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How to Improve Your Belaytionship

POM Administrator — Sat, 18 Jan 2025 09:00:10 +0000

My whole perspective on “belaytionships” (and how to improve them) changed when a friend referred to the task as a “sacred duty.” It’s common to view our turn on the ground as nothing more than filler time between pitches, or worse: a burden that we must bear in exchange for the joys of climbing. But belaying is more than just a necessary evil. The special relationship between belay partners is what elevates climbing from a myopic pursuit of personal excellence to a reciprocal experience. Supporting someone else on their journey toward the send can feel just as powerful as making that journey ourselves.��

The best belaytionships have respect for both sides of the equation. Not only that, both parties put in the effort to learn and implement what their partner needs from a belayer to feel safe and secure while climbing. That’s no easy feat, considering how vulnerable the act of pushing limits high off the deck can leave a climber. The barrage of emotion often amplifies our fears and needs far beyond what they would be on the ground. A strong belaytionship takes all the havoc in stride.��

But it doesn’t happen overnight. Just like in any other relationship, climbing partners have to go through their fair share of struggles in order to reach a state of mutual respect and support. Learn from some of the most long-standing belaytionships in the sport about how to weather the storms that plague even the most dynamic of duos in the sport, and foster the kind of partnership that will last as long as your love for climbing.��

(Photo: Lucie Hanes)

1. Prioritize the Person

Yes, your project is important. It’s what motivates you to crawl out of your cozy bed in time to catch the cool morning temps, stay out late until the sun sets over the cliff, and dedicate every spare hour to deciphering its coded messages. But we’d all do well to remember one thing: it’s still just a rock.��

“At the end of the day,” says climber Andy Salo, “you’re going home with your partner—not your project. Whatever emotions and stresses you’re dealing with as a result of your project bounces off on your partner, and they have to carry that.”

Salo and his partner Whitney Boland have been climbing together for over a decade. They’re able to support each other best when the one on the wall exercises enough restraint to keep their worst wobblers in check. A charged reaction to what happens on your project may not be a personal attack on your belayer, but it sure can feel that way to them. Taking their presence for granted will inevitably push them away. Rocks are great and all, but they’ve got nothing on real live human beings. No project is worth losing your partner over.��

2. Let It Go

That being said, wobblers will happen. Even the most restrained among us isn’t immune to the frustrations involved in climbing. When your partner’s feelings come out in a big way, stay grounded. Maggie and Chuck Odette, Maple Canyon legends who have been steadfast partners in all things climbing and life for the past 14 years, suggest “putting up a force-field” when emotions run high.��

“It’s not about ignoring the other person’s feelings,” Maggie clarifies, “but more about protecting your own emotional state. It’s basically an agreement that just because I’m having a low-confidence or less-than-optimal day, I don’t expect you to join in!”��

In that sense, belayers might have to take one for the team sometimes. Pick your battles. Some things are worth addressing with your climbing partner for the sake of improving your dynamic. Other gripes might be better kept silent if they’re more likely to cause trouble than good once they’re out in the open. In the wise words of good ol’ Dr. Phil: Do you want to be right, or do you want to be together?��

3. Trust Their Tactics

It’s not just the climber that experiences heightened emotions. Belayers often go through their own emotional rollercoasters, especially when they’re in charge of protecting someone they care deeply about. You want to support them in their efforts…but you also want to get them back down to the ground safely. And in a sport like climbing, where there are very real risks involved, the two don’t always mix.

Salo and Boland emphasize the importance of trusting your partner’s instincts. “Whitney learned that if I felt confident enough for a scary lead, she could trust that I was going to be as safe as possible doing it—even though that was nerve-wracking for her,” says Salo. “Any fear she felt for me was best kept to herself,” he explains, because the expression of it would throw off the focus and confidence he needed to climb safely.��

Trust is the foundation of any stable relationship, belaytionships included. Talk to your climber ahead of time about their expectations for the route and affirm your belief in their ability to make sound decisions. Address any concerns before they ever leave the ground. Then, when they’re off, follow through with that trust. It’s key to ensuring their safety.��

4. Plan Ahead

Just because you’re climbing together doesn’t mean that your agendas will always align. Be careful not to assume that you and your partner have the exact same plan in mind. The Odette’s learned early on that they don’t tend to wake up at the same pace in the morning. Rather than let that turn into a chronic disagreement, they make sure to make a game plan for what the next day will look like before going to bed the night before.��

Do your best to line up your ideal day with your partner’s. If possible, find climbs that are close enough to each other at the crag so that you can both have equal time on your projects. “If it’s impossible to hit both in the same day,” adds Salo, “give up one weekend day to your partner and trade off the next day. You might not send as quick, but you’ll keep from burning out your belaytionship.”

5. Fail Together, Send Together

“Always remember that even though you and your partner are in the same place, at the same time, doing the same thing, it’s not very likely that you’re experiencing it exactly the same way,” says Odette.��

To find common ground, treat climbing as a team effort. “Most of climbing is failing,” Odette reminds us. “If you’re going to fail in front of anyone, your person is the best choice. And when one of you sends, it’s a win for the team!”��

Put yourself in their shoes. Take on their failures and celebrate their sends. You might not know exactly how they’re feeling, but the effort goes a long way. Ask them about their experience and absorb every nitty-gritty detail. The better you understand their emotional state while climbing, the better you can share in their journey and tackle each pitch in harmony.

6. Nurture the Relationship

…not just the belaytionship. Salo firmly believes that “climbing will expose any shortcomings in the relationship between belay partners as a whole.” Whether you climb with your life partner or a close friend, your connection extends beyond the crag. Even if you only see your belay partner during climbing sessions, I’m willing to bet that your conversations between pitches go much deeper than “belay on, climb on.”

With that in mind, problems in a belaytionship often stem from elsewhere in the relationship. “If you haven’t figured out how to support your partner in other avenues of life, it likely will not happen in climbing either,” warns Salo. Dissect the conflicts that crop up with your partner while climbing. Are they really about the amount of slack in the rope or what your partner said while they were cruxing? Or do they have more to do with something going on at home? Try as you might, you can’t separate the two completely.��

In the short-term, aim to resolve any outside disputes before you get to the crag—or at least press pause. The physical and emotional demands of climbing will only escalate those struggles until they’re worse than they were before. In the long-term, pick up on the patterns that dictate your crag conflicts. What do they say about more serious insecurities or disagreements plaguing your relationship? Get to the root of the issue. Nurture the relationship to save the belaytionship.��

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Two Brothers Flew Over Val d’Isere in a Battery-Powered Paraglider.

Fred Dreier — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 12:56:17 +0000

On October 30, British twins Hugo and Ross Turner ascended to 8,500 feet in an electric-powered paraglider-like aircraft, called a paramotor. The brothers soared over the ski resort Val d’Isere in the French Alps.

The 34-year-olds told ��ϳԹ�� their flight set a world record for highest altitude by a tandem team in one of the battery-powered devices, and that they have submitted their flight data to the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI), the governing body for air sports.

A paramotor is a steerable parachute, similar to a paraglider, outfitted with a giant rear propeller. Unlike a traditional paraglider, where pilots must launch from a cliff or hillside and catch columns of rising warm air to ascend, the motor and propeller allow pilots to take off from open, flat ground—no hills or cliffs required. “This is why paramotoring is so popular in places like the United Kingdom,” Hugo said.

Though mostly reliant on gas-powered engines, some paramotor companies are aiming to become greener. But electric batteries are notoriously heavy, and, when flying a parachute, every ounce counts. “The big challenge the industry is facing is this conscious decision that we need to move away from petrol engines,” Hugo said, “but it’s difficult to get enough battery power to make the weight justifiable.”

Although the world’s first electric paramotor was built in 2006, the technology has seen little refinement in the nearly two decades since. Most of the devices are powered by two-stroke combustion engines which burn around a gallon of gasoline per hour, and can typically fly for two-to-three hours without refueling. “To get the same flight time out of an electric paramotor, you’re talking a battery weight that a human could not physically carry,” Hugo said. “The energy density of the battery is so much that getting an extended flight time is very difficult.”

A look at the electric paramot0r blade (Photo: Hugo and Ross Turner)

The weight is a difficult problem to solve, but even beyond concerns about emissions, there are other advantages to electric paramotors. They’re quieter, and—like electric cars and motorcycles—smoother to drive. Electric motors offer instant, consistent torque, which makes flying an electric paramotor more predictable and controlled than a gas-powered paramotor. Electric power also comes with unique advantages at high elevation. As altitude increases, air pressure decreases, causing gas-powered motors to lose thrust due to a lower oxygen-fuel ratio. Electric motors, on the other hand, maintain consistent power output regardless of elevation.

There has never been a tandem electric paramotor altitude record before, so even the relatively low elevation of 8,500 feet was enough to get the brothers in the record books. But theirs isn’t the first altitude record set in any electric paramotor. American Nathan Finneman reached 14,790 feet with an electric-powered wing��in September.

Finneman was flying solo, however, and started from a much higher elevation, at over 10,000 feet in Leadville, Colorado. His paramotor battery put out 4.8 kiloWatt-hours (kWh) of power, and let him climb for 28 minutes despite brutally cold temperatures, which dropped to -13 degrees Fahrenheit��with windchill. “There are a handful of electric paramotors like this out there,” Ross said, “but they’re only designed for solo flight. We wanted to look past that, and see what we could do in tandem.”

“We’re all about pushing the limits of new technology through purposeful adventure,” Ross added. “We’ve started off with a blank canvas and said, ‘What is the best emission-free technology that we could use to make a benchmark?’”

The two brothers took off from a field at the foot of the peaks (Photo: Ross and Hugo Turner)

Their paramotor, dubbed the E-Maverick Max, was custom designed by United Kingdom manufacturer Parajet International. The entire rig weighed about 88 pounds, 50 pounds of which was the battery. Their motor powered a carbon fiber propeller, sporting three 4.5-foot blades. This rig gave the twins 175 pounds of thrust, pumped out by a 5.8 kWh lithium ion pouch cell battery, which ran for 35 minutes in the air.

Thirty-five minutes is a far cry from the two or three hours that a gas-powered motor could last, but it’s a start, and was even more than the 28 minutes Finneman was able to fly with his solo paramotor. Though it may not sound like much time, it’s a significant achievement considering the twins weighed a staggering 530 pounds on takeoff.

The twins launched from 6,200 feet, and though they hoped to be able to get above 10,000 feet, their flight went awry. “We weighed so much that we really struggled to gain altitude,” Ross said, noting that the World Air Sports Federation (FAI) observer watching them was surprised they even managed to take off.

“We launched from the field, and we immediately started heading down-valley, and we just dropped,” he said. “This massive pocket of cold air made us sink quite fast. Fortunately we found this ridgeline, a fork between two valleys, and we got some lift there. That’s where we stayed, working patterns between the ridgelines to keep rising.” The twins crested 8,520 feet before the battery cut out. They are currently waiting for their record to be formally verified by the FAI.

The brothers believe the new technology could open the door for more recreational flights (Photo: Ross and Hugo Turner)

Hugo and Ross explained that, while they likely could have climbed higher if they’d started at a higher elevation, FAI altitude record stipulations required that they launch from a flat location with a 330-foot radius in all directions, a rare sight in the Alps, where the twins live. “Otherwise, we could have certainly taken off on the top of a mountain,” Hugo said. “In any case, we hope this will start a trend towards making recreational flying greener, and better for the environment.”

“Electric is unquestionably the future,” said Parajet founder Gilo Gardozo. “Now it’s a question of people adopting that reality, and the technology delivering.”

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Tommy Caldwell Takes Us Behind the Scenes of ‘The Devil’s Climb’

Fred Dreier — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 19:57:00 +0000

In the summer of 2023, climbers Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold tackled an adventure of monumental size: they biked, hiked, and sailed 2,600 miles from Colorado to Alaska, and then ascended a massive granite monolith deep in Tongass National Forest called the Devil’s Thumb. The duo made history: they became the first climbers to ascend the 9,000-foot formation’s five jagged peaks—a challenge known as the Diablo Traverse—in a single day.

The adventure is the focal point of��National Geographic’s��latest feature-length documentary, titled��The Devil’s Climb,��which debuted in October. Caldwell, who conceived of the adventure, spoke with ��ϳԹ�� about some of the most pivotal moments that were left out of the film.

“We spent four days doing like a quarter mile an hour bushwhacking through the Alaskan wilderness,” Caldwell said. “It was the hardest part of the whole trip, all the way from Colorado, but none of it’s in the film.”

Most climbers attempting to scale the Devil’s Thumb get there via helicopter. But for the film, Caldwell and Honnold spent 38 days biking 2,320 miles from his home in Estes Park, Colorado, to the tiny town of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, where the roadway ends. Then, the duo sailed for ten days up the Alaskan Panhandle, before trekking 20 more miles to reach the peak.

Tommy Caldwell on the Devil’s Thumb expedition that includes biking, hiking, sailing and climbing. They rode just shy of 2,300 and the expedition took 55 days. (Photo: National Geographic/Taylor Schaffer)

The hike to the peak should have been relatively straightforward, following a historical route up a glacier. But the glacier had melted into a lake of slush and icebergs when the duo reached it. So instead, Caldwell, Honnold, and the eight-person National Geographic film crew had to chart a new route in the adjacent valley—an old-growth temperate rainforest.

Caldwell recalls being “soaked to the bone” by the dense, wet understory, fighting his way through ten-foot tall Devil’s Club, a shrub covered top-to-bottom in noxious thorns, for “hours and hours.” One of the crew developed trench foot. Another almost fell to their death while the group was hiking after dark along a steep, forested hillside above Class V rapids.

“They lost their footing and just disappeared through the forest below us,” Caldwell said. “We thought they fell into the rapids. Luckily, they stuck it right at the lip of the cliff.”

Caldwell and Honnold’s longest, most sustained effort of the entire journey occurred during that trek. They put in 15-20 hour hiking days because it was impossible to move quickly through the vegetation. “The bush is so thick,” Caldwell says, “there were periods were we didn’t even touch the ground, where were just kind of like hovering.”

He hit rock bottom, mentally, during the trek, and credits the filming crew with renewing his focus. “We’re bushwhacking in the rainforest, completely wet, kind of lost, just miserable, and suddenly one of the guys who loves to sing starts beatboxing,” Caldwell said. “The whole crew joins in and starts rapping, making up this song.”

Caldwell watching Honnold do a pull up on the sail boat whilst sailing through the Inside Passage��(�ʳ�ǳٴ�: National Geographic/Matt Pycroft)

The spontaneous injection of levity was exactly what Caldwell needed. “The film was very focused on Alex and I,” he said, “but there were so many other people who were a big part of it for me.”

One of those people is Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. Caldwell and Honnold spent a couple days at Chounaird’s house during the early portion of their expedition, while biking through Jackson, Wyoming. Caldwell originally dreamed up of the Devil’s Thumb climb as a way to shine a spotlight on the Tongass National Forest. Specifically the need to protect it from logging and other development—a cause also championed by Chouinard, who Caldwell said is “essentially my boss” these days.

Besides being a professional climber, Caldwell also works for Patagonia as a Global Sports Activist. “A big part of my job is trying to figure out places that have a conservation need and a climbing component,” he said.

Aerial view of Caldwell and Honnold climbing up a ridgeline on the East Witch, with mountains in the background. (Photo: National Geographic/Renan Ozturk)

Chouinard was part of the reason Caldwell decided to expand the Diablo Traverse into an epic adventure, to do it human-powered, and to do with his best friend Honnold. Caldwell had recently read A Wild Idea, a biography by author Jonathan Franklin about the late businessman and conservationist Doug Tompkins, and was inspired by the conservation work (and expeditions) Tompkins and Chouinard had done together in Patagonia.

Caldwell calls his and Honnold’s time with Chouinard the “most endearing” part of their journey. Biking to Chouinard’s home, Caldwell quickly realized how many of the original houses in Jackson had been scraped to build mansions. Not Chouinard’s. It is the same as it was 50 years ago when it was purchased. Pedaling up the driveway, Caldwell noticed a beater Subaru, “the shittiest car I’ve ever seen in my life,” with a bumper sticker proclaiming “Every billionaire is a policy failure.”

Chouinard stepped out of the modest home to greet Caldwell and Honnold. “He’s wearing this stained white t-shirt and these jeans that he probably got when he’s a teenager that he’s cobbled back together with hand-stitched patches,” Caldwell said. “And we were like, Oh my god, he really lives it.”

Honnold and Caldwell celebrating on top of the Devil’s Thumb (Photo: National Geographic/Renan Ozturk)

Caldwell had hoped that the conservation angle would have been a larger part of the documentary film. Particularly the time he and Honnold spent with an Indigenous leader and activist named Marina Anderson on Prince of Wales Island, while they were sailing in the Tongass National Forest archipelago. Caldwell first met Anderson at a climate conference in Miami, and was excited to learn about her home region’s ecology and biodiversity.

While the cameras were rolling, Anderson taught the climbers about the importance of temperate rainforests (Tongass National Forest is the world’s largest at nearly 17 million acres) and took them salmon fishing. Those scenes were ultimately cut. “It was a little bit of a hard pill to swallow, honestly,” Caldwell said. “We were ultimately making this story to save the forest.”

Want more of ��ϳԹ��’s in-depth coverage of adventure stories like this one? .

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This Man Just Paddled 46 Miles in a Gigantic Pumpkin

Fred Dreier — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 22:22:33 +0000

Gary Kristensen dipped his double-bladed paddle into the Columbia River and pulled as hard as he could. The effort felt fruitless—it was like he was paddling through peanut butter. Kristensen, 46, had expected a gentle tailwind for his boating journey, but gusts were cresting 35 miles per hour, sending waves splashing onto him. Next to Kristensen, a support kayak was having to paddle backward just to keep even with his sluggish pace.

Kristensen’s journey would have been easier, of course, if not for his chosen watercraft: a 950-pound pumpkin.

From October 12 to 13, Kristensen, a real estate appraiser from Happy Valley, Oregon, spent 26 hours paddling his enormous gourd down the Columbia River. He completed 45.67 miles, which the as the new record for a category titled “longest journey by pumpkin.” Kristensen told ��ϳԹ�� that the arduous journey was a true test for any paddler—especially when gusting winds kicked up.

“Water was coming over the top constantly,” Kristensen told ��ϳԹ��. “It was like paddling a bowl of soup.”

Kristensen battled wind, waves, and foul weather on his journey (Photo: Kyle Kristensen)

Kristensen is no stranger to using enormous gourds as boats—he’s been growing massive pumpkins since 2011 and paddling them since 2013. He’s raced pumpkins in the West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta, an annual festival for seaworthy gourds held in the coastal town of Tualatin, every year since 2013, and has won the event four times since 2018.

Until this year, the standing record for longest pumpkin paddle was 39 miles, set last October on the Missouri River by Steve Kueny and his pumpkin, Huckleberry. But as he watched his own pumpkins grow this season, Kristensen thought he might have one that could rival Huckleberry. He dubbed this challenger “The Punky Loafster,” partly as an ode to the eighties sitcom, but also because he’d jammed wooden boards next to the pumpkin as it formed, so that it would grow in long and skinny, like a loaf of bread.

“If you’re going to race a pumpkin, you want a smaller pumpkin, like around 700 or 800 pounds,” Kristensen said.

Growing pumpkin watercraft is a science, Kristensen explained. For a long distance paddle, on a river like the Columbia, with boat traffic, wind, and waves, you want a larger gourd, to give yourself more space to stretch, and more room to take on water without sinking. You also want the pumpkin to be as long and symmetrical as possible, with a flat bottom and smooth skin.

Kristensen grew the massive pumpkin in his yard (top), and it weighed more than 1,200 pounds. He then hollowed out the center, which dropped the weight to 950 pounds. Kristensen transported the craft to the Columbia River, where he paddled for 26 hours in it to set the new record. (Photo: Gary Kristensen)

Kristensen trained for his journey with daily runs, and long weekend paddling trips with pool noodles wrapped around his kayak, to simulate the drag he’d experience with the pumpkin. Punky Loafster—which measured 14 feet around—weighed 1,224 pounds before Kristensen hollowed it out, and it still weighed in at a monstrous 950 pounds before he hopped into it and began paddling. Compare that to the average canoe or kayak, which might run anywhere from 30 to 50 pounds, and it’s easy to see why manning the Loafster was so arduous.��“You paddle, and it just doesn’t move,” he said.

When Kristensen hopped into the Loafster on October 12, he carried a small pump to bail water and a yoga mat to sit on. Aside from that, it was just him, a pumpkin, and a paddle.

Even by pumpkin paddling standards, Kristensen had a rough go. Previous record holder Kueny averaged around 3.5 mph on the Missouri River inside Huckleberry. Kristensen and Punky Loafster recorded an average speed around 1.7 mph. “It was pathetic,” he joked. “At best we had a half mile per hour current. But at times I think the current was even flowing backward, because of the tide.”

The strong winds, which began hammering him when he was only five miles down the river, made things particularly tough. “These were pretty big waves. They’d be a lot for any boat,” he said.�� Kristensen tried to stop paddling to pump water, but battered by the waves, without his paddles to balance the pumpkin, he was at constant risk of capsizing. It took an hour for him to get to shore, drain his pumpkin, and let the winds die down, but he managed to do it without sinking.

All Kristensen had in the pumpkin was a yoga mat, a water pump, and a paddle (Photo: Kyle Kristensen)

That evening, disaster struck again. The electric lights strung up on his friend’s support pontoon boat caught fire and were destroyed. “We were trying to use those lights to help us find a beach and a safe place to park the pumpkin,” Kristensen explained. Without the lights, they continued paddling through the night—17 hours of continuous paddling in total—until the sun rose and they could safely dock the pumpkin.

Finding a gentle beach, Kristensen moored his pumpkin and climbed out to take a nap. He woke an hour later to find tides had left the Loafster high and dry on the beach. “I tried to get it back in the water, and I couldn’t budge it at all,” he said. “It would not move an inch.” His friend, David, furiously began digging the pumpkin out, but the pair soon discovered that the beach had been used to moor barges, and there were large industrial cables underneath the ground. Gingerly rolling the 950-pound watercraft around this minefield of cables, it took three hours for Kristensen to get the Punky Loafster back in the water. Kristensen paddled the remainder of the day to finish out his 46-mile trip.

Kristensen celebrates his successful voyage (Photo: Kyle Kristensen)

Despite all the obstacles, Kristensen didn’t didn’t end his paddle because his pumpkin sank or broke apart, or because he was too exhausted to continue. The Punky Loafster was still riverworthy, but as darkness fell on their second day of paddling, he and David decided to end their journey. It was Sunday, and they had to go back to work the following day. “I felt strong,” Kristensen said, “but we were running out of weekend.”

Kristensen may have entered the annals of Guinness World Record fame, but there will be no floating off into the sunset for the Punky Loafster. Kristensen left his craft lying on the banks of the Columbia River next to the boat ramp where he put out. “I’m sure it rotted away long ago,” he told me. He plans to return next year with another pumpkin, and see how much farther he can go.

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The Ultimate View

elessard — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 10:57:53 +0000

It’s time to flip the script on the experience of watching movies. Gone are the days when you’d need to stay at home to tee up a movie or bingeable series from your couch. Whether you’re in a remote campsite, a friend’s backyard, or your own living room, Samsung screens turn anywhere into the ultimate, immersive home theater. Now, you don’t need to go where the best setup is, because it can be wherever you are.

That’s why we’re sending a select group of friends on the road to watch iconic films in the epic outdoor locations that inspired them. Guess where they’re headed, and you could win a select Samsung screen to stage your own watch-anywhere party. Here’s how it works:

Geo-Guessing Challenge

This fall, three ��ϳԹ�� ambassadors are spreading out across the country, setting up shop in mystery locations connected to their favorite movies. They’ll create an immersive movie viewing setup in unique locations (thanks to Samsung screens!), and share images and clues to help you guess where they are. After all, what’s more iconic than watching��The Goonies��in an Oregon cave, or Jaws on a beach in Martha’s Vineyard?

Not much, says James Fishler, Chief Executive of Samsung Home Entertainment, who’s logged dozens of van-based road trips from the Catskills to the Adirondacks and down to Assateague Island. “I love getting outdoors any chance I get, and I also love nothing more than setting up a movie night—especially if it’s an old classic like one my favorites, Harry and the Hendersons,” Fishler says. “With Samsung, there’s no reason I can’t do both!

“Whether I’m at home, on-the-go, or anywhere in between, our cutting-edge lineup of Samsung screens let you upscale every moment and deliver the ultimate viewing experience,” adds Fishler, pictured below. “The world becomes your theater, and your theater transforms into the world you’re watching.”

Here’s How It Works:

Starting on October 28, we’ll launch the first in a series of��three challenges, dropping clues and photos to give everyone a chance to guess the locations. At the end of each challenge, ambassadors will post a reel revealing where they are. Guess correctly, and you’ll be entered into a sweepstakes to win a cutting-edge Samsung screen (more below).

New to geo-guessing? No problem. We’ve enlisted professional Google Maps player , the best in the biz, to help make this challenge fun and accessible for everyone.

Episode 1

First up, we’ll tag along with Caziah “Caz” Franklin, the road-tripping renaissance man who seeks to capture the deeper essence of adventure. With his Ford Bronco, Caz is eager to spend nights under the stars between iconic national parks and wild campsites off the beaten path. Equipped with Samsung screens to join the adventure, he’ll showcase a creative theater experience, no matter how rugged the road to get there. Check out ��(��ܲ��Ի��) on Oct. 28 for the first clues about his secret screening spot.

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“We had an incredible time filming with the Freestyle by Samsung,” notes Caz, impressed with the projector’s compact design and performance. “It’s the ultimate piece of gear for those who want to unite cinema and nature—living up to its name, offering versatile, high-quality entertainment anywhere.”

Samsung Screens

The geo-guessing prize? One of these Samsung screens, all perfectly equipped to elevate your next active viewing experience.

: Pick a spot, any spot. This portable projector brings your favorite content to life anywhere you choose: from the walls, to the ceiling, to the side of your home. Weighing less than two pounds, it’s more compact and lightweight than a pair of hiking boots; easily take it with you for all of your travels, whether it’s across the country or just across the yard. Stream¹must-watch shows and movies in Full HD on a screen that can project up to 100”. Play thousands of the top gaming titles from partners like Xbox – no console required². It’s even compatible with external USB-connected battery banks³, so you can roam freely while staying connected.

: Turn every movie night (or day!) into an epic, open-air entertainment experience with this outdoor-optimized TV. Its screen is engineered to look vivid and bright, even in daylight⁴. Its Wide Viewing Angle and Anti-Glare screen makes it easy to watch what you love from any seat, eliminating distractions and ensuring a clear picture. It boasts an IP56 rating for durability so you can enjoy your favorite content outside throughout the seasons.

:��Experience all of your favorite movies and shows across both light��and dark rooms with nearly no glare, thanks to the Samsung S95D series. This TV’s screen is optimized with Glare-Free technology to bring every scene to life with the purest blacks, brightest whites, and Pantone®-validated color.

: Life’s biggest adventures deserve the biggest screens. That’s why Samsung offers a super big lineup of 98-inch-class screens, designed to transform every movie night into the ultimate view. Not all big screens are created equal, though —but the Samsung lineup is built with advanced Supersize Picture Enhancer⁵, a feature that can help you clearly see every detail on screen without any distortion or blur, even at the 98-inch size (*available on 85” Class TVs Q80D and above, and all 98” Class TVs).

¹Includes Samsung SmartHub by Wi-Fi; additional external content by Micro HDMI port (adapter/cables not included) and compatible devices with AirPlay 2, SmartThings’ Tap View.
²High speed internet connection, additional gaming service subscriptions and compatible controller required.
³External battery sold separately, needs to support USB Power Delivery and 60W/20V output or above.
⁴The Terrace Full Sun panel is protected up to 6 hours in sunlight at 700 watts and 104 degrees Fahrenheit; brightness may decrease to protect panel with other high temperature and sunlight conditions. The Terrace Partial Sun is designed for placement and use in outdoor shaded environments. The TV can be exposed to ambient or non-direct sunlight, but direct sunlight must be avoided.
⁵Supersize Picture Enhancer is available on 85” Class TVs Q80D and above, and all 98” Class TVs.

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Two Climbers Were Stuck at 21,000 Feet in the Himalayas. Here’s How They Survived.

Fred Dreier — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 19:14:22 +0000

When the sun rose on the morning of October 5, climbers Fay Manners and Michelle Dvorak��sat perched on a tiny rock ledge at 21,000 feet, high on the flanks of the 22,949-foot Himalayan peak Chaukhamba III. The pair had been stranded on the ledge for 48 hours without shelter, food, or water. A driving snowfall steadily buried them, and the two were exhausted and freezing.

Two days prior, Dvorak and Manners had been attempting a first ascent of the Indian peak when falling rocks sliced a rope and sent a bag full of their survival goods and technical gear plummeting to the valley floor. The accident left them stranded without critical items, such as a working communication device, tent, stove and fuel, and down apparel.

As the two rested, a search helicopter from the Indian Air Force appeared overhead—it circled the mountain several times, but flew off without spotting them. It was the second fly-by in as many days.

“We were shattered,” Manners told ��ϳԹ��. “At this point we haven’t eaten for two days. We’re severely dehydrated. We’re freezing. We’ve been on the wall seven days.”

Manners was near hypothermic. With the snowstorm worsening, she did not believe the two could survive another night on the precarious perch. She envisioned two options for survival: Stay on the ledge a third night and hope that the helicopters would find them, or descend the wall and then navigate a technical, crevasse-filled icefall with just one set of crampons and ice axes. Both choices came with deadly risks.

Dvorak enjoying a meal before the climbers lost their gear bag (Photo: Fay Manners and Michelle Dvorak)

A Tricky Attempt at History

Manners, 37, and Dvorak, 31, are among the upper echelon of alpinists. Manners has established new routes from remote Pakistan to Greenland—the latter with Dvorak and . In 2022, the duo made an ascent��of Denali’s legendary Cassin Ridge, one of the most famous alpine routes in the world.

Chaukhamba III, in the Garhwal Himalaya of India’s mountainous Uttarakhand state, was a fitting objective for the pair. High and remote, with a gargantuan triangular southeast buttress that no one had ever attempted to climb, the peak offered an enticing challenge and the opportunity for a first ascent.

A look at the Buttress on the side of Chaukhamba III, and the route the two attempted (Photo: Fay Manners and Michelle Dvorak)

The two left Delhi for the remote mountain on September 15. After establishing a base camp, they spent September 24 to 26 planning their approach across a steep, winding line through a labyrinth of deadly crevasses to reach the peak’s southeast buttress. “Snowbridges broke on us, we were going down and up crevasses, having to ice climb with our axes and crampons—all before we even reached the col,” Manners said. “By the time we figured out how to get to our route, we felt like we’d done another route in itself.”

Manners and Dvorak left base camp for good on September 27, reaching the buttress the following day. Over the next five days, they ascended the sheer 2,000-foot granite face. It was hard, committing climbing, where a mistake would carry serious consequences. The women made steady progress. The conditions was dry and warm, which allowed them to climb with bare hands, but the balmy conditions carried a hidden danger. As temperatures rose around midday, snow and ice securing loose rocks on the buttress melted, causing blocks of rock and ice to tumble down. It was a risk they had to accept.

“We could only climb when it was warm,” Dvorak said. “As soon as the shade hit, our fingers were freezing, and it was impossible to climb.” After dawn-to-dusk days alternating between muddy scrambling on lower-angle sections and hard rock climbing on the steeper parts of the face, and long, near-sleepless nights cramped on small ledges, the pair was nearing the top of the 2,000-foot buttress. Soon, they would connect with the peak’s south ridge, where lower angles guarded the 22,949-foot summit.

At 1 P.M. on Thursday, October 3, Manners was in the lead, with Dvorak following behind. They were traveling in a fashion typical of big wall rock climbing, carrying some equipment in small packs on their back, but using a pulley system to lift a haul bag with the majority of their gear behind them. This duffel contained Manners’ Garmin satellite messenger, as well as their tent, stove, fuel, portable power banks, one pair of crampons and ice axes, down pants and headlamp, and��other essentials.

Dvorak navigates a section of steep rock (Photo: Fay Manners and Michelle Dvorak)

As Manners hauled the bag, the ropes became stuck. Dvorak, watching from below, climbed above the bag to try to free it. That’s when the cliff below her broke apart, slicing the rope holding their duffel. “These rocks just came out from under me,” she said. “The next thing I knew, I looked down, and the bag was gone.”

The loss of the gear was catastrophic, and signaled an immediate end to their summit push. At first, the women were simply disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to finish their route. But after a moment, they realized just how many of their essentials had been inside the haul bag. As if on command, dark clouds rolled in, and heavy snow began to fall. The warm weather that had accompanied them for the last five days was coming to an end. “The mood really changed,” Dvorak said. “We were just like, ‘Oh, shit. We are not safe on this mountain anymore.’”

Three Days of Snow and Wind

Though Manners’ Garmin was lost with the bag, Dvorak had a similar device, a ZOLEO. Unlike a Garmin inReach, this device doesn’t have its own screen, and requires a paired smartphone to operate. Dvorak’s phone had just enough charge for her to fire off a single SOS, but her phone died just moments after the message was sent. Manners and Dvorak knew their message was in the ether and their location had been marked for rescuers, but they had no idea if any were coming. So the women waited.

They had enough rope and gear to descend from the buttress, but once they did, they’d still have to navigate the icy, steep, crevasse-filled descent off the col to their camp. Descending this section with just one pair of crampons was a high-risk option. “Given the incredibly complex, challenging approach, we knew it wasn’t possible,” Manners said. “Even if we get down off the rock, how the hell are we going to operate on that terrain without our gear?”

Manners (left) and Dvorak after surviving a cold evening on the wall (Photo: Fay Manners and Michelle Dvorak)

It made more sense to stay put and wait for a rescue. When rescue helicopters showed up late on that first day, it seemed like their decision to stay was correct. But then the helicopters flew overhead without stopping. This happened again the next day.

“That’s when we started to have lengthy conversations about what we should do, about how much we should risk,” Manners said.

The duo had no food or no water. Dvorak had her down parka and pants, but Manners’ warm weather gear had been in the haul bag. They were sharing what they could, but Manners was certain she wouldn’t survive another night on the ledge. “I was going to freeze,” she said.

On the third day, the women began rappelling down the buttress. They weren’t sure how they’d navigate the approach. They could split up, with one person taking the sleeping bag and attempting to survive while the other used the crampons to descend to base camp. Or, they could each wear one crampon and attempt the descent together. Both options required strength and stamina, and the women were weakened by their stay on the ledge.

“We’d already waited two days up there. We were severely dehydrated, hungry, freezing,” Manners said. “Our bodies were weak, and even before we lost the haul bag we’d been climbing for six days, pushing our limits.”

The decision ended up being moot. While rappelling down the buttress late on Saturday, Manners and Dvorak saw a four-person team of climbers on the glacier. “We realized we had to catch these guys,’” Dvorak said. “This might be our only chance to get out of here.”

The route across a steep glacier the two had to make with limited gear (Photo: Fay Manners and Michelle Dvorak)

The four climbers were from the French Group Militaire de Haute Montagne of Chamonix. Due to the bad weather, they had abandoned their own attempt on the peak’s east pillar. That’s when they heard word of the missing Manners and Dvorak.

Dvorak and Manners rappelled as fast as they could down the buttress, and but lost sight of the French team. But after a few minutes, the squad appeared directly below them, just a hundred or so feet above the glacier.

“It was a miracle,” Manners said. “Perfect timing. When we got to them, they’d been trying to get to us as well. We were worried that maybe they didn’t even know we were missing, and were just coming to try their route, so my heart was overfull when we figured out they were there for us.”

With gear and support from the French team, Manners and Dvorak were able to descend to the French advanced base camp at around 17,000 feet. They were airlifted out by helicopter the following day.

The two said they received a warm welcome from the Indian Mountaineering Federation (IMF), which organized the rescue. “There’s no, ‘Here’s a giant bill for the rescue, you owe us,’ mentality,” said Manners. “The message was, ‘We are so happy we could get to you, and we want you to come back and we want you to try this mountain again.”

A Media Whirlwind

Manners (left) and Dvorak became the subjects of intense media interest (Photo: Fay Manners and Michelle Dvorak)

News of the rescue spread around the globe. The women were helicoptered out on the morning of Sunday, October 6, and within 48 hours, coverage of their ordeal appeared on numerous outlets, from the to . It was more publicity than either woman had received in their careers. But both told ��ϳԹ����they had mixed feelings about the attention.

“Certainly both Michelle and I feel we put in a grand effort here,” Manners said. “But this is a mountain we didn’t summit. The mountains we have summited, the successes we’ve had, they haven’t received nearly as much publicity.”

Manners said that the pair seek to inspire women to get into the mountains—a goal that could be jeopardized by the stories. “I don’t want this story to put people off from the sport,” she said.

Manners and Dvorak told ��ϳԹ����they’d continually replayed the ordeal, asking themselves if they could have done things differently. A steeper route up the face may have reduced rockfall. Manners could have carried her Garmin in a pocket instead of in the haul bag.

But they admitted that it’s tough to nitpick. “It’s easy to say I would have picked a better route,” Manners said. “But we’re the first people that tried to make our way up this buttress. So it’s hard to say what a better route would have been.”

In some survival stories, teams break apart as the days wear on and the odds of living grow thin. ��ϳԹ�� asked Manners and Dvorak if�� they experienced this dynamic. They said the opposite situation occurred on the peak. “The further we got into our suffering, the stronger our relationship became,” Dvorak said.

As the snow fell and the frigid hours dragged on, the two relied on each other, both for morale and for survival, hunkering together to conserve body heat and share meager supplies. “We were in need of each other, more and more,” Manners said. “Those first six days climbing, we could afford to have little spats, about not coiling a rope correctly or whatever. But when it got serious, we were closer than ever.”

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Forget Pumpkin Spice Lattes, It’s FKT Season

Corey Buhay — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 14:00:41 +0000

There’s something about late summer. The last of the snow melts, the summer rains stop, and the air finally begins to cool. In short: it’s the perfect weather for a long hike. Or—if you happen to be a top-tier endurance athlete—for smashing your heroes’ records to smithereens.

Over the last few weeks, trails across the United States have seen some stunning new (FKTs). What’s more, they’ve been rolling out at a pace that’s left our news team scrambling to cover them all. From an astonishing controversial three-hours sprint up the Grand Teton, to a grueling 40-day, 18-hour Appalachian Trail sufferfest, it’s been a fast, fast summer.

The season’s perfect weather—cool, dry, mercilessly free of wildfire smoke in many regions—has helped bolster the rate of new records. But a big part of the uptick may actually be post-pandemic timing.

“There was a during Covid,” said Will Peterson, who set a new FKT on Vermont’s 272-mile Long Trail FKT on September 1. “Some people went back to doing races, but many athletes have stuck around because they got into FKTs during the pandemic and really liked it.”

According to Peterson, FKTs have become more respected over the past few years—which has made them a target for big-name celebrity runners as well as speedy underdogs who would normally eschew traditional competitions.

“In some ways, it’s more accessible and more relatable than running races,” Peterson said. “That’s why I got into it—it’s something anyone can do. You don’t have to have a ton of money or sponsorships to go out and set an FKT.”

Today, more people seem to be chasing long-trail records than ever before, Peterson said. Between the increased awareness and expanded pool of contenders—many of whom have now been training for exactly this sort of objective for several years—it’s perhaps no wonder that record-setting is entering a golden age. Here’s a look at five perfect case studies from this summer.

Brent Herring Fought Hallucinations to Score a Colorado Trail FKT

On August 22, Durango, Colorado-based endurance athlete and skimo racer kicked off FKT season when he stumbled across the finish line of the 500-mile Colorado Trail with a new self-supported record. His time—10 days, 17 hours, and 38 minutes—was about four days faster than the women’s record, which set in 2020.

While popular, the Colorado Trail is no walk in the park. Many hikers need four to six weeks. After all, the distance is only part of the challenge. Much of the route lies above 10,000 feet, and numerous grueling climbs and mountain passes rack up around 90,000 feet in total vertical gain. On his very first day on the trail, Herring suffered from heat exhaustion and nearly quit. A week later, he started , another symptom of extreme fatigue. But he pushed through to the finish, cruising into his hometown just after midnight where his wife—and a large pizza—were waiting.

Anton Krupicka snaps a quick selfie during his record-setting run of the LA Freeway. (Photo: Anton Krupicka)

Anton Krupicka Ran the LA Freeway in Just Over 13 Hours

On August 31, ultrarunner Anton Krupicka practically sprinted the , a 34-mile traverse of the Continental Divide, which he took down in just over 13 hours. The route is as technical as it is long: It includes considerable stretches of fourth- and fifth-class terrain and connects the highest points of Colorado’s Indian Peaks Wilderness and Rocky Mountain National Park. The entirety of the traverse lies above 12,000 feet in elevation.

To prep, Krupicka spent as much time at altitude as possible. “I climbed Longs Peak 30 times over the course of the summer,” he said. “But to be honest, I didn’t think I was going to set the record this year.” He’d initially planned for a July attempt, but by then, the ephemeral streams lacing Colorado’s highcountry he would rely on for hydration had all but dried up. Krupicka knew the unsupported record would be impossible without on-route water.

“I’d pretty much given up,” he said. But a last-ditch reconnaissance mission in August revealed reemerging springs after a few weeks of heavy rain. Krupicka immediately started prepping for a record attempt. On August 31, he went for it—and finished the route in a cool 13 hours, 20 minutes, and 48 seconds, shaving more than three hours off runner Kyle Richardson’s 2018 time.

Peterson at the southern terminus of the Long Trail (Photo: Michael Tidd)

Will Peterson Broke the Long Trail’s Four-Day Barrier

Over Labor Day weekend, thru-hiker Will Peterson scored the overall FKT on America’s oldest thru-hike: the 272-mile Long Trail in Vermont. He completed the route in just three days, 21 hours, and ten minutes. In doing so, he became the first person to finish the trail in under four days, and beat the previous record by more than six hours. The feat comes about a year after Peterson set the trail’s unsupported record in August of 2023.

For Peterson, the early-September timing was purely related to the Labor-day school break he had: as a third-year medical school student, weekends and holidays are pretty much the only time he has to bust out big multi-day adventures. During the week, he works or studies for eight to ten hours per day, and spends the rest of the time training.

To notch the record, Peterson averaged around 70 miles and up to 22,700 feet of elevation gain per day (which is a lot, even by ultrarunning standards) and relied on a team of 30 pacers and crew members—only about half of whom he knew.

“I put out an appeal to the local running community, saying that I needed help with a supported attempt,” he explained. “About half the people who responded were friends and family members. The rest were total strangers.” But together, they helped him battle debilitating quad pain, long stretches of night running, and total exhaustion to crush his previous record by about 15 hours.

“It was truly a team effort,” he said.

Michelino Senseri Attempted a Controversial FKT on the Grand Teton��

On September 2, Idaho-based endurance athlete Michelino Senseri announced that he’d bagged a sub-three-hour speed record on Wyoming’s Grand Teton. In the following days, Fastest Known Time reviewed his claim—and then rejected it.

In their review of his claim, Fastest Known Time noted that Sunseri cut at least one switchback. That means that, while he did climb the Grand in a very fast time, he did not follow the sanctioned route. Because he was essentially competing on a different field of play, his claim was ruled invalid.

His feat is still impressive. It takes most experienced climbers a full day to summit and descend the 13,770-foot peak. The fact that Sunseri was able to do it in just 2 hours, 50 minutes, and 50 seconds speaks to his athleticism and dedicated preparation: he completed more than 40 climbs of the Grand over the course of several years before making his effort. But a few decision-making errors cost him the ultimate triumph.

Tara Dower surrounded by her crew during her FKT attempt (Photo: Pete Schreiner)

Tara Dower became the Appalachian Trail’s New Speed Queen��

On September 21, just a few minutes to midnight, Virginia-based thru-hiker and endurance athlete Tara “Candy Mama” Dower jogged the final hill to the top of Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. When the clock stopped at 40 days, 18 hours, and 5 minutes, she became the fastest human—woman or man—to complete the Appalachian Trail supported.

Dower ran an average of 54 miles per day to snatch the record from previous FKT-holder Karl Sabbe. She also ate upwards of 10,000 calories each day and woke up at 3:00 AM every morning to stay on pace. It paid off. In a , Dower called the feat “a dream come true.”

“If I’m to be honest I didn’t think it was possible,” she wrote. “However, I had people on my crew who believed in my abilities and pushed me to my limits. That’s all it was.”

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Forrest Fenn Part Two? A New Treasure Hunt Has Kicked Off in New England.

Fred Dreier — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 15:14:01 +0000

Early on in his career, video game designer Jason Rohrer embarked on a strange quest. Instead of trying to make huge blockbusters like Halo or Grand Theft Auto, he produced games about what it means to be human. His work was an argument that video games could be about more than shooting robots and aliens. He wanted to make people laugh, love, and cry.

His game Passage is a five-minute meditation on the beauty of life and the inevitability of death and part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art. A Game for Someone was designed to only be played 2,000 years in the future and is currently buried somewhere in the Nevada desert.

“He created a nesting doll game that could not be completed in a single human lifetime called Inside a Star Filled Sky,” Patrick Jagoda, a game designer and English professor at the University of Chicago told me. “His games have been very, very high concept.”

But now, Rohrer is taking his art from the digital space and into the real world with a treasure hunt based in New England. On Thursday, Rohrer launched the hunt, called Project Skydrop. The first person to solve his seemingly straightforward puzzle will find a gold statue and bounty of cryptocurrency. But given the ambition and scope of his previous work, most everyone familiar with his games—including me—is wondering: What does Rohrer have up his sleeve this time?

The Details of the Hunt

Project Skydrop is like a treasure hunt from the future. Instead of a brittle, yellowed map or a cryptic poem guiding searchers, this hunt is largely digital. The treasure itself is a sculpture made of 10 oz of solid gold—worth about $23,000—engraved with a Bitcoin wallet recovery phrase that unlocks a further crypto bounty: 50 percent of the pool of $20 entry fees to join the hunt. The sculpture isn’t buried, or even hidden. It’s just sitting out somewhere in the open in New England.

The clues? A combination of aerial photographs that start unhelpfully close to the treasure—one foot off the ground—and a circle on a map that starts out unhelpfully far away—a 500-mile radius. Every day, the aerial photographs zoom out to provide more context about the treasure’s surroundings. Every day the circle shrinks—down to a one-foot diameter search area after three weeks.

Rohrer has designed multiple beloved video games (Photo: Jason Rohrer)

“I know it’s not gonna be solvable on day one,” Rohrer told me from his home in New Hampshire. “And I know it’s definitely going to be solvable on day 21.”

“Definitely solvable” is an attribute that few other treasure hunts have had over the years. Most have failed in one way or another.

Forrest Fenn’s million-dollar chest of gold took ten years to find, and five searchers died in pursuit. By the end of it, in 2020, Fenn was the subject of several lawsuits. Because of this chaos, the treasure’s finder did his best to remain anonymous, and to this day the general public doesn’t know exactly where the treasure was hidden. It’s a mess.

Twelve treasures were buried in major American cities for The Secret, a treasure hunt created by Byron Preiss in 1982, but so far only three have been found. Preiss died in 2005. That hunt was simply too hard.

Even the original armchair treasure hunt, Masquerade, from 1979, ended in scandal when it turned out that the finder had used inside information to locate the jewel-encrusted golden hare that people were looking for.

The trophy is engraved with code that unlocks a trove of crypto (Photo: Project Skydrop)

The legacy of modern treasure hunts, in other words, is controversy, scandal, and failure. They end badly. They look a lot like video games that needed a little more playtesting before being released.

“Treasure hunts in the past haven’t really worked that well,” Rohrer said. “They kind of fundamentally break.”

Project Skydrop, then, is a game designer’s response to those failures. The shrinking-circle, closed-timeline design of the hunt keeps it from dragging on for decades. The final location of the treasure and the identity of the finder won’t be a mystery: in order to claim the Bitcoin, the finder is required to upload a video of themselves with the treasure when they find it.

Rohrer and his creative partner, Thomas Bailey, have also taken steps to make sure that no one gets hurt by another searcher.

“Let’s say the treasurer’s worth a million dollars, right? It’s life-changing money. And as you come over the crest, you see someone a few feet closer to the treasure than you. What do you do? Do you start running? Do you start screaming? Do you start shooting? So we had to figure out a way to prevent that as best we could.”

Averting Another Forrest Fenn Debacle

What they came up with is a clause in the entry agreement that searchers must “obtain the treasure peacefully,” and in the hope of enforcing that rule Rohrer and Bailey fitted the area around the treasure with cameras—like a bizarro, non-violent Hunger Games.

Those cameras upload to the Project Skydrop website in real time, so barring technical difficulties, anyone who pays the hunt’s entry fee can watch the treasure hunt unfold, including the moment someone finds and claims tens- or hundreds-of-thousands of dollars worth of treasure.

“If you think about that moment,” Rohrer said, “and what that moment will feel like in the grand scope of all human experience, it’ll just be an incredible moment, right?”

It will be quite the moment. But is it art? Is it very, very high concept?

“It is possible that he made a treasure hunt and that’s it, full stop,” Patrick Jagoda told me. “But based on the 20-or-so games that he’s made in the past, I bet you there are layers of meaning to what this thing is.”

Perhaps sending people out into the world in the pursuit of a solid gold sculpture is a statement on being a celebrated video game creator, but not a particularly well-compensated one. Perhaps it’s a commentary on our increasing dependence on screens and pictures and satellite imagery to navigate the natural world. Perhaps he just wants to make the real world feel a little bit more like a video game.

An image from one of the cameras stationed near the statue (Photo: Project Skydrop)

When I asked Rohrer directly if there was more going on here than meets the eye, he laughed because even if there was, he said he wouldn’t be telling me about it.

But then he told a long story about his most successful game, One Hour, One Life, in which players build a family and then a civilization over the course of generations and every hour of gameplay equals one human lifespan. One Hour, One Life incorporates a lot of the themes of his early games—the meaning of life and death, and��the way our actions today echo into the future.

As the creator of this game, however, he can see how people are playing it—the degree to which a digital life can take over a real one.

“When the game first came out and I was looking at statistics, there were a number of players who played it ten hours a day, seven days a week for like 11 months,” he said.

“I’ve interacted with a number of members of this community and, you know, a lot of them are like 25 years old, living at their parents house, spending all day playing video games. And some of the interactions I’ve had have been pretty heartbreaking. It’s like, ‘I know that I’ll never have a family of my own. And the only way I get to feel like the joy of parenthood is through your game. Thank you, Jason.’

“I feel like I want to make something that kind of lifts them up out of that and kind of energizes them or something—gets them out of their chair.”

When Forrest Fenn launched his treasure hunt, he did it to get kids “out of the game room, off their texting machines and into the mountains,” he said.

Fenn spent much of his life in the mountains. Rohrer has spent much of his life making video games. But they’ve arrived at a similar place.

“Like yesterday I climbed to the top of a mountain with my wife and two younger children and our dog,” he said. “And we picked wild blueberries up at the top of the mountain. And it was a really hot day and once we got down to the bottom of the mountain we swam in these beautiful cascading, crystal clear waterfalls. That felt like living to me.”

In other words, Rohrer is still exploring what it means to be human. He’s still trying to make people laugh, love, and cry. But as the creator and curator of all that screen time, it seems like he’s also now trying to atone for something.

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Cemeteries Are Underrated Parks You Can Respectfully Enjoy

Svati Narula — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 18:31:48 +0000

I once suggested to a new beau that we visit the in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a long walk and a picnic. He admitted later that the idea had been a little off-putting, but once we arrived, he saw the wisdom of my ways. It was late spring and the bulbs were finishing their bloom, droopy tulips dropping petals in our path. The rhododendrons were bursting with life and the marble statues were as glittering and glorious as ever. It was a stately place to walk, filled with history, art, and evidence of early American culture. Ultimately, he was charmed by this unusual outing. These days, we like to visit burial grounds with our four-year-old daughter, who enjoys reading the faded letters on the headstones and hiding behind the centuries-old oaks.

Pop culture tends to depict people who hang out in cemeteries as belonging to one of two groups: they’re either mourners with fresh grief or teens with thick eyeliner. But the truth is, many American graveyards were designed specifically for public recreation, and it’s a crying shame that we don’t use them more often.

There are many different ways one can respectfully engage with these sites, from the community-based (you can glean historical knowledge from these quietly rich data-centers or plan your visit around finding one famous grave) to the naturalist-leaning (bring binoculars to better spy on migrating birds and keep your plant apps open to help identify rare blooms). Don’t be afraid that your presence will be unwelcome; many cemeteries are building wellness-oriented features into their programming, a surefire indication they want more visitors. And if you’re really gung-ho about hanging out with the dead, there are plenty of volunteer opportunities through the and the National Cemetery Administration, plus you can always check in with your local historic society to see what’s happening nearby.

A Brief History of American Garden Cemeteries

The garden cemetery movement began in 1831 with the opening of Mount Auburn, followed by the building of Laurel Hill in Philadelphia and Green-Wood in New York. It was a time of rapid urbanization and social change, and there was a growing awareness of the fact that humans need security, sanitation, and even beauty to thrive. Some believed that increased time in nature could help cure the poor of their vices. Nice, clean, well-kept cemetery gardens could give people a place to relax (back in the 1800s, people used them for courting, hunting, and even carriage racing) as well as a way to dispose of the many dead.

Graveyard Plants and Animals Are Very Much Alive

Like many of the most successful human-made landscapes, graveyards are also hospitable to local wildlife. There are several beloved by birders, including Utah’s Salt Lake City Cemetery, where you can see nesting owls and migrating flycatchers and warblers, and the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, California, where binocular-toting tourists go to spy rare warblers and sparrows.��Personally, I’ve spent hours stalking around Portland, Maine’s Evergreen Cemetery waiting to catch a glimpse of the mated pair of river otters that��frolic in the ponds. Red foxes are a common sight at the Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia—in 2016, one particularly personable vixen was even deemed the official mascot of the graveyard. River, as she was named, has probably passed by now, but she was able to thrive in the 200-acre green space, probably because cemetery officials chose to prioritize green burial practices and eco-friendly gardening techniques. In 2018, Nature’s Sanctuary (West Laurel Hill’s green burial ground) became the first cemetery to be granted SITES Gold Certification, a designation given to sustainable landscapes, and is now being used as a case study for the U.S. Green Building Council.

While West Laurel Hill has made an active effort to protect the planet, others have stumbled into this role. The Polk City Cemetery in Polk City, Iowa, was constructed in the early 19^th century on land that was unsuitable for farming and, as a result, has been discovered to contain untouched pockets of native tallgrass prairie. Volunteers have been working to improve the biodiversity of the Midwest by responsibly managing these spots and cataloging the various plants, including the lovely and rare wild pansies that dot the lawns. In Brooklyn’s famous Green-Wood cemetery, you can see evidence of the forests that once thickly covered that part of New York, including native oak, hickory, American beech, tulip, and sweetgum trees. Like many modern cemeteries, Green-Wood Cemetery now has a social media presence, where they announce upcoming events programming and highlight interesting findings. Although it might feel funny at first to start following graveyards on Instagram, there’s nothing quite like it for up-to-date information about on-the-go animals and rare plants. Many cemeteries also have maps and guides available in the office—some even provide PDFs for download on their websites.��

Local History Is Alive, Too

All graveyards, thoughtfully designed or haphazardly made, function as data centers. Tombstones can tell us about family ties, community values, and forgotten tragedies. Even casual visitors to a graveyard can take note of the names and dates that crop up time and again. While some kids won’t find this alone particularly scintillating, there’s plenty of eye-spy games ��that can help liven up what might otherwise be a boring walk.

Some cemeteries draw crowds for their more famous residents, like the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in California—where stars like Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe have been laid to rest—and the Trinity Church Cemetery in New York, where you’ll find markers for Alexander Hamilton and John James Audubon. A little further north in the Hudson Valley, you’ll find the Old Dutch Church and the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, both of which were made famous by the writing of Washington Irving. In addition to casting these bucolic plots of land as settings in his spooky stories, Irving also wrote in favor of creating more striking cemeteries and public ground. In both his personal home and his public statements, he promoted a distinctly American style of gardening and landscape design, one that was a bit wilder and looser than the formal gardens were among European aristocracy. (It was at Irving’s recommendation that Fredrick Law Olmstead eventually was appointed the head designer for New York City’s Central Park.) In recent decades, Sleepy Hollow has taken a rather kitschy turn, similar to the Halloween fever that surrounds Salem Massachusetts and its famous Old Burying Point Cemetery, but there’s still a lot of rustic charm to be found on the forested trails and narrow bridges of Tarrytown.

Cemeteries Can Be Secret Hotspots for Urban Trails

Though using graveyards for recreation isn’t as common as it once was, the concept of multi-use spaces is clearly alive and well. In addition to making graveyards greener for the sake of insects and animals, there’s also been a push to implement more wellness-oriented features in cemeteries. The Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles has that was updated with a fresh, bouncy layer of rubber in 2023. In New Orleans, the organization Save Our Cemeteries hosts an annual race through the Metairie Cemetery to raise money for conservation of the historic grounds and its famous tombs. The Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta has a similar event, plus events for kids (including a day camp that takes place during the summer months). Although it’s not nearly as storied as either of those southern graveyards, whenever I visit my mother in Massachusetts, I like to go jogging at the Mount Hope Cemetery in West Acton. The trails extend out behind the graveyard and wind through serene wetlands, full of blue herons and red-winged blackbirds. Admittedly, I stop fairly often to pull up my birding app and catalog new lifers, but for slow runners like me, breaks are an important part of the routine.

There are some cemeteries that prohibit running, and there are plenty of religious burial grounds that don’t welcome visitors. While I have attended my fair share of funerals for loved ones and never once noticed or begrudged runners or birders, it’s important to recognize that not all mourners will feel this way. Sacred places are open for adventure, but like hiking in ruins or camping in preserved land, you’re duty-bound to pay attention. One of the first things I taught my child about cemeteries was that tombstones aren’t for climbing. A toddler can topple a headstone, and even if the person below is long-dead, restoration is a costly process. Similarly, I wouldn’t remove anything from a recent grave, not even a pebble. (In Jewish cemeteries, it’s customary to leave small rocks as a tribute to the deceased.) Different traditions and locations have their own rules, but fortunately most larger cemeteries also have offices, maps, and sometimes even visitor centers. For those nervous about disturbing the peace, start with the simplest form of outdoor exploration: a quiet walk to observe and consider.

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Texas State of Mind: ��ϳԹ�� in Big Bend Country

elessard — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 16:02:53 +0000

Ready for a full-on outdoor adventure? Big Bend County in Texas is the place. From stunning scenery to a wide variety of outdoor-centric activities, this region promises exciting adventures around every turn. Think: rivers to paddle, mountains to climb, hot springs and swimming holes to take a dip, and endless vistas. ��ϳԹ�� sent adventurer and his buddy Nick to see what Big Bend Country is all about. Watch the video, and discover even more Texas adventures in action.

is responsible for promoting Texas as a premier travel destination in domestic and international markets, generating travel to Texas destinations.

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