Culture
ArchiveOur 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.
If backcountry exploration and filmmaking are two of your passions, then hurry up and send us your video
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…
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…
ext_script = "//player.ooyala.com/player.js?height=360&embedCode=Ixa3h2NTryeS7tCL5-9aYuefHEKCrNZG&width=640&video_pcode=1jZG06vQqWlGOe2jr1WK6VaYFHtK&deepLinkEmbedCode=Ixa3h2NTryeS7tCL5-9aYuefHEKCrNZG" 9.79* debuted on ESPN this week. The best articles, photos, and videos that I didn't post this week—until now. If you only have time to click on one link, go to “…
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…
The world of surfing meets the age of 3-D cinema in Justin McMillian and Chris Nelius' new film
An adventure into the world of big wave surfing with Aussie legend Ross Clarke-Jones and two-time World Champion Tom Carroll. Read our Q&A with the filmmakers.
“57 Feet and Rising,” by W. Hodding Carter, won gold for U.S./Canada Travel Article. Photo: Christopher LaMarca If you're looking for a great longread, the Society of American Travel Writers just announced the winners of their annual…
The most ambitious environmental documentary since An Inconvenient Truth tries to make the case that we just might win
The best articles, photos, and videos that I didn't post this week—until now. If you only have time to check out one of these links, read “Elephants dying in epic frenzy as ivory fuels wars and profits,” from The New York Times. ADVENTURE Everyone else remembers…
Image: DDB Group China Car sales in China are a wee bit flat right now, but it’s still one of the world’s largest car markets. Congestion in cities is so bad that local governments have begun restricting how many people can drive each day. Despite that,…
ext_script = "//player.ooyala.com/player.js?video_pcode=1jZG06vQqWlGOe2jr1WK6VaYFHtK&height=360&width=640&embedCode=BndzhyNTralMV4IeHBWlpG2T2nNh9zHv&deepLinkEmbedCode=BndzhyNTralMV4IeHBWlpG2T2nNh9zHv" The best articles, photos, and videos of the past week that I didn't post—until now. ADVENTURE That Associated Press article on Tyler Hamilton's new book missed the mark. Read this. Outside A former personal assistant to Lance Armstrong…
The news leaks about The Secret Race have vastly undersold its importance. Tyler Hamilton’s book is a historic, definitive indictment of cycling’s culture of doping during the Armstrong era.
Tyler Hamilton’s new book, The Secret Race, makes it impossible to believe Lance’s story anymore
Rigging the raft for hands-free floating is key. Photo: Katie Arnold You know how sometimes you ask other parents, including your own, for advice or insight about kid-related quandaries, and so often people scratch their heads and mumble, “Uh, I can’t remember?” And you find this…
Over the course of their careers, Chris Sharma and Adam Ondra have both been able to lay claim to the title of world's strongest sport climber. But watch this engaging clip from Sender Films' and Big UP Productions' La Dura Dura, and you can see that's about where the…
In Lumbering Planes, artist Callum Cooper has made a trippy video about trees. It's packed with footage shot from a swinging camera. The first reaction I had when watching the short was, How did he shoot it? Sculpture of Lumbaring…
Earthrise As Seen By Lunar Orbiter 1 on 23 August 1966 via Space Ref Photo: LOIRP/NASA The best articles, videos, and galleries that I didn't post this week—until now. Lance Armstrong Judge sides with USADA…
Filmmakers Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson discuss Samsara, their world tour of mesmerizing images that force us to think about humanity and our relationship to the eternal
In August’s Premium Rush, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a bicycle messenger who gets mixed up with criminal forces and must ride for his life. Astute (or simply awake) moviegoers will note the similarity to 1986’s seminal Quicksilver, in which Kevin Bacon plays a bicycle messenger who gets mixed up with criminal forces and must ride for his life. We
There is something about a bicycle that stirs the soul. In some souls, the act of riding also inspires the act of writing and, naturally, as one wheel follows another, there are books about bicycles. These are our favorites.
The quiver at Oh Be Joyful Campground. Photo: Katie Arnold There are few places in the Rockies more beautiful than Crested Butte. The Colorado mining town-turned-mountain-biking-nirvana sits at the dead-end of a wide, lush valley in the exact middle of the state. Ringed…
Watch Lucas Brunelle's controversial documentary about the world of alley cat racing
The best stories, videos, and photos I didn't post this week—until now. OLYMPICS It should be mathematical, Propeller via Science of Sport Extremely close up at the Olympics, The New York Times Analyzing Semenya’s race, The Science of Sport…
This month marks 25 years of amazing footage, corny hosts, and fake blood for the Discovery Channel’s most-watched series
Paul Hildebrandt began a love affair with space as a child through science fiction. As an adult, the director has set out to make a documentary called Fight for Space. “Since the Apollo era of the 1960s, NASA's…
Photo: Srineet/Flickr It is common knowledge at this point that the United States of America is the greatest country in the world, which was verified after the Americans won the Olympics. (104 medals, 46 golds, y'all.) Other perks for winning the Olympics: ownership of the sun,…
For years, outdoorsman and hunter Steven Rinella dreamed of felling a Dall sheep, North America's most difficult game animal. After seeing his friends come home with horns of their own, in this excerpt from his new book, Meat Eater: Adventures of an American Hunter, he went all in and booked a trip to the Alaska Range.
Allie Bombach on location. Photo: Miguel Tercero What is it about movers and shakers? What makes them tick? Filmmaker Allie Bombach wants to know and is using her MoveShake film series to uncover some answers. The year-long project debuted in early June with the…
Photo: sam_churchill/Flickr The five things you should know if you were only going to know five things about the final weekend at the Olympics. 1. Jamaica’s 4x100m relay team ran around a track in less than 37 seconds, winning the gold medal and…
The week's best articles, videos, and photos that I didn't post—until now. OLYMPICS The Olympics most painful moments in GIFS, Mashable Breaking down the Women’s Olympic Marathon, The Science of Sport On Yohan Blake, weight lifting, and muscle cells, Sports Illustrated Olympic bodies: They just don't…
Photo: markhillary/Flickr The five things you should know if you were only going to know five things about yesterday at the Olympics. 1. Usain Bolt won gold in the 200m, repeating his sweep of the Olympic sprint races because of course he did that. No…
Photo: ianpatterson99/Flickr Everything you need to know about tonight's Olympic primetime coverage—without knowing what actually happened. MEN’S POLE VAULTAs with all throwing events, you don’t really have a choice whether or not you want to watch this. It actually ends up being a pretty…
In this weekly roundup, we scour the Web for our favorite long-form magazine and newspaper articles, collecting them here and on Longreads and Twitter. This installment focuses on the deodorant we wear, the hospitals we visit, our online lives, and the future of solar po
In Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution, participatory journalist Doug Fine wades into the world of legal cannabis farming and comes out with a harsh critique of the war on drugs
For the 40 years since the adaptation of the James Dickey novel of the same name hit theaters, Deliverance has endured because it gets at a fundamental truth about our relationship with the wild
Photo: Erik van Leeuwen/Wikimedia Commons The five things you should know if you were only going to know five things about yesterday at the Olympics. 1. The U.S. moved back ahead of China in the medal standings, currently leading the way with 82 medals compared to…
Photo: Erik van Leeuwen/Wikimedia Commons Everything you need to know about tonight’s Olympic primetime coverage—without knowing what actually happened. WOMEN’S 10M PLATFORMThe Chinese diving team will be looking to bounce back from yesterday’s “disappointing” silver medal in the men’s 3m springboard competition. As is always…
The world's best gymnast is a 16-year-old African American. Shani Hilton explains just what that means.
The first big Olympic news to come out on Instagram? Well, a photo revealed that Michael Phelps' girlfriend is a 20-something blonde bombshell. Aside from that shocker, there are other photos that reveal personal details about the athletes. A lot of the…
Photo: tommarsh/Flickr Everything you need to know about tonight's Olympic primetime coverage—without knowing what actually happened. WOMEN’S LONG JUMPThe last American to win this event was Jackie Joyner-Kersee in 1988. Brittney Reese will be looking to change that, as she’s the favorite heading into the…
Last spring, Bear Grylls walked away from one of the sweetest gigs in the adventure world. Was it career suicide? Or a savvy move by a born survivor?
ext_script = "//player.ooyala.com/player.js?height=360&embedCode=41cnBrNTqXHVVaCGyB46F-Q0OCL1NPlL&width=640&video_pcode=1jZG06vQqWlGOe2jr1WK6VaYFHtK&deepLinkEmbedCode=41cnBrNTqXHVVaCGyB46F-Q0OCL1NPlL" When Legs of Steel asked on their Facebook page whether they should release the trailer to their new movie, Hurt So Good, one fan's answer pretty much summed up the energy of the clip. “If…
Photo: ianpatterson99/Flickr Everything you need to know about tonight's Olympic primetime coverage—without knowing what actually happened. MEN’S PARALLEL BARSFeng Zhe of China comes in as the favorite. He’s the 2010 world champion and will be expecting to win his second gold after a first-place finish…
Photo: ianpatterson99/Flickr Everything you need to know about tonight's Olympic primetime coverage—without knowing what actually happened. MEN’S RINGS China’s Chen Yibeng comes into the event as the overwhelming favorite. In addition to winning rings gold in Beijing—with what’s maybe one of the best rings routines…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_hEzW1WRFTg The best videos, photos, and stories I didn't post this week—until now. OLYMPICS Is Michael Phelps the greatest Olympian ever? ESPN For Pistorius, nothing left to do but win, The New…
Photo: marcopako /Flickr The five things you should know if you were only going to know five things about yesterday at the Olympics. 1. Something obvious: Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympian ever. He has six more golds than anyone and now has more total medals…
Superheroes of Stoke Trailer from MSP Films on Vimeo. Twenty years after releasing their first ski film, Matchstick Productions is taking a look back. Their newest film, Superheroes of Stoke, follows some of freeskiing's biggest new…
Ben Sutherland The five things you should know if you were only going to know five things about yesterday at the Olympics. 1. We’re maybe seeing the beginning of the career of the greatest female swimmer ever. Or, according to others, we’re seeing a 16-year-old on…
Photo: marcopako /Flickr Everything you need to know about tonight's Olympic primetime coverage—without knowing what actually happened. WOMEN'S TEAM GYMNASTICSThe U.S. women come in looking for their first team gold since 1996’s “Magnificent Seven.” Can they become the—sorry Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard,…
Every Olympic year, a slew of newspapers, magazines, and websites put out photos of scantily clad or completely nude Olympians. Outside did it this year with pictures of Lolo Jones by Robert Maxwell and Trey Hardee by…
Matt From London/Flickr The 2012 Olympics kicked off on Saturday—if you don't count soccer, which you should—and a lot of things happened. It's not easy to keep up with it all, especially since NBC's streams have been especially screwy, so here are the…