Month: March 2019

He may want to save the world, but the Tesla CEO’s distaste for traffic and clickbait could destroy us all

Elon Musk is a brilliant visionary who works and tweets tirelessly to improve our lives in all sorts of ways. His sleek, silent, S-3-X-y (get it?) Teslas make our sputtering gas-guzzlers look like Model Ts in comparison. He wants to build tunnels under Los Angeles and a Hyperloop that would whisk gentrifiers between L.A. and San Francisco at subsonic speed. And not only does he talk about putting us on Mars, but there’s a decent chance he’ll actually be able pull it off.

All of this scares the shit out of me.

Consider Tesla. In a recent opinion piece, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens claimed that the company’s stock price is inflated, it’s hemorrhaging money, and its first attempt at a mass-market sedan—the Model 3—is a piece of crap. Of course, as a climate change not-quite-denier who likely finds electric cars annoying, Stephens’s critiques were mostly stupid. Say what you will about Tesla’s business practices, but they’re vastly more innovative than the rest of the auto industry, and unlike the Big Three, the government hasn’t had to bail them out. Meanwhile, Ford isn’t even going to make sedans anymore, and unless you’re a conservative crank or a coal-roller, it’s a no-brainer to root for Tesla against the hoary, lumbering SUV-and-truck-obsessed competition

Still, even a clean and efficient electric car you can fix with a firmware update is still a car, and cars suck. Every year, I see more and more Teslas in among the scrum of luxury vehicles picking up kids at the prep school near my home, and I can assure you they snarl traffic just as effectively as their Range Rover, Mercedes G-Class, and chauffer-driven Suburban counterparts. Cars suck so bad that Tesla employees can’t even park at their own headquarters. When the world’s most cutting-edge car company starts paying people to bike to work what does that tell you?

Of course, Elon Musk knows cars suck, which is why he started the Boring Company. Even Elon Musk can’t sell you freedom from traffic. However, he’s currently the only car salesman able to sell you the idea of freedom from traffic without having to give up your car. (The only tangible items he’ll sell you through the Boring Company are hats and flamethrowers.)

In a country that is by turns unwilling and inept when it comes to bold new infrastructure projects, the idea of a charismatic billionaire who will swoop in and fix our broken transport system is undeniably attractive. I don’t even live in California and after reading Musk’s white paper on the L.A./San Francisco Hyperloop, I almost mailed him $100. But when he started zeroing in on urban transport and the car-carrying tunnels he wants to build under L.A., things got weird:

“I think public transport is painful. It sucks. Why do you want to get on something with a lot of other people, that doesn’t leave where you want it to leave, doesn’t start where you want it to start, doesn’t end where you want it to end? And it doesn’t go all the time.”

“It’s a pain in the ass,” he continued. “That’s why everyone doesn’t like it. And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer, OK, great. And so that’s why people like individualized transport, that goes where you want, when you want.”

These sounded less like the words of a visionary and more like the sentiments of a billionaire who thinks the poor are icky, and when public transit policy consultant Jarrett Walker called him out on it, Musk replied thoughtfully and articulately with “You’re an idiot.” Since then, Musk has adjusted his tunnel plan to “prioritize pedestrians & cyclists over cars.” However he still sounds all elitist about it, calling it “a matter of courtesy & fairness. If someone can’t afford a car, they should go first.” Gee, thanks.

But it’s on the subject of space that Elon Musk is at his most visionary and creepy. SpaceX is doing amazing things, zipping back and forth to the International Space Station with supplies and working toward building reusable rockets. They even shot a Tesla into space, which as car sales gimmicks go, is a lot more impressive than one of those inflatable dancing tube men. But “the ultimate goal” of SpaceX is “enabling people to live on other planets.”

Musk believes that the next phase of human evolution is for us to go multi-planetary. At first, this sounds pretty cool. But why is it cool? Cleveland has air that is more or less breathable, a climate that is arguably survivable, and hundreds of meat vendors, yet good luck convincing someone to move there. So why then would anybody ever want to move to Mars, which has a thin atmosphere consisting of mostly carbon dioxide, planet-wide dust storms that can last for months, and no known meat vendors of any kind?

Prepping Mars for life 10 billion years before our sun is scheduled to die makes no sense—unless you’re Elon Musk, in which case you believe this is necessary for the future of humanity. And do we really want someone undertaking our urban planning projects when he’s already making eyes at Mars from across the table? Clearly he thinks this planet is doomed. Not only that, but he’s also pretty convinced we’re living in a computer simulation, a hypothesis that offers up horrifying theories such as this:

Economist Robin Hanson argues a self-interested high-fidelity Sim should strive to be entertaining and praiseworthy in order to avoid being turned off or being shunted into a non-conscious low-fidelity part of the simulation.

So is Elon Musk a Sim who has managed to avoid being turned off by being entertaining and praiseworthy? Are the boring ones who got shunted those awful people he says you find on public transit? And is the Musk suite of companies some cult wherein an elite few attain the salvation of Mars and the rest of us are doomed to ride the bus for all eternity?

In addition to eliminating traffic congestion, Musk now wants to rank journalists and destroy clickbait, and this is precisely why we must do what the title of this particular piece of clickbait says: place this bold and visionary man into a non-reusable rocket and launch him into the heavens. While he’s gone, maybe people in cities all across the country can turn their full attention back to the countless bike and pedestrian projects so badly in need of our support, push for policies such as congestion pricing and the elimination of mandatory parking minimums, and rehabilitate our existing transit systems.

And obviously if he manages to return, we should immediately make this high-fidelity Sim the President of the Universe. That should go without saying.

Illustration by Taj Mihelich

Dream big, work hard, be kind

Last week, I gave the address at the commencement ceremony for the Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning. It was a great exercise in trying to figure out what advice I would have given 18-year-old me a couple decades ago, based on how things have turned out so far. And, of course, asking myself, “Do I actually know anything yet?”

The full text of the speech appears below.

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Greetings and congratulations, graduates of the class of 2018.

My name is Brendan Leonard. I’m an author, a magazine writer, an illustrator, a filmmaker, and public speaker. I was not voted Most Likely to Succeed in my high school graduating class. I was voted Class Clown. But life surprises us all, and today, I’m going to talk to you about success.

Two weeks ago, I was climbing Mount Shasta in California with a pair of skis on my backpack. About halfway to the summit, I sat down in the snow, enjoyed the view, caught my breath a little bit, and took a second to be grateful that what I was doing was part of my job. I would say I’m a lucky person to get to climb mountains and ski on the clock, but I don’t think it was luck that got me there—it was work. Also, I spend 95 percent of my workdays answering emails, just like everyone else. But I decided on that mountain that because I sometimes get to go on adventures and write about them for work, I am successful.

Maybe before we get any further into this speech, it’s worth noting that I drove here in a $2,500 car with 200,000 miles on it. Just so we’re clear that the word “successful” can mean a lot of different things. When I was in your shoes about 20 years ago, about to receive my diploma, I had a much different idea of what my career might look like. Also, I almost never wear a tie unless someone dies or gets married, so this is also awkward.

When I was 17 years old, at the beginning of my senior year at a public high school in a small town in Iowa, my guidance counselor, Mr. Hurst, and I sat down in his office to talk about my future. Mr. Hurst asked me, like he asked the rest of the students in my class, what I thought I might want to do after high school. I took a few guesses: optometry, physical therapy, maybe anesthesiology. Medical professions. Good-paying careers that smart people pursued, I thought. And I would probably be able to afford a nice car someday.

Here’s a thing no one tells you when you’re graduating high school: you don’t know anything about anything.

Actually, my dad very gently told me that. But at the time, I was too full of youthful hormones to listen to him. And you certainly don’t have to listen to me if you already know everything, like I did when I was your age. But I’ll tell you, the time when you don’t know anything about anything is one of the most wonderful times of your life. Certainty is low, and possibility is infinite. Enjoy it while you can. Sometimes I miss those days, and that feeling.

I still don’t know much, but a few members of your faculty are under the impression that I know a few things worth talking about, so here we are.

What I’m going to tell you today is mostly about work, because that’s what you’ll likely spend a lot of your waking hours doing over the next 45 years.

We have a popular saying in America, which goes, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

I’m self-employed, which means I work for myself and I do what I love, and I’m here to tell you, that saying is a load of crap. Work is work. If it wasn’t work, it would be called fun. Even your dream job is still a job. If you enjoy about 30 percent of your work, and you can tolerate the other 70 percent, I think you’ve beaten the game. I’ve created my own dream job, and I can tell you, I only like about 30 percent of it.

Instead of focusing on doing what we love, I think we should focus on loving what we do. I have not liked 100 percent of any job, whether it’s scrubbing pots and pans or writing my weekly blog. This is an important distinction, both in work and in life.

Loving something is different than liking it. For example, it’s very probable that your parents love you. But trust me, they don’t like you 100 percent of the time.

Since I was 15 years old, I’ve been a dishwasher, a busboy, an assembly line worker, a day laborer, a bartender, a janitor, and a newspaper reporter. I’ve picked rocks out of cornfields, mowed lawns, worked on road construction crews, and once got paid to swim in a golf course water hazard and retrieve balls from the bottom. In my current job, I don’t have to clock in or clock out or wear a uniform, but I remember everything I learned in those early jobs, because some things are true whether you’re taking trash out at the back of a restaurant or writing a story for Outside magazine.

In my line of work, you hear a lot about talent, which is an idea I think we’ve mostly invented to give ourselves an excuse to be lazy. Here’s why: if you see someone doing something really well, and you say it’s because they’re talented, that means you think they’re somehow special compared to the rest of us. It also discounts the tremendous amount of work they’ve done to get to where they are.

Research has shown that talent is nothing without hard work. I choose to believe in hard work, and not so much believe in talent. I put it this way: There are no special people, just people who put in enough hard work until something special happens. I can promise you one thing: whatever you choose to do for a career, if you work hard at it, eventually, special things will happen. They may not happen as quickly as you’d like them to, and they may turn out to be completely different from the special things you imagined at the beginning, but they will happen.

I’m going to share with you six pieces of advice today: the first three I learned in my small hometown in Iowa. The last three I believe can take you anywhere in the world.

The first three things I’m going to tell you don’t require specialized training, and anyone at any job can do them, whether their job requires a Ph.D, or no education at all. These three things seem incredibly simple, but believe it or not, they’re not practiced as much as you’d think. They’ll help you stand out in school, at work, and be a better friend and spouse. These three things are: Be kind. Show up on time. And do what you said you were going to do. I believe they’re better than being talented. Because it takes zero talent to be kind. It takes zero talent to show up on time. And it takes zero talent to do what you said you were going to do.

Early on in my career as a writer, a couple magazine editors told me stories about brilliant writers who were impossible to work with. They wrote incredible stories, but caused the editors headaches by missing deadlines and being completely unreliable. These editors impressed upon me that they’d rather work with a reliable writer than an unreliable writer any day, no matter how brilliant they were. Since no one had accused me of being brilliant, I decided to be reliable. I didn’t miss deadlines, I turned in the stories I said I would write, and I tried to be pleasant to deal with. And it worked, just like it’s worked in every job and gig I’ve had. I’m not sure Phil, my boss at my first high school dishwashing job, knew his expectations were so similar to a New York book publisher, but they turned out to be.

Think about it this way. If an airline isn’t on time, we’re unhappy. If an airline doesn’t do what it said it would do, like deliver our checked baggage to the city we’re flying to, we’re unhappy. If an airline isn’t kind to us, we’re unhappy. If an airline fails at any of these three things more than once, we take our business elsewhere. So, if you expect these things from a business, shouldn’t you expect them from yourself?

That’s the end of my practical advice for you. My final three pieces of advice are very impractical, because I believe impracticality is the principal element of a fulfilling life.

Being that this seems like a very good, progressive high school, I assume most of you have been told by at least one person that you can do anything you want to do in life if you dedicate yourself to it, and that you should reach for the stars. This is true.

If you’ve ever told someone about a goal that reaches for those proverbial stars, you may have also noticed that most people respond by advising you about the huge odds against actually reaching the stars, and that maybe you should think about something more practical. For example, the odds of you becoming an astronaut are not good. But the odds of you becoming an astronaut are much better if you don’t listen to people who tell you how hard it is to become an astronaut, and instead choose to focus on the necessary steps to becoming an astronaut.

So I advise you first to dream big. Look past typical job titles and find people doing something similar to what you want to do. You have more information at your fingertips than anyone in the history of the world, and someone is out there doing things that most of us didn’t think could be done five years ago. And they’re not being practical about it at all—they’re dreaming big, like you should.

My second piece of impractical advice to you is to learn how to persist. Big dreams come from inspiration, but making dreams come true requires work. Getting inspired will get you about five percent of the way to your goal. The other 95 percent comes from grinding it out, and it will not be fun sometimes. You’ll want to give up, and you’ll find a million reasons to justify giving up. Persistence is a very simple skill: all it requires is not giving up.

On a whim over the past three years, I have become an ultrarunner, which means I’ve run 50 miles in a single day on four different occasions, and 100 miles once. Although I don’t advise it because it’s not what most people call fun, it does provide a pertinent illustration of dreaming big and persisting. The dream is: an idiot, such as myself deciding that they want to run 50 or 100 miles.

Running 100 miles requires a lot of steps—226,000 steps, according to my watch. In my experience, about 10,000 of those steps are fun. The rest of those 226,000 steps are pure persistence, through blisters, foot and leg pain, chafing, indigestion, fatigue, sleep deprivation, and sometimes mild hallucinations. I’ve discovered that it’s a lot like wanting to be a writer when you grow up, or, I’m guessing, being an astronaut or even a small business owner: you have a dream one day, and then you spend years working toward it, many times only motivated to continue by a faint memory of that first dream of seeing yourself cross a finish line, or sign a book deal, sit in a space shuttle, or on the opening day of your shop. You start because of a dream, but you finish because you become good at talking yourself out of giving up. This is persistence. People may call you stubborn—that’s OK. Stubborn is just a dirty word for driven, and driven people get things done.

My final piece of impractical advice for you is this: Practice gratitude as much as you can. It’s scientifically proven to make you happier and help you live longer. I think we have a very screwed up definition of wealth in this country, and we’d all be better off if we had some perspective. I know this, because I’m rich. But I’m rich only because I think that if you can afford to pay someone else to make you a cup of coffee, you’re rich.

We spend a lot of our lives on social media nowadays, and it’s very easy for us to compare ourselves to others and wish we had more, or to be jealous of someone else’s life that looks perfect, instead of being grateful for what we have. In my line of work, I meet a lot of people who spend large chunks of their lives hopscotching around the world, and if I compare my own career to theirs, it would be easy to feel unsuccessful. But I have perspective, and getting to spend a workday climbing a mountain means I’ve been successful beyond anything I thought was possible during my senior year of high school—even if I’ve still never owned a car that didn’t have 100,000 miles on it when I bought it.

So, as you end this chapter of your life and begin a new one, I encourage you to dream big, to work hard, and to be kind. Show up on time, follow through, and teach yourself to persist. Most of all, don’t look at someone else’s idea of success and assume that’s what you want. Success is different for everyone, and in my experience, has nothing to do with the amount of money you have in the bank or a shiny new car. If you focus daily on evolving as a person and improving as a person, success is a moving target. And that’s a good thing.

Wherever you go from here, I encourage you not to try to be a success in 20 years, or 10 years, or even five years. Try to be a success tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, until all those days add up into years. I wish you not luck, but whatever it’s called when your dreams, work, and persistence add up to something that looks like good luck. Thank you.

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Backcountry employs over 200Gearheads, full-time employees whose sole job is to connect Backcountry customers with the best products for their needs. The job qualifications: intimate knowledge of a specific type of gear, whether it be fly-fishing rods, SUPs, or road-bike helmets. Have a question about sizing on a new pair of trail runners or which ski shell to buy? Go to Backcountry.com, then call or chat with one of its Gearheads who has a specialty in that sport.

Backcountry is sponsoring this Gearheads series through the holiday season. That means our editors collaborate with Backcountry’s employees to pick the gear you see below. We’ll update this page twice a month as new products come in.

This year, Arc’teryx took the beloved Sentinel jacket and added a bit of length and a trimmer fit to create the Sentinel LT. Designed to protect you from the elements on big-mountain tours, it features a three-layer Gore-Tex construction that delivers complete weather protection in snowstorms, rainfall, and high-altitude wind. The C-Knit backer reduces jacket crunch while providing a soft, supple feel against your skin, allowing comfortable movement.

Zina Bougri
Climbing, skiing, hiking, and camping
Climbing Time Wave Zero in El Potrero Chico, Mexico

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Velcro straps that tighten around your waist, oversized zippers that are easy to grab while wearing gloves, and strategic pockets (like a pack-friendly kangaroo pocket) give the Brigandine all the bells and whistles I look for in a pair of snowboarding pants. I particularly like the articulated knees, which provide comfort and ease of movement in my downhill stance.

Warren Young
Splitboarding and snowboarding
Finding some fluffy snow in Japan and Canada

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The playful Soul 7 is a versatile, all-mountain ski that can handle just about any kind of condition. They’re perfect for ripping groomers or floating on powder. This year, Rossignol reduced the weight and slightly squared off the tail, which allows for easier skin attachment and makes them more backcountry-friendly. Vertical sidewalls give the ski a bit more edging power and a more hard-charging look. While these skis are nice and light, the race-inspired Carbon Alloy Matrix in the core keeps things stiff enough to charge when you’re feeling aggressive.

Ashleigh McClary
Skiing, SUPing, hiking, and backpacking
Skiing around the western United States with the Epic and Ikon passes

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This fleece, designed by Backcountry, is that all-around warm jacket you need. It’s perfect for hiking on the trail or just hanging out around the fire and offers a classic outdoor style that keeps you comfortable whether you’re exploring a new town or a new trail. High-pile sherpa fleece locks in warmth, and woven overlays at the chest and shoulders help block the wind. The relaxed fit means you can wear it alone or layered beneath a shell. Four zippered pockets are perfect for stashing all your essentials.

Zak Ricklefs
Skiing, mountain biking, and backpacking
Finding some fresh powder in Hakuba, Japan

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These are my go-to year-round boots. They’re stylish and go with everything in my closet. The utilitarian design is great for tromping in the snow or around camp on a cool summer night. They feature a rugged and durable thermo-urethane outsole that’s built to withstand all kinds of work environments yet offers all-day support and comfort.

Koly Swistak
Hiking and camping
Glacier National Park, Montana

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Arc’teryx perfected the avalanche pack as we know it with its Voltair series. The airbag system utilizes a 22.2-volt lithium-ion polymer battery that’s rechargeable and capable of inflating the bag upwards of 20 times a day in temperatures as low as 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

Zak Ricklefs
Skiing, mountain biking, and backpacking

Wolverine Cirque, Utah

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Tami Oldham Ashcraft, the subject of the new Hollywood lost-at-sea film, describes what her 41-day ordeal was like in real life and how the movie compares

On October 12, 1983, Tami Oldham Ashcraft and her fiancé, Richard Sharp, found themselves in the path of Hurricane Raymond as they sailed a 44-foot yacht across the Pacific Ocean. The experienced sailors were delivering the luxury boat Hazana from Tahiti’s Papeete Harbor to San Diego on what was supposed to be a routine passage. Instead, the Category 4 storm whipped up violent waves and catastrophic winds that eventually capsized the small craft. In the ensuing chaos, Ashcraft suffered a serious head injury that rendered her unconscious for 27 hours. When she awoke, Sharp was gone.

Alone at sea and awash with grief and shock, Ashcraft mustered the courage to guide the battered Hazana toward the nearest landfall—1,500 miles away, in Hilo, Hawaii. She worked furiously to rig the one remaining sail and a partial spinnaker pole to gain steerage for the boat. Since the electronics were shot in the flooded vessel, Ashcraft had to rely on a sextant and a watch to navigate across the open ocean. “I ran the risk of being off the latitude of Hawaii, so that was always really heavy on my mind,” she says. “If I did not get to Hawaii, I would die.”

Despite scarce rations and serious injuries, Ashcraft made it to Hilo Harbor 41 days later. Nearly a decade after, she began writing a memoir, Red Sky in Mourning, which, after she self-published it, was released by a Hachette imprint in 2002. (Dey Street recently reissued the book under the title Adrift). Among the book’s admirers were screenwriters Aaron and Jordan Kandell. They turned it into a screenplay that became Adrift, a $35 million film adaptation of her story. The movie, directed by Baltasar Kormákur (Everest, The Deep) and starring Shailene Woodley as Ashcraft and Sam Claflin as Sharp, hits theaters this month.

We spoke with Ashcraft about what it was really like to endure those days at sea, her reaction to the film, and the surprising way she began healing from her ordeal.

On How She Learned the Skills to Prepare Her for Survival at Sea: “It was hands-on, just by what I call ‘jumping off the continent.’ I learned first on my dad’s Hobie Cat and then during my first Pacific crossing in 1979. I was always interested in plotting the course on the chart and seeing where we were. I wasn’t a master navigator by any means, but I enjoyed it. Once it became a life-and-death situation, I got real good, real quick.”

On Finding Hope During the Darkest Moments: “First of all, having that half of a spinnaker pole. I still had one little sail left, even though all the other sails went overboard. Once I got that up and I had steerage, I could actually move the boat. Then all these little things started being put in place. Finding that I had a quarter of a tank of water, that was a huge turning point. Finding my watch in the bilge so that I could find out exactly where I was on the chart instead of just sailing by latitude. There were a lot of little things that kept me going.”

On One Surprisingly Emotional Moment From Adrift: “The one scene that kind of really threw me is when Shailene is leaning over the side, putting the duct tape on the hull. Just seeing her alone, with no land in sight, with that wrecked boat—oh my gosh, it just brought me right back. It was just so surreal. It was like, God, that was me. I just wept.”

On What She Thought About During Her 41 Days at Sea: “I thought about Richard all the time. I thought about our life together, I thought about my family. Your mind just races and runs around. I would think, ‘Have I completed the things I wanted to do in my life?’ Then there’s the whole shout out to the universe: ‘If I live, I promise I won’t ever do this or that or whatever!’ I mean, you’re just making promises to the universe. It’s very humbling, and it really puts you in your place.”

On Dealing with Grief and Survival at the Same Time: “I had to talk to myself and tell myself, ‘I have to quit crying.’ I had to quit crying because I was losing so much water, and I didn’t have a lot of water. A lot of the grief was really muted, really shoved back because of the survival and having to keep pushing forward. It really wasn’t until I was back on land, and I could relax and not have to worry about dying, that the grief started surfacing. It was really, really difficult.”

On What People Should Know About Richard Sharp: “He had a very good sense of humor, and people were drawn to him. He was a people person. I’m a little bit more reserved, so we made a good couple in that way. He was very well read, he was a pretty smart guy, and he was an adventurer. That’s what drew us together: quenching our adventurous spirit. Being a sailor, it’s hard to find a compatible relationship with someone. I mean, when you’re sailing with someone, you’re with them 24/7. He was just a very genuine, beautiful person.”

On What She Did After Surviving: “I just kept myself distracted and kept moving forward. I went back to sea for many years. I think it was cathartic for me to get back to sea, to get back to what I loved to do. That was kind of my therapy, I guess. My first trip was about six months of sailing through Fiji’s islands on a crew. After we got in a little bit of a gale, the owner of the boat goes, ‘You’re not afraid, are you?’ I said ‘Afraid? I’ve seen the worst! I’m not afraid of this. This is nothing compared to what I just experienced.’”

On What She Hopes Viewers Take Away from Adrift: “I’m just very pleased that it’s being told at a time when there’s such an empowerment of women. Like Balt [Baltasar Kormákur] says, it’s always these survival stories of man against wolves or man against the sea. I think it’s a time to show some of the strengths that women have, that they can overcome all kinds of obstacles in their lives. I’m hoping the movie shows that no matter what’s thrown your way, you just gotta dig deep. If you can just hang on, get through it, be strong, and have perseverance, then on the other end you’re gonna come out of it OK.”

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Camping brand Kammok is adding a new insulated blanket to its line. The Bobcat Down trail quilt ($200), filled with down and rated to 45 degrees, launched on Kickstarter on Tuesday (shipping in December). Two days in, it’s already more than doubled its $50,000 fundraising goal.

The Bobcat is the lighter, less insulated, and more durable sibling to the Firebelly ($280) the 30-degree puffy blanket Kammok introduced in 2014. While the Firebelly features 15-denier fabric and 750-fill down, and weighs 24 ounces, the Bobcat is made from 20-denier fabric, filled with 600-fill down, and weighs just 19 ounces. Kammok advertises the Bobcat as the more casual of its two quilts, ideal for moderate temperatures, single-night camping trips, or cozying up on long flights and car rides.

The quilt includes straps for attaching it to your sleeping pad and adjustable cords with clips for rigging it onto the underside of your camping hammock for added insulation. The Bobcat also has cinches at each end that create a foot box or draw the blanket around your shoulders when tightened, and snaps along both long edges for connecting it to Kammok’s Roo hammock as a top quilt. It all stuffs into a roll-top sack, roughly the size of a loaf of bread. It’s realistically a bit larger than what you’d want to bring in your carry on for airplane travel (a cinch mechanism would help) and it’s not quite warm enough to double as an ultralight sleeping-bag alternative for long trips with variable temps. But meaningful features and miniscule weight lend the Bobcat a versatility and user-friendliness that sets it apart from other basic lifestyle puffy blankets. 

Pre-order now

Encouraging children to race bikes would make the country—and the world—a better place

Growing up, I was never one for traditional sports. Sure, we played ball in the street, but apart from bowling parties and camp color wars, I never engaged in any formalized athletic competition until middle school when I started racing BMX bikes.

Now I’m a parent with an elder son entering sporting age. Kids need to be active both physically and socially, but like me, he seems mostly indifferent to kicking, hitting, catching, or otherwise basing his movements around the trajectory of round projectiles. Instead, also like me, when it comes to physical activity he’s mostly interested in riding bikes.

In one sense it’s harder to raise a cyclist now than it was when I was a kid. For one thing, there are way more cars on the road and the concept that drivers should be extra-cautious in residential neighborhoods has largely gone the way of doffing your hat. For another, I grew up in a particularly idyllic age. While we had access to a full array of sugared cereals, our breakfasts were not yet haunted by the specter of missing kids on milk cartons. This meant you could get jacked up on Sugar Smacks and then run right out the front door to burn them off without your parents assuming you were going to get abducted. It also meant I was able to hone my bike-handling skills by tearing around the neighborhood, either alone or with friends, riding fast and far on that sugar-induced high.

Yes, it was a wonderful time to be alive.

Things are different today. Letting your kids run around and be kids is called “free-range parenting” and fraught with controversy. It seems like they can’t even kick a ball around together unless you lease a minivan and enroll them in a soccer league first. And forget cycling unaccompanied; even riding with your kids is increasingly difficult in many places. Decades of mounting traffic and increasing sprawl means you’re either confined to the cul-de-sal or else forced to undertake a lengthy car journey in order to do a multigenerational ride.  

As consumers, however, the parent of a budding cyclist has never had it better. Sure, your kid may not be able to ride to elementary school, but it’s easy to get her set up on anything from a road bike to a fat bike. (Note I said “easy” and not “cheap.”) My son’s bicycle—a cyclocross bike with integrated 10-speed shifting and a dazzling two-tone paint scheme—is so awesome I kind of resent him for it. Sure, I also had a pretty nice bike when I was his age, but it had a coaster brake and weighed almost as much as I did.

Then there’s getting your little bike nut involved in competition. Living in an age of constant supervision and hyperspecialization means organized racing is probably the best way for your kid to find a community of cycling peers. Of course, if you’re already a cyclist this is fairly straightforward. You’re familiar with the local clubs, you’ve got a handle on the various disciplines, and you know which of the local race series include kiddie events. You also know how to identify other bike-y families whose brains you can pick, because they’re the ones who roll up at the playground on Xtracycles laden with produce from the food co-op.

But what if you don’t know the secret handshake? For all the opportunities available to the juvenile cyclist, getting involved in the sport is not a plug-and-play affair like it is with soccer and baseball. Your kid’s not going to come home from school with any fliers for the local cyclocross series in his backpack. And ultimately it all comes down to where you live. Maybe you live near one of America’s 20-something velodromes, or maybe you don’t. Not every local cyclocross series offers Kids’ Cross like the Cross Crusade in Portland (if there even is a cyclocross series near you at all), and not every city has a Valmont Bike Park. (Actually only one city has a Valmont Bike Park, and it’s Boulder.) Still, whatever may be going on in the pro ranks, bike racing as a sport is alive and well. My own youth sport of choice, BMX, is a discipline that has manage to flourish in the ensuing years, and with hundreds of tracks across the country you might find you’re within striking distance of one.

It’s not surprising that cycling is less accessible than other kids’ sports. It requires a sizeable up-front investment in equipment as well as a set of specialized skills. (Sadly, in America, riding a bicycle somewhat competently is a specialized skill-set.) It’s also a sport that’s rife with arcana. Most American parents can show a kid how to toss a football or break in a baseball mitt, but how many are versed in the subtleties of drafting, proper cyclocross dismount technique, or the importance of portaging your bicycle on the non-drive side so as to avoid the dreaded “rookie tattoo”?

Kids’ cycling could stand to go more mainstream though, as it has a huge amount to offer. Just like all those ball sports it teaches the virtues of discipline, hard work, and sportsmanship. Thanks to BMX, I got to experience all that character-building winning and losing that I might otherwise have missed due to my aversion to jock culture, and if I hadn’t discovered it there’s not a chance in hell I’d ever have experienced the pride that comes with winning a trophy. (This was shortly before we invented giving kids trophies for everything.)

But cycling is also better than all those other sports because it does something they don’t: it teaches practical skills you can use for the rest of your life. Sure, most kids may not stick with their childhood sports through adulthood, but at least lapsed bike racers will know how to cycle to work. Moreover, thanks to all that arcana they’ve picked up through they years, they’ll be way ahead of the curve in terms of flat repair, sweat management and keeping their pant legs clean. (If I’ve done my job right, my son will still be hearing my exhortations to portage his bike on the non-drive side long after I’m gone.) A future generation of adults who are comfortable with, on, and around bikes will make the world a much better place.

I mean hey, baseball’s great and all, but besides showing off at the dunking booth now and again, what do you do with it?

Illustration by Taj Mihelich

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Outdoor gear isn’t just expensive to buy; it’s also expensive to design, test, and produce. For that reason, many small brands have turned to Kickstarter to raise the money to manufacture their newest products. Here are five innovative launches we’re excited about right now.

Designed to mimic the lights on a car, these LED bike lights ($80) are white in front, like headlights, and red in back, like taillights. The bulbs screw onto the end of each handlebarso drivers can see how far into the road a cyclist is and leave a wide berth when passing. With a single tap, each light turns to blinking orange, acting as a turn signal. The lights are waterproof and removable, so you can easily switch them between different bikes. 

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In 2017, Full Windsor launched the Muncher ($35), a hefty titanium spork-cum-knife-cum-bottle-opener that became an instant hit and made its way into our 2018 Summer Buyer’s Guide. Now the company is launching a new multifunctional camp-kitchen utensil, the Splitter ($60). A long-handled titanium spork (for reaching into freeze-dried meal pouches) and spatula clip together to make tongs. The spatula also has a serrated edge for cutting. Together, the kit weighs in at 1.8 ounces. 

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This carbon-fiber trekking pole ($180) doubles as a water filter. Water enters the system through holes about an inch above the pole tip (a simple twist closes the holes to keepdust out while hiking). Stick the carbide tip into your water source, flip open the top of the pole and insert the included plastic tube, and then slide the hand grip up and down to pump clean water through the hollow-fiber mechanism hidden inside the shaft. 

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Dump coffee grounds into this perforated, stainless-steel tube (price TBD), slide the tube into your favorite water bottle, pour in water, and let it sit overnight. In the morning, your cold-brew coffee is ready to drink the moment you get out of bed or your sleeping bag, so you don’t have to fumble around to boil water. An extendablesilicone base allows you to adjust the Rumble Go’s height so it sits securely in your favoriteCamelBak, Hydro Flask, Nalgene, or other bottle from any of several popular brands.

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Ultralight yet feature-rich, this backpack ($100) is made of 30-denier Cordura, with a 100 percent waterproof main compartment and water-resistant outer pockets. What’s more, the inflatable back support can be removed and used as a seat cushion or pillow, and the lid zips off and doubles as a fanny pack or sling bag. The whole thing weighs ten ounces and stuffs down to the size of an apple.

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If there was a defining trait among the several dozen people who gathered recently to hear Ammon Bundy speak at the New Code of the West conference in Whitefish, Montana, it was their age—on average, well into eligibility for Social Security benefits. I don’t mention this to promote ageist ideas about who should be involved in political activism—the baby boomers comprise the largest voting bloc in America—but rather to suggest that the “Bundy movement,” such as it exists, appears conspicuously long in the tooth.

The event was hosted by a Kalispell-based group called This West Is OUR West. The group’s founder, Lauralee O’Neil, told me they spent $8,000 to rent the facility and provide a catered lunch. Perhaps it was the $150 price tag for the day’s event that kept younger attendees at bay, or perhaps it was a classic Montana scheduling conflict: Saturday, October 13, was the second-to-last day of big-game archery season. Whatever the reason, if the Whitefish event left me convinced of one thing, it’s that the Bundys and the fringe ideology they espouse has little purchase on young people—at least in this corner of the northern Rockies. And that ought to be encouraging to anyone who has worried in the nearly three years since the Bundys staged their takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon, that a new and vigorous anti–public land rebellion was catching fire. The opposite seems more likely. The Bundys’ antics—along with the efforts of the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to undermine environmental laws and regulations, shrink national monuments, and open millions of acres of public land and water to oil and gas development—have galvanized a movement around environmental and conservation advocacy that is nonpartisan and transgenerational.

A crowd of 300 gathered at Whitefish Depot Park to protest the Bundy event, which was taking place at the Grouse Mountain Lodge, a mile and a half away. The competing rally was organized by the Montana Wilderness Association and Love Lives Here, a group affiliated with the Montana Human Rights Network and formed in response to white supremacist activity in the Flathead Valley. Judging by attendance, there’s no question which movement—Bundyites or public land advocates—has the numbers. Beyond Whitefish, the rapid growth of groups like Missoula-based Backcountry Hunters and Anglers illustrates the rising pro–public land consciousness in the West and across the country. Membership has doubled every year for the past four years, topping 18,000 in 2018. The group now has chapters in 39 states and two Canadian provinces and on dozens of college campuses. One wonders what the Bundys’ on-campus presence looks like.

I didn’t meet any of the protesters who turned out to Depot Park, because I spent the entire day listening to jeremiads about the Bilderberg Group and the United Nations’ machinations to implement one-world government. According to speakers at the Bundy event, shadowy international bureaucrats and billionaires are the font of such devious urban concepts as “sustainable development” and “smart growth.” Alex Newman—a bearded young correspondent for the John Birch Society’s New American magazine, whom the moderator hailed as “our next George Washington”—said these concepts are part of “a global war on farmers and ranchers and loggers.” The audience gasped knowingly. Newman went on to pull the old James Inhofe trick, suggesting that because an icebreaker got stuck in the sea ice off Antarctica one time in 2013, global warming clearly isn’t real. “I’ve interviewed dozens of these UN scientists,” said Newman, without mentioning any of the defectors’ names. “They told me [climate change] was a hoax, and no one would correct it, so they resigned.” Phew, I thought: I guess we don’t have to worry about the UN’s updated projections—which give us a mere 12 years to take drastic action to avoid Biblical climate catastrophes. (Conservative estimates place the scientific consensus at a minimum of 80 percent supporting the idea of human-caused climate change, with some estimates as high as 97 percent.)

There were shimmers of underlying anti-Semitism and white nationalism in some of the presentations, like when Washington state legislator Matt Shea channeled his inner Richard Spencer, shouting, “Let’s be American again! We are a Christian nation, and anyone who says we’re not is a liar…I think we need to be unashamed about our heritage and our history. Amen!” Spencer—whose parents live in Whitefish and who have paid a high price for their son’s racist neo-fascism, which they disavow—did not attend.

The UN’s Agenda 21 platform was the main lightning rod for the assembled conspiracy theorists. Drawn up in 1992 at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Agenda 21 is a legally nonbinding policy document that does not force anyone at any level of government of the 178 signatories to do anything. The document lays out strategies for “combating poverty,” “protecting and promoting human health conditions,” “combating deforestation,” “managing fragile ecosystems,” “recognizing and strengthening the role of indigenous people,” and that sort of thing. I don’t know about you, but whenever I hear global bureaucrats talking about “managing fragile ecosystems,” I think to myself: Charlie’s in the wire.

“You’d have to be pretty dang stupid not to be able to connect some of these dots,” said the moderator, Dan Happel, who hosts a podcast called Connecting the Dots. A retired commercial building contractor, Happel once served as finance chair of the Montana Republican Party and as a Madison County commissioner. An avuncular fellow with a warm smile, dressed in a blazer, khakis, and ostrich-skin slip-ons, Happel provided the highlight of my day when, in the midst of his presentation, he said, “You thought the Kavanaugh hearing sucked? These are quotes from the leading Democrats in the country.” He then read from a slide with quotes from Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker. Here’s one:

“Time and time again, we find progressive laws getting struck down,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a Senate address. “And it’s always—always—the ones the Constitution is against. These right-wing judges don’t think for themselves, they just do whatever the Constitution says. And it’s time for that to end.”

They perfectly fit Happel’s narrative about Democrats’ disregard for the Constitution. The problem was, the quotes were fake. They came from an article headlined “Senate Democrats Demand Supreme Court Nominee Not Be Unduly Influenced by U.S. Constitution” in the now-defunct Babylon Bee, a satirical online paper in the model of the Onion. Happel was not the only one to take these quotes out of their native habitat. Fox News contributor David Clarke—the erstwhile Milwaukee sheriff who caught hell for decking out his uniform with flair pins—recycled a meme with the same fake quotes.

The conference ground on for ten hours before Ammon Bundy finally took the mic to sing his paean about triumph over the murderous feds. This was the second Bundy event I’ve attended, and the script did not vary much: poorly substantiated interpretations of the Constitution mingled with tearful recitation of his family’s long “stand,” which most of us would just interpret as “breaking the law and getting away with it.” (The Bundys still owe more than $1,000,000 in unpaid federal grazing fees. Although several of their accomplices are doing time, the Bundys were acquitted of all charges for a 2014 standoff and the Malheur occupation, due to mishandling of evidence.)

Bundy wore a straw cowboy hat and a suit coat. Toward the end of his remarks, he pulled out a garment bag with items for show-and-tell. The first was a ball cap with the Army Airborne logo that he claimed was given to him by a vet. Bundy ratcheted up the totemic power of the items until he was holding up a bronze star medal, claiming a wheelchair-bound man who’d lost his legs “serving in the military” had given it to him at Malheur. Bundy told the audience about how he’d said he didn’t deserve it, because he’d never served, and the man “told me I was to never say again that I didn’t deserve it.” Next, Bundy pulled out a folded American flag, which he claimed was “presented to me by a man who said this flag was draped over his brother’s casket because he died serving this country.” Choking back tears, Bundy said, “This man gave me this flag, and he felt that this is what his brother died for…we were standing up for the very purpose his brother gave his life for.”

To me, it all seemed like cheap theater, but maybe Bundy believes his own myth. Many in the room seemed to. Then again, they also looked on with jaws agape as Happel warned about the UN’s plans to “eliminate anywhere from 95 percent to 75 percent of our population.” While their credulity was astonishing and depressing, I doubt that these would-be crusaders present any meaningful threat to the future of public land or the republic on which it stands. They barely filled a small conference room. The only presenter who actually addressed a Montana public land issue in-depth was Kerry White, a Republican state legislator from Bozeman. White gave a talk on megafires, advocating for more thinning projects in national forests to reduce the severity of fires and boost the timber economy. While White’s interpretations of wildfire science would raise eyebrows in the company of scientists, the basic premise of thinning forests to minimize wildfires’ destructive capacity has bipartisan support in the West.

In an unexpected bit of drama, Bundy took the mic during the question-and-answer period and harangued White for tacitly acknowledging the federal government’s right to manage public land. Waving his weathered pocket Constitution, Bundy asked, “Do you see or do you not see that the control of our lands in federal hands is the problem?” White seemed taken aback. “I disagree with that,” he said. In a tense back-and-forth, White—a conservative warhorse in the Montana legislature, born and raised on his family’s ranch in the Gallatin Valley—refused to give in to Bundy. Exasperated, he said, “The people gave the government the power to do things for us. If they don’t do it correctly, it is the power of the people to change that. Does that make sense?” Indeed, it was the most sensible thing anyone said all day.

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If you’ve been hesitant to get into camping because of the high price of the gear, you’re not alone. Camping gear is among the most expensive to invest in—which is why we’re so excited about this REI Co-op Camp Bundle ($179; 25 percent off).

For less than the cost of most full-price sleeping bags, you get a two-person tent, a two-and-a-half-inch sleeping pad, and a 30-degree sleeping bag. The whole set weighs just over 12 pounds and has most of what you need to get into the woods. The Camp Dome 2 has two vestibules, a rain fly, a water-resistant floor, and interior mesh storage pockets for organization. The Camp Bed 2.5 sleeping pad is one of the more cushy pads on the market and has two and a half inches of padding and air to keep you comfy all night long. Last, the Siesta 30 sleeping bag is packed with polyester synthetic fill to keep you warm down to about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. The traditional rectangular shape is perfect for someone who isn’t quite ready for the confines of a mummy bag, and the zipper comes completely undone so you can use it as a quilt too. 

This bundle, which is currently 25 percent off, is a perfect first investment if you’re looking to get a decent car-camping setup without dropping thousands of dollars.

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Mike Coyle
Mountain guide and outdoor educator
30
Split between the Cascades and the Front Range
$35,000

Last year, I only paid two months of rent at $400 per month. This year, I haven’t paid any rent because I was in Argentina from December 1 through March 1, staying in employee housing while guiding on Aconcagua for Alpine Ascents International. When I came back, I stayed at employee housing while I was working for Colorado Mountain School in Estes Park, Colorado. Other than that, I was camping in Moab or staying with friends or my girlfriend. When I’m moving around so much, it doesn’t make sense to sign a lease. I make it work between the truck—I drive a 2004 Toyota Tacoma and in a pinch can sleep in the back—and friend’s houses. Each month, I pay $120 in student loans, $70 for car insurance, $10 for Netflix, $15 for my Audible subscription, and $100 for my phone bill. I don’t pay for internet, utilities, or health insurance (I’m still on Medicaid from a work injury). I contribute to a Roth IRA when I can; last month I put in $180. I usually save whatever I make in tips.

It depends on the season. Summer is consistently my busiest time. There are periods, like when I was on Denali in Alaska, where I work for a month straight. In the Cascades, I might work nine out of ten days doing back-to-back summit climbs and then get five days off or something. In fall, I teach at a community college and have two days off per week, though I might get work guiding on those days. Generally, October and November are my least busy months. December used to be slow, but I teach a lot more avalanche safety classes now and work a trip or two on Aconcagua every year. I try to work when I can, but I don’t really plan time off unless it’s a big trip. I just climb or ski on the days off I get.

I went on an Outward Bound course when I was 15. That was my first real expedition, and I loved it. Honestly, it kind of changed my life in terms of how I perceived what is possible outside. I decided pretty much right then that I wanted to be able to provide that experience for other people, at the time really having no idea what that meant. I wasn’t a mountain person or climber then. I just knew I wanted to be involved in giving other people that experience. I moved to Taos, New Mexico, after high school, where there are mountains, and continued to pursue the outdoors by ski instructing and raft guiding. I still didn’t know what it meant to be a guide. I found the adventure education major at Fort Lewis in Durango, Colorado, and that’s when it really became a more solidified dream of exactly what I wanted to do and how. I became more involved in climbing culture and learning about what this profession is about, and opportunities opened up from there.

In January, I was already in Argentina—I got there in December 2017—finishing my first Aconcagua expedition, and then I turned around did a second Aconcagua trip. In March, I came back to the States and taught an ice-climbing course and a mountaineering course at Red Rock Community College. I taught a bunch of avalanche courses for a guiding service and did a couple days of backcountry ski guiding. In late April, I came to Washington and started guiding in the Cascades on Rainier, Baker, and Shuksan. I spent June and half of July on Denali, then was back in the Cascades. From now through October, I’m teaching classes at the community college and picking up other local guiding work. In November, I’m doing a climbing trip in Nepal for fun, and then I’ll be back on Aconcagua for two trips.

Rock climbing or skiing.In the past year I climbed in Red Rock Canyon, the Flatirons, El Dorado Canyon, Potrero Chico, the Frey in Bariloche, ice climbing and skiing in the San Juans, and a few climbing trips to Moab and Pacific Northwest climbing hubs like Leavenworth, Index, Squamish, and I climbed for fun in the Cascades. It’s been a good year, and getting to travel and have random times off to do trips is a huge job perk.

Finding time for myself and a routine, in terms of working out and eating good food and all that. The hardest thing day to day is trying to find those moments to develop some kind of routine for myself, but in terms of the bigger picture, all my stuff is in my truck all the time. In Seattle, I worry about my car getting broken into. In Colorado, I’m not worried about theft, it’s just not having a permanent space for myself. The most difficult hurdle I’ve had was when I fell and broke my ankle and dislocated my shoulder while climbing. I had to move back in with my parents, because I couldn’t drive the truck I was living in, and I couldn’t do my job while injured. That was incredibly hard. My income depends entirely on my body being healthy. The fear of that happening again is a constant nagging thought. I can’t work if I’m hurt. I’ve been able to save some money, but the job we do as seasonal employees doesn’t give us benefits or PTO or worker’s comp unless I get hurt while I’m doing my job.

The perks are getting to be a part of people’s best days, their worst days, and to be a part of this significant event in people’s life. I feel like I’m spreading joy and opening up a part of the world that would otherwise be inaccessible for people. It’s a perk to be able to share a part of the world that I feel like is essential, at least in my life.

A 2004 Toyota Tacoma.

A plane ticket to Nepal and fixing my truck.

Going out to eat and groceries. I spend too much money on that. I’ll buy vegetables and have them go bad while I’m working. I feel pressured into eating out quite a bit. I have to cook out of my truck or in the office because I don’t have a kitchen, so sometimes it’s easier to go out.

Food. Gas—I’m constantly driving. Clothes and replacing gear is a big expense. Climbing gear. Dog food and the occasional kitschy sweater for my dog, Yonder.

A house.

To earn enough money to afford a mortgage.

Better than I did last year.

Yeah. I have what I need, and that’s great. I think I’ve been able to save a bit of money this year, but I still feel like I’m recovering from breaking my ankle. That was a big setback. I feel good now.