Innehållsförteckning för November 2020 från Outside

Hard Feelings You’ve probably heard by now that an overwhelming body of research shows that time spent in nature has a powerful impact on our overall health and wellness. I write that with confidence because Outside has been reporting on this topic for nearly a decade, including four cover stories since December 2011, when we featured marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols on the cover alongside the headline: “This Is Your Brain on Nature.” Our brand’s mission is to inspire active participation in the world outside, so it only makes sense that we’d get on our soapbox to shout about this research trend. What better way to encourage people to immerse themselves in nature than by sharing the findings that it will make them healthier and happier? Of course, Nature Rx,…

a. Black Diamond Legend gloves $150 A modern classic, the Legend is one of the warmest gloves we’ve ever tested. It’s super durable, and we love that it fits under the cuff of a jacket. b. Helly Hansen Steilhang jacket $700 Warm enough for the lift and cool enough for hard charging, the Steilhang is smartly body-mapped with PrimaLoft synthetic insulation, and also sports vents on the sides and back to allow for impressive ventilation. c. Flylow Baker bibs $420 The Baker offers the weather protection and comfort of technical bibs with a relaxed fit for mobility and style. Massive vents on the inner and outer legs lend cross ventilation on warm climbs. d. Cast Touring Freetour bindings upgrade kit $345 This aftermarket kit lets you quickly swap out a…

a. Sorel Explorer Carnival $130 After a long day hiking ridges, dodging trees, and crushing bumps in unforgiving ski boots, the sleek, lightweight, cushy Explorer Carnival is a dream. With a felt collar, a waterproof upper, and 100-gram insulation, it’ll keep your toes cozy as you sip cocoa fireside. A thick EVA midsole and a heel just over an inch thick ease strain on your aching calves. (Women’s only) b. Merrell Thermo Overlook 2 Mid Shell WP $160 Merrell’s fully waterproof workhorse boot does as well strapped to a snowshoe as it does taking care of winter tasks, from shoveling the driveway to putting up holiday lights. The full-grain leather upper conceals a waterproof-breathable membrane, so your dogs won’t sweat out, and 400-gram insulation protects in subzero temperatures. The beefy…

THE PITCH SOUNDS tailor-made for fitness in a socially distanced world. A sleek mahogany cabinet, suitable for even the most elegant living rooms, conceals a cleverly designed system of weights and pulleys for strengthening pretty much every muscle in your body. Forget the expense and inconvenience of a gym—it’ll pay for itself in less than six months. What are you waiting for? Just one detail: the Portable Gymnasium, introduced in 1861 by “orthopoedic machinist” Gustav Ernst, is no longer available. And its modern successors—overengineered contraptions that made big infomercial promises but generally turned out to be more suitable as clothes racks—have yet to bring Ernst’s vision of a gymless future to fruition. That may be changing. Even before the pandemic hit, pundits speculated that an inflection point had been reached,…

IT WAS DURING her first solo backpacking trip in 2017 that Grizel realized how far she’d come, and how ready she was for change. The then 26-year-old mental health therapist (who goes by her first name professionally) was on an eight-day hike on California’s High Sierra Trail when a violent storm hit in the middle of the night. It rained and hailed like nothing she’d seen before—and she’d grown up in Miami. Until she went on that trip, Grizel had been a self-described timid person and casual hiker. But after surviving a sexual assault earlier in the year, she set her mind on a solo hike, hoping the experience would be empowering and transformative. “You think you’re going to die,” she says of the aftermath of the assault. “I wanted…

In 2015, photojournalist and filmmaker Rees moved to Summit Park, Utah, to live with her partner, Renan Ozturk, and found a mountain bike waiting for her. She’d never ridden one before—and the learning process involved “a lot of falling”—but she soon came to love the sport. At the same time, she was pursuing increasingly ambitious work as a documentary filmmaker, directing more of her own projects. “It was an exciting transition time,” she remembers. “I was learning and failing at figuring out my role in the creative process in the same way I was learning and failing and falling on my mountain bike.” Ozturk snapped this photo on the Stansbury Island Trail at the edge of the Great Salt Lake.…

THREE TIMES UP EVEREST (MINUS THE MOUNTAIN) Everesting—or going up and down the same hill until you accumulate 29,029 feet of climbing—has been popular among endurance athletes since 2014, when Australian cyclist Andy van Bergen dreamed up the challenge. Attempts surged during the lockdown. According to van Bergen, some 6,000 people around the world have accomplished the feat since March 2020. That includes the first Everesting triathlon, which was completed in 55 hours 32 minutes in April by Mayank Vaid. The Hong Kong lawyer went for an Everest-high 5.5-mile swim in Clear Water Bay, then rode 165 miles and ran up 1,129-foot High Junk Peak 26 times, clocking 29,029 feet of elevation gain with both. NO RACE, NO PROBLEM The website Fastest Known Time saw a 400 percent increase in…

Photographer and former archaeologist Nate Bressler estimates that he’s had more than 100 odd jobs in his life, from ranching in Mexico to working on a survivalist TV show in Idaho. Among them is an annual gig leading group horseback rides on 10,000 acres of land near Caputa, South Dakota. It’s not your typical dude-ranch experience, he says—there’s no A/C or internet, and no one to saddle your horse for you in the morning. Instead, it’s a chance for city dwellers to get a real taste of cowboy life. “A lot of them have never used the bathroom or showered outdoors,” says Bressler, 43. “But after four or five days they’ve totally changed. They’re yeehawing and having a good old time.”…

Picture Demain jacket $500 The Demain is constructed from the same groundbreaking sugarcane waste and recycled plastic as Picture’s Aeron (see page 15).The new mechanically stretched waterproof membrane is light and solvent-free, which makes for a shell with all the bells and whistles—pit zips, powder skirt, taped seams—and far less guilt. Jones Stratos snowboard $579 A sphinx among snowboards, the Jones Stratos has a park deck’s tail, a powder gun’s tapered body, a resort ripper’s sidecut and flex, and a surfboard’s bottom contour. But this all-mountain deck is no myth. “It’s a great surf shape that can be ridden anywhere,” according to one impressed tester. a. Burton AK Gore-Tex 3L Freebird Stretch bibs $580 A highlight of Burton’s high-end outerwear line, the Freebird bibs pair three-layer Gore-Tex dependability with snowboard-friendly fit and…

ON A WARM, BREEZY FEBRUARY DAY IN 2000, JEB CORLISS STRAPPED ON A PARACHUTE AND STEPPED TO THE EDGE OF A 310 -FOOT SANDSTONE CLIFF IN SOUTH AFRICA. To Corliss’s left, the Umgeni River poured green and clear off the cliff to become Howick Falls, a gargantuan shaft of water that crashed off rock ledges and thundered into a deep pool below. Straight ahead, in the direction Corliss intended to soar after opening his parachute, whitewater rapids flowed into a forested valley. Corliss knew that big waterfalls can create enough air turbulence to destabilize a parachute, but he was 23 years old at the time, relatively new to the sport and driven by hungers and agonies he hadn’t begun to name. Corliss had not yet honed his judgment through two decades as the international face of professional BASE jumping—of seemingly crazy leaps from the…

THE WORLD’S MOST MYSTERIOUS CAVE IS DIFFICULT TO REACH. To get to Cueva de los Tayos—Cave of the Oilbirds—drive east out of Ecuador’s capital city of Quito for eight hours along narrow, potholed roads that twist through cloudforest above the Amazon Basin. Pull over outside the small town of Mendez, and walk a path to the bank of the muddy Santiago River, where you’ll see locals hauling 150-pound bushels of bananas on their shoulders. Lower yourself into a long wooden canoe and glide past cascading waterfalls to the start of a dirt trail. Hike five hours in the humidity, over Puntilla de Coangos mountain, then up to the summit of Bocana de Coangos. The trail ends at a clearing with three thatch huts, home to a dozen Shuar, the ancient tribe…

KATE BAECHER AND HER MOUNTAINEERING GROUP were being guided over a dangerous traverse in Europe a few years ago when a climber in the party ahead of them fell hundreds of feet to her death. Baecher, a Sydney-based psychologist, military veteran, and avid mountaineer with a background helping people perform in high-stress situations, kept her cool while the body was recovered. But Chris, a climber in her group, began showing signs of distress. (The climber’s name and some of the details of this incident have been changed to protect his privacy.) Stunned by what he’d witnessed, Chris stopped speaking and moving, and he appeared disassociated, Baecher recalls. She and a guide had to physically pull him to his feet to get him to continue to camp, which was located at 12,000…

a. Fjällräven Greenland Re-Wool Pattern Knit sweater $160 This recycled-wool sweater is secretly technical. Its 25 percent recycled polyamide improves abrasion resistance, so it stands tough during skirmishes with zippers and Velcro. Elbow patches made of reused polyester and organic cotton lend practicality and classic good looks. And the knit is warm, breathable, and flattering, making this the ideal layer for slope-to-après itineraries. 11.1 ounces (women’s only) b. North Face Summit Series L3 5050 down hoodie $475 When you need both reliable warmth and sweat management, the L3 5050 is your ticket. Designed specifically for inactive stretches during mountaineering and ski touring, this unusual jacket inserts bands of uninsulated nylon between baffles stuffed with responsibly sourced 800-fill down, which dissipates moisture far better than other puffies do. A draft flap…

1. Ski and Surf on the Same Day Hawaii-based alpine ski racer Julia Mancuso, who surfed the Black Sea after competing at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, has a piece of advice for anyone who plans to attempt this iconic same-day duo: “Ski first, then surf.” You’ll be more motivated to take off ski boots than to put them on, she says. Here are three tried-and-true beach and mountain combos. Our pro tip? Pack a thick wetsuit. —Taylor Gee Alaska: From Alyeska Resort, the state’s biggest ski hill, it’s ten miles west to a peninsula called Bird Point. From there, paddle out southward to the Turnagain Arm bore tide, an up to ten-foot wave that usually occurs twice daily, when the incoming ocean tide meets the outgoing water from the inlet. Southern…

BRAD OGBONNA This spring, when Ogbonna traveled from his home in Brooklyn to western Norway to shoot a film, he had no idea how much the world was about to change. But on March 13, when the 32-year-old returned to his hotel after a day of filming on a remote fjord, he and his colleagues turned on CNN International to see the president declaring a national emergency due to the coronavirus. “We were all freaking out,” he recalls. “Are we going to be able to get home, or are we going to be living in Norway for the next couple of months?” Ogbonna made it back to New York, but only after a ten-hour trek through the mountains and a series of flights that took him from Oslo to Amsterdam…

Climbing Washington’s Luna Peak had been on Djenohan’s bucket list ever since 2017, when he heard about the secluded mountain, located in the Picket Range of the North Cascades. Djenohan was drawn to the pristine landscape and excited by the challenge of reaching one of the most inaccessible peaks in the lower 48. So in August 2019, the Seattle snowboarder and adventure photographer grabbed a friend and took a boat to the isolated trailhead before setting off for the summit. “It’s so rugged and remote, it feels like you’re in Alaska,” he says. “When we were up there, we didn’t see a single person for three days.”…

Winters has flown all over the world for his work, photographing everyone from Tom Hanks to the Dalai Lama. In this 2019 photo, taken by his wife, Kathryn, he’s submerged in the icy waters of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, where he travels every other year for a photography festival. But while the pandemic has put major travel plans on hold, Winters has relished smaller outings near his home in Austin, Texas, like mountain biking and harvesting honey from his bees. “A lot of the time, the sense of adventure comes from within,” he says. “A short hike outside the city can yield just as much satisfaction as the saddle of the Matterhorn.”…

FOR DECADES, PEOPLE HAVE TAKEN SEVEN-YEAR-OLDS ON IDAHO’S MIDDLE FORK OF THE SALMON RIVER. But after the fact, when I asked my most experienced rafting friends if they would have done it, they scratched their heads and said, “It depends.” The Middle Fork runs roughly 100 miles through the Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness. It’s wild, remote, and riddled with hazards. Along those miles of whitewater are about eight Class IV rapids and dozens of Class IIIs, depending on water levels. If something goes wrong, you’re on your own. I knew this from previous trips and from stories told by people who’d suffered various catastrophes there. One man was thrown from his boat and died of a heart attack in the frigid waters; his group had to haul his corpse…