Outside Magazine, Mar 2005
Stories
POSTs
No one denies that our 50th state is Paradise, USA. But anyone who's ever been to this lush chain knows a simple truth: Not all the islands are created equal. So which is best? Welcome to the Great Hawaiian Island-Off. Read on, and pick your perfection.
Let Cancún have the crowds. Four spots that lend style to spring debauchery.
Wherever you're going, today's digital audio players have the memory and muscle to keep the tunes coming
Boom-shaka-laka: Explore the old-school landscape of retro runners and seventies sneakers cool enough to take you back to the future
FOR TODAY’S SURFERS, knowing where the planet’s best waves are hitting is as easy as tapping the Web for weather and buoy data. The challenge is getting there before the swell subsides. Enter surfwear mega-labels Billabong and Quiksilver, which are sponsoring the ultimate rapid-transit system for their pros: 1950s-era Grumman…
Sore and suffering after a long day? Flush away the pain and restore your mojo with these eight feel-better tools.
How best to describe Jack Johnson? Surfer? Filmmaker? Multi-platinum rock star? How about the luckiest friggin’ guy on the planet? Raised on Oahu’s fabled North Shore, Johnson, 29, began competing in pro surfing events in 1992, at age 17. He quit to study filmmaking at UC Santa Barbara, and his…
Michael Crichton debunks global warming in his latest thriller. Bill McKibben says the book's bunk.
Will Dirk Pitt's creator sink the fictional adventurer's Hollywood career?
An 812-mile effort to revive the spirit, if not the tactics, of the West's most notorious monkey-wrencher
While carbon fiber and titanium are today’s much-hyped materials of choice for everything from sunglasses to F1 race cars, bamboo is emerging as nature’s own sustainable performance material. The supergrass is nearly as strong as steel and can be woven as soft as silk for one-twentieth the cost. It also…
HARDY IF NOT HEFTY, the 125cc, two-stroke, Soviet-era Minsk motorcycle is the vehicle of choice on the intermittently paved roads between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Put one to the test on this 18-day Easy Rider–meets–The Motorcycle Diaries tour, which parallels the route of the historic 1,500-mile…
Flush with tech-boom cash and answering to no one, 'Alpinist' chronicles the exploits of a loosely aligned group of climbers known as the Brotherhood, who devote themselves to difficult routes, minimal gear, and big-time pain and suffering. Are these guys just a holier-than-thou elite—or the salvation of mountaineering?
For regular guys, slam-dunking seems like an impossible dream. But the quest to soar is a fitness jackpot.
The catastrophic Christmas tsunami hit Thailand's climbing meccas hard. Railae Beach resident SAM LIGHTNER JR. reports on the nightmares and miracles of the aftermath—and on the Thais and expats rebuilding their slice of paradise.
With an anti-environmental backlash inflicting one defeat after another on conservationists, a band of maverick economists is riding to the rescue with a startling revelation about the true value of our natural resources: Follow the money, and you end up in a very green place.
F E A T U R E S
COVER STORY
HAWAII O-FIVE
Grab your shades, wax your board, and check out our tropical-paradise smackdown, in which we scour the Aloha State’s sweetest shorelines, lushest mountains, coolest adventures, choicest chow, and hippest nightlife—then we let you decide which island is the big kahuna of beach-bound delight.
» KAUAI: Wild Thing By Amy Linn
» HAWAII: Big Island Hot Spots By Kent Black
» LANAI: Luxe Outpost By Ethan Watters
» MOLOKAI: Real Aloha By Joe Kane
» OAHU: Blue Diamond By Alex Heard
» MAUI: A-List Island By Daniel Duane
THE PURISTS
Drop that bolt gun! Alpinist is a glossy, anti-commercial mag that celebrates climbing big, dangerous mountains in the toughest way possible. Its readers and fans may be cultish and doctrinaire, but such are the burdens for artists of high altitude.
By Rob Buchanan
“THERE CAN’T BE A WORD FOR THIS”
One casualty of the South Asia tsunami was a vibrant cluster of sport-climbing beach towns in Thailand. A resident returns to tell a tale of death, survival, and an inspiring alliance of hope.
By Sam Lightner Jr.
AS A MATTER OF FACT, MONEY DOES GROW ON TREES
What does cold, hard cash have to do with red-blooded environmentalism? Research from a band of pioneering economists provides a startling answer: Saving our natural heritage isn’t simply a good idea; it’s the smartest investment we will ever make.
By Bruce Barcott
D E P A R T M E N T S
DISPATCHES
» Surfing, singing heartthrob JACK JOHNSON on his new album, living in Oahu, and not bowing to critics
» ENVIRONMENTALISTS ATTACK THE WORLD! According to Michael Crichton’s latest thriller, State of Fear, that is. (But BILL McKIBBEN thinks it’s pretty stupid.)
PLUS: Penelope Cruz and Matthew McConaughey stage their own BIG-SCREEN APOCALYPTIC ADVENTURE in Sahara; and more.
» Look what ‘boo can do! BAMBOO —a natural, ultralight, high-performance material—sets a new standard for everything from bikes to clothing.
» JET SET: Surfing’s A-Team takes to the sky in tricked-out seaplanes for assaults on any break anytime
» Even if LANCE ARMSTRONG skips this year’s Tour de France, you can catch him this spring at Europe’s classics
» Sore and suffering after a long day? Flush away the pain and restore your mojo with these EIGHT FEEL-BETTER TOOLS
» Jump on the HAYDUKE TRAIL a new, unofficial 812-mile footpath, which links six national parks in southern Utah and northern Arizona.
» Forget Cancú;n. Four SPRING BREAK ALTERNATIVES
» Vietnam’s Magical Motorcycle Tour Mount a Soviet-era Minsk motorcycle and follow the route of Vietnam’s historic 1,500-mile HO CHI MINH TRAIL
» THE WILD FILE tells you how eagle-eyed our national bird is, what Earth would be like without the moon, where people live the longest, and more
REVIEW
Whether you’re sitting through a transatlantic flight or flying down singletrack, music makes it sweeter. We tune in to the latest DIGITAL AUDIO PLAYERS —and pick the best for your activity. PLUS: A brand-new bag of old-school SNEAKERS from Nike, Adidas, Reebok, and more.
BODYWORK
SLAM-DUNK FITNESS: Our basketball-impaired scribbler’s three-month dunk-training regimen shaves 22 pounds off his frame and supercharges his weekend sports. (Getting above the rim is just a bonus.)
OUT THERE
Why are a bevy of burly Fiins and their international commiserators weathering a 230-degree sufferfest in the subarctic summer of Heinola, Finland? It could only be the SAUNA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS .
By Lawrence Millman