Innehållsförteckning för September 2013 från Outside

SÉBASTIEN BOUÉ Each October, 18,000 riders gather in Fréjus, France, for the Roc d’Azur, one of the largest, longest-running mountain-bike events in the world. To get this shot of last year’s start, the Toulon photographer hired a helicopter and shadowed the competitors during the first half-hour of the 35-mile race. “I’ve been photographing the event for ten years,” says Boué. “The only thing that seems to change is that the post-race parties keep getting better.” THE TOOLS: Canon 1D Mark IV, TSE 90mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/1,250 second SCOTT ROGERS Last September, when 92 BASE jumpers gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the annual KL Tower International, Rogers made sure he was among them. “I wanted the access,” says the Moab, Utah, shooter, who signed up to jump.…

Still searching for your dream job? Check out our sixth annual Best Places to Work list, featuring 100 enlightened employers across the country. To select the finalists, our research partner, Best Companies Group, analyzed benefits, compensation, office policies, and job satisfaction. Below is a sampling of some of the more inspiring perks offered by a selection of this year’s winners. Browse the full list and see who’s hiring now at outsideonline.com/jobs. New Belgium Brewing Fort Collins, Colorado PERK: Fleet of hybrids and electric cars for employee errands. The Honest Kitchen San Diego, California PERK: In-office pet birthday parties. Natural Habitat Adventures Louisville, Colorado PERK: Annual free pass to one of the outfitter’s two-week trips. Seeley Lake Elementary Seeley Lake, Montana PERK: On-site bike and ski maintenance. Deckers Outdoor Goleta, California…

The fall book season opens with ambitious works by two heavyweights, Bob Shacochis and Scott Anderson, writing on empire and the making of the modern world. It’s been two decades since Shacochis’s last novel, Swimming in the Volcano, and the Outside contributing editor’s new offering, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul (Atlantic Monthly Press, $28), doesn’t disappoint. Woman is a masterful novel with the power to shake the bones of Graham Greene. The title character is Dottie Chambers, a.k.a. Jackie Scott, a.k.a. Renee Gardner, an American secret agent with a penchant for self-reinvention and a keen interest in Haitian voodoo. Her violent death in Haiti entwines human-rights lawyer Tom Harrington and Delta Force operative Eville Burnette in a mystery that grows to encompass Croatia, Kenya, Pakistan, the Cali Cartel, and…

PATAGONIA UPDATES TEN CLASSIC DESIGNS FOR THE COMPANY’S BIG 4-0 IT WAS THE early nineties. I was on a coed paddling trip and it was pouring rain, and her name was Annie. She knew everything about canoeing and was hunkered down in an oddly long rain jacket. “What are you wearing?” I finally asked. “A cagoule,” she replied, which sounded sexy and French and only solidified my crush. Later I learned that the term is French (it means “cowl”), and that Patagonia, inspired by British mountaineers, made the waist-cinchable rain jacket twice—in 1978 and again in 1991. I tell you this because Patagonia is cele brating its 40th anniversary this September by giving ten of its earliest designs a 21st-century makeover. The company reinvented everything from its Stand Up pants…

THE EIGHT-WEEK PLAN FOR OBSTACLE-COURSE DOMINATION LIKE MARATHONS and triathlons, obstacle-course racing requires specific training. But the skill set is wildly different. To finish an OCR, you’ll need endurance, upper-body strength, good balance, and, perhaps most importantly, mental fortitude. “Obstacle racing throws everyone onto an even playing field,” says Daren de Heras, cofounder of team SISU, a nationwide obstacle-racing club. “To succeed, you’ll need total body fitness.” De Heras created an eight-week plan, divided into four training categories—run, gym, playground, and outdoors—to prepare participants for any course longer than eight miles. Do one workout from each training category per week, except for the run, which you’ll do twice. Use the workouts here to get started, and go to outsideonline.com/ocrtrainingplan for the full regimen, which covers everything from balance and stability…

THE PROS SHARE THEIR SECRETS FOR TACKLING THE SPORT’S MOST POPULAR OBSTACLES YOUR ADVISORS: >Hobie Call, 36, winningest racer ever; known for his prowess in Spartan obstacles >Junyong Pak, 35, two-time World’s Toughest Mudder winner >Margaret Schlachter, 30, pro female obstacle racer and the founder of DirtInYourSkirt.com 1. CARGO-NET CLIMB ROPE WEBBING SLUNG VERTICALLY BETWEEN TWO POSTS Conquer It: “If you can jump up, do it,” says Call. “It’ll save you the first three steps.” And climb as close to the side supports as possible, because the net is tighter at the edges. 2. BARBED-WIRE CRAWL SPIKED STRANDS TIED EXTRA LOW OVER MUD AND ROCKS Conquer It: “Stay to the sides, where the barbed wire tends to be higher,” says Schlachter. And if there’s room to turn sideways, roll. Says…

POPULATION: 60,709 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $40,925 MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $188,200 UNEMPLOYMENT: 6.9 PERCENT POPULAR-VOTE WINNER: GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA VOTES: 7,154 IN THE PAST TWO decades, this former mill town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains landed big employers like GE, Michelin, and BMW and transformed itself into a small city that’s alive with parks, leafy streets, bike paths, and a thriving foodie scene. Which has Greenvillians psyched. Citizens pulled out all the stops in an effort to top our list, putting signs on lawns, bombing our Facebook page (more than 7,000 people voted), and even organizing a parade down Main Street led by the mayor. While Greenville didn’t win, we wouldn’t hesitate to consider a move here. There are more than 200 downtown events each year, from a…

VOTES: 1,836 PEOPLE WHO’VE migrated to southwest Montana sometimes say that they didn’t find Bozeman so much as it found them. “The place you live helps to create who you become,” says Carol Flaherty, a yoga instructor. What kind of person does Bozeman create? Someone who hikes in half a dozen mountain ranges, fishes world-class trout streams, and refuels with grass-fed beef from local ranches. All that nature means abundant Priuses and a local vibe that can border on self-righteousness—“People will notice if you don’t volunteer in some way,” says Mike Harrelson, a 55-year-old PR director. But that’s no reason to complain. As Robin Hoover, the executive director of Yellow stone Country, the local visitors bureau, puts it, “One can be totally immersed in nature without having to leave home.”…

It’s located right next to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but this outpost of 20,000 has a much slower pace than a rowdy college town. It’s a bastion of liberalism (it elected the state’s first openly gay mayor) and one of the epicenters of the locavore movement. There are more than 200 farms within a 50-mile radius, and the harvest is funneled into the weekly farmers’ market, the local-favorite Open Eye Cafe, and the Weaver Street Market, a co-op referred to as “Carrboro’s front yard.” The town also has 213-acre University Lake, a haven for SUPers and kayakers. And trails along Bolin Creek and in the Horace Williams Tract are popular with runners, although “there are a lot of nameless gems, too,” says Jen Ellis, of local…

VOTES: 997 “FOR ME THERE is no better place than San Diego,” says Josh Landan, president of Saint Archer Brewing, a company he started in the Miramar neighborhood along with—what else?—14 surfers and skaters. “The weather is 70 degrees. You can skate everywhere, bike everywhere, hike, camp, surf. Want winter? It’s two hours to the snow.” Indeed, seasons don’t mean much in this sun-steeped city, where hundreds of miles of trails, ample coast, and some 6,000 farmers with heirloom offerings make the living pretty sweet. “Everyone in the world is trying to get here,” says reader Alfredo Martinez Jr. FOOD AND NIGHTLIFE: Farmers’ markets are a daily occurrence, and some of California’s best chefs fight to get the freshest artichokes, squash blossoms, and peppers from the Chino family at Chino…

Between the art museums, architecture, professional sports teams, and restaurants, the city of 2.7 million (metro area: 9.7 million) has long been one of the best cultural cities in the world. Guess what? It’s also one of the best places to be active. Take the Lakefront Trail, which everyone from walkers to serious cyclists use to travel 18 miles along sandy beaches, from the Indiana state line up to Evanston. “It’s a little congested downtown,” says Nick Brand, assistant director at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and an avid rider. “But north or south of the city, there are places you can fly.” That’s to say nothing of the city’s substantial recreational leagues (hundreds of teams in every sport imaginable, from kickball to beach volleyball), the unrivaled Green City…

VOTES: 178 BEFORE YOU SPIT out your wheatgrass smoothie, let us explain. Six years ago the city, a longtime oil-and-gas hub, was dubbed one of the fattest in the country by Men’s Fitness. This wasn’t too surprising. The official state meal includes chicken-fried steak and pecan pie. What is surprising is how the city’s government responded. It has since funded youth fitness programs, built a 70-mile-and-growing trail system, expanded the historic farmers’ market, and collectively shed a million pounds—even the mayor chipped in and lost 40. In other words: it’s on its way to being one of the heartland’s best places to be active. Voters raved about the running opportunities—like the Thursday-night 5K Pack Pint Runs, which end with free beer from Coop Ale Works—though the wind can prove challenging.…

Every morning, Matt Jefferson pedals his bike to an 11-story building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where he rides the elevator to the roof. Then, as the sun comes up, the 36-year-old Indiana native checks on the chickens and starts picking lettuce, tomatoes, kale, chard, beans, and zucchini from the 65,000-square-foot Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm. Jefferson leads a team of trainees, as well as 12 refugees from around the globe whom Jefferson, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Africa with a master’s in public health, works with through a partnership with the Refugee and Immigrant Fund. Most of the greens go to restaurants, some to the local CSA, and the job of harvesting them gives Jefferson the rarest of New York conditions: a tan. “I’ll never work inside again,” says…

The proliferation of emergency-locator devices like the Breitling Emergency II has led to all sorts of healthy debate about adventure and whether or not gadgetry should guarantee safety. What isn’t debatable: this titanium-body chronograph is the smallest, sharpest-looking personal beacon we’ve seen. Should you be faced with a life-threatening scenario, extend the two antennae, positioned on either side of the watch face, and the rechargeable Emergency II pings an overhead satellite, which homes in on your whereabouts and broadcasts an SOS to local search-and-rescue groups.* But please, use with restraint: crying wolf with a timepiece that costs more than some cars will earn you grief among the backcountry-ranger crowd. $15,750; breitling.com *Breitling needs certification from the international governing body for search-and-rescue systems before the watch can be sold in the…

THANKS TO new innovations by companies like Thuraya and Spot, satellite networks are finally about to deliver on the promise of truly planet-wide connectedness. Just be sure to tap into the right network. Thuraya Sat Sleeve THE DEVICE: Smaller than a paperback, it turns an iPhone 4/4S into a sat phone via Bluetooth. THE NETWORK: Two satellites hover 22,000 miles above the United Arab Emirates, Thuraya’s financier. THE SIGNAL: It’s the best option for the Himalayas but provides spotty coverage in northern latitudes and none in the Americas. $500 plus $1.20 per minute; thuraya.com Spot Global Phone THE DEVICE: Delivers GPS coordinates at the touch of a button. THE NETWORK: Forty-eight satellites orbit 870 miles above every continent but Antarctica. THE SIGNAL: The notoriously weak voice signal, especially over the…

IAN FRAZIER Just weeks after Montclair, New Jersey–based Ian Frazier submitted his profile of the famed Oregon fishing guide Stealhead Joe (“The One That Got Away,” page 82), Joe took his own life. “Writing about Joe was like trying to photograph a galloping horse. In many ways, he was too wild for civilization,” says Frazier, a lifelong fisherman, whose November 2012 story for Outside, “A Farewell to Yarns,” will appear in this year’s edition of The Best American Travel Writing. Frazier completely rewrote the story after the tragedy. “I saw so many of our interactions in a dramatically different light,” he says. “And I wanted to make sure the good of his life came through.” GAG ME Contributor Chuck Thompson, who wrote “I Am Gonna Hate Your Food” (page 78),…

RUSSELL COUTTS looks tired. It’s an early summer afternoon in San Francisco, and I’m seated across from the 51-year-old Kiwi sailing legend inside Pier 80, the cavernous warehouse that serves as the base of operations for Oracle Team USA. Coutts, who won three America’s Cups as a skipper of other teams before software mogul Larry Ellison hired him to be the CEO of Oracle Racing in 2007, has good reason to be fatigued. He spent the better part of the morning playing host to a big-dollar corporate partner. More significantly, for the past six weeks he’s been a media punching bag. On May 9, the Swedish team Artemis, a challenger for the 2013 Cup, flipped its AC72 catamaran on the San Francisco Bay during training. The superfast carbonfiber craft, 72…

MARY CAIN: BRONXVILLE, NEW YORK SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD Mary Cain was already a top runner when she began working with legendary marathon coach Alberto Salazar last October. Since then she’s set more than half a dozen high school records, won a U.S. senior title, and taken her place as one of the best prep runners since, well, ever. SKILLS: Cain covered the final 400 meters of the mile run at February’s USA Indoor Championships in an astonishing 58 seconds—world-class finishing speed that has insiders gawking. “She’s as talented as pretty much anyone in the world,” says former track star Weldon Johnson, who cofounded and covers running for the website LetsRun.com. PRIORITIES: Cain is a self-described Harry Potter nerd, and her parents are working overtime to make sure school is her top concern.…

SINCE THE TOUGH Mudder and Spartan Race series debuted in 2010, more than three million Americans have leaped over fire, swum through muck, and crawled beneath barbed wire to cross the finish line of an obstacle-course race. That’s 1.5 million more OCR participants than marathon finishers in the same time span. “It’s about having this great sense of accomplishment,” says two-time World’s Toughest Mudder winner Junyong Pak about OCR. “You think you’d be miserable, because you’re so tired and dirty, but you’re smiling.” Margaret Schlachter, the first woman to go pro in the sport, says that “it speaks to a primal urge within us. It’s like being a kid again.” Of course, the rise in popularity has created some issues. There are so many OCR events today, an estimated 150…

SUREFIRE ENERGY FROM OBSTACLE RACING’S MOST DECORATED ATHLETE With upwards of 35 first-place finishes, 36-year-old Hobie Call has won more obstacle races than anyone. His secret? Smart training, sure. But Call also swears by his wheatgrass smoothies—so much so that he blended and gave away 1,500 of them at the 2012 Utah Spartan Beast. “What makes it so great is that it has everything: high quality vitamins, minerals, phyto nutrients, fats, protein, carbohydrates, and fiber,” says Call, from Erda, Utah. Wheatgrass gives the smoothie much of those damagefighting nutrients, and a mix of added proteins helps the body recover after a hard training session. “It’s a staple in my diet because it works,” Call says. “Plain and simple.” HOBIE CALL’S WHEATGRASS SMOOTHIE >20 ounces water >1 tablespoon Pines Wheat grass…

AGE 34 5 FEET 9 INCHES 145 POUNDS FILLMORE, UTAH MOAT BURST onto the obstacle-racing scene in late 2012, when he swept both events at the Spartan Race World Championships. First he edged out race favorite Hobie Call to win the Beast, a 13-plus-mile trek up and down Vermont’s Killington ski mountain, and then he won the Ultra Beast, a second lap on the same course. A father of four, Moat is not a full-time pro—he teaches drafting and carpentry at Fillmore’s Millard High School—but he often trains just as hard. Here’s how he’s preparing to defend his Spartan title this September. > “I hit the mountains for runs, all on trails. It’s better than roads, because you’ve got the terrain, the rocks, steep hills—the natural obstacles.” > “One or…

VOTES: 1,886 HONOLULU MIGHT LOOK and act like a city—it’s Hawaii’s most urban area, and cultural crossover makes for a diverse food scene (kimchee Reuben, anyone?). But there aren’t many places on earth where you can paddle into a head-high roller at dawn, ride a beach cruiser to work, and be staring into a 300,000-year-old volcanic crater on the city’s fringes by dusk. Which may explain why the island of Oahu’s biggest city maintains a mellow vibe despite big tourism, transportation, and military-defense industries. “Even our lawyers don’t wear suits,” says Crystal Evans, 42, owner of Hiking Hawaii. “We work just enough.” FOOD AND NIGHTLIFE: The cuisine is a rich and spicy mix of Asian, American, and Pacific. Being in the tropics certainly helps. “This is Hawaii, so we get…

Minnesota’s Twin Cities (pop. 673,000; metro area: 3.3 million) have a thriving theater scene, one of the nation’s best contemporary art museums in the Walker Art Center, and 12 Fortune 500 companies. Plus, says Aaron Ankrum, a 31-year-old musician, “It’s all really accessible. You’re not going to be locked up in crazy New York traffic.” There are also hundreds of miles of bike trails (“Diehards even bike-commute in winter,” says Ank rum), a new baseball stadium downtown, and 10,900 acres of parks, including Lake Calhoun—host to sailing in the summer and epic pond-hockey tournaments in the winter. And one of the great wildernesses in the country—the big, burly waters of Lake Superior—is just a few hours north. 30 NUMBER OF LAKES WITHIN CITY LIMITS…

VOTES: 1,267 CARBONDALE IS ONLY a 30-mile bike ride from Aspen, yet it still has weekly summer rodeos and cattle drives through town. In other words: it hasn’t become another Colorado boomtown—yet. Located 6,200 feet high on Colorado’s western slope, the town is at the confluence of the prime trout waters of the Roaring Fork and Crystal Rivers. “We live in town, and my husband can walk to the river,” says Erica Sparhawk, who works for Clean Energy Economy for the Region, a local nonprofit. “He pretty much thought he’d died and gone to heaven.” Many locals work in nearby ski towns like Aspen, although Carbondale does have a thriving green-energy economy, thanks to businesses like Sol Energy, Garfield Clean Energy, and Sunsense. Of course, with world-class biking, fly-fishing, rock-climbing,…

The nation’s capital (pop. 632,000; metro area: 5.8 million) is better known for museums and memorials than parks. But the driven young professionals who live here have 7,617 acres of parkland at their disposal—more natural space per person than in any other city this size. Rock Creek Park, which bisects the northern end of the city, is the perfect choice for everything from running on the Western Ridge Trail to long out-and-back road rides. And that’s just within city limits. “They’re a little farther afield, but Great Falls Park and Annapolis Rocks are also great escapes for climbing the Argonaut route, biking along the C&O Canal, and kayaking the Potomac Gorge,” says Ben Wessel, an environmental campaigner. Bonus: through the ambitious, more than $7 million Sustainable DC initiative, the city…

VOTES: 470 PEOPLE COME TO the Mad River Valley as much for what it lacks—traffic, noise, pretention—as for what it offers: the Green Mountains out the back door, the Class II–III Mad River, and the great local food that comes with living in a historic farm town. “Virtually every restaurant and school uses locally grown and organic ingredients,” says Susan Klein, 52, director of the Chamber of Commerce. Another boon: the mellow, small-town vibe. “You know the people from out of town because they blow their horns,” says Gary Kessler, a 53-year-old race director. “Visitors specifically mention how friendly people are here.” And though it’s rural, the valley has low unemployment, thanks to strong year-round tourism. Even better: Cabot Creamery is moving its international headquarters there in 2014. ACCESS: “The…

The best thing about A-squared, as locals call it, is that you never have to leave—there are great ethnic restaurants, a world-class university, bike lanes galore, and superb trails, like the 35-mile Border2Border. “The Huron River is completely flanked by the Border2Border,” says James Morse, a photographer (and paddler and cross-country skier and mountain biker) who has lived in Ann Arbor for the past five years. “You can go a very long distance without having to turn around, and almost never see cars.” But then again, there’s a reason the city’s 113,934 residents (and 43,000 college students) escape on weekends: the surrounding area has every - thing from 17 miles of singletrack at the Potowatomi Trail, in nearby Pinckney State Recreation Area, to the 976,043-acre Huron-Manistee National Forests only a…

The guy in the flannel shirt really wanted me to eat his crab...¶ "Have a claw!" he said waving a steaming pincer in my face with a two-food pair of metal tongs...¶: No, thanks. I’m good. You go ahead," I said...¶ Really, it’s all yours. Take the claw. It’s the best part."..¶: No, seriously. I don’t want it." Something embarrassing was about to happen. I knew because I’d suffered through this gastronomic showdown a million times, from Paris to Paducah, and it always ends the same way. I turn down food I don’t want to eat. At best I offend somebody. At worst I make a new un-friend. The crab pusher came at me last summer at a beach party in Gustavus, Alaska, a little town on the fringes of…

A. Keen Tunari CNX BEST FOR: DAY HIKERS There are plenty of concessions to minimalism in Keen’s new CNX series: a slim four-millimeter drop, deep grooves in the tread for a more flexible outsole, and a pared-down design overall. But we liked the ten-ounce Tunaris for the features Keen didn’t cut. A contoured arch provides a touch of midfoot support, and Keen’s signature toe bumper took the sting out of the occasional misstep. A good choice if you’re leaning toward true barefoot shoes, like the Vibrams, but aren’t ready to make the leap. $110; keenfootwear.com B. Merrell Proterra Mid Sport BEST FOR: OVERNIGHTERS Hikers accustomed to next to no padding will love the low-to-the-ground feel and flexible fabric upper. Some testers went so far as wearing the Proterras without socks.…

FIRING SQUAD When July’s Weather Issue hit newsstands, fires were raging across the West, tornadoes were breaking out in Oklahoma, and the Upper Midwest had been hit by a snowstorm. So it wasn’t a surprise that readers responded en masse, with most of their energy devoted to associate editor Kyle Dickman’s “Life on the Line,” about Northern California’s premier firefighting crew, the Tahoe Hotshots. Dickman takes you inside the lives of the brave people who fight wildfires. This is a unique look from someone who knows the business, the team, and how to tell a story. ALIENMINDTRICK ONLINE Don’t forget about all of the mop-up teams doing the tedious, nonglamorous work. Hundreds of others provide support. There are huge resources both on the fire line and behind it. TAMARA LUNDBERG…

FIRST THE SHOCKER: according to market research, budget-minded online shoppers are more likely to buy bogus products than the genuine article. And it’s not just Fendi handbags. Increasingly, unwitting consumers are purchasing counterfeit cycling jerseys, running shoes, jackets, and even carbon-fiber bike frames when they order from third-party sites listed on Google or selling on eBay. The Outdoor Industry Association estimates that gearmakers lose $300 million annually to the plagiarists. In the past five years a fleet of companies, including Canada Goose, Specialized, and Deckers (which owns Teva and Sanuk), have hired brand-security managers to track websites selling forgeries and to prod U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to shut them down. The North Face hired a counterfeit-law specialist and now turns up an estimated 300 online auctions per week…

LAWN GAMES HELP CRAM food, booze, and bragging rights into the last fair-weather weekend of the year, and these five stand above the rest for their combination of skill and entertainment value. We call it the Outside Backyard Pentathlon. To help you crush the competition, we drew up a cheat sheet of the techniques you’ll need to master. Some advice: stay loose with a beer or two, and keep the grill hot—time-outs can be called at any moment. There are no penalties for trash talking and no bonus points for being a good sport. Game on. CROQUET MOVE: THE BOMBARDIER When you score a croquet (allowing you to place your ball alongside an opponent’s), remove the second ball from play in three easy steps: Place your foot on your own…

ALPHA WARRIOR From $70; alphawarrior.com Tagline: No Mud. No Miles. No Mercy. What It Is: An adult jungle gym with 30 back-to-back steel-and-plexiglass obstacles erected in urban settings, like San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium. Defining Trait: Crash pads break your fall. The race requires intense upper-body strength to complete obstacles like Pipe Bombs, a field of vertically hanging metal tubes that must be crossed by hand. Why You’ll Love It: No running required, and it’s the most spectator-friendly of all the races. Timed: No Similar: Camp Rhino training facility ($25 per session; camprhino.com) TOUGH MUDDER From $95; toughmudder.com Tagline: Probably the Toughest Event on the Planet What It Is: The world’s most popular hazing ritual, stretched over a 10-to-12-mile course with 20-plus obstacles. Defining Trait: Teamwork. You’ll need it to conquer…

DRESS FOR SUCCESS THE DOS AND DON’TS OF RACE-DAY GEAR DON’T: Wear cotton. It rips easily and gets waterlogged. DO: Opt for form-fitting synthetic materials like Under Armour’s HeatGear compression shirts and shorts (from $25; underarmour.com). DON’T: Wear shoes with Gore-Tex. They keep water out, but they also keep it in. DO: Run in minimalist trail shoes with aggressive tread and a low profile, like Inov-8’s X-Talon 190s ($120; inov-8.com). DON’T: Race with your glasses or a hat on or your keys in your pocket. You will lose them in the muck. DO: Use gloves, like Mad Grip Pro Palm ($10; madgriptech.com), to protect your hands and enhance your grip. Cut off the fingertips for quicker drainage.…

Park City, Utah POPULATION: 7,873 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $61,383 MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $765,600 UNEMPLOYMENT (COUNTYWIDE): 5.3 PERCENT “KNOW HOW I CAN tell that’s a local?” asks Dana Williams, the 58-year-old mayor of Park City, Utah, nodding toward a fit thirty-something guy in a flat-brimmed baseball hat. “The bandaged wrist.” We’re sitting on couches at the open-air Silver Star Café, a mining-themed restaurant that serves spectacular halibut. A 2013 Porsche 911 with a pair of titanium mountain bikes strapped to the roof sits in the parking lot. Every few minutes, little knots of bikers pedal past. This being a small town, Williams, who looks a bit like Jack Nicholson, can barely complete a thought without getting a hug from a constituent. But he does manage this: “You guys should have put…

The Front Range is full of small towns with great outdoor access. But Fort Collins stands above the rest thanks to its backcountry terrain (like 10,276-foot Cameron Pass), its prime location on the brown-trout-filled Cache La Poudre River, the great biking scene, and, of course, the microbrew-dominated economy. “The biking is largely supported by the beer culture,” says Adam Irrer, who helps run Michigan’s Coppercraft Distillery and lives full-time in Fort Collins. “New Belgium started it by funding things like a bike library, so that people can get a bike when they come into town.” Active, educated young people are flocking here—the population has grown more than 10 percent in the past five years—but the ample breweries and yoga studios have helped it maintain a laidback vibe.—MEAGHEN BROWN 10 BREWERIES…

VOTES: 1,668 MOCHACCINO-SIPPING Seattleites may call it Spokompton for its perceived crime, but the city is about as dangerous as Bend and safer than Colorado Springs. Set on the eastern edge of Washington, where the desert meets the Rockies, Spokane lives up to its motto: “Near nature and near perfect.” Within minutes of downtown, you can paddle past moose on the Little Spokane River, climb 5.13 sport routes in Deep Creek Canyon, or hike the Spokane River Gorge. “You can be in the river three minutes from your office,” says Jeanna Hofmeister, who works at the visitors bureau, “and have no idea that you’re just outside downtown.” There are also five ski resorts within a two-hour drive. “The skiing around Spokane is absolutely top-notch,” says reader Anthony Gill. “Mount Spokane…

Cross the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco and something amazing happens: the people disappear. Nearly 50 percent of 520-square-mile Marin County is protected open space, from redwood groves to beaches to preserves like Point Reyes National Seashore and Muir Woods. Adventure sports are a way of life—the country’s oldest trail-running race, the Dipsea, was first held in Marin in 1905, and practically every high school now fields a mountain-bike team. Of the county’s 28 towns, San Anselmo, population 12,500, offers the ideal combination of access (35 minutes from both Point Reyes and downtown SF) and culture (more than two dozen restaurants). “It’s an amazingly accepting and friendly place,” says Jelani Bertoni, founding director of the Bicycle Works, San Anselmo’s nonprofit community bike shop. It’s paradise—with a hefty price tag.…

VOTES: 644 READERS PRAISED Boston for its small size, walk-ability, and athletic culture. “It’s the best sports town in America,” says Josh Rowe, a 44-year-old performance-marketing manager for New Balance. “Everyone’s a fan of some sort, and the Boston Marathon is beyond a running event—it’s part of the city’s fabric.” New Englanders have learned to squeeze every ounce out of summer in the city’s 2,200 acres of parks or by paddling the Charles, and they join ubiquitous sports clubs each winter. “You can find everything from jujitsu to boxing to CrossFit,” says Regina O’Brien, 48, fitness director at Benefitness Health Club. There are also burgeoning popup fitness tribes like the November Project, which organizes free weekly workouts. And it’s easy to find a job, thanks to more than 50 universities…

In recent years, this city of 195,000 has become a runner’s paradise. Since 1993, federal, state, and local governments have funneled more than $62 million into what has become the Arkansas River Trail System, a 34-mile network that loops around the Little Rock Metropolitan area. The trails connect 38 parks that cover more than 5,000 acres. “You can bike or run loops for miles,” says Leah Thorvilson, 34, a marathoner who works at GoRunning, a local store. Life here isn’t just about sweat, though; thanks to a strong aerospace industry, the town’s economy is one of the most stable in the South, and residents convene at a twice-weekly farmers’ market, free weekly summer jazz concerts in the River Market district, and Pinnacle Mountain State Park, with 2,356 acres of hiking…

MEGAB, A DUSTY backwater in the far northern reaches of Ethiopia’s arid Tigray region, is not a place that typically attracts visitors. The town is a pass-through on the way to more interesting sites. There is only one established road going through it, a graded-dirt regional highway lined on both sides by brown storefronts and stone homes. When the wind picks up, as it usually does in the midwinter dry season, an unexpected gust will leave anyone who stops here picking dirt out of their nose and eyes for days. But Megab does have one thing going for it. It sits at the base of the Gheralta Mountains, a towering massif that’s home to some of the world’s oldest—and most precipitously placed—churches. The scenic range rises roughly 8,000 feet out…

The police report listed the name of the deceased as Joseph Adam Randolph and his age as 48. It did not mention the name he had given himself, Stealhead Joe. The address on his driver’s license led police to his former residence in Sisters, Oregon, where the landlord said that Randolph had moved out over a year ago and had worked as a fishing guide. In fact, Randolph was one of the most skilled guides on the nearby Deschutes River, and certainly the most colorful—even unforgettable—in the minds of anglers who had fished with him. He had specialized in catching sea-run fish called steelhead and was so devoted to the sport that he had a large steelhead fly with two drops of blood at the hook point tattooed on the…

FOR THE BLESSED return of cool nights, a lightweight and bombproof shell, fleece, or puffy once again becomes crucial kit. To find the best, I donned ten early-season jackets and stood before a giant fan and a pressure washer to test wind-and waterproofing. Then I ran up an endless hill to compare breathability and crashed through briars to gauge toughness. These four came out on top. MARMOT PRODIGY The Claim: A do-it-all soft shell. The Reality: I hosed down this wind-blocking and water-resistant Gore Wind-stopper shell for five minutes before it soaked through, and the medium-weight fabric survived an army crawl through a briar patch. The flex-friendly panels under the arms wicked moisture and kept the jacket in place on big reaches. The Verdict: Not exactly packable, but tough enough…