While it's rare to see snow blades in this part of the world these days the ultra-compact skis are bigger than ever in Europe and Asia — prompting the International Olympic Committee to call an emergency meeting in Karthoum last week to vote on whether to include two new snow blade competitions in Sochi in 2014.

The American Alpine Club has launched a series of “Live Your Dream Grants” to support climbers with ambitions for their own improvement and experiences as climbers.

The Race Across America route crosses 3,000 miles from coast to coast, Oceanside, Calif., to Annapolis, Md., with 170,000 feet of climbing. Solo racers have 12 days to complete the course. The distance they’ll ride is half again as long as the Tour de France, completed with no rest.

The week he’ll be inducted into the Colorado Running Hall of Fame, Pablo Vigil is likely to spend more hours practicing his guitar than running, a shift that he says is a welcome change.

It’s Thursday night in February and, despite the lack of snow outside, Bol, an upscale bar, restaurant, and bowling alley located in Vail Village, is packed. Patrons lounge in comfy leather chairs, watch sports on up to 15 different televisions, and roll down 12-pin alleys fit for the White House. But mostly they eat. They chow on everything from gourmet pizza with speck and figs to grilled calamari to a $90 serving of Kobe ribeye. This new hotspot in Vail is tucked into the eastern corner of Solaris, the development created by Peter Knobel, a former telecommunications executive from Long Island—and it’s only one of the diverse experiences the complex offers.

If the minimalist running shoe movement has prompted you to ditch your running shoes, a new study might make you reconsider the benefits of lacing up.

Roy Leckonby is happy. He’s lounging in the corner of a Boulder restaurant, sipping a beer and eating Mexican food. He’s smiling and laughing and soaking up the moment. “I’m blessed,” he says. And he means it. Leckonby arrived in Boulder to attend the University of Colorado in 1996. A hotshot ski racer, he’d grown up speeding down the icy slopes of New Hampshire and other Eastern states.

The plunge from 71,581 feet was a success. Next up: 120,000 feet.

Harvey Carter—climbing icon and legend—passed away Tuesday, March 13, at the age of 83. With a climbing career lasting more than 60 years, Carter pioneered and discovered many of the well-known climbing areas in the four-corners area, including the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, and is rumored to have made over 5,000 first ascents.

A mandatory bike helmet law is under consideration in British Parliament, and two physicians are arguing against the idea. Their take is that there simply isn’t enough evidence to support that helmet use saves lives, and that the evidence that does exist is contradictory at best.