Adventure
ArchiveIn a stunning final letter, Timothy Treadwell speaks out on naysayers, fear, and what he believed was acceptance into the clan of the bear
Famed naturalist Charlie Russell argues that Timothy Treadwell's work was both crucial and sane
A bear expert's risky research ends in disaster. Should anybody get so close to grizzlies?
Bode Miller has everything you could want in a World Cup ski racer. He's fast, fearless, and frequently out of control. He can drink like a sailor and swear like a snowboarder, and he's got the talent to take it all from those grim Austrian cyborgs. Most amazing, he's American. Can we make this guy a hero already?
French chef Auguste Escoffier was a founding father of haute cuisine and a serious lover of wild game. In Outside‘s January 2004 feature story, “If You Are What You Eat, He’s Dead Meat,” Steven Rinella snags an old Escoffier cookbook and tries his hand at preparing a multi-course meat feast…
Ramp up your winter repertoire with new skiing and snowboarding skillz, brought to you by the pros who know.
A journey to the cradle of climbing reveals a strange new alpine environment, where glaciers are melting, mountains are falling, and nothing is as it was
Expedition: Surfing the closed coast Team: Ross Garrett, Keith Malloy, Dan Malloy Location: Central California Objective: Surf 40 miles of off-limits coastline Duration: Three days FOR SURFERS, the stretch of empty central California coastline beginning some 40 miles south of San Luis Obispo at Surf…
Two dozen high school seniors from the Nebraska flatlands roadtrip to the peaks of Colorado for their first winter trip to the Rockies. It's an all-American rite of passage, complete with gangsta rap, debauchery, and terror on the bunny slope.
A wave off Rincón isn't the only wild ride in Puerto Rico. Here's an action primer on the island's untamed side.
Outside celebrates 15 legendary women who paved the way for our 2003 XX Factor all-stars�and for female athletes and adventurers everywhere.
After a decade of nursing apartheidÂ’s hangover, South Africa is finally coming into its own as an adventure-travel destination. An influx of outdoorsy Europeans, a good exchange rate, and South AfricansÂ’ growing interest in the outdoor lifestyle have fueled a boom in the past two years. About three times the…
Slicing through powder at Copper Mountain Q: Can you tell me which ski areas open the earliest? Would it be worth making a trip to snag some early turns or am I better off waiting? — Heidi Hagemeier, Bend, Oregon Adventure Advisor:…
“Schoening leaned into his ax and braced himself for the impact. The rope thinned, then drew taut as a steel wire. For the next five minutes, he kept six men from falling of the face of the mountain.”
Sage Cattabriga-Alosa is Outside‘s November 2003 Rising Star—and for good reason. The 23-year-old Utah native is one of the hottest names in fusion skiing, an extreme style that crosses freeskiing with terrain-park tricks. Below, watch a video clip of Cattabriga-Alosa performing high-flying stunts in Teton Gravity Research’s latest film, High…
Brothers Tom (the good son) and Jerry (the bad seed) are about to join their fellow flatlanders for a zero-to-60 weekend of skiing and snowboarding at a skyscraping resort two miles above sea level. Watch as they confront the pitfalls of poor preparation, altitude sickness, dehydration, muscle fatigue, and draft beer. With this survival guide, we'll show you, w
READY TO GRAB FRESH BIG AIR? We’ve got hemispheres of the white stuff—and timely beta on boosting your stamina, choosing the right equipment, and finding singular steeps close to home. Who says winter ever needs to end? Get Out There For more great worldwide skiing and snowboarding destinations,…
Outside Online’s Specialized Bike Giveaway Contest, coming October 17!…
With exploding ratings and a new book—not to mention a wardrobe makeover!—can anything stop wildlife-show host Jeff Corwin?
The call came on Tuesday. A friend had to bail from a trip to the Bill Putnam Hut, a helicopter-accessed ski cabin of near-mythic fame in eastern British Columbia. The catch? I had to leave on Friday. DETAILS Reserve the BILL PUTNAM (FAIRY MEADOW) HUT and helicopter transportation through the…
There’s something immensely appealing about lacing up a pair of skates with long, thin blades and soaring so fast on ice that your snot freezes. I’m not alone in my feelings; participation in distance skating is growing, across open ponds and lakes and on manicured 400-meter outdoor ovals. The two…
The author's father traveled the world, shipped out on the last commercial sailing voyage around Cape Horn, and handed down a legacy of adventure. But his risk-taking spirit had a dark side—and its shadow fell across a final winter rendezvous in Aspen.
Sure, the wilderness is beautiful. But it can also frighten you out of your mind.
Outside‘s October 2003 Dispatch, “Back in the Crosshairs,” explores the raging controversy between environmentalists and ranchers over the proposed removal of the gray wolf from the federal endangered species list. Here, we discuss the delisting issue with wolf expert and former Yellowstone naturalist Gary Ferguson. Gray Wolf Forum…
It's every boy's dream: launching a do-it-yourself rocket that could not only put an eye out but could drill a hole through King Kong's forehead—and still make it to outer space. Meet Ky Michaelson, the sultan of thrust.
Armed with a revolutionary new tracking device, cave divers map threats to Florida's main water source
In a world where everything has a rational explanation, nature still has the power to keep her secrets. These true stories of dark doings, loose ends, and unexplained terror keep us up at night, defy all reason, and scare the living daylights out of us.
Radical Chic PR Lesson #127: Put a bunch of VIPs in a raft. Send them down the Futaleufú. Stop a dam. Sounds fun—and is!
In Outside‘s October 2003 cover story, “The O Files,” we explore the creepy side of adventure: murder, shocking disappearances, haunting riddles, and inexplicable creatures. But this isn’t the first time we’ve delved into nature’s dark enigmas—Outside has a history of delivering eerie tales of the outdoors. Below, we present some…
Adventure porn, brought to you by the gurus of extreme video
Any suggestions for a good pair of polarized sunglasses to use when fly-fishing? With so many lens colors to choose from, which one would you suggest? Also, to prevent the glasses from falling off if, or rather when I fall, is there a gadget to keep them on my head so a fish doesn't end up wearing them instead? Matt Albuquerque, New Mexico
What did we do all summer? We searched the country for the coolest college towns, places where the outdoors and intellectual esprit mingle blissfully. In this online SNEAK PREVIEW of Outside‘s September issue, we fill you in on our picks for the nation’s TOP TEN schools. Whether you’re seeking…
"He died doing what he loved best," they always say. But when climbers meet their end on the high peaks, the ordeal is just beginning for their wives, husbands, children, parents, and friends. An exclusive excerpt from Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow
Hybrid vigor has long been a trusted tenet of biology: Cross a shiny red tomato with a frost-resistant tomato, and chances are you’ll get a superior offspring that’s both beautiful and cold hardy. A similar idea gave rise to the auto industry’s new breed of hybrid cars– they combine the…
Making ethanol is a bit like following a recipe from an old Farmer’s Almanac: Grind corn into flour; add water and enzymes to turn the flour into sugar; add yeast until you have a syrupy concoction; strain the solids out; distill. Essentially, ethanol is a taste-bud killing moonshine with a…
Biodiesel is about to go big-time. Will the ski-bum town of Telluride, Colorado, become the green-fuel Houston?
Take a hydrogen atom, comprised of one proton and one electron. Strip the electron and run a car. That’s the basic premise behind the energy efficiency crowd’s latest craze, the fuel cell—a unit that facilitates the chemical reaction described above using compressed hydrogen gas and oxygen, and creates electricity for…
“Do you want to push it?” 33-year-old Kathy NiKeefe asks from the driver’s seat of her 2001 VW Golf TDi. I lift my hand toward a button on the dash labeled “veggie switch” in cut-out letters. Once the button is pressed, the car’s engine switches from diesel to used vegetable…
Today's topic: We rank the Top 40 schools where you can hit the books AND the backcountry. Your assignment: Rappel off that ivory tower and take our cram course on America's most adrenaline-friendly colleges. You'll come for your B.A. (Bachelor of Adventure) and want to stay for life.
In Outside‘s September feature “Grease is the Word,” we profile Charris Ford, a 33-year-old fuel pioneer from Telluride, Colorado, bent on powering the world’s diesel engines on biodiesel, a concoction of vegetable oil, alcohol, and lye. While the gospel of biodiesel is spreading to cities across the nation (like Berkeley…
Immerse yourself in these eight close-to-home dive sites, where the water's world-class and your tent's just a splash away
Baja's Isla Espíritu Santo conjures up endless scuba sites and miles of sand for camping by
What happens when a solitary day hike turns into the ultimate test of survival?
Why jet to exotic reefs when home waters boast spectacularly diverse diving?
Journey with us through the watery heart of the largest subtropical wetlands in America: the Everglades. Why? Because it's there—or used to be.
Wet, wonderful H2O ain't just the cure for the summertime blues. It's life itself—a priceless treasure that we've got to stop squandering.
“River Impossible,” an August 2003 feature story by Patrick Symmes, incorrectly reported on a newspaper article by author and investigator Barry R. Clausen in the Yreka, California-based Siskiyou Daily News in February. It was wrongly implied in “River Impossible” that Mr. Clausen was an interview subject in the newspaper article,…
Pure, abundant agua is getting harder to find. Feeling thirsty?
AMERICANS ENJOY SOME OF THE SAFEST DRINKING WATER IN THE WORLD, but quality varies widely, and it’s surprisingly tough to find out definitively which cities serve the good stuff and which do not. Some 54,000 community water systems are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but no government body…
SPLASH FIGHTS: Water issues chronically become water wars. Here are some collisions in progress—from bang-ups over how to divide spoils to clashes over big cleanups—that need to be resolved in the years ahead.
The August 2003 issue of Outside is dedicated to reporting on the health of our nation’s water supplies, from the lakes and rivers we play in to the water we drink. But this isn’t the first time the magazine has reported on the water crisis—we have a long history of…
It sounds too good to be true: a star miler turned criminal goes to prison, links up with a legendary track coach, trains behind bars until his feet bleed, and earns a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. Is the real world ready for Jon Gill's dream?
You better grab a lifeline and hold on tight when Steve Fossett decides to make another manic bid for glory
Last summer, U.S. wildfires cost $1.6 billion to stop and claimed the lives of 23 firefighters. The statistics were depressingly familiar, but the expense and sacrifice did nothing to solve the problems of overgrown forests, misguided government suppression policies, and misspent resources. Is there a way out? Maybe. But only if we get serious about rethinking
Lance Armstrong in Girona, Spain “I don’t like to lose. I just despise it.” Armstrong in Girona, Spain, his spring training grounds for the 2003 Tour de France. Armstrong on a road ride in Spain, March 2003 SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN AUSTIN, TEXAS, the warm air pungent with pollen,…
With their nifty new windmills, tidy techno-homes, and enviro-crusading queen, the Dutch are busy creating the cutest little ecotopia on earth—while stoking a booming hypercapitalist economy. What does tiny Holland know that America is too big and dumb to figure out?
So you want to climb a mountain, but you’ve never done it before. No sweatthere’s a first time for everything. Even the world’s greatest climbers were once beginners like you, gearing up with ropes, carabiners and crampons and heading for the hills for their first technical ascents. To help fuel…
Three years after a notorious kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan, new evidence and big changes emerge from Central Asia
Australian photographers Ian and Erick Regnard have followed surfing’s ASP World Tour for the past six years, shooting the planet’s most famous surf personalities on and off their boards. On days when the waves were too low for competition purposes, the Regnard brothers also shot contemporary musicians, models, and others…
Cut your alpinism chops on North America's best routes.
There’s a swoosh of heaven that runs from Hawaii through Mexico to Central America and the Caribbean. Don’t let it bask in the sun by itself. Our 43 sweet spots are waiting—surrender and go. TRAILING OFF ON KAUAI By James Glave THE INS & OUTBOARDS OF…
Experience is the key to mountaineering prowess, but high-altitude fitness makes all the difference on summit day
Noted ski mountaineer Andrew McLean, named one of the planet’s finest athletes by Outside in December 2001, departed his home in Salt Lake City with an ambitious goal in his sites: to be the first to complete a continuous ski descent of Alaska’s 14,573-foot Mt. Hunter. With first descents already…
Ten years ago, extreme snowboarder Stephen Koch cooked up a media-savvy plan to become the first to climb and ride down the Seven Summits. Now there's only one mountain left to conquer: Everest. And for his grand finale, Koch is determined to fling himself down the most dangerous descent possible.
Outside TV is proud to announce the May 5 premier of its two newest film productions on the Outdoor Life Network (OLN): Into the Thunder Dragon In this enchanting film—which recently won the Moscow Film Festival’s award for Best Cinematography in Extreme Conditions—Sean White…
In 24-hour mountain-bike races, riders bond over singletrack and sleep deprivation. What's not to like?