Table of contents for April 2018 in Outside

I’m a runner. Most days of the week, I get out for at least a quick loop on the trails near Outside’s Santa Fe headquarters. But while the short runs keep me sane, the long ones are what I crave most. Over the years, I’ve had some of my best outdoor experiences competing in distance events. I’m also a huge fan of professional running, especially marathons. This has caused me a fair amount of frustration and dismay. First, I’m perpetually annoyed that I never get to see all the best marathoners in the world compete against each other in a single event. Instead, some of them enter Boston, others New York, others London, and so on. Great races happen, but there’s no season-ending battle royal featuring the top ten men…

“Listen, we never know whether these things will work,” says Grylls. “And I never go in thinking that we’re only going to do it if it’s a huge success. I’ve had way more failures.” THERE HE IS! A helicopter approaches, descending from one of the ancient volcanic craters that rises out of the sagebrush near California’s Mono Lake on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas. Dangling below it on a rope is Bear Grylls, the intrepid king of survival entertainment. But wait—he’s not alone. He’s tied to someone. As the chopper gently sets them on the ground, I see that it’s a middle-aged woman. There’s some brief dialogue. And cut! In an instant, Grylls is upon me with a bro hug and his signature boyish enthusiasm, a trait that…

Krystle Wright got the photography bug while growing up in Queensland, on Australia’s northeast coast. At 18, she spent her life savings on underwater housing for her camera, hoping to become a surf photographer. “It was the best thing I ever did,” says the 30-year-old. “I would just go out in any conditions and shoot.” Photographing in heavy surf proved harder than it looked. “The first time I shot with a water houser, I head-butted the sand,” she says. As she grew more comfortable in the water, she turned her focus to other subjects, like paragliding in Pakistan’s Karakoram Range and BASE jumpers in Moab, Utah. Today, Wright—a freediver, skier, and climber—keeps her belongings in a shipping container in Queensland and travels 11 months of the year on commercial expeditions…

DEENA KASTOR, one of the best marathon runners in American history, almost became a baker. As the 45-year-old writes in her new memoir, Let Your Mind Run ($27, Crown Archetype), she was an extraordinary junior athlete in the late 1980s and early ’90s. But after becoming frustrated by injuries in college, she decided to leave the sport and open a café. Then a chance introduction led her to legendary coach Joe Vigil, who taught Kastor as much about life as about training. Within two years she became a national champion, and later made three Olympic teams, ending a two-decade American drought in the Olympic marathon in 2004 with a bronze medal. Her 2006 U.S. marathon record of 2:19:36 has not been threatened since. The key, Kastor writes, was between the…

There’s nothing quite like the braaap of a motorbike—fire up the engine, twist the throttle, and the endorphins follow. The almost silent exception? Electric motorcycles like the Alta Redshift EX. Stealthy, street legal, and easy to ride (no clutch), this California-made enduro rig is a capable commuter with a 60-mile range and a solid 5.8 kilowatt-hour battery that charges in four hours via a standard 110-volt outlet. But with high-performance WP suspension, powerful Brembo brakes, and burly Metzeler knobbed tires, the Redshift EX really shines in the dirt, where you can explore trails for about three hours before the battery needs more juice. The svelte 15-pound motor is a beast, delivering 40 horsepower and producing a massive 122 foot-pounds of wheelie-anytime torque. Its eco-friendliness only makes it more fun. $15,495…

It’s tempting to call the Allied Alfa All Road the adventure-touring love child of a Chevy Corvette Z06 and a BMW R 1200 GS, because the truth is, in cycling terms, it’s every bit of both. The carbon superbike is hand-built in Little Rock, Arkansas, and epitomizes the trend away from hyperspecialized road designs tailored to one use (think: climbing, aero, time trial, endurance) to a bike that can handle every condition and all challenges. The All Road has disc brakes and clearance for up to 38c tires—the hallmarks of a gravel bike—yet the head angle is steep (73 degrees) and chainstays are short (420 millimeters) like a road racer, lending it speed and capability whether you’re running skinny tires or knobby ones. I’ve kept pace in hard and fast…

Jordan Hasay Stood at the starting line of the BOSTON Marathon last april, feeling a sense of calm she didn’t Recognize. She was used to being jumpy and trying to quiet her mind, which starts racing long before her body does. In the past, she was so nervous that she brought coloring books to give her jittery fingers something to do. Once she’s running, she’s in her element. But waiting for the gun is the toughest part. That morning, though, she was steady and still. Hasay had run hundreds of races, but never a marathon. And yet it felt like she’d been training her whole life for this one. People have been calling her a phenom since she was 12, a young track star from Arroyo Grande, California, who won…

Shalane Flanagan Flanagan is a local favorite—she’s from nearby Marblehead—and each of the previous three times she’s run the marathon, there’s been chatter about whether she could win. Her time from 2014 (2:22:02) is the fastest ever run by an American woman on the course—good enough for seventh place. The closest she’s come to winning was fourth place, in 2013. Last spring an injury forced her to pull out, but she found redemption in November, when she became the first American woman to win the New York City Marathon in 40 years. At 36, she’s talked of retiring, so the pressure’s on to see if she can finally break the tape on her home course. Desiree Linden Linden consistently places among the top finishers at major races, but a big…

Split the Difference As often happens with any story we publish involving politics, our profile of secretary of the interior Ryan Zinke (“This Man Flies His Own Flag,” January/February) had readers from across the spectrum writing in. I read with horror your fawning article on Ryan Zinke. I can’t believe that a magazine that should be promoting increased access to public lands would profile a man who is in the pocket of oil and gas companies. MEAGHAN HALLIGAN San Jose, California In 2013, our government shut down the national parks and used them as a pawn in a budget dispute to inflict pain on the American public. Our government is also responsible for the disastrous pollution of the Animas River. Please do not assume that the federal government is always…

1 WASHINGTON In 2017, two Seattle-based surfers turned a mid-century motor lodge in the coastal town of Westport into a communal hub for anyone looking to hit the area’s beach, point, and cove breaks. Loge Camps takes a variety of budgets into consideration, offering private hotel rooms, hostel beds, and a campground. In addition, soft-top and performance board rentals are available on-site. A few hours inland, in Leavenworth, Loge has built a small Bavarian-themed mountain village on the Wenatchee River, with front-door access to some of the most popular skiing and mountain biking in the state. The 2.6-acre commune has all the amenities of its sister property but with the bonus of a bike- and ski-tuning shop. There’s even a training area where you can brush up on your avalanche-response…

A. Sunski Dipsea sunglasses $55 Shield your eyes from glare with these polarized shades, packaged in a stylish silhouette and a lightweight frame that’s comfortable for daylong use. B. Stance Solo Voyage Outdoor socks $20 Stance’s calf-high lookers are made with a merino-synthetic blend, which is perfectly warm, wicking, and stink resistant. But we really love ’em for the fun pattern. C. The North Face Access pack $235 Your laptop and other electronics are safe within the Access. A water-resistant polyester-nylon fabric covers the aluminum frame, and the clamshell top opens wide for easy stowing. It locks, too. D. Marmot Featherless Trail vest $125 Layer this cozy vest under your waterproof shell for extra warmth. It has a helping of synthetic insulation—for those lingering cold days—with a fitted cut. E.…

BULLET- proof LABS is located on a tony strip in Santa Monica, around the corner from Davy Jones Liquor Locker and a few blocks from Silicon Beach, the burgeoning tech hub occupied by Google, Snap Inc., and an untallied quantity of startups. The human-performance facility sits inside a low-rise brick building adjacent to Bulletproof coffee, best known for the fat-bomb java sensation launched in 2013 by biohacking impresario Dave Asprey, author of the bestsellers Bulletproof Diet and Head Strong. The coffee is blended with grass-fed butter and triglyceride oil, and is purported to boost energy and mental focus while helping you lose weight. According to the company, more than 100 million cups of Bulletproof coffee have been consumed to date. Bulletproof Labs, which opened last October, is Asprey’s next big…

EARLY ONE MORNING IN 2016, a few days after Christmas, the phone rang in the office of the Northwest Avalanche Center in Seattle. Scott Schell answered. Schell is the center’s executive director, and he was anticipating a busy day. The night before, at a dinner party, he was informed that Washington’s first avalanche death of the winter had happened. A man who’d gone out of bounds at the White Pass Ski Area, southeast of Mount Rainier, was buried in a slide. Schell wasn’t surprised that he recognized the victim’s name. About two dozen ski areas dot the mountains of Washington and Oregon, and hundreds of thousands of skiers visit them annually. But the universe of intensely passionate Pacific Northwest skiers and snowboarders is a curiously small one. On discussion boards…

THE SECRET to set- ting your next PR may start with your toes. Fine-tuned foot muscles feel out the ground and tell your brain how to stabilize your body. That allows you to move explosively while running on uneven surfaces and protects you from injury. But most of us rarely think about getting burly from the ankles down. “The problem is that we don’t develop the foundation in our feet, opting to develop big muscle groups instead,” says Jay Dicharry, director of the Rep Lab in Bend, Oregon, and the author of Running Rewired. If you plan to ramp up your training this spring, build a different type of base by incorporating these foot-focused moves. 1. TOE YOGA Why: Roughly 85 percent of your foot control generates from your big…

ON DAYS WHEN there isn’t time for a full lunch, you don’t have to turn to chalky smoothies or candy bars masquerading as health food. In addition to offering balanced nutrients and cleaner-than-usual ingredients, these next-wave meal-replacement shakes aim to actually taste good, too. A few are even successful. Kate Farms Komplete This vegan shake is free of pretty much everything—gluten, soy, corn, and dairy—but has a sky-high sugar content. While delicious, the coffee flavor has 18 grams of the sweet stuff—double what’s found in similar options. $4 per serving Soylent Love it or hate it, the infamous drink beloved by Silicon Valley coders provides 20 percent of most daily recommended vitamins and minerals, all from plant-based powders. The nutritional facts may be enviable, but the artificial taste and gritty…

Salomon Sonic RA Max $130 This heavily cushioned trainer is the most sophisticated road shoe we’ve seen from the French trail-running juggernaut. Meaty and damp, the Sonic was a hit with heel strikers and a favorite for pleasure cruises and recovery days. It has a few quirks (notably the slightly abrasive heel collar) and a chunkier ride. 9.3 oz (men’s) / 8.3 oz (women’s); 10 mm drop Adidas Aerobounce ST $110 This baby’s got back! While the Aerobounce has a moderately cushioned forefoot for a responsive toe-off, the heel is a bottomless cradle of bouncy foam. Fun and carefree, it’s billed as a stability shoe, though the medial post has a slight bit of pronation control. Best for unrepentant heel strikers who want to jog, not slog. 11 oz…

As a kid, you can’t control where you grow up. To land somewhere like St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, takes luck—and in my case an adventurous mother. My fraternal twin brother, Sean, and I were five years old when our mom decided that she was tired of commuting from Westport, Connecticut, to New York City. So in December 1985, she and her boyfriend bought a 41-foot sailboat named Yahoo, we packed everything we owned into 19 duffel bags, and we headed south. St. John, half of which is covered by Virgin Islands National Park, offered singular beauty—and plenty of places to anchor our new floating home. Mom took a job as a landscaper in Fish Bay and eventually got her real estate license. Sean and I fell in…