Did Fauja Singh just taunt India’s PM?
Fauja Singh, the world’s only 101-year-old marathoner, has said he’ll hang up his sneakers next month. At this point, some men might start organizing their ribbons and trophies, or writing notes to supporters, or staring out over a brightly lit city from a high balcony. Reflecting. Or, like Singh, they might use that last month...
Love, fractally
Simon Beck is back at his winter home at Les Arcs, the French ski resort, stomping more extraordinary designs into the snowy landscape. Beck, a self-employed map-maker from the south of England, laboriously paces out his complicated artworks, spending about 10 hours on each. Then he takes a photograph or two…and waits for his masterpiece...
Denali wins again
Let’s focus on the success here: climbing solo, AARP-eligible adventurer Lonnie Dupre reached 17,200 feet on Denali, in January. Not to belabor this, but he carried all his food and fuel, alone, to 17,200 feet, in January. He was planning to reach the 20,320-foot summit today but, as his website reports, “extremely...
Toward a safer bike
The bicyclist with a jacket tied loosely around her waist, a guy with a strap dangling from whatever is clamped into the mousetrap over his back fender. An errant shoe string or flapping pants leg. Suddenly, the fabric swings that extra inch and gets snagged. It’s pulled into the derailleur or wedged between the chain...
Lonnie Dupre is back on Denali
Lonnie Dupre, the AARP-eligible adventurer who has focused on solo-climbing Denali in January, is currently taking his third run at the mountain.Two years ago, he made it to 17,200 feet–“just hours from the summit”–before bad weather intervened. Last year, even nastier weather pinned him down at a lower altitude. This time, he’s making the ascent...
Old Brit wrestles shark, saves children
Oh, you can say it isn’t Jaws. You can point out that the poor animal was probably sickly, possibly dying. But it doesn’t diminish the fact that 62-year-old Welsh grandfather Paul Marshallsea, along with a couple of other old dudes, walked into the ocean off Queensland and harassed a shark until it swam off, apparently...
Go south, old (broke) man
Retiring abroad! It’s like tacking a dragon’s tail onto the withered hindquarters of that 9-to-5 life you led for 40 years. See, you say to your kids, I still thirst for adventure. See, I’m willing to negotiate back alleys in a tropical city where no one speaks my language, just to eat at a...
>60 R2R2R
Darkest January. You have been indoors too much. You’ve counted the fireplace bricks. You know how many paces it is from wall to wall. The terrible and terrifying stories of cabin-fevered trappers suddenly seem plausible. You’re not capable of dismembering anyone. But you can understand how it could happen. Not should. Not yet....
Are we being teased about a new CCC?
We were as ecstatic as we get to read that the federal government is going to do something obvious and excellent, which is reconstitute the Civilian Conservation Corps. At a time when we have too many unemployed (and more to come, as the war in Afghanistan winds down), and crumbling national parks, and young...
Does the Forest Service hate the President?
Last week, the U.S. Forest Service trumpeted the news that it would be offering four fee-free days in 2013. This is dandy, but not as dandy as it sounds, for two reasons. First, “fees are not charged on 98 percent of national forests and grasslands, and approximately two-thirds of developed recreation sites in national...
Science struggles to grasp your love handles
You think you know what’s fat, don’t you? It’s defined by pounds, or body-mass index, or how much roly-poly flesh you can pinch between your thumb and forefinger. (Try this only on yourself.) You know fat when you see it. And you can measure it, objectively. Right? And way too many people are way too...
Fauja Singh: don’t want to look, can’t turn away
When you’re, say, 50, it’s easy to feel like you’re dull. Uninteresting. You can feel invisible. So when you find something that puts you in high relief, that gives you an identity—especially if you excel at it and it demonstrates what a complete badass you are—you’re going to hold on to it. No. More...
