Holiday Gear Shopping - Day 2

As promised, we’re keeping you up to speed on the sweetest outdoor gear deals this holiday season.

$19.95 - Lowe Alpine Onyx 15 Daypack from Sierra Trading Post

For you bigfoots out there…

$28.49 - Chaco ZX1 Unaweep Men’s Sandals (size 14 & 15) at Backcountry.com

$139.30 - THE NORTH FACE Men’s Apex Magic Jacket at Eastern Mountain Sports

$53.70 - Women’s Nitro Echo Snowboard Boots at Backcountry.com

1 comment December 11th, 2007

2 more days to nominate Outdoorzy for the Crunchies

Just a friendly reminder to nominate Outdoorzy.com for the 2007 Crunchies.

Nominations will be open through midnight pst Wednesday, Dec 12th. Finalist voting will open Thursday, Dec 13th.

It would be a great thing for Outdoorzy to be nominated. It would be some great recognition for the site and would really help grow the community. Thanks for your help!

Add comment December 10th, 2007

Get Well Soon

I had planned on wiriting an entry on friday, a thought provoking piece discussing the finer points of… nevermind.   Unfortunatley, I can down with a nasty illness requiring me to be quarantined for office safety. It’s unfortunate how many people in the valley came down with the same sickness on a day that a foot of fresh fell. Weird.

 This weekend it continued to snow and snow. Nearly the entire mountain opened, giving Vail the most skiable tearrain in North America. I heard Crested Butte got an insane amount of snow, and breifly considered a road trip. It’s just too hard to leave your own back yard when the snow is this good.  I know I promised pictures of “what not to wear” Mountain Edition, but when the snows that good you can’t be chasing down gapers for photo ops… I do regret missing the  opportunity to get a picture of the guy wearing the Dolphns Starter jacket and floppy moose antler hat… Oh well, the one that got away.

I did get one of the newest Panty-Tree blossoms.

Whether you throw panties to thank the snow gods, beg the snow gods, or show off the previous night’s trophy.  An offering to the tree always gets applause from your chairmates.

I’m sitting at my desk today, but glancing at the weather, it looks like I may  relapse in the middle of the week. Your thoughts and kind words are appreciated during these tough times.

4 comments December 10th, 2007

Holiday Gear Shopping Round-Up!!!

Okay Outdoorzies. If you are doing any online shopping for Christmas, you don’t want to pay huge shipping fees, and you want it to arrive in time, you need to buy it this week. I repeat, YOU NEED TO BUY IT THIS WEEK. So to help you out… All week here on the Outdoorzy Blog, we’re going to be rounding up the best deals on the web on outdoor gear. Now, if by chance, you see an item on here that you want yourself, I suggest you simply forward a link to the blog to your loved ones with a message like, “Hey, screw subtlety…. buy me this!”

Here are a few to kick the week off…

$3.13 - Bike Wrench Chain Tool from REI

$15.97 - GCI Outdoor The EveRest Recliner from Campmor

$49.95 - Marmot 20°F Aspen Sleeping Bag - Long from Sierra Trading Post

$19.93 - Baladeo Abilis 14 Multi-Tool from REI

Don’t worry, more to come this week. We’ll help you stuff those stockings and still have a little money left for lift tickets.

2 comments December 10th, 2007

Namaste

Namaste is an ancient sanskrit word meaning literally “I bow to you”. It is used in Hindu and Buddhist culture to say hello, goodbye, I respect you, and well, just to acknowledge someone. It’s the ancient way to “give props.”

Yesterday I noticed that my blogging friend The Winehiker had blogged a few weeks back about the people he is thankful for.. and I made the list. Wow! I didn’t expect that at all.

Then, today I got an REI gift card in the mail from a friend. The note with the card said “Thanks for being a good friend and for all you do for me”. I won’t call this person out, because I’m sure he wants to maintain his tough, mt biking, mud covered, weight lifting, macho image.

Often things like this happen when you need them most. Just when you feel things are their crappiest, along comes a true friend. Thanks guys.

So, I’m going to take this moment to say thanks to the two people that keep Outdoorzy going…

Emile - Bursting with ideas all the time. Not only your own ideas, but mine. You take what I thought was masterful and perfect it. You do alot of the little things that I just can’t find the energy for. And you always find time to crack me up.

Lynn - You are the epitomy of sanity. You keep us grounded, while feeding our creativity with your “can-do” attitude. You are obviously a coding genius. But beyond that, you’re a good friend and one helluva snappy dresser.

namaste image from rock-sea.net, rei gift card image from… i’ll let you guess

6 comments December 7th, 2007

Into Hot Air

Just saw this over at besthike.com’s blog…

“Former SNL funnyman Chris Elliot has just published a new book called “Into Hot Air: Mounting Mount Everest,” a send-up of Outside Editor at Large Jon Krakauer’s famous work of nearly the same name. The book imagines it wasn’t Hillary and Tenzing Norgay who first bagged Everest’s summit, but Elliot’s adventurous and stone-crazy Great Uncle Percy Brackett Elliott…”

Well there goes my idea… the “Naked Gun” of the climbing world. Guess I’ll have to go to plan B… “Up Shite Creek” a paddling story for people with incontinence issues.

1 comment December 6th, 2007

Vote for Outdoorzy at The Crunchies

I don’t like to beg, but whatever, I love outdoorzy! Please vote for outdoorzy.com for the 2007 Crunchies.

The 2007 Crunchies is our first annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year. The Crunchies is a collaboration project between GigaOm, Read/WriteWeb, VentureBeat and TechCrunch. Best of all, the internet community is invited to choose who wins.

We would suggest nominating our site in such categories as…

• Best bootstrapped start-up
• Best design
• Best user-generated content site
• Most likely to succeed
• Best new start-up of 2007
• Best overall

We really do appreciate your vote, we would love to be represented in one of the categories. The voting is very easy, just click the nomination link the type in “outdoorzy.com”. That is all you have to do.

Thanks!

9 comments December 5th, 2007

Hiker Survives 13 Below Temps on Quandary Peak

According to the Vail Daily, a 26-year-old hiker from Denver spent the night on Quandary Peak where temperatures reached 13 degrees below zero. he reminds us of the dangers of hiking this time of year above tree line. His roommates called search and rescue on Saturday night when he didn’t return from a planned day hike to the popular 14er.

Rescuers set out at midnight but had to turn back at 3AM when the weather got so bad they couldn’t see one another. On Sunday they continued their search. A “Flight for Life” flight spotted the hiker. He had dug a snow cave to survive the night. Once the rescuers reached the hiker he was transported to Summit Medical Center. It is reported that he suffered some finger “blanching” from the cold, whatever that is. But other than that, no major medical issues.

Stay safe people.

2 comments December 5th, 2007

Top 10 Best Outdoor Towns (not our list)

Well, Buster steered me in the direction of a top 10 list today that is pretty interesting, to say the least. Not that I don’t agree that these towns are “outdoorzy”. I’m sure they are. But I’m not sure I’d put them on the top 10 myself. Although, if you are a skier, I think the list would stir some interest since NONE of these are in the southern half of the US unless you count NC. If you’ll remember I did a Top 10 Outdoorzy Places to Retire Young earlier this year. But if each of us did our own list… I’d say they’d all be quite different. Each of us probably has one that would top our list, but others may have never thought about. I just couldn’t believe that no tropical destinations made the list.

Here is the MSN list…
Lake Placid, NY
Hood River, OR
McCall, ID
Salida, CO
Boone, NC
Livingston, MT
Ely, MN
Bethel, ME
Davis, WV
Haines, AK

Here is a pic of Haines from wikipedia…. oh yeah, that looks awesome.

Check it out to see their reasons why.

2 comments December 4th, 2007

The Real Deal

Finally! If you paid any attention to the weather this weekend you might have noticed that Colorado got hammered by some great storms. Officially it’s winter. With over a foot of fresh and tons of new terrain open it was a great time to be here. I think the lucky few down in Wolf Creek got it the best, and I imagine Silverton is epic today. Word has it they got so much they were shut down for the weekend, with 2 feet in the parking lot.

It was truly an Amazing weekend, filled with powder slashes, smiling faces,  and the familiar “whooooot” sound of stoked people so thrilled they have to yell.  Sharing a chair with friends you haven’t spent time with since last season is almost as much fun as riding down. 

3 comments December 3rd, 2007