Adventure
ArchiveOutside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Parapenting “There is apprehension,” says Susie Smyle, a trip packager with Boulder, Colorado-based All Adventure Vacations, of the booming phenomenon known as multisport sampler tours. These outdoor smorgasbords let clients try everything–rafting, hiking,…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: Babes in Crampons “I’d stack my son’s psychological and physical strengths against 90 percent of the mountaineers that I meet,” brags Michael Stewart, proud father of 13-year-old Joshua, who is five summits away from his dream of being the…
Dispatches, February 1998 ADVENTURE Hey, Where’s the Joystick on This Thing? As the race to soar around the globe heats up, Dick Rutan prepares for liftoff By Hampton Sides The Borax Desert around Mojave, California, is the hallowed ground…
Outside magazine, September 1994 Trail Running: Ankles Away By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard and John Alderman) Prior to last June, nobody from outside Interior Alaska had won the Annihilator 10k, in the town of Nenana. And with good reason: It’s remote, steep, bug-plagued, and proudly…
Outside magazine, June 1994 Books: Lunar Landscapes By Miles Harvey Clearcut: The Tragedy of Industrial Forestry, edited by Bill Devall (Sierra Club Books/ Earth Island Press, $50). For years, the timber industry has been skilled at concealing the horrific effects of clear-cut…
Outside magazine, July 1996 The Lightning Stalker Strikes Again As an amp-anxious world cowers, David Stillings goes to work By Randy Wayne White Because we’re standing in an open field near Orlando, Florida, because thunderheads are boiling toward us, because the…
Outside magazine, September 1994 Mining: Big Gulp Some call it fun. Some call it a huge, rubbly mess. News from the prospecting frontier. By Jonathan Weisman Glistening in a wetsuit and diving gear, 56-year-old Chuck Tabbert splashes to the surface in a section of…
Travel Guide, Winter 1995-1996 The Outside Yenta Says… 1. If you consistently selected (a), you are a HOPELESS AMPHIBIAN. Your body requires moisture at all times. Bring your scuba gear, surfboard, sailboard, or sea kayak to Bonaire–Plummeting coral walls just 100 feet from…
Outside magazine, September 2000 Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 Anatomy of…
Outside Magazine, February 1995 Politics: Ask Not What They’ll Do for Your Countryside Face-to-face with the environment’s newest movers and shakers in Washington By Ned Martel (with John Galvin) Pumped with Gingrich fever, Congress promises to take up environmental issues with newfound…
Outside magazine, April 1996 Books: Dead Men Don’t Wear Drab Mystery writer Nevada Barr’s stiff-brimmed recipe for murder By John Galvin It’s after midnight on rural Mississippi’s Natchez Trace Parkway, and Ranger Nevada Barr is cruising solo on the scenic road’s loneliest…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Ride With Pride: Mountain Bike Skills: Let the Missile Guide You Missy Giove’s hard-won lessons in fat-tire control By Kiki Yablon “The best way to monitor your speed is by gauging the amount of control, or lack thereof,”…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Sport Climbing: Tres Bon, Robyn By Todd Balf (with Jim Kelly, Martin Dugard, and Alison Osius) Robyn Erbesfield has no peer in sport climbing. Period. At the World Cup finale last December in Birmingham, England, she out-jousted France’s Natalie Richer…
Dispatches, April 1999 Sport Spiked Almost Off the Map By Tim Zimmermann Let’s begin with a flashback. Atlanta, Georgia. July 1996. Beach volleyball is making its Olympic debut while serving as party central for a…
Outside magazine, September 1995 Personal Security: And for That Commute to Headquarters… By Jon Gluck Anyone with the corn-fed twang of Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock” lodged in his brain knows that a sport-utility vehicle can handle anything the backcountry can throw at it.
Outside magazine, September 1995 Buying Right: Bodacious Rooftop Boxes By John Lehrer Adding a cargo box to your roof rack is like building a new room on your car. All of the things that crowd your backseat when the trunk overfloweth–backpacks, ski boots, cooking…
Outside magazine, October 2000 21st-Century Blues TOO OFTEN, the media only skim over politicians’ positions, neglecting substance for candidate babble. So I enjoyed “Campaign 2000” (August), Outside‘s package on the environmental records of this year’s candidates. The environment is…
January 1996 Features: The Outside Prognosticator Every time period has its ups and downs, but 1996 will be something else. Are we thrilled to our toes about the Atlanta Olympics? Yes, but we’re cringing about Izzy, the Games’ purple-hided mascot, who will lead a schlock…
Outside magazine, March 1995 Ride with Pride Finding a Bike That Fits Stop straddling that tube and adjust your saddle, road cowboy By Dana Sullivan It Pays to Keep a Level Head How to wear…
Outside magazine, May 1994 Literature: Holy Roll Casting Hooking spirituality in trouting’s deep, deep pools By Donovan Webster Bait fishermen approach water with a simple thought: “Bite, you rascals.” With fly fishermen it’s more like “Ommmm.” We refer to man’s–well, fly-fishing…
Destinations, July 1997 Life on the Far Edge Tromping about on Spain’s unique western shore, where fjords abound and vino is a breakfast staple By Bruce Schoenfeld Carnival in Rias Come for the seafood. Stay for the bagpipes and…
Gone Summering, July 1998 All Hail the Lizard You don’t have to see Colorado’s most famous reptile. Just head out on the trail and trust that he’s there. By Rob Story Altitude with Attitude…
Outside magazine, October 1997 Contributors As this 20-year occasion reminds us, a pleasant consequence of an extended publishing run is the opportunity it affords to see writers develop, change, grow long in tooth and short in hair. Some of the following have been with…
Outside magazine, October 1997 Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot … Together again: the noble, the menacing, the triumphant, the pratfalling, and other unforgettable elements of the outdoor universe Attention: the Editors Have Left the Building Celebrating two…
The Downhill Report, December 1996 Hey, Nice Curves! Those shapely new skis will do the carving. You just have to let them. By Katie Arnold The long afternoons of cursing your skis through quad-burning turns are over. Everyone, let’s welcome the…
 Outside magazine, December 1997 Humbly Goes the Mountain Man A decidedly unheroic trip up Kilimanjaro By Chip Brown Access & Resources From the Savanna to the Snowfields This way to…
Outside magazine, June 1996 Don’t Shoot, or We’ll Shoot Don’t Shoot, or We’ll Shoot Supporters of a California ballot initiative to manage the state’s growing cougar population through sport hunting not only suffered a crushing defeat in the March referendum–they’ve become targeted game themselves. State…
Outside Magazine, February 1995 Skysurfing: Beware Falling Cameramen By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard) Question: If a person skysurfs at 13,000 feet and nobody is there to see it, does it happen at all? Well, for all intents and purposes, no. At October’s Freestyle…
Outside magazine, May 1995 Where the Deer and the Presidents Play From the ranger desks at our national parks, spectacular questions posed by a curious citizenry By Debra Shore With summer approaching and our thoughts returning to wide-open spaces, we residents of…
Dispatches, June 1997 Surfing: www.bythepowersvestedinme.com By Sarah Horowitz If there’s anything more romantic than a traditional June wedding, it’s a June wedding alfresco, vows exchanged beside a gurgling stream or beneath a weeping willow. But how best to find that magical spot?…
Outside magazine, July 1999 BOOKS The Perfect Sell Buy this book! Adventure books have gone so mainstream over the last two years…
Outside magazine, September 1996 Goatsucker Sighted, Details to Follow Strange beast plunders Puerto Rico, Florida, Mexico Livestock drained of blood, entrails Citizens ignore authorities’ appeal for calm By Bucky McMahon CANØVANAS, PUERTO RICO–An unwelcome anniversary is being celebrated here, one…
Outside Magazine, November 1994 Broadcasting: Goooood Mooooorning, Ends of the Earth! For an elite corps of ham-radio buffs known as DXpeditioners, making small talk from nowheresville is serious business By Jonathan Weisman Everything about the expedition had been carried out according to…
Outside magazine, December 1995 The Archdruid in Winter By Larry Burke Years ago a developer wisecracked that David Brower worshiped trees and sacrificed human beings, thus tagging him with a nickname he’s carried proudly ever since: the archdruid. A mountaineer and editor who became…
Travel Guide, Winter 1995-1996 Dominica By David Noland Dominica is for people who need sweat and grit in their tropical vacation: The island’s few beaches are mostly of black volcanic sand, and none rates even fair by Caribbean standards. What Dominica…
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 A Darkness on the River What the son found in the Peruvian jungle was a terrible truth. What his father found there months later was a way to begin again. By Tim Cahill The Marañón River drops…
 Outside magazine, November 1996 The Volcano Runners No elite runners train at higher altitude, or suffer more, than the human lungs who roam these oxygen-starved slopes. And yet Mexico’s great marathoners still labor under a faint cloud,…
Outside magazine, November 1997 YURI TRICYS TREE PLANTER Should Tree-Planting Become a Medal Sport, Here’s Your Winner Looking for some real athletes? You know, the kind without massage therapists and sports psychologists and closets full of shoes? Good, because rather than wasting energy…
Out Front, Fall 1998 Endurance Queen of Pain There’s only one way to break the tedious swim-vomit-swim cycle: Pray for an underwater visit from Santa By Martha Corcoran “I know physically I can swim the distance. I don’t take…
Outside magazine, April 1998 The Outside Portfolio When the Giant Sequoia Talks, People Listen A guide to green investing in an uncertain, tail-of-the-bull age By Nelson D. Schwartz THE OUTSIDE PORTFOLIO: When the Giant Sequoia…
Hardware and Software, February 1997 Books: Rough Edges, Terminal Dreams By Miles Harvey Letting Loose the Hounds, by Brady Udall (W. W. Norton, $22). “There are times,” explains a character in this sinewy collection of short fiction, “when the only way…
Outside magazine, May 1998 Anatomy of a Big One Riding huge surf is simple, really: Know how the wave works, time your entry right, and, um, hope for the best. By Daniel Duane Something Wicked This Way…
Outside magazine, May 1999 Endurance 113 Miles to Go? Pull, Dammit! To dream up the world’s toughest rowing race, it helps to be called The Hammer If you happen to wake at dawn some…
Outside magazine, June 1994 Mountain Biking: Iron Johnny By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard and Eric Hagerman) The buzz at March’s Cactus Cup wasn’t so much about former world champion John Tomac’s win as the way he looked doing it. He was buffed…
Dispatches, August 1997 M E T E O R O L O G Y Say, Brother, Can You Spare a Huge Windfall? One woman’s high-priced offer to save us from nature’s wrath By Sarah Horowitz…
Dispatches, August 1998 Esoterica Games (Really Weird) People Play By Katie Arnold It’s surely no secret that Europeans, enthusiastic practitioners of such dubious activities as snooker and ferret-legging, possess a flair for peculiar sports. But it is in August, when…
Outside Magazine, November 1998 Review: No Halfpipe Can Hold Me For those with all-mountain aspirations, a freeride board is the answer By Mark North SNOWBOARDS | BUYING RIGHT | THE OTHER…
Women Outside, Fall 1998 Yellow Pages: Resources for the Adventurous Athlete Fitness By John Brant, Gretchen Reynolds and Lea Aschkenas GEAR | TRAVEL | FITNESS | HEALTH |…
Outside magazine, January 1996 The Outside Prognosticator: Hey, Isn’t That Al Oerter? Maybe you aren’t going to the summer Olympics because you can’t get tickets. Or maybe it’s just jitters about Atlanta’s style–after all, do you really want to see waiflike foreign gymnasts get razzed off…
The Outside Prognosticator: The Chicken Little Machine Just when you thought the weird weather of recent years was simmering down, 1995 had TV forecasters quaking under their shoulder pads again. As 1996 kicks off, prepare to hear more about a mysterious Defense Department installation–the High Frequency Active…
Dispatches, February 1999 Business “We Will Win, and Earth Will Win!” And other emissions from America’s greenest CEO By Erik Stokstad When Ray Anderson threw a 24th birthday bash for his billion-dollar carpet-manufacturing company, Interface, hundreds…
Outside magazine, December 1995 Offering Oneself to the Fat Boys Even to a man with a powder pedigree, skis with girth provide the gift of flotation By James Salter I can’t remember when I started to ski powder–when I had to, probably.
Outside magazine, June 1994 Mountaineering: New Route, Same Dangers By Todd Balf (with Martin Dugard and Eric Hagerman) Because of a well-earned reputation as the world’s most dangerous 8,000-meter peak, K2 doesn’t see a lot of new routes–the old ones are tough enough.