Innehållsförteckning för January/February 2023 från Outside

Succession Plan Twenty-four years ago, my mother, who was working in the career services department at Reed College, in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, handed me a flyer about an internship at Outside magazine. I was three years out of college, and still had only vague notions about what I wanted to do with my life beyond maybe pursuing something involving writing. The flyer intrigued me. In college, I’d obsessed over Jon Krakauer’s tragic Outside profile of Christopher McCandless, who he went on to write about in the bestselling book Into the Wild. Yet I had no background or training in journalism, and my initial application received no reply. It took me three more tries—and intern work at several local Portland magazines to gain editorial experience—before finally landing the gig.…

THE LEANING TOWER is a perfect piece of granite, rising from the Yosemite Valley floor like the point of a crown and forming the spillway of Bridalveil Fall. Climbers know it as one of America’s most continuously overhanging cliffs, and the way it leans gives an impression that is both gentle and imposing. For Mason Earle, the tower has deeper significance. This is where he was climbing on the day when, as he puts it, he died. On May 11, 2018, around 5 P.M., the golden hour of a Yosemite spring evening, Earle and his climbing partner Nik Berry were finishing a productive session together. Earle had sent the crux pitch on a route they’d chosen, called Wet Lycra Nightmare. He was exhausted, but it was the settled-in kind of…

WILLI UNSOELD WAS NOT YET AN AMERICAN CLIMBING LEGEND WHEN HE FIRST SAW THE HIMALAYAN PEAK CALLED NANDA DEVI. Known to locals as the mountain of the bliss-giving goddess, it rises to 25,645 feet, forbiddingly guarded by a ring of lesser peaks in the northeastern corner of India, near the border with Nepal. Reaching the foot of Nanda Devi involves a steep journey up the gorge of the Rishi Ganga River and then a trip through treacherous terrain at 14,000 feet. Unsoeld couldn’t see those obstacles as he gazed at the summit from far away, but for the rest of his life he would recall his thought at that moment: “I was so struck by its beauty that I realized I needed to get married to have a daughter that…

WHEN JASON MOMOA WAS 15 OR SO, A GROUP OF ADULT CLIMBERS INVITED HIM ON AN ICE-CLIMBING TRIP. Momoa was working at an outdoor shop in Des Moines, Iowa, and after he agreed, the crew packed into vans and headed off. He was thrilled. Growing up in the small town of Norwalk, on the outskirts of Des Moines, he imagined journeys into the mountains. He studied climbing knots and hid books on alpinism inside his math textbook so he could read them in class. On the ice during that outing, Momoa learned some real skills, but he also experienced the downside of risk. Given the chance to lead a section, he fell, and one of his ice tools slit the side of his leg. “I was bleeding all over the…

LONG BEFORE THE BIRTH of my daughter, Sophie, last spring, I was disillusioned with the American way of parenting. Many of my objections led back to a single overarching theme: we no longer cultivate in our children a healthy relationship with outdoor play. The problem is familiar: recent studies show that unstructured time outside—referred to as free play, in the words of child development experts—improves mental and physical well-being, yet kids can’t peel themselves away from their tablets and smartphones and Xboxes for more than a few minutes at a stretch. When outdoor activities are present at all, the emphasis is narrowly focused on sport specialization and competitive achievement. Where I live, near Aspen, Colorado, I see kids monitored so closely by parents that any semblance of self-direction or self-reliance…

THE MOST CRITICAL items in any adventure kit are rarely the flashiest. These are the essentials, and they serve as the foundation of comfort and performance in every season. Think: underwear, socks, beanies, base layers. To that esteemed pantheon, I nominate the humble but affordable Merino Lightweight neckwear ($29) from Buff, the versatility of which is nearly unmatched. That’s right: a neck tube. But not just any neck tube. I’ve tried many of them, from many different purveyors, and reader, I can assure you that this thin merino-wool number is the one to rule them all. For starters, the top and bottom seams are flat, which eliminates chafing. Then there’s the 3.7-ounce, stink-resistant fabric, providing sufficient warmth in winter but still thin enough for sweaty temperatures and high-output pursuits. I…

1. SOAK IT UP Nothing beats a therapeutic dip in a hot spring. Piping, mineral-rich spring water does more than soothe sore muscles. Even a ten-minute soak can increase circulation, relieve joint pain, and soften skin. The Indigenous Ute people of southwest Colorado referred to hot springs in the Uncompahgre and Animas Valleys as “miracle waters,” and used them in healing ceremonies. The historic Durango Hot Springs Resort and Spa, a recently renovated and expanded wellness oasis south of Purgatory Ski Resort in the San Juan Mountains, is an exceptional setting in which to enjoy that geothermal magic (day pass, $39). Naturally spiked with 34 minerals and heated to 110 degrees, there are 41 soaking pools, including eight Japanese-inspired tubs, surrounded by ponderosa pines and landscaped gardens. Farther south, the…

On a crisp November morning, my family and I walked along a trail that afforded us a view of the Elk Mountains. Lodgepole pines and golden aspens filtered the sunlight, their branches swaying in a soft breeze. The sky was the bluest I’d ever seen. Our seven-year-old, Leo, was giggling, grinning, and kicking his feet—his version of hiking—as my husband, Ryan, and I took turns carrying his 16.5-pound body in our arms. We were in Crested Butte, Colorado, and we had parked our camper van at a random trailhead on Kebler Pass to take in the scenery and the changing foliage. We had the place completely to ourselves. In a word, it was magic. Closing my eyes, I’m grateful for this joyful memory, now paired with hot tears streaming down…

WHEN ILIANA REGAN bought the Milkweed Inn in Michigan’s Nahma Township with her wife, Anna Hamlin, in 2019, she was searching for home. One might assume the critically acclaimed founding chef of the Michelin-starred Chicago restaurant Elizabeth might feel overly secluded at Milkweed; the 150-acre property is set deep in Hiawatha National Forest, a wide swath of land where three Great Lakes meet at the U.S.-Canadian border. But it was here that the couple planted roots, planning to run the 12-guest bed-and-breakfast during the six months of the year when the dirt road leading to the rustic cabin wasn’t buried under lake-effect snow. Also in 2019, Regan’s first memoir, Burn the Place, which tangled with her childhood, alcoholism, and path to becoming a chef, was long-listed for the National Book…

Less Is More BY KELLY KLEIN Associate gear editor AFTER A YEAR as a gear editor, I’ve tested countless layers. Base layers, midlayers, outer layers, you name it. Whenever I headed out on a ski trip last winter, I brought along at least half a dozen pieces to test out over the course of the day. As part of the review process, I wanted to do each one justice, and I needed to be sure I was using them for their intended purpose. But as time wore on—time spent, it seemed, primarily thinking about what to put on or take off next—I found that I only wanted to wear one or two layers at most beneath my jacket. Whether I was spending the day resort skiing or skinning up in…

DON’T BE A STRANGER Believe it or not, talking to new people won’t kill you By Martin Fritz Huber PART OF ME HAS ALWAYS wanted to be the kind of person who breaks the ice with a fellow airplane passenger or engages in easy banter while in line at the grocery store. When I witness that kind gregariousness in others, I feel envy; I assume their lack of inhibition means they lead more exciting lives. How many grand love affairs or tales of adventure began because someone had the nerve to say hello? Alas, more often than not, talking to someone I don’t know inspires low-level dread, and I avoid it entirely. I’m not alone. In a 2022 study, Gillian Sandstrom, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of…

KIN COEDEL DOESN’T REMEMBER the name of the documentary he saw in late 2019 about Uttarayan, an annual kite festival in western India. But he vividly recalls being awed by the YouTube video playing on his laptop screen. “The shape of the kites, the lines of thread, all these beautiful things flying in the sky—it really intrigued me,” says Coedel, who lives in Paris. Three weeks later, in January of 2020, the photographer, now 34, flew to the state of Gujarat and then traveled around the region to witness the celebration himself. During the weeklong Uttarayan, people parade brightly colored kites through the streets of Ahmedabad and Vadodara and Mumbai from dawn to dusk, reveling in the end of winter and anticipating the spring harvest season. As Coedel snapped pictures…

While other men spend their power decades harvesting money for their golden years, I’ve devoted the prime of my life to a swamp. And not even a real swamp, not some righteous nightmare of cottonmouths and feral pigs, but a mere backwater, a slough, really, that meanders through our place in western Montana, rising and falling with the Clark Fork River nearby. In the summer, the main channel of this marsh oozes sweet and fragrant between its walls of red dogwood and offers an array of refreshing temperatures as you plunge deeper to flee horseflies and the heat. Around Halloween it freezes. Then, with the vigilance of a patriarch whose family business is on the verge of going public, I stand guard over this ice till it melts in April,…