Category Archives: Outdoors

Kidsburgh – Campfire Building

A campfire
Image via Wikipedia

I am going to see if I qualify for the kids age range because I would like to participate in this activity too. Venture Outdoors has an activity this weekend to help you stay warm outdoors – Campfire building.

Think you can start a campfire with just one match? Prove it! We’re going to break this course down into three sections: collecting your materials, placing your campfire and building it. We’ll cover fire safety and Leave No Trace throughout the class. So leave your fuel canisters at home, and join our experienced leaders for a fun class on the essence of campfire building. (Geared towards ages 8-18.)

Date: January, 17, 2009
Location: Riverview Park
Difficulty: Easy
Time: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Cost: $5.00 non-member / $5.00 member / $5.00 kids / $20.00 family Continue reading →

South Side Slopes Step Trek 2009

DSC_0004.JPG
Image by peterp via Flickr

Get ready for a vertical hike – Pittsburgh is home to thousands of city steps that help people get up and down the hills around this city.  Each year the South Side Slopes Neighborhood Association organizes a self guided tour of some of the different steps and points of interest around the slopes.

Sunday, October 4, 2009 – Noon to 4pm
Register at 21st and Josephine Streets – UPMC South Side Lot

Walkers will enjoy all of these features as they tour, at their own pace, approximately 2,700 steps and the intertwining streets and sidewalks that connect them. The courses have changed to offer a different perspective of the South Side Slopes. Trekkers should find the routes pedestrian friendly, especially as they explore the middle areas of the Slopes neighborhood.

The South Side Slopes may quite possibly have the most steps of any neighborhood in the United States. After all, it is home to nearly 10% of the 712 sets of steps within Pittsburgh, which has the most steps of any city in the country. The city with the next greatest amount of steps is the Ohio River town of Cincinnati, followed by

coolest yard ever
Image by peterp via Flickr

San Francisco. The steps of the combined cities, however, do not equal those in Pittsburgh. Altogether, some 66 out of the city’s 88 neighborhoods have steps. These hundreds of public stairways give tribute to the many hillside neighborhoods.

Continue reading →

Head of the Ohio 2009 – October 3, 2009

HOTO
Image by Wugging Gavagai via Flickr

2009 is the 23rd Anniversary of Head of the Ohio Regatta. Crew teams from all over the country will be in Pittsburgh to row on the Allegheny River this Saturday. Races occur all day from 8 am to 4:30 pm.

Food and festivities for the family will be available near PNC park.

More info is available at http://www.headoftheohio.org and http://www.threeriversrowing.org/

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Get out of town!

I prefer the dry whites

I prefer the dry whites

As with many Pittsburghers, I fled the city for the weekend in the hopes that when I returned I would  find the city free of riot police and jersey barriers and navel-gazing news coverage.  I may not have much trouble crossing a river to get to another neighborhood but I do rarely make it beyond the City Limits.  I need to be reminded of the rich amenities and recreation just beyond.  So how about a trip through wine country?  And no, I did not fly to Napa or visit the Finger Lakes region.  This weekend I was tipsily traipsing through the Southwest Passage Wine Trail and blissing out in one of Western PA’s greatest assets, the Laurel Highlands. The region (through the PA Winery Association) is working on highlighting the wineries as a great asset to grow the tourism industry and as part of that initiative invited IheartPgh to visit, all expenses paid!  Interested in purchasing wine for my upcoming nuptials I quickly signed on to report from the grape-soaked trenches.

Here is a link to the Google map I made of the wineries and restaurants I visited, which I’ll be writing about throughout the week!
View Southwest Passage Wine Trail in a larger map

Some Park and Parking History & Friday is Park(ing) Day in PittsburghParking

092107_ParkingDay
Image by JessyeAnne via Flickr

This is a neat event that is another creative way to think about our city, transit and how cars fit into the urban landscape.   It fits well into the conversation we have been having about if you need a car in Pittsburgh on the post about Zipcar.

Last year, I posted about Parking Day 2008 and recieved this interesting comment that I wanted to share – which puts some historical perspective of how cars have fit into Pittsburgh over the past centruy or so.

I have a nineteenth century “History of Pittsburg” which lists the word “parking” in the index. I thought this odd as I couldn’t imagine someone parking a carriage. When I looked it up, the word meant the placing and creating of parks in the city which was not done until after the Civil War.

Park(ing) Day, Friday, September 18, 2009 is being coordinated by Mattress Factory, the Office of Public

Park (ing) day
Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

Art and the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh.

More info about Park(ing) Day and some great photos of the parks from last year is available at http://parkingdaypittsburgh.blogspot.com/ Continue reading →