The Feed

Jul 27, 2026

I stood between the barbed wire and an old wagon road that had almost completely returned to the grass. Clouds swirled and joined and broke apart again, casting shadows that rose against the huge red and green slabs of the mountainsides. Somewhere beyond them I could hear the boom of thunder. The smell of rain carried on the wind as I watched a distant bird turning and rising away from the storm. The farthest blue peaks were slowly becoming silver and white. ... The post 6. When The Sun Sets At Noon appeared first on The Trek .

Jul 27, 2026

Part 42 Fifty Paces “Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick.” — don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements e went back out into the quiet wind where there was nothing and everything. We slept in aspens, on forest floors thick with a hundred years of leaves, and woke to frost. At a squat trailhead restroom we leaned against rocks and ate, ... The post The Continental Divide Trail: The Best Thing I Saw on The CDT appeared first on The Trek .

Jul 27, 2026

The Netherlands is renowned for its pristine, well-maintained cycling infrastructure, so rugged adventures through remote landscapes likely aren’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of the country. […] The post Beef with the Border appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com .

Jul 27, 2026

Janja Garnbret has made quick work of Pornographie 5.14d at Céüse, France, a line first climbed by Alex Megos in 2020 between Bibliographie and L’Étrange Ivress. In June, Janja Garnbret made history by becoming the second woman to send 5.15c after Brooke Raboutou with her tick of Bibliographie 5.15c in Céüse, a route that features more than 80 moves over 35 metres of climbing. Also this year, Garnbret became the first comp climber ever to win 50 gold medals – read more about it here . While the early years of Garnbret’s climbing career were focused on comps, she sometimes found time for rock,

Jul 27, 2026

The hoovering lips of two Beaver Island linebackers, Lake Michigan. Carp are built like piscine linebackers, thick-bodied and with powerful tails that allow them to accelerate to speeds that top 10 miles per hour. This might not sound all that fast, but that’s equivalent to trout, and in a moving current, can make for quite the force on the other end of a fly line. They can grow as long as four feet, and reach nearly 100 pounds. The largest carp ever caught by an angler was hooked on Lac de Curton (Rainbow Lake) near Bordeaux, France, and weighed 94 pounds. Rainbow Lake is world-renowned as a

Jul 27, 2026

Five climbers have died after a summit attempt on Mount Elbrus, Europe’s highest peak, ended in tragedy when rapidly deteriorating weather forced their seven-person team off the standard route. According to The Guardian , investigators said the group strayed from the route on the evening of July 25 after conditions deteriorated quickly. One climber descended to alert rescuers, reporting that two members of the team had become ill and died at approximately 5,100 metres. Rescue teams initially recovered two bodies at around 5,350 metres near the Elbrus Saddle, while the remaining survivor was ev

Jul 27, 2026

Designed for marathon mountain bike racing and skirting the drop-bar ban at the Leadville 100, the 5DEV Shredville Mounts allow riders to integrate road-style brake hoods onto a mountain bike handlebar. Do they solve a real problem or one that doesn't exist? We're not exactly sure. See more here... The post 5DEV Shredville Mounts Are for Drop-Bar Lovers and Rule-Followers appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com .

Jul 28, 2026

Well, my summer of FOMO has begun: the other day I watched (via Instagram) as 50 women set off to bikepack from Munich, to the Grand Départ of Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in Lausanne. 1 I was actually invited in the end, but not far enough in advance for me to change my existing plans, so instead I’m watching from afar – and I have now started looking at how I can get to Ventoux by train, so it’s possible that I will see them there next week. (And I’d better, because I’ll regret it if I don’t.) The women who started the Transcontinental in 2017. I think there were also one or two more who

Jul 27, 2026

In lieu of actual doping controls we get folks writing long Substack posts . Not sure this is the answer, but certainly adds to the overall conversation. The key piece that sticks out to me in Kilian’s post is this one: During Cocodona of this year, I took prednisone before heading up Mt. Mingus to help prophylactically ward off the allergy-related breathing problems I had faced in years past and sucked down some puffs from my inhaler with regularity. Before the race I contacted Aravaipa to inquire about the potential need for a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) for these medications and was tol

Jul 27, 2026

In this Weekend Snapshot, our readers share a surprising mix of scenes from their recent bikepacking journeys through Senegal, Colorado, and Australia. Find the latest submissions from three continents and submit something from one of your adventures here... The post Weekend Snapshot appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com .

Jul 27, 2026

We're constantly monitoring route conditions and incorporating feedback from our Route Stewards and the greater community, and we've made several major updates to our global network in the last few months. Read below to see what's changed... The post Route Revisions (July 2026): Veneto Divide, Trans-Dolimiti, Steel Triangle, and More… appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com .

Jul 27, 2026

My buddy, KP , punching a world, and two Ironman, champions out the back with a surprise attack at Epic Camp New Zealand. Birthdays can be a time of increased mojo for many of us. The most powerfully motivating birthdays are often the tens, 30 years old, 40 years old, 50 years old and beyond. When KP turned 50 he was super stoked to put in a big year of racing. His mindset was he needed to get his results before it was too late . It worked, it was the fastest he ever raced. Then his life became difficult. At the time, I shared an observation with him, that I want to pass along to you… If your

Jul 21, 2026

Manti-La Sal National Forest in the fall If you love public lands, there’s a certain kind of article you need to learn to recognize on sight. It runs in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and once it’s worn out the marquee names it filters down into the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek and even Outside, the once-venerable outdoor magazine that’s supposed to be on your side. It’s written in a calm, reasonable, grown-up voice. It concedes that our public lands are in trouble, and then it kindly offers to help. And down at the bottom, in the italicized author bi

Jul 24, 2026

He didn’t go to Vero Beach. He tied flies. He tied Muddler Minnows and Woolly Buggers and Seaducers and a series of his own patterns that he had been working on for years and that had no names and that caught fish in the Mosquito Lagoon when nothing else would. He tied them with the care of a man who believed, in some part of his mind that he could not access directly, that the act of making something beautiful and functional would eventually produce a corresponding change in the man who made it. It did not. But the flies were very good. In late August, something happened that forced Webb to w

Jul 23, 2026

Over five days at the start of July, American alpinists Eli Spitulnik and Michael Telstad made the first ascent of Hologram Wall (VI 3,300′ 5.9 A3R M6+ WI5) on Alaska’s Kichatna Spire. Their line is the first to climb directly up the mountain’s imposing south face, succeeding where an earlier attempt in April 2025 had been turned back by storms. Telstad described the ascent as a committing blend of big-wall and alpine climbing, undertaken in one of the most remote corners of the Alaska Range. After spending 1o days moving equipment, fixing pitches and sitting out bad weather, the pair finally

Jul 24, 2026

While bikepacking across the Balkans en route from England to India, Joshua Kian and Sarah Morgan had an unforgettable encounter and savored some of their journey’s most fulfilling riding in Albania’s Accursed Mountains. “The People in Empty Places” is a 20-minute video that unpacks the experience of feeling something shift inside. Watch it and find an accompanying feature story here… The post The People in Empty Places: An Albanian Adventure (Video) appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com .

Jul 22, 2026

This is the second part of an investigation into the think-tank op-eds attacking America's public lands from the opinion pages of high profile newspapers. Read part one here . The op-eds selling off your public lands don’t run by accident. The American press is owned, funded, and trained to launder them. Yesterday I called your attention to the parade of trojan horse public lands op-eds filling the pages of once-trusted media institutions. I highlighted the most recent one, a Koch-funded operative wearing a park ranger costume in the Washington Post making the case America should stop protecti

Jul 22, 2026

The Pilates teacher’s name was Diego, and he had come to Brevard County from Guayaquil by way of a strip-mall studio on Eau Gallie Boulevard where he taught reformer classes to women who were otherwise satisfied with their marriages. Webb’s wife, Cheryl, had signed up in January on the advice of a girlfriend who said it would fix her hip, and by March she was stretching in ways that exceeded the original prescription. Webb learned about the affair from Cheryl’s mother, who called to say she was sorry but also to ask if he planned to keep the house, because she had always liked the house. That

Jul 27, 2026

California, you’re so hot. Bridgeport You’ve got it all: redwoods, rocky peaks, hot springs, coastlines, farmland, foothills, food, dance, deserts, cities, and secret subcultures. Pacifica You’re so hot, and you’re so expensive. Who can afford to live with you? Even friends with multiple-six-figure salaries tell me they’re just scraping by, living your dream. Davis But I’ve found one way to be rich within you, California: by laying no claim and establishing no residence. By enjoying you as a visitor, a traveler, a starry-eyed prospector of awe and wonder. South Lake Tahoe For the past seven we

Jul 26, 2026

Welcome to Growing Conditions , a summer series of letters to the places I used to live. Each week, I’m writing a letter—sent in the mail and posted here—to an address that grew me. We’re riding in the clear blue sky. This is the only letter I’m not sending in this series. My landlord was a demanding, challenging person, but there was enough evidence that her cruelty was borne from circumstances out of her control, that I couldn’t villainize her. Still, I don’t want to reconnect with her, and all the mail went to her. So this letter is just for us. On the Western side of the house, if you foll

Jul 24, 2026

The ruins of the Carmo Convent, which was never fully rebuilt. . . . At 9:40 on the morning of the 1st of November 1755 , the city of Lisbon was full of people. It was All Saints’ Day ─ a major Catholic feast ─ and many of the city’s inhabitants were attending Mass. Then the earth moved. The Great Lisbon Earthquake lasted somewhere between three and six minutes. Contemporary accounts describe three distinct jolts. Buildings that had stood for centuries collapsed in less time than it takes to describe. Then came the fires ─ hundreds of them, started by the candles and cooking fires of a city wo

Jul 24, 2026

I’m about to start my Colorado Trail thru-hike, and I’ve spent about 10 minutes looking at the trail map. If you knew me before the PCT, you’d know this is completely out of character. Past me would have already created a spreadsheet, color-coded every resupply town, and calculated exactly how many days I would hike between towns. I’ve done almost no planning, and yet I feel extremely prepared. Let me tell you why. Before the PCT: I thought I Needed a Plan for Everything I’m inherently a person who loves to plan. ... The post Why I’ve Done Almost Nothing to Plan for My Colorado Trail Thru-Hike

Jul 24, 2026

In 2021, when former New Mexico congresswoman Deb Haaland was confirmed as Interior Secretary, it meant something more than what most of the headlines captured at the time. Yes, she was the first Native American to hold a cabinet position, but what mattered more than that symbolic historical milestone was this: Native peoples were moving from the margins—from aggrieved parties begging for a hearing—to actual governance authority over American public lands. This was noteworthy because it acknowledged something that seems obvious but had been ignored for centuries: the people who'd stewarded the

Jul 24, 2026

In the late 1300s, experts point to drought and other environmental stressors impacting the Puebloan people in the Southwest leading toward societal collapse. My people, the Diné, the Athabaskan-speaking migrants from the north, also began to place pressures on these societies. Resources like food and water became increasingly scarce, and preventing theft or raids by other groups was paramount to… Source

Jul 24, 2026

The difficulty of the climb caught me by surprise. Moosilauke, I’d expected. Everyone at Hiker’s Welcome Hostel talked about it, and I was very glad to do it as the SoBo slack-pack the hostel offered. But this? Nobody talked about Kinsman. And it was killing me. The trail followed Eliza Brook, with its pools of clear water, then large boulders began to stack. One above another. I took them as they came, focusing on the granite immediately before me, ... The post Handholds appeared first on The Trek .

Jul 23, 2026

When whales die and sink to the ocean floor, their remains become biological oases. Scientists had identified only about 50 whale falls worldwide since 1977 before a recent survey revealed a startling concentration off Los Angeles. (Photo: OET/NOAA. Back in 2023, scientists surveying a vast military-industrial dumpsite in the deep ocean off Southern California were looking for barrels and other remnants of decades of industrial and military dumping. They found plenty of it. They had discovered an astonishing amount of it during earlier surveys and were now expanding the search across a much la

Jul 23, 2026

Could Dehydration Be Undermining Your Fuel Strategy? Endurance fueling advice usually treats carbohydrate and fluid as separate targets: hit a certain number of grams per hour, then drink enough to manage thirst and heat. A small new experiment suggests the two may be more connected than that. Nine trained male cyclists and triathletes completed two 160-minute rides at 50% of their peak power in temperate conditions, about 73°F (23°C). In both trials, they consumed 60 grams of glucose per hour. In the high-fluid trial, they also received enough water to match sweat losses closely; in the low-f

Jul 23, 2026

Note: this poem is published in Volume 26, the current issue of The Zine. Photo by Matthew Tangeman we measure our lives in some odd ways in paces in heartbeats in hands by the punching of pills through blistered packaging the lengths of rope stretched end to end to trace a cliff the distance between us or how many we’ve lost on the wall TS Elliot used coffee spoons to… Source

Jul 22, 2026

Disclosure: TrainingPeaks is a partner of mine, and I have friends at both organizations. That gives me context many won’t have, and a bias worth naming up front. I’ve tried to write the honest version anyway. Peaksware, the parent company of TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic, sits in Louisville, about fifteen minutes from my front door. So when Garmin announced today that it had acquired both platforms, the news landed close to home, pretty literally. Most of the coverage is reading it the obvious way. Garmin consolidates the data, Garmin users get one ecosystem, everything syncs in one place. Th

Jul 22, 2026

12 days ago, I made it public I had pulled from one of my favorite races: Badwater 135; a race I have won and had the privilege of finishing three times. With the course just three hours from home, Death Valley and the Eastern Sierra have been a staple for long training camps throughout my career; but most importantly-it is a place where I have continually felt deep connection and peace. Badwater Champion 2021 Pulling from the race was a difficult decision, especially after working hard to qualify since knee surgery last year. I knew this year’s race would prompt questioning: Was my knee going

Jul 22, 2026

Vincent Bouillard broke 14 hours at Western States, running 13:46 to become the first person ever to do so and shattering the course record by 23 minutes. A few hours later, Jenn Lichter crossed the same finish line in 15:28, dipping just under the course record in her 100-mile debut. Two course records were broken on the same day, on the sport's biggest stage. I spoke with both of their coaches to see how they contributed to these athlete success stories. The post Elite Coaching: What Western States Revealed appeared first on Ultra Running Magazine .

Jul 22, 2026

Why Does Running Feel More Bro-ey These Days? Over the past few years, there’s been a noticeable shift in running’s tone on social media: it feels more bro-ey. It’s been a gradual, but steady rise. Gym bro culture has always existed, but it’s become more visible online thanks to the convergence of podcasts, #GymTok, influencers, hybrid fitness trends, and wellness/supplement companies led by male tech entrepreneurs. It has trickled down to running, and it’s hard not to notice. If we want to take a huge step back and observe this moment from an anthropological lens, I think the current administ

Jul 21, 2026

The Connecticut River runs 410 miles from the Canadian border to Long Island Sound, through four states, past some of the oldest towns in America, and alongside farmland that has been in continuous cultivation since the 1600s. Most people cross it on a bridge and keep driving. That’s a mistake. The Connecticut River Valley is New England’s quietest great road trip, a corridor of covered bridges and river towns and farm stands and paddling put-ins that rewards anyone willing to follow the water instead of the highway. This issue is the argument for doing exactly that, starting now while the riv

Jul 23, 2026

I want to pull back the curtain on three athletes I’ve coached whose stories are proof of what’s actuallypossible: the daily schedules they balance, the specific training that got them to the finish line and the deeply personal “why” that drove them to tackle double the century mark. My hope is that by seeing their real-life examples, you’ll realize that you can do it, too. The post How to Juggle Life & Work to Train for a 200-Miler appeared first on Ultra Running Magazine .

Jul 21, 2026

Earlier this year, supporters of Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge—a 50,000-acre nature preserve spread across parts of three counties in southeastern Indiana—got an alarming letter from Will Meeks, the Midwest regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Meeks indicated that the federal government was probably going to walk away from the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that has governed the refuge for more than 25 years, raising the possibility that Big Oaks, in the future, could cease to function as the public-use resource it is today. “On April 8, 2026,” he wrote, “a meeting was h

Jul 26, 2026

“Advice is like belly buttons or assholes—everyone has them, but some stink worse than others.” A successful friend’s dad said this to me during the summer between my last year of high school and my first year of college when I asked him what I should study. It’s stuck with me ever since. In general, I believe that most advice is damn near worthless, and if received from, should be discarded. It’s usually contaminated by bias and serves the interests of the giver, not the receiver. On the flip side, most people seeking it already know the answer they want to hear and are simply looking for ext

Jul 24, 2026

A Pakistani-led expedition has opened a new variation on Broad Peak (8,047 m), marking the first time in the country’s mountaineering history that a Pakistani team has established a new line on an 8,000-metre peak. Led by Mirza Ali, founder of Karakorum Expeditions Pvt. Ltd., the team spent three days climbing above Camp 3 before reaching the summit after a 24-hour push through deep snow. The team used more than 1,600 metres of rope fixed to pitons. Named the Mirza Ali Legacy Route in recognition of Ali’s 16 years of service to Pakistani mountaineering, the new variation bypasses Broad Peak’s

Jul 21, 2026

Most family trips that don’t work out, actually are likely in trouble before you even leave home. We’ve been traveling as a family of 5 for 18 years and have been through it all: infants, toddlers, and teens. But it really doesn’t matter how old the kids are, the biggest mistake I see is the same. And it’s not just when you’re traveling with kids - whether your family is a group of friends, or senior parents, or just a partner - the same rules apply. They’re planned with one audience in mind: either the kids or the adults (or just for one person in the group). So you end up with one of two thi

Jul 25, 2026

I was climbing on Cruit Island, Donegal, last week, a place well worth a visit, the rock being like granite gritstone, or “granite with acne” (free guidebook here ). One morning, I came across a group of climbers setting up an abseil rope in order to access the bottom of a tidal sea cliff. They looked like they knew what they were doing, but what they were doing looked a bit like they didn’t. I asked if they wanted some suggestions, as I thought I had something to add, plus I also wanted to use their rope (and I didn’t trust it!). The following interaction, where I gave a few tips, made me rea

Jul 24, 2026

Episode 350 with Joe McConaughy and Scott Sowle: This week’s chat with PNW’s North Bend Trail Fest race director’s Joe McConaughy and Scott Sowle provides me with the perfect distraction from my own race prep for Beast to discuss the news of the moment: doping among influential trail runners. Joe shares his elite athlete perspective and we discuss the challenges for race directors trying to navigate the seemingly insurmountable financial challenges to provide doping controls at our events. Also: come race in the PNW. Our trails are awesome, Mount Ellinor and Mount Si are calling you! Links Dir

Jun 27, 2026

I’d walked these redwoods a dozen times before I ever set foot in the Grove. I thought I knew this forest. I’d driven the dirt road that threads through it, stood under trees that made me feel like a child, told myself I understood what a redwood was. Then one day I walked into the Grove of Titans, and the forest I thought I knew turned out to have been keeping a secret the whole time. I don’t reach for the word lightly, but it’s the only one that fits. Primeval. These aren’t big trees the way a city park has big trees. They’re something older and stranger, ancient beyond easy comprehension, a

Jun 13, 2026

I climb toward the lake with two dogs, one real and one a ghost. I am the first person to make it this far this year, and there are still snowdrifts. Trees, weakened from the fire three years ago, or is it four, have toppled into the trail, forcing us to claw our way through. The logs that we crossed the creeks on for years have been swept away in earlier floods. For someone who moved every six months for ten years, someone who gets restless if one day is a replica of another, I find change surprisingly hard. Exactly eight months to the day, October 1, I took Ruby on her last hike to this lake

Jun 5, 2026

I wanted to sit outside and listen to the roar of the ocean, but I was afraid. I wanted to walk through the redwoods, but I was afraid. I wanted to glide in a kayak and feel the cool water splash in my face, but I was afraid. For me, the fear is like a heartbeat, always present, while at the same time intangible, elusive, and difficult to define. So pervasive, so much a part of me, that I hardly knew it was there. In fact, I wasn’t fully aware of my troubled feelings about nature until I was invited to teach at a women’s writing workshop held each summer on the McKenzie River in the foothills

May 18, 2026

When I checked myself out of eating disorder treatment on New Year’s Eve, I returned to the assisted living facility where I was housed, threw my belongings in a black trash bag, and drove toward Chicago, never looking back. I was 23 years old, sick of being told I would always be sick. I was tired of locked doors and pills and fluorescent lights. I was over people with badges controlling my every move. I left and drove toward the unknown, claiming a freedom no one would have offered me. I had to steal it. Take it for myself—against medical advice. The awareness of the risk got my heart beatin

May 5, 2026

This story was co-published with The Guardian . Every autumn across North America, migration begins. And across the continent’s highways and desert roads, another migration gathers – this one made not of birds or fish, but of humans. They go by many names: nomads, drifters, snowbirds, boondockers, van dwellers. Some travel in search of warmth, others for freedom and community. And for a growing number, the migration is not simply seasonal but economic. Among those is 55-year-old Derek Hansler, a chef by trade. Known to friends as D Rock, he spends the summer in New Hampshire visiting his child

Jun 30, 2026

In the second installment of his 2026 Tour Divide field report, photographer Eddie Clark follows the race deep into New Mexico, capturing the defining moments of an unforgettable year—from Victor Bosoni's composed march to victory to Meaghan Hackinen's dominant ride and Felix Laberge's remarkable singlespeed performance. Find a striking set of photos, a unique perspective on the riders, and behind-the-scenes stories from nearly 5,000 miles on the road here... The post Tracing the 2026 Tour Divide (Part 2): The Final Push appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com .

Jun 9, 2026

What do we actually want from a mountain bike? After hundreds of miles on the Neuhaus Solstice, Logan kept arriving at the same answer. It didn’t involve a certain spec sheet or a particular geometry, but something far simpler. Read on for his full review of the Neuhaus Solstice, an uncomplicated steel hardtail that quietly excels at many things... The post Neuhaus Solstice Review: Disappearing Act appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com .

May 13, 2026

The thing you understand the first time you stand outside in the Interior at thirty below is that the heat inside the house is not a comfort. It is the entire infrastructure of staying alive. The Toyostove in the corner, the fuel line running to the tank outside, the diesel in the tank, the barge that brought the diesel in August or the bush plane that flew it in last week — every link in that chain has to hold or the pipes freeze and the house empties out and the family moves in with relatives down the road until someone can get the heat back on. At fifty below the chain has to hold faster. T

Jul 15, 2026

Subscribe now Share Monarch is not supposed to make it. Monarch is not supposed to matter. Monarch is short. Monarch is small. Monarch has no snowmaking. Monarch’s lift fleet is a Mad Max fever dream of scavenged and patched-together machinery. Monarch is 21 miles from the nearest town and more than 100 miles from the nearest interstate. Monarch is not on the Epic or Ikon or Indy or Mountain Collective passes. Monarch has been independently owned and operated for 87 years. Among Colorado’s 27 chairlift-served ski areas, Monarch ranks 17 th in skiable acreage and 23 rd in vertical drop. Vail an

Jun 29, 2026

I bet my career on this sport. I left a steady job to build inside endurance running full time, and there are mornings that decision feels brave and mornings it feels insane. I just spent a week on the ground in Tahoe, across Broken Arrow, TrailCon, and Western States, watching the sport from every angle I could find. I came home more excited than I have been in years. Not because trail is having a moment. Because of why it is having one. Let me try to explain the mechanism, because the mechanism is the part that makes me think this is durable and not a bubble. First, the growth is real I am w

Jun 24, 2026

A Whitetail Buck harvested for food and land management. Most mornings, nothing happens for a long time. You walk in under a headlamp, find a place, and sit down against it. The light comes up gray and then gold. Your feet go cold. A bird you can’t name starts up somewhere off your left shoulder, goes quiet, starts again. An hour passes, then another, and you have not done a single thing that would photograph well. That, it turns out, is most of what hunting is. I didn’t know that going in. Like a lot of people who come to this as adults, I thought the whole thing was the shot. I came to it la

Jun 22, 2026

Sometimes I hate hiking. That wave of dislike has an annoying tendency to hit when I’m at the furthest point from my car and there is no way to easily throw in the towel. I could give up and refuse to move any further, but then I would just be condemning myself to sitting in the (likely tick-laden) brush for eternity. Except in the most dire situations, if I walk into the woods, I have to walk myself out of them again—no matter how much I wish I could teleport to the nearest spot serving burgers and beer. Hating hiking is a different feeling than being in the midst of a Type 2 Fun adventure .

Jun 19, 2026

I was supposed to be headed north to the Catskills today for Manitou’s Revenge, my all-time favorite trail race: 53 miles on some of the most beautiful and rugged terrain in the world, with 15,000 feet of ascent (and my first race since Hardrock). Instead, I’m driving south to Baltimore to begin cancer treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Rather than a 5th shot at the Manitou, it’s my turn to wrestle the bear. If you just flashed to that scene from The Revenant, that’s what I was going for, because that’s how I’m thinking of what’s ahead... wrestling the bear . And maybe I’ll look back later a

Jun 17, 2026

The desert has a way of testing you. Sometimes it does it through heat. Sometimes through long water carries, relentless wind, or miles that seem to stretch endlessly toward the horizon. Other times it does it more quietly, asking you to trust that what you need will show up when you need it. Somewhere between mile 400 and mile 500, I started believing that might actually be true. The Heat and the Water I woke up at Sulphur Springs to the sound of spotted towhees calling through the trees. ... The post At Mile 500, the Desert Starts Letting Go appeared first on The Trek .

Jun 13, 2026

Sam Morris took on the 1,430km Atlas Mountain Race — 25,000m of climbing, roughly three Everests — on a singlespeed. A tale of wind, rancid sardines, Imodium and Berber mint tea.

Jun 12, 2026

As AI floods the digital channel with content no one asked for, the brands that will win are the ones building somewhere real. Brands spent the last decade perfecting the art of reaching people who weren’t paying attention. The scroll-past, the muted pre-roll, the “skip ad” button worn smooth by ten billion thumbs. An entire industry built around a medium everyone wishes they could ignore. Generative AI is coming for that medium next. The cost of producing content has collapsed to near zero. Every brand, at every budget level, can now generate infinite variations of the ad nobody was watching

Jun 11, 2026

I’m in the back of an orange Skoda Fabia, with the white-and-green license plate that marks us as Palestinians, cruising through the mountains of the West Bank on our way to the crag. I grabbed a Black Diamond bottle opener, which I acquired from the Black Diamond store in Boulder, Colorado, earlier this year, to crack open the best, cheapest soda water one can find these days. It’s called Uludag… Source

Jun 10, 2026

I was gonna say: you should go climbing. We were naked in bed, my girlfriend and I, and talking, as we often have, about mental health. Her struggles, my struggles, the world’s struggles. It was a warm afternoon in June. My double windows swung open to the back terrace to let in the Mediterranean city air. She had just been to therapy, and me, I had just been outside climbing. Why? she asked in return. I took a long pause. There was something I’ve been trying to say for a long time about climbing, something that has been germinating in my writing for years, but was only recently clarified. It’

Jun 5, 2026

Image created by author. Nike put ACG on Olympic athletes, decked out the Western States champion in a prototype cooling kit, and spent $225,000 to sponsor major prize purses for Broken Arrow and Gorge Waterfalls. Yet the company discloses $0 in trail or outdoor revenue and barely mentions ACG on its earnings calls. Meanwhile, Amer Sports — parent company for Salomon, Arc’teryx, and others — separately reports financials for its Outdoor Performance category, a $2.4B division that’s still growing. What a company puts on its income statement is a choice, and that choice tells you whether trail i

May 31, 2026

The week Kadek’s family traveled north for a cremation ceremony, the compound next door went quiet. No children racing through the courtyard. No scooters returning home after dark. No grandparents calling instructions from somewhere deeper inside the family property. No karaoke drifting over the wall at night. Even Jojo stopped barking. For the first couple of days, I couldn’t figure out why the villa suddenly felt so different. Then one evening beside the pool, while the sky dimmed into that heavy blue Bali seems to specialize in, the silence started feeling strangely wrong. The villa felt st

May 26, 2026

I remember the exact moment the guilt crept in. I was somewhere over the Atlantic, probably six hours into a transatlantic flight, watching the little plane icon crawl across the screen. Somewhere below me was ocean. Somewhere behind me was a carbon trail I didn’t want to think about. I was heading toward a family adventure in Europe a weekand I was already slightly dreading the mental math. Because here’s what nobody puts in the glossy brochures alongside the waterfalls and the crater lakes: adventure travel has a cost. Not just a financial one. Many of us have used the rational of the the ec

May 25, 2026

The Droplet (<1mm across) on an Eastern Dwarf Mistletoe shoot © Bryan Pfeiffer Given the world’s troubles, I recognize that a droplet at the tip of a bizarre flower isn’t exactly breaking news. And yet you, dear readers, are among the few people ever to see this droplet, which is the sugary secretion of a parasitic plant called Eastern Dwarf Mistletoe. That’s because, as best I can determine, I’m the first person to photograph this phenomenon in the wild and publish its image. But this isn’t about me, or even entirely about the droplet, which botanists unceremoniously call “stigmatic exudate.”

May 19, 2026

I grew up on ten modest acres surrounded by hardwood forest. No neighborhood kids. No cul-de-sac. Just trees, dirt, and a particular kind of quiet that teaches you things you don’t know you’ve learned until decades later. Summers were different — what people in Michigan just call “ up north ,” the lakes and rivers of the northern lower peninsula, a landscape so specific it has its own cultural gravity. Fairytale summers. The school year was lonely in the way only rural childhood can be. I didn’t choose that formation. It got built into me. What enough looks like. What freedom actually feels li

May 14, 2026

I pushed the start button on my running watch with my right hand, two thick envelopes in my left hand, and jogged across the busy street when I saw an opening in traffic. I wasn’t sure where my run would take me, aside from a stop at the blue USPS box outside the grocery store seven-tenths of a mile away, where I’d pause to drop the envelopes and then run off. As I dropped the envelopes in the box, I thought: I wonder if any of those famous fast runners I follow on Instagram do this sort of thing? Like do they ever have to squeeze their running in around real-life stuff? A friend who is a coac

May 9, 2026

Holly Haldane reflects on what Rachel Entrekin’s Cocodona 250 win means to her and other women: And I cried. Not delicate tears. Not cinematic tears. The kind that arrive from somewhere primal. Because there she was; exhausted, relentless, powerful. A woman refusing to shrink herself. A woman taking up space and daring the world to […] Link: https://hollyahaldane.substack.com/p/eat-enough-to-be-angry

May 1, 2026

What it means for the rest of us. And where running goes from here

Jun 4, 2026

The moon. (Photo: NASA) For thousands of years, the moon has quietly tugged at California’s coastline. Its gravitational pull raises and lowers the Pacific twice a day, creating the tides that surfers and beachgoers know so well. In this way, the rhythms of the moon are also the rhythms of the earth. But tucked within those familiar rhythms is a much longer cycle, one that takes nearly 19 years to complete. Scientists call it the lunar nodal cycle . Most Californians have never heard of it. Yet it may help shape some of the state’s biggest environmental challenges of the coming decade: coastal

May 27, 2026

Known for his achievements in high-altitude climbing, expedition skiing, and award-winning filmmaking, Jimmy Chin has spent his life documenting climbers and skiers in some of the harshest environments on Earth. Along the way, he completed major expeditions and first ascents around the world, always driven by a mindset shaped by a lesson a mentor once told him: “There are two great risks in life: risking too much and risking too little.” That philosophy has followed Chin through some of the defining moments of modern adventure. In 2006, alongside Kit and Rob DesLauriers, he completed the first

Jul 20, 2026

Opening scene from the film Warfare. I am a collector of parallel friendships. By this I mean my friendships tend to be defined by side-by-side interaction—relationships formed through common activity, practices, rehearsals, or collaboration. I’ve met most of my friends through sports, jobs, or some sort of physical exertion. Our friendships were cultivated over casual chats on group runs or banter riding bikes along a country road. Our conversations were defined by the rhythm between swings chopping wood in the backyard or by work projects approached shoulder-to-shoulder (or virtual square-to

Jul 17, 2026

This April, I spent four days in the basement of Utah State University pulling faded catalogs from olive-gray archival boxes in the . I’d crack a book from the 1970s looking for anything related to wool , flip a few pages, and get distracted by the same thing: men in fishnet undergarments . I’m not even kidding. Look: Upper left, from the 1973-74 Fall & Winter Norm Thompson catalog: “Norse-Net”as full of surprises as it is holes. Actually a thermal undershirt! Full of holes to keep you warm in the winter, cool in the summer, comfortable all the time. Wear it under a soft cotton T-shirt and lig

Jul 15, 2026

Lisa Jackson and her husband Graham regularly ran together - although she found more enjoyment from the sport “To imagine a future without him was inconceivable. I’d never lived my adult life without him by my side.” Lisa Jackson is talking about her husband, Graham, who sadly died from mesothelioma in 2021. Subscribe now Graham’s passing came at the start of a heart-breaking period of 17 months in which she also lost her father and her sister. Their story is part of Lisa’s latest book, ‘Still Running After All These Tears: A Runner’s Journey Through Grief’. In it, the serial marathoner and Ru

Jul 13, 2026

“But the killing of the females was totally wrong”: Changing conservation ethics expressed in William Hornaday’s Our Vanishing Wildlife , 1913 “What’s it about?” asked ecologist Stuart Pimm when, more than forty years ago, his colleague Michael Soulé called with an invitation to a meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “Conservation,” said Soulé. “What’s that?” Pimm asked slyly. “Well, whatever it is, you’re doing it!” answered Soulé. With the support of Pimm and other prominent ecologists, the Society for Conservation Biology was founded on a May afternoon in 1985 . Soulé, who had recently returned