From the web – Jan 3rd

Happy New Year!  For you pedants out there, it is just another year. For the rest, some news items to bring in the decade…

• White Sands National Monument is now White Sands National Park. 

• “Artifacts taken from Mesa Verde are coming home. Tribes welcome return of human remains, funeral objects removed in 1890s”

• “Congressional Spending Bill Includes Protection for Greater Chaco” To the lay person that means a lot less fracking in this important cultural zone.

• “Since the 1960s, the National Park Service has partnered with nonprofit organizations to provide environmental education services to the public. But a recent audit from the U.S. Interior Department’s Office of the Inspector General found that some of these Residential Environmental Learning Centers have strayed from their original mission .

  “What they are offering are wine tastings, yoga classes, chef-crafted meals, and destination weddings,”  ”   What??? Afflunet people are abusing a system and exploiting some loopholes and profiting? I’m shocked; shocked I tell you!

• “The 1,000th California condor has hatched in a victory for the species that nearly went extinct”

• Philip Werner (Section Hiker) makes a good case for model years on backpacking gear. 

From Calendars

• An interesting selections of articles from the Canyon County  Zephyr from 2019.

Arches web came from The Canyon County Zephyr

• The science of knots from NPR

• And, finally, UL Jerk reports a press release from Outdoor Gear Labs latest category. 

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Story by guest reporter Mr. @pmagsco “Looking good on the slopes in Aspen, at the crag in Bishop, and how well your clothing pairs with your post-ride meal in Moab, are the crucial factors of rating gear. Outdoorgearlab feels this new category should work effectively for #vanlife aficionados, Arcteryx purchasers, and those pining for reservations at James Beard Award-winning restaurants equally; with these groups typically being one and the same.”

A post shared by ULTRALIGHT JERK (@ultralightjerk) on Jan 3, 2020 at 11:55am PST