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green corner
Quick Tips
We found a great woman-owned gear exchange website at igearlist.com. Wander over and check them out.
Break down and get some reusable shopping bags. Throw them in the back of your car (or bike basket) for your next grocery trip.
Use a rain barrel to water your lawn, flowers, and garden. Save drinking quality water for drinking.
If you can't buy used gear, consider buying recycled gear from companies like Mountainsmith.
More great ideas are yours for the taking at Earth911, Grist & Treehugger. And, just for fun, visit ecochick's blog!
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 Marmot wants you to win this!
You have until February 29th to enter the Marmot Giveaway and win this Sayan sweater.
Go to our Marmot Giveaway page to enter! |
Give someone you love
a life-changing gift.
In 2008, Women's Adventure magazine will sponsor four creative conferences.
Photography in Magazines,
April 11-13, 2008
Magazine Writing Workshop,
June 6-8, 2008
Travel Writing & Photography,
September 12-14, 2008
The Original Magazine Conference, October 10-12, 2008
Purchase a scholarship today for yourself, a student, or loved one for only $350. Visit our Registration Page to register today!
Not sure yet? Sign up for our Conference e-mail updates and stay in touch.
Project Athena Foundation will grant Athenaships, similar to full-ride scholarships, to women who have endured life altering medical conditions. Athenaships will completely fund and outfit the adventurous wish of each recipient. The foundation hopes to award its first Athenaship in the spring of 2008. Read more at www.projectathena.org.
Don't forget to visit our
Women's Adventure Store!
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Mine is not the kind of story that involves hanging from cliffs or riding out flash floods in box canyons. Mine is a story of overcoming a fear of being outside.
As a little girl on my grandparents' farm, I was discouraged from exploring by being told that snakes were in the corn field. In fairness to my grandmother, a small child lost in a large cornfield is a frightening thing. When I was 5, we moved to a house that had a small wooded ravine behind it. In the 15 years that I lived there, I never once explored it because of a vague fear, not discouraged by my parents, of what lived down in there. This was a suburban area so in reality, racoons and deer were the kinds of things I might have encountered.
As an adult, I moved to an area in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. As I entered my forties, I needed to learn to exercise and for a variety of reasons, walking was the best choice for me. But it meant overcoming my fear of walking in a "mountain park" area (translation: there are bears and mountain lions but also a fair number of people using that area). Over a year's time, I would make myself walk in the mornings, going further into the area surrounding my house, sometimes feeling very vulnerable, until I have gotten to the point where I am no longer afraid of walking alone on a trail. Being aware that there are animals around is only common sense for the most adventurous of us.
While this may not seem like a great challenge, overcoming my interior landscape of fear of the unknown was as great a feat of courage as scaling any high, remote mountain peak. And by overcoming my deep fears, I've become more comfortable with the idea of engaging challenging outdoor areas. In fact, this past summer I rafted the Grand Canyon and I made myself swim a rapid, jump over a high waterfall that terrified me, and scale some walls as part of hikes.
If you'd like to win a WA tee, stop by and tell us your story!
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our next issue
Coming up in our March/April issue:
Features
Spiritual Outdoor Adventures,
Chloe Sutton, open water swimmer,
Ewa Wisnierska's amazing survival of a paragliding accident that took her almost 10,000 meters in the air.
Departments
Fresh from the Field: best new cycling gear for spring 08.
Whole Health: exercise-induced asthma
Yes, You Can: take your dog anywhere
Full: seaweed
Sports Clinic: downhill mountain biking
Subscribe today!
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letters from the divide by Pam Houston
Women's Adventure Magazine, May 2006 
Dogs Who Like to Go: An ode to the best hiking companions ever
It is a sparkly blue June day in Creede, Colorado, and Fenton the Irish wolfhound knows something's up. Four water bottles have been filled and placed on the edge of the kitchen counter, and there are hints of sunscreen and beeswax-based leather treatment in the air. Chocolate-covered almonds, cashews, and cherries have been funneled into baggies, and Fenton can hear the jangle of daypack zippers and ultralight carabineers behind the bedroom door. The dining-room table is inches deep in U.S. Geological Survey maps, and the humans are clomping up and down the hall purposefully in their heavy hiking boots. Fenton knows that these are excellent signs, and he throws all of his attention into making sure that my truck doesn't leave without him.
Let's be honest for a minute. How many extra hikes do we go on each year because our dog has given us that look? How many times would we have turned back earlier if not for the shocked expression on the canine muzzle that says, What, you don't want to find out what's around that next bend? What in life is more joyful than watching a dog, who has spent all week enduring our workaholic natures and our tedious and consuming social lives, spring out of the back of our four-wheel drive and catapult himself over a hill, through a stand of aspen trees, and into a clear and cold stream, coat gleaming, tail wagging, tongue flapping, both of us finally free? Why not just admit that a dog is the best hiking companion possible. He never wants to talk about politics or show you his blisters, he’ll happily assist you in your leave-no-trace snacking, he won’t yell at you if you get lost (he's never really lost), he'll keep the bears at bay, and he'll keep you warm if one of those unforecasted blizzards/hailstorms/cold fronts blows in. >>>read this article in full on our website
Hiker Meredith Emerson was tragically murdered earlier this year while walking with her adopted dog, Ella, on the Freeman Trail near Blairsville, GA. Her family in Longmont, CO has requested that any memorial donations be made to local animal shelters. If you would like to make a donation in Meredith's memory, there is a webpage set up to benefit the Longmont Animal Shelter at Firstgiving.com
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