Inhaltsverzeichnis für July 2018 in Outside

The first time I took an international trip on my own I was 23. I bought a one-way ticket to Taibei, where I planned to teach English and earn enough money to travel the world. The only wrinkle: I had no job lined up, no contacts in the city, and no idea where I was going to stay. My flight arrived at 10 P.M., and after clearing customs I jumped on a shuttle bus. By the time the driver pulled over at a busy intersection, it was well past midnight. Was this the final stop? I was jet-lagged and completely disoriented. So, like millions of travelers before me, I turned to my Lonely Planet guidebook. Then I jumped in a cab and pointed to the Chinese characters next to a…

HUMANS WERE BORN to walk. As a species, we’ve evolved a curved and forgiving spine, a skull set straight and upright, an efficient metabolism—all uniquely suited to propel us long distances. But it wasn’t until the advent of the automobile that we began hiking long distances recreationally, says Robert Moor, author of On Trails: An Exploration. “Once the predominant form of transportation was no longer ambulatory, we realized what a precious thing walking really is,” he says. “In the wilderness, hiking literally became the physical embodiment of freedom.” And it’s never been more attractive. In 2013, about 34 million people walked our nation’s countless trails. By 2017, that number had risen to over 42 million. Meanwhile the number of people completing through-hikes on major routes is booming: last year a…

IN A WORLD WHERE we can buy everything from prescription drugs to groceries with our phones, it’s been nearly impossible to purchase a quality bicycle online. That’s changing fast. German brand Canyon, which has been selling directly to consumers in Europe since 2003, began U.S. distribution last year, a development that could cause a major industry shift. The company’s bikes are equal to those from other major brands—and Nairo Quintana and his Movistar squad ride Canyon at World Tour races, including the Tour de France—but because Canyon cuts out the middleman, its prices are 10 to 40 percent less than the competition. Now makers including Eminent Cycles, Franco Bicycles, and YT Industries are following suit and selling exclusively online. Here are five ways that Canyon and other direct-to-consumer brands are…

[Goal] Qualify for the Boston Marathon BOSTON IS THE granddaddy of big-city marathons—the others that came after it sort of copied it. During the race, you run on some very narrow streets, and the spectators are right up against the course. They’re so close, they can read every emotion. Sometimes during a marathon you think, Doesn’t anyone know how lonely I am? In Boston, they’re all with you. It feels like you’re being supported and carried along by this stream of people. So many of the faces in the crowd grew up watching the marathon. You hear Shalane Flanagan talk about going as a kid with her dad. Bostonians grow up wanting to run it. Or if not, they fancy that they know a lot more about the race than…

ORGANIZED RACES coddle you. The roads are closed to cars, smiling volunteers hand you cute little cups of water, and you get a medal just for finishing. What kind of an achievement is a PR in those idyllic conditions? Instead, I propose you make your next goal one that honors the amateur runner’s true grit: owning the top spot on a Strava segment leaderboard. Hear me out. If you tackle a Strava segment like a race, you’ll be faced with all the obstacles of everyday running. On my neighborhood route in Los Angeles, that includes skittish leashed dogs; empanada carts with lines of smartphone-staring, sidewalk-blocking hipsters; Bluetooth-speaker-adorned fixed-gear cycle gangs; and pot-smoking teens swinging around skateboards. Weaving through all that while maintaining your race pace is the mark of a…

TO RACE AS an adult is to suffer. But kids and teenagers need racing to be fun—the alternative is burnout or avoidance. It’s easier to get your young ones to the starting line if you find a work-around to the pain. I help coach my son’s high school mountain-bike team. Of the roughly 1,300 racers in the Colorado League, only a few dozen ever appear to be breathing as hard as expert adult racers. Everybody else is having fun. At first I was incredulous watching the kids laughing and jawing at each other as they raced. By the second event, I was jealous. The conundrum for parents and coaches is how to get kids fit enough to race without turning the screws so tight that they quit. Our work-around involves…

WHEN THE ENGINE on my ultralight cut out, I was supposed to be ready. Pilots aren’t pessimists, but we practice worst-case scenarios over and over. I’d been flying for years, yet I hadn’t practiced for that sucker punch of adrenaline, the way my hair stood on end, the shock of the sudden silence. Training does kick in. A Captain Kirk–like voice quickly slapped my frazzled nerves, bringing them to attention, and then gave cool, calm commands: Engine out. Option one, attempt restart. Option two, don’t get distracted, look for landing place. I went for option two. Really, you sure? yelped a competing inner voice, Fear. She’s sure, Captain Kirk snapped back. He was right. I was flying low over California hills dotted with scrubby trees and granite in a rinky-dink…

AT 13, I WAS SURE I was the only American boy who hadn’t yet gotten his mouth onto someone else’s mouth. They were doing it on the school bus and down at the teen center, really kissing. It was so serious, so sickeningly actual: kids my own age engaged in that full-on, gnawing oralness I’d only seen in movies and had chalked up to trick photography. Kissing frightened me, but I knew that not to have kissed was a deadly social deformity whose only corrective serum was teenage saliva. I had to get it done. At camp that summer in Vermont, I attempted to compensate for my shameful truth with even more shameful lies. I put it around that I’d had some needle-drug experience. I claimed I played guitar for…

LAST FALL, I met a Forest Service lifer named Mike, a long and lean natural athlete who, like me, chose southwestern Colorado’s high country as the place to spend his life, and who, also like me, loves more than anything to hike long distances and sleep on the ground. On our first date, he made me ahi steaks and roasted butternut squash. On our second, we sat upon a downed cottonwood log behind his house on the banks of the Rio Grande, and he asked if I thought I could love all the way, really give and receive, drop the ego, drop the walls, and take the leap. I was 55 years old, and it was the first time anyone had asked me such a question. My answer was, God,…

I HAD NOT EXPECTED that it would tick. As soon as the sun hit it in the morning—at 6 A.M. or so, in June, in northern Michigan—the metal would start to expand in the heat: tick… tick… tick. My first summer living in my van, in the Pigeon River campground near the town of Vanderbilt, I almost never succeeded in sleeping past dawn. And I was not prepared for how stuffy it got with the windows rolled up against the mosquitoes. I thought the overhead light, which had come loose and dangled by its wires above the rudimentary plywood bed and foam-rubber mattress that I slept on, would be enough light to read by. It wasn’t. Nowadays people fix up their vans, and interior-decorate them, and live in them, and…

IT’S EARLY NOVEMBER, and head-high surf pounds the Pismo Beach Pier, on California’s central coast. But Chris Burkard has solid footing on the railing. Without hesitation he bends his knees, pivots 180 degrees, and backflips into the great Pacific washing machine. I lose sight of him for what feels like a minute before he appears in the whitewash. Another monster wave rumbles in. Burkard catches it and bodysurfs to shore. “That’s not warm,” he yells, shaking out his wet hair like a dog. “I don’t drink coffee. I have a hard time focusing, but all I need to do is jump in the ocean.” “Not warm” is hard to believe coming from someone who treads water next to icebergs. When the 32-year-old photographer isn’t working in eastern Greenland or Alaska,…

OFF THE NORTHERN coast of Chilean Patagonia, you’ll find South America’s “other” Galápagos Islands: the Chiloé archipelago. Charles Darwin visited in 1834, and while he wasn’t a fan of the moody weather, he was impressed by the old-growth forests, indigenous birds like the orange-breasted tapacolo, and the distinctive wildlife, including an endangered fox named after the naturalist. Despite being just 1.5 miles from the mainland, the 168,000 people who call the 30-plus islands home have maintained their native traditions and off-the-grid spirit. On the eastern side of Isla Chiloé, the largest of the islands at 3,200 square miles, the Tierra Chiloé hotel looks like an extraterrestrial outpost perched above the sea, but its sustainable design is actually a tribute to local fishermen’s palafitos, or stilted homes. The lodge reopened last…

A. Hydro Flask Unbound Series Soft Cooler Pack $275 The first cooler offering from Hydro Flask, the Unbound holds up to 22 liters. The exterior features a stretchy water-bottle pocket and a zippered pouch for a wallet or phone. The lid accommodates snacks, flatware, and small sundries. B. OtterBox Trooper LT 30 $300 Compact without compromising on features, this 30-quart soft cooler has an extrawide opening, two water-resistant exterior pockets, and a mount for a bottle opener or dry box. Plus, it con-verts easily from a backpack to a tote. C. Stanley Adventure 30 $150 If you’re looking to bring enough for a feast, you need decent capacity. Case in point: this Stanley has enough headroom to fit a two-liter bottle standing up. All that size means it can also…

ON NOVEMBER 2, 2010, surfer Andy Irons died alone in a hotel room at Dallas–Fort Worth airport’s Grand Hyatt while heading home from a competition in Puerto Rico. If you spent any time working on the ASP World Tour that year, as I did as a reporter, you knew that the 32-year-old superstar had a substance abuse problem. Maybe you heard about it. Maybe you witnessed it. Or, as was too often the case, maybe you indulged it with him. Drug use is omnipresent in professional surfing, an inconvenient truth that the multibillion-dollar surf industry—from journalists, to sponsors, to marquis athletes—has worked with Weinsteinian verve to keep out of the sport’s narrative. Many anticipated that Teton Gravity Research’s long-awaited documentary Andy Irons: Kissed by God would be the definitive account…

AS THE SAYING goes, if you want something done right, do it yourself. Addendum: first ask someone with experience for advice. If you’re an aspiring DIY race organizer, Jenn Love—who puts on the Wy’Easter Ski Mountaineering Race Series in Mount Hood, Oregon—is an excellent guru. “The ambience we have is professional, but it’s still a grassroots, keg-in-the-snow type of thing,” says Love, who organizes the Wy’Easter on behalf of Portland outfitter the Mountain Shop. If you plan to host your own competition, follow Love’s guidance on getting it right. AIM HIGH Now in its fifth year, the long-term objective for the Wy’Easter series is recognition by the U.S. Ski Mountaineering Association. Even if your race is low-key, it’s worth researching the sanctioning process—the ultimate seal of legitimacy. Check out an…

I USED TO HATE running. I didn’t understand the freaks who called it fun. But in college, I forced myself to do it to stay in shape. At some point, without realizing it, I started to enjoy it. Soon I was doing it every day. I ran through bad moods, breakups, and hangovers, the hours spent moving my feet providing temporary solace. I’d get a terrible nagging feeling if I had to miss a day. But ultras? That’s where I drew the line. I was no masochist. The problem with running is, the longer you go, the better the high. And like any addict, I had to keep increasing my dose. I started out with half and full marathons—normal-person territory—before inevitably seeking out real-deal distances. Last summer I ran the…

she flew down early on a monday without telling her husband or kids where she was going or what she was doing. By the time she landed in Bogotá it was late. The sky was hazy and dark, the air surprisingly cool, the roads crowded and chaotic. Her hosts had prepared a bed at their apartment, but she couldn’t really sleep. The two gene therapies she would receive the next day—contained in dozens of vials packed in dry ice—had just arrived from the U.S., and everyone stayed up late talking about how they could change the course of history. When they drove her to the clinic on Tuesday morning, she stared through the window and tried to tune out the world, and then she hunched over her phone and texted…

I can get down a ski hill nice and clean, but I’ve never been an air guy. Now that I’m almost 50, I prefer to keep the skis on the snow. Even in my oblivious, invincible years, I was wary of the ether. Like any kid, I pogoed off boulders, kickers, and cat tracks, but I’m ashamed to admit that I could hardly wait to land. Cliff jumping? No thanks. I was a guy, and remain one, who had never done a flip off a diving board. Still, I always coveted the daffy, the ultimate ski-poster air. The daffy has hot-dog roots but enough vestigial cred to induce a new-schooler to tip his trucker hat. Primitive but pure. Goofy but magesterial. Like a supersonic hurdler, you hold one leg out…

WHAT I NOTICED, in the moments before I saw the shark, was the silence. It was a deep silence, full of myth and primordial fear. That’s the one thing that everyone who’s encountered a great white agrees on: before you see it, you feel its presence. A single animal emits a vibe that raises the hairs on the back of your neck, long before it shows itself. And though I didn’t know it at that moment, there were at least five great whites circling me. I sat in a small boat—a 17-foot Boston Whaler—with two scientists who were determined to crack the great white’s secrets. Their work was noble and occasionally terrifying; white sharks are among the ocean’s most mysterious and misunderstood creatures. Certainly, they’re the only ones that come…

IN THE SUMMER OF 1993, when I was newly married, my husband B. and I took his nephew and my two little brothers camping in the Sierra Nevada. Neither I nor the boys, who were ages 12 to 14, had ever been on a serious hiking trip—an unthinkable experiential deficit, in my outdoorsy husband’s view. My idea of a fun weekend in Northern California might be staying at a luxurious Napa inn with room service and down comforters, but that was only because I’d never experienced the joys of camping in the wilderness. As for the boys—they were boys! They were bound to love it, and it would be character building besides. Parental permission was granted, plane tickets bought, multiple expeditions to REI made. B.’s excitement was infectious, and despite…

A. Nomadix Mud Cloth towel $40 The superabsorbent, slip-resistant fabric comes from recycled plastic. The Mud Cloth doubles as a yoga mat and folds up to the size of a tablet. B. Coola Mineral Sport SPF 50 Tinted Organic sunscreen stick $26 This is our favorite SPF. Made from natural ingredients (like coconut and avocado oils), it won’t leave you streaky white. C. Picture Grace 2.2 wetsuit $160 Crafted from recycled tires, limestone pellets, and polyester, the Grace is an amazingly soft and stretchy summerweight suit. It gets extra points for the flattering cut. D. Goldenwest Goods Shibori Indigo board bag $170 Handmade and dyed in California, this heavy-duty cotton-canvas bag protects your board where it’s most threatened: on the way to and from the beach. E. Reef Escape Lux…

When Lisa Andersen arrived in Southern California as a 16-year-old runaway in the mid-eighties, women’s professional surfing lacked an identity. Within two years, Andersen went pro. By 1994, she had won first world title, and soon after that was on the cover of Surfer. Her riding style, at once graceful and aggressive, ushered in the modern era of women’s surfing, and she became the face of the brand Roxy. In 2016, Andersen teamed up with surf journalist Chas Smith to make the documentary Trouble: The Lisa Andersen Story, an unclichéd portrait of one of the sport’s most important figures, out this summer. Here are a few numbers from her impressive story. —A.S.L. $300: Amount of money in Andersen’s pocket the day she snuck out of her Florida home and caught…

AROUND 2 A.M. on May 28, 2017, Kilian Jornet crabbed across Mount Everest’s North Face, alone, delirious, at nearly 27,000 feet, and far off route. He was descending from the 29,029-foot summit, his second trip to the top without supplemental oxygen in seven days. But now he was lost and couldn’t recall how he’d gotten there; his memory from the past hour was blank. It was snowing, the slope growing icier and more precarious with every move. “I thought maybe I was having a nightmare,” Jornet told me recently, “and that I would wake up in Base Camp. I dropped a rock to see how steep it was, and I realized it was not a dream and that I needed to wait until daylight so I could see before making…