Table of contents for November 2018 in Outside

A six-year-old boy goes missing in the woods of northeast Oregon and must travel miles through the rugged backcountry to find his way home. A young couple from South Carolina encounters a murderous stranger on the Appalachian Trail. A group of teenagers on a school-sponsored climb takes shelter in a tiny snow cave as a relentless storm traps them in a whiteout high on Oregon’s Mount Hood. And a California retiree, pursuing his lifelong dream of sailing solo around the world, begins to go mad in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. This month’s issue of Outside will drop you into some truly terrifying narratives, ones that are as beautifully told as they are haunting. Indeed, they are exactly the kinds of stories we were looking to tell when…

THERE IS A mythical creature in horological circles known as the One Watch: a single timepiece you could own, forsaking all others, and wear 24/7 for the rest of your life and then pass down to an heir. Now, Tudor has actually made that unicorn: the Black Bay GMT. Based on the brand’s popular Black Bay dive model, this new version is eminently capable, with a 660-foot depth rating, a self-winding mechanical movement that’s shock and magnetic-field resistant, and an understated nylon band. The GMT’s showstopper is its ability to simultaneously track two time zones, courtesy of a fourth hand and matte blue and red bezel—nods to a watch that Rolex, Tudor’s parent company, made for Pan Am pilots in the 1950s. And with a price point well below a…

men’s A. Fits Medium Ski OTC socks $26 These hit the sweet spot: thick merino wool prevents bruised shins and adds warmth, and thin nylon-polyester helps vent moisture from the calves. Toe cups and reinforced heels keep everything in place, so the socks don’t bunch up in your boots. B. Lange RX 130 LV boots $850 The truly stiff RX 130 is basically Lange’s race boot with a grippier sole and a more comfortable, heat-moldable liner. The snug heel pocket locks you in for smooth, powerful flex. Heads up: the LV stands for low volume—this version has a narrow 97-millimeter last. C. Hestra Henrik Leather Pro Model gloves $185 Hestra is known for its best-in-class leather gloves and mittens. The Pro Model features the brand’s famously soft and supple cowhide…

DAVID FINLAYSON: I’d been taking Charlie into the backcountry since he was a baby. In 2015, when he was 13, we planned a trip to climb these granite towers about 13 miles into Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness, in Idaho. A week in, we were about 1,000 feet up a tower. There was loose rock, so I anchored Charlie off to a tree to belay me while I did some route finding. That’s when I heard the crack. CHARLIE FINLAYSON: I didn’t see the boulder hit him, but I saw the rock flake he was standing on come off the wall. DAVID: My left arm was above my head, and the boulder snapped it, crushed my helmet, and broke my back and my left leg. I ended up 40…

When I first fell in love with surfing, I spent quite a while in France, working as a lifeguard in Biarritz. When I came back to Scotland, I would always go up to this beach in Westport. One morning, I headed there with just a short funboard and paddled out. There were six- or seven-foot swells. Conditions were great. I was the only person in the water, but that is perfectly normal for this beach. It’s one of the most isolated parts of Scotland. I’d only caught about three waves before everything went wrong. I paddled out behind the break to rest. I’d really worn myself out climbing at an indoor gym two days before, and now my arm was cramping. I sat there for a couple of minutes catching…

Sydnie and I had never met, but that’s normal when you’re putting in hours. When we took off, all signs were normal. After we climbed to 2,000 feet, the plane started to rumble a bit, but it wasn’t enough of a concern to turn back. After about an hour in the air—at the widest part of the channel between Maui and Kona—the right engine went out. Sydnie got on the radio to tell air traffic control that we may need assistance. Then the left engine went. We declared emergency right away. We were basically gliding. We weren’t that high—I think about 3,000 feet—which doesn’t give you much time. I remember looking out at the ocean as we were descending—it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. I don’t know how…

We always knew fire was a possibility. When it came that day, there was no warning. We smelled smoke and that was disturbing, so we got on our phones and tried to find out what was going on. All five neighbors on the dead-end road where we lived had left. We decided to throw stuff into our cars and drive down to check our exit route—but by then the fire had reached the end of the driveway. We could see it on the ridge coming toward us. I thought, This is not possible. What actually saved our lives was a motorcycle trip we’d taken about six years earlier to Big Bear Lake, in Southern California. We’d stopped at a coffee shop and the guy who ran it told us how…

1 ARNHEM LAND, NORTHERN TERRITORY INDIGENOUS CULTURE, ART, BEACHES The best thing about traveling in Australia’s far north is connecting with the Aboriginal people who have roamed these canyons and coasts for some 65,000 years. Nowhere is their culture more alive than in Arnhem Land, a 37,500-square-mile preserve with rusty red coastlines, rugged escarpments, and croc-filled oxbow lakes. You can camp on the Cobourg Peninsula with a permit, but it’s easier to leave the planning to professionals. On Intrepid Travel’s seven-day trek through the region, you’ll camp and stay in lodges, eat bush foods like mud crabs and tart billy goat plums, and listen to Aboriginal guides tell Dreamtime stories about everything from creation myths to morality. After spending the last two nights in an oceanfront cabin on Bremer Island,…

A. BEST WOMEN’S ALL-MOUNTAIN FRONTSIDE Head Wild Joy $750 Head embraced the light-done-right style to produce a ski that’s feathery but not skittish. The company utilized high-tech materials like Koroyd and graphene, a metal made from a single layer of carbon atoms that’s ultralight and 200 times stronger than steel. When those ounce savers are built in with a traditional vertical wood core and sidewall construction, you end up with a ski that’s weighted more proportionally for most women yet still holds an edge at speed. Our testers were consistently blown away. “It’s light but substantial,” said one. “The Wild Joy offers great on-trail carving, but there’s enough girth for some off-piste exploring.” 139/90/118 B. BEST ALL-MOUNTAIN Rossignol Experience 94 Ti $800 Say hello to perhaps the most versatile all-mountain…

I’m a ski instructor, but not a backcountry skier. This was my first time at Monarch. I was with a friend, and we spotted some powder at the edge of a run. At no point did we duck a rope. We skied for a long time before we realized that we were lost. I checked my phone, which had just enough battery life to show us how far we’d strayed. That was around 3 P.M. Instead of backtracking, we headed in the direction we thought would take us to the highway. Just before dark I built a lean-to. It was a cold night. I had stepped in a creek, and my foot was wet. At one point, I went out to pee and fell over. I got up and started…

Our team was diving in Lake Sibinacocha, in Peru, which is at about 16,000 feet. We wanted to collect data on the effects of diving at altitude and also look for Incan artifacts. I’d been a rock climber and a diver most of my life, and I thought of the trip like a first ascent. My dive partner on the third day was Geoff Belter. We were heading down to around 200 feet, with four tanks each and battery-powered scooters. At about 165 feet, my scooter died, which was a serious enough failure that the dive was essentially over and Geoff would have to tow me up. At about 110 feet, my first tank ran out of gas, so I switched to the other and it immediately ran out. That…

SURROUNDED BY sweeping views of Ruth Glacier and the jagged Alaska Range, the Sheldon Chalet welcomed its first guests in February, but its debut has been nearly half a century in the making. In the 1970s, trailblazing bush pilot Don Sheldon and his wife, Roberta, had lofty dreams of bringing adventure tourism to their almost five-acre homestead in the shadow of North America’s tallest mountain. Four decades later, their children discovered Don’s blueprints for a hexagonal structure and reimagined the building with a level of luxury that early Alaskan pioneers could never have fathomed. Guests arrive by helicopter from Talkeetna and are welcomed with champagne, oysters, king crab legs, and knockout views of Denali’s 20,310-foot summit, ten miles to the northwest. Don might have rolled his eyes at the faux-fur…

A. BEST WOMEN’S DIRECTIONAL Gnu Klassy $470 The compact, all-mountain Klassy was designed by pro Kaitlyn Farrington, and testers were quick to call it one of the best carvers of the year. It combines a wide waist and stubby directional shape with rocker between the feet for hoverboard-like buoyancy, while camber toward the tip and tail offers ample grip in turns. All that lends it plenty of versatility: the Klassy handles choppy moguls and lays trenches in corduroy with aplomb. B. BEST SHORTIE Lib Tech T. Rice Orca $600 This potbellied powder board, with a cutout tail and plenty of float, is designed for surfing steeps. But we appreciated the Orca’s ability to rip turns on groomers, too: it’s astonishingly nimble edge to edge in spite of its wide shape,…

MY FATHER’S E-MAIL didn’t make much sense, but he seemed to be saying that pirates had boarded his boat. “Being kidnappedby filmcompany Deep south blackcult took over steering,” it read. “Ship disabled.” He sent this to my mother, Martha Carr, at 4:30 A.M. Pacific time on May 28, 2017, a Sunday. She was at home in Los Angeles, asleep, and she wouldn’t see the message—and a couple more like it—until 8:30 A.M. For several hours, my dad, 71-year-old Richard Carr, must have thought they weren’t getting through. Dad was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on his way from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to the Marquesas Islands, 26 days into a single-handed, 2,780-mile crossing that was to be the first major leg of a lifelong dream: sailing around the world.…

“THE HEART OF THE WISE IS IN THE HOUSE OF MOURNING.”—ECCLESIASTES 7:4 It’s the second Wednesday of May in 2018, and more than 1,000 students, alumni, parents, and faculty affiliated with Oregon Episcopal School—a small private academy on a beautiful hilly campus in southwest Portland—have gathered at the base of a bell tower. Today is the 32nd annual Mount Hood Climb Service Day, and Melissa Robinson, the middle school chaplain, is offering a benediction. “Holy God, we pray for those we love but see no longer,” she says. “May they inspire each of us to enter today with a generous heart, ready to serve and eager to love.” After Robinson concludes, the Reverend Corbet Clark reads off nine names. Patrick McGinness. Tasha Amy. Marion Horwell. Susan McClave. Richard Haeder. Erik…

CODY SHEEHY is standing in a grassy meadow in northeast Oregon, surrounded by dark pines, spruce, and juniper trees. Cody, 39 years old and six foot two, grew up in a ranching family here in remote, rugged Wallowa County. When he was six years old—a mere 40 pounds and three and a half feet tall—he got lost in these woods while playing with his older sister during a springtime family picnic. Within a few hours, a search party began looking for him, crisscrossing the Blue Mountains on horseback all night as rain fell and temperatures hovered just above freezing. They never found him. Instead, Cody, who is now a Tucson-based documentary filmmaker and sailor, found himself. Over 18 hours, he walked an estimated 14 to 20 miles out of the…

IT BEGINS WITH THE GIRL. A typical girl of the mid-seventies American South, in most respects. In love with her dog, her friends, and summer days wasted in adventure yarns and mysteries. In Jethro Tull records and card games and movie dates. In canoeing the pond out back of her family’s house in Sumter, South Carolina. Sharper than average: Margaret McFaddin Harritt could dive so deep into books that the world around her disappeared, and she could apply the same focus to any task at hand. She finished high school in three years and turned 17 just days before arriving at the University of South Carolina. She looked even younger than she was. But she was also a headstrong kid. Daring. Hungry for the new and exotic. South Carolina wasn’t…