Table of contents for January - February 2016 in Outside

Book It: These huts fill up quickly, so be prepared to reserve well in advance. You can usually find a single spot, but we recommend rounding up a crew of friends and booking the entire thing. Get There: most North American huts are ski-to only, and colorado’s 10th mountain system even enforces a nonmotorized zone. for a lot less work on the way in, some huts offer helicopter access, like british columbia’s kokanee glacier and Alaska’s Snowbird. Travel Light: Skinning with a heavy pack sucks. many huts provide bedding, so check in advance to find out whether you can ditch your sleeping bag. booze should have a high alcoholto-volume ratio—so no to wine, yes to whiskey. Stay Safe: it’s backcountry skiing, so bring the required safety gear—…

1. Jetboil MicroMo cooking system $130 Tiny but powerful, this stove weighs a mere 12 ounces, packs into its own container, and can boil two cups of water in just over two minutes. Pair it with the Pot Support ($9) and it will also fry up a pan of eggs and bacon. jetboil.com 2. PackTowl Personal towel $10 Crafted from a blend of polyester and nylon, the compact Personal soaks up four times its weight in moisture, then wrings out nearly bone dry—perfect for wiping down everything from damp equipment to dishes. cascadedesigns.com 3. Bernzomatic 3-in-1 Outdoor Micro torch $35 Sure, matches are great. But for those times when you need serious firepower, the Micro torch produces a concentrated fl ame that will have your woodstove roaring in minutes. The…

IN 1991, A YEAR after going vegan, track star Carl Lewis put on the performance of his life at the World Championships in Tokyo, winning two golds and a silver. Lewis’s victory did little to encourage other competitors to renounce highprotein meats, but fast-forward to today and a growing number of pro athletes are switching to nonanimal fuel—from climbers (Steph Davis) and ultrarunners (Scott Jurek) to NFL linemen (David Carter) and tennis players ( Venus Williams). All of them claim that a plant-based diet makes them feel and perform better. Just as important, the recipes they’re using are delicious and—surprise—loaded with protein. Take this veggie and quinoa bowl, a go-to recovery meal of 18-year-old pro surfer Tia Blanco. We asked Danielle LaFata, director of nutrition at Exos, an elite training…

SOUNDSCAPE ecologist Bernie Krause has recorded jaguars in the Amazon, ice in Antarctica, insects in Zimbabwe, rainstorms in Borneo, and orcas in the Pacific. The 77-yearold began studying nature’s sounds at age 30, later earning a Ph.D. in creative arts. (This was after two successful decades as a musician and producer.) He has since traveled to the world’s most remote areas to create an audio library that began as an inventory of the intricate symphonies unique to each ecosystem but has become a way to document biodiversity and, most recently, loss. Krause’s archive now consists of 5,000-plus hours of what he calls “whole habitat” field recordings. To get them, he sets up a wind-protected microphone on a tri pod, plugs it into a handheld recorder, and captures everything that occurs.…

Among the countless industries affected by the California drought is craft brewing. Beer is water intensive—it takes seven barrels of water to make a bar rel of suds. So it’s no surprise that after four years of paltry precipitation, some of the golden State’s 570 craft breweries—the most in the country—are coming up with innovative approaches to conservation. In August, Anheuser-Busch-owned Shock Top, maker of a Belgian white ale, announced that it would fund water-saving projects through crowdfunding site Indiegogo. It’s first investment: $100,00 to a startup that produces rubber bricks to put in toilet tanks, reducing the amount of water used with every flush. But that effort was outdone in october by Mavericks Brewing in Half Moon Bay, which as a marketing stunt created an IPA made from recycled…

Countless products promise to improve our lives by making them easier. (Think laptops, Boa closures, child leashes.) But a new class of industrial designers want to achieve that end by making things harder. That’s why Berlinbased Weng Xinyu, 28, created a lamp that switches on only when you slot your phone into the base, derailing sleep-disrupting latenight screen time. Another example: sitting is bad for you, even if you’re using an ergonomic office chair. So Benoît Malta, a 25-year-old French industrial designer, created a seat that has only two legs, forcing you to engage your core to stay upright while you sit. And because driving to work doesn’t make you (or the planet) nearly as happy as riding a bike, 32-year-old Matthias Laschke, a German industrial designer, devised a wall-mounted…

1. Half Turkish Get-Up (unweighted) Lie on your back, right leg extended, left leg bent so your foot is fl at on the ground. Use your right arm to prop yourself into an upright seated position, with your right arm straight and your left elbow resting on your left knee. Push through the ground with your left heel to raise your hips toward the sky. As you do, raise your left arm so that it points at the ceiling. Repeat by lowering your butt to the ground, returning your left arm to your knee, and driving your hips and arm back toward the ceiling. 2. Bear Crawl On all fours, crawl forward ten steps, moving your opposing hands and legs forward at the same time. Stay low, with your back…

Dan Medhurst Last September, Medhurst visited Kazakhstan’s remote Charyn National Park, near the border with China and Kyrgyzstan, with writer Tristan Kennedy. Over three days mountain-biking along the park’s 700-foot cliffs, they saw almost no one, apart from the driver of the 4x4 that took them to the top of Charyn Canyon, where the photographer captured Kennedy and his brother, Rowan. “It was important to show how massive and empty the place was,” says Medhurst, who lives in London. “There was nobody there but us.” THE TOOLS: Canon 1D X, 70–200mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 500, f/5.6, 1/2,000 second Mike Schirf Marcus Caston was almost certainly the first person of the season to ski the fjords in Nordurfjördur, Iceland, where he and Schirf traveled last April. “The roads were just being…

THE DISTINCTIVE UA logo of activewear brand Under Armour has been showing up in some unexpected places of late. The company, known for its affiliation with big-name athletes like Tom Brady and Stephen Curry (and crossover stars like Lindsey Vonn), recently sponsored trail runner Kyle Dietz and snowboarder John Jackson. It agreed to provide outerwear for employees at nine ski resorts in the U.S., including Killington and Deer Valley. It had a large booth at this year’s Outdoor Retailer, the industry trade show in Salt Lake City. It even signed on to become the title sponsor of the ski- and snowboard-porn auteurs at Matchstick Pro ductions, a move befitting its launch this winter of a modest line of topend snow jackets, pants, and bibs. In other words, the $3 billion…

ADVENTURE TOOLS, TESTED & REVIEWED IN 2009, Vermont carpenter Jesse Loomis was frustrated. He wanted a snowboard that could handle the powder of his state’s steep, open fields and tight trees—the terrain he grew up riding to get away from skier-clogged resorts. But he couldn’t find one on the market that fit his needs. “With very few exceptions,” Loomis says, “most were variations on the classic popsicle-stick shape, designed by and large for park riding.” What he needed was a board with rocker, for speed and fl oat over deep stashes, but enough sidecut for hard carving and a fl exible body that afforded plenty of control. So Loomis set about crafting it himself. His creation, the PowderJet Gypsy, features a notched tail and pointed nose more reminiscent of the…

1. When it comes to denim, cut is everything. That’s why we’re fans of Duer’s L2X Slim Fit jeans ($129; dishand duer.com). Blended with a touch of Lycra for nonconstricting stretch, they’re way more comfortable than fancy selvage. 2. The Icebreaker Spire cardigan ($250; icebreaker.com) is woven from a cushy merino and acrylic blend, great for lounging fireside or on the lodge deck. 3. Your feet have been jammed into clammy ski boots all day. Give them a break with Stance’s Grainer socks ($14; stance.com). The smooth, combed cotton feels like silk compared with thick wool. 4. The Will Leather Goods Gunner belt ($35; willleathergoods.com) has a tight weave that all but guarantees a snug waistline, and it comes in 13 colors, so you can add pop to otherwise muted…

MIRACLE ON ICE The sun was setting over the Tantalus Mountains on March 31, 2014, when Christine Newman snowshoed past an empty ranger station and climbed the final rise to the Elfin Lakes shelter in garibaldi Provincial Park, about 45 miles north of vancouver. Twenty-four years old, with long blond hair, she was wearing rented snowshoes and a small daypack and was hiking alone. Temperatures were headed for the twenties as she settled into a bunk with more than a dozen other campers there for the night. ¶ At breakfast the next morning, someone remarked that at around 2 A.M., Newman had told her that she was leaving because she wanted to get an early start back to the trailhead, about seven miles away. The night had been clear, and…

By second grade, it was clear that while Zack smith could sit in a chair, he had no intention of staying in it. he was disruptive in class, spoke in a loud voice, and had a hard time taking turns with others. his parents fed him a series of medications for attention-deficit hyper activity disorder, or adhd, many of which didn’t work. Zack, who attended school in west hartford, connecticut, was placed in special classrooms where he showed a propensity for lashing out. Twice suspended, he was miserable. He didn’t seem to care about anything at school. When his parents realized that his path would likely lead to worse trouble, they pulled the ripcord on eighth grade. Where Zack eventually landed is clinging spread-eagle to an east-facing slab of quartzite…

Superstuds like Ned Overend don’t get that way by charging relentlessly through middle age. They understand that at least half the game involves recovering properly, which allows for consistent hard efforts without the detrimental effects of overtraining. A nutrient-rich, plant-heavy diet and lots of sleep are essential, but a recovery plan that includes daily breathing exercises, foam rolling, and mobility work will help you rebound even faster. “A lot of top athletes come in wanting to improve their movement and speed, but their nervous system is out of whack or they’re broken down,” says Miguel Aragoncillo, a strength coach at Cressy Sports Performance in Hudson, Massachusetts. “There are techniques to help you regenerate between workouts and correct the problems.” Here are six of Aragoncillo’s favorite recovery exercises. Do them immediately…

ABOUT A THIRD of the way into A Splendid Savage ($30, W. W. Norton), author Steve Kemper addresses the lure of gold rushes during the late 19th century by noting, “Sometimes reality matched imagination.” The same is true of the book’s subject, Frederick Russell Burnham, whose life was so full of derringdo and fearless exploits that, lacking historical record, one would assume him to be myth, more Man with No Name than Wyatt Earp. Burnham manages to make them both look like armchair cowboys. He rode through an enemy camp of several thousand Ndebele warriors in an attempt to capture their king, was quickly surrounded, and escaped under cover of night. During his teenage years in the 1870s, Burnham tracked the Apa -ches then fighting in the Arizona Territory. He…

A. KinderBox $35 PER MONTH KinderBox casts a wide net with its minimum five monthly products, from EDC knives to shave cream to beer coozies. And since no case contains two items from the same category, you won’t get stuck with a pile of jerky. THE VERDICT: A well-rounded pick for do-it-all outdoorsmen. thekinderbox.com B. BivySak $75 PER QUARTER All the gear in one BivySak box would cost up to $120 if you bought everything separately. The company starts with a premium item like a Salomon Trail 20 pack and builds around it with offerings like a Nal gene bottle and hand warmers. THE VERDICT: Hardcore, quality gear on the cheap. bivysak.com C. The Feed $49 PER MONTH The Feed appeals to athletes at their core—the stomach. With six packages…

Not so long ago, the outdoor industry had essentially zero influence in state and national politics. Though individual companies played a role in conservation campaigns and other causes, there was little collective muscle to push issues like boating access to rivers and lakes the way, say, big oil can fight against higher fuel-efficiency standards in cars. that’s started to change in recent years, thanks to two developments. first, in 2006, the outdoor industry association (oia) began publishing an annual report detailing the massive impact of recreation on the U.S. economy, now responsible for $646 billion in annual consumer spending (twice what americans spend on pharmaceuticals) and 6.1 million jobs (a big enough number that recently proposed legislation could require the commerce department to start tracking it). Second, in 2013, Sally…

It’s no secret that small hills are having a tough go of it. Between tight budgets, changing weather, and ever expanding conglomerate resorts, the only way to survive may be to forgo the pursuit of cash and seek 501(c) status. “It helps on taxes, and it may create some additional opportunities to reinvest in the ski area as a local community asset,” says Dave Byrd, director of risk management at the National Ski Areas Association. Take Antelope Butte in northern Wyoming. In 2011, when officials at Bighorn National Forest considered tearing down the facilities, locals created the nonprofit Antelope Butte Foundation to accept private funds; last September, the foundation made a $55,000 down payment on the $275,000 purchase price for the ski area. “It’s ours to either make happen or…

There’s no question that helmets make cycling safer. A recent study by researchers at the University of Arizona found that wearing one makes you 59 percent more likely to survive a collision. But according to many bike advocacy groups, laws requiring that adults wear helmets actually lead to more injuries. How’s that? Studies show that the laws deter people from riding, and the fewer riders there are on roads, the more car-bike accidents occur. Research backs up the idea that more cyclists on city streets reduces the number of collisions with automobiles, though exactly why is unclear. Anti-helmet-law groups believe it’s because motorists become accustomed to sharing the road. “Nothing makes cycling safer than more cyclists,” says Keegan Stephan, an organizer for New York City advocacy group Right of Way.…