Adventure
Archive
In Bhutan's pristine alpine sanctuary, even a heathen climber can see the light
As the political controversy over the future of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reignites, a journey across ANWR's disputed territory explores the realities of a place where wildlife, native traditions, and the search for oil converge in fateful proximity
Canoeing the jungles of South America, where freedom is a family affair
He's got a three-week Greyhound Discovery Pass, a map of mom-and-pop ski hills, and a yen to see the west from the vantage of a pungent window seat. From Utah's Beaver Mountain to Idaho's Bogus Basin, our telemark-toting reporter logs 5,000 miles in search of the answer to the immortal question: where's the fresh?
When it comes to winter sports, there are skills, and there are skillz. We're talking about catching big air off the halfpipe, making like Apolo Ohno on skate-skis, building a perfect snow ramp for launchpad jumps, and climbing a frozen waterfall. Ready to get with it? Then listen to the mad wisdom of pros who know.
Bahamas Island Out-Adventures (www.bahamasadventures.com; 242-333-3282) arranges trips by the day and includes all transportation, meals, activities, and equipment. One-day adventures cost $99 per person. Overnight trips start at $299 per person for two days, $399 for three days, and $499 for four days. The company can also…
Fresh off an empty island in the tropical Atlantic, our intrepid travel expert gives the inside scoop on the Bahamian adventures you never knew were possible.
Now independent and arms-free, East Timor is emerging as Southeast Asia's new jewel
Two rival British teams launch a tenacious race to find Shackleton's long-lost ship
Thirty years after losing his brother on a Himalayan peak, Reinhold Messner battles ugly accusations that he abandoned him at the top.
Philip Smethurst is training young adventurers to spread Christianity to the planet's wildest corners
With his slick new ms1 helmet, gear guru Thomas Meyerhoffer continues to reinvent technical style
David Hempleman-Adams, 46, is a glue salesman, father of three, and Britain’s most accomplished living adventurer. The first to hike solo and unsupported to the geomagnetic North Pole (a goal he attainted last April), he was also the first to pilot a hot-air balloon over the North…
Just five months after amputating his own arm when it was crushed by an 800-pound boulder, Ralston resumed his career as an outdoor athlete by competing in last weekend's six-sport Adventure Duluth race.
War, terror, and SARS are keeping millions of travelers at home. Sounds like it's time to plan an adventure.
Last year was a low point for Search-and-Rescue helicopters. Could this year be even more dangerous?
DARK STAR SAFARI BY OUR CONTRIBUTORS “Being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship,” Mary Roach writes in Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (W.W. Norton, ), her mordantly witty history of the scientific contributions made by the no-longer-living. “Most…
America's favorite ramble is getting a few extensions, but the traditionalists are not amused
THE BIG ONE A Dangerous Place California’s Unsettling Fate BY MARC REISNER (Pantheon, $22) MARC REISNER died with paper in his typewriter. When cancer claimed him three years ago (he was only 51), the author of Cadillac Desert, the classic 1986 history…
The world's best tracker of new primate species shares secrets for finding fuzzy little guys in the woods
DROP CITY From Our Pages FIRST, A LITTLE CHEE-CHEE Then Some Other Weird Sports BY BILL VAUGHN (Arrowgraphics, ) IN HIS “ULTIMATE instructional manual for anyone who’s sick and tired of trying to do the right thing,” contributing editor Vaughn holds forth on sabotaging…
Cinematographer Howard Hall captures coral reefs, swarming sharks, and life below 300 feet
Gordon Giesbrecht didn't become the world's leading authority on hypothermia by sitting around the campfire. He got there by leaping into frozen lakes, injecting ice water into his veins, and taking lots of very, very cold baths.
Women's surfing is riding a new pop-culture tsunami. So why can't the pros make it with a tour of their own?
The process is the point. But just try telling that to your younger, untutored, world-conquering self.
What are those chubby things? Shane McConkey unveils his freaky new powder skis.
Hoping to snag high-rolling adventurers, Nepal green-lights its first full-time heli-skiing operation
More than 20 years after the guerrilla war that forged Zimbabwe from Rhodesia, fear and violence are once again convulsing that African nation—this time, with a black government pitted against white landowners. The author, who grew up on a farm in Rhodesia, recalls her child's-eye view of a world where even nature knew that luck had run out.
THAT OLD ACE IN THE HOLE By Annie Proulx (Scribner, $26) WHEN ANNIE PROULX wrote about Newfoundland in her 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Shipping News, and her adopted home state of Wyoming in the story collection Close Range, she described those places so indelibly that her…
A spiffy new generator turns wood into watts. Could be just the thing for getting waaay off the grid.
In the January 2003 issue, Outside editors announced our picks for the 25 best adventure books of the last 100 years. The arduous selection process required hundreds of hours of reading, conversation, and debate, involving a wide circle of writers, explorers, scholars, and friends. Along the way we suffered our…
Where to Surf, Hike, Dive, Fish, Shop, Eat, Drink, Dance, Sleep, and Kick Back
Santa’s little climber: one move from the top on Hitchcock Pinnacle at Arizona’s Mount Lemmon. Q: A few of us from Virginia want to take a rock-climbing trip somewhere warm during the Christmas holidays. We’re considering Red Rocks in Nevada and California’s Joshua Tree National Park, among…
In the dark of winter, monsters lurk near the glow of Seattle. And man, that's when the jigging's good.
Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht, the world’s leading authority on freezing to death, believes the best way to study the effects of cold on the human body is to get intimate with the elements. Along the way to claiming numerous research firsts, the 45-year-old physiologist and director of the University of Manitoba’s…
Rama the cama—the world's first llama/camel hybrid— meets Kamilah, his camalicious bride-to-be
Amped by a new Colorado superstore, Mont-Bell hopes to sell the USA on its streamlined swagstreamlined swag
In the January 2003 issue, Outside editors announced our picks for the 25 best adventure books of the last 100 years. The arduous selection process required hundreds of hours of reading, conversation, and debate, involving a wide circle of writers, explorers, scholars, and friends. Along the way we suffered…
One score and five years ago, this magazine burst onto the scene with a bold idea and a mission. The idea was that, against all odds, adventure is alive and well—and a force to reckon with and celebrate. The mission was to find new heroes, phenomenal athletes and explorers, the…
This September, speed climber Dean potter flashed Half Dome and El Capitan in a continuous 23-hour, 23-minute blitz that left his competition eating chalk. The 30-year-old Zen king of Yosemite is the first ever to free-climb—that is, use ropes and protection only as backup in case he falls, but otherwise…
With his supreme skills on rock, hypercompetitive intensity, and new-age bag of tricks, Dean Potter scrambles up big walls faster than any man alive. So what's the trajectory of all this velocity?
A generation ago, mounting an expedition meant drafting a herd of porters, slogging loads of gear to a rocky base camp, and laying siege to a Himalayan peak. These days, light, fast, and self-supported expeditions are in, and multisport explorers like Mike Libecki, Mark Synnott, and Brad Ludden are showing us how to do it. Here, our preview of the hottest adven
Majoring in steeps at New Mexico’s Taos Q: I’m getting older and I’d like to learn to ski better. Even if you’ve never been to my home state of Illinois, you probably know there aren’t many ski slopes nearby. I’d like to spend a week to ten…
From technical clothes for sport to chic outfits for dinner, here's how to dress like a local
After its triumphant coming-out party in Salt Lake City, American snowboarding faces a bright future. Is that a good thing?
A vetern journalist argues that the ski industry has sold its soul to Wall Street, turning too many mountain towns into overbuilt Disneyfied retail hubs. But don't despair: All over snow country, a back-to-basics counterrevolution is under way.
Every adventurer knows those magical moments when it all flows—and those wretched times when it won't
High over Hemingway's Africa, our hero discovered a last epic feat somehow still undone. Going where no man has ever bothered to go before, he vowed to become the first person to descend Mount Kilimanjaro on a pair of stubby Kneissel Big Foot snowboards. Never mind that it was illegal, and basically insane.
In the company of coral: a diver fins past a school of grunts off Florida’s Tavernier Key Q: I’m a bloated son-of-a-gun with a physique like a manatee who’d like to try scuba diving. I have no experience at all outside of watching Sea Hunt and a…
One of climbing’s most famous survival sagas began on the night of July 13, 1977, after British mountaineers CHRISTIAN BONINGTON and Doug Scott completed the first ascent of Pakistan’s 23,900-foot Baintha Brakk—a beastly massif known as The Ogre. During his rappel down, Scott swung wildly across the face and broke…
A quarter-century after he changed everything by summiting Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, Reinhold Messner is looking fit, feeling adventurous, and acting about as mellow as a snapping turtle. Ah, well: Great men aren't always sweethearts—and Messner is still the best there ever was.
Dreams of Bengal tigers and visions of imminent extinction led Peter Matthiessen to a predator's last stronghold in the jungles of India. It was a place, the author discovered, where not seeing is believing.
Behind the green door: Waimea Canyon on the island of Kauai Q: My husband and I are going to Hawaii for three weeks in October (mostly for hiking, kayaking, and snorkeling). We were thinking of spending some time on Kauai and the Big Island. How many days…
To be a surfer girl in Maui is to be the luckiest of creatures. It means you’re beautiful and tan and ready to rip. It means you’ve caught the perfect dappled wave and are on a ride that can’t possibly end.
Outside Online and our partner sites www.away.com and www.gorp.com depend on advertisers to pay the bills. Without the support of these companies, we wouldn’t be able to provide all this content and travel services for free. The Internet changes quickly and as a result we are…
Remember the lessons of Everest 1996? Nobody else seems to. The world's highest peak is more crowded than ever—and ripe for a deadly reckoning.
Something happens in the high latitudes around Cape Horn. Eighty-knot williwaws blast down from the surrounding peaks. Thiry-foot waves rear up. Ships are tossed around like ice cubes in a blender. Why embark on a wind-powered expedition in these waters? For one sailor, it's a pilgrimage to the place where his great-grandfather came to grief in 1875—an
Monsoon hopeful: Arizona’s Mount Lemmon Q: We had planned a climbing trip to northwest New Mexico and southeast Arizona but are worried there’s nowhere open given the recent fires. We’re looking specifically for top-roping spots. The skill level in our group ranges from amateur to intermediate, and…
For two credulous seekers, dreaming of the lost big-wall treasure of the Sierra Madre Occidental is better than the real thing
