Indice dei contenuti per July 2015 in Outside

I’M NOT exactly a handy guy. Though I compulsively read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig’s 1974 existential juggernaut about working through life’s philosophical conundrums while tending to the ailments of an old bike, my fascination never translated into practical knowledge. I can’t even change the oil, let alone replace a carburetor. But the mere sight of an engine triggers some primal urge to pick up a wrench and tinker with it. That’s rarely a good idea, unless we’re talking about the Motoped Cruzer. Designed to replicate classic motor -cycles from the early 20th century, the Cruzer combines a mountain-bike frame with a 49cc engine and adds retro details like wood fenders and a leather saddle. The best part: you can assemble it yourself in a…

TOM SCANLAN’S house burned down on an early spring afternoon in March 2012. Just days before, the Colorado State Forest Service had set fire to the dangerously overgrown forest near the Lower North Fork of the Platte River, about 40 miles outside Denver. The controlled burn was supposed to stave off a future blaze; instead, warm temperatures and high winds fanned a wall of flames that torched 1,400 acres, left three people dead, and destroyed 23 homes—even those like Scanlan’s with defensible space. “They did a number of things wrong,” says the 69-year-old former aeronautics executive, “but the biggest thing was setting that fire in the first place.” Each year, more people like Scanlan move into the so-called wildland-urban interface. Ten million new homes were built in these exurban areas…

In the April 2009 issue of Outside, Conrad Anker wrote about spending 19 days on the Shark’s Fin, a 6,500-foot-high wall of rotten rock and sketchy ice on the east face of India’s Meru Central. It was his second attempt in five years on a route that had previously denied all climbers, including Anker’s mentor, legendary alpinist Mugs Stump, who fell into a crevasse on Denali and died in 1992. For the 2009 expedition, Anker was joined by longtime Outside contributing photographer Jimmy Chin and North Face climber Renan Ozturk. In the end, they made it to within 300 feet of the summit, but storms pinned them to the wall, sapping them of too much food and energy to safely make the final push. “Our feet were numb with trench…

1. RISE AND SHINE You can accomplish a lot before 7 A.M. Just ask Sam McCarthy, growth manager at Gociety, a socialnetworking startup in Denver that’s focused on the outdoors. “The first time I did dawn patrol it was daunting, but I’ve learned that whether I’m going on an early-morning trail run or out skiing, the key is planning. I don’t schedule anything for the night before, and I get all my stuff ready to go, including my work clothes. I’m not a morning person, but when you see the sun rise over a beautiful place, you can’t wait to do it again.” 2. EAT OUT MORE OFTEN Too often the restaurants on a city’s best-of list pump out food loaded with salt and butter. That’s changing, thanks to a…

IN MAY OF 2012, a thousand of the world’s best ultrarunners were lining up for the start of the Transvulcania Ultramarathon, an 83.3-kilometer course traversing the volcanic outcroppings of La Palma, in the Canary Islands. The atmosphere was taut, a mix of pent-up energy and anticipation, and the runners milled about, checking their watches and exchanging high fives. “Bienvenidos, amigos,” yelled a scrawny Spanish announcer with a spectacular black mullet. At the front of the queue, 34-year-old Mike Wolfe was trying to focus on the day ahead. A thin-faced, introspective Montanan, Wolfe had recently quit his job as an assistant U.S. attorney in Helena to concentrate on running for the North Face’s global athletic team. Transvulcania was his debut as a full-time professional, and even though he had set a…

So an Irish American, a Mexican American, an African American, an Asian American, and an Irish-Ukranian-Filipino American walk into a bar. Actually, it’s a breakfast bar. It’s zero dark thirty on a cold January morning, and we’re at a tiny café in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. After some coffee, we are going to chase winter steelhead. But we don’t actually get to the steelhead, not yet. When the coffee comes, it’s still dark, and still winter. So the most multi ethnic breakfast party in the history of Oregon sits down to talk. The sport of steelhead fishing has its own complicated rituals and lingo: there are “big sticks,” or double-handed fly rods, and “the D-loop,” a Jedi-style motion that can fling out a long, heavy line. Regular sticks are just oars.…

DURING a break in play in this year’s Super Bowl XLIX, craft-beer lovers blew a gasket when Budweiser, owned by Belgian megacorp AB InBev, aired a commercial that dissed aficionados for sniffing a “pumpkin peach ale,” the implication being that such a ludicrous combination could never really exist. Except that much admired Elysian Brewing Company in Seattle had released just such a beer in October, and AB InBev had purchased Elysian one week before the spot debuted. The misguided jab only reinforced what connoisseurs already know: fruit beers are some of the best being made today. It was Belgians who first added fruits— peaches, currants, raspberries, cherries— to lambic, an ancient tart style. American versions like New Glarus’s Wisconsin Belgian Red rose to prominence in the early 1990s. Others tried,…

It Gets You Out of the Cage “So, because of your own attention deficiency,” Dr. John Ratey was saying, “I’m sure you’ve had to—” “Wait,” I interrupted. “I don’t have ADHD.” For a few beats, we looked each other over and considered our positions. We were backstage at Harvard University, about to step out for a panel discussion on natural human potential. Ratey is the Harvard psychiatrist who wrote Spark, the groundbreaking book about the brain’s creative mayhem, and I was the sweaty guy whose most vivid memory of grammar school was being sent to stand in the hallway so often that I could walk across the street and buy a hot dog at the con venience store without anyone noticing. “I’m not trying to diagnose you, of course,” Ratey…

I DON’T like hiking, unless I’m on my way to fish. On most outings, I’m likely to ditch my friends to search for trout while they head off on some loop trail or—I’ll never understand—make a push for a summit. But lugging around a four-piece rod, a hefty reel, and boxes of flies in the hope that I might find a worthy pool is a pain. That’s why I’ve fallen for the brilliant telescoping rods from Idaho’s Tenkara Rod Co. Packaged with a simple walnut line spool instead of a reel, a singlestrand line with tippet ring, three hand-tied flies, and a carbon-fiber case with a velvet sleeve, it gives you exactly what you need to catch fish and nothing more. My favorite, the 4.4-ounce Owyhee, grows from a backpack-friendly…

SUP RACING IS THE NEW 5K One of the fastestgrowing segments of the SUP world is racing. The best part: you don’t need years of experience to compete. Many races are newbiefriendly and range from short sprints around buoys to 12-plus-mile openocean endurance challenges. Elite racers paddle carbon-fiber SUPs that cost as much as fancy road bikes, but you can enter a recreational race with just about any board. Check your local shop for upcoming events.…