Photo by Jennifer Koskinen

We do love a good photo contest, mostly because it gives you the excuse to peruse your old travel and adventure photos and take a few minutes to reminisce, but also because there’s usually the chance to win something really good. Enter the Mountainfilm Photo Contest. Leading up to this year’s festival, Mountainfilm is celebrating by hosting a three month long photo contest, complete with awesome gear giveaways and a grand prize of a Mountainfilm VIP Festival package.

Sound too good to be true? It’s not. All you have to do is submit photos inspired by Mountainfilm’s mission, “educating and inspiring audiences about issues that matter, cultures worth exploring, environments worth preserving and conversations worth sustaining.”

Just submit your photos to the Mountainfilm Flickr pool, complete with description, and you’re good to go! This month there are some Osprey Talon 44 packs up for grabs. Seriously – enter one simple photo and you have the chance at a sweet backpack? Yes, please!

And if gear wasn’t enough for you, there’s a little bit of fame involved too: every week Mountainfilm will be featuring on of the submitted photos on their blog. Why wait? Submit now! You can find more info about the contest 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!

Save Our Wild Salmon has been fighting to recover Snake River salmon for two decades. Snake River salmon Snake River salmon return to the biggest, highest, coldest, best-protected spawning habitat left in the Lower 48. In the last 6 months, tens of thousands of people across the country, nearly 100 members of Congress, three former Northwest governors, hundreds of local and national businesses, thousands of scientists from around the country have called on the Obama administration to end the legal and political deadlock to save wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest. And on Sunday, writer and founder of the Blue Ocean Institute, Carl Safina voiced his opinion in the Los Angeles Times:

Two months ago, in a swift trick no one saw coming, the Obama administration embraced the Bush administration’s failed salmon plan for an even more important watershed, the Columbia/Snake River system. The Columbia and its tributaries formerly produced more salmon than anywhere else on Earth, but the once-mighty rivers now have 13 salmon stocks in danger of extinction…

The fundamental problem with the plan is that its goal seems to be to maintain endangered salmon in an endangered state rather than revitalizing them. The administration appears unmotivated to restore salmon abundance and their role in the ecology and economy. Here’s what gives the administration’s game away: The one salmon species that is already at levels low enough to trigger additional action in the new plan has been exempted from the new triggers.

Jane Lubchenco, the administration’s point person for oceans and salmon, insists that “the actions in the plan will prevent further declines.” But keeping salmon in a coma and on life support does not heal them, nor help the other species, including people, that depend on them. The likeliest outcome of a salmon strategy based on just avoiding extinction will be extinction — and not only of salmon…

"Star" -- Puget Sound's most recent addition to it's resident Orca whale population. © Howard Garrett

There’s another photograph I saw recently. Taken just two months ago where Puget Sound meets the Pacific, it shows a new orca calf emerging from the water atop its mother’s back. The scientists from the Center for Whale Research who track orcas named her Star, hoping she will guide another seemingly intelligent mammal — us — to restore the salmon abundance she will need to become a mother herself 13 years from now. May she inspire the Obama administration to think again.

Read the rest of Safina’s op-ed at the LA Times…

Take action to save Snake River salmon here!

©Garth Lenz, iLCP

Miles of free-flowing river, sky-scraping jagged peaks and abundant wildlife make the Flathead River Valley one of the most wild and beautiful places on earth. But unfortunately, diversity and a natural aesthetic don’t always ensure protection. Proposed mountaintop removal mining in southeastern British Columbia, Canada is threatening the Flathead. Earlier this month, we wrote about the Epicocity Project’s new film, Flathead Wild.

Along with the film, people can really get a sense of place by viewing the gorgeous photos from the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP). Visit Planet Green for a slideshow that will make almost anyone want to protect the Flathead!

Want to do more? Watch the video, and pass it along to your friends. And take action HERE!

Especially with snow… we couldn’t have asked for a better kick off to Winter Outdoor Retailer. Now here we go!

We’re in high winter gear here at Under Solen HQ and so our eyes are ever intrigued by anything that features one of our favorite seasons. We can’t embed it here, but you absolutely must go and check out this time lapse video of the northern lights, documented over the Ringebu Fjell in Norway, part of the super cool project The World At Night.

Do you have any fantastic winter sky pictures? We want to see them! Leave the link to your photo in the comments below.

[Via: Boing Boing]

[Photo: TWAN]

Another holiday morning after:

You come to wearing a lampshade, mistletoe strewn everywhere, lying on a four-foot-high pile of empty airplane-size liquor bottles.

You’ll never remember that party, but at least you can remember the aftermath.

Turn those baby booze bottles to bauble: fill them with photos and hang them on your tree.

Osprey Packs and Save Our Wild Salmon are teaming up to spread the word — Snake River Salmon Do It At Altitude! They’re giving away a sweet Osprey pack and 5 pounds of wild smoked salmon. Great prizes and raising awareness for a good cause — doesn’t get much better than that! To win, answer the question: What would you do to keep salmon spawning?

Cloudveil’s Spreading the Holiday Gear Give-Away Event
Make the holidays a little brighter: Register to win free schwag from Cloudveil! Every day they’ll pick one male winner and one female winner. You are limited to one entry per day, but you may enter every day throughout the contest. The give-aways get bigger and better as they reach Day 12, so get your name in the hat often.

How Are You A Nutcase?

Between December 1st – December 23rd submit your videos and/or photos that best answer the question “How Are You a Nutcase?” [Note: You DON’T even need to be wearing a Nutcase!]

The goods — an assortment of Nutcase Helmets as well as GoPro digital video cameras. The grand prize winner scores not only a helmet of your choice but a GoPro HD Hero headcam, along with a chest mount. That’s right — it’s your chance to win a sweet helmet and an awesome headcam. What better holiday present can you think of?

Outside Magazine’s Powder Play Sweepstakes

Outside Magazine is giving away 6 awesome ski trips. All you have to do is head to the website and fill in your information. Nice and easy. And Smartwool will outfit each winner (and their guest) with Smartwool from head to toe!

Passports With Purpose

This one’s not free, but it’s a fantastic cause and we just had to add it to the mix. Just $10 will help to build a school in Cambodia and enter you in a raffle for some sweet prizes. What’s up for grabs? A Caribbean vacation, a Sierra Designs tent, a ukulele and the list goes on… So head on over to the donation page and buy your Passports with Purpose raffle tickets!


Backcountry Access Facebook Photo Contest

Head on over to the Backcountry Access Facebook page and post your favorite snow shot. Finalists will be determined by the number of “likes” so don’t forget to give a thumbs up to your own images! Winners will snag some cool gear from Backcountry Access. The last day to enter is Dec. 14, so hop to it!

Wend Magazine’s December Friday Photo Contest

December’s Friday Photo theme is Winter Turns. Just submit your best winter turns shots to Wend’s Flickr pool then send an email with a quick blurb describing your submission(s) to fphoto@wendmag.com.

Each Friday Photo winner will receive a holiday prize package, Wend style. Winners will receive a Camelbak hydration pack stuffed with: two boxes of Clif Bars, a Katadyn Hiker PRO Water Microfilter, a ChicoBag and a package of Grabber hand warmers.

Win a Pair of Mountain Khakis Pants

Where do you get your fresh air fix? Shoot an email to info@freshairjunkie.com describing your favorite place to go hiking, climbing or backpacking, and you could win a pair of Mountain Khakis pants.

Sharp Gear Giveaway

Backpackers say that a knife is one of their most essential—and versatile—pieces of gear. So the good folks at Backpacker Magazine and Kershaw Knives are giving you a chance to win one. Just pick the one you want to win and enter.

Allegenies Adventure Giveaway

The Choose-Your-Alleghenies-Adventure Sweepstakes will randomly draw a winner to pick from one of five all-expenses-paid adventure-travel itineraries in The Alleghenies this fall. In addition to airfare and the professionally-guided trip, the winner will be outfitted with gear from sponsors including Wigwam, Duofold, and Teva.

Pyramid Brew Backcountry Winter Sweepstakes

Enter to win a 5-day trip with 3 friends to Squaw Valley. The trip includes airfare, lodging, backcountry cat skiing, lift tickets, a custom Pyramid K2 snowboard and some sweet Mountain Hardwear threads. Phew! All you have to do is enter!

That’s what we have for you this Friday. Follow us on Twitter to keep up with other happenings in the outdoor and travel community this holiday season!

We want to see the best and brightest of your nutty photos — anything that captures your Nutcase lifestyle, be it on wheels, on a board, on the river or anywhere else! Upload them to the Nutcase Flickr page!