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ϳԹ Magazine, Aug 1999

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Going to the Source

He was almost everything a 14-year-old boy thought he wanted to become

Published: 

   

F E A T U R E

They blazed the trails, built the boats, perfected the fly rods, founded the Iditarod, saved the wild Arctic. They're the heroes of the world outside. The ones who know the way. Heed them well, ye mortals, for we'd be lost without them.

To a 14-year-old adventurer-to-be, the cocky, fearless climber named Scott Fischer seemed to be cool incarnate. But that bright glamour came with shadows.
By Sebastian Junger

To take to the woods with hounds and men, and learn the secrets of the river bottoms—that's almost as good as having your father back again.
By Larry Brown

  • Great climbers aren't born, they ascend.
    By Bruce Barcott
  • Tapping the wellspring of wilderness education.
    By Philip D. Armour
  • Lore, survival, and finding the deepest backwoods pleasures.
    By Jim Conaway
  • Building them to be as delicate and sturdy as a mountain trout.
    By Jim Conaway
  • Making America a little less threatening for predators.
    By David Baron
  • She got inside the minds of wolves, and never left.
    By Hampton Sides
  • The matriarch who came to Alaska's emo;tional rescue.
    By Anne Goodwin Sides
  • Because Glen Canyon lies underwater…Hayduke lives.
    By Jim Conaway
  • This sole man helps us walk the walk.
    By Eric Hansen
  • He saw the quick and easy and chose the hard and true.
    By Anne Goodwin Sides
  • Schools that can guide you on your own path to enlightenment.


In covering a war, there's always a story behind the story. This one involves several hikes through hell, a chauffeur named Bulldozer, and a destination no one wants to believe exists.
By Joshua Hammer


Why does a drag racer-turned-desert rat have the world's giant automakers trembling? OK, he doesn't—but they'll all be sorry they ignored him when his radical engine design proves to be the greatest invention since the microchip.
By Brad Wetzler


Hikers sneer at bikers. Bikers want to make hikers into roadkill. To the eternal question—Who hates whom in the outdoors?—the answer continues to be: everybody and everyone. Meanwhile access to thousands of miles of trails hangs in the balance.
By Jill Danz

  D E P A R T M E N T S
News from the Field
To be a steepcreeker, you must kayak down 70-foot cascades and pull off jaw-dropping acrobatics—and live to tell about it. Is this an example of extreme sport gone amok or the dawning of an overdue kayaking renaissance?

to protect migrating animals from possible extinction. Why are some critics calling the plan the cultural genocide of rural America?
and everything you need to know about the latest rage in homestead decorating on the range.
Did we mention he's a conservationist?
PLUS:


The frog days of summer: What's deforming the leaping amphibians? What's the difference between a frog and a toad? Do frogs spontaneously generate? And can it really rain frogs?
By Hampton Sides


With cold daggers of panic slicing him from neck to navel, our correspondent stares directly into the abyss and confronts a nameless dread. Will he choke, or bravely channel Ethel Merman?
By Tim Cahill


George Mallory's disappearance high on Everest begat mountaineering's greatest mystery: Did he reach the summit 29 years before Hillary? The recent discovery of his body offers up another tantalizing mystery: Who was the man behind the legend?
By Mark Jenkins


The ultimate pilgrimage: At the edge of L.A.'s great concrete sprawlopolis lie the Pacific-blue waters that hatched the soul of American beach culture. Herewith, a local's guide to California's coastal urban-adventure Mecca. It's got the best biking, snorkeling, and paddling around. And even the whales have a shtick.

  offer superb detail without making you go cross-eyed.
you can hike 15,000-foot volcanoes, swim at the base of waterfalls, and sip Chilean wines.
Last-minute millennium-eve adventure deals: Summit three peaks in Mexico; pedal the Golden Triangle; kayak Vava'u; and more.


Be the torpedo: If you've hit a plateau, interval training (remember wind sprints?) is the best way to get stronger, go faster, and otherwise make the competition eat your wake.

  The science of speed:


Fleet Street: Confused by the choices at your neighborhood Foot Locker—silicone inserts, see-through soles, carbon fiber reinforcements? Here's the smart way to take advantage of the new high-tech, high-performance, and highly specialized running shoes. Plus: the latest and lightest in running accessories.

  The skinny on those tiny, next-generation audio systems,
: Hot type in the summertime: Scott Weidensaul's Living on the Wind, Jennifer Price's Flight Maps: ϳԹs with Nature in Modern America, Michael Reynolds's Hemingway: The Final Years, and more.

©1999, ϳԹ magazine