Culture
ArchiveThere's no better way to break a dog's training than by introducing him to aggressive petters and the extreme temptations of children and good food
CONTRIBUTORS: DEAN KUIPERSDean Kuipers, who wrote “Honey Stinger,” about an FBI ecoactivism informant, isn't new to environmental reporting. His first article for Outside, in 1993, was about monkeywrench-style sabotage, and his book Operation Bite Back tells the story…
While awaiting further judgment on a case against the accuracy of Three Cups of Tea, the bestseller he co-wrote with Greg Mortenson, Relin committed suicide by putting himself in the path of a moving freight train
You've mastered all of the basic skills and are moving on to more advanced ones. But dogs aren't completely neutral: they'll pick up new behaviors with or without your guidance, and getting a dog to stop doing something can be trickier than anything you've already taught him.
wind turbines, Banning Pass, CA. Down on the wind farm. Photo: George Wuerthner Every therm and watt of energy we consume comes from somewhere, and those sources are finite, even if they're generally well removed from our daily lives. Energy: Overdevelopment…
Mexico City has a very real stray dog problem. Eric Nusbaum investigates all the ways—from the humane to the horrific—it's being addressed.
The best articles, photos, and videos I didn’t post this week—until now. (Sorry for missing last week, I was concentrating on digesting my Thanksgiving meal, unlike this fool, who gave up.) If you only click on one link this week, make…
Some tasks and skills are harder to train than you might think. Others are easier. Here's a list of nine basics, in order from hardest to easiest.
How deep can an action-packed adventure movie get? A new bar has been set, at least for teaser video and text. Blur the lines between dream state and reality, as you perceive the world through the minds of many. Into the Mind contemplates the…
Six simple steps for getting your pup to heel without constant corrections or reminders
Adventure filmmaker J.J. Kelley lets you in on the tricks of the trade. Join us between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET on Thursday, November 29, 2012, for a free screening of his latest film 'Go Ganges!' and a livechat.
Yesterday, specialty outdoor e-tailer Backcountry.com launched Treeline, an online retail showcase for artists, craftsmen, and up-and-coming brands whose products “evolve the outdoor lifestyle.” The new site goes way beyond selling shirts, shoes, or wooden camping bowls. Each week, Backcountry.com will profile one brand/artist. Treeline introduces…
Television producers and adventure travelers Josh Thomas and J.J. Kelley test their skills on an epic adventure down India’s sacred river.
Why the giant waves in Chasing Mavericks won’t help Hollywood break its surf-film losing streak
Shoot and edit your own short film in the Colorado backcountry with the Outside Adventure Film School
We talked with the Survivorman star about finding your meals in the backcountry, and why you should consider foraging your own holiday feast—and maybe even eating it raw and rotting
Author Dylan Tomine shares his tips on introducing kids to finding and growing their own food
The best articles, videos, and photos I didn't post this week—until now. If you only have time to click on two links, check out “BP Will Plead Guilty and Pay Over $4 Billion,” from The New York Times, and “…
The Ledge. Photo: Random House The National Outdoor Book Awards have released their picks for the best books of 2012. This year's titles include 15 winners and honorable mentions in nine categories, ranging…
My three-year-old mutt sure loves cats. Mabel’s dominant breed is black-and-tan coonhound mixed in with some Lab, Weimaraner, and who knows what else. She’s never met one up close but she chases them with enthusiasm that I would really get a kick out of were it not for the fact that she often chases them into traffic. It’s happened maybe five times in the two-and-a-half years I’ve had her.
I have a 5 1/2-month-old border collie mix who, in the evening, wants to play nip—playful biting that’s no fun for me. This can happen at other times of the day, but in the evening I have a great deal of difficulty redirecting him. It usually comes along with a period of hyperactivity, almost like a kid who is tired but won’t voluntarily lie down to nap. I don’t know what would be the best way to address this with him or what I need to do earlier in the day to prevent this from happening. We tend to either walk or play catch in the morning and then the reverse in the afternoon.
Ken Burns talks about his latest documentary and why a 1930s disaster means so much in the present day
In Anything Worth Doing, Jo Deurbrouck profiles Clancy Reece, who lost his life on the Salmon in June 1996 when the river crested at nearly 100,000cfs
ext_script = "//player.ooyala.com/player.js?deepLinkEmbedCode=5namJvNjprsU66zhZLypfqVzvZlfOAew&height=360&embedCode=5namJvNjprsU66zhZLypfqVzvZlfOAew&width=640&video_pcode=1jZG06vQqWlGOe2jr1WK6VaYFHtK" If you have the Monday following Veteran's Day off and are looking for something to do inside, the movie High Ground can now be streamed on Netflix. The 91-minute documentary follows 11 wounded warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan…
Outside Television is ready to unveil the first phase of a significant programming push with a quintet of original shows. The active lifestyle and adventure-sports proponent, created in mid-2010 from Outside magazine and the former Resort Sports Network, will bow a new season of morning staple Outside Today and present…
The best photos, articles, and videos I didn't post this week—until now. If you only read one thing, check out Matthew Power's story, “Far Rockaway: Global Disaster Zone.” For the best longreads of the week, visit “…
My dog, Brutus, loves his toys to the point where he attacks other dogs that try to play with them. And it’s not just his toys. Say we’re at the dog park and there is a dog that is playing with a tennis ball: He will steal the tennis ball from the other dog and get very mean if that dog tries to take it back or even share it. At home, I have to take his toys away and put him in time out, which is him being sent to his crate.
RYAN STUARTLast year was a tough snow year in most places. But not on Vancouver Island, where pack tested Stuart lives and plays: Mount Washington and the hills surrounding his home received some 45 feet. INGA HENDRICKSONNot only did Hendrickson shoot everything in this issue, but she also…
LITTLE BOY LOSTMany of the search-and-rescue responders who spent countless hours combing the Virginia forests for autistic eight-year-old Robbie Wood Jr. (“Catch Me If You Can,” August) also felt compelled to write in about the story. “Being one of the volunteers involved in this search was…
Michael Brown’s documentary, which grew out of an Outside Adventure Film School project, follows a group of 11 wounded United States veterans as they scale a mountain in the Himalayas.
Just back from the front Kachin Independence Army soldiers take a rest in front of the Laiza hotel MYANMAR'S LAST WARAs Adam Skolnick observes in “The Jesus-Kissed, War-Fringed, Love-Swirled Rangers,” Myanmar's government is engaged in a complicated dance: freeing political prisoners on the one hand, while launching attacks…
To reach the clandestine training camp where he photographed “The Jesus-Kissed, War-Fringed, Love-Swirling Rangers,” South Africa-based lensman Jonathan Torgovnik was smuggled across the Burmese border in a pirogue. Then he was guided at night through a jungle laced with land mines. At the camp, Torgovnik met a…
Some stories take a day to report. Others, like Joe Spring's profile of Navajo cross-country coach Shaun Martin, “Running Down a Dream,” are a bit more involved. “The best stories sometimes take the longest to report,” says Sam Moulton, who edited Spring's piece. For…
A view of the changed coastline in New Jersey. Photo: NASA Goddard Instead of gathering a widespread assortment of the week's best articles, videos, and photos, I've included the most thought-provoking and eye-opening articles on Sandy and her aftermath. Some…
In the winter of 2002, three friends and I headed out of bounds from the Santa Fe Ski Basin for an afternoon of sidecountry skiing in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Our destination was a set of relatively mellow chutes that drop from a ridge just above timberline into…
Fire Season. Photo: Ecco/Harper Collins On Thursday, Banff announced that Fire Season won the Grand Jury Prize in its 2012 book competition. Written by…
The movie poster. Photo: Courtesy of Messner One of the biggest films that screened at the 2012 Banff Mountain Film Competition was Messner, a 108-minute German documentary with English subtitles directed by…
I can’t get my dog to stop knocking over the trash. You got anything fuzzy and “positive” for that?
Step 1: Get rid of all chew toys. They encourage possessiveness.
For life's little scrapes, there are Band-aids; for the hard knocks, there's SourcePoint. Photo: Erika Benson Earlier this week, I took my daughter to get cranial sacral therapy. Pippa is four and recently hit her head on the concrete floor so hard she threw up. My acupuncturist…
A list of the best articles, videos, and photos that I didn't post this week—until now. For the best longreads of the week, check out “Weekend Reading: Invasion!“ ADVENTURE What's the story behind the explosion in popularity of…
America's leading active-lifestyle and adventure-travel magazine is looking for a digital editions designer to join its team. Think you have what it takes? Apply now. Outside magazine, America's leading active-lifestyle and adventure-travel magazine dedicated to covering the sports, people, places, adventures, discoveries, health and fitness, gear and…
“To the Arctic”. Photo: Florian Schulz The Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival is an annual gathering of the biggest names in adventure and environmental writing and…
America's leading active-lifestyle and adventure-travel magazine is looking for a designer to join its print team. Think you have what it takes? Apply now. Outside magazine, America's leading active-lifestyle and adventure-travel magazine dedicated to covering the sports, people, places, adventures, discoveries, health and fitness, gear and apparel,…
Romero near his home in Big Bear Lake, California. Photo: Jennifer Briggs What do you do when you’re 15 years old and you’ve already climbed the highest mountain on every continent? If you’re Jordan Romero, you launch a nationwide campaign to scale the tallest summits in…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=siu6JYqOZ0g What would you like to do if money were no object? Philosopher Alan Watts asked that question of students getting ready to leave school and enter into a career. He's dead now, but thanks to the magic of YouTube, you can listen to his three-minute lecture. Nevermind if you're…
Man's best friend doesn't always come free. In fact, some are willing to pay in the thousands for certain types of dogs, even breeds that are fairly easy to obtain. Though costs will vary based on location and breeder, these 10 breeds often have the highest average price tag.
Each year, the American Kennel Club (AKC) takes a look at their registration statistics to see which types of dogs Americans love best. Their list of most popular dogs in the U.S. for 2012 contained few surprises, with popular breeds like the Poodle and Beagle remaining favorites. But there was one telling pattern: “Bigger breeds are making their move,” said Lisa Peterson, a spokesperson for the AKC. The sturdy and family-friendly Bulldog, Golden Retriever, and Rottweiler moved up in the list this year, showing that many Americans are starting to see big breeds as “more dog to love.” Read on to see which breeds made the list—and which dog claimed the title of America’s most popular.
Our fact-checkers have had some sensitive, even absurd conversations with sources over the years, but nothing compares with a rather definitive exchange research assistant Meaghen Brown had with Burning Man co-creator John Law while verifying the accuracy of this issue's oral history of the festival (“…
This month we turned readers into test subjects, grilling you for your attitudes on travel, sports, environmental issues, risk, and even the features that appear in the issue. (You'll find the results here: Danger, Environment, Sports, Travel,…
https://www.youtube.com/embed/JOHw7lX3Gu4Oh no, a baby elephant is trapped in a well. Prep the rescue rope, and somebody, for God's sake, cue Coldplay. Via: Grind TV The best articles, videos, and photos that I didn't post this week—until now.
To evaluate our performance over the past 35 years, we convened a review board, made up of our most dedicated subscribers, and encouraged them to pull no punches. Gulp. “I still have all my old copies, going back to at least 1994. The funniest thing I ever read in Outside…
If backcountry exploration and filmmaking are two of your passions, then hurry up and send us your video
For the past three years, we’ve been inundated with answers to a simple question via Facebook: “What are you doing outside this weekend?” Behold: your most, er, innovative itineraries.
Unless you're a professional videographer and friends with athletes Julia Mancuso, Kelly Slater, and J.T. Holmes, it's unlikely that any video you shoot with GoPro's Hero 3 Black camera will come off as tight as the five-minute clip the company has put together.
I wouldn't describe myself as a control freak, but turning over a huge chunk of Outside's editorial and photography to readers this month was still a somewhat terrifying experience. When we launched the 35th Anniversary-themed reader-submission pages online in May, asking you to supply everything from images (for…
Ryan Barnhart spent three years commuting two hours each day to a real estate firm in Los Angeles—an experience he describes as “utter, miserable hell.” Then, in 2010, he received Outside's May issue, with our story on the 50 best companies in America. “I applied to all 50,” says Barnhart,…
Rwandan cyclist Adrien Niyonshuti lost 60 of his relatives to genocide in the '90s. This year, he competed in the mountain biking event at the 2012 Olympics in London.
There’s a common misperception that kids younger than five are too little to learn to ride a bike. The other day at our local playground, a couple of parents stopped to ask how old my daughter is. She was tearing around the outer loop, standing up to pump her pedals,…
During our Best Towns 2012 competition, hosted on Facebook over four weeks this summer, residents of 10 finalist towns submitted more than 20,000 votes, posted some 5,000 comments, and uploaded roughly 1,000 photos. But none were quite as convincing as this one, from Richmond's…
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https://www.youtube.com/embed/vkJ5ItzEq3MWatch the jump live above. Red Bull Stratos team leaders say there is a 50-50 chance this morning that Austrian stuntman Felix Baumgartner will lift off in a capsule carried by…
A few facts on the cheetah, via Not Exactly Rocket Science. Go to Jacob O'Neal's website for a larger gif. The best articles, videos, and photos I didn't post this week—until now.
Explaining four of the most common threats in the outdoors
Gannets. Photo: Winged Planet When filmmaker John Downer was in elementary school, he got down in the dirt of his parents' garden so that he could film the insects, frogs, and toads using a Super 8 camera.
This new show from the Discovery Channel offers a bird’s eye view of life on Earth. For more on the making of the show, check out our interview with director John Downer.
A look at ten of the silver screen's oddest, most entertaining, and occasionally even accurate techniques for living through disaster
“Out Living It” will play at the Adventure Film Festival in Boulder, which begins October 4. The best photos, videos, and articles I didn't post this week—until now. If you only click on one…
The most promising films screened at this year's Toronto Film Festival featured adventure seekers and adventure survivors. We reviewed six of them.
In The Deep, a chubby man survives a shipwreck off the coast of Iceland, only to wash ashore to a field of jagged, volcanic rock
Gerald Ford takes the snap. (U.S. National Archives and Recor)U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Photo: Wikimedia Commons “Best athlete” discussions always make for an interesting debate in the sense that they’re always totally stupid and pointless and boundary-less, so you’re basically arguing about completely…
In Kon-Tiki, directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg present a fictional look at Thor Heyerdahl's attempt to sail from Peru to Polynesia
In Venus & Serena, filmmakers Maiken Baird and Michelle Major provide a glimpse into the lives of tennis' most dominant siblings
PASS THE MICFor our second-annual Interview Issue (July) we sat down with nearly two dozen outspoken personalities to talk about everything from the environment to doping to spectacular crashes (yes, we're talking about you, Jeb Corliss). Readers' reactions to the conversations varied considerably.
Reporting “The Devil on Paradise Road,” about the murder of ranger Margaret Anderson inside Washington's Mount Rainier National Park, hit close to home for Seattle-based contributing editor Bruce Barcott. “I've snowshoed across the creek where the killer's body was found,” says Barcott, who…
The best articles, videos, and photos that I didn't post this week—until now. If you only have time to read one link this week, read, “How Silent Spring Ignited the Environmental Movement,” by Eliza Griswold. ADVENTURE Read this. You…
The role that these tiny insects play in our global ecosystem has never been made more clear than by Swiss director Markus Imhoof in More Than Honey, an extreme close-up documentary
Dog, kids, river fun. Photo: Katie Arnold Before we had kids, my husband, Steve, and I swore that we’d never be the kind of parent that neglects their dog when a baby comes along. We’d heard stories of people giving away their pets because of the…
In 9.79*, documentary filmmaker Daniel Gordon examines the 1988 Summer Olympics race that would set the stage for doping scandals to come
https://www.youtube.com/embed/OtY8DpA_XNEPresenting 131 years of temperature data in 26 seconds. (Things get hotter.) The articles, videos, and photos I didn't post this week—until now. If you have time to read only one article from this list, read “Obama's Way,” by Michael Lewis…