Innehållsförteckning för May 2013 från Outside

MATT IRVING Irving had been working out of a temporary base camp on Baffin Island’s frozen Sam Ford Fjord, in Canada, for more than a week when he learned that the helicopter scheduled for this shoot had been canceled. “Something about bad weather,” says the Salt Lake City photographer. “We had to improvise.” With the help of BASE jumpers Tim Dutton, Jesse Hall, and J. T. Holmes, Irving scouted this 2,200-foot cliff and captured the three in mid-leap from a nearby ledge. “I was only a few steps from a pretty terrifying drop, but it wasn’t until we brought the video director up later that week and made him harness in that I realized I probably should have been strapped in, too.” THE TOOLS: Canon 5D Mark II, 24mm f/1.4…

Leave it to a story about hunting (“Dressed to Kill,” March), in our first ever Food Issue, to gratify readers or turn their stomachs. As a ten-year subscriber to Outside and an avid hunter, my jaw dropped when I saw this article. Bravo! Hunting fits in perfectly with the athletic outdoor activities you report on each month. A good part of my year revolves around an annual trip into Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains for mule deer or elk hunting. I know you won’t become a hunting rag, and I don’t want you to, but more articles like this might introduce your readers to the one pursuit that does more to totally immerse you in the outdoors than any other. SAM HAWKEY NEEDHAM, MASSACHUSETTS I’m glad Jonathan Hart had an epiphany and…

For “Born on the 9th of July” (page 78), contributing editor PATRICK SYMMES and Rome-based war photographer MARCO DI LAURO spent two weeks in the world’s newest country, South Sudan, following a special-forces soldier turned EU commissioner. The pair ate freeze-dried food, hung out with hunter-gatherers in swamps, and were left in the dust while their companions summited the country’s tallest peak. We asked the frequent travel partners to assess each other’s performance in the field. Climbing Chops... SYMMES ON DI LAURO: “Probably would have been a lot easier if he didn’t smoke two packs of cigarettes a day.” DI LAURO ON SYMMES: “Disconcerting to see a man sweat that much.” Eating Habits... SYMMES ON DI LAURO: “Eats only French, Italian, or Japanese at home and hates all freeze-dried food.”…

FOR THE PAST two summers, Diana Nyad has generated worldwide attention for her dogged attempts to swim the 103 miles from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida. But the most amazing thing about her quest isn’t the mileage she racked up in her four failed bids but the fact that, at 63, she wouldn’t think of giving up. “I’m either going to die or make that swim,” says the Los Angeles–based Nyad, who plans to try again this summer. Nyad, who has been long-distance swimming for much of her life (she swam around Manhattan in 1975 and from the Bahamas to Florida, a distance of 102 miles, in 1979), says each failure drives her more intently to succeed. “We learn something every time we go out,” she says. HER HARDEST-EARNED…

THE SHERPA PEOPLE of Nepal have only seven first names, which are given for the days of the week. This is just one of the many factors that cause Westerners to overlook their monumental efforts in the Himalayas. But here’s one name to remember: Lakpa (Wednesday) Rita, a 47-year-old senior guide from Alpine Ascents International. During every major Everest event of the past 20 years—including the 1996 disaster, when he saved a not-quite-dead Beck Weathers by helping him down from the South Col—Lakpa Rita has been aiding and rescuing the injured and incompetent alike. “He doesn’t like to talk much about rescues,” says Everest guide Garrett Madison, who was with Lakpa on Everest last season. “He’s very quiet about his accomplishments.” “I remember a rescue that I got a lot…

THE MOST impressive ski film of the past year had no plot or script. It was mostly a rambling collection of scenes—lava flows, changing seasons, huck shots—with an intermission for a climate PSA from Aspen Skiing Company scold Auden Schendler. That might not sound so fun, but All.I.Can, from 33-year-old Dave Mossop and his production house, Sherpas Cinema, became a breakout hit at festivals from Banff to Mountainfilm thanks to its stunning cinematography. The street scene featuring JP Auclair grinding on railings and skidding across pavement in Trail, B.C., has been viewed more than a million times on Vimeo alone, and the film’s climax, in which Canadian skier Kye Petersen bombs down Canada’s Mount Ossa, is simply breathtaking. Mossop, of Whistler, British Columbia, attributes his success to the stagnancy of…

RIDE THE WAKHAN THE SELL: Eastern Afghanistan’s rugged, 140-mile Wakhan Corridor was once a popular stop among hippie backpackers. Three decades of war put an end to that. But this summer, UK-based Secret Compass takes ten guests on a 22-day mountain-bike trip covering roughly 165 miles of singletrack with 11,000 feet of descents and climbs over five 14,000-foot passes. $4,950; secretcompass.com THE RISK: Although it’s 290 miles from Kabul—and most of the violence—the Wakhan still borders unstable Pakistan and Tajikistan, both home to Islamist extremists. SKETCH FACTOR: Medium. Despite its neighbors, the corridor is comparatively safe. “I’ve worked in Wakhan since 2008,” says Anthony Simms, a technical advisor for the Wildlife Conservation Society. “We have not had any security issues.” SURF LIBERIA THE SELL: Liberia’s reputation (child soldiers, civil war)…

OVER THE PAST 15 years, Eric Larsen has redefined the limits of polar exploration. Beginning in November 2009, during a 365-day window, the Wisconsin native trekked to the North Pole, then the South Pole, and summited Mount Everest. Last year he rode a fattire snow bike 350 miles across Antarctica. Next spring, Larsen will attempt to break the 49-day speed record for skiing to the North Pole. His training plan? Carry lots of rocks, eat buckwheat noodles, and stick to a schedule. “Engage the same muscles in the same way you will on the actual trip. For Everest, I loaded a pack with 50 pounds of rocks and hiked fourteeners in Colorado. For the North Pole, I tied two truck tires to my harness, loaded them with rocks, and pulled…

IF YOU EVER take a guided river trip through the Grand Canyon, your guides are likely to tell you the story of Kenton Grua, Rudi Petschek, and Steve “Wren” Reynolds. These men are legends in the tight-knit fraternity of canyon boatmen, largely because of an adventure they embarked on in late June of 1983, when they defied common sense and the National Park Service and set off, at night, to attempt a record-breaking speed run down the Colorado River in a 17-foot wooden dory called the Emerald Mile. Their starting point was the usual spot for Grand Canyon launches: Lees Ferry, a put-in 15 miles below the Glen Canyon Dam that’s marked as mile zero on river maps. The finish line was at mile 277: the Grand Wash Cliffs, near…

CROSS-COUNTRY 1. Orbea Occam S40 29er THE TEST: At 26 pounds, this four-inch-travel ride is burlier than most race bikes. While the Occam still carved up flowy singletrack, it was most at home on chunky trails. That’s because it features a slack-for-this-category 69-degree head-tube angle (for stable descending), a short 70-millimeter stem (for aggressive handling), and front and rear through-axle hubs (for holding a line through rough terrain). It’s also super plush, thanks to the Fox CTD fork and shocks. One ding: at this price, we wanted better components than Shimano SLX. THE VERDICT: It’s on the heavy side for a race bike, but the comfort and agility make it ideal for all-day rides. $5,000; 26 lbs; orbea.com SPLURGE: 2. Ellsworth Evolve Carbon The Evolve is lighter and quicker than…

2000 B.C.: The Greeks boil water to purify it. 200 B.C.: In a precursor to the hydration pack, Roman soldiers carry water in sheep bladders. 1774: Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War are paid with the only thing considered safe to drink: beer. 1858: The tin canteen becomes the standard-issue Army bottle. 1950s: Katadyn develops the first handheld water filter. 1986: Nalgene intro-duces its virtually indestructible wide-mouth plastic bottle; it’s still our favorite. 1997: Fiji Water ships groundwater 5,500 miles to the U.S.; Americans buy it for $3.50 a bottle. 2011: A drunk man pees in an open-air reservoir in Portland, Oregon. The city drains 7.8 million gallons of water due to “yuck factor.” 2013: Concord, Massachusetts, becomes the first American city to ban the sale of singleuse water bottles.…

Retelling old stories isn’t something we usually get excited about at outside. As journalists we’re programmed to report on the here and now. But some epics from years past are worth reinvestigating, especially when facts come to light that alter what we thought we knew. When this happens, what you learn can be stunning. So it went when we looked back at the first American ascent of Mount Everest, which took place 50 years ago this month. In 1963, the American public didn’t really understand mountaineering, and news coverage of this historic expedition centered almost exclusively on Jim Whittaker, who on May 1 became the first Yank to stand on top of the world, summiting with his climbing partner, Nawang Gombu Sherpa. But while Whittaker’s achievement was momentous, he’d followed…

WE’LL PAY YOU $10,000 TO TAKE YOUR DREAM TRIP Have a bold idea for an expedition? Submit a video proposal at outsideonline.com/adventuregrant by June 1 and you could win the second annual $10,000 Outside Adventure Grant. Editors will select a handful of finalists and post the videos online so readers can vote on the winner. We received hundreds of applications for the 2012 award, and thousands voted. The grantee? A former corporate lawyer who paddled a sea kayak from Minnesota to Florida.…

Over the past year, highly organized, well-funded teams pulled off an astounding number of firsts, sending a Hollywood director to the deepest spot in the ocean, landing a drone on Mars, and equipping a skydive from the edge of space. But there were some tenacious individuals at work, too–– including Kilian Jornet, a Spanish endurance star who merged ultrarunning and high-altitude climbing into a mashup sport with a thrilling, painful ethos: get up and down the mountain as fast as possible.…

ON MARCH 26, 2012, Avatar director James Cameron piloted his mini sub, the Deepsea Challenger—which he designed with engineer Ron Allum—to the deepest spot in the ocean, the 6.8–mile-down Mariana Trench. It was only the second time mankind had reached that depth, after Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard made the trip in 1960 in the U.S. Navy’s hollow-steel bathyscaphe Trieste. Meanwhile, on October 14, Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian skydiver, stepped out of a steel capsule and fell to earth from the stratosphere, topping the previous record for highest parachute jump, which was set by Air Force colonel Joe Kittinger in 1960. Bold projects like this used to be possible only through government funding (see: Walsh and Kittinger). Now the adventure world is dominated by individuals and companies with deep pockets.…

NASA LOST MUCH of its luster when it terminated the manned space shuttle program in August 2011. But when the Jet Propulsion Laboratory landed a car-size rover in the Red Planet’s Gale crater last August—complete with cameras beaming back HD photos—it captivated the nation in a way the administration hasn’t since the Apollo program. And while there were 40 people in the Pasadena, California, control room helping monitor the rover, only one became an Internet sensation and the de facto spokesman for the ten-year, $2.5 billion project: Bobak Ferdowsi, 33, an Iranian-American systems engineer whose mohawk went viral. We spoke with Ferdowsi, who sports a different haircut for each milestone in the project, about what it’s like to inherit the mantle of great explorers. OUTSIDE: The media latched onto you…

RIDE THE RIM Canyonlands National Park, Utah The White Rim Trail is a 100-mile mountain-bike route with clear views of the Land of Standing Rocks, the Needles District, and Musselman Arch, located just below the park’s Island in the Sky mesa. In other words: our kind of commute. It’s possible to hammer out the whole trail—an old prospector’s jeep road—in two days, but we recommend taking three nights to savor the sights and swap turns driving the trailing 4WD vehicle with your supplies. Start by heading east from Shafer Trail and drop 1,000 feet down a series of switchbacks to the White Rim Trail. Make the side trip to the Goosenecks overlook, a sinuous spot of the Colorado River canyon that nearly bends back upon itself, and pitch a tent…

IT’S 9:50 ON a cloudless September night in Salida, Colorado, and 46 mountain bikers are milling around on the lamplit F Street Bridge. This is the start of the Vapor Trail 125, an annual ride that starts at 10 P.M. and racks up 20,000 feet of climbing on forest roads and singletrack. It will take participants anywhere from 13 to 22 hours to complete the 125 miles. At the finish there’s no podium, announcer, or prize purse. Which is exactly why these bikers are here: they only want to push themselves on a good hard ride. The Vapor Trail is one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of grassroots events that have popped up across the country. Disenchanted with high entry fees and overcrowding at sanctioned races, athletes are ditching them altogether…

“There’s been a bit of news around recently, but not from Washington, Moscow or outer space.” This was the first line of a dispatch sent by James Ullman, the American Mount Everest Expedition’s official historian and a Life magazine correspondent. He was trying to play it cool. It was May 4, 1963, seven months after the Cuban missile crisis and during the early years of the moon race. The news Ullman was breaking—and that he and others at the American Embassy in Kathmandu had huddled by the radio to hear, waiting with “damp palms and thumping hearts”—was this: three days earlier, on May 1, an effusive six-foot-five-inch store manager from the Seattle gear co-op Recreational Equipment Inc. had become the first American to climb the world’s tallest mountain. “YANKS SEEK…

THE TOILET PAPER STARTLED THE HORSE. I WAS RELIEVING MYSELF, AND A GUST OF WIND HAD UNFURLED THE tissue in my left hand. The red and white spotted pony lifted his head when he saw the flutter, and the rope to his bridle slipped through my fingers. He looked at me with eyes full of white and his front feet spread wide, ready to bolt. We both froze. He knew he was loose. I lunged forward in a full Pete Rose slide, bloodying both my knees and scraping my exposed parts on the rocks and the short prickly grass. Just as I grabbed the rope, he jerked it out of my hand and wheeled away, kicking a hind leg at me as he sprang off. I collected myself and concluded…

A. A detachable handle makes it easy to grasp the 2.5-quart sauce pan in the coleman Family cook set, which comes with an equally indestructible 6.5-quart kettle and ten-inch frying pan ($40; coleman.com). B. Because it’s a cinch to clean and almost impossible to scratch or chip, Gsi’s classic enamelware, like the 12-piece pioneer table set, remains our campsite tableware of choice ($70; gsi outdoors.com). C. If we had to pack just one pan, it’d probably be an old-school cast-iron frypan like Lodge’s eight-inch skillet ($18; lodge mfg.com). D. Like all of New West knifework’s blades, the serrated Deli Utility knife Fusionwood 2.0 is handmade in Massachusetts. A riveted leather sheaf makes for simple packing ($159; newwest knifeworks.com). E. If you’re serious about cooking tasty food in the outdoors, you’ve…

By Will Palmer A WHILE back I did a stupid thing. I dropped my iPhone facedown on a gravel driveway. The result was a coast-to-coast network of spider cracks and a new personal mission: to find a case I could trust. I put 36 models through their paces by dropping, dunking, and (all-importantly) setting them down on a car roof to see if they slid off. What I learned is that most cases have an Achilles’ heel, if not several. These four held up best and are available for the iPhone 4, 4S, and 5. BEST FOR WATER 1. Lifeproof Fre The Fre is like a comfy pair of gloves: tough, snug fitting, and element resistant. The polycarbonate shell is basically an extension of the phone, and the plastic screen…

It’s been a tough year for Outside cover subjects. In the past 12 months, skier Lindsey Vonn (February 2013) had a season-ending crash, Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius (November 2011) tragically shot and killed his girlfriend, and Lance Armstrong (a ten-time cover boy, most recently in July 2010) confessed to doping after a decade of vehement denials. Concerned, we checked in with Ironman competitor Andy Potts (January 2013) to see how he was holding up. OUTSIDE: Andy—the curse. How bad is it? POTTS: There’s no curse. Really? No injuries or doping scan-dals? I do have a bit of tendonitis. Are you worried at all? Let me put it this way: to accomplish the feats that will land you on the cover of Outside— to dedicate yourself to winning the world’s hardest…

Contributing editor Kevin Fedarko has been chronicling the Grand Canyon for nearly a decade. In “Rocketing into the Great Unknown” (page 86), he goes deep inside the 1983 record-setting speed descent of the Colorado River. Here’s a brief history of the Santa Fe–based Fedarko’s relationship with the river that has shaped his life. BETWEEN THE LINES 2004: Outside sends Fedarko down the river to profile Martin Litton, a conservationist and founder of Grand Canyon Dories, for “Ain’t It Just Grand” (outsideonline.com/aintitjustgrand). 2005: Fedarko hears Litton read Lew Steiger’s classic essay “Speed,” the story behind a record-setting descent through the Grand Canyon. 2006: Hoping to row a dory himself, Fedarko starts an apprenticeship with Litton’s old company. He’s assigned to the Jackass, a raft that packs out clients’ sewage. 2007: After…

JUST AFTER THREE in the morning last September 18, Spanish runner Kilian Jornet set out from the small Italian town of Courmayeur, at the base of 15,771-foot Mont Blanc, and headed for France. Jornet, who at 25 is the world’s top ultramarathoner, was wearing only running shoes, spandex tights, and a windbreaker. On his five-foot-six, 125-pound frame he carried a small backpack with crampons, some climbing rope, water, and a few other essentials. Over the next six hours, Jornet ran, scrambled, and climbed more than 12,000 feet up Mont Blanc’s south face. After running past two common stopping points—the Monzino hut, at 8,402 feet, and the Eccles bivy, at 12,631—he traversed along the Innominata Ridge, a technical section of mountain that features an expanse of glacier with a 60-degree slope,…

HE WASN’T THE FIRST to complete a human-powered global circumnavigation—that title belongs to Briton Jason Lewis, who completed his 46,000-mile voyage in 2007—but the 51-year-old Turkish-American’s silver-medal effort required a level of mental endurance that was borderline pathological. Last July, after 1,026 days and 37,472 miles of hiking, biking, and boating, Erdun Eruc, a onetime software engineer who now lives in Sydney, returned to his starting place, Bodega Bay, California. He had battled the Pacific in a rowboat for 419 days, biked across Australia, rowed the Indian Ocean (a first), trekked across Africa, and rowed from Namibia to Venezuela to the Gulf Coast. After cycling the final 2,389 miles from Louisiana to California, Eruc quietly returned home and faced the shock of reentering everyday life. “I felt isolated, like I…

IN 2011, GERLINDE KALTENBRUNNER solidified her mountaineering legacy by becoming the first woman to bag all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks without supplemental oxygen. She followed that up in 2012 by completing the hardest line of the season from Everest Base Camp: the rarely attempted Scott Route up 25,790-foot Nuptse, first ascended in 1979 by a team of British climbers. In May, the 41-year-old Austrian joined German David Göttler on the brutally exposed, avalanche-prone line, tackling it in four days. It was just the third successful attempt up the route, which ascends a 5,791-foot wall, and they did it without the aid of oxygen or high-altitude porters. They were also just the 19th and 20th people to reach Nuptse’s main summit. This summer, Kalten brunner sets her sights on Denali, most likely…

IT’S HARD TO WING IT in Bhutan. The government famously controls tourism, imposing a daily $250 guide fee to access the country’s 20,000-foot peaks and deep river valleys. But at the new Uma Punakha—a nine-room, two-villa luxury hotel in the subtropical, ancient city of Punakha—the fees are factored in, so you can spend your energy choosing your own adventure from the hotel’s spectacularly remote location. Punakha is 80 mountainous miles (and a four-hour car ride) from tourist hubs like Thimphu, yet rooms still come with Wi-Fi and a private terrace overlooking the Mo Chu River valley. Explore the blue-pine-and-rhododendron-covered hills with scenic rafting on the Class II–V Mo Chu ($450, arranged by the hotel), day hikes into nearby Jigme Dorji National Park (home to snow leopards), and thrilling mountain-bike descents…

GET KITTED OUT FOR YOUR NEXT OVERSEAS ADVENTURE WITH THESE FIRST-AID AND GROOMING ESSENTIALS By Martin Mulkeen DOPP KIT Ernest Alexander’ burly canvas Tucker Shave Kit ($90; ernestalexander.com) is lined with waterproof nylon to contain leaks and protect your duds. SHAVING CREAM The screw top on Ernest Supplies’ menthol-infused Cooling Shave Cream ($25; ernestsupplies.com) means you’ll never open your kit to find a toothbrush doused in goop. Bonus: the three-ounce pouch is TSA compliant. FIRST AID Don’t leave home without the basics: ibuprofen, hydrogen peroxide, an anti-diarrheal like loper-amide, an antibiotic ointment, Band-Aids, gauze pads, and moleskin for blisters. SOAP Dr. Bronner’ two-ounce organic peppermint liquid soap ($3; drbronner.com) doubles as a shampoo and laundry detergent. BUG SPRAY The ingredients list on Cold Spring Apothecary’s bug spray ($9; coldspringapothecary.com) reads…

Photographs by MARCO DI LAURO DAY ONE IS THURSDAY, AND WE ROLL OUT OF JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN, in the ambassador’s official ride, a Toyota Land Cruiser in spotless white. The driver’s door is showered with gold stars across a familiar sky blue flag and the words L’UNION EUROPÉENNE, the heraldry of someone who matters in this vast, imperiled infant of a nation. The someone is Sven Kuhn von Burgsdorff, a lean, 55-year-old German, and ambassador, who is not the German ambassador. Sven actually holds an obscure but equivalent title, commissioner, and represents the European Union as a whole. That makes him a kind of supranational diplomat for 27 nations, with a major say in the spending of $395 million in European aid to South Sudan over the next two years.…

TO PICK THE 13 BIKES featured in the following pages, as well as the 14 in Outside’s Summer Buyer’s Guide (available in early April), we brought a truckload of the latest models—59 of them, to be exact—to Tucson, Arizona, and enlisted a scrum of veteran riders to push them to their limits. Collectively, we logged more than 2,100 miles on chip-seal roads and cactus-studded trails, and we spent evenings sipping bourbon and talking shop. Will the mountain bike’s new 650B wheel mean the death of the traditional 26er? Have aerodynamic frames changed road bikes forever? Outright consensus was rare, but most everyone agreed on one thing: there has never been a better time to shop for a new bike. Here are the top picks—and two runners-up—in four categories. Yeti SB-95…

Perusing the water bottle section at REI can be overwhelming. Plastic, metal, or... bamboo? Maybe a hydration pack? Or what about that weird-looking water-glove thingy? Fortunately, while overengineering has reached absurd heights, some of the new developments really do make for improved drinking, whether you’re in the backcountry, at your desk, or somewhere in between. Case in point: one bottle will even make beer. FAST AND LIGHT 1. Vapur Eclipse with MicroFilter Pump filters are a pain; iodine tastes bad. Avoid both with Vapur’s new Eclipse. Built into the screw-top lid of the one-liter bag is a filter that, like pumps or iodine, removes 99.9 percent of bacteria and protozoa. All it takes is a little extra slurping power to draw the water through the filter. It’s the best filter-bottle…