Adventure
ArchiveThe Downhill Report, December 1996 It’s Deep–and It’s Definitely Playable There’s a fine line between floating and floundering. Now you can cross it for once and for all. By Michael Finkel Powder skiing, like healing crystals and the defensive line of…
Outside magazine, January 1999 From Spud to Stud Feeling fit? Bravo. But becoming a graceful, well-rounded athlete is an entirely different ball game. By Paul Keegan Chris Huffins “I have a lot of friends…
News from the Field, February 1997 Environment: How Green Was My Valley? Angry at the feds for putting fish before cattle, an Oregon rancher takes his case to the Supreme Court By John Brant “We’re only asking that the law…
Outside magazine, April 1995 Bodyboarding: And Huey Frowned By Todd Balf As an acclaimed master at Oahu’s Banzai Pipeline, bodyboarding champion Mike Stewart has seen a few things in his time. Until the Morey Bodyboards World Championship last January 14, however, he’d never witnessed…
Outside magazine, May 1998 Out There: One Hundred Yards of Solitude The truly personal places are where you decide to find them. So ignore that speeding ferry. By Tim Cahill Nations rise and nations fall. They crest like waves and…
Outside Magazine, May 1999 Sold to the Power Mac G3! Finding bargains on the Web’s auction block By Nate Hoogeveen Booking travel over the internet is already big business–1998 saw more than $3 billion in sales.
Outside magazine, July 1995 Surfing: Battle of the Buffed By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard and Alison Osius) Sunny Garcia hasn’t always been what you’d call devout about his off-season training program. But before the 1995 tour, he paired up with fellow Hawaiian John…
Outside magazine, August 1997 Scavenging Angel Following in the wake of drug lords, one maritime salvager attempts to make good from bad By Randy Wayne White On the drive southeast from the old conquistador city of Cartagena to the broad…
Destinations, August 1998 The Big Easy Summertime adventuring, Canadian style, on the continent’s finest spot for cooling your heels By John Jerome Hang a Left at the Sturgeon And other secrets of navigating Canada’s Near North…
Outside magazine, November 1997 Can Beaker the Bobsledder Be Far Behind? One of Jim Henson’s most popular hairballs starts shilling for U.S. shredders By Adam Horowitz Sometimes, even within the fickle world of sports marketing, marriages of spokesperson to product…
Out Front, Fall 1998 Oceanography One Fish, Two Fish Sylvia Earle, mistress of the deep, surveys her perch By Karen Karbo More men have walked on the moon than where ocean explorer Sylvia Earle has walked. In 1979, Earle…
Outside magazine, May 2001 God’s Green Earth BRUCE BARCOTT HAS floored me again (“For God So Loved the World”). When I read his feature about the green preacher Peter Illyn and the burgeoning Christian environmental movement, I…
Outside magazine, January 1995 Smart Traveler: Wilderness By Mail Now’s the time to send away for tough-to-get permits By Debra Shore Like it or not, certain rivers, mountains, and backcountry campsites now have the cachet of a three-star restaurant where reservations are…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: Deep Space Shine Step one in sterilizing a spaceship is to swab the decks, knobs, and fuzzy mirror dice with rubbing alcohol. Step two is to bake the ship in a giant oven until any surviving microbes say “gaaack.”…
Travel Guide, Winter 1995-1996 Islands You’ve Never Heard Of By Jonathan Runge Culebra Just 17 miles off the coast of Puerto Rico, Culebra has been bypassed by the tourists crowding its parent island. This 11-square-mile, wishbone-shaped islet is defined as much by what…
Outside magazine, February 1999 Books: The Way Home By James Zug BAGGAGE | BUYING RIGHT | THE OTHER STUFF | BOOKS…
Outside magazine, December 1995 Preassembled Salve for All Good Adventuresses Homemaking’s high priestess sifts through the medicine chest for first-aid kits By Martha Stewart I have a saying, “The right tool for the right job,” and when I look at a single…
Outside magazine, July 1995 Approach Shoes Backcountry footwear that’s part hiker, part running shoe, part Reinhold Messner By Bob Howells The indefatigable mountaineer is certainly familiar with the term “approach shoe”: It’s what he wears over trail and talus slope to the…
Outside magazine, July 1996 The Dotted Yellow Line to Happiness The best of the big-group rides By Stephanie Pearson The freewheeling days of summer are at hand, and there’s no better way to celebrate than taking a freewheeling ride on America’s scenic…
Outside magazine, August 1999 MOTHER NATURE Letting It Be She moved hearts, minds, and mountains THE REBEL The Importance of Being Ornery Living the life, monkeywrenching…
Outside magazine, December 1995 A Tale of Winning Ugly By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta You think no good can come of a paddler waxing Dickensian? Then don’t ask David Hearn about Gate 24. “It was the best and worst of slalom moves all…
News from the Field, February 1997 Business: What’s in a Name? New Wise Use tactics have enviros in the throes of an identity crisis By Todd Woody It’s a strategy that Suntzu and Machiavelli would have appreciated. Environmental groups forget…
Outside magazine, March 1998 Review: And While You’re At It … A few worthy extras for the discerning pedal-pusher By Alan Coté BICYCLES BUILT FOR ONE | AND WHILE YOU’RE AT IT ……
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: Montanabahn I’ve been getting lots of calls from out-of-state folk who want to know if they really will be able to drive as fast as they want here,” says Major Bert Obert, a field forces commander for the Montana…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Ride With Pride: Careful, Buster Urban attitude advice from an honest cop By Sara Corbett City cyclists have an attitude problem,” says Sergeant Richard Green, a bicycle patrol officer in Santa Barbara, California. “They think, ‘Look at us,…
Camping Special, April 1997 Play Wiffle Ball! Discuss Descartes! Swim Buck Naked! Because there are no boring camping trips, only boring campers By Brad Wetzler There’s always one in the crowd, the neophyte camper who, in a panic over leaving…
Outside magazine, June 1995 What Are You Whining About? Enough with the war stories about your scrapes and tweaks. Meet the people who really give it all to their sport–again and again and again. By Paul Kvinta So, you’ve taken a bad…
Outside magazine, July 1996 Spirituality: The 86-Proof Campfire After you’ve cut superfluous inches off your toothbrush handle, ripped the covers off your paperback, and generally waged war on expendable ounces, it’s important to declare amnesty. Make room for a little self-indulgence–something precious to your soul.
Outside magazine, October 1996 Water Sports: OK, But Do They Have Guys Named Corky? At the World Surfing Games, winter-addled nations look to join the tribe By Jon Cohen “Usually we just sit around and watch surf videos and think about waves.”…
Camping Special, April 1997 Two Strikes and You’re Out Screwing up in the woods is unavoidable–but repeating your mistakes is something else entirely By Brad Wetzler To err is human. but according to NOLS’s Tom Reed, it’s not always excusable.
News from the Field, January 1997 Forestry: No Plaid, No Poulan, No Problem Stuck in the doldrums, American loggers take a lesson from the Swedes By Daniel D’Ambrosio Training loggers used to be a simple affair: Here’s a chainsaw; there’s a…
Outside magazine, May 1995 Foreign Travel: Narrowboat to Nowhere A slow poke along England’s canals By Mark Kramer The 2,000 miles of narrow canals that weave through England were built a few centuries ago to ferry coal from rural mines to mills…
Dispatches, July 1997 E X P L O R A T I O N One Giant Maybe for Robotkind As NASA heads for Mars, its remote-control rovers spin their wheels By Eric Scigliano…
Outside magazine, July 1997 The Mild One In which the author confronts the one obstacle between his throaty bike and the call of the open road: himself By Nicholas Dawidoff The author considers the road ahead I took my…
Outside magazine, October 1996 Wondering Where the Lions Are The Goal: Encountering Zimbabwe’s legendary wildlife. The Method: Authentic safariing, on battered foot through prickly bush. The Result: Well, now that you ask… Gavin Ford, one of Zimbabwe’s legendary…
Outside Magazine, October 1998 Destruction The Fire Inside Trees burn, as do young men. And therein lies the lesson By David Guterson All day we stood on the fire line, bored, wetting down the trees. Occasionally we wedged…
Dispatches, October 1998 Events Men Who Run with the Bulls A bunch of guys in the desert try to get in touch with the Inner Bovine By Matt Purdue “I‘ve watched this in Spain on television and thought, ‘What…
Outside magazine, December 1997 Field Notes: Boneheads A tale of big money, prison, Disney World, and the world’s foremost dinosaur-hunting twins By John Tayman On the morning when the fair-market value for the world’s finest unassembled real-bone Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was…
Outside magazine, June 1996 They’re Back Twelve gold medals, 21 world titles. But for four of this century’s finest athletes, the road to Atlanta begins in Atlanta with this month’s U.S. Olympic Trials. Where, as at least one of them knows, anything can happen.
Outside magazine, March 1996 The Technician: Practice, Patience, and a Few Swabs of the Hanky The basics of on-trail repair from D. Scott Daubert, grease monkey to the elite By Kiki Yablon Scott Daubert has one last item he’d…
Outside Magazine, February 1995 Environment: War of the Worldviews Yes, Wise Users hate greens. But have they really inspired a wave of anti-green hate crimes? By Paul Koberstein Last Fall, in the northeastern Oregon town of Joseph, angry loggers and ranchers on…
Outside magazine, June 1997 Sin in the Wild Outdoors We Confess Pride goeth before a fall, as any climber knows. But what about the other deadly sins that flesh is heir to? Gluttony It’s…
Outside magazine, September 1996 I Spend, Therefore I Am Fresh off an aborted attempt to become the first person to pilot a hot-air balloon around the world (see “Balloonatics”), enormously wealthy Chicago commodities dealer Steve Fossett set his sights on the sea last June…
Outside magazine, September 1996 Innovation: Better Footware Through Perseverance Obstacles be damned. Molly Strong finally brings her toasty, grippy boots to her style-impaired public By Michael Parrish “Life for the small inventor is nothing less than brutal,” says Molly Strong with…
Outside magazine, June 1997 Straw Dogs In northern Botswana, a campaign to save an unvalued resident By Elizabeth Royte A predator is loose in the villages. It comes out of the tall grasslands, from the savanna to the north, and…
Two men, a continent, and the mother of all polar duels
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 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…
Outside magazine, March 2000 Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Step Right Up All the guidance and gear you need for a…
Outside magazine, June 1994 Expeditions: More Daunting than Everest, More Technical than a Yosemite Wall With increasing regulation looming, climbers scramble to negotiate with the federal government By Douglas Gantenbein They could never do this with backpackers or handicapped people,” snarls…
Outside magazine, March 1999 Review: Just as Tough as They Look Beefy leather hiking boots to last you a lifetime By Kent Black ELECTRONICS | BUYING RIGHT |…
 Outside magazine, September 1999 The Low-Tech, High-Speed, Retro-Manic Simple Life Join us, friends, for the epic buggy adventure of Eustace Conway, world’s fastest postmodern mountain man By Florence Williams Photographs by Daniel Peebles Eustace…
 Outside magazine, September 1999 Into Kosovo A Reporter’s Diary of Two Months on the Road Across a Ruined Landscape, Over the Accursed Mountains, and Down to a Place Where Nightmares Come True By Joshua Hammer I. La Vikinga, the hydrofoil that…
Outside magazine, November 1995 Running:…But Radionucleotides Can Never Hurt Me The worrisome world of Matt Carpenter, skymarathonman By Martin Dugard “I have a social life,” proclaims Matt Carpenter, king of the fledgling sport known as skymarathoning, which basically entails running 26.2-mile races…
Outside magazine, September 1997 Didn’t You Used to Be Scott Tinley? With a dearth of stars and an anemic purse, the Legends of Triathlon series starts with a wimper By Andrew Tilin Not Your…
Dispatches, October 1998 Deep Thoughts Oprah, That Carabiner Won’t Hold Paul Stoltz explains by anybody who isn’t a climber is, well, a loser. By David Rakoff So you think fending off that grizzly attack with your portable cappuccino-maker last…
Outside magazine, February 1996 An Organ-Grinder with Star Power By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta (with Debra Shore) Last month in these pages we reported on a brewing battle in south Texas, where trigger-happy ranchers were taking aim at 600 Japanese snow monkeys running…
Outside magazine, March 1999 Remember, Fear Is Your Friend And other strategies gleaned from a hike through Yellowstone’s grizzly alley By Patrick Symmes There’s no bear in this story ù I want to make…
Outside Magazine, November 1994 Essentials: Board Care By Seth Masia Why is it that we’ll carefully ponder how to spend $1,000 on ski equipment but not think twice about how we transport or store it? Here are some strategies for protecting your investment.
Family Vacations, Summer 1996 Hail the Hoofable These trails were made for hiking–even in a size two boot By Thurson Clarke Our Favorite Places | Essential Gear | Staying Safe…
Outside magazine, August 1998 Poet … Lover … Omnivore … Friend A consideration of Bart the Bear, from those whose lives he’s touched By David Rakoff He is the ur-ursus, our bear of necessity, providing an adoring moviegoing public…
Outside magazine, August 1995 Mountaineering: It’s Hard When You’re All Alone By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard) Was Alison Hargreave’s solo ascent of Everest without supplemental oxygen last May really the greatest feat ever by a woman mountaineer? Both the 33-year-old mother of two…
Dispatches, May 1997 Entertainment: Who Needs the Great Outdoors? A few words with Evan Dando, reluctant champion of the proudly slothful By Hal Espen For nearly a decade, Evan Dando has been lead singer of the Lemonheads, a band…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Regimens: A No-Drag Pool Session By Laura Hilgers If anyone could swim on strength alone, it would be Amy Van Dyken, America’s fastest female 50-meter freestyler. At six feet and 155 pounds, the 23-year-old Olympian is all power. “But even…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Jurisprudence: All the Vanishing Horses Is the BLM running roughshod over America’s fabled wild steeds? By Anne Goodwin Sides One of the bureau of land management’s better efforts in recent years has been the promotion of its…
Outside magazine, October 1994 Wildlife: Lead Us Not Into Power Lines An ultralight pilot teaches birds to deliver themselves south By Williams. Florence Last fall, Canadian pilot William Lishman landed a rickety ultralight aircraft near Warrenton, Virginia, with 18 Canada geese tailing him like…
Outside magazine, October 1995 Running: Let My People Burn Rubber As controversy swirls about their gringo coach, have we seen the last of the Tarahumara? By John Tayman After negotiating unseasonable snowdrifts and equally unseasonable 105-degree heat–not to mention 100 miles of…
Outside magazine, November 1996 And in This Corner, the Ghost of Ernest Hemingway Battling history, or at least history’s 80-year-old sparring partner By Randy Wayne White Considering the tragic possibilities, Lorian Hemingway might now be reluctant to admit that it…
Outside magazine, Travel Guide 1997-1998 Adventures in Snowplowing Not your average family ski trips By Thurston Clarke ADVENTURES IN SNOWPLOWING | DETAILS, DETAILS | BEGINNER ANGST Choosing a…
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…