Adventure
ArchiveRanulph Fiennes hopes to beat Norwegians
We're pretty committed to covering the newest, most innovative gear here on The Gear Shed, but every now and then there is a product, out for a while, that has evolved over time to set the standard in its class that we feel is deserving of a mention. Such is…
This might be the longest series of unnecessary honks in the history of driver-versus-cyclist confrontations. An older male driver in a Ford SUV, license plate Colorado 893 EKG, slowed behind two bikers out for a Sunday ride near Longmont, Colorado, and laid on his horn for an awfully long…
“San Diego Surf.” Photo: Copyright, 2012, The Andy Warhol Museum In 1968, Andy Warhol and friends moved out to La Jolla, California, from New York to film a surf movie about an unhappy married couple. The footage…
Activist Tim DeChristopher, currently serving out a sentence for fraud in Littleton, Colorado, reacts to losing his appeal last Friday and responds to criticism generated by a post in which he suggested that environmentalists should not vote for Obama
For almost a century, the world's hottest temperature was believed to be a 136-degree Fahrenheit measurement recorded in El Azizia, Libya, on September 13, 1922. This month, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) threw that record out. They gave their reasons in…
“Frozen.” Photo: Mark Tipple, The Underwater Project There's a lot about Australian Mark Tipple's career as a photographer that appears backwards. Take, for example, his beginnings. The…
Josh Tostado overtakes an unsuspecting rider in the early morning Vapor hours. Last weekend, I rode the Vapor Trail 125, an unsanctioned bike ride out of Salida, Colorado. It was my third time at the…
West Mata eruption. Photo: NSF/NOAA In 2009, scientists on a cruise in the Western Pacific sent a remotely operated vehicle 4,000 feet below the ocean surface and discovered a two-mile high volcano called West Mata erupting 2,200-degree Fahrenheit lava in bursts scattered over the area…
The seventh edition of America's biggest climbing film show features sport climbing showdowns and high-altitude epics
Everyone experiences the occasional bad day at the office, and having an alternative career to fantasize about is a reliable coping strategy. Marine biologist. Fly-fishing guide. Ski patroller. A good friend and writer I've worked with on many stories over the years used to suffer from chronic bouts of…
Winds were on the lighter side as the world’s best windsurfers began to battle on the first day of the KIA Cold Hawaii PWA World Cup.
A pika in its talus home. Photo: Karunakar Rayker By Mary Ellen Hannibal When Chris Ray got started studying pika, she could not have anticipated that these small rabbit relatives would one day become a poster child…
A former corporate lawyer whose back-of-the-napkin plan to kayak from Minnesota to Florida was so awesomely deranged, we decided to pay his way
After years of sounding the climate-change alarm, writer Bill McKibben realized that gentle persuasion wasn’t cutting it. So he got mad. Then he got busy: tweeting, organizing, protesting, getting arrested, and becoming Big Oil’s biggest threat.
Sentence necessary to 'promote respect for the law'
Forty-eight of the world’s best male windsurfers prepare to compete for the title of world champion in wave performance.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TfCb33_nPe0 For more than 10 years, Survivorman Les Stroud has ventured into the backcountry alone and recorded his wilderness experiences. He’s traveled to more than 25 locations, racked up 200 days of solitude, and…
It's hard enough learning to surf. Just try it when you can't see and your instructor is deaf.
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 animals we punish, the sports we can't play, and the fickle thing that is public opinio
There has been no better series about the making of an adventure movie than Sweetgrass Productions' 12-episode collection On the Road. The Colorado-based crew chronicled all the stink, snow, and blood that went into making the ski flick…
Yosemite National Park confirmed on Thursday that a ninth person had contracted hantavirus, according to Reuters. The park visitor, from California, has recovered. The notice came a day after the park notified roughly 230,000 people about the outbreak by email, according to the…
EPSON DSC picture Larry Gibson, keeper of Kayford Mountain. Photo: Vivian Stockman The Appalachian Mountains lost a hero on Sunday, September 10. Larry Gibson, the face of the fight against mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia, died of a heart attack while…
With evidence piling up that Armstrong cheated to win, should he confess and ask his fans, enemies, and cancer-fighting supporters to forgive him? As Brian Alexander explains, that would be the worst move he could make.
Entering the cave. Photo: Rechitan Soran/Shutterstock Not long before Thanksgiving in 2009, 26-year-old University of Virginia medical student John Jones, his wife Emily, and their 13-month-old daughter flew home to Utah. Emily was pregnant, and the couple…
In a last-ditch attempt to preserve some of the only green spaces left on the eastern edge of Jerusalem, the city plans to build a series of national parks with an extensive network of trails. Is this an honest effort to encourage tourism, or a political attempt to keep Arab neighborhoods from expanding?
Michael Lewis, President Barack Obama. Photo: Official White House Photograph/Pete Souza Reporter Michael Lewis followed President Barack Obama for six months in order to write the profile “Obama's Way.” At its core, the Vanity Fair story is a…
Reporter Devon O'Neil of ESPN has closely followed the career of Swedish alpinist and skier Andreas Fransson for years. When the trailer for Tempting Fear, a new movie about Fransson was released this week, he wrote…
With the Chinese government restricting foreign access to Tibet and, thus, Cho Oyu, skiers and climbers may head to Manaslu in Nepal. Cho Oyu is the world's sixth highest peak, and one of the best options for skiers looking to make an 8,000m descent. Benedikt…
It started as a bluebird New Year's Day in Mount Rainier National Park. But when a gunman murdered a ranger and then fled back into the park's frozen backcountry, every climber, skier, and camper became a suspect—and a potential victim.
In the 16 years since Into Thin Air, Mount Everest has become safer in many ways, with better storm forecasting and amazing high-altitude rescue helicopters. So why did 10 people die in 2012?
Conundrum Hot Springs party people, mid-August. Photo: Will McGough By Will McGough, Wake and Wander Sitting in the nearly 100-degree water, among several naked bathers in the Conundrum Hot Springs near Aspen, Colorado, I looked around at the pine…
Contador wasn't as dominant as ever, but it was still enough to win his second Vuelta. Photo: BrakeThrough Media It's tough to be a cycling fan in this country. Case in point: Over the weekend, the Vuelta a España finished with…
Due to low snowfall and unstable avalanche conditions in many areas of the lower 48 this past winter, the crew at Powderwhore decided to follow skiers and snowboarders to more exotic locales. They packed light and fast, so their gear didn't interfere or slow down…
After the first day of drilling landmark oil well
Even after he won the U.S. Open Men's Title at the NSSA National Championships as a senior in high school, Greg Long knew he wanted to dedicate his life to chasing big waves. Grinding out a tour was not his…
Despite a less than stellar winter for snow on the East Coast in 2011, Meathead Films and their athletes decided to stick out warm temperatures, rainfall, and, later, icy slopes. They were rewarded with at least one big storm that offered plenty of powder.
ext_script = "//player.ooyala.com/player.js?height=360&deepLinkEmbedCode=B4amp1NTrCIQBfaeuqn9NpIaD6_jF929&embedCode=B4amp1NTrCIQBfaeuqn9NpIaD6_jF929&width=640&video_pcode=1jZG06vQqWlGOe2jr1WK6VaYFHtK" There are only three days until the world premiere of Reel Rock 7, the country's biggest touring film festival dedicated to climbing. Earlier today, Sender Films and Big Up Productions…
Kayaker Erik Boomer's audacious plan to paddle 45 miles of the world's hardest whitewater—in a single day
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 poaching, the science of processed food, and the history of environmentalism.
Climber hanging. Photo: Rudall30/Shutterstock Scientist Daniel Lack used experience as a motivator for his study on climbing rescues, deaths, and accidents in Boulder County, Colorado. Lack started climbing at 24 at the Kangaroo Point…
Normally, Kilian Martin's skateboarding videos feature tightly edited footage of spins, headstands, and ollies set to lilting or brooding music. The 25-year-old Spaniard's choreographed freestyle moves play like a ballet, with his board flying gracefully over concrete, off brick walls, and down metal rails. In…
Photo: Egan Snow/Flickr As summer wanes and garden harvests start to dwindle, this news lands with a thud: a recent study performed at Stanford University indicated that eating organic produce doesn’t necessarily mean eating more nutritious produce. If you figured this would…
It's the second week in a row I've posted a surf short by director Chris McLean as the Adventure Video of the Week. Normally, I try to avoid such repetition, but I picked Uncommon Ideals because it won…
Gould at the 2012 World Cup in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Photo: Colin Meagher When Georgia Gould, 32, won bronze in mountain biking at the London Olympics…
Vaughters names Vande Velde, Zabriskie, and Danielson
Combine guerilla filmmaking with rails, concrete, and skis and you have Stept Productions new movie The Eighty Six. It's not all about pushing boundaries in the city. The crew visits pipes and mountains too. Still, the trailer makes it clear that the thrill comes from notching new, restricted ski spots…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=nV4XcnNBPm8 Once again, Russian President Vladimir Putin has thrown himself into an obscure outdoor adventure. This time he donned a white suit and goggles before taking off in an ultralight to guide six endangered Siberian Cranes through the air. Andrew E. Kramer's…