The Feed

May 30, 2026

There’s a comment I get every time I write about a fight over a piece of land out West. It comes from someone who lives near that land, and it goes something like this. You don’t get a say. You don’t live here. This is our backyard, not yours. I understand the feeling behind it. I really do. I’m an Oregonian. The Wallowas, Hells Canyon, the Oregon Dunes, Waldo Lake, Owyhee canyonlands, the trail up to Ramona Falls, these are the places that I love dearly. I’ve spent more nights on that ground than most people will spend in a lifetime. When somebody who’s never set foot in these places weighs i

May 30, 2026

Welcome to The Fisherman’s Larder — Josh’s monthly monthly column on food, ritual, and the meals between the rises. Each installment runs at The Take Magazine first; the Wild Dispatch version arrives here thirty days later. The beer had been riding the current for twenty minutes, stashed inside a mesh sack and wedged between two granite boulders where the mountain stream pooled cold and clear. I’d packed it warm deliberately, knowing the river would work its magic — turning warm beer cold and making good beer better. This pool sits two miles up a trail that most anglers pass by as they chase b

May 30, 2026

The Durston X-Mid 1, X-Dome 1+, and Nemo Hornet Elite OSMO This is a gear review of sorts, but it’s also a quest. On trail, a tent is more than gear. On the PCT and CDT, when conditions were perfect for cowboy camping, I’d still set up my tent. Because it was home. The Unchanging Constant on my journey. Headlamp, phone, journal, stinky socks, everything in its place. And me in it. Hard rain, frigid nights zipped up tight, ... The post Three Tents: Finding My Home on the AT appeared first on The Trek .

May 29, 2026

There’s not a lot of time to think in a track race. There is pain, there is the attempt at efficiency of movement, there is primal chase, and its corollary — don’t get caught. But there isn’t much thinking going on. It’s different from the running I am used to. Plenty of time to think in a long trail race. The mile race around a track is just fucking go. Don’t think. Here is what was running through my head: This hurts I went out too fast Breathe smoothe More arms Is that my wife at the turn? Try to smile Someone is breathing behind me Don’t look back I’m too close to Torrey I went out too fas

May 29, 2026

When I think of the Sierra Nevada, I see marmots, 13,000-foot mountain passes, and waterfalls. I smell the sweet evergreen perfume only nature can produce. I hear the crunch of the dirt beneath my feet (sometimes snow), and the sound of rock and shale tumbling down a slope. I also remember the many days and nights I have spent on the 220-mile-long John Muir Trail. Both literal and figurative ups and downs resulted in waves of sadness, ... The post Why the Heck Am I Solo Hiking the John Muir Trail… Again? appeared first on The Trek .

May 30, 2026

When climbing at a gym or even outdoors, it’s usually not long before we hear the common complaint of “it’s too reachy” or “this would be so much easier if I were taller”. These grievances are not to be minimized – a move that can be done completely statically for one climber could be a full-on dyno for another. This raises the question: how do climbing gym setters approach this challenge? Are they thinking about short climbers when they set a boulder or route? Are some problems just not meant for short climbers? We interviewed two head setters at Canadian gyms, Max Summerlee and Karlo King ,

May 30, 2026

Illustration by the Author, from the book Unknown Pleasures We live in an attention economy that can feed on either positive attention—beauty, talent, and mastery—or negative attention—mediocrity, pornography, and rage. The problem is that the latter requires only a fraction of the effort. There is no shortage of things on social media designed to enrage us, make us despair, or tempt us to give up. Over time, we become inoculated against these effects. We grow numb, learn a kind of helplessness, and require ever larger doses to provoke the same response—to make us feel anything at all. Yet thi

May 30, 2026

The thigh-high brown grass made the ridges and rolling oak hills of northern California look foreign and exotic. The mountains of the Mendocino National Forest, towering up close to eight thousand feet to the west, were a dead giveaway, but if I just looked south and east, , Kate Sylvan, and myself could have been anywhere from West Texas to central Europe. Over the last year and a half, I’d put in over a hundred miles wandering around this ranch in search of wild, acorn-fed pigs, but always in the winter. I’d dropped dozens of pins on X and through trial and error had a good idea where the pi

May 29, 2026

My mom noticed it. There were few birds around the feeder. All of the grosbeaks, the warblers, the woodpeckers had vanished the year my dad died. “Maybe he took the birds with him,” my sister said. My dad loved birds. I can picture him now, binoculars in hand, somewhere deep in Madera Canyon, or at the house, filling up a journal with his observations. It was interesting that he loved such ephemeral, migratory creatures when he preferred being at home best. Or maybe it was this; he understood the pull of adventure and the tug of the familiar. On the third anniversary of his death, I walked up

May 29, 2026

In July of 2025, around eight weeks before RE:PUBLIC launched, I stepped onto a narrow-gauge train in Durango, Colorado, with my then 17-year-old daughter, Olive. We had just deposited our two enormous backpacks in the storage car, and we were now surrounded by other backpackers in neighboring seats—families, couples, solo wanderers—all of us headed to one of the rarest trailheads in the American West. The Weminuche is, to my knowledge, the only designated wilderness area in the country where you can be dropped off and picked up by train. There's something almost European about it, a civility

May 27, 2026

On Tuesday, May 5, a participant in the Cocodona 250 collapsed at the Groom Creek trailhead, somewhere between miles 75 and 80 of the course. She was a woman in her 40s. She died on the trail. The race organization, at her family’s request, has not released her name. Randi Zuckerberg was on that same course. She finished, ten hours faster than her time the year before. She also knew the runner who died. When she came on Long Run Labs last week, she asked permission to bring the conversation somewhere dark, and then she said the thing I’ve been thinking about ever since: “If we had had technolo

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 25, 2026

Last fall, Emily Bei Cheng attempted the 2,300-kilometer Japanese Odyssey bikepacking event, which the organizers call "the most scenic yet punishing ride you’ll ever attempt." In this heartfelt piece, she reflects on the experience and how hearing voice notes from friends back home shaped her ride and her broader perspective. Read it and find a set of 35mm film photos here… The post The Japanese Odyssey: Voice Memos from the Forgotten Toge appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com .

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

May 28, 2026

The following is a guest post by R.E. Wagner. Learn more about Wagner’s 40-day silent hike of the AT here; full bio at the end of the post. or most of my life, I have carried the feeling that something in modern society has drifted out of alignment. Not in a dramatic, cinematic sense, but in the quiet way a river changes course over time. You do not notice it all at once. The banks erode slowly. ... The post Why I’m Doing a 40-Day Silent Hike on the Appalachian Trail appeared first on The Trek .

May 28, 2026

REI's Anniversary Sale week opened with a boycott . The union representing workers at 11 unionized stores, and vocal advocates on social media, called for members to skip the sale. Then, on May 21, Crain's reported that REI was accelerating the closure of its SoHo flagship to July. About 72 workers at the location will lose their jobs. I don't have a clean position on this. Employees have the right to advocate for better working conditions. But the boycott is happening at a moment when REI is in a poor structural position, the alternatives don't replicate what REI provides at the industry leve

May 27, 2026

When Boris Johnson was working out which side to come down on, he wrote out two different speeches. One in favour of leaving the European Union, and one against: Brexit, and Remain. 1 For poet John Milton, at Cambridge University in 1632, it was simply a student exercise. Day or night, which of the two is more excellent? Out on the hills enjoying the sunshine: or home alone, writing the story for Substack? A public dissertation on the night side; then another one, slightly longer, putting the case for the day. Hence, loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus, and blackest Midnight born… versus Hence, va

May 25, 2026

By John Juracek Thirty-three years have passed since Craig Mathews and I published Fishing Yellowstone Hatches . At the time, our little book represented the most complete text available on Yellowstone insect hatches. It remains so today. But much has changed in the intervening years, and were we to publish the book today its list of insect emergences and their relative import would look quite different. Following are some notes on the changes we’ve observed. The distribution of insect species and their population levels are never static. Fluctuations are natural, sometimes wildly so, for reas

May 25, 2026

If I had a $4 fly for every angler who’s told me they probably just need a stronger core… Fitness doesn’t find its way into fly fishing conversations as often as it should, despite the fact that every last one of us approaches the sport through the context of our physical body. When I have periodically stumbled upon the topic by way of a few stray blog posts or some hosted trips that have yoga classes tacked on, most people vaguely talk about strength, balance, perhaps flexibility, and a touch of endurance in a very generalized sense. Those characteristics are all certainly worth noting, and t

May 29, 2026

Sometimes, the story isn’t about keeping public lands in public hands. Sometimes, the story is about putting private lands into public hands. Here are three of those—all have occurred in just the past couple of weeks. A recent transfer of former private timberlands in northwestern Montana’s Cabinet Mountains to the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) will improve the recovery chances of the smallest grizzly bear population in the lower 48 states. Facilitated by The Vital Ground Foundation—my favorite conservation organization, which I encourage you to support as well —the land transfer involved the Fal

May 28, 2026

Photo by Chris Kofoed on Unsplash This article was originally featured in the Fall 2023 Watersheds Messenger. Jon Marvel moved to Stanley, Idaho in 1969. Cattle from the National Forest grazed the area from early June until the November snows. By the first of September, the cattle had grazed off all the grass on National Forest lands, and would then break through fences onto private property to pillage the grass found there. The ranchers were from Challis; they weren’t even locals. “The ranchers didn’t even care,” Marvel reminisces. “The typical response was, ‘You’d better keep your dog away f

May 28, 2026

The Seven Wonders of Oregon In 2013, Travel Oregon hired the Portland ad agency Wieden+Kennedy and asked a simple question. What are the seven places that make Oregon, Oregon? After a good deal of argument, they came back with an answer . The Oregon Coast. Crater Lake. Smith Rock. The Painted Hills. The Wallowas, which Travel Oregon’s itinerary defines to include Eagle Cap Wilderness and Hells Canyon. The Columbia River Gorge. Mount Hood. Those are the ones on the poster, the ones on the TV ads, the ones the state tells visitors to see before they see anything else. They’re the places Oregonia

May 28, 2026

A few weeks ago, while running on the multi-use asphalt path near our house, as another runner approached from the opposite direction, I decided to wave at them. They waved back, we both kept on running, and a few minutes after that, I decided I was going to be A Person Who Waves At Fellow Runners. Surely, there are only two types of runners in this world, right? I live in what is categorized as a Small City, population about 75,000 people. It’s not quite a small enough town where I might feel like I should say hello to everyone I see on the multi-use path, but definitely not a big enough city

May 27, 2026

Our dear leader speaks at an event on his birthday. There’s a pattern to this presidency that doesn’t get described clearly enough. When Donald Trump encounters an institution he can’t control, he either captures it or builds a parallel one designed to replace it. Then he uses whichever version he controls to enrich himself and his allies. He did it to the Republican Party, hollowing out its policy apparatus and rebuilding it as a personal loyalty machine. He did it to the free press, seizing control of the White House press pool from the independent correspondents’ association that had manage

May 27, 2026

You know that feeling, that feeling of not being fully integrated with the place where you live, that feeling of lingering between belonging and not belonging; it makes everything seem only half-familiar, and your days of getting to know a place begin with firsts: the first time I caught the bus into town, the first time I visited Jennie’s Wool Studio, the first time I looked at paintings in The Granary gallery. I’m like a child learning my way about: checking for the safest places to cross the road; immobile, transfixed by the beauty of the river at its confluence with the sea; uncertain abou

May 27, 2026

Glacial-carved valleys, classic Patagonian ridgelines and huge, meandering rivers made Chile’s Aysén region a target for extractive industries. For decades, the area resisted. What has emerged is a different kind of frontier and a gnawing question: Can we protect wild places by actually skiing them? Wind-scoured faces and wet, slushy snow do nothing to subtract from the expansive vista and moody lighting. Two members of an Alpenglow Expeditions trip take their time on the climb, knowing the descent will be less than perfect. Liam McGee Frozen dirt and shale cascade down into the gully below wi

May 27, 2026

Hey, Folks! I’m writing to y’all from Ghost Ranch, old summer home of Georgia O’Keeffe, a large incidence of coelophysis fossils (state fossil of NM!), and backdrop to apparently a number of films, including Red Dawn, Oppenheimer, and Cowboys vs. Aliens. So how did we get here? Let’s discuss… Days 1 and 2: Mount Taylor Leaving Lava Flow Hostel was slow-going, as I am a sucker for good coffee and conversation. I chatted a spell with fellow thru hiker Pudding, ... The post Grants to Ghost Ranch – A Butte-iful, Gorge-ous Grind appeared first on The Trek .

May 27, 2026

In case you haven’t heard the very bully news, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library—which opens on July 4 in the tiny town of Medora, North Dakota—is a stunning architectural, archival, and multimedia achievement, a world-class memorial to a president who became the first great champion of American public lands and conservation. It’s also a project with built-in controversies that can’t be ignored, including Roosevelt’s grim Manifest Destiny views about Indigenous people. “The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, though it is apt to be also the most terrible and

May 26, 2026

Des Linden has won Boston. She has made Olympic teams. She has run across a desert with a pack on her back. But the conversation I wanted to have with her on Long Run Labs was not about any of that (ok, there was a bit of running talk at the beginning; I couldn’t resist! Especially asking about her most/least favorite part of the Boston Marathon course). The majority of our conversation was about the part of her career that does not show up in race results: the media empire she has built quietly, mostly through inbound, and almost entirely on instinct. What came out of it was one of the more h

May 26, 2026

In 2026, most brands seem to struggle to produce a worthwhile entry-level bike. But despite industry headwinds and rising costs, the Primos Mono launched last year as an $800 complete. A steel ATB with name-brand components for well under $1,000? Surely, there must be a catch. After an extensive test period, Nic decides whether this budget-friendly ATB is worth the fuss… The post Primos Mono Review: Not My Monkeys, Not My Circus appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com .

May 26, 2026

Tucson, in 2022. In happier times. The next 24 hours will be the longest and shortest 24 hours in my life. Letters From the Desert is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. We have a veterinarian coming by tomorrow early afternoon to put Heart down. She is having trouble walking. She is refusing most food, especially if she detects gabapentin mixed in with it. Attempting to get painkillers into her by pilling her is done only at the risk of losing fingers, and is mainly unsuccessful anyway. Most importantly, she is

May 25, 2026

Svana Bjarnason, 34, has sent Joe Blau 5.14c in Oliana, marking the hardest ascent of her career. It came eight months after surgery for severe deep endometriosis and adenomyosis, conditions, which she said on 8a.nu , that caused “intense belly pain, uterine cramps, neuropathic pain affecting the legs and lower back, nausea, digestive issues.” Bjarnason said the climb became “an emotional comeback after a long and uncertain recovery period,” after spending the season unsure what her body could handle. “With this disease you never know in which state you’re gonna wake up,” she said. “You never

May 25, 2026

Back in February I went to Germany to adidas HQ for the launch of a new hybrid race shoe, the adidas Adizero Dropset Elite, and spent two days with elite and amateur hybrid athletes absorbing their knowledge and inspiration. I was deep in marathon training at the time, but it had me itching to do another hybrid event at some point. If you’ve been curious about hybrid racing but aren’t sure where to start, read on. What is a hybrid race? Hybrid racing combines running with weighted exercises, most commonly in the format made famous by Hyrox. A Hyrox race is 8km of running broken into 1km segmen

May 29, 2026

Polish photographer Adam Wilkoszarski fulfilled a longtime dream by traveling to North America and riding the storied Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. The experimental video he shot along the 3,000-mile track takes a unique approach, painting a vibrant picture of 48 fully lived days on the bike. Immerse yourself in 18 minutes of joyful vignettes captured between Canada and Mexico here… The post A Love Letter to the Great Divide (Video) appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com .

May 28, 2026

It seems notable that of two recent running milestones, breaking the 2-hour barrier in the marathon barely registered a ripple in the popular imagination. In fact, the moment was superseded by Rachel Entrekin besting an elite field of men, as well as women, en route to winning the Cocodona 250 outright. Subscribe now Entrekin’s overall victory at Cocodona distinguished itself as a triumph of the spirit. Not only did she blast through outdated gender perceptions, she did so with infectious joie de vivre and a belief in herself that was both aspirational and highly relatable. As Entrekin put it

Apr 28, 2026

A midnight emergency run across Lough Corrib with a badly burned child—fear, mistakes, and instinct collide in this raw story of risk, parenting, and consequence.

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

Apr 17, 2026

There are skis, and then there are decisions that masquerade as skis. The Line Sakana, a 166-centimeter, swallow-tailed provocation with the proportions of a cartoon fish and the demeanor of a lounge act, is not so much a decision as it is a philosophical experiment made from fiberglass and wood. With 150-105-138mm dimensions, a 15-meter turn radius, and a flex pattern best described as “agreeable until it gives up,” it exists in defiance of both physics and dignity. It is a ridiculous pair of skis. This becomes more apparent when mounted with telemark bindings, the mechanical equivalent of opting out of modernity, and piloted by me, a 6’5”, 185-pound lump who should, by any reasonable metric, be on something longer, stiffer, with an effective edge that extends beyond the length of my shins. Instead, this: A child’s ski. An art piece. A snowboard? The decision to telemark, like most durable forms of self-sabotage, begins innocently enough. A small promise, perhaps. To make every uphill lap at the ski resort this season on free heels. Not because it is efficient (it is not) or because it signals competence (it does not), but because it introduces a necessary instability into an otherwise overly predetermined system. subscribe or log in to access.

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

May 23, 2026

There’s an old idea, older than the parties, older than most of the arguments we have about them, that some things belong to all of us. Not to the government, not to a company, to us. The canyon you’ve never seen still belongs to you. So does the river three states over, and the stand of old growth you’ll never walk through, and the desert that goes orange an hour before anyone’s awake to watch it. That’s the strange and radical thing about American public land. A barista in Oregon and a schoolteacher in Georgia own the same mountains. There’s no other inheritance quite like it on earth. This

May 21, 2026

The Grassy Cay Lodge under construction. Photo credit: courtesy of Chip Bates After Argentina, my travels bounced me around to different locations pursuing all kinds of fish–bonefish, permit, tarpon, snook and just about anything else I could find that would eat a fly. I visited places like Belize, the British Virgin Islands and Mexico. It wasn’t until I landed on South Andros Island in March of 2005 that a new story idea took shape, and took over my life for the next two years. I understood early in my writing career that long-form journalism might not appeal to everyone–life is busy, distrac

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 15, 2026

My friend's dad, a man with a background of epic pursuits, likens it to a dimmer switch. You don't just stop all at once, he says. Instead, it gets a little less bright as you get older. The crux move, as with all crux moves, involves adapting to what is left. What you can still do. This feels impossible. This is a man who completed a strenuous eighteen mile wilderness hike over a high pass on his eightieth birthday, so there is that. Years ago, in the Florida swamp, I hobbled around with an overuse injury. Mike, one of the other fire crewmembers, threw up his hands. “You need more indoor hobb

May 15, 2026

When life looks like Easy Street There is danger at your door —Grateful Dead, “Uncle John’s Band” I’m sitting here writing on a cold October morning in El Potrero Chico; yesterday seemed to be summer, and today old man winter showed up. It’s the type of weather, combined with all the war and sadness in the world, that makes me want to listen to Bob Dylan and just sit with it all. Note… Source

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 3, 2026

Newness isn’t about where you go—it’s about how you enter what’s already there.

May 1, 2026

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

Apr 27, 2026

57 of 77 Forest Service research stations are closing. The fire models, stream data, and invasive-species work sportsmen funded for nine decades — gone in a single budget cycle.

Apr 16, 2026

From Western States lottery demand to crowdfunded prize purses, the direct and circumstantial evidence behind trail running's sustained 8% annual growth.

Apr 8, 2026

“Home is where one starts from,” says TS Eliot. Home in my case being the Permian-age New Red Sandstone of the valleys of southwest Scotland. [1800 words 7 mins

Mar 12, 2026

Every year, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) puts out a report on the Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account (OREC), diving into the economic impact of the industry. This year's headline is: $1.3 trillion in gross output, $696.7 billion in value added, 2.4% of GDP, 5.2 million jobs. Those are the numbers you'll see in all the press releases and advocacy materials for the next 12 months. They're real numbers, but they deserve a bit more context. View the Full Interactive Report What is “Outdoor Recreation”? OREC isn’t a true "industry,” it’s a satellite account that aggregates economic activ

May 14, 2026

Palm Warbler in winter (near actual palms) / © Bryan Pfeiffer One day during the 18th century, on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, a songbird with the quirky habit of wagging its tail was killed, probably by fine-grain birdshot, and collected in the name of science. Shipped to Europe, the specimen eventually reached Germany, where the naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin, in 1789, gave the species a misleading scientific name: Motacilla palmarum , which means a tail-wagging bird living among palms. Two hundred and thirty-seven years later, millions of these songbirds, now going by the common

May 23, 2026

I wanted to try a thing, to change things up and see if the story I had been telling myself was true. For the longest time, I thought I can only do “flat” races, that I was just “bad a climbing”. I wanted to see if I could change that narrative with changes in training. I looked at my bucket list of races and thought Ultra Trail Australia might be a low risk test to see if I’m actually cut out for this mountain business. Low risk because I’m not taking five flights and spending $20,000 to get there. The result was a mixed bag that I’m still sorting through. Ultra Trail Australia sits only behi

May 22, 2026

I noticed the red Tacoma with a black contractor canopy parked in the parking lot of the convenience store in Lyle, Washington, as I pulled off Highway 14. Unlike most contractor canopies that match the height of the cab, this one extended a foot or so above the top and was adorned with solar panels and a cell phone booster. I pulled up alongside and immediately jumped out and started talking to the 70-year-old man organizing the pantry on the driver’s side fold-up of the canopy. Its owner was a full-time prospector, living out of his truck, and was up in the Northwest to avoid the heat in the

May 13, 2026

When I heard my client, Domenic, on the other end of the phone, he sounded straight out of The Sopranos. The New Jersey area code made sense. He thanked me for calling. And went on to say, “Let me explain what I can and cannot see.” I told him that sounded like a good place to start. He responded, “I can’t see anything!” and started laughing. I learned Dom’s a retired New York State attorney. He’s been blind for 62 years after he lost his vision to macular degeneration . In his free time, he enjoys hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He’s only got four peaks left before he's summit

May 12, 2026

Leading the Mile of Truth two Sundays ago before getting blitzed in the final 200 meters by Grant Johnson, who is running behind me here. I finished second in 4:35.9, less than a second off the win, a course PR by three seconds, and exactly a second faster than I ran as a senior in high school 26 years ago. Good morning! Kicking things off this week with a little bit of a rant. Let’s get right to it. I am more than a bit irked by how optimization culture has infiltrated running and the way we talk about the sport these days. Everywhere I seem to turn of late I’m met with fueling plans broken d

May 11, 2026

There’s a moment in every sport where someone figures out that the path to the top isn’t just about training harder. It’s about building a better system around the athlete. In the NBA, it was the player development revolution. In cycling, it’s team infrast

May 11, 2026

El Hierro feels different right away: quieter, emptier, rougher. Here, the GR 131 crosses windswept ridgelines, disappears into fog, and winds through vast volcanic landscapes all the way to the western edge of Spain. What looks like a short and manageable section quickly develops a rhythm of its own. The post GR 131: A Stormy Ending on El Hierro appeared first on The Trek.

May 10, 2026

Good morning from Los Angeles, where the jacarandas lining Avenue 53 are painting the streets in purple. Their trumpet-shaped blooms have arrived nearly a month early this year. They fall at the slightest breeze. I tilt my tongue toward them as they drop, the way I once did snowf

May 5, 2026

Following tire tracks left behind by legends and ghosts, Dan takes a forensic dive into Shore history, one trail at a time. ( Comments : 18 )

May 4, 2026

We received a comment on Rappelling on Skinny Ropes—Part 1: Devices from a reader asking about using a Super Münter hitch to rappel on a skinny rope. Let’s break down some basics, and then get into a text thread between Billy Haas, Adam Fabrikant, and Gavin Hess.   The basic Münter hitch is a “hitch” clipped into (ideally) a specific carabiner (more on this later) that provides friction on the line/rope when either rappelling or belaying. The Münter hitch is useful as it is reversible—line can be fed in and out from the carabiner depending on the application. In short, understanding how to use a Münter pays dividends if you accidentally drop your dedicated belay/rappel device. The downside of the Münter is the twisting introduced to the rope in either direction—belaying or rappelling. But again, in a dropped-device-scenario, a twisted rope is worth the cost of inadequate friction. The Super Münter is an iteration of the Münter that essentially creates a Münter on top of (or stacked) on a Münter. In this case, the friction is increased substantially, and, in practice, twists the rope slightly less than a straight up Münter. This increased friction makes it a possible consideration for rappelling the skinny ropes discussed in the “Rappelling on skinny ropes” article and episode 1 of The High Route Gear Shed Podcast. Here’s the disclaimer: you’ve got plenty of places on IG and the Interwebs to find tutorials on creating Münters and their hitch brethren, the Super Münter. So, we’ll pass on presenting that here. Climbing and ski-mountaineering are potentially dangerous; learn, practice, and practice more before applying anything discussed here in the field. Here’s the original reader question: What are your thoughts on just rapping with a Super münter on skinny lines? Thoughts from Adam, Billy, and Gavin   Billy: Yea, good question, I’ve tried it. A few quick thoughts. It totally works and is good to know and use in a pinch. I still prefer a small diameter specific belay device. A Super Münter adds more friction than a standard Münter, but with a really skinny rope (RAD line or Mammut Glacier Cord), we’re talking ~6mm in diameter, it still doesn’t seem to have the same braking control (smooth ride), especially when used with a 3rd hand backup (a friction hitch/autobloc). The Super Münter “mostly” eliminates the Münter’s twisting issue, but not entirely. This is important; considerations need to be made for the type of locking carabiner used. Smaller diameter lockers, especially carabiners that don’t have round stock, won’t have nearly as much friction as big HMS round stock carabiners.   Editor’s Note: HMS, short for “Halbmastwurfsicherung” in German, which means half clove hitch belay, and it’s designed with something like the Münter hitch in mind—the carabiners are pear shaped with a wide end that accommodates the hitch.   Billy: At that point, if I’m bringing a big HMS carabiner, the weight issue is probably negligible, and I can do more, better, with my lightweight locker and a skinny rope specific belay device, a Grivel Plume K3N and Petzl Reversino. For me, it’s mostly preference. However, I should reiterate, the Super Münter is important to know—belay devices get dropped, and for single strands or skinny ropes, it’s the way to go if you don’t have a belay device.   Adam: I think there’s a large difference in holding power between the Münter and Super Münter. 200lb of holding power for the Münter compared to 1000lbs for the Super Münter?   Editor’s Note: Adam is very close. Ropelab.com.au states the following data for the Münter. “We did some simple tests at RopeLab and found that if using a dry 11mm nylon rope in good condition on a large HMS carabiner then a single brake hand could easily control around 0.9kN in the forward position and 1.2kN in the maximum friction position. With a good stance and two hands on the brake rope these numbers increased to around 1.9kN and 3.4kN. Note that this was what could be held stationary, rather than what could be lowered in a controlled manner.” subscribe or log in to access.

May 4, 2026

Today's episode of the Paddling the Blue podcast features Rob Henshall, who has circumnavigated Ireland six times in six different craft — from a Nordkapp kayak to a Contessa sailboat, plus a laser dinghy, a windsurfer, and more. Rob shares how he started on the water, the minimalist gear that carried him around the island, and what kept him going through 66 days and countless challenges. Along the way he recalls near‑misses (including a foggy night with a container ship), close encounters with dolphins, Guinness-courage and pub moments, and the lessons learned across multiple expeditions.

May 1, 2026

A look at the Technology and Innovation Council, how AI helped deliver gold in Paris, and what it could mean for American cycling heading into the 2028 Games and beyond.

Apr 22, 2026

In the 1960s, as America raced to the Moon, the Navy sent aquanauts to the ocean floor off La Jolla in an ambitious experiment called SEALAB II.

Apr 22, 2026

Analysing Place Writing to Understand it Better

Apr 8, 2026

A conversation with Colin Marshall, who came to learn the language, and stayed for the jeong