Innehållsförteckning för November 2017 från Outside

Mary McIntyre This cliff band in the Alta, Utah, backcountry is one of McIntyre’s favorite spots to shoot, but recent dry winters made it impossible to ski. In March, however, the powder returned. After a storm system dropped two feet of snow, McIntyre and skier Eric Balken, both Salt Lake City natives, spent a morning sending it. The 26yearold photographer captured Balken as he did a backflip off a 60foot cliff, landing with a poof. “It was a beautiful backdrop, but I wanted to simplify it to the rocks, the skier, and the sky,” she says. “I wanted to make people pause and be like, ‘Wait, what is this skier doing?’ ” THE TOOLS: Canon EOS 6D, 14mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 125, f/8, 1/1,000 second Sergej Schatz Earlier this year,…

IN NOVEMBER, a North Face expedition of six top climbers will board a bush plane at Novolazarev skaya, a Russian research station near the Antarctic coast, and head into the continent’s barren interior. Their destination? The Drygalski Mountains, a primordial, icebound range of toothlike granite spires that contains some of the least explored big-wall terrain in the world. Their goal is to climb the range’s six peaks, open as many new routes as possible, make the first free ascent of 7,759-foot Rakekniven, 22 miles away from their base camp, and finish up with a traverse of the entire range. “I realize I’m being totally overambitious,” says expedition leader Cedar Wright, “but it will be an outrageous adventure if we pull it off.” And while the group includes Conrad Anker, Alex…

Rossignol Soul 7 HD W $850 BEST FOR: Resort powder days. THE TEST: One of the most popular (and award-winning) lines of skis ever made just got better. The latest iteration of the trusted 7 series features a redesigned honeycomb-polymer Air Tip that’s both lighter and more solidly integrated into the ski body. The result is all the playfulness you’ve come to expect from this family, but with increased power and stability for times when you feel like opening it up. Augmented with a new superfiber of basalt and carbon, the latest HD version earned nothing but praise from our women testers for its extra oomph. “It still feels light and loose when you want to be nimble, but now you don’t get tossed around by crud,” said one. THE…

WHEN GRAYCE Langheine came across an ad on Facebook for the app Noom Coach, she was intrigued. The 34-year-old amateur runner was looking to get healthier and run a faster marathon, but she wasn’t interested in an expensive coach and didn’t trust the short-term weightloss claims of other fitness apps. Noom offered a solution: personalized training with the help of artifi- cial intelligence. Developed by health care startup WorkSmart Labs and launched in 2011, Noom works like most fitness apps, recording diet, weight, and exercise. But it also utilizes AI algorithms—self-learning programs— to make personalized recommendations of articles, recipes, and quizzes to keep users motivated. Noom showed Langheine how things like her macronutrient intake and energy level influence performance and recovery. “Now I can begin to see how each item…

OSTRANDER IS a chameleon. The 20-year-old Boise State University standout is a cross-country tactician in the fall, an aggressive steeplechaser during track season, and a sure-footed trail runner in summer. This July, she won Alaska’s infamous Mount Marathon race, a roughly 3.1-mile trail run where competitors scramble up about 3,000 feet before hurtling back down. She notched the second-fastest women’s time ever—and did it just one month after winning the NCAA title in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Ostrander also finished eighth last year in the 5,000 meters at the Olympic Trials. We asked her how she manages to perform at her peak year-round in a sport plagued by burnout. “A lot of athletes, myself included, judge their selfworth based on how well they're performing. It's hard to remember that you’re still…

THE FIRST time she was harassed online, Caroline Gleich was holed up during a snowstorm in Hokkaido, Japan. It was January 2009, and the skier had been filming all day with Sweetgrass Productions on one of her first major trips as a professional athlete. Gleich and 13 guys were milling about a three-bedroom apartment festooned with drying midlayers and Gore-Tex. The scent of well-used socks and soggy armpits perfumed the air. After a long day skiing, Gleich sat down and opened her laptop to catch up on e-mail. She clicked on a message from Scott Fisher, an administrator for the popular forums on the website for Teton Gravity Research, another action-sports film company. “Someone is using your full name as a screen name, has your blog in their signature area,…

Gleich to Trolls: Drop Dead “I will no longer continue to be silent,” wrote skier Caroline Gleich in a Facebook post last April. “I will no longer ignore the Internet harassment happening to me and many others.” At the time, Gleich had endured more than two years of vitriolic posts by random users on Instagram and Facebook. Many of the comments aren’t fit for publication, but to give her fans a sense of what they contained, Gleich listed several examples, including, “How many dix did you suck to get those cover shots?” For a while she tried to ignore the harassment and block the users, but that only led to more ugly comments under different screen names. Gleich’s Facebook note was a bold stand. When Sam Moulton, our marketing director,…

IN 2013, 15-year-old Dawson Toth was perched on a ridge watching his best friend, Evan, ski down the north slope of Hero’s Knob, a popular backcountry area in Kananaskis County, Alberta, when he saw the avalanche. “It started at my ski tips,” he recalls. “Then I watched the slide spread across the whole slope.” The wall of snow engulfed Evan, then both teens’ fathers, who were waiting farther downhill. Once the slide petered out, Dawson jumped off the crown onto the now bare shale below, switched his beacon to search mode, and made his way toward the buried victims. “There wasn’t much going on in my head except that I needed to find my friends and family fast.” Luckily, three years earlier Dawson had received training from a guide certified…

DRONES AND UNMANNED ground vehicles have assisted search teams since the Twin Towers fell 16 years ago. But engineers have yet to manufacture a robot that can withstand the elements, navigate unpredictable terrain, and send data to disaster-response coordinators. Now they’re looking to the animal kingdom for inspiration. “Insects are the most successful organism on earth,” says biologist Bob Full, head of the University of California at Berkeley’s pioneering Poly- PEDAL Lab. “Their design ideas could be useful.” Advancements in 3-D printing and artificial intelligence have led to a flurry of small, nimble bio-inspired prototypes. The timeline for deploying the tech is hazy, but emergency-response experts are confident that the next time a disaster like the 2015 earthquake in Nepal strikes, bots will save lives. “Determining the safety of a…

1. THE PALACE AMANGIRI RESORT, UTAH SPLURGING, CLIMBING, PLUNGE POOLS As arresting as the surrounding Colorado Plateau, southern Utah’s Amangiri Resort mixes elegance and adrenaline. The 34-suite property sits on its own 600-acre playground at the base of a 100-foot-high canyon in the vicinity of three national parks: Zion, Bryce, and Grand Canyon. By day, climb the resort’s seven via ferrata routes with a guide, paddleboard Lake Powell, or hike the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon—the 25,000-square-foot spa will ease any discomfort upon your return. Enjoy flotation therapy or ten variations of massage, then cool off in a private plunge pool before dining al fresco on wild greens, foie gras terrine, and freshly caught rainbow trout. Oh, and switch off your cell phone: every vantage and architectural detail is Instagram-worthy here…

Prior Fissile $645 BEST FOR: Hurling down mountains at great velocity. THE TEST: Despite the Fissile’s Pinocchio-like schnoz, a relatively narrow waist allows for quick edge transitions. One tester commented that the aggressive, torpedo-like shape “will carry you through high-velocity turns that you have no business making.” Note: you’re meant to ride the Fissile eight to ten centimeters longer than other boards, because the gradually rockered nose doesn’t engage until you’re steamrolling through powder. THE VERDICT: Surprisingly competent on hardpack, the Fissile really shines in the deep stuff. Arbor Terrapin $500 BEST FOR: Playing in powder. THE TEST: With a whopping 28-centimeter waist, the Terrapin merits a WIDE LOAD bumper sticker. This broad-chested surfer slashes confidently through deep snow, thanks to its impressive buoyancy and shallow sidecut. But beware hardpack:…

AI is everywhere—but it’s not all created equal LEAST USEFUL: SOCIAL MEDIA In June 2016, Instagram abandoned its simple chronological photo feed in favor of an algorithmic one. Prioritizing posts from the accounts you like most sounds like a good idea in theory, but in practice it often ends up showing you days-old posts from just a handful of friends. SOMEWHAT USEFUL: SHOPPING HELPERS The Mona app (free; iOS) helps you discover clothes you like at a good price. Send Mona on a mission to find a new sports bra and it’ll scan the inventory of more than 300 retailers to find the best options. You do have to let Mona mine your e-mail to power its suggestions, though. MOSTLY USEFUL: PERSONAL ASSISTANTS Alexa, Google, and Siri can tap into…

CROCK-POTS HAVE EARNED a reputation as the lazy cook’s best friend, but they can also be an athlete’s secret weapon. Just ask Lentine Alexis, a classically trained chef and former triathlete whose high-quality performance food can be prepared in a slow cooker. Based in Boulder, Colorado, Alexis also works as a culinary consultant for brands like Rapha and Skratch Labs, so she’s intimately familiar with endurance fuel. Her go-to dish—a savory porridge—is the ultimate low-maintenance meal. And making it in a slow cooker means you can get it started before taking off for a long training day. The porridge features healthy fats, protein, salt, and both fast- and slow-digesting carbs, and the mild flavor means you can top it with whatever you’re craving. “Throw on a couple eggs and vegetables…

Great lines often beging amid tunney and suffering. Seventy years ago, long before Bernd Heinrich became one of history’s fastest ultramarathoners, and ages before his scientific studies on ravens made him a leading naturalist, he was a skinny, impoverished kid living in a hut in the forest of Hahnheide, in Germany. Before World War II, his family had owned a vast agricultural estate roughly 400 miles east of there, in Poland, with foxes and storks and rolling fields of potatoes and sugar beets; but after the Eastern Front pushed west, they became refugees. Bernd’s father shoveled manure to survive, and the family lived mostly off forage—nuts, berries, mushrooms, and also trout, which Bernd caught with his bare hands. It was a confusing time. Bernd and his sister had no other…

Alpine Skills International Tioga Pass, California A five-day touring and mountaineering course for 12-to- 18-year-old skiers that covers everything from packing tech niques to risk assessment. Late spring; $925; alpine skills.com Utah Mountain Adventures Salt Lake City, Utah Students 13 and up who take this threeday course, which combines classroom lectures and field sessions, walk away with American Avalanche Association Level 1 certification. December 27–29; $349; utahmountain adventures.com Selkirk Outdoor Leadership and Education Sandpoint, Idaho Anyone 16 and older can sign up for SOLE’s avalanche courses, but it offers a Level 1 course designed expressly for 16-to-25-year-olds. January 13–15; $345; soleexperiences.org…

I’m rough on things. My childhood nickname was Miss Destructo. When my husband proposed, he handed me the ring with a romantic “Please don’t break this.” So testing the Oxx Coffeeboxx, billed as the world’s toughest coffee maker, felt like a personal challenge. Made from the same burly plastic used in power tools, the 12-pound single-serve brewer can withstand 1,500 pounds of pressure—you know, in case you need to park a 4x4 on it. I punted it. I chucked it deep into an Appalachian holler. I flooded the water chamber. Doggedly, it spurted out cup after cup. In desperation, I lassoed the thing, threw a leg over my thoroughbred, and took the Coffeeboxx for a gallop. Dusty but not defeated, it percolated on. Oxx’s house-brand coffee, Workhorse, lives up to…

Kovea Giga Sun heater $480 This space heater is the most innovative we’ve seen. Based on a traditional Korean furnace, the propane-fueled Giga Sun pumps out 23,000 BTUs in a 360-degree radius. Baffin Impact boots $270 The heart of Baffin’s iconic extreme-weather boot is the company’s signature eight-layer removable lining, inspired by Inuit sealskin footwear. Its insulating layers wick moisture, while a double-layer aluminum membrane traps heat. Columbia Powder Keg ski pants $250 These fully seamsealed resort pants are the last word in warmth. Synthetic insulation and interior metallic dots reflect body heat, so your seat stays warm on ass-numbingly slow lift rides. United by Blue Ultimate American socks $38 A super-insulating bison undercoat makes these eminently winter-ready. Canada Goose Arctic Tech Shearling Pilot hat $350 Canada Goose made this…

INDOOR climbing is enjoying a boom—in the past five years, more than 150 new gyms have opened across the U.S. While pulling plastic is a solid workout, most of these new facilities have more to offer than just a big wall. “Even if you’re not going to climb, any athlete can find ways to move and improve at the climbing gym,” says Justin Andrews, a personal trainer at Mission Cliffs in San Francisco. With a little creativity, you can use the space for a full-body session. Here are three maneuvers to get you started. 1. PEGBOARD PULL-UPS WHY: A pegboard is more fun and effective than a pull-up bar for strengthening your back and arms. “Working out in a traditional gym, you lift a weight and set it down,” Andrews…

SKYLAR DOMBROSKI Located less than 50 miles from the Canadian border, Stowe is one of the northernmost resorts in the United States, which means cold, light snow and few weekend warriors from the crowded tristate area. The skiers here are locals, folks who fly into the tiny Burlington airport, and Canucks like Dombroski. The 20-year-old Burton brand ambassador taught herself to snowboard at age 16. In October, she comes for the annual Fall Bash, a party Jake Burton Carpenter and his wife, Donna—the founder and CEO of Burton Snowboards, respectively— throw for their 800-plus employees. ON SKYLAR: Mossy Maze jacket ($220) and Anouk anorak ($100) by Burton DANNY DAVIS Davis grew up in Michigan, but the 29-year-old professional snowboarder has long considered Vermont a second home. As a teenager, he…