Indice dei contenuti per October 2018 in Outside

Outside|October 2018

Battling Uphill

In 2009, on his first assignment for Outside, contributing editor Brian Mockenhaupt traveled to Afghanistan’s remote Kunar province, where he embedded with an Army platoon at a site called Observation Post Hatchet. The collection of spare plywood huts was home to 24 soldiers tasked with rooting out elusive Taliban soldiers in some of the country’s most rugged terrain. Mockenhaupt was the ideal reporter to capture the scene: he’d served two tours as an infantryman in Iraq before returning to a career in journalism, and as a result, the soldiers were quick to accept his presence. Not long after we published that story (“Fire on the Mountain,” November 2009), we sent Mockenhaupt back to the mountains to cover an expedition in Nepal comprised of experienced guides and military veterans. At the…

6 min

Outside|October 2018

Deep Cuts

River Jordan was 12 years old when his family moved onto a sailboat in 2000 and spent three years traveling through South America and the Caribbean. In the 18 years since, he’s made a career out of exploring the world, photographing the people and landscapes he encounters. “I have this real connection with the ocean,” he says. Jordan still travels widely from his home in Austin, Texas, though he doesn’t always go abroad to find good stories. In 2017, in Santa Barbara, California, he met John Hoadley, a sea urchin diver who invited Jordan to dive with him and document his wild, often dangerous undersea workplace. “Here’s a guy who jumps off his boat, way off the coast of California, into water that may not even have 15 feet of…

1 min

Outside|October 2018

You Won’t Want to Leave

BEST FOR: FJORDS AND FLY-FISHING REMOTA Puerto Natales, Chile The design of this 72-room lodge in Chilean Patagonia is almost as dramatic as the landscape that surrounds it. Slanted steel-and-glass walls mimic the iconic wind-bullied sheep-shearing sheds endemic to the country’s Magallanes region. But getting outside is why you travel all the way to Puerto Natales, the gateway to 700-square-mile Torres del Paine National Park. Spend one day hiking 12 miles round-trip to the base of the park’s famous 8,500-foot granite spires and another stalking fat brown trout along the Río Prat. Or paddle the waters of Last Hope Fjord in a kayak, then send the 30 private sport-climbing routes the lodge put up on its own secluded cliffs. Before a king crab dinner, hit the indoor pool or Finnish-style…

10 min

Outside|October 2018

Happier Meals

A. L.L.Bean Quick-Pack Folding picnic table $149 A camp cook’s dream, this 25-pound aluminum table is workhorse sturdy and offers 8.8 square feet of prep space and four seats. The whole thing folds up in under two minutes. B. Camelbak ChuteMag Vacuum Insulated Stainless 32-ounce bottle $36 Magnets hold the ChuteMag’s lid to the side when it’s open, so it doesn’t hit you in the face while you’re drinking. It’s the kind of invention you never knew you needed, then you wonder why you didn’t have it sooner. C. Hydro Flask Coffee mug $30 There’s plenty of great travel drinkware out there, but at home we like holding a handle. This stainless-steel 12-ouncer features double-wall vacuum construction that keeps your joe hot twice as long (with the no-drip lid on)…

1 min

Outside|October 2018

The New Rules of Healthy Living

1. UPGRADE YOUR HOME You spend roughly half of your time at home, so your surroundings should be as healthy as possible. Rachel Gutter, president of the International WELL Building Institute, suggests some simple ideas that can improve your indoor environment. Add circadian lighting Lighting is an important factor in how well we sleep. To help address that, companies like Lighting Science sell fixtures and bulbs that are specialized for different rooms and times of day. “They adjust the spectrum of light to provide the right levels and temperatures to wake you up naturally in the morning—through rich white light that promotes alertness—and encourage relaxation and sleep at night, through warmer color schemes,” Gutter says. “Athletes are finding they can get all the nutrients they need from a whole-foods diet,”…

17 min

Outside|October 2018

THE SOUL OF A NEW POLE

CHIEF ROY HENRY VICKERS WANTS MY SHIRT. I can’t blame him. Faded green checkered Wrangler Retro. Mother-of-pearl snaps. Worn, not dingy. Everybody loves this shirt. Me most of all. I wear it whenever I think cameras might be around. “You know what you’re supposed to do when you’re in a chief’s house and he says he likes something you have?” Vickers asks. Some distant raven song bends a note in my mind. I take off the shirt and hand it over. “All yours,” I say, dying a little inside. Vickers grabs it without hesitation. “You’ve just done something very traditional in this part of the world,” he says, running a thumb over those flashy buttons I’ll never unsnap again. “I feel totally authentic,” I say. This gets a big laugh…

19 min

Outside|October 2018

Feedback

Fountain of Ire In our July issue, writer McKenzie Funk explored the controversial views of Liz Parrish, who served as the guinea pig for a potentially dangerous gene-therapy experiment with the goal of warding off the aging process (“I Am Patient Zero”). Readers were skeptical, finding her actions to be unrealistic, ill-informed, and selfish. Your readership deserves better than the pseudoscientific hype served up in this story. An “ordinary mom” could never eliminate aging by searching the internet, going to a few meetings, and then flying to Bogotá for “secret” injections. Death is as much a part of life as birth. Someday we may develop new treatments that will make growing old easier, but the changes will come from the National Institutes of Health, not some foolish huckster. Mike Maffett,…

1 min

Outside|October 2018

Endless Forms Most Beautiful

“I’M NOT AN EXPERT on birds,” says artist Jane Kim. “I’m an expert on the 243 birds I painted, in the position that I painted them.” Kim is referring to the work that went into From So Simple a Beginning, one of the world’s most ambitious natural-history murals. Covering a 2,500-square-foot wall in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology visitor center, it depicts avian species from every modern bird family, plus 26 extinct ancestors. Starting in 2013, Kim, a scientific illustrator, spent two and a half years researching and painting the feathered specimens in precise detail. “We saw the project as reaching a broad audience—people who care about art, birds, or just nature,” she says. “I didn’t realize the insanity of it until it was done, and then I was like,…

2 min

Outside|October 2018

Down in the District

6 A.M. Wake up early at the historic Willard InterContinental hotel. It’s only two blocks from the White House, and it’s the place where Martin Luther King Jr. finished penning his “I Have a Dream” speech. Head out for a run and you’ll have the National Mall nearly to yourself for a two-mile stretch between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. Extend the route five miles with a loop around Hains Point and the Jefferson Memorial. 8 A.M. Stop by Florida Avenue Grill, a local-fave no-frills diner near Howard University that claims to be the world’s oldest soul-food restaurant. The order: hotcakes, corn muffins, eggs, and grits. 10 A.M. Rent a hybrid bicycle at Georgetown’s Big Wheel Bikes and pedal the C&O Canal trail 14 miles upstream to Great Falls…

2 min

Outside|October 2018

Fancy Free

A. Cannondale F-Si bike $2,999 and up Lefty mountain-bike forks, which have only a single stanchion and shock connecting the front wheel to the rest of the frame, perform just as well as standard two-sided forks on cross-country terrain, but their strange look can make riders doubtful. The new Lefty Ocho Carbon fork is sure to win converts—its sleek design is crazy light and efficient. B. Salomon/Atomic Shift MNC ski bindings $650 Seven years of R&D went into this new touring binding, and the results are terrific. The Shift, made by both Salomon and Atomic, offers unparalleled performance. Full toe and heel pieces provide a secure fit, while flyweight construction makes it a nimble backcountry setup. C. Spy Ace EC One goggles $275 Push a button on the Ace EC…

1 min

Outside|October 2018

The Human Experiment

“I’VE ENGAGED IN SOME PRETTY EXTREME ACTS. TO A CERTAIN EXTENT, IT’S MY SHTICK.” IF THERE’S A NEW technology or diet out there promising to improve your life, chances are Ben Greenfield has tried it. Over the past few years, the 36-year-old Spokane-based author, blogger, personal trainer, and father of twin boys has grabbed the life-hacking baton from Tim Ferriss, the godfather of self-quantification, and run with it, occasionally sprinting down some questionable trails. Greenfield made headlines last year after having his penis injected with stems cells, part of a quest to explore the outer edges of sexual-performance enhancement. (“My wife was pretty concerned about it,” he says, “but then I was like a 16-year-old boy for the next few months.”) Most of his work, however, is grounded in more…

5 min

Outside|October 2018

INHABITED

Andy Walshe, the former head of human performance at Red Bull, knows many adventure athletes who have rituals. “As much as they do a physical warm-up, they also do a psychological warm-up,” says Walshe, who now consults for professional sports teams and is working with the computer and gaming accessories company Logitech on a program to better understand how humans perform. We asked for his insight on the following athlete rituals. What are they doing right and wrong? SNOWBOARDER SHAUN WHITE “The night before a competition, I always eat a steak dinner. The one time I didn’t was when I lost the Olympics in Sochi. When I have three guys in front of me in competition, I do this: The first guy to drop, I put my left binding in.…

6 min

Outside|October 2018

Selfie Control

I DON’T REMEMBER exactly when I started following Sierra Quitiquit on Instagram, but it was several years ago. Since then, I’ve occasionally found myself scrolling her feed in a trance, getting pulled dozens of photos deep by her seemingly charmed life. Quitiquit, a 29-year-old professional skier from Utah, appears to be a laid-back woman who’s up for anything. One moment she’s lounging in her Dodge Ram van on a road trip through the Rockies, the next she’s playing a ukulele on a beach in Mexico or taking a cold plunge in a mountain stream. Not surprisingly, in the age of #influencers, these impressions are meticulously crafted. Quitiquit has more than 91,000 followers on Instagram, and like many other social-media personalities, she’s paid to tag brands in some of her posts.…

6 min

Outside|October 2018

Art for the Anthropocene

ZARIA FORMAN Forman’s pastel drawings are often mistaken for photographs—which is impressive, given that her subjects are complex natural formations like vast glaciers and crashing waves. In 2016 and 2017, NASA invited her on two flights with Operation IceBridge, a multiyear campaign to monitor the poles and the effects of their changing climates. Forman produced drawings of rarely seen icy formations that she photographed while over Antarctica and the Arctic. An exhibit featuring these works opens at New York City’s Winston Wächter Fine Art on October 25. JENNY KENDLER Kendler’s Birds Watching is a breathtaking outdoor sculpture that consists of 100 oversize bird eyes arranged side by side. According to the artist-activist, the 40-foot-wide flock of peepers, made of colorful reflective film mounted on aluminum, represents species threatened by climate…

1 min

Outside|October 2018

Small Wonders

A. DJI Mavic Air drone $800 So nice of DJI, a celebrated maker of professional-quality drones, to offer a reasonably priced model for the rest of us. The Mavic Air shoots beautiful 4K video and comes with newbie-friendly capabilities like obstacle avoidance, target tracking, and a range of preprogrammed shooting sequences. The whole thing folds up small enough to fit in your jacket pocket. B. Panasonic Lumix LX10 camera $550 This is one of the best point-and-shoot cameras ever made. The Lumix’s one-inch, 20-megapixel sensor captures images that are so sharp and vibrant that people might assume you used a top-end SLR. Add 4K video and live cropping and you have a portable powerhouse. C. Fitbit Charge 3 smartwatch $150 Fitbit’s most popular band is back—and this time it’s waterproof,…

1 min

Outside|October 2018

Dress to Impress

A. 686 GLCR Hydrastash Reservoir jacket $350 Many of us get dehydrated while skiing because we don’t want to carry a bottle or pack. The crafty designers at 686 came up with a remedy: a water reservoir that zips into the powder skirt, with a drinking tube running inside along the front zipper. Its clever placement means that the water never throws you off balance or makes a chairlift ride uncomfortable. B. The North Face Women’s Con toured Tech High-Rise tights $110 Researchers at the University of California at Irvine designed groovy patterning and shading for these tights to make the wearer appear taller and slimmer. The polyester-spandex fabric dries quickly, and the high waist is extremely comfortable, offering perfect support for almost any sport, from yoga to running to…

1 min

Outside|October 2018

THE INNER LIVES OF Obsessed

“TODAY I WAS REPLACING SWEAR WORDS. I HAD TO DO IT MYSELF. NO ONE ELSE CAN DO IT,” documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi says over a nouvelle Indian lunch at bohemian-cool Pondicheri in Manhattan. She appears every bit the sophisticated New Yorker: elegant and slender, with an expensive-looking black leather jacket slung over her shoulder. It’s 98 degrees in the shade outside, yet she orders a spicy aviyal (a robust coconut vegetable stew) and a bowl of hot turmeric soup. And she enthusiastically accepts my offer to share my paneer dish and naan. She may look delicate, but I suspect she knows something about voraciousness. Vasarhelyi and her husband, climber and filmmaker Jimmy Chin, codirected 2015’s narratively rich and visually jaw-dropping Meru, which chronicles the first ascent of the Shark’s…

14 min

Outside|October 2018

do who that voodoo

Three, two, one, dropping—but wait, there’s something he’s got to do first. Before extreme skier Julian Carr launches off any of the monster cliffs that have made him famous, he does three things. Always three. Never four. Two is out of the question. He exhales deeply, looks up at the sky, and clicks his poles together, just once. Professional skier and wingsuit BASE jumper JT Holmes also clicks his poles together before launching off cliffs, but not once. “Twice,” he says. What Holmes does not do is look toward the sky. Instead, a little while before pole-clicking, he eats a green apple. “In the beginning,” he says, “it was for energy and hydration. The tartness was like a shot of caffeine. But this has changed over time. The apple is…

8 min

Outside|October 2018

DAN IN REAL LIFE

DAN SIDLES grew up in northern Iowa, where the cornfields stretch to the horizon without a blip of elevation and the roads run bullet straight for miles through towns like Pocahontas (“the Princess City”) and Mallard (“We’re friendly ducks”). He detasseled corn in those fields in the summers and hauled beer kegs out there with friends. He wakeboarded on Five Island Lake and played football for the Emmetsburg E-Hawks, where he was a standout on offense and defense. After a directionless year in community college, he left Iowa for the Marine Corps in 2001. His older sister still lives in the area, and I stopped by her house to pick him up. “I have Daniel ready for you,” Amy Gilderhus said and handed me a small Folgers coffee container with…

55 min