Month: March 2019

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In the spring of 2016, just a few months after moving to Salt Lake City from Pittsburgh, I bought a 1999 Toyota Land Cruiser as my adventure vehicle. At first I visualized doing an aggressive overland-style build, with heavy-duty bumpers, a roof rack, a suspension lift, and more. Pretty soon, though, it became clear that I’d never be able to justify the ridiculously high costs of most of these modifications given the relatively limited utility each of them offered.

So I decided to focus on simple, relatively inexpensive changes that offer big returns on rough forest roads and while camping far afield.

My only cost here was time. First I got rid of all of the extra stuff on the vehicle. The previous owner of my Land Cruiser apparently hadn’t used it for cruising anything more hardcore than mall parking lots, and it came with a couple of superfluous exterior accessories—running boards and mud flaps—that did little other than hinder the vehicle’s inherent off-road capability. Getting rid of the running boards gave the vehicle more ground clearance and a much better breakover (i.e., the maximum possible angle the vehicle can straddle between its front and rear wheels without bottoming out) as well as a more aggressive appearance. They were held onto the frame by four bolts and were extremely easy to remove.

Rear mud flaps pose a different problem, as they can snag between the tire and bumper during off-camber trail descents. In the case of a 100 Series Land Cruiser like mine, this can actually rip the bumper off if you aren’t careful. With the help of a box cutter, I sliced off the low-hanging plastic parts to prevent this from happening.

My last subtraction was more of an aesthetic choice: I got rid of the cracked, worn-out bug deflector that was attached to the hood.

Switching to off-road-appropriate tires gives you the most bang for your buck, by far, of any off-road modification. My Land Cruiser came with a set of worn-out Yokohama Geolandars—run-of-the-mill pavement tires completely inappropriate for the rocky, muddy, uneven terrain I was planning to explore. The solution was a set of larger, 33-inch BF Goodrich All-Terrain T/A KO2s, the biggest size that would fit the vehicle’s stock suspension. The KO2s are an aggressive all-terrain tire, and I chose them because they offer excellent off-road capability while still keeping things fairly civil on road (read: they wouldn’t cause a ton of noise or hamstring my fuel economy). They lifted the vehicle an inch and essentially doubled its off-road capability. While the big new KO2s did result in a loss of around one mile per gallon—not to mention a speedometer that now reads one or two miles per hour below the vehicle’s actual speed—those are small trade-offs.

Factoring in tire-shop fees for the mount and balance, the total came to just over $1,000. By itself this may seem like a lot, but when you consider that all vehicles will need new tires at some point, the small premium you’ll end up paying for a quality, capable tire like the BFG KO2 is worth every penny.

Companies like ARB, Front Runner, Gamiviti, and Gobi all offer a range of high-quality platform-style roof racks that effectively double the cargo capacity of any truck or SUV. The main drawback of these models is that they’re expensive—most cost north of a grand. Not wanting to spend that much, I opted for Arksen’s simple, affordable roof basket, which I bought on Amazon and then mounted to the Land Cruiser’s factory crossbars. (This particular roof rack is marketed under a number of different brand names and sold on a variety of sites, but in all instances it carries a retail price of less than $150.)

Once I installed it, I was able to carry bulky items like sleeping bags and camp chairs on the roof, freeing up valuable space inside the cabin. Keep in mind that, unlike higher-end racks that are made of aluminum, options like this one are almost certain to be made of steel, which means they’re heavy and have a tendency to rust. Still, given the cost, the Arksen basket is hard to beat.

Fancy off-road suspensions and lift kits tend to run anywhere from $1,500 to several thousand dollars. My new tires had already granted me an extra inch of ground clearance, and I didn’t want to throw off the vehicle’s handling and stability, so instead I opted to simply replace the Land Cruiser’s four sagging shock absorbers with new original equipment manufacturer (OEM) shocks. For only $35 apiece, this gave the vehicle a ride that was about as smooth as when it was brand-new—a night and day difference when compared to the clunky, clangy ride on the old worn-out shocks. Additionally, by adjusting the Land Cruiser’s torsion bars, which can be done with the twist of a wrench once the vehicle is up on a lift, I was able to boost the front-suspension height by an inch or two. Altogether this project costs around $350 once you factor in the shop’s labor charges.

Knowing that I’d be using this vehicle a lot for camping, I opted to change out the old incandescent bulbs with LEDs that are not only brighter but draw significantly less power, meaning I could have them on for long periods without worrying about the vehicle’s battery. I was happy to find several options in a warm tone, not unlike this $14 set from Aucan. The slightly yellow tint of these lights is easier on the eyes than pure white, especially at night. For around $30 for the whole operation, the peace of mind that I won’t be left stranded in the wilderness if someone unwittingly leaves a door open overnight was a no-brainer.

With all that, I’ve put just over $1,500 into making my Land Cruiser—a capable off-roader in its own right—into a bona fide adventure vehicle. That’s a considerable savings over what I originally had in mind, as heavy-duty bumpers ($4,000), a fancy suspension ($3,000), underbody protection ($1,500), and a platform roof rack ($1,200) would’ve run close to ten grand. I was able to save big and still come away with a vehicle capable of tackling most North American trails, not to mention I have plenty of funds left over for camping gear, bikes, and snowboards.

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Heather Anderson will probably never read this story.

It’s not personal. The 37-year-old hiker, ultrarunner, and writer, known as Anish in the long-distance hiking community, doesn’t read most stories about her achievements. Not even the ones about her impressive fastest-known-time (FKT) records on long trails or her most recent accomplishment, becoming the first woman to hike a calendar-year Triple Crown—that is, knocking out almost 8,000 miles to complete the Appalachian Trail (AT), Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), and Continental Divide Trail within a single year.

It’s simply an act of self-preservation. When an as-yet-unknown Anderson broke the overall self-supported speed record on the PCT back in 2013, she knocked almost four full days off Scott Williamson’s previous time, making her the fastest person of any gender to complete the trail in that style. The accomplishment drew more attention than she could have imagined. In a flurry of magazine articles and online chatter, the real, live human Heather Anderson suddenly transformed into the stuff of myth, transcending even Anish to become “The Ghost.” The name, whispered by other hikers on the trail, seemed to render her as something beyond mortal, too fast to see or maybe even believe. And it only added to the postrecord noise as she was simultaneously celebrated as a groundbreaking athlete and criticized for speeding through what many consider to be a once-in-a-lifetime trail with something less than reverence.

Except, well, that last bit is wrong. Anderson tells me that her typical speed on a long hike is about 2.8 miles an hour—pretty darn average. “The thing I always hear is, ‘How can you enjoy it when you’re going that fast?’” she says. “I’m like, ‘Well, when was the last time you drove a car at 2.8 miles per hour and felt like you couldn’t possibly see anything because you were going so fast?’”

It doesn’t really matter what anybody says now, because Anderson, based in Bellingham, Washington, is fully in control of her own narrative with the January release of her new memoir Thirst: 2,600 Miles to Home ($18, Mountaineers Books). It draws from exhaustive journal entries written on the trail to track all 60 days, 17 hours, and 12 minutes of her record-setting PCT hike in captivating detail. But perhaps more impressive is the way it paints a complex portrait of the strong-willed yet vulnerable human being behind what seems like a superhuman feat.

Anderson nearly abandoned the idea of writing Thirst after finishing the trail. Hiking over 40 miles per day had ravaged her body, sure, but it was leaving the trail, a place she calls home, that she struggled with the most. Exhausted from sleepless nights, wracked with feelings of homesickness and grief, Anderson began questioning her accomplishment and even her own inner strength. She considered destroying everything that signified her time on trail—the journal, her photographs, even her matted hair. “It was basically like PTSD,” she says. “If I hiked through an open pine forest and smelled that smell, I suddenly started having anxiety.”

Her friend Barney “Scout” Mann, an author, thru-hiker, and revered PCT trail angel, convinced Anderson to write about her experience. “Initially, when I started working on this book, I was journaling to process all of the emotion,” she says. “It wasn’t necessarily a joyful process, but it is what got me through my post-trail depression.”

The result of that emotional labor is a refreshingly candid account of how an average person can harness a steadfast determination to achieve the spectacular. Anderson spares no detail in flashbacks to her childhood in Michigan, describing herself as a quiet, overweight everykid who enjoyed retreating to the fantasy world of a well-stocked bookshelf. A charmingly self-aware essay she wrote in her sixth-grade gym class, however, hints at the future: “If I ever manage to overcome my athletic weaknesses, I want to set a record. Not just any record, but an athletic record. One that everyone will know me for. I have a lot of weaknesses, but I have two critical strengths. I am stubborn and I am smart.”

She continues to weave her life story throughout her telling of the FKT attempt. We learn about a transformative summer during collegethat Anderson spent working in the Grand Canyon for an organization called A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. She was inspired not only by the scenery but also by the way she felt grounded to what she calls her “place in the natural world.” Throughout the summer, Anderson summoned her childhood stubbornness—or more accurately, perseverance—and tested her limits, including a rim-to-rim hike she completed barefoot after her cheap sandals broke.

It was her first taste of truly belonging somewhere, a feeling that only grew once Anderson decided to hike the AT two years later, in 2003, and then the other two Triple Crown trails within the next three years. Anderson explains that long-distance hiking became a form of meditation to her, a place to both focus and find her truest self. “The sleep deprivation and the extremeness of it really start to wear you down and lower your own defenses against yourself,” she says during our conversation. “We all put up our own walls against our emotions. When you’re busy keeping yourself going on the trail, you don’t have time to fight yourself on that.”

Despite her deep connection to the pursuit, Anderson eventually traded thru-hiking for ultrarunning when she got married and settled into a career. After the marriage dissolved in 2011, however, she decided to return to the PCT—first on a section hike, then to attempt an FKT in 2013. With the latter, Anderson wanted to test her physical and emotional boundaries and seek healing in a place where she had felt most comfortable and most herself.

The irony, of course, is that Anderson’s FKT attempt was filled with discomfort. There were the long, hard days, which took a toll on her body as she dealt with hunger, dehydration, and sleep deprivation. But the mental game was, in some ways, much tougher. She wondered if she was using the trail as an escape from reality. She questioned whether she was fit enough to be out there in the first place. And she dealt with fears both real and imagined, including things like heights, injuries, mountain lions, and even failure itself, most of which feel silly to her in hindsight, and some of which might seem surprising to those who’ve branded her as bulletproof.

Writing so openly about fears and vulnerabilities might have seemed like “weaknesses” to her sixth-grade self. But that process required bravery and more than a little sacrifice. “I’m a very private and introverted person, so there’s a pretty high emotional toll that it takes,” says Anderson. “It’s allowed me to become more comfortable with being open.”

While she’s gotten better at setting boundaries around the energy she spends on social media or, say, deciding not to read (or read into) what other people write about her, Anderson recognizes the importance of sharing her personal journey. She hopes that, in doing so, it might help others find their own source of connection to the natural world—and maybe even to themselves.

“The trail is for you, whatever you need it to be, when you need it,” Anderson says. “If you spend time hiking and really immersing yourself in nature, what you’re doing is immersing yourself in yourself. You’re learning about yourself and communicating with yourself. And if you need healing, you’re going to find healing on the trail, because you’re going to find it within yourself.”

There really is a massive difference between weather alerts depending on where they’re issued. The question is: Can you handle the heat?

The true great American pastime is bad-mouthing people from different parts of the country. We love to denigrate others whose realities in some way seem inferior to ours—and at no time is this habit more pronounced than when we’re talking weather. Late-summer heat brings out the worst of our mockery. “Why do those Northerners need a heat advisory for temperatures cooler than our average high?” Southerners deride. Of course, it also happens in the winter. Citizens of Denver, Colorado, roll their eyes when a dusting of snow shuts down schools in New York City.

This is not because Northerners in general and New Yorkers in particular are wimps. There really is a massive difference between weather alerts depending on where they’re issued. Let me explain.

The National Weather Service sends out dozens of watches, advisories, and warnings to alert us of hazardous weather and help us make decisions to stay safe. The alerts range from the mundane (a fog advisory) to the most urgent (a tornado warning).

Some of these alerts—typically those for the most extreme weather, like tornados—are the same no matter where you are in the country. Take a severe thunderstorm warning, for example: Authorities will issue one for a storm capable of producing hail the size of quarters or larger and/or wind gusts of 60 miles per hour. Those conditions will produce an alert whether you’re in Seattle, Washington, or Mobile, Alabama.

Then there are the relative alerts that vary county by county. A winter weather advisory is a relative alert. It takes only a dusting of snow in Pensacola, Florida, to trigger a winter weather advisory, but it takes four inches of snow in 12 hours to meet the criteria for one in Cleveland, Ohio. Much of that reasoning can be chalked up to infrastructure: Cleveland has the recourses to clear its streets after a blizzard. Pensacola, not so much.

Extreme cold and extreme heat are relative, in part, because we’re all acclimated to different temperatures. It’s easier for someone in North Carolina to suffer through three months of heat and humidity than it is for someone in Atlantic Canada to deal with it for a few days. “Stifling” is the default setting in Tampa for much of the year. If that city followed the same heat advisory guidelines as Ann Arbor, Michigan, or Burlington, Vermont, Tampans would basically live under a permanent it’s-too-hot-out warning.

A heat advisory is issued when an expected period of hot temperatures—either air temperature or heat index (the temperature you actually feel, taking humidity into account)—could pose a risk to those who are sick, elderly, or working outside for extended periods of time. An excessive heat warning is issued when dangerously hot temperatures are in the forecast that could cause heat-related illnesses even in healthy individuals.

The heat index routinely climbs above 100 degrees during the summer months in Miami. Using New England’s criteria, a heat advisory would be issued for Miami almost every day for months on end. But residents of the city are acclimated to the heat. Even vulnerable populations—such as the elderly and outdoor workers—mostly know how to handle the heat. On the other hand, wind chills dipping into the lower thirties are all it takes for a wind chill advisory in Miami. It takes a wind chill of minus 15 degrees and minus 24 degrees for at least three hours for NWS Boston to issue a wind chill advisory.

I did my best to map out the heat index required for a heat advisory for areas east of the Rocky Mountains. Many regional NWS offices—especially in the South and East—have their criteria helpfully laid out in various places online (see here, here, and here). Some of the heat index requirements on the above map are inferred based on the text of past heat advisories and the requirements of the surrounding offices.

So, let’s get into the data. It takes a heat index of 95 degrees or higher for a heat advisory to be issued in much of New England. The heat index (or air temperature) required for a heat advisory slowly rises the farther south you go. The criteria reaches 108 degrees along the Gulf Coast and 110 in desert areas of the southern plains. (The 110-degree requirement in parts of South Carolina and Georgia is due to these areas routinely seeing some of the hottest and muggiest days along the East Coast.)

The bottom line: It’s all a matter of what you’re used to. Get over it, wimps.

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Clif Bar has issued a challenge to one of its biggest competitors, Kind Snacks. In an ad in Wednesday’s print edition of The New York Times, as well as on the paper’s homepage, co-CEOs Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford penned an open letter urging Kind CEO Daniel Lubetzky to transition his company to organic ingredients.

“Do a truly kind thing and make an investment in the future of the planet and our children’s children by going organic,” the letter reads. It goes on to list the primary benefits of organic food, such as reduced pesticides, and then finishes with a pledge to share Clif Bar’s decade-plus of knowledge in sourcing organic ingredients, as well as donate 10 tons of organic ingredients should Kind take up the challenge. Erickson and Crawford also call out Larabar (owned by General Mills) and RX Bar (owned by Kellogg’s) and invite them to join the movement, too. (Currently, none of these competing brands use organic ingredients.)

“The ad was meant to move the dial on organic,” says Crawford. “We were trying to think of a creative way to do this, and we thought, ‘Why not invite Kind Bar to come and join us?’” Ultimately, Crawford and Erickson say, they hope the ad starts a conversation about the relative importance of organic farming and ingredients sourcing, whether that be encouraging more brands to switch suppliers or encouraging consumers to start buying from brands that do. 

It’s also straight-up marketing. “It’s a strategic move to reach new audiences,” says Lindsey Bier, a business communication professor at the University of Southern California. “If Clif were only seeking to address Kind, there are other ways they could have done that without taking out an ad in The New York Times.”

Clif Bar has been incorporating organic ingredients into its products since 2003. “Clif is, in a very gentle way, calling out its competitors,” says Bill Pearce, a lecturer at UC Berkeley and former chief marketing officer at Taco Bell. It’s yet another example of the cutthroat world of energy bars, which Outside explored in a feature last month.

So far, according to Erickson, neither Kind Bar, RX Bar, nor Larabar have responded to the letter. Though Kind’s Lubetzky offered this statement to Inc: “Clif’s approach in selling snacks made predominantly from organic brown rice syrup, which is basically sugar, isn’t the solution. We'd be happy to meet and share why Kind focuses on making snacks that always lead with nutrient-dense ingredients like whole nuts, whole grains, and whole fruit—instead of sugar. That is why Kind's leading snack bars have a fraction of the sugar in Clif’s lineup.”

Will the campaign be successful? Pearce is doubtful. “Direct ‘you’re bad, I’m good’ advertising works in politics but does not work in consumer goods,” he says. Bier disagrees, pointing out that the ad is consistent with Clif Bar’s company values, which include sustainability. “When we’re looking at building a brand, we want brands to communicate their actions but also have them be authentic and reflect back to their values,” she says. “That’s exactly what this does.” 

From costumed toboggan rides to an unsanctioned triathlon in the Tetons, these quirky competitions are no joke

Races don’t have to be ultra-serious affairs where all that matters is a podium finish. They can be fun, irreverent gatherings that include costumes and DJs or a frozen pond as a finish line. But these types of competition can be hard to locate. Here’s where you can find a few of our favorites.

Folsom Rodeocross

Folsom, California

This lively cyclocross race is held every Wednesday night in September and October at the pro rodeo arena in Folsom, California, just outside Sacramento. While cyclists zip around and over obstacles, a DJ spins punk rock tracks outside the rodeo grounds. It’s meant to be fun and welcoming for cyclocross newbies—and affordable, with $20 entry fees. The last race this fall takes place on Halloween, so riders like Olympic mountain biker and top-ranked cyclocross racer Katerina Nash will likely show up in full costume.

The Picnic

Jackson, Wyoming

First run in 2012 by Jackson Hole local David Gonzales, the Picnic is an unsanctioned triathlon of sorts that acts as litmus test for the hardiest athletes in town. There’s no entry fee, no specific date or start time, and all are welcome to give it a go whenever they like. Simply start in town, ride a bike 21 miles to the east shore of Jenny Lake, swim 1.3 miles across the water, and climb ten miles and 7,000 vertical feet to the top of 13,770-foot Grand Teton. Then repeat everything in the reverse direction. Since you can attempt the race at any time, results are logged by sending GPS-tagged, time-stamped selfies to Gonzales. The current record? Eleven hours and 27 minutes.

U.S. National Toboggan Championships

Camden, Maine

You don’t need to be an elite athlete to sign up for this national competition. The U.S. National Toboggan Championships, taking place February 8 through 10, 2019, at the Camden Snow Bowl, is open to anyone willing to shell out $30 to plunge down a 400-foot-long wooden chute at 40 miles per hour onto a frozen pond. Winners of each category—including fastest team, oldest team, and best costume—earn handmade mahogany trophies.

Arctic Man Classic

Paxson, Alaska

It’s easy to see why professional and amateur adrenaline junkies alike gather for the Arctic Man Classic each April. Skiers race 1,700 vertical feet down to their snowmobile-bound partners, who then tow them uphill at high speeds for more than two miles so the skiers can rip down another 1,200 feet to the finish line. In 2019, the event will include new snowmobile races and an attempt to break the record for longest snowmobile parade. Beyond the races, there is a five-day party and backcountry camp 12 miles north of Paxon Lake off Alaska’s Richardson Highway. Entry fees start at $250.

Texas Water Safari

San Marcos, Texas

Billed as the world’s toughest canoe race, the Texas Water Safari, held each June, is a four-day, 260-mile jaunt from the headwaters of the San Marcos River northeast of San Antonio to the small shrimping town of Seadrift on the Gulf Coast. There’s no prize money—just bragging rights for the winner. Any boat without a motor is allowed, and you’ll have to carry your own equipment and overnight gear. Food and water are provided at aid stations along the way. Entry fees start at $175 and increase as race day approaches.

The Ring

Strasburg, Virginia

The Ring is a 71-mile trail running race in early September along the entire length of Virginia’s rough and rocky Massanutten Trail loop. To qualify, you need to have run a 50- or 100-mile race before the event and win a spot through the lottery system. Entry is free. Complete the run and you’ll become part of the tight-knit Fellowship of the Ring and be eligible for the Reverse Ring, which entails running the trail backwards in the middle of winter.

Plaza2Peak

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Each spring, competitors gather in Santa Fe’s historic plaza with a simple goal: be the first to reach 12,308-foot Deception Peak, 17 miles and 5,000 feet of elevation gain away. Competitors run or bike the first 15 miles to the local ski area before transitioning to their waiting ski-touring setups for the final push to the top. Time stops only when they’ve skied back down to the tailgate in the resort’s parking lot, which is funded by the modest entry fee of around $25. To add to the sufferfest, some participants sign up for the Expedition category, in which they strap their skis, skins, boots, and poles to their bikes for the long ride up. Start dates vary depending on snow conditions, but look for the event page to be posted on Facebook in late March or early April.

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For dogsledders, our dogs are our bodies; they’re our muscles, our engines, the hair that rises on our necks when we sense an animal in the trees. We study their movements like poetry. Without experiencing a dog team firsthand, it’s hard to fathom the amount of sheer power that mushers control, the way that we order chaos (usually) into something streamlined and beautiful. Our human bodies are afterthoughts.

But my human body, too, will be crossing a thousand miles of Alaskan wilderness this March when I run my first Iditarod.

So how do I prepare this body for the race? Some mushers train by running marathons in the off-season or come to mushing from various professional sports. Others see their bodies primarily as vehicles for labor. “Ibuprofen,” a former Iditarod champ muttered when he overheard me discussing this topic at the Alpine Creek Lodge, the Alaskan wilderness camp where I’m training for the race. “That’s all you fucking need to know.”

For the most part, I focus on the massive amount of physical work it takes to keep a dog team going. What strength I have is gained from chopping frozen meat with an ax, hauling 40-pound buckets of water and food, muscling the sled around corners, stacking a thousand pounds of dog food in a day. I do exercises while driving the sled, half to build stamina and half to stay warm. I’ll do ten squats each time I pass a mile marker or jog beside the dogs on steep uphills, leaping back onto the runners to catch my breath.

Sled dogs are runners, but mushers are workers, which might account for the sheer range of body types represented in the sport. Mushing is one of the only sports where men and women compete together at a world-class level, and last year’s Iditarod entrants ranged in age from 18 to 77; it’s pleasant to know, at age 30, that I could be decades away from my peak. Unlike tall basketball players, or petite gymnasts, our builds are diverse. Dogsledding champions are often small, wiry men, but that’s a loose pattern, not a rule. What young mushers have in pure energy, older racers have in experience, instincts, and wisdom; a lighter musher saves weight on the sled, while larger mushers have more physical control over big teams. If there are genetic blessings that set some mushers apart, chief among them is a need for little sleep.

When it comes to races, mid- and long-distance mushers tend to average two or three hours of sleep a night. While the dogs are running, we drive the sled, steering around obstacles and watching for wild animals, changes in the team, and changes in the weather. When we get to checkpoints, the dogs rest while we massage their muscles, melt snow, thaw meat, repair equipment, and otherwise prepare for the next run. In a four-hour stop at a checkpoint, the dogs should get almost four hours of sleep, while the musher might steal an hour-long snooze. Then it’s time to get up and continue down the trail.

There is, unfortunately, no great way to train for sleep deprivation, except for the miserable practice of hauling yourself from a toasty sleeping bag into frigid air while camping with your dogs, which is more mental than physical: practice enough discomfort, prove to yourself that you can endure, and you rob that discomfort of its power—or some of it, anyway. We all have our tricks. We tuck bleating alarm clocks into our hats or use thin sleeping bags so that the subzero cold forces us awake after an hour. This fall I cut out caffeine, so I can down coffee at checkpoints as needed but won’t have to worry about going through caffeine withdrawal if I can’t find any. Some mushers abstain from sugar, wanting to avoid an energy crash, while others swear by frozen Snickers bars for a burst of calories and heat. Most mushers are self-taught, and our methods are as diverse as we are.

So, too, are the skills needed for long-distance dogsledding. In their pre-Iditarod report cards, which are filled out by judges and veterinarians at qualifying races, rookie mushers are evaluated in categories ranging from fire building and mental perseverance to management of dogs in heat. You need to be cheerful while spending ten hours in driving wind, napping for two hours in a snowbank, and then waking up and doing it again. You have to be capable of lifting 50-pound blocks of meat. You need to know how to drive a sled: to memorize the micromovements and shifts of weight necessary to navigate a sidehill, burst over snowbanks, swing wide around trees. You can train yourself for cold. Temperatures that feel frigid in October are downright balmy in March. Cold tolerance, which nonmushers like to proclaim they either have or don’t, is in large part a combination of acclimatization and skill.

You have to know dogs. Know their gaits, their glances, their idiosyncrasies. When my girl Boudica picks at her dinner, it means something different than when Talese does it. When Flame looks over her shoulder, it means she’s checking on me; when Anya does the same, it means a wild animal is close by. Nothing a dog does is coincidental, no glance or skip or burp—it’s all information to be read and absorbed. The dogs trust you to recognize what they need as both individuals and extreme athletes. In the bush, for as long as it may take for outside help to arrive, you are everything to each other. You are your own doctor and veterinarian. You are coach, nutritionist, physical therapist, and athlete combined.

For this reason, perhaps the most important skill is wilderness survival: Each day’s training run has the potential to be a disaster, a backcountry emergency, but for the knowledge and experience of the musher. It’s a sport of problem-solving and snap judgments that represent not just winning or losing but protecting the lives of yourself and your dogs.

In high school, before I took up mushing, I was a competitive figure skater. I used to jog several miles a day, though I never loved it, never got into the rhythm or the joy I noticed in runners I admired. I’ve thru-hiked, which was as triumphant and painful as you might imagine. But I was not a kid you would have pinned as a future professional athlete. I spent most of my gym classes avoiding exertion in the hot California sun; I hated sweating and felt embarrassed about running more slowly than most of my classmates. I thought that this meant that I didn’t like sports and wasn’t cut out for them. What it meant was that I was waiting for the right sport: the one that relied on my mind and my wilderness skills as much as muscle memory, that measured my endurance in days more than minutes or hours, and that rewarded strength of will—and love of dogs—more than anything else.

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I love airline travel. The predictable flow of airports soothes me, and I get giddy during takeoff because I still don’t quite understand the science (read: magic) that keeps planes aloft. But there’s one thing I hate about flying, and it’s not the overpriced tickets or the baby crying three rows ahead of me in economy class.

It’s the people who recline their seats with total disregard for the person behind them.

Let me be clear: reclining is perfectly acceptable on flights longer than, say, four or five hours, especially if it’s an overnighter. If you are flying long enough to need real sleep, recline away. But if you’re reclining your seat on a two-hour, midday puddle jump, I hope you miss your connection and get stuck at LaGuardia Airport without even an $8 coffee to comfort you.

It’s no secret that airlines have spent the last two decades removing everything from flying that made it remotely comfortable. Seats have gotten smaller while we’ve gotten bigger, and legroom has all but disappeared. According to a deep dive by the Telegraph, seat pitch—the distance between any point on your seat and the same point on the seat in front of you—has been slashed by an average of three inches on long-haul flights over the last three decades, with one carrier cutting as much as six inches. It’s not uncommon for some carriers to offer just 28 inches of pitch. The Telegraph found that seats are getting slimmer, too, with some major airlines cutting width by as much as four inches. According to Forbes, all that suffering heaped upon those of us in economy class has led to a 32 percent increase in passengers on the average plane, because carriers have been able to jam in a few extra rows.

So when we all pile into our clown car in the sky, we do so knowing that for whatever time we’re at cruising altitude, we’re going to sacrifice some personal space and our legs are going to fall asleep.Which is why my fellow economy-class members who recline their seats are the worst.  

Let’s get real. Those extra three degrees of slope on your reclined seat back aren’t going to make you more comfortable. Your leg room isn’t magically larger. All you’re doing is encroaching upon the person behind you who also paid $324 to be shipped to Dallas. Did they have a drink on their tray table? You didn’t think to check before you reclined onto their warm Diet Coke, did you? Were they working on their laptop? Now their screen is hunched forward at an angle that makes productivity impossible.

The thing is, you know you suck when you hit that recline button, but just in case you truly are ignorant, hear this: your actions have direct consequences for the people around you—any space you take is taken from someone else.The person behind you deserves the same respect you give the person in front of and beside you by not kicking their seat or elbowing them over the armrest. Meanwhile, what do you have against your spine? It’s begging you to sit up straight for once.

So if you want to lounge back and make life a little bit worsein an already untenable situation, I suggest you get rich, leave us common folk behind, and live it up in business class, which United is expanding while, you guessed it, shrinking economy. Until then, please return your seat to its upright position.

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As Matt Mason listened to public debates in 2009 about whether a wilderness area should be established in the Organ Mountains of southern New Mexico, he got the sense that most people arguing about the land didn’t know it very well. For that matter, neither did he. So in the spring of 2010,he set out to learn about it the best way he knew how: on foot.

But Mason quickly discovered that the brutal stretches between water sources made hiking long distances almost impossible. A bike offered a faster way to cover ground, so he strapped his camping kit to a frame and set out exploring.

“You find the story of where you live, back to however long geology goes back—some of the cinder cones out there are 30,000 years old,” Mason says of the area. “It’s just a remote, quiet place to sit and be a person, and I think people need that connection to wilderness.”

He’s lured other people to follow in his tracks by threading together roads and trails, including nearly 30 miles of singletrack, to establish the Monumental Loop, a 320-mile bikepacking route in what’s now the Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks National Monument. The trail, which resembles a figure eight that starts and ends in the southern New Mexican city of Las Cruces, passes rocky spires and red sandstone and sometimes crosses black lava rock likea shattered asphalt path. Three-inch tires and a full seven days are recommended.

Mason, a stay-at-home dad who moved to New Mexico a decade ago, and other bikepackers around the state have gone on to establish four additional routes across New Mexico. Combined, they cover almost 1,450 miles, weaving into one another and traversing from the northern to southern borders. It wasn’t trail building as much as trail mapping. “That’s the best part about this—it’s already there,” Mason says. “We just need to promote it and breathe some life into it and get each community behind it.”

In Las Cruces, some neighborhoods are just a few minutes’ ride from the monument. Mason and Pablo Lopez, who runs the local bike shop Outdoor Adventures, have fostered a community one overnight trip and Thursday gravel ride at a time. City councillors signaled their support, declaring a Monumental Loop Week to kick off the peak riding season in late October.

That effort has also reached the state capitol, where recently converted cyclist and state representative Angelica Rubio has introduced a house memorial for lawmakers to officially recognize the bikepacking trail network and the sport’s contributions to the state’s economy, where outdoor recreation already amounts to $9.9 billion in consumer spending.

Rubio slept outside for the first time this past summer—a year ahead of her fortieth birthday—on an overnight bikepacking trip with Lopez. To her surprise, she loved the sense of escape, even when camped near the glow of an Arby’s sign. “Especially because of the work that I do, it’s the place where I can find sanctuary and refuge,” Rubio says.

She’s now an avid bike commuter, which can mean pedaling 285 miles over a week from Las Cruces to Santa Fe to raise awareness for her bikepacking initiative. The memorial she introduced, she says, is “sort of a footprint in the history of our work here as legislators.” It includes language that advocates for equitable access to the outdoors and to honor the state’s tribes and their cultures. If passed, it’ll send a message to the secretaries of economic development and tourism toprioritize these outdoor-recreation dollars in one of the most rural parts of the state. The hope is to draw attention to a pending Office of Outdoor Recreation, which could expand the trail network. (Rubio’s also cosponsoring a bill to create that office.) Says Lopez, “[The trail network] is a huge thing that already exists, that they could sink their teeth into and not have to spend money on infrastructure because it already exists, and they don’t have to pay more to maintain it because they already maintain those roads.”

In the first committee meeting to consider the memorial, Rubio told her fellow lawmakers that the measure would enhance small businesses, bring tourism dollars to small communities, and help diversify the state’s economy. Support was unanimous.

Research backs up Rubio’s assertions. In 2013, a study for the Arizona Department of Transportation found that 14,000 out-of-state visitors attended 250 cycling events that year—not big money for the state but a big deal for the small communities they passed through. A University of Montana study found that cycling tourists spent an average of $76 per day and stayed eight days in the state. “Their expenditures were lower than your average snowmobiler, but they moved so darn slowly that they stayed in the state a long time, so their economic impact was greater than what you’d expect,” says Megan Lawson of Headwaters Economics, an independent research firm that ran the study. 

Bikepackers in particular tend to pop out of singletrack or off dirt roads in rural places, where their spending on snacks or lodging can have an outsize impact, Lawson says. Already the New Mexico towns of Vinton, Texas, and Hatch have welcomed Monumental Loop riders.

“Honestly, it’s all about beer and burritos, and every town in New Mexico has that,” says Lopez, who wrote much of the house-memorial text. He thinkssuch an offering might be the first of its kind in the nation. Lawmakers have until March 16 to cast a final vote on the measure.

To date, the grassroots effort has grown slowly and seems to be gaining traction steadily. But if the memorial passes, Mason predicts support for the trails will explode. “I just can’t imagine what would happen if the whole state got behind it,” he says.

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Your core is more than just a six-pack; it’s a cylinder comprised of muscles that wrap around your entire torso. So while crunches might prepare you for the beach, that exercise won’t necessarily help you perform in the mountains.

Outdoor athletes typically have good abdominal strength when it comes to forward flexion (think sit-ups), but we often overlook the importance of the obliques. Located on each side of the core, these muscles rotate the torso and provide lateral and rotationalstability.

Whether you’re a skier, runner, or climber, you could benefit from stronger obliques. “The obliques play a crucial role in all mountain athletics, because we use our bodies in rugged and inconsistent environments where we need to move in multi-planer ways,” says Carolyn Parker, founder of Ripple Effect Athlete Training Center. “Without strong obliques, we underperform on unstable terrain.”

For the mountain athlete, however, training a muscle group in isolation (like using weight machines) is much less effective than performing functional exercises that engage the whole kinetic chain, or all of the muscle groups involved, for a sport-specific movement pattern. Complex exercises that target more than one muscle group bolster the weakest link. Parker says, “We need to look at the core muscles—the diaphragm, pelvic floor, transversus abdominis, multifidus, rectus abdominis, internal and external obliques—as a complete package.” A mountain athlete herself, she devised this full-body core circuit (for those who are already active and free of injuries) to target the obliques.

Throughout the circuit, let your form be your guide. For each exercise, do as many reps as you can until you begin to lose form due to fatigue, then move on to the next exercise. (Rest between exercises, if needed.)

If this circuit feels approachable, start with one or two rounds twice a week, and add another round every two weeks, up to four rounds. If you find this circuit more difficult, start by doing the first three or four exercises once, and when that begins to feel manageable, add in another exercise every week or two. Quality—i.e., maintaining proper form—is far more important than quantity.

Warm up before you begin, whether via light cardio, dynamic stretching, or incorporating this circuit at the end of your standard workout. 

Strengthens the abdominal and oblique muscles for core stability.

Hold a medicine ball or weight at chest level, and get into an athletic stance: feet hip-width apart, knees slightly bent, and core engaged. Tighten your core and extend your arms straight out in front of you, maintaining a slight bend in the elbows. From this position, slowly rotate your torso 90 degrees to one side and then the other, while keeping your arms parallel to the ground and your hips level and facing forward throughout the movement.

Combines push-up, side plank, and hip lift movements to strengthen the upper body and core.

Start in a standard push-up position with your feet together, your hands shoulder-width apart, and your back flat. Complete a perfect push-up: lower down until you brush the ground, and return to the starting position, while maintaining a rigid plank position (no sagging or lifting the hips).

Transition into a side plank by rotating your hips to the right until they are perpendicular to the ground, with your feet stacked, and raise your free hand to the ceiling in line with the supporting hand on the ground. Lower your hips as far as you can without breaking form and raise them back to a neutral side-plank position.

Then transition back into the pushup position and repeat the exercise—including the pushup—but this time with a left side plank and hip dip.

Builds strength in the shoulders and core.

Begin in a side-plank position with one hand planted on the ground, the other raised straight toward the ceiling in line with the supporting arm, your feet stacked, and your body in a straight line from feet to head. While maintaining this rigidposition (don’t let your hips sag or your butt stick out), lower your raised hand to touch the ground, and lift it back to the starting positing.Repeat on the other side.

If this becomes too easy, hold a dumbbell in the upper hand.

Strengthens and develops rotational power in the core.

Stand perpendicular to a wall, about two or three feet away. Get into an athletic stance, maintaining core tension, and hold a soft medicine ball in both hands. Extend your arms in front of you at waist level, and quickly rotate your torso to throw the ball into the wall, catching it on rebound and reversing the movement. Repeat on the opposite side.

Strengthens forward flexion of the abs and obliques.

With a partner standing a short distance from your feet, lie on your back on the floor in a sit-up position, knees bent and feet flat on the floor, holding a medicine ball on the ground in line with your head. Keeping your arms overhead, sit up quickly and throw the ball to your partner. Your partner should immediately return the ball, and then you reverse the movement. Once you get the hang of it, have your partner toss the ball off center to either side to train lateral core stability.

If you don’t have a partner, you can bounce the ball off a wall instead, but be prepared for a quick rebound.

Strengthens the glutes, quads, and core in a kinetic chain to develop rotational core stability.

This exercise requires a Glute Hamstring Developer (or another machine that allows you to brace your legs, as in the above photo). But instead of lying face down, you’ll position yourself face up, with your feet hooked behind the support pads. In a sitting position, hold a medicine ball or weight at your chest and lean back until your torso is parallel to the floor but not farther. Hold this position, rotate your torso to each side, and then sit up to the starting position.

A full-body exercise that strengthens the shoulders, pecs, lats, core, and hip flexors, and trains rotational core control.

This is an advanced exercise that requires a high level of core strength and control, as well as grip strength. (If you’re just starting out, begin with the easier reclined variation and progress to the hanging version.) Hang with straight arms from a pull-up bar, with about three feet of space to either side. Keeping your feet together and your knees as straight as possible, lift your legs directly up in front of you until they are aiming toward the ceiling. (It’s OK to lift your torso and bend your elbows to hold this position.) Slowly lower your legs a full 90 degrees to one side, return to neutral, and repeat again on the other side, all in a single plane of motion—like windshield wipers. Keep your core and shoulders tight to avoid swinging.

To perform the s ame exercise on the ground, lie flat on your back with your arms out to either side, palms down for support. Stick your legs straight up into the air, perpendicular to the ground, and slowly move them side to side like a windshield wiper, nearly touching the ground each time. Keep tension in your core and your back flat on the ground throughout the movement. If this is still too difficult, perform the same exercise with your knees bent to 90 degrees.

 

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Getting the latest and greatest gear doesn’t have to be synonymous with not being able to pay next month's rent. REI’s clearance sale goes from January 18 through January 21. You can shop all the deals here, but here are the best under $50.

This combo has everything you need to make a cup of coffee away from your kitchen. An adjustable ceramic-burr coffee grinder unlocks the flavor of your favorite beans better than blade-style grinders, while a collapsible drip cone holds a #4 filter to brew one to twelve cups of joe.

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With ten LEDs that produce 50 lumens, this lantern has a frosted plastic body that casts prettier light than most fixtures at five-star resorts. It has three settings (low, medium, and high), a separate button to check the remaining power, and a strap for carrying and hanging. 

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The Turtle Shell can take a beating. It’s waterproof, shockproof, and dustproof, and it floats—so maybe you could use it as an emergency PFD if things go south. The sound is boom-box quality, and there are multiple strap and mounting options, so you can put it on your raft, paddleboard, bike, or cooler. 

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The SingleTrack 18 pack is ideal for runners, hikers, and bikers who want to carry gear without slowing down. It’s not big, but it has enough room for the essentials and trades unnecessary features for a few well-placed organizer pockets.

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Keep your hair dry and out of your face with this waterproof cap. The reflective logo increases your visibility during early-morning or nighttime runs.

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A bucket-style main compartment lets you access your trail essentials quickly and easily, and dual water-bottle pockets are designed to securely hold one-liter vessels.

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Relieve tension with the Addaday Pro massage roller, which uses soft- and medium-density foam to target hard-to-reach areas such as the Achilles, shins, shoulders, and forearms.

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This mug is constructed with high-quality copper and finished with a tarnish-reducing lacquer for durability. Plus, for every product sold, United by Blue removes a pound of trash from oceans and waterways.

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This hat is fully insulated, with fold-down earflaps and a Velcro chin strap. The brushed-microfiber outer fabric offers UPF 40 sun protection.

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Although it’s minimal, this kit contains the most commonly need first aid products, including gauze, scissors, band-aids, and ibuprofen. 

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There are lots of varying opinions on the practicality of the spork, but the editors who love it prefer this one by Light My Fire. 

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Perfect for bringing camping or keeping in your car for impromptu dips, the PackTowl is made from absorbent and fast-drying polyester. A hang loop and zippered storage pouch offer easy drying and packing.

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The lightweight Xtreme is Coleman’s most insulated line, rated at five days of cold in temperatures up to 90 degrees. The Xtreme 5 is spacious enough to stow two-liter bottles upright, while the telescoping handle makes it so easy to wheel that even kids can tow it to the beach.

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