BLM CONSIDERS MEGA-BIKE FESTIVAL FOR GRAND JUNCTION

If you’ve ridden Fruita but not Grand Junction you’re missing out. Lunch Loops, among others, are more than worthy, with smooth dirt like Fruita but plenty of rocky challenges, like Moab. And now the BLM is seeking public input on holding a race/weekend mountain bike festival next September to draw attention to the extensive trail system. Guide and promotor Epic Rides first brought the idea to city officials with the goal of having the race be a marathon distance, circuiting town, running through Lunch Loop, as well as Butterknife and Megellan trails — the BLM wants public comment because shuttering local singletrack is never a good deal if the locals don’t feel a benefit. FYI it’s BLM land, so you don’t have to be a Grand Junction local to weigh in. Via NBC 11.

SUNSHINE VILLAGE SUES FORMER EMPLOYEES

You just knew the whole nasty business about firing a ski patroller who ratted out the owner’s boy for allegedly skiing out of bounds wouldn’t go away quietly. Now Banff’s Sunshine is suing two of the four terminated employees it says are behind a flyer, t-shirt sales, and online boycott that caused “significantly lower” sales of day and season passes. Sunshine alleges former mountain manager Chris Chevalier and ex-patroller Christopher Conway organized a campaign that falsely represented why they were fired because of the incident two years ago. The action alleges that more than 8,000 Facebook visitors, including ski professionals and writers, “liked” a support page for the dismissed workers. In its defamation action, Sunshine is seeking $300,000 and other damages. Via Edmonton Journal.

BREAKING THE SPELL OF LIFE IN ANTARCTICA

If you haven’t been reading Alexander Kumar’s posts from the bottom of the planet in the New York Times, trust us, they’re fascinating, awesome, and mind-stretching journeys into what it’s like to live in a virtual space capsule with only your “ship” mates to keep you warm. Kumar’s been posted up at Concordia Station where he’s been both lab rat and scientist studying what happens in isolation for the European Space Agency. This latest post is about seeing other humans again for the first time as they arrived to take the baton from Kumar and his ship mates as they prepare to leave for the bluer, warmer world. The tinge of melancholy and wonder are both palpable; what you’d encounter as an explorer not just to Antarctica but to Mars…and then an earthling once again…is all on the surface of Kumar’s dispatches. Via NYT.

NEW FISH SPECIES NAMED AFTER FOUR DEMOCRATS…ONE REPUBLICAN

According to Prof Richard Mayden of the Saint Louis University’s Department of Biology and Dr. Steven Layman of Geosyntec Consultants, authors of a paper that describes the newly found species in the Bulletin of the Alabama Museum of Natural History, five new fish species of darters found in Eastern freshwater were named after former or current U.S leaders who have worked to promote conservation and environmental protection: Theodore Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Barack Obama. Whether it’s worth being president (or veep) to have a fish named after you is debatable; it’s probably not debatable that it’s boneheaded to stir festering wounds of partisanship after a bitter election — especially in science, where politics really don’t belong at all. Via Sci-News.