If you turned 65 in the middle of the last century—in 1950—you could expect 13.1 years more of life if you were a man and 16.2 years if you were a woman. If you turned 65 in 2007, your remaining life expectancy was 17.2 (male) and 19.9 (female) years. So, in theory, that’s about four...
Backpacks are like golf clubs. You make your selection based on your size and how far you’re going. The first part is easy: you get a pack that fits your frame. The second changes constantly, which is why golfers lug around 14 clubs and why it’s not uncommon for hikers to have more than one...
One reason why no one pays any attention to what a candidate says on the issues is that no one believes they say what they think. This is cynical. And accurate. If you don’t recognize a platform as a jumble of marketing phrases meant to cobble together enough votes to win, you are not paying...
You have emotions that arise so naturally, so spontaneously that they seem pure and unassailable and right. Justified. Nothing to be ashamed of. But life is rarely that clean and neat for very long. Sometimes emotions are strong and automatic and still you suspect that they are, well, suspect. You’re confused by how you feel,...
“We always worry about marathoners who are sort of dropping dead, if you will, and having a heart attack during the marathon,” says Dr. Davinder Jassal as he explains the purpose of his recent study and, simultaneously, gives us our favorite quote of the month. Jassal (an associate professor of medicine, radiology and physiology at...
This story is about footwear. And emotion. It’s not about the passion young women supposedly feel for $450 stilettos. No. This is about the abiding, nuanced appreciation one feels for certain hiking boots. The ones that feel right from the first moment. The ones that reach out to you, that don’t build a bond so...
Endurance swimmer Diana Nyad dove into Cuban waters on Saturday with plans to walk up a Key West beach on Wednesday, her sixty-third birthday. Sadly, after covering about half the distance over 60 hours, she has climbed out of the water. This was Nyad’s fourth attempt. Last September, she covered 82 miles (in around 40...
Look who’s throwing its granola-fed weight around. The 4,000-member Outdoor Industry Association is threatening to pull an important trade show from Salt Lake City unless Utah stops its plans to horn in on millions of acres of federally protected lands. A lot of money and a lot of land is caught up in this debate....
There are three dark emotions that can attend the end of any long hiking trip. The first is interpersonal: I swear I’ll never again set off into the woods with that whiner. The second is gear-related: how can someone in good conscience sell a tent/boots/shirt with seams that pop apart under my gentle/frantic/angry tugging? The...
You might have a favorite campsite on a windswept precipice over the Pacific. Or a special, mosquito-net window on the Grand Canyon or the Chilkoot Trail. Very dramatic. But how pleasant is this scene of North Dakota badlands in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, with the Little Missouri flowing slowly under cloudy skies. This is a...
The odd thing about being off for a couple of weeks…truly and completely off, out-of-cell-coverage-and-forget-your-passwords off…is that you can return to find that nothing much has changed. Apparently there were sporting events in London, and occasional disasters. But otherwise, no surprise. For example, there’s this story from AARP on how half of all non-retired boomers...
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.
Shoulder Season 2: (Supposed) Best Hikes in the U.S.
Mar 4, 2020
Shoulder Season 1: It’s soon time to hike
Feb 25, 2020
Klaus Obermeyer is a 100-year-old beast
Feb 22, 2020
The Soft Bigotry of Age Brackets
Feb 19, 2020
Ski North Korea! Also, Again: Climate Change
Feb 17, 2020
When obsessions collide: Pensions, skiing and climate change
Feb 15, 2020
Vail Speaks! Vail Speaks! (And More About Crowds)
Feb 14, 2020
Ski Passes Suck But Also Don’t
Feb 12, 2020
A mid-season reminder that (some) seniors ski free (or cheap) in (some) places
Feb 9, 2020
Every ski hill is Disney-fied
Feb 6, 2020