Outside July 2013

KRISTOFFER SZILAS Szilas was a few minutes into his third day of climbing Alaska’s 8,520-foot Citadel, in the Kichatna Range, when he snapped this photo of his two partners ascending the final couloir. “We’d just endured an extremely cold night, sitting on a tiny ice ledge that we’d chopped out of a 70-degree face,” says the Danish photographer, who lives in New York City. Szilas wasn’t sure they were going to make the summit, until he saw the dawn light on the Kichatna Spire. “It was a magical moment. The weather was clear, and I knew we could push through the last section to the top.” THE TOOLS: Ricoh GR Digital III, ISO 64, f/4, 1/1,070 second JOSH SMITH Last summer, Smith was driving home across Australia’s Great Dividing Range…

Last winter I found myself at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, waiting anxiously at my departure gate as my chances of getting home to Santa Fe suddenly fell into jeopardy. It was 7 A.M. On February 8, Winter Storm Nemo had the region in a panic, and the first giant snowflakes were beginning to land on the runway. In the span of half an hour, the ground crew made three announcements warning that our flight could be canceled, each dire bulletin followed by groans from my fellow passengers. Then, suddenly, we were told to line up for boarding. Thirty minutes later we were in the air, and the captain announced that we were the last flight out of Newark. LaGuardia, he said, had already shut down. The entire cabin…

The Boulder, Colorado, writer, who profiled professional powder forecaster Joel Gratz in “Snowstradamus” (page 96), has always been a weather nerd. He studied meteorology at the University of Washington but switched majors after failing calculus (multiple times). He still keeps a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Weatherby his bed. “I really understand Joel’s obsession,” says Behar. The pair, who met on Valentine’s Day, plan to continue sharing their hobby. “This spring we made a pact to drop everything and go tornado chasing in the plains. Now, that I can’t wait to see,” says Behar.…

In our annual Adventure Issue (May), we chose the greatest athletes and adventurers of the year for “Superfreaks.” Our picks—along with the other stories in the issue—both inspired and infuriated readers. Lakpa Rita (“The Savior”) represents mountaineering at its finest. I had the privilege to climb with him on Aconcagua, and I can personally attest to his willingness to aid a climber in distress. My husband had a grand mal seizure at high camp, and Lakpa was instrumental in getting him through some tricky territory on the way down. CHRISTINA MUEDEKING WASHINGTON, D.C. I could’ve done without the stories devoted to record-breaking nutters like Kilian Jornet (“The Hybrid”), who ran over Mont Blanc in spandex tights. He may not have known that the merest whiff of a snow squall could…

“It’s a strange body type that excels at open-water swimming,” says novelist Matt Bondurant, who wrote “Give Us Your Tired, Your Sore, Your Shriveled Masses” (page 72), about his experience at Cork Distance Week, a training camp where masochists in Speedos log up to ten miles a day in the frigid Atlantic. Under those conditions, girth is an advantage. The top performers are as fit as marathoners but look like overfed wrestlers. Here, we compare the swimmers’ body types with that of an elite distance runner.…

Associate editor Kyle Dickman got his hands dirty while writing and photographing “Life On the Line” (page 86), the story of the Tahoe Hotshots, an elite wildland firefighting team battling the third-biggest fire season on record. Over the year he spent reporting the story, Dickman, who was a Tahoe Hotshot in 2006, took four trips to California to work with his former crew—running a chainsaw, lighting backfires, and wading into burning fields of poison oak. Above, the crew gathers after a day setting fire to slash piles in California’s Sierra Nevada. The 2012 Tahoe Hotshots 1. Rick Cowell: Crew boss; firefighter since 1977 2. Andrew Arriaga: Iraq veteran; joined helicopter crew at end of season 3. Dickman: The author 4. Saeid Sinnukrot: Collected bull semen in college for class credit…