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A writer searches for kid-friendly whitewater in Oregon
The director of HBO's fracking documentary talks environment, contamination, and community
On Western Spirit's guided mountain-biking tour of California, even the youngest kids can get a taste of the trail
Even the most timid kids can get over their separation anxiety and have a great time at summer camp—as long as mom and dad don’t screw it up
Why should kids have all the fun? At Vermont’s Tyler Place Family Camp, adults can paddle, take tennis lessons, and carve out their own slice of summer vacation alongside the children.
The king of survival talks about his new NBC reality show Get Out Alive, mending fences with the Discovery Channel, and making regular people eat awful things. PLUS: Exclusive video clips from the new show.
Since the birth of their first child, photographer Somira Sao and her husband have traversed the world’s oceans on a 40-foot racing sailboat, visiting six continents with their growing brood. Bet your preschool wasn’t like this.
For the past five years, Charles Scott has taken his kids bike touring from Japan to the backroads of Iceland. Katie Arnold caught up with him before his latest trip across the American West to learn from the master.
He's loud, he's proud, and—advisably or not—the Nuge always speaks his mind. We caught up with the 64-year-old rocker ahead of the return of his TV show, Spirit of the Wild, to talk about why he still spends his downtime hanging out in the woods.
Over the past five years, nine new national monuments have joined the ranks of America’s protected lands. But Michael Brune, the man who heads up the Sierra Club, would like to see more. Elizabeth Hightower Allen joins him, his family, and a pack of rambunctious llamas on a tour of New Mexico’s highlands.
A new book on the vanished age of airline hijacking captures an astonishing time. There was no airport security, and people brandishing weapons and bombs routinely commandeered aircraft around the world.
With fire and drought ravaging New Mexico, Katie Arnold and family head up to southern Colorado on a multisport adventure
GoPro Games champion Sage Donnelly has her eyes set on the World Freestyle Championships—and from pro paddlers twice her age to diabetes, nothing is going to stand in her way.
From Mountainfilm in Telluride, director Roger Ross Williams returns with a different look at Uganda.
From Mountainfilm in Telluride, a ragtag crew sails deep into a fjord in Greenland. The water channel, iced over for millenia, is open to exploration only because of global warming.
From Mountainfilm in Telluride, welcome to the world of off-width crack climbing, a sub-genre that attracts a rare breed.
From Mountainfilm in Telluride, Robert Stone’s newest film questions much of what we accept as fact about the negative side of nuclear as an alternative to fossil fuels.
From Mountainfilm in Telluride, the story of pollination, an ongoing dance between flowers and the bees, bats, hummingbirds and butterflies that are essential to life on earth.
Pandora’s Promise, a new film by Robert Stone, argues that our only chance of escaping climate-change doom is a global shift to atomic energy. David Biello has a few hard questions, including: What will we do with all that waste?
After quitting their jobs and selling their house, Coloradoans Erica and Mark Lighthiser packed it up—kids, dog, possessions—and started pedaling north. How far will their journey take them?
The iconic travel-writer addresses his new book and the claims that he is an "Afro-pessimist"
From ferrying kids to preschool to hitting up the farmer’s market, Xtracycle’s beefy longtail can handle it all.
New York Times columnist Bruce Feiler’s new book The Secrets of Happy Families has a novel strategy for overwhelmed parents in need of a break: give kids more control
The Clif Kid Backyard Game of the Year contest encourages children to invent their own outdoor games rather than sitting in front of the TV. The top prize? A scholarship for ten grand.
Life Lessons from the toughest, hardest, foulest-mouthed children’s author on earth. *Parental guidance suggested.
You only get so much time with your kids before they’re grown up. After a family trip to the hot springs, Katie Arnold meditates on how best to spend it.
W. Hodding Carter, Jack Hitt, and Anthony Doerr look back on their attempts to raise kids who love the outdoors.
A trailer from Kiss the Water, a fly-fishing oddyssey and one of our favorite films from the Tribeca Film Festival.
Marmot Presents: DUK COUNTY, a documentary film that chronicles a bold medical mission to cure blindness in South Sudan. Produced by Jordan Campbell and Michael Herbener and due to premiere at Telluride Mountainfilm in May. (For more on South Sudan, check out Patrick Symmes’ feature story.)…
David Oliver Relin made his name as coauthor of the disgraced bestseller Three Cups of Tea—then tragically committed suicide. Now, a major publisher hypes Relin’s posthumous history of the inspiring Himalayan Cataract Project. Should we buy it?
The paragliding community is spitting mad about a video that purports to show a paramotor provocateur chasing and assaulting an owl for nearly seven minutes. But how do you identify the guy?
What do rock-climbing heart transplant patients, Somali pirate hunters, and arctic cowboys have in common? All could be found on the big screen at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Of this year’s 217 films, these seven outdoor-focused picks were a cut above.
After freeskier Shane McConkey died in a ski-BASE accident four years ago, a group of his friends created McConkey, a documentary of his adventures that is as thrilling as it is heartfelt. We spoke with two of the directors about the film.
Anson Fogel, founder of Forge Motion Pictures and winner of more than 60 awards at outdoor film festivals, on how to get the most out of your action cam.
If triple-digit temps are common where you live, making sure you choose the right dog for your climate is key to having a happy pooch.
Can a new trailer bike help young kids learn the rules of the road? Katie Arnold and her family put it to the test.
A brilliant adaptation of Kon-Tiki brings the legend of Thor Heyerdahl to the masses
Before his arrest last Tuesday, survivalist Troy James Knapp, a.k.a. the Mountain Man of southern Utah, lived off the fat of the landowners, breaking into cabins and running circles around sheriffs and marshals with little but his physical fitness and backcountry savvy. As Knapp appears in Sanpete County court via video this morning, JON BILLMAN reports on the
Sending your kids to camp may not be the best way to keep them active in the warm months
Junger’s powerful new documentary about the life of war photographer Tim Hetherington shows us why dedicated journalists are needed now more than ever
Ueli Steck dreamed of using a paraglider to enchain three of the Alps’ most famous mountains in a day. But first he had to learn to fly.
One minute, you're checking a yardage marker for your buddy, and the next, you're being eaten by a golf course
Katie Arnold's meditation on training for a 50-mile race
It's natural to feel a little anxious before a trip into the backcountry with your kids, but follow these common sense guidelines and know everything will turn out fine
Keeping the family happy doesn't have to mean sacrificing steep terrain and old-school cool
The story of a Pacific Island community in Papua New Guinea—their unique way of life and their fight to preserve what really matters in the face of climate change.
In this weekly roundup, we scour the Web for our favorite long-form articles, collecting them here and on Longreads and Twitter. This installment focuses on sled dogs, sewer rats, and mountaintop doping.
To raise adventurous children, as Laura's father learned when she and Guppy set sail, means that someday, you have to let them go
When he isn't guiding world-renowned photographers, psychologists, and Hollywood acting coaches, Chris Dombrowski is writing. We caught up with him on the occasion of his new book.
Katie Arnold puts the Burley D'Lite and Chariot Chinook 2 to the test on a trip to the Spruce Hole Yurt in southern Colorado's San Juan Mountains
As part of her New Year's resolution to camp every month this year, Katie Arnold took her family to Spruce Hole, a 20-foot diameter canvas-walled yurt in the San Juan's Rio Grande National Forest
Elizabeth Eilers Sullivan catches up with 16-year-old Noah Pereira, the recent winner of a 150-mile dogsled race in Alaska that's seen as the precursor to the famous Iditarod
Dan Baum, author of Gun Guys: A Road Trip, talks to Jason Fagone about the appeal of the AR-15 rifle, the link between gun love and social class, and how carrying a firearm changes the way you look at the world
"If I die here on the road, at least I'm doing something to change my life."
If you're not a hunter, you may think that a dog's instinct to locate, pursue, and kill doesn't pertain to you, but you would be wrong. Evaluating an animal's prey drive should be of paramount consideration in selecting a pet or working dog.
In this exclusive clip from The Discovery Channel’s Weed Country, airing at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, March 6, 2013, grower Nate Morris returns to his farm to find that his crop has been ripped up by a fellow grower.
Ditch the stroller, don't give in to frustration, and take baby steps
Leo Houlding, Jason Pickles, and Sean “Stanley” Leary go deep into the Amazon to attempt a first ascent on the magnificent Cerro Autana.
Pick up a shelter dog and curious about what breed he or she is? In this, the second in a two-part series, Ali Carr Troxell learn about Odin and Rio for the first time.
The trailer for Battleground: Rhino Wars, a riveting new series in which former and current Navy SEALs and a Green Beret head to South Africa to stop illegal rhino poaching.
Pick up a shelter dog and curious about what breed he or she is? In this, the first in a two-part series, Ali Carr Troxell orders a cheek-swab test kit from Canine Heritage.
In Minnesota, where hockey rules, ice is a winter crop
Hollywood sticks it to the energy establishment with the new Matt Damon and John Krasinski film
Jim Harrison's new book, made up of two longer stories, is a fascinating read about the way we navigate rivers and life
Pilgrimage, a new book and traveling exhibition by one of the magazine world's most famous working photographers, was inspired by a close-to-home family vacation
It doesn't really matter. But whichever kind you choose—chokers, slip leads, e-collars—make sure you're using it correctly.
I wrote a version of this story in October 2011. Emily Rapp’s two-year-old son, Ronan, died this morning, so I post it now in honor of him and Emily and parents everywhere who are brave enough to share their stories of living, loving, and dying.
Hitch a ride with renowned surf/skate photographer Steve Sherman as he syncs up with Donavon Frankenreiter for his European “Start Livin'” Tour. Watch the full video on YouTube.
Every Thursday, Katie Arnold, in an effort to pack in some more alone time—no sisters and no fathers allowed—picks up her daughter from preschool early and they hit the slopes
The organization that opened the first youth skate park in Afghanistan was recently named one of the top 100 NGOs in the world by Global Journal and is now in expansion mode
Find a companion you can get along with, whether from a responsible breeder or your local shelter. You’re going to be spending the next 13 years together.
Or, why you just need to disconnect every once in a while
Problem: Stress, temper tantrums, teething, nighttime waking, worry, and overscheduled days. Solution: To spend some time sleeping—and living—outdoors, away from digital distractions, at least once a month.
Cats are being blamed for killing billions of birds and small mammals in the United States every year, but off-leash, free-roaming, and feral dogs are responsible for a fair bit of damage to wildlife, too
Join us for the strange but true story of Wild Bill Cooper, playing right here on Thursday, February 7, 2013, at 7:00 p.m. ET. Filmmaker Mike Scholtz will join us in the comments below to answer your questions.
Some high-energy, athletic dogs, unable to sweat, will work to the point of self-injury, so make sure you're able to recognize the warning signs of exhaustion
Browse hundreds of additional stories, gear reviews, interviews, photo galleries, and more on what it's like to lead an active family from the Raising Rippers archive on Outside Online