Since moving to Oregon three and a half years ago, one of my favorite winter rituals has become the after-work night ski. With a packed car waiting and long-johns tucked under my work clothes, I duck out of work at 5pm on the button, pick up a few friends, and head for the hills. Soon, rush hour traffic is behind us, route 26 opens up ahead and—on a clear night—the peach-colored slopes of Mt. Hood loom out of the gathering darkness.

This year has been a tough one for skiing on Mt. Hood. After a few early November dumps, the freezing level climbed back up toward an unusually bare summit, leaving many of us with nothing to do but sit in Portland and watch the rain streak down our windows.  But that’s only made more special the few recent late-season dumps, including this past Wednesday when a modest 4” returned Mt. Hood Ski Bowl to form.

It made me think it was time to follow up on Josie’s “Ski Poll” post from last December. An informal survey here in the office saw Ski Bowl as the unanimous favorite: It’s close to town, just well enough lit, and has three of the best beer stubes you could ask for to warm your fingers and toes. But from modest bumps like Bradford Hill in Haverhill, MA to the (often icy) steeps of Snow King in Jackson Hole, WY, there are a lot of contenders. What’s your favorite?

Cool. Today, Google Maps added an option for bike directions.

Today, our friends at GOOD have offered up just one more reason to give a damn—$500 in Nau gear. Always on the lookout for new and inventive ways to create positive environmental and social change, they’ve partnered with Nau on a contest to “Design an Everyday Solution to an Extraordinary Problem.”

Some would say the pressure is on the scientists, politicians, and business leaders of the world to develop those solutions. But why not you? With this project, we’re hoping you will think about what’s preventing you from acting on your positive impulses, and what inventions might remove those roadblocks. Do you not bike because you live somewhere rainy? Maybe you could invent a handlebar umbrella attachment. Do you hate the way tofu tastes? Maybe you could create a recipe for deep-fried delight. The possibilities are endless.

GOOD is accepting entries through March 31st, so put on your thinking helmet, charge up the idea machine, and fire off your flashes of brilliance by tweeting @GOOD, or by e-mailing projects[at]goodinc[dot]com. The top three solutions will win a $500 Nau gift card. So come on, Thought Kitcheners—what’ve you got? Hit us up in the comments with any ideas you’re thinking of submitting.

(via, or really just with, GOOD.is)

Check out today’s Cool Hunting feature on Asymbol, pro snowboarder Travis Rice’s new fine art gallery. Offering limited edition prints of photographs and paintings might not seem a natural turn for a pro rider still taking home titles from the X-games, but the collection of snow and surf inspired works show Rice’s tastes extend well beyond double cork 1260’s. In particular, don’t miss Jeff Curtes‘ moody mountain images and the warped, monumental tension of Trent Mitchell’s Australian waves.

Equally impressive is Asymbol’s environmental commitment, contributing 5% of all proceeds to the Action Sports Environmental Coalition and Protect Our Winters. Says Rice of giving back, “And since we owe the environment we take from while we reap the rewards of its bounty, a portion of our proceeds will be donated to nonprofit organizations that are working to raise environmental and social awareness and accountability in the action-sports world.”

Works sell directly from Asymbol’s site in a variety of sizes, from $300 to $1,300.

(via Cool Hunting)

On the day after the Academy Awards recognized a woman as Best Director for the first time, (and, coincidentally, International Women’s Day), check out this slideshow of another woman breaking ground in an industry dominated by men. Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born architect, was the subject of a recent New Yorker article following the opening of MAXXI, the Italian National Museum of the XXI Century Arts (and Rome’s first major public building designed by a woman). This accompanying slideshow features some stunning shots of the completed building, and offers some startling insights into Zaha’s design. Coming on the heels of Peter’s Design Eye interview last week, I loved seeing Zaha’s initial sketch for the MAXXI: bold strokes on a simple sheet of ruled paper.

Known for the organic curves and geometric angles of her designs, Zaha’s been in the news a lot recently. Her design for the 2012 Olympic Aquatic Centre in London has been turning heads for it’s futuristic lines (Flight of the Navigator, anyone?), while her smaller-scale works—from jewelery to spacially complex pieces of furniture—are going on display in Bahrain next week in the fluidity & design exhibition. But for the uninitiated, a simple google-image search of her name offers a pretty compelling primer on the intersection of space, structure and digital design. Boys, take note.

(photo: Iwan Baan; via The New Yorker)

Streetfilms—the New York based film crew dedicated to documenting livable streets worldwide—has a new series out called “Fixing The Great Mistake,” examining what went wrong in the beginning of the 20th Century when urban planning began catering to the automobile. In this episode, Transportation Alternatives director Paul Steely White talks about the widening of Park Avenue, replacing what had once truly been a park with the eight lanes of traffic that we know today.

That planning still impacts lives today—and not just of New Yorkers. Back in the 1930’s and 40’s, under the guidance and political muscle of master builder Robert Moses, the problem of increasing automobile congestion in New York City had a then-futuristic solution: build roads, bridges and highways of a scale and quantity never before imagined. Expressways were built encircling Manhattan, I-95 was bulldozed through residential neighborhoods in the Bronx, and the elevated off-ramps of massive bridges cast a pall over communities in Brooklyn and Harlem. What few people realize is that Moses was instrumental in bringing his auto-centric urban planning to cities around the country; indeed, around the world. Like most Amercian cities with a beltway cutting through downtown, Portland has Moses to thank for the blight of elevated highways like the I-405 outside our offices (as well as I-205, and I-5, and I-84…).

But exciting change is afoot. Just as New York led the way into the era of autocentric urban planning, they may be starting to lead a way out. With the recent closure of Times Square to traffic, the installation of separated bike lanes and the failed but historic effort to introduce congestion pricing, New York is beginning to reclaim some of its public avenues for livable streets. For more news from the sustainable street, check out Streetfilm’s ever growing library of inspiring stories at streetfilms.org.

(via Worldchanging)

Check out the great photos of Holi, the Hindu “Festival Of Colors” celebrated this past monday, over on Boston.com’s Big Picture. Welcome Spring!

When the modish Hotel Modera opened up in downtown Portland last year, they welcomed guests into a renewed space, one thoroughly overhauled from what had been the threadbare shell of an old Days Inn. Perhaps the most striking part of the renovation, however, was the repurposing of a barren parking lot into a lush courtyard with a beautiful living wall. It’s that wall that keeps drawing me back to the space: the migration of green from the ground level planters onto the vertical plane breaking the horizon of concrete, a modernist reflection of Forest Park tucked away in the heart of downtown.

The landscape architecture blog Inspiration Wall has a nice photographic walking tour of the new courtyard, as well as a close up look at the G-Sky panels that the designers at Lango Hansen used to create the wall. But if you’re looking to bring a green wall into your home, check out today’s Cool Hunting post on Woolly Pocket Planters. Made of recycled plastic bottles, their “Wally” design makes it easy to grow your own vertical garden, indoors or outside. It’s got me looking at walls in and around my home in a whole new way.

(via Inspiration Wall and Cool Hunting, Modera pics © Lisa Town.)