sprawl, Colorado could be welcoming back its charismatic megafauna. Wolves and wolverines have been crossing the border and grizzly bears may not be far behind. But can the Centennial State save the big swaths of land these predators need to make a true comeback? On Friday, May 22, 2009, a male wolverine wearing [...]

This ain’t no Ice Capades. The tiny town of Ouray has turned itself into the best ice-climbing playground on the planet. And there’s no better time to chill here than during the Ouray Ice Festival. Ouray’s famed ice festival, the premier international gathering of ice climbers, gear manufacturing exhibitors and voyeurs, was started in 1996 [...]

In which we try to keep pace with the man who may just be the toughest runner ever. After running went ultra—with Dean Karnazes ticking off 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days and Lisa Smith-Batchen breezing through the 150-mile Badwater Ultra in Death Valley, where temperatures approach 130 degrees, and turning around and [...]

The toxic nuclear missile silos scattered around the country are a small but dangerous part of the fallout from the Cold War. The state of New Mexico did something about them this fall when a dozen retired Atlas F missile silos near the city of Roswell were decontaminated. Citizens and the Army Corps of Engineers [...]

Hanesbrands Inc wants you to know that it’s more than just the supplier of those tighty whities. This spring, they’ll send a team to summit Everest, testing new socks, base layers, insulating layers and soft- and hard-shell garments developed by the longtime underwear giant. And here’s where it gets really good—they want to hear about [...]

“Abandoned mines are a menace to the environment and public health and to the communities that rely on water flowing downstream. There are several groups in Colorado who care about their communities and want to protect them and who are ready to go as soon as we have legislation to help them get started. I’m [...]