Adventure

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Hours from anywhere but on the edge of nowhere, the rough Down East passages welcome the well heeled and unpedigreed alike

The Maine coast has more landmarks than names. Much to the delight of possessive types.

Slicing through the waters that brought you the beast that inspired Jaws, Montauk’s shark hunters search the Atlantic for their cold-blooded, man-eating prey. It’s the brutal Mako Mania tournament, where old salts and paying customers harry a dying breed of monsters. Where the stakes are huge, the sharks are bigger, and the fishing is absolutely to di

“There is a reasonable chance somebody could die,” says a Dallas-based doctor and Hardrocker. “I’ve fallen, and almost been swept away by a waterfall.”

A Guide to Surfing's Hallowed Hot Spots

Q: Any idea where I can take a vacation and at the same time do some environmental volunteer work? I remember an article in Outside a couple of years ago about a spot where you can act as a “guard” for sea turtles as they came ashore to lay…

Beyond the top ropes and chalk stains, Joshua Tree's famous granite reveals its more mysterious faces.

Fifty-odd years ago, a young guy's visit to Vanuatu inspired the legend of Bali Hai. Thankfully, the good life's still here. Why aren't you?

So what if you have to endure endless hours in the air and shake out your piggy bank. Nothing this pure comes easy.

A speed ascent of a Grand Canyon spire proves that light is right

Once you've made a name for yourself in the burly world of ski mountaineering, astonished your buds, bagged a few sponsors, shot some sick footage that had Banff buzzing—in short, once you're at the top of your game, can you actually take a vacation? The author investigates in Peru's Cordillera Blanca, where six adventurers scramble to beat "poachers" to f

Are you, like the fabled Spicoli, searching for a cool breeze and some tasty waves? Look no further. These six sweet spots will make you wish you were born with fins.

Q: A few friends and I are planning a trip to Chiapas, Mexico to help build a church and would like to mountain bike a couple of days at the end of the trip. I would consider us as intermediate bikers. Any suggestions on where to go? Thanks.

Q: I’m planning a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in late June. All the trips that I have read about discuss canoes; I’ve find nothing about kayak trips. I have two sea kayaks and plan on kayaking the BWCAW for about nine days. Do you…

His life’s grand pursuit has killed his closest companions. His bride-to-be is his best friend’s widow. His exploding fame owes as much to happenstance (stumbling upon Mallory’s body on Everest) and luck (escaping an avalanche in Tibet) as it does to his great skill as a mountaineer. An intimate look at the serendipitous, tumultuous, and nearly unbearable success of Conrad Anker.

Your urgent inquiries about the world, answered.

Get lost in Alaska's Wrangell--St. Elias: It's six Yellowstones' worth of icy lakes,anonymous meadows, and peaks you won't find on any map.

In remote Zapatista country, the good people of Chiapas are engaged in a once-a-year change to upend the world. Men become women. Night becomes day. And a pilgrim in a rental car is barreling toward them.

A compressed air pilgrimage to the Red Sea, where hobbyists become compulsives in the blink of a piscine eye.

Notable places and policies in contention this year

An oral history of Everest's endearingly dysfunctional village

For generations, it's been a curious springtime pilgrimage: hiking up, then skiing, boarding, sliding, or crashing down Tuckerman Ravine. But there's a first time for everyone.

The Bush administration has a plan to manage the nation's open spaces. But will America buy it?

Alex Honnold talks with Sender Films about the history of Yosemite's climbing culture and gives his take on what free soloing is all about.  …

Exploring the most enchantingly rugged places on earth is easy. Just follow our guide to the world's ten classic treks, put one foot in front of the other—and don't forget to take it slow.

Call them God's Greens. Armed with Scripture and a righteous respect for nature, a host of religious groups have taken up the environmental fight and are waging holy war on behalf of an embattled creation. But, critics ask, is this a truly divine cause—or the devil's work?

Look out, Alaska: Doug Swingley is coming back. And this time he's… happy. The author picks the brain of the greatest musher in the Lower 48 and reveals his cunning plan to slay that 1,100-mile-long monster of the North, the Iditarod, for the fourth time.

It's springtime in Siberia, where slumbering mammoths are emerging from melting permafrost. Where great herds of TV crews roam the tundra in search of cloneable Ice Age DNA. Where Dolgan nomads traffic in Jurassic Park dreams. Where an unlikely French explorer-entrepreneur is chasing his strangely compelling vision of authentic wonder. Where the weirdness is ju

Eight friends. Four volcanoes. Nine days. A primer on self-guided ski mountaineering.

Close encounters of the bear-human kind are skyrocketing, though actual attacks remain few and far between. Hopefully, new outreach education efforts will keep things that way.

Where do you want to go? Whether you're planning a weekend getaway or a full-blown vacation, Outside Online's Adventure Advisor is here to show you the way.

Where do you want to go? Whether you're planning a weekend getaway or a full-blown vacation, Outside Online's Adventure Advisor is here to show you the way.

An ice-climbing trip to Scotland—land of rain, sleet, and mad outdoorsmen—brings new respect for the sport's big-hearted pioneers

How did a mellow, mop-haired, lackadaisically unfashionable snowboarder achieve freeride immortality? First he lifted his carve to a fine art. Then he linked turns down impossibly steep terrain on some of the planet's highest peaks. Now he bucks industry trends, eschews money, and foreswears fame. But most important, he just rides.

Remembering David Brower, a complex man who took it upon himself to complete a simple task: save the planet

You know the type. They're Martha Stewart's worst nightmare. They're (usually) men of a certain age and outdoor inclination who track in mud, dump wet gear on the carpet, and clean God-knows-what in the kitchen sink. Isn't it beautiful?

Thanks to improved safety standards and tandem flights, scores of acrophobes are giving hang gliding a second wind. And now, they're soaring in style—over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Meet the proud residents of the nation's arsenic capital. Now, will someone please explain to these good people why poison's a bad thing?

Where do you want to go? Whether you're planning a weekend getaway or a full-blown vacation, Outside Online's Adventure Advisor is here to show you the way.

Where do you want to go? Whether you're planning a weekend getaway or a full-blown vacation, Outside Online's Adventure Advisor is here to show you the way.

Hundreds of wilderness experts rushed to Ground Zero—and found a maddening, hellish new frontier.

We asked and you responded. Outside readers from across the globe wrote in with their nominations for the A-Team. Herewith, a sampling from the field.

Ted Turner and his son Beau aren’t your typical green crusaders—the kid is a hook-and-bullet guy, and dad is hatching plans to sell buffalo burgers as theme food. But together they control 1.8 million acres of prime U.S. ranchland, where they’re unloading a fortune to revive endangered species, revolutionize grazing, and (don’t tell the neig

For intrepid sailor Ellen MacArthur, round-the-world records are meant to be shattered

A Flotilla of Stouthearted Men and Women Confronts Hissing Snakes, Weird Rocks, Flat Water, and the Greatest Mud in the West; or, What I did on My Summer Vacation

For a bargain price of $1.7 million, Doug Tompkins and his wife Kristine have sewn up a vast Patagonian wonderland. Who says cranky visionaries can't close a deal?

Going core with Yvon Chouinard—leery capitalist, walking contradiction

For decades, the U.S. Navy has used a verdant, biodiverse Puerto Rican island as a target-practice bull's-eye, raining high explosives onto an idyllic tropical landscape. What's a loyal citizen to do when his government seems so thuddingly wrong? Sometimes even a lawyer's gotta break the law.

Scenes from the Gorge Games, and looking for the new face of adventure

This is what happens to your body when you get tangled up in the business end of a box jellyfish—the most venomous creature on earth.

October 15, 2001 American freediver Tanya Streeter reached a depth of 60 meters at the World Freediving Championships in Ibiza, Spain, this past week, leading the U.S. women's team to a second place finish and furthering her position as the world's best female freediver. Streeter's dive was the…

120 of the Best Things for the Good Life

Dateline: Nepal, 2001. The royal family has been murdered. Maoist guerrillas prowl the countryside, fomenting agrarian revolution. Kathmandu has succumbed to general strikes and indiscriminate bombings. And everybody's got his own pet conspiracy theory. Is this in the Himalayas, or the next Asian apocalypse in the making? August 10, 2001: Symmes reflects on th

A new wave of adventurers makes the case that the world has much left to offer

Struck by an urge to leap off a tall building? Pack your chute and head for Malaysia.

LAST FALL, 20-year-old human fly Chris Sharma clawed up the first 80 feet of limestone on Biographie Extensiona 70-move, 140-foot climbing route in Ceuse, south of Grenoble, France, that has yet to see its first full ascent and that is believed by many to be the hardest sport climb in…

Richard Synergy is taking kite flying to new heights—14,509 feet, to be exact.

The brutal Southern Ocean has seen more races this year than ever before. Here's why.

In these fragile, frigid ecosystems, the phrase tread lightly takes on a whole new meaning

The world's newest adventure travel destinations

The world's largest scuba-training company plunges into the treacherous depths of technical diving, where fatalities are the accepted price for adrenaline

Some peaceful recreation on a journey from Gallipoli to Troy, where the echoes of war never die

One climber broke his back. One wandered in a daze. One tried, and failed, to save a friend. They all left behind a moment and a place that would haunt a dead mountaineer's daughter for decades. A pilgrimage in search of a lost father.

A major new resort opens in the affordable Great White North, where they apparently didn't get the word that skiing is dead

Learning to become the captain of your own fate.

YOU DON’T float the Desolation and Gray Canyons of the Green River for the rapids. You go for a blissfully mellow trip through remote wilderness. During a trip down the Green one recent fall, an old friend and I didn’t wear life jackets or get our feet wet for eight…

Searching for the keys to endurance, a ski racer pushes his body and heart to the limit—until his father's sudden illness changes all the rules

Around the world in 65 days? The competitors who plan to make good on Bruno Peyron's dream.

Boat designer Adrian Thompson and skipper Pete Goss set out to revolutionize catamaran design with Team Philips. Will it survive its 25,000-mile shakedown cruise?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. camps in the Arctic and asks why big oil can't keep its hands off America's largest patch of wilderness

Cam Lewis says he knows the risks—and he's ready. Ready to sprint 25,000 miles in one of the fastest wind-driven vessels ever to grace the ocean, and become the first American skipper to set a round-the-world speed sailing record. That is, if he and his boat make it back in one piece.

New catamaran cruisers serve up sailing and diving adventure in Belize's pristine outer atolls

The final equation: Reinforce that joint with a few good exercises

SKIER'S HOP Start with your left leg on the ground and your right leg planted on an 8- to 12-inch-high platform. In one motion, use your right leg to leap laterally over the platform and land in the opposite of the starting position. Repeat, leaping from side to side…

A cold mountain, a mismatched pair, and a meditation on the strange chemistry of partnership

Enter the pucker zone: Alaska's Chugach Range, land of waist-deep powder and drop-dead steeps, where the best big-mountain freeskiers in the world come to unhook. Up here, however, being best isn't the point.

Having blown both knees, the Olympic champ is back with her twice-proven prescription for total recovery