Field Notes

Seems strange but the first time I ever measured the temperature of the water I was heating for coffee was at about 7,000 feet of elevation, near an alpine stream running through a thicket of aspens, many miles from pavement of any kind, let alone a hipster barista. But I am serious about my coffee. … Read more

Michael Sandrock has been running for decades. He’s also been writing down his dreams for decades too, interacting and living with them much closer than most of us do. What do they mean? What does running mean? This is his quest.

The Pulaski is not an elegant object—half axe, half mattock—it chops and cleaves, it excavates and grubs. It is, above all, a workhorse, just like the man who created it. You may have never hefted one, but odds are you’ve ridden or hiked a trail that was shaped by a Pulaski or walked beneath trees … Read more

Parental aspirations are all too often dashed on the shoals of reality, and mine were no different. We would be a camping family from the very beginning – two out of three of us swore on it. On that first trip to Sequoia National Park, however, the 13-month-old thought bears were giant doggies, the backpacking … Read more

  Hey, it’s sandal season! Let the weird tans begin. We’re repubbing one of our fave essays about the glory of sandals, Chacos in particular for this writer. Note, the bits about where she lives are no longer accurate. Pretty sure she still has her Chacos. -Ed. I was dating this guy and we’d just … Read more

To those with restless, wandering souls, the promise of a frontier, a hazy zone marking the edge of the known and what lies over the horizon, is an irresistible force promising adventure, the slaking of an endless thirst for discovery. Through much of the early 20th century in the US, the frontier was Alaska, the … Read more

Adventure Journal has more than 3,000 stories in our archive, most of which are evergreen. We like to put our most popular posts back on the homepage for new readers to enjoy, or, in this case, when we update a piece with new information, like even more hilarious one-star Yelp reviews of National Parks. – … Read more

Ian Frazier is a national treasure. He’s maybe best known as a longtime New Yorker columnist and features writer, covering pretty much anything that interests him, which is usually the outdoors. But his true genius is as a master of the darkly humored travelogue. His two most-read books are probably The Great Plains and On … Read more

I bought my car, a teenage Subaru with three hubcaps and two working windows, because I knew I could stretch out in the back. I tried it before I bought it, popped the hatch and lay down in front of the confused owner. “I’m pretty tall,” I said, as he gave me sideways eyes, “I … Read more