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The Darién Gap is a lawless wilderness on the border of Colombia and Panama, teeming with everything from deadly snakes to antigovernment guerrillas. The region also sees a flow of migrants from Cuba, Africa, and Asia, whose desperation sends them on perilous journeys to the U.S. Jason Motlagh plunged in, risking robbery, kidnapping, and death to document one of the world’s most harrowing treks.

In his latest novel, Dave Eggers follows Josie, a former dentist escaping the loss of her practice and a divorce, and her two children, Ana and Paul, as they take a road trip through Alaska. In this exclusive excerpt, they break into an abandoned ranger’s cabin to wait out a wildfire and hide from a man who Josie is convinced is pursuing them.

For years, Chuck Thompson dreamed of picking some random spot on the map of British Columbia and plunging in for an adventure. He got all he could handle and more on the Klinaklini River, a Class V rager that cuts through heavily forested wilderness north of Mount Waddington. In fact, he's lucky he got out alive.

Fed up with tight National Park regulations—no BASE-jumping, no slacklining, no fun!—adventurers are getting cozy with a surprising new advocate: the Bureau of Land Management. Nowhere are the agency's lenient recreation policies on better display than Moab, Utah.

The twenty-three-year-old makes millions of dollars a year, lives a stone's throw from Pipeline, and is the heir to Kelly Slater's throne. The question is: does he want it?

This is the story of a place at the edge of the world, where a black bear ventured into a Russian hamlet and attacked a human. One bear became two, two became dozens, and before long no one would leave their home, and no one had any idea what to do.

Sally Bergesen created Oiselle to give female runners great-fitting shorts and sports bras with a dose of style. Now the swift little brand is on a mission to empower athletes by taking on Nike and its dominance over track and field.

A new initiative gives complimentary national park access to every fourth-grader in America. Can a class field trip turn kids into lifetime fans of the outdoors? Mike Kessler hops on the yellow bus—and endures high-decibel Bieber sing-alongs—to find out.

John Muir rhapsodizing about Yosemite is one thing, but Ian Frazier has had it with people calling their favorite outdoor spots “cathedrals,” “shrines,” and “sacred spaces.” The false piety detracts from the real task at hand: seeing these places as they actually are.

The rarely visited national park is home to tropical beaches, pristine coral reefs, some untapped surf, and not much else. Matt Skenazy went exploring and found a few good waves and a lot of mysterious South Seas mojo.

Help came right away. And then it stopped. Patrick Symmes reports on the business-as-usual corruption that brought a mountain kingdom to the ground.

When a group of canyoneering beginners were swept away in a flash flood last September, it was the worst disaster in Zion's 97-year history. And it illustrates a growing question: How far should national parks go to keep their visitors safe?

Lhakpa Sherpa ​​has climbed Everest more than any other woman—​and now she's on the mountain trying for her seventh summit​.

By European standards, Ireland’s County Donegal, tucked into the country’s far northwest corner, may as well be Mars. But for adventure travelers, it’s a hidden frontier packed with wind-bitten landscapes to mountain-bike, rowdy coastline to surf, and 500-foot sea stacks to climb. That is, if you’re brave enough.

The forgotten history of Brazil’s mosquito wars—the greatest public health victory you’ve never heard of

Young, tech-savvy adventurers are taking sponsors and funding away from grizzled, old-school explorers who aren’t strong on Facebook and Twitter. But they don’t always pull off the awesome feats they say they will.

After two years of unimaginable tragedy, everyone from outfitters and Sherpas to would-be climbers and the Nepalese government is questioning the future of commercial mountaineering. And then there’s Morton, a veteran guide who spent the past year asking: What happens when you try to leave the world’s most lucrative mountain forever?

For 28 years, Kay Grayson lived side-by-side with wild black bears in North Carolina's swampy coastal forests, hand-feeding them, defending them against poachers, and letting them in her home. When she went missing last year, the only thing the investigators could find were her clean-picked bones. And that's just the start of the mystery.

Last winter, a federal government report acknowledged a long-standing pattern of sexual harassment against female river guides employed by the National Park Service in the Grand Canyon. But no official account can capture the day-to-day realities of that harmful environment. Here, three former Park Service river guides recount what they endured, and discuss what needs to change.

Even Sierra Club-approved activities can have disastrous effects on the natural places we revere. And that's led to a fracture between two should-be allies: recreationists and conservationists.

For a decade, the African nation of Burundi was home to a unique phenomenon: group jogs involving thousands of people who hit the streets to sing, socialize, and sometimes protest the nation’s authoritarian president, Pierre Nkurunziza. In March 2014, he banned the activity. As conflicts threaten to boil over—and the body count continues to rise—runners have become both weapons and victims.

One of the biggest names in fitness has preached for years that a neo-paleo combination of protein and fats is the ultimate performance diet. Lately, he’s been telling his followers that they can even relax on the dietary guidelines a bit—while getting outside to play more. Can it really be this simple?

Jordan Lewis runs the ritziest pot store in the country: Aspen, Colorado's Silverpeak Apothecary, where sommelier-like "budtenders" sell gourmet ganja in a designer showroom. But soon after he arrived, he found himself under siege from locals worried about that skunky smell wafting over their mountain valley. It's enough to drive a man to toke.

He surfs sixty-foot waves, performs Hollywood stunts, and can hold his breath underwater for six—six!—minutes. Now he's freediving to tag hammerhead sharks for science.

Utah congressman Rob Bishop, a conservative Republican who has long opposed federal management of western lands, has emerged as the unlikely architect of a grand compromise, one that would involve massive horse trading to preserve millions of acres of wilderness while opening millions more to resource extraction. Is this a trick, or the best way to solve ancient disputes that too often go nowhere?

In the wake of the X Games star's suicide, friends contemplate the role of repeated head injuries and the psychological toll of retiring from BMX

It’s hard to believe a Colorado gear shop could outrage so many customers in the age of crowdsourced review sites and marketplaces like Amazon. But 123Mountain, owned and operated by European couple Olivier and Anna Sofia Goumas, has been fending off lawsuits for years. Has their luck finally run out?

Kristine and Doug Tompkins lived a life of adventure and risk uncommon to most couples. They also helped to protect millions of acres of land in Chile and Argentina. Following her husband's death, Kristine now faces the daunting challenge of creating six new national parks without him.

Some of the best medicine for kids with attention-deficit disorders may be extreme sports and outdoor learning. That's good news, because not only do they need exploration, but exploration desperately needs them.

German explorer Martin Szwed claims to have shattered the speed record for a solo ski to the South Pole last year. He has revealed no GPS data, no photos—no proof whatsoever that he even attempted the journey. Since his return from the icy continent, he has lost his house, job, and sponsors and is the subject of two investigations by the German government. Should anyone believe him?

The high-altitude, lung-busting challenge imported from Europe has become one of the hottest winter sports in North America. Why? Because this pursuit proves that premeditated suffering can be highly addictive.

People coming back to life after being frozen stiff. Frogs that cryopreserve for winter and then reanimate. The emerging frontier of extreme cold is offering revolutionary new insights and therapies for everything from deadly exposure to peak athletic performance.

The endless cascade of nutritional information—about localism, vegetarianism, veganism, organic food, the environmental impact of eating meat, poultry, or fish, and more—makes the simple goal of a healthy, sustainable diet seem hopelessly complex. We talked to scientists, chefs, and farmers to get the ultimate rundown on how you should fuel up.

It's expensive, demanding, and in the eyes of the many cities that have refused to throw their hats into the five-ring circus, a total scam

People thought Ned was a freak of nature when he was winning mountain-bike races at 40. That was 20 years ago. Now the sexagenarian is crushing fat-bike racers a third his age.

Fueled by Pop-Tarts and Little Debbies, 52-year-old software engineer Kurt Searvogel is out to break the record for the greatest distance pedaled in a year. What motivates a man to ride more than 200 miles a day—every day, rain or shine, hot or cold, sunrise to sunset?

Manuel Genswein has spent more than two decades burying himself alive and pushing shovels to their breaking point to ­determine the best ways to save snow-slide victims. His biggest challenge? ­Convincing the world’s most experienced rescuers that he’s right.

Australia is home to 24 million people and roughly 60 million kangaroos. The cuddly looking creatures are still a beloved national icon, but they're also the scourge of ranchers, frequent roadkill, a favorite on restaurant menus, and now the target of government-sponsored sharpshooters. Our writer hops Down Under for a rugged tour of one of the world's most surprising human-animal conflicts.

Want to find the crowd-free surf of yesteryear? Drive from Los Angeles to Baja, load five days of gear onto a SUP, and haul ass through thick fog, screaming seagulls, and open ocean to the rocky, big-wave coast of Todos Santos.

The marine biologist has done things in the ocean that would scare most people senseless. She's been alone in total darkness thousands of feet down, hovered under a Russian ship as it pinged her submarine, and been charged by huge sharks. But one thing does frighten her: the dire state of our overfished and polluted seas, something she spends every waking hour trying to change.

Take it from the world-champion surfer: there’s a right time for working, competing—and fighting for your life

A user's list for all the travel, fun, and affiliated delights you can cram into a year

If a skier hucks without uploading a photo, does anybody see it? A road trip through the exploding business side of Instagram, where pro athletes roam Alberta stalking the next big trophy shot.

The rules: Pilot a boat 750 miles from Port Townsend, Washington, to Ketchikan, Alaska—no motors allowed. The prize: $10,000 nailed to a piece of wood. The result: Seven capsizings, four lifesaving Big Macs, one dramatic coast guard rescue, and a cast of oddball adventurers who reclaimed the salty heart of ocean racing.

What motivates an amateur racer to rack up thousands of training miles and take on the pain and tedium of marathons and ultramarathons? Sometimes it's about keeping a step ahead of your ghosts.

It was the biggest set ever built for a Hollywood film in the 1920s, and then it was buried in the sands of the California Coast. The real story begins when a young filmmaker embarks on a decades-long attempt to excavate it.

With Airbnb and Yelp already operating in Cuba's capital, will hordes of American tourists sipping McDaiquiris ruin the very authenticity that draws us to the rebel island nation? Allow us to explain why you should go now—before Cuba changes, while it changes, and because you will change it yourself.

You've seen the images from Everest Base Camp and Kathmandu, but one village was hit so hard that it ceased to exist altogether. Half the population was buried. The others had to find a way out. This is their story.

The artificial holds and lines devised for gyms and climbing competitions don't just happen—they're created and placed by devious people who want to force you to stretch, contort, curse, fail, and fall. We go behind the scenes with the masterminds who make this booming sport a serious challenge.

There are countless watches, bracelets, headbands, and foot pods on the market promising to record every little thing you do. But can any of it make you a better athlete? The author wades through the muck and the mire to data-mine his best self.

Every fall, the world’s best mountain bikers assemble at Red Bull Rampage to hurl themselves down cliffs in search of fame and fortune—if they make it down in one piece.

There's no quick fix for post-traumatic stress disorder, but research has shown that surfing's physicality and flow can give victims some relief and a way forward. The author hit the water with his close friend Brian, a former Navy SEAL whose service in Afghanistan beat up his body, tortured his mind, and pushed him into a zone where violence—against himself or others—seemed inevitable.

In 1990, a grisly double homicide on America’s most famous hiking route shocked the nation and forever changed our ideas about crime, violence, and safety in the outdoors

As each week brings fresh reports of African and Middle Eastern migrants and refugees dying on the Mediterranean in overcrowded boats, a self-made Louisiana millionaire and his Italian wife have taken to the sea to save them.

Does the catastrophe that gave us 'Into Thin Air' still have the power to captivate? We talk to the cast and crew of the new movie 'Everest' about making an adventure epic roar to life for a new generation.

Millionaire Forrest Fenn launched a thousand trips when he filled a chest with gold, rubies, and diamonds, and hid it somewhere north of Santa Fe. If one man is going to find it, by god, it’s an ex-cop from Seattle named Darrell Seyler.

In Jay Blahnik's first extended interview since Apple hired him to help launch the Watch, the company’s director of fitness for health technologies insists activity tracking is overemphasized, elite athletes have a sitting problem, and the real breakthrough apps for the device will probably be created outside of Cupertino.

When you're outdoors, you tend to worry about grizzly bears, sharks, and mountain lions. But the real dangers are the parasites and microbes you can't even see. Steven Rinella has been felled by the worst of them, and he offers an essential guide to prioritizing your panic.

The country's Sandinista government has cut a deal with a reclusive Chinese businessman willing to spend $50 billion on a larger-than-life transport waterway. There are a few unanswered questions, starting with whether Nicaraguans really want it and how much priceless habitat would be wrecked. Traveling the proposed route by motorcycle, boat, and boots, the author hunts for answers.

A group of eccentric engineers flocked to a dried-up lakebed in California to race for the championship title of a 117-year-old sport you’ve never heard of

Chad Brown put down a gun and picked up a fly-fishing rod. The Navy veteran turned gear designer now wants kids and vets to heal each other on the great American waters that saved his life.

Over the past decade, ultrarunning has gone from a fringe pursuit for distance freaks to a hypercompetitive sport attracting big-time sponsors. But a mysterious training condition is suddenly plaguing its ranks, robbing a generation of top athletes of their talents and forcing victims to wonder: Is it possible to love this sport too much?

The oceans are in serious trouble, creating a tough question for consumers: Should I eat wild fish, farmed fish, or no fish at all? The author, a longtime student of marine environments, dove into an amazing new world of ethical harvesters, renegade farmers, and problem-solving scientists. The result: your guide to sustainably enjoying nature's finest source of protein.

When François Guenot vanished last summer on a wild and remote Alaskan coastline, many in the state dismissed him as yet another unprepared greenhorn. But a revelatory road trip with François's father and brother revealed he was something special: a tough, soulful wanderer whose story resonates with the grand traditions of the American outdoors.

In the grueling world of ultrarunning, she's an anomaly: a low-key athlete who thrives on unstructured training, competes by instinct, and crushes men in the sport's most prestigious race

The Pearl River is full of trash, Volkswagen-sized catfish, and a heckuva lot of gators. Swimming in it? That was Pop's idea.

Thanks in part to advances in wing technology, a few pioneering paragliders are smashing the limits by completing long-distance flights that were once thought impossible. Last spring, high-fliers Will Gadd and Gavin McClurg pulled off one of the most ambitious trips ever attempted: 385 miles down the jagged, frozen, potentially deadly spine of the Canadian Rockies.

Norman Ollestad's father taught him to surf during rambling, tough-love safaris down the coast of Mexico. Then the education came to a sudden and tragic end. Forty years later, Ollestad heads south with his own son—and finds that the old road maps can only take them so far.

They get paid to climb mountains and raft whitewater. But guiding isn't all a dream—not with whiny clients, lousy tips, and the occasional colleague pranking you in a gorilla suit.

Endurance cyclist Juliana Buhring left a notorious cult, wrote a bestseller, and then rode her bike around the world. She's just getting started.

Three men BASE jumped from the One World Trade Center in September 2013. Six months later they were arrested. Their ongoing—and, many would say, harsher than necessary—legal battle raises the question: How serious a crime is leaping off a building?

Why is the roof of the world covered in our shit? Lots of reasons, but it might come down to common laziness.

The avalanche that effectively closed Everest last spring hasn't stopped crowds of climbers from flocking to Base Camp. These are the stories that will define another controversial season.

The Whitewater Grand Prix is paddling's most insane event, a scrappy, alcohol-soaked gauntlet that sends competitors down some of the most fearsome rapids in the world. It's so dangerous and spectator-unfriendly that many sponsors won't go anywhere near it. But it might be exactly what the struggling sport needs.

Human-rights superhero Kumi Naidoo has a tough assignment: lead the organization into 21st-century relevance. But after a year that saw activists lionized (imprisoned in Putin's jails) and then vilified (unfurling a banner on Peru's ancient Nazca lines), can he save the day?

Research almost any travel destination and you'll probably wind up on travel-industry Goliath, where passionate people praise and denounce everything from romantic getaways to cockroach-infested hotel rooms. But who can you trust?

Don't plan any vacations before reading this year's Best of Travel winners.

These simple strategies will lift your mood, get you outdoors, and help you spend more time doing what you love.

It's called the Cyclic Variations in Adaptive Conditioning machine, and it looks like a sci-fi egg from outer space. In theory it one-ups standard hypobaric chambers by giving users greater aerobic gains in a fraction of the time. Is CVAC crackpot pseudoscience? Or an important new discovery that could change the way you train?

That's how Mark Twain defined a gold miner. But when our writer heard head-spinning treasure tales from a legendary prospector named Flint Carter, he organized a full-scale expedition into the mountains near Tucson, Arizona. Following a hand-drawn map, the team lit out for the harsh Sonoran Desert hopped up on gold fever in search of the fabled Lost City.