In 2021, Scott Miller, a 47-year-old nurse from Minneapolis, made his first attempt to break the record for paddling the entire 2,350-mile length of the Mississippi River. At the time, the fastest known time for completing the journey was 18 days, 4 hours and 51 minutes. But on May 21 of that year, near mile 2,200, after 16 days of paddling for 24 hours a day, his team’s boat sank in heavy waves just north of New Orleans. They’d come so far, and been so close to the finish line, only to fail. The result left a bitter taste in Miller’s mouth.

Two weeks later, Miller sat down with his crew chief, Michael “Moose” Dougherty, at an Irish bar in St. Paul, Minnesota. Over Guinnesses, Miller made his pitch: “I’m not going to beat around the bush,” he said. “I’m going again, and I need you to be crew chief.”

Dougherty suspected this was coming. Before driving to the bar he had planned to say no, and he even told his wife there was no way he could do another attempt. A Mississippi River paddle is a huge project, with many risks. And yet, Dougherty heard the words come out of his mouth like someone else was saying them: “Okay,” he told Miller. “I’ll do it.” They decided to plan for the spring of 2023.

The project pitted Miller against his rival, K.J. Millhone, 65, an executive coach and longtime paddler. Millhone and his paddling team, called Mile Marker Zero, had broken the record in 2021, completing the trip in 17 days, 19 hours, and 46 minutes, and he had also set a previous record in 1980. Miller and Millhouse had planned to team up for a 2020 attempt, but the crew had fractured and the attempt was scuttled. Instead, they each had organized separate teams for dueling 2021 attempts.

After his 2021 failure, Miller thought about everything that had gone right—teamwork, planning, organization—and what went wrong, namely the weather. He knew he could improve the journey. He would modify his boat, bring on different paddlers, simplify their nutrition, and streamline their gear. The only thing remaining from his 2021 voyage was Dougherty, a retired corporate PR flack with a love of endurance sports.

Miller, the founder and leader, called his new team Mississippi Speed Record. He recruited a squad of expert paddlers, first bringing on Paul Cox, a digital media editor who was a two-time winner—and current record holder—of the . Next to join was Wally Werderich, a Chicago public defender who’d placed second and third in the Missouri River 340 and had won two national titles. There was Judson Steinback, the 2022 Masters national champion for men’s and mixed canoes. And waiting in the wings as a backup paddler was Joe Mann, also a winner of the Alabama 650.

The team had plenty of paddling power. Miller thought that with good weather, good water, and good luck, they could beat the record. And if they couldn’t, maybeÌęnobody could.

Miller planned to launch on May 3, 2023. But the long winter with heavy snow meant that Minnesota’s Lake Winnibigoshish, a huge shallow lake near the start of the route, was still choked with ice. They would need to cross its 16 miles in their first 24 hours. Even without ice, Winnibigoshish is one of the most dangerous places on the river, because even a slight wind can produce huge waves.

They pushed the launch back to May 7, gathered at Dougherty’s cabin in northern Minnesota, and waited for the ice to melt. Every day, someone went to check the frozen lake. With each new report, the initial excitement waned, and a restlessness grew. The paddlers had hard deadlines, jobs, and lives to return to. If they couldn’t go by May 11, Werdrich, for one, was out. Other team members had similar deadlines.

Finally, on May 9, the paddlers found the lake largely clear, save for about a mile of candle ice, which crumbles and can be plowed through if necessary. The choice seemed to be: Go now, or don’t go at all. They decided to launch.

That afternoon, some members of Miller’s 20-plus person support crewÌędrove to Lake Itasca, the river’s official starting point. The supporters set up camp, while the four paddlers attempted to get one last night of sleep. At 3:30 A.M., the support crew woke up in their tents and began readying the canoe.

The boat was a 23-foot Wenonah Minnesota Four—the same model used on Miller’s previous attempt—only with several modifications. Like the previous boat, the new one had bulkheads installed to help keep water out of the middle two seats. For much of the journey three of the men would paddle while the fourth slept in the boat. New to this boat was a battery system to power lights, an iPad for navigation, and GPS trackers.

Early light began to filter through the trees. Once the canoe was ready, support crew members wheeled it down to the water, where the paddlers were waiting. The four men got in and paddled across Lake Itasca to the row of large stones where the water spills over and the Mississippi River begins. Then at 6 A.M., the paddlers walked the canoe over the rocks and past a small footbridge, and set off down the river.

The water was high and fast. The canoe wound through the marshes, following the river. Almost immediately, they started picking up time. After the first morning, they were ahead of 2021 record pace by an hour.

By evening they arrived in the city of Bemidji, where the support crew passed the team spray skirts to protect them from the icy water, and switched out the battery powering the iPad, Garmin tracker, lights, and the bailer.

Around 5 P.M., they set off across Lake Bemidji. The ice had just melted there too, and the water temperature was 46 degrees—deadly cold if the canoe flipped and they couldn’t get back in. By 1:30 A.M., they arrived at Lake Winnibigoshish, and saw that the ice was gone. After crossing the lake’s glassy surface for the first half of the 16-mile journey, the paddlers encountered winds and high waves, and water pounded the canoe. Still, when they completed the crossing, they were 4 hours and 20 minutes ahead of record pace.

The river turned south. The water was still dangerously high, and it was raging over dams in some sections. In some places, the paddlers simply cut straight through flooded areas of forest. Their lead grew to five hours, then six, then seven. By the time they reached Minneapolis in the middle of the night, they were 12 hours ahead of record pace.

But the river gives, and the river withholds. Miller knew the lead couldn’t be taken for granted,Ìęand that a 12-hour advantage could disappear amid bad weather or a stop to repair the canoe. In St. Paul, the team picked up two support boats, which would follow them all the way to then end, if they made it that far.

The next day they reached Lake Pepin, another shallow, dangerous lake. For five hours, they paddled into a headwind, battling four-foot waves for the lake’s entire 22-mile length.

In 2021, both Millhone’s and Miller’s teams encountered huge storms and high winds. But in 2023, the weather was calmer overall. The paddlers endured one night of cold soaking rain, but as they moved south, the sky cleared and the river remained glassy. Favorable conditions, combined with the high water up north and the strong paddlers, added to the team’s lead.ÌęBy the time they reached Iowa they were 20 hours ahead.

The physical effort, however, was the same for every inch of voyage: one stroke after another—more than a million, by my estimate—down all 2,350 miles of the Mississippi. Eat, drink, sleep, excrete (don’t ask), and paddle. With four guys living together in such close quarters, the canoe was like a soggy bachelor pad. A slurry of liquid collected in the bottom that the paddlers called “people soup,” which the motorized bailer simply could not expel. Instead, the support crew would occasionally clean out the boat, and try to reestablish a modicum of hygiene for the team.

On most days, the heavy current was a blessing. But one night, at Lock & Dam 15 in Iowa, the river’s power nearly ended their journey as they were waiting to pass through the lock. TheÌęlock master told them to paddle to river right, which was above the dam. They followed the order, but once they reached the sheer concrete wall on that side of the lock, the current was so strong it started pulling them toward the dam.

They navigated the boat upstream, but the boat continued moving toward the dam. Cox and Werderich were sleeping in the bottom of the boat as the team neared calamity. They woke up to Steinback yelling, “Get up, now!”

“It was like a 1,000-percent sprint,” says Steinback. “It was one of the most harrowing moments of my entire life.”

Even with the added muscle, their boat continued its backward drift. They radioed the support boat, which came alongside, and the men held onto it as it motored them away from disaster. It was a close call, but Mississippi River record attempts are full of near misses.

“I woke up like every night to—I don’t want to say screams from above,” says Cox, “but let’s say, urgent commands.”

Below the dam, the team decided to rest, sleeping for three hours before paddling on. In the ensuing days they gained back the lost time and added ten more hours to their advantage. For several days, their lead over the 2021 record hovered at 30 hours. But as they got closer to the Gulf of Mexico, the team encountered barge traffic and ocean-going ships. On several occasions, they had to stop to let the massive boats pass.

“When you get down to Baton Rouge,” says Cox, “It’s like you’re playing Frogger trying to get across. You’re a tiny little blip on the radar screen.”

The team decided that it was okay to sacrifice an hour here and there to avoid the barges and ships. As a result, their lead dropped from 31 hours, to 28, to 25, as they got closer to Louisiana. North of Baton Rouge, the margin fell to 22:47, even though they were paddling up to 170 miles a day.

With around 200 miles left, they sped up, pushing the lead back up to 23 hours. They passed the place where Miller sank in 2021 and sped through New Orleans, then through the bends further south. They paddled down the last stretch of the Mississippi as night fell on Friday, May 26.

Around 2 A.M. on Saturday, they came into the area known as the “Head of Passes,” where the river splits into three channels. There sits a rickety wooden structure called Mile Marker Zero which marks the official end of the Mississippi River.

The team paddled toward the area with several boats alongside them; one was loaded with cheering family and support crew. But even though the team was nearing the end, Miller refused to allow himself to celebrate until they had reached the official finish line, which was marked by a shining light against the dark river.

“There are so many things that can happen at any moment,” Miller said. “Even at the very end, we didn’t know exactly where we were going, and everybody was screaming and yelling which light to aim for. I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re going to hit a buoy!’”

Finally someone found the right light, and they headed for it. At 2:15 A.M., they finally arrived at Mile Marker Zero. They tied up the boat, then the four paddlers—Cox, Werderich, Steinback, and Miller—climbed on the platform.

“I was crying because there were so many emotions,” Steinbeck says. “It was all adrenaline, euphoria, gratitude, and just immense fatigue. But when I climbed up on Mile Marker Zero, I felt weightless. Like there was no effort at all.”

The air was filled with the cheers and airhorns—celebration and victory. They had beaten the 2021 record by 23 hours and 30 minutes, setting a new standard of 16 days, 20 hours and 16 minutes.

On top of Mile Marker Zero, in a small waterproof box, there’s a log book that anyone who reaches the end of the river can sign. The paddlers opened it and signed their names.

“It felt like we just won the Super Bowl or something,” Miller says. “It was just so much more amazing of an ending than I ever could have imagined.”

The post A Record-Breaking Paddle Down the Mississippi River appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Around 4 A.M. on the Mississippi River north of Memphis, Tennessee, last spring, Bobby Johnson was sitting in the bow of a four-person canoe, peering into the night. In front of him, through the dark, he could make out a wing dam, one of the underwater structures used by the Army Corps of Engineers to push water into the main channel. Most boats can’t pass over wing dams without losing a propeller or a motor, but a canoe can usually glide by without a scrape. As the boat crossed it, though, Johnson noticed a pull to the right. For a second, he wondered why Casey Millhone, a 20-year-old in the stern who was taking a semester off from Colorado College, had ruddered that way. He quickly realized she hadn’t: a massive whirlpool was drawing them in.

Johnson, a lanky 43-year-old car dealer from Florida, was one of four people in the canoe trying to break the 2003 record for paddling the Mississippi River from end to end. That year, canoeing icon Bob Bradford and his partner, Clark Eid, raced down all in just over 18 days.

Johnson’s team was helmed by 62-year-old K.J. Millhone—Casey’s father, who in 1980 set the Mississippi paddling record at 35 days. The elder Millhone called the new crew Mile Marker Zero, after the channel marker south of New Orleans that demarcatesÌęthe official endÌęof the river. The group was rounded out by a barrel-chested 61-year-old named Rod Price, also from Florida. Both older men were asleep when their craft approached the swirling hole in the river.

The canoe went straight in, riding down it like a hill. The front plunged through the far side of the whirlpool, and Johnson was submerged up to his neck. Fortunately, the spray skirt across his lap kept enough water out that he popped up on the other side.

The stern naturally followed Johnson down into the vortex, then up the other side. When the canoe exited, it spun. Casey screamed as it tipped, then she stood up and—mimicking a sailing move called hiking—leaned out over the water to keep the boat afloat. It worked. The two sleeping team members woke up in half a foot of freezing water, shivering and disoriented. But the vessel righted itself.

Meanwhile, a thousand river miles to the north, a pursuit was underway. The day before, when the sun rose, another team of four paddlers walked their canoe down to the Mississippi River’s headwaters in northern Minnesota’s Lake Itasca. Team Mississippi Speed Record was helmed by Scott Miller, a bearded, 45-year-old nurse and former Eagle Scout from Minneapolis.

The year before, Miller and the Millhones had been teammates, working together to break the record. Then, just as they were about to set off, the team fractured, turning their joint attempt into a bitter race.

By the time Miller and his team launched, K.J. Millhone and his crew were almost halfway down the Mississippi. This could have been a disadvantage—at the headwaters, the river levels were lower and the water was slow. But there was an upside: by watching their progress, which was publicly tracked on GarminÌęand the real-time boat-racing site , they could see Mile Marker Zero’s times at each checkpoint, so they knew exactly how fast they needed to go to win.

The post The Epic Battle to Break the Mississippi River Canoe Record appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

“OKÌęeveryone,” Derek Barkeim announced to the loaded vanÌęof kids, “this week we’re going to do three things: Build a semipermanent shelter. Do some hide tanning—it’s called brain tanning, but we’re not going to use the actual brain. And we’re going to butcher a lamb.”

The hand of a ten-year-old named Jonah shot up. “Can I shoot the lamb?”

“No. We’re not going to shoot the lamb.”

Jonah was silent for a second, then said,Ìę“Can I decapitate the lamb?”

Barkeim chuckled a little, then turned aroundÌęand drove.

We left the town of La Crosse, Wisconsin, where the kids had been dropped off by their parentsÌęthat August morning, and drove over to Minnesota and headed up the Mississippi River. In the van were tenÌęboys and one girl, ages 9 to 14, on their way bushcraft-skills camp. It’s one of many day camps Barkeim offers as part of his Seeker’s WildÌęsummer program, which he started in 2014. Each weekÌęhe brings a new group of kids (and sometimes college-age interns)Ìęinto the woods to teach them the lost arts of survival.

When we arrived at a farm in southeastern MinnesotaÌęhalf an hour later, we piled out and marched into an unnamed wooded valley. At the head of the line, Barkeim swung a stick, clearing a path through an ocean of stinging nettles. Some kids got stung. Some complained. But Barkeim walked on. After a quarter-mile or so, he looked around.

“What do you all think of this spot? What would you want to look for if you were going to build a shelter here?” Barkeim asked.

“Widow-makers!” a Seeker’s Wild veteran shouted.Ìę(It’s poor bushcraft to get killed by a falling tree inÌęthe night.)

“That’s right: widow-makers. Look up around you. You see any dead trees?”

“No!” several campers shouted.

Barkeim ran through a few more points for locating a goodÌęcampsite (don’t put your shelter in a dry riverbed, check for poison ivy, look for resources). Then he hauled out a bag of knives for anyone who hadn’t brought their own.

“What do you need when you’re carving?” he asked.

“A blood circle!”

“Right.” He held his knife out at arm’s lengthÌęand spun in a circle to demonstrate. “Make sure no one steps into your blood circle when you’re carving.” He went over a few other safety points about knivesÌę(carve away from you), then machetes and hatchets (bigger blood circles), and breaking sticks for a fire (“Not by banging! The broken end will become a projectile.”). With safety pretty much covered, survival began.

“OK, we need some diggers, and we need some gatherers!” A few kids fanned out through the woods to find timberÌęfor the small shelter. Others grabbed shovels and sliced into the ground where it would be built.

“Welcome to the Seeker’s Wild!” said one kid to no one in particular. “You’ll be issued a machete and a hatchet!”

“And a knife!” added another.

I’d first heard about Seeker’s Wild the year before, when I attended the , put on by the La Crosse Visitors Bureau toÌęhighlightÌęsports onÌęboth sides of outdoor recreation: huntingÌęand hiking as well asÌęfishingÌęand fat biking. It filled a small convention center with booths housing mountain-bike makers, kayak fishermen, bow hunters, and disc golfers. There were reps from the Wisconsin Canoe Heritage Museum for traditionalistsÌęand from Nose JammerÌęshampoo and body wash for deer hunters (“Wrong wind? Jam ’em!”).

It was, in a sense, the kind of unification I’d been hoping for. For yearsÌęIÌęwatched as two separate outdoor cultures emerged in America. One climbs rocks, runs, bikes, paddles, and hikes, while the other hunts and fishes. One shops at REI, while the other shops at Cabela’s. One reads șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű, while the other reads Outdoor Life. One wants preservation, while the other wants conservation. Both love the wild, but they have different goals there:ÌęOne wants to play. The other wants to eat. One wants to visit. The other wants to partake.

Lately, I’ve grown more uncomfortable with this division. Like Barkeim, I grew up in hunting country just up the river from La Crosse, running around these same hills, swimming and fishing, playing and eating. I’d worked as a camp naturalist andÌęa trips director and,Ìęmore recently, I’ve been a trail runner. I’d had a foot in both worlds and had always been a fan of great writers like David Quammen, Thomas McGuane, and Randy Wayne White, who were avid hunters and fishermen. I loved Hemingway and Harrison, for whom there wasn’t such a stark line between recreation and harvest. And I’d always believed in what Aldo Leopold called the “spiritual danger” of thinking your food came from a grocery store.

But as our country has become more divided, so hasÌęour outdoors. And now, with public lands under assault, wild places more fragmented, and hunting in decline, this division matters more than ever, as does finding a bridge across it.

In the grassy field just outside the Driftless show, a young man in his early twentiesÌęcrouched over a bow drill. He drew his arm back and forth, his bow wrapped around a spindle, turning it into a plank of soft wood. Wisps of smoke rose from it.

I asked where heÌęlearned to make a fire without matches.

“I just learned it this week at Seeker’s Wild, with this guy, Derek Barkeim,” he said. “He runs a summer camp for kids. I’m doing my practicum with him.” He went on to describe Barkeim’s fishing 101 camp and river-rats camp, where he’d take youngstersÌęhunting for frogs and then feed them fried frog legs at the end of the day.

This didn’t sound like any summer camp on offer when I was a kid. More importantly, it sounded even more like the kind of convergence I wanted. Eating and playing. Enjoying nature and being part of its cycles. Maybe at Seeker’s Wild I could find the bridge I was looking for.

On the second day of camp, we pulled into the farm and drove through a cornfield.

“Hey, look!” yelled Jonah. “Corn! Kill the corn! Kill the corn! Kill the corn!”

“Hey, Jonah,” Barkeim said from the driver’s seat, “remember to find that positive balance. We’ve got a lot of negative jokes about killing going on.”

Jonah paused for a minute, then changed his chant. “Eat the corn! Eat the corn! Eat the corn!”

“You’re still killing the corn,” observed Brody, a 14-year-old Dungeons and Dragons fan and reader of high fantasy. He wasn’tÌęthe most outdoorsy kid you could imagine, but the campers came from both sides of the outdoor divide. Some were mountain bikers. Others had already shot their own deer. Each morning the parents dropped their kids off in all manner of vehicles: fancy Jeeps, modest sedans, Ford F-150’s,Ìęand a host of minivans. I suspected many, like myself, spent time on either side.

We drove on.

This was Barkeim’s sixth year putting onÌę. His first year, there were 14 kids. Now he was pretty much maxed out at 88 campers over the course of 10 to 12 weeks in the summer, and he was trying to decide whether to hire staff outside of the occasional intern and keep growingÌęor to keep running it himself. He went to college a little north of here, in Winona, where he majored in recreation and tourism studies. That’s also where he met his wife, Ariel. After graduationÌęthey moved to Portland, Oregon, for a few years so she could study naturopathic medicine. There, Barkeim worked at Trackers Earth, an outdoor school and summer camp, takingÌękids out to state parks and patches of woods and teaching them survival skills.

This was during the height of the “zombie-apocalypse–Walking Dead craze,” as he calls it. (They would occasionally dress like zombies and wait to surprise commuters at Portland’s light-rail stations.) Such end-of-the-world survivalism was great fun, getting paid to play outside and do something meaningful. It also made him think: I could do this myself.

When he and Ariel came back to Winona in 2014, he set up shop. Seeker’s Wild wasn’t meant to be any Tom Brown–esque survival cult or a school for roadkill-eating rewilders. It was something simpler: “The heart of Seeker’s Wild,” Barkeim says, “is getting people outside and reconnected to the natural worldÌęand making sure kids get their share of ‘vitamin N.’” At his camp, kids learn how to build shelters, make fire, clean fish, skin frogs, make turtle soup, and other useful skills. (He also has a more lighthearted Goonies Camp,Ìęwith treasure hunts, maps, caves and, of course, a viewing of the film at the end.) Barkeim’s pedagogic approach consists largely of laying down some basic rules, handing out matches andÌęknives, and letting the kids learn by doing. So farÌęthe only serious injury has been to an intern, who stabbed himself in the hand trying to open a bottle with a knife tip.

But BarkeimÌęalso has a more subtle agenda: to make his campers feel like they belong outdoors. Occasionally,Ìęhe’ll have campers do a “sit spot” in the woods, where they stay in one place in silence for 10 or 15 minutes. Other times he talks to them about the “boredom monster” or the “fear monster” and about exercising their “patience muscle” to make it stronger. He wants them to settle into a calmer rhythm than the one created by the constant thrum of technology.

In Barkeim’s ideal world, his campers will learn that nature isn’t some pristine place to take a vacationÌęor something apart from us. “I want to break down that perceived void,” he said, “that idea that humans are here and nature is there. Because we are part of nature. We are nature. That’s just the world.”

At camp, Barkeim’s immediate concerns were less philosophical. He gathered everyone around and mapped out the day’s goals: gather logs andÌędig a hole for a chimney. The kids broke off into groups. They lit fires and looked for sticks. For much of the day, the camp was filled with the smell of smoke drifting through the trees. The forest was quiet except for the sounds of machetes hacking and young voicesÌęcajoling, complaining, arguing, and laughing. Later in the afternoon, after digging most of the hole and building the chimney, their energy started to flag.

“OK,” Barkeim said, “why doesn’t everyone get three sticks to put on the shelter, then we can call it a day.” The kids grudgingly left their firesÌęand walked out of what was beginning to look like a small village. “Sometimes it’s fun to just sit back and watch them,” Barkeim said.

On the third day of camp, Barkeim brought his bow-drill sets to the park where the kids got dropped off: there were bows, spindles, sockets, and bearingÌęblocks for starting a fire without matches. He dumped them out and announced that before each kid received their own box of matches, they needed to learn to spark an ember without them.

The kids started sawing and spinning. No one got an ember. Barkeim took a set and soon had one.

“How do you do that so fast?” asked camper Brody.

“Easy,” said Jasper, an 11-year-old who’s been to Seeker’s for the last five summers.Ìę“He’s a professional survivalist.”

There was a fair amount of smoke, but no fire, so Barkeim changed his criteria to “tryÌęto get an ember” and handed out matches. Within 15 minutes of our arrival at the camp, several kids had spent every single one trying to spark flames. A couple managed to start fires, then spent all day tending them. At lunch someone busted out a pack of hot dogs to roast.

“I pricked my wiener!” yelled someone, after putting one on a stick. “My wiener tastes good!” came a response.

Barkeim remained calm. “OKÌęguys, let’s not go too far with that. Remember, humor is an art.”

After lunchÌęthe kids settled into building the shelter. They wove the few sticks they’d collected together, put ragweed on the roof, and gathered clay. They scraped the hair off the deer hide. The day was quiet and slow. It all had a relaxed feel. The kids cooked their food and fed their fires, carved sticks in their blood circles, and played in nature. No one took out a phone. The boredom monster was nowhere to be seen.

This was exactly what I remembered about being outside as a kidÌęand what I love about it as an adult: the feelingÌęof total escape, the enveloping sounds and rhythms of the wild. That’s the feelingÌęthat draws us players back to camp, to hike, to explore.

“Well,” said Jasper at the end of the day, “mostly we just roasted marshmallows and hot dogs. This was the best day of Seeker’s Wild I’ve had in five years!”

Ari, 12, looked at the shelterÌęand marveled. “I can’t believe before yesterday this was just a pile of weeds,” he said. Far overhead, a small plane buzzed through the sky. “Imagine if someone crashed their plane here and stumbled on us,” Ari said. “They would be amazed!”

On the fourth day of camp, when we arrived at the farm, the lamb was hanging from a tree. A stream of blood dripped from its nose. The owner of the farm had shot it not long before we arrived, and now it spun slowly in the wind. Today was field-dressing day.

The campers stood backÌęsubdued, almost reverent. Of all the things that separate the two outdoor cultures, this may be the biggest: killing. It’s something that humans have done foreverÌębut that recreationists rarely do personally. Unlike the outdoorsmen of the past, we don’t take part directly in this process. Most of us bring our packaged meals into the woods. Barkeim’s hope is that this will help the kids appreciate the animal, the life, the process, and the fact that we’re part of this chain.

“Has anybody here ever killed a living creature before?” he asked. Hands went up. “What have you killed, Maddox?”

“A deer.”

“How about you, Brody?”

“I’ve killed some insects.”

“P°ù±đČőłÙŽÇČÔ?”

“Deer and turkey.”

“Has anyone felt bad after killing something?” Barkeim asked. They nodded. “That’s probably some empathy creeping in, which may not be the most fun feeling, but it’s useful. It helps us realize that this animal’s life ended so we could have food,” he said. “Now I know each of you might have some personal beliefs about life and death. But we want to be respectful to the animal.”

“Can we sword-fight with the legs?” Jonah asked.

“Do you think that would be respectful?”

“If you were fighting to honor the lamb.”

“Maybe. But I think we’re going to skip the sword fighting.”

Barkeim explained that we were going to take the skin off, remove the organs, then cut and package the meat to take home. He started slicing the connective tissue at the ankles. “Who wants to jump in here?”

Some stood back. Others, like BrodyÌęand 9-year-old Gracie, the lone girl at camp that week, jumped in. With their knives, they started cutting away the hideÌęand pulling it down with Barkeim’s help. Other kids rotated in. A few opted to play on the tire swing across the field. But eventually, they, too, came over to watchÌęand even help as the inner animal was revealed, a puzzle of red and white lines, curves, and stilled movement.

“Can someone grab this stomach?” asked Barkeim.

“Can we cut it to see what it ate?” said Jonah.

“Let’s hold off on that. We don’t want to stink up the area. Who wants to pull the liver out?”

Hands shot up. “Me!” “Me!” “Me!”Ìę

In an era obsessed with safety and hand sanitizer, there was something beautiful about these kids handling the muscles, tendons, and bones like normal, natural things. One by one, pieces of meat came off and were taken over to a table that Barkeim had set up. An assembly line formed. The cuts were wrapped and put into a cooler.

“I’ve never seen meat before,” said Brody.

“Yes, you have,” said Ari. “If you walk into a grocery store, you see meat.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but not like this.”

Driving though the farm on Friday, Barkeim pointed to a row of blooming yellow flowers. “That’s goldenrod,” he said.Ìę“You know what’s in there?”

He stopped the van, jumped out, then grabbed a stalk with protruding bulb. He cut it off. “OK, who wants to join the grub club?”

“Me!” “Me!” “Me!” “Me!”

With his knife, Barkeim cut the bulb openÌęand pulled out a wigglingÌęwhite grub. He handed it to 11-year-old Owen, who popped it in his mouth and swallowed without a second thought. Then he cut a few more and passed them around like candy bars.

Today was the last day of Seeker’s Wild. After this, the kids would go back to civilization, to their screens and batteries and games. But before they left, there was much to do: clay to harvest, branches to gather, a wall to build, a hide to dry.

The work proceeded slowly. Gradually the roof was covered in dirt. The clay pit was filled and the clay mixed with wood-nettle fibers. Fires were started. Someone carved a face on a small log and called it King Fred.ÌęSoon another log was dubbed Queen Felicia, and these idols were alternately burned and rescued from the fire. As morning crept by, there was a sense of winding down.

“What time is it?” one camper asked.

“12:15,” someone said.

He looked at the shelter. “OK, we can get this done.”

Others had the same realization that the end was near. A few kids climbed down into the creek bed and formed a fireman’s line to move clay up to Gracie. Oscar grabbed a shovel and threw more dirt on the roof. Piece by piece, the wall came together. As the day ended, the last holes were filled.

“You guys, I’m really impressed,” Barkeim said. “You crushed it! You remember how this place was before we came here? It was just like that patch of nettles over there.”

The campers looked at the stinging nettles that stretched across the valley floor. Barkeim then tried to put their small shelter into a bigger picture.

“It’s kind of a two-sided coin,” he said. “Humans have this innate desire to conquer and develop.”

“It will grow back!” someone yelled.

“Yes, and that’s a good lesson about how resilient the earth is. But if you were going to stay here, what would be your next steps?”

“Put on a door.”

“Yes. And you’d also want to secure your water and food supplies,” said Barkeim. “And what would you do for entertainment?”

“Fortnite!”

“No, not Fortnite. Has anyone played cornhole? You could create that kind of game with rocks and holes in the dirt. And what about art?”

“Carving wood?”

“Exactly. OK, who wants to put their name in the wall?”

They all rushed over to leave their mark.

“All right,” said Barkeim when they were finished. “Say goodbye to your shelter.”

The campers gathered their things, packed their bags, then marched out of the woods. Next yearÌęsome of them will come back to build a new shelter in the valley. By thenÌęthe nettles will have returned. The shelter’sÌęroof will have fallen in. The holes will have filled. Without the kids here, nature will claim this place.

Hopefully, nature will claim them all.

The post How a Midwestern Survival Camp Is Uniting the Outdoors appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

When running coach Eric Orton got an e-mail from a writer named Christopher McDougall in 2005, he had no idea that it would land him in a book that launched a revolution. Yet even as took off, and the barefoot craze with it, Orton quietly shook his head. Everyone missed the point. It wasn’t the shoes that mattered. It was what was in them. If your feet are weak, Orton believes, injuries will follow. If they’re strong, they won’t.Ìę

New research is confirming Orton’s theory. A 2014 study found that by increasing foot strength, athletes also improved their one-legged-long-jump, vertical-jump, and 50-yard-dash times. Last year, in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers proposed a whole new paradigm: the foot-core system, which stresses intrinsic muscles like the abductor hallucis and the flexor digitorum brevis that have been “.” Ìę

Orton still coaches, and he recently founded the in Jackson, Wyoming. Here are five exercises from his book ($16, Penguin Random House) to help you run injury-free.Ìę

Pistol SquatsÌę

Using poles for balance, stand with your right forefoot on a stability disc ($35; freogear.com). Extend your left leg forward, then squat as if sitting in a chair. Do three sets of 25 on each leg.

Slant-Board Leg Lifts

Stand with your left forefoot on a ($40)—essentially an angled balance board—with the slant facing right. Lift your right leg sideways. Repeat with the slant facing left. With forward slant, lift your bent knee up toward your chest. Do 25 reps per leg per position.Ìę

Hip RotationsÌę

With your left forefoot on a stability disc, lift your right knee up toward your chest. Rotate your right hip 90 degrees to each side, keeping your knee as high as possible. Do three sets of 15 rotations for each hip.Ìę

Exercise-Ball LungeÌę

With your left foot on the floor and your right leg on an exercise ball, roll the ball backward and squat your left leg. Do three sets of 25 on each leg. Harder: stand on a slant board. Hardest: stand on a stability disc.

Slant-Board BalanceÌę

Stand with your right forefoot on a slant board. With the slant facing left, hold for two minutes per foot. Repeat with the slant facing right and then front for two minutes each. Harder: one pole. Hardest: no poles.

The post 5 Moves for Stronger Feet appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Not far out of the gates of the “Central Iowa Rock Road Endurance Metric” (or CIRREM as it’s known in gravel circles), riders started going down on the dirt road in the middle of Iowa. A big guy on my left spilled hard and almost took me out. Another one up front went over and slammed his helmet into the ground. I slipped on the ice a few times, but managed to stay upright. In the lead pack, a rider broke away and the others started to chase him. Nearly all of them went over, too.

We were just a few miles into the late-February, 63.5-mile bike race that brings out the hardest of the hardcore groadies (gravel roadies). Gravel riding, or “gravel grinding” as it’s known, is a different sort of race than the ones that came before. These are epic rides on forgotten, unpaved roads covered in crushed rock. They’re more relaxed, more low-brow, and more hardcore than you average road crit.

Not only that, but they open up a vast new territory for cycling. At last count, . Cyclists are just beginning to discover these as a new frontier where there are no rules, no governing bodies, and where you can just announce a race and people will show up to ride 60, 100, 200 miles or more.

“EVER SINCE 2005, IT’S been on the upswing,” says Mark “Guitar Ted” Stevenson, who runs , as well as . “It’s been astounding to see the growth of it.”

Stevenson says the number of gravel races was up by 50 percent last season, and the number of racers has exploded. Last year, for example, CIRREM made no opening announcement but filled up in 24 hours. The Almanzo, a 100/160-miler in Minnesota had 350 people in 2011 (only 170 finished), they registered 800 in 2012, and this year they’ve added the 400-mile “Nellie.” Even the brutal, 200-mile Dirty Kanza in Kansas filled its 450 slots in two-and-a-half hours. Getting into the Trans Iowa these days has almost become as hard as the ride itself.

In Europe, too, new gravel races have popped up and taken off, like the Strade Bianche in Italy, the Dengie Marshes Tour in England, and the Gran Premio Canal de Castilla in Spain. “They’ve been catching on everywhere,” says Ed Pickering, who covers European cycling for the U.K.-based . “I think it’s because Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders are held in such high esteem.”

The and the are two of the held in Europe early in the year. They’re grueling and glorious, going through mud and over old cobblestone roads; they seem closer to the sport’s pre-paved roots than other major road races, retaining all the romance of old-world cycling. “The appeal is retro,” said Pickering. Now, with the fall of Lance Armstrong, and the pall he cast on the Tour de France, that appeal seems likely to grow.

“Everyone wants to be in Paris-Roubaix,” says Drew Wilson, who went on to finish third at CIRREM. “That’s what you dream about. But the USA Cycling-sanctioned road races have too many set-up costs and rules to stage a race on this same scale. So these gravel rides are as close as we can get to having classics-style courses.”

COMPLAINTS ABOUT RED TAPE and over-administrating are common refrains in gravel circles, and those issues help explain why gravel riding attracts the cycling misfits who don’t fit into any neat cycling box.

“Regular racing is extremely cost prohibitive,” said Jeff Frane, a gravel racer who also works for All City Cycles. “But with gravel races you don’t have to worry about getting your money’s worth, because getting your money’s worth is just about having fun. And if you had fun, you clearly got your money’s worth. There’s something about removing all the red tape and restrictions and regulations that brings cycling back to its roots in another way.”

Most gravel rides are free, or close to it, which is part of the gravel scene’s everyman ethos. Just get on your bike and ride: At CIRREM, I saw mountain bikes, cylcocross, fat bikes, and even tandems rolling through the Iowa hills. But with the scene growing so fast, companies have started coming out with gravel-specific bikes, like Salsa’s Warbird, which has a longer wheel base, a lower bottom bracket, a taller head tube, and sealed cables to keep dust out. It also comes with three water bottle cages in case you get thirsty out around mile 150 or so.

As the sport gains in popularity and gravel-specific products become the norm, it would seem like the signs point to gravel going mainstream. But for now the camaraderie of the nascent scene remains part of the appeal—a camaraderie that stems from finishing something that’s more adventure than race. Out on the gravel, it’s up to you to get over the bumps, through the mud, and back to the finish line.

“If you have a mechanical problem, ain’t nobody coming to pick your ass up,” said Frane. “And there’s something to be said for a person surviving by their wits, even if it’s only for a couple of hours during a bike race.”

That is no doubt the deeper allure of gravel racing: it’s open to anyone who thinks they can ride 100 miles on whatever kind of bike they want. It gives every rider a chance to dig down and push past their everyday limits.

“Grown men cry like babies at the finish line at Dirty Kanza,” says Jim Cummings. “And it’s easy to assume the reason they’re crying is because they’ve been suffering and the pain is over. But I don’t think that’s it. I think they cry because it gives them a chance to go inside themselves to a place where they don’t normally get to go, and they like what they find there.”

CIRREM WAS ON THE short side of the gravel spectrum, but it was still, as one of the organizers put it, “a solid kick in the junk.” At about mile 45, I looked down at my chain to find it completely encased in frozen mud—the morning snow had melted and the afternoon roads were a cold, dirty swamp. Dead tired, and with only one gear working, I stopped to chip my cables loose. A few other riders passed me. A pickup pulled up, and the driver stuck his head out.Ìę“You want a ride?” he yelled.

“No thanks,” I said.

“You headed to town?”

â€Ôš±đČčłó.”

“That’s a long ways.”

“I know,” I said, looking down the road to see just how long it was. “I’ll make it,”

After waving him past, I managed to free up two more gears and got back on. Another 20 miles down the road, my bike creaked to a halt in front of a local bar in a tiny town just south of Des Moines. I walked across the finish line (the bar’s front door), and a guy at a table asked for my race number and shouted out my time.

The bar was packed with dirty, happy cyclists, laughing, talking, and, this being a bar, drinking. I wandered around and found a few of the people I’d ridden with. I asked some of them how they did, but no one seemed all that concerned. Most of the riders just shrugged. After all, it didn’t really matter how fast anyone went. What mattered, in the end, was just the ride.

Frank Bures is an award-winning writer based in Minneapolis who frequently reports from Africa. More atÌę.

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Before they even set their kayaks in the water at Kawishiwi Lake, Greg and Julie Welch had heard about the . They’d been told about it by Rangers, who were watching it, who said it was small and hadn’t moved much, and who had closed a swath of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area that was twice as large as they thought necessary, just to be safe. The fire was miles away from them.

Kawasachong Lake after the fire.

Looking west at the Pagami Creek fire.

Greg and Julie Welch shortly after the fire went out.

The rocks the Welches climbed on at the end of the fire.

Besides, Greg had been a photojournalist back in Michigan, where he’d often followed forest fire crews out to take photos. He’d seen flames jump 30-foot roads and do other strange things. Given all he knew about fires, he figured they were more than a safe distance from it. Plus, the wind had been blowing the wrong way, gusting at their backs as they paddled north.

The day was perfect, 70 degrees, sunny, quiet—one of those days you dream of when you think about getting back into the wild. This was what they loved. This was what they looked forward to all year. During the summer, they worked 12-hour days at their family business, building vinyl docks for people to put out behind their lake cabins. The orders came in an avalanche each spring, and they spent the rest of the summer digging out. By August, things usually began to wind down, and they would pack their bags, strap their kayaks on the roof, leave their daughters (now 15 and 20 years old) home with family, and head out for what Sigurd Olson once called “the singing wilderness.” It was something they’d been doing for the last 20 years. After two weeks cut off from everything but the calls of wolves and loons and eagles, they always came home feeling like new people.

This time, they planned to take it easy. By early afternoon, just two days into a 10-day trip, they reached and found a campsite on the western side. It sat on top of a steep, 25-foot bank, and gave them a nice view of the water—calm and bright blue that day. They beached their boats, hauled up their dry bags up, and began the pleasant routine of setting up camp. After eating some food, they put up their tent and Greg started getting ready to go fishing.

Around this time, the wind started to pick up, gusting. There seemed to be more smoke lingering around them. Far off, there was a strange cracking noise that sounded like branches breaking. Greg took a photo of the clouds to the west, and when he took a look on the camera, there were streaks of orange shot through.

Julie started getting uneasy, so Greg agreed to paddle out and have a look to west to see if he could see if the smoke from the Pagami Creek Fire looked any closer. He walked down to his kayak and paddled out into a little river just to the north of the lake. As soon as he rounded a bend, he saw it: The entire horizon, all the way across, was on fire. The flames were horizontal, blowing straight at them.

THE PAGAMI CREEK FIRE had started about three weeks earlier when lightning stuck a bog east of Ely. It seemed to be slow moving and manageable. But on the day the Welchs stopped at Kawasachong Lake, it became a fire of legend, burning 80,000 acres in one day and racing across an unheard-of 16 miles of land. It vaporized trees, and resulted in a massive, 35,000-foot plume that created its own weather system. By the end of the day, the fire would consume some 92,000 total acres of wilderness. Nothing in the historical record suggested that a fire could move that fast through the area. None of the alerts indicated conditions were even right for a fire of that scale. But a rare, unstable mass of air formed over the fire. At the same time a strong wind kicked up out of the west, the instability pulled it through the fire like a bellows blowing through a blacksmith’s forge.

Welch raced back to the campsite as fast as he could, yelling up from the water for Julie to get moving. Julie had heard the fire roaring through the woods, though, and she was already throwing dry bags down to shore before jumping herself.

Greg landed just as Julie got down, but she quickly realized she’d forgotten her lifejacket, so Greg sprinted back up the bank. The smoke was so thick he had to feel around blindly inside the tent. Already able to feel the heat from the fire, his heart raced. In the dark, he found two deflated air mattresses and grabbed them. Then his hand hit the life jacket; he snatched it and ran.

Julie was sitting in her kayak, watching her husband run down to the shore. Just as he came down the slope, the fire crested over the bank and roared just a few feet behind him. Greg threw the life jacket to Julie and told her to go while he strapped the last bags onto his kayak and dragged it to the water.

As Julie paddled out, everything suddenly went black as the fire pushed a thick cloud of soot and ash ahead of it. She couldn’t see Greg, so she screamed his name, but the noise of the fire was like standing next to a freight train. All she could see was thick smoke and burning trees falling in the water. For a few seconds, she thought Greg was lost, and that she was, too. She had no map, and no way to get back alone.

Then Greg appeared, paddling out of the smoke, a few feet away from her. But just as soon as she caught sight of him, the wind tossed her kayak into the air and flipped her into the cold water. By the time she surfaced, the boat had been blown far across the lake. Greg paddled toward her, but the wind was too strong—he couldn’t stop—and it blew him right past her. So he jumped in the water, holding his kayak and staying still, yelling for her to swim toward him. It took a few minutes for Julie to reach him, but together they clung to his boat while everything around them burned.

It was a world of black and orange. The islands in the lake were on fire. The entire shoreline was on fire. The air was thick with ash, soot, and glowing embers being blown across the lake at 50 miles an hour; they couldn’t look west. Soot got in their eyes, coated their hair, their noses, and their throats. They had a fleece jacket, which they soaked in water to breath through, but it didn’t stop the headaches, the sense of being smothered, of drowning in air. Everything was burning and there was no place to go. They could duck their heads underwater for a few seconds to escape it all, but they couldn’t keep doing that forever. They both were almost certain they were going to die, but after a brief talk, they agreed not to give up. They had daughters who needed them.

So they treaded water, trying to stay in the middle of the lake, just waiting. But after nearly an hour, Julie started to shiver uncontrollably, which Greg knew meant one thing: hypothermia. They were in danger of freezing to death while the world around them burned, so they let the wind take them toward the eastern shore, where they could at least stand on the lake bottom. They drifted until they came to a boulder. They climbed on top and hauled the kayak out of the water, too.

But before they could even begin to dry off, it started to rain. Not just an ordinary rain, but a biblical, end-of-the-world kind of rain. It fell so hard that it hurt. Then, with a burst of thunder and lightning, the rain turned to hail. They held the deflated air mattresses above them for protection.

And then: nothing.

As suddenly as it had begun, the rain stopped. The fire died under the downpour. The sky cleared. High above them, the plume created by the Pagami Creek Fire had collapsed, sending all the moisture back down, extinguishing the flames, and, in the process, saving Greg and Julie Welch’s lives.

Julie, however, was still shivering. Their tent was a pile ashes, and the sun was sinking in the west, so they couldn’t go back the way they came. Sitting in the charred aftermath, the couple plotted their next move.

FIRST, THEY NEEDED TO find a place to stay. Miraculously, they found a small piece of a peninsula that had been spared from the fire. Julie needed to warm up, but any wood that hadn’t been burnt was soaked through with rain, so making a campfire was out. They dug through the few dry bags that remained and found Greg’s camping stove, which they used for warmth. They ate what little food they had left and slept in a sleeping bag Greg found in another dry bag that had washed up on shore. As night set in, they lay in the sleeping bag together, wondering if the fire would return. In the darkness around them, the shoreline glowed.

The next morning, they found Julie’s kayak beached on some rocks across the lake. Then they paddled down a stream that connected Kawasachong to another small, shallow body of water called . Along the way, they looked for the bodies of a couple they’d passed the day before. If the others had camped anywhere along this creek, they wouldn’t have made it, and the Welchs would have had to bear the grim news.

But they never came across any bodies. They made it to Square Lake, which had been completely burned as well, and then on to the sudden, strange greenness of , where their car was still parked, just as they’d left it. Back at the District office in Tofte, where they stopped on their way out, they told their story to an incredulous Forest Ranger at the desk, who went to get his manager and make them tell it again.

From there, they drove on to Grand Marais, where they spent a few days unwinding, staring out across the water, and trying to fathom what they’d just been through. The even drove up to the Gunflint Trail, and talked about camping there and taking a day trip back into the Boundary Waters. But it was all still too close, and the fear was too fresh. Besides, they would be back. The Boundary Waters always left them feeling a little more alive, and this time was no exception. So they packed their things, got in the car, and started the long drive back to home to their daughters and their life.

Behind them, the memory of smoke and ash started to settle, while along the shores of Kawasachong Lake, new trees and brush had already begun to grow.

Frank Bures is an award-winning writer based in Minneapolis who frequently reports from Africa. More atÌę.

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Into the Wild

Lord of the Rings DVD

TRAVEL UP: MORE THAN 100 PERCENT
After Jon Krakauer’s 1996 book made bestseller lists, hearty pilgrims began combing the Alaska backcountry for Christopher McCandless’s bus, which sits 27 long and treacherous miles north of tiny Healy. The town’s chamber of commerce has been getting about a dozen calls a year from hikers looking for location details, with numbers on the upswing thanks to Sean Penn’s fall 2007 film. “We’re expecting heavy foot traffic this summer,” says Jon Nierenberg, who runs Healy’s Earth Song Lodge. “If it had been nominated for best picture, they’d be coming out of the woodwork.”

March of the Penguins

TRAVEL UP: 26 PERCENT
It’s not easy (or cheap) reaching the end of the earth. But during the November–March travel season that followed the release of French filmmaker Luc Jacquet’s 2005 documentary, 35,075 tourists visited Antarctica, 26 percent more than the previous year. And the penguin fever continues: Connecticut-based Quark Expeditions sold out all 324 spots on its 14-day Emperor Penguins safari tours to Antarctica last year—at $16,500 per person.

The Beach

TRAVEL UP: 27 PERCENT
British writer Alex Garland’s 1996 novel, a cult classic about a backpacker who discovers a perfect, unspoiled stretch of sand on an unnamed Thai island, had paradise seekers heading east. Phuket, the Andaman Sea island that serves as gateway to the region’s smaller isles, saw a 27 percent rise in American visitors the year after the book’s 1997 American release. The 2000 film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and filmed on tiny Phi Phi Le, bumped numbers up again, by nearly 20 percent.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
TRAVEL UP: 34 PERCENT
Filmed at 150 locations in New Zealand, Peter Jackson’s 2001–’03 Rings films created a new market for packaged “Middle-earth” tours. The New Zealand Tourism Board reports a 34 percent increase in visitors from 2000 to 2004—with travelers anxious to see the landscapes that became Mount Doom (the North Island’s Tongariro National Park) and the Misty Mountains (the South Island’s Remarkables range).

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

TRAVEL UP:57 PERCENT
Bill Bryson’s 1998 book fueled a 57 percent increase in through-hiking two years after its publication, with 633 completing the 2,175-mile trek from Georgia to Maine in 2000, reports Appalachian Trail Conservancy spokesperson Laurie Potteiger.”I call it the Bill Bryson effect,” she says.

NEXT UP
Three more in the making

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull


(PARAMOUNT PICTURES, MAY 2008)
While details about the movie are still under wraps, director Steven Spielberg filmed in New Mexico, California, Connecticut, and Hawaii. If Web rumors are true and the storyline takes Harrison Ford’s Indy to Mexico City and Peru, we’re betting that fans will follow in his footsteps.

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: 28,000 Miles in Search of the Railway Bazaar

(HOUGHTON MIFFLIN, AUGUST 2008)
In his latest narrative, Paul Theroux retraces the four-month journey he chronicled in his 1975 classic The Great Railway Bazaar, exploring by train, bus, car, and foot to see how things have changed in Eastern Europe, Russia, India, and Japan.

Shantaram

(WARNER BROS., 2009)
Johnny Depp stars as a bank robber who escapes from prison in Australia then reinvents himself as a doctor in Bombay. Directed by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding), Shantaram is based on a semi-autobiographical 2003 novel by Gregory David Roberts that was a bestseller Down Under.

The post Read It, Watch It, See It for Yourself appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

IT WAS IN LOS ANGELES while training pro athletes and celebs in 1993 that Jon Hinds decided there was something wrong with the American gym and its emphasis on machines and mirrors. So the certified strength-and-conditioning specialist developed his own version of functional-strength training, bringing his clients to a section of Santa Monica beach with old-school equipment like ropes, rings, and poles. They climbed, they walked on their hands. They loved it—and soon Hinds was getting dramatic results with the likes of Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis.

Monkey Bar Gym

“I just couldn’t stand the thought of going into another gym after that,” Hinds says. Until, that is, he thought of a way to make if fun again. In 2001, in his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, Hinds opened what, for lack of a better term, could be called an anti-gym. He named it the Monkey Bar Gymnasium, a nod to the full-body motor mechanics—that is, fun—of our youth. “My simple philosophy is that I follow nature in almost everything we do,” says Hinds. “And nature is about movement. In nature we run, we jump, we crawl, we climb. So we take variations of those movements, kick up the intensity, and integrate them into training regimens that stress full-body movement.” Last year the gym had to double its size due to demand, and its online membership () is growing 5 percent a week, says Hinds.

At right are the key ways the Monkey Bar Gym differs from all the others you’ve seen. Turn the page for a Hinds-approved workout you can do at home.

Breaking the Rules
To rethink the gym, Hinds first had to tear it down. Here are a few of his simple rules.

No Mirrors
No preening in the Monkey Bar Gym. The focus is on how you feel and move. “When you feel good and your body’s fit,” says Hinds, “you look damn good.”

No Machines
Muscles weren’t made to be worked one at a time. They’re parts of systems that work together. “Machines are purely about isolated movements for aesthetics,” says Hinds. “People get on the machine with the whole purpose being ‘I have to lose fat,’ not ‘I want to hike a mountain.’ “

No Weights
Nobody does endless reps with dumbbells in the Monkey Bar Gym. Instead, the workout uses only body-weight resistance, medicine balls, kettlebells, and controlled movements, gradually progressing through three levels, from stability to strength to power.

No Shoes
You’ve got toes; use them. Hinds’s program strengthens your whole system from the ground up, and that starts with your feet, which he believes are weakened by shoes. Let your feet do what they were meant to do—balance, stabilize, and support.

No Stretching
Toe touches are out. Hinds doesn’t allow any static stretching in his gym. Members instead do yoga-based “active stretching” to improve flexibility and warm up at the same time.

No iPods
Music players aren’t banned, but members don’t use them, mostly because trainers and trainees are in constant communication. “The isolation of both the muscles and the mind when people are on machines is completely unhealthy,” says Hinds.

The Program
For best results, Hinds advises you to work out five times a week, alternating strength and conditioning programs and doing alignment exercises daily. Start with the two programs at right, one 10-minute conditioning day and one 45-minute strength day. But don’t overdo it: Start small and build slowly through a natural progression of movements with three distinct stages: stability, strength, and power. Mastering one level (e.g., stability) before moving on to the next (e.g., strength) is how his gym members get from barely being able to do a knee push-up to being able to walk 30 yards on their hands. For more sample exercises, including Hinds’s 60-Day Fitness Challenge, a precisely monitored two-month program, go to .

Alignment [Daily]
Practice holding these positions for 60 seconds each day. Prone Mountain (b) Lie facedown, keeping your nose an inch off the ground. Reach toward your knees with your hands and extend your body from heels through the top of the head. Supine Bridge (c) Lying on your back, plant your feet six inches from your butt and six inches apart. Place your arms out to your sides, elbows at 90 degrees and palms facing inward. Now raise your butt off the ground and hold.

Conditioning
STABILITY Jump Rope
(a) Complete 75 forward and 75 backward jumps as fast as possible. Then do 20 pike-ups. Begin in an inclined-plane position, then roll feet in toward hands by “piking” hips up and then back down, to a straight posture. Repeat 3 times.
STRENGTH Jump (More) Rope Work up to 150 forward, 150 backward, in less than 2 minutes. Then do 20 pike-ups. Repeat 3 times.
POWER Double Jump Rope Complete 50 double jumps forward, 50 backward, in less than 3 minutes. Then do 20 pike-ups.

Strength [Lower Body]
STABILITY Full Squat (d) To get your body alignment dialed, begin with weight-free squats, working up to 3 sets of 16 (under 20 seconds per set). Keep your chest and butt out, knees and toes aligned, and weight evenly distributed on each foot. Squat down, bringing your thighs parallel to the ground, then stand back up.
STRENGTH Controlled Jump Jump up slightly at the apex of each squat and descend into a controlled, deep squat. 3 sets of 10.
Advanced: Jump higher; repeat. Controlled Box Jump Repeat onto a box or step (elevated 12 inches). Concentrate on good form. Do 3 sets of 10.
POWER Box Jump Sets Same as Controlled Box Jumps, focusing on height and speed. When you can do at least one jump per second, raise the height of the box. 4 sets of 10. Power Box Jumps Using small hand weights or tubing resistance (Hinds designed the Lifeline Power Jumper for this purpose), do Box Jump Sets with weight/resistance. 4 sets of 10.

Strength [Upper Body]
STABILITY Assisted Chin-Ups Grasp a ceiling-hung cable or rope, or a bar, at a 60-degree angle. Lean backwards with your back straight and weight on your heels and pull yourself up to standing position. When you can do 20 reps, move the rope to 90 degrees, perpendicular to the floor. Work up to 20 reps again, then move to next level. Repeat 3 times. Lateral Floor Walk Start out in a push-up position and crab-walk laterally one direction, then return to the start. If you can walk 30 yards easily, move up to the Lateral Wall Walk. Repeat 3 times.
STRENGTH Chin-Ups Alternating forward and backward grip with each set, work up to 10 or more unassisted chin-ups (pulling up from hanging position). Repeat 3 times. Lateral Wall Walk With a wall behind you, kick up to a handstand and place your feet on it. Facing the wall, walk on your hands laterally. Work up to at least 30 yards. Repeat 3 times.
POWER Kip-Ups Grasping a secure chin-up bar, swing your legs back and forth for momentum and pull yourself up to touch your chest to the bar. When you’ve mastered those (20 reps), move on to gorilla kip-ups: At the apex of each rep, slap your hands to your chest or behind your back. Repeat 3 times. Lateral Wall Walk, Reversed With a wall in front of you, kick up to a handstand and place your feet on it. Back to the wall, walk on your hands laterally. Work up to at least 20 yards. Repeat 3 times.

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