Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2015 i Outside

Outside|October 2015

EXPOSURE

RYAN MOSS In 2014, Moss, who lives in San Jose, California, overcame his fear of heights while solo-hiking the two-foot-wide paths of Hawaii’s Koolau Range in five days—record time. Last February, he captured his friend Hunter Williams summiting the steepest peak of the nearby Olomana Trail. “Just as he reappeared, the clouds parted,” Moss says. “Seeing him along that crumbly, dangerous ridgeline reminded me of what I’d gone through and of everything I was doing as a mountaineer in Hawaii.” THE TOOLS: Canon EOS 7D, Tokina 10–17mm f/17 lens, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/250 second ELLIOTT BERNHAGEN Bernhagen, of Sandpoint, Idaho, was in western Colorado last October to capture the area’s exploding fall colors. In Glenwood Springs, he met Conor Ward, whose favorite after-work activity is BASE jumping at Glenwood Canyon.…

1 min

Outside|October 2015

Above It All

EARLY LAST November, Hilaree O’Neill was on a ledge roughly 1,100 feet below the top of Hkakabo Razi, pinned down by one of the harshest winds she’d ever experienced. Hkakabo Razi, in northern Myanmar, is believed to be the highest mountain in Southeast Asia, and O’Neill was leading a two-month expedition to measure the peak’s true height. If successful, it would be only the second ascent of the relatively unexplored mountain, and a month into it her six-person team was coming apart. O’Neill had spent two years planning the expedition, poring over Google Earth and World War II–era charts. (Modern maps of the area are nonexistent.) Her team of climbers—North Face athlete Emily Harrington, National Geographic writer Mark Jenkins, filmmaker Renan Ozturk, photographer Cory Richards, and Taylor Rees, the base-camp…

8 min

Outside|October 2015

American Beauty

VETERAN WRITER Paul Theroux has penned more than a dozen travelogues, most of them set in far-flung locations across vast seas. His most recent book, however, focuses on one of the most exotic and complicated places he’s ever been: the American South. In Deep South ($30, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Theroux, who lives in Massachusetts, drives along southern back roads to visit churches—usually African-American ones— and small towns. He talks to those who’ve lived there for half a century or more—there are very few young people in the book, black or white—and is touched both by the great friendliness he finds in random encounters, and the hostility and mistrust. As in his other books, Theroux is a stranger here and sometimes does that thing that Northerners do, teasing out racial tensions…

3 min

Outside|October 2015

Life Is Grand

CAR CAMP You don’t have to take all your vacation days to have a good adventure. For starters, you get a pretty damn good view of the canyon’s majesty from the National Park Service village along the South Rim. Skip the tourist vibe at El Tovar and the Bright Angel Lodge in favor of one of the campgrounds along the entrance road. The best is Mather, located within walking distance of the canyon and a general store (good for last-minute s’mores supply runs). Even on a busy Memorial Day weekend, you can ditch the bused-in gawkers at this quiet, wooded site. Rising early the next day is key: hit the Bright Angel Trail at 6 A.M. to avoid crowds and you’ll be in the clear three miles down. Bring a…

3 min

Outside|October 2015

The Audition

FOR CASUAL ENTHUSIASTS Apple Watch Sport $350 and up THE GOOD: Integrates seamlessly with the iPhone’s communication functions; early-adopter street cred. THE BAD: Quick-draining battery; limited sports tracking. apple.com Basis Peak $200 THE GOOD: Combines features like e-mail and phone calls with sleep and activity tracking. THE BAD: No GPS; black-and-white screen. mybasis.com Fitbit Charge HR $150 THE GOOD: Adds heart-rate monitoring to Fitbit’s category-leading activity monitoring. THE BAD: No GPS, so no Strava glory. fitbit.com Garmin Vivo -Active $250 THE GOOD: Built-in features for specific sports, including golf. THE BAD: Do you really need a watch that tracks your handicap? garmin.com Garmin Vivofit 2 $100 THE GOOD: Can go a year without a charge. THE BAD: Limited to basic activity-monitoring features. garmin.com Lumo Lift $80 THE GOOD: Wearable posture…

2 min

Outside|October 2015

Power Play

THE FIRST thing I did after assembling the Water-Rower Classic was not use it. I let it sit there in proud homage to Francis “Frank” Underwood, Kevin Spacey’s character in House of Cards, who receives the machine from his wife with all the excitement of a filibuster. But then, just as Underwood’s power-grab schemes start to gain momen tum, he ditches the button-down for an undershirt and starts rowing. And so did I. The 3.5 gallons of water in the reservoir deliver a satisfying whoosh with every pull—perfect for getting your head right before a long day of backroom maneuvering, or, in my case, cataloging gear. The monitor displays time, distance, power, and stroke count. And what POTUS could fail to approve of the Classic’s American provenance and sleek look?…

1 min

Outside|October 2015

Between the Lines

“SIMPLE ADVICE. WE SHOULD GO TO HAVANA, NOT BEFORE IT CHANGES BUT SO THAT IT DOES CHANGE. SO THAT IT CAN CHANGE. THE MOST AUTHENTIC CUBA IS THE ONE S TILL TO COME.” —PATRICK SYMMES, PAGE 80 Perfect Pitch Whenever I tell someone what I do for a living, chances are high that they’ll ask me some version of: How do you decide what makes a good Outside story? I’ve never managed a succinct answer. The truth is, after reviewing thousands of pitches over the years, I still don’t have any guiding principles. When I try to apply rigor to the process, I always fail. I overanalyze a promising idea—the topic was written about elsewhere, it’s too expensive to report, the writer who proposed it is too green—and then regret…

6 min

Outside|October 2015

Big Gear Country

WHEN ADAM SKLAR decided to start Sklar Bikes, which makes custom handcrafted cyclocross and mountain rides, he briefly considered locating his company in Boulder, Colorado, or Austin, Texas. Then the Montana State University student thought, Why leave Bozeman? “I went to school here mostly to go skiing,” says Sklar, 22. “But I loved being surrounded by people who are just as passionate about that as they are about their work.” That’s been happening a lot in Bozeman lately. “People who come to Montana State for that well-rounded outdoor experience don’t want to leave,” says Brit Fontenot, Boze -man’s director of economic development. The city has long been home to companies like Simms Fishing Products and Kletterwerks backpacks, but now young entrepreneurs are spread across the state, taking advantage of Montana’s…

2 min

Outside|October 2015

BASE-Jumping the Shark

ON SEPTEMBER 18, sometime between 9 and 11 P.M. EST on NBC, Jeb Corliss will dive from a helicopter wearing a wingsuit, accelerate to 120 miles per hour, and, if all goes as planned, use the GoPro camera mounted on his helmet to hit an applesizedot on a target positioned 60 feet above the Great Wall of China. The flight, billed as the Human Arrow, is the latest feat in a career of such stunts for Corliss, whose 2011 “Grinding the Crack” video, in which he dives at a balloon-holding accomplice on a mountainside in Switzerland, has been viewed more than 29.6 million times on YouTube. These kinds of high-risk events have become an essential part of reaching audiences for television networks like Discovery and NBC, sponsors like GoPro and…

3 min

Outside|October 2015

Volcanic Hot Spot

ACCESS Fly LAN to Temuco, 90 min utes north of Pucón, where Vira Vira staff will pick you up. From $1,650 for three nights, all- inclusive; hotelviravira.com OCTOBER 64° HIGH 40° LOW DETOUR Borrow a mountain bike from the lodge for a 20-mile ride through Villarrica National Park to soak in the 106-degree Geometricas hot springs. INDULGE This is red-meat country. Tackle an enormous slab of beef like a real huaso—a Chilean cowboy—at La Maga in town. PUCÓN, A TOWN OF about 22,000 situated halfway down Chile’s spine, is the Southern Hemisphere’s Jackson, Wyoming. It’s perched in the mountains and offers endless outdoor options. The key difference: Pucón is surrounded by a group of active volcanoes, the most famous of which is 9,341-foot Villarica, a popular destination for trekking and…

2 min

Outside|October 2015

S.O.S.

Three days after boarding the 131-foot rescue vessel MV Phoenix in Augusta, Sicily, I was standing on the ship’s top deck on a warm June dawn, watching the rotor blades of a blue-andorange-striped Camcopter S-100 drone shudder into motion. We were a few miles southeast of the Bouri Offshore Field, a patch of deepwater oil wells and drilling platforms jointly owned by an Italian company and the Libyan government, in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea. Lit at night by naturalgas flares and heavily trafficked by naval ships, merchant vessels, and maintenance boats, the oil field has become a beacon for refugees fleeing by sea from war and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and Syria. Last year, 219,000 of them crossed the Mediterranean in rickety fishing boats and open dinghies, a…

26 min

Outside|October 2015

PEAK HAVANA

IN FEBRUARY, I WAS ROLLING IN AN OLD, SQUEAKING TAXI THROUGH HAVANA, HEADED BACK TO MY RENTED DIGS ATOP A HOUSE IN THE TINY CHINATOWN. I GOT THE ROOM IN A WAY MANY TRAVELERS TO CUBA WILL RECOGNIZE: A FRIEND PASSED ME A PHONE NUMBER, WHICH WAS NEVER ANSWERED. Eventually, days after arriving in Havana and after pursuing the owner halfway across the city in person, I booked the room, which had been available all along. That was how Cuba worked, or didn’t work. After 23 years reporting all over the island, I’d grown accustomed to the frustrating mixture of disciplined dictatorship and tropical chaos, the steady state of an island where nothing seemed to change, ever. But travel is best in the cracks, in the unexpected encounters between appointments,…

14 min

Outside|October 2015

All-Weather Systems

BEST FOR: Alpine Starts Montane Fireball Verso $149 On chilly dawn outings, hit the trail with the reversible Fireball’s weather- resistant Pertex layer on the outside to seal in warmth. Then, as the day heats up, switch to the breathable Hypervent fabric. montane.co.uk BEST FOR: Bluebird Days at the Crag Black Diamond Deployment Hybrid $249 This winter midlayer has enough synthetic insulation to excel on its own in milder conditions. Stretchy nylon and a breathable merino blend allow you to move freely without working up a sweat. blackdiamond equipment.com BEST FOR: Casual Outings Ibex Wool Aire Matrix $250 The Matrix isn’t quite as warm as down or synthetic-fill jackets, but it’s sleeker, and the panels of breathable merino mix regulate your temperature rather than just raise it. It’s the perfect…

2 min

Outside|October 2015

NUMBER CRUNCHER

Wearable tech is giving us the tools to track fitness data and lifestyle habits like never before (“The Metric System,” page 50). No one in the office has embraced the trend as eagerly as online editor Scott Rosenfield, who keeps tabs on his cycling mileage, number of calories burned, work productivity, and much more. 92% Drop in miles ridden from 2013, when Rosenfield was a Cat 2 racer, to 2014, when he became online editor. eighteen Average number of weekly meetings. 6 Task-management apps tried—and abandoned—in 2015. WEDNESDAY Least productive weekday. “That’s when new episodes of Law and Order: SVU air.” 4.6 Average miles run or walked per day since Rosenfield purchased an Apple Watch—an 84.8 percent increase. 4,500 Number of calories consumed on a single day in 2015, 3,500…

1 min

Outside|October 2015

Your Big-Wave, Super-G Fantasy

EACH FALL, while Michael Nyman’s friends debate whether to draft Peyton Manning or Tom Brady for their fantasy football teams, Nyman digs into the numbers on Lindsey Vonn and Ted Ligety for his own league: Fantasy Ski Racer. Nyman started FSR in 2010 with his brother, Olympic downhill racer Steven Nyman, because they both like geeking out about the sport. Over the past few years, broadcast networks, niche publications, and clutches of obsessed fans like the Nymans have developed leagues for everything from cycling (NBC’s Fantasy Cycling Challenge) to fishing (Fishing League Worldwide’s Fantasy Fishing) to surfing (Surfer magazine’s Fantasy Surfer) in an attempt to replicate what has long been a big part of the growth of mainstream sports. “If you can measure statistics, you can have a league,” says…

3 min

Outside|October 2015

New Frontiers

(ONE) Hipcamp is revolutionizing campsite booking. ON NEW YEAR’S EVE in 2012, Marin County, California, resident Alyssa Ravasio drove a few hours south to camp in Andrew Molera State Park, at a coastal meadow in Big Sur. It was the perfect place, as she puts it, “to take in the first sunrise of the year.” The only hitch: the park’s website—a bare-bones dot-gov run by the state of California—neglected to mention a nearby surf break. A big swell was coming in, and Ravasio was caught without her board. Inspired to create a better resource for campsite info and reservations, Ravasio, 27, learned how to code and launched Hipcamp in 2013. The site originally had 90 California state park campground listings, each with photos tracked down by Ravasio’s sisters and friends.…

9 min

Outside|October 2015

The Metric System

If You Want to Get Faster... TRACK: YOUR HEART-RATE VARIABILITY. The most common way to plateau is to train at 80 percent all the time. Instead, make your hard workouts really hard, then recover properly. You’ll know you’ve gotten adequate rest when the time between heartbeats fluctuates. That’s called high heart-rate variability, and it means you’re ready for another intense outing. If your heartbeats are more regular, that’s low variability, and you should take a day off. Check and record HRV first thing when you wake up. TOOL: A Bluetooth heart-rate monitor like Wahoo’s Tickr X ($100; wahoo fitness.com), which can sync with a number of smartphone apps. Our fav -orite is the simple and intuitive Elite HRV (free; Android and iOS). AFTER TWO MONTHS testing 16 different fitness trackers,…

16 min

Outside|October 2015

The Path of Beta Flash Resistance

The route setter studied the blank gray surface. His section—part of an array of climbing walls set up outdoors under a huge tent—was 16 feet tall and 10 feet wide, and it loomed above the chalk-dusted mat at a forward- facing 40-degree angle. His eyes darted from one position to the next, dancing along a grid of bolt holes that were laid out every six inches, like a sheet of graph paper. Strewn around the stage were thousands of Crayon-colored climbing handholds, a wicked assortment of crimps and jugs and pinches and pockets that he would use to fill this void. After a moment of reflection, he unholstered his cordless drill and affixed a bright blue hold to the wall with a whir and a screech. The hold had an…

18 min

Outside|October 2015

trim toward the light

Four men in camouflage fatigues stop our car. “ID,” one says. ¶ I pull out my wallet and hand him my license. ¶ “What’re you doing on base?” the soldier asks. ¶ “We’re going surfing,” I tell him, nodding at the boards stacked in the back of the car. He glances at my friend, in the passenger seat, who I’ll call Brian. Like me, he looks a bit wild after an eight-hour drive from Santa Cruz down the California coast to Camp Pendleton. “Pull off to the side over there,” the soldier says. I do, and another soldier walks over and asks for my ID again. “That guy’s got it,” I say. ¶ “And yours?” he asks Brian. “I don’t have one, but here’re my papers,” Brian says, handing over…

20 min

Outside|October 2015

Some Like It Rough

1. Diamondback Haanjo Trail $1,850 BEST FOR: Going anywhere. THE TEST: The Haanjo isn’t the softest ride, but we like the durability of aluminum on rocky roads, and the carbon fork helped mute chatter. Testers called it tubby for fast road rides, but they raved about how confident it felt on dirt. “It has mountainbike DNA,” said one. Diamondback keeps the cost down with an FSA crankset but provides plenty of value for the money by including Ultegra levers and drivetrain, wide-rimmed Hed Flanders wheels, and grippy 40- millimeter Kenda tires. THE VERDICT: A lot of bike at a reasonable price. 20.9 lbs; diamondback.com 2. Jamis Renegade Elite $4,299 BEST FOR: Racers who dabble in adventure— and vice versa. THE TEST: The closest bike on this page to a stan…

4 min