Adventure
ArchiveOutside magazine, June 1999 Borne-Back Blues Like the straight and narrow? Then forget about the Columbia River Highway. My Delta, Myself | A Little Good, Clean Lust in Utah |…
Outside magazine, August 1995 Books: Dances with Bigfoot By Miles Harvey The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing and the Formation of American Culture, by Lawrence Buell (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, $35), and Walden: An Annotated Edition, edited by Walter…
Outside magazine, September 1997 Crude Awakening Torpedoed 55 years ago off central California, a once-forgotten tanker presents a sticky dilemma By Christopher Weir Warning: Your Kids May Be Listening to Yanni Sure, they figured…
Dispatches: News from the Field, November 1996 Business: Steeper, Deeper, Higher Profit Margins Merger mania sweeps the ski industry, raising the stakes, the expectations, and the specter of monopoly By Andrew Tilin One of the worst purchases Les Otten ever made…
 Outside magazine, January 1998 FIRST TRACKS Feeling a little wobbly on those teles? Get yourself in school. Whether you want to become immersed in all the intricacies of backcountry skiing or just get your feet damp, there are courses to fill whatever…
Outside magazine, September 1995 The Flatland’s Private Big Blue What’s so great about the Great Lakes? Big water, big winds, big wilderness. By Mike Steere Great Lakes people use statistics calculated to amaze–like the lakes’ six quadrillion gallons of water being enough…
The lures of the Southern Ocean are few. Seven-story avalanches of frigid sea. Blinding squalls of snow. Hull-peeling icebergs. There’s little sane reason to sail this territory, unless you’re a sportsman looking to shatter the round-the-world record — or are assigned to rescuing someone who foolishly thought he could.By…
As the sun sets on the gilded age of hot-air adventuring, a few fat cats look for ways—any which way—to keep pushing the envelope
Outside magazine, September 1998 Hey Neighbor First: Get to Know the Locals. Next: Dress to Blend In. And Finally: Seize Canada Fashion by Vicky McGarry, Photographs by Cathrine Wessel, Text by Susan Casey It’s tough to find on maps,…
Outside magazine, September 1999 Murder Most Fish They call him Flipperùbut America’s newspaper of record calls him a warm-blooded Ripper. Our man investigates. By Tim Cahill A recent New York Times story blasted dolphins right…
Outside magazine, November 1995 Paddling: Who Was That Fast Man? By Todd Balf (with Joe Glickman) At the start of the 715-mile Finlandia Clean Water Challenge, the world’s longest kayak race, South African Lee McGregor paddled into Lake Michigan from the Chicago shore at…
 Reaching the Untouched Wall: The Kok Shal Tau Climbing Expedition Summer 2000 A lot can happen en route from Utah to an untouched valley in China’s Kok Shal Tau range. Via dispatches from the trail, follow four young climbers half way around…
Dispatches, October 1998 Odysseys Extra Socks — Check. French Girlfriend — Check. Three-Year Supply of Kitty Litter — Um … Check. In one of history’s more audacious acts of voyaging, Reid Stowe is preparing to hoist his sails, slip his mooring, and…
Outside magazine, February 1996 Going to Extremes By Larry Burke Most sporting pursuits have a maximum mecca, a magnetic place somewhere on the globe boasting the kinds of challenging terrain or spectacular conditions that hard-core devotees can’t resist. For boardsailing, it’s Maui. For scuba…
Outside Magazine, March 1999 Our Business is People. Well, People and Trout. Actually, People and Trout and Some Ancillary High-Margin Items Like Neoprene Waders and Midges and the Like, Because, You Know, That’s Where the Real Profits…
Review, May 1997 Books: Adrift in the Flow By Miles Harvey Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, by John M. Barry (Simon & Schuster, $28). This gripping account of the epic flood that killed at…
Family Vacations, Summer 1996 All You Need is Dirt Want to be a hero? Repeat Us. Fat tire, is good, fat tire is good… By Vincent Sanchez Our Favorite Places | The Hysterical Parent…
Outside magazine, September 1994 Books: The Marlboro Man’s Lament By Andrea Barrett Biting the Dust: The Wild Ride and Dark Romance of the Rodeo Cowboy and the American West, by Dirk Johnson (Simon & Schuster, $22). In the rodeo version of the American cowboy myth,…
Don’t miss: Video clips of “Thor” in action, from the International Hurling Society Outside magazine, August 1995 It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Case of Spam! In Texas they’re chucking commodes, Buicks, and…
Outside magazine, April 1995 Cowboy Nation: Introduction Whatever the decade, whatever the mood, we always have Shane in our hearts. A salute to the most dependable and deconstructed American hero. By William Kittredge Before I could read, I learned to imitate buckaroos…
Outside magazine, July 1994 Service With a Stickup Are your chambermaid and mule guide friendly? Courteous? Under indictment? By Debra Shore Ironically, the biggest threats to your safety and property in several of our most popular national parks may be the very people hired…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Swimming: Odds That A Chinese swimmer will test positive for steroids……..1-1 Brooke Bennett will beat Janet Evans……..2-1 Caterpillar fungus will be America’s next health-food craze…..100-1…
Outside magazine, October 1994 Mountaineering: Grivel Grippers By Douglas Gantenbein It’s really tough fighting the government,” says Anchorage attorney Neil O’Donnell. “They’re presumed to be right–unless you can show they acted arbitrarily, capriciously, or irrationally.” Last summer, in a case that O’Donnell helped bring, a federal…
Outside magazine, October 1995 Trends: How to Get Low-Level-Pollutant Clean By Mark Jannot Capitalism at its best: ozone, the same pollutant that can singe our lungs, is now being marketed as the key to a crop of new air-purification systems. “Ozone is nature’s cleansing…
Bodywork: Fitness for the Outside Athlete, November 1996 The Symmetrical Solution Correcting your natural imbalances may just be the secret to superior fitness By Cory Johnson At first it was merely a blister on her left foot. Lynn Doering had just…
Outside magazine, April 2000 Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 Spin Control Clay Ellis…
The Downhill Report, December 1996 There’s a Reason They Call It a Brewski Six of America’s Best Microbrews The Brew: Long Trail India Pale Ale The Ski: Stowe, Vermont Our Hopsmeister Says:…
Outside magazine, January 1999 Take Two of These and Call Me from the Podium Will a new wonder drug replace exercise? By Theodore Spencer Here it is, the news we’ve all been patiently awaiting…
News for Adventurous Travelers, February 1997 Bad Birds, Bad Birds By Paul Kvinta Get on the wrong side of a Texan and he’ll kick your ass-even if he’s a bird. Famous for their orneriness, the following avian toughs are not birds you’d…
Outside magazine, April 1995 Cowboy Nation: Viva Calf Ropers For ten days each year, Las Vegas is rodeo heaven–and the boys with the pigging strings are Wayne Newton By Lynn Snowden For ten days every December, Las Vegas becomes cowboy country.
Outside magazine, May 1998 Field Notes: How Swede It Is Few races reveal as much about those who run in them as the all-but-flawless O-ringen By Bucky McMahon Before anything else happens, the moose need to be moved. And so,…
Destinations, May 1999 Cabo? Sure. But Not That Cabo. East of San Lucas’s sun-drunk hordes, the Baja that was still is By Jeff Spurrier Hustle and bustle, East Cape-style: an amphibious traffic jam…
Outside magazine, July 1995 Paddling: Last One There is a Soggy Egg By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard and Alison Osius) Churning across the flatwater speed course at Ellen Trout Lake in Lufkin, Texas, last April, two-time Olympian Traci Phillips earned the title “fastest…
Dispatches, August 1997 M O U N T A I N E E R I N G More of the Same Another season on Everest brings eight deaths — and plenty of close calls By Andrew Tilin…
Shark Alley, August 1998 The Shark Blotter When man meets fish By Mike Grudowski More people perish each year, it’s been said, from coconuts falling on their heads than from shark attacks. These luckless victims probably would’ve preferred to take…
Outside magazine, November 1997 Whither the Eco-Warrior? Amid financial crisis and disturbing allegations, Greenpeace USA heads in a familiar new direction By Florence Williams Girls Will Be Boys When you’re the top-ranked female surfer in the world,…
Out Front, Fall 1998 Activism Butterfly is Free And so, in this case, is the publicity she seeks By Bill Donahue In the beginning, she was but a pilgrim with a decidedly funky name. Julia “Butterfly” Hill, a 24-year-old…
Winter Travel Guide 1996 Bet You Never Thought Of… By Laura Billings SOUTH PACIFIC Bikini Bottoms For nearly 50 years the only civilians to set eyes on the shipwrecks off the Bikini atoll–site of atomic bomb tests between 1946 and 1954–were…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: I Don’t Want To Tell You: A GOP Candidate Forum “Dear Republican Presidential hopeful,” our polite letter began. “We’d like to hear your views on a couple of major environmental issues and pose a character-testing essay question: ‘If…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: Coping With Atlanta the Violent Mood-Swing Way If you’re like us, you have mixed feelings about the Atlanta Olympics. Ponder the dynamic performances to come, the pageantry, and the first-time medal status of deserving sports like mountain biking, and…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Evaluation: Matchmaker, Shoemaker? By Sara Corbett We’re not all fortunate enough to have a knowledgeable running-shoe salesperson at the local sporting goods store — someone who’ll gently intervene when we snatch up the first comfy pair we find, who’ll deftly…
Outside magazine, September 1994 Boots for the Path of Most Resistance With a big load on your back, your footwear standards had better be rigid By Glenn Randall Stiffness–in backpacking boots, anyway–is next to godliness. Stiffness is what shields your feet from roots and…
Outside magazine, May 1998 Access & Resources Montserrat, minus the lava By Katie Arnold Another Day Under the Black Volcano Once you get over the fact that two-thirds of Montserrat is now buried under a thick…
Outside magazine, April 1996 Big Water: Will the Real Colorado River Please Rise Up? A $4.5 million experiment unleashes a deluge of habitat-restoring froth By Rob French It will begin with the touch of a human finger. An engineer will press a…
Outside magazine, August 1999 Hey (Hey!) You (You!), Get Off of My Trail! Can’t we all just get along? Apparently not. By Jill Danz Temporary détente at New Jersey’s Tourne County Park…
Outside magazine, August 1999 THE MAINE GUIDES Custom of the Country They make their own paddles. Their own pemmican. Their own packs. They make you happy. Welcome, tenderfoot: the Conovers on Sebec Lake, Maine…
Outside magazine, December 1995 Schizophrenic? Start a Compost Heap. By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta “Let yourself be absorbed by the creek or the cloud formation,” psychologist William Cahalan urges his clients. “Feel its healing power.” For Cahalan and a growing fringe of therapists…
Outside magazine, January 1998 Wildlife: For Me? You Shouldn’t Have. A Republican from Idaho says he has a gift for our endangered species. Which raises the question, What’s the catch? By Allan Freedman Drop and Give Me…
Destinations, February 1999 Long Weekends You’re Carving Where? Top-notch cat-skiing in an unlikely spot I‘d come a long way to see Charlie’s Bottom, and I wasn’t going to be denied. After a two-hour flight from…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: Germanimo! Why is this tribal clan looking so…Teutonic? Because they’re Indianers, part of a 100,000-strong German subculture whose members play-act the lifestyle of North American Indians. Inspired by the nineteenth-century pulp novels of Karl May (whose fictional German hero,…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Ride With Pride: Rid Yourself of Pain Shock absorbers: the next generation By Alan Cote Suspension technology isn’t going to stop bouncing rapidly forward, so you’ll need to invest in it with a certain mindset: Worry less…
Outside magazine, April 1999 Letters: Uncorked As a former commercial salmon fisherman now fighting to preserve the fish that once filled my nets, I appreciated your effort to reexamine the role of our nation’s dams (“Blow-Up,” February). As…
Outside magazine, June 1995 Milestones: Fabien Mazuer, 1976-1995 By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard and Alison Osius) French sport climber Fabien Mazuer was an athlete you could love: smart, playful with the press, and immensely talented. While still a teenager, he pulled off some…
Outside magazine, September 1995 Environment: Operation Snuff Smokey A slew of bombings casts the U.S. Forest Service in a new role: victim By Jonathan Franklin Guy Pence is sleeping better these days, though it’s still hard to escape the recurring thought, What…
Outside magazine, October 1996 Bless You, Sir, May I Jog Another? By Devon Jackson The path to enlightenment and lasting world peace is an arduous journey. But for the long-shuffling disciples of Sri Chinmoy, spiritual visionary and proponent of ultra-endurance athletics, their 2,700-mile,…
Outside magazine, April 1999 Drop and Give Me a Month’s Worth Why modern calisthenics can bridge the gap between gym and field By Kevin Foley You may be approaching the warm months with enough…
News from the Field, January 1997 Enterprise: Seeing the Forest for the Fish One man’s subaquatic quest to clean up on history By Carl Hoffman Scott Mitchen insists he’s not trying to rub our noses in his good fortune. It’s just…
 Outside magazine, April 1999 The Report Card Want to know which groups are making the grade? So did we. By Florence Williams Ecotrust Founded: 1991 Members: None Staff: 25 Executive Director: Ian Gill,…
Outside magazine, June 1996 Film: The Big Whoosh Jan De Bont find star power in Mother Nature’s wrath By Johnny Dodd His last movie dealt with a psychotic who threatened to blow up a bus. Now director Jan De Bont (…
Gone Summering, July 1998 Heaven Can Wait The timeless terrain of the Smokies all but screams eternity. But first there’s a lot more fishing to do. By Donovan Webster The West Prong and Beyond…
Outside magazine, July 1998 Out There: Lord of the Flies And the bees and the wasps and all the other biting bastards that walk upon the earth By Tim Cahill The bug scream is a distinctive human sound. It…
Out Front, October 1997 Present at the Creation By Paul Kvinta The Nike Swoosh “Thirty-five dollars,” Carolyn Davidson says. That’s how much Nike paid her in 1971 to create one of the most recognizable logos in history. But the fledgling shoe…
Outside magazine, October 1998 Is Time Running Out for the Mythic Man Fish? The greatest breath-hold diver the sport has ever seen By Paul Kvinta Looking back on it, I should have suspected trouble right…
News from the Field, December 1996 Environment: Pssst, Mr. President, Have I Got a Parcel for You With wilderness to be saved and the coffers closed, the feds start swapping By John Brinkley After country-rock crooner Bonnie Raitt and more than…
Outside magazine, June 1996 Please Don’t Eat the Shrubbery In what amounts to the most revolutionary breakthrough in waste disposal since indoor plumbing, Americans in the dusty Southwest and elsewhere are flooding their backyards, stocking them with snails, hibiscuses, and bamboo, and letting these “wetlands” decompose…
Outside Magazine, February 1995 Boardsailing: Dunking Robby By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard) Robby Naish, sailing in the long shadow of perennial world champion Björn Dunkerbeck, appeared to have his rival’s number during the wave-performance competition in last November’s season-ending Aloha Classic at Maui’s…
Outside magazine, March 1996 Use a Shovel, Go to Prison By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta (with Brian Alexander and Steve Law) It was, the prosecution said, a message to those who feel it is their “special right to destroy, loot, and plunder this…
Outside magazine, May 1995 Big Bass and the Men Who Love Them By hook, crook, and crawdad–live from the hunt for the world’s tubbiest largemouth By Brad Wetzler Shortly after Los Angeles cracked open during last year’s earthquake, Castaic Lake, a man-made…
Outside magazine, July 1999 The Rock-a-Copter The Diving Dig | The Cartwheel | The Figure Four | Take the Stairs | The Crossover Dribble |…
Outside magazine, September 1996 Peter Bird, 1947-1996 In the last message he sent to the world after leaving Russia, expedition rower Peter Bird exclaimed, “Hooray! Hooray!” After weeks of struggle in the Sea of Japan, the easterlies he’d been praying for had finally kicked in, setting…
Outside magazine, July 1996 Culture: Yo, Dog Breath! You Call That a Charge ? Is your living room ready for Craig Bone’s in-your-muzzle wildlife art? By Todd Wilkinson Wildlife painter craig bone, 40, has been called “the craziest white man in…
Outside magazine, January 2001 A Hard Place I WAS BRIEFLY A “guest” of the Turkish secret police in the Kurdish area near Iraq, have stood guard over sleeping friends along fluid borders of war-torn nations, and…
Outside magazine, March 1997 OK, Now Where Are the Pedals? Having swapped his bike for an Indy Car, would-be speed racer Greg Lemond considers the road ahead from a very new vantage point By Ned Zeman…
Family Vacations, Summer 1997 The Adventures The Tenderfoot’s Almanac Tents and trails, guides and grub, and everything else you’ll need for the finest family backpacking trips Family Adventure Camps From sailing school to digging for artifacts, eight learning…
Outside magazine, June 1999 Et Tu, Kitty? Stalking a scratching, slinking army of feral cats through the ruins of ancient Rome By James Hamilton-Paterson On a recent visit to rome i had the initial…
Outside magazine, August 1995 Climbing: Black Diamond SuperGenius By Rod Willard Good thing Mr. Spock wasn’t much for scaling rock faces: Packs designed for climbing are generally…well, illogical. They’re either too big to take to the top or too small for stowing the hardware…
Outside magazine, September 1997 Look Ma, No Shame With their exploits comes a plaintive cry for attention. Who are we to argue? By Elizabeth Royte To be heard above the din of like-minded expeditioners and gain the attention of a…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: For You, I Get It Wholesale Want to buy a chunck of Jackson Hole, Taos, or 38 other Forest Service-owned mountain tracts that are now leased to ski-resort operations? If Republicans in Congress have their way, you may get…