As our friends over at Climbing Narc noted, "While the interpersonal relationships of climbers is not normally appropriate for discussion on this blog, Beth and Tommy had built a pretty powerful brand around their being a climbing couple so the fact that they are no longer together seems like “news”. " But more importantly for GoBlog, it seems like the entry of two hot climbing ladies back into the dating pool has got the hormones running of quite a few lonely climbing dorks and it's driving mad traffic to the site. Over 75 people a day looking for information on these divorces. We call that newsworthy, at least in the sad fantasy lives of hundreds of climbers around the world. That's the only thing we can think of when we look at our search logs and scratch our heads at the sheer volume of traffic the words "beth rodden divorce" and "step davis divorce" drive to the site. So naturally we were curious what Google had to say as a gut check, so we pulled the numbers from their the Ad Words Keyword Selector tool. Here's the data they gave:

Phrase	Google Global Monthly Search Volume
steph davis divorce	46
beth rodden divorce	58

Looking through our logs, we'll have to say this is just directional and its underestimating the query volume by a large magnitude, because we see over 50 visitors a day alone searching for information on Beth Rodden's divorce. Less from Steph Davis. It's truly bizarre. Are the guys, and you have to assume it's 99% guys doing these searches, sitting in front of their computers going, "She's so hot, now I have a chance at her. Let me just confirm she's divorced and it's on!" And for that matter, why are they not searching Step Davis as often? Is she not as desirable as Beth when it comes to climbing dork fantasies hierarchy? You could also slice and dice this data and get anonymous demographic data. Like some lonely guy from Yale searched "tommy caldwell and beth rodden divorce" during his lunch hour today and a guy from Seattle searched "beth rodden divorce". Maybe we should put the data together and give it to Beth so she can avoid the towns with high rates of stalkers/searchers. And just to be honest, it's not just the hot climbing lady celebrities that get all this attention. People are always Googling "Chris Sharma girlfriend" to see if he's single. Because, you know, they have a shot if he is...Internet. Truly a weird and scary place.

We tend toward hyperbole and humor here at GoBlog, because it helps distract readers from the bad writing and lack of substance we generally provide. Yet, strangely, we're one of the largest outdoor blogs around, so what does that say about you, gentle readers? But we digress. If you read about the world's most expensive ski boots we posted about a few weeks ago, and decided you must have a pair, why not add a pair of the world's lightest powder skis to your shopping list? Weighing in at 2000 grams (4.3lbs) for a pair of 175s, the Black Powder aim to be the GoBlog of mountaineering skis: fast, light, good in the sack on the mountain. Wooo. From their press release:

• Is ultra-light so that the energy saved on the way up leaves you the strength to enjoy the descent
• Is not too long in order to facilitate kick turns while climbing, to be maneuverable during the descent and to move easily around obstacles (narrow corridors, trees)
• Its width at the waist is compatible with all crampons
• The width at the tip allows easy lift off of powder, while remaining reasonably narrow to break trail on the way up

How did they accomplish this feat of engineering marvel? Again, we defer to their press release:

The BLACK POWDER is a ski with a "partial core" (AlpControl patent) which is shorter than the ski, so that the upper and lower layers of carbon sandwich come together to form carbon/epoxy composite monoblocs at the tail and spatula. Because a ski should remain flexible, we ruled out fibers too rigid (high modulus) and instead selected the strongest "high tensile" fiber: the Toray T700S.

The T700S is one of the rare fibers in the world with a rate of elongation before break well above 2%, ensuring a high tolerance to shock.

The catch is you need to use their binding it appears, the Mountain Spring, which secure your plastics to the skis. Alright, enough shop talk. Suffice it to say they were a finalist for an ISPO this year. Read about them yourself on the AlpsControl website. Download their the Black Powder techncial spec doc and press release here (pdf).

Bit of old news, but the Banff Mountain Photography Winners were announced earlier this month. We never got around to posting about it because we're lazy. That's the Grand Prize winner above from Nathalie Daoust. You can see all the other winners on the Banff Centre site.

Sound familiar?

The wildlife biologist Lynn Rogers had logged thousands of hours studying North America's black bears. He had shot them with tranquilisers before fitting them with ear tags or radio collars. He had drawn their blood and mapped their DNA. And he had tracked their movements with pins on maps.

But none of that had allowed him to really know the creatures. When he did get close to a bear in the wild the animal was usually terrified, caught in a live trap in the woods.

Rogers eventually realised he couldn't hope to know bears unless he won their trust. And so he abandoned scientific detachment and took the daring and controversial step of forming relationships with his study animals, using food to gain acceptance among an extended bear family inMinnesota.

Gaining the trust of the bears has given him a close-up insight into their behaviour and social organisation as well as allowing Rogers to explode myths about them. Contrary to popular belief, for example, he contends that the bears are not violent and do not like honey.

What's the over under on this guy? At least he picked black bears, so he's got that going for him. Via Guardian UK.

What to do with the invasive Asian carp that has become such a problem in rivers across the country. Not only are they choking the rivers they've taken over, they like to jump out of the water when it's agitated, created a hazard for boaters and fisherman. Here's an idea, why not turn a nuisance into a new sport? In fact, how about shooting them with a bow and arrow tied to a rope and calling it Extreme Aerial Bowfishing?

Brackett, 32, has devised a sport he calls extreme aerial bowfishing. The equipment: a 20-foot johnboat; a compound bow; and an arrow, rigged with colored line and spooled on a crank reel that is mounted to the bow. The fish take flight and the bowfisher aims, shoots and reels in a carp, which often weigh more than 15 pounds. For $1,000, Brackett takes groups of four on extreme aerial bowfishing trips on the Illinois River. A small aluminum baseball bat is kept on the deck for any unruly silver carp that invade the boat.

Visit Brackett's Extreme Aerial Bowfishing site, and find out more about "the most exciting sport the outdoor industry has seen in the last 20 years." Sweet. Via NY Times.

So says 7x7, the local San Francisco magazine nobody outside of San Francisco has heard of, in their annual The Hot 20 Under 40. The amazing thing about choosing Katie is she admits she's semi-retired, studying to be an apparel designer. Does that mean she's was "hot", still is "hot", or will be "hot" in the future once she goes to work for the North Face? Curious minds want to know. 

Accomplishment is nothing new for Katie Brown. She began sport climbing in Kentucky at the age of 13, and today is heralded as one of the world’s best, achieving in 14 years more than many climbers do during their entire careers. This includes winning the X Games and a climbing World Cup. She’s also completed an onsight (free-climbing without knowledge of the route) of the northwest face of Yosemite’s Half Dome, and, along with climber Lynn Hill, the first female free ascent of the Leaning Tower. Brown moved to Berkeley from San Diego last year, in part because of its proximity to Yosemite. “It’s so vast, so awe-inspiring,” she says. “You could climb there your entire life and never get bored.” And while El Cap was part of the reason for her relocation, she also moved to attend the Fashion Institute, with plans to eventually work in the outdoor industry as an apparel designer. “Being a climber is all I’ve ever known,” Brown explains. “It’s wonderful, and I love it, but it leaves you ungrounded. I want a more rooted lifestyle.” Though it’s hard for mere mortals to imagine an athlete retiring at the top of her game, for Brown there’s no heartache about her decision to make climbing a hobby rather than a profession. “Right now I’m pretty content,” she says. “I’ve climbed where I wanted to climb. 
I’ve done what I wanted to do. Not everyone can say that.”

What's up with Burton? You always hear about them getting bent out of shape when they get criticized. Like threatening to leave Vermont after people called them out for their asinine Love boards. Just confirms the scientific evidence that snowboarders are just dumb as rocks. What's the latest you ask? Some writer/blogger we've never heard of, writing for a site equally unknown to us, found herself on the receiving end of some Burton hate after she had a gall to write a sarcastic blog post about Burton's annual industry party. God forbid somebody tries to be sarcastic in these trying times. Speaking of God, evidently the 2010 Burton Catalog is called the good book and looks like a bible. Jesus.  Literally. Anyway, it all seems rather meaningless and pointless, much like everything we write about here, so of course we had to point it out. Thankfully this chick, Brooke Geery, summarized it all and we included the timeline after the jump. In the mean time, read about all the mean things we've said about Burton and other industry brands below. Feel free to leave us some hate mail. We love it. Especially if you work for Nike. Via South of North.

GOBLOG HALL OF FAME POSTS THAT PISSED PEOPLE OFF

• Nike Snowboard Boots: Coming Soon To A Dick's Near You
• REI: The Wal-Mart of the Outdoors?
• Slope Side Style '07: The North Face Gestapo Collection
• Jake Burton Tires Of Being A Scapegoat: Lashes Out And Confirms Co. Strategy Driven By Children
• Nike Snowboard Boots Still Look Like Clown Boots
• Burton and Playboy Peddle Smutboards
• Burton Snowboards Does Playboy
• Slope Side Style '07: Why Are People Laughing At Me?
• Open Letter To Chrome: I Still Love You, But Stop Whoring Your Brand, Using 7-Year Olds To Name Shoes

Remember this Mountain Hardwear jacket we blogged about way back in February? We were probably one of the first to write about it since we have our fingers on the pulse of the outdoor industry like nobody's business. Takes people years to catch up with us. Anyway, enough about us, lets talk second coming of the MET5, but this time cheaper, longer battery life, and from Mountain Hardwear. If you have the cash and a cold spouse, consider it as a gift for the holidays. If you're poor like us, just tell your spouse to run in place like we do. Woo. Just to refresh your memory though, in case you missed our post in February, the Ardica is powered by lithium batteries that not only heat your jacket, but can run your gadgets. Because you know this must be for serious outdoor folks if you're powering gadgets. But what's up with the name Refugium? Wasn't that a Fugees song? Anyhoot, reason we're writing about it today is the press releases starting coming in this week that it's either in stores or going to be in stores. Something like that. We didn't read to carefully. Just needed something to fill the white space today. Read more about the Refugium & Radiance, if you dare. And tell your spouse to stop running now. Retail for $229, w/o the Ardica battery.

RELATED ENTRIES:

• Salewa Sigma Hot Flex Donna: Heatable Sleeping Bag
• Burton Women's LTD Heated Dream Jacket
• Mountain Hardwear Red Savina Heated Glove
• Rossignol Hit Heated Jacket
• Zanier Heat-GX Heated Ski Gloves
• MET5 Reincarnated: Innovative Sports Heated Jacket
• Scarpa Grizu Heated Footbeds
• Heated Clothing You Might Actually Wear
• Baby, You Are So Hot: The Club Seat Heated Chair
• Yet Another Dumb Idea, The North Face Heated Hydration System
• North Face MET5 Jacket: The Greatest Piece of Outdoor Apparel That Never Was

The good news never ends for the makers of products that use/used BPA, e.g. Nalgene & SIGG and about a dozen other outdoor companies. The latest study links toddler's aggression and hyperactivity to high levels of BPA in the mother's bloodstreams.

A new study published in Environmental Health Perspectives links prenatal exposure to BPA to aggression and hyperactivity in two-year-old girls. (No significant effect was found among boys.) Perhaps most disturbingly, the strongest predictor of behavior problems was exposure to BPA in early prenatal development, when many mothers-to-be do not know they are pregnant. Virtually all of the 249 mothers in the study had significant amounts of BPA in their urine for at least one of the three tests researchers conducted.

Holy cow. Sounds like every family with ADD kids will be suing BPA bottle makers. How do we get into the Class Action? Not only do we have man breasts now we can't seem to concentrate anymore. Via SF Gate.

Slow news day, other than the 10,000 Brits searching to see if Dean Potter was alive after watching a special on him and his slacklining fetish last night. Speaking of daredevils, bears and grandmothers, forget everything you've learned about the proper way to deal with a bear encounter. Screw the low voice, deference, and slow movements, grab a decorative pillow from you pack and pillow fight the hell out of the bear:

It's like a real-life version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." Vail grandmother Sally Rebehn fought off a bear that broke into her bedroom with a decorative pillow. The mama and one of the cubs then went into the kitchen and had a meal -- feasting on ice cream, chili and what appeared to be their favorite, leftover barbecued chicken wings from Moe's Barbecue." The ice cream was too cold, the chili too spicy, but the Moe's barbecue was just right," said Rebehn. "I heard the door open to my room and I thought, 'Well, it's gotta be Yoo-Hoo the family dog.' And I turn around and here was this big bear. I was screaming and she went up on her hind feet. And I was in between my bed and the wall. I grabbed one of these pillows and I just slung it at her. And she turned around and she left," said Rebehn of the encounter in her bedroom.

Grannie even knows how to throw out the soundbites. Enjoy your 15 minutes Sally. Via The Denver Channel.