Adventure
ArchiveOutside magazine, May 1996 On Second Thought The most overrated The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation, by Izaak Walton. “Walton: Sage benign!” wrote poet William Wordsworth, who penned an entire sonnet in praise of Izaak Walton’s famous fishing guide. Hundreds of…
Outside magazine, June 1998 Field Notes: Strange Bedfellows Quiz: The Carolina hills are (a) an outdoor mecca, (b) a bizarro magnet, (c) both By Alex Heard You sure don’t seem like evil anti-environmental extremists,” I told Ralph and Sandra…
 Outside magazine, June 1999 I Am Elena. You Will Fly Now. There, up there in the Arizona sky! It’s the cream of the once-mighty Soviet machine! Now pulling g’s at an airport near you. By Peter…
Outside magazine, August 1995 Parachuting: Why Is This Man Smiling? A near-fatal leap by BASE jumping’s biggest star rekindles an old debate about the right to risk your own life By Eric Perlman Last May, Will Oxx stood at the lip of…
Outside magazine, September 1997 Minnesotans, Start Your Engines? A long-simmering feud heats up on Capitol Hill, as canoeists and speedboaters square off over some of the nation’s most hallowed wilderness By Jonathan Weisman Gary Joselyn dips his paddle into Poplar…
Outside Magazine, February 1995 Mountaineering: Warning: Geezers Wielding Ice Axes In the latest Himalayan trend, youngest on top is a rotten egg By Laura Hilgers You’re on to an eternal loser when you do that one, aren’t you?” remarks renowned British alpinist…
Outside magazine, August 1999 HIGH POINTS Still the One: The 1999 Everest Almanac Mountaineering’s main attraction is bigger than ever This year’s May climbing season on Mount Everest saw record fan participation, a bevy of Everest-inspired products, and—lest…
Outside magazine, September 1997 The Natives Are Restless (But Smartly Dressed) Sartorial tips from the Last Frontier, epicenter for the power- recreationalist Clint McCool Whitewater guide, high school economics and philosophy teacher. Photographed at Chilkoot Charlie’s Rustic Saloon, Anchorage. Ten years…
Outside magazine, July 1997 I Am Monkey Flower Be the edible plant, urged the Queen Diva of foragers, and my wilderness hikes would yield a bounty of strange-looking, odd-smelling, but altogether damn tasty grub. Gastronomy meets botany, and the Weed Woman is your guide.
Four-minute mile? No problem. Twenty-nine-foot long jump? Cakewalk. The real question is, How far have we come and how far can we go as athletes?
Dispatches, September 1998 Sport The Snow is Fake, but the Air Totally Rocks The notoriously contrived, made-for-television X Games finally get real. By Kimberly Lisagor Some might call it hype. But the next time a 110-foot snow cone towers…
Outside magazine, September 1999 Wearing the Future Welcome to the next paradigm of outdoor technology: clothing as gear By Sarah Friedman SHIRTS | INSULATION |…
Outside magazine, November 1995 Wildlife: Load the Stun Gun, Pass the Old Spice On the trail of 600 pounds of prehistoric phew By Stephanie Pearson With a monkey-like head and Lon Chaney Jr.’s overbite, it crashes through the forest, a fanged pied…
Outside magazine, September 1997 Stop, or I’ll Pop a Wheelie! Prowling for smugglers with the U.S. Border Patrol’s mountain-bike division By Jonathan Hanson Elle, We Hardly Knew Ye Dennis Conner’s Toshiba may be the…
Outside magazine, October 1997 Twenty Years: The Editor’s Note By Mark Bryant Legend around here has it that following the publication in our fourth issue of a refreshing but undeniably experimental adventure story set in the cloud forests of Peru, a certain…
Outside magazine, February 1996 Anyone Have a Stick of Doublemint? By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta (with Debra Shore) Leading the women’s field in last November’s Philadelphia Marathon, Jeanne Peterson raced past the art museum to a massive roar. Three minutes later, an apparently…
Destinations, March 1999 Adventure Ready for Takeoff? Required reading for any would-be heli-skier By Susan Reifer In April of last year, after three weeks of storms, the Chugach Mountains near Valdez, Alaska, were ù…
Destinations, December 1998 Bold Lines, with a Daring Verticality Getaways Escaping the artistes and poseurs on the singletrack of San Miguel By Jeff Spurrier Off-road is an adjective not usually associated with…
Family Vacations, Summer 1996 Part One: The Adventures At Play in the Spray Strap on the helmets, tighten the Tevas, this ride’s gonna be WET All You Need is Dirt Want to be a hero? Repeat after…
 Outside magazine, September 1994 So You’re Young Black South African and You Want to Sail Around the World Neal Petersen knows it will take more than geluk. Ten thousand miles from his home, awash on the benevolent shores of Ireland, he hasn’t lost sight of…
Destinations, August 1998 Can’t See the Forest for the Fees The feds’ new pay-to-play scheme has public-lands users up in arms By Andrew Rice Jeff Pine is standing on a high ridge, thousands of acres of national forest stretching…
Dispatches, May 1997 Environment: The Yellow Haze of Texas America and Mexico join forces to answer a perplexing question: Why’s the air so dirty in our nation’s most remote preserve? By John Shinal From his seat near the front window…
Outside magazine, July 1994 Books: Polar Sagas By Andrea Barrett Mind Over Matter: The Epic Crossing of the Antarctic Continent, by Ranulph Fiennes (Delacorte Press, $21.95). Shadows on the Wasteland: Crossing Antarctica with Ranulph Fiennes, by Mike Stroud (Overlook Press, $21.95). The fun of…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Culture: More Powerful Than a Chunk of Tofu Live from Washington, a new breed of bleeding heart By John Galvin A new comic-book hero boldly invades the nation’s newsstands this month: Liberal Man, a tree-hugging crusader out to…
Outside magazine, October 1994 Triathlon: Dave Scott, The Imperishable Hulk At 40, the six-time Ironman champ asks: Can an old guy win the sport’s toughest race? By Ken McAlpine Last May, spectators at the Gulf Coast Triathlon in Panama City, Florida, witnessed a curious…
Outside magazine, October 1995 Hang Gliding: Thermal Letdown By Todd Balf (with John Alderman) For drama, it wasn’t bad: on the final day of the World Hang Gliding Championships last July near Ager, Spain, Thomas Suchanek of Czechoslovakia and Manfred Ruhmer of Austria, the…
Destinations: News for Adventurous Travelers, November 1996 All Creatures Fanged and Swine In the most biologically diverse area on Earth, watch your feet. By Bob Payne On the Osa Peninsula, wildlife is abundant, exotic, and striking–sometimes too striking. Snakes of all…
Outside magazine, May 2000 The White Death I’ve always been impressed by the quality of Outside‘s photographs, but I have to say that your avalanche shot on the cover of February’s issue is in a category all its…
Outside magazine, December 1997 El Niño Has a Headache He’s not simply an omnipotent and recurring global weather pattern. He’s anger and angst, caprice and compassion, fury and fun. And he wants to be understood. By David Rakoff…
Outside magazine, January 1999 Review: Accessorize Those Platforms Just the trimmings you’ll need for your winter wanderings By Andrew Tilin and Stuart Craig SNOWSHOES | BUYING RIGHT |…
News from the Field, February 1997 Film: Those Men in the White Suits Soldiering, via documentary, with the pioneers of the modern ski industry By John Skow Once, before ski areas were theme parks and mountains were still where the storm…
Outside magazine, April 1995 Boating: How Many Engineers Does It Take… By Todd Balf Last September’s shakedown voyage of the Microship, a 19-foot trimaran capable of operating under solar, sail, or electric power, didn’t go well. Its tiny size ultimately could not accommodate…
Outside magazine, May 1998 Review: Crisp Shots, No Weighting Why schlepp that SLR when point-and-shoots get the job done and then some By Jonathan Hanson POINT-AND-SHOOTS | ROCK SHOES | THE…
Outside magazine, June 1994 Environment: Do As You Say…or Else The cost of choosing the wrong neighborhood By Susan Mulcahy Andy Kerr, conservation director for the Oregon Natural Resources Council, has firm beliefs about how much commercial logging should be allowed…
Outside magazine, July 1995 Volleyball: While You Were Away… By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard and Alison Osius) With an injured Kent Steffes leaving partner Karch Kiraly to play with less bankable substitutes for two long months, the pro tour was decidedly invigorated last…
 Outside magazine, August 1997 The Chilling Effect A small can of chlorofluorocarbons, the UN says, can destroy 70,000 pounds of the ozone layer. In the last three years, smugglers have brought 60 million pounds of bootleg CFCs into the United States. “It’s…
Outside magazine, August 1998 Review: Sticks and Stones? No Problem. Today’s beefed-up trail runners smooth even the harshest terrain By Andrew Tilin OFF-ROAD RUNNING SHOES | BUYING RIGHT | THE OTHER…
Outside magazine, November 1997 A Slippery Slope The world’s first ice-climbing park goes up in Colorado By Pam Grout B U L L E T I N S Waves…
Out Front, Fall 1998 Art What a Bold Choice of, Er, Caca The latest in conceptual art is politically correct, biodegradable, and carries a formidable olfactory punch By Cristina Opdahl As Christo, everyone’s favorite environmental artiste and wrapping bandit,…
The Perfect Directions, January 1999 Do You Know What You Don’t Know? The biggest mistake, our globe-trotting experts say, is to set off without doing your homework. But they’re happy to let you crib from their notes.
January 1995 Dispatches: For the Record Triathlon: The Man Just Won’t Go Away Destinations Smart Traveler: Wilderness By Mail…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: Gabby: Telling It Like It Is Prognostications ’96 “I was born with my gift,” says Gabrielle, an inexhaustible 49-year-old clairvoyant form Jacksonville, Florida, and a top hand at the La Toya Jackson Psychic Network, a 1-900 operation.
Outside magazine, March 1994 Meanwhile, Closer to the Ground… Eight reasons to believe that smaller might be bigger By Kiki Yablon Around the country, and especially in the West, there’s been an evolution in the revolution. Focused but not myopic, this…
Outside magazine, April 1996 Multisport: Paula in the Rearview Mirror Karen Smyers’s Newby-Fraser-free dreams of ruling the triathlon world By Tish Hamilton Karen Smyers wants to make one thing perfectly clear: her toppling of Paula Newby-Fraser in last year’s Hawaii Ironman…
Outside magazine, July 1995 Then Again, Big Mig Could Eat Some Bad Gazpacho… A bettor’s guide to the chase pack By Alan Cote Should some stroke of divine intervention stop Miguel Indurain from riding into Paris on July 23 wearing his favorite…
Outside magazine, August 1999 BOOKS Winging It Buy this book! Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds, by…
 Outside magazine, September 1994 Give Me Your Birders, Your Paddlers, Your Huddled Masses. . . Ad libitum through Central Park, America’s wildest experiment in democracy By Toby Thompson It’s a perfect fall day in New York City: 60 degrees, the spires above Central…
Outside magazine, December 1995 Adventure: Feel the Burn! Treasure the Earth! Be on TV! Part music video, part human stampede, a controversial new sport invades America. Do you care? By Martin Dugard In October of last year, as people in the Bornean…
Outside magazine, January 1998 Events: Hey, You’re Not Davy Crockett! As wintertime boredom sets in, the hook-and-bullet crowd turns back the clock By Paul Kvinta For biathlete Mike Burke, it’s one thing to blast targets with an antique rifle…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Regimens: Dave Scott’s Ten-Day Program By Ken McAlpine Six-time ironman champion Dave Scott knows the value of active rest. He also knows the value of intense training. To help his athletes mix the two, he lays out a ten-day regimen…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: Really Quite Stupid Is this any way to travel? “What I do is fall,” says Dan Osman, explaining his routine of climbing high on a fixed object or up a rock face and then leaping into the…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Ride With Pride: Keep Your Chin Up …and your day job. A racer’s life is far from glamorous. By Alan Cote Sooner or later, be it on an organized group ride or at a bike shop, you’re going…
Outside magazine, April 1999 The Old Guard Do the big dogs still have bite? If the nineties have been good for grassroots groups, top-heavy national shops have languished on the vine. Greenpeace USA cut 85 percent…
Outside magazine, May 1995 Politics: …And Drilling Rights for All Can you blame Senator Ted Stevens for putting our land to good use? By Ned Martel Effigy manufacturers should expect brisk sales during this summer’s bonanza of species-protection hearings on Capitol Hill.
Outside magazine, July 1996 A Not-So-Sweet Threepeat “What do athletes do when nature calls,” probed USA Today a week after Uta Pippig’s dramatic victory at the 100th Boston Marathon last April, her third-straight triumph. The reference, of course, was to Pippig’s embarrassing predicament: She spent the…
Camping Special, April 1997 What’s in Paul’s Pack? If it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for you By Brad Wetzler Here it is from on high: Paul Petzoldt’s time-tested backcountry musts, altered and updated for the nineties backpacker.
Outside magazine, January 1997 Dispatches: News from the Field Adventure: Around the World on an IOU With momentum, if not sponsors, firmly on their side, a team of female sailors tacks toward the record books By Lolly Merrell…
Outside magazine, May 1994 Recreation: Divot Derby By Ken McAlpine A pastoral fairway. Sunshine lacquering a relaxed, plaid-pantsed foursome as they wait for the green to clear. Suddenly, wasp-waisted runners in wraparound shades play through, slashing turf like Chi-Chi Rodriguez on amphetamines. Make…
Outside magazine, June 1996 Rick of Arc Though Alaskan Jeff King captured the 1996 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race last March with the second-fastest time ever recorded, the rowdiest cheer at the postrace banquet was reserved for disqualified five-time winner Rick Swenson, who was chosen by…
Dispatches, July 1997 F I L M A Star Is Reborn Marty Stouffer gets a makeover, Hollywood-style By Johnny Dodd Take heart, fans of wildlife filmmaker Marty Stouffer: This month, just half a year after being removed from his PBS…
Outside magazine, September 1996 Crime: Trail of Fears A muddled Park Service murder probe leaves Appalachian hikers on edge Late last May, a distraught Thomas Williams called Shenandoah National Park to report that his 24-year-old daughter, Julianne, had not returned on time from a…
Outside magazine, October 1997 Robert Redford The anti-Woody. Proof that an enviro-celeb needn’t be a nut. By Jim Fergus Robert Redford may be one of the more durable leading men of our times, but off…
Outside Magazine, October 1998 Books: Field Tripping By James Zug JACKETS | BUYING RIGHT | THE OTHER STUFF | BOOKS Shadows in the Sun: Travels…
Outside magazine, December 1996 The War of the Rosebuds Downwardly mobile at the U.S. National Toboggan Championships By Randy Wayne White Even though my arenas of expertise are canted toward tropical places, I was not surprised to receive a call last…
Outside magazine, June 1996 Further Proof that Size Doesn’t Matter After hearing the recent shocking news that the African elephant-nose fish possesses a “bigger” brain than we human beings-as determined by the percentage of the body’s total oxygen intake that is consumed by the gray matter-we…
Outside magazine, March 1996 The Artist: More Bike for Your Buck No matter what your budget, designer Scot Nicol offeres strategies for buying a solid machine By Andrew Tilin Scot Nicol, builder of high-end bike frames, pauses in the middle of…
Outside magazine, March 1996 The Man with the Iron Cast Live from the glory holes of Colorado, where the angling is well above par By Randy Wayne White In decades to come, when the Vail Ironman Fly-Fishing Championship of the World has…
Outside magazine, July 1999 ATHLETES Thorpedo Away! Ian Thorpe has really humongous feet, and he’s a damn good swimmer Say, Honey, What’s This Next to the Frozen Vegetables? “We do encourage the salvaging…
Outside magazine, September 1996 Parts Is Parts After years of unchecked growth in the hunting of Canadian polar, black, and grizzly bears, lawmakers in Quebec this month will consider what many say is a long-overdue ban on the sale of bear parts. An estimated 21,000…
Outside magazine, October 1999 I found your recent article about the creation of Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic a wonderful piece (“The Very Short History of Nunavut,” July). Like some, I’m sad to see the old ways fall away, but…
Outside Magazine, February 1995 Endurance: Team American What? By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard) Two days into the Raid Gauloises adventure race last October on Borneo, Mark Burnett, the captain of Team American Pride, wasn’t in what you might call a stars-and-stripes mood. “I…
Dispatches, March 1997 Sport: Hey, America, Remember Us? With sponsors and spectators vanishing and TV saying no thanks, a sinking USA Track & Field tosses its top man overboard By John Brant For The Record Mud Is Thicker Than…
Outside magazine, May 1996 Ten Books that Changed Our World Julie, or the New Eloise, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his own lifetime, Rousseau was best known not for his philosophical tracts but for this lusty 1761 novel-set in the wilds of the Alps-that helped…
Dispatches, June 1998 Travel Welcome to Nowhere! An Idaho visionary peddles his grand dream. Is anyone buying? By Florence Williams Many people who stand atop Idaho’s Kellogg Peak see pretty much the same thing: a vast swatch of…
Outside magazine, June 1999 This Teeming Ark Expelled from their forested Eden, man and beast drift downriver under the spell of a charming, unreliable deity By Tim Cahill It was like trying to drink a beer…
Outside magazine, August 1995 Cinema: Thumbs Up for the Instinctive Disregard for Human Life By Paul Kvinta “They’re small creatures, there’s a lot of them, and they latch on to your brain,” says University of Illinois film instructor Richard Leskosky about the spongy little…