Northwest:

--Three experienced cross-country skiers who were buried after an avalanche near Clearwater, B.C., last Wednesday were able to escape, but one of them later died in hospital after a long journey back to town. RCMP said the men were in an area known as "the frowbowl," which is located on the north side of Raft Peak near Clearwater, when the avalanche occurred at around 10:30 a.m. One of the men was able to keep the fingers of one hand above the surface of the snow. He started moving them to begin the slow process of digging himself out. To read more, click here.

--AAI Guide Forest McBrian recently completed the infamous Pickets Traverse in the Cascades on skis. Forest and his partner skied from Stetattle ridge to Hannegan Pass through both the southern and northern Pickets. He said that it was probably "like the Haute Route was 10,000 years ago." To read more, click here and here.

--When the two attackers accosted him on a snowy cross-country ski trail, demanding his car keys, Kevin Tracey thought it would be a simple robbery. He handed over his keys and then his backpack, thinking the men would be satisfied and go away. But, as he recounted Monday to a jury, the next moments turned into a horrifying ordeal of being brutally clubbed, strangled and left to die in the woods near Dougan Falls on the Washougal River. To read more, click here and here and here.

Sierra:

--AAI guide Kristen Looper was featured on page 16 in Climbing magazine's "Photo of the Month." Kristen is leading Space Truckin' (5.10a) in the Desolation Wilderness near Lake Tahoe.

--Yosemite National Park is initiating public scoping for the Curry Village Rockfall Hazard Zone Structures Project. Compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) will be coordinated through development of an environmental assessment (EA). The public scoping period for the EA will open on Thursday, February 25, 2010 and will extend through Wednesday, April 7, 2010. To read more, click here.

--Prior to the regular Mammoth Town Council meeting on Feb. 17, the Council met with the Airport Commission and discussed everything from the summer air service expected to kick off April 11 to the 10,000 enplanements necessary for the Town to be able to put in for its $1 million incentive. According to the Chair of Airport Commission, Pam Murphy, summer air service will run one flight per day to and from Los Angeles. The service, at this time, is expected to run from April 11 (starting directly after winter service ends) through the end of September. It will then shut down for a few weeks and re-open right before Thanksgiving. To read more, click here.

Desert Southwest:

--A citizens advisory panel Thursday approved increasing entrance fees at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. The new fee schedule, which charges motorists $7 per vehicle for a daily pass on the scenic drive and $3 for bicyclists and pedestrians, could take effect as soon as March 1 if the recommendation gets final approval from Bureau of Land Management State Director Ron Wenker. A daily vehicle pass has been $5 since the user fee program was launched in 1997. Pedestrians, such as hikers and joggers, and bicyclists have been allowed to enter the park free. Visitors who hold $20 annual passes will be allowed to use them through their expiration dates. The new fee schedule sets the price of an "annual support pass" at $30. To read more, click here.

--Despite the recession, or perhaps because of it, 286 million visitors flocked to national parks last year, an increase of 10 million people. Utah's national park units attracted just over 9 million visitors during the year, up by 300,000. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar speculated Tuesday that the increases may have come because families on tight budgets view parks as bargains, parks offered free visitation on three weekends, and parks attracted extra attention because of President Barack Obama's visit to the Grand Canyon and Ken Burns's documentary on the history of parks. To read more, click here.

Alaska:

--Bradford Washburn will be inducted into the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame on February 25. Washburn, who died in 2007 at the age of 96, was the pioneering mountaineer, photographer, mapmaker, and museum director for whom the American Mountaineering Museum in Colorado is named. To read more, click here.

Notes from All Over:

--An avalanche crashed down on a village in northwestern Pakistan, burying houses and leaving more than 50 people dead or missing, officials said last week. Rescuer teams digging into the snow and rubble almost a full day after Wednesday night's avalanche had recovered 38 bodies and had little hope that 14 people still missing would be found alive, local government Aminul Haq told Dunya television. To read more, click here.

--An avalanche killed a backcountry skier in Grand Teton National Park on Sunday morning. Wray Landon, Brady Johnston and Nathan Brown just summited the South Teton (12,514') via the Northwest Couloir. They skied a few hundred vertical feet down the Southeast Face when the snow fractured, caught Landon in a slide, and carried him over a 1,500' cliff. To read more, click here.

--A Colorado skier was missing after an avalanche occurred Tuesday afternoon near one of the Aspen area's most popular backcountry huts. Eight skiers were in the group when the avalanche happened around 4 p.m. near the Lindley Hut outside Ashcroft. The skiers, all locals, are very experienced in the backcountry, said Renee Rayton, Pitkin County Sheriff's deputy. To read more, click here.

--The International Olympic Committee has opened the door to the possibility of sport climbing as an Olympic event in 2020. On February 12th, the IOC formerly recognized the International Federation of Sport Climbing as the governing body for the sport. This particular step is one of the most important in the development of a new Olympic event. The IFSC is now frantically working to have climbing included in the 2020 summer games. To read more, click here and here.

--On Monday a nearly century old rule was changed. People are now allowed to carry loaded handguns, rifles and shotguns in national parks and wildlife refuges, as long as the state in which the park is located allows guns. The controversial rule change was part of a bill which congress passed in May. The rule's passage was a bitter defeat for gun-control advocates, and for others who worry that loaded guns will bring about more violence in now-peaceful places. To read more, click here. To read our opinion blog on this, click here.

--The Obama Administration is currently considering the creation of 14 new national monuments in nine states. The monuments will include sensitive areas like the Ceder Mesa and the San Rafael Swell in Utah. Conservative law-makers are up-in-arms about the possibility that more areas will be included on protected lists. To read more, click here.


--The Pitkin County Open Space and Trails Board in Colorado has placed a temporary ban on bolting and drilling by rock climbers on county land. The moratorium will stay in place until they can develop a “comprehensive climbing management plan,” said open space ranger John Armstrong. To read more, click here.