Go Higher and Deeper in Sierra Magazine's Winter Sports Travel Issue

Jeremy Jones, widely regarded as the best big-mountain snowboarder on the planet, now climbs his way to the top instead of using helicopters, snow cats or chairlifts. In the featured article, “Higher, Deeper,” Jones shares his desire to ascend slowly for a richer experience and to be more attentive to terrain and changing snow conditions. In 2007, he founded Protect Our Winters (POW), a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness among skiers and snowboarders about the effect that climate change is having on snow accumulation worldwide.

But you don’t have to go to such extremes to get a fun winter experience. Simply enter Sierra’s Premiere Winter Sports Travel Contest to win a deluxe trip to Hotel Park City or gear and apparel from Hit-Tec, SPOT, MSR, Brooks-Range or Nikwax. Go to www.sierraclub.org/wintercontest for prize details, contest rules and to win!

Also in Sierra, editor-in-chief Bob Sipchen canoes an Arctic river and visits a remote Inupiaq village in search of caribou and coal in “Big Beasts and Black Rock” while questioning how to reconcile America’s historic passion for wilderness with its wilderness-threatening lust for energy?

Enjoy a visual celebration of 50 years of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in “Liberty, Equality and Caribou.” In “Grass Roots,” a young writer shares his peculiar love of grasslands through his travels from America’s Great Plains to the Mongolian steppe, where he encounters the problems, solution, science and mystique that makes the plains so compelling worldwide. The focus then turns to inner-city youth in “The Nature of Transformation,” as we investigate the connection between a challenging yet rewarding nature experience for an at-risk or underprivileged kid and the gritty urban milieu to which most of these kids return. Programs like Sierra Club’s Building Bridges to the Outdoors help them use what they’ve learned in nature to cope with every day thereafter.

“Enjoy The Green Life” offers ideas for a double dose of generosity during this coming gift-giving season. Present eco-friendly gifts from altruistic Internet sites like World of Good, Treenex or UNICEF. Brush up with five toothpastes that are hard on plaque but easy on the planet. And meet Fabian Cousteau—third-generation ocean explorer, underwater filmmaker and environmentalist. He says: “There is no Planet B. We can’t trash this place and go somewhere else.”

The listings of Sierra Club Outings will lure you to the unmatched beauty of a journey to Alaska and Arctic Canada to backpack, raft and family base camp or discover a different side of the world on a trip to Hawaii, the Lower 48 and beyond. www.sierraclub.org/outings

Finally, don’t miss the Bulletin featuring Lynn Henning, the Water Sentinels activist fighting concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), who just received a Goldman Environmental Prize and was recently interviewed by Erin Brockovich for the 2010 O Power List featured in O, The Oprah magazine. www.oprah.com

You will find this and much more from our other exciting departments “Escape,” “Explore,” “Innovate,” “Ponder,” “Act,” “Survive” and “Mixed Media,” showcasing what to read and where to click if you want to learn how climate concerns has rekindled the nuclear debate.

Join the more than one million Sierra readers who find features and departments that inspire them to get outdoors, to explore, enjoy and protect the planet. www.sierraclub.org/sierra