Is Taylor Swift an elite endurance athlete? On the Eras tour, the singer-songwriter is performing three nights a week, singing and dancing for as long as it takes most people to run a marathon. When ultrarunner and Outside editor Zoë Rom read about the six-month fitness program Swift used to prepare for the tour, she decided to give it a try—and quickly learned that being a pop star is harder than it looks. But training like one may change the way you think about fitness. Check out trainer Brookelynn Miller’s Couch to Eras Tour training plan here: Couch to Eras Tour Training Plan Couch2Eras Strava Group The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn more about all the benefits of a subscription and subscribe now at outsideonline.com/podplus

After a certain number of hours, endurance races are basically eating competitions. We spend years training our bodies for peak performance on race day. Producer Maren Larsen wanted to know: how do you train your stomach? The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn more about all the benefits of a subscription and subscribe now at outsideonline.com/podplus

In-N-Out Burger’s iconic palm trees are a reference to buried treasure, but they also make the restaurant a very unlikely climate change indicator. As the chain expands into places where palm trees can’t yet grow, science writer Meg Duff wondered: Does In-N-Out know something we don’t? The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn more about all the benefits of becoming a member and sign up at OutsideOnline.com/podplus.

We try to gain a competitive edge from things like nutrition, recovery, weight training, and new shoes. But what if becoming a parent does the trick? Ultrarunner Tyler Green was entering the biggest year of his running life when he became a father. Suddenly, instead of carefree miles through the parks and trails near his house, he was timing his runs around nap time and hiking with a baby on his back. Can a running career withstand a year of compromised training? Can a baby make you faster? The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn more about all the benefits of a subscription and subscribe now at outsideonline.com/podplus

After 50 years, one of the most consequential environmental laws in U.S. history may no longer be relevant to the world we’re living in. Which makes sense: the ESA was written for a planet that was several degrees cooler than the one we're living on right now, by politicians who weren’t even arguing about climate change yet. So producer Aaron Scott started to wonder: if the ESA is out of date, what would it take to keep this comprehensive piece of legislation relevant going forward? The answers he found take the form of three stories, about a fish, a bird, and a bear. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn more about all the benefits of a subscription and subscribe now at outsideonline.com/podplus

Mountain lions are becoming more aggressive. Or maybe they aren’t? But their populations are certainly increasing. Or not? After cougars killed multiple people in the Pacific Northwest in a few months in 2018, Outside Podcast host Peter Frick-Wright noticed that there sure was a lot of contradictory information about these predators out there, including the scariest rumor he could imagine. Why is it so hard to nail down the facts about cougars? Is it even possible to get good information about an animal that’s mastered the art of stealth and surprise? The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn more about all the benefits of a subscription and subscribe now at outsideonline.com/podplus

Our founding host, Peter Frick-Wright, is returning—and we couldn’t be more excited. After taking the last four years to focus on short-run podcast series like Missed Fortune, Bundyville, and Timber Wars, Peter will be back starting with our November 29 episode. Together with his creative partner, Robbie Carver, Peter will be bringing a diverse cast of talented journalists and storytellers to the Outside Podcast. Our best is yet to come. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn more about all the benefits of a subscription and subscribe now at OutsideOnline.com/podplus

When you’re one of the greatest skiers of all time, there are some things you only say to the person you trust most in the world. For Mikaela Shiffrin, that person is her mom, Eileen Shiffrin, who has coached and traveled with Mikaela since her first season on the World Cup circuit, at age 15. Eileen has always played an enormous role in her daughter's life and that role grew even larger when Mikaela's father died suddenly a few years ago. So, when Outside decided to interview Mikaela for our Outsiders of the Year issue, we figured the best way to get truly candid answers would be to have Eileen ask the questions. In this episode, we sit in on their conversation, which offers a rare chance to hear how an Olympic champion really feels about the personal challenges she’s faced on her path to the top of her sport. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn more about all the benefits of a subscription and subscribe now at OutsideOnline.com/podplus

Honoring the life of someone who spent their days exploring wild places often means embracing the pursuits that brought them joy. This approach can lead us to all kinds of unconventional memorials, from marathons that are also eating contests, to costumed snow-blading event, to mountaintop poetry readings. In this episode, we talk to snowboarding icon Jeremy Jones and author Peter Moore who, after losing loved ones, found a home for their grief—and their joy—in the mountains. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn more about all the benefits of a subscription and subscribe now at OutsideOnline.com/podplus

All over the country people are creating outrageous unofficial athletic contests that are equal parts grueling and just plain silly. What’s going on? When did it become a thing to bike into the mountains, swim across a frigid lake, then complete an alpine climb? To investigate the peculiar rise of this new breed of multisport non-events, which have neither sponsors nor aid stations, we spoke with the folks behind The Picnic, a Jackson Hole, Wyoming invention that has become quite competitive, despite the fact that it was supposed to be all about the fun. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn more about all the benefits of a subscription and subscribe now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

Spiders and other hairy scary critters are everywhere. It’s best—for us and the planet—if we can figure out how to coexist. Backpacker executive editor and devoted spider enthusiast Adam Roy wants to teach you how to do just that. In this episode, he takes our arachnophobic producer Maren Larsen on a journey to go from being a spider-killer to a spider-watcher, where she will stare directly into the eight beady eyes of her greatest fear. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn more about all the benefits of a subscription and subscribe now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

There’s no way to guarantee that your kids will embrace nature and adventure, but you can do some things to point them in the right direction. Just ask Steven Rinella, host of the MeatEater TV series and podcast, whose earliest lessons to his three children included getting them comfortable with holding worms and snakes and bugs. Or talk to author Katie Arnold, creator of Outside’s Raising Rippers column, who took her first daughter on a multi-day river trip before she could walk. For this episode, aspiring outdoor super dad Paddy O’Connell quizzes Steven and Katie about the lessons they’ve learned while trying to raise dirt-footed tumbleweed nature kids.

For endurance athlete Dillon Quitugua, ultramarathons are a way to empower fellow Pacific Islanders and also work through the pain of the abuse he’d suffered as a child. Growing up in Hawaii and Guam, he’d been regularly beaten by his father and was diagnosed with PTSD as a teenager. When he began running after college, it enabled him to process what he was feeling. But as he pushed himself to take on longer distances, the physical and emotional toll of the effort caused him to relive the trauma of his past. And yet, for Dillon, the only choice was to keep going—until he reached a place of love and forgiveness. If you’re suffering from abuse or you know someone who is, help is available. Call or text the Child Help Hotline at 800-422-4453. Or reach the the National Domestic Abuse Hotline by calling 1-800-799-SAFE or texting START to 88788.

Indigenous model and activist Quannah ChasingHorse lives her life in two very different worlds. Growing up in a tiny Native village just south of the Arctic Circle, she has seen the effects of climate change firsthand her entire life, and she says that it left her with no choice but to become an activist. But for as long as she can remember, she’s dreamed of becoming a model. When her activism work got her noticed by a scout at Calvin Klein, she saw her chance to live both dreams at once. In this episode, she tells the story that landed her on the cover of Outside Magazine and has been turned into a documentary from the North Face called Walking Two Worlds.

The singer, songwriter, and guitarist for the Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie applies the same approach to ultramarathons that he does to touring: just keep moving. A decade ago, he got into distance running almost by accident, entering a trail race in Northern California with little idea of what he was doing. He’s since become a passionate and committed ultramarathoner, entering close to 50 races and training hard even when he’s on the road with a band. For Ben, running is a way to both connect back to the playfulness of childhood and embrace the unknowns that come with pushing your body and soul to the limit. As he laps the U.S. on a joint tour with Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie, he talks about the freedom he finds on the trail and the lessons he learned this summer after breaking down physically and emotionally during the hardest run of his life.

Nothing says “for better or for worse” like forcing your wedding guests to trek 60 miles to a ceremony deep in the jungle. While many people dream of nuptials involving elegant dresses, long-winded toasts, and tasteful floral arrangements, others hear the call of the adventure wedding. The more hardcore the experience, the more meaningful it is for all involved—or something like that. In this episode, we bring you the story of a union forged in the Guatemalan rainforest, where a creature came in the night to drink the blood of one of the guests.

What really happens to you when you spend months trekking the Pacific Crest Trail? Getting tired and filthy is just the start of it. We talked to dozens of PCT thru-hikers during their resupply in Ashland, Oregon—a popular stopover point some 1,500 miles into the 2,665-mile route—about how their really long walk through the mountains had changed them. For some, the journey had been exactly what they imagined. For others, it was full of surprises. Want to learn more about life on the PCT? Follow reports from the field at backpacker.com/pct2023

Artificial light makes it impossible for most people in North America to see the Milky Way. But we don’t have to live like this. As we learn more about the impacts of light pollution on wildlife and ourselves, we are finding ways to bring some healthy darkness back to our communities. This week, we bring you an episode from the talented team at the Sidedoor podcast from the Smithsonian that investigates the history of our addiction to artificial light and explores a growing movement to be smarter about how and when we illuminate the world around us. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Vans, makers of the ultimate summer shoe, the Vans UltraRange. With max cushioning for all-day wear, precision support for easy movement, and breathable mesh to keep you cool, the new UltraRange Neo VR3 is ultrafitted for ultra comfort. Learn more here.

When Pam Houston traveled to the Nordic island nation to ride its unique breed of spirited horses, she wasn’t just after an adventure—she was urgently seeking a way to be well again. Two years earlier, she had become seriously ill with long COVID, so lacking in energy that she couldn’t take a walk. What she needed most of all was a reason to go on. In the final episode of our Summer Read series, we hear her powerful story of physical and spiritual rebirth.

You say yes, of course. But what about those other wild opportunities that you’re not so sure about? In this episode, we talk to athletes and adventurers about how accepting an invitation led them to life-changing experiences. Jimmy Chin was an unknown dirtbag climber when Chouinard welcomed him into his California home and then took him surfing at a legendary break. Conrad Anker was an up-and-coming alpinist when he got a chance to represent the U.S. in a competition in Kyrgyzstan. Timmy O’Neill was an emerging mountain athlete when he was asked to join an expedition that would conduct cataract surgeries in a remote area of Ethiopia. What they and our other guests all agree on: they wouldn’t be who they are today if they hadn’t dared to go for it. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Vans, makers of the ultimate summer shoe, the Vans UltraRange. With max cushioning for all-day wear, precision support for easy movement, and breathable mesh to keep you cool, the new UltraRange Neo VR3 is ultrafitted for ultra comfort. Learn more here.

America’s most classic hiking route is generally a safe place for an adventure. But not always. Since 1974, there have been 13 murders on the trail. That’s not a big number when you consider the millions of people who spend time on it every year, but it’s enough to make some thru-hikers wary of strangers. For this episode of our Summer Read series, we bring you the account of the first murder on the Appalachian Trail, the kidnapping that followed, and how one woman learned to survive.  

When your most cherished childhood experience becomes impossible for your own kids, there’s only one choice: recreate it for them yourself. That’s what Jim Sperber did three years ago when the pandemic shut down summer camps across the country. He’d grown up going to his beloved Keewaydin camp in Vermont, and his three kids followed that tradition until, in 2020, when they couldn’t. But Sperber refused to let the tradition die. He and his wife created their own version of Keewaydin in and around their home in the New York City suburb of Bedford Corners, complete with riflery, campfire songs, and an overnight in the woods. It proved to be a wild adventure in parenting—and a magical summer for their family.

When W. Ralph Eubanks began exploring his family’s homeland, he fell in love with it—and came to understand how this troubled part of the state gave birth to the blues. Eubanks had grown up in another part of Mississippi before journeying to the Northeast U.S. to pursue life as a writer and scholar. But when fate brought him back, he was drawn to the Delta’s topography, realizing that the only way to understand the region’s history—and his own—was to walk the land.

Backpacker editor Zoe Gates sets off to discover if chatbots are the solution to our trip-planning woes. Preparing for wilderness excursions can be frustrating, even for seasoned adventurers. Tsunamis of online information—conflicting top ten lists, distracting ads, and trip reports of varying quality—can stand between you and getting out the door. Artificial intelligence tools claim to deliver detailed travel itineraries in response to just a single question, but can a robot really design a safe, worthwhile adventure? In an effort to simplify her weekend excursions, Zoe experiments with Outside’s in-development chatbot, Scout—and is totally at the whims of her computer.

There are passionate birders and then there’s Peter Kaestner, whose devotion has him traveling the globe in pursuit of the ultimate record. Fewer than 20 people have seen more than 9,000 species, and nobody has reached 10,000, though Kaestner is closing in on it. For this episode of our Summer Read series, Ornithologist and writer Jessie Williamson tags along with him on a rollicking South American adventure.

After years of pushing himself to go as big and far as he could, Alastair Humphreys realized that the most valuable trips we take are usually the ones right out our doors. Back in 2011, he coined the term “micro adventure” and ever since he’s been extolling the many upsides of doing things that we can squeeze in around the margins of real life: biking to a nearby hill and sleeping there for a night, an afternoon creek hike, even just climbing a tree. The point is to embrace simple, pure outdoor fun wherever we can find it, which can do wonders for us.

Your head is pounding, your muscles are cramping, and your heart is racing. And that’s just the start of it. Heatstroke kills thousands of people every year, including extremely fit outdoor athletes, who can be overcome quickly and with little warning. In the first episode of our 2023 Summer Read series, we hear a story about that demonstrates just how easy it is to get overheated—and what science tells us about how we can keep our cool.

If you want to know what it was like to travel this legendary trail, there’s only one way: get on a horse and follow all 2,000 miles of it. That’s what writer Will Grant did, retracing the route from Missouri to California over four and half months. He cooked his own meals and never knew where he’d end up camping on a given night. It was a grueling feat of endurance and logistical fortitude, but it gave him exactly what he was after—the chance to truly understand the people, land, and history of the American West.

Studies show that astonishing experiences in nature can have life-changing benefits, and that even small everyday doses of time outdoors can have immediate impacts. Those are two of many revelations Outside contributing editor Florence Williams uncovered during her investigation into the latest research around awe. Informed by conversations with leading awe experts, Williams guides us through the emerging understanding of what awe does for us—and how being open-minded can better facilitate experiences of this singular emotion. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

The actor’s flight into space in 2021 left him with an urgent desire to make us aware of the fragility of our home—a feeling that has yet to fade away. Media reports at the time, as well as Shatner’s own writing about his voyage with Blue Origin, focused on the grief he experienced looking into the blackness of space. But there was always much more to it. As part of an exploration into the power of awe for Outside, contributing editor Florence Williams spoke to Shatner, now 92, about how confronting forces larger than ourselves—be that beauty and wonder or horror and sadness—can be overwhelming yet ultimately transformative. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

There’s a reason the acclaimed author wrote his latest book in the voice of a dog: it enabled him to run free all over an imagined seaside park. Eggers has always been a writer compelled to break boundaries, and in The Eyes and the Impossible he’s at it again, crafting an all-ages story about a brave mutt named Johannes and his crew of committed friends: a seagull, a pelican, a racoon, and a one-eyed squirrel. Together they hatch a plan to free the park’s bison from their pens so that they, too, can roam where they will. For Eggers, who writes on a sailboat in San Francisco Bay and has a passion for unique flying experiences (old planes, ultralights, jet packs), the book was a chance to delight in a simple and pure kind of adventure storytelling. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

When veteran climber Mark Jenkins came up with a plan to witness a solar spectacle from the summit of a 20,000-foot peak, he had little idea what he was getting himself into. The fact that the obscure mountain in Argentina he’d targeted was extremely difficult to access was just the start of his challenges. After recruiting an old climbing buddy to join him, and arriving safely in South America, the duo ran into trouble at every stage of their mission. And yet their bold and bumbling quest delivered an unexpected triumph. Just in time for the summer solstice, we’re bringing back this classic adventure from our archives. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

Working the front lines of America’s wildfires is a difficult and dangerous job, but that doesn’t mean everyone who signs up is chasing adventure. While physical and mental challenges are part of the attraction, what draws many to the field is the camaraderie that comes with working in an unpredictable environment alongside a committed crew. And what makes a great firefighter isn’t a high tolerance for risk so much as the ability to be calm and assertive no matter what the day brings. In this episode, we speak to a trio of firefighters about how and why they fell in love with one of the most demanding jobs out there. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

As America continues to grapple with political uncertainty and an uneasy relationship with the planet, the author and environmentalist makes the case for an expansive and inclusive grassroots movement. McKibben, who wrote the first book on climate change for a general audience in 1989 and later founded the international climate campaign 350.org with a small group of college students, has lately been focused on growing Third Act, a nonprofit that organizes people over the age of 60 to take action on climate change. In this special episode, we share McKibben’s recent live talk from the 2023 Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride, Colorado, in which he discusses lessons learned in decades of environmental activism and where the climate movement goes from here. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s new film, ‘Wild Life,’ captures the saga of Doug and Kristine Tompkins, whose devotion to conservation and each other led to the creation of extraordinary national parks in Chile and Argentina. For Chin, the origins of the documentary go back more than 20 years, when he was first welcomed into a group of climbers who were friends of the Tompkinses, including Rick Ridgeway and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. Eventually, Chin met the Tompkinses and learned about their ambitious vision for conserving millions of acres. In this episode, Chin talks about the incredible journey behind the making of ‘Wild Life,’ and Kristine shares her experience of opening up in front of the cameras and where Tompkins Conservation goes from here. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

Among the world’s harrowing marine survival stories, the strangest might be a crew’s escape from one of the earliest submarines. It was 1851, and the 26-foot-long sub, designed and captained by a Prussian carpenter, was powered by a couple sailors spinning treadwheels. When the vessel floundered during a trial run and began sinking to the bottom of a German harbor, there was only one very frightening way to get out alive—which is why the crew got into what was almost certainly the first-ever underwater fistfight. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

You don’t have to be an astrology buff to believe that the moon and stars have a special kind of power in our lives. Talk to almost anyone who’s spent time in the wilderness, and they’ll tell you that there’s a connection between celestial bodies and our own. In this episode, an astrology skeptic explores how our adventures can sync us up with otherworldly cycles and forces in ways that we don’t yet understand. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

When the largest tornado ever recorded touched down in central Oklahoma, amateur storm chasers, professional meteorologists, and thrill seekers were expecting a show. What they got was a deadly lesson in the unpredictable power of nature. On May 31, 2013, forecasters warned that the approaching system posed extreme danger, but that didn’t do much to scare away anyone willing to risk it all to get close to a Category 5 tornado. For them, the fact that science couldn’t fully explain how a twister is formed or how it might behave was a big part of the appeal. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

How have these indoor spaces have become hubs for the outdoor community? Over the last four decades, climbing has gone from a countercultural activity that took place entirely on natural rock walls to a highly competitive sport that, for the most part, happens inside. And yet, the scene a climbing gym very different than what you find in a yoga studio or spinning class. There’s something special about roping up, even if there’s a ceiling over your head. We dispatched our intrepid producer, Maren Larsen, to spend 16 hours straight in a popular Denver climbing gym to understands what exactly keeps people coming back. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

When a BASE jumper slammed into a red-rock tower and his parachute snagged on a ledge, there was only one way to save his life: go up and get him. That’s how climber River Barry ended up getting suddenly pulled into a daring rescue operation in Utah. In this episode from the team at the Out Alive podcast, we hear how Barry snapped into action and took charge during a perilous moment. With no formal rescue training, she had to improvise—and put all her skills to the test. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

Some experiences are unforgettable for both very bad and very good reasons. A violent car wreck that ends up putting you on a path to the summit of Mount Everest, for example. Or an injury that ends your Olympic dreams but introduces you to the love of your life. Or a bike crash that leaves you literally naked on the trail—but with a reminder of your great luck. Because sometimes it’s the hard left turn that makes everything go right. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

In her podcast, FOGO: Fear of Going Outside, Ivy Le takes on the great outdoors—very, very reluctantly. The result is a lot of jokes about poop, icky things in nature, and why people choose to sleep on the ground. But FOGO also offers a refreshing take on a nature show: Ivy is the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants and she presents an alternative approach to the “reckless white men” that she says have dominated this space. In her first season, Ivy learned to camp. This year, she upped the ante and tried hunting. Here experience proved to be more enlightening—and humbling—than she ever imagined. Please tell us what you think about the show and how we can make it better. Fill out a brief survey at outsideonline.com/podsurvey The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

Chasing the elusive permit fish is an exhausting endeavor for the most seasoned anglers. So why would a total newbie even try? That was the question facing Paddy O’Connell, who was invited to fish for permit at the spectacular Blue Horizon lodge in Belize with a legendary guide. Paddy had always embraced adventure, but like a lot of outdoor athletes, he hated being terrible at new sports in front of other people…which meant that this trip would be a radical—and likely painful—learning experience, no matter what. Please tell us what you think about the show and how we can make it better. Fill out a brief survey at outsideonline.com/podsurvey The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

Challenging solo trips can be immensely rewarding. Just ask competitive bikepackers, who ride grueling courses through the backcountry carrying everything they need to survive. Completing these multiday journeys requires embracing solitude; in fact, for many riders, that’s the appeal. This week we present an episode from the talented team at Radiolab that features one of the stars of the sport, Lael Wilcox, plus an everyday athlete who latched onto bikepacking at what was already the loneliest moment in her life. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

There’s no more difficult or uncomfortable physical challenge than holding your breath underwater for an extended period. Which is why the Air Force has long made breath holds part of its training programs for parajumpers, or parachute rescue specialists. If your duty is to pull downed military personnel from waters all over the world, you need to prove your ability to perform in the most hostile and unforgiving conditions. In this classic episode from our archives, we join a parajumper candidate who finds himself facing elimination from training for the most surprising reason: he can hold his breath way too long. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

When Scott Pirsig’s close friend Bob Sturtz suffered a stroke deep in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, Pirsig had no choice but to leave him in the wilderness and make a desperate sprint to get help. The two men had been on an early-spring canoeing adventure when Sturtz started acting strangely: it started with a headache, then he became disoriented, lost control of his hands, and stopped speaking. Pirsig’s only choice was zip him into a sleeping bag and beg him to stay put while he raced off into the fog to contact first responders. In this replay from our Science of Survival series, we hear the story of a harrowing scenario in the woods wild and an enduring friendship. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

Why do we keep skiing, despite the crowds, the cost, and the unpredictable conditions? Spend an entire day on a chairlift and you’ll find out. Outside contributing editor Gloria Liu rode up and down (and up and down…) a lift at Truckee’s Northstar California Resort, talking to fellow skiers and snowboarders about the many hassles and challenges to enjoying a day in the mountains—and what makes all the effort worth it, at least some of the time. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

In Aspen, Colorado, and other alpine communities, the future depends on making sure the weirdos and oddballs are still welcome. That’s what gets concerned locals the most animated: any suggestion that their neighborhoods are becoming exclusive playgrounds for the rich, forcing out the gonzo characters that help make them so special. What’s needed, according to planning experts and many longtime residents, are smarter growth strategies that include affordable housing, increased transportation options, and forward-thinking management of public lands. For this episode, we take a walk around Aspen and ask what it’ll take to get such things done. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

She was one of the world’s best big-mountain freeskiers—and then, suddenly, she decided she was done. Angel Collinson’s announcement shocked the sport and left fans wondering what was going on. The fact that she’d started living full-time on a sailboat with her partner, and without and solid plans for what was next, only made people more curious. As Collinson, 29, tells it, after more than a decade of ripping down insanely steep slopes, trying to “make friends" with her fear, she began to question whether the thrill-seeking habit she’d fallen in love was actually good for her. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

For an episode of our new podcast, The Daily Rally, the professional skier talks about learning to get out of his own way while on an expedition in Alaska. He was on Denali, struggling mightily to keep up with his extremely fit teammates as they climbed towards the summit. At first, he tried to convince them to slow down. When they ignored him, he was furious. Then he took a moment to look at himself—and realized that what was really making him angry was his own bruised ego. That realization freed him to fully enjoy a remarkable experience. The Daily Rally is a new weekday podcast featuring short stories of resilience in the face of big challenges and unexpected adventures. You can follow The Daily Rally on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you like to listen, and nominate someone to be featured on the show here.

Emily Pennington wanted to see it all. But life on the road was fiercer than she ever imagined. After almost half a decade of planning a cross-country expedition to see every one of America’s National Parks, she quit her job, left her home and her boyfriend in Los Angeles, and set off in her van to find herself in January of 2020. Almost right away, a pandemic, a string of natural disasters, and a breakup sent her veering way off her roadmap—and searching for healing in the unforgiving magnificence of our public lands.

After suffering a brutal accident while on a kite-skiing expedition in Patagonia, Jim Harris’s painstaking recovery took a sudden leap forward when he had an experience with magic mushrooms. The adventure photographer had been pushing hard with his rehabilitation efforts and making impressive progress, but when he took mushrooms while at a music festival to have some fun, something very unexpected happened: suddenly, muscle groups in his legs that had been unresponsive since his injury started firing. Thus began a fascinating journey that offers insights into the emerging science of psychedelics and physical healing.

Endurance athlete Mallory Arnold was struggling with extreme fatigue when her coach made an unexpected suggestion: start eating meat again. Arnold, 26, had adopted a plant-based diet in high school and was initially reluctant to reincorporate to animal protein. But she was also desperate to avoid the post-training crashes that left her passed out on the floor. So she decided to give meat a try—and immediately realized that she had no clue how to cook even a simple chicken breast. Thus began a journey with the Outside Food team that took her from a family farm to a whole-animal butcher to a professional kitchen, with the primary goal of finding her lost energy while actually learning to enjoy preparing and eating meat along the way.

For a community of hardy souls in Maine, there’s no better way to feel fully alive in winter than immersing yourself in the frigid Atlantic. Yes, the entrance is jolting. But if you take it slow, you allow for what members of the group call “a conversation with the nervous system” that produces a sensation you can’t achieve any other way: a powerful, blossoming inner warmth that’s both delightful and grounding, leaving you with a lasting elevated mood and enhanced feelings of empathy and responsiveness. In this episode, from our friends at the Outside/In podcast, we learn how the dippers found their way to this bold practice, and why they’ll never give it up. Interested in trying cold-water immersion? Outside/In offers some safety tips before you get started).

Figuring out how to get better sleep and more excise and is hard—which is why we tried out some new programs for you. Every year, Outside reporters put their bodies and minds on the line to test new routines designed to help us become healthier, happier, more productive human beings. Hear from three of this year’s subjects about what stuck, what didn’t, and how you can benefit from our mistakes.

If you’ve ever seen a skier pull a hot dog out of a jacket pocket while on a chairlift or devour a towering plate of nachos back at the lodge, you know that few athletes chase calories harder than skiers. And with good reason. Charging down a mountain in the cold empties your body’s glycogen stores—fail to refuel, and you’re going to get sore and sad very quickly. And when it comes to favorite power-up snacks, every skier has an opinion, from endless gummy worms to peanut butter straight from the jar. But you can also fill your tank on scrumptious meals prepared by chefs with a real passion for stoking winter sports athletes. In this episode, we explore the wild world of skier nutrition to get you hungry for your next powder day

Escaping the craziness of the season to head into the wild can sound amazing—right up until that overnight snowstorm crushes your tent. Because while the appeal of getting out there, away from the bustle of parties and gifts and eggnog, can inspire especially bold trips, there might be nothing more disappointing than a holiday mission that ends in disaster. For our final episode of 2022, we bring you a collection of tales from intrepid travelers who learned the hard way that eating dry turkey while debating politics with uncle Fred is hardly the worst way to spend a vacation.

Witnessing the Aurora Borealis can feel like you’re glimpsing another world. For some people, that’s exactly what’s happening. Photographer Hugo Sanchez captured his first images of the spectacle accidentally, when he was taking shots of a meteor shower. But soon he became hooked, and then, when his young son died, the dancing lights took on a whole new meaning. In this replay of one our favorite episodes from our archives, we hear the story of a man who found a sense of purpose in the wintertime sky.

Talk to the victims of crashes and their families, and they’ll tell you: when a motor vehicle injures or kills a bicyclist, the American justice system lets drivers off the hook. The harsh truth is that our roads are frighteningly dangerous for cyclists, and our country has a high tolerance for traffic deaths. In this episode, part of Outside’s ongoing coverage of cycling crashes and deaths, we chronicle two incidents that reveal deep problems with our legal system and consider the work that needs to be done to make our roads safer.

Racing around a mountain resort to aid injured skiers sounds like the ultimate adventure job. But with housing and other costs soaring, getting paid in fun is no longer cutting it. Last year a battle over wages in the ski industry sparked conversations about what those workers—who frequently put their lives on the line—deserve. In the final episode of our fall Weekend Read series, we bring you the story of a Utah patroller who is doing everything he can to raise a family in the winter paradise he loves.

He was born to a herd of wild horses on an island off Virginia and found his way into the heart of a little girl on the dusty trails of the Southwest. Legend was a descendant of fabled swimming ponies: every year, cowboys lead them across a quarter-mile crossing between the islands of Assateague and Chincoteague, where 60 of them are put up for auction. In this episode of our Weekend Read series, we hear how Legend’s journey took him thousands of miles West, and eventually to a child that would return him to the sand and waves at the end of his days. The Outside Podcast is made possible by the members of Outside+. Learn about the many benefits of membership at outsideonline.com/podplus

As Ukraine prepares for months of frigid conflict with Russia, its troops might look to another nation that held its own against the Red Army in the cold: Finland. During the winter of 1939-1940, Finnish soldiers, many on skis and using snow caves as shelters, weaponized the freezing conditions, fending off the much larger Soviet Union army for 105 days and ultimately conceding only a small amount of their borderlands. Today, Finland’s soldiers are some of the most advanced winter warfare specialists anywhere. In this episode from our archives, we head into the snow with the storied Jaeger Brigade for combat training and hear remarkable tales of how the Finns pushed back against Stalin’s forces.

Richard Carr was halfway across the Pacific, alone on a 36-foot yacht, when he began sending frantic alerts that he was being kidnapped by pirates. The retired psychologist had set off from Mexico 26 days earlier and was bound for the Marquesas Islands on the first leg of a lifelong dream: sailing around the world. But when his family woke up to a series of frightening and confusing messages, it became their nightmare. In this episode of our Weekend Read series, Carr’s daughter, Alicia Carr-Troxell tells the mysterious story of his final voyage.

People encounter all kinds of threats in the natural world, but a virus presents an especially ominous challenge, as Outside contributing editor David Quammen can attest after decades of research on the topic. Quammen forecast a COVID-19–like pandemic in his 2012 book, Spillover, and beginning in the 1980s, he wrote a column for Outside called Natural Acts that had him pursuing fascinating scientific questions around the planet. He eventually took a special interest in zoonotic diseases, traveling to remote jungles and villages where contagions like HIV and Ebola had crossed over from animals to humans. Now he’s back with Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus, a gripping investigation of our battle against COVID. In this episode, Quammen describes why the disease will be with us for a long time and what we can do reduce the risk of future pandemics.

Kurt Steiner has spent his life skipping stones, developing a technique to produce throws that defy the laws of physics. Ask him why he’s committed his entire adulthood to this lost art and he’ll say he has no choice. This is the first episode in another Weekend Read series, offering you exceptional Outside features—both new articles and gems from our archives.

The exuberant king of survival TV insists that our wild adventures are about more than just chasing fun—they can help get us through the struggles of our everyday lives. And that’s the undercurrent of his new book, Mind Fuel: Simple Ways to Build Mental Resilience Every Day, which contains a year’s worth of daily, bite-size prompts to explore our relationship to things like joy, trust, and courage. Sound corny? It might. But this is no puffy celebrity self-help tome: informed by input from psychiatrists and psychologists, Mind Fuel offers a very approachable practice to better mental health. In this episode, Grylls talks about his own battles with confidence and self-doubt, and the healing and restorative energy he’s always found in nature.

Alone in the wilderness, facing a grizzly that was determined to kill him, Colin Dowler had only one option: fight for his life. The 44-year-old had been on a solo hike to scout routes up a coastal mountain in British Columbia when the animal attacked. Without bear spray, and miles from the nearest help, he thought he was as good as dead. It wasn’t until the grizzly was tearing into his abdomen that he remembered his pocketknife. In this remarkable tale from our archives, we hear about one man’s desperate bid to survive, and learn what experts say is the right way to defend yourself from a bear.

It began in the waters off Antarctica: a crew of eco-vigilantes found the illegal fishing ship they’d been hunting. It wouldn’t end for some 10,000 miles, when one of the vessels sank. So went the longest law-enforcement chase in nautical history. In this episode from the new series The Outlaw Ocean, investigative journalist Ian Urbina chronicles the pursuit of one of the world’s most notorious scofflaw fishing ships through deadly ice floes and into the heart of a massive storm in the Southern Ocean—before taking us to the coast of North Korea, where he discovers the planet’s largest illegal fishing fleet.

Farmers aren’t supposed to get emotionally attached to their livestock. But when you suddenly find yourself caring for two newborn sheep, these things happen. Outside contributing editor A.C. Shilton had long dreamed of becoming a farmer when she and her husband purchased a plot of land in Tennessee and began managing chickens and horses and cows. Then she added a few sheep with the idea of slowly raising a flock—and very unexpectedly came face-to-face with what she was really missing in her life.

When a rafter was stung by a scorpion, she assumed she’d be fine. Within hours she lost her ability to see or speak clearly. It was the beginning of a nightmare that nobody in her group of experienced adventurers saw coming. After all, there aren’t supposed to be deadly scorpions in the United States. But as her condition grew more frightening, they began to believe they had a serious emergency on their hands. In this episode, a collaboration with the Out Alive podcast, we investigate how an unfortunate backcountry incident turned into a medical and scientific mystery.

John John Florence has remarkable physical talents, but his greatest asset as an athlete might be his enduring positive attitude. The 29-year-old is often his happiest when things go sideways and he’s forced to adapt. This explains why, after suffering a major knee injury earlier this year during a competition, the two-time world champion surfer decided to spend his rehab sailing from his home in Hawaii to Fiji, a 3,000-mile open-ocean crossing that was loaded with unpredictable weather, high stress, and some truly scary moments. We connected with Florence at the end of his voyage to find out how he’s always able to handle whatever comes his way.

There’s a reason that reality shows set in wild places hold our attention: we can’t help but imagine that it’s us out there. This is especially true when we watch Alone, the hit series on the History Channel that has contestants truly by themselves in all kinds of brutal environments, doing their best to both survive while also filming themselves. This raw approach to voyeuristic entertainment ultimately make us empathize with these hungry, tired, and frightened people—so much that we just can’t stop watching.

Spoiler alert: It’s not because you’re a wuss. Adults rarely cry because of pain or physical discomfort, so why do so many of us cry during outdoor sports? It happens to almost everyone, of all genders, including professional athletes like skier Cody Townsend and climber Emily Harrington. Writer and athlete Gloria Liu investigated this phenomenon, which she calls the Sports Cry, to figure out what causes us to get teary out there and whether it helps or hinders us.

There’s a reason a strenuous outing makes you desire a greasy mound of meat: it has a lot of what your body needs. This we learned from talking to six Outside writers and editors about their greatest aprés-adventure burgers, and by unpacking their stories with the help of two registered dietitians. As it turns out, most of us are underfed when we head into the wild, and the result is a deep hunger for carbs, protein, and fat. Which means that, physiological speaking, a burger delivers.

Eric and Pam Bealer were living in a cabin in rugged coastal Alaska when they made a dramatic decision: they would exit the world together. Pam was suffering from multiple sclerosis and did not want to see her disease through; Eric did not plan to live without his wife. When they set off into the wild for the last time, they left behind instructions for whoever entered the cabin first. For the final episode of our Summer Read series, author Eva Holland explores the mystery and meaning of a frontier couple who charted their own way out.

When retired art dealer Forrest Fenn hid a million dollars’ worth of gold in the Rocky Mountains, he sent thousands of people on a desperate journey. One of them, an ex-cop from Seattle named Darrell Seyler, risked everything on his search. In this first episode of the new series Missed Fortune, created by former Outside Podcast host Peter Frick-Wright and inspired by his magazine story for Outside, we join Seyler at the start of his obsessive quest. Missed Fortune is an Apple Original Podcast produced by High Five Content in association with 30 Minutes West and Outside magazine.

For Caitlin Giddings, leading cross-country bike tours was supposed to be the ultimate escape from the monotony of normal life. Instead it was a kind of torture. Giddings was in her twenties when she was seduced by the idea of turning her passion for cycling into a paycheck. She wanted freedom and adventure! What she got, however, was a lot of whining and grief from troublemaking clients, including a deranged madman and a guy who kept peeing on another rider’s tent. In this episode of our Summer Read series, she describes how her fantasy went so, so wrong.

To portray the hero of the Thai cave rescue in the new film Thirteen Lives, the Hollywood star had to go deep—literally. Mortensen plays the part of Rick Stanton, the legendary British cave diver who helped lead the rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach from the far reaches of a flooded cavern in northern Thailand. The actor’s preparation included months of conversations with Stanton and a harrowing cave-diving adventure of his own. In this episode, producer Paddy O’Connell talks with both men about what it takes to endure the mental and physical challenges of swimming through dark, tight spaces, where just one mistake can kill you.

A group of high school sophomores set off on what was supposed to be a grand climb. Instead, it became one of the deadliest alpine disasters in North American history. It was 1986, and the Oregon students were seeking to complete an adventure program with the support of professional guides. As they made their way toward the 11,235-foot summit, a vicious storm hit. In this episode of our Summer Read series, we revisit a feature by writer Pauls Toutonghi that chronicles the tragedy and its enduring impact on a community that it changed forever.

Greg and Julie Welch were relaxing at their campsite in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in August, 2011, when a tiny fire in a nearby bog suddenly exploded into a massive inferno that began racing toward them. At first they were confused: they knew there were small wildfires in the area, but all forecasts suggested there was nothing to worry about—it was humid and rain was on the way. However, an extremely rare convergence of atmospheric events had set in motion what would become known as the Pagami Creek Fire, consuming more than 92,000 acres over several months, making it the biggest wildfire in the state in more than a century. And now the Welches faced only one choice: jump in their kayaks and paddle for their lives.

Can a relationship survive a grand adventure? That was the big question hanging over two novice sailors as they set out on a voyage off the coast of New England. It all began when Claire Antoszewski had the idea to refurbish an old boat with her partner Will Grant, a man who is most comfortable on a horse. With dreams of a leisurely cruise, they got to work—and soon found themselves at the helm of the Lower Goose in high seas and nasty weather. Not surprisingly, they have different takes on what happened. In this episode of our Summer Read series, we hear both sides of the story and learn some lessons about how to carefully mix romance and risk. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

Long-standing rules for how we do our business in the wilderness are changing in a very big way—and it’s about time. For decades we’ve been taught standardized methods to ensure proper disposal of our waste, most notably burying it in a cathole far away from water sources. But now, with exploding numbers of people recreating on public lands, those approaches aren’t viable. Simply put: the land can’t handle all our poop. This has scientists and land managers saying it’s time to take drastic measures that you might not like. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

When Cody Sheehy was six years old, he disappeared into the wilderness of northeast Oregon. Now, more than three decades later, he insists that the harrowing experience gave him an invaluable life lesson. In this second episode of our Summer Read series, we recount how he wandered into the forest and made his way back to safety some 18 hour later, all on his own. The story, written for Outside by environmental journalist Emma Marris, investigates what it takes to get through such an ordeal at a young age, and how it can stick with us forever. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

Presenting three delightful tales of adventures gone very, very wrong. Because when the weather turns, your gear breaks, you get lost, or you simply realize that your foolproof plan was actually foolish—well, that’s when you learn the most, right? Join us by the campfire for three stories of misadventure from Outside writers and editors who suffered through pain, shame, and humiliation but still came out the other side with smiles. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

A father and son working a crab boat in Chesapeake Bay were caught in a rising storm when they realized that something was very wrong: water was coming up through the floor. They radioed for help and then did everything they could to save themselves, while the isolated community of Tangier Island quickly launched a desperate bid to rescue two of their own. So began the saga of the Henrietta C., a riveting story chronicled in Outside by Virginia-based writer Earl Swift. This is the first episode in a new six-episode summer weekend series for the podcast that presents reads of exceptional features, both new articles and gems from the Outside archives. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

For his new PBS show, America Outdoors, comedian and activist Baratunde Thurston connects us to our natural environments through the most interesting of creatures: humans. A former writer for political comedy outlets like The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and The Onion, Thurston is also a prominent activist with a passion for teaching us about our culture and society. He authored a comedic memoir, How to Be Black, delivered a powerful TED Talk in 2018 titled "How to Deconstruct Racism," and hosts a podcast called How to Citizen. Growing up in Washington, D.C., he took regular camping and hiking adventures with his mom. In this episode, he talks about how the cross-country journey he took for America Outdoors helped him understand his motherland, its people, and the wild places we call home. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

As an out-of-control blaze approached their home, a couple made what seems like a crazy choice: they ignored evacuation orders and stood their ground. Fire officials tell us that decisions like this puts lives at risk, including the lives of firefighters who may need to come to the rescue. In the U.S., authorities universally agree that escaping to safety is the only reasonable thing to do. And yet some people still insist on staying put to defend their own homes. In this replay of an episode from 2019, we tell the extraordinary story of Gari and Lori Lyon, who survived seemingly impossible odds during one of the world wildfires in California history. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

On his first album in five years, the singer-songwriter brings us a collection of heartfelt tracks that offer warmth and comfort when we really need it. Making folks feel good is, of course, what Johnson does best. For more than two decades, his music has served as the soundtrack to our fun times: hanging at the beach, taking a road trip, kicking back with friends after surfing or biking or skiing. But on Meet the Moonlight, which drops on Friday, June 24, he had to work a little harder than usual to find his optimism. In an extended conversation with Outside’s Michael Roberts, Johnson talks about finding himself stuck between hope and doubt, his overlooked competitive nature, and why a beer bottle is a legit musical instrument. The Outside Podcast is made possible by Outside+ subscribers. Learn about the many benefits of a subscription and sign up now at outsideonline.com/podplus.

Amid all the noise surrounding Web3, something fascinating is emerging: a new kind of immersive adventure storytelling. An innovative effort is underway to leverage the same technologies that get gamers excited about buying an outfit for their avatar to instead reward people for engaging in real-world outdoor experiences. The shift is going to have an enormous impact on how writers, photographers, and filmmakers tell their stories—and equally as important, how they connect with you, their audience. In this episode, Outside Interactive CEO Robin Thurston and adventure photographer Chris Burkard share their hopes for the coming transformation.

After two young pilots crashed their small plane into the water off Hawaii, they realized their best hope for survival was to make it back to land on their own. Sydney Uetmoto and David McMahon had been on a regular route between Oahu and the island of Hawaii, but now they were just specks in the sea with no way to call for help. In this riveting tale from the Out Alive podcast, we hear about their remarkable endurance in the face of overwhelming odds.

Is there something about adventure and risk that opens our hearts? Absolutely. In this episode, created in concert with an Outside article about love in the wild, we bring you tales of romances that bloomed outdoors. You’ll hear about two ultrarunners who fell for each other during a 60-mile dash through the Alps, a high-altitude climber who led her wary date down iced-over ski runs (it all worked out eventually), a pair of whitewater kayakers whose attraction for one other caused them to ignore an approaching forest fire, and a cyclist who suffered a brutal accident that led him back to his soulmate.

Writer Amy McCulloch was a young adventurer looking to challenge herself when she set her sights on 26,781-foot Manaslu, in the Himalayas. On a guided expedition, she encountered the expected risks of high-altitude mountaineering, as well as a darker threat she’d never imagined: members of her own team harassing and sexually propositioning her in an environment where she was incredibly vulnerable. She returned home with a harrowing true tale of resilience—and an idea for an epic novel. Her resulting debut thriller, Breathless, is a chilling story of murder in the so-called Death Zone. In this episode, McCulloch shares her path into the world of climbing and the unsettling experiences that became the basis of her book.

Our furry friends are the best of adventure playmates. But they can also provide pure, unconditional love that gets us through the darkest times. A series of dogs have supported Colorado outdoor writer Annette McGivney since childhood, as she endured domestic abuse, the loss of family members, and a bitter divorce. She’s not alone: after McGivney published a pair of essays for Outside Online detailing her relationship with her dogs, she was flooded with responses and questions from readers. In this episode, she opens up about her long journey and details research showing just how special the bond between humans and animals can be.

There’s a distinct pleasure to eating wild foods that you forage yourself—unless you pick the wrong thing. Imagine the horror you’d feel upon realizing that the risotto you cooked for your dinner party was made with *Amanita phalloides*, a.k.a. the death cap. You’d found the fungi off a trail near your home, sure they were common meadow mushrooms. But you were mistaken. Now you and your friends are in the hospital, fighting for your lives. In this classic episode from our archives, we put you, the listener, in a survival scenario that will leave you forever mindful of what you harvest out there.

In forests across the planet, secretive hunters are searching for that rare and insanely expensive wild delicacy: the truffle. The organism, which grows underground, tethered to tree roots, can fetch thousands of dollars per pound from upscale restaurateurs. The only way to find these particular fungi are dogs specially trained to sniff them out. Not surprisingly, the truffle business is not unlike the illegal-drug business, with lots of sneaking around in the night and powerful characters vying for control over markets. Outside contributing editor Rowan Jacobsen took a journey deep into the underworld of truffle hunters that began in the in the ancient forests of Europe and ended up, very unexpectedly, in the hills of Appalachia.

Outdoor athlete and Outside contributing editor Gloria Liu very much wanted to be one those people with the confidence and carefree spirit to occasionally hike, bike, or ski in the nude. Unfortunately, the decade-old memory of an uncomfortable event at a backcountry hot spring kept her clinging to her knickers. So, like any good competitor, Liu underwent a three-step training plan designed to get her comfortable playing in her natural state while in the woods—not to mention grant her all the scientifically proven benefits of recreating in the buff.

When we open our ears to the marvels of natural soundscapes, we experience the energies of the world in a unique way—and begin to understand the mysteries behind them. But when we habitually ignore what we’re hearing, we both miss out on one of the best parts of being human and enable the loss of an enormous diversity of species on this planet. So argues biologist and acclaimed author David Haskell in his new book, Sounds Wild and Broken. Considered by many as the premier nature writer in America today, Haskell believes that one of the most important things we can do to heal the earth is remember how to listen. In this episode, Haskell walks us through the rich history of sound and offers a powerful lesson in sonic awareness.

Something surprising is happening on the video app best known for silly dance moves: users are finding inspiration for adventure. There are some fundamental differences in the way TikTok works that make it stand out from other social media platforms, and those differences may make it a space that’s more prone to bringing different kinds of people together to try new things. Camping. Hiking. International travel. It’s no utopia—like other social apps, TikTok has been called out for causing harm to younger users and spreading misinformation—but there’s a unique energy here that can be a force of good.

In the ten years since Cheryl Strayed published her memoir about grief, addiction, and hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, her life has changed dramatically. When the book came out in March 2012, she was a working mother of two, snatching whatever time she could to write. But within months, Wild was picked for Oprah’s Book Club and became a bestseller. Strayed has since published two more books and become a beloved advice columnist with a popular podcast, Dear Sugar. Meanwhile, the PCT has seen a dramatic surge of thru-hikers—the so-called “Wild effect.” We talk with Strayed about the impact all this has had on her and the outdoor community, and ask her to share her advice for aspiring adventurers.

What motivates someone to run more than 3,000 miles around a single city block? Transcendence. Just ask the entrants in the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race, which takes place every year in Queens, New York. In order to get to the finish line ahead of the cutoff, competitors must complete the equivalent of two marathons a day for 52 days in a row. As physically grueling as that sounds, the greatest challenges are mental. In this replay from our Sweat Science series from a few years back, we investigate the surprising tools we use to convince our bodies to do the seemingly impossible.

An ex-punk and former train engineer who is self-taught in the sciences, Joey Santore does not fit the mold of the stereotypical botanist. He has lots of tattoos and no college degree and is known for illegal tree-planting projects. Then there’s his voice: a native Chicagoan, he can sound like he’s on an SNL skit about Da Bears. Maybe all this explains why his YouTube channel, Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't, has more than a quarter-million subscribers. We join Santore on a peyote hunt in the South Texas scrublands to try to understand how he’s getting so many different kinds of people to geek out on plants.

On the outside, Drew Petersen seemed like a guy who was living the dream. He is extremely fit with a powder-snow-catching beard, and he’s prone to hoots of joy when skiing down amazing mountains around the world. But on the inside, he was for many years hiding loneliness, anger, and a deep sadness. Only recently, in the wake of a near-death accident on Oregon’s Mount Hood, has he begun to face the mental health challenges that nearly drove him to oblivion. He’s also made the bold choice to be jarringly open about what he’s gone through—because he knows that he’s not the only one.

In recent years, research has demonstrated that spending time in nature can help with everything from anxiety to attention deficit disorder to high blood pressure. Florence Williams knows this as well as anyone: her celebrated 2017 book The Nature Fix, explained the science behind the many physiological and emotional benefits of being in natural environments. So when she went through a painful divorce from her husband of 25 years, she turned to the outdoors for healing—and chronicled her experiences in her latest book, Heartbreak. In this episode, we eavesdrop on a conversation between Williams and Outside contributing editor Elizabeth Hightower Allen to learn about broken-heart syndrome (a real medical condition), the chemical explanation for rebound relationships, and whether taking a solo river trip immediately after a breakup is the best idea.

Professional skier Markus Eder had a fantasy of an impossible descent that would take him across glaciers, through frozen tunnels, into a terrain park, even out of the back of a pickup truck. It made no sense. And yet somehow, over eight years, he found a way to make it happen by thinking more like an artist than an athlete. The result is [The Ultimate Run](http:// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbqHK8i-HdA), a wildly creative stoke film that’s loaded with gnarly stunts and stands out thanks to the pure, contagious joy emanating from every frame. Somehow, we get to be inside Eder’s fantasy right along with him—which, as he tells it, is exactly what he intended.

In 1999, Alex Lowe was a star climber and father to three young boys when he died on Tibet’s 26,335-foot Shishapangma along with expedition cameraman David Bridges. The lone survivor of the accident was Conrad Anker, Alex’s climbing partner and best friend. A year after the tragedy, Anker married Jennifer Lowe, Alex's widow and mother to their three young boys, Max, Sam, and Isaac. Ever since, storytellers have been captivated by this tale, but now a powerful new documentary by Max Lowe, Torn, reveals how grief can evolve over decades—and how love can heal even the deepest emotional wounds. In this episode, Lowe shares what it’s been like to tell his family’s story and what he hopes we can all learn from it. This episode is brought to you by Fat Tire, maker of delicious, easy-drinking beers and a company that’s taking action to address climate change. Join Fat Tire in calling on the International Olympic Committee to require all future sponsors of the Games to be be climate leaders at pointofsnowreturn.com

The most dominant ski racer on the planet is constantly questioning her talents—which may be the secret of her greatness. Mikaela Shiffrin has won two Olympic gold medals and more than 70 World Cup races, but unlike fellow American skiing stars Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller, she isn’t known for her speed-demon recklessness. Instead, she’s lauded for her perfect form, tactical brilliance, and workaholic approach to training. In this episode, based on excerpts from an exclusive extended interview with Outside for our five-part docuseries, Mikaela Shiffrin: Passion and Purpose, she reveals how underneath all that there’s a burning doubt she has learned to embrace.

Over two decades of ambitious adventures, elite skier and climber Zahan Billimoria has had some very close calls in the mountains. That doesn’t make him unique. What does is his passionate belief that we all have a lot to learn about the true meaning of risk. As the founder of Samsara Experience, a training program for outdoor athletes, he’s developed an approach to safety that instills a crucial caveat: danger is inevitable, and it's ultimately up to each individual to decide how much exposure they can handle.

For more than 60 years, the Hawaiian island of Oahu has beckoned surfers hoping to drop into some of the world’s biggest waves. The result has been many epic rides, all kinds of brutal wipeouts, and the occasional harrowing rescue. In each case, the experience and skills of those involved can make all the difference. And of course, there’s sheer luck. In this replay of one of our favorite episodes from a couple winters ago, we hear the story of a young lifeguard who set out to prove himself in the legendary swells of Sunset Beach, followed by the tale of a hard-charging North Shore local who started training surfers to save each other, only to find himself in desperate need of a rescue.

Outside reviews editor Jeremy Rellosa needed something—anything—to cure his winter COVID blues. Then he remembered the rather dank steam room in the magazine’s office, which had briefly become a sanctuary for him before the pandemic. Digging into research on heat therapies, he learned that the popular Finnish wellness routine of going back and forth between hot and cold could dispel seasonal depression. Thus began a purposely discomforting journey, one that offers lessons for all of us on how to build fortitude, resilience, and even happiness in dark times.

It’s been one of the most enduring archetypes in mountain sports: that great wintry countercultural hero, who will work any job and live in squalor so long as they can ski 100-plus days a season. But now, after decades of inspiring people everywhere to chase their powder dreams, the ski bum has at last been extinguished by… well, that’s the question. Was it the crazy cost of mountain-town housing? The corporatization of the ski industry? No, wait! Of course—it was the Man. Or, just maybe, has the ski bum actually survived it all and taken on a surprising new form?

What makes a queer person choose to live in an outdoorsy hot spot instead of an urban gayborhood? A spirited grassroots organization working to make its town a haven for LGBTQ+ nature lovers. Photographer Wyn Wiley, who moonlights as drag queen Pattie Gonia, was living in Nebraska and dreaming of making a move. The most obvious choice was a big city, where queer people often go find their community. But then a group called Out Central Oregon invited Wiley to Bend to host an event on Mount Bachelor called Winter Pride Fest. What they found in Bend was much more than a seasonal party: here was a place with a highly visible queer community. This, Wiley decided, is the place for me and my go-go boots. This episode is brought to you by Hydro Flask, a company that believes every adventure starts with two simple words: let’s go! Shop Hydro Flask products for yourself or the outdoor lovers on your holiday list this season at hydroflask.com.

In recent years, rock-star bassist Jeff Ament has dedicated himself to developing world-class skateboarding parks in the rural American West, particularly in his home state of Montana. For him, the point isn't just to create concrete playgrounds so kids have somewhere to rip: he wants to give young people in small towns similar to the one he grew up in a place to gather and build community. This is desperately needed. America’s youth are facing a mental health crisis that was in the making long before the pandemic caused depression and anxiety to spike. What kids in small towns could use now more than ever is real-life human connection—and as Ament tells it, this happens best in a space that they can call their own. This episode is brought to you by Hydro Flask, a company that believes every adventure starts with two simple words: let’s go! Shop Hydro Flask products for yourself or the outdoor lovers on your holiday list this season at hydroflask.com.

Lo Phong La Kiatoukaysy, a.k.a. Lil’ Buddha, started thru-hiking America’s trails after 9/11 in hopes of creating the same powerful human connections with backpackers that he’d made with New Yorkers in the wake of that tragic day. In many ways, his whole life has been an ongoing journey. His parents fled the violence of the Vietnam War while his mother was pregnant with him, eventually immigrating to the United States and settling in Kansas. When he was a boy, his family took regular trips to the mountains of the West, where Kiatoukaysy fell in love with the outdoors. As a young adult, he was working near the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks. Soon after, he left the city with a vision of building community among thru-hikers on America’s great trails. Almost 20 years later, he’s still at it. This episode was brought to you by Hydro Flask, a company that believes every adventure starts with two simple words: let’s go! Shop Hydro Flask products for yourself or the outdoor lovers on your holiday list this season at hydroflask.com.

After Lawlor Coe lost his brother Hunter to tragedy, he did everything he could to avoid his pain. Then he began to run. At first it was to retreat from his feelings. But over time, as he began to complete longer and longer distances, he found that the physical suffering he was enduring out on the trail helped him find his way back to joy again. He was no longer running from his grief but toward a new sense of purpose. And along with the rest of his family, he found a way to honor Hunter’s life: by creating a fund that supports groups offering transformative experiences for young people in need of help. This episode was brought to you by Hydro Flask, a company that believes every adventure starts with two simple words: let’s go! Shop Hydro Flask products for yourself or the outdoor lovers on your holiday list this season at hydroflask.com.

When we head into the wild, we prepare for emergencies involving broken limbs and lots of bleeding. Which makes sense, because injuries are serious when you’re in the middle of nowhere. Yet there’s another kind of crisis that can be just as difficult to handle in remote locations: a mental breakdown. Unfortunately, few people, including experienced guides and even first responders, have the training to properly care for someone experiencing acute psychological distress when help is far away. But Australian clinical psychologist and mountaineer Kate Baecher is on a mission to change that. This episode was brought to you by Hydro Flask, a company that believes every adventure starts with two simple words: let’s go! Shop Hydro Flask products for yourself or the outdoor lovers on your holiday list this season at hydroflask.com.

Mike McCastle has found a very unusual way to benefit others: by enduring agonizing physical challenges. A Navy veteran with a penchant for philosophy, plus a very high tolerance for suffering, McCastle has taken on a series of tasks inspired by the Greek myth of the Twelve Labors of Hercules to raise funds and awareness for important causes like cancer research and mental health services for military veterans. Since 2013, he has run an ultramarathon while wearing a 40-pound weighted vest, pulled a truck across California’s Mojave Desert, and flipped a tractor tire for 13 miles, among other crazy feats. What makes someone believe that this is the best way to help people in need? And how on earth has survived these epic endeavors? This episode was brought to you by Hydro Flask, a company that believes every adventure starts with two simple words: let’s go! Shop Hydro Flask products for yourself or the outdoor lovers on your holiday list this season at hydroflask.com.

When you think of heroes in American culture, you probably conjure images of astronauts and Olympians, scientists and social activists, soldiers and ... well, maybe the occasional politician. What you don't picture are a group of dedicated, ingenious innovators who almost never get the credit they deserve: small-town librarians. Working with limited resources and a whole lot of spirit, they find the most creative ways to support their communities. In this installment of our Forces of Good series, we present the story of a very enterprising librarian who came to a struggling town in Maine and took action on a novel idea: What if, in addition to loaning books, we started lending outdoor gear? This episode was brought to you by Hydro Flask, a company that believes every adventure starts with two simple words: let’s go! Shop Hydro Flask products for yourself or the outdoor lovers on your holiday list this season at hydroflask.com.

Ivy Le was an avid indoorswoman with severe allergies and a burning curiosity about wild places. She was obsessed with nature shows but had no relationship with the natural world. So she decided to go camping and, of course, make a podcast about her experience. The result is FOGO: Fear of Going Outside, which chronicles Le’s efforts to understand what’s so great about the outdoors. Because she’s a talented comic, her approach to the most basic questions of how and why we play in the woods is enjoyable, whether you’re a seasoned adventurer or a nature newbie. But she’s doing more than just cracking jokes: her humor might actually be shifting the conversation about who belongs in wild spaces. On this episode of the Outside Podcast, we talk with Le and then listen to the debut of FOGO. This episode was brought to you by Hydro Flask, a company that believes every adventure starts with two simple words: let’s go! Shop Hydro Flask products for yourself or the outdoor lovers on your holiday list this season at hydroflask.com.

When Raquel Vélez caught the skiing bug in her late twenties, she wanted to spend every waking moment on the slopes. But she couldn’t find snow pants that fit. So the Silicon Valley engineer left her tech job and began a yearslong mission to learn to sew her own, which culminated in the launch of Alpine Parrot, a company that recently began selling innovative, adventure-ready pants designed for plus-size bodies. Meanwhile, cyclists Kailey Kornhauser and Marley Blonsky have been on their own quest to create space for plus-size bodies in outdoor sports. Both got into mountain biking as adults, and it was years before they realized that the surprisingly low weight limits on equipment made them unsafe for some riders. Now they run All Bodies on Bikes, a movement to educate cycling brands and the public about how to make the sport safer and more welcoming for people of all sizes. This episode was brought to you by Hydro Flask, a company that believes every adventure starts with two simple words: let’s go! Shop Hydro Flask products for yourself or the outdoor lovers on your holiday list this season at hydroflask.com.

David Kushner always knew that his assignment to write about a mysterious cave in the rainforest of Ecuador would be challenging and a bit risky. Cueva de los Tayos, or Cave of the Oilbirds, has for decades beckoned adventurers and tantalized fans of the occult who believe that it contains artifacts that could rewrite human history. In recent years, though, Tayos has attracted different kinds of seekers—artists and storytellers hoping to capture its energy and bring it out into the world. People like Eileen Hall, daughter of a legendary explorer who helped make the cave famous, and Grammy-nominated British electronic musician Jon Hopkins, who traveled there and came back inspired to create a very unique album. But what Kushner never imagined was that his own experience inside the cave would change him forever. This episode is brought to you by Toyota, a company that wants to help you find joy by exploring America’s scenic byways. No matter what kind of adventure you’re after, there’s a Toyota designed to get you there. Learn more at toyota.com.

When sled-dog musher Blair Braverman first started posting about her team on Twitter, it was just for fun—a distraction from her work as a journalist. But soon she had legions of devoted followers, who couldn’t get enough of her high-energy pups’ and their training routines in Wisconsin. Then there’s ultrarunner Jen Golbeck, who found an enormous fan base for the aging and sickly golden retrievers that she and her husband care for in the Florida Keys. So what is it about looking at other people’s best friends online that makes us feel so good? Is it simply the happy-go-lucky nature of dogs? Or the way that cheering them on brings us together? This episode is brought to you by Toyota, a company that wants to help you find joy by exploring America’s scenic byways. No matter what kind of adventure you’re after, there’s a Toyota designed to get you there. Learn more at toyota.com.

As host of the Emmy Award–winning CNN show United Shades of America, W. Kamau Bell travels across the country to learn about the wide variety of challenges we face—and also to show us how we can begin to talk to one another. Which is why we asked him to be on the cover of Outside’s 2021 Best Towns issue: he helped us present a decidedly new take on dream destinations compared to past editions of this annual bestseller. Because Outsiders want more than just exceptional adventure playgrounds in their hometowns. They want things like affordable housing, investment in green initiatives, and a diverse population that has equitable access to parks and open space. In this kickoff episode to our new Forces of Good series, we hear what Kamau and fellow comedian and activist Baratunde Thurston think about the current divisions in our country—and what we learn when we engage with communities very different than our own. This episode was brought to you by Hydro Flask, a company that believes every adventure starts with two simple words: let’s go! Shop Hydro Flask products for yourself or the outdoor lovers on your holiday list this season at hydroflask.com.

Growing up in the urban heart of Los Angeles, the only real connection Maricela Rosales had to wilderness were secondhand adventure magazines. She had boundless energy and loved to climb—as a little girl, she often scrambled on piles of old auto parts her dad used to fix cars—but at age seven was diagnosed with scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine that caused her chronic pain and frequently left her bedridden. So when her doctor recommended climbing as part of a treatment plan while she was in college, she wasn’t immediately convinced. But the sport soon became her passion, and it ended up healing much more than her body. This episode is brought to you by Toyota, a company that wants to help you find joy by exploring America’s scenic byways. No matter what kind of adventure you’re after, there’s a Toyota designed to get you there. Learn more at toyota.com.

For Hollywood stars, there might be nothing harder than staying grounded. Just ask Nick Offerman, who became famous for his portrayal of Ron Swanson on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. Ever since, Offerman, who was raised on a pig farm in rural Illinois, has strived to stay connected to his roots. He does this through woodworking (he crafts a mean canoe), seeking out discomfort (hiking in the cold, laboring on a sheep farm in England), and reading foundational environmental writers like Wendell Berry and Aldo Leopold. He captures all of that in his new book, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside. In this episode, Offerman shares stories from his pursuit of a humbler life and offers up some choice lessons for making a deeper connection with the world beyond your door. This episode was brought to you by Avocado Green Brands, maker of the 100 percent organic-certified Avocado Mattress, which helps outdoor athletes get the restful sleep they really need. Learn more at avocadomattress.com.

For many of us, there’s no quicker way to feel good than listening to a song we love. We press play, and the music instantly transports us to a different place. Not surprisingly, many songs that do this have their origins in experiences and emotions connected to wild places. In this third installment of our series exploring pathways to happiness, we talk with two very different artists, indie singer-songwriter Jesca Hoop and British rapper Testament, about the inspirations they’ve taken from nature to create worlds of sound and words that fill us with the same exhilarating energy we get from a walk in the woods. This episode is brought to you by Toyota, a company that wants to help you find joy by exploring America’s scenic byways. No matter what kind of adventure you’re after, there’s a Toyota designed to get you there. Learn more at toyota.com.

Early in her career, wildlife ecologist Rae Wynn-Grant joined an expedition to Madagascar to track the elusive ring-tailed lemur. But the trip had an unexpected personal outcome: it convinced her that this was the work she was meant to do. That was a long time coming for Wynn-Grant, who’d grown up loving TV shows on nature but found herself initially hating her college ecology courses because she felt out of place as a Black woman who’d never been camping and surrounded by people with very different backgrounds. In this episode from the new podcast Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, she shares the story of how an experience with a lemur helped her find her find her confidence and her voice. This episode was brought to you by Avocado Green Brands, maker of the 100 percent organic-certified Avocado Mattress, which helps outdoor athletes get the restful sleep they really need. Learn more at avocadomattress.com

It sounds like a predictable journey for a brainy young person seeking happiness: a trek in the Swiss Alps to contemplate the works of a great philosopher who found purpose and meaning in the mountains. But as John Kaag discovered, following in the footsteps of a legend, especially in an Alpine environment, can get tricky fast. Kaag dodged a near disaster on his trek, but the adventure was the start of a relationship with the Alps that would bring both exhilaration and darkness into his life as he grew to become a well-known philosopher himself. In this episode, we learn about the experiences behind Kaag’s celebrated book Hiking with Nietzsche and the many challenges he’s overcome along his bumpy path to embracing patience and gratitude. This episode is brought to you by Toyota, a company that wants to help you find joy by exploring America’s scenic byways. No matter what kind of adventure you’re after, there’s a Toyota designed to get you there. Learn more at toyota.com.

It was an especially bold (and perhaps questionable) idea for a road trip: America’s most fabulous advice columnist, E. Jean Carroll, would drive to towns named Eden throughout the East and South, where she would ask people: “Have you ever made love outside—in Eden?” Her car was painted with blue polka dots and green frogs, her snacks consisted of cakes and pies and pretzels, her copilot was a giant poodle. But out there roaming the byways she learned something. First, that all kinds of people really do enjoy intimate moments outdoors. And second, that there’s nothing like a truly strange and daring quest to revive your spirit. This episode is brought to you by GoRVing. Don’t just go on a trip, go on a real vacation. To find out more about the incredible adventures waiting for you out on the road, visit gorving.com.

Every day, critters all around the planet break human laws. They steal food and destroy our stuff. They kill. And, naturally, humans take it upon ourselves to intervene—often with all kinds of unfortunate consequences. For this episode, fearless journalist Mary Roach shares wild tales from her new book, Fuzz, which had her traveling to animal crime scenes from Colorado to North India to investigate human-wildlife conflicts. As Roach tells it, thieving bears, murderous possums, and mugging monkeys are rarely to blame for their own behavior. It’s our fault—and it’s time we took a different approach to coexistence. This episode is brought to you by Bosch eBike Systems, maker of outstanding motors, displays, and rechargeable batteries that work seamlessly with the most reputable electric-bike brands in the world. Learn more at bosch-ebike.com.

In the United States, we rarely think about death—especially our own death. And when we do, it tends to make us sad and uncomfortable. But there are powerful benefits to regularly contemplating the fact that our time in this world will eventually come to an end. The shift in perspective can be profound and lead to a kind of deeply felt and enduring appreciation for life. In this first episode of a new series exploring pathways to happiness, we hear from journalist Michael Easter, who makes the case in his bestselling book The Comfort Crisis that, despite all the conveniences and ease of modern life, we are less happy than previous generations. A big reason for this, he says, is that we don’t think about death nearly enough. This episode is brought to you by Toyota, a company that wants to help you find joy by exploring America’s scenic byways. No matter what kind of adventure you’re after, there’s a Toyota designed to get you there. Learn more at toyota.com.

Earlier this year, two men set out do something that seemed impossible. And also just dumb. They would squeeze together onto a minibike—a vehicle roughly the size of a children’s bicycle and powered by an engine that can barely run a lawn mower—and drive 400 miles from a cornfield in Nebraska to the mountain town of Aspen, Colorado. If that sounds familiar, it should: this is the iconic road trip that Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels took in the cult classic Farrelly Brothers film Dumb and Dumber. Except this time, it was for real. And it hurt. This episode is brought to you by GoRVing. Don’t just go on a trip, go on a real vacation. To find out more about the incredible adventures waiting for you out on the road, visit gorving.com.

Alex Honnold is the planet's most famous rock climber, known for scaling massive walls without ropes. He’s at the absolute peak of his abilities. So it would seem rather surprising that his go-to climbing partner is Cedar Wright, ten years his senior and often not in the best physical shape. Honnold calls him “the world’s weakest professional climber,” and he’s only half joking. Yet despite their differences, the two friends share a unique bond that has them calling on each other for support on particularly daring projects. To understand why, we mic’d them up for a 5,000-foot free-solo climb in Nevada’s Red Rock Canyon. This episode is brought to you by Bosch eBike Systems, maker of outstanding motors, displays, and rechargeable batteries that work seamlessly with the most reputable electric-bike brands in the world. Learn more at bosch-ebike.com.

Here’s the often forgotten truth about road trips: the best moments are usually when everything goes sideways. We might dream of cruising open roads, rolling into authentic eateries, and blissing out to the perfect playlist, yet the magical experiences that really stick with us tend to involve blown head gaskets and getting very, very lost. More often than not, we depend on strangers to save our adventure from total disaster. But for the modern nomad, reaching out for help can be very different from flagging down a passing car or knocking on the door of a rural farmhouse. In this kickoff episode of a four-part road-trips special, we present two delightful case studies that show us how aid can arrive from the most unexpected places. This episode is brought to you by GoRVing. Don’t just go on a trip, go on a real vacation. To find out more about the incredible adventures waiting for you out on the road, visit gorving.com.

When Army captain Luke Bushatz returned home from the war in Afghanistan, he was seemingly in one piece. Yet he was struggling far more than either he or his wife, Amy, realized. The first signs of a problem were lapses in his short-term memory. Soon, though, he found it impossible to connect with other humans, especially those closest to him. He tried to numb himself with alcohol and sex, and ended up struggling with addiction. Then, at his lowest point, he sought out the one place where he could be himself again: the natural world. In this episode, Luke and Amy share the story of how their marriage crumbled, and how venturing into the wilderness together set them on a path to recovery. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Tracksmith, a proudly independent running brand that makes high-performance products for amateur athletes striving to be their best. Learn more at tracksmith.com.

Elite runner Hillary Allen was at the top of her sport when she fell 150 feet down a mountain slope during a race. She was lucky to survive but suffered numerous serious injuries, and in the aftermath of the accident found herself struggling to get through the simple challenges of daily life. Even worse, she was now defined by a moment that she had almost no memory of experiencing. In this episode from our friends at the podcast DNF, from Trail Runner magazine, Allen recounts her long, winding journey back to competition—and how she ultimately found strength and purpose in the scars that she’ll have forever. This episode is brought to you by Stillhouse, the official spirit of adventure. Stillhouse’s award-winning spirits come in unbreakable stainless steel cans, so they can go places where glass can’t. Check out all their offerings at stillhouse.com.

Learning how to love to someone who is constantly pushing the edge of their physical abilities can be one of the strangest challenges to overcome in a romantic relationship. What does it take to stick with a partner who runs or rides dozens of hours a week? Who forgets to close the bathroom door before applying full-body sports lubricant? Who always leaves you in the dust? This week, Paddy O’Connell takes us deep inside his relationship with an endurance runner, and talks to partners of other elite athletes, to show us how to love someone who lives to sweat. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Tracksmith, a proudly independent running brand that makes high-performance products for amateur athletes striving to be their best. Learn more at tracksmith.com.

When we head into wild places, we accept a certain amount of risk. Often, we don’t think much about it, because we’re excited to be in an extraordinary place. But then something happens, and we are forced to reckon with the potential costs of our quest for adventure. So it went for Kyle Dickman, whose life had been defined by a strong exploratory spirit until he was bitten by a rattlesnake in a remote section of Yosemite National Park during a trip with his wife and infant son. In this harrowing episode from our archives, Dickman recounts his desperate survival tale and the lingering questions he struggled with in the aftermath. This episode is brought to you by Stillhouse, the official spirit of adventure. Stillhouse’s award-winning spirits come in unbreakable stainless steel cans, so they can go places where glass can’t. Check out all their offerings at stillhouse.com.

Sweating is evolution’s most efficient cooling strategy, allowing humans to stay on the move far longer than most fur-covered animals. But how much sweat is too much? Where should we be perspiring the most? (Our armpits? The backs of our knees?) And why does some sweat smell so much? These are among the questions that journalist, amateur athlete, and heavy sweater Tom Vanderbilt has pondered for years. In this episode, he finally gets them answered by Canadian chemist Sarah Everts, author of the new book, The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspiration. This episode is brought to you by Sonos, maker of the Sonos Roam, the portable smart speaker for all of your listening adventures. Check out the Roam for yourself and discover sound made easy at sonos.com.

Today, Melinda Spooner is the founder and CEO of the SheTravels Adventure Company, which designs trips and experiences for women of color. It's the most meaningful work she could imagine—but getting here was a long journey. After growing up in subsidized housing in Chicago, Spooner committed herself to earning as much money as possible as a management consultant. She was successful, but also miserable and at a crisis point with her physical health. It took a series of powerful outdoor experiences for her to find what she really wanted in life. This episode is brought to you by Travel Texas, which invites you to visit a place where you can find authentic adventures at every turn. Learn more about the many unique adventures you can find all across Texas at traveltexas.com.

Every so often, Outside magazine publishes a collection of stories that fit into what we call a “zero to hero” package. The idea is to send our contributors out into the world to try something new that pushes them far outside their comfort zone. They might be asked to learn a new skill, break a bad habit, or even confront a long-held fear. For our most recent version of the package, our hope was to inspire our readers to set some ambitious goals for themselves after the long months of COVID-19 shutdowns. In this episode, six of our brave correspondents talk about their efforts to take on big challenges and why it’s pretty much always worth going for it even if you don’t succeed. This episode is brought to you by Eureka Springs, a one-of-a-kind destination nestled in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. People say the most curious things when they visit Eureka Springs. Come for yourself and find out why. Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Curious, indeed.

When we watch an elite endurance competition like the Tour de France, it’s easy to get caught up in the drama of moments that generate headlines—particularly the gnarly crashes that send riders slamming into the pavement. But while a crash is undeniably painful, the most agonizing part of professional biking is almost always the pedaling. If don’t believe that, talk to any racer who has dared to pursue the hour record—the longest distance cycled in an hour. In this favorite from our archives, we bring you the story of Italian cyclist Vittoria Bussi's excruciating quest to make history, and how the ordeal forced her to transform her relationship with pain. This episode is brought to you by Sonos, maker of the Sonos Roam, the portable smart speaker for all of your listening adventures. Check out the Roam for yourself and discover sound made easy at Sonos.com.

In May, professional climber Jordan Cannon celebrated his birthday by publicly announcing that he was gay. Getting to this point wasn’t easy for Jordan—he’d had a hard time coming out even to close friends. But something inside him began to change after he met legendary Yosemite climber Mark Hudon, who became his mentor as well as a father figure. The two men, who are separated by 38 years, soon agreed to work together on an ambitious climb of Yosemite’s El Capitan. But what began as an unlikely athletic partnership turned into a life-changing friendship for both of them, that rare kind that allows you to fulfill your dreams in ways you never thought possible. This episode is brought to you by Travel Texas, which invites you to visit a place where you can find authentic adventures at every turn. Learn more about the many unique adventures you can find all across Texas at traveltexas.com.

When our fathers tell us tales of their wild youth, we usually listen closely. This is partly because hearing about pop’s bolder, bearded past is entertaining. But more importantly, when your dad shares an experience from his younger days, you learn something about who he is—which gives you a glimpse into your own origins. This week, in the run-up to Father’s Day, we bring you the story of a family that wanted to better understand the meaning behind dad’s crazy stories. What they discovered is that his pursuit of adventure was all about transforming himself into the best kind of man and parent he could be.  This episode is brought to you by Eureka Springs, a one-of-a-kind destination nestled in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. People say the most curious things when they visit Eureka Springs. Come for yourself and find out why. Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Curious, indeed.

When he was in his early twenties, Mason Earle was living the dream. After dropping out of college so he could climb full-time, he signed a sponsorship deal with a major outdoor brand and began taking climbing trips all around the world. But then, as he approached his 30th birthday, he was on a trip to Yosemite when he began experiencing flu-like symptoms that wouldn't go away. He would later be diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis, commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome. In this powerful episode from our friends at the Death, Sex & Money podcast, Mason speaks with host Anna Sale about going from being an elite athlete to spending most of his waking hours in bed, the pleasure he now finds in the littlest things, and why he actually doesn’t miss climbing. This episode was brought to you by 303 protectants and cleaners, designed to take care of the boats, trucks, RVs, and SUVS that you depend on for your adventures. Outside Podcast listeners get 20 percent off all 303 products for a limited time. Go to 303products.com and use promo code OUTSIDE2021.

Just how long can someone last in the desert without a drink of water? That’s something listeners asked us after last week’s episode about Claire Nelson (“Alone and Injured in the Wild”), a solo hiker who took a fall in Joshua Tree National Park and ended up spending days waiting on the ground for a rescue. In this episode, we provide the answer in the form of a remarkable story from our archives. In 1905, a gold prospector named Pablo Valencia reportedly wandered through 110-degree heat in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert for six days before stumbling into a geology camp. He was about as close to dead as you can get while still breathing. His tale forever changed our understanding of the limits of human endurance. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco.

After years of family trauma, Kayla Lockhart was desperate for relief from the panic that plagued her. At her lowest moment, she picked up a fly-fishing rod and headed out to a stream—and for the first time in her life, she was able to quiet all the alarm bells in her head. For the final episode in our spring Wild Files series, we tell the story of Lockhart’s brave journey from a painful childhood to the healing waters that she now wants to share with everyone. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco.

There’s a special kind of appeal to a solo adventure—being out on your own, away from everything and everyone. Unless, of course, something goes wrong and you find yourself in serious trouble. For the latest installment of our Wild Files series, we tell the story of Claire Nelson, who was seeking peace and solitude in the desert but ended up badly injured, all alone, and unable to call for help. To survive, she would have to hold on to the hope that eventually someone would find her. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco.

Most tales of adventure follow a predictable arc: someone sets off on an epic trip, they encounter moments of great peril, and they come out the other side stronger. But every so often you hear about a different kind of transformational journey—one that takes place beyond the parameters of a wilderness expedition or a global quest, and one that allows you to truly understand the experiences of another human in a deeper way. For this episode of our Wild Files series, we bring you the story of Alex Showerman, an outdoor athlete who spent years trying to outrun a secret about herself, only to crash headlong into it. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco.

Biologist M. Sanjayan has traveled to remarkable places around the world, crossing a vast desert in Namibia, tracking man-eating tigers in Bangladesh, and studying a despised rodent in California. Along the way, he’s become a well-known television personality and an outspoken advocate for an approach to conservation that’s less about fencing off wilderness and more about safeguarding nature to benefit humanity. In this episode of our Wild Files series, Sanjayan, now the CEO of Conservation International, relives the journeys that spurred him to look at our relationship to the planet—and each other—in a whole new way. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco.

A decade ago, Santa Fe art dealer Forrest Fenn filled a box with a box with treasure, placed it somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, then published a poem containing clues to its location. Thousands of searchers would go looking for the loot, and five of them would die in the process before it was discovered last year. Nobody has followed this saga more closely than journalist Daniel Barbarisi, who broke the news of how the treasure was found and is now coming out with a book about the hunt, Chasing the Thrill​​​​​​​. In this episode, our former host, Peter Frick-Wright, who published his own feature about the chase in 2015, digs deep with Barbarisi on the story that captured the world. This episode is brought to you by 303 protectants and cleaners, designed to take care of the vehicles you depend on for your adventures. Outside Podcast listeners get 20 percent off of all 303 products for a limited time at 303products.com when they use the promo code OUTSIDE2021.

Investigative journalist Ian Urbina had a bold plan: he would journey to the unpatrolled waters of the open ocean and bring back stories about the last regions on the planet where laws have almost no power. Over three years, he traveled some 12,000 nautical miles and reported on the traffickers, pirates, poachers, and other clandestine characters who operate outside the reach of authorities. His resulting chronicle became a bestselling book, The Outlaw Ocean, but that only spurred Urbina to go farther. Now his mission is taking him in a surprisingly creative direction: partnering with popular musical artists, he's producing songs that push his stories out to a much wider audience. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco

Jennifer Brindley Ubl had become obsessed with tracking down something that most of us hope never to see: tornados. Every spring, she would close up her portrait photography business in Milwaukee and head off to capture images of what she calls “beautiful storm systems.” Seeing a twister left her in awe—and always wanting more. Then, one day, she found herself fleeing for her life from the largest tornado ever recorded. In this episode of our Wild Files series, we hear the story of how the monstrous El Reno tornado changed her relationship to storms and to herself. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco

After more than a year of pandemic living, our lives have migrated online to a remarkable degree: we Zoom and tweet and Slack all day, then Netflix and Hulu ourselves to sleep. Now, as we emerge into a hopeful spring and summer, our challenge is to awaken the adventurous sides of ourselves that have gone dormant. In this episode, Chris Colin, author of the brilliantly funny new book Off: The Day the Internet Died, puts forth a simple solution: just start talking about all the awesome outdoorsy things we wish we were doing instead of staring at our devices. He explains how to make your way back to the strange and magical experiences that can only be found in the real world. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Lake Hartwell Country, a largely undiscovered region in the mountains of South Carolina that’s one of the best adventure playgrounds anywhere. Visit lakehartwellcountry.com to start planning your trip now.

Professional outdoor athletes can seem invincible—like no matter what crazy thing they do next, they’ll come out the other side alive (and probably smiling). But if you actually ask these athletes about their relationship with risk, they’ll likely be quick to tell you about the moment they realized that no matter how good they are at their sport, sometimes bad things happen. For the latest episode of the Wild Files, we share the story of photographer, filmmaker, and climber Savannah Cummins, a rising talent who endured a tragedy last year that forced her to reexamine the life she’s chosen and the kinds of dangers and consequences she’s willing to accept. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco

When we venture into the wilderness, we accept that there are certain dangers, like bears and snakes and crazy weather. Truth be told, a bit of risk is what attracts many people to the backcountry (even if normal urban life is much riskier). But there are times when the usual natural threats are replaced by something far more menacing: an aggressive human. In this gripping story from our friends at Backpacker’s Out Alive podcast, we hear the tragic tale of a group of hikers who found themselves out in the woods in the worst kind of trouble. This episode is brought to you by Sta-bil, maker of America’s number one fuel stabilizer treatment as well as a growing number of exceptional products that keep the vehicles we depend on for our adventures running the way they’re supposed to. Learn more at stabilradio.com.

Among people who spend a lot of time in the wilderness, there’s a notion that the trail is our teacher. And if you talk to serious outdoor adventurers, you quickly realize just how powerful trail lessons can be. Take the case of professional endurance athlete Rebecca Rusch, who was schooled over the last several winters while riding a bike across the Alaska Range as a racer in the 350-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational. Rusch has long been lauded for her ability to push through the most agonizing of competitive events, but she discovered a new kind of suffering in Alaska—which is exactly what she was after. In this episode of our new series, The Wild Files, Rusch takes us through her hardest moments on the trail and explains why pushing herself to go way, way outside her comfort zone was essential for her progression as an athlete and as a human being. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco

There are few places on earth where humans aren’t at the top of the food chain, but the Arctic sea ice is one of them. Photographer Kiliii Yuyan saw this firsthand while documenting the Inupiat people’s spring whale hunt. A hungry polar bear began stalking the party, forcing the hunters to defend themselves. The dramatic experience was a harsh lesson in the realities of survival in a truly wild place, but Yuyan was even more impacted by what he witnessed in the aftermath. As the Inupiat continued to move among more bears during the hunt, they treated their fellow predators with respect, awe, and admiration. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco

American road racing has struggled in the past decade. Following the downfall of Lance Armstrong, road racing became almost synonymous with doping, sponsors walked away, and fans became disenchanted. But new energy is emerging again in the longtime American discipline of crit racing, or criterium, which has riders hammering out laps on courses through city streets. It’s fast, rowdy, and full of crashes—cycling’s version of Nascar. “If you love football, if you like watching people get smacked and running into each other, getting dunked on, it has the same feel,” says top crit rider Justin Williams. Known as an outspoken advocate for diversity in the sport, Williams is now on a quest to create a whole new fan base for road riding by making it a commercial sport for the masses. This episode is brought to you by Sta-bil, maker of America’s number one fuel stabilizer treatment as well as a growing number of exceptional products that keep the vehicles we depend on for our adventures running the way they’re supposed to. Learn more at stabilradio.com.

For survivors of harrowing events, the most challenging part of the saga often comes after they’ve lived through what seemed like an impossible scenario. Such was the case of Joe Stone, who was a high-flying athlete addicted to the thrills of sports like skydiving and BASE jumping before a brutal accident left him paralyzed from the chest down and with limited fine motor skills in his hands. And so he faced a giant question: What am I supposed to do now? His answer was to do things that everyone told him would be impossible. Joe’s story, one of our favorites from the Outside Podcast archives, offers a remarkable lesson in resiliency that feels fitting for a moment when the whole world is wondering how we’re supposed to move forward after a really hard time.

If you’re a climber, the risk of falling is always there—it's an essential fact about the sport. And for a lot of climbers, this is actually part of the appeal. That was definitely how Brendan Leonard saw it. Today Leonard is best known as a trail runner and the creator of Semi-Rad, where he publishes essays and illustrations about life as a nonprofessional athlete. But back in his twenties, climber was the identity Leonard latched on to while he was recovering from alcohol addiction and trying to figure out what kind of person he was going to be, despite the fact that climbing scared him. Leonard wanted to face his fears and put them in their place. But then he was involved in an accident while climbing near Moab, Utah, that forced him to reckon with his identity once again. In this first episode of our new series, The Wild Files, we look at what happens when you decide that you’ve had enough of being afraid. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco

It’s the ultimate mountain-town caricature: the shaggy semi-athlete who lives in a van (or truck or crowded apartment), works a number of crappy jobs (pizza delivery, barback, liftie), and skis 100 days every winter. This is the ski bum: a hero to some, a loser to others, and an enigma to everyone—until now. In this episode, bona fide ski bum Paddy “Paddy O” O’Connell presents irrefutable evidence that the campy ski flicks of the eighties and nineties—cult classics like Hot Dog, Ski Patrol, and Aspen Extreme—are what inspired so many vulnerable youth to drop everything and head for the hills. He should know. As a young man, Paddy O fell so deeply under the spell of one very special film that, despite never having skied before, he abandoned his life in the Midwest and ran away to the Rockies forever.    This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new Ford Bronco Sport, an adventure-ready 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn how you can outfit it to match your lifestyle at Ford.com.

People are drawn to the mountains for all kinds of reasons—the desire to challenge themselves physically or emotionally, a hunger for risk or perhaps solitude, the need for a sense of accomplishment. But for some, the appeal is both deeper and far more complicated. So it is with Sequoia Schmidt, whose father and brother died on K2, the world’s second-tallest and most dangerous peak. That tragedy ultimately propelled her into the mountains herself—to, as she says, “find my soul.” In this episode from our friends at the Strangers podcast, we take a remarkable journey with Sequoia, one unlike any other climbing story we’ve ever heard. This episode is brought to you by Belize, one of the world’s great adventure destinations and a country that’s created a comprehensive and common sense COVID-19 safety system for travelers. Learn more about how you can safely experience the wonder of Belize at travelbelize.org

In 2001, when Caroline Gleich was 15 years old, her half-brother Martin died in an avalanche while skiing in the Utah backcountry. That tragedy didn’t prevent Gleich from becoming a professional skier—quite the opposite—but it has led her to develop a unique approach to managing risk. The truth is, avalanches are largely predictable: they only occur on certain slopes and under certain conditions. The problem is that such slopes and conditions coincide almost perfectly with the most fun skiing and snowboarding in the backcountry. This often leads people to make dangerous decisions, especially when they’ve been lucky so many times before. In this second episode of a two-part special exploring our relationship to the hazards of avalanches, Gleich talks about her long journey to becoming comfortable in the backcountry and how she believes we can stack the odds in our favor, even in the most unpredictable environments. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Lake Hartwell Country, a largely undiscovered region in the mountains of South Carolina that’s one of the best adventure playgrounds anywhere. Visit lakehartwellcountry.com to start planning your trip now.

It was a glorious powder day in the Sierra Nevada when three friends set off into the backcountry at dawn. They had tons of experience and all the essential emergency gear, so they were unfazed by the fact that the local avalanche center had listed the danger that day as considerable. As the trio saw it, if you wanted to enjoy good skiing conditions in the backcountry, you had to accept some risk. But then, in an instant, a slide buried one of them and the other two began a frantic search to find him and save his life before he ran out of air. In this episode, the first of a two-part special exploring our relationship to the hazards of avalanches, we chronicle a miraculous survival story and ask what we ultimately learn when we make it through worst-case scenarios. This episode is brought to you by Belize, one of the world’s great adventure destinations and a country that’s created a comprehensive and common sense COVID-19 safety system for travelers. Learn more about how you can safely experience the wonder of Belize at travelbelize.org

When a groups of friends in their twenties set out to climb Mount Rainier, they felt like they were ready for anything. But on the upper slopes of the peak, trouble found them. A storm moved in, and members of the party began to suffer from altitude sickness and dehydration. As climbers began turning around, two decided to push on: an aggressive military athlete who was on a quest for the summit and a first-time mountaineer who wanted to prove herself. It didn’t take long for them to end up in the worst kind of scenario—lost, exhausted, and increasingly delirious. Their survival depended on working together, and over many difficult hours, they took turns saving each other. But out of their darkest moments, something magical grew. This episode is brought to you by Belize, one of the world’s great adventure destinations and a country that’s created a comprehensive and common sense COVID-19 safety system for travelers. Learn more about how you can safely experience the wonder of Belize at travelbelize.org

It sounds like something out of a James Bond film: a robotic exoskeleton that helps you ski better. But the real thing exists. A San Francisco–based startup called Roam has developed a breakthrough device that pairs clever mechanics with artificial intelligence to give your lower body a boost when you need it most. For able-bodied skiers, it’s a performance-enhancement tool that will let you ignore your creaky knees. And for athletes who’ve suffered debilitating injuries, it’s a chance to once again experience the kind of unadulterated joy that comes from linking turns down a mountainside. Outside contributing editor Nick Heil guides us through this report on the technology-assisted future of sports. This episode is brought to you by Belize, one of the world’s great adventure destinations and a country that’s created a comprehensive and common sense COVID-19 safety system for travelers. Learn more about how you can safely experience the wonder of Belize at travelbelize.org

It began as every surfer’s dream: an empty point break, a rising swell, and a good friend to share the rides. But what happens when you’re out there and the waves just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger? So it went for William Finnegan at a break off the Portuguese island of Madeira. This happened decades ago, back when surfers had to more or less guess at the conditions they’d encounter on any given day. In this episode, Finnegan, whose surfing memoir Barbarian Days won the Pulitzer Prize, shares one of his most harrowing experiences in the water. He and another longtime surfer were stuck out past the impact zone in a remote section of seas as night descended. Exhausted and frightened, they were forced to decide how to go about saving themselves.   ​​​​​​​ This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Sonos, maker of the Sonos Move, a portable smart speaker that delivers detailed sound and rich base in every kind of room and outdoors. Learn more and order yours at Sonos.com

Serious surfers train themselves to be ready for difficult moments: a brutal wipeout, being held down underwater by waves, losing a board and being forced swim a mile to shore. Then there are the kinds of experiences that nobody is really prepared for, like getting pushed out to sea by winds or currents and set adrift where nobody can see you. To get through that scenario alive, you need extraordinary fortitude. In this episode, we revisit one of the most surprising tales we’ve ever told on the Outside Podcast. We imagined what it might take to survive being alone for days on a surfboard in the open water—and then found someone who endured exactly that. This episode was brought to you by Whoop, the fitness tracker that gets you training smarter by giving you feedback on every moment of your day. Learn more about how Whoop can help you reach your potential by training and recovering smarter at join.whoop.com.

As it turns out, being a grown-up novice offers all kinds of surprising benefits. Just ask journalist Tom Vanderbilt, who spent a year attempting to pick up a variety of challenging skills, from surfing to singing to drawing. Ultimately, he didn’t become amazing at any of these things, but his humble quest taught him something far more valuable: that despite your age or how busy you think you are, introducing yourself to a new skill is one of the most life-enhancing things you can do. Vanderbilt chronicled his efforts and hard-won wisdom in his latest book, Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning. For this episode, Outside magazine’s editor, Christopher Keyes, gets Vanderbilt to explain what really happens to us when we dare to be a beginner again. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by L.L. Bean, a company that wants to help you experience the power of being outside this winter. Visit llbean.com to find inspiration and how-to advice for active outdoor fun this season, plus ready-for-anything outerwear to keep you cozy. L.L. Bean, Be an Outsider.

Serious athletes are used to digging deep. But there’s pushing yourself, and then there’s what climber Emily Harrington did on November 4, when she became the first woman, and the fourth person ever, to free-climb the Golden Gate route up Yosemite’s El Capitan in a single day. It was an insanely challenging endeavor: a 3,200-foot ascent up the sheer granite wall using only her hands and feet. For Harrington, it was the culmination of a long effort that included a fall on El Cap in 2019, which sent her to the hospital strapped to a backboard. In November, she was just a few hundred feet from the top when she took another bad fall, this time smashing her head. With blood pouring down her face, she had to decide whether she could keep going. In this episode, Harrington talks to Outside contributor Stephanie Joyce about why she’s still terrified at the beginning of every Yosemite season and how falling is what actually allowed her to get to the top. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Vermont, a state that is open for the very best in winter adventures so long as you take some extra steps before traveling. Learn more about how to plan the getaway you need this season at VermontVacation.com.

Ask a professional adventurer to share the most important lesson they’ve learned from their time in the wild, and you’re bound to get a good story. Which is exactly why we posed this question to Steven Rinella, host of the Netflix series MeatEater, and Krystle Wright, an adventure photographer based in Australia. For Rinella, a dangerous decision on a trip to Alaska’s Arctic made him see how being steadfastly committed to a goal is a kind of recklessness. On a footloose pilgrimage to the American Southwest, Wright realized that sometimes the best approach to a creative project is to just wing it and hope everything works out. In this episode, the two talk about seminal experiences that helped shape their careers and lives, and that offer the rest of us invaluable guidance for our own trips. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Bose, maker of the new Bose Frames Tempo, high-performance sports sunglasses that deliver high quality audio. It’s the sound you expect from Bose with everything you need from sport sunglasses. Learn more about how they can elevate your running and cycling at bose.com.

With the latest version of its Watch and the imminent launch of its online training platform Fitness+, Apple is positioning itself as a leader in the health and wellness space. For CEO Tim Cook, this effort has been many years in the making. A fitness obsessive, Cook works out daily, passionately believes that exercise is key to our quality of life, and he sees extraordinary opportunity in the ability to democratize health science by enabling millions of his customers to anonymously share their data with researchers. But Cook is also an outdoors nerd who says that his time in nature and offline is “like a palate cleanser for the mind.” In this extended conversation with Outside Podcast host Michael Roberts, Cook talks about both the incredible promise of technology to enhance our well-being and Apple’s duty to help us use our devices more wisely.

When we embark on a big adventure outdoors, the truth is that we rarely know what we’re getting into. Usually, the reasons we give for taking a trip are rarely what make it so memorable. You might go into the mountains with dreams of perfect powder turns but come away marveling about something you saw in the sky. These novel experiences and surprises are why so many of us keep going back. In this episode, we share a pair of stories about people finding unexpected delight in the wilderness—having remarkable days that they didn’t really plan for and that changed them in ways they never imagined. Because after the year we’ve all had, it feels good to hear about better times and be reminded of the kinds of decisions that lead to the most enlightening moments. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Sonos, maker of the Sonos Move, a portable smart speaker that delivers detailed sound and rich base in every kind of room and outdoors. Learn more about why it makes the perfect gift this holiday season at Sonos.com

Jeb Corliss is one of the original madmen of BASE jumping. For more than two decades, he flung himself from the top of massive waterfalls, bridges, and skyscrapers, and managed to miraculously survive multiple crash landings in a sport that rarely gives second chances. But now he’s 44, and no longer chasing the edge of risk. Instead, Corliss has embarked on a journey into the depths of his own troubled mind. And he’s reached a surprising conclusion: BASE jumping, one of the most deadly sports on earth, may have been the thing that kept him alive. Outside contributor Daniel Duane traveled to Southern California to talk to Corliss about his latest high-wire act. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Bose, maker of the new Bose Frames Tempo, high-performance sports sunglasses that deliver high quality audio. It’s the sound you expect from Bose with everything you need from sport sunglasses. Learn more about how they can elevate your running and cycling at bose.com.

In the past couple of years, South Carolina–based writer Latria Graham has published a pair of essays in Outside magazine about the challenges that Black people face in the outdoors. Both stories generated a great deal of attention to this matter and also spurred a number of readers to write to her to ask questions, as well as share their own personal experiences. For Graham, one category of letters proved to be a heavy burden: those from people of color asking her advice on where they could be safe and welcome in outdoor spaces. Unsure of how to respond, she said nothing for a long time. But after many months of reckoning with the national movement for racial justice in America, she was ready to give her answer. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by L.L. Bean, your source for ready-for-anything outerwear this winter. Outside podcast listeners get $10 off online purchases of $75 or more between November 11 and December 6, 2020. Go to llbean.com and enter the promo code OUTSIDE at checkout.

It wasn’t all that long ago that protecting the environment was an issue considered to be above partisanship. In 1970, it was Richard Nixon who announced the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency and signed the Clean Air Act into law. So how did the environment become one of the most divisive issues in American politics? The answer is a fight over trees. In the 1990s, a fierce confrontation in the Pacific Northwest pitted loggers against activists and scientists trying to defend ancient forests. As it escalated into a national debate, it created new battle lines that would define decades of conflicts over everything from fracking to climate change. In this first episode of the new podcast series Timber Wars, journalist Aaron Scott of Oregon Public Broadcasting explains how it all got started—and why we’re still having the same fight in 2020.   This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Bose, maker of the new Bose Frames Tempo, high-performance sports sunglasses that deliver high quality audio. It’s the sound you expect from Bose with everything you need from sport sunglasses. Learn more about how they can elevate your running and cycling at bose.com.

For many years, Jeremy Jones had a simple job: he was the king of freeride snowboarding, traveling the planet to carve lines down jagged peaks for action films. But then he began to notice changes in the mountains he was visiting: less snow, shrinking glaciers, and other signs that matched what scientists were saying about the growing menace of climate change. After struggling for a way to respond, he founded an organization to do something about it, Protect Our Winters. Over the past 13 years, POW has become an influential force in the outdoor industry and on Capitol Hill, arguing that rising global temperatures will decimate snow sports, which pump tens of billions of dollars into the U.S. economy. Now, in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Jones and POW are hoping to unleash the political might of what they call the Outdoor State, the 50 million Americans united by a shared passion for our natural playgrounds, energizing them to vote on behalf of the climate. This episode of the Outside podcast is brought to you by Whoop, the fitness tracker that gets you training smarter by giving you feedback on every moment of your day. For a limited time, Outside Podcast listeners get 15 percent off a membership; just enter the code OUTSIDE at checkout.

To become an elite climber, you need to get very good at defying gravity. This requires developing extraordinary control of your body while also maximizing your strength to weight ratio. To do that, you train constantly and also pay attention to your diet. At the upper echelons of the sport, where every move counts, there’s pressure on athletes to do all they can to make themselves stronger, while also getting smaller and lighter. For professional climbers Kai Lightner and Beth Rodden, that pressure led them both to develop eating disorders. Rodden was a major figure in traditional climbing in the early 2000s, when she helped push the discipline forward. Lightner is a top sport climber who’s currently active in competitions. But while they come from different eras, they faced similar challenges. Both of them recently wrote essays for Outside about their hard times and their recovery. In this episode, they open up about their journeys and talk about the need to change damaging beliefs about weight and food that are deeply embedded in the culture of the sport. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Bose, maker of the new Bose Frames Tempo, high-performance sports sunglasses that deliver high quality audio. It’s the sound you expect from Bose with everything you need from sport sunglasses. Learn more about how they can elevate your running and cycling at bose.com.

One of the defining aspects of modern life is our inability to hear the sounds of nature due to noise pollution. But since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, people across the world have remarked that they’re hearing birds and other creatures more clearly than ever before. This includes professional listeners like Chris Watson, the legendary field recordist who for decades has captured the sounds of wildlife heard in David Attenborough’s films, including The Green Planet, which will premier in 2022. As Watson points out, the moment noise pollution stops, the problem goes away. But this period of relative global silence we’re experiencing right now is temporary, and something we should all take advantage of. “Most of our time, in much of our lives, we spend time blocking out sound simply to get through the day,” he says. But if we open our ears, “We can easily train ourselves to be good listeners.” This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Feetures, socks that help you perform at your best. See for yourself why Feetures has become the number one running sock in America. Outside Podcast listeners receive $10 off your first pair. Go to feetures.com and enter the code “outside” at checkout.

Of all the people who might end up on a deer hunt in Arizona, Rachel Levin has to be among the least likely candidates. Growing up, her closest connection to hunting was Elmer Fudd cartoons. Today she’s a food writer in San Francisco, where she knows just one person who hunts. But like a lot of food obsessives, Rachel was often curious about how the meat on her plate got there. Earlier this year, she got a chance to find out when she joined a bow hunt for mule deer with two rising stars of huntstagram, the social media sphere dedicated to all things hunting. Rihana Cary and Amanda Caldwell are part of a growing group of women hunters with large followings on Instagram, which they use to broadcast live from the field to their audiences. In this episode, Rachel recounts her surprising trip, discusses evolving attitudes on who can be a hunter, and explains why she can’t wait to go again. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by L.L. Bean, your source for ready-for-anything outerwear this winter. Visit llbean.com to shop winter gear now, find a store near you, or check out their online guides to a number of outdoor activities. L.L. Bean, be an Outsider. 

You’ve been breathing wrong your whole life. That’s the message journalist and outdoor athlete James Nestor delivers in his new bestseller Breath, which explains how the human species has lost the ability to breathe properly and why this is so bad for our health in all kinds of ways. But his reporting also shows that with minor adjustments in how we inhale and exhale, we can dramatically improve on everything from the quality of our sleep to our athletic performance to our posture. Nestor, whose interest in breathing began when he wrote a feature for Outside on the sport of freediving, talks with editor Christopher Keyes about his years-long investigation into the history and science of human breathing, and his own journey to becoming a better breather. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Feetures, socks that help you perform at your best. See for yourself why Feetures has become the number one running sock in America. Outside Podcast listeners receive $10 off your first pair. Go to feetures.com and enter the code "outside" at checkout.

It sounds like a fantasy: join forces with a good friend to build a sweet little cabin in the woods. And for Bryan Schatz and Patrick Hutchison, that’s exactly how it felt. They took time away from promising careers to pursue a dream of crafting a base camp for adventures in an idyllic spot in Washington’s Cascade Range. There was just one problem: they had no idea what they were doing. Their planned summer project turned into a yearlong saga that drained their bank accounts and stressed their relationships with family, friends, and each other. But they stuck it out and ended up not only with a gorgeous cabin but a new perspective on what matters most in life. This episode of the Outside podcast is brought to you by Whoop, the fitness tracker that gets you training smarter by giving you feedback on every moment of your day. For a limited time, Outside Podcast listeners get 15 percent off a membership; just enter the code “outside” at checkout.

In recent years, the search for extraterrestrials has been accelerated by a wave of new technologies that allow us to better probe distant reaches of the galaxy. Meanwhile, a pair of events have generated enormous excitement among those who believe that aliens might already be among us. In 2017, when the first interstellar object was detected in our solar system, a highly respected Harvard astrophysicist suggested it might be a probe that was sent by aliens. That same year, the public learned about a secret program by the U.S. military that was investigating potential threatening UFOs. All of this was enough to spur journalist Laura Krantz to launch an investigation of her own into what we really know about extraterrestrials. The result is a new season of Wild Thing, a podcast that explores the strange and unusual things that capture our imaginations. This week, we talk to Laura about the challenges of doing rigorous reporting on a topic that a lot of people don’t take seriously and share the kickoff episode of her otherworldly new series. This episode of the Outside podcast is brought to you by Whoop, the fitness tracker that gets you training smarter by giving you feedback on every moment of your day. For a limited time, Outside Podcast listeners get 15 percent off a membership; just enter the code "outside" at checkout.

You know how when you listen to certain songs, you feel you feel like you’re being transported to a totally different place? Most of the time, this is exactly what the musician was trying to do—especially if the musician is Jackson Stell, who creates music under the name Big Wild. Stell is a rapidly rising artist in the electronic and dance scene, though his songs don’t fit neatly in that genre. As a producer, musician, songwriter, and vocalist, he’s crafting works that are inspired by remarkable outdoor landscapes and capture the ecstatic feelings we have when we venture into the natural world. The result is songs that make us feel like we’re on an adventure—and having a fantastic time. In this episode, we take a journey through Big Wild’s catalogue and talk to Stell about how his personal journey led him to seek out a new kind of sound experience. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Bank of the West, and their new 1% for the Planet checking account, the first bank account designed for climate action. Learn ow you can make your money work for the environment at bankofthewest.com/1percent

Marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson has to be among the busiest scientists in the world. She runs a conservation consulting firm, Ocean Collectiv, as well as a think tank focused on the future of coastal cities called the Urban Ocean Lab. She was an advisor to Elizabeth Warren’s campaign. In June, she wrote an influential op-ed for The Washington Post that explained to white environmentalists why it’s critical for them to join the movement for racial justice. She’s currently editing an anthology of essays by women climate leaders, and also writing her own book on solutions to climate change. And starting this week, she’s cohosting a new podcast with industry titan Alex Blumberg ambitiously titled How to Save a Planet. Her journey to becoming a star in the environmental movement has been defined by a collaborative approach to problem solving, and now she’s asking us all to work together on answering a very big question: What does the future look like if we get it right? This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Hydro Flask, maker of the new Trail Series bottle, which lets you go farther with less weight. Learn more about it and purchase yours at hydroflask.com/trailseries    

If you were to try to come up with the most outlandish survival story imaginable, you’d be hard pressed to do much better than the tale of Michael Proudfoot, a scuba diver who found himself trapped alone in a shipwreck deep under the sea and running out of air. It’s the ultimate nightmare scenario for a diver, and yet somehow Proudfoot managed to live through it. Or maybe not. Maybe none of it ever happened. This week on the Outside Podcast, we revisit a classic episode from our archives that had us take our own deep dive into a legend that seems too astonishing to be true—but just might be. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Hydro Flask, maker of the new Trail Series bottle, which lets you go farther with less weight. Learn more about it and purchase yours at hydroflask.com/trailseries    

There’s a misguided notion that the ultimate kid’s paradise would look something like a cross between Disneyland and Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory. The truth is that for a lot of kids, paradise is nothing like that. Instead it’s sleepaway summer camp—especially a camp that lets you do crazy stupid things and get really, really dirty. In the second installment of our two-part exploration of the specialness and weirdness of camp, we present a collection of stories that capture camps and campers at their edgy extremes. There’s the kid who hitchhiked around a difficult hike, the boy who dove into a campground toilet to save a cookpot, the counselors who harvested wildlife for dinner, and the camp that staged the most epic game of capture the flag in human history. This is camp as it really happens. This episode of the Outside Podcast is sponsored by L.L. Bean, a company that wants to show you how to enjoy summer without straying far from home. See their Staycation Summer Guide at llbean.com/staycationsummer.  Outside Podcast listeners get 15 percent off online orders from now through August 15. Go to llbean.com​​​​​​​ and enter the promo code “OUTSIDE” at checkout.

Amazing things happen when young people spend their days outside and their nights sleeping among new friends—and a week far, far away from their parents. Kids learn to take care of themselves, and each other. But strange things happen, too, like that time a camp’s beloved pet snake chomped down on a counselor’s hand and wouldn’t let go. Or when a moth flew deep inside a camper’s ear and had to be extracted with an ancient and bizarre technique. Then there was the camper who brought her grandma’s ashes to camp...  and wasn’t very careful with them. In this first episode of a two-part series, we begin our exploration of the specialness and weirdness of summer camp with a collection of true-life tales submitted by Outside Podcast listeners that will make you wish you could go to camp right now—and also question why anyone would ever send their kids. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Avocado Green Mattress, makers of 100 percent organic-certified mattresses—and more products, like their new meditation pillow. Visit avocadogreenmattress.com to learn more. And to save $175 dollars on any mattress, use the code OUTSIDE175 at checkout.

For a good number of travelers, the ultimate bucket-list experience is swimming with whales. There’s something about the idea of being in the water with these enormous creatures that calls to people. And if you talk to people who have swum with whales, chances are they’ll tell you it changed their lives. This is true even for veteran adventurers who’ve seen it all—people like Outside contributing editor Rowan Jacobsen, whose past assignments include a journey to the Amazon to seek out the source of the world’s greatest chocolate. Last fall, Jacobsen joined a small crew in the Caribbean that was filming and studying sperm whales by getting in the water with them. Though he had no delusions that swimming with whales would heal him or transform him, he was certain that he would learn a thing or two from being very, very close to these legendary giants of the sea. And he did. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Avocado Green Mattress, makers of 100 percent organic-certified mattresses—and more products, like their new meditation pillow. Visit avocadogreenmattress.com to learn more. And to save $175 dollars on any mattress, use the code OUTSIDE175 at checkout.

Nouria Newman is one of the best whitewater kayakers in the world. She’s won numerous prestigious competitions and has completed historic first descents of some of the planet’s most dangerous rapids. But it wasn’t until she nearly drowned on a solo expedition in the Himalayas that she was able to truly reckon with the deadly toll of her sport—and discover what matters most. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Visit Florida, one of the country’s great adventure destinations. Have you met a manatee? Airboated in the Everglades? Snorkeled the coral reef? Plan your next Florida adventure at visitflorida.com/outside

There’s been a running boom in the age of coronavirus, with veteran runners and newbies alike lacing up their shoes to get outside. But the experience has not been the same for everyone. Coffey, a well-known figure in New York City’s vibrant running scene as well as a multitalented creative artist, has continued to get his miles in during the pandemic. And like other runners whose skin is black or brown, he has faced the same risks of harassment and violence that were present before the virus arrived—along with new dangers. Coffey also has a deeply considered response to the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd: last week, he released the short film About the People, which examines social injustice and racial inequality in America through a powerful conversation between men who are pillars in the black community. In this episode, Coffey shares his story of falling in love with running in NYC, his perspective on the pain and upheaval of recent weeks, and his bold idea for harnessing the positive energy of runners to make a difference. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Tracksmith, an independent running brand with a deep love for the sport. Tracksmith is offering Outside Podcast listeners $15 off your first equipment purchase of $75 or more. Go to Trackmsith.com/outside and enter the code OutsidePod at checkout.

It’s an established fact that outdoorsy people have the best stories about dating. Getting to know a potential partner while climbing, paddling, or otherwise exploring an unpredictable environment just offers more opportunities for memorable surprises. Usually, these experiences are shared with friends over beers. Sometimes they make their way into wedding toasts. And then there are the incidents that make headlines. So it was with Kayleigh Davis and Kyler Bourgeous’s encounters with some ornery bison on an island in Utah’s Great Salt Lake. This episode comes from the award-wining team at This is Love, a show that investigates life’s most persistent mystery. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Visit Florida, one of the country’s great adventure destinations. Have you met a manatee? Airboated in the Everglades? Snorkeled the coral reef? Plan your next Florida adventure at visitflorida.com/outside

When Olympic marathoner Kara Goucher went public in 2015 with her accusation that her former coach, the legendary Alberto Salazar, had skirted antidoping rules with the elite runners of the Nike Oregon Project, she suffered an onslaught of criticism and harassment. The blowback set her back financially and competitively—and made her wonder if she had made a terrible mistake. Then last spring, Goucher spoke up again, joining former Nike teammates in a New York Times op-ed about the company’s practice of suspending female athletes’ pay during pregnancy. Nike soon pledged changes, and in the fall the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency banned Salazar from coaching for four years. In the middle of this storm, Goucher converted to trail running at age 40, finishing in fifth place among women in her first off-road event, the infamous Leadville marathon. In this episode, reporter Stephanie May Joyce, who profiled Goucher for a recent issue of Outside, asks the runner how calling out the athletic footwear and apparel juggernaut shaped her career, and where she goes from here. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Tracksmith, an independent running brand with a deep love for the sport. Tracksmith is offering Outside Podcast listeners $15 off your first equipment purchase of $75 or more. Go to Trackmsith.com/outside and enter the code OutsidePod at checkout.

The first question most people have when they hear about Lance, the new documentary series about the world’s most infamous cyclist, is: Why now? Back in 2013, we watched Armstrong give his first doping confessions to Oprah. That same year, Oscar-winning director Alex Gigney released The Armstrong Lie, a documentary that had the cyclist offering lengthy admissions of guilt and claims of sincere remorse. Since then, there’s been a number of tell-all books by seemingly anyone who had the slightest connection to the story. Armstrong himself has launched multiple apology tours. So what’s the point of reexamining the saga yet again? According to Lance director Marina Zenovich, the answer is that Armstrong—and the rest of us—are still wrestling with the same big questions about cheating, forgiveness, and recovery. And the answers keep changing. Zenovich, a veteran filmmaker who’s crafted portraits of Roman Polanski and Robin Williams, manages to get Armstrong to open up in a way we’ve never seen before. In this episode, Outside editor Christopher Keyes asks her how she pulled it off and why she was so drawn to the project. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Visit Florida, one of the country’s great adventure destinations. Have you met a manatee? Airboated in the Everglades? Snorkeled the coral reef? Plan your next Florida adventure at visitflorida.com/outside

Last summer, 34-year-old Andrew Bernstein, known to his friends as Bernie, was riding his bike alone on a road outside Boulder, Colorado, when he was struck by a vehicle. The driver fled the scene and left him laying in a ditch, where he would have soon died if a passerby hadn’t noticed him and called 911. Bernie was a passionate amateur cyclist who competed regularly in elite track races, but in an instant his body was shattered and his life was forever changed. Unfortunately, his experience is all too common: 857 cyclists were killed by drivers on American roads in 2018, making it the deadliest year in almost three decades. In this episode, we detail what happened to Bernie, how he’s fared since, and where he goes from here. It’s a deeply personal account—but also a story that has the power to change all of our behavior in ways that will save lives and reduce the number of people who will go through what Bernie has endured. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Visit Florida, one of the country’s great adventure destinations. Have you met a manatee? Airboated in the Everglades? Snorkeled the coral reef? Plan your next Florida adventure at visitflorida.com/outside

As every seasoned traveler knows, the most meaningful trips are the ones where everything goes wrong. Take, for example, climber and longtime Outside contributor Mark Jenkins’s recent quest to witness a total solar eclipse from the top of a 20,000-foot peak. A veteran of historic expeditions including an attempt on the North Face of Mount Everest, a first descent of the Niger River, and a bicycling odyssey across Siberia, Jenkins was in the mood for something different. So he recruited his old pal Large, and the two of them set off for a little-know summit in the Andes that was in the zone of totality. From the moment they landed in South America, their plans went comically sideways—again and again and again. Were they cursed, or was this the adventure they both really needed?

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a technique that would allow us to vanquish fear and beat back stress? There just might be. In his latest book, The Wedge, bestselling author Scott Carney explains that when humans face challenging situations, our automatic responses tend to make us feel terrible. But the good news is that there are a number of simple methods we can learn to take control of our reactions to stimulus—whether it’s a circling shark or a scary news headline. Over the past few years, Carney traveled all over the planet, seeking out people who understand what he calls the wedge—a technique that enables us to adapt our bodies and our minds to be more resilient in the face of just about anything. In this episode, Outside editor Chrisopher Keyes asks Carney: What exactly is the wedge? And how can we learn it right now? This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Visit Florida, one of the country’s great adventure destinations. Have you met a manatee? Airboated in the Everglades? Snorkeled the coral reef? Plan your next Florida adventure at visitflorida.com/outside

The longer we’re stuck at home, sheltering in place, the greater our hunger for tales of far-flung journeys. For this week’s episode, we’re offering one of our favorite adventure stories from our archives, about a daring crew of twentysomethings who, back in 1970, had a crazy idea to canoe remote rivers though the Amazon Basin. Their half-baked plan was to hunt, fish, and forage for food until it wasn’t fun anymore. They had no jungle experience and few supplies beyond a machete and a small rifle. Not surprisingly, they ran into all sorts of trouble—including a hungry jaguar who chased them up a tree.

Unlike most other animals, humans have to be taught to swim, and yet many of us feel an irresistible pull to the water. There’s something about submerging ourselves that makes us feel very much alive—even as we enter an environment where the risk of death is suddenly all around us. (That’s why the lifeguard is watching.) In her new book, Why We Swim, journalist Bonnie Tsui explores how this unique sport rekindles the survival instincts we inherited from our ancestors, heals some of our deepest wounds, and connects us with a wider community even as we stroke silently alongside each other. In this episode, Tsui guides us through the remarkable tales of an Icelandic fisherman forced to swim for his life, an athlete who found new life by diving into the ocean, and a swim club that sprung up in the middle of a war zone.

Over the past few years, the sport of running has been upended by a debate over shoe technology. It all began in early 2017, when Nike announced a prototype called the Vaporfly that was billed as improving a runner’s efficiency by 4 percent—a claim that was hard to believe until that spring, when Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge came seconds away completing a marathon in under two hours. The running community’s reaction was swift, with many claiming that the shoe wasn’t a breakthrough, it was a cheat. A lot has changed since then, with records at numerous distances being obliterated while other shoe brands look to duplicate the Vaporfly’s success, even as they call for new Nike prototypes to be banned. Today, even with the Olympics and other major athletic events postponed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the sport of running remains upside down, with the focus still on shoes instead of on who’s wearing them.Outside editor Chris Keyes speaks with our Sweat Science columnist, Alex Hutchinson, about how we got here and what it all means for the future of the sport.

In the isolated Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, some 800 miles from the North Pole, the tiny town of Longyearben is the kind of place where people go to start their lives over. With brightly colored homes laid out neatly against a mountainous backdrop, it seems out of a fairytale. There’s almost no crime, so residents leave their front doors unlocked and their keys in the car. In the surrounding Arctic wilderness are abundant polar bears, arctic foxes, and reindeer. But when an eerie crime happened in the frozen winter darkness, it brought home a harsh reality: in the modern world, trouble always finds you.

Now here’s a mind-boggling fact: there are more tigers in captivity in the United States right now than all of the wild tigers in the world combined. This is due to loopholes in the laws governing big-cat ownership in this country—and it’s a dangerous problem. Besides tigers, people keep lions, cougars, leopards, and other big cats as pets. It’s not great for the cats that are locked in cages and basements, but it’s really not great for the people nearby when, inevitably, those cats get out. Because then what do you do? Today, we have the story of what police officers were forced to do when a man named Terry Thompson let loose 18 tigers, 17 lions, 8 bears, and a handful of other animals, and then shot himself. Nine years later, not much has changed in the way of regulation. It’s the first episode of a powerful four-part series from Longreads called Cat People that is coproduced by former Outside Podcast host Peter Frick-Wright.

When experienced wilderness guide Blair Braverman was invited to audition for the Discovery Channel reality show ‘Naked and Afraid,’ she saw it as a chance to live out a childhood fantasy. Here was an opportunity to have a totally wild—if somewhat absurd—adventure that would allow her to prove her mettle or fail trying. Having crossed the Arctic twice by dogsled, she felt she could handle all kinds of discomfort and physical challenges. Pus, it’s just a TV show, right? Then she found herself without clothes in the searing African heat, enduring one of the most intense experiences of her life.

Recent years have seen all kinds of major progress in outdoor sports equipment, from maximalist running shoes to electric bikes to crazy-lightweight camping gear. But the most important breakthroughs of all have been in the design and manufacturing of sports bras. New research and technologies have paved the way for an advanced class of support systems that are comfortable, look good, and fit a wider variety of bodies. In this episode, we talk to Outside associate editor Ariella Gintzler about her feature report on the state of the sports bra, then take a look back at the game-changing invention that started it all.  

After suffering a brain injury in a bicycle accident, Sarah Allely found it difficult to read, write, and watch television. She struggled with everyday tasks. Eventually, she realized that the only way for her to get better was to spend time in nature. As a journalist, her instinct was to chronicle her experience and also investigate the science behind nature’s health benefits. The result is Brain on Nature, a podcast that’s deeply personal but offers invaluable insights for anyone seeking balance in today’s hyperpaced and overconnected modern world. This week, we’re excited to share the first two episodes in this powerful audio series.

Topher White founded the nonprofit Rainforest Connection with the intent of creating a low-cost monitor that could help remote communities in their efforts to halt illegal logging, which is an enormous threat to tropical habitats. As it turns out, the best way to track people who are cutting down trees is sound. Using old cell phones linked to an artificial-intelligence platform in the cloud, White developed a system that can detect chainsaws in real time and send automated alerts to authorities. Today, Rainforest Connection is recording audio continuously from over a 1,000-square-miles of forest across 12 countries. That scale, along with rapid improvements in machine learning, have opened up tantalizing possibilities for understanding what the sounds of nature really mean.

Every winter, the Pacific Ocean produces massive swells that roll across the open sea and crash into the Hawaiian island of Oahu. For more than 50 years, the surf world has gathered here, on the North Shore, along a stretch of legendary beaches that are collectively known as the Seven Mile Miracle. A lot of drama is to be expected: epic rides, agonizing wipeouts, and every so often, a heroic rescue. In this episode, we share two stories from the latter category. One comes from photographer-filmmaker Jeff Johnson, who, back in the day, was a young lifeguard at Sunset Beach, determined to prove himself. The other is from big-wave rider Kohl Christensen, a North Shore local whose work to safeguard the lives of other surfers recently ended up saving his own.

Conservationists hoping to protect a threatened wild species tend to take a standard set of actions. These can involve political campaigns, lawsuits, and media outreach. But sometimes it’s the unexpected approaches that can make the difference. Over the past several years, artist Jane Kim has been creating large-scale public murals of the monarch butterfly, an insect that’s in a state of crisis. Recent surveys indicate the that the population of the western monarch in California has plummeted to below 30,000, down from 4.5 million in the mid-1980s. Kim’s latest work is a painting in San Francisco's Tenderloin district that wraps three sides of a 13-story building and includes a 50-foot-tall monarch. It’s suddenly one of the most dramatic features in the city’s skyline. The question now is whether this extraordinary piece of public art will spur the actions really needed to save the species—or become a tribute to a once beautiful butterfly.

In today’s fitness space, self-experimentation is the name of the game. All kinds of people are embracing new technologies and diets in the hope of finding faster strategies for getting in the best possible shape. In this crowd, few are pushing things further than Ben Greenfield. The exercise physiologist and personal trainer has made his mark by exploring the limits of what seems reasonable (Example A: injecting his penis with stem cells) and voicing controversial ideas, including skepticism about standard vaccination practices. In his new book, Boundless: Upgrade Your Brain, Optimize Your Body & Defy Aging, he covers almost anything you might want to know about being the fittest and healthiest you can be. For this episode, Outside editor Chris Keyes speaks with Greenfield about strategies for better sleep, the upsides of cold therapy, the problems with gym workouts, and more.

At some point, almost every skier or snowboarder who has sat on a stalled chairlift has wondered, Could I just jump off here? The resounding reply from the experts is no, no, no. Don’t jump off the chairlift. Not ever. In addition to the high risk of getting injured yourself, you’re putting the people on other chairs around you in danger in ways you don’t understand. So stay put, and wait for the lift to restart. Or, in those rare instances when the chair really is broken, wait for ski patrol to get you down. But there are those truly unique cases when breaking the rules may be the only option. In this episode, we tell the story of very unlucky snowboarder who was forced to make the worst kind of choice. 

Ask scientists about the aurora borealis and they’ll explain that the spectacular display of lights we see in the wintertime sky is caused by solar winds that send charged particles into the earth’s upper atmosphere, where they smash into gases. But witness this otherworldly show yourself, and ancient beliefs about magic often feel more true. It was the magic that mattered to Hugo Sanchez, a self-taught photographer who fled civil-war-torn El Salvador and moved to Canada. But tragedy followed him, and it was chasing the perfect shot of the northern lights that gave him a new sense of purpose.

As host of one of the most popular interview shows in the podcast universe, Rich Roll is known for his limitless empathy. That approach grew out of his long personal journey. A talented college swimmer, he developed an alcohol problem that later destroyed his first marriage and nearly derailed his career as a lawyer. He sobered up but became a miserable workaholic, until, at age 40, he went vegan and started endurance training. Soon he was a top finisher at the Ultraman, an infamous sufferfest in Hawaii. On his weekly show, Roll interviews everyone from elite athletes to spiritual leaders to bestselling authors, all in the interest of empowering the rest of us to make better decisions. In this episode, he shares his inspiring story and the many hard lessons learned.

It’s around this time of year that we tend to ask ourselves the big questions: Am I living the life I want to be living? Am I a good a person? And, of course, is this going to be an epic ski season, or a bust? This week, we present a story that miraculously addresses all of these questions. It comes to us from the good folks at the Dirtbag Diaries, and has outdoor industry veteran Dan Kostrzewski sharing a very personal tale about a skiing accident with his young daughter, and how it helped him gain a new perspective on the sport that has long been at the center of his personal and professional identity.

Of the many story lines that came of the New York Marathon this November, perhaps the most inspiring was the performance of Kikkan Randall. The 35-year-old was racing in her first-ever marathon, yet she finished 51st among all women and 12th in her age group. It was impressive, even for Randall, one of the most accomplished cross-country ski racers in American history, especially when you consider that just 18 months earlier, she’d been diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer. *Outside *contributor Stephanie Joyce talks to Randall about her pattern of coming back stronger from tough times and failure, and where she goes from here.

Search a major online music platform for “nature” and you get a lot of stuff designed to help you relax. Recordings of chirping rainforest creatures, gently tumbling waves, a pulsing didgeridoo—it’s what you expect to hear during a massage treatment. The reality, of course, is that nature is often far from tranquil. It can be barbaric, dissonant, and downright metal. In that spirit, this week’s episode presents two tales that pay homage to nature’s thrasher tendencies. The first involves a threatening predator that was fought off with Metallica. After that, we’ll hear from a professional hard rocker who attempted to be the hero of a shipwrecked crew, and shared his experience at a live storytelling event hosted by The Moth.  

When Free Solo was released last fall, it was an instant sensation—the movie that everyone was telling their friends they had to see. The picture, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature chronicled Alex Honnold’s quest to climb the 3,000-foot sheer rock face ofYosemite's El Capitan without a rope. It also captured his emotional growth as he fell in love with Sanni McCandless, a relationship that made his goal much more complicated. One giant reason Free Solo was so special was the husband and wife directing team of Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, whose unique backgrounds made them the perfect duo to tell the story. In this conversation with Outside’s Michael Roberts, recorded earlier this month at Summit LA, they open up about the life and work that they’ve created together—and where it goes from here.

On the new History Channel show Kings of Pain, Rob “Caveman” Alleva and cohost Adam Thorn get bit and stung by the nastiest insects, reptiles, and fish on the planet—on purpose. They’re following in the footsteps of entomologist Justin O. Schmidt, whoOutside profiled back in the nineties while he was developing the first-of-its-kind pain scale for stinging insects. But for the TV show, Alleva and Thorn are pushing this brand of experimentation even further by subjecting themselves to the agony-inducing defense mechanisms of snakes, fish, and lizards, with sometimes horrifying results. Outside* *Podcast host Peter Frick-Wright wanted to know: What’s it like to be in so much pain, so often? And why were they willing to take this job?

Author Richard Louv is best known as the author of Last Child in the Woods, his 2005 bestseller that established the phrase nature-deficit disorder and helped spark an international movement to examine the health benefits of spending time outdoors. His ideas were initially seen as radical—recall that in 2005, the iPhone didn’t exist yet—but today they’re ubiquitous. Now Louv is back with a new book, Our Wild Calling, that presents more radical ideas, this time about the need for humans to rekindle our relationships with other species. Outside editor Christopher Keyes spoke with Louv about the basis for his theories and why even the most serious scientists get that something special happens when we engage with wild creatures.

In our last episode, Peter Frick-Wright told the story of the time he broke his leg at the bottom of a remote canyon and was saved through the efforts of multiple search and rescue teams. Now, more than two years later, Peter is still processing what happened to him. Meanwhile, the rescuers who cared for him have participated in numerous other high-stakes incidents in the wilderness. This week, Peter speaks with one of the people who hauled him out of the canyon about the coping strategies that have worked—and haven’t—in the aftermath of a life-altering trauma. This episode was produced for the podcast Rescuer MBS, a show that aims to increase the resilience of the volunteer search and rescue community.

About two years ago, Outside Podcast host Peter Frick-Wright was canyoneering in Oregon when he jumped off a ledge and broke his leg. He was stuck at the bottom of a canyon, and it took an epic effort by search and rescue teams to get him out of there. The experience was rough on Peter and rough on the many volunteers involved with transporting him safely to a hospital. Many of them had to go right back to work the next day. This week we’re going to replay our 2017 episode about the accident to set the stage for an upcoming conversation between Peter and one of his rescuers about a part of the healing process most people don’t talk about.

Recent years have seen a surge in adult-recess leagues across the United States. By some estimates, there are now 1.6 million grown-ups participating in these leagues across the country, and they’re only growing more popular. Today’s adults are seemingly desperate for more playtime—and so we’re eagerly bounding outside after work for all kinds of kid-style activities, from kickball and flag football to capture the flag and cornhole. But it’s not all fun and games: some of the leagues are highly competitive, with team names, uniforms, and strict scheduling. To find out what’s really going on, reporter Mimi Montgomery and producer Alex Ward visit rec fields in Washington, D.C., and Portland, Oregon, to observe grown-ups at play.

No one has had a greater influence on modern recreational running than writer Christopher McDougall. His 2009 book Born to Run introduced the masses to barefoot running and became a revolutionary bestseller. As a result, the multibillion-dollar running-shoe industry went through a dramatic upheaval, and today runners have a broad range of shoe types to consider, from minimalist slippers to ultra-cushy maximalist fatties. Now McDougall is back with a new book that chronicles his work training a sickly donkey to be an endurance athlete (no, seriously). Titled Running with Sherman, it tells the story of an unexpected journey that was really good for the donkey—but also for McDougall. Outside editor Christopher Keyes spoke with McDougall about this surprising turn of events and whether it means the rest of us should be running with animals, too.

At midlife, food writer Jeff Gordinier felt like he was sleepwalking. His marriage was crumbling, and he’d lost his professional purpose. Then he got a curious invitation: René Redzepi, the superstar head chef and co-owner of Noma, in Copenhagen, one of the world’s most influential restaurants, asked Gordinier to join him on a quest to Mexico to find exceptional tacos. Thus began a yearslong series of global adventures—foraging for sandpaper figs in Australia, diving for shellfish in the Arctic, seeking cochinita pibil in a remote part of the Yucatan—that reawakened Gordinier passion for both life and food. In his book Hungry, Gordinier describes how Redzepi’s raw energy and philosophy of constantly moving forward were an intoxicant as well as a kind of medication. For this episode, Outside’s Michael Roberts spoke with Gordinier about the wildest moments along his journeys with Redzepi and his new habit of saying yes to just about everything.

The odds of getting seriously injured by a bear in North America are slim. There are just a few dozen bear attacks on the continent every year, and only a handful of them put someone in the hospital. But bear-human encounters are on the rise, in part because more people than ever before are heading out into bear country. This year in particular there have been a lot of stories of people fighting off attacks in dramatic ways, including that guy in British Columbia who ended up killing a black bear with a hatchet. But Colin Dowler has the most incredible story of them all, and his tale offers potentially lifesaving lessons for anyone venturing into the wild.

Recent months have seen a media frenzy around the return of great white sharks to the waters surrounding Cape Cod. And with good reason: over the summer, great whites were routinely spotted off the iconic vacation destination’s most popular beaches. In 2018, a Cape boogie boarder died after being bitten by a shark—the first fatal attack in Massachusetts since 1936. But behind the headlines about freaked-out tourists and angry locals, the real story on the Cape is about how we learn to live with fear—or, just maybe, get past it. Produced in collaboration with our friends at the Outside/In podcast, this episode investigates the extreme reactions we have to living alongside one of the world’s most terrifying predators.  

The 2018 Carr Fire was one of the worst wildfires in California history. By the time it was contained, it had burned 359 square miles, destroyed close to 2,000 buildings, and killed seven people. It also spawned a massive fire tornado—only the second ever recorded. Meteorologists examining the damage afterward estimated that the vortex had generated winds of up to 165 miles per hour. When a blaze like that is coming your way, the only sane thing to do is run for your life. But Gary and Lori Lyon did the opposite, staying to defend their home. Outside contributor Stephanie Joyce has the story on why, in an era of increasingly intense fires, someone would dare to stand and fight an inferno.

In the world of athletics, the idea is that if you want to be the best, you have to specialize young and maintain near laserlike focus. The archetypal example is Tiger Woods, who, as the legend goes, started swinging a golf club before he could walk. More recently the focus has shifted to grit. The secret to success, we’re told, isn’t skill or raw talent but the ability to persevere. But that may not be the whole story. In his new book Range, author David Epstein challenges the arguments for specialization and grit, arguing that a more generalized approach is the surest route to excellence. Outside editor Christopher Keyes spoke with Epstein to about the advantages of doing a bit of everything.

Doug Peacock took an unlikely path to becoming an icon of conservation. Following two tours in the Vietnam War as a Green Beret medic, he sought solace and comfort in the American Wilderness, where he began observing and then filming grizzly bears. He believed the bears saved his life, and he felt compelled to return the favor. Many people know Peacock as the inspiration for George Hayduke, the infamous character inThe Monkey Wrench Gang, the 1975 novel by Ed Abbey. Over the years, Peacock authored a number of books about his journey. At the 2019 Mountainfilm festival, in Telluride, Colorado, he sat down with veteran radio producer Scott Carrier to offer an enlightened perspective on the history of bears in this country, share some hysterical stories about his own encounters with the animals, and give his take on the big challenges that grizzlies face today.

Water is critical to human life. Our bodies are more than 50 percent water. We can survive months barely eating, but even a few days without water and we’ll die. Water flushes toxins out of our organs and cools us down after a workout. But how much do really need? And how much is too much? Lately there’s been a lot of attention on the internet to what’s known as the Water Gallon Challenge: drinking a gallon per day for a month, with the promise of glowing skin and a lot more energy. Outside editor Aleta Burchyski took on this challenge, which for her was all the more daunting because she hates the taste of plain tap water. In this episode, we talk to her about her quest and check in with a leading hydration expert, who explains that we don’t know as much about how water effects our bodies as you might think.

When Mirna Valerio first began running ultramarathons, she immediately got a lot of attention, but not for the reasons you might expect. Because of her body size, she didn’t fit the accepted image of a long-distance runner. Her story isn’t about an average athlete trying to get better. It’s about what happens when people assume that someone can’t possibly be an athlete because of the way she looks—and then how they how they react when she takes on enormous challenges and finds a way to keep going and going. This episode kicks off the second season of the Athletes Unfiltered podcast from Strava.

Earlier this year, Outside contributing editor Rowan Jacobsen wrote a feature that questioned whether our efforts to avoid skin cancer have caused us to develop an unhealthy relationship with the sun and sunscreen. Looking at controversial new research that challenges established guidelines for sun exposure, Jacobsen suggested that more direct sunlight on our unprotected skin might actually be good for our health. The story struck a nerve, becoming the most popular article in the history of Outside’s website and provoking some pretty loud criticisms. Outside Podcast contributor Stephanie Joyce talks to Rowan about his reporting, his response to critics, and whether skipping the SPF 50 is really a good choice.

A large and growing body of research has found that time outdoors makes us happier and healthier, but there’s relatively limited science explaining why. According to findings published last summer in the journal Emotion, a big part of the answer may be awe. Studies conducted by psychologists at the University of California at Berkeley showed that feeling awe during a nature experience has a singular ability to lower stress and improve our overall well-being. Even more compelling, the research suggests that we don’t need to climb a mountain or run a river to get the healing power of awe—the simplest moments outside are all it takes. For this final episode in our Nature Cure series, we talk to the scientist who led the Berkeley study, as well as a man who says awe saved his life.

For the past few years, journalist Leah Sottile has been looking at the question of who owns public lands in the West. Her reporting began with the Bundy family, which infamously challenged the authority of the federal government on its ranch and then with an armed occupation of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. That investigation resulted in the award-winning audio series Bundyville. Now, Sottile is back with a new project that begins with the case of a man named Glenn Jones, who in the summer of 2016 blew up the house of a friend and former coworker in the tiny town of Panaca, Nevada. To her surprise, she would come to learn that that bombing had roots in the very same conflict that began with the Bundys.

In recent years, a grassroots movement of physicians have begun prescribing time outdoors as the best possible treatment for a growing list of ailments, from anxiety and obesity to attention deficit disorder and high blood pressure. Meanwhile, research institutes for nature and health are opening at major medical centers and a couple bold insurance companies are embracing the idea. For this third episode in our Nature Cure series, we sit down with science writer Aaron Reuben, who reported on this emerging trend for Outside magazine. The question now, he says, is what it will take to convince big health care that free medicine is the way of the future.

A while back, Outside contributor Meaghen Brown noticed a strange phenomenon among the elite ultrarunners that she was training with. Runners would come on the scene, win races and smash records, and then a few years later succumb to a mysterious ailment that left them a shadow of their former selves. Top athletes were suddenly lethargic, depressed, and unable to train, and doctors couldn't tell them why. Their problem, it turned out, was overtraining syndrome, or OTS. One researcher called it "The scariest thing I've seen in my time studying athletes." And it’s not just runners that are at risk. In this episode, we look at how OTS can afflict anyone who takes a more-is-more approach to their sport.

About six years ago, ecologist Chris Morgan was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room when he picked up a copy of Outside and read the cover story, “Take Two Hours of Pine Forest and Call Me in the Morning.” The article, written by Florence Williams, explored the scientific basis for something that Morgan had intuitively felt all his life: being in nature is inherently healing and leaves us feeling more alert, alive, and content. Ever since, he wanted to have his own guided nature experience. For this second installment of our Nature Cure series, Morgan shares a story from his new podcast The Wild, in which he goes forest bathing in the Pacific Northwest, then asks Williams, What happened to me out there?

For the last 19 years, Tim Friede, a truck mechanic from Wisconsin, has endured more than 200 snakebites and 700 injections of lethal snake venom—all part of a masochistic quest to immunize his body and offer his blood to scientists seeking a universal antivenom. For nearly two decades, few took him seriously. Then a gifted young immunologist stumbled upon Friede on YouTube—and became convinced that he was the key to conquering snakebites forever.

These days our smartphone addiction has gotten so intense that many of us now habitually use the devices even when we’re supposedly unplugging. We listen to podcasts on our trail runs and endlessly document our weekend adventures for Instagram. All this has author Cal Newport deeply concerned. Newport has made a name for himself as a sort of canary in the digital coal mine, writing about the perils of our screen-dependent modern lifestyles. Last winter he published Digital Minimalism, a manifesto that proposes a reimagining of our relationship with technology that begins with a 30-day digital diet. Outside editor Christopher Keyes talks with Newport about his radical—but very simple—approach to technology and how it can work for everyone. 

When Kyle Dickman set out on a spring road trip with his wife and infant son, he was fueled by a carefree sense of adventure that had defined his life. Then he got bit by a rattlesnake in a remote part of Yosemite National Park. The harrowing event changed his entire outlook on the world. Now he’s on a quest to understand the toxins that nearly killed him—and trying to come to terms with a world where everything slithers.

So you just found a buried treasure. Hooray! But wait, what do you do next? Are other treasure hunters going to stalk you day and night? Are you going to have to pay taxes on your new riches? How do you turn gold and jewels into usable money anyway? If these are the kinds of questions that keep you up at night, then this episode is for you. Or maybe you’ve been wondering about something more practical, like what’s the craziest thing duct tape has ever been used to repair? This week our friends at the show Every Little Thing, who are committed to answering listeners’ most interesting, least important questions, take on both topics.

Bob Ross is one of the most beloved painters of his generation, and he focused almost exclusively on the outdoors. Depicting the “happy trees” and “friendly mountains” of Alaska and the greater western US for his TV show, The Joy of Painting, he earned a following that has only grown since his death. But surprisingly little is known about his life. Famously private, he granted only a handful of interviews and never really spoke about his deeper motivations. So how should we remember Bob Ross, and what does his art say about the natural world? Data journalist Walter Hickey took on these questions, analyzing all 381 of the paintings Ross did for his show. What he found will have you looking at Bob Ross in a whole new light.

The ketogenic diet, a.k.a. “cutting carbs,” is all the rage in the fitness world. But is it better for you than any other kind of diet? And does it actually make athletes stronger or faster? These questions have been debated for hundreds of years, and every few decades the idea that cutting carbs can unlock your true athletic potential comes back into fashion. Canadian race walker Evan Dunfee was part of the most recent and most rigorous testing of the low-carb high-fat diet, which took him straight to the top of his sport. Just not for the reasons everyone expected.

No one has done more to sound the alarm about climate change than writer and activist Bill McKibben. He’s been doing it since 1989, when he wrote his first big scary book on the topic, The End of Nature. Thirty years later, he’s still at it, and climate change is even scarier. The result is the book Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Out? In many ways it’s his darkest book yet, drawing on even more scientific evidence while investigating new threats, like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Outside editor Chris Keyes wanted to know, is there any hope at all? The answer is, Yes, there is a scenario in which our species actually makes it out of this mess. Chris caught up with McKibben at his home in Vermont to talk about it.

In 2008, Katie Arnold was hiking a trail near her home in Santa Fe with her baby daughter strapped to her chest when a man attacked her with a rock. Two years later, Arnold’s father died shortly after being diagnosed with cancer. Overwhelmed with grief and anxiety, she tried many remedies but the only one that worked was running. Eventually she began racing ultras and became an elite competitor, winning the iconic Leadville 100. In this conversation with Sarah Bowen Shea, the host of Another Mother Runner podcast, and professional endurance athlete Yuri Hauswald, Arnold talks about her new memoir, Running Home, and the unique healing power of endurance sports.

As the host and creator of the MeatEater podcast and Netflix series of the same name, Steven Rinella spends a lot of time talking about hunting, fishing, and cooking. He is a proud voice in what’s often called the hook-and-bullet crowd. But he’s also a staunch conservationist, a longtime contributing editor of Outside magazine, and the author of American Buffalo, a book that explores the important role of the buffalo hunt throughout North American history. This makes him uniquely qualified to bridge the divide between hunters and outdoor recreationists. In a recent column for the magazine, Rinella argued that it’s never been more important for these two groups to forge a political alliance. Outside editor Christopher Keyes chased him down to talk about the need to find common ground in order to protect our most cherished public lands.

Recovery is the new frontier of athletic performance. The quicker you recuperate, the more you can train, and pro athletes across sports have been revitalizing their careers by taking time off. Now a wave of new recovery technologies are being pitched to a broader market: boots that improve blood flow, cryochambers, infrared pajamas. Science writer Christie Aschwanden saw all this and started looking into some of the product claims—and into classic recovery techniques like ice, massage, and ibuprofen. At a live event at Powell’s Books, in Portland, Oregon, she spoke with Outside Podcast host Peter Frick-Wright about her new book Good to Go, in which she lays out the surprising answers to the most important recovery question of all: What works and what doesn’t?

Every day there’s more research showing the benefits of mindfulness. It reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, boosts the immune system, and may even slow the aging process. What we’re only starting to figure out, however, is how meditation might improve athletic performance. Outside Editor Christopher Keyes caught up with Pete Kirchmer, program director of mPEAK, an eight-week class developed by neuroscientists at the University of California at San Diego. Their research shows that teaching athletes mindfulness techniques not only improves performance, it can literally change the makeup of your brain.

Since the sport’s early days in the seventies, mountain bikers have carved illicit trails on public and private land. Pioneering riders create winding singletrack in their favorite nearby hills, then carefully share the location with only a handful of friends. But in recent years, as the sport has grown bigger and bigger, government agencies and some adventurous entrepreneurs have sought to adopt pirate trails into official networks. This usually means better maintenance, maps and signage, trailhead parking—and a lot more riders. In New England, some feisty veterans are pushing back against the wave of modernization, saying it’s ruining their neck of the woods. Our friends at the Outside/In podcast report on a generational shift in the sport that’s got a lot of people fired up.

Over the past year, professional surfing has undergone a remarkable and very unexpected evolution. Beginning in 2019, the World Surf League is offering equal prize money to men and women at all of its events, making it one of very few global sports leagues to do so. A key part of this story was the push to get women included in the big-wave contest at Mavericks, on the Northern California coast, an effort headlined by 31-year-old Bianca Valenti. In a way, her whole career had been leading up to this mission. Outside executive editor Michael Roberts reports on Valenti’s journey from a teenager frustrated by the bro culture that ruled surfing to the front lines of a movement that could have a lasting impact on all of sports.

Former Navy SEAL David Goggins has spent the past two decades exploring the outer limits of human performance, both in the armed forces and as an endurance athlete with more than 60 ultras under his belt. But what makes Goggins truly unique is the hardship he faced long before he began his athletic career. A brutally abusive father. A learning disability. Depression. Even obesity—he once weighed nearly 300 pounds. Goggins found strength in putting himself through hell and relying on mental toughness to find his way through. Christopher Keyes spoke with him about his remarkable journey and the tough-love lessons in his new memoir, [Can’t Hurt Me](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1544512287/ref=aslitl?ie=UTF8&tag=outsonli02-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1544512287&linkId=eb8a244e4fffe38c2c30ce40c987c1b6).

There are a lot of really tough endurance races out there, but perhaps none are harder—both mentally and physically—than the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race in Queens, New York. The whole thing takes place on a single city block, and in order to finish before the cutoff, runners have to run the equivalent of about two marathons a day for 52 days in a row. In the race’s first 22 years, only 43 people finished. This past summer producer Stephanie Joyce headed to Queens to talk with the competitors, including Israeli ultrarunner Kobi Oren, who was determined to win the race on his first attempt.

Almost everyone who’s used underarm crutches agrees: they are terrible. They’re hard on your wrists, they cause falls, they cause nerve damage. This is why almost every country in the world has abandoned them. Except the U.S., where if you go to the hospital with a leg injury, you’re most likely going to leave with adjustable aluminum crutches. In this third installment of our series exploring how gear gets made, we look at the fascinating history of why better designs for crutches haven’t caught on, and whether or not they ever will.

There’s no more painful pursuit for a cyclist than the hour record.It’s just you, by yourself, on a bike, going as far and as fast as you can in 60 minutes. Eddie Merckx, considered by many to be the greatest pro racer in history, called it the longest hour of his career and only attempted it once. Others describe it as death without dying. When her father passed away, Italian cyclist Vittoria Bussi decided she wanted this record for herself. For her father’s memory. For history. When she started training, other cyclists asked her, “Are you ready to die for the hour?” Soon she would discover that in order to succeed, she would have to completely change her relationship with pain.

For more than two decades, Ruffwear has been reinventing gear for dogs. The brand makes booties, jackets, collars, toys, and pretty much anything else you could want for your pup. But how do you design something when the end user can’t give you feedback other than incessant tail wagging? And don’t dogs get just as much enjoyment out of an old stick as the latest and greatest chew toy? In this second installment of our series exploring how gear gets made, producer Alex Ward reports on the unique process of crafting products for our best friends.

Pararescue specialists—known as PJ’s in the military—are the most elite unit in the Air Force. But if you want to be a PJ you have to make it through Indoc, a brutal nine-week training course that’s designed to test your motivation and resolve. And there’s no easier way to make someone uncomfortable than sending them underwater for a long, long time. Staff Sergeant Travis Morgan had spent what felt like his whole life preparing for Indoc. He knew that only a small percentage of candidates made it through the program, and that most people quit during pool training. What he wasn’t expecting was to find himself facing elimination because he could hold his breath way too long.

Wilderness therapy has been used for decades to help troubled teens and addicts, and recently all kinds of people are seeking out guided nature experiences to detox from their hyper-digital modern lives. The classic approach of such programs is to push participants to challenge their limits in order to build character. That can work great, but it’s not a smart recipe for those trying to recover from emotional trauma. Not long ago, contributing editor Florence Williams, author of the The Nature Fix, went backpacking with victims of sex trafficking, writing about it for Outside’s May 2018 issue. Now she’s adapted the story for The Three-Day Effect, a new series for Audible that explores what’s really happening in our brains when we head outdoors. This episode, an excerpt of that project, reveals the surprising ways we can find comfort in wilderness.

John Orth is a violin maker from Colorado. Andrew Shapiro is a college kid from Virginia. They have little in common except that for the last two years they’ve been trading back and forth the world record for the most pull-ups in 24 hours. Over the summer, they both set their sights on 10,000 pull-ups. It’s a number that would have been unthinkable two years ago; a number that seemed like it would reveal the very limits of what the human body can do. Instead, they found a different limit.

In this first episode of a new series exploring how gear gets made, we investigate the origin of arguably the most refined fork in history. When designer Owen Mesdag was a graduate student in the late-1990s, he fell in love with a particularly clever spoon. Engineered by outdoor brand MSR, it doubled as a stove repair tool. Mesdag was enamored with it and he thought, I want to make a matching fork. And how hard could that be, really? A fork is a fairly simple tool. Except Owen’s fork didn’t just have to be good, it had to be perfect. His obsessive attention to detail meant that he kept going back to do more testing, taking more trips to Asia, and redesigning the fork again and again, because it was never quite right. Producer Alex Ward has this story explaining why the business end of a fork tells us a great deal about the tireless designers who make our favorite things.

The new movie Free Solo is arguably the greatest film about climbing that’s ever been made. In just over 90 minutes, it chronicles Alex Honnold’s astonishing no-ropes ascent of the 3,000-foot sheer face of Yosemite’s El Capitan, which he completed one morning in June, 2017. Even more impressively, it captures the unique mindset of Honnold, a perfectionist whose years-long obsessive pursuit of his dream gets complicated by an ever-present camera crew and his growing love for his new girlfriend. As you might guess, being the focus of a deeply personal Oscar-caliber documentary and then answering probing questions by a constant stream of reporters and fans has had an impact on the guy. Outside executive editor Michael Roberts chased Honnold down on his film tour to ask about the risks and rewards of telling your whole story.

Journalist Laura Krantz doesn’t believe in Bigfoot. She’s trained to be skeptical, and all the best Sasquatch sightings and photos have been debunked. Except, then she heard about Grover Krantz, a serious academic and long lost relative who had spent his career researching the possibility that an upright, bi-pedal homonid had once roamed the forest. Some of the evidence was pretty compelling, and so Laura dove into the subject headfirst. The result is Wild Thing, a nine-part series that takes a good hard look at what exactly we know and what we don’t know about Bigfoot, and why some form of this legend persists all over the world.

Maybe you saw the fire coming, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you were ready for it, maybe you weren’t. Maybe you did everything right. Maybe not. Maybe you just lost everything. Maybe that’s not even the worst of it. For this final episode of our  wildfire series, we asked fiction writer Joseph Jordan to imagine the experience of someone whose home has been destroyed by flames. He came up with a haunting story that captures our modern relationship with wildfire, in which a single catastrophic blaze is neither the start or end of anyone’s troubles.

To reduce the intensity of megafires in America, we’d need to treat and burn about 50-80 million acres of forest. So, how do we do it? What would it cost? How long would it take? Is it possible? In this episode we look at whether or not there’s anything we can do about wildfires in the West and the likelihood that we’ll take action on potential solutions.

How do you protect yourself from wildfire on a warming planet? You burn everything on purpose. No, seriously. Thanks to climate change, the whole world is a tinderbox. Fire season now starts sooner and ends later, and scientists say lightning will become more frequent, and winds more powerful. Our only defense may be intentional fires. In this episode, our friends at Outside/In take a close look at the ecology of prescription burns. Why are our forests so dependent on wildfires? And why did some plants evolve to become more flammable?

There are between eight and ten thousand wildfires in the United States each year, but most quietly burn out, and we never hear about them. The Pagami Creek Wildfire in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area was supposed to be like that. It was tiny and stuck in a bog that was surrounded by lakes. It was the kind of fire you could ignore. Computer models predicted that it would just sit there. But those models didn’t account for a rare convergence of atmospheric events had prepped the forest for an unprecedented burn. And Greg and Julie Welch were camping right in its path. In the first of four episodes investigating American wildfires, we tell the Welch’s extraordinary story and look at the factors that lead to this unexpected blaze.

Carina Hoang grew up in a wealthy family in Vietnam. She had a nanny to take care of her and a maid who cleaned up after her—she didn’t even wash her own hair. But when the Vietnam War broke out, she and two siblings fled the country on a boat, landing on Kuku beach, in Indonesia. It was supposed to be a refugee camp, but it was actually a deserted island. No food, no water, no buildings, people, or tools. Just sand and jungle. Produced in collaboration with Snap Judgment, with funding from the International Women’s Media Foundation, this is a story about Carina’s decades-long struggle to leave Kuku Island behind.

Most of the time, when lightning makes the news, it’s because of something outlandish—like the park ranger who was struck seven times, or the survivor who also won the lottery (the chances of which are about one in 2.6 trillion), or the guy who claimed lightning strike gave him sudden musical talent. This is not one of those stories. This is about Phil Broscovak—who was struck by lightning while on a climbing trip with family in 2005—and the confounding, bizarre science that can’t fully explain what Phil and other survivors endure in the aftermath of a strike. Originally broadcast in 2016, this episode is one of our favorites.

Everyone gets older, but not everyone bows out of competition in middle-age. Journalist Jeff Bercovici wanted to know: Why? Why do some athletes flame out in their 30s and 40s, while others are still going as senior citizens? Is it genetics? Special training? Diet? And could amateur athletes achieve similar results? Outside editor Chris Keyes talks with Jeff about his new book, Play On: The New Science of Elite Performance at Any Age, and what it takes to reverse the effects of getting older.

Climbing was Shelma Jun’s fallback sport. A snowboarder and mountain biker, she found her way into a climbing gym after injuring her shoulder and looking for an activity where she wouldn’t risk more impact. As a friend told her, you can’t fall very far if you’re attached to a rope. In 2014, she created an Instagram account called Flash Foxy to celebrate the crew of hard-charging New York women she’d begun climbing with. After gaining thousands of followers, she co-founded the Women’s Climbing Festival, which sold out in under a minute last year. In our final installment of this series looking at inclusivity in outdoor communities, James Edward Mills spoke to Jun about the influence a rising generation of female athletes is having on a sport long dominated by men.

Knox Robinson grew up watching his dad run and went on to race track himself at a Division I college, but he was never defined by the sport. He’s more of a renaissance man. For years, he gave up athletics, studying and living in Japan, then managing rock stars and rappers in New York City. It was only as an adult—and after having a son of his own—that he returned to running, eventually co-founding a running collective called Black Roses NYC. Grounded in New York street culture, the group seeks to build community and promote physical and mental health among black men and women. In this third installment in a four-part series looking at inclusivity in outdoor communities, Outside contributor James Edward Mills talks to Robinson about his journey, and how running through diverse urban neighborhoods can be a powerful way to project a message of vitality and togetherness.

Ayesha McGowan came late to competitive cycling. An accomplished violinist, she didn’t enter her first organized biking event until after college. Despite riding an old steel bike with a milk crate on the back and wearing jean shorts in a peloton of spandex, she impressed the other women, who encouraged her to start competing. A year later, she took fifth place in her first race, then kept winning on the amateur circuit. Now she’s aiming to be the first African American female cyclist on the pro tour, and gets closer to that goal every day. In this second installment in a four-part series looking at inclusivity in outdoor communities, journalist James Edward Mills sits down with McGowan to talk about her fast road to success.

When Mikhail Martin started climbing at a Brooklyn gym in 2009, he was one of very few African Americans to rope up. Today, his group, Brothers of Climbing, is working to change that. BOC is tackling diversity in rock climbing, which includes bridging the gaps in lingo, jargon, and etiquette that keep people of color out of the sport. Nobody understands these issues better than journalist James Edward Mills, author of The Adventure Gap, a book that looks at the challenges minority groups face when engaging in outdoor recreation. In this first episode in a four-part series looking at inclusivity in outdoor communities, Mills asks Martin about his personal journey and the progress he’s achieved with BOC, and where we go from here.

In 2014, the federal government rounded up Cliven Bundy’s cattle over a matter of unpaid grazing fees. So the Bundy family gathered a posse and took them back at gunpoint. Two years later, they took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The Bundys are making a habit of taking on the federal government and winning. For the past two years, reporter Leah Sottile has been following this story, trying to figure out what all this means for the future of public lands in the American West, and wondering what happens next?

Kellee Edwards had a dream of getting her own show on the Travel Channel. She also had a plan. As a black woman trying to break into the overwhelmingly white and male world of travel television, she figured she would have to be overqualified to get noticed. So she got certified as a scuba diver, learned to pilot her own aircraft, and traveled solo to remote corners of the planet. In just a few years, she went from working as a bank teller to hosting the Travel Channel show Mysterious Islands. Outside contributor Stephanie Joyce wanted to know: What’s that trip been like? This episode incorrectly states that Kellee Edwards pitched her show, Mysterious Islands, to the Travel Channel. In fact, the production company Departure Films pitched the project.

Distance runner Alexi Pappas is the rare dual-threat of Olympic athlete and movie star. In the 2016 film Tracktown, which she wrote, directed, and plays the lead character in, she set out to capture the running-obsessed culture of Eugene, Oregon—a place where recreational runners share the trails with pros, and local farms and butchers step up as beef and vegetable sponsors for hungry athletes. Outside contributor Stephanie Joyce talked to Pappas about how her life as an Olympic hopeful translated to the big screen, and why so many people connect with her as an artist and a runner.

One day in 2005 or 2006, a young wolf in Idaho headed west. He swam across the Snake River to Oregon, which was then outside the gray wolf’s range. After he established a territory, he became the most controversial canid in the state. Dubbed OR4 by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, he was the alpha male of the first pack to live in Oregon in more than half a century. For years, biologist Russ Morgan tracked him, collared him, counted his pups, weighed him, photographed him, and protected him. Environmentalists rejoiced. Cattle ranchers called for his death. OR4 continued making bold raids on livestock and became known for his enduring competence as a hunter, father, and survivor. But nothing lasts forever.

Maverick’s, the monster surf break off the Northern California coast, has long been a proving ground for the world’s best big-wave surfers. But the contest held there most years has never included women, despite the fact that female surfers have been dropping in on giant swells for decades. In fact, the inaugural event at Maverick’s, held in 1999 and called Men Who Ride Mountains, took place several weeks after Sarah Gerhardt caught her first wave there. She wasn’t a professional surfer—she was a graduate student at the nearby University of California at Santa Cruz, where she had just started a Ph.D. in chemistry. Fast forward to today, and Gerhardt was one of six women invited to compete in a Maverick’s event. Outside contributor Stephanie Joyce caught up with the pioneering athlete to talk about her remarkable path.

After building Patagonia into an internationally renowned apparel brand, the company’s first CEO, Kris Tompkins, walked away from the job, following her heart to South America. She landed on a small farm in Chile, where she and her soon-to-be husband, The North Face founder Doug Tompkins, set to work conserving one of the last wild places on earth. But just as their dream of creating a network of parks stretching across Argentina and Chile was coming to fruition in 2015, she lost Doug in a kayaking accident. In response, Kris has doubled down on their vision while figuring out how to forge a new path forward, on her own.

It was the kind of disaster that wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. On February 11, 2017, the fishing vessel Destination disappeared in the Bering Sea on its way to the crab grounds. The boat went missing with an experienced crew, in unremarkable weather conditions, yet there was no mayday and rescue crews could find no life raft or survivors. For the past year, reporter Stephanie May Joyce has been following the investigation into what went wrong and how this mysterious tragedy has changed Alaskan fishing.

Apparently nobody told Bear Grylls that reality TV stars never have long careers. A dozen years after the cheeky Briton exploded onto American television, the king of survival entertainment is charging harder than ever, guiding A-listers into the wild for his NBC show Running Wild with Bear Grylls and launching innovative new series for Facebook and Netflix. He’s also building an adventure theme park in England and hosting a new survival race this spring outside Los Angeles that’s open to anyone. Outside executive editor Michael Roberts, who’s been covering Grylls for over a decade, tracked down the enduring icon on location in the Sierra Nevada to ask him: What’s your secret for survival? And why are you so convinced that going through tough times is good for all of us?

In her acclaimed 2012 memoir, Wild, Cheryl Strayed delivered a fresh take on outdoor writing—a redemption story set on the Pacific Crest Trail. The book spent seven weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List and reminded people everywhere that a grueling journey through the wilderness can help us overcome almost anything. At last year’s SXSW conference, Tim Ferriss sat down with Strayed for an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show to ask her about her creative process and philosophy. He has a way of getting remarkable people to explain their most effective habits and this conversation, on a stage in front of some 2,000 people, didn’t disappoint. We’ve been eager to share it with our audience since we heard it and this week we finally have our chance. You can also read a shortened text excerpt of the interview here

In 2009, Canadian researcher Geoff Hill asked park managers across North America what problems they needed solved. Every single one of them said human waste. Since then, Hill has been on a quest to figure out what to do about the fact that U.S. national parks get more than 300 million visitors each year, and at some point most of them have to take a dump. So far, every solution has failed. And so with every trip to the outhouse, we’re contaminating groundwater, spreading disease, and costing parks a fortune. Recently, however, Geoff found an elegant remedy. Correction: In this episode, we mistakenly say that Geoff Hill licensed a toilet from Ecosphere. The company’s name is Ecodomeo.

If you’ve ever beaten yourself up after eating an entire pint of ice cream, know this: it’s really not your fault. According to obesity researcher and neurobiologist Stephen Guyenet, author of The Hungry Brain and founder of the wellness and science blog Whole Health Source, millions of years of evolution have hardwired us to seek out sugary, fatty, and salty foods. All those calories kept us alive back when we were hunter-gathers. Today they just make us fat. Outside editor Christopher Keyes sits down with Guyenet to discuss why we feel so powerless in the face of decadent desserts, how different systems in our brain compete for dominance, and what we can do to combat all this temptation.

On the 833-mile border between Finland and Russia, a band of elite Finnish soldiers are preparing to defend the country if Russia decides it wants to again redraw the map of Europe. With tensions still high after the Kremlin’s invasion of Crimea and Ukraine, writer David Wolman went to Finland to find out what this tiny band of Finns can possibly do if the Russian war machine heads their way. Quite a lot, it turns out.

To write her three bestselling books on the ocean, Susan Casey went deep with great white sharks in California, big-wave surfing icon Laird Hamilton in Hawaii, and wild dolphins around the world. Her willingness to literally immerse herself in the topic of the ocean—she’s a former competitive swimmer—has allowed her to craft captivating stories that chronicle our relationship with the sea. And yet she’s a relative newcomer to the life aquatic. In the mid-nineties, she was Outside’s creative director, helping guide the publication to an unprecedented three consecutive National Magazine Awards. She was later the editor in chief of O, the Oprah Magazine. It seems that every time she tries something new she becomes one of the best at it. Outside editor Chris Keyes sat down with her to ask: How does she do it? And why is she so concerned about the future of the sea?

Falls are the leading cause of death in the backcountry. Nothing else comes close. And while many are freak accidents that amount to nothing more than bad luck, some are more nuanced and interesting—and personal. If you found yourself stuck at the bottom of a canyon with a broken leg, what would you do? And why? In this episode, we go inside the thought process of a real-life survivor—one who happens to host a podcast about survival.

Andy Petranek and Michael Stanwyck know fitness. Petranek was a former adventure racer and RedBull Athlete before founding one of the first CrossFit gyms. Soon after, Stanwyck walked in looking for a new type of workout and quickly became CrossFit LA’s manager. But while their classes made gym members stronger, the pair longed to have a more holistic impact on their clients. In 2011, they created the Whole Life Challenge, a six-week program that focuses on seven lifestyle changes that optimize well-being. The Challenge, which turns healthy living into a game, now attracts more than 50,000 participants a year. Last week, Petranek and Stanwyck sat down with Outside editor Chris Keyes to discuss the problem with diets, the keys to changing habits, the power of crowds, and how small lifestyle changes add up to make a big difference.

Bee venom is similar to a rattlesnake’s. It rapidly disperses in your tissue, and when you’re stung, the pain you feel is a combination of proteins and peptides attacking your cell membranes. Each sting contains enough venom to incapacitate a small mouse, but bees won’t really hurt you unless you’re allergic. Or at least, that’s what you thought until you disturbed a hive of Africanized bees, which have been known to chase attackers for more than ten hours.

There are several thousand species of mushroom, but only a handful that will kill you. And the toxins found in poisonous mushrooms are some of the deadliest natural poisons on earth. Just seven milligrams—one quarter of a grain of rice—is enough to kill an adult. When you picked some mushrooms off the forest floor, you planned to make a nice risotto. But now you’re in the hospital, fighting for your life.

What if you could opt out of society and go live in a completely self-contained glass bubble in the desert? You and your team would be cut off from the rest of society. For two years, you’d have to grow every morsel of food that you wanted to eat and fix anything and everything that went wrong. That was the plan for the team of scientists that entered Biosphere 2 in the mid-nineties. You may remember that they didn’t make it, but why was it the people on the outside who broke the glass and ended the experiment? Our friends at the podcast Terrestrial, from KUOW in Seattle, tell the story of what went wrong.

What happens to people who are swept out to sea? Some survive for months and even years, alone in lifeboats eating whatever they can catch and drinking rainwater. In this episode we ask you, the listener, to imagine a surfing session gone very wrong when a strong offshore wind blows you out into the ocean. You’re alone on your board, at the mercy of the weather. No one knows you’re out here and you have no way of calling for help. Do you have what it takes to endure until a rescue arrives? And then we tell you the true story of someone who did.

As we get ready to roll out new Science of Survival episodes beginning November 14, we wanted to replay the one that started it all. This thrilling re-creation of the classic Outside feature by Peter Stark leads the listener through a series of plausible mishaps on a bitterly cold night: a car accident on a lonely road, a broken ski binding that foils a backcountry escape, a disorienting tumble in the snow, and a slow descent into delirious hypothermia before (spoiler alert!) a dramatic rescue. Be prepared for a vivid and fascinating exploration of our physiological response to extreme cold that will forever change how you think about venturing into frozen landscapes.

Peak performance has always been about getting as close to your genetic potential as possible. The limits of your training, nutrition, and recovery are dictated by your DNA. But what if they weren’t? What if you could change the genetic code you were born with? As sequencing DNA gets cheaper and faster, and gene-editing tools get more precise and easy to use, we’re progressing toward a world where we might all have perfect DNA for our chosen sport—and be able to change it whenever we want. But getting there will be risky. In this final installment of our four-part look at the science of performance, Outside editor Christopher Keyes looks at the efforts of Josiah Zayner, who is taking a damn-the-torpedoes approach to doing everything he can to bring gene editing to a laboratory—or even a garage—near you.

If you want to understand sleep deprivation, you want to talk to a member of the Navy SEALs, who go nearly a week without rest during training. And there’s probably no better Navy SEAL to talk to than Kirk Parsley, the physician who started noticing all sorts of problems with his fellow elite soldiers. They weren’t recovering from workouts, they had trouble concentrating, and they were emotionally unstable. The culprit: they weren’t getting enough zzz’s. After a decade studying the benefits of sleep, Parsley says that getting enough rest at night is the single most effective performance-enhancing habit. Miss two hours of sleep and he can tell. Here, he goes beyond the eight-hour rule to talk specifically about how shuteye makes you faster, stronger, and smarter, and how sleep aids can actually do more harm than good.

Several decades ago, radio producer Scott Carrier and his brother Dave tried to chase down an antelope on foot. That might sound crazy, but Dave was an evolutionary biologist and had just come up with a radical idea: during the heat of the day, humans can outrun most any creature, even one of the world’s fastest animals. His theory was that humans had evolved as endurance predators, able to hunt without weapons. So the brothers gave it a shot, and Scott produced a story about the efforts that absolutely captivated people, especially young men. We talk with Scott about this and replay his amazing piece, which still feels fresh and relevant today.

For most athletes, achieving peak performance means training hard, eating right, and maybe some stretching. But when you get to the elite level, where everyone’s doing that, it’s the mental game that makes winners and losers. How hard can you push your body? How much pain can you tolerate? How can you avoid getting psyched out before a big event?  If you’re a top-tier professional athlete trying to train your brain, you’re likely going to turn to Michael Gervais, a renowned expert in high-performance psychology. His clients include the Seattle Seahawks, various Olympians, and Felix Baumgartner, that guy who jumped to earth from the edge of space. In this second installment of our four-part look at the science of performance, Outside editor Christopher Keyes sits down with Dr. Gervais to ask what advice he has for the rest of us.

Kevin Fedarko is a celebrated and well-heeled journalist, accustomed to dropping in on an exotic place and extracting a story, often in less than a week. But in 2004, he left his job at Outside and went looking for something deeper and more meaningful: a story forged over months and years. He ended up at the bottom of the Grand Canyon at the helm of a boat full of poop called the Jackass.

More than two decades after he radically transformed big-wave surfing, Laird Hamilton is still a dominant force in the sport. As detailed in the new documentary Take Every Wave, Hamilton is again pushing the edge with his new obsession, hydrofoil surfing. His wife, Gabby Reece, is a former professional volleyball player, model, author, and currently the host of the NBC reality show Strong. At their home in Malibu, Hamilton and Reece have created an elite training boot camp where they torture themselves daily, run extreme pool training classes, and constantly experiment with new approaches to exercise and nutrition. In this first installment of a four-part look at the science of performance, Outside editor Christopher Keyes pays the super couple a visit to try and understand the methods behind what sure looks like total madness.

Killer frogs! Forest-destroying moths! Bird-eating mongooses! These may sound like biblical plagues, but they’re the result of bad human decisions. All too often, after an invasive species shows up in an ecosystem and wreaks havoc, our response is to import another species that will eat the first one. Then, of course, the predator turns out to be even worse for the environment. Except now, maybe, we’ve figured out how to do biocontrol right. And as it turns out, some of those infamous mistakes weren’t so bad after all. In this story, our friends at New Hampshire Public Radio’s Outside/In reexamine the history of biocontrol to find out the truth behind the horror stories and understand why throwing hungry critters as a problem has enduring appeal.

Jack Johnson is known as the world’s mellowest pop star. A surfer raised on the north shore of Hawaii, his acoustic strumming has been the default soundtrack to good-times beach living for more than 15 years. But these days, something’s up with Jack Johnson. He’s decided that in the current political and social climate, quietly supporting environmental non-profits and greening the music industry isn't enough. He’s ready to speak up, beginning with his new album, All the Light Above It Too. Executive editor Michael Roberts chased Johnson down to ask: What happened?

Rebecca Rusch is called the "Queen of Pain" for a reason. She's a three-time world champion in the 24-Hour Mountain Bike race, the 2011 National XC single-speed champion, and she's won the Leadville 100 mountain bike race four times. But a couple years ago, Rusch decided to take on an entirely new kind of pain. It would involve an epic ride along the Ho Chi Minh trail to find the crash site where her father, a U.S. Air Force pilot, was shot down when she was just three years old. Her emotional journey is the subject of a new documentary called Blood Road. Rusch met up with XX Factor host Florence Williams at the Telluride Mountainfilm festival to explain why this was the hardest ride of her life.

In 2012, Vanessa Garrison co-founded GirlTrek, an organization with a simple goal: get women walking for 30 minutes a day. Now 110,000 walkers strong, GirlTrek is a national force. The story of GirlTrek is about health, justice, power, and survival. But mostly it’s the story of trying to change your community, and the world, through something as simple as going for a walk. To understand how GirlTrek was started, how it blew up, and where it’s going next, Outside contributing editor Florence Williams takes a rambling walk with Garrison around Washington, D.C.

The swamps of Alabama are one of the most biodiverse places on earth. They’ve been called America’s Amazon for the remarkable number of species of fish, turtles, mussels, and other aquatic creatures that live there. Not so long ago, the Alabama sturgeon was a staple of life in these parts. The funny looking fish swam here for millennia, migrating hundreds of miles up streams to spawn. They were caught and eaten in the tens of thousands. Then, a decade ago, they vanished. To the protectors of Alabama’s swamps, this presents a terrifying question: If the rivers can no longer support sturgeon, what does that say about the water we swim in and fish in and drink?

Among most important advances in sports technology, few can compete with the invention of the sports bra. Following the passage of Title IX in 1972, women’s interest in athletics surged. There was just one problem—actually, make that two problems: their breasts. Boob bounce hurts, as women getting in on the jogging craze found out. Then some friends in Vermont had an idea to stitch a couple jock straps together to build a contraption to keep things in place. Their creation revolutionized women’s participation in sports and launched what’s become a multi-billion-dollar industry. Today, high-tech boob labs are helping designers make ever more effective—and stylish—iterations, even for athletes with DDD cups. Outside contributing editor Florence Williams, author of Breasts, looks back at the game-changing invention, takes measure of just how far we’ve come, and points towards an even brighter, bounce-free future.

Nearly every sport can point to a comedy taking aim at its flaws. Hockey has Slap Shot. Car racing has Talladega Nights. Skiing has Hot Dog. And dodgeball has, well, Dodgeball. Now cycling can claim its own: HBO’s Tour de Pharmacy, featuring executive producer Andy Samberg and a laundry list of A-List celebrities. It’s about damn time. Is any sport riper for parody? Besides the rampant doping, there’s the leg shaving, the spandex, the team names, the whiteness, the stuffy British commentators, and, of course, the curiously misshapen bodies. The film sends up all that with a gonzo storyline that clocks in at a breezy 38 minutes and features—spoiler alert—no less than four shots of full frontal male nudity plus recurring commentary by Lance Armstrong. We caught up with Samberg to find out how the film came about, why he chose to pick on cycling, and his fetish for wiener gags.

When something goes wrong in the wilderness, someone needs to evacuate and get help. When that someone is you, and every minute counts, the stress is enormous. And you just might not be fast enough. Scott Pirsig and Bob Sturtz were on a spring canoeing adventure in the Boundary Waters, a million-acre wilderness in northern Minnesota, when Bob suddenly started acting weird. He complained of a headache. Then he became disoriented, lost control of his hands, and stopped speaking. He’d suffered a stroke, which meant time was everything: the longer it took to get him to a hospital, the more brain cells he’d lose. If it took more than a few hours, he’d die. So Scott zipped his friend into his sleeping bag, begged him to stay put, and paddled off at a sprint into dense fog. What happened next forever changed both men.

You hear about how the Arctic changes people—how it can lead them to lose their minds a little bit, or make dumb mistakes. Then there are those adventurers like Sarah McNair-Landry who are at their best on the ice. McNair-Landry grew up near the Arctic Circle, on Baffin Island. At 18, she joined a skiing expedition to the South Pole. A year later, she became the youngest person to reach both poles. She has since crossed the Greenland ice sheet five times and traversed the Gobi Desert in a kite buggy, among other journeys. Last year, she led a team that towed kayaks 400 miles across Greenland to run a river they'd seen on Google Earth. That was the plan, anyway—but almost nothing went as they expected. Outside contributing editor Florence Williams sat down with McNair-Landry at Mountainfilm, in Telluride, Colorado, to talk about sailing in frozen landscapes, close encounters with polar bears, and where she’s going next.

Water is life, we’re told. But what if you drink too much? As it turns out, there’s a little-discussed flipside to dehydration called hyponatremia—and it's been on the rise, killing athletes and otherwise healthy people every year. And while you may think you know how much you need to drink, chances are you're wrong.

What does it take to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage? According to Diana Nyad, the answer is passion bordering on obsession. Nyad first attempted the 111-mile crossing in 1978. Thirty-five years later, at the age of 64, following four failed efforts that left her devastated, she became the first person to complete the crossing, stroking for 53 hours almost nonstop. During her swims, Nyad encountered near-deadly box jellyfish stings, horrendous saltwater chafing, hallucinations, and sea sickness. Now she's turned the experience into a one-woman play that she wants to bring to Broadway. Outside contributing editor Florence Williams drops in on the unstoppable athlete and amazing storyteller at her LA home to talk about her long journey—and where she's headed next.

Mona Seraji is the first snowboarder from the Middle East to compete professionally in the Freeride World Qualifier, a series of big-mountain events that attract the best riders in the world. She's also a talented surfer, rock climber, and mountain biker. All this is more impressive when you consider the fact that in her home country of Iran, Seraji faces strict rules about how women can participate in athletics. Women aren’t allowed in sports stadiums, for example. They’re discouraged from riding bicycles in public. They can be arrested for showing too much skin or hair. In the United States, that sort of stuff is pretty much all we hear about female athletes—and women generally—in the Middle East. But it’s only part of the picture. Outside contributing editor Florence Williams talks with Seraji to get the real deal and hear how the athlete's powerful ambition enabled her to break new ground. 

Human beings spent centuries trying to control the weather. Then, about 70 years ago, we figured out the basics of what it takes to make it rain. Now, we're controlling more weather than you might think—and on the brink of a technology that may save us from the effects of climate change. But only if we're ok with playing God. Please let us know what you like—and don't like—about the Outside Podcast by completing a short survey.

Science can’t fully explain why and how tornadoes form. But on May 31, 2013, all the factors we do understand pointed towards off-the-charts risk in central Oklahoma. Hundreds of amateur storm chasers, professional meteorologists, and thrill-seekers flocked to the area expecting an incredible storm. What actually touched down blew them all away. 

Back when men still believed the “weaker sex” were inferior climbers, Arlene Blum led a women’s ascent of Annapurna, the world’s tenth-highest peak. The 1978 climb put the first women—and first Americans, period—on the summit, but the death of two climbers sparked a controversy. Outside contributing editor Florence Williams talks with Blum and Alpinist editor in chief Katie Ives about why the expedition continues to inspire climbers and stir debate. 

In the 1990s, Beth Rodden was a climbing prodigy, celebrated for her athletic gifts and unwavering discipline. Then, while on an expedition in Central Asia in 2000, she and her small team of friends were kidnapped. That terrifying ordeal—and their daring escape—changed her life in ways she has only recently begun to understand. In a revealing conversation with Outside contributing editor Florence Williams, Rodden opens up about the price of perfectionism, blowing up her marriage to climbing superstar Tommy Caldwell, and moving forward as an athlete and new mother.

Once Joe Stone learned how to use his paralyzed body, he immediately set an audacious goal: he would race in an Ironman triathlon—despite the fact that no quadriplegic athlete had ever attempted the event. And after that? Well, Joe decided he could go much, much bigger.

Joe Stone doesn’t do anything halfway. Back when he was a skater, he went big. When he partied, he went hard. When he took up skydiving and speed-flying, he flew almost every day. Then one day he crashed and became a C7 quadriplegic. What do you do when you’re addicted to adrenaline but confined to a wheelchair? A lot of stuff that no one else has ever done before.

On the morning of May 25, 2006,  Myles Osborne was poised to become one of the last climbers of the season to summit Mount Everest. The weather was perfect, and it seemed nothing would stop his team. Then a flapping of orange fabric caught his eye. He believed it to be a tent—until the fabric spoke: “I imagine you’re surprised to see me here.” The speaker was Lincoln Hall, who'd been reported dead the night before. He was gloveless, frostbitten, and hallucinating—but alive. Osborne's expedition was faced with a dilemma: would they stay and help Hall, giving up the summit and endangering their own lives? Or finish this once-in-a-lifetime journey that had been years in the making? We explore the choice they made and look into the fascinating science around how we make decisions in high-risk environments—and live with them afterward.

What’s the cure for our modern malaise of stress, distraction, and screen addiction? Nature, of course. But while many people advocate the benefits of getting outside, we are only just beginning to understand what really happens to us when we venture out the door. For her new book, The Nature Fix, Outside contributing editor Florence Williams expands on a 2012 feature she wrote about Japanese forest bathing, delving deep into the fascinating science behind the restorative power of wild places. Outside editor Christopher Keyes talks with Williams about the research being done around the world to investigate how spending more time in nature can make us healthier, happier, and even more creative.

In the summer of 1970, Ed Welch and Bruce Frey put in a canoe at the headwaters of the Amazon and shoved off into the current. Their only plan was to travel downstream until it wasn’t fun anymore. They had a rifle, they had a machete, they had a vague idea of how to survive in the jungle. Then a jaguar chased both of them up a tree.

Denmark's rugged Faroe Islands are known for sheep, rowboats, and a brutal tradition called “The Grind” in which Faroese men butcher hundreds of pilot whales by hand, on the beach, in full view of locals and tourists. Reporter Joel Carnegie traveled to the islands last summer to try to understand the cultural forces that sustain the bloody practice. What's the point if the whales are no longer needed for income or food (and the meat may contain toxic levels of mercury)? And what happens when an anti-whaling environmental group shows up telling them to stop—or else?

Writer Mark Sundeen spent the last three years chronicling the lives of three couples who have dropped out of mainstream society, trading cars, technology, and electricity for freedom and hard work on the new American frontier. The result is his latest book, The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today's America, a fascinating, timely, and deeply personal examination of what it means to be a non-conformist in the modern age. Editor Chris Keyes talks with the frequent Outside contributor, who wrote a feature for the January/February 2017 issue on the tiny-house movement and has been described as the "our poet laureate of alternative lifestyles."

Wolf howls, bird songs, crickets, frogs—soundscapes contain clues to not only what's going on around us but also who we are. Not just as individuals, but as human beings. Or at least, that's what Bernie Krause says. Krause is a soundscape artist who's spent decades collecting the sounds of the natural world and contemplating their meaning. In this piece, producer Tim Hinman from the podcast Sound Matters talks to Krause about how soundscapes work, what they can tell us about our world, and why audio ecology should be an integral part of how we think about conservation.

“If you're not at the table, you're on the menu,” says Sally Jewell. Hopeful, thoughtful, slightly ticked-off, and surprisingly emotional, the outgoing Secretary of the Interior talks with Outside editor Chris Keyes about the presidential election and what it means for the future of public lands. Can environmental protections be dismantled? Will they? Are we going to see an increase in Malheur Wildlife Refuge-style occupations? America's chief steward reflects on leaving her post and what we can expect from the next administration.

Dan  Futrell and Isaac Stonerand are back from searching through the wreckage of Eastern Airlines Flight 980 on a remote mountain in Bolivia, and their findings have prompted a whole new set of questions. Will anyone look at the material they brought back to the U.S.? Who hired climber Bernardo Guarachi to get to the crash site back in 1985? And why did he never speak to anyone about his ascent? Have the details of the crash remained a mystery because of international cover up or just bad weather and bad luck? In this episode, we delve more into the seemingly unsolvable mystery of a 1985 airplane collision and the two men trying to solve it.

Since colliding with a Bolivian mountain in 1985, Eastern Airlines Flight 980 has been frozen inside a glacier perched on the edge of a 3,000-foot drop. With wreckage now melting out of the ice at the base of the cliff, Dan Futrell and Isaac Stoner travel to the debris field at 16,000 feet, battling altitude sickness and a roller coaster of emotions as they search for 980’s missing flight recorder.

Since colliding into a Bolivian mountain in 1985, Eastern Airlines Flight 980 has been frozen inside a glacier perched on the edge of a 3,000-foot drop. With wreckage now melting out of ice at the base of the cliff, Dan Futrell and Isaac Stoner travel to the debris field at 16,000 feet, battling altitude sickness and a roller coaster of emotions in search for 980’s missing flight recorder.

John Muir rhapsodizing about Yosemite is one thing, but Outside contributing editor Ian Frazier has had it with people calling their favorite outdoor spots “cathedrals,” “shrines,” and “sacred spaces.” When he made his case in an issue of Outside, it struck a major nerve with readers. Frazier explains his argument, reacts to reader letters, and reads the story that ignited a firestorm.

Scientists are compiling huge amounts of data on the impact of global warming, but the story of that data often gets lost. Enter NikSawe, a researcher at Stanford who is transforming big data into music. Two parts science, one art, data sonification turns the numbers we tend to ignore into a very human story, and could potentially help scientists identify new trends and correlations that are easier to hear than to see.

For two decades, Conrad Anker has been at the forefront of climbing, evolving into America’s best all-around alpinist. With skills on rock, ice, and big peaks, he's now something of an elder statesmen and mentor to a new generation of elite athletes. Though perhaps best known for finding the body of legendary British mountaineer George Mallory on Mount Everest in 1999, he is celebrated among climbers for scaling a variety of difficult and dangerous routes on technical peaks around the world. Outside editor Chris Keyes talks to Anker about his long journey from dirtbag to rock star, the critical importance of choosing the right climbing partners, and why some consider bottled oxygen a performance-enhancing drug.

Author Mark Johnson argues that performance enhancing drugs are hardly a recent phenomenon. In his new book, Spitting in the Soup, he traces doping all the way back to the 1904 Olympic marathon in St. Louis and shows how doping and sport have been fundamentally intertwined for more than a century. The only thing new, says Johnson, is our increasingly moralistic view of the practice and the demonization of athletes who get caught. Chris Keyes talks to Johnson about the surprising history of doping, America's double standards when it comes to performance enhancement, the trouble with media sensationalism, and the coming era of gene doping that will change sports forever.

Tim Ferriss is many things. A bestselling author. A kickboxing champion. A horseback archer. The first American in history to hold a Guinness World Record in tango. He has built an enormous following by doing just about everything—and, more importantly, figuring out how to do it all better than most experts and then sharing what he’s learned with the rest of us. He calls himself a human guinea pig. Outside editor Chris Keyes talks to Ferriss about the origins and evolution of his uniquely aggressive approach to experimentation and his self-improvement.  Read Tim Ferriss's latest book, filled with expert advice on happiness, meaning, and secrets to success.

Jason Motlagh and his crew were the first journalists in years to successfully cross the Darién Gap, a lawless, roadless jungle on the border of Colombia and Panama. Teeming with deadly snakes, drug traffickers, and antigovernment guerrillas, it has become a pathway for migrants whose desperation to reach the U.S. sends them on a perilous journey. He talks to Chris Keyes about the risks and logistics of the assignment, his motivations as a reporter, and the emotional toll of working in conflict zones.

Robert Young Pelton has made a career of tracking down warlords and interviewing people in the most dangerous places in the world. He's been kidnapped in Colombia, survived an assassination attempt in Uganda, and joined the hunt for Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Outside editor Chris Keyes wanted to know how spending that much time on the edge has affected him in the long term. But the answer's not what you'd think.

It could be one of the most incredible, yet perplexing, survival stories of all time: In 1991, a man named Michael Proudfoot was supposedly SCUBA diving on a shipwreck off the coast of Baja, Mexico, when his regulator—or mouthpiece—broke. He was alone, deep underwater inside a sunken ship, with only minutes to survive before he would run out of air. The string of bizarre events that take place next seem unreal.

When you’re stuck underwater in a submarine, the number of ways you can die is long and varied—crushing, burning, asphyxiation, exploding, the list goes on and on. Escaping alive requires maintaining calm and making all the right choices. Which makes it all the more surprising that one of the first known submarine survival stories—which includes a 19th century Prussian carpenter and a military crew—involves the first-known undersea fistfight.

For centuries, the Devil’s Highway—a waterless pathway through desert in southern Arizona—was one of the deadliest places in North America, killing thousands of Spanish conquistadors, gold prospectors, and migrants. Construction of a circumnavigating railroad allowed fatalities to taper at the end of the 19th century, but in the early 2000s, the route again became lethal. As immigration crackdown increased along other sections of the U.S.–Mexico border, illegal immigrants resorted to using the desert for entry, unaware that it would kill them. One infamous modern tragedy along the Devil’s Highway took place in spring 2001, when a large group, led by an experienced guide, set out from the Mexican border town of Senoyta. The disturbing outcome—and many others like it—helped researchers develop the Death Index, a new model for predicting dehydration fatalities.

Thirst is an unpredictable threat. In its early stages, it’s much like mild hunger. For centuries, hydration was as much superstition as science. But historical events at Devil’s Highway—a notoriously deadly path in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona—are proof of dehydration’s deadly risk. It was 1905 when Pablo Valencia, a gold prospector in his 40s, came stumbling into a geology camp, desperate for water. Valencia had spent the past six days wandering a 110-degree desert, where water sources can be separated by 100 miles, alone. He shouldn’t have been alive, but he was. Geologist William John McGee helped nurse Valencia back to health, bearing witness to the excruciating reality of what happens to the body while dying of thirst. In this episode, we dive into the history of a desert that claimed thousands of lives, as well as the ways this particular tale has forever altered modern understanding of the limits of dehydration.

One of the most famous accidents in wingsuit history.

Most of the time, when lightning makes the news, it’s because of an outlandish happening, seemingly too strange to be true. Like the park ranger who was struck seven times. Or the survivor who also won the lottery (the chances of which are about one in 2.6 trillion). Or the guy who claimed lightning strike gave him sudden musical talent. This is not one of those stories. This is about Phil Broscovak—who was struck by lightning while on a climbing trip with family in 2005—and the reality of life post-strike. In this intriguing episode, we investigate lightning strike recovery and the confounding, bizarre science that only hints at what Phil and other survivors endure. “You become a bag of shattered glass, really,” he says.

This thrilling re-creation of the classic hypothermia feature by Peter Stark brings the listener through a series of plausible mishaps on a bitterly cold night: a car accident on a lonely road, a broken ski binding that foils a backcountry escape, a disorienting tumble in the snow, and a slow descent into delirious hypothermia before (spoiler alert!) a dramatic rescue. "I started thinking about how one little mistake leads to another and another in an accumulation of mistakes that leads to an untenable situation," says Stark. "Frozen Alive" is a fascinating, accurate description of our physiological response to extreme cold, deepening listeners’ respect for how the human body metamorphoses when cooled.

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