Resources

If you’re in the U.K., picking up Kendal mint cakes is as easy as popping into your neighborhood sweet shop, but top brand Romney’s no longer sells directly to the U.S. market, so the best bet for Americans is to order via one of Amazon’s third-party vendors. It won’t be cheap or fast, but it will bring the best.

Impatient? Kendal mint cakes are almost pure sugar, and you can try making your own. Combine 500 grams of white or brown sugar, 25ml of glucose, and 150ml of water in a heavy-bottomed pan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Once the mixture has thickened, let it cool for five minutes, then add a few drops of peppermint oil, stirring well. Pour into a shallow tray and allow to set.

Author Kristina Ciari is the director of communications and membership at The Mountaineers, a Seattle-based outdoor advocacy group. In addition to always skiing in a tutu, at last count she’d skied 84 months in a row.

Author Julia Rosen spent much of 2018 thinking and writing about the exploration of cold, distant lands through the use of novel forms of transportation. In addition to expedition skating in Alaska, she covered the landing of NASA’s InSight spacecraft on the surface of Mars live from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. sciencejulia.wordpress.com, @sciencejulia

Photos: Luc Mehl, thingstolucat.com, @lucmehl; Paxson Woelber, paxsonwoelber.com, @paxsonwoelber

Bivvying on the third-highest peak in Vermont during a snowpocalypse ain’t child’s play—cold is cold. On the other hand, there’s a long list of epic benightments in the annals of mountaineering that make one shiver even in front of the fire. In 1975, Doug Scott and Dougal Haston put up a new route on the Southwest Face of Mt. Everest, climbing for 14.5 hours, topping out at 6 p.m., and then realizing a moonless night was about to set in. Rather than try to descend in the darkness, they located a snow cave they’d dug earlier in the day, enlarged it a bit, and hunkered down—at 28,750 feet, the highest bivvy in the history of mountaineering. Despite hallucinations and a lack of oxygen, neither man suffered any frostbite. They made it into camp the next morning at 9 a.m.

Author Leath Tonino wrote about the elemental art of scrambling in AJ05. His first book, The Animal One Thousand Miles Long, was published in 2018.

Photos: Oliver Parini, oliverparini.com, @oliverparini

Have the resources and storage and a trailer and a place to rock that Tucker Sno-Cat? (If so, will you adopt us?) We’ve seen used cats running as high as $175,000 and as low as $13,900. The Tucker company itself offers pre-owned machines, but if you’re really looking for an overlooked gem, start mining Craigslist. Something to keep in mind as you fantasize your golden ticket to da kine pow: Each track could have a thousand bolts or more that need tightening.

Curious about that shot of a Tucker bridging a crevasse? The Crossing of Antarctica documents the 1957–58 overland journey of Edmund Hillary, Vivian Fuchs, and photographer George Lowe. Photos and words by Lowe, and some might fine writin’ by AJ contributor Huw Lewis-Jones.

Jeff Moag is a regular contributor to Adventure Journal. The former editor of Canoe & Kayak, he last wrote about paralyzed overlanders in AJ10. @jeffmoag

Artist and writer Sarah Gilman wrote about a sloppy and wonderful fall backpacking trip in AJ10. A version of “Sound Effect” first appeared on Last Word on Nothing, lastwordonnothing.com. She also illustrated Atlas of a Lost World, the most recent book by AJ contributing editor Craig Childs. sarahmgilman.com, @sarah_gilman, @saramoesix

Over a lifetime of studying inukshuit and circumpolar culture, author Norman Hallendy struggled to determine who built the first inuksuk and just how old these rock structures can be. His mentor Osuitok would only tell him, “Inuit sivulliit tamaaniqgiaqnatigtillugit,” meaning “beyond the time of our ancestors.” Fair enough, but that wasn’t satisfying to the man Native Canadians called “the inquisitive one.” Then in 2006, he was working as the ethnogeographer on a geological survey in southwest Baffin Island when he came upon a Pre-Dorset archaeological site, where he found six tent rings and a semicircle of 14 inuksuit. The Pre-Dorset culture represents the first occupation of arctic North America by Palaeoeskimos and dates to 3,000 years old. So, yeah: beyond the time of our ancestors.

Hallendy’s book, Inuksuit: Silent Messengers of the Arctic, can be found used online. For a deeper dive into the far north, we also recommend Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez, which is still holding its own 40 years after first publication. And although inuksuit are not cairns and vice versa, David B. Williams’s Cairns: Messengers in Stone is an easily accessible study on how and why humans communicate with rocks.

Even a minor avalanche incident can be traumatic. A partial burial, an injury, or worse can easily cause post-traumatic stress disorder. If you or someone you know falls victim to slidey circumstances, don’t hesitate to get help—techniques like eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) conducted by a therapist within 24 hours of the accident can dramatically improve healing.

Author Cassidy Randall can be found at directionaldetour.org and @cassidyjrandall

Menus are produced, written, and photographed by Megan McDuffie and Michael van Vliet, who after living full time on the road for several years have settled in Bend, Oregon. freshoffthegrid.com, @freshoffthegrid

See more of Geoff Coombs’s photography: geoffcoombs.com, @geoff_coombs