Please excuse this interruption in service
For the next ten days, we will be down for routine maintenance. Of ourselves. (Could be longer than ten days if we get good weather. Or lost.) Please take this opportunity to go outside. Or, if your weather is unseemly, please visit one of our URL friends, found on the blogroll.
More Fauja-mania!
We are carrying a bit of a torch for Fauja Singh, the Punjab-born, 101-year-old marathoner and ginger curry aficionado. And on Sunday, he carried one for us. Dressed in white, surrounded by a cheering throng of his fellow Sikhs and other admirers, Singh bore the Olympic flame along a section of the torch’s route through...
More campsites opening in NYC’s “urban outback”
Spending the night outdoors in New York City doesn’t necessarily mean glamping on the “wraparound terrace of a penthouse suite” with scented candles. Or huddling under a bridge. You can actually pitch a tent and lay out your bedroll in the Gateway National Recreation Area, an expansive (26,000-acre) urban outback that’s spread across parts of...
Duff scuttles plan to row to Iceland
Chris Duff has called it off. The 54-year-old adventurer and author had hoped to be the first person in modern times to row solo from Scotland to Iceland. He’d made it halfway, landing in the Faroe Islands after five days of paddling in late May. Now, after six frustrating weeks of waiting for good conditions...
Mother Nature’s drive-through
Can it be that Americans prefer to enjoy the outdoors from the climate-controlled womb of their cars? That’s one way to read recent stats from the National Park Service, as relayed by USA Today. Overall, visits to the parks are up, but the time spent in each park is down by about 15 percent. In...
Saturday mash-up: July 14, 2012
It’s the weekend, it’s the summer, it’s all about food and drink and what it does to us. Some good, some not so. The world’s favorite 101-year-old marathoner Fauja Singh will carry the Olympic torch next weekend. If you thought nothing could be sweeter than watching that (still-unrecognized-by-Guinness-but-nevertheless) world record-holder stride through the streets of...
Gnarly olds keeping water-sports industry afloat
Age and water sports do not mix. Sure, you might see the occasional mat of oiled gray chest hairs on the beach. Or a lock of blue hair escaping from a swim cap at the deep end of a pool. But serious water sports—surfing, kayaking, diving—are too extreme for most older bodies. And there’s the...
L.L. Bean’s 100-person kayak is ridiculous and splendid
L.L. Bean turned 100 in 2011 and even though we’ve turned all the pages in the calendar,making it 2012, the company continues to celebrate. Fair enough. Turning 100 is kind of a big deal. And the celebration isn’t just an exercise in corporate vanity. Bean is also sponsoring the Million Moment Mission: every time someone...
Two reasons to harangue Congress (this week)
The government giveth and the government taketh away. This week, it is mostly takething away. We’ll try to make this easy, but as always with legislation and regulation, the devil is in the details. First, the transportation bill that will be signed into law today significantly changes the funding of biking and walking paths. Under...
So close to going so far
The 4,600-mile North Country National Scenic Trail, which spans the upper tier of American states from New York’s eastern border to North Dakota, is the nation’s longest trail and one of its least traveled. The AP claims only 12 people have hiked it end-to-end, probably because about half of it runs alongside roads and long...
Old habits vs. old knees: the gray backpacker’s dilemma
Change is hard, especially if what you’re doing works. And doubly so if it’s been working for 40 years or so. If you started backcountry hiking in the 70s or 80s, you have notions about what constitutes a robust and well-stocked pack. And you probably scoff at younger people who wander off for a week...
