Inhaltsverzeichnis für September 2017 in Outside

Access: Fly to Dominica on American, Delta, or JetBlue, with a connection in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Seaborne Airlines. Bungalows from $520, villas from $710 Climate: Temperatures range from 70 to 90 degrees year-round. Average annual rainfall is 70 inches, so plan to go from February to April, the driest season. Detour: Day-hike a section of the Waitukubuli National Trail, which winds through local villages, the ruins of an 18th-century French settlement, and iconic Emerald Pool, a cascading waterfall in the 17,000-acre Morne Trois Pitons National Park. Indulge: Try a four-handed massage. Two therapists set up shop on the deck of your villa, cleansing the skin before applying a soothing herbal infusion to stimulate circulation.…

For head protection to do its job well, it has to fit perfectly. The a. Mammut Wall Rider helmet ($100) has multiple adjustable straps. Bonus points for the ultralow weight and big vents to keep your noggin cool. The built-in belt on b. Black Diamond’s Alpine Light Softshell pants ($99) lets you quickly take the waist in or out a few inches—handy for bathroom breaks. Shout out to the designer who shaped and placed the zippered pocket, which is ideal for sunglasses or a topo map. The c. Cotopaxi Teca Full-Zip windbreaker ($80) won’t blend in with the landscape, and that’s just fine with us. The 4.5 ounces of repurposed 20-denier nylon is enough to fend off light showers, while elastic at the hem, cuffs, and hood shuts out drafts.…

ONE MORNING THIS spring, Thomas Meyerhoffer had a breakthrough on the race track—which made him furious. In recent years, the acclaimed 52-year-old industrial designer has thrown himself into motorsports, training at the Porsche Sport Driving School and, beginning in 2016, competing in the Pirelli GT3 Cup, a series for elite amateurs. At the Thunderhill Raceway in Northern California, he dropped his lap time by three and a half seconds—an eternity. “I came out of the car and I was so angry,” he says. “I was just thinking, Why didn’t I do that before? It was so simple.” Meyerhoffer is obsessed with simplicity. The remarkably diverse range of mold-demolishing sports products he has created—the first wraparound ski goggles, the Smith V3; a no-fuss rear-entry snowboard binding for Flow that offered the…

Modern Advantages Would you buy Lance Armstrong’s poop? It’s a serious question—and I’m not referring to the BS he and other cyclists peddled for years about being clean. Research is increasingly revealing the importance of our microbiome when it comes to performance, and as one scientist recently predicted in The Washington Post, it’s only a matter of time before those hoping to gain an edge through fecal transplants begin seeking out the stools of elite athletes. The future of sports is getting weird. Indeed, though we’ve published only a few sentences this month on the topic of doping, two of our features offer a scary glimpse at the issues sports ethicists and governing bodies suddenly face around legal performance standards. Policing athletes has always been a somewhat futile and exasperating…

“Pro athletes are able to work with brands on prototypes that are unique to our needs. Now everyone can get this treatment.” —ULTRARUNNER KILIAN JORNET “A FOOT IS LIKE a fingerprint,” says Jean- Yves Couput, innovation director at Salomon. “It’s unique to the individual.” Which is why this fall, the Annecy, France, brand is launching Mesh, a program that allows anyone to purchase a bespoke pair of trail- or roadrunning shoes based on foot shape, running style, and terrain. Colors, patterns, and monograms have long been customizable on everything from Nike trainers to Vans casualwear, but in the past only sponsored athletes were able to drill down on specifics like heel-to-toe drop and the material used for the upper. That’s because of the high cost of personalization, says Matt Powell,…

THE NEWBIE Maggie McDermut, University of Colorado, Boulder student Her rig: 1986 Toyota Land Cruiser BJ70 “A lot of people see these super built-up rides and think that’s what overlanding is. They don’t realize that you can start small and go from there.” THE CORRESPONDENT Wes Siler, Outside contributing editor His rig: 1999 Land Rover Discovery 1 “Don’t invest too much money or time in your vehicle. Just go do rad stuff. You’ll learn what you need along the way. Making do is part of the fun.” THE GURU Scott Brady, founder of Overland Journal His rig: 1996 Mercedes G-Wagon “I’ve circumnavigated the world three times and crossed all seven continents in an overland vehicle, and one of the things I tell people is that the world is far safer,…

Moat Mountain Smoke House NORTH CONWAY, NEW HAMPSHIRE Occupying a big old yellow clapboard house, Moat Mountain is the kind of place where locals keep their own mugs hanging above the bar. Drop in after climbing 6,288-foot Mount Washington—New England’s highest point—or scrambling up the Moat Range’s lesser known peaks to the west. You’ll recognize the place by the ski gondola sitting outside near the entrance. If there’s a queue for a table, buy a Frisbee from the bar ($3) and toss it around in the yard while you wait. Then order an Iron Mike Pale Ale, brewed in a barn up the street, and pair it with a brisket sandwich and Cajun fries. On your way out, grab a growler or a four-pack of 16-ounce cans to go. Tío…

When it comes to gear, I prize versatility above all else. A running shoe that performs just as well on roads as it does on trails and still looks good with jeans? I’m all over it. But I also believe that equipment shouldn’t be overbuilt. Which makes me the last guy you’d expect to go gaga for a German-made tent that looks like it was designed for a mission to Mars. Yet the Heimplanet Nias turns out to be both cleverly adaptable and decidedly simple to pitch. A single baffled tube forms a sort of girder system: inflate it with a hand pump and you’re just about done. The Nias can be split into two 38-squarefoot rooms connected by a tunnel-like vestibule; if you’re traveling with more stuff than friends,…

a. Aukey SoundTank $55 Tank indeed. You can practically dropkick this dual five-watt speaker, thanks to its heavy rubber bumper and protective grate. It’s not submersible, but it will shrug off light rain. And it boasts kicking bass—not typical of a speaker that weighs in at only a pound. b. Scosche Boom- Bottle H2O+ $100 Water-skiing, surfing, rainy-day mountain biking, beach volleyball— take this tubular, dunkable speaker along and get it wet. Per the name, it fits in a standard bottle cage and thumps music 360 degrees for up to 11 hours. c. Fabriq $50 This palm-size unit cranks out five hours of tunes and will order you a pizza while you tweak your playlist. Outfitted with Amazon’s Alexa personal assistant, it can also check the weather and call home…

Thehroeu’ss ea in Mossel Bay,South Africa, high on a hill overlooking the Indian Ocean, five hours east of Cape Town, where shark nerds from around the world come to live each year. I arrived this past June, after a long day on a small boat watching great whites chasing roped tuna heads. The 2,000-pound sharks are common along the coast, which is why the property of Kenny Coskey—a laid-back local with a large house, an oil job offshore, and a close friend in the shark world—has become an ichthyologist commune of sorts. A college-aged woman answered the door wearing a T-shirt that read SHARKS MAKE ME HAPPY. YOU? NOT SO MUCH. A toddler ran by with a toy shark. More shark-obsessed young people emerged. Most were interns with Oceans Research,…

Josiah Zayner and Iare drinking fluorescent green beer at the ODIN, his Oakland lab. The tables are scattered with pipettes and disposable blue gloves, cases of Red Bull and Slim Jims are near at hand, and Drake is pulsing on the sound system. It’s not St. Patrick’s Day, and the beer isn’t really all that green. It’s the ghostly luminescence of jellyfish pulsing through the depths. That’s because it’s chock full of glowing jellyfish protein. But no jellyfish were harmed in the making of this beer. Zayner is the world’s most notorious biohacker—a new breed of garage tinkerer experimenting with DNA and bio logical systems outside the confines of traditional research. In this case, he genet ically engineered a common brewer’s yeast by adding a jellyfish’s green fluorescent protein (GFP)…

I can see himin his glass-fronted Cambridge office from the foosball table in the light-filled central atrium. He’s standing there talking to a visitor and seems to be finishing up. This entire side of the third floor in MIT’s new Media Lab building is partitioned with glass, and professor Hugh Herr and his colleagues and whatever madness they’re up to in their offices and the open, gadget-filled, lowerfloor lab are on display. Several people, myself included, are peering down, hoping to see a bit of magic. Months ago, when I e-mailed Herr to propose writing an article about him, I told him about my rare bone cancer and resulting partial paralysis below the waist as a way to explain my interest in his work. Though I didn’t tell him this,…

IT STARTED IN 1936, when the company's namesake founder invented the Skyliner, the first quilted down jacket patented in America. This year, the Seattle brand has once again broken the mold with the EverTherm Down Jacket. Instead of being stuffed with down clusters, it’s insulated with ultrathin sheets of down, which means no seepage, no cold spots, and no need for quilting. The result is a gamechanger. Buy starting on 9/27/17 at Eddie Bauer stores or preorder today on EddieBauer.com/EverTherm. ADRIAN BALLINGER AMGA/IFMGA GUIDE EDDIE BAUER GUIDE TESTED ON EVEREST "It’s unlike any jacket I’ve ever worn; it’s lighter, warmer, and slimmer." THINDOWN FABRIC, NOT QUILTED DOWN Instead of being stuffed with loose down, the EverTherm Down Jacket is insulated with an ultra-thin sheet of down, which means no seepage,…

RENOWNED Venezuelan architect Fruto Vivas presented his daughter, Sandra, with the ultimate wedding gift: a treehousestyle villa on the small, lush island of Dominica, perched atop a dramatic 120-foot cliff overlooking Prince Rupert Bay. Sandra and her husband went on to incorporate their 2,700-square-foot retreat into a boutique eco-resort, erecting five more villas and two smaller bungalows. They called it Secret Bay, and it lives up to the name. Guests feel like they’re floating above the forest canopy, enjoying 180-degree views of azure salt water and Dominica’s moun tains. With decks for meditation, yoga, and sunset watching, meals of lobster and local greens with homemade herb vinaigrette, kayaks and SUPs at the ready, and three secluded white-sand beaches at their disposal, some visitors never leave the property. That’s understandable, but…

a. POC Coron helmet $450 Mountain-bike crashes happen. So POC designed this enduro-style full-face lid with an expanded polypropylene liner that cushions and then regains its shape after impact. The outer shell is made with M-Forge, a composite fiber used in moto-racing helmets that won’t crack with just one hit to the dome. The upshot: you can keep wearing the Coron after taking a header. b. Samsung Gear S3 Frontier watch $350 The S3 Frontier has everything. You can send and receive e-mail and texts and, thanks to a built-in SIM card, make and take calls without bringing your cell phone with you. There’s also on-board GPS. But the most significant breakthrough? It packs all that into a smart timepiece you actually want to wear. c. Columbia OutDry Ex Eco…

RAPH BRUHWILER As Canada’s first pro surfer and now a Coast Guard rescue specialist, Raph— the eldest sibling of Tofino’s first family of surfing (seen here with his son Shea)—is deeply familiar with the Pacific’s dynamic conditions, from water that hovers around 55 degrees year-round to swells that reach over 30 feet in winter. When crowds peak in the summer, Raph sets out on his boat with his wife and three kids. “You can head five minutes away from town to a beach without a single person on it.” PETE DEVRIES The once sleepy seaside village of Tofino (population 2,500) has native son Pete Devries, 34, to thank for helping put it on the map as a surfing hot spot. He virtually grew up in a wetsuit and, at 16,…

“Innovation is a dirty word in my life. There are artists and institutions that are addicted to it and who innovate for its own sake. I consider innovation a privilege, not a right. It’s a privilege for me to stumble upon a problem that needs a solution. I spend 99 percent of my time just doing push-ups, focusing on the basics. I’ll go for long periods with nothing new happening, but I still have a lot of work to do. I clean my workshop, sharpen my chisels, tidy up. I make sure my equipment is ready so that when inspiration strikes, I don’t have to go to the store to buy red paint. That’s my number- one strategy: Be prepared. “I used to carry around an 8.5-by-11-inch blank book with…

“In our organization, we look at sports as a lifestyle. The culture of sports transcends everything. The people we connect with most don’t draw lines between ‘He’s a musician. He’s an entertainer. He’s an athlete. He’s an artist.’ It’s all one big fluid world for them. That’s our starting point. So everything we do must be born from some cultural insight. That is critical to how we bring technical and material innovation into our products. If you start with technical innovation, things might become too rational or cold, or maybe it’s something that somebody buys to run a race but leaves in a bag when they’re done training. “When I came into my role, we were very calendar driven. In our effort to streamline efficiency, we had really stripped away…

“Solve was founded on the belief that there is ingenuity everywhere. We organize workshops around specific challenges to improve the lives of millions of people living on the margins. Then we issue a call for solutions. Anybody can submit. You can be at a university, a business, or a refugee camp. The proposals are judged by a diverse panel—experts like Lauren Powell Jobs, former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, Yo-Yo Ma—that selects a class of up to ten solvers per challenge that we connect with people who have resources to really help them scale. “There are lots of challenge models out there, but most of them say, ‘We are looking for solutions that do X, and we’ll give one person a million dollars.’ That’s not what spurs innovation. A check alone…

“I’ve been an athlete longer than I’ve been an academic. I went through coaches, I competed at the Ironman World Championships, I raced bikes professionally. And I struggled, and saw my teammates struggle, with coaches putting us on the same training programs as men. That’s been the driving force. I joke that my whole career has stemmed from questions I want answered for myself. Why are these things not working for women? Why are they just being handed down to us? I’ve realized this is very disruptive. It’s a big shift not to view everything through a male lens. “I’m one of four researchers at the University of Waikato’s Adams Centre for High Performance in New Zealand, but I don’t feel like a true scientist. The other three conduct research,…