Every year in mid-July a group of over 30 teenagers make their annual pilgrimage to Mammoth Lakes, California for the Fall Creek Running Club’s high altitude training camp. From s’mores around the campfire to movie nights and hot springs, these kids enjoy the best that nature can offer while training for their upcoming cross country and track season.This year’s camp was held at the Shady Rest Campground from July 18 to 24 and hosted 34 teens and 12 parents.“I’d have to say getting to experience different trails and new places to train was really cool,” says first year camper Sophia Zachau, “Being able to do other things like going to the hot springs and June Lake while we were there was also nice; that way we were able to take a break from training constantly.”Brendan Fitzgerald, another camper, described his experience by saying, “Mammoth is a beautiful place with sun and flat land, a great town, lakes, hot springs, and many more things to do.”Rob Collins, coach of the Fall Creek Running Club and SLV track team, has been going on the trip since 1999. “A lot of the parents actually run it, I just show up and enjoy myself,” says Collins.The Fall Creek Track Club is not the only training group to have fallen in love with this location and all it has to offer. The Mammoth Lakes area is also the favorite training grounds of many of the nation’s top Olympic marathoners like Meb Keflezighi and Shalane Flanagan, and as many as two dozen other high school and college teams from across California.SLV alumni Anna Maxwell, one of the many returning runners, said “From dealing with the bears every night, to ghost stories and jokes around the campfire, to listening to the stories from battered and hairy Pacific Crest Trail hikers in the local volcanic hot springs; it’s all part of the experience. It’s a great place to get quality summer training in, but it is also a place that brings kids together and helps foster the team mentality that has lead the legacy of successful runners Coach Collins has produced.“Some of the campers are not even runners. Collins says, “We’ve had other kids from other sports — you don’t have to be a distance runner to do this; it’s just kind of a camping trip.”More information about the Fall Creek Running Club can be found at www.fallcreekrunningclub.org.

Bullseye Archery, the newest archery shop in Scotts Valley, is the perfect place for hunters and beginning archers to stock up on gear and knowledge of the bowman’s art. Larry Spittler and Jeanne Burke are the owners of the shop located at 5299 Scotts Valley Drive, which opened on March 1, 2015. “We do tuning of bows, cam bows, and regular bows, and we sell any kind of bow that you could possibly want,” Spittler said, “plus the stuff to go with it.” Spittler, an archer of 40 years, said that he started practicing archery in the sixth grade after witnessing Howard Hill’s archery expedition at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in 1964. “I did (archery) in college and 40 years later I’m going ‘I think I’d like to shoot a bow again,’ a lot of people do the same thing,” Burke said. “They come in here and they haven’t shot in years.” Bullseye has a beautiful display of bows ranging from English longbows, Australian Aborigine bows, recurve bows, and compound bows — originally called cam bows — with a small selection of crossbows as well. “The thing is don’t be afraid to try something new, if you have never tried it before,” Burke said. “Because we are very helpful, we can tell you and offer you anything.” For those interested in getting started in archery, the two main bows for beginners are the recurve bow — which is curved at the tips — and compound bows. “(Recurve bows) used to be the fastest bow 30 year ago, (and) then some engineer got the wise idea of putting pulleys and cams on the end of bows,” Spittler said. Compound bows can shoot longer distances than the recurve bow, and they usually have lighter draw weight. However, the recurve bow is more traditional and much less expensive, giving the bow wielder a sense of the device’s history and beauty. “If you are going to get started with a recurve with really good equipment then you’re looking at about $300,” Spittler explained, “in your cam bows you’re probably looking at $700.” Recurve bows are for fun, he said, while the compound bow is all about hitting the target. The shop stocks bow parts, knives, and throwing axes. It also sells a variety of targets, which are very popular items. “That’s one of the reasons why (archery is) so successful here, so many people have room to have a range in their back yard,” said Bullseye’s Store Manager Gabrielle Garrett, a regular archer since 2008. With the start of deer hunting season, the shop has recently stocked up on broad heads and other points and blunts for hunting. Bow hunters typically shoot with compound bows, but some use long bows and recurve bows as well, Garrett said. Their equipment goes fast and they have bows on consignment and old arrows that have been repaired for $2 each. “Some people would rather do that — especially for their kids who loose them and break them all the time — than pay for new arrows so we sell a lot of those and we are constantly repairing arrows and making new sets,” she said. Currently, the shop does not have an archery range or classes. “Most of the time, I tell people to go to Archery Santa Cruz because they have an indoor range and walk in instruction — or to go to the Santa Cruz Archery’s Club, but then you have to have your own equipment and they only teach classes once a month,” Garrett said. Spittler said that they would eventually like to have a shop with a range, but in the mean time he directs most people to the range at De Laviega Park, which is open to the public on Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. Bullseye Archery’s well-organized shop is open from 3 to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday. Those in need of equipment or archery advice are encouraged to stop by.

By the year of 1984, almost two-thirds of the National Football League’s teams played on artificial turf.The growing concern for increased injuries, player’s preference of the natural grass fields, and an easiness of lawn-growing — due to the progress of gardening science — has caused the numbers of teams playing on artificial turf to dwindle to just about one-third of the teams last year.FIFA — the world's soccer governing body — outlawed artificial turf altogether in men’s soccer. The Women’s World cup, which recently finished in Canada, was played solely on artificial turf, and broadcasters for one of the games mentioned that while the air temperature was almost 100 degrees, the turf's was above 160.There are strict precautions: NFL mandates testing fields before every game – primarily to detect if a playing surface is too hard and poses an increased concussion risk for players. It's called Gmax level — the amount of force between the weight of human head and the field at impact. It has to be way below 200 because at that level the human skull can fracture.College football is much less into these tests, and fields for youth sports hardly ever get tested.San Lorenzo Valley High School has a dual level of concussion prevention; underneath the artificial grass is a layer of Brock-brand sheets of shock absorbing pads, on top of that are thousands of pounds of pulverized rubber from old tires.The rubber has to be replenished regularly — and the SLV district has the supplies and equipment to do that — because when crumbed rubber levels get depleted from their original depth, it results in a dangerously hard playing surface, with some Gmax readings above 250.And there are possible carcinogens in the pulverized rubber, which only recently started getting attention and testing.But there's more than that. Originally praised as completely maintenance-free, the fields also need to be sanitized and cleaned regularly due to the blood, sweat, saliva, cleats, screws, and other debris, all to be taken care of by the field-grooming crews. Hardly maintenance-free.In light of this, recent drive to convert the Scotts Valley High School football field into artificial turf should perhaps require a pause. The running track's fine and dandy, but keeping grass on the field, with modern gardening techniques, might be a wiser choice, unless one believes in maintenance-free Astroturf (at the expense of athletes' health). For those believers — there’s a bridge for sale in New York.On the bright side, the resurfacing of the running track at San Lorenzo Valley HS was finished last week. It looks better than new and will cost the district just $100,000, matched by the same amount from the annual Wharf-to-Wharf run’s fund-raising profits.“When the new school year starts, we’ll train the athletic departments for the best way to use it,” said Erik Slaughter, Director of the SLVUSD maintenance department.The resurfacing was done by Beynon Sports Surfaces Company and should last for another ten years.“It’s a faster track, due to a different material used for resurfacing it. Our athletes love it,” said Rob Collins, SLVHS track and field head coach. “The jumps area behind the football field's end-zones that used to be concrete, was replaced with the astroturf and jumpers love that, too. Plus, there are brand new track markings for relays, 1-mile, 1600-meters, 3200-meters and more. It's a really great improvement.”

Pro Scuba Dive Center in Scotts Valley offers classes, rentals, equipment, and dive trips for those interested in exploring the ocean’s depts.

Some might consider activities involving horses as being only for those with strong arms and legs. After all, these animals are large and the movies suggest that a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood type is required to control them. However, these movies don’t show the really special attributes of a horse that may be unknown too many: horses are ideal for providing equine therapy for people with a variety of special needs.

Emily Hogye, 19, has brought Ben Lomond global attention over the last several years through her career in competitive equestrian vaulting.

Boundaries of the California Little League's District 39 overlap those of Santa Cruz County. There are eight Little Leagues: Santa Cruz, San Lorenzo Valley, Scotts Valley, Capitola-Soquel, Live Oak, Aptos, Watsonville-American, and Pajaro Valley.