In addition to wanting to ‘do something rewarding together,’ the father and son team plans to use their summer adventure to raise awareness for a rare illness, pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), which Matt’s best friend has.

Matt, an Outdoor Nation ambassador, also wants to inspire other kids to get outdoors. http://www.outdoornation.org

With Mt. Rainier and Mount Hood, the two ominous west coast volcanoes, successfully accomplished on July 2  and 4, and only two more peaks remaining as of day 40, it’s possible the team could break the standing highpoint record of 45 days, 19 hours and 2 minute, set by Mike Haugen in 2008.

Matt, Mike and support team are currently in Billings, Montana, preparing for their 48^th high point, the state’s Granite Peak. Once they accomplish that, they will fly to Hawaii and hit the trail for the rim of Mauna Kea, their last peak, hopefully before the week is out!

Over the weekend, Matt and Mike were featured in this ABC Denver Channel 7 news piece http://www.thedenverchannel.com/video/24219580/?taf=den. For more information on Matt’s climb and his fundraising efforts for PAH, visit: http://www.climb7.com/.

Matt Moniz en rotue to another mountain

Info: www.atasteofcolorado.com 

Our national park swing came during April’s National Parks Week, an initiative designed to get more families to visit our national treasures by offering free admission. But it was our older daughter Brooke’s free admission that summed up Casey’s abuse of her new power. “I think she’s going a little overboard,” she said, cupping her hand to her mouth. 

It happened after joining Ranger Joel on a pilgrimage for an hour-long family hike up a ramp of slickrock to Delicate Arch. Countless others had the same idea that glorious Saturday, and it was like following worshippers to Mecca. I promised Casey ice cream if she made it under her own power. Her choice? Aptly named Rocky Road.

Noticing us with the ranger, other families quickly joined in and soon we had our own family-friendly posse en route to enjoy one of the park’s most popular attractions.  

Along the way, under Ranger Joel’s tutelage, we stopped at petroglyphs, spit water on juniper bark to enhance its smell, and learned how an ancient, massive salt wash dipped the surrounding strata. Before we knew it, we traversed a thin ledge of slickrock and emerged around a corner to see the arch.

While that was captivating enough, for Casey the real reward came when Joel had her raise her right hand and repeat a makeshift ranger mantra to get officially deputized, ranger pin and all.

“I swear to protect my national parks and not poke my sister,” she dutifully repeated.  

Ceremony completed, and with the arch and other bystanders as her witness, she then put on her new badge. And that’s when things got weird.

First, she proceeded to wave people along the path on the way down. “Keep it moving, keep it moving,” she admonished, waving her hand.

Next, she picked up an errant piece of gum and promptly gave it to dad to put in his previously clean pocket. “Here, dad. This is trash.”

Next, she grabbed a piece of my notebook and a pen from the pack. My hopes of her actually taking notes were dashed when she proceeded to write someone a ticket for stepping off the trail. She then plotted how to make more tickets to give out down at the visitor’s center.

“I feel like a grown-up,” she proudly said. “I have a job and everything.”

And that’s when Brooke had enough. “She’s taking this waaaay too seriously,” she said under her breath.

But we let her have her fun. After all, it’s not every day you get deputized as a junior ranger – and get rewarded with Rocky Road afterward.

Freshly deputized Junior Ranger Casey, back home and still writing tickets.

A movement began June 19-20 in New York City’s Central Park when 500 enthusiastic youth from across the country gathered to talk about how to get their peers outdoors and more active. Spawned by ongoing industry discussions and pushed into action by the board of the Outdoor Foundation, the first Outdoor Nation Youth Summit (www.outdoornation.org) went beyond adults telling young people to go outdoors or even how or where to go outdoors.

What began as just a brash idea nearly 18 months ago came to fruition when the youth delegates, packed under a tent in the park, divided into groups and brainstormed ideas in six topic areas: careers, diversity, media, recreation, activity and service. And, in the true spirit of democracy, each group came up with its top ideas, presented them to the entire gathering, which then voted on-the-spot for its favorites.

“I am so overwhelmed with the response from the young people here, and that they just keep coming back to work because they feel they are making a difference,” said Christine Fanning, executive director of the Outdoor Foundation, who brought the board’s concept to reality. “This is a great first step in the right direction.”

A diverse gathering representing teens to 20-somethings, from towns large and small, from all 50 states, the youth seemed to know something big was happening: “I like thinking of ways to get people outside and getting them away from their Xboxes and other technology,” Nicole Price, 17, from the Bronx borough of New York, told SNEWS®. “This is such a grand idea. It’s so diverse.

“We’re so different, but we’re so collectively thinking together,” she continued. “It’s surprising how kids my age all have the same ideas.”

An idea born
Getting 500 youth from all walks of life into one place wasn’t easy but happened quickly for such a large undertaking. About 18 months ago, the board of the Outdoor Foundation realized the way to get youth more involved was to create a peer-to-peer movement, said Jay Steere, chairman of the Outdoor Foundation and Timberland vice president of global product management for outdoor performance. And “convening,” as he described it, was a vital part to enable face-to-face discussion, not just online chat.

As executive director, Fanning was given the task to make it happen. It just so happened that tagging onto Backapcker magazine’s annual Adventures NYC event was the perfect timing, allowing both sponsors and brands as well as youth delegates and organizers to move from one event to the other. The North Face stepped up as presenting sponsor, and Larry Selzer, CEO of the Conservation Fund and a foundation board member, moved into a joint organizing role. Also partnering with them was the New York Parks and Recreation department, a partner on the Adventures NYC event, and Mobilize.org. A long list of brands, organizations and retailers came on board to help sponsor one or more youth delegates to get to New York City, as well as to nominate ones they knew. “Our job was to put out the bread crumbs,” Steere told SNEWS of the foundation’s role. “Let the youth decide where they want to fly. This is the ultimate challenge old white guys in the outdoor industry face.

“The outdoor experience has to be redefined,” he added. And Central Park was the perfect setting for the redefinition, he pointed out — a park setting in a huge urban city like New York where residents ran, biked, threw Frisbees or picnicked in the meadow across from the event’s tent.

Diversity plus
Voting and tallying, including polling on the group’s demographics, were done on-the-spot using Chris Bui’s OptionFinder mobile technology with hand-held transmitters that look like the handset of a household portable phone. In terms of diversity, for example:

• Gender: 53 percent, female; 47 percent male
• Age: 53 percent were 20 or younger
• Race/Ethnicity: 22 percent were African-American, while 50 percent were white
• Area where live: 47 percent were from an urban environment, while 33 percent were from a suburban area and 20 percent from a rural area

What’s next?
In a final evaluation, 93 percent of youth delegates said they felt the summit should be an annual event. The foundation, the board and event sponsors will now look at what is possible, from an annual event to regional events. Grants announced by The North Face ($250,000) with partly matching funds from the Conservation Fund ($50,000) and a grant program from Camelbak ($5,000 and 1,000 reusable bottles) will help spur the next steps.

“When these young people commit to change,” Fanning said, “we are committing resources.”

Part of the next step also belongs to the youth who left feeling fired up about what they could do in their own cities. Said 87 percent of the attendees, “I am excited about bringing this work/these ideas back home to my community/ongoing work,” while 86 percent agreed with the statement, “We are on the right track.”

Even more potent perhaps was an 81-percent agreement with the statement, “I felt heard.”

“What made it work and what is going to make it work,” said Steere, “is this idea of it being a movement as opposed to being an initiative or a program.

“Hopefully,” he said, “we’ll inspire the youth and give them confidence they can go back to their neighborhoods to get their peers outdoors.”

Dexter Lacke, 22, from New York’s Brooklyn borough, doesn’t have far to go to get home from Central Park, but said he forsees participants going home and talking about what happened.

“It’ll snowball,” he said. “There are 500 people in this room, and if each person right here goes and talks to another person and those people talk to another person, it’ll just snowball.”
–Therese Iknoian

The week was a key component of Great Outdoors Month, a month-long celebration of outdoor recreation in America that includes National Trails Day (June 5), National Fishing and Boating Week (June 5-13), National Get Outdoors Day (June 12), the Great American Backyard Campout (June 26) and National Marina Day (June 12).

For our part, Outdoor Parents, author Eugene Buchanan traveled down to Denver, Colo., on June 12 to participate in its National Get Outdoors Day, organized, it part, by the U.S. Forest Service. There, he met with members of REI’s Outdoor Recreation Information center, the Forest Service, the Continental Trail Alliance and more to help spread the word to get kids outside. He also participated in the city’s largest Chicken Dance, led by none other than the big ogre Shrek in a campaign by Dreamworks to help children get outside.

 This year also marks the first year in which all 50 states and the Mayor of the District of Columbia also issued proclamations for Great Outdoors Month, with even President Obama proclaiming June as the time to get outside.

 “America’s vast and varied outdoor spaces are a source of great national pride, and we have long strived to protect them for future generations,” says Obama. “Our lands provide countless opportunities for exploration, recreation, and reflection, whether in solitude or with family and friends. During Great Outdoors Month, we renew our enduring commitment to protect our natural landscapes, to enjoy them and to promote active lifestyles for ourselves and our children. These places are especially important today, as an increasing number of Americans, especially children, fall into unhealthy sedentary lifestyles.”

The proclamation highlights current Administration efforts to get Americans healthier through outdoor activity, including the recently launched America’s Great Outdoors Initiative to protect natural landscapes and reconnect Americans to the outdoors, and the First Lady’s Let’s Move effort to help children eat more nutritious foods, lead healthier lives, and increase their physical activity.

Info: www.DOI.gov/AmericasGreatOutdoors, www.LetsMove.gov, www.funoutdoors.com

Celebrating the outdoors during Nat'l Get Outdoors WeekThe Author and the Ogre, both trying to get kids outside.

The nation is taking note. That’s the take-away from the American Recreation Coalition, which wrapped up its Great Outdoors Week 2010 (June 7-12) in Washington, D.C., with recreation leaders, groups and government agency partners gathering for briefings, events and celebrations of getting people (and kids) outdoors.

With summer underway, our Outdoor Parents, Outdoor Kids family took the past weekend to head to Vail, Colo., to visit the Teva Mountain Games, the nation’s largest celebration of mountain sport, lifestyle and music. While I (ahem) competed in the Stand-up Paddleboard race down Gore Creek against a wave of big-wave-riding Hawaiians (don’t ask how I fared), it was our kids, Casey and Brooke, who were the real winners.

While the event features top professional and amateur athletes from around the world, hosting more than 2,000 outdoor athletes competing in eight sports and 24 disciplines for over $100,000 in prize money, it was the kids’ zone that drew the most fanfare. There, emulating events the pros were competing in —  including kayaking, rafting, mountain biking, road cycling, World Cup Bouldering, amateur climbing, fly-fishing, road and trail running – kids of all walks were able to participate in the same endeavors, activities all designed to help get kids outside.

First stop: a zip line across the creek sponsored by Eddie Bauer/First Ascent. Brooke stepped up the plate first, and soon had me joining in as well. “C’mon, dad, don’t be a weenie,” she chided.

 Next: free kayak demos offered by book supporter Jackson Kayak. Held in an above-ground pool, kids tall and small bounced into each other like bumper cars while getting a taste of water locomotion. Then it was off to the climbing wall, where pint0-sized ascenders could try five different routes of varying difficulty. “We have climbing holds in our play room back home,” Casey proudly told the volunteer fitting harnesses. “I’m a good climber.” Indeed she was as she ascended all five lines.

Also on hand to help were such organizations as Avid4Adventure and GOALS, each of which offers programs to help kids of all ages get outdoors. And in between outdoor activities kids flocked to the DockDog pool to watch the high-flying canine competitions.

“We couldn’t be happier with the turnout this year, both from athletes and families looking to get into the great outdoors,” says Michael Imhof of the Vail Valley Foundation. “The Games’ continued success can be attributed to so many things, but they would be nowhere without the dedication of the athletes and spectators coming out and taking part.”

So hats, or rather, river sandals, off to the Teva Games…

Info: www.tevamountaingames.com.

Teva Tutor: Pro kayaker Jesse Coombs helps a young-un try a kayak.

OAK  Mission: 
The conditions are right for making lasting changes in the ways children, youth and families relate to nature. Already this spring, the Obama Administration and Congress have taken critical steps to reverse the trend towards indoor sedentary lifestyles with the announcement of the America’s Great Outdoors initiative and the inclusion of the Moving Outdoors in Nature component of the Healthy CHOICES Act introduced by Congressman Ron Kind. 

The launch of the Let’s Move Outside initiative highlights the important role our public lands, and all green spaces large and small, play in the development of healthy kids, healthy families and healthy communities. It is time to band together to ensure these and additional initiatives achieve their purpose and get kids off the couch and into nature.

Kayak and Canoe teaching centers around the country are rallying to shine a spotlight on paddlesports next month as part of a nationwide grass roots initiative to get families padding more often.

Leaders of the initiative, titled Let’s Go Paddling, believe paddling is an antidote to many of today’s most pressing ills such as obesity and nature deficit disorder. “Paddling is an easy and fun way to stay fit, connect with nature, and is a lifetime sport grandparents, parents and kids can enjoy together,” says Olympic Gold Medalist and USA Canoe Kayak CEO Joe Jacobi (whom Outdoor Parents, Outdoor Kids author Eugene Buchanan worked for NBC with at the Beijing Olympics). 

The backbone of Lets Go Paddling is the nationwide network of Welcome Centers dedicated to making it easier for first-timers and lapsed paddlers to hone their skills and amp up their enjoyment of the sport with the latest instructional technique and gear. The American Canoe Association, the member-based hub of paddlesports, education, advocacy and event sanctioning since 1880, joins USA Canoe Kayak in supporting the initiative.

Beginning this year, each June all Welcome Centers will offer at least one introductory paddlesports lesson session free to the general public, whether during major community paddling events or smaller in-house clinics.

Examples of Welcome Center activities this June include the following:

Oklahoma City. The Chesapeake Boathouse Foundation will showcase an exciting lineup of events and ongoing multi-discipline paddlesports and athlete development programming during the annual US Conference of Mayors in Oklahoma City, June 11 – 15. The state-of-the-art facility offers rowing, kayaking and dragon boat for all ages from junior to masters.

Denver. Welcome Center Confluence Kayaks will be providing free canoe and kayak trials as part of the National Get Outdoors Day celebration in Denver City Park on June 12.

New York. Manhattan Kayak Company will be offering free Fun in the Sun Tour and send delegates to the first-ever Outdoor Nation Youth Summit in Central Park the weekend of June 19 – 20.

Let’s Go Paddling also enjoys the support of the allied organizations that welcome paddlers to enjoy the sport on public rivers and lakes and recognize the fitness benefits of the sport: National Park Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, President’s Challenge, National Association of State Parks Directors. Publisher Rapid Media is also an early industry supporter of the initiative. For information on these and other Let’s Go Paddling news and information, visit the website http://www.LetsGoPaddling.com

Beginning June 2 and continuing throughout the summer, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality will collaborate on listening sessions across the country, gathering information and ideas on how to promote conservation and re-engage Americans with nature. “We must look to the private sector and nonprofit organizations, as well as towns, cities and states, and the people who live and work in them, to identify the places that mean the most to Americans and leverage the support of the Federal Government to help these community-driven efforts to succeed,” said President Obama.

The Outdoor Industry Association, whose Outdoor Foundation is a beneficiary of Outdoor Parents, Outdoor Kids, has responded to the president’s call to action. OIA is contacting Montana-based member companies to bring the private sector voice to next month’s listening sessions. As both Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will be present for the launch of the listening tour, OIA companies are in a prime position to bring pertinent suggestions to the table.

America’s Great Outdoors: Visit and Vote
More Wilderness, better urban parks, an excise tax on outdoor gear — the Obama administration is asking Americans to vote on the future of conservation and outdoor recreation. Take a minute to visit the AGO Ideajam website and share your perspective, share the voice of the outdoor industry. Visit and vote today.