Table of contents for March 2014 in Outside

DAVID CLIFFORD If Carbondale, Colorado, photographer David Clifford had to name the one place he’s photographed more than any other, it would be Aspen’s Highland Bowl, the hike-to terrain off the top of 12,329-foot Highland Peak. “The bowl contains some of the best in-bounds skiing in Colorado,” says Clifford. “I’ve spent countless hours there studying and photographing it. It’s a love affair for the ages.” THE TOOLS: Nikon D600, 50mm Zeiss f/1.4 lens, ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/4,000 second. JIM MARTINELLO When a cold spell rolled through the Sea-to-Sky Corridor near Squamish, British Columbia, last December, Martinello didn’t pass on the opportunity to shoot Tim Emmett climbing this three-pitch feature, formed from frozen spray ice. “Tim had been working on it for two days when it disappeared as a result of…

YOU’VE PROBABLY used Google’s Street View feature to find a restaurant, gawk at your house, or peak into the Grand Canyon. Soon you’ll be using it to scout bomber singletrack. As part of its effort to build the world’s most comprehensive map, Google has launched a new program that will put Trekkers—40-pound backpack versions of the cameras used on its Street View vehicles—in the hands of trail-management crews, tourism bureaus, universities, and other nonprofits around the world. The first Trekker was sent to Hawaii’s Big Island last August, to Rob Pacheco, cofounder of outfitter Hawaii Forest and Trail. “It’s like being a cinematographer—you keep thinking about how everything’s going to look,” says Pacheco, who hiked past ohia lehua trees, lava flows, and a 400-foot-deep pit crater in Hawaii Volcanoes National…

A MOTOCROSS rider drills a three-foot pole extension into his helmet, affixes a GoPro camera to it, then wrenches his neck when the jury-rigged device whacks a tree. An Australian BASE jumper leaps from a ledge in Moab, Utah, does a flip, and releases his parachute bridle, and the line wraps around his chest cam. He falls to his death. The fact that both of these accidents happened while people were filming their adventure exploits isn’t surprising. Wearable cameras have made it easier than ever to chase YouTube stardom—and to thwack yourself in the process. What’s disturbing is that, increasingly, the placement of the cams themselves is contributing to the carnage. Fueled by our desire to capture more interesting non-POV footage, a cottage industry of aftermarket-accessory companies such as Get…

FIND EMPTY SAND Brazil is deservedly famous for the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. But the country has 4,654 miles of coastline, and most of it is touristfree. Our favorite spot: Pouso da Cajaiba, a tiny, rarely visited (but surprisingly accessible) fishing village situated between Rio and São Paulo. The place has a 400-yard slice of perfect yellow sand, a shock of rainforest, one church, a few fishermen’s homes, and plenty of peace and quiet. You can’t get there by car, and there are no hotels. Which means it’s an adventure just showing up—you have to use the visitors association website to arrange a boat ride from the wharfs at Paraty or Paraty-Mirim and rent a room from a local (boat ride from $10, rooms from $25; comunidadedopousodacajaiba .blogspot.com). Beyond…

I was halfway up Italy’s Passo dello Stelvio, a 48-switchback beast in the Alps that’s widely regarded as one of cycling’s most mythic and punishing climbs, when the altitude kicked in. We were approaching 9,000 feet, after all. But rather than hurl my oatmeal breakfast, I settled into a manageable rhythm as the lead group of sinewy-legged climbers pedaled away from me. Seasoned bike racers refer to this moment as getting dropped. But I hadn’t clipped in to win. The annual Dreilander Giro is a 104-mile, fully supported ride known as a gran fondo, and its main purpose is to challenge riders with dramatic terrain—vertiginous climbs, historic cobblestones—while also providing cushy comforts like aid stations, bathrooms, and a SAG wagon. Fondos are not like century rides: these are serious riders…

IT’ just past dawn in Jacksonville, Florida, and I’m on the set of YouTube filmmaker Devin Graham’s latest video project, at EverBank Field, home of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars. The action is unfolding at the tippy-top of one of eight towers that support the lighting arrays, 350 feet above the playing surface, from which various members of Graham’s crew and the Jaguar squad will zip-line across the field. Graham, 30, is based out of Provo, Utah, and happens to be the world’s most bankable action-sports video maker, as measured by the Internet’s global reserve currency: the click. He’s polite and affable, Mormon like the rest of his team, and a tad husky, with his trademark plaid baseball cap turned backward over a floppy mop of brown hair that makes him…

FLYKLY SMART WHEEL Problem: Electric bikes are expensive. Solution: A rear wheel with a motor, a battery, and electronics in the hub that turns any bicycle with standard 26-, 27.5-, or 29-inch rims into an e-bike capable of going 20 miles per hour for up to 30 miles. Get It: Available for preorder; $590; flykly.com EARL SURVIVAL TABLET Problem: Tablets and smartphones can’t withstand the elements. Solution: A weather-and drop-proof tablet that can run mapping and weather apps and doubles as a walkie-talkie. Get It: Available now; $299; meetearl.com SHREDLY MOUNTAIN-BIKE SHORTS Problem: Women’s bike shorts are built like men’s. Solution: Stylish patterns with adjustable tabs for a snug fit. Get It: Available now; $90; shredly.com SUNSKI SUNGLASSES Problem: These classic surfer shades hadn’t been made for 25 years. Solution:…

BEST FOR: BACKCOUNTRY RAMBLERS MSR LIGHTNING ASCENT The massive decking on the Lightning Ascents will keep you afloat in most snow conditions. If you do find yourself sinking, snap on the included five-inch extenders to double the surface area. The trade-off for buoyancy: weight. Each shoe is a hefty 2.2 pounds, so don’t expect to sprint in these pontoons. From $270; cascade designs.com Wear Them With: The North Face’s waterproof, insulated Iceflare Mid GTX boots; they’re comfortable when the temps plummet below zero. $160; thenorthface.com BEST FOR: SKATE SKIERS ROSSIGNOL X-IUM SKATING WCS S2 If you’re a decent ice-skater, kicking along groomed tracks in the WCS S2s will feel very familiar. At just 19 ounces, these carbon-tipped skis weigh less than a pair of Rollerblades. The honeycomb core puts a…

Slave to the Starting Gun One night last November, I received the following text from my sister: “Do you think Outside would sponsor an ultra team?” Heather lives 1,400 miles away, in Portland, Oregon, and her message arrived with zero context, but I knew exactly what it meant. It meant that my sister was still deep in the throes of racing addiction. It all started quite innocently in the summer of 2012, when she entered her first Hood to Coast, a 12-person, 199-mile team relay from Oregon’s Mount Hood to the Pacific Ocean. The following summer the mania took hold. It’s all documented on Facebook: suddenly, the adorable photos of my nephews vanish from her timeline, pushed down by a stream of updates about the Ragnar Northwest Passage, a 196-mile…

WANT PROOF THAT the world is flat? Consider this: how much you pay for your next jacket or sleeping bag could depend on whether 1.4 billion Chinese order Peking duck. China produces roughly 70 percent of the world’s down, a by-product of the estimated three million tons of ducks and geese its population consumes each year. But China is rapidly urbanizing, and the burgeoning middle class is eating more beef and less fowl. Combine that with panic over recent bird-flu outbreaks and growing demand in the West for jackets, sleeping bags, and comforters, and the result is a massive spike in down prices. In 2009, a pound sold for $10; today it goes for $50. In the U.S., higher materials costs are driving up prices on store shelves, where down…

BACK IN DECEMBER of 2013, Phil Robertson, the bearded star of A&E’s Duck Dynasty, said some offensive things about black people and gay people. Robertson became the subject of boycotts and counter-boycotts, Cracker Barrel yanked his Duck Commander merch, and A&E suspended the show. But outrage requires shock, and Robertson’s views shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone familiar with his empire. (While I’ve watched only a couple of episodes of Duck Dynasty, I confess to being a waterfowler and a casual fan of Robertson’s more baroque early work, a hook-and-bullet series on the Outdoor Channel called Duck Commander.) The reality star’s rants about “gross sexual immorality” are all over the Internet. Robertson plays a stereotypically backward Deep South hillbilly. America’s outrage centered on the fact that Robertson embodied…

1 YOU DON’T HAVE TO TREAT IT LIKE WORK RAISING MONEY ONCE A YEAR IS GREAT. SO IS PUSHING YOURSELF TO THE LIMIT. BUT TODAY’S RACING CULTURE IS ALL ABOUT THE FUN. To be sure, there are some awesome charity events out there. Last year, the Boston and New York Marathons raised $40 million for nonprofits, and since 1988, Team in Training, the fundraising arm of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, has brought in $1.4 billion. There’s also no denying the personal satisfaction derived from pushing your limits for ten months to earn a new personal record in the event of your choice. But while we admire the goal setting and the philanthropy, today’s competitive landscape—with its rowdy obstacle courses, diverse cycling events, unsanctioned running and mountain-biking competitions, and demanding…

Leaf peepers. European tourists. Motorheads from a nearby car show. On a Friday in September, maybe 100 visitors milled around Clingmans Dome, a popular lookout atop a high ridge in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some made the push to the ovoid, Jetsonsesque observation deck. The rest, exhausted by the half-mile approach from the parking lot, wiped their brows while standing on the flagstone patio below. “Think it’s OK if I fly this thing?” I asked a woman sitting nearby. This thing” was my drone. The size of a shoebox, with four outstretched arms and an HD video camera on its belly, the device is part of a new wave of even-dummies-can-fly-’em aerial robots, for sale to anyone with a couple hundred bucks in their pocket. I wasn’t sure…

ON AUGUST 12, 2012, Maureen Lampa, a 61-year-old retired teacher, her daughter, and her daughter’s friend all piled into Lampa’s Chrysler convertible for the three-hour drive from their home in Westminster, Massachusetts, to Freeport, Maine. In May, the women had signed up for a race called the Freeport Half Marathon, and they’d spent four months running five to ten miles a day, five days a week, to prepare. This would be Lampa’s fifth half marathon. For her daughter, Katherine, and her daughter’s friend Lauren Laserte, both 21, it was their first. On August 13, after spending the night in a nearby hotel, the group pulled into downtown Freeport an hour before the race’s scheduled 7 A.M. start time. But when they arrived, there was no sign of a race. No…

I’M TURNING FORTY this year. Rather than dwell on this sudden reckoning with my mortality, I’m focused on the benefits of such a portentous milestone. Namely that, owing to the formidable stash of life experience I’ve amassed, I can now impart unsolicited advice. So what wisdom do I wish to pass on? For starters: treat yourself to expensive socks. As you grow older and your discretionary income increases, you may find yourself reaching for your credit card at the sight of any object involving carbon fiber or welded zippers. And you should! You’ve earned that right. But don’t compensate by getting all cheap with your stockings. Owning a quality pair can mean the difference between warm feet in the backcountry and a ski tour that turns needlessly epic, between patching…

Pretty Tough Seven modern watches that are as classically handsome as they are adventure-worthy Originally engineered to equip professional and military divers, Breitling’s dive watches have been going deep since the 1950s. The limited-edition Superocean ($3,290; breitling.com), which is water-resistant to 5,000 feet and has an automatic pressure valve, takes sturdiness to a new extreme. In 1968, astronauts on the Apollo 8 spacecraft wore Omega’s Speedmaster on the first journey around the moon. With a zirconium-oxide ceramic dial and blackened subdials, the new limited-edition Speedmaster “Dark Side of the Moon” ($12,000; omega.com) pays homage to that historic mission. Last summer, after a 17-year hiatus, Rolex once again began releasing timepieces from Tudor, its iconic sister company, in the U.S. The Pelagos ($4,125; tudorwatch.com) is the flagship dive watch: it’s waterproof…

ASK RETIRED professional cyclist Will Frisch korn what he misses most about the Alps and he doesn’t cite the glorious views or the breakneck competition. Frischkorn, 32, was struck most by the markets—small neighborhood places where artisans sold bread, cheese, and cured meats. “In Europe, people shop for food more thoughtfully. Products are hand-selected and placed there for a reason,” says the former Garmin-Slipstream member, who won the Tour of Colorado in 2005. “I spent a lot of time on my bike thinking about food.” In 2005, on a break from training, Frischkorn attended a six-week culinary school in Colorado. His cycling career never took off the way he wanted—his top result was second place in the third stage of the 2008 Tour de France—so in 2010 he quit and…

IN THE PAST year, the number of commercial makers of craft sake in the U.S. has doubled. The reason for the boom: American rice has improved, and brewers, long stifled by a lack of industrial rice steamers and other traditional equipment, have gotten creative with how they make it. “We’ve used wine tanks, beer vats, even a screen for filtering diesel fuel,” says Jonathan Robinson, who oversees production at Ben’s Tune Up, a sake pub and beer garden in Asheville, North Carolina. Most of the new sake specialists are refugees from the oversaturated craftbeer industry, and they bring with them a reverence for small batches and bold flavors. Steve Vuylsteke, president of Oregon’s SakeOne, the country’s largest craft-sake brewer, says the industry is poised for growth; his company’s sales have…

IT SOUNDS LIKE borderline bigotry to say it, but I have “snowboarding friends.” In fact, from adulthood on, most of my skiing memories are tied up with snowboarding. Frankly, skiing would be a lot less fun without it. From twin tips and fat skis to better clothing and a more laissez-faire attitude at ski resorts, the advent of snowboarding dramatically altered my once stale sport. So please trust that I’m not just a hater when I say this: Snowboarding is screwed. Many a destination resort will admit privately that snowboarding now accounts for less than 15 percent of total revenue. Others have seen snowboard visits cut in half. Sales of snowboarding gear are down dramatically, too, a whopping 29 percent over the past six years. Where did all the snowboarders…

My wife, Nicole, is a devout CrossFitter. I’m an avid runner and cyclist. Although neither of us had competed in an obstacle-course race before, we were both curious. Then, last summer, while visiting Durango, Colorado, we learned that the Durango Mountain Resort’s Muck and Mire race was the following morning. It sounded like a perfect first stab—not too long (5K and 10K options), with PG-13 obstacles like hay bales and cargo nets, and a beer garden at the finish. The catch: we had our kids, Lily, 5, and Beck, 2, with us. That’s when Nicole read the fine print and came across the magic words: “Child care provided, 8 A.M. to noon, $20 per child. Reservations required.” The next morning at 9 A.M., we were at the start line. Some…

MOSTLY I REMEMBER ocean’s sharp blue phosphorescence. Looking like a patch of water that Jesus might walk on, it stretched with hardly a ripple from the beach out to a wall of frothing surf just off the coast. That’s where one of the finest coral reefs in the world lay submerged below the surface, a diver’s magic kingdom beckoning. This memory comes from my first trip to Ambergris Caye, in 1987, back when few outsiders knew about this idyll off the Belizean coast. Those who did stayed mainly in palmthatched huts with few frills. The sole town, San Pedro, had a small airport, a few openfront bars, and two sandy, unpaved streets. There was at least one luxury hotel on the far north end of the skinny, 26-mile-long island, near…

TWENTY YEARS AGO, innovative products took shape out of sight, in basements and garages. Today they’re born online, at crowdfunding sites like Kick starter and Indiegogo. More than 52,000 campaigns have been run through Kickstarter alone since the site’s 2009 debut. In the gear world, crowdfunding has launched everything from lightweight nylon hammocks ($329; alpinehammock.com) to chamois-lined jeans ($178; osloh.com). But entre preneurs aren’t the only ones securing funding online. Established brands are using Kickstarter to market-test ideas in lieu of sinking their own capital into unproven products. Wahoo Fitness raised $131,041 to build a smartphone-enabled bike computer, and Pivothead drummed up more than $250,000 for a pair of video-enhanced sunglasses. Of course, few crowdfunded start ups ever gain traction: footwear maker Forsake, which produces good-looking waterproof hiking boots, is…

1. Benchmade Volli THE SELL: At 4.3 ounces and half an inch thick, it’s a slimmer, lighter traditional knife. THE DELIVERY: The Volli is perfect for those who prefer a long blade (3.3 inches) but still want some thing that slips easily into a pocket. Thanks to Benchmade’s smooth Axis-Assist mechanism, the blade springs open and locks in place with just a flick of the thumb stud. $165; benchmade.com 2. Victorinox Swiss Army Bike Tool THE SELL: Everything a cyclist needs in one small package. THE DELIVERY: Victorinox’s first nod to bicy - clists is modeled on its Swiss Army knives. The 3.5-ounce Bike Tool features snap-off tire irons, a five-millimeter Allen wrench, a magnetic universal bit driver, and five driver bits. It’s enough to tackle 95 per cent of…