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During 40 years of adventure, hard-charging writer and climber Mark Jenkins has asked a lot of his wife and kids. After his fourth attempt on a dicey Chinese peak, he examines the risks and rewards of a risk-defying career.
Matt Thomas was a world-class kayaker who got paralyzed in a mountain-bike accident. His friend Joe Jackson moved in for a demanding stint as a caregiver. Outdoor sports were off the table, of course—until Thomas heard about paragliding.
The microbes in our digestive systems can affect everything from our mental health to our weight and vulnerability to disease. So why not athletic performance? New science is set to revolutionize the way we eat, train, and live.
Behold the astonishing explosion of alpine sports in the People’s Republic—as directed, promoted, and financed by the Communist Party in the run–up to the 2022 Beijing Olympics
In a world where our time and attention are fractured into smaller and smaller bits, legendary biologist and runner Bernd Heinrich is a throwback, a man who has carved a deep groove in his patch of Maine woods
At the planet's biggest ice-fishing tournament, held every January in Brainerd, Minnesota, 10,000 contestants battle 20-below temperatures for a $150,000 purse. Ian Frazier slips and slides among wily fish, cheese curds, and some of the greatest nearly frozen anglers he's ever seen.
Finland shares an 833-mile border with an aggressive and unpredictable neighbor. That proximity led to a major conflict during World War II—the horrific Winter War—and even now it keeps Finns nervous about Russia’s intentions. David Wolman suited up to train with the elite soldiers who will be on the front lines if this cold feud ever gets hot.
Last winter, the author ventured to the tundra with an extreme tour company promising the ultimate digital renewal—ten days living with nomadic reindeer herders in one of the planet’s last remaining off-the-grid dark spots. Is it really possible to totally unplug?
Early in his political career, the interior secretary irked fellow Republicans with his willingness to stand up for conservation. Things have changed, and whether you love or hate his ideas, know this: he’s one of the few Trump-era cabinet secretaries with the juice to make things happen, and he’s got the boss’s back.
When she was in college, Jack Kerouac’s book The Dharma Bums helped the author find her place in wilderness and in life. She hoped it would do the same for her 16-year-old son as they embarked on a mother-son California road trip retracing Kerouac’s adventures.
Or a movie, or a game of spoons. The alpine racer isn't dusting the competition by slacking off. She's putting in the work, and then she's taking a nap.
For a picturesque Tibetan village, an increase in tourists represents a complicated past and an uncertain future
In buzkashi, Afghanistan’s violent and ancient national pastime, riders battle for control of an animal corpse that they carry toward a goal. Sixteen years after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban, the sport is dominated by rival warlords who will do anything to maintain power in a turbulent country that once again is up for grabs.
He was the alpha male of the first pack to live in Oregon since 1947. For years, a state biologist tracked him, collared him, counted his pups, weighed him, photographed him, and protected him. But then the animal known as OR4 broke one too many rules.
Who knew that it’s easy to find great backcountry skiing in Scotland? Nobody, because it isn’t. But that doesn’t stop a committed group of hard-asses from clicking their boots and heading into the mud, rain, and heather in search of stoke.
The housing crisis in the Mountain West has gotten so bad that some folks are happy to rent a clean piece of pavement
For more than two decades, Jeff Caldwell has lured in hikers, couchsurfers, and other women (and they're almost always women), enthralling them with his tales of adventure. Then he manufactures personal crises and exploits their sympathy to rip them off.
For many, the female athlete triad has stood in the way of lasting success in sports, but researchers are finally starting to understand the condition better—and help women avoid the long-term consequences
The world likes to tell us what we can’t do. For Kimi Werner—spearfisher, freediver, shark whisperer, chef, artist, and entrepreneur—the key to a badass life was learning to listen to a different voice: her own.
To travel the Pony Express, riders had to brave apocalyptic storms, raging rivers, snow-choked mountain passes, and some of the most desolate, beautiful country on earth. To honor the sun-dried memory of those foolhardy horsemen, we dispatched Will Grant and a 16-year-old cowboy prodigy to ride 350 miles in a hurry.
No one knew if it could be done. But when Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler climbed Mount Everest without oxygen in 1978, they smashed one of the last barriers of human performance. Almost 40 years later, both legends talk about their first ascent by “fair means”—and the long-running feud that followed.
Change comes for everybody, including a group of adventurous friends who’ve convened for years to climb, swap stories, and hoist a few. These days, their founder is grappling with incurable cancer. On a happier note, their decision to open the doors a little wider has given the gathering a fresh, life-affirming spirit.
Memorable lives combine tough choices, an adventurous spirit, hard work, and luck—and who knows where any of it comes from? For our writer, the wellspring was a Colorado spread that she was barely able to buy in 1993. It became her escape from a violent childhood and the magical ground that changed her life.
There were many stories that were more fun to cook up and publish, but nothing quite compares with the force and moral clarity of Jon Krakauer’s account of the 1996 tragedies on Mount Everest
If you’re lucky, you encountered nature for the first time by running out the back door. During our writer's boyhood, a suburban forest was a gateway to learning, exploration, and natural splendors that shaped his life and career.
After a legendary career in adventure writing, Tim Cahill thought his story was over. Thrown from a raft in the Grand Canyon’s Lava Falls, he was trapped underwater and out of air. When he finally reached land, his heart stopped for several minutes. Then he came back—and decided to risk Lava again.
Lance Armstrong has a new narrative about his incredible rise and fall. Should we believe him this time?
Normally, not something you want a shark scientist to say. But Eric Stroud is talking about his chemistry-lab quest for the ultimate shark repellent, which he appears to have found. The questions that remain: Does it work on the great white, the ocean’s most fearsome predator? And can a couple of rookie entrepreneurs get it to market?
What if you could alter your DNA profile, erase your risk for cancer, or just brew glowing beer? Whether that makes you giddy or terrified, that’s the dream of biohacker Josiah Zayner.
MIT research scientist Hugh Herr lost both legs below the knee after a 1982 winter climbing ordeal. In less than a year, he hacked his prosthetics to allow him to climb again, and he went on to become one of the world’s leading innovators in the field. Author Todd Balf, who lost partial use of his legs after a spinal-cord injury, gets a front-row seat as Herr and his MIT colleagues plot their next big act—new science and technology to end a slate of disabling conditions.
From $30,000 Airbnb rentals to animal sacrifices to 25,000 sometimes-naked umbraphiles, this is the weirdness that went down in the Wyoming resort town leading up to last week's astrological dance
When alpinist and photographer Cory Richards dug himself out of an avalanche in 2011, he emerged alive but scarred—an ascendant star in a community that tends to shun the very idea that trauma can have lasting effects. As his profile climbed ever higher, his career and personal life imploded. Six years later, one of the world’s best artist-adventurers comes clean about the panic attacks, PTSD, and alcohol abuse that nearly killed him.
When Daniel Duane was a kid, his father taught him how to climb in Yosemite. Two decades later, when his teenage daughter wanted a valley education of her own, he realized that the old beta no longer applied.
At the University of Vermont, mathematicians in the Computational Story Lab are reading your tweets and learning a lot about our collective well-being
How does a town go from logging and livestock to bits and bytes? Tiny Prineville, Oregon, is finding out as huge data centers from Apple and Facebook transform the timber town into a recreational hub of mountain bikers and craft brewers.
Nomadic herders have brought guns and hundreds of thousands of livestock into the green expanses of Laikipia County, starving out wildlife and shooting the area's megafauna. As police burn homesteads and shoot civilians in response, the future of one of the most iconic regions on the planet hangs in the balance.
The iconic brand has long been the conscience of the outdoor industry, forsaking hefty profits to do the right thing. Now the company is going to war against the Trump administration over protections for public land in a bid to become a serious political player—which happens to be very good for sales.
Living the dream has never been easy in the West's most beloved adventure hamlets, where homes are a fortune and good jobs are few. But the rise of online short-term rentals may be the tipping point that causes idyllic outposts like Crested Butte, Colorado, to lose their middle class altogether—and with it, their soul.
Clever, goofy, charismatic, and fast, the two-time world champion may never win the Tour de France (he’s not a climber), but he just might be the star who saves bike racing
After decades of being thought of as a pseudo-sport for longhairs, ultimate Frisbee is attracting elite athletes who are landing professional contracts. The hero of this new breed is Beau Kittredge, who looks like an NFL wide receiver, sprints like an Olympian, and jumps like Jordan.
We sent our correspondent deep undercover to explore the latest summer craze: camps tailored just for adults. Boozy slip-and-slide? Check. Excessive kickball celebrations? You betcha. It's all detailed in his letters from a nostalgic bacchanal.
In California, millions of dollars' worth of almonds, walnuts, and pistachios are disappearing. Farmers are perplexed, the cops are confused, and the crooks are getting richer. We sent Peter Vigneron to the Central Valley to take a crack at the crimes.
Famously cold and frighteningly massive, Lake Superior contains 10 percent of the world's surface freshwater, holds the remains of 6,000 shipwrecks, and offers a lifetime of adventure. Stephanie Pearson sets out to circumnavigate America's most overlooked playground.
Atherton has racked up 14 consecutive World Cup wins, something no one has ever done before. Yet people still relegate her to the shadow of her pro biker brothers—and she's tired of it.
Every summer, the world’s best wingsuiters and BASE jumpers gather in Switzerland’s Lauterbrunnen Valley to have the best times of their perilous lives
In 1978, a historic expedition put the first women—and first Americans, period—on the summit of Annapurna, the world’s tenth-highest peak. Despite their triumph, the deaths of two climbers stirred controversy. In an oral history weaving together the perspectives of key team members, Sherpa high-altitude staff, admirers, and critics, Katie Ives discovers that debate still lingers—as does the expedition’s power to inspire.
What happens when a Black woman decides to solo-hike the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine during a summer of bitter political upheaval? Everything you can imagine, from scary moments of racism to new friendships to soaring epiphanies about the timeless value of America’s most storied trekking route.
For more than a century, the Girl Scouts has been the most well-trod path for junior explorers to get into adventure. But what comes after the Thin Mints and craft badges is a troop for sisterhood, winter camping, and some serious archery.
At the outer edges of endurance sports, something interesting is happening: women are beating men
Spa treatments have gotten wild in recent years, especially in Southern California, where women pay big bucks for radical remedies like colonics, juice fasts, and a Gwyneth Paltrow fave—the life-changing V-steam. Taffy Brodesser-Akner dons a satin robe and asks: If this is the path to happiness, why am I so freaked out?
After bursting onto the scene as a teenage gym rat, Beth Rodden became one of the most accomplished climbers of all time. Here, for the first time, she opens up about the price of perfectionism, the kidnapping that almost grounded her, finding love again after her marriage to big-wall prodigy Tommy Caldwell, and balancing motherhood and rock.
The Pulitzer Prize finalist spent two years visiting 12 sites around the world for an ambitious new book that reveals the surprising—and surprisingly fascinating—arboreal secrets hidden in the canopies of ordinary trees. Paul Kvinta meets with the real-life Lorax on New York's Upper West side and learns why white men never stand in the shade.
In South Florida, cane toads are so numerous that they seem to be dropping from the sky. They're overtaking parking lots and backyards, can weigh almost six pounds, and pack enough poison to kill pets. Why the surge?
The craziest rock-climbing event in the world happens annually in the Ozarks of Arkansas, in a u-shaped canyon with enough routes for 24 straight hours of nonstop ascents. They call it Horseshoe Hell, but don't be fooled: for outdoor athletes who love physical challenges with some partying thrown in, it's heaven.
When 18-year-old Joe Keller vanished from a dude ranch in Colorado's Rio Grande National Forest, he joined the ranks of those missing on public land. No official tally exists, but their numbers are growing. And when an initial search turns up nothing, who'll keep looking?
You’re addicted to your phone. You’re loaded down by useless stuff. And you eat like a teenager. No wonder you can’t find the time to play outside, see the world, and get in shape. Fortunately, streamlining your life—and having more fun—is easy: just do less. Here’s how.
Accidents on zip lines in Southeast Asia have left Western tourists with lifelong injuries. As adventure parks make their way across the Pacific and open in every U.S. state, the question to ask: Is anyone regulating them?
The women's U.S. cross-country ski team has always been second-tier, but that's changing thanks largely to Alaskan nordic star Kikkan Randall, a pink-haired skate-skiing powerhouse who trains harder than anyone on the planet—and has everybody else following her lead.
The most perilous road in America gets 300 inches of snow a year, features 70 named avalanche paths, and has almost no guardrails. Who would be bold enough to keep Colorado’s infamous Highway 550 clear in winter? Leath Tonino hopped into the cab of a Mack snowplow truck to find out.
When Raymond Stansel was busted in 1974, he was one of Florida's biggest pot smugglers. Facing trial and years in prison, he jumped bail, changed his name, and holed up in a remote Australian outpost. Even more remarkable than that? His second life as an environmental hero.
Most of us hit the outdoors seeking calm and quiet, but Chuck Thompson prefers to blast a little 38 Special by his campfires. Still, even a rustic headbanger like him has to wonder if the coming age of total connectivity in otherwise wild places is good for bees, beasts, and man.
When a creature mysteriously turns up dead in Alaska—be it a sea otter, polar bear, or humpback whale—veterinary pathologist Kathy Burek gets the call. Her necropsies reveal cause of death and causes for concern as climate change frees up new pathogens and other dangers in a vast, thawing north.
Nowhere is the quest for simplicity and freedom more pronounced than in the tiny-house movement, which has grown from hipster alternative to mainstream phenomenon faster than an Amish barn raising. Mark Sundeen joins the believers to ask: Has the dream gotten too big?
It starts with a deadly crash, like the one that happened in October on a busy Orange County street. Then the volunteers build the memorial. Peter Flax embedded with the team that makes ghost bikes in Southern California to record the process—and the tragedy that triggered it—from beginning to end.
Was it the time travelers, the jaguar people, or the song from Pocahontas? All I know is that, as my exploration of psychedelics grew from a few campout mushrooms to full-on ayahuasca ceremonies, I felt better than I ever had in my life.
South African physician Tim Noakes, one of the world’s greatest sports scientists, has been preaching an ultra-low-carb, high-fat diet as the key to fitness and health. His ideas have made him a bestselling guru, but now his critics are pushing back—and as Bill Gifford reports, they’re putting his theories on trial.
The assassination of Goldman Prize-winning activist Berta Cáceres last March shocked the global community. But in her home country of Honduras, where more than 100 activists have been cut down in the past five years, it was business as usual.
For the past two decades, the website LetsRun.com has straddled the lines between gossip, investigative reporting, and hardcore training advice, angering Nike, USA Track and Field, and traditional media in the process. Charles Bethea joined them at the 2016 Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, to figure out how they’ve managed to become the most important, and controversial, outlet in competitive running.
David Roberts, a major figure in modern adventure literature, has explored risk, death, and loss for more than 50 years. Now he’s fighting cancer while producing new writing—including a series of reflections on his disease—that friends and colleagues believe is his best work yet.
On New Year's Day in 1985, Eastern Air Lines Flight 980 was carrying 29 passengers and a hell of a lot of contraband when it crashed into the side of a 21,112-foot mountain in Bolivia. For decades conspiracy theories abounded as the wreckage remained inaccessible, the bodies unrecovered, the black box missing. Then two friends from Boston organized an expedition that would blow the case wide open.
The final holdout at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupation earlier this year wasn't a dyed-in-the-wool rancher or hardened militiaman. He was a young, half-Japanese kid from the Midwest who had no affiliation with the Bundy brothers or the Patriot movement. This is why David Fry drove across the country to join a group of extremists he'd never met.
American churches are building first-class gyms to get followers in shape and attract new members to the flock. Critics see lucrative businesses masked as ministries, but the programs are a spirited defense against our obesity epidemic.
Want to perform like a pro, even with the years piling up? Nick Heil got the deluxe treatment at Exos, a cutting-edge outfit that works with NFL players and soccer stars. He came out slimmer, stronger, and more focused—the perfect upgrade for anybody, at any age, who plays hard in the outdoors.
A morning run or evening spin class may feel great, but if the rest of your day involves sitting on your ass, a brief burst does little for your overall well-being.
The diet has quietly become the rage among ultra-endurance athletes and elite soldiers, and it's a surprisingly yummy way to fuel up.
Team Rubicon began in 2010 with a unique dual mission: providing disaster relief and giving struggling American veterans a vital sense of purpose. The program has a reputation for ignoring best practices and obliterating red tape, and it has already disrupted the aid industry. Now founder Jake Wood wants to take on the Red Cross.
When his daughter developed a serious form of arthritis, Logan Ward watched her drop out of sports and lose confidence. The one place she could still move with ease was underwater, and he decided to push her boundaries with one of the world’s most high-risk sports: freediving.
Halfway around the world, fly-fishing scientists are unraveling the secret lives of giant steelhead—one cast at a time