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Inside Alex Honnold’s Tricked-Out New Adventure Van

Back in 2014, pro climber Alex Honnold gave us a tour of the 2002 Ford Econoline E150 he used as his mobile base camp. That van served him...

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Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Terms to Know When Buying Skis

Ski jargon can get straight-up overwhelming. Even a gearhead like myself gets bogged down in the endless talk of rocker, camber, and sidecut. In an attempt to wade through the clutter and clearly lay out the terms you need to know—as well as what they really mean for on-snow performance—I spoke with Outside contributing editor Marc Peruzzi, who’s been testing skis for us, Mountain Magazine, and other publications for two decades.

Camber

If you place a cambered ski on a table and look at it from the side, the tip and tail of the ski will be resting on the surface while the middle arcs up. “Imagine a leaf spring on an old pickup truck,” Peruzzi says. Applying force on a cambered ski, as when you enter a turn, flattens it out, or “decambers” it. “Camber is a way for manufacturers to build energy into the ski that you’re getting back when you exit the turn,” says Peruzzi. “A cambered ski bounces back when you unweight it, providing a little pop.” That same camber also boosts grip and glide, because it distributes your body weight and increases edge contact.

Rocker

“Rocker is when the tip and the tail of a ski are flared up to help it float better in powder,” Peruzzi says. Just as a flat-nosed boat would move like a slug through the water, a ski with a flatter shovel—the front third of the ski—doesn’t get up on top of powder the way a rockered ski does. Rocker at the tail, meanwhile, makes for easier turning since less of the tail is in contact with the snow. Most all-mountain skis these days feature both camber and rocker.

Sidecut

“Sidecut is the top-down silhouette of a ski,” Peruzzi says, meaning it’s how the ski tapers from the tip to the waist and then widens again from the waist to the tail, resulting in an almost hourglass shape. Sidecut for a given ski is often displayed as three numbers: the first is the width of the tip, the second is the width of the waist, and the third is the width of the tail. The greater the difference between the ends and the middle, the deeper the sidecut. A more exaggerated sidecut creates a tighter turn—fun for arcing turns on groomers, but hourglass skis aren’t great in powder. Peruzzi says that if you’re primarily a backcountry or off-trail skier, you’ll want a wider and straighter ski to both float better in powder and allow for a looser turning style as opposed to the locked-in feel of a deep-sidecut carving ski. As for groomer skiing, a ski with more sidecut can make tighter turns (think slalom), and one with less sidecut has a wider turn radius (think super-G).

Width

Within sidecut, there’s a specific number to pay close attention to: the number of millimeters your ski measures at the waist (i.e. right beneath your bindings). It makes a big difference in how your ski will perform in different snow conditions. The wider the ski, the better it’ll float on powder, but the harder it’ll be to turn. If you live out West and spend most of your time off trail or are hitting up a resort after a storm, you’ll probably want wide planks around 105 millimeters, Peruzzi says. “When you look at places with less snow—like Summit County in Colorado—you’re going to want a ski that’s 95 millimeters underfoot. If you’re on the East Coast and are primarily an off-trail skier [read: making lots of turns on ice], you’re going to be looking at 85 millimeters.”

How Rocker, Camber, and Width Relate

Usually there’s a connection between width and the ski’s rocker and camber. “The more rocker the ski has, the fatter the ski is likely going to be,” Peruzzi says. “You want fatter and more rockered skis for deeper snow.” The rocker and wide girth will work together to help a ski stay on top of powder. Conversely, groomed trails and icy conditions play nicely with skinnier skis (for better turning), more camber (for even better turning), and less rocker (since you won’t need as much float).

Weight

Lighter is not automatically better. “Lightweight does not mean it will turn quicker or perform any better, and in a lot of ways it’ll perform worse,” Peruzzi says. Skis that are too light will deflect off anything and are more difficult to keep on edge in a turn. The high-end skis World Cup racers use are crazy heavy. But due to backcountry skiing’s growth, as well as frontside skiers’ desire for sticks that are easier to carry through the parking lot or hike up a bowl, the ski industry has been offering increasingly lighter skis in the past decade. Peruzzi says that the lightest you should go is 1,800 grams for backcountry skiers, or down to 1,600 grams for women.



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Hikers Shouldn't Have to Pay Trail Fees

Trails in Wyoming are sorely in need of maintenance, so the state is considering a first-of-its-kind $10 annual fee for hiking on both state and federal land within its borders. Sounds reasonable and prudent, right? Well, by the state government’s own admission, it won’t work. That’s because, despite their good intentions, user fees don’t have the scale to adequately fund our public lands.

User Fees Are Regressive and Discourage Use

I love hiking, and you love hiking, so you and I wouldn’t have a problem paying $10 to go hiking. But aren’t you and I always trying to encourage other people to go hiking too? Fees, even relatively small ones, will discourage those potential hikers.

While an annual $10 fee may sound like a super-reasonable amount of money to pay for maintenance of local trails that you regularly use, imagine the potential impact on two subsets of users: the first-timer and the visitor.

Back in Los Angeles, I helped out at a local group home for underprivileged 17-to-21-year-olds by providing an outdoor mentorship program. The easiest, most regular thing I could do for those kids was take them hiking on our local trails. These kids often had zero experience in the outdoors, which made even a simple hour-long hike both challenging and intimidating. But you know what? After being forced along on a couple of my death marches, about half the kids started hiking on their own. That $10 fee would have limited my ability to run my little self-funded charitable endeavor (doing activities in multiples of 12 to 24 adds up quickly), and it likely would have stopped those kids from being able to take up the activity on their own.

I’ll give you another personal anecdote. My elderly parents just visited. They’re starting to suffer significant physical limitations, but I insisted that they had to come see the mountains near my new home in Montana. The one-mile hike took us well over an hour. Would I have paid $20 so they could complain a lot while walking a mile? Yes, but I also know plenty of people who would have balked at that price tag.

My point is that a fee that may sound reasonable to some will inevitably be burdensome to others. These are public lands we’re talking about, so by applying a financial burden of entry to them, we’re discouraging use of a resource purportedly owned by all of us. By limiting access to public lands, we’d also be limiting the number of people who care about those lands. By applying a user fee, we’d be decreasing the number of people wiling to vote to protect them.

User Fees Are Often Illegal

Faced with budget shortfalls and maintenance backlogs, national forests in Southern California began charging a $30 annual user fee in 2005. The Adventure Pass immediately ran into legal challenges and today exists as a quasi-voluntary system understood by no one.

You see, federal law dictates exactly what the government can charge for on federal lands. The short version of the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act is that neither the Forest Service nor the Bureau of Land Management are permitted to charge for access on the lands they manage, nor are they able to charge for parking or access to unimproved features like scenic views. Crucially, they are also specifically barred from charging people to hike through those lands. What they can charge for is use of developed facilities, like picnic areas with tables, trash cans, toilets, and security patrols (under the REA, facilities must have all those features to merit a use fee), or camping at permanent campgrounds that have all those features.

It turns out the Adventure Pass couldn’t be required for parking at trailheads, using those trails, or stopping at an unimproved scenic overlook for a picnic. Due to the legal challenges, the Forest Service was also forced to remove much of its signage informing visitors that they were entering areas where the pass was required. And the penalty for failing to display the pass in a parked car became simply the $5 cost of a daily pass, and even paying that became optional.

Relevant to this discussion, the REA also governs what state governments can charge for on federal lands. Wyoming says it wants to apply its user fee to trails on both federal and state lands, so the state is going to run into the same legal issues that the Adventure Pass faced in California, at least on federal lands. States are free to charge for access to lands they manage, which is one of the reasons you don’t want states managing public lands.

User Fees Don’t Raise Sufficient Funds

By proposing such a low price—$10—Wyoming is tacitly acknowledging the regressive nature of user fees and trying to reduce their negative impacts (dissuading users) as much as possible. Of course, that also limits the fee’s potential revenue. State officials say they hope to raise up to $1 million annually through the fee. What will that achieve in terms of trail improvements? Not much.

Wyoming Pathways, a trail-access nonprofit, told Backpacker that it cost $250,000 to repair just six miles of trail this year. The state has about 10,000 miles of trails. At that rate, it’d take more than $416 million to repair all of the state’s trails. That $1 million will pay for 24 miles of maintenance annually—if all of the money raised from those fees goes directly to repairs.

We see this same problem elsewhere. Earlier this year, when the Department of the Interior proposed raising entry fees to $70 per vehicle at some parks, it calculated that the change would add $70 million to the National Park Service’s bottom line. Currently, the NPS’s $11.6 billion maintenance backlog is growing at a rate of $275 million a year.

Tax Extraction, Not Users

How do we adequately fund public lands in this age of massive budget deficits? The Outdoor Industry Association asked exactly that question and commissioned Headwaters Economics, an independent public lands research group, to answer it. They looked at state-level funding programs across the country and came away with an assessment of what works.

Its conclusion? Tax-based voter initiatives that draw funding from stable sources and that enjoy broad bipartisan support. Those taxes cast a much wider net than user fees, while enjoying the support of the public.

How do you apply a new tax to benefit public lands without making it regressive or unpopular? Tax resource extraction on public lands. “The benefit of such revenue is that it does not directly increase the burden to taxpayers,” concludes Headwaters Economics, which also goes on to recommend other proven sources of additional tax income.

Wyoming is a state rich in federal land and the energy and minerals contained in it. Currently, the state government receives $1.39 billion annually from its slice of the federal government’s revenue on lands within the state. Those funds are spent on a number of worthy programs, like public schools and rural road maintenance, but the fact that not enough of that money goes back into fostering public access to public lands is a violation of the multiple-use principal upon which public lands are based. The U.S. Code says multiple use “means the management of the public lands and their various resource values so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the present and future needs of the American people.” Extraction is supposed to pay for public access—and it has the scale to do so, in a way that $10 user fees never will.

Congress just failed to reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a tool that directed tax proceeds from offshore drilling directly to public lands access projects like trail maintenance. That cost the American public about $490 million in annual funding for stuff like Wyoming’s trails.

The problem isn’t inadequate sources of funding to pay for public land access; it’s the lack of political will to dedicate extraction income to its rightful use. Remember that when you’re voting next week.



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6 Athletes on Their Post-Workout Grooming Essentials

Behind the Scenes at a Bundy Rally

What Happens When Strangers Plan Your Vaca

The 2018 Red Bull Rampage in Photos

Save 50 Percent on the Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Pad

I love this ultralight and packable, yet also very comfortable sleeping pad ($95), and it's quickly become a go-to on all my backpacking trips. Bonus points: the proprietary SpeedValve makes for fast and easy inflation.



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Save 25 Percent on the Kelty Low Love Seat

Testers commended the Kelty Low Love Seat ($75), which was featured in our 2017 Summer Buyer's Guide, for its unique, cuddling-conducive design. 

Buy Now



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Save 31 Percent on the Trigger Point Grid Foam Roller

We love the Trigger Point Grid ($28) because of its unique design, which wraps a multi-density foam over a rigid, hollow core. During testing, we've found that the material gives a better, firmer massage than the cheap foam found on most rollers.

To really get the most out of this fitness tool, check out the free online instructional videos on foam-rolling best practices from Trigger Point.

Buy Now



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Loving the changing colors.. what’s everyone fav time of year??

Loving the changing colors.. what’s everyone fav time of year?? submitted by /u/johnica11
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First Snow on Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder Colorado

First Snow on Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder Colorado submitted by /u/adventurespiritone
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Make It Legal!

Fact: 80% of Americans support nude beaches. 25% of Americans even admit to skinny-dipping in their lifetime. Washington law makes illegal being nude in a state park. Change the law!

Please visit our website!

http://NudeParksWA.com

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War Memorial Park- West Bridgewater, MA

War Memorial Park- West Bridgewater, MA submitted by /u/remnantrevolution
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Small Philippine Vegetable Farming Village (Dalaguete, Cebu)

Small Philippine Vegetable Farming Village (Dalaguete, Cebu) submitted by /u/theayanimal
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Long range communication. Help!!

I am going on a solo trip into a wilderness soon. I'm not ignorant to the risks, that's why I need advice on longer distance communication/location devices. I will NOT have cell service, but I would like to be able to contact my family or at least let them know where I am and that I'm still moving around/alive. I will be just over 200 miles away from family. I've looked into PLB's and walkie talkies, but my budget is around $100!

Please help!

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Screaming Deals: Gear Savings of the Week https://ift.tt/2qi1Foi

Smartwool makes amazing base layers. Smith’s Koroyd helmets are revolutionary. And now those and more are on steep discount. Check out this week’s roundup of outdoor gear sales.

Klymit Self-Inflate V Sleeping Pad: $40 (50% Off)

Klymit Sleeping Pad

Roll out this sleeping pad and watch it inflate thanks to Klymit’s self-inflating tech. The Self-Inflate V has an R-value of 5.3, which means it should feel warm enough during shoulder seasons.

Check it Out

Smith Forefront Bike Helmet: $110 (50% Off)

Smith Forefront bike helmet

Smith designed the Forefront Bike helmet to absorb more energy on impact than traditional helmets thanks to a patented Koroyd material. Plus, with 21 vents, the Forefront is sure to let in some breeze to cool down your sweaty head.

Check it Out

Mountain Hardwear Laminina Z Flame 21 Sleeping Bag: $89 (50% Off)

Mountain Hardwear Sleeping Bag

The Laminina Z Flame places insulation where you need it most: your core and feet. This three-season bag is rated to 21 degrees F and has a double-sliding zipper for versatile ventilation.

Check it Out

Mountain Hardwear OutDry Duffel: $75 (50% Off)

Mountain Hardwear Duffel

This 50-L duffel from Mountain Hardwear is waterproof. And with a 1,000-denier fabric, it’s likely going to resist tears well.

Check it out

Smith Comstock Polarized Sunglasses: $84 (50% Off)

Smith Comstock

The Comstock may look like any old pair of wayfarer sunglasses, but Smith packs a lot of tech into these shades. The Comstocks are polarized, have hydrophilic nose pads to stay in place when wet (aka sweaty), and use ChromaPop, which increases color clarity and definition.

Check It Out

Smartwool Outdoor Sport Light Crew Socks: $9 (53% Off)

Smartwool Socks

These merino wool socks from Smartwool will regulate temperature well and control moisture. Plus, with Smartwool’s fit system, these socks will stretch and stay in place.

Check it out

Mountain Hardwear Men’s Rogue Composite 3-in-1 Jacket: $225 (50% Off)

Mountain Hardwear Jacket

The Rogue Composite Jacket combines an ultralight waterproof stretch shell and a midlayer insulating piece that uses Polartec Alpha insulation. Wear this one on your winter skiing trips and expect it to keep you warm and repel snow and water.

Check it out

Taylor Stitch The Montara Jacket: $150 (16% Off)

taylor stitch jacket

Huckberry claims this Taylor Stitch jacket is made to last thanks to the brand’s attention to detail. It’s a 100-percent cotton garment that’s rugged and lightweight. Wear this coat around the campfire this fall and be the envy of your friends!

Check it out

prAna Ansleigh Sweater: $44 (50% Off)

prAna Sweater

This casual piece from prAna is sure to be a hit for those chilly fall days. Organic cotton gives the Ansleigh Sweater its comfort.

Check it out

Stanley Mountain Vacuum Switchback Mug: $15 (50% Off)

Stanley Mug

The Switchback Mug from Stanley can be opened with one hand and has a “grit guard” that lets you taste only your beverage. And, like all of the brand’s vacuum-insulated products, this one will keep drinks hot or cold for a long while.

Check it out

Looking for more gear savings? Check out this week’s Monday Bargains:

40% Off Bargains: 3 Steals to Start Your Week

Looking for great outdoor gear at an amazing price? Check out these discounts and sales from Mountain Hardwear, Serfas, and The North Face. Read more…

The post Screaming Deals: Gear Savings of the Week appeared first on GearJunkie.



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15 BOTE Paddleboards 20% Off Today Only https://ift.tt/2OimPMm

You might be thinking more about snow than water right now. But that means it’s a great time to invest in off-season gear. And a bunch of BOTE paddleboards are on deep discount today.

SUPs are spendy. But with a paddleboard, it’s worth investing in quality. And now you can get a premium BOTE for 20 percent off.

We’ve been testing a couple of BOTE 12-footers. The more affordable Flood works for quick after-work paddles, while the all-purpose HD Gatorshell can stand up to multiday river camping trips.

BOTE paddle board

We appreciate BOTE’s thoughtful take on the extras — storage space, bungees, hauling strap, and fishing add-ons — that you don’t know you’re missing until you’re on the water.

Right now, BOTE has 15 different SUPs on sale at up to $380 off retail. You can get a premium BOTE for as little as $720 for the fun Flow or go for the mack daddy Rackham at $1,520.

Deals end today.

Check it Out

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The Breaking Storm - May 2018 [Kamloops, BC, Canada]

The Breaking Storm - May 2018 [Kamloops, BC, Canada] submitted by /u/NorthernCheeze
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The Post - Inner Channels Southern Shore - Britt, Ontario - Georgian Bay - Canada - OC

The Post - Inner Channels Southern Shore - Britt, Ontario - Georgian Bay - Canada - OC submitted by /u/A-M-O-33
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Why I Still Love My 2x Mountain Bike https://ift.tt/2Dg1wKy

The Post - Inner Channels Southern Shore - Britt, Ontario - Georgian Bay - Canada - Original Content - Sept 3 2010 @ 4:56PM

The Post - Inner Channels Southern Shore - Britt, Ontario - Georgian Bay - Canada - Original Content - Sept 3 2010 @ 4:56PM submitted by /u/A-M-O-33
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Make More Time for Adventures Big and Small: ‘Semi-Rad’ Author Tells You How https://ift.tt/2OioGRm

Your Daily Wisconsin Outdoor News Update – Oct. 31, 2018 https://ift.tt/2CSF49g

Anyone know the species?

Anyone know the species? submitted by /u/ShaquilleOatmeal__
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Your Daily Minnesota Outdoor News Update – Oct. 31, 2018 https://ift.tt/2Qf6r1i

Camping World Woes: Class-Action Suit Reveals Strife Since Gander Acquisition https://ift.tt/2SxZgm6

Top photo credit: PeRshGo

The Illinois-based retailer misled investors and failed to disclose problems resulting from its Gander Mountain acquisition in 2017, the lawsuit alleges.

In the wake of Camping World’s flagging earnings, anyone who purchased the company’s Class A common stock between March 8, 2017, and August 7, 2018, may be entitled to recover financial damages.

In a class-action lawsuit filed this week on behalf of plaintiffs, RM Law accused Camping World Inc. of misleading investors. Specifically, according to the lawsuit, Camping World “suffered material weaknesses” in its financial reporting and “misstated” financial results. And perhaps most striking, the suit alleges the company failed to disclose “integration setbacks” after acquiring Gander Mountain. It claims the acquisition adversely impacted profit and growth.

The lawsuit claims Camping World violated the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934.  The act cracks down on corporate fraud by mandating greater financial transparency.

Camping World Class-Action Lawsuit

In layperson terms, the plaintiffs accused Camping World of obscuring its performance and hiding internal woes to appease investors. This resulted in financial losses following the company’s disappointing first and second quarter financial results in 2018.

Here’s the legalese, released from RM Law:

“The complaint alleges that defendants made materially false and misleading statements during the Class Period, and failed to disclose to investors: (i) that the Company’s disclosure controls and controls over financial reporting suffered from a host of material weaknesses; (ii) that the Company’s historical financial results had been materially misstated; (iii) that the Company’s Gander Mountain Co. (“Gander”) stores had encountered integration setbacks, adversely impacting the Company’s earnings growth and profit margins; and (iv) that the Company’s core RV business was experiencing decelerating growth as the Company lagged industry trends and was losing market share to competitors. The complaint further alleges that, as a result of the foregoing, investors purchased Camping World’s Class A common stock at artificially inflated prices as high as $47.19 per share during the Class Period, and suffered significant investment losses as a result of defendants’ alleged misconduct.”

The complaint cites that Camping World’s common stock fell nearly 17 percent, $4.60 per share, in the first quarter of 2018. Then the stock continued to tumble, dropping another $3.17 per share to close at $19.04 in August. And, the plaintiffs argue, Camping World “artificially inflated” common stock prices to nearly $50 per share during the period between May 2017 and August 2018.

In May 2017, Camping World won St. Paul-based Gander Mountain Inc. at a bankruptcy auction. The company shuttered many of Gander’s 162 locations but rebranded 69 stores as Gander Outdoors.

Anyone who believes they may be entitled to damages has until December 18, 2018, to join this lawsuit. Learn more here.

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Are grizzlies impacting Montana deer, elk hunts? https://ift.tt/2SxJCXX

Eagle Cam: Watch GoPro Attached to Bird of Prey https://ift.tt/2Q7DST9

The GoPro HERO7 Black displays its HyperSmooth video function while attached to an eagle. This is one cool point of view!

GoPro claims the HERO7 Black, launched in September, will be a gimbal killer. This video clearly shows some stable footage — sans gimbal. The brand even claims it works underwater and in high-wind environments. Check out this launch video to learn more about HyperSmooth.

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Rash of cougar sightings in downtown Oregon city causing concern https://ift.tt/2CUDHGX

How Honnold Climbed a 3,000-Foot Cliff Without Ropes: TED Talk https://ift.tt/2ERM88P

“I looked like a lost hiker that was too close to the edge.” Alex Honnold’s TED Talk has some pretty funny moments!

TED Talks give thoughtful stories a worldly stage. This one, presented by Honnold, tells the story of his free solo up Yosemite’s El Capitan.

While we all may know the story of his free solo, what’s interesting is Honnold’s audience. Watch as he tells the incredible story to a group of non-climbers, complete with many jokes, and his death-defying (and then hilarious) free solo up Yosemite’s Half Dome.

 

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Laird Hamilton's Tips for Choosing a Training Partner

Exercising with other people, ideally those who have different strengths than you, is a natural performance enhancer. It’s easy to slack off when it’s just you and the mirror, but as soon as you put someone else in the room, your competitive side kicks in, and going hard becomes the only option. Push yourself like that for a few weeks—you’re guaranteed to see results.

When I’m home in California, on most days I train with a group of about five guys. While the specific mix of people has changed over the years, one theme has remained constant: everyone gives maximum effort. To me, that’s the most important characteristic in a training partner. If he doesn’t give it his all, it’s easy for me to walk away.

It’s also key to find someone who challenges your weaknesses. Our morning sessions run the gamut—hot and cold therapy, breath work, stretching, strength training in the pool, and a bit of cardio. While I’m dominant in the water, I struggle with some of the mobility work, which is when I turn to the guys who excel at that and can spur me on. Nobody should try to be the best at every discipline, especially not you. If you are, you’re bound to plateau. Instead, train alongside someone who can correct your form, keep you hustling, and force you to push yourself on the things you hate most.

Don’t forget about the mind game. Look for a partner who crushes not only their physical limits but their mental boundaries as well. The ideal person is someone who’s a little bit fearless, actively pursuing new goals, trying something that seems impossible, and getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. It’s a lot easier to embrace the pain cave when you’re doing it with someone else.

Remember that looking for a good workout partner isn’t all that different from looking for a new friend. (And often it lays the groundwork for a relationship that goes beyond the gym.) Find an athlete who has similar goals, shares your work ethic and attitude, and drives you to be your best. After all, a little friendly competition never hurt anyone.



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I've Pet That Dog Is The Best Thing on Twitter

Our 3 Favorite Winter Slippers

Moose on the Loose

It's Hard to Leave No Trace with a Toddler

The June when Mason was three, we went hiking in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge. At one point, Mason stopped in a bright yellow wildflower field, and I photographed him rolling around on the side of the trail. Then I made the mistake of posting that picture on my personal Instagram account.

I immediately found myself at the center of a social media storm. People argued whether or not it was OK that I had clearly let Mason wander off-trail and into the flowers, against Leave No Trace ethics, and then had the nerve to post about it. I understand that this maybe wasn’t good modeling on my part as the founder of Hike It Baby, especially since the field is a highly trafficked area and we have a lot of followers who could have been inspired to do the same. But it also got me thinking. When getting outside with kids, it’s hard to rigorously stick to Leave No Trace all the time. How bad should we feel about that?

Kids in early development are very tactile. Everything goes into the mouth or gets torn up by pudgy baby fingers, and they find nothing more thrilling than squashing, mashing, and breaking up nature, then taking the mess home in their pockets.

I get why we want to teach our children to be highly sensitive to our impact on Mother Earth, but I also see the argument for experiential learning in nature. At what age should you start teaching environmental impact? And what does that look like to a baby or toddler? I know we all have varying opinions on this, so all I can do is share my own and offer Hike It Baby’s community guidelines to help you figure out the right path.

Know the Landscape Before You Go

Understand the outdoor space you’re venturing into. If it’s an incredibly fragile environment where it’s hard to see the barriers, such as an open desert that might have a lot of cryptobiotic soil you don’t want to impact, that’s a hard concept for your little one to understand. In the case of the desert, you could make a game of it: say that the sides of the trail are hot lava and you have to stay on the trail so you don’t touch it. 

Pack It In, Pack It Out

When I talk about “pack it in, pack it out” for parents, I ask people to consider taking your diapers and trash home versus leaving it in the park dumpsters. An estimated 3.5 million tons of diapers go into the landfill each year. While you aren’t improving the statistic by taking your diaper home, consider that park services are already heavily understaffed and overburdened, especially with the increase of people using parks. It’s great to see that so many people with young children are getting out there on trail, but a hike with a handful of families all dumping diapers can really fill a trash can quickly in a morning.

Respect Wildlife

Animal encounters are a natural fascination for kids. Help your children understand how to keep a safe distance from wildlife. Quick movements and loud noises are stressful to animals as well, so encourage a whisper policy when an animal is present. Model it by dropping your voice as soon as a you come upon a deer or a group of birds. The one rule to take extremely seriously is to never feed animals, no matter how tempting or seemingly tame the animal is.

Leave What You Find

This can be difficult for kids. When your kid discovers a cool rock or finds the perfect hiking stick, it can be really hard for them to leave it behind. With toddlers, a first step can be to limit trail treasures to one item, and talk to them about the cumulative negative impact of picking flowers and leaves. For older kids, you can give your child a camera to take photos of the treasures they find, or have them carry a nature journal to record their discoveries. Print those up at home and help them make a nature diary.

Picture-Perfect Moments

While it’s so tempting to get that perfect shot in a field of wildflowers, we now try to remember that little kids look adorable no matter what. Placing them in that wildflower field trains them from a young age that it’s OK to stomp on wildlife. That said, on a number of trails I hike, there are trees that kids like to climb. I have seen a substantial impact on these trees after years of kids climbing, and there’s no going back and fixing those naturally occurring spots. Recognize where those highly impacted places are and encourage stopping there versus a more pristine area, especially when hiking with groups.

Goeocaching and Painted Rocks

Geocaching and painted rocks are hot topics in the Leave No Trace world. While they are so cool for little kids to find, they also alter the landscape. If you’re a fan of them, consider placing your own on the trail for the hours you’re hiking, then looping back around to pick them up before you leave the area. We recently found our first geocache, and while it was cool to find this treasure chest with things that were 15 years old, I was also disappointed that someone put a marijuana pipe in there for my five-year-old to find. He had no clue what it was, but it was a reminder that it’s worth thinking twice about what you’re leaving behind for others to find.

Treat Nature as Your Friend

Encourage kids to be respectful, courteous, and polite when playing outdoors. Turn nature into a living being. Tell them to view nature as their friend, and help their friend stay healthy by picking up trash and treading lightly. Talk with them about human actions that disrespect nature, like graffiti, and why we like to keep nature untouched and pristine.



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5 Places You Can Shred with Olympians this Winter

Inside F45: Will This Workout Become a Big HIIT? https://ift.tt/2qlUv2s

Ants among giants. Murren Switzerland

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Just a couple of best friends enjoying the wilderness. Stayed plenty warm in our canvas tent with wood stove. Dispersed camping, completely remote. Spent our mornings enjoying the sunrises and listening to the world come alive.

Just a couple of best friends enjoying the wilderness. Stayed plenty warm in our canvas tent with wood stove. Dispersed camping, completely remote. Spent our mornings enjoying the sunrises and listening to the world come alive. submitted by /u/boone_h
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American Fork Canyon, Utah

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Minnesota Outdoor News Fishing Report – Nov. 2, 2018 https://ift.tt/2P1myTz

Get Early Access to the Minnesota Outdoor News Fishing Report!

Be the first to know where they’re biting! The Minnesota Outdoor News Fishing Report is now available Wednesday mornings at 9 a.m.

To receive this early access, simply create a free account below, and you can read the latest fishing reports two days earlier than everyone else. Again, the cost is free, all you have to do is register.

If you would rather not register, don’t worry. You will still have access to the most comprehensive fishing reports in Minnesota every Friday morning.

* PLEASE NOTE: After you have registered, please return to this page and click the login link below. Once logged in, you will have early access to the Minnesota Outdoor News Fishing Report.

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  • This allows access to our weekly fishing report by giving your email address

The post Minnesota Outdoor News Fishing Report – Nov. 2, 2018 appeared first on Outdoornews.



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MDHA’s Hides for Habitat: Minnesota River Valley Chapter drop-off sites https://ift.tt/2PzjixS

Lake Helene, CO

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Green village

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Dreamy night Singapore

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Tuesday, October 30, 2018

A Look at the Upcoming Film ‘Wildland’

One Fork to Rule them All

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



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A Vermont Foliage Film

Make Driving Dangerous Again

We live in a safety-obsessed culture, something that becomes immediately apparent when you take your seat behind the wheel of a modern automobile. Seatbelts, airbags, ABS, back-up cameras, lane-departure warning systems, automatic emergency braking... Today’s cars are way smarter than the horses that once pulled them.

Despite all this safety technology, road deaths are at a 10-year high, and cars (or, more accurately, their drivers) kill over 40,000 people per year. One reason for this is that we’re increasingly distracted by our phones—indeed, if you think about it, hitting a 10-year high about 10 years after the first iPhone came out sounds about right. Another reason for all the carnage is that, despite all these safety gew-gaws, the SUV is basically designed to kill people. See, because we’re so in love with oversized cars, the auto industry keeps churning out death machines. However, instead of selling them to the military along with tanks and fighter jets, they’re leasing them to us for $399 per month with $3,900 due at signing.

Alas, while we may be safety-obsessed, we’re also common-sense-challenged. That’s why instead of confronting our giant-car addiction, we’re trying to put more high-tech safety crap on cyclists and pedestrians instead. We also keep trying to delude ourselves into believing that all this killing is suddenly going to disappear thanks to the self-driving car. Sure, autonomous cars are unlikely to take over the roads anytime soon, but they’re already perhaps the greatest excuse for doing fuck-all that the world has ever seen. In the meantime, we just keep texting away and trusting that our bloated vehicles will protect us.

Fortunately, there’s another way to make our roads safer, and it doesn’t involve placing all our faith in an egomaniac with questionable management skills. (I’m referring to this one, not this one, though if we adopt this plan the current administration will get to tear down a bunch of onerous safety regulations, which is what it loves to do anyway.) It also doesn’t require some sort of futuristic technology that doesn’t exist yet. In fact, it doesn’t require any new technology at all. Best of all, the price of your next car will almost certainly come down dramatically.

All we’ve got to do is rip out all these damn features and creature comforts and Make the Automobile Dangerous Again.

The key here is reminding people that operating a motor vehicle actually requires a certain amount of concentration and skill, and the way to do that is to pare these machines down to the bare essentials. Think about it: When are you more engaged? When you’re on a bicycle, descending a mountain road on a contact patch the width of your thumb, with nothing between you and the tarmac but a thin layer of Lycra? Or when you’re in a 4,000-pound climate-controlled, sound-deadened, suspension-dampened Honda Pilot that’s essentially a 280-horsepower simulacrum of your living room sofa?

Yes, flensing the bloated SUV like the whale carcass it is could very well be the key to safer roadways. The first feature we should remove is the automatic transmission. This would have the immediate effect of taking who knows how many millions of drivers off the road, thanks to the fact that most Americans now regard manual transmissions with the same bewilderment as they do rotary phones. (And the drivers who do know how to use a stick shift are probably more interested in driving and therefore better at it.) No doubt we’d also see a tremendous decrease in the number of senior citizens driving their cars into storefronts, since with a manual transmission you’ve got to make a concerted effort to put your car into reverse.

Those still determined to drive would eventually learn how to operate a manual transmission and purchase new cars—only next they’d find new cars no longer come standard with backup cameras. Or automatic emergency braking systems. Or Bluetooth connectivity. Or entertainment systems. Or even airbags or seatbelts. Nope, now you’ve got nothing to watch but the road. Oh sure, you can still look at your actual phone, but maybe now you’ll think twice about hitting something, as doing so would mean a guaranteed one-way trip through your windshield.

Even after the complete de-Naderization of the automobile, many people still won’t think twice about driving—that is until there’s no more climate control. Hot outside? Well, guess what? Now it’s hot in the car too! No more sitting in an idling car for 45 minutes on a 90-degree day, futzing with your phone while you pump more carbon emissions into the atmosphere. And maybe freezing your ass off in winter will help remind you that you’re not actually invincible in your SUV. Maybe that snotsicle hanging from your nose will help you remember that when it gets cold outside, the road gets icy. Maybe you’ll even start taking those blizzard warnings seriously instead of spending the night on the expressway because you thought your all-wheel drive was more powerful than nature.

Without all those extras to protect them in a crash, it’s only a matter of time before drivers start to realize that SUVs were a stupid idea. Cars will get smaller and so will their engines. If all goes well, by 2030, we’ll all be driving 1960s roadsters with better reliability—and due to the lack of safety features, drivers will instead be pressured to wear motoring helmets. With any luck, eventually those helmets will become mandatory, because nothing discourages people like helmet laws. In the end, driving will finally be the exclusive domain of a handful of enthusiasts, and tomorrow’s motorist will be no different than those people you see riding around on Can-Am Spyders today.

As for commuting, running errands, and generally getting things done, the vast majority of people will opt for a safe, efficient machine that makes sense. You know, like a bicycle.



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Don’t Think Too Hard About Your Running Form

Have you ever tried to explain to someone how to tie your shoes? It’s a task you do smoothly and automatically—so smoothly, in fact, that you may find it impossible to break it down into a series of discrete steps that you can teach someone else. The best way to tie your shoes, it turns out, is not to think about it, and simply let autopilot take over. And some new research bolsters the controversial claim that, in this respect, running is a lot like tying your shoes.

The new study, published in the Journal of Sports Sciences, was led by Linda Schücker of the University of Münster. Twelve runners ran at a moderate pace on a treadmill in a virtual-reality set-up with a large video screen simulating the experience of running on a path around a lake. Their running economy, a measure of much energy you burn to maintain a given pace, was measured in three different conditions: when they were told to focus on their running form, their breathing, or simply on their virtual surroundings.

The experiment was designed to test a theory in motor learning that distinguishes between directing your focus internally or externally. A large body of research suggests that focusing externally, on the consequences of your actions rather than on the actions themselves, produces better results. For example, you’ll do better shooting a basketball free throw if you’re told to focus on seeing the ball go through the rim than if you’re told to focus on the angle of your elbow or the motion of your wrist. Focusing internally on the details of your movements disrupts the “automaticity” of these familiar actions.

Back in 2009, Schücker published a study very similar to the new one which suggested that the same thing applies to running. When runners focused on their running form, they ran less efficiently than when they simply watched the scenery go by; when they focused on their breathing, they got even worse. That’s exactly what the new study found, too. On average, they burned 2.6 percent more oxygen when focusing on their form, and 4.2 percent more when focusing on their breathing.

The twist in the new study was that Schücker tried to understand what made the runners less efficient. When they thought about their running form, they had more vertical oscillation from stride to stride, which may have cost extra energy. There were other subtle differences in individual runners; several, for example, bent their knees more when they thought about form. When they thought about breathing, they took longer, slower breaths: just 28.7 per minute compared to 34.0 in the scenery condition.

The message seems pretty straightforward here: you know instinctively how to run and how to breathe, so stop trying to tinker with the details. But there are some important caveats. A few years ago I had a chance to chat about this area of research with Noel Brick, a psychologist at Ulster University who studies what endurance athletes think about while running, cycling, and so on. One of the points he made was that not all ways of thinking about running form are equivalent. In Schücker’s experiments, the runners are told: “Pay attention to the push-off and the forward movement of your legs.” Does that correspond to advice that any running coach would actually give? Perhaps it’s the specific details of this advice that hurt your efficiency, and you’d get a different result from thinking, say, “Take short strides and don’t lean too far backwards.”

Another point raised by Brick is that even staunch advocates of trying to change your running form don’t suggest thinking about form all the time. Instead, it’s something you might do as part of a periodic self-check: run through a list of form cues that you’ve identified as important for you personally, rather than generic guidance to pay attention to the forward movement of your legs. Then relax and think about something else.

There are two other caveats that always come up in discussions of changes in running form. One is that trying to alter your form may make you less efficient in the short term, but more efficient in the long term as the new motion becomes automatic. The other is that efficiency may not be the outcome you care most about. Lots of people might be willing to accept a 2-percent penalty in efficiency if it makes you less likely to get injured. Both of these points are entirely reasonable; but both assume that you know what changes to make to your form to make yourself more efficient and injury-proof—a proposition that remains hotly disputed among running researchers, to put it mildly.

Another important distinction in the motor-learning literature is between novices and experts. Actions like tying your shoes, shooting a basketball, or putting a golf ball all begin as a series of discrete steps that you have to consciously focus on. As time goes on and you get better at it, the sequence gets combined into a single step stored in your procedural memory, which no longer requires conscious control. That distinction has interesting consequences. If you tell novice golfers to hurry up, they’ll sink fewer putts than if you tell them to take as much time as they want. They need to focus on the discrete steps of their putting motion to be successful. In contrast, if you tell expert golfers to hurry up, they’ll actually sink more putts. They do best when they rely on their internalized procedural memory, rather than thinking too hard about the detailed steps of their motion.

With this in mind, I think there’s a high bar to clear before you tell experienced runners to start messing with their form. They may have apparent imperfections in their motion, but to improve on their current form you’ll need to overcome deeply ingrained motor patterns that have already been self-optimized to some degree. The unanswered question is whether less experienced runners count as novices or experts. You could argue that we’ve all been running for most of our lives; but you could also argue that someone who’s been mostly sedentary and then takes up running as an adult is essentially learning a new skill—or at least, is capable of learning from scratch in a way that someone who’s been running daily for a decade no longer is.

In the end, it’s probably best to steer clear of absolute pronouncements. Thinking about form isn’t always bad; neither is it always good. But I do think this research should tip the default option toward just getting on with it. Unless you’ve got a good reason to think your form can be improved, and a solid basis for knowing which changes to make, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. And as for breathing, where the potential benefits of meddling are unclear, I think the case is even stronger: stop thinking about it and just do it.


My new book, Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell, is now available. For more, join me on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for the Sweat Science email newsletter.



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How to Watch the 2018 New York City Marathon Online

On Sunday, November 4, 50,000 runners will line up in Staten Island to start the 26.2-mile journey through Brooklyn and into Manhattan’s Central Park. Every year, the race attracts some of the world’s best runners, but the everyday athletes in the crowd are pretty amazing too.

This year’s race should be packed with excitement. On the women’s side, reigning champion Shalane Flanagan returns to defend her title against a stacked field that includes top Americans Desiree Linden, Molly Huddle, and Allie Kieffer, plus Mary Keitany of Kenya, who holds the women-only world record. The men’s field features last year’s winner, Geoffrey Kamworor, two-time Boston champ Lelisa Desisa, and five-time Olympic middle-distance runner Bernard Lagat, who will be making his marathon debut.

If you’re not in New York City on race day to watch in person, you can still tune in on your computer or smartphone. Here’s what you need to know.

When

Live race coverage runs from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. EST. Pre-race coverage starts at 7:00 a.m. The wheelchair division starts at 8:30, followed by hand cyclists and other athletes with disabilities at 8:52. Professional women runners start at 9:20, followed by the first wave (including professional male runners) at 9:50. The following three waves start at 10:15, 10:40, and 11:00.

Where

In the New York tristate area, you can watch the race live on WABC-TV Channel 7 starting at 9:00 a.m. Free livestreaming, including pre-race coverage, is available on the ABC app and ABC7NY.com starting at 7:00 a.m.

Across the United States, you can watch live coverage on ESPN2. ESPN subscribers can also follow along on the ESPN app or website. ESPN3 is airing a live feed of the finish line from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with pre-race and continuing coverage starting at 7:00 a.m.

International viewers can watch the broadcast via local providers. Check out a list here.



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Save 27 Percent on the Light My Fire Meal Kit 2.0

Emily Reed, one of our gear editors, never leaves for a backpacking trip without this meal kit. It weighs just 13 ounces and includes two large plates, two small bowls with sealable lids, two mugs, and a cutting board that doubles as a strainer. 

Buy Now



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View from the worksite 😎 NV

View from the worksite 😎 NV submitted by /u/sasquatch_boi
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Hand gliding above the clouds in Switzerland.

Hand gliding above the clouds in Switzerland. submitted by /u/HoneybeeHighway
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Cannot beat the walk from Bray to Greystones!

Cannot beat the walk from Bray to Greystones! submitted by /u/PhyllisDillersHair
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Kansas City, MO in the fall

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Washington's 3 National Park in 3 Days

Washington's 3 National Park in 3 Days

VIDEO LINK: Washington's 3 National Parks in 3 Days (Mount Rainier, Olympic, North Cascades) | Outdoor Detour

I spent Oct 20-23 on a quick trip in Washington crossing out all three National Parks up there. I typically treat my first trip to a new location as more of a scouting and photography trip--planning out sunrise and sunset shooting locations, then everything in-between, and as soon as it gets dark I start driving to my next location so I'm ready to go at sunrise. This way I can get the lay of the land, see as may sights as humanly possible, and then I'll know exactly where I want to spend more or less time on future trips back there. So this was very much the first trip of many to the PNW, as I still have so much more to explore out there.

I've always been more into photography but I've always taken videos documenting my outdoor trips for snapchat and instagram and have even started proper blogging at OutdoorDetour.com, but I decided I wanted to try my hand at the YouTube/vlogging game, so this is the first time I've actually set out to make a proper video using trip footage. Let me know what you think, because I'm planning on continuing this for every future trip.

Keep in mind.. this is my very first proper trip video and first time using Adobe Premiere CC. I'm not a movie maker or a wordsmith or an artist. Just trying to make some original content that people might be interested in.

So I'm looking for any and all constructive criticism on the video. What did you like, what didn't you like, what would you want to see more or less of?

If you're more interested in the photography side of things, you can find more trip photos over at instagram.com/OutdoorDetour. Thanks, everyone!

My Itinerary:

  • Arrive 2pm. Drive 3.5hr to North Cascades
  • North Cascades National Park
    • Diablo Lake for Sunset
    • Washington Pass
    • Drive 5.5hr to Mt Rainier, night shots and sleep
  • Mount Rainier National Park
    • Tipsoo Lake for night shots (0.5mi RT)
    • Reflection Lake for night shots and sunrise
    • Skyline Trail to Glacier Vista, Myrtle Falls, and Moraine Trail (5mi RT)
    • Narrada Falls
    • Christine Falls
    • Sunset hike to undisclosed location (3.5mi RT)
    • Drive 4.5hr to Olympic
  • Olympic National Park
    • Hurricane Ridge for sunrise
    • Lake Crescent
    • Salmon Cascades Exhibit
    • Sol Duc Falls (2.7mi RT)
    • Hoh Rainforest
    • Hoh River Trail (3.7mi RT)
    • Second Beach (for sunset (2mi RT)
    • Drive 4hr back to Seattle
  • Seattle
    • Sunrise at Kerry Park
    • Airport by 10am

Processing img pkrxsp8oyev11...

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