Outside Magazine, Feb 2003
Stories
POSTs
As the political controversy over the future of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reignites, a journey across ANWR's disputed territory explores the realities of a place where wildlife, native traditions, and the search for oil converge in fateful proximity
America's park rangers are outnumbered and outgunned. So why won't congress pay more to keep them safe?
He's got a three-week Greyhound Discovery Pass, a map of mom-and-pop ski hills, and a yen to see the west from the vantage of a pungent window seat. From Utah's Beaver Mountain to Idaho's Bogus Basin, our telemark-toting reporter logs 5,000 miles in search of the answer to the immortal question: where's the fresh?
Canoeing the jungles of South America, where freedom is a family affair
Long overshadowed by poly-based pile, a more athlete-friendly, itch-free wool is back-and everywhere
When it comes to winter sports, there are skills, and there are skillz. We're talking about catching big air off the halfpipe, making like Apolo Ohno on skate-skis, building a perfect snow ramp for launchpad jumps, and climbing a frozen waterfall. Ready to get with it? Then listen to the mad wisdom of pros who know.
The cassowary—Australia's six-foot-tall, 180-pound jungle bird—is a pushy, hard-pecking, head-butting, talon-swiping thug on the loose, and humans trespass in its habitat at their own risk. But on our writer's wary quest to confront this beast, he learns to spare a little sympathy for a fightless victim just fighting to stay alive.
Cinematographer Howard Hall captures coral reefs, swarming sharks, and life below 300 feet
DROP CITY From Our Pages FIRST, A LITTLE CHEE-CHEE Then Some Other Weird Sports BY BILL VAUGHN (Arrowgraphics, ) IN HIS “ULTIMATE instructional manual for anyone who’s sick and tired of trying to do the right thing,” contributing editor Vaughn holds forth on sabotaging…
The world's best tracker of new primate species shares secrets for finding fuzzy little guys in the woods
F E A T U R E S
EXPEDITION SPECIAL
THE COLDEST WAR
The Siachen Glacier is one of the most forbidding battlefields in history—a ragged ice shelf set amid the 21,000-foot peaks of northern India and Pakistan. In the war over Kashmir, the 19-year-old Siachen conflict has become a grim standoff between two armies that, when not dodging artillery, confront threats like avalanches and cerebral edema. In an Outside exclusive, we go to the front lines, where the scale of human suffering is matched only by the environmental degradation wracking one of the last great swaths of unexplored terrain in the world.
By Kevin Fedarko
BUMMING ON THE POWDER HOUND
Who needs expensive ski trips when you can ride the Dog all over the West and pow down at mom-and-pop mountains? Pack your skivvies and hop aboard! We’ve got a Greyhound Discovery Pass, a jones for the fresh, and lots of road ahead.
By Jon Billman
FOOTPRINTS IN THE LAST WILD PLACE
As the new GOP-dominated Congress remounts efforts to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, the dean of American naturalists visits the pristine wilderness—and argues that ANWR is an environmental fight that we can’t afford to lose.
By Peter Matthiessen
BIG BIRD GONE BAD
Australia’s southern cassowary is a creature right out of Jurassic Park—an avian predator the size of an NFL wide receiver, with razor-sharp talons and no qualms about kickboxing humans. Development may be chewing up its scarce habitat, but this brazen endangered species is not about to go quietly.
By Charles Graeber
D E P A R T M E N T S
DISPATCHES
The Bush administration trims the budget for National Park Service law enforcement, ignoring a flood of PARK VIOLENCE . PLUS: New on Nova, Jon Krakauer and Conrad Anker scale Antarctica’s VINSON MASSIF ; how to find a MONKEY IN THE WOODS ; for sale, AMERICA’S CUP racing yacht, slightly used; filmmaking 300 FEET BELOW the Pacific; BOOK REVIEWS ; and this month’s RADAR .
THE WILD FILE
Where would a compass needle point in outer space? Why do we name groups of animals “parliament” and “exaltation”? Why do cows have four teats?
By Brad Wetzler
DESTINATIONS
The forgotten Pacific coast of GUATEMALA offers isolated surf breaks, miles of mangrove swamps, hikeable volcanoes, and fishing that would turn Hemingway green. PLUS: Idaho’s first backcountry HELI-SKI LODGE ; a new TREK IN SIKKIM .
THE HARD WAY
A dugout-canoe trip down South America’s Suriname River, homeland of the Saramaka, reveals a brave people with a horrific past and an uncertain future.
By Mark Jenkins
REVIEW
The WOOL REVOLUTION is stepping up. Companies are spinning the stuff into lightweight, high-performance blends that are nearly indestructible and hardly ever itch. PLUS: A camp stove that starts in a snap ; a sleeping bag stuffed with goose down plus synthetic insulation ; and more.
BODYWORK
Need a few NEW TRICKS this winter? Jump-start your repertoire by learning how to take on the halfpipe, skate-ski past the shuffling mob, pull off sick freestyle ski jumps, and become an ice-climbing acrobat.