A HAPPY ENDING FOR MISSING RAINIER SNOWBOARDERS

Sweet Georgia Brown, there’s good news about missing mountaineers for once. 21-year-old Derek Tyndall and 20-year-old Thomas Dale had been stuck on Mt. Rainier since Sunday, when they snowboarded from Camp Muir when they got lost in a whiteout, stopped to build a snow cave, and hunkered down to wait out a storm. They reached rescuers via their cell phone, but darkness and 20 more inches of snow descended. By Monday, their phones were dead. Searchers gridded the mountain, but poor conditions kept the chopper grounded. They had no luck that day, but Tuesday morning, searchers in Upper Stevens Creek drainage found the duo alive and well on the lower Paradise Glacier. “Having them stick together, even that they stayed together, during the blizzards and two nights in a row — it’s amazing,” said Rod Tyndall, Derek’s father. Via KOIN.

GUN STORE HOLDS A COYOTE-KILLING CONTEST…SPURRING PEOPLE-KILLING THREATS

A Los Lunas shop called Gunhawk Firearms took over a contest started by an Albuquerque gun shop to bag the most coyotes in a weekend. The idea, Gunhawk management says, is to help out farmers whose livestock is threatened by coyotes, which aren’t protected the way wolves are. The winner gets an assault rifle. Over 29,000 people have signed an online petition calling it cruel and sadistic…and now the FBI is investigating death threats against the lives of the owners and their families. Word of the contest has spread globally, which you might think would be bad for Gunhawk’s business. Nope: “It’s awesome! I’m excited! I love it! Why not!” exclaimed employee Josh Waters. “It’s been a banner day here in the shop. People are showing their support and freedom of speech and the second amendment. Got to love it!” Via KRQE.

ARON RALSTON, THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT

Sorry, buddy, you’re a friend, but you’re also the poster boy for not leaving a note. Well, now you don’t have to. A new web-based alert system called iNeverSolo offers hikers, climbers, and other expeditioners the same safety net. You log your starting point, destination, and travel time into the site, along with the email addresses and phone numbers of an emergency contact or two. If you don’t make it back from, say, a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada as planned, iNeverSolo reaches out to you and your contacts to see if you’re okay – at which point your friends can launch a search or alert authorities to your disappearance, if necessary. Via iNeverSolo.

THIS JUST IN — IT’S DUMB TO USE A MEDICAL CHOPPER TO HARASS WILDLIFE

Call it a little bit of a border skirmish between Arizona and Colorado — or just call it stupid. That’s what Colorado is saying (in so many words), by slapping a fine on Owen Park, 35, of Page, Arizona, who after dropping a patient in Grand Junction, was spied buzzing a herd of elk with his chopper. “The people that saw this told me that the pilot ruined their hunt,” said Ty Smith, District Wildlife Officer in Grand Junction. “When I mentioned this to Park, he agreed that his actions may have done that.” According to the witnesses, Park flew at treetop level, causing several groups of elk to scatter in multiple directions. In addition to making hunting more difficult, Colorado officers want it known that during winter big game is surviving almost exclusively on fat reserves — buzzing them with aircraft or an ATV makes them burn fuel they don’t have to spare, which means some could starve. A prospect pro- and not-pro elk hunting folks should find unappealing. Via Colorado Parks and Wildlife.