Everyone loves to go to summer camp.  Nobody likes to get cancer.  Cancer sucks.

Going to summer camp if you have or had cancer still rocks.  Especially when you get to be outdoors pushing your limits.

I feel very fortunate to have volunteered with Camp Good Days and Special Times for the last 12 years.  Camp Good Days provides summer camp opportunities to children, young adults, and adults.  I have volunteered with the week-long kid camps for 11 summers.

Camp is great because it is a place where kids living through cancer can just be themselves.  If they look different, if they lost a leg, if they are tired … their peers understand.  It is a place where you get to be a kid- and people get you.  Most campers seem to look forward to camp all year.  I know I do.

Camp Good Days personally helped me out also.  Six years ago I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease and I underwent chemotherapy and radiation.  From volunteering at Camp and watching the kids live a full, adventurous, and loving life that I could also.  That was a gift that no amount of volunteer hours and repay.

Cancer is a really big deal.  It affects everyone- survivors and their loved ones.

The reality is scary.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. accounting for 23.1 percent of all deaths 559,888 (US Mortality Data 2006.  CDC).  The leading cause is heart disease at 26 percent.

The 2009 estimated U.S. cancer deaths are 292,540 men and 269,800 women and the estimated cancer diagnosis are 766,130 men and 713,220 women (American Cancer Society, 2009).

That is a heck of a lot of people.

Many people will undergo chemotherapy- liquid hell and radiation- burns.  The treatments are tough.

I don’t know how to cure cancer.  I’m not that good at science.

I am good at being outside and active.  Everyone is.

This spring, I attended the Young Adult Cancer Survivor Weekend.  We pushed our boundaries.  We faced our fears, not of dying, but of living.

We did the high ropes challenge cheering each other on.   We did the zip line.  We climbed the climbing wall.  And when it rained, we played Wii Bowling.  When it kept raining, we went outside and played disc golf in the rain.

Nobody chooses cancer, but we can choose what to do about it.

Everyone has a gift.  Share yours.

Postscript:
My mom and aunt both had breast cancer and they went to Camp for a woman’s weekend on Keuka Lake in New York State.  It was a great bonding experience for them both.  My aunt has since passed away from a relapse and my mom is as I write in the other room in her home recovering from the Whipple Procedure to cut a pancreatic tumor off her pancreas.  My father is a prostate cancer survivor.  I am a Hodgkin’s disease survivor.

Camp Good Days and Special Times, Inc. is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for children, adults and families whose lives have been touched by cancer and other life challenges. All of the programs and services provided by Camp Good Days are offered free of charge for the participants, which is only possible through the generosity of so many individuals and organizations and the success of our many special fundraising events.

Andy Fleming is an Inspired Mountain Athlete.

It’s raining in Jackson, Seattle, Portland and Portland today. Time for some dry inspiration. This is Cloudveil athlete Luke Kretschmar, of Skiing the Black Hills fame.
Get pumped. Perhaps at your computer or in the gym today, but outside soon.

After hype about Wednesday’s Earth Day and this week’s local Earth Week, we received the following Arbor Day press release from the WordenGroup Stretegic Public Relations group. Happy Arbor Day, Treehuggers!

WordenGroup Strategic Public Relations, a Jackson Hole PR firm specializing in travel public relations and ecotourism public relations, has announced a “Go Paperless” initiative for Arbor Day, April 24, 2009 (TODAY, FRIDAY!) challenging businesses to join the Wyoming public relations specialists in reducing office paper flow and saving trees in honor of the national tree planting holiday. “We’re always looking for ways to ‘green’ our office – and our lives,” says WordenGroup principal Darla Worden. “Arbor Day seemed the appropriate day to provide additional focus on saving paper ourselves – and challenging other businesses to follow suit.” Worden adds, “At one time public relations departments used massive amounts of paper, sending out faxes, media kits, letters and news releases to editors and journalists. Today, we use very little paper thanks to our ability to send and post materials electronically.”

WordenGroup offers the following Top 10 Tips toward an Arbor Day paperless office:

1. Send documents via e-mail or e-Fax

2. Stop unwanted junk mail and catalog delivery with a service like Stopjunk

3. Try not to print anything — but if you must, be sure to use 100% post-consumer recycled paper.

4. Spell-check before you print to eliminate document do-overs; and print only the page or passage you need out of a longer document

5. Set your printer default for double-sided printing, and keep a box of “one-side-used” paper for writing notes or printing for in-house use

6. Read an online newspaper.

7. Remember your coffee mug (no paper cups); and if you “brown bag” your lunch, replace that iconic paper sack with a reusable lunch bag.

8. Sign up for email bill delivery for online rather than paper statements, and pay your bills – and invoice clients – electronically.

9. Borrow books from the library or buy used books online.

10. Move office forms to electronic versions – Microsoft Office and Excel both have powerful form creation tools – or ask your computer support person to create a custom form. WordenGroup asked Jackson Hole web consultant Toby Byrum to create an easy-to-use online timesheet for paperless tracking of client hours, for example, that “ended up being a godsend for efficiency as well,” says Worden.

WordenGroup is working with Teton County’s Waste not Wednesday program to help get the Jackson Hole PR firm’s Go Paperless Arbor Day challenge out to other area businesses. Teton County provides special online recycling and energy-saving ideas – including an “eco-driving tip of the week” – on its website each week under the Waste Not Wednesday heading. Recycling practices are widely adopted and promoted through local and national programs, but paper reduction efforts are still relatively new. An EPA executive summary reported of the 83 million tons of paper and paper board materials consumed in the US in 2007, 45.2 million tons (or 54.5%) were recovered through recycling.

Jackson Community Recycling, the organization behind the recycling center and all recycling services in Teton County, shared that 201.3 tons of office paper were recovered in Teton County during 2008. While the “Go Paperless” day is not striving to discredit the importance of recycling, it does aim to point out there are still to ways cut down on paper use that help contribute to less consumption of paper products and trees overall.

Worden invites additional “Go Paperless” suggestions on WordenGroup’s “PR Cred” blog – or email them to her at darla@wordenpr.com.

After the first day of competition in Sochi, Russia, I am sitting in first position followed by Marja Person and Jamie Burge. The Freeride World Tour is trying to get off another run.

We loaded the lifts at 7 a.m. in anticipation of another day of competition, but due to high temps the guides decided it would be too dangerous to hold the competition. The competition is currently scheduled for Saturday.

And from January 21 …

The competition was postponed until Thursday due to the highly reactive snow. As we rode the chairlifts up to the top of the mountain we witnessed two natural slides. The crowns did not look large, mostly slough, but a lot of snow was moving everywhere. The blue sky provided great light for scouting and powder skiing. I spent most the day staring through binoculars looking for a winning line.

I will be skiing first for the women, but that also means 40 men will have skied before me. I am planning on skiing a line off a peak known as The Egg, unless the men have destroyed the face.

Cloudveil athlete Jess McMillan got First Place in the Mammoth stop on the Freeride World Tour and Second Overall in Freeride World Tour last season.

When your parents offer to come visit, do you say, “no, that’s fine, I’ll come visit you?”

When you meet someone at the bar, do you often suggest going to their place?

Well, if your gear is more important to you than the roof over your head, have we got the contest for you.

Check out the sample vid, and send us the embed to your original Skid Crib to tmc@cloudveil.com.

Mark Zimmer, 23, is still on his quest to stand at the highest point in every single state in an effort to raise awareness for Alzheimer’s. His plan: auction off the “50 slots” to companies, individuals and organizations. “At the end of the bidding process, I will contact the 50 highest bidders to inform them of their victory and to describe how they are to send the amount they bid to the Alzheimer’s Association,” he says. “They will also send Summit Up a flag to be flown, and each time I climb a summit, I will carry this flag with me and fly it on the peak, take a picture, and carry the flag on to the next summit. I will then send them a picture of this event.”

Here is Mark’s latest post from Black Mountain in Kentucky. Let’s hope by the time he reaches us here in Wyoming that there aren’t any earthquakes like the one last night!

Ever since I have started to work on Summit Up, there has been a struggle between the business and sponsorship side and the actual climbing and training. I do get some comfort from knowing that I am going to be starting on some of the easier peaks when I start climbing in April of 2009, and will then be working my way up from there. However, it is easy to get soft during the winter, so I force myself to continue working on both aspects of Summit Up.

Black Mountain (elevation 4,145 ft) is the highest point in Kentucky. A quick interesting fact about Black Mountain is that as you drive up the peak, you pass a sign that says, “Welcome to West Virginia.” It is only after you park and hike a quarter mile are you actually back into Kentucky; that is how close this peak is the border. Although I did do this climb, I will return once I get all of my flags and start climbing officially.

If you are ever in the area, it is a rather simple climb. To be more accurate, it is more of a simple walk, since the trail is not too far or steep. However, if you are anything like me, the peak will present its challenges.

I didn’t drive to this peak; I rode with my uncle on roads that seemed to be modeled after a pile of cooked spaghetti noodles. To make it worse, he seemed determined to break the land speed record while pulling at least four lateral G’s in his silly little Dodge Neon. I had no idea that the thing could go so fast. I spent most of the trip staring at the floor of the car, trying to not loose my incredible meal of Mickey D’s Chicken McNuggets, only to be jolted by my crazed uncle smashing the brakes to avoid a tree branch on the road from the previous night’s storm.

Much to my surprise, I did end up surviving the two hour roller coaster ride from hell. I did get some pictures and a fun story. So if you ever get the chance, grab the Tums and head to Black Mountain. The ride alone is worth the trip.

We keep telling ourselves to stop, but we can’t.

We’re in the middle of one of those great powder cycles, 80+ inches in 10 days, with another three to four feet hitting in the next two, and all we can do is keep getting out there, tell ourselves that it’s OK, that we must, for it’s going to end. It’s so damn good.
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