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My 12-year-old daughter gets very cold at night when we’re camping. We are backpackers and tend to camp just under treeline between May and October. She currently uses a junior polyfill bag with an inflatable pad and some good long underwear. What could we do to keep her warm and give us a peaceful night’s sleep?
1. Most frontside skis are too precise and exhausting for freeskiing. Not the pared-down CX 80, which does away with heavy add-ons like complex binding plates for a more responsive feel. It’s ten millimeters fatter than most, but its World Cupinspired…
In the Store: If you’re buying just one pair of skis (and not building a quiver), look for a set that matches your style of skiing and the terrain you frequent 70 percent of the time. And don’t be afraid to upgrade: Buy skis slightly above…
ON THE LEFT Columbia’s moisture-wicking Omni-Dry Mountain Tech Thermal Baselayer. ($60; columbia.com) Few‘s acrylic Moa Hunter Sweater, for the bold. ($54; few.co.nz) Aigle‘s lightweight Polartec recycled-fleece Walker Track Jacket. ($105; aigleusa.com Obermeyer‘s insulated Tungsten Jacket is tricked out…
In guitar god Ted Nugent’s new book Ted, White, and Blue, an addendum to Blood Trails 2 and God, Guns, and Rock & Roll, “The Nuge” plays political advisor and addresses issues ranging from John Lennon’s call for peace to “soulless, ugly, Planet of the Apes, anti-American, brain-dead” health…
BRETT DENNEN talks to Outside's RYAN KROGH about backpacking, fishing, and his new album.
You'd better be: You just paid $87 for your lift ticket. Follow our preseason fitness plan and make last year's halfhearted half-days a distant memory.
Kelly Slater takes time out after his ninth World Surfing Championship to answer a few questions
John Long was living the greatest adventure of his life, sailing home from San Francisco to his native Ireland. But when his beaten and bruised body was found floating off the lawless, empty coast of Chiapas, it was a scene that sailor and author David Vann knew all too well.
If you thought the drilling frenzy out west was temporary, think again. But there's a right way to do it, and it's up to the next president to lead the charge.
Thomas Friedman's climate-change manifesto is bound to be a bestseller. And that's a good thing.
Like the father he hardly knew, Kye Petersen is out to conquer the biggest mountains around
Before Lost’s Jack Shephardbefore even the Skipper and Gilliganthere was Robinson Crusoe. Now NBC is bringing the original desert-island castaway to television. Crusoe, premiering Friday, October 17, stars Philip Winchester (Flyboys, Thunderbirds) as the shipwrecked Brit who learns to live off the land while warding off pirates and cannibals. COLE…
What gets 50 miles per gallon but not a second look in the U.S.?
A legendary animal showman says he's going to reinvent the zoo. Too bad his vision sounds a lot like the circus.
Like it or not, the kings of action sports have a new hobby. It involves fast cars, big air, and piles of sponsor cash.
This month, NASA astronaut and mountaineer John Grunsfeld, 49, will blast into orbit carrying a 9x12 Zeiss Maximar B folding camera that belonged to his friend Bradford Washburn—a pioneer of aerial photography and Alaskan mountaineering who passed away last year at 96. The camera is the same one that Washburn took on his 1937 expedition to Canada's St.
Descendants of Shackleton's 1908 South Pole crew set out on another attempt
Bike-friendly Congressman Earl Blumenauer talks to Outside’s Matthew Fishbane.
I'm looking for a watch for my husband that offers ski features, such as number of runs, speed, vertical for individual runs, and total vertical. Measuring distances would be good, too, as he is also a runner. I'm willing to spend up to $500 and would like it to look good (maybe something in titanium). Debbie New York, New York
A boy with dwarfism. A man with dorkism. Whenever Ross and I hit the trail, things have a way of not working out.
The guy many consider the most talented snowboarder in the world (check out That’s It, That’s All, on DVD in September) prefers Ayn Rand to South Park? Favorite Books: Atlas Shrugged (1957). “Rand writes about [finding] the power of self through will. People underestimate themselves.” Films: Zeitgeist:…
Thanks in large part to Al Gore, environmental documentaries have moved from low–rent anonymity to bankable cinema. These three DVDs get the entertainment/inspiration balance right.
New York chef Tyler Florence has a fresh backdrop now that he's moved to Mill Valley, California. The host of the Food Network's Tyler's Ultimate embraces his new coastal lifestyle with two cookbooks, the Kitchen Handbook and Dinner at My Place, both due out this fall. Here are five tips from Florence to keep you dining in the open air long into Ind
It's the only way to save the crown jewels of American public land
This month's 560–page Fallen Giants, by professors Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver, is the most exhaustive narrative history of Himalayan climbing to date. It's also the subject of this month's quiz. Pencils out—begin!
A Patagonia scion helps reinvent his family's company as a surf brand
A bachelor and two housemates (plus chickens) versus a married man with an infant (plus onesies). Who saps more watts from the grid? Armed with a new device that monitors their real-time energy use, Grayson Schaffer and Christopher Keyes engage in a carbon-footprint smackdown—squarely on the grid.
Earlier this year, the prince met with members of Cycle of Life, a British biking charity that was about to depart on a 5,000-mile ride through Africa. Reporter CHARLIE NORTON was on hand for the royal send-off.
Shaun White, the snowboarder, skater, and now fashion designer (!), recently launched his new casual line with Target. Following the big-box store’s other celebrity releases, the “Shaun White” line is mostly sporty T-shirts and hoodies, printed with graphics drawn by White’s brother, Jesse. Kind of makes us wonder whether anyone…
Our picks for the shows you can’t miss at the folk rocker’s favorite outdoor venues.
But heroin, meth, and thuggery are. Can skate pioneer and Dogtown legend Jay Adams set himself straight?
A British freediver attempts to counter her archrival by swimming a natural tunnel on a single breath
In the tradition of the 1986 Run-D.M.C.–Aerosmith collaboration, rapper Ludacris and raunch-rocker Tommy Lee will star in Battleground Earth, a reality show premiering Sunday, August 3, on Discovery’s Planet Green. The premise: The bad boys tour the country in biodiesel buses and tackle “eco-challenges” along the way. At one point,…
A 20,000-mile round-the-world motorcycle jaunt should be enough to cure any midlife crisis. Which makes us wonder about Ewan McGregor. Three years after his circumnavigation of the globe—seen in the 2004 film Long Way Round—the Scottish actor got the itch again. This time, he and friend Charley Boorman set off…
Pro kayaker Berman, 29, made a name for himself by hucking hundred-foot waterfalls. But this fall, he's attempting his most daring feat yet: running for the legislature, as a Democrat in Washington State.
“You go ahead and get this race out of your system,’ my wife told me. ‘But I don’t want to get a call from Butte saying your butt’s bleeding.”
Meteor showers have been letting me down for years, but this time I'm getting myself to the right dark place on a perfect night. Celestial bodies, it better be good.
We need your help! Vote here on Outside‘s October 2008 cover. Outside October 2008 Cover Poll The two choices for Outside's October 2008 cover. Click Here…
A degenerative nerve disease is destroying the body of Jeff Lowe, one of climbing's greatest athletes and innovators. He's seen hard times before, on mountains and in life. But how do you keep going when there's no way up?
It's the antithesis of the bleached-out, overfished reefs that divers find around the world—a place where the sea is still bursting with life, and hope for the ocean endures. Pull on a tank in Indonesia's remote Raja Ampat and witness diving's final frontier.
Team Slipstream thinks it can save cycling with a drug-testing program unlike anything else in sports. I wasn't so sure—until I wound up living with their team captain at the Tour of California. Pass the remote.
But it isn’t because of my dance moves: my life at the helm of a Colorado River latrine raft
The West’s desperate water shortage may get a year’s reprieve. Last winter’s epic snowpack—in some places the biggest since the 1960s— is fueling the best whitewater season since the invention of self-bailing rafts. The timing couldn’t be better: 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
Traveling to Canada no longer comes with a discount, but our neighbor still has eight times as much wilderness as we do
Flatten your bike tire on a thorn and you can patch the inner tube or swap in a new one—no problem. Damage the tire itself (say, by tearing your sidewall on a sharp rock)—much bigger problem. Here's a quick field solution to keep you on the roll.
“Would you like to? Do you want to? Would you like to? Do you want to?” For days, these wordsset to techno elevator musichave been on repeat in my head, thanks to the Earworms Musical Brain Trainer ($17; earwormslearning.com), a new audio course that promises to effortlessly infiltrate my skull…
Can a televised environmental makeover save an obliterated Kansas farm town from vanishing again?
Science writer Richard Preston has chased stories up 400-foot redwoods (see his 2007 book The Wild Trees) and into medical-research labs (1995's The Hot Zone), where his biohazard suit ripped open, potentially exposing him to a deadly, unidentified virus. In Panic in Level 4 (Random House, $26), a collection of updated stories
Over the winter, in Yosemite Valley, the 28-year-old superclimber from Davis, California, notched the country's hardest trad climb, meaning she used nuts and camming devices only to catch her falls. It took Rodden 40 days and more than 80 attempts to scale Meltdown, a 70-foot, overhanging, finger-width crack rated 5.14.
What outdoor things can I do while in Charleston, SC? Nicole Fort Atkinson, WI
I’m climbing Kilimanjaro this summer. Does it make sense to use a silk liner on the inside of my sleeping bag and a vapor barrier liner on the outside of the bag? Lauren Edmonton, Alberta
Upsetting King Federer again will take more than being the fittest man in tennis. Andy Roddick also has to chill out.
I'd like to get a bike to ride the Katy trail. I'm nearly 60 and haven't ridden a bike in years. Should I get a mountain bike or a hybrid? And do you have any suggestions for gear? Phyllis Rolla, Missouri
I have a pair of Montrail ICE 9 insulated boots that I used on Aconcagua with insulated gaiters. I'd like to take them to Denali with a full overboot. The guide outfit, however, recommends double boots only. Should I go ahead with my set-up? Dean Bittern Lake, Alberta
Sirius Satellite Radio has a novel strategy for attracting listeners: Hand the mike to a mob of unapologetically raunchy action-sports DJs and turn off the censors.
Karl Stanley is a stubborn, unconventional big talker with some powerful enemies. He's also a fearless mad genius who's reinvented DIY exploration in his homemade submarine. Ready to climb aboard?
GPS units in hand, obsessed adventurers are roaming the world to claim a new set of firsts: 16,232 places where major lines of latitude and longitude intersect. Sound geeky? Not when your sweet spot is at 17,000 feet on the side of a remote Bolivian volcano.
To set up your own anchor for a climbing top rope (or slackline, or car stuck in a ditch), all you need is a 20-foot piece of webbing, a carabiner, and a tree.
How badly do professional cyclists want to compete in the fast and fabled pelotons of Europe? So badly that even riders without a prayer of winning big still roll with drugs, lies, and mortal danger. It's a life that can ruin more than a career. Just ask Joe Papp, an ex-pro who lives the doper's nightmare.
PORTSMOUTH ISLAND, NORTH CAROLINA – On a weekend last summer, while the rest of the beachgoing world descended upon overrun sand traps like Nags Head and Virginia Beach, I took a 4×4 and a shortboard and made for Portsmouth Island. There are a few selling points to this skinny, 18-mile-long…
