He may have cut his hair, but Willie Nelson will never stop doing what he loves: making music with his friends.

Fans from around the Rockies will converge in Jackson Hole on Saturday as Willie and family perform at the base of the slopes at Snow King Mountain. The country crooner, who has toured through Wyoming many times in his career, last played Snow King in 2005 before a capacity crowd that gushed with love for him.

Willie also visits Big Sky, Mont., on Friday night and Red Rocks in Colorado on Sunday. The tour makes its way to Boise and Salt Lake City next week.

The show at Snow King is the centerpiece of a weekend of music in the Tetons. Willie’s son, Lukas Nelson, a ripping guitarist in his own right, performs with his band, Promise of the Real, on Thursday and Friday at Grand Targhee, along with pioneering punk rockers The Meat Puppets. On Sunday, another country-ish crooner with a gift for storytelling, J.J. Grey, plays with his band, Mofro, in a free concert at the base of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

To purchase tickets for the Willie Nelson show in Jackson, click here or visit Tobacco Row or Global Treasures. For a review of his 2005 concert at Snow King, click here.

Last year we reported on the largeness (of trout) and largesse (of donations) netted in the inaugural Casting 4 A Cure fly fishing competition. The events in Steamboat, Colo., and Teton Valley, Idaho, raised money to fight Rett Syndrome, a neurological disorder that afflicts children.

The anglers are back in Victor for a tournament running today through Saturday on the South Fork of the Snake River. Teams from seven Western states as well as Argentina and Canada will engage in the friendly competition, guided by WorldCast Anglers and hosted by Teton Springs.

The centerpiece of the weekend is a concert by the Freddy Jones Band on Friday at the Spud Drive-In. There will be door prizes from K2 skis, Sage fly rods, Patagonia and more. The Boise band Equal Eyes will open. Tickets are $20 at the gate.

The Spud, a historic drive-in movie theater, has been turned into a hip music venue over the last two summers, with performances by Widespread Panic, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Rhythm Devils and Dark Star Orchestra.

With the addition of music, this year’s event ought to surpass the $40,000 raised last summer.

“Casting 4 A Cure was born out of a passion to help the children and families affected by RS,” says Bill Farnum, the group’s executive director. “My own daughter was diagnosed in 2008, and we are now committed to raising awareness and funding research in the hopes of one day finding a cure. Combining my passion for fly fishing and the fight against RS was a natural progression.”

(FJB photo by Matthew Ginger)

Raft guides call it Angry August — when the water gets low on the river you’ve been working since May. The trip that used to take an hour and a half at high water now takes two even after slavedriving the crew through the flat sections. Customers hate paddling. And they complain that there aren’t any good rapids, definitely nothing like the ones in the brochure. “Well you should’ve been here in June, when I flipped a boat right here,” you say. “But now we’re hung up on the rock that makes the wave when the water’s high, so forward paddle.”

In my first year guiding, on Wyoming’s Snake, I admit that during Angry August I had more swimmers than most in Big Kahuna rapid — the only good splash on the river this time of year. When we took the big hit I may have “accidentally” fallen into a few passengers who were just kind of teetering there on the edge. Then, when they were being hauled back into the raft, I probably yelled more enthusiastically than was strictly necessary for them to get back in before we hit Lunch Counter rapid. But in the commotion as their cohorts hauled them back aboard, there was a spark in their eyes that hadn’t been there before, and a rippling excitement in the crew as we readied ourselves for the Counter’s waves. And I swear, the more people fell out, the better the tips.

My friend Tom Hicks came up with a better plan for Angry August. Instead of just getting rafting clients wet, why not get them interested? Why not tell them about the trout in the river, the hatching mayflies they feed on, the osprey plunging into the water just ahead? Millions of raft clients are passing down our rivers every year, he realized, each one of them a potential advocate. Teach them about the river, he thought, and they might just start to love it a little more. And if they love it, won’t they be more motivated to want to help protect it?

So he founded the Headwaters Institute, which organizes seminars for guides or anyone else interested in becoming a better ambassador for rivers. The outfit organized the first Summit on the Snake, an annual tradition in Jackson Hole, and 15 years later, more than 6,000 guides have attended the 80-something Headwaters gatherings on rivers from the Pigeon to the Kern, and even on the Gulf of Maine and in San Francisco Bay. Attendees learn about topics like geology, cultural history, or aquatic insects of their waterway. They learn better interpretive skills, and how to draw out even the most reticent passengers. In learning to tap their own love of the water in order to nurture their passengers, they ultimately nurture the waterways themselves. And rafts, the ultimate vessels for bringing newcomers down the river, are the key.

(The Snake River in Grand Teton National Park, by Ansel Adams/Library of Congress)

What if I were guiding now, would I still knock passengers out of the raft? No, but then again, I wouldn’t have to — I’d be working on the “scenic” stretch in Grand Teton National Park, where people are too busy soaking in the view to be disappointed by the whitewater. In fact that was where I did my last guiding stint — a few years back when we took 60 of my sister’s wedding guests down the Snake a few days before the ceremony. We loaded into seven rafts and floated through Grand Teton National Park, bright sunlight throwing the famous ramparts into strong relief as we rushed through the sinuous gravel channels below. My kid cousins John and Allison sang songs all the way down the river, and John spent most of lunch flipping river rocks over to get at the mayfly nymphs. Many of the guests later said it was the highlight of their wedding week.

The real payoff came a few weeks later when my ex-cousin-in-law Bryan, an enforcement agent for Mississippi’s liquor control board, called to get my advice on buying a paddle. He’d been so inspired by our raft trip down the Snake, he said, that he’d gone out and bought his first sit-on-top kayak. He takes it fishing on the Pearl River, a sandy oasis that passes under the nose of the sprawling suburbs, and in the estuaries of the Gulf Coast. I don’t know how he votes, but after spending more time on the river, I believe he’ll think a little harder next time a waterway is at stake. And it was a raft trip that made all the difference.

So please, raft guides, this August, don’t just resort to your tired blond jokes. Throw in a little natural history. Touch on the issues that threaten your river. You never know where your clients will end up.

Frederick Reimers is a freelance writer, skier and paddler who lives in Portland, Ore.

Sometimes in life something crappy happens. Sometimes it rains when you are going biking. Sometimes it rains when you are going running. Sometimes it even rains when you are going skiing.

Sometimes one is diagnosed with cancer. Sometimes when it rains, it pours. Yet, as the guy who saw the double rainbow in Yosemite and posted about it on YouTube can attest, sometimes something absolutely amazing happens, too.

I was very fortunate to have a double rainbow experience last month at First Descents in Vail, Colo. First Descents is a kayak camp for young adult cancer survivors (ages 18-39) that was founded by professional kayaker Brad Ludden. As Brad says, kayaking brings people together and cancer brings people together, so it is natural that kayaking and cancer together form a great bond. He also says that the cold water doesn’t care you had cancer, the rapids don’t care you had cancer, and the rocks don’t become softer because you had cancer. The kayaking and the cancer are secondary — the living and experiencing is what the camp is all about.

At First Descents I met some of the greatest people who know what living is about. It is about friendship, pushing each others’ limits, supporting each other with encouragement, getting dunked underwater by life once in a while — or many times on the river — and having the skill and confidence to upright yourself and, most importantly, having your friends immediately by your side to come and pick you back up.

Friends are the most important thing in the world to me, and I have so many new, great friends from First Descents. I have met some of the strongest, funniest, adventurous and vitally healthy people at First Descents. That even accounts for some who were still going through chemotherapy and radiation treatment. We ran crazy rapids and still had constipation issues from treatment. I want to say a big thank you to First Descents, Brad Ludden, all staff, volunteers, participants, and donors. Please spread the word. If you know anyone who can benefit from attending First Descents, let them know about it. If you are a young adult cancer survivor, you definitely should attend.

Three things I learned at First Descents: Look where you want to go, paddle, paddle, paddle to get there, and keep your hips loose. This is good for kayaking, on the dance floor, and in life in general. Kayaking and cancer bring people together, but experiences such as this create a true bond that cannot be broken. I will see you there next year.

Andy Fleming is a Cloudveil Inspired Mountain Ambassador.

First, I’d like to thank all the people that have inquired about Cloudveil over the past couple of months. We took over Cloudveil about five months ago and have made every effort possible to continue this wonderful brand and rebuild the business from the ground up. Most of the feedback has been really positive, and we appreciate the support.

We will be delivering Cloudveil product this fall with our online store at Cloudveil.com opening in September. Dealers will be getting their inventory on time, and we are collectively very proud of all the work that has been done to make this happen.

If you have been a member of the Cloudveil Pro or FOI programs, those programs will continue and you will hear from us soon. We encourage everyone to order early because we expect the demand for our product to exceed the supply.

Finally, a word about the Cloudveil brand. A “core” brand is one that makes products that real outdoor athletes can wear and rely on with no worries about quality or function. To serve that customer, you need an athlete-driven development process and a distribution channel that gets gear directly to athletes. At Cloudveil, we’re focused on maintaining that approach, and we think the product line you’ll see in the coming weeks will back this up.

Our biggest challenge to rebuilding the Cloudveil business is time. The hard work we do today on product evolution and changing the business to be profitable and sustainable takes 12-18 months to see the result. Please continue your patience with us — we believe it will be well rewarded.

I’ll be wandering the floor at OR this week, so I’ll post some thoughts and images from there in the coming days. We look forward to serving you this fall, and we trust you will see the Cloudveil you have come to know and respect.

(Top photo by Gabe Rogel; inset: 2010 Endless Down Jacket)

Except one.

Getting injured. Again, if you know anything about my past, I should have THAT figured out, too. In 2002, I was accidentally dropped 100 feet onto talus, shattering my feet, back, neck and a long list of things that plague me to this day.

Three weeks ago, while bouldering with a new amputee, I popped off a rock about a foot above the ground. Of course I didn’t have a pad under me; I was, after all, just sussing the opening moves on a problem I had done years before. But off I went to the very pointed rocks below my foot, which in a grand offering of thanks, broke upon impact on those rocks. I heard a branch break, only to find no branch …

Now three weeks later and very bored, I think I may be getting a grip that is somewhat helpful.

I will never be “pain free” as long as I walk this planet. I don’t mean that in a weird way, just that I’ve figured out that in the line of sports I do for both fun and work, things break. All my friends who don’t climb ask me, Is that enough? Like I can turn this on and off like a light and move onto the next big thing in my life. If only it were that simple. Climbing is something that God has hardwired me for; it’s like breathing and eating, and to not be doing it drives me crazy. I don’t think of the things it has taken from me — my right leg, feeling in my legs, given a nerve disorder in my leg and hips, and chronic pain. I look to the things it gives me every time I tie in or boulder. The feeling of leaving the flat earth and moving up through small problems and escaping the regular, sometimes trivial world I am a part of. I cannot find anther pursuit that gets me to the plain of focus climbing does. I ski and mountain bike, both worthy pursuits, but on the best days they are fulfilling but never to the level that climbing gets me to.

A week before I crunched my foot, I succeeded on a route in the canyon near my home. Cyn, my wife, belayed me on the 90-foot pitch that worked its way up and through a roof. I had worked it twice before and knew I could do it; it was a matter of trying hard and the balance of speed and footwork. Keep in mind, I said 23 years before, and I still love to find that path I need to go down to succeed on a route that’s hard for me. That thrill never gets old, and I still obsess over routes like I did when I was six months into this lifelong journey of climbing I embarked on so long ago.

Regrets?

Sure, I have a few, but only that I have to spend time in a walking boot again and miss out on the climbing I could be doing. In truth, it cements my bond back to climbing because I do the things normal people do to have fun. I go to the gym and lift weights (yuck), I ride a stationary bike (did you know you never move and there is no wind?!), and it makes me realize how blessed I am to have found climbing. I know for sure that had I not found it, I would have turned into a 250-pound couch potato who never really excelled at anything. But that’s me.

So then yes, in some respects the price is high, but I will continue to gladly pay to play because the alternative is way too high a price.

Craig DeMartino is one of Cloudveil’s Inspired Mountain Ambassadors.

As a kayak guide, my friend Adam had hero issues. Meaning, he liked to do heroic stuff, whether or not people wanted him to. Case in point was the time he and I and our friend Ken were on a private sea kayak expedition in the Islands of Loreto in southern Baja. It was dinnertime when a commercial group paddled into our bay and made for the other end of the beach we were camped on. The wind was blowing directly in and there was a bit of surf — maybe two feet high. Big enough to get the clients anxious, because when the first boat came in for a landing, the poor fellow visibly tensed up. His kayak curled sideways across the wave, and he capsized. He was helped ashore by one of the guides, embarrassed but unhurt. Suddenly, though, our friend Adam leapt up, shoehorned himself into his shortie wetsuit and dove into the water to help. Ken and I exchanged amazed looks as Adam, clad in his superhero-esque suit, swam each kayak to shore.

We were stunned. Not only was his solution overkill, but it undermined the group’s guides. How could the clients possibly respect their guides when, on the first day of their trip, some total stranger on a deserted island had to leap into the water to save them?

When Adam returned to our camp, we immediately began razzing him. After some resistance, he allowed he might have been overeager, which didn’t stop us from saddling him with the nickname of Captain O’Neill after his brand of wetsuit. Whenever his heroic tendencies arose, whether on the water or merely in the grocery store parking lot, we’d trumpet out a little fanfare and call out, “Captain O’Neill will save you!” Sometimes this kept him in check.

(Here’s a situation where an overhero might be welcome.)

More recently, I had a chance to experience the overhero situation from the other side. A group of us were exploring sea caves in California’s Channel Islands with my friend Bill, who occasionally guides trips out there for a commercial outfit. The wind was very strong, and the seas mostly too rough to be ducking into caves (lest our heads be cracked against the cave ceiling’s by surging waves). We launched anyways, and stayed out of the caves, but had a nice time paddling around.

We were on our way back to the launch point, fighting against 30-knot winds, when I spotted a guide from another commercial outfit out there — let’s call him Bob — heading our way, paddling with the righteous, upright bearing of an overhero. Even the tilt of his hat was cocky. I gave him a nod as I made my way toward the beach to help our group land (trying to convey, in effect, “We’ve got this under control”), but could see him circling.

He sidled up to the trailing member of our group, Anton. Though not the most experienced paddler, Anton was a college athlete, and was bringing up the rear largely because the sit-on-top he was paddling has approximately the same aerodynamics of the Underdog balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For every two strokes forward he took, the wind blew him backward one stroke. Bob offered to tow him in to shore.

Anton declined, but Bob was insistent. “You’re not less of a man if I tow you,” he said.

I was offended on Anton’s behalf. It was not as if he were Ed Gillet, barely washing ashore in Hawaii after nearly starving in his kayak during 63 days at sea. We’d been out for two hours, we were 300 yards from our destination, and Anton was 10 yards behind the group. “Look,” he replied, “You aren’t more of a man for towing me.”

Unflapped, Bob prowled off to give someone else in our group some unsolicited advice on her paddle stroke. Everyone managed to land their kayaks on the gravel beach despite the surging waves, and Bob was nowhere to be found when his help would have been welcomed — lugging our kayaks up the shore, or helping pitch tents in the continuing gale.

(Trust the captain! Capt. O’Neill wasn’t needed in this Snake River rafting flip in Hell’s Canyon:)

I’m all for safety, but I also believe people should have their own adventures whenever possible. That means letting them screw up sometimes, even when you, as a bystander, know better. How else are they going to learn, except from their mistakes? It’s a fine line; often rookies can’t anticipate the danger they’re getting into, but it’s a question of approach. Bob and Adam weren’t very observant about the situation at hand and inserted themselves where they weren’t wanted.

I say never jump in to help people unless you ask them first if they want it. It’s a first-responder basic: Establish the victim’s permission to give aid (with unconsciousness implying consent.) By all means, if people ask for help, be ready to give it, but if they aren’t asking, please, be unobtrusive, and keep your ego out of it.

What do you think? How do you know when to step in with aid? And does this differ in various environments? In the water? On snow? On rock?

Perhaps this epic adventure story will be an entry?

Ecotrust, the conservation and entrepreneurial group based in Portland, Ore., invites aspiring filmmakers to participate in its Stories from our Watersheds film contest, which seeks 10-minutes-or-less digital films that capture the human, ecological and economic benefits of watershed restoration in the West.

Submission deadline is 5 p.m. July 19. Other sponsors of the contest include the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, PNW Region of the Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management.

Prize money:

21-and-over category: $1,250 (winner), $750 (runner-up)
20-and-under category: $1,000 (winner), $500 (runner-up)

For more about the contest, visit here:
http://www.ecotrust.org/wwri/wwri_video_contest2010.html

For eligibility or sponsorship questions, contact Seth Walker, director of communications for Ecotrust, at seth@ecotrust.org or 503-467-0752.

Our satisfaction with the things we do and experience is directly related to our expectations. Whether it’s the big summer blockbuster movie we go see, or our performance in the local 5K, the enjoyment we derive is strongly linked to what we thought was going to happen going in.

And this is why I LOVED running four miles today.

It’s all about perspective.

You see, I’m an endurance mountain runner. I love pushing my body out of its comfortable place and making it kick into its endurance gear, then chug along in this mode for hours. I love avoiding the civilized world and twisting up trails that get narrow and overgrown. I love when on snowy or muddy days, there are no footprints on the trail, aside from the ones I leave behind me. Running is my peace, and I have let it grow to become one of my defining identities.

I also have a lousy back.

I have had two surgeries for herniated disks. For periods in my life this has also become one of my defining identities, and not something that gives me joy.

Last year was a good one for my running. I had a strong season that included a couple 50-mile trail ultramarathons, “training run” road marathons, I paced for a 25-mile section of a 100-miler and a Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim crossing. I set a PR in a 50-miler in June, and all told, I was feeling pretty invincible by the fall. Through the whole year, the shortest run I went on was six miles. As an endurance runner, I have trouble justifying anything shorter than that because I am barely warmed up and don’t really get into training my endurance cardio. I also don’t have a ton of extra time in the week, so to put on shorts without getting much beyond a warm-up usually makes me decide to put that time toward a different activity.

Then, in October, the pendulum swung the other direction. While training for the upcoming ski season in a dry land class (run by my wife, but we’ll try not to blame her!), I re-herniated the disk that I had operated on in 2005. Now, I knew that the odds were in my favor, that I might recover without requiring a third surgery, but it was still quite a disappointment. The orthopedic textbooks will tell you that the majority of these will resolve without surgical intervention by around six weeks. Long story short, that didn’t happen. But luckily, I wasn’t experiencing debilitating weakness as I had in 2005, mostly just discomfort and some bizarre sensory things that are hard to describe. Some days it would feel like cold water was dripping down my leg, or that there were ants running around the outside of my calf, or that someone had taken one of those long circus balloons and was blowing it up inside my butt and leg. The problem was that my back hadn’t read the textbooks, and the symptoms kept going on. Some days there was encouragement, some days seemed worse, but there were no days where I felt like I was beyond the issue. I was stuck in the limbo of not being good enough to do what I wanted, but not being bad enough to let anyone operate on me a third time. I worked on stretching, core strengthening, physical therapy, had a nerve root injection, tried meditation. Once, in January, I tried to just “power through it” and went out for a road run; this was probably the worst solution and set me back months.

Then, over the past few weeks, I began to notice that I was having fewer symptoms, or at least more manageable ones. I dug out bushes and installed a retaining wall in my backyard, waiting for the inevitable day flat-on-my-back afterward, but it didn’t come. I took a couple hikes in the foothills behind our home, and didn’t really have big flare-ups afterward. I started running down after hiking up Mt. Van Cott, and still, nothing worsened.

So, today, I went for a run.

Four miles, up Dry Creek. Just to the saddle and back. This is the first part of the most common eight-miler that I run, so it’s very familiar to me. I have names for some of the rocks and embankments, even “rock b-gone” where there used to be a rock that eroded down the hill one day in the thaw from winter in 2008. It’s a run I wouldn’t have taken last summer. If I only had time for a four-miler then, I would have chosen something else to do. However, my perspective is different today, so I went. I kept a vigilant check on any progression of symptoms, I told myself that if things started to flare up, I would turn right around. Chugging along the gradual climb, I felt cautiously optimistic about my body’s response. Being out on the trails, actually on a run, I felt amazing. A mile and a half up the moderate, persistent slope, I was passed by another runner who I vaguely recognized from the local ultrarunning scene. I held my ego in check, trying to remember if I had ever been passed on this section before. I thought about making a shirt with “Rehab Run – Returning From Injury” on the back, so guys like this would know not to look to catch up to me when I was back full speed.

Then, I just smiled and remembered to be grateful for where I was on this beautiful, sunny day.

I don’t know how my body will react tomorrow, or to the next run I attempt. I still have that feeling that I’m not “beyond” the injury. But, every step – both literally and figuratively – makes me appreciate the journey, and keep hope for what I might accomplish tomorrow.

Mark D. Scholl, M.D., is a Cloudveil Inspired Mountain Ambassador and an orthopedic surgeon. He is a team physician to the U.S. Ski Team, U.S.A. Rugby and Solitude Mountain Resort. He is an ultrarunner, skier, fly fisher and will do whatever his two-year-old daughter asks.

(The house wren defends its territory near the nesting box.)

Cool, wet weather dominated June until the summer solstice. On June 21, the weather changed and warm, sunny days made it to the Tetons. The valley is vibrant and every shade of green. Nature is flourishing and reaches a collective peak in this ecosystem by the summer solstice. Young have been born. Flowers bloom. Changes occur daily.

Snow still can be found in the high country but is receding. Ninety percent of the snow melts off the Teton peaks during the summer months. We have moved into our summer weather pattern with sunny days and possible afternoon thunderstorms as warm air rises to the upper atmosphere.

The days beckon us to come and play. The Snake River had its highest runoff since 1997 but has receded to a moderate level that is great for rafting. Fishing is more of a midsummer activity once the sediment settles in the river. Flowers are beginning to peak at lower elevations, so hiking options are endless. Snow in the high country will require ice axes, but I am sure people are summiting the peaks.

I have enjoyed watching the nesting robins, house wrens and red-tailed hawks. The robins and wrens have chicks and fill our yard with sound and activity. House wrens are one of my favorites. They are so cute, and the male spends his day singing and protecting his territory. They use our nesting box, so I can’t see their young. The robins have nested on our porch and are feeding four chicks. Both adults tend the nest and feed on insects.

The hawks are in a dead cottonwood near our house. They have three chicks that appear ready to fledge. I am sure any day they will test their wings. They will stay near the nest for a short time and then fly off on their own.

It is a great time of the year to listen to nature with bird song, rushing water and quaking aspen leaves. Go for a walk and focus on sound. What is the nearest sound, the furthest sound? Train your mind to be present and receive the rejuvenation of the great outdoors.

What’s in the woods:

6/1-6/8 – rainy and cold
6/4 – Shadow Mountain: herd of cow elk, valerian root, gromwell
6/9 – South Fork of the Snake River: bluebells, purple violets, bald eagle, osprey
6/12 – Grove Creek: fairy bell lily, arrowleaf balsamroot, mountain cicely, Oregon grape
6/15 – Wilson, WY: black fox
6/17 – cool, temperatures in the 40s, snow in forecast, but warming through the day
6/17 – Darby Canyon: serviceberry, sugarbowl clematis, Western tanagers, chipping sparrow, Calliope hummingbird, dusky flycatcher, robin, crow, raven
6/22-6/28 – Leland, MI: common loon, bald eagle, song sparrow, flicker, ruby-throated hummingbird
6/28 – Grand Teton National Park: pronghorn, arrowleaf balsamroot, groundsel, antelope bitterbrush, serviceberry, chokecherry, scarlet gilia
6/29 – Aspen Trail: sugarbowl clematis, arnica, balsamroot, blue penstemon

Trail Suggestion:

Grand Teton National Park can get a bit crowded in July and August. It is always worth a visit, but planning time to explore areas more off the beaten track is always rewarding. One of my favorite hikes is to the Wind Cave up Darby Canyon. It is in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness in the Targhee-Caribou National Forest. To access the trail, drive north of Victor, Idaho, to Darby Canyon. The signed road is right before The Spud-Drive In, or about five miles north of Victor. Drive all the way to the end of the road to the trailhead (stay right where the road forks). The hike is about six miles round trip and gains about 1,800 feet in elevation. In June, the falls are numerous with plenty of cascading water. You can hike to the entrance of the Wind Cave or journey inside, in which case you will need a headlamp.

Have fun and be prepared for sudden weather changes and hiking in bear country.

Cathy Shill is the owner of Hole Hiking Experience and Connect Retreats.