The heat is on but does Ogden really want to be number one? Just look want has happened to Park City since the historic Utah mining town showed up on several “best” lists. We have a Five Guys and Vail Resorts for s&*t sake. Still, an email arrived in my inbox begging to get the vote out for Outside Magazine’s Best Towns poll. It’s one thing to rave to your friends and family about how amazing your hometown is to live in- and Ogden is one killer draw. It’s another to be featured in “America’s preeminent active and adventure lifestyle” magazine as the “best town in America”. Once that starts happening, there’s no turning back. Companies like Salomon, Suunto, eBay, Del Taco and Best Buy arrive and suddenly life isn’t so quaint anymore. The reasons you relocated are muddied.

 

We love a vibrant mountain town- the kind of place with locally sourced (non-chain) restaurants, active farmers’ markets, where everyone knows your name and hiking and biking trails are steps from your doorstep.

The voting is now open for Outside’s favorite towns. It starts with a bracket made up of 60 towns selected by OUTSIDE editors and four Wild Card Entries. Readers picked the Wild Cards through a social media-driven voting process on Instagram which used the hashtag #BestTowns2015. Over 6,000 images were posted but Roanoke, VA; Port Angeles, WA; New York, NY and Saugatuck, MI came out on top

You have the next six weeks to vote once per round for each of the six rounds. The winners of each round advance until the final two towns face off for the Best Town of 2015.

OUTSIDE will feature the final 16 towns in its September 2015 issue if you don’t feel like doing your own Googling sooner.

Ogden is representing Utah but I BEG of you, please. Don’t vote for us. Ogden is the WORST town in America. Stay away! The air is clean, the crime is low, it’s at the foot of a gorgeous mountain range with world-class resort and backcountry skiing for miles; traffic, what traffic? You’d absolutely hate it here. You’re way better off in Glenwood Springs, Colo. Or Vegas.

Here are the 64 towns; grouped by region in seeded brackets.

EAST

Annapolis, MD; Bar Harbor, ME; Brattleboro, VT; Cold Spring, NY; East Stoudsburg, PA; Elmira, NY; Lake Placid, NY; Lebanon, NH; Middlebury, VT; New Haven, CT; Northampton, MA; Pittsburgh, PA; Portsmouth, NH; Providence, RI; Red Bank, NJ; New York, NY

 

SOUTH

Alpine, TX; Athens, GA; Beaufort, SC; Bentonville, AR; Birmingham, AL; Boone, NC; Charlottesville, VA; Chattanooga, TN; Fayetteville, WV; Houston, TX; Ocala, FL; Oxford, MS; Raleigh-Durham, NC; Savannah, GA; Tampa, FL; Roanoke, VA

 

MIDWEST

Bellaire, MI; Berea, KY; Columbus, OH; Detroit, MI; Eau Claire, WI; Ely, MN; Evanston, IL; Indianapolis, IN; Iowa City, IA; Kansas City, MO; Milwaukee, WI; Rapid City, SD; Rochester, MN; Spearfish, SD; Yellow Springs, OH; Saugatuck, MI

 

WEST

Ashland, OR; Bainbridge Island, WA; Flagstaff, AZ; FT. Bragg, CA; Glenwood Springs, CO; Hilo, HI; Juneau, AK; Las Vegas, NV; Ogden, UT; Pagosa Springs, CO; Santa Barbara, CA; Santa Fe, NM; Sheridan, WY; Victor, ID; Whitefish, MT; Port Angeles, WA

View the Best Towns bracket here.

 

If you’re looking for a way to help in the midst of the tragedy unfolding in Nepal head over to Crowdrise. Kathmandu-based outdoor apparel manufacturer Sherpa Adventure Gear has created an earthquake relief fund called “Help Sherpas Help Nepal”. One hundred percent of the funds raised through the campaign will go to relief efforts in villages where Sherpa Adventure Gear underwrites the education of Sherpa children through its charitable Paldorje Education Fund.

In a letter from Kathmandu, Nepal, announcing the fundraising effort, Tashi Sherpa, founder and CEO of Sherpa Adventure Gear, wrote:

Dear friends,

Thank you for your kind words following the devastating earthquake of April 25th.

As we gather our wits and resources to respond to this catastrophe, here’s how you can take action.

Please visit the Sherpa Adventure Gear site to make a donation:

https://www.crowdrise.com/helpsherpashelpnepal

100% of your funds will go for immediate relief on the ground through our Paldorje Education Fund network-already set up to benefit the children of Sherpa families in remote villages.

With each day, the death toll rises, along with the need for water, tents, and medicine.

We believe this is the wisest way to bring support where it does the most good, working through our contacts in each community.

This is not the kind of adventure anyone seeks, but we are determined to see it through, no matter how long it takes.

Thank you for standing with us and giving what you can.

Sincerely,

Tashi Sherpa and the Sherpa Family

Sherpa Adventure Gear has been inundated with concern, prayers and thoughts since the earthquake struck. The earthquake left more than 5000 dead and millions without shelter and basic necessities. SAG and its facilities in the Kathmandu valley, however, were spared.

In an April 28^th email from Kathmandu, Tashi Sherpa wrote, “Sitting here in the Sherpa building creates a disconnect and a false sense of security but one only has to go half a mile to know the harsh reality.”

Sherpa and his colleagues have arranged for immediate supplies of tarps, water purifiers, sanitary supplies and more to be brought in from India by road. It has also appealed to its network of contacts in the greater subcontinent region to supply what they can in the way of urgently needed water, health and sanitation supplies and temporary shelter.

“There is much we can do together to help,” Sherpa added. “We can reduce the pain of the present and help to ease the future for those who need to see hope.” The link for the campaign is https://www.crowdrise.com/helpsherpashelpnepal.

Utah’s national parks attendance is on track to meet or break last year’s record, so says a report recently issued by the NPS. That must mean at least some parts of the beehive state benefited from the ridiculously warm 2015 winter.

People flocked to Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument and Pipe Springs National Monument long before the usual May visitations. In fact it looks like the national parks attendance will break the record set by the more than 5.2 million people who visited Utah’s national parks in 2014. We’re talking a 19 percent increase in visitor spending and an 11 percent jump in total visitors.

The statistic matters because it translates to an estimated $336.8 million for Utah and 5,000 jobs. Zion alone brought in $172.2 million in 2014. “From Timpanogos Cave National Monument to Canyonlands National Park, the national parks of Utah draw more than 10.5 million visitors a year from across the country and around the world,” said Sue Masica, director of the NPS Intermountain Region, which includes Utah and seven other states. “Whether they are out for an afternoon, on a school field trip or crossing America on a family vacation, park visitors come for a great experience — and they end up spending a little money along the way.”

Visit Utah has relaunched an oldie but goodie national spring campaign from 2013 to continue to drive traffic to the parks. No sense in spending taxpayer money on a new campaign when the red rock in them and the Mighty message is timeless.

The NPS revenue will hopefully go back into the park system to address the estimated $11.5 billion backlog of repairs and renovations to maintain roads, trails and park facilities. In Utah specifically, there are about $278 million worth of projects hanging in the wings.