THE GOVERNMENT is lying. OK, that may be a little strong, but if you’re adhering to the Food and Drug Administration’s daily recommendation for protein, this much is true: You’re not getting enough. “Athletes need higher amounts of protein; that’s the consensus,” says the University of Western Ontario’s Peter Lemon, a leading protein researcher for the last 27 years. Like most nutritionists, Lemon feels that active people need 50 to 100 percent more protein than the 0.4 grams per pound of body weight the RDA has been suggesting since the Nixon administration.

So how much is enough? Zealots of Barry Sears’s Zone Diet say 30 percent of your daily ration should be protein. Recovery expert Ed Burke argues that protein should make up 15 percent of your diet. And the supplement industry urges you to gulp down protein shakes like it’s your patriotic duty. All the alternatives to Uncle Sam’s advice can leave your head spinning.

Hoping to cut through the confusion, this summer the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences plans to publish a revised RDA that takes into account athletes’ unique requirements. In the meantime, you can use the above numbers from Dr. Lemon—based on a 3,500-calorie-per-day diet for a physically active adult male—to make sure you’re getting the right amount of protein.

Next: Build flexibility in part three of our Shape of Your Life fitness plan.

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THIRTEEN MILES into the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse, a 40-mile backcountry ski race that follows the historic mail route between Crested Butte and Aspen, my teammate and I come stumbling into the first checkpoint. Since midnight, in frigid, wee-hour winter conditions, we've been grinding uphill, following the weak beams of our headlamps. It's now 4:30 a.m. Nick has been patching blisters since mile two, and I've lost most of the feeling in my fingers. Looming before us is a thousand-foot climb to 12,303-foot Star Pass; on the other side, the first whiff of a downhill. Looking like two punch-drunk middleweights, we gorge on crumbly Fig Newtons. When I stick my CamelBak hose in my mouth, the frozen bite valve snaps off in my teeth. I'm having the time of my life. Seriously.

The arrival of winter used to mean a four-month endurance-sports hiatus, but a decade-long infatuation with summertime adventure races has created a demand for equivalent cold-weather tests. These new events—which often involve a combination of skiing, running, snowshoeing, and cycling, both on snow and off—exact the same physical demands as a marathon, with your stamina and skill getting pushed to the limit by harsh conditions. Dozens of winter multisport races now take place around the country, from the Iditasport 100, a sufferfest held each February near Anchorage, Alaska, to New Hampshire's Son of Inferno Pentathlon, held in April at Tuckerman Ravine.

Why submit yourself to such torture? For us, that question was answered when we emerged over Star Pass and were greeted by a mountain vista stretching 50 miles into the dawn: Because these events offer a chance to test your fitness in the kind of snow-laden wonderlands that chairlifts can't reach. In the pages that follow, we open the book on the preparation, nutrition, and equipment you'll need to succeed. Even if you never line up for a race, take our winter racing wisdom and apply it to almost any cold-weather outdoor activity. We promise winter's gonna seem a lot more like summer.

Yes, This Is For You

Don't worry, winter races come in all shapes and sizes. Here are some guidelines to help you find the perfect fit.

YES, THIS IS FOR YOU

DON'T WORRY. Winter races come in all shapes and sizes. HERE are SOME guidelines to help you FIND THE PERFECT FIT.

YOU ARE: a reasonably fit weekend warrior who's never tried a winter event.
YOU SHOULD: get your feet wet by participating on a team. Both the Mount Taylor Quad and the Son of Inferno (see right) offer team divisions, meaning you have to compete only in a single race leg (a 30-mile bike ride, say, or a 10-mile run). Generally speaking, you'll need to sustain one to two hours of aerobic activity. Prep at least eight weeks prior to the event by gradually increasing your weekend workouts until you're able to comfortably complete the actual race distance.
YOU ARE: a recreational athlete who works out three to four times a week and who has completed at least one half-marathon or triathlon.
YOU SHOULD: try a race solo. This requires sustaining aerobic output for three to six hours. Buttress your endurance beginning two months prior to the event by stacking several race disciplines into one workout (e.g. 45 minutes of snowshoeing, an hour bike ride, a half-hour ski). Slightly increase the duration of these workouts each week. Supplement with three hourlong weekday runs or rides.

YOU ARE: a serious endurance athlete with numerous summer and at least a few winter races under your belt.
YOU SHOULD: tackle the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse or the Iditasport 100. Be prepared for at least eight hours of aerobic output (we'll assume you already have an appropriate endurance-training regimen). You'll also need solid winter backcountry skills, such as identifying signs of hypothermia, being prepared for an emergency bivouac, and knowing how to fuel your body for sustained activity in cold, dark environments.

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Go Wise, Go Fast

Expert advice to keep you strong in the cold

No group of athletes knows more about preparing for frigid endurance racing than the masochistic veterans of Alaska's annual Iditasport events, of which there are now four held each February, from the 100-mile Iditasport to the 1,100-mile Iditasport Impossible. Competitors race on bikes, skis, or feet over the same terrain as the Iditarod, routinely confronting 40-below-zero temperatures and 60-mile-per-hour winds. We rang up two former champions for their secrets on managing Arctic climes. Even if you limit your racing to the more temperate Lower 48, take these tips to heart.

BUILD MENTAL FORTITUDE. “Darkness and cold really affect the mind,” says Rocky Reifenstuhl, a seven-time bike winner of the Iditasport 100. “You have to be at ease with it, knowing when your hands go numb, for example, what will it take and how long for them to come back.” If your event will be run partially at night, get comfortable in dark, cold conditions. Winter camping offers good preparation.
GO BIG. To provide room for insulation layers and the swelling you'll discover in your hands and feet during long-haul contests, Reifenstuhl suggests you slip into boots and gloves that are a size larger than you normally wear. Large sizes also prevent pressure points and tight areas that restrict circulation to your extremities and lead to frostbite.

FATTEN UP. Mike Curiak's 15,000-calorie-per-day diet in last year's Iditasport Impossible included ten cans of Pringles, 45 Pop-Tarts, and 80 peanut-butter-and-jelly burritos. “In hot weather,” he says, “liquid diets tend to work well. But our stomach reacts better to solid food in the cold because your blood is in your core.” The message? No need to adopt a Gu-based diet. Eat what you like, particularly calorie-dense, carbohydrate-rich foods, and eat often.

KNOW YOUR PACE. Many first-time winter racers aren't exactly models of biomechanical efficiency (blame the studded bike tires, heavy skis, and awkward snowshoes). So you may be a hell of a lot slower than you think you'll be. Check previous years' finishing times and chat with experienced racers. Estimate your own time, and devote at least two days of training (and eating) for the same duration, using the same equipment.

GET HIGH. While sound fitness is essential to winter mountain racing, no amount of lowland training can fully guard against the serious physical impact of high altitude. If your event takes place over 7,000 feet, try to arrive at the location three days to a week prior to start time in order to acclimatize. If possible, plan one training day at race-course altitude.
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What You Need to Go in the Snow

Winter racing equipment—and the way you modify it—is crucial to your performance. Here are eight cold-weather essentials.

HYDRATION: CamelBaks ($30-$105; 800-767-8725; ) and their kin are a must, and you can prevent the dreaded tube-freeze by wrapping quarter-inch foam insulation, available in hardware stores, around the hose (as shown at left). Make sure the bladder is stored close to your body, ideally inside your jacket, to keep it warm. Always blow all the liquid back into the bladder when you finish drinking to prevent water from freezing inside the bite valve.

GLOVES: A combination of Outdoor Research's Gripper gloves and Modular mitts ($45; 888-467-4327; ) gives you three temperature-regulating options: Wear the Windstopper fleece gloves for steady climbing and moments when manual dexterity is a must, the mitt shells alone if the sun is shining but you need wind protection, or the whole combo on long downhills when you're not generating much heat.

BIVY SACK: Should your event require overnight emergency gear, weight watchers will want Mountain Hardwear's Conduit SL Bivy ($99; 800-953-8375; ), a waterproof sleeve that zips over a sleeping bag and weighs just over a pound.

BASE LAYER: No matter how diligently you shed layers, always bring a backup set of midweight polypropylene or wool long underwear to change into in an emergency.

HEAT: Grabber MYCOAL hand and toe warmers ($1.50 and $2; 800-423-1233; ) utilize a pouch filled with iron and other elements that, when exposed to oxygen, produce heat through oxidation. Stick them in your gloves or boots for seven hours of 100-degree warmth.

SKINS: Essential for any backcountry ski race involving long climbs, kicker skins are shorter and lighter than full-length climbing skins. Ascension Kicker Skins from Black Diamond ($49; 801-278-5533; ) cover the crucial middle third of your skis, where your body weight provides the most gripping power.

SKIS: With a proven scale pattern that climbs moderate grades and variable snow conditions with aplomb, Fischer's lightweight BCX Mountain Crown skis ($230; 603-224-2800; ) eliminate the need for messy, frustrating wax jobs and feature full-length metal edges that provide plenty of control for downhill finishes.

SNOWSHOES: Snowshoes have come a long way in the last ten years, but racing in them can still be awkward. The Atlas Dual-Tracs ($229; 888-482-8527; ) use a lightweight, tapered aluminum frame big enough to keep you on top of the snow yet small enough to accommodate a runner's natural stride. (For a complete snowshoe roundup see next month's Review.)

Big-Time Bragging Rights

Test yourself. Take on a winter race like one of these.

Iditasport 100
February 9
Sheep Mountain, Alaska

THE RACE: “CAUTION: Weather can be extremely cold!” reads the race Web site. That's your first hint that this is a serious undertaking. Up until the starting gun, you can choose between a bike, skis, or snowshoes to take you 100 miles alongside the 10,000-foot Talkeetna Mountains. Even surrounded by fellow competitors, most first-timers from the Lower 48 will find it the most pristine wilderness environment they've ever experienced. HIGHLIGHT: Finishing. No other winter race in America offers a more formidable challenge. CRUCIAL GEAR CHOICE: Bikers have the advantage. Arm your frame with aggressive, studded treads—try Nokian's Extreme 296 ($112; ). And run your tires soft.THE LOWDOWN: Entry fee $250; 907-345-4505; .
The Mount Taylor Winter Quadrathlon
February 16
Grants, New Mexico

THE RACE: The “Quad” entails a 13-mile road ride, five-mile run, two-mile ski, and one-mile snowshoe from the town of Grants to the top of Mount Taylor, an 11,301-foot extinct volcano in west-central New Mexico. After a 4,800-foot ascent, and a brief medical check on top, you reverse the entire course and head downhill back to town. HIGHLIGHT: Hopping on your bike for the final leg of the race, a fast 13-mile descent to the finish line. CRUCIAL GEAR CHOICE: Climbing skins are essential for the last mile of the cross-country ski climb, dubbed Heartbreak Hill. THE LOWDOWN: Entry fee: $75 ($55 before Feb. 1); 800-748-2142; .

The Elk Mountain Grand Traverse
March 29-31
Crested Butte, Colorado

THE RACE: Starting at midnight from Crested Butte, 100 teams of two ski 39 miles over two 12,000-foot passes and through some of the most rugged mountain terrain in the state en route to the summit of Aspen Mountain. From there, it's a glorious 3,000-foot drop on groomed runs to the finish line. HIGHLIGHT: Besides the guarantee you'll never race in a more beautiful winter setting, the finish line fiesta at Aspen's base area is well worth the 40-mile grind. CRUCIAL GEAR CHOICE: Most participants prefer lightweight cross-country skis with climbing scales and a metal edge (see left). THE LOWDOWN: $100; 970-349-1019; .

Son of Inferno Pentathlon
April 20
Glen, New Hampshire

THE RACE: Run seven winding miles, kayak six miles of Class I and II rapids, and pedal the 18-mile climb to Pinkham Notch at the base of Mount Washington. Okay, now stomp up 4,000 feet to the top of the most storied backcountry ski slope in America: Tuckerman Ravine. Finally, slap on your skis for the 2,000-foot drop to the finish line. HIGHLIGHT: Nine soloists completed last year's inaugural event. Start training now and you could own a course record. CRUCIAL GEAR CHOICE: A helmet, for skiing Tuck's 50-degree headwall. THE LOWDOWN: $100 individual, $500 team; 603-356-0131; .

The Zest Part of Waking Up Is Green Tea in Your Cup

After autumn maliciously robs the warmth and daylight from your morning workouts, there's only one thing left to lure you out from under the down comforter: a steaming cup of high-octane java. Well, sorry, but we're taking that away as well—wise athletes should switch to green tea. Why? Like your beloved French roast, it packs a caffeine punch. But more important, the brew's overall health benefits continue to emerge. Preliminary research published in the International Journal of Sports Nutrition shows that polyphenols similar to those found in green tea help post-workout muscle recovery. Still leery? Here's a highlight reel of green tea's recent accolades.

2001 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: Green tea's polyphenolic compounds (antioxidants) are shown to help prevent cardiovascular disease.

2001 International Journal of Oncology: A University of Alabama study declares that drinking green tea inhibits growth of skin-cancer tumors.

2000 National University of Singapore: Scientists find that green tea plays a key role in delaying the onset of stomach, colon, and rectal cancers.

1999 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: A Swiss study finds that consuming green-tea extract caused subjects to burn 3.5 percent more calories per day—equivalent to about one and a half Oreo cookies.

1999 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Research shows that green tea lessens the severity of rheumatoid arthritis.

Treat Your Dogs to Something Plush

Standing room only: (from top) footbeds from Dr. Scholl's, Fastech, and Superfeet, and a custom orthotic

FORGET FOR A MOMENT the flimsy Dr. Scholl's Air Pillos your grandmother used to tame her golf-ball-size bunions: Corrective shoe inserts have evolved into serious equipment. Footwear manufacturers' mass-market attempts at fit are limited to a length-and-width approach, but our feet come in three unique dimensions. Add the fact that roughly 70 percent of athletes have a minor foot malady (high arch, forefoot varus, etc.) and you glimpse a miserable picture: thousands of active adults suffering stoically through shinsplints, knee pain, stress fractures, and yes, bunions, all thanks to ill-fitting shoes. Luckily, the aftermarket-insole business has stepped in, designing a slew of new inserts to meet the demands of outdoor sports, ranging from $8 off-the-shelf cushions you cut to fit inside your shoes to $500 orthotics prescribed by an orthopedist. Hoping to eliminate confusion, and to help you find the perfect fit, we've broken down the four major insert types to let you know what's available, what you need, and how to shoehorn it into your sport—and your budget.
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Four Common Foot Problems, Deciphered

Most likely, your feet don't rest in a perfectly neutral position, causing a variety of minor—and common—problems. Rudimentary self-inspection for the first two problems is easy if not pretty: Closely examine the insole of a well-worn pair of running shoes. For forefoot varus and valgus, you'll need to consult a podiatrist to find out where you stand.

Fallen arch: Imprint covers the entire sole. Your fate: Discomfort in the middle of your sole (as well as potentially aching knees and hips) and excessive pronation (ankles roll to the inside).

High arch: There's barely an imprint between the heel and ball of foot. Your fate: Trouble with shock absorption, leading to knee pain and shinsplints; numbness in fourth and fifth toes.

Rigid forefoot varus: The foot will rest much deeper on the inside, as the foot is canted in that direction. Your fate: Strains and soreness on the inside of the leg; inefficient, “figure eight” cycling pedal stroke.

Rigid forefoot valgus: Weight of the forefoot is concentrated on the outside of the foot, causing a deeper outside impact. Your fate: Kinetic chain problems for cyclists, and potential strains and soreness on the outside of the leg for runners and hikers.

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Timbuktu

Open for business: the Ruwenzori Mountains.

WHERE THE HELL? Mali, 558 miles northeast of Bamako. WHAT IN THE WORLD? For the last thousand years Timbuktu has been the Sahara’s central exchange hub, a tiny mud-and-rock-walled city linking nomadic workers from the Taoudenni salt mines up north and crop farmers from the lush Niger River valley to the west. Although not as isolated (Air Mali now serves the city) or deadly (the desert’s legendary bandits have been kept outside the city limits) as it was 50 years ago, Timbuktu’s parched and perpetually sandblasted location has sealed its reputation as one of the planet’s most sequestered cities. To reach it, rent a pinasse, a thatch-roofed wooden boat with an outboard engine, at Mopti, the Niger River’s largest shoreline market. A 100-mile float past traditional mud villages with neither bridges nor electricity will take you within a four-mile jeep ride of Timbuktu. After visiting the 700-year-old Djinquereber mosque and bustling bazaar, hike several days north along the Bandiaghara Escarpment, where the Dogon, West Africans who have resisted both Islam and Christianity, still roam the desert on camelback. ACCESS: Contact Journeys International ($2,295; 800-255-8735; ), which offers a trip to Timbuktu including 14 days of hiking, camping, and pinasse boating. RISKS: Bandits. “U.S. citizens visiting or residing in Mali are urged to avoid all non-essential road travel in the region surrounding Timbuktu,” warns the U.S. Department of State Web site. “Robbers seem particularly interested in stealing vehicles.” ESSENTIAL: A traditional Saharan turban. Sandstorms in and around Timbuktu are legendary.

Ruwenzori Mountains
WHERE THE HELL? Southwestern Uganda, 175 miles west of Kampala. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Closed for the past three years because of nearby rebel skirmishes, the Uganda Wildlife Authority announced plans to reopen the Ruwenzori National Park’s trekking trails this year. Encompassing the headwaters of the Nile river, the eternally mist-covered 16,000-foot Mountains of the Moon, and lush lowlands choked with prehistoric-looking red-hot pokers (Kniphofia), 20-foot lobelias, and 30-foot heathers, the region would have served well as the setting for Jurrasic Park. Exploration into the verdant interior is best done on foot, hiking the rugged Ibanda Trail, which skirts 15,889-foot Mount Baker and 16,763-foot Mount Stanley, two glacier-lined peaks offering mountaineers unique African alternatives to the tourist highway on Kilimanjaro. After winding through dark bogs and waterfall-lined valleys, you’ll top out on a 14,000-foot alpine ridge where deep snow can crush your preconceived notions of the African equatorial climate. ACCESS: Fly into Entebbe and drive eight hours west to Kasese, your last outpost to pick up supplies. Continue three hours north to the Ibanda trailhead at park headquarters in Nyakalengija. RISKS: The gorillas won’t harm you; the guerrillas might. ESSENTIAL: Warm clothes. It’s Africa, but Africa at a nippy 14,000 feet.
Eastern Cameroon
WHERE THE HELL? Congo Basin, 500 miles east of Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé. WHAT IN THE WORLD? BaAka pygmies have been able to thrive in the thickest parts of the Congo Basin, and the result is an advantageous biological adaptation: They’re able to see better than most humans in the rainforest’s misty dark. Thank goodness. Without the pygmies’ guide services you’d likely drop 15 links on the food chain inside what is the largest contiguous jungle in Africa, home to tree leopards, elusive gorillas, rainforest elephants, and more venomous snakes than you’d care to know about. On Wilderness Travels’ 16-day jungle trek, the BaAka will teach you to set traps, track blue duikers (mini antelope) and forest pigs, and gather medicinal plants like cough-curing mebeke during a bushwhack from Yaoundé. You’ll cross the impossible-to-patrol border into the Central African Republic’s Bayanga region—an area where The World Wildlife Fund is working to form the largest rainforest national park in Africa. ACCESS: Get in touch with Berkeley-based Wilderness Travel ($3,500; 800-368-2794; ), which launches its first Congo Basin trip in October 2002. RISKS: Poisonous snakes such as gabon and rhinoceros vipers, black and green mambas, cobras. ESSENTIAL: Night-vision goggles (to help you avoid stepping on a gabon).

Here and Gone

Our Homeland’s Backyard Boondocks

Greeting the midnight sun, Brooks Range, Alaska.

Baffin Island
WHERE THE HELL? Northern Canada, just shy of the Arctic Circle. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Baffin Island harbors some of the best big-wall climbing on the planet, but it’s no mystery why the vertical-minded masses haven’t exactly turned it into the next Yosemite. Nine months of below-freezing temperatures, no roads to the lonely interior, and the high cost of getting there are a few of the more delightful characteristics that keep its five-star granite cliffs the exclusive domain of die-hard or well-sponsored climbers. But roughly 12,000 Inuit occupy the coastal fjords, and their traditional dogsled routes provide highways for hardy explorers wishing to take on the spire-studded interior via sled or skis. The 125-mile Southwest Baffin Traverse takes you over sweeping snow valleys, frozen waterfalls, and the 3,000-foot Meta Incognita Peninsula, where nothing but the muted sound of skis breaking snow will cut the silence. ACCESS: Fly into Iqaluit from Ottawa ($375; First Air and Canadian North). NorthWinds Arctic ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøs offers a 12-day dogsled trip on the Baffin Traverse in March 2002 ($2,700; 800-549-0551; ). RISKS: You’ll be asked to mush the sleds for part of the time—hold on tight. ESSENTIAL: A four-season tent built to withstand nylon-shredding Arctic winds.

Everglades National Park
WHERE THE HELL? Florida, 50 miles west of Miami. WHAT IN THE WORLD? The biggest wilderness east of the Rockies, the Everglades looks roughly the same as it did in 1889, when outlaw Edgar J. Watson went on the lam for an Oklahoma murder and successfully found sanctuary in its mazelike saw-grass jungle. Though near Miami’s urban fray, the park’s interior offers an untamed, island-speckled waterworld—home to crocodiles, manatees, panthers, and porpoises&3151;in which fit canoeists can reach mangrove-veiled chickees (wooden camping platforms), 500-year-old calusa-shell mounds with dry ground for camping, and meditative silence save for the late-night, Zen-like splashes of jumping mullet. Odds of seeing a ranger deep inside the park are low, so if Watson’s success inspired any modern-day fugitives, you’ll have to fend for yourself. ACCESS: Call Everglades National Park (305-242-7700; www.nps.gov/ever) for itineraries and $10 backcountry passes. For guided trips, contact North American Canoe Tours Incorporated (941-695-3299; ). RISKS: The labyrinthine mangrove swamps will leave inexperienced navigators lost in five minutes. ESSENTIAL: GPS receiver; Peter Matthiessen’s chilling tale of Watson’s demise, Killing Mister Watson.
Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness
WHERE THE HELL? Idaho, 100 miles north of Boise. WHAT IN THE WORLD? The 1.3-million-acre Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness has changed about as much as cold winters in Fargo since it was established nearly four decades ago. There are no roads, more than half of its trails haven’t been maintained for 20 years, and the Forest Service’s prescribed-burn policy allows wildfire—along with wolves and mountain lions—to govern land management. With a map and backcountry smarts, make tracks in September to the high and cool Bighorn Crags, a 10-by-30-mile stretch along the Lochsa Divide where deep ponderosa forests, glacial lakes, headwater streams, and barbed 8,000-foot peaks form a hermitworthy kingdom. Only four trails encroach on the entire area, says Bill Goosman, wilderness resource assistant at Moose Creek: “The likelihood previous to this article—and who knows what will happen after this article—of seeing another person is very low.” ACCESS: Backpack into the Bighorn Crags by launching at the trailhead northeast of Selway Falls, at the dead end of Fog Mountain Road. RISKS: “It’s very intimidating,” Goosman says of the frequent wildfires. “Mother Nature’s in full control.” ESSENTIAL: Bear repellent (encounters are probable).

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
WHERE THE HELL? Northeastern Alaska, 258 miles north of Fairbanks. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Compliments of President Bush’s energy plan, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been, well, drilled into the national consciousness. Result: A whopping 65-percent increase in tourism is expected this summer. Before you lose sleep over this potential second coming of Yellowstone, consider that if all 2,500 expected visitors arrive on the same day, each could still grab his own 8,000 acres of solitude. In an area the size of South Carolina, ANWR comprises a continent’s worth of ecosystems in the form of coastal plains, rolling tundra, 18 major rivers, miles-long glaciers, and the 8,000-foot peaks of the Brooks Range, which fan down the North Slope to the Beaufort Sea. No visitor services exist here, but with bush plane—and bushwhacking—access only, all you’ll need is crack orienteering skills, plenty of provisions, and an unlimited supply of free time. ACCESS: Fly commercially to Kaktovik, where you can hire a bush plane to your destination ($1,200­$3,000). Contact the refuge manager (907-456-0259; arcticrefuge@fws.gov) for a list of outfitters. RISKS: Fording raging rivers. Frequent grizzly encounters. ESSENTIAL: A fly rod. Arctic grayling and arctic char could provide an emergency meal.

Into the Mystic

From the Steppes to the Heights

Mongolian horsemen in the Altai Mountains.

Taklimakan Desert
WHERE THE HELL? Northwest China, 3,000 miles west of Beijing. WHAT IN THE WORLD? To the resident Muslim Uighurs, the 125,000-square-mile Taklimakan is “the desert of no return.” Bone-dry riverbeds and dunes second in size only to the Sahara’s have left its interior uninhabited, and most expeditions that have challenged it without motorized vehicles ended in disaster. Swedish explorer Sven Hedin lost 12 camels during his 1893 expedition (Hedin and his men survived by drinking the camels’ blood). Now you can get in on the fun. From the small farming village of Tongguzbasti, China, Uighur guides can take you six days on foot to the ruins of an eighth-century fort at Mount Mazartagh, where trucks await to transport you up dry riverbeds toward Aksu, at the Taklimakan’s northern edge. You probably won’t have to crawl from the wasteland on hands and knees à la Hedin, but the sight of the Aksu’s green poplars should still leave you whimpering. ACCESS: Don’t try turning up at the Taklimakan on your own. KE ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Travel ($4,300; 800-497-9675; ) can take you from Islamabad, Pakistan, across to Tongguzbasti, and will organize your truck pickup on the other side. RISKS: Hurricane-force spring sandstorms can choke the air as high as 13,000 feet. ESSENTIAL: A copy of Charles Blackmore’s 1994 out-of-print ode, The Worst Desert on Earth.

Arunachal Pradesh
WHERE THE HELL? India, 450 miles northeast of Calcutta. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Surrounded on three sides by tightly controlled Bhutan, tourist-paranoid Myanmar, and off-limits Tibetan China, India’s Arunachal Pradesh has until recently taken its restrictive cues from its neighbors—outsiders were barred from the region’s northernmost reaches for over a century. Finally looking to expand tourism, last March the government invited field biologist George Schaller and guide Jon Meisler to plumb the area’s untapped trekking prospects. Linking timeworn hunting and trading paths and crossing raging streams on swinging bamboo bridges, the two charted a 150-mile route connecting sea-level subtropical rainforest to 16,000-foot passes below the Gori Chen peaks—and found a region little changed since the British Raj closed it in 1875. The trek offers the prospect of exploring an uncommercialized Himalaya calmly unaware of the 20th century’s passing. “This area has never had tourism,” Meisler insists. “Period.” ACCESS: Call Meisler’s High Asia Exploratory Mountain Travel Co. ($5,100; ). They have the first U.S. permit to guide in Arunachal Pradesh in November. Solo travel is still prohibited. RISKS: Rickety swinging bamboo bridges may not be up to code. ESSENTIAL: Small gifts—lighters, pens, photos of the Dalai Lama—are diplomatic olive branches in this region.

Southern Siberia and Altai Mountains
WHERE THE HELL? Central Asia, between western Mongolia and Tuva, Russia. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Russia’s autonomous republic of Tuva is a bastion of nomadic sheepherders whose hybrid of shamanism and Buddhism was disrupted by years of Soviet communist rule. Just over the border west of Ulaangom, Mongolia’s arid, monochromatic steppes dissolve into sprawling grasslands that roll out beneath glaciated mountainscapes. The result is a forgotten realm where prayer flags are surrounded by the odd offering of vodka bottles and where Tuvan throat singers (who recently took America by storm) have been left alone long enough to learn to sing two notes at once. Mongolian nomads sleep in gers (a type of yurt), riding horseback over roadless terrain framed by the 14,000-foot Altai Mountains. The entire region remains an unwired world where camels, horses, cattle, and sheep far outnumber two-legged inhabitants. Just getting here is the closest thing to time travel the world can offer. ACCESS: Sign up for Geographic Expeditions’ ($5,990; 800-777-8183; ) 24-day trip in July through Tuva and Mongolia. RISKS: Few. The guerrilla fighting affecting other central Asian republics hasn’t penetrated this far east. ESSENTIAL: A digital audio recorder, to make bootlegs of multioctave Tuvan throat singing.

Get Lost, Mate

How to Disappear Down Under

So far gone: limestone pinnacles in Nabung National Park, western Australia.

Fiordland National Park’s West Cape
WHERE THE HELL? New Zealand’s South Island, 44 miles southwest of Queenstown. WHAT IN THE WORLD? “Fiordland?” the jaded traveler scoffs. “The place is riddled with cruise ships and Handycam-toting day hikers.” Fair enough, but the park’s well-known tourist traps—majestic Milford Sound and hut-to-hut hiking on the Milford Track—overshadow a far different reality: Head west of these attractions and you’ll find a giant peninsula completely up for grabs. Why? Annual rainfall west of Lake Te Anau is 350 inches, and with no trails, the tangles of moss-cloaked beeches, podocarp trunks, vines, and rotting branches will impede your every move. Try hiking overland from the park’s Lake Manapouri to West Cape on the coast, a distance of 105 miles that requires three rigorous weeks to cover. If you can follow the red-deer tracks to ascend ridges—which offer more reasonable freedom of movement—the reward at West Cape is your own delectably forlorn beach, pinned to the mainland by giant swells cruising in from the empty Southern Ocean. ACCESS: From Queenstown, a two-hour bus and one-hour boat ride brings you to Lake Manapouri. From there, hike the Dusky Sound Track to Loch Maree and then head west. Arrange for a pick-up with Southern Lakes Helicopters ($831; 011-64-3-249-7167; www.slhqt.com) and a guide ($215 per day) with New Zealand Encounters (011-64-7866-2250; ). RISKS: Exceedingly rugged terrain, with sheer bluffs and crevasses. ESSENTIAL: Fungicide to ward off trench foot; expert compass skills to avoid having these words uttered after your name: “was never seen again.”

The Canning Stock Route
WHERE THE HELL? Western Australia, 450 miles northeast of Perth. WHAT IN THE WORLD? To truly appreciate the intimidating scope of the outback, consider a two-week four-wheel-drive rampage through its core via the Canning Stock Route, a 1,240-mile cattle trail etched out in 1906 by drilling 51 watering holes in a line through the Little Sandy, Great Sandy, and Gibson Deserts. Stockmen, long since turned off by the region’s sparse vegetation and lifeless sand expanses, wisely ceased cattle drives here by 1960, but the route can still be covered with a well-provisioned vehicle. According to Dutchman Cees Broekhuizen, who’s braved several of the outback’s toughest driving challenges, the Canning most poignantly embraces its emptiness at trailside campsites between Well 5 and Well 9: “It is so quiet, you hear the slight movement of a lizard.” Which, along with kangaroos, feral camels, and scorpions, are the only living creatures within miles. ACCESS: For well-appointed vehicles with experienced drivers, check with Diamantina ($3,300; 011-61-357-770-681; ) in Alice Springs. RISKS: Mechanical troubles are likely, but extra provisions will render death a negligible possibility. ESSENTIAL: Nine spare tires, a rehydration kit, 67 gallons of water, and wallaby repellent.
Gambier Islands
WHERE THE HELL? French Polynesia, about 1,000 miles southeast of Tahiti. WHAT IN THE WORLD? If Tom Hanks’s relationship with his volleyball in Cast Away left you somewhat envious, try reaching the reef-encircled Gambier Islands. Guidebooks mention them only in passing, likely because (a) there are no hotels or resorts, and (b) French nuclear testing on the nearby Mururoa atoll kept them off-limits until just after 1996. Begin at the largest of the Gambiers, Mangareva, a five-mile-long island with twin 1,400-foot volcanic peaks, trees with ripe mangoes, breadfruits, and guavas, and a perimeter of pristine white-sand beaches ignored by the few hundred affable locals, many of whom farm black pearls. Once you’ve adjusted to the laid-back lifestyle (which takes about four seconds), hire a local fisherman to haul you out to one of several smaller islands—Taravai, Akamaru, Aukena—where you can snorkel in the undisturbed coral reefs, king of your own paradise. ACCESS: From Tahiti, Air Tahiti makes weekly 3.5-hour flights ($204) that land you on Mangareva’s sole airstrip. Book your first few nights at Mangareva’s lone pension, through Iaora Tahiti Ecotours (011-689-48-31-69; ). RISKS: Don’t eat fish you catch inside the atoll—a poisonous alga infesting the lagoon has rendered many of them toxic. ESSENTIAL: A volleyball.

Cold Heaven

Remoteness, on the Rocks

Blue velvet: a moonlit iceberg in Greeland.

Thule District
WHERE THE HELL? 2,000 miles north of Greenland’s capital, Nuuk. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Greenland’s Thule District is one of the last pockets of isolation where local haute couture—polar bear­fur pants and caribou­hide jackets—is still dictated by the region’s available wild game. If you can manage to get to its capital seat at Qaanaaq (an official invitation is required to land at its air base), your only potential recreational competition for the surrounding 10,000 square miles of treeless landscape, 3,000-foot-high gouged fjords, and sharp limestone cliffs are the town’s 650 Inuit residents and their trusty sled dogs. Once you’re there, navigate a kayak around icebergs, accompanied by narwhals and beluga whales; observe a lonely skyline of tidewater glaciers, ice cones, and black rock spires illuminated by 24-hour daylight; feast on the blueberries that thrive on the thawed-out strips of walrus-fertilized land; and doze on serene granite beaches where resort lounge chairs have yet to appear. ACCESS: True isolation ain’t cheap—charter a Twin Otter plane on your own from Canada’s Resolute Bay and it will set you back about $10,500. On a tighter budget? Book a trip through Canadian outfitters Whitney & Smith, which runs 15-day guided kayak trips ($4,000; 403-678-3052; ) starting from Resolute. RISKS: Charging walrus and polar bears. ESSENTIAL: A waterproof rifle to defend yourself against such charges. South Georgia Island


WHERE THE HELL? 1,000 miles southeast of Tierra del Fuego. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Stoic Norwegian ship captain Thoralf SØrlle burst into tears at the sight of frostbitten, sea salt­ crusted Ernest Shackleton staggering into South Georgia Island’s Stromness whaling station in May 1916, after his and his crew’s epic 17-month journey of survival. These days, you can retrace Shackleton’s trip across South Georgia, with only slightly less hardship. Schlepping 60 pounds on skis and snowshoes, you’ll cross the island’s largely barren landscape of glaciers, tundra, and 9,000-foot peaks in some of the toughest trekking conditions on earth. The payoff? Your friends may have read Endurance, but you’ll actually endure: Taking on the island’s consistently stormy weather, you’ll gain a much purer appreciation for Shackleton’s exploits—cocktail-party bragging fodder for years to come. ACCESS: Geographic Expeditions runs the island’s only commercially guided trip, in November 2002 ($11,000; 800-777-8183; ). RISKS: Pausing for a few minutes en route can ensure hypothermia and frostbite. ESSENTIAL: Bombproof raingear.

Vaya con Dios

Undiscovered South America

“The Peak of the Mists”, northwestern Brazil.

Pico da Neblina
WHERE THE HELL? Northwestern Brazil, 506 miles northwest of Manaus. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Few foreigners have ever attempted to scale 9,888-foot Pico da Neblina, Brazil’s highest mountain; even fewer have been rewarded with a view. The “Peak of the Mists” is almost perpetually shrouded, so much so that it wasn’t discovered by outsiders until 1962. But on the odd clear day its cuspidated summit, looming some 1,600 feet above a grove-dotted grassland, offers Kodak-moment potential: a lush, unbroken rainforest as far as the eye can see. Of course, you’ll have to earn it. After a ten-hour canoe ride from outside São Gabriel da Cachoeira to a base camp on Tucano Creek, native guides march you into an untarnished jungle, part of the 5.4 million acres of Pico da Neblina National Park, an inky realm of howler monkeys and three-toed sloths. After three days of machete hacking, vines give way to the 8,000-foot-high savanna and the start of the nontechnical but slippery ascent. You’ll fight your way up Neblina through swirling mists, praying for sun like an Aztec with every step. ACCESS: Contact KE ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Travel ($3,545; 800-497-9675; ), which will run the first commercial trip here in September, beginning in Manaus. RISKS: Malaria, typhoid, yellow fever. Get your full range of recommended vaccinations for this one. ESSENTIAL: Mosquito netting. The forest floor is crawling with creatures you’d best know nothing about.

Valle Turbio 4
WHERE THE HELL? Argentina, about 22 miles south of Lago Puelo National Park. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Decades of outdoor-clothing marketing may have softened Patagonia’s remote mystique, but where else on earth exists an unmapped region of rock and ice so unexplored that a valley roughly the size of Yosemite can be the hidden lair of a mere handful of climbers? Just last February, clutching a hand-drawn map from the 1960s (a gift from a local family whose patriarch explored the area in his free time) with enigmatic instructions inscribed&3151;”Still need exploration in this area of peaks and glaciers”—twin brothers Damian and Willy Benegas and three team members took a chance. After three days of hacking through bamboo thickets and leech-infested muck, they headed up a small tributary branching off the Turbio River’s main channel. A day later, jaws dangling, the trio took in the view: Waterfalls shot from cliffs; glacier tongues wagged off others; 2,500- to 4,000-foot unclimbed walls soared up on both sides. After a few days of having the granite all to themselves, they rafted the Turbio back to Lago Puelo—leaving the three higher valleys largely unexplored by climbers. The race is on. ACCESS: From Argentina’s Lago Puelo National Park, hire a boat (the Benegas used a local fishing guide) across the lake to the mouth of the Rio Turbio, and start the four-day upriver scramble to the granite playground. Bring a raft to float back out. RISKS: Meet trouble and your chance of getting rescued is not likely. Leeches, on the other hand, are. ESSENTIAL: A camera (for proof).
Tuichi River
WHERE THE HELL? Bolivia, descending northwest from Lake Titicaca. WHAT IN THE WORLD? On the two-week journey from the high Andes to the bottom of the jungle-coated canyon of the Tuichi River, the last hazy memories of your prior, civilized existence usually wear off around day eight. Flying to La Paz aside, getting to Upper San Pedro Canyon requires driving over a 15,300-foot pass and two days of four-wheeling to the outpost village of Apolo, then trekking another 15 miles across “dry jungle,” or rain-shadow deserts, to the Rio Tuichi put-in, where you will descend Class II-­IV rapids for two days. Now you can relax: Perched in your tent near the riverbank, as spider monkeys scream from vegetated cliff walls and harpy eagles soar above, your former life dissolves into murky recollection; only two more days of rapids remain before a motorized canoe takes you down a broader, lazier Tuichi. Maybe your team can get along without you? ACCESS: Join a trip leaving in late June 2002, run by Mukuni Wilderness Whitewater Expeditions ($2,950; 800-235-3085; ). RISKS: Scout a clean line on El Puerto Del Diablo, or The Gate of the Devil, a 150-yard, Class IV+ rapid where flipping in its hole will wash you into a giant boulder. ESSENTIAL: A flask. “Dry jungle” doesn’t mean you can’t bring liquor.

Wild Surprises

Europe’s Last Hideaways

Delta down: views from above in Sarek National Park, Lapland, Sweden.

Luottolako Plateau, Sarek National Park
WHERE THE HELL? Northwestern Sweden, just north of the Arctic Circle. WHAT IN THE WORLD? “An extremely inaccessible wilderness with no facilities whatsoever for tourists.” In Europe, that’s saying something, and that’s what the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency says about the lonely highland of Sarek. One of the wildest of the continent’s last legitimate wilderness areas, Sarek is 746 square miles of abundant glaciers, 200 mountains over 4,000 feet, and perpetually stormy weather. The 4,406-foot Luottolako Plateau, a moonscape of lichen-covered stones and alpine lakes, offers some of the loneliest terra firma in the park, a place to get unhinged and embrace your barbaric roots. Sneak up on grouse and reindeer, crush pestering hordes of mosquitoes, and belt Abba anthems on howling plains. Trust us, there’s no one there to stop you. ACCESS: From Kvikkjokk (pronounced, well, um, we have no idea), begin on the King’s Trail, breaking off at Lake Unna-Tata to orienteer northwest to the Luottolako. Physics professor Ulf Mjörnmark maintains an informative route-finding site at . RISKS: Stream crossings are a leading cause of death here, so spend time finding safe fords. ESSENTIAL: A four-season tent and anything—cards, Game Boy, the collected works of Shakespeare—to ward off storm-induced cabin fever.

The Outer Hebrides
WHERE THE HELL? Scotland, 150 miles northwest of Glasgow. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Aye, the far-flung Outer Hebrides are home to an ancient, oft-forgotten cluster of Gaelic speakers whose rustic way of life is quickly vanishing. Thanks to plague, economic irrelevance, and the cruel hand of nature—a single storm in 1897 wiped out one island’s entire adult male population as they fished at sea—few inhabitants have held on south of the 1,200 residents of Barra, leaving a group of abandoned wind- and rain-battered isles ideal for yacht exploration and summer sea kayaking. A proficient paddler can spend weeks here surfing turquoise waters onto soft white-sand beaches and crimson kelp fields. Ride wild tides into jagged inlets of sea caves and rock arches, where campsites become launchpads for exploring your personal fiefdom of 400-year-old churches, prehistoric rock megaliths, and empty dwellings (where you can house your serfs). ACCESS: A five-hour ferry ride from Oban, in northwest Scotland, gets you to the island of Barra, where you can set off solo or contact Actual Reality Scotland, which leads expeditions from May through September for strong intermediate and expert paddlers ($480 and up; 011-44-1369-870-249; ). RISKS: Rough Atlantic swells can arise unexpectedly, and most islands have only one or two practical landings, so sharp sea skills are required. ESSENTIAL: A three-millimeter (or thicker) neoprene wetsuit to buffer the wickedly cold waters.

The post Lost Worlds appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

THE SOUTHERN Ocean has long been the sailor’s obsession. Its first true promoter, 18th-century explorer Captain James Cook, could hardly fail to be inspired by its wrath. Through the years the tempestuous body of water became infamous for treating mercilessly the ships and men who dared venture into it, a place associated more with survival than sport. In the 1960s, the first proposals to race sailboats through this nether region of marauding weather bombs and tumbling liquid mountains were derided by many as invitations to a mass drowning. Yet today the Southern Ocean is racing’s most hallowed passage, luring sailors with the promise of wild surfing runs, dramatic seascapes, and uncommon isolation. “It’s just the best sailing you can do anywhere on the planet,” says Paul Cayard, an America’s Cup sailor and inshore racer who got his first taste of the stormy seas during the 1997­1998 Whitbread Round the World Race. “Doing a complete round-the-world race with all the Southern Ocean parts is the ultimate test of seamanship.”


Modern navigation and weather-forecasting technology, along with lightning-quick boat designs, have tempered the raw fear of sailors, who still max out the adrenaline. So it should come as no surprise that the watery proving ground south of the 40th parallel is currently in the midst of the greatest sustained racing assault in history.
It began last November as 24 Vendée Globe racers set out to solo from France nonstop around the world in high-powered 50- to 60-foot monohulls; 19 would go on to slug it out over the more than 7,800 miles of heaving water between the Cape of Good Hope and the treacherous sentinel of Cape Horn. On the eve of the new year, six fully crewed maxi-catamarans of The Race left Barcelona to lap up their wakes at mind-boggling speeds that topped out at more than 45 miles per hour. And this September, seven or more monohulls of the Volvo Ocean Race (née Whitbread) will depart Southampton, England,to trace roughly the same route. “In 1968 we did not know it was possible,” says Britain’s Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, who in that year became the first sailor ever to circumnavigate via the Southern Ocean without stopping for assistance (it took him 313 days). “Nowadays the pressure is from very close competition,” says Knox-Johnston. “The sailors these days are the sharp end of a team, like a racing-car driver.”


Unfortunately, sailors on the sharp end still die. In the 1996­1997 Vendée Globe, Canadian Gerry Roufs was swallowed by the seas on the approach to Cape Horn, while three of his rivals were lucky to escape overturned boats with their lives. So far this year the only casualties have been shattered records. On February 10, Vendée Globe winner Michel Desjoyeaux, a 35-year-old French sailor, triumphed over the largest and most competitive Vendée fleet in four runnings with a circumnavigation that took just 93 days, 4 hours, and beat the previous monohull record by almost two weeks. Just one day later, Britain’s Ellen MacArthur, a 25-year-oldwunderkind sailing her first Vendée, posted the second-fastest time in history. Then, on March 3, Club Med, a 110-foot catamaran co-skippered by Kiwi Grant Dalton (with six round-the-world races to his credit) won the inaugural edition of The Race in just 62 days, seven hours, almost nine days faster than any previous nonstop circumnavigation.


Speed, in fact, has become a legitimate Southern Ocean danger. American skipper Cam Lewis, a notorious hard-charger, got religion 19 days into The Race when his maxi-cat Team ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø speared a wave at around 30 knots. The impact smacked the big boat to a sudden stop, inflicting severe neck and back injuries on two crewmen (uninjured co-navigator Larry Rosenfeld later compared the experience to a bus crash). The Team ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø crew made repairs in Cape Town and eventually completed the circumnavigation–20 days, 12 hours behind Club Med. Yves Parlier, a 40-year-old Vendée Globe competitor, received a similar lesson in prudent seamanship, but countered with the sort of heroic gesture that the Southern Ocean seems to inspire. Pushing too hard while trying to retake the lead from Desjoyeaux, Parlier’s mast crumpled to the deck when a squall hit his Aquitaine Innovations off Australia. At the time, Parlier had 7,000 miles of Southern Ocean in front of him, and 14,500 miles to the finish in France. Instead of withdrawing, Parlier coolly jury-rigged a 60-foot mast and sailed on, fishing and eating seaweed to ward off starvation during a circumnavigation that eventually kept him at sea more than 126 days. “What Yves has done is bigger than the race,” said Philippe Jeantot, founder of the Vendée. “For me he has reached back to the original spirit of the race, which was adventure.”Ìý

Nowhere Fast

Competitive indoor rowing gains a curious cult following

“WHERE’S maintenance?” a frantic volunteer yells over the jetlike whirr of 100 athletes zipping back and forth on stationary rowing ergometers inside Boston’s Reggie Lewis Athletic Center.”I’ve got piles of puke on 43 and 67!”


Victory here at the World Indoor Rowing Championships is a digital affair; each of the winners pulls hard enough to advance his or her computer-icon boat the equivalent of 2,000 meters and across a TV-screen finish line. Yet competitors pay for their virtual boat speed in decidedly human terms, with lactic-acid burn, carbon lungs, and yes, vomit, soaked up as necessary with cat litter carried about in ten-quart buckets labeled “Barf Control.”
Curiously, many here row only indoors. They may never know the creak of a straining oar, the sound of water dripping off a blade as it glides back for the next stroke, or the sweet swing of a crew in synch, but this new breed of erg-centric oarsmen and -women is nevertheless swelling the ranks of this Boston event, and more than 40 indoor regattas nationwide. In 1982, just 60 athletes, mostly Bostonians, participated in what was then called the C.R.A.S.H.-B Sprints. This February’s showdown pulled in 1,800 rowers, from nations as far afield as Turkey. Similar events will take place next winter in Portugal, Taiwan, and Sweden.


All of this spells a corporate fairy tale for Morrisville, Vermont­based Concept2, builders of the infernal machines. The firm reports double-digit sales growth for 20 of its 25 years in business. Yet even devotees scratch their heads over the sport’s inexplicable appeal. The championships “started out as a joke,” says Concept2 indoor race coordinator Robert Brody. “Now there are people who train for this all year round.” With evident sarcasm, he adds, “C’mon, get a life!”Ìý

View from the Summit: Blurry

Alpinists laud the convenience of laser vision correction, but is there a price to pay?

MYOPIC MOUNTAINEERS itching to ditch their contact lenses or prescription goggles for laser vision correction might want to wait before emptying their piggy banks. A study in the March edition of the journal Ophthalmology suggests prolonged exposure to lack of oxygen at high altitudes may cause temporary blurring of distance vision for LASIK patients who are “involved in high altitude activities for extended periods, such as mountain climbers [and] skiers.” Researchers, who strapped airtight goggles onto 20 formerly nearsighted subjects and simulated sea level in one eye and drained the oxygen from the other, noted a gradual swelling in the hypoxic eyes that resulted in a mild distortion of distance vision.


Mark Nelson, one of the study’s coauthors, ballparks the shift from 20/20 vision to 20/80 at its worst. Even so, Geoff Tabin, an ophthalmologist who completed the Seven Summits in 1990, believes the benefits of the popular procedure (see “The Fit List”) still outweigh the risks of iced-up contacts or foggy goggles. Rich Emmett, a Louisville, Kentucky, attorney who went under the beam in April 2000, agrees. While summiting Denali last June, he experienced a visual near-whiteout, although his sight soon recovered. “Sure, it’s a trade-off,” says Emmett, “But to be able to see the vistas from the top of Denali—I wouldn’t trade that for nothin’.” Ìý

Knobby Fires

Is there a link between a spate of Phoenix arson attacks and mountain bikers’ passion for local singletrack?

HIGH ABOVE downtown Phoenix, Doug Thompson and Brian Perkins are out thrashing some Sunday-afternoon singletrack. The two riders fling their mountain bikes over the crest of a ridge, skirt a bend littered with gravel—and stop dead up against an orange fence plastered with signs that threaten, “Do Not Enter,” “Private Land,” and “No Trespassing.”


It’s frustrating. Open to the public just a few weeks earlier, this spur of Trail 100 is now completely off-limits. But what Thompson and Perkins find truly galling lies just beyond the barrier that separates the Phoenix Mountains Preserve from the tendrils of the surrounding city. The hillside here has been bulldozed back to make room for the foundation of a luxury home. Next to this, an empty lot awaits another high-end hacienda. And behind that is a third site, a nearly complete mansion studded with extravagant features—including a “garage mahal,” real-estate parlance for a carport that holds five vehicles—intended to seduce the cash-flush newcomers who helped make Phoenix the nation’s second-fastest-growing city in the 1990s.
Not that Thompson and Perkins are in any position to cry foul. Both are very profitably piggybacking on the city’s rapid expansion—Thompson, 41, designs fiber-optic networks for a large telecommunications company, while Perkins is a successful architectural designer. “I don’t want to be a hypocrite,” says Perkins, 35, all too aware of the irony of his own resentment. “But we never even got to ride this trail. That really sucks.”


APPARENTLY, others agree. Last December, someone set fire to a house being built on the site, burning it to the ground. It was the eighth in a string of 11 arson attacks in Phoenix and neighboring Scottsdale since January 1998, all of which targeted luxury homes under construction adjacent to recreational wilderness. Despite an $88,000 bounty for information, partly posted by area homeowners, an investigative task force—run by at least six government agencies including the FBI—has failed to generate a single arrest. But on January 25, local reporter James Hibberd produced an extraordinary scoop for the New Times, the city’s weekly alternative paper, when a man who claimed responsibility for the fires allowed Hibberd to interview him in a public park.


The source declined to give his name, but described himself as a management professional working in downtown Phoenix. He established his legitimacy by describing two notes that he had left behind at fire sites—letters that the investigators had not made public. He said he belongs to a four-person group called the Coalition to Save the Preserves, and he explained that he and his cohorts had scouted out construction sites during mountain-biking excursions and then returned in the middle of the night to set them on fire. Why? “Because they’re encroaching on hiking and biking trails,” he told Hibberd, adding, “They’re an obnoxious reminder that there is no growth plan.”


On this latter point, the arsonist may have drawn approving nods from groups currently fighting a losing grassroots battle against the explosion of subdivisions, parking lots, and golf courses that have gobbled up the Sonoran Desert around Phoenix at the rate of an acre an hour for the past decade. Last June, a coalition of environmental organizations—including the Sierra Club—filed a citizens’ ballot initiative that would have set up boundaries around cities all over the state, beyond which development could not occur—a scheme inspired by a highly successful growth-control plan already in place in Portland, Oregon. When polls indicated that 68 percent of the public supported the proposal, an alliance of developers, builders’ groups, and pro-growth city and state politicians launched a media campaign to convince voters that this “Sierra Club Secret Initiative” would rob Phoenix of 200,000 jobs and “ruin Arizona’s economy.” On November 7, the measure was defeated.


Meanwhile, the New Times story created a firestorm of its own, enraging law enforcement groups, which cut off all media interviews and unsuccessfully pursued court-ordered access to Hibberd’s notes. The FBI is not likely to ease up anytime soon—the Bureau badly needs a success story. In the past year, ecoterrorists have destroyed bioengineered crops in Oregon, while the radical Earth Liberation Front launched still unsolved arson attacks against sprawl in Indiana, Colorado, and New York. But if the stated motives of the CSP are genuine, the Phoenix firebugs may have launched something altogether new: America’s first wave of recreational ecoterrorism—felony acts in the name of protecting trails.


AS THIS article went to press, the playgrounds in and around Phoenix were quiet. No homes had been burned since January, no arrests had been made, and the trail networks in the preserve remained under round-the-clock police surveillance by helicopters and plainclothes cops. Amid the jittery stalemate, more than two dozen Phoenix bikers approached by ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø on the trails in March denounced the arsonists’ tactics as misguided, but expressed sympathy with the frustrations that provoked these crimes. And yet, in voicing such views, some cyclists unwittingly revealed that they are as dependent upon development as anyone else.


“Developers are destroying the most beautiful parts of the desert,” says Josh Maule, 22, who’s out for a ride with several friends. “I hope they all burn in hell!”


“Dude,” interrupts Josh’s friend, Scott Keller, 20. “Isn’t your dad. . . a developer?”


“No way!” replies Josh. “Well, I mean, he sort of is. He’s working on his first million-dollar project right now. He does custom homes—but he isn’t putting up, like, 50 houses a day in the desert.”


Josh’s defense gets lost amid roars of laughter. The riders pick up their bikes, click into their pedals, and barnstorm up the trail. Ìý

Uncivil Disobedience

A brief history of environmentally motivated monkeywrenching

Early- to mid-1970s Arizona’s “Eco-Raiders,” Minnesota’s “Bolt Weevils,” and Chicago’s lone saboteur “The Fox” vandalize corporate and industrial sites, give birth to modern ecotage.


1975 Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang romanticizes ecoterrorism.
1980 Earth First! founded. Dave Foreman and four fellow eco-radicals inaugurate a decadelong campaign of civil disobedience and monkeywrenching.


1985 Ecodefense!, Foreman’s how-to manual, offers tips on tree spiking, power-line slicing.


1987 Cloverdale, California: The spike hits the saw. A 23-year-old mill worker is hospitalized with facial wounds when his blade shatters upon hitting a 60-penny nail embedded in a redwood.


1989 FBI arrests Foreman for Arizona ecotage. Charges are eventually dropped.


October 1996 Detroit, Oregon: Earth Liberation Front debuts, torching Forest Service truck. ELF allies with animal-rights group Animal Liberation Front soon after.


October 1998 Vail, Colorado: Predawn arson attack on Vail ski resort turns $12 million lodge to charcoal. ELF claims responsibility.


December 1999 Monmouth, Oregon: $1 million fire in Boise Cascade office claimed by ELF.


December 1999 Lansing, Michigan: ELF widens purview to include genetic engineering, torches office in MSU agriculture building.


January 2000 Bloomington, Indiana: ELF burns house under construction. Mandate widens to target sprawl.


Nov.­Dec. 2000 ELF roasts houses in Niwot, Colorado, and Long Island, New York.


February 2001 Visalia, California: ELF claims arson of cotton gin to protest genetically altered cotton. Ìý

Loot

ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Essentials, To Go

The new Volo, designed by the Italian scuba maestros at Mares, is the Maserati of diving fins. The flipper’s pivoting blades and channeled deck were designed to allow you to kick more efficiently than with traditional fins, which means you use less energy while ripping past your flailing friends. A slider catch lets you adjust strap tension with one finger, plus they’re more stylish than a pair of Bruno Maglis. $200 (booties required);

Guide: Leishmaniasis, African trypanosomiasis—the world is full of nasty bugs. But The Rough Guide to Travel Health—a thorough country-by-country compendium of parasitic, viral, and bacterial beasties—may help you fend them off. $8;
CD-ROM: It took two summers of fieldwork to create The Colorado Trail, iGage’s new CD-ROM atlas of the famed 487-mile route from Denver to Durango. Over 100 high-resolution maps–featuring 466,000 GPS-plotted trail points–make this the most accurate rendering of the CT ever. $40;
Gear: With nine hours of halogen light and a 12-hour backup LED, Black Diamond’s new 8.5-ounce Spaceshot headlamp could save your bacon should your easy day hike unexpectedly morph into a pitch-black overnighter. $60;

Video: You, too, can nail a wheelie drop. Or at least you can pull a graceful endo trying, having first studied West Coast Style-Mountain Biking, the first vid from Vancouver’s West Coast School of Mountain Biking. Watch, rewind, repeat. $17;

Guide: Surprisingly, over two-thirds of Japan is mountainous terrain, and Lonely Planet’s Hiking in Japan will help get you out there into the (hopefully) Pokémon-free zone. Choose from 70 day hikes and backpacking trips in the island nation’s unspoiled backcountry—including climbs in the Chubu region’s South Alps. $20;

CD: (not pictured) Get in the mood for your next exotic destination with Putumayo World Music’s latest compilation, Gardens of Eden. This musical tribute to the last pristine places on earth includes upbeat selections from Papua New Guinea, Madagascar, Tibet, and other Shangri-las. $16;

Dot.gone

Tracking the short, sad life of online outdoor retailers

THIS WAS THE dream: The Web would be the ultimate gear shop. It seemed like a good idea two years ago, when a glut of investment cash encouraged entrepreneurs to launch scores of Web-based “e-tailers”–such as Gear.com, Altrec.com, and PlanetOutdoors.com. Many of these businesses spent heavily on advertising only to find their URLs forgotten by would-be customers overwhelmed with choices and longing to actually see, feel, and try on the goods they would trust with their very lives.

As dotcom losses mounted, investor confidence finally began to falter, and last fall the money evaporated like a Serengeti watering hole. It wasn't just swag sites, either. Webcaster Quokka.com called it quits at press time in mid-April, canning all but a handful of its remaining 220 staff. As the company reportedly prepared a bankruptcy filing, Nasdaq suspended trading of its stock (from a one-time high of $19, shares had dipped to 23 cents). Survivors remain, but the damage has been fast and furious. Below, a partial list of casualties, and an outlook for those still clicking along.
Gear.com
Launched: October 1998
Brands sold: Helly Hansen, Dynastar, Asolo, Dunlop, Wilson
Life span: 25 months

June 2000 Gear.com dumps 20 people.

July 2000 Gear.com announces it has raised $12 million from venture capitalists, and says it will spend the dough to expand its product offerings to more than 250,000 items.

Septeber 2000 The firm unloads another 22 people, slicing its original staff in half.

November 2000 Web wholesaler Overstock.com purchases Gear.com's $14 million inventory and folds it into its sporting-goods department. Gear.com employees receive a one-month bonus if they stay at Overstock through Christmas season.

PlanetOutdoors.com
Launched: August 1999
Brands sold: Patagonia, Black Diamond, The North Face
Life span: 12 months

June 2000 Company launches spinoff Womenoutdoors.com site. Weeks later, it cans 22 of 100 staffers.

MVP.com
Launched: January 2000
Brands sold: Adidas, New Balance, Shimano, Oakley
Life span: 12 months

December 1999 MVP.com seals a ten-year, $120 million marketing deal with SportsLine, allowing MVP to link to SportsLine's Web pages.
January 2000 MVP.com kicks off a $50 million marketing plan starring football legend John Elway and pros Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky.
August 2000 MVP.com buys PlanetOutdoors.com for undisclosed sum.
November 2000 MVP.com misses a $5 million payment owed to SportsLine. SportsLine dumps MVP.
December 2000 MVP.com cuts its staff in half, slashing 79 jobs.
January 2001 MVP.com unloads its domain names and customer database to SportsLine and turfs 36 staffers.

Fogdog.com
Launched: November 1998
Brands sold: Callaway, Nike, Columbia, Converse, K-Swiss
Life span: 25 months

May 2000 FogDog chairman Brett Allsop resigns. The firm cites “market conditions.”
July 2000 FogDog president Tim Joyce resigns his reported $280,000-per-year position, citing personal reasons.
July 2000 The stock sinks below a dollar.
October 2000 The company reports losses of $8.5 million on revenues of $5.9 million. Stock sinks to 23 cents. Fogdog dismisses 20 staffers.
December 2000 FogDog cries uncle and sells itself to Globalsports.com—which operates Web sites for sports retailers—for $38.4 million. Almost all of FogDog.com's 140 employees get sacked, save 25 engineers.

Altrec.com
Launched: March 1999
Brands sold: Nike, Marmot, The North Face, Patagonia, Mountainsmith
Life span: 27 months and counting

April 2000 Atlanta-based Cox Interactive Media sells Greatoutdoors.com to Altrec.com for $10.5 million. The deal doubles Altrec.com's traffic.
June 2000 Altrec.com teams with National Geographic to create Ontheamericantrail.com, a site offering virtual tours of the nation's most famous trails.
June 2000 Altrec.com inks agreement with Virtuoso.com, a network of 258 travel agencies.
October 2000 Gomez, a Web-site ratings firm, calls Altrec.com the number-one outdoor-enthusiast site on the Net.
November 2000 After six months on the job, Altrec president John Wyatt resigns–following 16 employees dismissed since September.
January 2001 As one of the last gear sites left standing, Altrec expects to be in the black by year-end. Development VP Shannon Stowell: “We're really pleased with how the market has shaken out.” No kidding. Ìý

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