ajtestbed In an age when adventuring is largely restricted to where you can get with wheels, and in which seemingly every bit of flashy new outdoor gear is sold out, we thought back to this essay about an innocent adventure with little but the urge to move. Note: Photos are from a disposable camera the author … Read more
Did the world need another wilderness survival guide? Probably not, if we’re being honest. A quick peruse of Amazon’s listings show 20 some pages of books that offer some kind of guidance for making fire, fashioning a splint, how to tell time by watching shadows, and on and on. But how many of them are … Read more
I helped a 2WD pickup get unstuck from soft sand this weekend. An empty bed, slick all-season tires, and confusion about what his truck could handle conspired to mire this guy up to his rims in beach sand. I had a collapsible shovel and a set of MaxTrax in my Subaru, and we dug him out … Read more
The first time I got caught backpacking in a serious rain I was totally unprepared. Nothing bad actually happened to me, but I was hilariously naive to the possibility. I didn’t notice the ominous signs of a thunderstorm until it was nearly too late. I hadn’t packed the proper gear when I left home. I … Read more
There are those legends, the Ed Abbeys and Fred Beckeys and Yvon Chouinards of the world, that define what it means to be an outdoor person. We hold images of them–Beckey hitchhiking with a sign penned “will belay for food,” Chouinard wild and rambling down the Pacific Coast–in our minds as if they were the patron … Read more
If you’ve skied almost anywhere in North America, you’ve probably got a few of Jim Niehues’s paintings in the pockets of old parkas and bibs, or tucked away in your glove box or, if you’re no packrat, embedded in deep in some cerebral corner dedicated to happy memories. In the trail maps Niehues has painted … Read more
Mitsu’s eyes seemed to light as he delved into the subject, describing new possibilities and aesthetic nuances. It was like hearing someone talk about a song or a work of art that spoke to them. But we were talking about skiing. Tele skiing. As in, why would someone do it? Mitsu’s response-describing the subtleties available … Read more
Well, today is a pretty big day, with a great deal of very important news breaking pretty much constantly. So, we wanted to step back, take a breath, and reflect on the possibilities of optimism. Please enjoy this essay we published a few years ago about the power of belief, and how it can be … Read more
Though spring and summer are more typically associated with striking out on adventures, fall too calls the restless, the abrupt change of season hinting that we’ve only a few weeks before old man winter sets in, better get on it when the getting’s good. Which brings us to this lovely essay from Hilary Oliver we … Read more
Do you partake in life-consuming outdoor hobbies or sports, complete with their own unique cultures, charmingly peculiar vocabularies, verbal signifiers of who’s part of the in crowd and who’s not? Can you move freely between the languages of each? I ask because I’ve spent the past decade spiraling deeply down the fly fishing rabbit hole. … Read more