Adventure
ArchiveOutside magazine, March 1996 Soaring Fortunes By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta (with Brian Alexander and Steve Law) Things are suddenly looking up for America’s long-woeful nordic skiing teams. Last December, Todd Lodwick won an early-season World Cup event in the nordic combined–which features…
Outside magazine, June 1996 Oops, Missed a Spot News that surveyors have been inaccurately marking the South Pole for years came as a surprise, even to Gordon Shupe of the U.S. Geological Survey, who concedes that the Survey’s recent adoption of global positioning system technology has…
Dispatches, June 1997 Sport: All the Guts, None of the Glory Tim Twietmeyer has won the Western States 100 Mile Run four times. Nuf said? Apparently not. By Brad Wetzler What draws a person to ultramarathoning is anyone’s guess.
Outside magazine, June 1997 Dr. Pepper For the seasoned traveler, the world is but a backdrop in the quest for the perfect chili By Randy Wayne White Perfection is a goofball pursuit, one that’s not only subjective but ultimately self-defeating:…
Outside magazine, September 1996 Jong-yul of the Desert On Thursday, June 6–seven months, seven pairs of shoes, and innumerable sandstorms after leaving Nouakchott, Mauritania–38-year-old South Korean Choi Jong-yul strolled into Suakin, a Sudanese port on the Red Sea, to become the first person ever to walk…
 Outside Magazine, November 1994 Radioactive and Here to Stay Say it loud and say it proud: Uranium City, Saskatchewan, boomtown, ghost town, antimecca of the atomic age, is still a great place to glow in. By Rebecca Lee From above, it’s…
Outside magazine, January 1996 Skiing: Outta My Way, Girlfriend! Hilary Lindh is the most successful woman downhiller in U.S. history. So why is she trying so hard to play catch-up with Picabo? By Hal Clifford “I always wind up looking like a…
For years, virtually no one could beat Lynn Hill to the top of a climbing wall. Then along came Isabelle Patissier, and beyond a shadow of a doubt things are changing.
Outside Magazine, February 1995 Marathon: Chariots of Permafrost By Ken McAlpine Whiteout. Headwinds that set your cheeks to slapping the back of your neck. Then a starting pistol fires and a hundred fleecy distance runners peel out across the permafrost, taking baby steps lest…
Outside magazine, March 1997 Lean, Green, and Amazingly Serene An ode to Moss Man, who after 28 days in a hot spring emerged a changed person By Randy Wayne White The reason I was reluctant to participate in the bizarre…
Outside magazine, May 1996 Walking the Walk By Brad Wetzler Veteran through-hikers like to answer the question, “How do you go about hiking the Appalachian Trail?” with the chest-thumping response, “Drive to Springer Mountain and start walking.” Don’t believe them. Most undergo a Kennedy-Space-Center-style…
Outside magazine, June 1998 Out There: Getting Up Again What you do when the bottom drops out of your world By Tim Cahill Televised baseball. October play-offs. Someone hit the ball and there it went out into center field,…
Outside magazine, June 1999 Music Concerto for Cricket and Frog in B Minor Maestro and mayor, Phillip Bimstein goes wild in search of harmonic convergence Unlike most musical composers, Phillip Bimstein has little…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Beach Volleyball: Odds That… Reno and McPeak will garner gold……..1-1 The American duo will hug after the match……..75-1 Sinjin Smith and Carl Henkel will medal…..100-1…
Outside magazine, September 1997 Bet My Bentley Can Smoke Your Rolls From the Great Wall to the Eiffel Tower, would-be Andrettis put their classics to the test By Carl Hoffman Why Is This Woman…Still Standing? Ultradistance…
Dispatches, February 1998 EVENTS Have Corpulence, Will Hurtle Think there’s no sport too absurd for the X Games? Get a load of shovel racing. By Gretchen Reynold True, the cold season’s competitive-sports options for big-boned fellows with a fondness…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Mountaineering: Tragedy at the Top of the World What really happened that fateful day? By Jeff Herr When you’ve just climbed to the top of Mount Everest, you want to linger there a few minutes, snapping photographs…
Long after Ken Burns inspired a nation to sniffle, Civil War hobbyists are reenacting America's deadliest conflict—over and over and over. Live from the ersatz killing fields of Gettysburg, our man asks: Is this any way for adults to behave?
Outside magazine, September 1999 Straight Up, No Cheating Professional advice for topping 14,000 feet? Don’t sprint. YOUR INNER ARNOLD Talk of personal-best bench presses may be the stuff of locker-room preening rituals, but it’s…
Outside magazine, September 1999 Virgin Land: A History POLITICS | VIRGIN LAND: A HISTORY | FRONT LINES | CONTENDERS Two millennia before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness…
Outside magazine, Februrary 2000 Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 Fresh Breath Modern snorkels may…
Dispatches, September 1998 Climbing Hi, My Name is Hans. Now Gimme My Check Lessons in gold-digging from America’s speediest wall rat By Bill Donahue Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s…
Outside magazine, November 1995 The Seein’ Red Blues “Cowboys are always depicted as easygoing. Not me,” says 56-year-old Weatherford, Texas, songwriter Don Edwards. Meaning? “I’m the cowboy from hell. Good Lord, in the old days, if you weren’t pissed, you weren’t a singer at all.” Edwards…
Outside magazine, February 1996 Mr. Armani, Meet the King of Beers By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta (with Debra Shore) This month, John Tesh will pose for an ad sporting a tie splattered with Budweiser; in April, Sugar Ray Leonard will do the same…
Destinations, March 1999 A Green Lining? Ten years after the tragic spill, Exxon’s loss is Kachemak’s gain By Doug Fine A decade ago this month, when the Exxon Valdez hemorrhaged 11 million gallons of crude…
Dispatches, December 1998 Exploration Calamari for Everyone! A pack of researchers pursues the elusive giant squid By Michael Menduno “A vast pulpy mass,” wrote Herman Melville in Moby-Dick, ” lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating…
Family Vacations, Summer 1996 Independence Days Mom’s gone rafting, dad’s on a hike–at a multisport resort, you do what you want By Kate and David Butwin Our Favorite Places My dad, David, is a…
Outside magazine, September 1994 Sailing: Liberte, Fraternite, Butt-Whuppin’ Why French skippers are–again–likely to bop the competition in the world’s longest race By Dan Dickison Every four years French sailors make the competition eat spray in the BOC Challenge–a four-stage around-the-world solo rip across 27,000…
Outside magazine, August 1996 The Book On: Men’s Sprints Can anyone beat Donovan Bailey, track-god-come-lately? By Mark Jannot It must be hard for other sprinters not to pigeonhole Donovan Bailey, 28, as just another track-world dilettante. A native Jamaican who immigrated…
Destinations, May 1997 Follow Me. I Have a Mule. The right outfitter can keep a highlands trip low-stress By Bob Payne While it’s possible to plan and outfit a trip through the Ecuadorian highlands on your own, the logistics of…
Outside magazine, August 1996 The Book On: Middle Distance It is written in the sod: two golds for Haile Gebrselassie By Martin Dugard Haile Gebrselassie doesn’t just run: he redefines the perceived boundaries of human performance. Last June, the 23-year-old, 5-foot-3…
Outside magazine, August 1996 The Minutiae: Of Medal Dreams and Collard Greens Behind the scenes, actuarially speaking, at Atlanta’s shining moment By Katie Arnold and Cory Johnson Established “quiet time” for athletes at the Olympic Village: 10 p.m. Closing time…
 Outside magazine, October 1994 Bruce Babbitt, Alone in the Wilderness He was hailed as the Secretary of the Interior who would finally make a difference. Now his friends are abandoning him, his enemies are outmaneuvering him, and the president is nowhere to be found. Will…
Outside magazine, October 1995 Mountaineering: Someone Get the Bouncers By Todd Balf (with John Alderman) For better or for worse, 12-year-old Merrick Johnston is the youngest person ever to have reached the summit of Mount McKinley. The Anchorage sixth-grader and her mother, Jennifer Johnston,…
Dispatches: News from the Field, November 1996 Technology: Flop, Flop, Fizzle, Fizzle Think $5 million can buy cycling gold? Guess again. By Eric Hagerman It was, of course, high comedy, a refreshing respite from hours of jingoistic cooing and Macarena-dancing…
Features: Election Preview ’96, November 1996 Vote For Me, I’m Nut’s Perot just too stable for you? The Federal Election Commission has a couple hundred other options. Our favorite dark-horse candidates. By Michael Kessler Harry Browne Party: Libertarian…
 Outside magazine, December 1997 The Downhill Report: Hot Hot Hot When you’ve got it, you’ve got it, an illustrious fashion tout once said. Here are 17 ways to make sure you keep it. The Hot State It’s chic! It’s…
Outside magazine, January 1998 Review: Go Directly to Go The modern snowshoe is light, versatile, and ready for action the moment you are By Andrew Tilin SNOWSHOES |…
Fitness ’97, February 1997 Finding the Right Beat Before you begin endurance work, a little math is in order. The key is to keep your heart rate below the point at which your metabolism changes from efficient burning of fat to gluttonous…
Outside magazine, April 1995 Milestones: Walt Stack, 1908-1995 By John Brant “I’m a real bag a hell today,” Walt Stack would joke as he ran along in a dogged shuffle, “but tomorrow I may be a dead mackerel.” On January 19, after a long…
Outside magazine, May 1999 Environment Your Tax Dollars at Work. Sort Of. A bold plan may save the Okefenokee. But is the price too high? When itinerant silversmith steve Knight and his wife, Jo, decided…
Outside magazine, June 1994 Sport: One Small Tack for Womankind At last, a women-only America’s Cup team. But can it survive Bill Koch? By Dan Dickison Don’t like to be a pawn in anybody’s game,” says Betsy Alison, an American sailor…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Am I There Yet? Over the previous five years, Australian Dean Gardiner had won surf kayaking’s unofficial world championship-the 32-mile Molokai to Oahu Bankoh Kayak Challenge-three times, in conditions ranging from tempestuous to preternaturally calm. In this year’s contest, held last May,…
Vacation Special, August 1997 R O A M I N G L A G U N A M I R A M A R To the Inland Sea The best swimming in Mexico: Ocean? By Christopher Shaw…
Outside magazine, October 1995 Triathlon: Hey, You Got Cottage Cheese Fat on My Prayer Flags What it takes to be the next King of Kona. A Hawaii Ironman Preview. By Martin Dugard Like so many in the once booming sport of triathlon,…
 Outside magazine, November 1998 Are You Trying to Seduce Me, Mrs. Chenoweth? To fall under the spell of the conservative right’s dusky siren, to entertain her environmentally suspect vision, well, nothing seemed more unlikely. Then she —…
Women Outside, Fall 1998 Errata The Wrong Stuff Attention shoppers: All sales are final. Especially on the Freshettes. By C.O. GEAR | TRAVEL | FITNESS | HEALTH |…
Outside magazine, December 1995 It’s a French Thing. You Wouldn’t Understand. By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta Twenty-four hours before concluding his solo transatlantic trip, French rower Joseph LeGuen slid into a deep funk. “I thought, It’s not possible that this could end,” he…
Outside magazine, January 1996 Water Sports: The Baywatch Conundrum All Craig Hummer wants is someone to take his lifeguarding seriously By Martin Dugard “Hummer Mania,” jokes professional lifeguard Craig Hummer, a Californian by way of Ohio who’s currently turning the Australian sport…
Dispatches, February 1998 THRILLS Call Me “Flyboy” A precarious new contraption lets us get our fighter-pilot ya-yas out By Paul Kvinta ‘Normally, if you were flying 80 miles per hour at six feet off the ground, you wouldn’t be…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Intake: The Bar Exam By Dana Sullivan First there was PowerBar. Now nearly two dozen sports energy bars are contending for a place in your pack. They’re all portable; the trick is to find one that’s palatable, too. Beyond taste,…
Outside magazine, April 1996 Culture: Warhol Favored a Sloping Down Tube A traveling exhibit makes us ponder: Is that art you’re pedaling? By Alex Frankel “The design of this bicycle makes you think of all the ways in which the object…
Outside magazine, July 1995 Books: In Search of the Monster Slayer By Andrea Barrett Talking to the Ground: One Family’s Journey on Horseback Across the Sacred Land of the Navajo, by Douglas Preston (Simon & Schuster, $24). Preston’s long-standing interest in the…
Outside magazine, July 1996 Thou Shalt Not Chum Jon Cappella’s dream of making a fortune by lowering thrill-seeking scuba divers into sharky waters is about to be thwarted for good. Next month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will likely approve regulations that would prohibit chumming…
Outside magazine, December 1995 Will the Real Adults Please Stand Up? By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta On the drama meter, it didn’t rank with Tommy Smith and John Carlos raising Black Power fists at the 1968 Olympic Games. But Anne-Caroline Chausson’s bit of…
Outside Magazine, February 1995 Swimming: She’s No Slug By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard) Taking advantage of unusually fine conditions, last November Karen Burton of Monument, Colorado, broke both the men’s and women’s records for the 22-mile Catalina Channel crossing, American open-water swimming’s most…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Ride With Pride: Well, It Won’t Fix Itself: Part 3 The ego-inflating way to fix a flat… By Scott Sutherland When I’m in the middle of a race and I get a flat, I have to fix it…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Ride With Pride: First, You Need a Bike That Fits By Dana Sullivan The last time you bought a bike, the guy at the shop probably had you straddle the top tube to determine the fit. If there were a…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Dr. Pavlov, I Presume? In a world that’s going to the hogs, this little Piggy will have none of it. By Randy Wayne White There was much to recommend the rainforest coast of northeastern Australia, many curios and…
Dispatches, April 1999 Media Next Year We’ll Be Hosting the Downhill in Bosnia! Are the X Games sacrificing safety on the altar of “good” television? By Kimberly Lisagor (with John Bresee) “We’re still trying to figure out how to…
Outside magazine, June 1995 House Hunting: Seek the Unheralded By Sara Corbett Blissfully removed from Jersey shore speedboats and the swank of Hilton Head Island, these five out-of-the-way places promise summer rentals with not a Dairy Queen in sight. Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts. Cuttyhunk’s…
Outside magazine, July 1996 Go Ahead, Dis My Kumquat “Someone suddenly says dried apricots give you cancer, you stop eating dried apricots, and the farmer loses his shirt,” huffs John Keeling of the American Farm Bureau Federation. “We’re tired of people playing loose with the facts.”…
Outside magazine, October 1996 Philately: And Now, a Word From Our Sponsors By Michael Kessler This month, as chemicals heir John du Pont stands trial for the January 26 murder of former Olympic wrestling gold medalist Dave Schultz, at least one noteworthy detail from…
Outside magazine, May 1994 Law: Who’s to Blame for Kolob Creek? Survivors of a fatal Utah canyon trip point the finger at “the people who were supposed to know” By Clint Willis Mark Brewer still has nightmares about Kolob Creek, but…
Review: Hardware and Software, January 1997 Books: The Haunting of Open Spaces By Miles Harvey Bad Land: An American Romance, by Jonathan Raban (Pantheon, $25). When Ismay, Montana, became Joe, Montana, in 1993–a short-lived attempt to cash in on the name…
Outside magazine, April 1999 Review: All Play, No Work The latest whitewater kayaks put the emphasis where it belongs By Bob Woodward KAYAKS | BUYING RIGHT |…
Dispatches, July 1997 E V E N T S The Race Is On At the start of a less-predictable new era, a look at the crˆme of the Tour de France field By Alan Coté With the retirement of…
Outside magazine, July 1997 Noriega Sat Here Our man in Panama works the strange case of the generalisimo’s purloined bar stools By Randy Wayne White Because the Panama Canal will be officially transferred to its host republic at noon on…
Outside magazine, September 1996 Film: Remember, Mr. Daniels, You Love the Geese Crackpot no more, a biology buff’s passion goes Hollywood By Florence Williams When we last met Canadian ultralight pilot and amateur biologist William Lishman, he had finally turned the corner…
Outside Magazine, October 1998 Premonition X-Acto Vision There in the palm of my had lay my future By David James Duncan I was struck in boyhood by a suspicion that rivers and mountains are myself turned inside out.
Outside magazine, October 1998 The Basics, Done Right By Paul Keegan The beauty of Newton’s resistance-training program is that you need only master 12 exercises to follow it. How much weight to use is difficult to estimate,…
 Outside magazine, December 1997 Hello, I Must Be Going Dire forecasts predict the end of the all-u-can-eat seafood buffet, as the world’s fisheries fall victim to big fleets and a fragile nature. But if the waters are really emptying, why is your…
Outside magazine, June 1995 Guide to Summer: There’s Nothing Like Dining Alfresco Don’t fight the urge to be social–we’re genetically programmed to picnic By Pete Nelson Most of my favorite outdoor parties have been interrupted by visits from the police, but these…
Outside magazine, May 1995 Running: Never Mind the Skull Tattoos Ben Hian says he’ll whip everyone at this year’s Western States 100 By Martin Dugard From a distance, ultramarathoner Ben Hian looks something like an ancient Celtic manuscript with skinny legs, his…
Outside magazine, June 1996 The Great White Philharmonic Amidst the thundering crescendos of calving ice, a beer-ad guy can find symphonic enightenment By Tim Cahill You know how guys in beer ads are always pictured doing stuff you wouldn’t do–or shouldn’t do–when…
Outside magazine, July 1998 Review: A Little Bright Out? Think Polarized. By Bob Howells SAILBOATS | SUNGLASSES | THE OTHER STUFF | BOOKS Those who work…
Outside magazine, September 1996 Up Next, Orange Vests Just when you thought TV home shopping had reached its saturation point–with channels hustling everything from Pete Rose autographed baseballs to plum-size cubic zircon–the Sportsmans’ Outdoor Network crackled to life this spring, hoping to capitalize on the untapped…