The Summer heat is here. It’s time to level some professional advice as to where to hike and camp to make the most of your time out in the sun. Or you can get a head start on your plans for Fall and Winter and start planning your Fall and Winter adventures with some of the new titles from Wilderness Press and Menasha Ridge Press.

So download the pdf versions of the catalogs, get some books and be sure to us know where you are headed next!

Wilderness Press catalog (pdf)

Menasha Ridge Press catalog (pdf)

Next week, May 11-15, has been declared Bike-to-Work Week by the League of American Bicyclists. If you can’t consider pedal power every day for a week, maybe you could oil up your chain and join everyone on that Friday, May 15th for Bike-to-Work Day. It’s one day and you’ve got a week to plan ahead and buy some new spandex bike shorts.

The League of American Bicyclists are even maintaining an events page of local and regional bike happenings this month.

Of course, if you’re looking for some where-to bike riding guides be sure to check out the bike titles from Wilderness Press and Menasha Ridge Press. We work with some of the most awesome cyclists in the country! Happy Bike Month everyone!

David Womack’s latest post makes me glad that warmer weather is finally here, in my part of the country. Not too mention it sounds like a great ride (especially for those of us without capes in our closets!).

And how can his bird’s-eye views, not make someone want to get out and put bike tread to trail?

Let us know if you have or plan on doing the same track that David Womack traveled on his mountain bike, recently!

I love the story Tony Padegimas uses to open up his post:

It is said that when the cynic philosopher Diogenes, who, among other things, was the first philosopher of the “Go-Lite” movement, saw a young boy drinking from a stream with his hands, the philosopher tossed aside his cup, grumbling, “A child has beaten me in simplicity of living!”

It’s a good post about dealing with bottled water both on and off the trail, Be sure to note the bullet-point tips at the bottom!

From the land of the Southern Long Leaf Pines… Happy Arbor Day!

The tree-loving organizers of Arbor Day have compiled a list of things that you can do to help honor the day and all the leafy goodness around us. But what’s REALLY cool is that they have produced a mobile guide to help you identify trees. So if you find yourself trying to id a tree (and happen to have cell signal) just point your mobile phone to “http://www.arborday.org/trees/whattree/mobile/” and answer the questions.

I am definitely giving that a try this weekend.

What a jam packed week of outdoor events, with Arbor Day following Earth Day. Hope you’ve had a chance to get out and enjoy some of what’s outside. And if not, I hope your pack is packed and ready for the weekend.

As a publisher of outdoor recreation titles, Earth Day means a great deal to us.  To help celebrate it, we’re happy to offer a 35% discount on ALL our titles for one day only.

Grab one of our guides and then hit the trail, get out your paddles, climb on the bike or just take a long stroll and appreciate the outdoors.  Or if you can’t get out, take a walk through some of our pages and plan your next journey outside.

Thanks for taking just a moment to celebrate Earth Day with us.

To see what our outdoor adventure authors have to offer check out Menasha Ridge Press, Wilderness Press and Clerisy Press today!

Let’s give it up for the American Hiking Society’s great success in pushing the U.S. Congress to pass (on March 25) the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act. Not impressed yet? Well. . . just think: Protection for two million acres of Wilderness, 5,000 miles of trails, 1,000 miles of rivers, PLUS legislation for the 26-million-acre National Landscape Conservation System. People in the know are calling this the greatest conservation action by Congress since 1916, when it created the National Park system.

Project Vote Smart lists these as the “working highlights”:
-Designates land in 9 states as potential wilderness areas (Title I).

-Grants the state of Alaska a seven-mile easement for constructing a single-lane airport access road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in exchange for the transfer of 43,093 acres of state-owned land to the federal wildlife refuge system (Title VI, Subtitle E).

-Expands the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System (Title V, Subtitle A).

-Adds to the National Trails System (Title V, Subtitle C).

-Authorizes $1 million to provide grants to states and Indian tribes to compensate ranchers for livestock killed by wolves and to assist non-lethal methods to reduce wolf attacks (Title VI, Subtitle F).

-Allows for the preservation of former President William Jefferson Clinton’s childhood home as a National Historic Site (Title VII, Subtitle A, Sec. 7002).

-Authorizes appropriations for projects to improve water management and conservation (Title IX and Secs. 10101, 10202 of Title X).

If you want all of the details, the entire bill has been posted, as it was passed.

Thanks to the AHS and everyone else who helped make this bill a reality!

The other day we posted the Wilderness Press catalog online and today we’re unleashing the Menasha Ridge Press and Clerisy Press joint-catalog into the wild as well.

So check it out and pass it along.
Once you get chance to ‘flip’ through the pages though, drop us a note to let us know how we’re doing!

Scribd

In the world of websites and widgets Scribd is conquering much of the clutter out there. They are proving to be a good fit for us as well. That’s why we have uploaded this season’s catalogs to their system for folks to discover and view.

Here is a Scribd widget embedded in our little blog showcasing the Wilderness Press catalog for Spring and Summer 2009. Very cool! Click around and take a look. Feel free to embed these anywhere you want. If you are a Scribd user already please click over and “Friend Us”. We look forward to hearing from you.

Author Steve Ausherman maintains a list of updates and changes to his popular hiking book 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Albuquerque. If you follow the link, you will find map supplements, new photos and additional coordinates to compliment the book’s hiking routes and profiles.

Steve also says he’s starting to collect gps data for some of the more complex routes in the book and will get them posted soon.

You can click over to Menasha Ridge Press to buy the book and read up on Steve or you can drop him a note on his own site.