Mountain News & Notes

By The MG staff

Instant Karma
Longtime Mountain Gazette contributor Wayne Sheldrake’s fast-moving mountain life manifesto, Instant Karma: The Heart and Soul of Ski Bum, has been announced as a finalist for a “Book of the Year” award by ForeWord Magazine. The awards recognize some of the best work coming from today’s independent press community. Nearly 1,600 books were entered in 61 categories. The winners will be determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers, and announced at BookExpo America at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles on May 29. Sheldrake’s last piece for the Gazette was The Lost Art of Ski Bumming (January, #139).

Roaring Forks
In Colorado, a group of Basalt-based cyclists and trail advocates recently formed a new organization called the Roaring Fork Mountain Bike Association (RFMBA). “As silent, non-motorized trail users, mountain bikers share trails with many user groups yet pressure from increased use, government budget cuts, resource extraction and special interest groups threatens to impact or reduce our access to trails,” says co-founder Kirk Hinderberger. He says RFMBA will focus its efforts on: advocacy, master planning, trails and education. FOMO: www.rfmba.org.

Emergency Medical Services?
Mountain Gazette Calendar boy Graham Gephart sent in this newsblast: Yow… MSNBC just did a 13 cool, high-tech gadgets for the slopes story, and it was pretty bad. Check out the beacon write-up: “Pieps Avalanche Beacons: $450 – If you’re doing some serious backcountry skiing, then you know you need to have some sort of avalanche beacon that will help find you should you have some bad luck. This device not only sends out signals to EMS workers, but also sports a compass, a thermometer, an altimeter and much more!” Graham adds, “Glad to know if I get buried it’ll send an SOS to a shop kid at EMS”.