This essay originally ran in 2016 and is one in a series of our most popular posts that we put at the top of our story stream for new readers. With more than 3,000 evergreen stories, we want to make sure you don’t miss the goods! Run a Google search on naturalist and preservationist John … Read more
Some things are self evident. The high alpine is awesome. Sandwiches are civilization’s gift to itself. Combine the two of them and angels pour forth from heaven with trumpets. At least, that’s what it seems like when you’re hungry and there’s nothing but sky above you, and it’s all documented in a brilliant website called … Read more
It’s one of the most stressful questions of the adventure cyclist: “Where the hell I am going to sleep tonight?” Well, I believe that it is every human being’s nature-given right to sleep without having to pay for the privilege. Some might consider the idea delusional, delinquent, idealistic, or impossible. But believing it acts as … Read more
In the fall of 1968 a Stanford-trained biologist, organizer of the legendary Trips Festival and Merry Prankster named Stewart Brand published the first Whole Earth Catalog. Between 1968 and 1972, the Catalog reached millions of readers and won the National Book Award. The title and iconic cover image of this counterculture classic celebrated the first … Read more
There are more than 3,000 stories in Adventure Journal’s archives, most of which are evergreen, and occasionally we put the best of them back on the home page for new readers to see.—Ed. It seems like mountain songs come from two places: the South, the home of original mountain music, and the West, … Read more
To my very first tent, that nameless damp canvas cavern propped up in a small clearing just north of Green Hand Bridge, within smelling distance of the wetland. You were my shelter from a merciless thunderstorm…until we abandoned you for drier ground. Still, I’ll never forget our time together, as brief as it was. To … Read more
Liz Clark, a native of Southern California, has spent the past 12 years sailing solo around the world on a 40-foot boat, called, apropos for a former competitive surfer, Swell. Well, okay, she has a cat on board. And friends and lovers have joined for a trip or two. Her mom was along for a … Read more
When our son was six, we began letting him play with fire. It made sense a few decades ago and I think it still does, but you be the judge. Ever since he was a baby, our son had gone camping with us in southern Arizona. Even during lean years, such as when I went … Read more
There’s a rocky cove along the Northern California coastline just a short jog from my house where, in the winter when the surf is enormous, I swim in the waves and occasionally smash into mussel-encrusted boulders. It’s only a ten minute run at a reasonable pace, five minutes maybe if I’m soaked and freezing in … Read more
It was nearly 11 p.m. last Friday night, and I was getting bug-eyed driving south on I-15 through western Utah, aiming for the Kolob Canyons section of Zion National Park. Bug-eyed and tired, but it was a sleepy tired, not a physical tired, as the most physical things I’d done all day were lift a … Read more