Adventure
ArchiveOutside magazine, August 1995 Milestones: Pesky No More By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard) Lance Armstrong and Robyn Erbesfield, two of America’s best international athletes, had a lot in common last May. Both were pursuing majors titles that had so far eluded them and…
Outside Magazine, November 1994 The Hex Factor On Cat Island you’ll find sun, sand, and just what the houngan ordered By Randy Wayne White Before explaining how I became the confidant of practitioners of obeah, a form of black magic, and before…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Winter Camping: Garuda Emeishan By Douglas Gantenbein Freestanding tents long ago cornered the market thanks to their strength, stability, and convenience. But what’s often overlooked is that tents that must be staked and guyed can be just as strong —…
Dispatches, March 1997 Extreme Games: A Break Too Large? The Jaws Invitational boasts an all-star lineup and $100,000 in prize money. And that, say some top big-wave surfers, is why it shouldn’t take place at all. By Brad Wetzler…
 Outside magazine, May 1996 Africa: Untamed, Uncensored and on Celluloid In a style that’s more Peckinpah than Marlin Perkins, Dereck and Beverly Joubert have revolutionized wildlife filmmaking with unflinching documentaries that combine violent realism and equally dramatic story lines. Their work has brought…
Outside magazine, June 1999 Pro and Conservation After reading your exhaustive green-groups package (“Near to the Ground,” April), I feel compelled to express a newfound sense of motivation, as well as the desire, to aid…
Outside magazine, August 1995 Cycling: Sidi Tecno Fire By Douglas Gantenbein Shelling out $190 for a pair of fine Italian shoes is justifiable if you’re dressing to meet Isabella Rossellini for chianti on the piazzo. But if you’re going to spend that kind of…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Extras: Lap-Lane Toys for the Technologically Savvy By Laura Hilgers If you’re a swimmer with a gear fetish, you’re a pretty frustrated sort, unless you’ve seen the new sculpted lap-lane devices from Zura Sports, which not only give you something…
Outside magazine, June 1994 Fine In-Line Skates Roll with high quality, not just high technology By Jim Harmon Buy right or buy twice–a lesson that in-line skaters have lots of opportunities to learn the hard way. Try to save some money…
Outside magazine, December 1996 He’s Still The Coolest A few moments with Old Man Winter, on his life, his loves, and the prospect of being phased out by a thing called global warming By Bruce McCall Old Man Winter is one…
News from the Field, January 1997 Sport: I’ll Have Mine on the Rocks and Straight Up Jeff Lowe’s towering plan to bring ice climbing to the masses By Julian Rubinstein Jeff Lowe is an idea man. when he’s not scaling mammoth,…
Outside magazine, August 1998 Field Notes: Cirque du Sailor Amid big-league swells, the world’s fastest ocean race runs aground in Baltimore By Bucky BcMahon Sometime before dawn on an otherwise ordinary Wednesday in spring, nine oceangoing sloops began feeling their…
And other lofty ideas that pop into one's head and refuse to leave
Outside magazine, September 1999 CYCLING Negative Spin After this year’s events, will the Tour de France ever be albe to redeem itself? Early in the morning on July 4, 189 cyclists were pooled together in a mass…
Outside magazine, September 1999 Just Add Intensity Ahtletes dread intervals because they’re tough. They’re also worth it. By Terry Mulgannon RUNNING | SWIMMING | CYCLING A GUIDE YOU CAN…
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, October 1994 Cycling: Miguel, You’re Swell By Todd Balf (with Greg Child and Dan Dickison) Miguel Indurain isn’t a big talker, but he had to be beaming in the aftermath of his record-tying fourth consecutive Tour de France victory last July. In a year…
Dispatches: News from the Field, November 1996 Film: Look Who’s Fornicating The latest from Miramax goes to show that it’s a bug-@#!*-bug world By Elizabeth Royte At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Miramax Films made a move that was…unusual. The studio…
Outside magazine, March 1998 Out There: The Platypus Prophecy Stumbling through the Australian night and, God help him, straight into the Meaning of Life By Tim Cahill Here is the wily platypus hunter, stalking the forests of the night.
Outside magazine, April 1995 Intake: Backcountry Dining Without Regression By Ami Walsh For Tim Loveridge, program coordinator of the Boston-based Appalachian Mountain Club, a trip into the backcountry is an excuse to indulge in the sort of grub most of us haven’t stocked the…
Outside Magazine, November 1994 Books: Ravage of the Rainforest By Andrea Barrett The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston (Random House, $23). Mess with the rainforest and see what you get: predatory viruses that tear into the human species like a tiger through a…
Outside magazine, June 1999 HONK IF YOU’RE IRRATIONAL They called it an unmapped drive through Indiana. But it really was a silent cry for help. My Delta, Myself | A…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Women’s Sprints: Odds That… Gwen Torrence will win three gold medals……..2-1 Merlene Ottey will shake the winner’s hand…..50-1 The U.S. women will take all sprinting gold…..4-1…
Outside magazine, April 1995 Environment: No, Uh, Cooperation in Defense of Mother Earth Can’t anybody organize this thing? How backroom feuds led to this month’s Earth Day chaos. By Bill Gifford Nobody organizes Earth Day,” former senator Gaylord Nelson said last summer…
Outside magazine, July 1994 Havana in the Rearview Mirror A final, heartbreaking trip through la revolucion By Randy Wayne White Land, sea, or air, 90 miles is 90 miles, except when describing the water space between Havana and Key West, a distance protracted by…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Middle Distance: Odds That African runners will claim every gold……..9-1 Gebrselassie will set at least one world record………10-1 An American will medal……….15-1…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Promise Kept Natascha Badmann served notice on the multisport community last November, first winning the Duathlon World Championships and then finishing a respectable sixth in the short-course triathlon worlds a week later. This May, she followed through in impressive fashion, annihilating the…
Outside magazine, October 1995 Wilderness Education Gone Brutally Wrong By Larry Burke The idea that nature forges sound character is one of man’s oldest convictions. It was this basic belief that gave rise to, among other things, the philosophy of John Muir, this magazine,…
Outside magazine, November 1995 The Wayward West: It Came from the Outback And then the best growled, snacked, and was sent to bed for being bad. But Congressman Don Young and his minions, eager to gobble up the nation’s environmental laws, aren’t sated yet.
Outside magazine, November 1996 Cross-Country Nation A report from the tracks in Oslo, capital of the land where to be Nordic is to ski nordic By Bill McKibben Warning! as you read this article, remember that Norway is not the…
Dispatches, November 1998 Sport I’m Going Big. Anyone Care to Follow? Layne Beachley looks to make her mark at surfing’s Triple Crown By Laura Hilgers Gale-force winds were whipping the peaks off six- to eight-foot waves last December when…
Winter Travel Guide 1996 Party Like It’s 1997 Jeff Williams If you want to be among the first in the world to ring in 1997, you’ll have to go far out of your way to do it-to the Chatham Islands, some 475 miles east…
Outside magazine, April 1995 Cowboy Nation: The Aerobic Cowboy: The Tush-Push Frontier A line-dancing odyssey to the land of the rhinestone-chapped and ready By Ed Zuckerman It was 7:30 on a Friday night, and the cavernous dance hall at In Cahoots, a…
Dispatches, May 1998 AFTERMATHS Nuclear Weapons Waste? Right This Way. While protesters cry foul, the U.S. government prepares to throw open the gates of the nation’s first permanent plutonium graveyard By Michael Dolan A small cluster of white…
 Outside magazine, May 1999 Eat My Backwash, Se±or! Sixteen hours in the foul Argentine drink, at a pair of the world’s longest (and strangest) swim races By Ken Kalfus Photographs by Rob Howard After…
Outside magazine, July 1995 Cinema: Check Out Those Lifelike Blowholes Hollywood unveils its kinder, gentler, bad-press-proof killer whales By John Alderman “These are not illusions,” says Walt Conti, owner of Edge Innovation, a movie special-effects boutique in Mountain View, California, explaining his…
Outside magazine, August 1997 Cheeky Bit of Ocean There, What? Exactly why are two young Brits pedaling, pedal-boating, and cross-dressing their way around the globe? Splendid question. They’re still trying to come up with a logical answer.
Fitness special, August 1998 Welcome to Your Future, Sissy Boy You fancy yourself an athlete? Well, so did the NBA All-Star, and the American League Rookie of the Year. But hard-guy trainer Mark Verstegen broke them down.
Outside magazine, November 1997 And 856,000 Choruses of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” Later … An armada of fearless oarsmen sets out on a 3,000-mile transatlantic free-for-all By Bill Donahue November is shaping up to be an unpleasant month for…
Outside magazine, November 1998 How Hard Is Hard? To firm up the nebulous, get cozy with your lactate threshold At what pace should you be working? Good question — and one you should be constantly…
Women Outside, Fall 1998 Longevity My, You’re a Pretty Young Thing Our octogenarian correspondent meets the septuagenarian of his dreams — with predictable results GEAR | TRAVEL | FITNESS |…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: Haven’t Been There. Ain’t Done That. It’s not easy being a world-beating adventurer these days. On a planet teeming with energetic busybodies, you have to find something to be first at. But fear not. In 1996, there will be…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: Bikini A-Go-Go Move over, Belau. The Marshall Islands’ Bikini Atoll, nuked repeatedly in U.S. surface tests in the forties and fifties, is about to become the South Pacific’s new must-dive local. “No question,” says Daniel J. Lenihan, chief of…
Destinations, February 1999 Chuck Darwin, Eat Your Heart Out The Chiricahua Mountains are as rugged and diverse as the Galápagos but have one big advantage: They’re right here at home. By Jonathan Hanson Up at…
Outside magazine, December 1995 A Landscape of Possibility To lose the wilderness, author Rick Bass argues, is to lose our ability to imagine By Rick Bass When the 104th congress reconvenes next month, its unfinished business is likely to include 22 million…
Outside magazine, May 1996 He’s Bad. He’s Windy. He’s a Tourist with an Attitude. Meet Robert Young Pelton, guerrilla guide to the world’s most dangerous places By Jack Hitt Robert Young Pelton is a tough guy. Just ask him. By his own…
Outside magazine, July 1996 A Five-Ring Tune-Up At least reigning C1 world champion David Hearn can joke about Michal Martikan, the Slovakian whiz kid who won the final Olympic-preview race last April on Tennessee’s Ocoee River. “You mean he’s still 16?” asked the incredulous fourth-place finisher,…
Outside magazine, September 1994 Hang Gliding: Holier Than Thou By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard and John Alderman) Over the years, top-ranked American pilot Tony Barton has collided with mountains, tangled in trees, and splatted on hardpan, but until the second day of last June’s Sandia…
Travel Guide, Winter 1995-1996 Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Part II A test to pair you with your sultry better half By Paul Kvinta The cliché-filled travelogues that lump all islands together in a wad of sand, cocoa butter, and umbrella-festooned drinks are intrinsically flawed.
Sifting through the ashes—and questions—amid one of one of the worst fire seasons ever Michael Darter Unfriendly fire: one of 235 homes incinerated by the Cerro Grande blaze in Los Alamos in May CHRIS KIRBY IS a large…
Outside magazine, March 1998 Field Notes: Fool’s Gold In the diaphanous mists of the Ecuadoran Andes, a king’s ransom lies buried. Or does it? By Melik Kaylan You want to hear about the treasure’s secrets?” said Andrës Fernžndez-Salvador the day…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: With No Giant Soda Cans, Can It Truly Be Called Freestyle? They plunged hundreds of feet while “riding” snowboards and kayaks, and crowds loved “freestyle bungee jumping” at last year’s inaugural Extreme Games. As Chris Stiepock, the event’s PR…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Ride With Pride: Progressive Machines: Mountain Bikes By Bob Howells and Gordon Black Performance in reserve — that’s the theme for this year’s mountain bikes, and you don’t have to deplete your finances to get it. Examples: Stiff, lightweight aluminum…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Big Weather: Tornadoes Greenness, hail, air pressure flattening your skull. Hide the children, save the banjo. By Jane Smiley By the time I was 25 and living in Iowa City, my fear of tornadoes was a significant fact…
Outside magazine, April 1999 Go West, and Preferably at Race Pace The training secrets of the athletes on the Old Frontier? Play often, work seldom, and always remember that the good guys wear white. Fashion by…
Outside magazine, July 1996 Geography: Dick Clark, Please Report to the Date Line Where will you be when it’s time to party like it’s 1999? By John Galvin The year 2000 may be four sweeps through the calendar away, but the race…
Outside magazine, September 1995 Racks That Take to Any Body How to carry all of your gear, on Subaru or Suburban, while feeling no strain By John Lehrer For years, sport racks have done job one–securely clamping gear to vehicle–with utter competence.
Outside magazine, November 2000 Chips on the Old Block I recently spent eight days on Mount Shasta, and I guess I fit your definition of a techreationalist (“The Everest of Silicon Valley,” Dispatches, September):…
Review: Hardware and Software, January 1997 Carving Tools New proof that gear makes the athlete: skis and snowboards that practically turn for you By Craig Dostie Whether you cruise on one plank or two, the technique everyone wants to master is…
Outside magazine, March 1996 Anthropology: Tiptoe Through the Turmoil Is scientific colonialism alive and well in Tanzania? By Kiki Yablon About 3.6 million years ago, three human-like creatures stood up and walked across the muddied volcanic ash near what is now Tanzania’s…
Outside magazine, May 1995 Cycling: And No French Aftertaste By Alan Cote Funny how the Tour DuPont sneaks up on you. On the seventh of this month, 126 of the world’s finest cyclists will finish wending their way through Appalachia in the seventh running…
Gone Summering, July 1998 Need a Little More? Sporting diversions to keep you hopping from now till Labor Day By Kimberly Lisagor July 4 Mount Marathon Race, Seward, AK Don’t be fooled by the distance —…
Gone Summering, July 1998 Where Earth and Water Mix It Up On Cape Cod, “landscape” is a word that defies definition By Paul Theroux The Cape You Don’t Know To paraphrase Heracleitus, it’s not…
Outside magazine, October 1997 Chico Mendes After he was cut down, his ideas took root By Kate Wheeler Had the Brazilian ranchers who murdered Chico Mendes known what was coming, they might never have shot…
 Outside magazine, October 1997 Uno … Dos … Tres … Urrrrnggghhh! Six thousand years of triumphant Basque sport have come down to this moment, when the toughest mother from the world’s toughest race attempts the near impossible.
The Downhill Report, December 1996 Flash! Bumps Are Actually Good For You! Not sure it’s time to return to moguls? Remember, you used to hate broccoli, too. By Michael Finkel Jonny Moseley can empathize. Although he’s a two-time World Cup overall…
 Outside magazine, December 1997 Mourning in the Land of Magic Rampant in the island nation of Indonesia is the idea that everyday life is governed by forces unseen, administered by the true leaders of the country, sorcerers known as dukuns. Among the…
Outside magazine, January 1998 Review Essentials Strength Through Simplicity By Patrick Leyland THE STREAMLINED HOME GYM | ESSENTIALS | THE OTHER STUFF | BOOKS…
Outside magazine, March 1996 1-800-SNOWJOB By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta (with Brian Alexander and Steve Law) Organizers of the embattled Iditarod International Sled Dog Race say they expect a near-record 73 mushers at the starting line this month. Among the entrants will be…
Outside magazine, June 1996 Fallout Kudos to Outside and Alex Shoumatoff for taking on the Los Alamos National Laboratory (“Bomb City, USA,” April). The nuclear weapons money machine keeps rolling along while cleanup programs are being cut. One LANL document states that the lab’s continuing…
Outside magazine, July 1999 EXPLORATION Deep Blues Forty fathoms down, divers have been dying on the wreck of the Andrea Doria. Will this be the worst summer ever? A Mystery Endures Not long after…
Outside magazine, August 1995 Expeditions: Crampons and Spokes By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard) This month, mountain guides Peter Bogardus and Shepard Kopp say, they’ll bring exploratory mountain biking to new extremes by pedaling to remote peaks in western China. They’re calling the expedition…
And other divinations from Tom Brown's Tracking, Nature, and Wilderness Survival School. As told by David Rakoff—Acolyte of the Standard Class, Master Bowdriller, Sweat Lodge Scaredy-Cat, and Friend to the Vole
Dispatches, February 1998 EXPEDITIONS Gramps Is Doing What? Vaughan, 92-year-old spring chicken, mushes through another Alaskan winter By Bill Donahue It’s not exactly the remark you expect to hear from a guy who’s about to hop on a dogsled…
Cycling Special, March 1997 Happier Trails to You Put in a few minutes of practice, get back hours of carefree mountain biking. Not a bad investment. By James Rodewald Your Tutor: Susan DeMattei, 34, won a bronze medal…
Outside magazine, May 1996 Politics: Let the Rivers Run. Let the Arms Be Twisted Doesn’t everybody want to save America’s fabled river of grass? On the eve of campaign ’96, President Clinton dares the GOP to say no. By Tom Kizzia When…
 Outside magazine, June 1998 Lord of All He Surveys What do you do with $150 million and an overpowering desire to save the earth? You buy your own Yosemite. And hope the natives go along with the…