Adventure
ArchiveOutside magazine, August 1996 The Book On: Beach Volleyball Can McPeak and Reno bury the hatchet for gold’s sake? By Mark Jannot Until April, the olympic debut of women’s beach volleyball seemed fairly easy to handicap: A few top international teams,…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Big Weather: The Ice Storm Trees crash through your windows like dead uncles, whole forests go into an exploding collapse. You’ve got your comeuppance. By Barry Hannah Here in Oxford, Mississippi, most of the leaves are fallen and…
Outside magazine, November 1995 Matches Made in the Heavens No matter what your alpine aptitude, a guide to finding that resort of your dreams By Ron C. Judd Fellow skiers, it’s time to take stock. Park yourself in a chair, rub that…
Out Front, October 1997 Attention: the Editors Have Left the Building Celebrating two decades of accuracy, prescience, and gentility. Or something like that. By Adam Horowitz If only we could attribute it to a newborn keeping us up all night.
 Outside magazine, August 1998 The First Law of Gravity Namely, that that which rises must eventually fall. A law that even the king of the Alaskan bush pilots probably can’t ignore forever. By Daniel Coyle Early morning at Ultima…
Deep beneath Moscow a crew of urban spelunkers frolics, hunting Stalin's secret hideaway, Ivan the Terrible's torture chamber, bootleg nuclear weapons, and a little fame and fortune
Outside magazine, September 1999 SPORT Out of This World Can a daring French rider called “the Alien” keep pace with downhill mountain biking’s wild, wild ride? “This is what I like,” says French downhill mountain-bike racing phenom Nicolas Vouilloz,…
Outside magazine, September 1999 POLITICS The New Wilderness Land Grab Armed with serious money, a young cadre of green activists is about to put naked nature back on the national agenda By Elizabeth Arnold…
Horse Sense I Wanna Be a Cowboy The Hysterical Parent The horse will buck or run off Wranglers look for horses to put in their lines that are “bomb-proof” (their description, not ours) because they don’t underestimate their clients’…
Outside magazine, October 1994 Books: Cactus Ed’s Apotheosis By Miles Harvey Earth Apples: The Poetry of Edward Abbey, edited by David Petersen (St. Martin’s Press, $14.95); Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey, edited by David Petersen (Little, Brown and…
Outside magazine, November 1996 Election Preview ’96 He’s Back And He’s Tanned, Rested, and Ready Forget Colin, Pat, and Jesse. The big-time endorsement every politician covets this year is that of television commercial icon Iron Eyes Cody, beloved symbol of…
Outside magazine, February 1996 No Comprendo! Yo Soy un Gringo Estupido! For the linguistically impaired, a south-of-the-border survival guide By Randy Wayne White Recently, I attended a two-week Spanish course at Conversa, an intensive language school located a few miles outside San…
Outside magazine, March 1999 Books: The Real Deal By James Zug ELECTRONICS | BUYING RIGHT | THE OTHER STUFF | BOOKS…
Outside Magazine, November 1994 Cycling: The Curse Strikes Again By Todd Balf (with Jim Hage) Before the start of the season, Motorola star Lance Armstrong reasoned that the world champion’s curse, a malady coined by the European tabloids after a succession of recent winners…
Outside magazine, July 1994 You Know How I Don’t Like Pesticides Sure, it’s a kinder crop. But is organic food really better for your body? By Ken McAlpine There are people who can resist strawberries. In fact, they bristle at eating strawberries–plain, or on…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Men’s Sprints: Odds That Michael Johnson will win both the 200 and 400…….1-1 Donovan Baileywill win gold in the 100………10-1 Carl Lewiswill medal in the 100……….15-1…
 Outside magazine, Family Vacation Guide Unsung Heroes Ten top-ranking parks you might not have heard of — but then, no one else has either TODDLERS…
Dispatches, May 1997 Treasure Hunting: Thank You, Fidel, May I Have Another Gold Ingot By Miro Cernetig “There could be billions in gold down there,” says Glenn Costello, practically chuckling as he thumbs through slides of sparkling silver coins and other booty…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Mountain Biking: Odds That… Alison Sydor will capture the gold medal……3-2 Tinker Juarez will medal……..3-1 Thomas Frischknecht will break something…….8-1…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Field Notes: The Last Wilderness Few places are left like British Columbia’s rainforest. But for how long? By Doug Peacock Early July on the central coast of British Columbia was cold and wet. Clouds hovered over indistinct shorelines.
Outside magazine, October 1994 Sailing: Incoming! By Todd Balf (with Greg Child and Dan Dickison) Last July, 24 hours after a surprise opening-day drubbing by millionaire skipper and fellow trash-talker Bill Koch, Dennis Conner did what he does best: He got even. When officials at the…
Outside magazine, November 1995 My Gelding, Myself How passion crosses the line into not-quite-respectable obsession: The complicated joys of horse ownership By Jane Smiley THE WORK Last weekend, when I went away for a two-night horse trials with my elderly…
Features: Election Preview ’96, November 1996 The Nature of the Beast In defense of the dandelion-pickin’, tree-lovin’ side of that environmental bogeyman, Bob Dole By Brad Wetzler Little-known fact: Bob Dole was once a demon on roller skates –the steel-wheeled, strap-on,…
 Outside magazine, November 1997 The Victim’s Wake When the body of a local man surfaced in the Grenadines, the wave of accusations that followed not only swept up the wealthy American couple suspected of his murder — it also exposed anew the uneasy symbiosis…
T H E H O L I D A Y G I F T G U I D E Shop for THE JOCK Shop for THE WANDERER Shop for…
 Outside magazine, April 1998 You Gotta Have Friends. Which is Damned Unfortunate. Tackling the Appalachian Trail on a whim would require a few essentials. I realized, foremost among them a boon companion. What I got was Katz. By Bill Bryson…
In the evolution of the species known as hockey players, those indoor patches of brine-cooled, milky-white, Zambonied ice have spawned some very good athletes. But the truly great ones arise from the dense, black freeze of the neighborhood skating pond, where weekend duffers and future stars happily collide.
Outside magazine, May 1998 A Lovely Sort of Lower Purpose In praise of doing nothing. To wit: No racing, no exceeding, no catch-and-releasing. Just time-tested fooling around. By Ian Frazier As kids, my friends and I spent a lot…
Outside magazine, May 1999 Expeditions Sledgepuller, P.I. Toting 300 pounds and a love of the arcane, a Canadian explorer attempts to unravel an Arctic mystery When Hans Kr’ger set out to explore a desolate stretch…
Outside magazine, June 1994 Mountain Biking: 150-kph Dreaming By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard and Eric Hagerman) Funny things happen when you try to ride a mountain bike at 150 kph. Ask the new downhill speed record holder, Frenchman Christian Taillefer, who on…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Books: Time and Tide Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast, by Daniel Duane (North Point Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $21). Thoreau did it from the door of his cabin; Darwin, from the deck of the H.M.S. Beagle;…
Vacation Special, August 1997 F L Y – F I S H I N G T H E R O G U E Time Off the Grid In blissful isolation along the Rogue River, where it’s easier to find…
Outside magazine, October 1995 Books: Vengeance and Cactus By Miles Harvey Painted Desert, by Frederick Barthelme (Viking, $22.95). This vibrant novel has fascinating parallels with nature essayist Bill McKibben’s acclaimed 1992 nonfiction work, The Age of Missing Information. In that book, McKibben…
Destinations, November 1998 Ace is the Place A prime-season meander down South Carolina’s Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto Rivers By Parke Puterbaugh If your mental image of coastal South Carolina consists mainly of Myrtle Beach’s six-lane…
Out Front, Fall 1998 Anthropology O.J., B.C. New and disheartening evidence that domestic abuse is prehistory By Cristina Opdahl It wasn’t So Fred Flintstone flirted with waitresses in Rockapulco. And frittered away too much time at the lodge.
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: Don’t Condo Me In Sheep rancher Randy Campbell says he’s been backed against a wall. “All the spring range is being subdivided for golf courses,” sighs Campbell, who works land near Vail, Colorado. Such growth has forced him to…
Outside magazine, January 1996 A Bimonthly Bath, Penguin Porn, and Thou New Year’s greetings from Don and Margie McIntyre, wrapping up 365 long days of Antarctic togetherness By Jack Barth Last January, adventurers Don and Margie McIntyre left the warmth of Sydney,…
Outside magazine, February 1998 W I N T E R O L Y M P I C S P R E V I E W Nagano? Naga-Yes! Sure, this year’s Winter Olympics will have its foibles, including…
Outside magazine, September 1994 When the Whammy Strikes It’s 3 a.m. in a big, foreign city. Do you know where your running shoes are? By Randy Wayne White Maybe through influence, but probably through curse, the Temple of the Giant Jaguar was the shaper…
Outside magazine, May 1998 Access & Resources Montserrat, minus the lava By Katie Arnold Another Day Under the Black Volcano Once you get over the fact that two-thirds of Montserrat is now buried under a thick…
Outside magazine, April 1996 26.2 Legendary Miles Of Foot-Pounding, Heartbreaking, Endorphin-Inducing Huff America’s oldest, greatest marathon transformed distance running from lonely obsession to the mass promenade of a fitness nation. On the centennial of the grueling Yankee race that helped launch a revolution, a boisterous salute.
Outside magazine, August 1999 THE MOUNTAINEERS Line of Ascent On a breeding ground for greatness, wisdom comes one humble step at a time It only takes a few minutes to learn how to strap on…
Outside magazine, July 1996 Ride Like a Pack Mule What you really need before hitting the road By Bob Howells If your bike-touring burden consists of everything in your pockets, it matters little what bike you ride: Your mountain bike will do…
Travel Guide, Winter 1995-1996 The Outside Yenta Says… 1. If you migrated toward (a), you’re a PURIST. Crowds and glitz, say you, are the source of all evil. Take your Birkenstock-wearing, muesli-munching, powder-lusting self to Mount Baker, Washington–Mecca for laid-back thirtysomething free-riders. Please,…
Outside magazine, August 2000 CAMPAIGN 2000: GORE | GORE’S GREEN CORPS BUSH | BIG MAN ON CAMPUS ASSUME THE POSITIONS RALPH NADER All Bulworth, No…
News from the Field, January 1997 Politics: Voters? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Voters. As the new Congress rolls in, meet the environmental bigwigs who’ll be pulling the strings By Juliet Eilperin Sure, being a member of congress has its perks–but…
Dispatches, March 1997 Expeditions: I Was a Middle-Aged Amelia Earhart Linda Finch’s vintage attempt to finish a legend’s journey By Paul Kvinta For The Record This One’s Mine, Dammit! Denied two years…
Outside magazine, January 1996 Books: The Spirits of Science By Miles Harvey Ship Fever and Other Stories, by Andrea Barrett (W. W. Norton, $21). Barrett, an Outside contributor and noted novelist, has put together a soaring collection of stories about characters, some…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Surfing: With the Worlds on her lumbar By Todd Balf (with Jim Kelly, Martin Dugard, and Alison Osius) Lisa Andersen’s beachside entourage was the size of a Paia block party. There were trainers, coaches, friends, family, and sponsors on hand…
Dispatches, April 1997 Sport: Carving Toward Destiny? Chris Davenport tries to secure the top spot in extreme-skiing history–on his own terms By Michael Finkel E A R T O T H E G R O U N…
Outside magazine, July 1996 Aesthetics: Spare Not the Grace Notes By Bob Shacochis I prefer to think that the wilderness as we have it these days, however attenuated and besieged, is more than ever the last refuge of the raw sensualist, and that the…
Outside magazine, September 1995 No More Curse of the Sheepherders But why would such a wholesome nation want the America’s Cup? By Randy Wayne White All things considered, the best place for a journalist to watch the finals of America’s Cup XXIX…
News from the Field, December 1996 Chemistry: The Not-Quite-As-Big Bang Shredding’s volitile new form of avalanche control By Hal Clifford When Doug Abromeit, director of the Forest Service’s National Avalanche Center, recently spied two teenage snowboarders in Utah’s Little Cottonwood Canyon,…
Outside magazine, May 1995 Policing the Flyways of Disease From the peculiar vantage point of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the world beyond America’s borders swarms with pathogenic threats. With more than 2.5 million foreign animals arriving in the United States every year–any one of which…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Big Weather The Ice Storm The picturesque has become terror, whole forests collapsing at once. Lessness rules. By Barry Hannah The Gale Forty-knot winds. Fifty-foot seas. And a ship that suddenly…
 Outside magazine, May 1994 A Death in Navajo Country Leroy Jackson loved this land and fought to protect it. Last fall his body was found on a lonely New Mexico road. Was he murdered? Or had he somehow lost his way?…
Outside magazine, June 1996 Paddling: Nicklaus, Jordan..Who? Greg Barton, America’s most celebrated unknown athlete By Martin Dugard Devoted paddlers talk about greg barton’s kayak stroke with the same reverence that country-clubbers reserve for Jack Nicklaus’s golf swing. No unseemly kerplunk marks the…
Gone Summering, July 1998 The Sky Is Not the Limit Look, up there, it’s the Dakotas’ main attraction! By Louise Erdrich And Don’t Forget the Terra Firma The 244,000-acre Badlands National Park is probably…
Outside magazine, October 1997 The Ironmen They invited us to their masochists’ ball. Amazingly, we accepted. By John Tayman ‘We were the first that ever burst / into that silent sea,” quoth Coleridge. Nothing…
Outside magazine, October 1997 Phil Knight His big sell: Everyone’s an athlete By Donald Katz A billionaire nearly six times over, and every cent of it born of entrepreneurial obsession and the abiding allure…
The Downhill Report, December 1996 A Little Humility Never Hurt Learning to snowboard can be a bumpy ride. Get over it, will you? By Mike Harrelson Ask most folks to describe their first day on a snowboard, and what they’re sure…
Outside magazine, December 1997 Philanthropy: Do-Gooders Rule! In this age of mounting apathy, an unlikely subculture steps up to the plate By Paul Kvinta And the Moral Is, Never Underestimate the Home-River Advantage…
Outside magazine, June 1995 Paleontology: Don’t Touch the Femurs By Chris Dray “Finally, I can get back to work.” That’s about all Peter Larson had to say after a jury last March acquitted him of the major charges in a rare case involving dinosaurs…
Outside magazine, March 1996 Goodness, Gracious By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta (with Brian Alexander and Steve Law) After last December’s inferno at the Malden Mills plant in Methuen, Massachusetts, shock waves could be felt both locally and throughout the outdoor-recreation business. The blaze…
Outside magazine, June 1996 Food and Drink Cycling Haute Cuisine By Bob Howells As many a resting athlete knows, there’s something about a malt beverage–and we’re not talking milkshakes–that soothes sore muscles and cools a hyperthermic body core. So next time…
Outside magazine, August 1995 Environment: A Moment on the Goofs Rome is burning. So why are greens throwing water at a book? By Keith Schneider (with Margaret Kriz) Gregg Easterbrook looked happy enough, but for somebody who once wrote an article entitled…
Outside magazine, October 1999 Adventure at the End of the Century The sight of George Leigh Mallory’s well-preserved body on Everest confirms that adventure, like life, is not always pretty. It means risking all on a mountain—as Mallory did, with tragic…
Outside magazine, January 1996 Heave To, Felix! Thar Blow th’ Faeroes! For good nautical fun, nothing beats the blizzardy, icebergy waters of the North Sea. Which makes it just the place for two friends willing to go anywhere in the name of unjustifiable adventure.
Outside magazine, March 1997 While Visions of 2,200-Pound Burritos Dance in His Head Not to mention spinning kayakers, tap-dancing marathoners, and flying haggis. The Keeper of the Records for the Guinness Book explains how to make a run at immortality.
Outside magazine, May 1996 Wildlife: Would you stuff this into your suitcase? Renowned bird-lover Tony Silva’s ugly fall from grace By Gretchen Reynolds “Nature has certain rules you don’t violate,” Tony Silva told a reporter in 1985. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, intense, and at…
 Outside magazine, June 1999 Culture Clash Journalist Philip True hiked into Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental seeking meaningful contact with the native Huichol Indians: an exotic trek with a little reporting thrown in, an encounter with an ancient…
 Outside magazine, August 1995 Without a Trace Jeff Wandich learned a hard lesson from his tragedy at sea: Human nature doesn’t allow people to vanish without a trace By Randy Wayne White Late on a windy night, in a hundred feet…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Cycling: Odds That… Rebecca Twigg will win the 3,000-meter pursuit……3-2 Lance Armstrong will ride away with a gold……..5-1 Miguel Indurain will medal…….10-1…
Outside magazine, May 1995 Speed Skating: Bonnie Blair’s Entirely Predictable Farewell Tour By Todd Balf Rarely does an athlete bid farewell to a sport while at the top of his or her game. But at 31, Bonnie Blair has just wrapped up one of…
Brad Pitt's in Tibet. Steven Seagal's flacking his lama creds on Letterman. Dharma's rampant at the local U and Buddha has settled in the East Village. With America sweatily grasping all things Shangri-La, it's a virtual Lamapalooza out there. But will the true cause benefit?
Dispatches, August 1998 Exploration Hello … Anybody Out There? Two climbers get first dibs on an untouched wilderness of peaks By Hampton Sides Dave Briggs got his first aerial glimpse of Greenland’s Sweizerland Mountains from a Bell 210 helicopter…