Winter in the Snake River Basin in Central Idaho. Photo courtesy Save Our Wild Salmon
The week after Outdoor Retailer is always blurry, including lots of follow-up, sleep and getting back into the groove of life. Our treatment for post-OR is to hit the mat, take some deep breaths, a sip of wine on focus on causes that move us and inspire us to do the work that we do… And a little laughter always helps too!
Filed under Friday Faves, Rivers, Salmon, Social Media
For our Portland friends, here’s an event you’ll definitely want to check out. We’ve mentioned Mountainfilm before, but what’s really cool about the film festival is that they take the whole thing on tour, giving people that can’t make it to Telluride to experience some of the amazing films and inspiring messages. Mountainfilm on Tour will be in Portland this Thursday, January 28, 2010, hosted at Portland State University. Check it out!
What: Portland State’s Outdoor Program and Portland Mountain Rescue are hosting the Mountainfilm on Tour festival on campus. It will include four hours of films that celebrate the great outdoors—especially mountains and mountaineering culture. In addition to the festival screenings, the Outdoor Program will hold a raffle and silent auction. Both Portland State students and the public are welcome to attend.
Where: Portland State University, Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom, SMSU 355
When: Thursday, January 28, 2010, 6-10pm.
Cost: Students $7 advance, $10 door
Faculty and public $10 advance, $12 door
More info here.
"Everything... in the photograph -- trees, bushes, all the animals and plants in the forest and the water -- contains ocean nutrients from salmon." -- Carl Safina in the LA Times. © Save Our Wild Salmon
We live in an amazing place and nothing quite drives that point home like working with people who are passionate about their causes — be they businesses, advocates or adventurers. So, we’re excited to throw our weight behind a couple of great causes: saving Snake River salmon and the Flathead. Keep reading to see what’s happening, and how you can help!
Filed under epicocity, Outdoors, photos, Rivers, Save Our Wild Salmon
In the midst of Outdoor Retailer Winter Market craziness, we found a couple of minutes to upload some photos and write a quick little Friday Faves! So what are we digging out here in SLC?
1. Kicked off the morning at the Conservation Alliance breakfast. Inspired by all the great things this awesome organization has taken on in the last year. Here’s just one of the slides from this morning’s presentation:
2. We dropped by the Keen booth where they’re donating $10 to Haiti relief efforts for every person that gets a polaroid shot and posts it on the HybridLife wall. All we had to do was write where we wanted to travel to… guess what the Under Solen answer was? Everywhere!
3. Digging the cool new products from Innate — some awesome re-purposed bags that use leftover materials from sleeping pads, etc.
Now we’re just counting down to happy hour…
Filed under Friday Faves
Especially with snow… we couldn’t have asked for a better kick off to Winter Outdoor Retailer. Now here we go!
Filed under Outdoors, photos, Things we like
Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps
An earthquake, registering 7.0 on the Richter Scale, rocked the island of Haiti last week. Within 24 hours of the disaster, aid organizations, individuals and businesses responded in full force. And now, a week later, the outpouring of support isn’t waning. With more than $2.5 million donated via text message to relief organizations working in Haiti, social media networks have been abuzz with news and action alerts, so we compiled a list of several businesses in our community that have stepped it up to help Haiti.
Mountain Hardwear is organizing a collection drive for tents and sleeping bags (or money to purchase the same and help with shipping) to aid the tens of thousands of displaced and injured people in Haiti. Along with clean water, food and medical supplies, temporary shelter is desperately needed. Used tents as long as they are functional, and lightweight sleeping bags are fine and of course new tents and sleeping bags from any of our outdoor industry friends would be ideal.
ExOfficio employees sorted through customer returns, overstock and unsold inventory to supply World Concern with clothing for earthquake victims. Altogether, ExOfficio donated nine pallets or an estimated $429,000 worth of product. Four pallets will be immediately shipped to Haiti, along with food, water, and medical supplies.
Klean Kanteen donated 4,500 water bottles to be used at water treatment and desalination sites.
The Lizard Lounge in Portland, Ore. donated 10% of all profits from their January sale over the weekend to MercyCorps to help with relief efforts.
Portland Pedal Power, a company dedicated to human powered transportation of products in downtown Portland, donated all of their tips in the days following the quake to MercyCorps’ relief efforts.
This incredible response in a time of crisis is humbling, and needed. But remember, many countries like Haiti need our support on a regular basis, so let this week be your jumping off point to lead a more mindful life and give when you can to those who need it.
Filed under Impact, Lifestyle, Non-profits, Things we like
In our ongoing Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2010 coverage, we already rounded up a list of happy hours, but what we like even better than free beer is buying awesome gear and having your money go to a good cause. So here’s a list of cool swag you can score by donating money to super cool non-profits and causes; you’ll have new gear to show off at home and feel good about supporting positive change… the ultimate for an eco warrior gear head!
Filed under Uncategorized
This week is a crazy combination of social media presentations and Outdoor Retailer for us… Over the weekend we got to check out the fine city of Boise. Nice people + good skiing + an amazing breakfast join = a pretty great place to visit.
But while the rest of the world hunkered down and celebrated MLK day today, we parked it at Big City Coffee and prepped for the rest of the week. Fortunately good coffee and a bowl full of fruit and granola can take you far, so if you’re in Boise, be sure to check out this hopping joint, complete with over-sized baked goods and a fast wifi connection. We give it a great big Under Solen recommendation!
Filed under Things we like, travel
Soft drink powerhouses, Coca Cola and Pepsi are both shifting their spending to social media marketing campaigns in 2010.
When does a trend become mainstream? In the world of advertising and marketing there is a persistent undercurrent of one-ups-manshippping. A few weeks back Pepsi boldly proclaimed that they wouldn’t be buying a Superbowl ad and would be investing in social media driven campaigns…
Just today a story was published on New Media Age citing Coke and Unilever will be shifting their digital microsite strategy to social communities like Facebook & YouTube. “We would like to place our activities and brands where people are, rather than dragging them to our platform…”
What’s this all leading to?
Investments in traditional digital media (if that isn’t an oxy-moron) is evolving at a rapid pace. Mega brands are now shifting their serious dollars toward social media. The trend of investing in social media is taking root in marketing mixes for the largest brands around the world and displacing traditional digital media, which is inline with Forrester’s report on 50% of marketers planning to increase their spend in social media. And where is that money coming from? They are taking the budgets away from broadcasting and microsites. The multi-million dollar allocations of Coke and Pepsi are the largest spends in social media to date and will propel the space into mainstream.
Filed under Social Media
James Balog of the Extreme Ice Survey will speak next Friday at The Conservation Alliance's breakfast in Salt Lake City. The Extreme Ice Survey is the most wide-ranging glacier study ever conducted using ground-based, real-time photography.
This week at Under Solen, we’ve been gearing up for next week’s Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City. While all of our heads will be swimming with meetings, happy hours and gear, we’re hoping to keep our eye on the the thread that holds all of this together — protecting those incredible wild places that keep our industry alive and kicking.
So, we thought we’d give a shout-out to a couple great groups that are walking the walk this week.
The Conservation Alliance
Since thier founding in 1989, the Conservation Alliance has contributed more than $7 million to conservation projects throughout North America — protecting more than 49 million acres of land, stop or remove 27 dams, and preserve access to thousands of miles of rivers and several climbing areas. The Alliance is a group of outdoor industry companies that disburses its collective annual membership dues to grassroots environmental organizations to protect threatened wild habitat, preferably where outdoor enthusiasts recreate. The Alliance was founded in 1989 by industry leaders REI, Patagonia, The North Face, and Kelty, who shared the goal of increasing outdoor industry support for conservation efforts.
Mark your calendars for their awesome breakfast at 7a.m. on Friday at the Marriot. We know it’s early, but this will give you the inspiration you need to get revved up for a day at the show. Look forward to founder and director of The Extreme Ice Survey, James Balog to give a stunning look at the impact abrupt climate change is having on the world’s glaciers.
And make sure to stop by participating booths to support the Alliance! Whether you’re looking for some wild inspiration, a rockin’ party or some sweet gear that benefits a great cause – they have packed line-up.
The Epicocity Project and iLCP Flathead RAVE
Grizzly bear captured on film by iLCP photographer Joe Riis ©iLCP Flathead RAVE
The Epicocity Project’s thought-provoking new film — Flathead Wild — will premiere at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival at the Nevada Theater in Nevada City, Calif. Saturday, Jan. 16 before going on tour.
Proposed mountaintop removal mining in southeastern British Columbia, Canada is threatening one of America’s most endangered rivers and one of North America’s wildest remaining valley — The Flathead. Flathead Wild follows the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) as they descend on the Flathead River Valley, along with local conservation groups, to take breathtaking and iconic images of the threatened ecosystem. These images then act as tools for the Flathead coalition to help tip the scales in favor of protection and conservation.
Flathead Wild is also now available online. Help Epicocity spread the word by linking to the film on your blog, Facebook and Twitter and send it to your friends and family!
Helping Haiti
And we wanted to once again highlight how we can help folks in Haiti. Earlier this week, an earthquake registering 7.0 on the Richter scale hit Haiti. Centered just outside of the populated capital, Port-au-Prince, the quake’s effects have been devastating. Within less than 24 hours the outpouring of international support has been impressive.
So how can you take part? Here’s just a small collection of what’s out there.
Filed under Adventure, climate change, Friday Faves, Impact, Non-profits, Outdoors, Rivers
