Month: March 2019

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Big-wall climber Quinn Brett had sent the Nose on El Capitan eight times. In 2012, she set a women’s speed-ascent record on the route, so she was comfortable with the moves. Sure, she’d fallen, but never on the boot flake, a jutting slab about 100 feet high. As she maneuvered the feature two months ago while climbing with Josie McKee, Brett says her mind was elsewhere. Work stuff, relationship stuff. “I wasn’t feeling it,” she says. “But I made plans with people to be on El Cap, and it’s where I go every October. I wasn’t listening to myself like I should have.”

Near the top of the boot flake, she removed a cam. Or maybe she set a cam attached to her daisy chain. Brett remembers that something fell between her legs, then she fell, the rope went slack, then blackness. She crashed to the ground, and when she woke, the faces of Yosemite’s emergency rescue team crowded over her. Later she learned that she’d broken her 12th thoracic vertebra and was paralyzed.

Brett was recently transferred from Modesto, California, to a hospital near Denver, where she spends all day in physical training and relearning the simple chores of life: showering, doing laundry, grocery shopping. “I have good mornings,” Brett says, “then the afternoon comes, something happens, and it puts me down and I’m laughing and crying all in the same breath.”

Spinal injuries can be a bit of a mystery. Brett may never walk again—or she might. While she recovers, Brett’s friends started a YouCaring page to help with bills, and on January 13 they’re holding a benefit auction and film festival, supported by the Reel Rock Film Tour. Brett, meanwhile, is trying to think of a new life, possibly one in a wheelchair. She was a climber, as well as a ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park. What will she be now? She’s always been a giggling, handstanding burst of positivity. Does the accident allow her to be mad and depressed? “I’m fearful of friends not engaging with me,” Brett says from the hospital, “men not engaging with me. Not being able to stand up and make cookies.”

Brett has kept a personal blog for years, and while it mostly details her trips and climbs, she recently wrote a very powerful message—her first after the fall. It is such a frank and honest look at the risks we take—and the consequences of those risks—that Outside asked Brett to republish the post in its entirety.

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I am.

I am so many things.

I am frustrated, sad, regretful, pissed, confused, pissed—pissed again. Sometimes I am depressed, wonder if I should be here. It’s true. It’s sad. Especially given our community’s recent crazy-in-our-face losses and near misses. We have all dealt with loss, I guess this loss is one I am unfamiliar with, coupled with the terrible losses we are familiar with.

These thoughts are not generally my demeanor. Here we are now.

I laugh, hardcore belly chuckles.

I have snorted again. Will I handstand again?

I can’t believe that this is where I am at. My decision to not fully listen to myself. My decision to push it a little bit, reflecting back, push it for me even. I told Josie I wanted to try hard this day, get us closer to our projected/needed time for future endeavors.

I usually place two cams and crack jumar up the boot flake. Free-climbing some, back-cleaning the whole thing, but using cams. This day, once through the techy start, I used one red camelot attached to my daisy. I even removed it for a minute and thought, “I shouldn’t do that.” A few minutes later, I fell. No memory yet of the exact moment. Obviously a failure.

I hesitated climbing off of Texas flake, feeling a little off. My decision to drive to Yosemite, given the end of my work season at Rocky Mountain National Park, my woes with climbing and personal life. Karla told me I shouldn’t “run away” to Yosemite. My body wanted to go to Indian Creek and just soak up some sun. Go mountain biking and running. I promised people I would come to Yosemite. I booked campsites. My ego wanted to see about certain ideas I had been scheming. Ego needed to keep pushing.

WHAT THE FUCK!

I don’t know if I will stand on top of Longs Peak again. I loved my job as a climbing ranger, my co-workers, and my easy, comfortable, amazing lifestyle.

Will I ever walk hand in hand with Max again… WALK hand in hand? BE with MAX? Live a life without diapers and worrying about shitting in the middle of the night because I have no control?

I am not used to leaning on others. Nor do I like it. Asking for help, like for the rest of my life? I have never been in the hospital. I liked living simply and under the radar. Bills, future needs, like changing my car so I can drive it without usable legs, remodeling my home so I can shower and shit, or moving to a home that is more conducive. It is beyond the scope of Quinn Brett’s desire for a simple existence. For now.

I keep saying that phrase lately. For now.

Work, what will I do for work? Will the National Park Service have me and help me create something meaningful? Will Remote Medical and I continue to meld a solution? Will I be able to write for money, public speak for money? What about my Dovetail Retreats and desire to keep pushing others to their limits mentally and physically, inspire them.

Thought I would share something. It’s not the usual positive “I got this” sort of vibe. Sorry for that. I am tearful every day but laugh every day.

Tomorrow I leave Modesto and head to the Craig Hospital in Denver.

I am scared.

I am sorry.

I am overwhelmed.

I am incredibly appreciative to everyone for their support, monetarily and emotionally. I need every last one of you and can’t keep on without you. Please keep me in your thoughts, text me, email me, reach out. Strangers and friends alike. I need you all.

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I was in the second stage of the TransRockies Run, heading up to Hope Pass on the Sheep Gulch Trail, when I heard faraway rumbles of thunder. I should say “we”—I was with the sweeps, whose job was to stay with the last runner in the race. They hurried me, though I felt like I could move no more quickly than I had already been moving. My head pounded, my sinuses burned, my vision was slightly blurred, and my lungs struggled to process the little oxygen available this high up.

I reached the top and breathed in thin air, quickly, my heart pounding because the effort had been so great. I turned around slowly and smiled.

This body that society and even some fellow trail runners viewed as a black hole of incapability is a rich center of power and strength, if not speed. This body is deemed a failure to many who judge it by its face value. It is devalued even, protested, and placed in the category of the unseemly. But take her out in the wild and she proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that instead of embodying burden, she is a powerful force. She may move slowly up the mountain, each heavy step deliberate and calculating, but she moves nonetheless. She belongs on those lodgepole-choked trails on this hulking protrusion of earth.

The TransRockies Run, a six-day race featuring 20,000 feet of elevation gain over 120 miles, took place this past August. The race is affectionately known as Running Camp for Grown-Ups, and features trail runs from 14 to 24 miles each day, covering terrain at altitudes between 8,000 and 12,500 feet in the Colorado Rockies. One of the reasons this event appealed to me was not only its difficulty, but also the knowledge that if I didn’t finish a particular stage, I could still start the next day—not the case with other multiday events.

I had never attempted anything of this magnitude—a test of pure will and strength that would require me to wake up in my tent, frozen nose and all, then move my body for many miles across terrain very different from the perpetually damp forests of the Southeast, where I live. I knew intellectually that it would be difficult. I had an image of what challenges I might confront—altitude sickness here and there, the constant up and down of the trail, the cold temperatures in the evenings—those were all things I could deal with. In reality, I had no idea.

Now, standing on Hope Pass during Stage Two, I panned the rugged, velvety, still snow-covered Collegiate Peaks and marveled at the stark grays of the jagged rock against the pale blue sky. It had taken me a very long time to reach the pass, but I had done it, in my big, problematic body. I thought of my trail friend Ric, whom I had met at the Double Tap 50K in the North Georgia Mountains two years earlier.

The first time I encountered him was after I had just completed ascending the notoriously difficult power-line climb on the Double Tap course. It took just about 45 minutes of huffing, puffing, and cursing any animal and tree that would listen. Because my pace is much slower than most, I spend a lot of time alone on the trail, even in trail races. I’m often the last person out there. I was so slow on this day that Ric, a race volunteer, came looking for me from the other direction, wearing a bright yellow T-shirt that said “ENABLER.”

He ran with me for a bit, eventually lending me his trekking poles. He pointed out various flora and far-off peaks in the Cohutta Range. All of a sudden, Ric stopped in front of a tree with a large trunk. I thought something was wrong.

“Do you know what this big hole is?”

“Um, no?”

“That hole there? It’s called a snag. A snag is an area that experienced some type of trauma. Maybe a cut, maybe the trunk encountered something as it was growing. And what’s cool about it is that the tree just continues to grow around it. And then, animals and insects make their home there. That’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “That is pretty cool.”

We continued on for another mile or so until Ric left me to my own poorly prepared devices.

At one point, I wanted to title my memoir Snag, because many of life’s experiences are like snags—you reach something, an obstacle, a challenge, or a situation that in the moment may seem impossible, but somehow you manage to either forge your own way around the obstacle, make your home in it, or struggle through it—and you continue to grow. That’s how my running life has been—full of snags disguised as learning.

Although I struggled ascending the steep slope of Sheep Gulch Trail near Leadville, I could see very clearly what the entire six days of TransRockieswould mean for me. It would be a sufferfest, one that I had gladly accepted. I would have to get up each day and attempt anywhere from 14 to 24 miles on terrain that tested both body and mind. I would suffer from bouts of altitude sickness—one day would be my irritated stomach, another day would be my burning chest, and yet another would be my head, which made me feel like I was underwater.

Every stage of the race seemed insurmountable in some respect. There were the relentless undulating hills of the first stage, a high-desert environment complete with cacti and other threatening flora. Running through it was exhilarating at times. Other times, it was lonely and desolate, with its claustrophobic spaces that would eventually open up to grand vistas of surrounding peaks. There were interminable hills during the fourth stage that left my legs burning—hills that tricked my legs into craving more hills after I trashed my quads on scree-filled, butt-sliding descents.

My growth didn’t necessarily occur in those moments of hardship. It took a while for any wisdom to accumulate—after the pain, soreness, and feeling of a shattered ego subsided. Twice I broke down and sobbed from exhaustion, dizziness, and disappointment when I felt unable to continue. But after all was said and done, I could grow from what I’d learned.

Every step forward was proof that I could actually move my body up and across mountains. Every pain in my abdomen taught me that I am, in fact, a vibrant human being—feeling the pain of my stomach trying to move nutrients into their appropriate places. Every gasp for air was evidence that I was still breathing. Every little inconvenience or hurdle meant something much bigger and helped me gain and maintain perspective over the course of these six trying days. I never quit.

Were my body not a capable, living, breathing, being, I would not have been able to even envision myself on top of some mountain in Colorado, in the middle of TransRockies.

The 72 miles and 14,250 feet of elevation gain I completed were far from the 120 miles I had hoped to beast through when Kevin Houda, TransRockies race director, first planted the seed back in December of 2016. Some sunburnt cheeks and a few black toenails later, I have a new appreciation for trying something difficult just for the sake of difficulty. Although I overestimated my readiness for this adventure and suffered at the hands of the mountain gods for my hubris, I came out in the end, more humble, focused, and determined to give it another shot in 2018, as I have some unfinished business to contend with.

Many would see my almost daily DNFs at TransRockies as a failure. I choose to see them as opportunities for flourishing, further nurturing of the body and soul so that it may go longer, farther, higher, and more powerfully than before.

Game on.

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Last Wednesday, Cat Bradley set a new Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim (R2R2R) Fastest Known Time, breaking the previous record by23 minutes.Even though Cat is best known for her prestigious win at Western States this past June, her new FKT speaks much more to her personality. Cat hates attention. She keeps her obsessions to herself. Since 2014, when her quest for the R2R2R FKT began, she’s cared far more about running the Canyon than about winning any race.  

In April of that year, well before Cat had legitimate ultrarunning experience, let alone sponsors, she hiked the double crossing with friends, including ultrarunning legend Louis Escobar. She says she did it “basically off the couch,” and it took over 16 hours. Upon finishing, she decided that one day she’d go for the FKT.

Salt Lake City ultrarunner Bethany Lewis had held the women’s FKT (8 hours 15 minutes) since 2011. Considering the pace at which ultrarunning is growing, and how frequently race course records are bested, Lewis’s FKT was stout. Several women, including elite ultrarunners Darcy Piceu, Anna Mae Flynn, and Cassie Scallon, had tried to break it since.

For most R2R2R FKT attempts, runners start and finish at the South Rim. (Though Lewis started on the North Rim.) The run starts with 5,000 feet of descent, then crosses the Colorado River, before ascending 6,000 feet to the North Rim. That’s a R2R. For the double crossing, runners turn around and retrace their steps. The run is 42 miles, with over 11,000 feet of elevation gain.

A few months before Cat’s first FKT attempt, in January 2016, I met her at a group run in Boulder. Cat was quiet, but chatty when the subject was ultrarunning. She also ran a ton, tackling stupid hard efforts on her own terms, like adding nine miles of road after three laps of Green Mountain one Saturday. (One lap of Green is six miles with 2,500 feet of vert.)

In early April 2016, Cat asked if I could help crew her for a Canyon FKT attempt, but I couldn’t go on short notice. Cat herself was still recovering from bronchitis and had just been diagnosed with celiac disease, but she went for it anyway. People like Cat were my first taste of the ultrarunning scene, so I figured that going for a huge FKT while on antibiotics must be a normal thing. Now I realize that isn’t the case—Cat was just that obsessed.

In hindsight, Cat admits she was woefully underprepared for her first attempt. She was fit, but had not trained specifically for the Canyon’s brutally long climbs and descents. “When you’re moving fast in the Canyon, everything is different,” she says. For example, Cat’s first ever hike down the South Rim took four hours. The record pace is 50 minutes. As pacer and ultrarunner Nico Barraza says, “If you really run the Canyon hard, it’s going to kick you in the teeth.”

During her first attempt, she vomited and coughed nearly the whole time, and her boyfriend Ryan called the whole thing off with 14 miles to go. After resting and refueling, they hiked the rest of the Canyon back to their car at the South Rim. Cat was heartbroken.

She ran a few races that spring and fall, but nothing major. In the fall of 2016, something changed—Cat grew visibly more serious about ultrarunning. She got a coach, David Roche, and started winning races, including the Rio del Lago 100-miler.

This past spring, Cat planned to go for the Canyon again. She knew she’d be racing Western States in June, but she says, “leading up to Western, the Canyon was my real goal.”  

She trained all winter for her second attempt, but it never actually happened. Rockslides on the North Rim closed access to the Canyon for the few weeks when she had her only break from her teaching job. She channeled that training into Western States, and won. By September, she’d decided she had to go for the Canyon again.

Cat says her second FKT attempt, in early October, just wasn’t her day. Jim Walmsley, who has the men’s R2R2R FKT in a blisteringly fast 5 hours 55 minutes, paced her for both attempts this fall and says that in October, her stomach caused a lot of issues and it was hot. She ran the whole double crossing, but was off record pace by the halfway mark.

After that, she took a week and a half of easy running, recovered well, and then realized she was still fit and ready to go for something big before the end of the year. She considered racing the the North Face 50-mile Championships, which I was doing, but she decided against it. “I felt like I couldn’t move on to the next project until I got this done,” she says.

Early on November 14th, Cat set out with her pacers, Walmsley and Barraza. She bombed down the first descent in 47 minutes, ahead of record pace. She held pace throughout, even after struggling through a tough ascent of the North Rim, and hardly eating the last half of the attempt—“maybe 500 calories over the whole day” she says. Cat’s atrocious stomach had been her demise in the past, but to my amazement, she’s somehow finagled running insanely well purely on fumes and seltzer water in the final pushes of her biggest efforts.

Cat dug deep in her final ascent up the South Rim—cheered on by drunk rafters who heard from Barraza at Phantom Ranch that she was on record pace—and set the women’s record: 7 hours and 52 minutes. Cat doesn’t care that she didn’t race again this year after Western States; she’s fiercely loyal to her personal goals. “Even though it’s not a race or a high profile thing, these personal projects are what keep me coming back to the sport,” she says. While she figures out what’s next, everyone guard your FKTs.

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Our bike editor weighs in on the pros and cons of one of the fastest-growing categories in the industry

Buying tires for your car can be confounding. What do all those numbers and letters mean? Do I need an all-terrain tire, or am I better off with an all-season? It’s a giant rabbit hole, and one that now exists in the mountain bike world, too. There are 26-, 29-, and 27.5-inch models (sometimes still called 650B) and an ever-growing number of tire widths, including “plus,” where manufacturers put wider, higher-volume tires on existing rims for additional benefits.

“Plus tires add traction and mute the small bumps,” says Chris Conroy, president of Yeti Cycles, speaking about the company’s SB5+. “These are bikes for any rider who wants added confidence, a supple ride, and all-day performance.” The added traction, confidence, and compliance come from the larger rubber patch contacting the ground.

There are drawbacks, of course. For one, the bigger tires add weight and rolling resistance, which can make for a slower, heavier-feeling ride. (In the case of bikes that accommodate both 27.5+ and 29-inch wheels, I’ve found the that the weights are either comparable, or, in a few cases, the 29ers are nominally lighter.) Plus tires can also be extremely pressure sensitive: Get the combination just right and they feel bomber. Go a PSI or two low and the larger sidewalls and added volume can wiggle, feel unstable in corners, and pinch-flat easily. Low bottom brackets, which you often find on plus-size bikes, have also caused pedal-strike issues.

Plus development is taking place on both 27.5- and 29-inch wheels. While the innovations around 29+ have resulted in some of my favorite bikes out there (Trek Stache, Salsa Deadwood Sus, and Niner Ros9+), most of today’s plus models are 27.5+. The tires generally measure 2.8 to 3 inches. On a 29er rim (622mm), you get 30 inches and up of total wheel diameter, which is wildly too big to fit existing frame designs. On the other hand, on a standard 27.5-inch rim (584mm), three-inch rubber bumps the overall wheel size to around 28 inches, which either requires minimal changes to existing bike geometries or fits just fine. Valid arguments about the deftness and weight of 29+ exist, but 27.5+ bikes are more popular because engineering them is easier.

One of the most common questions I hear is, “Are plus bikes right for me?” The truth is, there’s no exact answer. Mostly, my experience is that plus wheels reward those who like a more stable-feeling ride. On the other side, skinnier tires favor speed, handling, and agility. “[A plus-size tire] gives you so much traction and so much confidence,” says Chris Cocalis, owner of Pivot Cycles, whose Switchblade, which allows for both 27.5+ and 29-inch wheels, was my favorite test bike of the year. “The technology can allow a high-level expert rider to push harder in the right conditions, especially as tire performance and impact resistance improve without adding weight. But it can also up the confidence and level of riding for every rider.”

If you live somewhere with a lot of loose terrain—for instance, the jangling rocks in Tucson and Phoenix or the gravelly kitty litter in Los Alamos, New Mexico—plus tires will make a difference. But if you live somewhere with a lot of smooth, flowing, not highly technical trails—like Bend, Oregon—I’d likely lean away from plus-size bikes. The small-bump compression and added traction of plus tires won’t be as noticeable or important in such settings, but you will notice the increased rolling resistance. Also, I’ve noticed that smaller riders, as well as women, often lean away from plus-size and toward 29ers because their smaller statures tend to be more affected by the added weight and rolling resistance of the wider tires.

Going forward, plus bikes will continue to evolve. Current thinking calls anything that’s 2.4 inches and under “standard” and 2.8- to 3.25-inch “plus,” but the coming season is going to see a profusion of 2.6-inch tires that split the difference. The idea, of course, is that the in-between width adds traction without the weight of a full plus-size tire.

This constantly shifting landscape can be aggravating. And the truth is that when we get into this game of a tenth or two of an inch, it’s likely splitting hairs. The only silver lining: The industry continues to refine designs, which, in the long run, will mean better bikes and more choices.

If you’re looking to buy a plus-size bike, here’s a smattering of our favorite models from 2017 and thoughts on why they might be right for you. As always, the best way to find the right bike is to demo several and find the one that feels good.

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Pivot Switchblade ($5,200 to $10,300)

There are two types of plus-size bikes today: those marketed solely around plus-wheels, and those intended to fit both 27.5+ and 29. Along with the Santa Cruz Tallboy, the carbon Switchblade was the best at morphing between sizes during this year’s bike test.

With a DW-Link rear suspension that pedals admirably, incredibly refined cable routings and ports, and a graphics package that made testers swoon, this bike is possibly the most refined model I’ve ever seen from Pivot. The Switchblade has 135mm of rear travel and an even bigger front end—150mm in 29 mode, 160mm for 27.5+. But what really sets it apart is a proprietary rear hub spacing that Pivot calls (tongue in cheek) Super Boost 157. Without getting into the wonky details, there are two things of note: The first is that a 157mm rear end is not new. It’s been used on the downhill circuit. Also, the additional width (as with the Boost 148 before it) makes for an incredibly stiff wheel and platform and provides for huge tire clearance (up to 3.25 inches on a 27.5 wheel), while maintaining relatively short chainstays. It also makes it possible to run a front derailleur. It works great and makes good sense, but the singularity (you can’t sub your old wheels) was a strike against it in some testers’ eyes.

The Switchblade feels as burly as a Pinzgauer, but one that’s souped up with a drag-race engine. This bike jammed through rock gardens, carved corners like a turkey knife, and basically shrugged off everything we threw at it. At 28.9 pounds, it is not exceptionally light, but it never felt heavy.

To account for the slight wheel-size difference that’s created when you swap, Pivot included a headset spacer that raises the bottom bracket on the plus setup. It works so well that we had almost zero of the pedal-strike issues that have plagued some earlier 27.5+ models. For most long days and all-around riding, I picked the 29-inch hoops with 2.4-inch tires. However, on loose, rubbly terrain, the combo of 2.8-inch Ikon+ tires on 27.5 wheels was the clear winner. The fact that I couldn’t decide outright on wheel preference basically underscores the Switchblade’s utility. It’s an incredible trail bike in both iterations—and the option to run either wheel size makes it great for dipping your toes in both ends.

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Yeti SB5+ ($4,700 to $10,500)

By the numbers, the Yeti and Pivot are basically identical, yet they feel and ride very differently. With 127mm of rear travel and a 150mm fork, the SB5+ has a harder edge to it than the Switchblade and feels more aggressive and racy. It’s significantly lighter, too—just 27.1 pounds, even with a lower-tier build.

The bike uses Yeti’s proprietary, tried-and-true Switch Infinity Link, which has earned kudos since its introduction a few years back for its full, even feel through the range of travel. On some other Yeti models, I’ve felt that the suspension was almost too progressive and was never able to ramp it up all the way. Not so here: The SB5+ has the most supple and consistent-feeling suspension we’ve ever experienced from Yeti. It was even a huge hit with the women who tested it, meaning not too stiff for their generally lighter weights.

One of the hardest things to accomplish on a plus-size bike is accommodating for the extra rubber while keeping the rear triangle tight. A handful of companies have gone the elevated chainstay route, and though this can often look goofy verging on atrocious, Yeti nailed it with the SB5+. This bike is so gorgeously sculpted and tight that you barely even notice the squat rear triangle.

Yeti bikes are pricey, but I appreciate that even the lowest-level offerings come equipped with the same suspension as the top builds. So, for $4,700, you get the same Fox Float shock and 34 Fork that you would find on the $10K model. And there’s not a comedown part on the SLX-XT build package, either—sure the components and wheels are heavier, but Yeti has still chosen quality parts. That makes this a highly confident, all-around trail machine at a solid value for those looking for a plus-size daily driver. Don’t tell Yeti, but we hear the bike rides exceptionally well with 29-inch wheels, too.

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Scott Spark Plus Tuned ($2,700 to $8,000)

We’ve already written about the Spark Plus, but it’s worth revisiting because this bike is so quick, deft, lively, and—yes—light, at 26 pounds for a size medium. That’s exceptionally feathery for a bike with 120mm of rear travel and a 130mm Fox 34 fork, especially one with 2.8-inch tires.

The Spark Plus is also a very different machine than the others. If the Pivot is the monster truck of the bunch, and the Yeti is the Range Rover, the Scott is like the Subaru Outback, albeit with the 3.6-liter, six-cylinder engine. It’s fast and peppy and leans more to the cross-country side of things, and not a single tester who rode it said anything about slow or heavy or rolling resistance. Obviously, it’s no race bike, but the race pedigree is here, and for the average rider on the average trails, the Spark Plus is plenty of bike. Scott also says the bike rides great with 29-inch wheels.

I also like that Scott is offering the Spark Plus at more affordable price points so a wider audience can check out the plus trend. One warning: Due to the heavier wheels and components, the base model 730 will suffer from some of the complaints that people tend to level at plus bikes, namely that they are ponderous and slow. At $2,700, it’s a great buy and will certainly get the job done. But the alloy 720, with SRAM GX1 parts for $3,700, and the carbon 710 at $5,000 for an XT build, represent the true convergence of high-quality parts and build plus excellent value.

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It only took nineteen years, countless advocates, dozens of letters, a bankruptcy and change of ownership, plus one particularly tenacious public official, but women—for the first time ever—have been invited to compete at one of the world’s most famous big-wave breaks: Mavericks. After intense lobbying, political maneuvering, and negative press, the historically all-male contest has invited six female pros to compete in a single women’s heat, which will take place sometime between now and the middle of February, conditions permitting. 

“This is a huge step forward,” says Bianca Valenti, a San Francisco-based big-wave surfer slated to compete in this year's event. “Finally, we’ve got a foot in the door. But we have a long way to go.”

The ferocious wave, off the coast of Half Moon Bay in northern California, has long been an icon of big-wave surfing. It has also become a focal point in the growing fight for gender equality in a sport with a long and colorful history of machismo. “There’s nothing more beautiful than a well-shaped girl riding a six-foot wave with the wind blowing through her hair,” wrote big-wave surfer Buzzy Trent, back in 1963. “But one thing I can’t stand is girls riding (or attempting to ride) big waves.”

Flash-forward 45 years. While that attitude has eroded, it’s far from gone.

“Surfing is 20 years behind other sports,” Valenti says on a drive home from surfing Mavericks. “One day a guy told me, ‘This is a man’s playground. I don’t want to see you out here, unless I’m going out on a date with you, ‘cause you’re kinda cute.’”

Big-wave contests have run at Mavericks since 1999, when the Titans of Mavericks made fliers promoting the event and the “Men Who Ride Mountains.” That was the same year that Sarah Gerhardt became the first woman to surf the monstrous wave, five years after bodyboarder Sarah Lucas busted the gender barrier. But competition was strictly open to dudes, who were the only ones getting invites. Contest founder Jeff Clark, a big-wave pioneer who surfed Mavericks alone for 15 years before anyone would join him, didn’t think women were good enough. “It’s not a gender thing. It’s a performance thing,” Clark told CBS—in 2016. “Women just aren’t there yet.” He said this a year after Keala Kennelly won Barrel of the Year at the WSL Big Wave Awards, the so-called Oscars of big-wave surfing. She was chosen—over hundreds of men—in a season with a historic number of supersized rides, barrels, and wipeouts. In her acceptance speech, Kennelly thanked "…everyone who told me you can't do that because you're a woman. Because that drove me to dedicate my life to proving you wrong, and it's been so damn fun."

As if women aren’t already out there with men in the lineup for any big swell. “On any given day, we’re competing with the men,” Valenti says. “It’s not like a tennis court.”

The simple truth is, women have been surfing big waves for decades, despite the cultural undertow of a brotherhood that really would rather they didn’t. “Women have been expected to look good on the beach and hand the boy his towel when he gets out of the water,” says Matt Warshaw, author of the Encyclopedia of Surfing. “Women were not encouraged to go out and surf big waves during the 1960s. But there were women who did.”

In 1959, as Joan Cleaver was still cleaning the house in a dress and pearls, Linda Benson, who would later be called the Godmother of female surfing, became the first woman to surf Waimea. Around the same time, Marge Calhoun, a mother of two who didn’t pick up a surfboard until she was almost 30, was winning the Makaha International, on the west side of Oahu, Hawaii. “I loved a wave that was dramatic,” Calhoun said. “I wanted something that could knock me around.”

In the 1970s, Margo Oberg, often credited as the original female big-wave surfer, became a regular on the monstrous winter swells at Sunset Beach on Oahu’s North Shore. She raised the ante to 15-foot waves. After winning four world championships, she fell just shy of a fifth, placing second in 1982—three months after giving birth. Then came Phyllis Dameron, one of the most fearless bodyboarders (of either gender) in the history of the sport. She paddled into waves higher than 20 feet and bounced down them like a skipping stone, often passing the men below her. “I’ll go right over them, in the air if I have to,” she said. 

In the 1990s, Layne Beachley and Sarah Gerhardt became tow-in pioneers. After mastering 20-footers at a North Shore break called Phantoms, Beachley had a Jet Ski sling-shot her into 25-foot waves in Todos Santos, in Baja California, and Outside Log Cabins, in Hawaii. She became the first woman to conquer the “death slab” barrels at a freakish Sydney break, which pounds into a rocky shelf. 

Yet during all that time, invite-only contests were closed to women. Finally, in 2010, Oregon’s Nelscott Reef Big Wave Classic became the first major event to invite women to compete. But even then there was a catch: it was only an exhibition, not a multi-heat contest. Three women surfed in a one-hour heat, in conditions that blew out one male competitor’s eardrum and sent him staggering to shore, warning about the conditions. Keala Kennelly took home the win—and a prize purse of…$0. 

Finally, in 2016, the first paying women’s division was added to a big-wave contest. The Peahi Challenge, one of three stops on the World Surf League’s Big Wave Tour, invited women to compete on the 30-foot-plus waves at the Maui break Jaws. It was a bona-fide division: 12 women, plus six alternates, competing in three heats—two semi-finals and a final. Hawaii’s Paige Alms, who does construction and ding repair to supplement her pro-surfer income, landed air-drops in the howling wind and became the first women’s big-wave champion. She won $15,000. (The men’s champ bagged $25,000.)

The world of big-wave surfing appeared to be shifting, with many male pro surfers expressing support for their female counterparts. But the Mavericks door remained slammed shut. It took a politically savvy local official to pry that one open.

Sabrina Brennan, an elected member of the San Mateo County Harbor Commission, which also grants event permits, teamed up with several female pros, including Bianca Valenti and Keala Kennelly, to form the Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing. She argued that public resources could not be used for discriminatory activities—a key legal point. In response to their lobbying efforts, the California Coastal Commission required Titans of Mavericks to include women competitors as a condition for renewal of the event's permit.

Here’s how Titans founder Jeff Clark responded to that news in a TV interview: “I understand what the Coastal Commission wants is more women involved in Mavericks. We’ve had women judges, we’ve had women in our water patrol, and water rescue…” Actually, no. They want to see women on the board—not the board of directors.

The contest organizer, Cartel Management, grudgingly responded by agreeing to “reach out” to female pros and allow them to compete—with the men, if they qualified. Four women made the 56-person first cut. Days later, not a single woman made the 38-surfer second cut, selected by an all-male committee. Calling B.S. on Cartel’s pseudo-meritocracy, the Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing demanded that women compete against women, as they do in pretty much every other sport. They asked for a standard women’s division: six women, three heats. 

To make a long story short, Cartel was then sued by sponsors and filed for bankruptcy. The 2016-2017 Titans of Mavericks never happened. The next season, the event was picked up by the World Surf League, which invited six women to compete—against each other—in the 2017-2018 contest, renamed the Mavericks Challenge. This added a second women’s contest—and a fourth event—to the Big Wave Tour. “The timing was right,” says World Surf League CEO Sophie Goldschmidt, who has held executive roles with the NBA, Adidas, and several mainstream sports. She expects the WSL to add more women’s big-wave surfing events—gradually. “We’re not going to rush. We’re going to be very thoughtful about this. Over time, I expect us to add further events as the women and the sport are ready for it, from a performance and a safety standpoint.”

The female pros say they’re stoked to compete at Mavericks, but they wish it was a legitimate multi-heat division. It’s six women and one heat—one golden hour on the waves. Compared to the three-heat, 24-man contest, it feels to some like a footnote. What they’d like to see is a multi-heat competition, where women have to surf against one another to make it to the finals. As it is, “it’s a token,” Brennan says. “Six women, one heat? That’s nowhere near equality.”

Given the sport’s history of machismo, that should surprise no one. 

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Perhaps it’s the metric system, or maybe it’s the spandex onesies, but Americans have some trouble grasping the different types of Nordic skiing. It gets confusing, because “Nordic” skiing is an umbrella term for four different disciplines: cross-country, biathlon, ski jumping, and Nordic combined. This month, the U.S. team has good chances to medal across the board, so you’ll want to pay attention. Consider what follows a comprehensive cheat sheet, so you can fake your way through any Olympic viewing party.

Practiced as a form of transportation since as early as 600 B.C., cross-country skiing is the one where athletes race up and downhill on a pair of no-edged carbon toothpicks at distances from 1.5 to 50 kilometers. Cross-country skiing includes two techniques: skate and classic. All competitors race in both disciplines. Skate skiing, in which athletes move across a wide groomed trail in a lateral skating motion, was invented in the 20th century and popularized by American skier and Olympic silver medalist Bill Koch. Classic skiing is where athletes stay in groomed tracks and use sticky wax on the base of their skis to gain traction on the snow and propel themselves forward.

Cross-country competitions feature sprints, individual distance, mass-start distance, and team relays. Sprints begin with an individual qualifying round and continue through the day with three more heats. Distance races employ jockeying and group race tactics that make the event feel like you’re watching a Tour de France stage in 20 minutes. Cross-country skiers are known for their dramatics, often collapsing at the finish line. Racing for minutes (or hours) at nearly all-out aerobic capacity will do that to you.

• A hill on the course with a 9 to 18 percent grade and up to 200 meters long. Sprint courses are required to have at least one of these hills; distance courses may have up to four.

• A race where competitors start 15 to 30 seconds apart from one another and race the whole course virtually alone. (The race where all competitors start together is called amass start.)

The entire U.S. women’s team, Ingvilg Flugstad Oestberg (NOR), Simi Hamilton (USA), Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo (NOR), Dario Cologna (SUI).

Biathlon combines cross-country skiing and target shooting. Perhaps better known as “the one with the gun,” biathlon originated as a tribute to Ullr, the Norse god of skiing and hunting, and eventually grew into a military training technique. Biathletes skate ski with a .22-gauge rifle on their back around a race loop, stopping in the stadium to shoot five targets before going out to do another loop.

Biathlon competitions feature sprint, distance, and relay events. During the shooting section of the race, for every missed target, athletes must ski a 150-meter penalty loop or have penalty time added to their final results. The name of the game in biathlon is relaxing enough to accurately shoot a gun in the middle of one of the hardest endurance activities in the world. That means these athletes have not only insane aerobic capacity but also a sharp eye and madbreathing techniques.

• Pronounced bi-a-thlon, not bi-ath-a-lon. It’s OK—the athletes have trouble with spelling and pronunciation, too.

• To hit all five targets without any misses in one shooting stage.

• The lying-down shooting position.

Susan Dunklee (USA), Rosanna Crawford (CAN), Kaisa Makarainen (FIN), Tim Burke (USA), Martin Fourcade (FRA), Johannes Thingnes Boe (NOR).

Mounted on heelless bindings on a pair of ten-foot boards, ski jumpers tuck down a steep, icy track, reaching up to 60 miles per hour before launching into flight (or not, for anyone who recalls the Wide World of Sports’ “agony of defeat”). In air, athletes assume a V position before landing in a telemark technique to the cheers of judges and fans.

Competitions are structured in rounds, which generally include two jumps. A jumper’s score is determined by a mix of distance jumped, technique, and wind factor. Ski jumping is all about timing. Athletes are cued on when to tuck by their coaches, who are watching the wind. They have to time their explosive jump at just the right moment on the in-run to efficiently launch into the air, and then read their landing at exactly the right point to land as safely as possible. The entire jump takes about ten thrilling seconds.

• The par of the hill, or how far an average athlete jumps. For example, a K120 hill has a K-point of 120 meters, which means the athletes should be able to jump that far.

• The highly regulated piece of fabric that athletes wear in-flight. Jumping suits must all be made of the same fabric, be formfitting to an exact measurement, and conform to four pages’ worth of standards so as not to give any athlete an aerodynamic advantage.

• That steep, icy track that jumpers speed down before flinging themselves forward into the air. The in-run is angled at roughly 38 degrees, which is how athletes can reach speeds up to 60 miles per hour before takeoff.

• The first year women were allowed to compete in this event in the Olympics.

Sarah Hendrickson (USA), Michael Glasder (USA), Maren Lundby (NOR), Kamil Stoch (POL), Richard Freitag (GER).

At some point in history, the Norwegians asked what were the two hardest sports in the world and decided to put them together. Nordic combined marries ski jumping (which favors light-bodied, explosive athletes) with skate skiing (which favors muscle-bodied endurance athletes) to create the most exhausting oxymoron on earth. Both the jumping and ski-racing portions of the competition are held on the same day, with athletes jumping in the morning, and then suiting (or, rather, spandexing) up to race in the afternoon. Scores from the morning jumps are worked into an algorithm that spits out a start list with determined time disadvantages. The winner of the jumping portion gets to start the ski race first, and then each other competitor starts behind him* after an allotted number of seconds based on the time algorithm. First person to the line wins.

*Note: It is always a “him.” Women’s Nordic combined has yet to be recognized at the World Cup level.

See: , .

Bryan Fletcher (USA), Taylor Fletcher (USA), Jan Schmid (NOR), Johannes Rydzek (GER).

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Introduced in the 1960s by the U.S. Forest Service, the Leave No Trace principles began as educational guidelines to help visitors behave ethically and sustainably when recreating outdoors. The seven principles—including disposing of waste properly, leaving what you find where you find it, and respecting wildlife—were a necessary way to address the growing impact of a larger population heading into the wild.

For more than 50 years, LNT principles have served as the cornerstone for education on sustainability and outdoor recreation. But a lot has happened in that intervening half-century. Today, we have Instagram, drones, and even more people in our parks and public lands. According to a report by the Outdoor Industry Association, nearly half of all Americans over the age of six participated in outdoor recreation at least once in 2016. That’s 144.4 million people—an increase of 2 million people over 2015.

So, while the original LNT principles provide a key foundation, clearly it’s time for a few additions.

Horseshoe Bend, a photographically divine location above the Colorado River in Arizona, was once a secluded secret. Today, travelers flock to the view in alarming numbers. “It used to be a quiet trail that only the locals knew about,” said Pam Rice, assistant superintendent of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, in a recent article. “Now it’s just exploded. We think it’s through social media. We’re expecting more than a million visitors this year.” The land management bureau of Horseshoe Bend is contemplating permits, regulations, and entrance fees in response to the impacts of overuse.

Sharing your experiences with friends, followers, and loved ones is fine—as long as you do it in a socially and environmentally responsible way. Avoid geotagging or checking in at specific locations. Although the act may seem harmless, the impact to local areas such as Horseshoe Bend is real. Instead of listing an exact hike or waterfall, consider tagging the state or region. Inspiration to visit the area may still be motivated by images and social shares, but visitors will need to do their research beforehand. Hopefully, as a result, trails will see less overuse and irresponsible practices in the name of social media fame.

The seventh Leave No Trace principle—“Be considerate of other visitors”—needs to evolve. Drones became a “daily occurrence” in parks like Yosemite before they were banned from all areas administered by the National Park Service more than three years ago. That doesn’t mean you should drive to a park boundary and launch your drone—noise doesn’t obey park boundaries. A recent study led by Colorado State University and the Wildlife Conservation Society found that even just hiking can decrease a species’ diversity, survival, reproduction, and abundance. Which says nothing of how much a portable speaker playing Katy Perry at the crag can ruin your day. You can limit your effect by leaving most of your tech at home.

It’s no longer enough to just enjoy our public lands—you need to help out. Consider joining local organizations for trail cleanup days or restoration projects.

Not sure how to get involved? The Access Fund website has a state-by-state list of local outfits that accept volunteers for outdoor projects. To protect beloved natural lands, Leave No Trace must take the step beyond minimizing visitor impacts and begin focusing on leaving the trails better than before.

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In 40 years of covering health and wellness, we’ve seen countless fads come and go: from the rise of HIIT to the emergence of the Paleo movement. But the secret is that fitness is really simple: we’ve told our readers from day one to eat well, stay active, and get a solid night of sleep.

So why are so few of us healthy? Because it’s the execution that’s difficult. That’s where the Whole Life Challenge comes in. For years, we’ve been tracking the company and its refreshingly holistic approach to health. We’ve even had editors take the challenge, which focuses on upgrades to seven daily habits: nutrition, exercises, movement, sleep, hydration, lifestyle, and reflection. The WLC is a six-week long reset designed to change the way you think about wellness. Unlike diets and training plans, you approach it like a game, earning points for things like drinking enough water and taking time to journal. The goal: break your bad habits and slowly develop new, healthy ones. That, at least, is the short version. You can read all about it here. 

Sign Up for the Whole Life Challenge

Break your bad habits and develop new, healthy ones

JOIN THE OUTSIDE TEAM

This year, we’ve decided to partner with them. We’ll be taking the challenge as a staff, beginning on January 20. We’re also forming a team open to Outside readers interested in participating. As part of our team, you'll be able to compare scores with other participants, share advice, and get motivation from the crowd. You’ll also get one-on-one access to editors, entry into our new private Facebook Fitness group, and weekly emails with tips and ideas to help you thrive. Membership for new players in the six-week program is $39 if you sign up by January 3; $49 afterward.

So what does Outside get out of it? We aren’t receiving any advertising dollars to run this project. We will be earning a small commission on each signup, and we expect those earnings to cover our content and newsletter costs for launching the program. But really, this is an experiment for us—and one that we’re really excited about. We hope you join us by signing up. 

Think ahead, travel right—and for goodness’ sake, bring clean water

When my daughter proposed we go on a three-week jaunt around Ecuador to celebrate her college graduation, I hesitated. My Spanish was rusty from disuse. It had been decades since I’d been backpacking in South or Central America, and the last time I went, I ended up in the hospital for two weeks with something amoebic.

But after I learned more about Ecuador, the fifth most biodiverse country in the world, I got psyched and booked my ticket. We hiked, mountain biked, and rode Criollo horses at 13,000 feet. Andean condors with eight-foot wingspans flew 20 feet overhead. We chilled on the beach at Puerto Lopez, ate small lobsters, and stood on cliffs as blue-footed boobies and frigate birds soared overhead before snorkeling around one of the coves on Islá de la Plata. Near Papallacta, we soaked in volcanic hot springs and watched misty clouds drift among the emerald-green hills. And, because it runs in the family, Grace got sick, compelling us to skip the Amazon to explore the old cathedrals, restaurants, markets, and museums in Quito, the world’s second-highest capital city.

Ecuador rocks. It’s a beautiful, wild place with friendly, adventurous people and one of the most constantly changing landscapes you’ll ever encounter—which is why you need to pack wisely. Here are ten pieces of gear that performed admirably.

Scarpa Epic Lite ($135)

I wasn’t sure I could get by with just one pair of shoes, but the tough and ever-comfortable Epic Lite was all I ever needed. Going on 12-mile hikes, hopping on a horse, then a mountain bike, getting rained on, walking through mud, drying them off in front of the fireplace, and doing dinner in the city the next night—20 active days and they still felt brand new.

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Outlier Slim Dungarees ($198)

It’s always iffy to use the word “best.” But in this case, I won’t hear any further arguments. These are the best travel pants on earth. Because they look really good? Well, yes. But I also wore them nearly every day, without washing, because they somehow never got dirty. Airports, buses, long hikes in the heat, biking in the cold, strolling around the city—they’re the best.

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Gregory Baltoro 85 ($350)

With so many eco-zones to deal with, you need an array of stuff. The 5.3-pound Baltoro 85 indulged me by always expanding, in new and undiscovered ways, to swallow up whatever I fed it, from dromedary bags and travel pillows to trekking poles and four alpaca blankets, plus the many pounds of chocolate we brought home for gifts.

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Cotopaxi Kusa Shirt ($160)

For average nights in the mountains, a light, packable down jacket (in this case, a shirt-jacket) was essential, and for colder nights higher up, this plus a fleece sufficed. The copper-and-orange DWR ripstop nylon on the Kusa shirt gives it enough flair for city use, and llama-fiber insulation means you feel right at home in the sierra, even if those llamas aren’t always so welcoming.

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Arc’teryx Zeta LT Jacket ($425)

When the rain and wind picked up, this three-layer Gore-Tex shield meant I was untouched. It’s pricey, but with drizzle that could last all day—and winds often whipping up out of nowhere—the Zeta was an essential piece of protection. The sleeves allow for a couple layers underneath, and the hood is spacious enough for a helmet without looking bulky. At only 12 ounces, this jacket asked very little of me and gave a lot in return.

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Duckworth Vapor Hoody ($110)

Dressing for the tropics is all about protecting your skin from sun and mosquitoes—without getting too hot to move. The well-designed, superlight Vapor Hoody, made from anti-stink, fast-drying wool, is sheer and loose enough to wear on the hottest days. It protects your neck, and the light-gray color discourages the skeeters from giving you trouble.

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Goal Zero Lighthouse Micro Flash USB Rechargeable Lantern ($25)

This might be the world’s greatest flashlight for late-night trips to the eco-lodge’s composting toilet, but with the push of a button, it also transforms into a diffused lantern that sheds enough light for reading a book. It holds a charge forever, but the USB plug makes for easy use with your power brick. If you’re truly going off the grid, it also works flawlessly with any Goal Zero panel.

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Nature Nate’s Honey Packs (30 for $12)

Though we had a stash of bars, gels, and jerky, it was simple honey that we kept coming back to when the food gods weren’t smiling on us. To power through a day on the trail or a long airport layover, this is some of the best-tasting honey you’ll find, and the packets are so light as to be negligible.

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Farm to Feet Damascus Socks ($22.50)

It can be hard to get to a laundry when you’re always moving from place to place, so I was stunned that these socks never stunk—even after several days of heavy use. Chalk it up to the odor-resistant superfine merino wool. They’re also eminently comfortable, offer plenty of warmth on chilly nights, and provide a hug to your leg muscles to keep them primed.

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NatureSpace App (Free)

Your Airbnb neighbors will party until three. Roosters will crow at four, well before first light. And earplugs will not save you. Pop in your earbuds and stream the soothing sound of Indigo Raindrop, an endless (or timed) succession of gentle plonk-plonk-plonks, and you will be back in Sleepland in no time.

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Olukai Makolea Flip-Flops ($80)

I lied: I had a second pair of shoes. The nonslip EVA footbed makes this cushy pair easy to walk in for miles, and the quick-drying feature meant they weren’t cold and damp when I slipped them on the next morning.

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