Under a midday sun, when the mercury rises above 100 degrees, a person can begin to suffer from heat-related illness in just a few minutes. With most of the southern United States—and now the Pacific Northwest—baking under two months of unrelenting heat, this summer has been deadly for hikers, even on well-traveled terrain.

Among the most recent of these deaths is James Hendricks, 66, who in Utah’s Arches National Park. Hendricks had been on a cross-country road trip to celebrate the life of his late father—he planned to scatter his dad’s ashes on a peak outside Reno, Nevada. A retired carpenter from Austin, Texas, Hendricks had spent the week before his death hiking through the Southwest, before going missing on a day that hit 106 degrees Fahrenheit. Officials said it appeared that .

Like the rest of the United States, Utah has experienced prolonged, life-threatening heat this summer. Temperatures went as in mid-July, breaking a series of records. And summers like this one are going to become the norm as the planet warms, creating a new kind of risk in national parks and elsewhere.

The National Parks Service on potential cases of heatstroke in the Grand Canyon, and has found that for every degree the temperature increases, 3 percent more people will experience heat illnesses. Depending on how much the planet warms, a recent paper predicted that cases of heat illness at the Grand Canyon could more than double by 2100.

And that’s before you take into account skyrocketing attendance. According to data released by the Park Service, Arches saw its annual visitorship grow by 600,000 between 2010 and 2019, to roughly 1.6 million people. In 2021, the park was so crowded that it had to shut its entrance on 120 different days after hitting capacity. This summer, it has implemented a timed-entry system.

The firehose of parks goers and the risks of extreme heat mean that more people are more likely to be out of their element. Across the Park Service, officials are coming up with ways to combat extreme heat. Big Bend National Park in Texas, which has seen three heat-related deaths this summer, warns visitors with signs posted at all park entrances. Grand Canyon National Park maintains an updated webpage with trail and weather conditions, and tips on how to avoid the heat.

Five people have died at Arches over the past year. All have been older men, the demographic most likely to die under any circumstances at a national park. Only Hendricks’ death appears to be directly related to heat, although it may take weeks before an official cause of death is released. The rest appear to have had sudden medical events, some on trail, some in campgrounds.

But outside of Arches, heat has killed a shocking number of outdoor tourists, many of them young. And more may have died due to heat that we don’t know about. Determining whether a person died from heat, or a different medial event, can pose challenges to medical professionals. And there is no nationwide agency that documents heat deaths—another challenge for determining just how dangerous extreme heat can be.

But heat deaths do tend to involve similar situations: a person who went hiking, biking, or running on a day when the temperature was above 100 degrees, and either got lost or ran out of water. That’s how Steve Curry, 71, likely died during a July outing in Death Valley. It’s how Kai Torres Bronson, 24, died in Southern California in July; Torres Bronson who were dehydrated, and he gave them his water. He later collapsed and died.ÌęAt least 13 other hikers are believed to have died from heat across the Southwest this year: A teenager in Big Bend National Park, a pair of women under 35 in Nevada, and ten people in Arizona ranging from 19 to 33, all caught off guard while hiking or biking in temperatures over 100 degrees. “All of this is 100 percent avoidable,” a Tucson-area sheriff told . And heat isn’t just deadly for people pursuing recreation. On August 16, officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, said that 89 people in the greater Phoenix area had likely died from heat in 2023. That’s up from 66 in 2022.

Once heatstroke sets in, it can overwhelm even experienced athletes in minutes. Hendricks, the Arches man, died while hiking a 2.3-mile loop, his second short hike of the day. He’d spent his whole life hiking, and through his road trip, had posted panoramic views from Texas mountaintops. But his that security footage from the day of Hendricks’ death shows him stumbling in the early morning air, which was already in the 80s. His remains were found off the trail, suggesting that he became confused as he overheated and lost his way.

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It’s been a rough few weeks for bear-human relations.

Thee incidents occurred on Saturday, August 5 alone. In Colorado, a man camping on the banks of the Purgatoire River near the New Mexico border next to his hammock. When the man shined his flashlight at the bruin, it bit him on the arm.

In Tennessee, a black bear of a car driving through Great Smoky Mountains National Park and scratched a man sitting inside. (, the park described his injuries as “minor.”)

In Wyoming, a man was doing survey work in the Shoshone National Forest . He sustained injuries but survived the incident.

These three came on the heels of two deadly encounters. On August 3, a Montana man that had crawled into his house through a screened window. And on July 22, there was a , also in Montana. The victim, a 49-year-old woman, was found on a trail just west of Yellowstone National Park, with the tracks of a mother grizzly and cub nearby. The attack differed from the others, however, because a local coroner determined it “did not appear to be predatory.” Officials believe the woman was out for a run when she accidentally encountered the bear family. Wyoming cops in the non-fatal grizzly attack in Wyoming on August 3.

In the wake of these bear incidents, officials have reacted with similar strategies to catch the aggressive bears in question, and to limit areas of bear-human interaction. Colorado Fish and Wildlife officials if they found it. Wyoming rangers scouted the Shoshone National Forest with an overhead drone. Park Service officials in Tennessee closed the road where the scratching took place in an attempt to break bears’ association with cars and food.

After the Montana killing, authorities closed the area, set out non-lethal bear traps, and even searched from the air (they ). A Montana Fish and Wildlife official said that traps only work for a short window, since eventually the culprit moves on, leaving another bear to take the bait.

Good news for the bears, but bad news for their futures

Bear encounters with humans are often signs of a conservation success story. Across the country, bear populations are recovering from the predator extermination campaigns of the early 20th century. Great Smoky Mountains now reports that it’s , more than two for every square mile of the park. Colorado’s black bear population has almost doubled to around 20,000 over the last ten years. And the greater Yellowstone ecosystem—an area that encompasses both the park and surrounding protected areas—is now , up from just 136 in 1975, when the species was listed as endangered.

But the more run-ins bears have with humans, the greater chances there are for something to go wrong. These encounters sometimes risk undoing the work of conservation groups.

After the fatal Yellowstone attack, Montana congressmen Matt Rosendale called to remove the grizzly from the endangered species list, which would .

“It’s time for Congress to pass my bill to delist the grizzly bear and return management to Montanans,” .

Conservative lawmakers in the West periodically push for relaxed protections on major predators—but the evidence on whether it reduces human-bear conflicts is mixed at best. found that more hunting reduced the number of black bear complaints. But a noted that many studies had determined the opposite to be true—in one case, grizzly bear hunting had no effect on how often people were attacked, while in several others, black bears actually ended up causing more property damage after big hunting years.

It’s true that majorly reducing predator numbers has, in some cases, meant fewer conflicts. But as the Minnesota researchers found, public hunting is a “blunt instrument:” after several decades of heavy hunting through the early 2000s, the population crashed (hunters were especially likely to shoot breeding-age females), and has never recovered. There are other examples of this dynamic playing out in recent years: in 2021, killed 14 percent of Wisconsin’s gray wolves in four days, and biologists are still debating the long-term consequences.

A leading grizzly bear researcher that there’s been no measurable increase in bear attacks around Yellowstone even as grizzly populations have tripled.

If killing bears isn’t the answer, then perhaps humans simply need to be more mindful with our own relationship to the outdoors. After all, humans are encroaching on the places where recovering bears often live. Americans in the exurban fringes of forests and mountains between 1990 and 2010—exactly the places that a young bear setting out from its mother might find an unlocked garbage can. (See the in the summer of 2020, or the family of suburbs earlier this year.)

More tourists than ever are venturing in the wilderness areas that provide core bear habitat. Approximately 300 million people visited the National Parks last year—basically the entire population of the United States trotting around the tiny patches of forest we protect.

It’s clear that bears cause trouble when there’s , or when limited natural food supplies force them to scrounging for sustenance. Great Smoky Mountains National Park superintendent told the Charlotte Observer that “berries, acorns and other primary food sources are not in season” in August, which may explain why the bear was bold enough to reach into a car.

There are other ways to reduce bear attacks than to kill bears, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park happens to be a . In the 1950s, when black bears were much rarer, the park might record a dozen bear attacks in a typical year. At one picnic area, visitors would set up chairs every evening to watch bears eat out of trash cans. Park rangers regularly killed nuisance bears that had learned to approach people.

But in the 1990s, the park began a campaign to bear-proof its garbage—and its visitors. Rangers went from relocating a dozen bears a year to just one. A record 14 million people visited Great Smoky Mountains in 2021, making it possibly the place with the most humans and bears in the country. Bear attacks so happen, but they are rare.

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In the middle of the , a pair of hikers in the mountains above Zermatt, Switzerland, discovered the body of a climber who had disappeared decades before. The human remains had been entombed in ice just a short distance from an international ski resort, and near the route up the famed Matterhorn. The discovery occurred on July 12.

Local authorities have released few details about the climber beyond the basic timeline of his disappearance. “In September 1986, a German climber, who was 38 at the time, had been reported missing after not returning from a hike,” the local police department . His remains were identified using DNA tests at a local hospital, the release said, but authorities have not released the climber’s identity.

Police also released a photo showing a pair of crampons, a single black leather boot, a gray piece of fabric, and a length of rope resting on ice.

How the climber lost his life is still unclear. The mountains surrounding Zermatt are popular and infamously deadly, and several hundred people have died while attempting the Matterhorn. In 2018 alone, on the mountain.

The location of the body gives few clues about his cause of death. He was found along the Theodul Glacier, rather than at the base of a notorious Matterhorn route. The upper portion of the glacier is more than 12,000 feet above sea level, and it sits adjacent to Zermatt Ski Resort—parts are served by multiple chairlifts. In the summer, the glacier is popular with hikers, who regularly traverse it in short-sleeve shirts. In 1965, on a bicycle. A gondola line, constructed in the 1970s, provides a panoramic view of the ice flow on its way to a luxury viewing lodge, complete with a restaurant and a theater.

Despite its proximity to buildings and chairlifts, the area presents dangers for outdoor recreation users—storms often descend on the area and trap hikers on the snow.

“It doesn’t matter really how tame the glacier is,” says Dave Miller, owner of guiding company Alpine International Guides. “You get caught in one of those alpine storms, and even if you’re close to the ski resort, that can do you in right there. You can literally be a half mile from the ski resort and not be able to find it.”

The location where the climber was discovered isn’t necessarily where he disappeared. Glaciers slowly flow downhill, and can carry bodies miles from their original locations. And as climate change melts the ice, that flow accelerates.

In recent years, the retreating glaciers across the Alps have revealed ancient relics, archaeological discoveries, and yes, human remains. In 2017, a French climber found three bodies on the Italian side of Mont Blanc—authorities believe the three had died two decades earlier. That year a ski resort worker in Zermatt found the bodies of a couple who disappeared in 1942 while herding cattle in their mountain pasture.

Last summer, multiple hikers in Switzerland made similarly gruesome discoveries. In July, hikers found a mummified body clad in ; in August, a French climber found in the retreating Chessjen Glacier in Valais, Switzerland. Then, on August 4, debris from a plane crash on the Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland’s Bermese Alps. The plane, a Piper Cherokee, had crashed on June 30, 1968.

The Theodul Glacier has also from bygone eras. In 1985, archaeologists found coins, a dagger, and remains of a human thigh bone amid the retreating ice. Subsequent digs in the area unearthed the body of a merchant who had perishedÌęduring a crossing in the 1600s, wearing a thin pair of leather shoes.

The melting glaciers around Zermatt are bound to reveal more finds like this. According to the news site Swissinfo.ch, in the mountains of Valais Canton, where Zermatt sits.

That a body could be found so close to an international ski resort illustrates how dramatically the Alps are changing due to climate change. More than a quarter of Theodul Glacier has melted over the last 50 years. That melt has been dramatic enough to between Italy and Switzerland—Theodul Glacier sits on a ridge between the two countries, and its retreat has slowly pushed an Italian alpine refuge onto Swiss territory.

This past winter dealt an especially bad blow to the Alps’ glaciers: temperatures in Switzerland rose above , and of the country’s glacier mass disappeared in 2022. More areas that were once covered in ice are now exposed—and items that were stuck in the glacier are also thawing out. So common are these discoveries that the Valais Canton produced a smartphone app, called Icewatcher, which allows hikers to photograph tools, wood, or even human remains that they find on the edge of the ice, and alert the local archaeological department.

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My mom learned to ski in the early 1970s alongside her two younger brothers in upstate New York. My grandma—who was not a passionate skier—would rent gear for the whole family, drive to the mountain, and march up to the ticket window to purchase day passes. This casual approach to the sport feels like a relic today, considering the skyrocketing price of skiing.

Imagine it: parents get up in the dark and lay out winter clothes for their kids. They’ve skied a few times before, not enough to own their own gear, but enough that they want to try it more. The whole family piles out of a steamy car into a pre-dawn parking lot, and heads to the ticket counter. I sincerely hope that they looked up prices ahead of time, because if not, they might be in for a nasty shock. Between rentals, lift tickets, lunch, and gas, they’re likely to spend close to $1,000.

The rising cost of skiing has been linked to consolidation within the ski industry, and to theÌęrise of mega-passes. This magazine has written about this shifting financial landscape, with some writers arguing that the multi-resort passes throw “a lifeline” to 20+-day-a-year skiers. But that also means that the cost of single-day tickets—which entry-level skiers often buy—are getting higher and higher.

I wanted to know what a family of four casual skiers would pay to spend an unplanned day on the hill. So I crunched the numbers. In my scenario, they are paying current gas prices, and I’m assuming that they haven’t planned this trip far enough in advance to take advantage of discounted online ticket and rental prices. They’ve decided to ski on the first weekend of February—during peak season, but not on a holiday. (Ticket prices are based on online reported prices in October, but are subject to change.) And full disclosure: I couldn’t calculate an exact cost for food. I spoke to resort public relations departments, asked local tourism offices, and even trawled online photos. Based on this research, I’ve estimated the cost of lunch at the resort lodge to run between $20 and $25 per person.

Here’s how it all shook out.

Vail Ski Resort, Vail, CO: $1,341

Drive to and from Denver: $21, for a 194-mile round trip drive in an SUV—like a Toyota RAV4 or Honda CRV—which gets 32 MPG on the highway, with gas prices hovering around $3.50 per gallon. You can catch a Greyhound bus to the slopes from Denver, but it’ll run $150 for four. (There’s also an Amtrak to Winter Park for $34 one way per person.)

Parking: $30 to park in one of the main parking garages, although you can park for free in a satellite lot and catch a shuttle in to the mountain.

Adult lift ticket: $265. You can save about $30 by buying it a little ahead of time, and Vail that “lift tickets will be limited”—so there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to get one at the ticket window. For all four, that adds up to $1,060, since teenagers don’t get a special rate.

Gear rental: $66 for the base package, and more if you want powder skis or other upgrades. You can save a bit—about $12—by reserving a few days ahead, which is because they could run out of sizes. The whole family will pay $220.

Lunch: In 2019, a cheeseburger ran $15 at Buffalo’s Roadhouse Grill. Add a drink and a cookie, and we’re close to that $20 to $25 range per person—say, $80 for the family.Ìę

Total: $1,341â€ÀčŽÇłÜČ”łó±ôČâ of a one bedroom apartment in Denver!

Alta Ski Area, Alta, UT: $815

Drive to and from Salt Lake City: $8—it’s under an hour each way, even if gas in greater Salt Lake City is $4 per gallon.Ìę

Parking: $25. , which you’ll need to snag either in October, or the week before you want to go. If you buy lift tickets online, reservations go down to $10. You can also catch from either Historic Sandy Station or Midvale Fort Union Station on the Blue Line.

Adult lift ticket: $159 at the window. You’ll save $8 by buying early, and you can get steeply discounted tickets at the window (about $70) if you just ski the end of the day. There’s also a $70 “Beginner” ticket that gives access to entry-level terrain. That’ll be $636 for the family.Ìę

Gear rental: $35, or $30 for a half-day, also for a base package. You need to call to reserve rentals by 2PM the day before. Call it $110 for the lot.Ìę

Lunch: In 2018, a cheeseburger was $10.50 at Alf’s Restaurant. More recent photos from other base-area restaurantsÌęshow similar prices, so lunch is going to run in the neighborhood of $60.

Total: $815, this is one of the best deals we found, of a one-bedroom apartment in Salt Lake City.

Palisades Tahoe, Olympic Valley, CA: $1,300

Drive to and from San Francisco: $75. The three-ish hour drive is a bit further than most other resorts, and California’s gas prices—around $6 per gallon—are particularly expensive. The sole public appears to have closed—its phone has been disconnected—which is a shame because the it seem like a good time.

Parking: Free, but the resort to get a spot in one of the main lots. There are also overflow lots further from the resort that are connected by a shuttle.

Adult lift ticket: $270, but you can save $40 by buying in advance online. It’ll run them $952, but if they bought earlier, they could have saved $160.Ìę

Gear rental: $59, and again, the resort “strongly” recommends making a reservation at least the night before. $190 for four sets.

Lunch: Burgers at the Rocker tavern are $17, or around $90 for a family.Ìę

Total: $1,300, or just over a third the average rent of a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland.

Killington Ski Resort, Killington, VT: $1,167

Drive to and from Boston: $37 for a three-hour drive, including a toll road. I’mÌęassuming the family has an E-ZPass.

Parking: Free, with shuttle-served overflow lots.

Adult lift ticket: $195, which includes our best estimate of taxes and fees that aren’t immediately shown in the ticket price online. It’s about $40 cheaper to buy online in advance. Ticket price for two adults and two teenagers: $690 day of—teenagers get a slight discount.

Gear rental: $94 day-of, or $80 in advance. The family will pay $288 day-of.

Lunch: A customer service agent estimated that burgers and fries were about $15, so about $80 for a family.

Total: $1,167, or a quarter of the for a one-bedroom in Boston.

The Summit at Snoqualmie, Snoqualmie Pass, WA : $828

Drive to and from Seattle: $16. This is the smallest resort I’ve included, and it is about an hour outside Seattle (though that can be an optimistic estimate depending on traffic). Gas in the region is about $5 per gallon. FlixBus offers a a few weekends over the winter for $7 each way.

Parking: Free, but distributed in lots across the mountain face.

Adult lift ticket: Must be purchased online, and prices vary depending on the day. Peak weekends in February are $129. You half-price beginner’s ticket with access to a limited number of lifts, as well as afternoon and night tickets. They’ll pay $516—adult ticket prices apply to anyone over 12.

Gear rental: $54 and must be reserved in advance. It’ll shake out to $216.

Lunch: This one stumped me, unfortunately. About $20 per person feels safe, so for the sake of consistency, I will add $80 to the total.

Total: $828, or approximately half the average price for a one-bedroom in Seattle. As it turns out, the biggest problem with paying for a ski day might be affording the cost of housing in a city nearby.

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On April 16, 2016, Danielle Davis stepped off an overnight flight from San Diego to New York City with her mother, Lana. The morning before, Danielle’s older sister, Lauren, had been killed by a driver while riding her bike to her job at the Pratt Institute, an art and design school in Brooklyn. She had just turned 34. Lana had the address of a police station, the location of the crash site, and nothing else.

Danielle and Lana went to the site of the crash, on the corner of Classon Avenue and Lexington Avenue in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood. A streak of Lauren’s blood was on the cement, next to a broken pair of sunglasses. “When you’re grieving, you’re just looking for signs that she’s still around, that this person has not completely disappeared,” Danielle says.

Later that morning, one of Lauren’s friends drove them to the New York City Police Department (NYPD)’s Collision Investigation Squad (CIS) headquarters in Brooklyn, where they met an officer named Christophe Paul, who was in charge of the case. “He told us that she was ‘salmoning’—biking against traffic—south, instead of north, to her place of work,” says Danielle. The NYPD , too.

In the notebook that Danielle kept at the time, she wrote, “The car bumps Lauren, she falls off the bike, they’re unsure how.” Paul handed them a copy of a crash report that said the same, but he told them the final copy he was writing could change if more information came to light during the investigation.

From the police station, Danielle and Lana went to the medical examiner’s office in Brooklyn to identify Lauren. In life, Danielle says, her sister had been the brave one. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Danielle told me. She was “a self-described goth” and had spent the previous few months studying the way the Dutch masters symbolized death in their paintings. “Lauren really encouraged me to go outside and explore—to not feel afraid,” Danielle says. But now all of that was gone. Her face was smashed beyond recognition, her skin swollen and bruised. “She was an amazingly beautiful person,” Danielle says, “and the crash just tore all of that away from her. Not only her life, but whatever semblance of who she was. She wasn’t there.” They ultimately identified Lauren by a tattoo of an Egyptian ankh on her back instead.

Danielle, now 36, describes this day as a series of fragmented scenes, full of surreal decisions. “You want to know: What happened, where’s Lauren, why isn’t she alive? And suddenly you’re asked, ‘Which organs do you want to donate?’” She tried to make sense of the passing time by keeping fastidious notes. “I documented everything, every single day—what we did, where we went, what happened. I think it was just because I didn’t believe it myself.”

Back at Lauren’s apartment, Danielle and her mother agreed that there was a disconnect between what they’d seen at the medical examiner’s office and the detective’s account of the crash. “There was this one quote that made me really start to doubt him,” Danielle told me. “He said he doesn’t believe that she made contact with the car.” The medical examiner told them that Lauren had likely been run over—the car had left a smear of red paint across her helmet. (When asked about these initial discrepancies in Paul’s account of what happened, the NYPD responded, “When the NYPD’s Collision Investigation Squad responds to a collision, a preliminary investigation is conducted based on available evidence. However, the investigation is ongoing and is subject to change as additional evidence is gathered and documented over the coming weeks and months.”)

The next morning, Danielle and Lana decided to go back to the scene of the crash to set up a memorial and to see if they could figure out more about Lauren’s death on their own. “We were told that videos would disappear from local businesses within a week,” says Danielle. “So we had seven days to hunt down witnesses, videos, whatever evidence we could to help Officer Paul do his job.”

They staked out the corner where Lauren was hit, figuring they might meet someone who had seen the crash on their regular commute. Lana says she flagged down sanitation workers and anyone passing by who might have been nearby that morning. Danielle stood by the spray of blue and yellow flowers they placed on the sidewalk and solicited people as they walked past: “My sister was killed here on Friday, do you know anything?” Danielle describes herself as the more reserved of the two sisters, but stopping strangers on the street felt natural, she says. “It just felt like what Lauren would have done for me.”

A woman in scrubs told Lana that she’d been walking past on her way to work at a hospital and had held Lauren in the road after the crash. Others told them about being hit by drivers on nearby streets. “My mom and I were so desperate to find answers that, even though it was traumatic to hear, it felt like piecing together the puzzle,” Danielle says.

Three days later, they found what they were after. A woman in a red bike helmet rode past the memorial. “She looked at us from the other side of the street,” Danielle recalls. “And then she rolled up and asked us, ‘Is she OK?’”

They’d soon learn that the police did have it wrong. “Watching a person who’d been made a victim be erased, almost consumed by an institution that was supposed to serve and protect her, it felt like a betrayal,” Danielle says. “It just felt like humanity let us down that day.”

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At the end of last summer, a close friend of mine, Zoe, snagged a permit to hike the 215-mile John Muir Trail, which runs along the spine of the Sierra Nevada. To prepare, she and a friend loaded up for a four-night backpacking trip southeast of Yosemite National Park.

“Wildfires weren’t really on our radar,” she told me this year. There hadn’t been any fires in the area when they headed out. “But we were up pretty high. When we saw a flat cloud on the horizon, it kind of crossed our minds—maybe that’s smoke, maybe not.”

As the day continued, they started to smell fumes and passed a couple who confirmed that there was a fire somewhere ahead, so they headed back the way they’d come and set up camp for the night, with plans to finish their retreat the next day.

“When we got up the next morning, we were totally engulfed in smoke,” Zoe said. “We woke up coughing. The sun was really red, and it was hard to breathe.” She wore a mask and a buff on the way downÌęto the trailhead.Ìę

As it turned out, they’d stumbled onto the first days of , which became the fourth-largest fire in California history at the time. (It’s been surpassed by this year’s Dixie Fire.) It wouldn’t be contained until New Year’s Eve and burned close to 400,000 acres. By Zoe’s estimation, they were some 25 miles from it.Ìę

If you’ve ever gone backcountry skiing, sea kayaking, or floated down whitewater, you’ve planned around natural hazards. You’ve researched terrain, checked dam releases, tide charts, or avalanche reports. You’ve learned to use a beacon and probe or to set up rescue lines.

With wildfire season stretching nearly the entire year in parts of the Southwest, and massive, unpredictable fires becoming common in California, Oregon, and Washington, it’s clear that hikers and backpackers need to treat fire risk in the same way: as a fundamental part of a trip plan, not an afterthought.

But it’s probably not something you were taught, since conditions have changed so dramatically in the past few years. So we talked to land managers and trail groups for their advice on how to plan for fire in the backcountry.

Where to GoÌę

“First and foremost, know where not to go,” said Kindra Ramos, outreach director with the nonprofit .

Many online hiking maps now include details on active fires. The has a fire layer that includes fire data across the Mountain West. (You access it by clicking the three stacked squares in the upper-left corner of the map.)Ìę

“I think that drawing a parallel with avalanche risk is an intuitive way to think about it,” said Ben Mayberry, a recreation and land-use manager with the Washington Department of Natural Resources. “It’s these layers that stack on top of what you’d normally think about. You have to completely reframe, and focus on what the terrain is like, how it influences risk.” Still, he cautioned, “the big caveat is that avalanches are much more of a science that can be well understood. Wildfires are more unpredictable—would you try to plan around a hurricane or a tornado?”

For more in-depth fire information, includes a number of add-ons, including one for visualizing fires, as well as others that show satellite-detected heat layers and the location of historic fires. (Gaia GPS is owned by the same parent company asÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. for free.)

Smoke Prediction

In the past few years, some tools have appeared to help monitor and even predict the air-quality index, a measure of airborne particulate matter. An above 100 will likely be harmful to someone with asthma or other health conditions, while 150 is harmful to anyone.

The Pacific Crest Trail Association’s map includes a smoke layer, and others are available on Gaia GPS. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also produces a that provides state-by-state maps, though it only projects out for the day. (You’ll want to look at maps of surface smoke, since the tool maps multiple pollutants.)

For longer-term information, try . It includes major fires all across North America and forecasts smoke levels roughly two days out.

“It may be that it’s not a good time to hike, because there’s so much wildfire smoke or things are changing so quickly,” says Mayberry.

He, like Zoe, says he’ll be backpacking with an N-95Ìęmask. “But it’s interesting. If we had not been wearing masks for the past 18 months, would that be something we’d be reaching for?” he said. “I think, separate from COVID, I would not have thought of carrying an N-95. I would feel more like, Clearly I shouldn’t be out here if I have to wear a medical mask.”

After walking out of the Creek Fire’s smoke, Zoe said that she canceledÌęher John Muir Trail plans. “The SierraÌęwere on fire,” she said. “It sucks, but there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s pretty dumb to push on. Some people will continue to hike in smoke, and I saw people doing that, but what’s the point? You can’t see far. The views aren’t as good.”

Planning the RouteÌę

Once you’ve picked an area that’s smoke- and fire-free, check with local agencies for any trail closures or burn restrictions, which will help you pick a route and give you a sense of the area’s potential fire danger.Ìę

“Trail closures often begin and end many miles from a fire,” said Scott Wilkinson, director of communications for the Pacific Crest Trail Association. “This is done for good reasons. Either firefighters want to ensure nobody could impede their efforts, or because the best place to get off the trail may be miles away from the fire itself. For all these reasons and more, it is imperative that hikers obey trail closures—and don’t look around and keep walking because they don’t see any smoke or flames.”

Bring a paper map that shows the entire area, urged the Washington Trail Association’s Ramos. (And be comfortable navigating with a map and compass.)Ìę“Make sure that you have the big picture of where you’re going, so that if you need to plan an alternative route off-trail, you have the right map.”

You should also use the map to get a general sense of where evacuation routes might be: look for trails along the route where you could cut over to a road, or otherwise cut the trip short and find help.

And the more days you’re out, the riskier things get, simply because you won’t have up-to-date information.

“On longer trips, I think it’s always a good idea to carry some kind of satellite communicator,” Mayberry said. That way, if you spot smoke, or the air quality gets bad, you can text a friend for current information that might help you plan an evacuation.

Of course, that means telling someone where you plan to be and making sure they know which websites to check. If you’re going on a long hike or an overnight trip, you should also let local rangers know your itinerary in case conditions abruptly change and they need to evacuate the area.

What to Do if You Encounter a Wildfire Threat on the TrailÌę

Finally, you need to be comfortable bailing if conditions get too bad.

“It’s about having that situational awareness,” Ramos said. “If you are all of a sudden smelling more smoke or seeing smoke, I think that’s a clear indication that something has changed in the area, so you want to be comfortable leaving at that point.”

If you find yourself near a fire, take time to gather information.

“The only thing I’m really comfortable with recommending is communicate with someone,” Mayberry said. Use a satellite device to get a report on where the fire is and where it’s moving so you don’t end up heading into it.Ìę

If you do end up in a dangerous situation despite taking all the precautions, how you should evacuate will depend enormously on the terrain and state of the fire. But there are . Fire generally moves fastest uphill, so avoid staying on ridges above any flames. Stay away from chutes, as these will channel flames upward. The less vegetation an area has, the safer it will be. Move out of a fire’s path, if you know it—you won’t be able to outrun one that’s moving fast. And if you have bright clothing or gear, put it on to make yourself visible to first responders.

But if you’re up on to date on the latest conditions, and you’re prepared to turn back at the first indication of smoke, the experts I spoke with believe your chances of getting into an emergency situation are slim. Take “that extra moment to realize that your safety shouldn’t be at risk for a great view,” said Ramos. “There’s always another day, and the trail will be there.”Ìę

to plan your hike in clean air, away from wildfires.

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The rarity of foraged food is a distinctly modern phenomenonÌęand one that’s led to strange distortions in the way we eat. These days, foods like wild-caught salmon, fiddleheads, or truffles are considered luxuries. They areÌęfound in especially rugged outdoor environs, but most people consume them in highly cultivated indoor settings.

Those are the contradictions that Gina Rae La Cerva sets out to explore in ,Ìęa book that’s part travelogue and part natural history. It begins with a whirlwind of culinary trips, each excursion roughly centered around a wild food: ramps in a storied Copenhagen cemetery, glossy lobsters cooked in seaweed on the shores of the Gulf of Maine, bird’s nests from caves in the jungles of Borneo.Ìę

The trips are just La Cerva’s launching point and, one suspects, a way to draw the reader in. What she’s really after is an understanding of the word wild,Ìęat least as it relates to food. Should we mourn the loss of wild food at the hands of industrialization?ÌęWhy do we consider wildness to be sacred instead of profane? As she writes almost plaintively in the introduction: “What does it mean to eat wild food—or the closest thing to it in a world so thoroughly dominated by humans?” La Cerva supplies vague definitions of wildÌęearly on, describing the subjects of her fascination as “undomesticated” or “uncultivated” ingredients.ÌęAs the book progresses, those words begin to feelÌęshallow.

Other food writers have plumbed these depths before: notably, back in 2006, Michael Pollan became entranced by a wild boar hunt in the final chapters of .ÌęHe described the resulting hunted, foraged, and homegrownÌęfeast as “the perfect meal,” despite some culinary flaws. The author’s sense of satisfaction came from the idea that he knew exactly how each chanterelle cap and boar loin had arrived on theÌętable.

But did he really? TheÌęboar may have come from the Sierra, as Pollan noted, but one could question how boars came to be on that western range, and when and under what circumstances people are allowed to hunt them. Pollan left those questions unanswered, butÌęFeasting WildÌęadvances the conversation by placing wild bounties in their ecological and cultural history.

La Cerva notes that wild foods, once eaten exclusively for survival, are currently considered staples of fine dining and luxury cuisine—a “fetishization of need,” as she dubs it. In one example, she describes a celebrity chef studying a 1960s Swedish-army survival guide to find inspiration for recipes at Noma, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Copenhagen considered among the best in the world. “Even if you have never experienced famine,” La Cerva writes, “Noma is happy to invent this memory for you.”

Historically, people have attached a special luster toÌęwild food in moments of broad, social anxiety about disconnection from nature. During the industrial revolution, for instance, fine-dining establishments in New York City heaped wild birds on tables, gathered by an army of “market huntsmen” who picked the country’s wetlands clean. “At one particularly ambitious hotel, you could order heron, bald eagle, vulture, and owl,” La Cerva writes. Her argument is that the primitivism associated with wild birds was a “you are what you eat” attempt to transcend the drumbeat of urban life—and she implies that the fascination with foraging on display at Noma comes from a similar place. (One should note that today’s wild-food movement often aligns itself with sustainability goals,Ìęwhereas market hunters in the 19th century blithely drove bird species like the passenger pigeon to extinction.)

The consumer obsession with preindustrial (or, in some instances,Ìępreagricultural)Ìęfood gatheringÌęis complicated by the question at the heart of Feasting Wild: Were there ever wild foods to begin with?ÌęSure, the bison that roam Poland’s protected forests aren’t raised by humans. But their existence and habitat is so completely shaped by human behavior and settlement that it’s hard to think of them as truly separate from our touch, even if we do not intentionally raise them.Ìę

Feasting WildÌędraws heavily on the writing of environmental historian William Cronon as it searches for answers. As Cronon laid out in his seminal 1995ÌęessayÌę“The Trouble with Wilderness,” both the word and the idea of wildernessÌęunderwent a dramatic shift during American colonization. Originally, it signified something akin to a wasteland, where spiritual aspirants would face God through deprivation. During the Romantic and environmental movements, the significance of wilderness was recast as a sacred place outside of civilized history, where God could speak to visitors through the landscape’s grandeur—a condition bound up in aesthetics. A key part of wilderness, according to that definition, was a lack of human cultivation.

While Cronon alludes to some non-human “wild,” he argues that wilderness is a fiction. La Cerva favors that interpretation as well, noting that the precolonial forests and plains of North America were also gently groomed by humans to encourage the growth of game. However, even if wilderness is a romanticÌęillusion, La Cerva argues that something essential has changed in the way we eatÌęduring the modern era that’s important to consider.Ìę

“In losing wild food from our diets, from the landscape, we have lost something unnamable,” she writes. “The silences are so loud, they have become their own sound. We face a spiritual crisis, an existential loneliness greater than any heartbreak.”

The English critic John Berger offered another definition of wilderness that’s helpful as we try to understand what La Cerva might mean. In a 1977 essay, Berger wrote that animals provide a kind of spiritual “companionship” unlike any between humans, “because it is a companionship offered to the loneliness of man as a species.” Wild things, in his telling, are ones that live parallel lives to our own, that we recognize as fellow travelers in the world. Some farm animals can possess this kind of autonomy, meaning that wildness isn’t so much about the absence of humans or domesticationÌębut about how other species can cause us to reflect on our understanding of the natural world.Ìę

Drawing a firm line between humansÌęand nature ignores those who exist in the middle. Left out ofÌęthe realm ofÌęluxury wild food, La Cerva writes, are the stories of people—mostly women—who learned how to harvest the food in the first place. In the Middle Ages, “herbal knowledge was kept alive as folk medicine, handed down from mother to daughter,” she writes.ÌęWhen disaster struck, they could turn toÌęthe surrounding countryside to forage “dock and nettles, woody roots of wild carrot, parsnips, leeks, skirret, and turnips; the leaves of wild strawberries, the leaves of violets and roses,” the same species that world-renowned restaurants like Noma turn toÌęin modern times.

When La CervaÌędescribes moreÌęfraught terrain in her travels, such asÌęthe bushmeat markets inÌęthe Democratic Republic of the Congo, she finds that gender still mediates the wild-food trade. Women sell the meatÌęand manage networks that bring the productÌęfrom interior forests to the cities. Game, in La Cerva’s descriptions, sounds mysterious and appetizing, chunks of flesh smoked over the course of weeks until they’re as tender as butter. In Kinshasa, the capital city, bushmeat (antelope, pangolin, even bonobo) takes on a more complicated moral valenceÌęwhen pushed up against contemporary marketplaces and buyer-seller dynamics. But when La Cerva encounters a game-meat cook, the ethics of wild food are articulated in a way that will sound all too familiar to modern readers: “It’s natural,” says the cook. “It’s important to know the origin of your food, to know the source. We ate more as children, when we lived in the countryside.”

Reading Feasting Wild, it’s easy to find strange harmonies in the chaos of the last few months. Disease ecologists that the novel coronavirus jumped from bats to humans using wild game as a stepping stone.ÌęAs people around the globe were forced indoors during the pandemic, theyÌę with the wild things that appeared in urban publicÌęspaces in our absence. Being at peace with the ways that humans and wild animals now interact isÌęa more difficultÌętask—even La Cerva finds herself fantasizing about retreating into truly “primeval” wilderness, as though she still believes such a thing might exist.

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America’s streets have gotten safer for those behind the wheel of a car, but they’ve become more dangerous for everyone else. While overall traffic deaths have been on the decline for at least 40 years, cyclist and pedestrian fatalities hit a 30-year high in 2018, as Americans buy bigger cars, use more distracting technology, and spend more time on the road.

No one wants to think about getting hit by a driver, but it’s important to know what to do if it happens. The moments after a crash are full of shock and confusion, and you’ll need to keep your wits as much as possibleÌęso you can prepare (if necessary) to deal with insurance companies, law-enforcement officials, and lawyers in the days and weeks to come. When you’re on a bike or walking, it can be easy to get pinned with the blame. As the resource guide published by , a New York–based advocacy group, puts it: “If you wish to hold the driver accountable in any way for the crash, just know it can be a long and complicated process.”

Lenore Shefman, an attorney in Austin, Texas, —people on foot, bikes, and motorcycles—emphasizes the same point when she gives talks at local bike shops. “Every person on a bike should know that, just by being on an alternate vehicle, you’re already at a disadvantage,” she says. “Everybody drives a car, everyone leans towardÌęcar drivers. We tend to be informed about those rules.” When it comes to bikes, though, that’s not the case. Shefman routinely finds that even police officers have little or no training about cyclists’ rights, which can lead to hasty investigations and victim blaming.

Here are steps that should lead to more positive outcomes.

At the Crash Scene

Get Somewhere Safe

Before you do anything else, move off the street. If you can, leave your bike where it fell, because it may provide useful evidence to an investigator. Then call 911, or ask someone else to do it.

Even if you feel all right, stay at the scene. You may need medical attention even if you aren’t in pain, and you’ll want to seeÌęthat the responding officer gets your side of the story and talks to witnesses.ÌęIn some states, police to write a report for the crash if there don’t appear to be any serious injuries or damages.

Make Sure the Scene Is DocumentedÌę

If you haven’t been seriously injured or taken to the hospital, Shefman recommends taking down the responding officer’s information so that you or a lawyer can follow up with them later. Cases abound in which officers misinterpret traffic laws or simply fail to talk to witnesses who may be able to back up the victim. Chana Widawski, a community organizer with Families for Safe Streets, says that, in her experience, you can’t always rely on officials to do their jobs. “Some of the [victim’s]Ìępost-crash considerations are ridiculous things, like making sure that evidence is gathered,” she says. “That should be the job of whatever relevant police department. But the reality is that it often doesn’t get done.”

Be sure to get insurance and contact information from the person who hit you. If there are people around who saw the crash, ask for their contact informationÌęas well. Take photos and video footage of your bicycle, the car that hit you, and the road.

Widawski says that victims are often inundated withÌęoffers fromÌęconcerned loved ones asking how to help,Ìęand that you should take them up on their generosity. They can chase down surveillance videos or put up signs around the crash scene asking witnesses to come forward. Such actionsÌęcan yield information that changes the trajectory of court cases.

No matter what, you should review the final crash report, which in most statesÌęcan be obtained by contacting the police department of the officer who responded. The report should take only a few days to be completed, and you’ll want to get it as soon as you can to make sure the details are right. Shefman regularly finds errors and omissions in these reports, andÌęin many cases, you can offer corrections by talking directly to the police.Ìę

The Aftermath

Seek Medical Attention

Shefman recommends going to the hospital no matter what, because there’s a good chance you won’t know how badly you’re hurt in the shock of the moment. “OftenÌępeople appear much better than they are because adrenaline is pumping through them,” she says. “I had one person walking around on two broken legs, and an older woman who walked on a broken knee for two months.” Moreover, she says, her clients have almost always sustained some kind of brain injury; helmets are meant to protect the outside of your head from an impact, but they do nothing to prevent your brain from hitting the inside of your skull. You’ve just been struckÌęby a multiton metal object. Get a doctor’s opinion.

Even if you’re not seriously hurt, it’s worth going to the hospital to get your injuries documented. Keep all receipts and documents related to your medical care.Ìę

Get a Lawyer

Many attorneys focus specifically on cases involving people injured on a bike, and a number of them have formed that operates in 18Ìęstates and Washington, D.C.

Families for Safe Streets, lawyers are generally paid on a contingency basis, meaning they get a portion of whatever settlement you receive (usually about a third). Widawski recommends talking to several attorneys to find a good fit. The most important consideration, she says, is making sure theyÌęhave experience in this area of the law. Families for Safe Streets offers as you evaluate your options.

A lawyer will help youÌędetermine whether your crash report has beenÌęfilled out correctly, and they can help negotiate the insurance and medical systems. You’ll likely need to file an insurance claim soon after the crash, which may involve talking to the driver’s insurer, and you’ll want assistanceÌęwith that. You can start by calling the insurance company and telling them who was involved in the crash and when it occurred, but you’ll want a lawyer with you before giving further details. If the driver is criminally charged, a lawyer may be able to connect you with resources to mitigate costs associated with your role in the case, like the justice department’s .

In the long term, one of the biggest risks you face will likelyÌębe financial. Liability laws vary state by state, and figuring out who is responsible for medical bills can be complex. It’s also possible that your own insurance company will try to take a portion of any compensation you win in a civil trial. Both Widawski and Shefman say they’ve seen crash victims lose jobsÌęand even slip into homelessnessÌęas they try to recover.

Find a Community

“This is all about trauma,” says Widawski, noting that the initial trauma of the crash is often compounded by the prolongedÌęinsurance and criminal-justice processes that follow. Others have been through something similar and can help you cope. Families for Safe Streets holds in New York City for people who’ve been injured by drivers, and additionalÌęchapters across the country are starting their own support groups. The organization also has a to connect survivors of car crashes across the country.

Speak Up

Many crash survivors find a sense of purpose in pushing local politicians, prosecutors, and urban planners to take traffic violence seriously. If you feel the system has failed you in some way—perhaps a reckless driver is back on the road, or you were hurt on a poorly designed or dangerous street—and you want to work for change, Families for Safe Streets and other groups can help you get your voice out there. Parallel organizations tackling the issue in other cities includeÌę, , and theÌę. “We want to provide a channel for people to turn their anger, frustration, and sadness into action to prevent anyone else from knowing the pain that they’ve gone through,” Widawski says.

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