#kenton-cool

#kenton-cool

On the wooded lower slopes of the valley are clusters of tall houses, some plumed with wood smoke. There appears to be a lot of building work going on, some of it to repair the damage caused by the 2023 earthquake. The sound of a concrete mixer comes cutting through the cool mountain air mixed with birdsong and human voices.

the 2026 Magical Kenya Mountain and Trails Series put on a show on January 17 with the fifth edition of the Barng'etuny Mountain Run in the Tinderet region of Nandi County, Kenya. The 21-kilometer senior race was just one part of a weekend of festivities that included the Taptengelei Cultural Festival, which offered a variety of opportunities for participants to engage with locals and learn about the culture. More than 2,000 participants were expected across various categories at the event.

AllTrails, a hiking app with trail maps and reviews, dug into insights from their 90 million-plus members and team of trail experts to spotlight lesser-known places where the trail alone is worth planning a trip around. Their guide, Travel-Worthy Trails for 2026, spotlights eight unexpected destinations around the world where the trail is the destination.

Jornet's well-publicized States of Elevation project in 2025 was a feat in human endurance, mountain running, and planning. Starting on September 3, he linked 72 of the 14ers in the contiguous U.S in a human-powered fashion - on foot and bike - with a support crew following him and helping with logistics. He started with the 14,259-foot Longs Peak in Colorado, then went on to California and north to Washington, finishing on the 14,410-foot Mount Rainier.

On day five of an eight-day, 500-mile mountain bike race in Africa, Piers Constable found himself sprawled in the dirt for the second time. First he'd crashed on his left side, then on his right, until he was, in his own words, "muddied and bloodied," staring at a bike that was very much broken. He remembered a feed station a couple miles away and realized he had two choices: quit or run. He picked up the bike and ran.

Rendezvous Bowl was icy and windswept in its uppers but softer and more forgiving halfway down. I popped out of bounds, did a couple of hikes, and clicked my skis on in a face-gouging wind. When I got to my drop-in, there were a few inches of snow and a foot of wind.

Cornice collapses can be incredibly dangerous, having the potential to crush people, pull them down mountains and potentially over rocky cliffs, and cause larger avalanches. Professional skier Josh Daiek doesn't seem to be impacted by cornices as much as a regular skier or snowboarder would be, though. This incredible line starts with a heart pounding moment as he looked over the edge.

The man behind the camera filming his friend triggering a massive cornice fall may have been chuckling but cornice safety is no laughing matter. Releasing an overhanging mass of snow formed by wind deposits (triggering a cornice fall) can lead to snow immersion suffocation (SIS) when the skier lands and trigger avalanches or simply entrain large amounts of loose snow along with the cornice debris which is also a dangerous scenario.

When you're touring in the backcountry, you'll want a different kit than what you wear inbounds at the resort. Inbounds, your main goal is to stay warm and comfortable, and you're usually not working nearly as hard as you do on the skin track. Touring generates a lot more heat, so your layering system has to breathe, manage moisture, and still keep you warm when you stop.

Mt. Baker is the PNW's snow vacuum. It's close enough to the Pacific to get storm after storm, and the North Cascades do what they do best: force moist air straight up, wring it out, and bury everything in sight. Maritime storms roll in wet and heavy, then pile up fast when they hit terrain.