My apologies for the lack of new content this week.

I’ve been busy watching my personal fortune evaporate in the stock market.

While I would never argue that what has been happening at the NYSE is in any way good, it has been most educational.

The financial crisis has motivated me to learn more about our economy, the equities market, and finance in general—subjects about which I have long been ignorant.

But the most valuable education I’ve received over the past week has been what I’ve learned about myself. And this new personal insight has taken me completely by surprise (more…)

Here’s a look at the sunrise from near our home this morning: that’s a lot of smoke.

The Yorba Linda/Anaheim area fires are about sixty miles east of us, which gives a sense of just how smoky the Los Angeles Basin is this morning.

And, when I turn and look to the west, the sky is considerably smoky from the Santa Barbara fires northwest of us.

What a mess!

The Los Angeles Times has an article on efforts to rename North Palisade as “Brower Palisade.”

With an elevation of 14,242′, North Pal is California’s fourth-highest mountain and the Sierra’s signature mountaineering objective—Whitney nothwithstanding.

The name change, intended to honor David Brower, environmentalist and first Director of the Sierra Club, has some powerful backers, including (according to the Times article) California U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, and climbing-guide author Steve Roper.

As you might suspect, many others are not so pleased with the proposal.

In the U.S., renaming mountains is generally made prohibitively difficult by the USGS, though there are exceptions. Arizona’s Squaw Peak was renamed Piestewa Peak after Army Spc. Lori Ann Piestewa, the first Native American woman to die in combat in the US military.

While that effort was not without controversy, it was eased first by the fact that Piestewa was a war veteran, and second that it was less a renaming than a name adjustment. For many people, “Squaw” was a slur both gender and race-specific. Changing the name to Piestewa was a nice way to remedy that issue.

In contrast, renaming North Palisade after Brower addresses no such inequity.

My first thought, hearing of this, was: don’t they have something better to do?

Given the myraid environmental challenges, issues, crises current facing not just the Sierra but the US and world beyond, can’t those who carry on the legacy of David Brower find a more important—more relevant—way to spend their precious time, money, and energy?

It just seems so…inappropriate.

There are plenty of unnamed peaks in the Sierra which could have been chosen to honor Brower instead.

How does it honor the memory of one of our nation’s pioneering preservationists to ram a name change down the throat of unwilling climbers and mountaineers all across the globe?

In attempting to strip North Palisade’s name, supporters of the effort imply that nothing less than a peak of seminal importance will do for their honoree—and it doesn’t matter if that peak already has a name with a rich history. The ‘Brower Palisade’ proposal thus calls exactly the wrong kind of attention to the man. It is self-serving, self-important, arrogant. It ignores the bigger picture. It is wrong.

That’s my opinion, at least.

Wildsnow.com has contracted out to an avalanche specialist to bring you reviews of all the major avalanche beacons this fall.

If you are using an older beacon, or looking to buy a new one, this is definitely worth your attention. Also check out the dire warning regarding iPod use in the backcountry: this was news to me. The reviews will be trickling out one by one over the coming weeks. Here’s the introduction.

I’m on a gear review rampage for the holiday season, so here’s the next item up for your consideration: North Face’s impressive Apex Bionic Jacket.

I wasn’t looking for a new ski jacket, but I knew this was a keeper as soon as I opened the box. The Apex Bionic has all the advantages of Patagonia’s windproof R4 Fleece Jacket, plus a bombproof soft-shell exterior for the trees & storms.

Read the review…

Well…not exactly, but if you did happen to catch the cover on the November ‘08 Backcountry Magazine, you’ll see the provocative headline, “New Heights or New Hype: Freeski Mountaineer Chris Davenport.” The feature article inside doesn’t exactly stake out a bold position on the subject, but it does ask the intriguing question, Is Chris Davenport creating a new skiing genre?

Seeing as we’re currently waiting around for some snow around here (and otherwise bored), I thought I’d offer my own fearless take on the Davenport phenomenon, hopefully controversial enough to spark up a comment or two, but not too controversial, because we’re still worn out from the election.

Ready? Here we go: (more…)

hat an extraordinary moment in our Nation’s history. I have never felt so proud to be an American. I am proud that so many Americans chose to exercise their right to vote—many of them first-time voters (and many of those young voters).

I am proud that our country has once again affirmed to itself and to the world that we are a people of unlimited potential and possibility. And I am proud beyond words to have lived to see our Nation’s first African American President. I am touched by Eugene Robinson’s emotional words last night, as the results came in: for the first time in our Nation’s history, all fathers can say to their sons, “You too can be President someday.”

Those words are now true. There will be many challenges ahead. The problems we face are real and complex. But today, at least, our burdens seem lighter, our national spirit stronger, our future brighter. We have turned the page, and the next chapter remains to be written.

Standing in the rain waiting to vote?

Hopefully you’ve got Marmot’s PreCip Jacket with you.

The PreCip is a waterproof/breathable rain jacket with what I’ll call technical aspirations.

Like the PreCip Pant, the PreCip Jacket is a fully-featured shell at an outstandingly low price.

Check it out!

For the past few days I’ve debating whether or not to make any personal endorsements for the upcoming election. This is, after all, a mountaineering website, and with all the competing campaign messages bombarding us, it’s been nice to keep SierraDescents as a sort of non-political safe haven (illusory or not).

That is, until I happened to browse my site today and found political ads running all across it, including a particularly contemptible ad run by the Prop 8 proponents, courtesy of Google.

I’ve pulled all Google advertising from my site, and will keep it pulled through tomorrow.

Let me also state my strong opposition to Proposition 8, which would amend California’s state constitution to deny same-sex couples the right to marry.

Since California’s constitution guarantees people equal treatment under the law, the only way to deny same-sex couples the legal right to marry in our state is to specifically single them out in our constitution and exclude them from equal protection.

That’s called discrimination.

Normally, we write laws—and especially Constitutions—to prevent discrimination; not codify it.

Same-sex couples already have the right to marry in California. Since they’ve been doing so, it doesn’t seem to have undermined my marriage. It doesn’t seem to have undermined anything, in fact.

The fabric of our society has not unraveled.

As the Los Angeles Times writes:

Look at what Proposition 8 is actually about: a group of people who are trying to impose on the state their belief that homosexuality is immoral and that gays and lesbians are not entitled to be treated equally under the law.

This is not who we are. Vote NO on Proposition 8.

UPDATE: I should clarify that Google the company is not paying for these ads; Google is simply running these ads on its ad network. There was apparently a spirited internal discussion at Google as to whether or not to carry pro-Prop 8 ads on its networks (Google itself has a strong anti-discrimination policy). Google did not, however, offer its publishers (like me) any warning that these ads would be coming, nor any easy way to quickly opt out of running them—except pulling all Google advertising, which I have done.

**UPDATE 2: as of 7 a.m. Pacific, it appears that California’s Proposition 8 will pass by a narrow margin (52%-48%), thus stripping an estimated 18,000 California couples of their marriages—the price of ‘redefining’ marriage.

I’ve actually been using Marmot’s PreCip rain pant for I believe three seasons now, but they’ve been on my web review backlog list.

Yes, they’re a rain pant (officially), but like the North Face’s Venture gear, the waterproof/breathable Marmot PreCip pushes into technical shell territory—at an absolutely unbeatable price.

Really, it’s kind of unfair to stack these up against a top Gore-Tex shell. I mean, they cost 1/3 as much, and weigh 20-30% less.

Yes, I know, there are situations where only Gore-Tex will do. But for spring mountaineering and backcountry skiing, you just might find these are a perfect fit.

» Marmot Precip Full-Zip Pants Review