A new book by Kim Brooks confronts parents’ responsibility to assess risk on behalf of our kids

Kim Brooks’ new book, Small Animals: Parenting in the Age of Fear, has only been on sale since last month, but her story has been causing a stir since 2014, when Brooks wrote about the cool, overcast day when she left her four-year-old son alone in the car in a Target parking lot while she ran in to buy him a pair of headphones. During the ten minutes Brooks was in the store, a passerby noticed her son in the car and called the police. Brooks was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and a warrant was issued for her arrest. Though her case was eventually dismissed in exchange for 100 hours of community service, the sting of that day still lingers seven years later. “I felt, I think, what just about every woman feels whenever someone attacks or criticizes her mothering,” she writes in Small Animals. “I felt angry. I felt embarrassed. But beneath all that, I felt ashamed.”

Brooks recounts the incident and its aftermath in such meticulous, suspenseful detail that it’s hard not to imagine yourself in a similar situation when, frazzled by responsibility and pressured by time, you make a split-second decision and hope you get it right. As parents, our job is to constantly assess risk on behalf of our children and ourselves; with so many choices flying at us all day, our batting average is necessarily imperfect. And mothers, Brooks points out by citing experiments conducted at University of California, Irvine, are prone to extra scrutiny and judgment. This is the deeper, more troubling message in her book. “A father who is distracted for a few minutes by his myriad interests and obligations in the world of adult interactions is being, well, a father,” she writes. “A mother who does the same is failing her children.”

In the second half of the book, Brooks brings in stories of other mothers who left their children unattended and were accused of child endangerment or neglect, including a single mom in Atlanta who allowed her nine-year-old daughter to play in a park less than a mile away from the McDonald’s where she worked and the self-proclaimed “terrible Starbucks mom” who left her three kids in her minivan with the sliding door open while she went in for a latte. As little as a generation ago, these choices would have been seen as normal, rational parenting decisions. Today, in many states, they’re against the law.

Brooks argues, as do the panoply of child psychologists and researchers she quotes in Small Animals, that these cases are symptomatic of Americans’ proclivity for overparenting. “We now live in a society where most people believe a child cannot be out of an adult’s sight for one second, where people think children need constant, total adult supervision,” Lenore Skenazy, a free-range parenting expert, tells Brooks. The misperception flourishes despite the fact that child abductions and molestations have decreased dramatically over the past generation, and that, according to UC Irvine cognitive scientist Barbara Sarnecka, “the greatest risk to children in America right now is not strangers and not pedophiles and not overheating cars, but obesity and all the health disorders related to it,” including Type 2 diabetes, anxiety, and depression.

Still, fear is palpable on practically every page of Small Animals. Brooks admits to being an anxious mother, and in this, too, her story is supremely, heartbreakingly relatable. As a new parent, she read parenting books constantly, obsessed over stroller choices, and compared herself to other parents. “There’s a mania about it, and a constant economizing of time and resources that, once you’re in it, makes it easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees,” she writes.

As a mother to my own two small creatures, I too was beset by anxiety, though of a different sort. I didn’t worry about what other mothers thought of me; I was too busy worrying that I or my kids wouldn’t survive the day or the year. My father died of cancer three months after my second daughter was born, and for the first time in my life, it hit me that I was mortal. If he could die, so could I, so could my daughters. I worried they’d be strangled by window blind cords or choke on watermelon. I worried about the flu. As the years passed, my fears didn’t go away—they just changed form. Later, when the girls started walking home from school by themselves, I fretted about distracted drivers running the four-way stop. Now that they’re older, I worry about sexual predators and cyberbullying, social media, and my worry itself: Have they internalized mine?

Every parent’s tolerance for risk is different, just as every child’s is. I might not have left my daughters alone in a car when they were four, but my husband, Steve, and I started taking them on wilderness rafting trips when they were babies. We had years of whitewater experience and chose our rivers carefully—Class I or II riffles at most—but of course I worried. And when the blowback invariably came from people criticizing our parenting decisions, Steve and I joked nervously that it was only a matter of time before child protective services came knocking. But then, as now, the greater peril seemed not to go, to deny our girls the chance to learn to travel lightly through wild places, to find solace and inspiration in its wildness and in theirs.

Fear may be a chronic, inescapable part of parenthood, but there are things we can do to help alleviate it. In one of Small Animals’ more uncomfortable moments, Brooks is outside her urban Chicago townhouse not long after the Target incident; she sees a cluster of parents watching their kids ride tricycles and play on pogo sticks in the alley. It’s early evening, a nice scene, but neither Brooks nor her husband want anything to do with it. “I’d come to dread these moments of communal parenting,” she writes.

This struck me as a missed opportunity. A strong sense of community can be integral to kids’ independence and parents’ peace of mind. With mutual trust and communication, neighbors can be allies in your efforts to give kids freedom as they grow, an extra set of eyes if they run into trouble, a door to knock on if they need help. Playing under adult supervision, as the kids on Brooks’ street were doing, is the first step toward the unstructured free-range play that helps them grow into self-reliant, problem-solving adults. Like anything, though, independence takes practice. When I walk my daughters partway to school, I’m training them to be safe and responsible with their freedom as much as I’m training myself to let them go. This takes baby steps, breaking down objectives into manageable pieces for everyone and building up solo time gradually until, one day, you realize they’re ready, and so are you.

I also found myself hoping Brooks would carve out some solo time for herself. “For years, I’d been embracing, or at least blindly accepting, the assumption that a woman who has small children doesn’t just become a mom,” writes Brooks. “She becomes Mom.” Except for a two-week writing residency in Virginia, we don’t see Brooks in anything but that maternal role. Toward the end of Small Animals, though, she comes across a snapshot of herself as a young girl flinging herself off a diving board.

She props the photograph on her dresser, and for a moment, I’m hopeful. She’s going to make the leap and reclaim the fun and frivolity that all too often go missing from a mother’s life. And she does, sort of. Brooks goes away to New York City for a long weekend—with her husband and kids and siblings and nieces. Still, I couldn’t help but wish for her the same sweet independence she wants for her children: the pure, unadulterated joy of pumping your legs on a swing with your head tilted back, riding a bike with the wind in your face, running along a trail, alone, of throwing yourself off a diving board into the unknown, accountable, in that moment, to no one. No matter what our age, we all need freedom. We all need to play. When the shadow of my anxiety comes skulking back, as it always does, the only thing to do is put the books—even this fine one—back on the shelf and go where I always feel better, more grounded and sure and alive: outside.

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Last week, Airbnb acquired HotelTonight, the wildly popular last-minute booking app, and while both companies are staying mum on their grand plans, this is likely just another step toward accommodations domination.

Acquisitions like this aren’t necessarily a good thing, but this one just might be a boon for travelers wanting to compare all types of accommodations in a single app or who are planning on booking stays in multiple types of lodging—say an Airstream one night, a boutique hotel the next—all in one place. But we’ll break it all down for you.

Airbnb began in 2007 in San Francisco as a way for a few broke roommates to make a some extra bucks by renting out a room in their house equipped with air mattresses (hence the name). The website and app evolved, allowing people to rent and book rooms, homes, and even backyard tree houses when their owners weren’t using them. Today it’s a massive business with over 5 million places to stay in 191 countries.

Over the past several years the company has continued to diversify, adding Experiences in 2016, which allows users to book activities like bike excursions, surf lessons, and city tours. In 2018, it also added boutique hotels to its catalogue, as well as Airbnb Plus for luxury accommodations and Airbnb for Work, which allows you to book business travel accommodations, meeting spaces, and team experiences.  

HotelTonight is a slick discount-hotel booking app, offering cut-rate room prices at nice hotels—pretty much all three stars and up—in most major cities. Founded in 2010, the company began by partnering with hotels to offer unsold rooms for cheap, but in 2017 it expanded to allow customers to book 100 days in advance, making them a solid competitor to Booking, Expedia, Priceline, and other sites.

All hotels listed on HotelTonight are vetted with rooms categorized by type—such as Luxe, Hip, Charming, or Basic—making it easy to find the vibe you’re looking for. Its rewards program also provides additional discounts.

From legal fights with cities and vacation-rental companies to negative press about its assualt on local long-term-rental markets, Airbnb has seen its share of pushback over the years. This expansion into more traditional lodging could be a safeguard against the threat of regulations capping short-term rentals, though Airbnb declined to comment on specifics around whether this influenced the purchase.

But mainly it’s an opportunity to tap into the growing hotel market: there’s still a vast segment of people who prefer hotel amenities,aren’t comfortable sleeping in strangers’ homes, or simply don’t want to deal with the hassle of coordinating with hosts. A recent study found that millennials prefer full-service hotels to short-term apartment rentals by a margin of more than two to one.

According to the companies, not much any time soon. In an email response, an Airbnb spokesperson said, “Over time, we will welcome select boutique HotelTonight rooms that match our hotel standards onto Airbnb.” He referenced Surfhouse Boutique Motel, an eight-room inn in Encinitas, California, run by a former home host who offers surf lessons for guests.

Airbnb maintains that each company will remain separate entities for the near future, saying that guests might just be invited to search for accommodations on HotelTonight if they can’t find a place to stay on Airbnb. But don’t expect that to last. According to Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, the acquisition is “a big part of building an end-to-end travel platform.”

Clearly this merger helps transition the company toward a one-stop shop for all things travel, and with Airbnb’s recent hire of the former chief executive of Virgin America, maybe even expansion into the transportation sector as well. Then perhaps it will even add services like last-minute campsites, camper-van rentals, and super-discounted adventure trips. Or maybe that’s just dreaming.

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Cryotherapy, floating chambers, NormaTec boots, infrared saunas, even Tom Brady–branded pajamas—science writerChristie Aschwanden tried it all while researching her new book Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery ($28, W.W. Norton). (She did, however, skip vinotherapy, the red-wine baths that NBA star Amar’e Stoudemire made famous.)

But in a book that’s littered with insights into trendy recovery methods, you’ll find few endorsements. Instead, Aschwanden advocates for common sense over flash, arguing that, whether it’s a question of getting more sleep or drinking when we’re thirsty,our own bodies may be the best recovery tools we have. “The fact that a whole industry has popped up to help healthy people find ways to feel anxious about their bodies seems like a statement about the weird times we live in,” she writes. “Learn to read your own body and pay attention to what it’s telling you.” Below, we’ve rounded up five key lessons at the heart of the book.

What to drink during exercise, and how much, is an ongoing debate among athletes and health professionals. While daily water-intake recommendations vary (the National Institute of Health suggests that men consume three liters per dayand women 2.2 liters), athletes are invariably told to drink at every opportunity. This hydration preoccupation—oftenprompted by science of limited rigor and fueled by marketing from sports-drink companies—has lead topeople drinking even when they’re not thirsty, especially when working out. And according to Aschwanden, that could be a big problem. “The body is highly adapted to cope with losing multiple liters of fluid,” she writes.

In fact, the evidence cited in her book shows that drinking too muchwater poses a much greater risk than drinking too little. Overhydration can lead to blood-sodium levels becoming diluted to dangerous and even fatally low concentrations (a condition known as hyponatremia). This became a recurring problem, for example, at the Comrades Marathon—a famous 90-kilometer race in South Africa—after it added water stations for the first time in 1981. “There’s never been a case of a runner dying of dehydration on a marathon course,” recounts Aschwanden. “But since 1993, at least five marathoners have died from hyponatremia that developed during a race.” Drinking when thirsty, she advises, is the much better approach than wrought water consumption.

Icing postworkout became a mantra of sports science after physician Gabe Mirkin coined the popular term RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) in 1978, and the recovery tool continues today in marathon medical tents and professional locker rooms. Ice is meant to slow blood flow, which reduces inflammation and pain. But, it turns out, that also can be counterproductive, as it inhibits the rebuilding of muscle and the restoration process. “Instead of promoting healing and recovery,” Aschwanden writes, “icing might actually impair it.” And that’s led to a growing backlash against icing, which even Mirkin has joined. Instead of rushing to the cold stuff, Aschwanden advises athletes to wait it out and leave time for the body to heal.

In her former life, Aschwanden was an elite nordic skier, racing with Team Rossignol in Europe and North America. Every season, she remembers, followed roughly the same pattern: After intense preparation, she would excel in her first few races. Then, as the months went on, she’d invariably come down with an injury, cold, or another ailment that would cut her performance short. Looking back, Aschwanden attributes her crashes in large part to fatigue from overtraining. “I needed less training than most athletes to reach and maintain peak conditioning,” Aschwanden writes. “But I did not appreciate that I also needed more rest and recovery.” Overtraining syndrome is an increasingly recognized problem that has led to the decline of many endurance athletes’careers. To avoid pushing the body beyond its limits, Aschwanden suggests that athletes keep an eye out for personal signs of fatigue when training. Hers is a sore throat, but other indicators could include weight fluctuations, mood changes, or coming down with a bug.

Fear of missing out is a common theme of Aschwanden’s book. Whether it’s a dietary supplement or an infrared sauna, she writes that many people try a new recovery technique simply because other people around them are doing it. While that’s probably not harmful, she concludes, any positive effect may just be a placebo. “Many popular modalities strike me as sort of pacifiers,” she writes. “They won’t actually resolve anything, but they give you something to do while nature takes its course.” If trying a new, unproven recovery method makes you feel better and more confident, great, she argues, but they almost certainly aren’t necessary.

One exception to Aschwanden’s general skepticism is sleep.“Insofar as there exists any magical secret for recovery, sleep is it,” she says. “The benefits of sleep cannot be overstated. It’s hands down the most powerful recovery tool known to man.” Beyond contributingto lower testosterone levels and a suppressed immune system, a lack of sleep can also be tantamount to “showing up to the game drunk,” she writes. The right amount of sleep for each person is—like many things in the book—subjective. Citing sleep scientist Amy Bender, Aschwanden writes that athletes should sleep when their body tells them to (that includes afternoon naps) and shouldn’t stress out over one night of bad sleep. Instead, Bender advises people to “think of their sleep in terms of a weekly budget. Focus on your weekly need rather than being concerned about eight hours every single night.”

So when you’re choosing between extra sleep or that extra workout, she says you’re likely better off sleeping in—which is probably the best news of all.

Good to Go is available February 5 from W.W. Norton.

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Over the weekend, chaos descended on Instagram’s flourishing community of Toyota Tacoma bros. First, the owners of the popular TacomaBeast account posted a video of their “TCMBST” hashtag scrawled on a rock in Utah. That caused almost immediate uproar, allegedly resulted in death threats, and then attention from local media outlets. The entire disaster is a textbook lesson in how not to behave on the Internet. 

The first problem is obviously the vandalism. Utah’s deserts are unique and fragile environments in which damage like this could last for centuries. While one small hashtag scratched on rock may not seem like a huge deal, if a bunch of people follow suit with similar acts of degradation, then we have a serious threat. 

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The next problem is the general behavior of people on the Internet. Separated by screens, we’re all guilty of not treating other people like, well, people, when we interact over social media or through other online channels. In this case, there was an eruption across the Tacoma bro universe on Instagram, a massive thread on TacomaWorld totaling over 60 pages, and apparently a whole lot of very bad behavior from pretty much everyone involved. Rather than treat this as an opportunity to reach out to a member of their community who was apparently ignorant of Leave No Trace principles, then make it a learning opportunity, the conversation instead devolved into threats. 

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This resulted in problems for brands that were apparently sponsoring the photoshoot that resulted the vandalism, forcing them to publicly disavow the group’s actions. 

“If you want to get trails closed, this is how you do it,” says Graeme MacPherson, one of the co-founders of Go Fast Campers. He watched the sordid affair unfold and is concerned about the impact it will have on the fragile image of the off-road enthusiast community. 

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Off-roading is a largely responsible activity that’s enjoyed by millions of Americans. Just like hiking or mountain-biking, it’s a way participants choose to visit and interact with nature. Many passionate members of the community have organized groups that clean up and maintain trails, work to inform other off-roaders about responsible best practices, and otherwise help protect and preserve the places they like to visit. More people enjoying the outdoors equals more people who will vote to protect it. All this was the topic of an article I wrote last year. 

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But that’s not the image most people have of the off-roading community. People see big, lifted trucks getting abysmal fuel economy while driving through beautiful landscapes, and they think we’re bad guys. “Reporting this to news media is going to do more damage than that was caused by the original vandalism,” says MacPherson. He explains that much of the controversy that resulted was due to concern that popular trails around Moab, Utah, could be closed to off-roading, but its the negative attention the off-road community is drawing that could actually cause that to happen. 

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Rather than devolving into threats and doxxing and media attention, wouldn’t all this have gone better if members of the off-road community had simply treated this as an opportunity to educate TacomaBeast about Leave No Trace principles, then encouraged them to organize a trash cleanup event or something similar in order to make amends? If nothing else, maybe this can teach us all a lesson about what it means to actually be part of a community, online or off. 

Most sports aren’t that complicated. You can usually boil them down into one simple rule. (Okay, maybe two.)

To Climb Rocks

Use your feet. Despite what you may have seen in Cliffhanger or depictions of climbing in energy drink ads, rock climbing is less about doing 40 pull-ups in a row and more about techniques that place your weight on your feet and reliance on core strength.

Another thing: If someone yells “rock,” duck, don’t look up. You’re trying to avoid a falling object, not catch a foul ball at a baseball game. If a small rock, a cam, a carabiner, or a large rock comes flying down from above, catching it with your face is going to ruin your day.

To Boulder

Every fall is a ground fall.

Another thing: It’s perfectly acceptable to spend half a day (or an entire day) trying to climb eight feet of rock.

To Climb Ice

You’re not doing it because it’s comfortable: it’s cold, it’s wet, you’ll spend lots of time standing in snow, chunks of ice will come flying at you from above, your hands and feet will go numb, and that’s just when you’re belaying. When you’re climbing, you’re attached to several sharp points capable of ripping your clothes and/or flesh, and when you get to the top of a pitch of ice, you’re likely to experience something called “the screaming barfies,” a pain from rapidly warming hands so named because you will want to scream and vomit at the same time.

Another thing: It’s pretty fun if you’re into that sort of stuff.

To Camp

In a tent, you will probably not sleep for eight hours straight like you do in your bed at home, but if you get good at camping, you can get five or six somewhat consecutive 90-minute naps.

Another thing: Other animals in nature also enjoy food, so don’t leave yours out overnight or when you’re away from your campsite. Squirrels can ruin your supply of snacks, bears can ruin your life.

To Go Backpacking

An oft-cited adage says, “ounces equal pounds, and pounds equal pain.” When you’re at home piling up all your stuff to pack for your trip, that paperback/French press/extra change of clothes may seem like it’s worth it, but three miles into an eight-mile hike with all your stuff on your back, it may turn into the bane of your backcountry existence.

Another thing: Don’t ever share a tent with anyone who says they “don’t really snore.”

To Hike

Hiking is pretty much just walking on dirt and rocks, so you don’t need a lot of specialized skills to do it.

Another thing: It’s different from walking in that you can get caught in a thunderstorm, get lost, and have unexpected things happen on the trail, so it’s not a bad idea to buy a rain jacket, a map, and a headlamp, and always let someone know where you’re going.

To Mountain Bike

Even a very slow mountain bike crash can be really painful.

Another thing: You don’t need an $8,000 mountain bike to get started (but they sure are fun).

To Ski

Taking a ski lesson may seem expensive when you’re first starting out (in addition to lift tickets, equipment, and ski clothing), but think of the money you spend on it as an investment in fewer shitty ski days in your first season—you’ll learn and get better way more quickly, and will spend less time flailing on the slopes your first ten times.

Another thing: Skiing fast doesn’t mean you’re good.

To Ski in the Backcountry

As the saying goes, “The avalanche doesn’t care if you’re an expert.” Also, the inverse: The avalanche doesn’t care if you are blissfully ignorant of what causes avalanches.

Another thing: There’s no ski patrol in the backcountry.

To Snowshoe

Don’t try to walk backwards while wearing snowshoes.

Another thing: It’s really just walking, in snow, with big things on your feet.

To Flatwater Kayak

Push the paddle from your core, don’t pull it with your arms.

Another thing: It’s a lot easier to stay in a boat than to get into a boat after you’ve flipped it.

To Trail Run

It’s usually slower than road running (i.e. it’s not just you), unless you’re on a perfectly groomed, flat trail (which a lot of people including myself would say isn’t really trail running).

Another thing: Rocks and roots may be taller than they appear.

To SUP

You can also sit and kneel on a SUP board, if that’s more comfortable at first.

Another thing: If you haven’t SUPed before, SUP yoga might have a pretty steep learning curve.

To Bike Tour

The slower you go, the more fun it is. Trying to hammer out as many miles as possible on a fully-loaded bike is a recipe for burning out. It’s a tour, not a race.

Another thing: Take care of your butt and it will take care of you.

To Bikepack

With a fully-loaded bike, there’s no shame in getting off and pushing it up hills.

Another thing: Bikepacking is just bike touring on dirt. Or bike touring without panniers. I think. I don’t know if anyone actually knows. Also, take care of your butt.

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“The joke is, ‘Hey, I’ve climbed Everest, now I’m a motivational speaker,’” Conrad Anker told me after I observed that there’s been a noticeable uptick in climbers—many of them former dirtbags and non-Everest types—delivering positivity platitudes and business bromides to Fortune 100 companies. Anker, a 56-year-old alpinist of some renown who recently retired from his three-decade reign as captain of the North Face athlete team, concurred. Compared to mugging for their sponsors’ ads or clicking through a PowerPoint deck at a local climbing gym, a big-time speaking gig is great work if you can get it. Today, thanks to the mainstreaming of extreme sports, a relatively known athlete can fetch upward of $10,000 an hour.

Adventure types have always braved the dais to satisfy their sponsors, raise funds pre-adventure, and pay debts post-trip—or simply relate their stories to fellow pilgrims, gratis. While the spiel has morphed along with cultural norms, the metamessages of motivation themselves have changed little. They consist mainly of man’s mastery over nature, man’s mastery over self, and man’s mastery over mechanical objects.

Straightaway you can see how these expedition accounts and the metaphors therein might prove useful to the corporate crowd. In fact, captains of industry routinely deploy the catchphrases of ascent—“to the summit,” “climb higher,” “reach the peak,” etc.—and pen books along those lines with titles like Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer or Conquering the Seven Summits of Sales and Upward Bound: 9 Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits, the latter with chapters contributed mostly by mountaineers and one by Royal Robbins: “Success Through Failure in the School of Hard Rocks.” And then there’s the Everest genre, consisting of lessons learned on the naked slopes of that much-flogged mountain, including a Harvard Business School case study deconstructing the 1996 tragedy.

All of which is to say that even now, in a venue near you, an extreme athlete struts and frets below a proscenium arch, wearing one of those wispy headset affairs, filling with story the murky lacuna between aspiration and realization.

In truth, adventure types compose a nanoparticle of the estimated 53,000 public speakers in this country, but they’re surprisingly ubiquitous. Basically, you’ve got the hardcores and the entertainers. The hardcores, whose names you probably know, are hired for who they are (or were) and what they’ve done (or did). (In short, everyone’s in the game, but the athletes getting real work include Tommy Caldwell, Jimmy Chin, Alex Honnold, and Ed Viesturs.) The entertainers, who you’ve never heard of, are hired for their ability to absolutely kill onstage. Generally speaking, the entertainers don’t win Piolet d’Or awards, and the hardcores don’t kill. (By “kill,” I mean the ability to both own a stage and deliver exquisitely timed maxims diaphragmatically to thunderous applause.) Many of the entertainers, and increasingly the hardcores, are represented by the country’s top speakers bureaus, like Keppler and WSB.

The most successful of the entertainers by far is 52-year-old Alison Levine. While her adventure bona fides are not exactly visionary—she’s climbed the Seven Summits and skied to both poles—they’re plenty good enough if you can slay onstage, which Levine does (in a manner remarkably reminiscent of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). “I just like to tell people, don’t worry about being the best and the fastest and the strongest,” she tells me. “Just be the most relentless.” And that she is. Levine averages over 100 gigs a year. She earns $32,000 per appearance, out of which she pays travel expenses and a 30 percent agency fee to Keppler. Levine says she has been Keppler’s most requested speaker eight years running. By her math, she has delivered the same stand-up routine over 800 times to mainly business audiences. She says, “I want them to walk out of the room and say, There’s nowhere else I would have rather been than listening to Alison Levine.” Apparently, they do.

Of the hardcores, there’s the surging Alex Honnold, 33, who, post Free Solo, is the most famous climber in the world since Hillary and Norgay stood atop Mount Everest. Actually, he’s far more famous, since the latter two were bereft of Instagram accounts. Honnold has been talk-show fodder since 2011, the year 60 Minutes featured him soloing around in Yosemite Valley. With a foil to introduce him and ply him with questions, Honnold, who by now has given thousands of interviews, does just fine. No, better than that—Honnold, who evinces part cyborg and part naïf, kills in interviews. Last spring, however, he found himself alone on a stage at TEDx Vancouver explaining how he prepared for the El Capitan Freerider ascent. He looked positively C-3POish as he attempted to coordinate his much celebrated arms and hands to emphasize various talking points. All told, he looked far more gripped onstage than he did on the rock. Still, Jonathan Retseck, Honnold’s agent and the cofounder of RXR Sports, an agency that caters to adventure athletes, told me that speaking ops are piling up for Honnold. Retseck expects the climber will soon command up to $50,000 per appearance.

Most adventure athletes of sufficient notoriety (and some with none) advertise speaking services on their websites alongside documentary shorts, a steady stream of social-media ejecta, and hot links to their memoirs. Public speaking? It’s not viewed so much as a nice to have but a need to have to thrive in today’s adventure ecosystem. Five-figure public-speaking fees are signifiers of the professionalization of adventure sports.

The hardcores are entitled to make a living—and a good one. Still, it discomfits when extreme athletes become cogs in the machine. Blame it all on the malign confluence of Manifest Destiny, the metastasis of social media, positive psychology, and the rah-rah sales culture of hypercompetitive capitalism, with its fixation on shareholder wealth. Rather than collude with their sponsors and corporate America, I think, why not pull a Banksy on them?

Hilaree Nelson did that recently, sort of. In January 2018, the extreme skier and climber found herself sharing a dais with a panel of top-drawer scientists and sustainability specialists, which included Al Gore, who flanked her on the right. The occasion: the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, whose attendees consist of the richest and most powerful men on the globe (women comprised only 21 percent of all attendees). The panel was discussing climate change. Nelson told me that she felt out of her depth. But she didn’t hold back.

“If there is hope to be correlated with the Trump administration,” she said, “—and this is hopefully not naive on my part—but it is the amount of people in the United States who have found a voice and who are working locally and through their states, through school education… I mean, it is phenomenal…through big businesses, everyone is taking it upon themselves to make it happen…. I can’t even believe I’m saying this—but I think that’s a good thing to come from the Trump administration.”

She smiled, stared down at her hands, which she’d been steepling and lacing together throughout the talk, and looked at the panel moderator.

“But I’m saying it. I just did.”

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It was not yet noon, and a group of wilderness instructors-in-training had just summited scenic Baker Peak in Vermont’s Green Mountain National Forest. They ate protein bars while group member Lex Jackson, 23, a cartography expert, gave everyone a lesson in topography. With Jackson’s help, everyone picked out the highest and lowest points on their maps.

The group sat in a semicircle on a long shale plateau. At the edge of the semicircle stood trip leaders Perry Cohen, 42, and Travis Clough, 41. Cohen sat with a foot propped up on a rock, watching Jackson and his fellow instructors-to-be puzzle over a map of the forest. Clough stood with his arms crossed, greeting the hikers making their way up the mountain.

A lean, ponytailed hiker stopped in front of Clough and asked, “Is this an LGBTQ hiking group?”

Clough seemed momentarily taken aback by the hiker’s directness. “Yeah, actually,” he said.

“Cool. I saw the trans symbol on your hat and I figured I’d ask. I’m bi-gender myself.”

While the instructors-in-training kept on with their cartography lesson, Clough explained to the hiker that the group was part of the Venture Out Project (TVOP), an organization that builds community by leading wilderness trips for queer people. Emblazoned on Clough’s hat, the group’s logo is a crest featuring a wilderness scene in the upper half and the trans symbol as a compass in the lower half.

Clough came away from the conversation with a smile. “They may want to do some day hikes with us,” he said.

“It’s great how we recognize each other on the trail,” Cohen added.

Cohen and Clough have led several trips together since Cohen founded TVOP in 2014, but this one was special. Nine queer backpackers—all with high levels of outdoors expertise—would be trained in what Cohen calls “the TVOP way”: integrating participants into a community while teaching them fundamental outdoors skills. After the trip, the trainees would go on to lead trips for TVOP, getting paid per trip.

Part of Cohen’s intention in founding TVOP was to create outdoors jobs for queer people. These jobs are sorely needed. A recent Civic Science survey of 153,000 people revealed that the unemployment rate for LGBTQIA+ individuals is 13 percent, three times the national rate of 3.9 percent. According to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, 29 percent of respondents were living in poverty, as compared with 14 percent of the national population.

“As queer and trans folks, we’re often on the receiving end of help,” Cohen says. “And it’s really empowering when one of us gets to be the helper.”

When Cohen first came out to himself as trans at age 38, he was the senior executive in charge of leadership development for C&S Wholesale Grocers, a company of 17,000 employees. He and his wife lived close to the same New England woods where Cohen had spent his adolescence hiking. Every time he felt dysphoric in his body, hiking could be counted on to improve his mental state. After coming out, Cohen began hormone therapy and underwent top surgery.Then, a 2014 hike up New Hampshire’s Mount Monadnock proved particularly revelatory.

“I had recently had top surgery but had never taken my shirt off in public, because it felt weird to me,” he says. But at the top of the mountain, he did: “I had this unbelievable experience of loving my body for the first time and feeling truly present in it.”

Cohen wanted more queer and trans people to have that experience. He quit his corporate job and founded TVOP. Shortly after, he hired Clough as his office assistant.

Four years later, the organization has grown exponentially. In the summer of 2018, TVOP welcomed roughly 300 LGBTQIA+ participants on 36 trips in New England and the Pacific Northwest. Offerings included women- and people of color–centered trips, as well as youth trips. Clough, now director of operations, feels lucky to be part of the team.

“I love being in the wilderness and connecting with new people. I also love watching other people connect with each other,” he says. “I spent most of my outdoor life either by myself or with a few friends, but never in a community where when you look around, you see all queer faces.”

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Training for the nine TVOP instructors consisted of a three-day backpacking trip in the Big Branch Wilderness Area. In addition to Lex’s cartography lessons, the group practiced hiking and camping protocol and role-played emergency medical scenarios that might occur in the wilderness. During one scenario, Loren Evans, a 34-year-old trans man and emergency medicine nurse, crouched on the ground and grabbed his stomach while spouses Danielle and Kate Nolan, 33 and 47, respectively, tried to figure out what was wrong.

After a handful of questions, the women asked about the date of his last period. Loren leaped up from the ground, nodding in approval. Transgender men who have not had a hysterectomy may still get their periods for a number of reasons. With TVOP’s many transgender participants—as well as the occasional trip dedicated specifically to transgender individuals—it was important that instructors be trained in trans health. “Don’t assume anything about a person’s health based on the way they look,” Cohen said.

At the beginning of the trip, the instructors-in-training had written their hopes and fears on a set of index cards. On the last night, Cohen read the cards aloud at the campfire. As the flames crackled, the group heard fears of being too slow or too introverted and hopes of bonding with other queer people in the woods. Then everyone collected their cards and tossed them into the campfire to burn. The silence that followed felt warm and meditative.

“The fact that [this organization] exists is just mind-blowing,” said future instructor Graham Oxman, 26. “It’s awesome.”

After the training trip, everyone regrouped at TVOP headquarters: Cohen’s house in Northampton, Massachusetts. Cohen and Clough had two backpacking trips scheduled for the next few days, and the newly minted instructors were going to lead them. Participants from all over the country had already signed up online for the trips. As Cohen’s dog and two children scampered in and out of the room, instructors were debriefed on their participants’ allergies and special needs.

Mercy Shammah, 35, was assigned to lead the Vermont Classic, a beginner-level trip for adults. Shammah is the founder of the nonprofit Wild Diversity, which focuses on bringing queer people and people of color into the wilderness. Her co-leader, Evans, has been backpacking since childhood and, like Cohen, spent a good deal of time outdoors during his transition. “My experience in the outdoor industry was very white, cis, and heterosexual,” he said. “It was discouraging because it felt like there was no place for me in that community. This is why TVOP is so important.”

Since Wild Diversity is not yet tax-exempt, TVOP serves as its fiscal sponsor, essentially functioning as its “administrative home.” This means that TVOP, which has two administrative staffers, is able to process charitable contributions for Wild Diversity and support infrastructural needs, like providing them with insurance, filing taxes, bookkeeping, and legal assistance. They also share resources like waivers, emergency action plans, policies, and procedures.

Shammah and Evans drove with their seven adult participants to the Big Branch territory that they had backpacked through a few days before. The group traveled in two cars, chatting excitedly as the road grew steeper. When they arrived, Shammah and Evans performed a gear check and helped everyone adjust their packs and lengthen their hiking poles. As the hike began, so did the rain. Everyone was wearing ponchos within five minutes.

Rain notwithstanding, participant Amie Freetly, 38, was comforted to be in the presence of other queer people. “The queer community aspect of it makes things feel safer,” Freetly said. “There’s some safety in numbers there.” The Vermont Classic was Freetly's third backpacking trip and the first to which they had come equipped with their own gear. As they've become more serious about backpacking, they have been investing in more equipment.A TVOP veteran, Freetly was excited to meet new people and reconnect with friends they had met on a previous trip.

“For me, a highlight is sitting around the campfire at dusk and talking,” they said. “I feel like the personal connections that come out of the trips are the part I think of when I think of the trip.”

Shammah admitted to “mom-stressing” about whether everyone in the group was having a good time. Then, early in the trip, the group stumbled upon a ropes course at the edge of the woods. Participants and instructors stood on a giant wooden platform positioned over a fulcrum, attempting to balance the platform like one would a seesaw. There followed a series of crashes, with participants skittering off the platform and laughing. When balance was finally achieved, a cheer went up from the group that echoed through the trees.

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Cohen has big plans for the organization. He intends to team up with a nonbinary indigenous group called Queer Nature to educate TVOP participants on topics like ecology and decolonization. He also hopes to expand trips so they’re accessible to people with disabilities.

In the meantime, most of TVOP’s funds go toward providing scholarships for participants who can’t afford the cost of a trip. Occasionally TVOP will also donate to a trans-led organization or cause. Recently, Cohen lent his support to the #Hike4Rights campaign, a cause organized by two activists who spent August 2018 hiking across Massachusetts to advocate for the rights of trans people in public spaces.

TVOP also supports budding LGBTQIA+ organizations and businesses, including many started by instructors on the Vermont training trip. Danielle and Kate Nolan run an LLC called DnK Presents, a company that leads outdoor adventures for private groups. Raei Bridges, 23, is building an outdoor education organization called Rusty Anvil. For these entrepreneurs, TVOP offers an opportunity for professional partnership and development. Cohen invited the Nolans and Bridges to share their expertise with TVOP participants by leading trips and hosting classes, allowing them to raise awareness of their organizations while doing so.

At several points during the week of training and trips, the TVOP employees-in-training expressed wonder and gratitude that they were where they were, being paid to do what they were doing. Cohen was equally awestruck.

“I can’t believe this is my job. I get to take queer people outside,” he said. “What could be better than that?”

Eating habits of the world’s best cyclocrossers

Fall is here, which means it’s cyclocross season. Racers across the United States and Europe are spending their weekends getting muddy, bruised, and downright exhausted. A typical cyclocross race lasts nearly an hour, and pro start times are typically in midafternoon. That means a big breakfast is the key to success. We asked the top American pros how they fuel for a big day of racing or training.

Espresso

Plenty of racers sip coffee in the morning, but some athletes opt for a pre-race espresso shot that offers a well-timed burst of energy. Four-time national champion Jeremy Powers will abstain from caffeine for weeks at a time to amplify that pre-race boost. But on a daily basis, most racers enjoy sipping a cup or two of java. For 13-time national champion Katie Compton, the day starts with nutrient-dense homemade espresso. “I have two cups of stove-top espresso coffee with a combo of cream or half and half and MCT powder,” she says. “I like this for the sustained energy I get from the fat, and the caffeine releases nice and steady. And it’s delicious.”

Waffles or Pancakes

Ellen Noble, who took second at Cyclocross Nationals last year, doesn’t eat strictly gluten-free, but she prefers the faster-digesting carbs in rice flour–based waffle mix over the standard stuff. “I bring my waffle iron on race weekends so I can make sure I have the same breakfast every day,” she says. And, of course, because Noble hails from Maine, real maple syrup is key.

Yogurt

Kerry Werner, who just won the first American UCI race of the season, in Roanoke, Virginia, tops his pancakes with yogurt to add fat and protein to the carb-heavy meal. “Peanut butter, cookie butter, some Noosa yogurt, and some sort of fresh fruit” is how Werner prefers his pancakes, and he gets serious about perfect topping ratios. “Usually I have two four-to-five-inch cakes. That way I can do each with different toppings,” he says.

Oats + Elevated Oats

Oatmeal is a cyclist staple, and Kaitie Keough, currently ranked third in the world, will opt for classic oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar. Compton also likes an oat-styled breakfast but fancies it up: “I usually have a banana with all-natural peanut butter, buckwheat groats cooked with butter, salt, cinnamon, and raisins and two eggs on top,” she says. “The combo of fat, protein, and carbs gives me plenty of sustained energy for the day, so I don’t feel hungry until post-race. I like to feel like I’m racing on an empty stomach yet have enough energy to go hard the whole time.”

Avocados

Pro racer Courtenay McFadden’s typical breakfast usually includes two eggs with avocado, in-season fruit, and a corn tortilla, a piece of toast, or pancakes. The powerhouse combo is great for a long ride or hard day at work, because the eggs combine healthy proteins with fiber from fruit and quick-access carbohydrates from the corn or bread. The pièce de résistance—the avocado—adds healthy fat that keeps you feeling full for longer.

Stir Fry

That’s right, stir-fry isn’t just a dinner food. Before a race, Keough will eat a mashup of white rice, eggs, and soy sauce. When Powers is bored of pancakes, he also whips up a rice stir-fry. “I mix day-old rice from the fridge with some tamari, a couple scrambled eggs, massaged kale, some frozen peas, sesame seeds, and a tiny amount of onion, if we have it in the house, and let that get crispy.” It’s a great way to add veggies to breakfast and clean out the fridge.

Second Breakfast

“Since living in Europe year-round, my pre-race breakfast routine has become inspired by the traditions in Belgium,” says pro racer Elle Anderson. She starts with a quick, small breakfast right away, but the real key is her second breakfast, usually an hour or two later. “I like to have two medium boiled eggs and a few slices of bread with butter and salt. The eggs provide the protein and fat to give me sustained energy for the day,” she explains. “If I’m still hungry, I’ll have a few more slices of bread with cheese, jam, or muizenstrontje, which is what the Flemish call chocolate sprinkles. The best is the fresh sliced bread from the bakery next door. Bread—and gluten—may get a bad rap with athletes in some places, but for me, it’s an important part of my race mornings. Bread is so versatile and can be paired with so many breakfast combinations to get just the right balance of nutrition and energy.”

Life Time Fitness recently purchased the Dirty Kanza 200, the latest in a string of indie races to be scooped up by major corporations

Last month, Jim Cummins, the co-founder of the Dirty Kanza 200, announced that Life Time Fitness, a national chain of workout facilities, had agreed to purchase his event. The announcement caps the race’s stratospheric rise from a grassroots ride with 34 participants and a few pizzas afterwards in 2006 to the country’s premier gravel race with 2,750 cyclists and a three-day expo in 2018.

The acquisition of the DK200 adds to Life Time’s growing portfolio of endurance races, including Colorado’s Leadville Race Series and the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival in northern Wisconsin. It also marks a trend of large corporate sponsors snapping up small races and events. Most notably, Dalian Wanda Group, a Chinese conglomerate, purchased the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), owner of the Ironman Trademark, for $650 million in 2015. Since then, Dalian has added both the Absa Cape Epic and the Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon Series to its portfolio.

These sorts of acquisitions might be good for business, but it’s easy to wonder how they will affect the quality and experience of the races that are absorbed. “I think there’s a lot of conversation about how big corporate owners might homogenize events,” says Mike McCormack, founder of the Breck Epic, which Dalian courted for purchase this year. “You can make a case that these sorts of deals can improve an event. You can also make a case that they do not.”

For his part, after careful reflection and lots of input from the city of Breckenridge, much of it negative, McCormack decided to pass on WTC’s purchase offer. “We felt like we measured the soul of our event differently than they would have,” he says. WTC’s intent to grow the event from its current roster of 600 riders to 1,500 after four years was one of the biggest reasons McCormack declined, as he worried about the impact on the trails and the town. “They wanted to make it really big,” he explains. “But bigger isn’t better. Better is better.”

Eric Mamula, mayor of Breckenridge, says it was a difficult choice, but that he feels McCormack made the right decision. “It would have been great for business, but the truth is we’re already busier than we have ever been,” says Mamula. “We’re a little town, and there’s already event fatigue here. There’s always something going on. So I think people just worried about the Breck Epic getting bigger and bringing in more people. I think people didn’t want it to turn into a Leadville.”

Mamula is referring to the Leadville Race Series, which started as a 100-mile running race in 1984 with 45 participants and a 100-mile mountain-bike event in 1994 with 157 riders. Since Life Time purchased the event in 2010, participation has swelled (713 runners and 1,850 cyclists in 2018). Demand is so high that athletes pay a lottery fee just for the chance to race, and the franchise has turned into a series of races, events, and training camps that span the calendar and the country. A 2013 study estimated that the race series brings some $15 million into the town each year, but many people lament the growth and overcrowding. “Leadville certainly suffered for it,” says Tom Purvis, a longtime resident of nearby Salida, Colorado, who raced the Leadville Trail 100 MTB in its early days but now steers clear. “It’s not just the crowds either. The race has become greedy. It’s definitely all about the profit motive now.” Entry fees are a whopping $450 for the 2019 mountain-bike race.

Purvis is part of a group of friends, based at Salida’s Absolute Bikes, who’ve been running a grassroots mountain-bike race called the VaporTrail125 since 2005. The Vapor is the antithesis of the Leadville Trail 100 MTB: low-key, in part because permitting limits entries to 100 people, and far less appealing to a broad base because it transpires overnight on extremely technical trails, mostly at 11,000 feet and up. Finish times are roughly double Leadville’s, and the attrition rate is usually well over 50 percent. “We were never going to be a race that could attract an owner like Leadville did. And we never wanted to be,” Purvis says. This year, because of a rockslide that closed the course and then a lack of manpower to reconnoiter a new route, the Vapor took a year off—and it’s unclear whether the event will return. “You get the crowds and the costs with a sponsor like Life Time,” Purvis reflects, “but you also get resources to keep things running.”

In the case of the Dirty Kanza, Cummins is adamant that the acquisition is all upside. “It’s just going to allow us to be better at what we do,” he says. “Our goals with this race have always been twofold: to provide a life-enriching experience for our participants, and to build community. We felt that Life Time’s dedication to both of those things was as strong as ours.” Cummins says that the race-day experience will remain much the same for participants and that there are no plans to increase the number of racers despite what has happened at Leadville. He points to a bigger expo, more camps and events, and better infrastructure as places where riders may see improvements.

According to Mark Stevenson, a.k.a. Guitar Ted, who rode in the premier DK200 and several subsequent editions and was on hand in 2018, some of those changes are already happening. “The finishing chute got a lot longer this year, which made it smoother, safer,” he says. “That meant another whole block of barriers, which might not seem like much, but that’s a huge outlay.”

Stevenson knows a thing or two about managing an endurance event. In 2005 he founded a 300-plus-mile self-supported gravel race called the Trans lowa, which he has directed for the last 14 years. Not unlike the VaporTrail125, Stevenson’s event attained cult status for its difficulty and purity of experience, with only 19 of 95 starters actually making it to the finish this year. He says he was originally dismayed at the growth and changes he’s seen at the Dirty Kanza over the years, but then he realized it was just the natural course of events. “It’s easy to sit here and lament the changes, but you can never re-create the experience from those early years. So you have to step back and realize it’s just going to become something else,” he says. He says races can stay small, but it takes real work and attention to make that happen. The good news, according to Stevenson, is there will always be smaller, less-produced events for those who don’t want the hoopla of something like the Dirty Kanza or Leadville—though he pulled the plug on Trans Iowa this year. “Being an event coordinator isn’t a forever job,” he says, explaining that running an event like this on your own takes its toll over time.

That was a big part of Jim Cummins’s consideration in selling the Dirty Kanza to Life Time. As the race has grown over the years, Cummins says that he and his partner, Lelan Dains, have felt a growing sense of obligation to the swelling number of riders, as well as to the community of Emporia, Kansas, which has seen a boom because of the event. “I just turned 60, and one of these years, Jim Cummins is going to decide that he wants to just go out and ride his bike. And when that day comes, how selfish of me would it be to just turn off the lights and lock the doors behind me?” he says. “This partnership with Life Time ensures that 30 years from now, there’s still going to be a Dirty Kanza.”

McCormack, the Breck Epic founder, says that’s a good thing. “Have you looked around lately? It’s still so punk rock!” he says. “As soon as one thing gets homogenized, another thing rises up to fill its place. Independent bike racing has been kicking ass for 20 years, and it’s going to keep kicking ass for 100 more.”

Badass Women Chronicles

The Early Female Aviators Who Changed the World

Nearly a century ago, a small group of women pilots flew terrifying early airplanes, broke flying records, and raced—and beat—male pilots in air races

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Sep 19, 2018

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Sep 19, 2018

Nearly a century ago, a small group of women pilots flew terrifying early airplanes, broke flying records, and raced—and beat—male pilots in air races

Amelia Earhart wasn’t the only female aviator storming the skies in rickety open-cockpit planes in the 1920s. In 1928, fewer than a dozen American women held pilot’s licenses, but a small, scrappy group of them was determined to change the face of flying. These women pilots notched new speed and distance records, executed daring theatrics in airborne races, and stunned the press with their feats of survival, performing midair repairs and leaping out of fiery crashes.

“It would have been impossible to be a child growing up in America [in the late 1920s and ’30s] and open your newspaper every day or hear your radio programs every night and not hear the stories of these women,” says Keith O’Brien, author of the new book Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History. “They were huge stars. Actually, that word doesn’t do them justice. They were icons.”

At the time, airplanes were made of wood and fabric, and flying was notoriously hazardous. It was common for the machines to malfunction in the air, and pilots frequently died in bone-splintering wrecks, especially in distance-flying competitions and air races around pylons. Like many other physically challenging fields, it was deemed no place for a woman.

In Fly Girls, O’Brien tells the stories of five pioneering women pilots—Amelia Earhart, Ruth Elder, Florence Klingensmith, Ruth Nichols, and Louise Thaden—who joined forces to fight for the right to race against men and, in some of the most prestigious races, even beat them. We caught up with O’Brien, a New Hampshire–based journalist and NPR contributor, about how he uncovered these women’s long-forgotten stories.

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OUTSIDE: Air racing was as popular as baseball and boxing in the late 1920s and ’30s. What was it like?
KEITH O’BRIEN: Air racing was a real sport—it had winners, losers, massive jackpots of money for the victors, and enormous crowds. The best thing I can compare it to today is the Super Bowl. The events would draw 100,000 paying fans in a single day, and another 100,000 would watch for free from the hoods of their automobiles parked on nearby highways.

It was also extremely dangerous. Inevitably, pilots flying open-cockpit, single-propeller planes at a high rate of speed low to the ground would crash—and they would sometimes die right there in front of the grandstands. And yet the show would go on, the races would continue. They were like gladiators.

Women pilots flew in these races and united for the opportunity to compete against men. How hard was it for them?
The thing that sticks out to me is the double standard. Men crashed all the time in daring record-breaking flights and in the air races. And when they did, the press lauded them for the effort. When a woman crashed in a daring record-breaking flight or in the air races, as inevitably she would, the press was there to criticize her for failing. When men died in the air races—and inevitably they did—they were often given grand tributes right there on the airfield, sometimes the very same weekend, with fly-bys and 21-gun salutes and their ashes scattered from a plane while people bowed their heads in silence. When women died in the air races, they sometimes weren’t given the most basic decent human respect.

These women faced tremendous injustice. How did writing this book make you feel?
It made me really angry that these women risked everything—and, at times, lost everything—in the pursuit of the thing they wanted to do, the thing they loved. And for those risks, for those sacrifices, they were criticized, doubted, and marginalized. At times, they were disrespected in ways that blew my mind. And then we forgot them. In our quest to remember one great woman, Amelia Earhart, we forgot all the others…I think it would really upset Amelia that her friends and colleagues have been erased.

I confess that I hadn’t heard of any of the pilots except Amelia Earhart before reading your book.
When you reduce the story to Amelia Earhart flying alone—flying solo against an angry headwind—it gives you the sense that only one woman had the power, the tenacity, or the grit to break through. And the truth is there were lots of them. They were at times jousting with one another in the sky to get ahead and to win races or to beat each other across the ocean. To me, that’s a much more interesting story and a much more inspiring story. Amelia Earhart was part of this small but scrappy squadron that was willing to fly through anything.

In your book, you write about the challenges but also edge-of-your-seat triumphs. How did these women succeed in the face of so much discrimination? Did they share certain traits?
On the face of it, they are different. Some came from money, some didn’t. Some were educated, some weren’t. But I was able to find a few commonalities that I think are pretty important. The first thing is they were all different from a young age, and they knew it—even when they were girls.

The other thing I would say is they were what we would today call early adopters. At a time when a great many people still feared flying and still questioned whether planes were really going to work out as a mode of transportation, all of these women not only flew, but predicted that flying was the future.

The last thing they shared was how they were raised. Their parents were different. Their fathers were everything from farmers to Wall Street traders. But at a time when parents could tell children—in particular young girls—what they could or could not do, or what passions they could or could not pursue, the parents in each of these families either passively approved of their daughters’ unusual interest in aviation (by turning the other way) or actively encouraged it. They bought them lessons to learn how to fly or bought them rides on airplanes when they were still quite young. That’s important. As a parent, that’s something I’ve learned—to let your child wear dresses or pants if they want to or wear their hair short or long. Let them follow their own path, because you never know where it’s going to lead.

How do you hope this book will affect readers?
One question that I’ve gotten in recent weeks is what do you hope young girls take away from this story, and that’s a valid question. But it’s also a telling one, because my hope is not that young girls take away something from this story; I hope everyone takes something away from this story. Boys and men need to know that women can be powerful heroes and can be just as tough, just as fearless as the men, and triumph in the end. To me, that’s a story for everybody.