Before setting off in August 2011 to float for 31 days down the longest undammed river in the lower 48, filmmaker Hunter Weeks had spent just a little time rafting the Arkansas. It had been 10 years since he’d caught a fish.

After communications with a camp on the North Side of Everest, Alan Arnette has upped the fatalities for the 2012 season to 11. The climbing blogger recently conducted a phone interview with Jamie McGuinness of Project Himalaya. The details of the two confirmed deaths, and one presumed death, are listed below.

Climbers in Colorado seemingly botched an opportunity for access to more routes in Rifle. Some of the finest — and hardest — limestone routes in North America are located in Rifle Mountain Park, which features 200 bolted sport routes, few rated below 5.10, with average grades more like 5.12. But a move submitted to the Colorado Division of Wildlife this past fall by the Rifle Climbers Coalition (RCC), with backing from the Access Fund, to expand routes in the area has just been rejected unanimously by a 14-member panel of the state wildlife commission.

When water washed away the red sandstone of the Colorado Plateau, it left the improbable spires of rust-colored rock, fingers flipping off the over-baking sun and the sand-spitting wind and the improvised protection the climbers who lusted after the tops of those towers would have to rely on in pursuit of a summit. It’s these spires that Steve “Crusher” Bartlett explores in his book, Desert Towers: Fat Cat Summits and Kitty Litter Rock, a historic tome loaded with images to twang the imaginations of any climber who loves to lock hands with splitter cracks.

Today our expedition took a new turn. Poor conditions on the West Ridge—in particular the Hornbein Couloir—have made that climbing route unsafe. The West Ridge leg of the climb has been officially called off.

In an apparent case of first impression nationwide, Mountain Creek Resort, Inc. has sued its insurance carrier, Everest Indemnity Insurance Company, in an attempt to force the insurer to pay a claim under a weather insurance policy underwritten by the company. Although this lawsuit appears to be the first of its kind anywhere in the United States, the lack of case law is hardly surprising given the way in which weather insurance policies for ski resorts are drafted. In essence, weather insurance is business interruption insurance with a twist. It is designed to protect a ski resort against weather so bad that it would almost certainly prevent the resort from opening in time for the Christmas holiday. Unfortunately for skiers across the country, that was exactly the type of unprecedentedly warm “winter” weather that hit much of the country last December.

The Girls’ Wilderness Program believes in using time in the woods to help girls develop confidence and build interpersonal and personal skills.

National Geographic has announced that Boulder-based mountaineer Cory Richards, whose expedition to Mount Everest was interrupted by a medical emergency that ended in him being airlifted to Kathmandu April 28, will not be returning to Everest Base Camp.

Maybe you know AscenDance from the television show America’s Got Talent. Or maybe from their 2009 appearance at Boulder’s Aerial Dance Festival. Or maybe you’re getting to know them as a new neighbor on Arapahoe Avenue. The AscenDance Project moves an art form into a sports arena by blending dance and climbing — the dancers cling to holds on a climbing wall while executing their choreography. And its founder and artistic director, Isabel Von Rittberg, has officially moved to Boulder, bringing the AscenDance company to a new studio here.

What happened to Cory Richards on Mount Everest on April 28 when the climber became ill, and how that will affect the rest of the National Geographic Society’s 2012 expedition to Everest is not yet clear.