Snowboarder Jeremy Jones on Protect Our Winters

"Jeremy Jones is an alien. He's just inhumanly good at snowboarding." So lives the legend of this pioneering big-mountain rider. We heard this comment this week from an Alaska-based ski/snowboarding operator, but the sentiment is one that rings throughout the snowboarding world.

Once a pro rider hitting a different big-mountain location every week, Jones's ethos have evolved over the years. Instead of heli-assisted first descents, he now prefers to go the old-fashioned way—on foot or splitboard. "The reality with going on foot is that it can take days to go do one run. It’s definitely a quality over quantity deal," he says. His film trilogy Deeper is aimed to show that you can do world-class freeriding without a helicopter. Further, part two due out September 2012, shows some of the best riders exploring the backcountry the slow way, which makes for a more a richer, more personal snowboarding film.

This falls right in line with Protect Our Winters (POW), a foundation Jones started in 2007 to unite the snow-sports industry and fans to fight climate change. With 30,000 members and some of our favorite athletes as ambassadors, Protect Our Winters is taking their message to the classroom and to Congress.

To kick off skiing and snowboarding season, we caught up with Jones to find out the latest on POW, what it's like to talk to Congress about climate change, and his favorite places to ride. —Mary Anne Potts

Become a Protect Our Winters Member:
This year, Alamos Wines is spreading the love by gifting 1,000 people with yearlong POW memberships. The winery is getting involved because it relies heavily on the snowmelt from the Andes to irrigate its vineyards. Simply register on protectourwinters.org. Your fee will be waived by entering the codeword ALAMOS.

Adventure: What’s going on with Protect Our Winters right now?
Jeremy Jones: The foundation continues to strengthen and grow. We're becoming more educated in doing our job better and making sure that each dollar raised goes as far as possible.

This fall we have been busy with a Hot Planet, Cool Athlete tour, where we take professional athletes into high schools with a scientist. We have this really hip, upbeat presentation on the state of the planet and climate change. We break it down for them and explain ways that they can help. The in-school stuff is the most rewarding, uplifting thing we do at Protect Our Winters because it gives us a level of hope to see the next generation really rise to the challenge of climate change. They really want to make a difference—and they are not accepting defeat like some of the older generations.

A: What's it like to talk to Congress about climate change? Are there any skiers or snowboarders among our elected officials?
Jeremy: Well, there aren’t any snowboarders in Congress. But I have met some die-hard skiers...and general mountain climbers and outdoor enthusiasts. When we go to Congress, sometimes we meet with full champions on climate change who are really excited that we are there. They realize that they need our help, really. Although I would say the discussion on climate has gone the wrong way on Capitol Hill over the last couple years. But there’s hope on Capitol Hill that the ship will be righted and we can start feeling positively.

Video: Watch the Amazing JP Auclair Street Skiing Scene From All.I.Can.

JP Auclair Street Segment (from All.I.Can.) from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.

This scene from the award-winning Sherpas Cinema ski film All.I.Can. may have been our favorite at the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Set to LCD Soundsystem's "Dance Yourself Clean," it features freeskier JP Auclair jibbing his way through three towns in British Columbia, Canada. "We asked people if we could 'play' in their front yards before we'd start jumping over their cars, etc.," says Auclair, who seems to effortlessly ski across snowless roads (causing sparks), down staircases, and flipping through intersections. "We had spotters at each intersection to make sure there were no cars coming ... usually our spotters were kids walking back from school and people living in the neighborhood." Amid all the fun of this scene is a serious message: "Showing skiing where most might not have expected it, making turns beyond the ski resort, beyond the snow was a simple way to illustrate human's capability for imagination and creativity—which are just a few of the qualities we need to solve crisis like global warming," says Auclair, who answered some of our questions about the scene below. —Mary Anne Potts

Adventure: All.I.Can. has a strong environmental message. How does this scene play into that? 

JP Auclair: Global warming is a serious issue. People have to act. We believe we need to go beyond the traditional "consume less, travel less, live less" mentality. We believe a shift in the approach to a sustainable world is also needed. The parallel drawn with the piece is basically to show we can think outside the box. Showing skiing where most might have not expected it, making turns beyond the ski resort, beyond the snow was a simple way to illustrate human's capability for imagination and creativity—which are just a few of the qualities we need to solve crisis like global warming.

A: Is it legal to ski like this? Did you have to ask people to stay out of the way? 
JP: This was shot in Trail, Nelson, and Rossland—all in B.C., Canada. Not sure if this was entirely legal to ski like that. I can say, however, that you're less likely to run into trouble in whatever you are doing if you respect the wellbeing of others around you. We asked people if we could "play" in their front yard before we'd start jumping over their cars, etc. We had spotters at each intersections to make sure there were no cars coming ... usually our spotters were kids walking back from school and people living in the neighborhood. Lots of "standbyers" participated!

Adventure in 60 Seconds: K2 Speed Summit, Teen Rock Climber, Research Shows Ditching Tech Helps Relax

Text by Tetsuhiko Endo

Just when we thought another scene of Karakoram climbing had entered the history books, Austrian Christian Stangl surprised the world with a solo, speed summit of K2 this week. In a single, 70-hour push (with one rest and an emergency bivouac), he went from base camp to peak and back to base camp. Upon returning he told Explorersweb.com: “If mountain climbing were as the last 70 hours here at K2, I would immediately stop.” For more classic meditations on K2 climbing, check out the entire report.

And while the men dominated the mountains, it was the boys who ruled the crags. Fifteen-year-old French wunderkind Enzo Oddo has repeated Chris Sharma’s generation defining route Realization, reports Climbing Magazine. The route is famous for being the first one to unequivocally carry the grade of 5.15a. Climbers have since topped out on harder routes, but it will always be the first, and among the most respected in the world of sport climbing.

Pangaea Himalayan Expedition: Payu to Concordia (Video)

The Pangaea Expedition team treks from Payu onto the Baltoro Glacier and beyond—to basecamp at Concordia, where they are rewarded with amazing views of the mighty K2.

June 7, 2010
Rest Day at Payu

Today is a rest day, so we begin with a late breakfast at 8 a.m. After breakfast, the Mayo clinic team conducts some tests with the young explorers and the team. The main goal of these tests is to check the oxygen saturation in the blood as well as the heart rate of subjects while exercising at the current altitude—3,600 meters (11,800 feet) above sea level. The physical exercise is a 9-minute stepping routine. As expected, all of us have decreased oxygen saturation levels due to the high altitude.

Pangaea Himalayan Expedition: Exploring the Heights With Mike Horn (Video)

Follow South African explorer Mike Horn and his expedition team as they trek through Pakistan's Karakoram Valley high in the Himalayas.

The Pangaea Project (PAN Global Adventure for Environmental Action) is a four-year exploration spanning the globe initiated by South African explorer Mike Horn in 2008. The project was devised by Horn as a way to engage international youth in exploring the world around them, learning about human impacts on the environment, and actively participating in clean-up and community projects.

Having engaged in beach and island clean-up projects in Borneo and India earlier this year, Horn and his expedition team now find themselves in the majestic heights of the Himalayas, guiding a group of eight young explorers on a month-long trek over Pakistan's Karakoram Valley to witness firsthand the amazing views of Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak, the Gasherbrum peaks, the Baltoro Massif, and the mighty K2.

Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration

Text by Tetsuhiko Endo

At the NG Adventure Blog, our reporting often focuses on adventurers of leisure--people who test themselves against Mother Nature in dogged adherence to the George Mallory school of philosophy: "Because it's there." Risk and reward for these modern thrill-seekers is high, but measured on a mostly personal scale. However, there is another class of adventurer for whom the stakes are often higher, the odds longer, and the prestige much less. These are the vocational adventurers, people who tempt fate every time they punch the clock.

Among this intrepid, yet under appreciated crew are crab fishermen, war correspondents, emergency aid workers, and most pertinently, the people who are currently trying to fix what could turn out to be the worst ecological disaster of our time, the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. A few days ago, BP engineers lowered a cap onto the underwater oil leak that is designed to divert the flow of some of the crude to tankers sitting on the surface, roughly a mile overhead, reports the BBC.

David de Rothschild's Plastiki Sets Sail! - Video

Just in time for World Water Day (today) and after nearly four years of development, eco-adventurer David de Rothschild has launched his most ambitious expedition yet. The Plastiki, an innovative catamaran made from 12,000 post-consumer plastic bottles, set sail on Saturday for a 100-day voyage from San Francisco to Sydney. Their mission is to witness some of the most devastating waste accumulation on our planet, including the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch. According to his twitter feed, David and the crew had eggs for breakfast on their first morning at sea. (Read our previous coverage and see the NG Plastiki site.)

Taking inspiration from Thor Heyerdal's 1947 Kon-tiki expedition, the Plastiki's crew includes of David de Rothschild, accomplished skipper Jo Royle, and Olav Heyerdahl, Thor's grandson. Check back for updates here, or go to http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/plastiki/.

Photographs courtesy of Luca Babini

Meet the Adventurers of the Year: Biogeochemist Katey Walter Anthony

Last week we announced the 2009 Adventurers of the Year, selected for their extraordinary achievements in exploration, conservation, action sports, and humanitarian work. Now, for the first time ever, you can vote for the Readers' Choice Adventurer of the Year. For the next two weeks, we are going to highlight a different adventurer daily, starting today with Katey Walter Anthony. You can only vote once, so make sure to check out each adventurers' profile, video, and photo gallery, before firing up our voting machine.

Arctic Sage
By the third day of drifting in the storm-tossed Arctic Ocean, with no engine and no real prospects of rescue, a question came to Katey Walter Anthony: “What’s a data point really worth?”

Others might have had other things on their minds, but to Walter Anthony, data is everything. As a biogeochemist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, she studies methane. The greenhouse gas is 25 times more potent than CO₂ and is being rapidly released into the atmosphere from thawing permafrost. But this source of methane is not factored into most climate change models, something that does not sit well with Walter Anthony. Continue reading this story >>

Special Report: Maldives - The Future of a Sinking Island Nation

On the eve of his election, Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed made the mother of all campaign promises. Once in office, the 42-year-old pledged to set aside revenue from the country’s sizable tourism industry to buy land in India, Sri Lanka, and Australia. If the oceans around his low-lying island nation continued to rise as predicted—by two feet in the next 90 years—he would simply move the entire population. “It’s an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome,” he explained to the press. Soon after, Nasheed again made headlines, this time with his plan to make the Maldives the first carbon-neutral country in the world—in ten years. “I don’t think we have any choice but to make this our priority,” he told me in February. “The Maldives is the front line in the climate battle.”—Text by Jon Bowermaster; Photograph by Fiona Stewart

Update: Expedition Findings Predict Arctic Summer Ice Gone in 20 Years

Last summer, Arctic adventurer Pen Hadow led the Caitlin Ice Survey on a scientific expedition to the North Pole. Their objective was to take ice core samples to measure the average thickness of the ice and add valuable data to the discourse surrounding global warming. Avid ADVENTURE readers will recall that things got a bit hairy for Hadow and co. with the team having to abandon the mission before they actually reached the pole. They may not have gotten to zero degrees longitude and latitude, but their findings, which debuted yesterday in London, have still proved highly important. Unfortunately, they have not done anything to dissuade the theory that the Earth is rapidly getting warmer.