MINUS 76-DEGREE COLD CHASES CLIMBERS FROM NANGA PARBAT

With conditions as cold as negative 76 degrees (a meat locker’s not as cold as negative 76 degrees), you can understand why the Poles, the Italian-French squad, and the Hungarian-American team all trying for the first winter ascent of 26,660-foot Nanga-Parbat are bailing. It couldn’t have helped that the Hungarian-Americans were going for it without bottled oxygen or that the mountain’s been shredded by epic snows in addition to the bone-crushing cold. More disconcerting is that French snowboarder Joel Wischnewski, who started his three-day summit bid last week at this time, hasn’t been heard from for days. Hope is that the cold has only gotten to his satellite phone and not to him. Via The Adventure Blog.

A NEW NATIONAL PARK FOR NEW MEXICO?

New Mexico’s senatorial contingent, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, want the 89,000 Valles Caldera National Reserve to become a national park. New Mexicans have seen this movie before, though. In 2010 their state’s senators also pushed for converting the land, north of Albuquerque, toward national park status but it never got to a vote. Presently the land’s in a bit of limbo. It was purchased by the feds for $100 million in 2000 but is co-managed by a presidential-appointed trust and a working ranch. You can hike, fish, ski, and hunt in the Caldera, but there are more restrictions than would be in place in national park. Another motive: Existing protections aren’t strict enough for the area’s ancient pueblo artifacts that would gain stronger management under the NPS. Via Albeuquerque Journal.

CAN WORKING OUT LESS BURN MORE CALORIES?

Every week another study tells you how to lose weight. This one is interesting for what it didn’t find. The study, conducted on 72 middle-aged women, divided them into three groups: one set worked out twice a week, another four times a week, and a third six times a week. What researchers expected was that those working out the most might lose the most weight and become the strongest aerobically and muscularly. Instead, all of the women gained almost exactly the same amounts of endurance as well as strength, but the women who worked out four times a week actually burned the most calories. The reason? Working out too often, the researchers say, sucks up important leisure time, and leisure time also tends to burn more calories among the physically fit. The upshot isn’t that exercise addicts have to do less, but that if you’re working out for endurance- or strength maintenance, less is indeed more. Via New York Times.

NORTH CAROLINA MOUNTAIN BIKERS SHUT OUT OF NATIONAL FOREST

It’s probably temporary, but a guerrilla trail network in the Croatan National Forest has been shuttered to mountain bikers. And although you probably think of Pisgah as home to North Carolina singletrack these trails are hard by the Intercoastal Waterway. According to the Forest Service it’s a problem because building the trails may have disturbed both an ancient African-American cemetery and a Tuscarora Indian settlement from the 1500s. The Forest Service will inspect the trail system and promises some resolution in the next few months. Via Sun Journal.