RIP Dean Potter – April 14, 1972- May 16, 2015
Do you think his dog will miss this?
Extreme mountaineer Dean Potter was found dead yesterday morning after a wingsuit/basejumping accident in Yosemite. He leaves behind a wife and dog.
Category Archives: Outdoor News
‘Oil’ TV Series Comes To Utah
I’m almost afraid to talk about this as I don’t want to jinx it. At the same time, I’m so excited I could burst. Not since Everwood wrapped in 2006 has Utah had a major TV series. Granite Flats just got picked up by Netflix but that doesn’t count. It’s on KBYU and may or may not shoot more episodes. No, what I’m referring to is a pilot called “Boom” that was shot here in March; except now it’s called “Oil” and ABC just announced they want 13 episodes!
Often when this happens producers will move the whole series to Los Angeles but it’s looking like the beehive state will play home for the additional 12 episodes. The shows stars hunky Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl) who moves to North Dakota with his wife (Rebecca Rittenhouse) to get in on the biggest modern day oil rush in American history. Their lives soon get entangled with a cast of characters including an evil oil tycoon (Don Johnson).
“The Utah Film Commission is highly optimistic about our negotiations with ABC to shoot their new series “OIL” here. A television series would bring more jobs for locals, a boost to the economy, and a lot of credibility to our state’s film industry. We had a great experience working with them on the pilot and we anticipate official confirmation of the series locations will come in early June.” said Virginia Pearce, director of the Utah Film Commission.
The pilot episode was approved for a Utah motion picture incentive and filmed across the northern part of the state, including Ogden, Huntsville, Midvale and Oakley. The production also hired over 180 Utah cast and crew- but very few local female parts were cast here so hopefully that will changed.
The bonus- “Oil” will air just after the popular “Once Upon A Time” on Sunday nights which could mean it keeps it from getting cancelled before all 12 episodes are shot.
New cast of Oil- courtesy ABC
Ogden Vies For #1 In This Year’s Best Towns Competition
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.
Help Sherpas Help Nepal
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 28th 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.
Utahns Touched By Nepal Quake
A candlelight vigil will shine in Salt Lake City’s Washington Square this Friday to honor those killed and injured in Saturday’s devastating Nepal quake. The death toll from the 7.8 magnitude earthquake is still not firm but so far more than 4400 are thought dead with several thousand more injured or missing. Many Utah families, however, are breathing a sigh of relief after word that loved ones survived the devastation that leveled much of Nepal and Katmandu.
The quake trigged a massive avalanche that ripped through Everest basecamp. The bodies of 11 of the 18 victims have been recovered by Monday. Among those killed were California filmmaker Tom Taplin, who was filming a documentary on Everest, emergency room physician assistant Marisa Eve Girawong, serving as a base camp doctor for Seattle-based Madison Mountaineering, and Google executive Daniel Fredinburg, who was part of a project to create a Google street map of the trek to Everest Base Camp. The death toll could have been much higher but luckily about 80 percent of the climbers were out at Camp 1 or 2.
At least 80 stranded climbers had been evacuated with hundreds of others waiting. Rescuers are still locating the bodies of those who did not survive the roar of snow and ice at 18000 feet. “It lifted rocks and boulders ahead of it, slamming into hundreds of tents in the center of the camp and spilling over onto the Khumbu glacier on the other side,” wrote African climber Sean Wisedale on his blog. “Everywhere around us it was unstable. Avalanches continued to fall.”
Of the 11 bodies recovered so far, seven were Nepalese. Utah’s famed Apa Sherpa was in Nepal when the quake hit but the world record holder for summits on Mount Everest is safe, according to his son Pemba Sherpa. At the moment, airports remain closed, hospitals are brimming with patients, and there’s concern for sanitary conditions, water and food shortages, and more quakes.
The Nepalese Association of Utah is collecting funds for the American Red Cross to help the victims of the earthquake and have offered to help Utahns connect with their friends and family in Nepal. The vigil is at 7 p.m. on Friday at 451 South State Street, Washington Square in Salt Lake City.