Table of contents for April 2016 in Outside

EMILY HARRINGTON 2008 Sponsored by the North Face 2009 Wins fifth straight national sportclimbing title SASHA DIGIULIAN 2010 Wins first national championship 2011 Climbs 5.14b, her hardest sport route 2012 Summits Mount Everest 2013 Completes first ascent of 5.13d Rolihlahla in South Africa 2014 Makes it within 1,000 feet of Myanmar’s highest summit 2015 Becomes first American to climb the Eiger’s 5.13a Magic Mushroom…

one Jamaica We know what you’re thinking— reggae and ganja. But there’s another reason to head here: Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park. This 65,000-acre tropical rainforest’s two mountain ranges are a Caribbean biodiversity hot spot, with 1,357 species of flowering plants plus endangered birds like the yellowbilled parrot. On the clearest days, 7,402-foot Blue Mountain Peak offers views of Cuba, 130 miles to the north. Arrange an overnight or long-haul backpacking trip with Kingston-based Sun Venture Tours (from $230; sun venturetours.com). For easy access to the park, book the brand-new, sixbedroom Cocosan villa (from $2,750; geejamcollection.com), which sits on a lush hilltop near the northeast beach town of Port Antonio. — STEPHANIE PEARSON 2 Bentonville, Arkansas Yes, the home of Walmart’s corporate headquarters. The retail behemoth’s presence means…

SET ALPINE SPEED RECORDS 1. Mountain Hardwear Supercharger Shell $225 Developed for alpinist Ueli Steck, this jacket is crafted from Mountain Hardwear’s 2.5-layer Dry.Q Active and weighs just six ounces, making it the brand’s lightest-ever fully taped, waterproof-breathable offering. No surprise given Steck’s proclivities: last year the Swiss Machine scaled 82 western Alps peaks of 13,000-plus-feet in 80 days. Bonus: the interior stretch pocket is great for stashing small tools. mountainhardwear.com STAY DRY IN THE SADDLE 2. Garneau NeoShell $280 To create this comfortable foulweather cycling jacket, Garneau used Polartec NeoShell, a watershedding, air-permeable material with two-way stretch and a softer feel than standard hard shells. We love the trim fit, reflective hits on all sides, articulated elbows, and rear stash pocket for tubes, tools, and snacks. But we especially…

THE 2010 CHICAGO Marathon came down to a duel between two East Africans: Kenyan Sammy Wanjiru and Ethiopian Tsegaye Kebede. The men were ranked one and two in the world, respectively, and their rivalry was fierce. On the line were a prestigious victory and a half- million-dollar purse. Kebede led from the start. Wanjiru was battling a nagging knee injury, and the Ethiopian easily fended off his repeated attacks. Approaching the last hill, with a lead of several yards, Kebede’s form looked good—he was running tall, shoulders square, arms pumping rhythmically. Wanjiru, by contrast, ran with flailing arms, his face stretched in pain. Then, on the ascent, with less than half a mile to go, Wanjiru launched what appeared to be a hopeless last surge. This time, however, Kebede couldn’t…

1. Pull Some Plastic Boulders are scarce around here, so get your send on at the Texas Rock Gym (texasrockgym.com), then sign up for the twoday outdoor skills clinic so you’re primed for a weekend of cragging in nearby Austin. 2. High Mileage Terry Hershey Park and its mixed-use trail are for going long. “We use it for marathon training,” says Mark Coleman, president of the Houston Striders. “It’s 30 miles out and back. No matter what you’re preparing for, you can get your distance.” 3. Trail Mix Some 10,000 people run in Memorial Park every day, and it’s easy to see why: the 2.9-mile loop is a Strava test piece, there’s a track for speed work, and trails allow you to escape asphalt. Bonus: it’s not just for runners.…

The ground beneath you can shift at any moment. For David Morton, it happened when he was going to see about some yaks. On April 25, 2015, the mountain guide and photographer, who is now 44, walked out of Thame, a small Sherpa village in the Khumbu region of Nepal. He knew the route well. Since 2001, when Morton began working in the Himalayas— first on Cho Oyu and Ama Dablam, and then on Mount Everest as lead guide for Seat tle outfitter Alpine Ascents—he had based countless trips out of the Thame Valley, a regional hub of about 1,000 people. One of his mentors and closest friends, Lakpa Rita, the legendary sirdar, or lead Sherpa, for Alpine Ascents and a 17-time Everest summiter, hails from the area and has…

Introducing: Outside for Your Ears Every winter, at the first sign that an enormous cold front is about to sweep across the Midwest or blizzard conditions will soon wallop the Atlantic coast, we shamelessly take advantage of such regional misfortune by promoting one of the most popular stories available in our Outside Online archives, “As Freezing Persons Recollect the Snow—First Chill—Then Stupor—Then the Letting Go.” The 1997 magazine feature, by contributing editor Peter Stark, never fails to go viral sometime between January and March—and for good reason. It’s a harrowing account of what happens to a fictional character as he falls victim to a series of plausible mishaps on a bitterly cold night: a car accident on a lonely stretch of road, a broken ski binding that foils a backcountry…

PEGGY LEMAUX. a plant biologist at the University of California at Berkeley, was a lab researcher in 1987 when she first heard about genetic engineering. "I'd grown up on a farm in northwestern Ohio, and I thought, Wow, this technology has tremendous potential." While at the lab, she was a member of the team that created the first modified corn seed. "At the time, I thought the big problem with GMOs"—or genetically modified organisms—"would be intellectual property, not consumer acceptance," she says. "Boy, was I wrong." Today, it's rare to visit a farmers' market without seeing anti-GMO signs everywhere. There are good reasons for this. The first big GMO projects, in the 1990s, marketed herbicide-resistant com and soybeans to farmers and encouraged them to increase use of glyphosate, the active…

IF YOU MOUNTAIN-BIKE in the hills of Malibu, California, you may occasionally glimpse a six-foot-seven man whipping past you. That’s Reggie Miller. The former Indiana Pacers star and NBA Hall of Famer now works as a game analyst for TNT, which begins airing the NBA Playoffs in April. When he’s not courtside, he’s often on a custom Moots bike that can accommodate both his long frame and a Bluetooth speaker to blast Jay-Z and Ice Cube as he climbs up fire roads and sails down singletrack. “He beats the tar out of that bike,” says Scott Johnson, owner of Miller’s local shop, Serious Cycling in Agoura Hills. “We recently changed the parts kit because he blew through the old ones. We call him the Diesel. He just loves to plug…

Shure Motiv MV 88 Digital Stereo Condenser microphone $149 This Ping-Pong-ballsize mic collects pro-quality audio, the key to nailing any action clip. Tweak the sensitivity based on distance. For iPhone; shure.com Moment Macro lens $100 With superior glass and a diffuser hood that evens out light, this 25-millimeter lens reduces the distortion that plagues up-close phone pics. We used it to snap a maple tree reflected in a single drop of water. For Galaxy, iPhone, and Nexus; momentlens.co Manfrotto Compact Action tripod and Universal Smartphone clamp $75 and $10 The tripod’s grip ensures smooth panning on video shoots and let us deftly capture a friend buzzing across a ladder bridge on a mountain bike. The clamp kept things steady throughout. manfrotto.us PolarPro PowerGrip pole $140 The mount fits most phones,…

WAY BACK IN 1965, cardiologists first noticed that as a person’s health deteriorates, the tiny fluctuations between their heartbeats become more uniform, like a metronome. “Just before you have a heart attack, there is zero variation,” says Lindsay Thornton, a sport psychophysiologist at the United States Olympic Committee. “It’s just boom, boom, boom. Perfect regularity.” On the flip side, a healthy heart beats with great variety. That measurement, called heart-rate variability (HRV), “is an easy and simple reading of a person’s overall health,” says Thornton. In fact, elite coaches have long used the metric to determine if athletes have recovered enough from a tough training session to go hard again. Until recently, tracking HRV required high-end machines found only in a physiology lab or a hospital’s cardiology wing. But a…

OVER A STONE bridge spanning whitewater, up a muddy path, and through a heather pasture where sheep nurse their lambs, we reach the base of a knife-edge ridge in Donegal. Known as Sturrall Headland, it juts 2,624 feet into the North Atlantic and drops 590 feet into the sea. From the landward side, the route to the top looks like a T. rex spine. It’s unstable, so Iain Miller, a Scottish expat and my guide, descends the precipitous scree to the bottom of a near vertical quartz wall on the seaward side, where our climbing party of three ropes up. If I slip before I tie in, it’s a bloody bounce to the rocky shoreline a few hundred feet below. “You hear that noise? That’s when I know I’m home,”…

FOUR YEARS ago, mountaineer Reinhold Messner tried to persuade a dinner companion, competition climber Sasha DiGiulian, to tackle big outdoor routes. Messner pulled a ballpoint pen from his pocket, flipped over the restaurant’s wine menu, and started drawing a peak in the Italian Dolomites. The two had only just met—they were in Salt Lake City to present awards at Outdoor Retailer, the gear-industry trade show—and Messner believed that DiGiulian was wasting her talents clambering up plywood. “Sasha is becoming one of the leading climbing girls for the new century,” Messner says now, “so she should know this.” Though DiGiulian, now 23, had climbed on rock before, her focus was on dominating the international bouldering circuit, which takes place almost entirely indoors. She became world champion in 2011 and won three…

adventure tools, tested & reviewed PERSONALLY, I like the idea of always having a little hooch on me. It makes me feel more self-reliant when I’m out and about, like those people who are able to start a fire with nothing more than moss and a few twigs. Among my flasks, the Kole is a standout. Made from stainless steel and solid wood, the 2.1-ounce cylinder looks like it was crafted in a Danish-modern atelier, an heirloom worthy of passing down to one’s firstborn. The Kole is fashioned by Nisnas Industries, a small company that makes gorgeous wood fenders and grips for bicycles, and it’s a testament to the brand’s dedication to both form and function. The lid doubles as a cup, and the body is naturally insulating, making the…

1. The Merrell Capra VaporVent 2.5L jacket ($300; merrell.com) boasts two chest zippers for dumping heat. Should the sun poke through the clouds, the shell packs down into a waist belt. 2. ASICS’s Thermal Run gloves ($25; asicsamerica.com) are ideal for shoulder season. They’re warm enough for cooler days, but the polyester isn’t so thick that they feel bulky. Touchscreencompatible forefingers and thumbs work like they should, as do the fleece snot guards. (Just remember to wash ’em.) 3. Shorts with builtin mesh liners like Brooks’s Sherpa 5" 2-in-1 ($60; brooks running.com) offer the best of everything— warmth, breathability, and support. With a zippered key pocket and two gel sleeves, the 2-in-1’s have become our go-to for high-mileage days. 4. Icebreaker’s Run+ Light Mini socks ($18; icebreaker.com) are thick enough…

Higher fitness levels mean fewer beats. A strong heart can push more blood per beat than a weak one. Adult males have an average resting heart rate of about 70 beats per minute, while an elite athlete’s heart rate can drop as low as 30. (Cyclist Miguel Indurain’s was 28 during his Tour de France wins.) A slower heart rate can also reduce risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Dehydration elevates your heart rate. Your heart pumps oxygenated blood around your body during exercise. When you’re dehydrated, your circulatory system has less fluid volume, causing your heart to work harder. Be sure to drink whenever you’re thirsty during races or training. Endurance exercise isn’t bad for your heart. “A lot of this comes down to genetics, but exercise…

Most travelers will want to expand their trip be -yond Donegal and visit national parks like Killarney (killarneynationalpark.ie) or cycle sections of the new 1,553-mile Wild Atlantic Way (wildatlanticway.com/home), which starts in the southern county of Cork and follows the western coastline to Donegal. How to Get There: Aer Lingus has direct routes to Dublin from Boston, Chicago, New York City, Orlando, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. (aerlingus.com ). When to Go: The shoulder seasons (April and May, and September and October) offer the chance of beautiful days and fewer people, but for the best possible weather, go in July or August. Pack rain gear and a down puffy. Getting Around: If your plan extends beyond Done gal, rent a car in Dublin and drive. If you’re remaining in the…