Jeff and I teamed up to write a story about our favorite food stops after a day in the outdoors.

No fine dining here. Just fine burgers, fries, shakes and cherry pie a la mode (Twede's famous pie pictured to the right).

Check it out and see if your favorite was included. If not let us know about your favorite. We'd love to check it out.

(Picture by Drew Perine)

J.T. Wilcox of Wilcox Farms recently celebrated the family business' 100th anniversary by climbing Mount Rainier. He learned that the mountain can be ruthless.

Wilcox passed along a story about the trip, which pushed him to the limit.

By J.T. Wilcox

Why do you climb a mountain?

"Because it is there," said Mallory, but he's been lying frozen on his mountain since 1924, so this is an unsatisfactory answer for a happy, middle-aged father of three.

"To prove I am tough enough to do it," would be a more accurate answer for me, if I was honest enough, or maybe if I had a few tumblers of Laphroig, but wasn't yet at the verbose philosopher stage. Yes, I might have said that before I climbed the mountain.

"Do not take the mountain lightly," was Bill Vipond's frequent advice. Bill is a slightly older guy whom I met a couple of years ago. Bill is a nearly perfect friend, not just to me, but also to a multitude of others. In fact, he's been like a brother over the last year. Although he has a slight tendency towards pontification, Bill's unusual personal openness, enthusiastic desire to help and the sense that he has a mission in life make him one of the most endearing people I have ever met.

It would be hard to exaggerate the respect that I have for him, but this story is about the mountain, so I'll leave my relationship with Bill for another time after just adding that he has climbed in many areas across the world and is one of those who believes strongly in the spiritual aspects of being in danger with guys in exposed places. The rope team, Bill, John Colleran, Rob Coyne, Henry Liebman and I had been training hard for more than three months. We'd meet twice a week to do the Cable Route, an agonizing climb straight up Tiger Mountain, a couple of miles long but with around 2,500 feet of vertical gain. We did this with at least 20 lbs on our backs and our times went from about 65 minutes to around 50 minutes at best for me.

=> Read more!

Edgeworks Climbing gym is looking for volunteers to judge and belay climbers at Saturday's T-Town Climbing Challenge. Here's the lowdown from the gym:

Edgeworks T-Town Climbing Challenge
Saturday, April 25th, 10am - 5pm
Volunteers Needed:
-Judges: No Experience Necessary
-Belayers: Edgeworks Belay Certification Required

What you get for helping out:
-Edgeworks T-Shirt
-A wonderfully fulfilling lunch supplied by Edgeworks
-A great opportunity to see some of the region's best climbers. Some of the climbers that will be at the comp are nationally ranked; they're good!

We really appreciate the community support anyone is able to offer!

If anyone is interested, please call our front desk to sign up (253-564-4899).

From the Foothills Trails Rails to Trails Coalition:

Join the certification training for the Foothills Rails to Trails Coalition's Courtesy Patrol. Keith Lassen with Pierce Transit and a Courtesy Patrolman will present an overview of current first aid practices 9 am, Mar. 14, High Cedars Golf Club, 149th St. Court E. Orting. The Courtesy Patrol was created in 2002 to encourge trail courtesy and provide trail information to users. Members also assist with special events such as the Foothills Dash, Daffodil Classic bike ride, the Rainier to Ruston ultrathon, and relay, and the Run with the Salmon. The Patrol numbers 100 members.

For information or to enroll contact Patrol Chairman Jerry Larson at 253-845-7219 or Capt2wheelert@comcast.net

While Alpine ski resorts continue to open (White Pass opens Friday), they aren’t the only places benefiting from this week’s snow storms.

MTTA trails circa 2001. (Photo: The Legendary Skip Card)

The Mount Tahoma Trail Association in Ashford now has enough snow to make cross-country skiing possible, Bob Myrick of the MTTA said via e-mail. Often times the trails are not skiable until the last week of December or even early January.
He said there was enough snow Dec. 13 to ski from the Road 45 Gate in Ashford to the Copper Creek Hut.
A Sno-Park pass ($10 per vehicle per day) is required to park at the sno-parks when using the trail system.
The MTTA trail system is located north and south of the Highway 706, however the south country was closed since the November 2006 flood because of the washed-out bridge over Catt Creek. The bridge was repaired over the summer so three of the four huts in the south country can be accessed this winter.
Snow Bowl Hut burned to the ground earlier this year and the MTTA is working to rebuild the hut.
The huts are available for day use. You can stay overnight in the huts for $5 per night plus a $20 refundable deposit. For more info visit mtta.org.

Thanks to reader Rod Cochrane for pointing out that this video wasn't posted this morning.

If you read today's Silver Star story, this is ski guide David Todd on a run at Silver Star. I shot this while skiing behind him on an intermediate run late on an epic powder day. As you can see the hill as been skied off at this point.

In pursuit of the first turns of the season, my dad headed north to Whistler Blackcomb for the week. Sounds like he got there a few weeks too early.
Here's the ski report he sent me:

No Snow and above freezing temps at the village. No crossover skiing or lifts between Blackcomb and Whistler.

There is almost no snow below mid mountain on Whistler or below the top of the Wizard chair on Blackcomb.

There are a couple of runs open on each mountain and as of Dec. 2 they are making snow wherever they can.

Runs are pretty icy in the mornings and start to soften to spring-like conditions in the afternoons.

No snow forecasted before I leave on Saturday.

Peak2Peak is still in testing and is really impressive.

So, Don’t drop everything to come to Whistler and ski right now.

Clearly Indiana Jones is the greatest adventure movie hero of all time. But what about movies about adventure sports.

Last year, we asked the Northwest's outdoor elite for their favorite adventure sports movie. The only requirement we gave them was that the movies have a strong adventure sport element. Whether the flick was a documentary or featured James Bond on skis, it didn't matter.

This, of course, left room for some serious creativity.

Jordan Hanssen, one of four University of Puget Sound grads who rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in 2006, had a list that included "The Princess Bride" ("Fencing, sailing, horseback riding and torture," he said), "Muppet Treasure Island" ("Sailing, swashbuckling and fuzzy critters") and "Casablanca" ("Drinking. Face it, adventure doesn't happen without it").

Surprisingly, none of the other 13 members of our academy recommended these movies.

Click below to see the top 10 PLUS their pick for the worst adventure sports movie of all time.

=> Read more!

I got e-mail from reader M. Mullins recently asking the whereabouts of the new trail in Milton. The paved 2.5-mile multipurpose trail was dedicated Tuesday.

We were unable to run a map of the trail because the City of Milton could not provide us one. Making matters more confusing we accidently left out a box with additional info the trail from Thursday's section.

This prompted many phone calls from readers like M. Mullins. Thanks for pointing it out.

My bad. Here's what we meant to say:

Milton Interurban Trail
Miles: 2.5
South terminus: 70th Avenue East
North terminus: South 380th Place
Surface: Asphalt
Parking: A community baseball park at 700 Kent Street offers ample parking along the trail.
The future: Trail planners hope to connect the Milton trail to future sections in Edgewood and Fife.
What’s next? Edgewood Trail Community Meeting, May 1, 6:30 p.m., Mountain View Lutheran Church.

Diane Kerlin doesn’t live in Milton, but she was as happy as anybody Tuesday morning when the city dedicated a new 2.5-mile multiuse trail.

“This is a great day,” said Kerlin, an Edgewood resident who helped plan the trail. “… A lot of hard work went into this.”

=> Read more!

Here's a story from Jeff that will run in tomorrow's Adventure section:

By Jeffrey P. Mayor
jeff.mayor@thenewstribune.com
REI has opted to remove all polycarbonate water bottles containing bisphenol A from its inventory as consumers debate whether the chemical poses a health risk.
The Kent-based outdoors retailer made the decision Friday, the same day the maker of the popular Nalgene water bottle said it will remove the hard-plastic product containing the chemical from stores and replace its Nalgene Outdoor line of containers with BPA-free alternatives.
“Increasingly, we’ve had customer demand for BPA-free water bottles. There also has been increasing customer confusion on how to identify a water bottle made without BPA,” said REI spokeswoman Megan Behrbaum.
Joe Hyer, co-owner of Alpine Experience in Oympia, cautions consumers to not overreact. “If there was something harmful in a Nalgene bottle, not only would we be pulling them off the shelves, but also recalling the millions of the ones that have already been sold,” he said.
Andrea Wagner, manager of Backpackers Supply on South Tacoma Way in Tacoma, has noticed a shift in consumer preference. “We’ve been selling more of the aluminum bottles. In the last couple of months, we’ve seen sales definitely drop off on those (Nalgene) types of bottles.”

=> Read more!

As a mountain biker, I don't think of myself as evil. However, a reader in San Ramon, Calif., says otherwise.

Mike Vandeman, a vocal hater of mountain bikers, has e-mailed after my last two stories about mountain biking insisting that I'm being irresponsible by writing about this sport.

He is, of course, right. Mountain biking does damage. Although the amount of damage is questionable.

Check out his website here. He calls this the science on mountain biking.

Mountain bikers, of course, strongly disagree with Vandeman's opinions. Click here to check out an article by Seattle's Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club that claims Vandeman is a "kook."

I asked some mountain bikers to defend their sport for an article a couple of years ago:

They claimed the sport's impact was similar to that of hiking.

"When people say we are having a negative impact on the trails, that's a surrogate for not wanting to see bikes on the trails," said Gary Sprung, the national policy adviser for the International Mountain Bicycling Association. "When people are honest and just say they don't want bikes on the trails, we have much better conversations."

Before working for IMBA, Sprung was the president of a Colorado group that helped stop logging and mining projects that endangered the environment.

"We care about the environment," Sprung said of mountain bikers. "We could bring a major source of energy to support conservation, but instead we have to spend all our time defending mountain biking."

Sprung and (Justin) Vander Pol (of the BBTC) say opposition to mountain biking comes mostly from older people.

"People in their 20s and 30s have had mountain biking around for as long as they can remember," Sprung, 51, said.

Sprung, also an avid hiker, says there should be some hiking-only trails, but says there is no need for bike-only trails.

"You're not going to find a mountain biker who is opposed to hikers," Sprung said. "This is a one-way social conflict."

Mountain bikers say it's also a myth that they are blazing new trails in forests.

" Mountain biking is all about the trail," Vander Pol said. "If you try to ride a bike off the trail, you probably aren't going to get very far. Mountain bikers stay on trails more than hikers."

Vander Pol and Sprung might be pedaling uphill when it comes to spreading the word that mountain bikers respect the outdoors as much as hikers do.

"It doesn't have to be a competition" between hikers and bikers, Vander Pol said. "We should all be able to use and take care of the trails."

Reader "RickB" has pointed out that the Mount Tahoma Trails Association has updated its website with information about the Snow Bowl Hut fire. Included is information on how you can help the association recover.

Click here to check out the website.