Outdoor Reads: Hydration tips for hellish heat? Plus, who mountain bikes on an active volcano?

What did the SNEWS team read this week that other industry insiders might find interesting? Read on to find out!

• The tight-knit Confluence family suffered a loss they’re still reeling from: The passing of an important member, Shannon Christy. As this Confluence Watersports blog post shows, many loved Christy. Her family has asked that in lieu of flowers, people make a donation to First Descents in her honor. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Confluence and Verde PR teams.

• Sweet Colorado, this is one of the many reasons we love you: Turns out our lottery program has been helping conserve our natural places to play for more than 30 years. In that time, the lottery has provided $2.4 billion for improving state wilderness, river corridors, trials wildlife habitat and agricultural lands. Check out this KUNC story to learn more. So buy a ticket or four; no matter what, you’re hitting it big.

• Whatever your opinion of Rolling Stone putting Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its cover, this That’s What She Said Boston blog post makes some excellent points chastising the magazine for the choice. Check it out and tell us what your thoughts on the topic are.

• As we kick off Fall marathon training, we’re wondering how we’re going to make some of those 16-plus-mile training runs in this scorching heat. Freezing our bra just isn’t cutting it anymore, so we were happy to find these six hydration tips from Runner’s World. Plus we’ve recently become hooked on PowerIce electrolyte popsicle samples from another awesome Colorado company. We got this.

• We’ve been interested in learning more about mountain biking, both downhill and cross country, and came across this Teton Gravity Research video about some Bavarian mountain bikers who, in an attempt to seek out some crazy jumps, visited Mount Etna in Sicily, one of the world’s most active volcanoes. Watch this video and see what happens.

• We’ve heard of powering gadgets in lots of ways, from the sun to pre-charged back-up sources. But urine? Perhaps. Check out this article on how scientists at Bristol University and Bristol Robotics Laboratory have created a cell that will use bacteria to break down urine to generate electricity. Imagine the possibilities. Total renewable resource status.

• Here’s another “fittest cities” list, this time from the experts at Facebook. Basically, they analyzed user interests and posts to figure out where the most exercise was taking place. At the top was Virginia Beach, Va. We were stunned that our own Boulder wasn’t on the list, but concluded we’re all too busy doing stuff to … post that we’re doing stuff.

• Why wait until the colder months to take a vacation? Editor Brandon Leonard maintains vacation isn’t something you should conserve, like gas or energy. He said it’s something to be enjoyed while you’re still healthy and there’s still plenty of daylight to enjoy. Check out this Semi-Rad post for a “friendly reminder” to live a little more before summer’s over.

• Toms (you know, the footwear with a conscience) broke onto the Outdoor Retailer scene last Winter Market. This summer they’re back. We came across this video on the company, which contains some things you probably didn’t know about it. We’ll give you one of the facts: The owner’s name isn’t Tom.

• The other day, we were in our cube, dreaming of a cup of coffee from our favorite Laughing Goat cafe. Magically. in walks one of our wonderful Backpacker Magazine editors, looking for someone to taste test packaged backcountry coffee. Sadly, it wasn’t great. We prefer a home-brewed cup any day, so we found this Outdoor Nation blog post with methods for crafting the perfect cup of cowboy coffee.

Did you read anything interesting this week that other industry insiders might find interesting? Email it to us because we want to read it, too!