Exploration & Survival
ArchiveWhat would it be like to ride a rocket at super high speeds just above a really long road? That's the question Giacomo Miceli, a creative coder, computer scientist, and self-proclaimed entreprenerd from Rome, asked himself as a child. He decided to find out as…
There's no shortage of epic timelapse videos popping up on Vimeo, but few chronicle their shots in a way that allows you to learn something. Photographer Sean F. White gathered footage in 24 countries on all seven continents over the course of six years to…
A Q&A with an Outside in Aspen participant
Sylvester Ayek survives by subsistence hunting and by turning his take into art. The Inupiat elder carves the ivory from walruses into jewelry and sculptures. In The Bone Carver, the Nome, Alaska, resident shares how he learned to hunt…
As astronauts spend more and more time in space, their bodies degenerate. Gravity doesn't exist as it does on earth, and so there isn't the same amount of resistance from weights. During space flight, astronauts experience a force of gravity one-millionth as strong as we experience on earth. In such…
https://video.sky.com/embed/external/16234036 Gary Connery became the first man to jump out of a helicopter in a wingsuit and land safely without the aid of a parachute. The 42-year-old jumped from an elevation of 2,400 feet and flew in the air for 50 seconds at a…
Falcon 9 lauch. Photo: SpaceX Yesterday, the same man that sent a rocket into space also had his company announce the release date for one of the most efficient electric cars on the market. Elon Musk, the 224th richest…
If you want to see the difference between night skies with and without light pollution, you can't do much better than the video above. The World at Night recently announced the winners of the…
Sarah Outen was rowing somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean in 2009 when she decided to go on a longer journey. “I wanted more of it,” she said in a recent email. “And I wanted to…
For 24 years, from 1986 until 2010, there were no mortal encounters with grizzlies in Yellowstone National Park. But four deadly incidents over the past two summers have hikers on edge, reigniting the fierce debate over bear management.
While many gun proponents remain adamant that firearms offer better protection against a charging bear than pepper spray, a growing body of scientific research suggests otherwise
If you're heading into bear country this summer, heed these important tips from Kerry Gunther, bear management program leader for Yellowstone National Park
Ever been out traveling or an a wild adventure when you felt, all of a sudden, like you were no longer at the top of the food chain? Here, experts explain how to avoid becoming lunch.
In March 2007, Gary Arndt sold his house and promptly called the road his home. Half a decade later, after bagging every continent and more than a hundred countries, he's no closer to dropping roots.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lUZ-e2SkeMI Six days ago, Laughing Squid posted the above highlight reel from a Danish TV Show called Dumt and Farligt (Stupid and Dangerous). It immediately went viral, and expectedly so. It features gratuitous hi-def shots in super slow mo…
Tim Hetherington in February 2011 A year ago today, Chris Hondros, a New York-based photographer on assignment for Getty Images, and Tim Hetherington were killed while covering battles in Libya between government forces and rebels. Many of the details surrounding the incident are fuzzy, but…
One year ago today, photojournalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros died after a mortar shell exploded near them on Tripoli Street in the city of Misrata, Libya. They were embedded with rebels fighting the army of Colonel Qaddafi. Hondros died…
Jason Puracal with his sisters More than five years ago, in the small town of San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, a 28-year-old American expat from Tennessee named Eric Volz was charged with the murder of his beautiful ex-girlfriend.
Australian adventure photographer Krystle Wright has toughed out a lot of assignments in her first six years of shooting. When the now 25-year-old showed up to the Elephant Polo Championships in Nepal, there weren’t enough teams, so she volunteered for a new squad, hopped on…
By the winter of 1854, the Advance crew had been trapped for almost two years, their ship frozen in ice just below the North Pole. Some had lost limbs to scurvy and frostbite; some had succumbed to Arctic hysteria; all of them were starving.
In the last decade, athletes have freeBASE'd the Eiger, paddled into 70-foot-plus waves, and dropped more than 100 feet off waterfalls. What’s next? And how will the stories be told? We asked the world's biggest adventure icons.
Photo: Flikr/tkd540 With their commercial use permits on hold, horse pack operators in Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks aren’t taking trip reservations and are nervously awaiting a May 23 hearing at which U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg will outline…
Meet the men and women on the knife's edge of exploration
He was a proud Marine who survived three brutal tours in Iraq and had plans to redeploy with the national guard. But when 30-year-old Noah Pippin vanished inside Montana’s remote Bob Marshall Wilderness, he left behind a trail of haunting secrets—and a mystery that may never be solved.
Veronika Scott's initial coat design, with Tyvec shell. Photo: Brittany Thomasson In 2010, while pursuing her degree in product design at Detroit's College for Creative Studies, a single idea changed the course of Veronika Scott's life. She decided to make a coat. Not just any…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=tbjzZHuGTng%C2%A0 Twelve-year old Tom Schaar has been skating since he was four, but only started attempting the 1080 a couple weeks ago. The Malibu-based prodigy made four attempts on March 26—and nailed it on his fifth try, landing three complete mid-air rotations off a 70-foot tall mega ramp at Woodward…
The nation's four best wilderness first aid courses
Some might say this is the perfect telescope for the star-searching newbie. If you can't hone in on the galaxy you're looking for on your own power, Celestron's Prodigy 6 robotic self-aligning telescope will find it for you. Using electronic motors, an intelligent on-board computer, a…
Kathy Willens/ Associated Press The rancorous feud at New York’s 108-year-old Explorers Club has finally drawn to a close. Yesterday, the board of directors gathered at the club’s Manhattan headquarters and voted to oust controversial president Lorie Karnath in favor of Alan Nichols, a San Francisco-based…
Photo: Young Hoon Oh Young Hoon Oh, South Korean PhD candidate in anthropology at UC Riverside, is headed to Nepal at the end of the month to attempt his second Everest summit. But his itinerary extends well beyond the days he'll try to reach the top…
In the heart of New York City, a power struggle is under way at the century-old Explorers Club—with claims of tyranny aimed at Lorie Karnath, the current president. She says her detractors are mired in the past, and in a fight this rough, somebody isn’t coming back alive.
In 2009, Outside readers met Colton Harris-Moore, a smart, slippery teenager who became notorious for stealing cars, boats, and planes in the Pacific Northwest. The climax came a year later, when Harris-Moore swiped a small plane in Indiana, landed in the Bahamas, and vanished.
In this teaser for HBO’s Real Sports, BASE jumper Jeb Corliss crashes into Table Mountain. The show airs this Sunday at 10 Eastern.
Badenoch, training. Photo: Joe Bell This spring, Andrew Badenoch plans to launch a 7,000-mile trip from Bellingham, Wash., up to the southern coast of the Arctic Ocean, before looping back. His locomotion will…
Some of us are scoring powder days, while others are getting skunked. Either way, it’s shaping up to be a weird and dangerous winter all across the country—and nowhere is this truer than the backcountry. So far, 8 skiers and boarders and four snowmobilers have…
The husband and wife team perform their Wingsuit versus Edge 540 stunt in the video above. Read more in “As Long as They Both Shall Live.”…
Facial Landscapes, By Cory Richards By now, you've heard all about Cory Richards and his film Cold, which won big awards at Banff Mountain Film, Telluride…
In November, 2010, slackliner Andy Lewis rigged a 130-foot length of webbing between two sandstone cliffs outside of Moab, Utah, and walked it—out and back—with no safety harness or net. The line, dubbed Shakes McCoy, was the longest anyone had ever free-soloed. Lewis has soloed 44 highlines—swaying, bouncing…
BASE stands for “buildings, antennae, spans, and earth,” and jumpers parachute from these and other fixed objects—an incredibly risky pursuit that has claimed at least 180 lives since 1981. The world’s deadliest sport has no governing body, but the online magazine Blinc maintains the official BASE jumping fatality list (BFL), which assigns each dead jumper a B
Professional daredevils Rex and Melissa Pemberton were drawn together by a mutual passion for risk and adrenaline. Now they have a marriage based on love, trust, and the strange, stoic acceptance that their life partner could die at any moment.
The sign read, “Tenaya Canyon is extremely dangerous. Many have lost their lives in the attempt.” Thus warned, my 78-year-old dad was set to hike and rappel through it. And I had agreed to join him.
ext_script = "//player.ooyala.com/player.js?height=317&deepLinkEmbedCode=gycHlhMzqXtZ8oFXZTsgVYUFt9vsv93J&video_pcode=1jZG06vQqWlGOe2jr1WK6VaYFHtK&embedCode=gycHlhMzqXtZ8oFXZTsgVYUFt9vsv93J&width=563" After a jump from Cape Town’s Table Mountain this morning, Jeb Corliss crashed and broke both his legs while filming for HBO. The 35-year-old fell roughly 200…
On December 20, actor Gerard Butler was held down by a set of 10-12 foot waves at Maverick's. He was out surfing the break with Greg Long, Peter Mel, and Zach Wormhoudt…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=q72uhQeTCmM Here's a survival story to wake you up on a Monday morning. On December 31, 22-year-old Australian tourist Erin Langworthy jumped from a bridge over the Zambezi River attached to a bungee cord. The cord broke and Langworthy briefly blacked out…
Alone in a vast Alaskan wilderness, seven teens fend off a grizzly bear—then try to stay alive
Felicity Aston wants to become the first woman to cross Antarctica alone. The 33-year-old English explorer plans to travel more than 1,000 miles—to the geographic South Pole before veering off on a path towards Hercules Inlet. The journey…
A guy calls, says he found some mysterious papers left behind by a dead relative who apparently shrunk human heads and bodies. Do we wanna come see? Uh, no. But we knew Mary Roach would.
Since the release of 127 Hours, a certain canyon in Utah has become a lot more popular—and dangerous
ext_script = "//player.ooyala.com/player.js?deepLinkEmbedCode=xuZXYyMzoqJXug2nw7YJ3bWfhe9wrBKp&height=357&video_pcode=1jZG06vQqWlGOe2jr1WK6VaYFHtK&embedCode=xuZXYyMzoqJXug2nw7YJ3bWfhe9wrBKp&width=566" This past weekend we posted Yve Rossy's TED talk online. This morning, his crew sent us video of his latest stunt. The swiss pilot donned his wing, jumped out of a helicopter, and flew above the Swiss Alps with two Breitling jets.
The swiss pilot and self-proclaimed Jetman flies above the Swiss Alps with a team of Breitling jets.
A few months ago, National Geographic put a picture of swiss pilot and self-proclaimed jetman Yves Rossy on its cover. In the picture, Rossy is casually looking right while flying in a bright red suit under the cover of his carbon fiber wing—which…
No GPS or weather reports—just a sailboat, the wild open ocean, and the constellations. Think you could find your way across the South Pacific? James Campbell rides along with a master navigator in the Caroline Islands, where they’ve been sailing this way for thousands of years.
By Patrick Symmes, Guest Blogger Taking a child kayaking is the easy part—kids and water mix well. But like trout, kayaks only thrive in beautiful places, and that means hard driving and long going. Kids don't always deal with a long drive as well as a wet splash. Passing through…
A few weeks ago we reported on Jeb Corliss's plan to shoot through a hole in China's Tianmen Mountain while wearing a wingsuit. This past weekend, the American flew through the 360-foot-tall, 96-foot-wide, 260-foot-long hole after jumping out of…
The skyrocketing market value of yarchagumba, a rare fungus prized as an aphrodisiac, has led to turf wars—and possibly murder.
ext_script = "//video.losangeles.cbslocal.com/global/video/videoplayer.js?rnd=979014;hostDomain=video.losangeles.cbslocal.com;playerWidth=420;playerHeight=315;isShowIcon=true;clipId=6105845;flvUri=;partnerclipid=;adTag=News;advertisingZone=CBS.LA%252Fworldnowplayer;enableAds=true;landingPage=;islandingPageoverride=false;playerType=STANDARD_EMBEDDEDscript;controlsType=fixed" A couple who took their 80-lb. dog for a hike this Saturday in the Angeles National Forest ended up spending a night on the trail after their canine refused to budge. Baxter, a labrador mix, stopped after cuts on…
Go behind the scenes as photographer Michael Muller shoots surfer Josh Mohr for our August 2011 cover.
A couple months ago, we ran a Q&A with writer Jon Turk and photographer Erik Boomer, two arctic explorers who were awarded a grant from Eddie Bauer First…
Every year the goriest moments from the Running of the Bulls flash across television screens, but the instances of bravery that follow are often cut out. Presenting the ten most dangerous moments at the Fiesta de San Fermin, from start to finish.
Satellite-linked emergency devices give backpackers, skiers, and boaters fingertip power to cry for help. Alas, people often cry wolf.
Futuristic new submersibles are poised to take crews to earth’s greatest depths. It may get crowded down there.
(Noa Ginella on his way to 1st place in the SUP cross.) Last week I went to the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado, to standup paddleboard in whitewater rapids. It’s hard to explain why whitewater SUPing is so…
Before heading up to Alaska, Christopher McCandless spent time exploring the Western U.S. The following video clip highlights some of that journey, with narration courtesy of Hal Holbrook. For more about Christopher McCandless, check out the Back to the Wild DVD.
Hi, my name is Katie and today I'm launching this blog, Raising Rippers, about bringing up adventurous, outdoor kids. Before our first daughter, Pippa (that's her below), was born, a friend of mine gave me the best parenting advice I’ve ever gotten: Start off as you mean to go on.
Tony Nester of Ancient Pathways, a.k.a The Survival Guru, shows you a primitive method of food procurement.
Tony Nester of Ancient Pathways, a.k.a. The Survival Guru, shows you the correct way to put out a camp fire.
Tony Nester of Ancient Pathways, a.k.a. The Survival Guru, shows you how to carve food paddles.