Climbing and Outdoor News from Here and Abroad - 10/1/2020

Northwest:

--King 5 is reporting on a fatality on Mt. Rainier last week: "A 27-year-old man died during a climbing trip on the Muir Snowfield at Mount Rainier. The man was identified as Alex Fitzgerald, who lived in Seattle and Michigan. The man's hiking partner, a 23-year-old woman visiting from Virginia, made a distress call Wednesday morning, saying the pair was "lost in in high winds, heavy rain, and white-out conditions at about 9,300 feet elevation after spending the night in a tent at Camp Muir (elevation 10,188 feet)," according to a statement from the Mount Rainier National Park Service." The woman survived the ordeal. To read more, click here.

Clouds and Mt. Hood from Mt. Rainier

--KDRV 12 is reporting that, " Despite a multi-agency rescue attempt, a climber died over the weekend after falling on Mt. Shasta, according to the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office. The Sheriff's Office received a 911 call on Saturday just before 7 p.m. A woman said that she had been climbing on Mt. Shasta with her boyfriend when he fell down an embankment, sustaining injuries. The climber reported that she was on the north face of the mountain, at roughly 11,000 feet." To read more, click here.

--Parts of Mt. Hood National Forest reopened on Saturday after being closed due to wildfires for two-and-a-half weeks. To read more, click here.

Sierra:

--Inyo National Forest is to remain closed due to hot and dry conditions until at least October 8. To read more, click here.

Desert Southwest:

--Residents along Sandstone Drive in Red Rock Canyon's Calico Basin have placed rocks along the side of the road where cars have traditionally parked. It is not clear at this point whether this is legal or not. Many people accessing the bouldering in Red Rock use this "street parking." This situation will certainly lead to conflict between residents and visitors. To read more, click here.

Colorado and Utah:

--Out There Colorado is reporting that, "On Sunday, September 27, the body of a male climber was found in the area of Crestone Needle – a Sangre de Cristo Range peak that's considered to be one of Colorado's most dangerous 14,000-plus-foot mountains. The body was later identified as Jeff Deardorff, an experienced Colorado climber that had summited many of the state's highest peaks." To read more, click here.

--A climber that sustained a 40-foot fall in Eldorado Canyon was rescued on Sunday. To read more, click here.

--Backpacking is reporting that, "in November, Colorado will make history when it lets voters decide whether to reintroduce gray wolves. But the discovery of the state’s first confirmed pack in nearly a century is casting an old debate in a new light." To read more, click here.

--A Trump Administration executive order on foreign visas is making it hard for ski areas to hire for the season. From Voice of America: "As ski resorts try to figure out how to operate safely during the coronavirus pandemic, by requiring facemasks, enforcing social distancing in lift lines and eliminating dine-in service, Trump's order has added another obstacle heading into the winter: hiring enough temporary workers to fill crucial jobs like operating chair lifts, serving food and cleaning hotel rooms." To read more, click here.

Notes from All Over:

--A climber died at New Hampshire's Rumney after falling over fifty feet. In an Associated Press news story, they state that equipment malfunctioned, but there is limited additional information. To read more, click here.

--The election is coming soon, and this may be the most important one of our lifetimes. Certainly, the future of our public lands and our climate are both on the ballot. Protect Our Winters has created an excellent tool to help you #MakeADamnPlan to vote. Check it out.

--The Hill has a great editorial on bringing back the Civilian Conservation Core to fight wildfires: "While the daunting nature of climate change and intensification of wildfires can cause us to feel helpless, there are pathways forward. A new Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) could stimulate the economy, provide work to unemployed and underemployed folks and help significantly reduce wildfire damages in the Western U.S. The best part? There’s bipartisan support for the revival of the CCC. Recent polling finds 75 percent of likely voters support a new CCC, including 74 percent of Republicans. Support like this is hard to come by in the era of polarization, especially on environmental issues." To read more, click here.

--Bad news on the conservation front from the New York Times: "The Trump administration is expected to finalize its plan to open about 9 million acres of the pristine woodlands of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging and road construction. The administration’s effort to open the Tongass, the nation’s largest national forest, has been in the works for about two years, and the final steps to complete the process have been widely expected for months. They come after years of prodding by successive Alaska governors and congressional delegations, which have pushed the federal government to exempt the Tongass from a Clinton-era policy known as the roadless rule, which banned logging and road construction in much of the national forest system." To read more, click here.

--So a massive mountain just collapsed in on itself in Kyrgyzstan. The footage is insane:



--EcoWatch is reporting that, "a federal judge in Montana ordered William Perry Pendley, the head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), to quit immediately after finding that the Trump administration official had served in the post unlawfully for 14 months, according to CNN. The ruling may reverse an entire year of decisions that Pendley made to open up the American West to oil and gas drilling, as The Washington Post reported. The judge in the case, Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, said that Pendley had been appointed to the post, but his name had never been submitted to the Senate for confirmation." To read more, click here.

--Footwear News is reporting that, "REI is officially carbon neutral. Now, it wants to halve its entire carbon footprint over the next decade."  To read more, click here.

--Gripped is reporting that, "a ceremony took place in the Bow Valley on Sept. 29 that revealed the replacement name of a mountain north of Canmore. For over 100 years, the peak has been referred to using a racial slur, but Bald Eagle Peak, a traditional name that was used generations ago, will be reinstated." To read more, click here.