Long Reads
ArchiveIndian relay racing is sometimes called America’s first extreme sport. For years, the Brew Crew—a team from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota—were a dominant force. Then tragedy struck. This is the story of the Lakota’s spiritual relationship with the horse, and a quest to regain glory on the track.
In the wake of a bizarre physical attack and the death of her father, Katie Arnold felt paralyzed by the anxieties of parenthood and being a woman alone in the wilderness. She got through it the same way she’d always done, by lacing up and hitting the trail. An exclusive excerpt from her new memoir, Running Home.
Can a relationship survive a grand adventure? That’s a question neither partner thought to ask when She got the bright idea to refit an old sailboat while He was dreaming of life on the range. A he-said-she-said tale of a voyage that somehow managed to avoid the rocks.
For some climbing rangers in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park, every ridgeline holds the memory of a rescue, every peak a body bag. It's more than they can handle alone.
In 2017, the Trump administration announced that it was shrinking the iconic Utah national monument by nearly 50 percent. Leath Tonino devised a sketchy 200-mile solo desert trek, following the path of the legendary cartographer who literally put these contentious canyons on the map.
For years, three old friends from California had been making an annual pilgrimage to fish Alaska's wild and pristine waterways. But in 2018, only two came home.
Deep in the heart of the Adirondacks, the unexpected death of a small-town police sergeant has added fuel to a nationwide controversy over an herbal supplement
When outdoor athletes launched the first energy bars more than 30 years ago, no one could have predicted it would revolutionize the way Americans eat. A look inside the hottest—and strangest—category in natural foods.
The Kurdish region of Iraq is home to spectacular peaks, wild rivers, and fiercely hospitable people, and it could be the Middle East’s next big adventure tourism destination. But there’s one small catch: it’s still dangerous as hell.
Sal Masekela, first son of a Haitian immigrant and a legendary South African jazz musician, was the face and voice of the X Games, Red Bull’s Media House, and the Olympics. Now, as the meteoric growth of the action-sports industry comes back to earth, the most connected man in the room is left wondering what’s next.
Some of the world's most passionate athletes are high pointers, climbers who will do anything to reach the tallest point in every state, county, or whatever other designation they can dream up. A lot of those peaks aren't so tall—like Delaware's 447.85-foot Ebright Azimuth—but there's plenty of challenge in this quest. Just ask John Mitchler, who had knocked off everything on his dream list except the tallest spot in a remote U.S. territory: Agrihan.
Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy and unscientific, controversial new research suggests—and quite possibly even racist. How did we get it so wrong?
For decades Jeffrey Lendrum helicoptered up and rappelled down to aeries on cliff faces from Patagonia to Quebec, snatching unhatched raptors and selling them, investigators believe, to wealthy Middle Eastern falconers. This week in London, one of the most bizarre criminals in modern history goes on trial for the fourth time. Here is his story.
Tim Klein and Jason Wells were weekend warriors. They were also two of the best climbers to ever ply their trade on Yosemite's most iconic wall. So the climbing world was stunned when they died on some of its easiest terrain.
A lifelong runner and outdoor athlete is hit with a mysterious physical breakdown. Once the engine starts to fail, what happens to the mind?
Inside the most destructive fire in American history—and why the West's cities and towns will keep on burning
Justin Alexander went searching for higher meaning. No one expected the quest to end in a search for his body.
When Dick's Sporting Goods announced that it would reduce gun sales in the wake of the Parkland school shooting, CEO Edward Stack said he wanted to start a conversation about gun safety in America. What he got instead was a firestorm.
The former white-boy rapper and mega-successful serial entrepreneur has become a bestselling wellness author and Tony Robbins-style life coach. His latest venture, a highly social weekend of walking up mountains until you drop, called 29029, is pitched as a new breed of restorative endurance event. But is this just a brutal group hike with good marketing?
When 60-year-old Tim Watkins disappeared on a stretch of singletrack outside Colorado Springs, no one suspected that the truth of how he died would rip the community apart
As a child, Cody Sheehy made headlines when he vanished into the freezing wilderness of Northeast Oregon, making it out safely after 18 hours of determined slogging. Retracing his steps 32 years later, Sheehy says that getting lost was one of the best life lessons he ever had.
What happens when America's most fabulous advice columnist fires up her polka-dot car and hits the road to ask total strangers about love and cleaving in a bunch of tiny towns called Eden? Let's just put it this way: Paradise is Regained, and John Milton himself would have said, “Oh. My. God.”
Richard Carr, a retired psychologist who had long dreamed of sailing around the world, was in the middle of the Pacific when he started sending frantic messages that said pirates were boarding his boat. Two thousand miles away in Los Angeles, his family woke up to a nightmare: he might be dying alone, and there was almost nothing they could do about it.
If she wins tomorrow, the 38-year-old Democrat would become the country's first Native American governor. Can a moderate still win in Trump's America? Idaho is about to find out.
Kale Poland, founder of Cleetus Fit, takes pride in a brand of fitness where dumpster towing and beer yoga are equally at home. Now he's out to conquer the Deca Ironman—ten Ironmans in a row.
Told here in full for the first time, this is the horrifying story of the first murder on the Appalachian Trail, the kidnapping that followed, and how one woman learned to survive.
About an hour before midnight on Mother’s Day in 1986, a group of teenagers assembled at an Episcopal high school in Portland, Oregon, to embark on an expedition. Their goal was to summit Mount Hood, completing an adventure program that was required for all sophomores. What followed was a story of tragedy and loss that is commemorated annually at the institution it changed forever.
Casey Brown overcame poverty and the bizarre death of her brother to become a world-class mountain biker, doing jumps on a terrain with no margin for error. But is she good enough to be the first woman to compete in the sport's most dangerous event?
Athletes and adventurers use rituals to get ready for big moments—whether it's wearing a new pair of socks on summit day or bouncing the tennis ball exactly seven times before bashing a serve. Does it work? Steven Kotler explores the cutting edge of neuroscience, plus a little bit of black magic, to find out.
The 33 special agents assigned to the Investigative Services Branch handle the most complex crimes committed on NPS land. When a day hike in Rocky Mountain National Park ended in a grisly death, ISB veteran Beth Shott hit the trail, where she began unraveling a harrowing case.
She won Olympic gold in a sport that chose her. Can she do the same in the one she truly loves?
As America wrestles with high rates of suicide among military personnel and veterans, outdoor programs have been offered up as a promising treatment. Dan Sidles seemed like the ideal candidate: an Iraq War vet who suffered from PTSD, he tried to find a renewed sense of purpose through climbing and mountaineering. Ultimately, it wasn’t enough. Brian Mockenhaupt explores the final years of a tortured friend.
As the minimalism trend enters a curious new phase that has clothing makers like Mac Bishop of Wool and Prince showing us how to get through a year with only a few pairs of underwear, one brave adventurer attempts to defend his gear closet
How I learned to do group travel—without hating everybody else
For more than 40 years, tribal chief and artist Roy Vickers was obsessed with a totem pole that was taken from a remote native village in British Columbia. He decided to make a replica, and all he needed was will, skill, and a 17,500-pound tree.
Thousands of people flock to the Alps each year to ski tour high-elevation routes, spending comfortable nights in a string of huts that serve wine and hot meals. In the spring of 2018, a group of experienced skiers and their guide were trapped in a storm overnight on an exposed saddle. By morning, nearly all were dead or dying.
Filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi doesn’t climb, but her determination to shine a light on what drives extreme mountaineers produced two of the best adventure documentaries of the past decade
In 2017, the suicide rate in Durango, Colorado, was three times the national average. After 32 deaths in two years, the town's leaders banded together and instituted a range of changes with the goal of stopping the contagion. Their efforts may help other mountain towns to put an end to the grim "suicide belt" moniker for good.
Bike Snob NYC spent three days scootering around Portland, Oregon, to determine, once and for all, whether the now infamous tiny wheeled contraptions are a scourge on our cities—or whether they’re damned convenient and laughably benign
For decades, women in the Forest Service and U.S. Department of Agriculture have been trying to bring justice to those who have discriminated against them. A new investigation reveals that the inaction is due to a much larger problem: a system set up to make their complaints go away.
Avery Shawler left her Idaho apartment one morning in 2016 to hike a prominent peak. But the day outing quickly took a turn for the worse, and Shawler would end up needing a lot of luck—and all her backcountry skills—to make it home alive.
For decades, the staff of Grand Canyon National Park has lived with a culture of bullying and harassment. Can the park's first female superintendent heal the old wounds?
As the U.S. battles over the fate of public lands, the Chilean government and Kristine Tompkins are doing something extraordinary down in Patagonia—setting aside millions of acres for stunning new national parks. And they aren't done yet.
Golf courses! Water parks! Man-made lakes! If Utah has its way, the retiree oasis of St. George will explode with growth, turning red rock to bluegrass and slaking its thirst with a new billion-dollar pipeline from the Colorado River.
Summit fever, a lack of mountaineering skills, and the allure of social media are leading to serious accidents on the lower 48's highest peak. Can anything be done to stop the injuries and deaths?
Amid a frenzied conversation over shrinking public lands, Native Americans run hundreds of miles to honor—and take back—the land that's sacred to them
New York's Citi Bike, one of the largest bike-share programs in the world, relies on a volunteer army to help redistribute some 12,000 bicycles among 750 stations each day, ensuring that users can grab a ride when they need one. Most of these volunteers do a few out-of-the-way deliveries a month. Then there's Joe Miller, whose superhuman efforts seem to defy any plausible explanation.
The high-tech material has been used to build frames and components for decades, but as bikes age, catastrophic failures are leading to lawsuits
What possesses an American cleric, a man of history and scholarship, to renounce his vows, move to a crumbling stone farmhouse in a small French village, and spend his days digging potatoes and translating Thucydides? Bill Donahue goes in search of his favorite unconventional uncle.
A glorious and ill-considered expedition to retrace the nearly 300-mile sufferfest endured by colonial badass (and not yet turncoat) Benedict Arnold and his 1,100 brave, starving men. Their aim: to take Quebec City from the British. Ours: to survive.
In 2015, in a secret medical procedure carried out in Bogota, Colombia, the 44-year-old woman got dozens of experimental gene-therapy injections. Why? Because Parrish, the creator of a longevity company called BioViva, believes that science is on the cusp of delivering radically longer lifespans—and she wants to help bring on the revolution.
The first Golden Globe Race, a solo, nonstop, around-the-world sailing event held in 1968, was a mixture of triumph, tragedy, and madness—all chronicled in a classic bestselling book and recent BBC movie. Fifty years later, 17 sailors are once again setting out for the most ambitious—and loneliest—regatta on the planet.
The Spanish ultra-athlete has spent the past decade crushing a generation of elite rivals and redefining the limits of human endurance. But when he notched back-to-back speed ascents of Everest in 2017, critics pounced on the claims.
The e-commerce behemoth is on its way to becoming the biggest marketplace for outdoor-recreation products and its influence over the industry grows every day. Is this the apocalypse for the shops and brands that have fueled our love of adventure? Or can they learn to fight back without destroying one another?
Now that the mines have closed, the small towns of Emery County, Utah, are dreaming up an ambitious plan: A veritable outdoor playground with a new monument and more than half a million acres of designated wilderness. Can this scheme convince other towns to transition from extraction to recreation?
It was just another beautiful day in the mountains for the author and his one-year-old Australian shepherd, Merle, when their lives changed in an instant
From miles out in the storm-ravaged Chesapeake Bay, the Tangier Island crab boat radioed a mayday, then fell silent. Fellow skippers from this lonely and legendary speck of land rallied to save the two-man crew. God willing, they'd get there in time.
When Kyle Dickman set out on a month-long road trip with his wife and infant son last spring, he was fueled by a carefree sense of adventure that had defined his entire life. Then he got bit by a venomous snake in a remote area of Yosemite National Park, and the harrowing event changed everything.
He was the best alpinist of his generation, a quiet, unassuming Canadian known for bold ascents of some of the world’s most iconic peaks. At the age of 25, he traveled to Alaska to join climber Ryan Johnson for a first ascent outside Juneau. They never came back, and a frantic nine-day search left more questions than answers.
Spitfire excels at the curious sport of dock diving, or, in other words, jumping really, really far. That skill has landed him and his owner, 13-year-old Sydney Mackey, five world records—and counting.
During the 2018 California L'Eroica, Bike Snob NYC braved saddle sores and a single pizza-size gear on a century-old Mead Ranger—all in an attempt to prove that bike technology hasn't gotten that much better. Or to prove that, well, maybe it has.
The Democratic candidate and son of the Burt's Bees founder is seeking a win in Maine's rural 2nd District with a simple message: The recreation economy can bring back jobs
The 29-year-old CEO of Outdoor Voices is taking on Nike, one color block at a time
A four-year battle over a tiny patch of river beach in Northern California—between two middle-aged guys with way too much time on their hands—illustrates the deep divide in how we perceive access rights to public lands
Jason Nez studies something that's too often forgotten amid the awe-inspiring views and canyon walls: those who live there
The world’s best bike racer is a woman: Vos, a 31-year-old Dutch superstar with more than 300 podium finishes. She’s also an activist, taking on the fight against gender inequality in a sport whose future has to involve knocking down a few doors.
There’s a common misconception that Black people don’t love wild places. Latria Graham, a southerner with deep connections to farms, rivers, and forests, says the problem isn’t desire but access—and a long history of laws and customs that have whitewashed our finest public lands.
When you take former sex-trafficking victims into the wilderness for a few days of roughing it, know this: they’ve seen worse. Florence Williams goes on a trip organized by Atlanta-based She Is Able and learns that one size of adventure therapy does not fit all.
Last December, when the Trump administration announced its decision to shrink Bears Ears National Monument, a crack team of Native American attorneys armed themselves with a lawsuit that ensured tribal voices will lead the legal battle to overturn it. Abe Streep reports on a historic case that will reverberate for generations.
An energized group of explorers are bringing the spirit of wilderness through hiking to American cities. Record-breaking distance trekker Liz Thomas and others are altering how we see urban spaces and inviting folks new to the outdoors along for the fun.
When two climbers were stranded near the summit of Nanga Parbat last winter, they sent out a desperate call on their satellite device. A hundred miles away, a Polish team of extraordinary climbers answered the call, prompting one of the most daring rescues in mountaineering history.
Creating a workplace that truly makes us happy and healthy takes a lot more than standing desks and on-site yoga. Thankfully, new research has sparked a growing design revolution.
The entrepreneur believes that biohacking can rocket your body and mind to peak performance. His Bulletproof diet zoomed into the mainstream, his Bullet-proof coffee has everyone quaffing butter, and his Bulletproof books fly off the shelves. Now Bulletproof Labs is out to hack, well, everything.
How Ray Maker, a man with no formal journalism training, built DC Rainmaker, with an audience of millions and the power to make or break your next running watch
Until recently, the Nike track star seemed destined for burnout. But last year in Boston, after a wave of disappointing races and a personal tragedy, she ran a record-shattering debut marathon. Will the new distance of 26.2 miles save her career?
Former pro Jon Rose was chasing the biggest swells in Sumatra when the 2009 earthquake hit, and he spent the next decade providing clean water in remote disaster zones. Last fall his Waves for Water crew was in Saint Croix when Hurricane Maria struck, so the team did what came naturally: got to work.
At USU, students in the country’s first program for gear designers aren’t just learning how to sew a bestselling jacket. They’re being groomed to lead the industry’s next big political and environmental fights.
Travel companies are creating a generation of digital nomads, flying gig workers and tech nerds to exotic locales where they can pursue dream jobs. These brands make it their business to solve the significant logistical problems that come up when trying to get work done while abroad—but can they solve the problem of other people?
Students in the Extreme Polar Training course, a two-week freeze-fest held near the Arctic Circle on Canada's Baffin Island, learn how to live in Earth's coldest conditions. Still, nothing really prepares you for 72 hours of a sled-pulling, pathfinding ordeal on a skinny pair of skis.
An ϳԹ investigation of sexual harassment in outdoor workplaces, where unwanted advances, discrimination, and assault are a frequent and destructive occurrence for far too many women