Over 50, Outdoors

Adventure, fitness, travel, gear
Shoulder Season 2: (Supposed) Best Hikes in the U.S.

Shoulder Season 2: (Supposed) Best Hikes in the U.S.

Let’s begin with the obvious: there is no such thing as a “best hike.” We have chocolate and vanilla for a reason, which is that people have different tastes. And capacities. What might excite or challenge one hiker could bore another. You get the point. That said, it is an...
Shoulder Season 1: It’s soon time to hike

Shoulder Season 1: It’s soon time to hike

Ski season isn’t over, but the end is nigh. (Seasonally, of course. Also, existentially. If the world gets another few bad winters, the ski resort economy in some countries will be in serious trouble. Doubt us? Check this collection of abandoned lifts and dirt slopes.) So it’s time to think...
Klaus Obermeyer is a 100-year-old beast

Klaus Obermeyer is a 100-year-old beast

Apologies if you woke up this morning and hoped for a day in which you didn’t feel lame. Because this isn’t going to help: Klaus Obermeyer just turned 100, and he has been celebrating the way a ski legend should, with a daily half-mile swim, long stints in the gym...
The Soft Bigotry of Age Brackets

The Soft Bigotry of Age Brackets

Age gives one a good, heavy rind. A durable crust that preserves the psyche and reduces the faint sting of left-handed compliments and micro-aggressions. Pride is still there, but it’s tempered by the knowledge that you do have limits. And failures. But still, repeated slights—no matter how subtle—get under the...
Ski North Korea! Also, Again: Climate Change

Ski North Korea! Also, Again: Climate Change

Yes, climate change is an existential threat to the planet, so you can’t really belabor the point. Yet, there are other things going on in the world. Since we’ve mentioned climate a number of times in the past month (including our last post), it’s probably time to move on. But...
When obsessions collide: Pensions, skiing and climate change

When obsessions collide: Pensions, skiing and climate change

This will be of limited utility but we find it difficult to ignore a set of stories that tickle three—count ‘em—three of our current preoccupations. To begin: workers in France are in a major state of whip-up-idness over proposed changes to their pension system. Pensions…for younger American readers who don’t...
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    Travel notes: Do not try to leap over volcanic steam cracks

    Travel notes: Do not try to leap over volcanic steam cracks

    This ought to be an unnecessary warning, along with “Don’t pet the bison.” But it remains true that what is obvious to you and me might not be clear to someone else. In this case, a 15-year-old visiting Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Said teen thought it would make an excellent story if he were to...
    More noise and chatter on retirement

    More noise and chatter on retirement

    A wintery mix of news about retirement savings over the past few weeks. There’s some variation in the details but a consistent underlying message, which is that you will die poor, Boomer. And your generation will likely impoverish the generations coming after it. (Here’s the upside: we are told by a study of cheery Germans...
    Jackson Hole fills gap, removes snow

    Jackson Hole fills gap, removes snow

    The citizens Jackson Hole, Wyoming (population 9,710)—an almost-gateway to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and a pleasant tourist town in its own right, if you don’t mind the town square with its frankly creepy antler arches—has taken on the job that couldn’t be managed by government of the United States of America (population 313,914,040)....
    Missed you

    Missed you

    Did you miss us? Apologies for checking out there. We had a thing. Went on longer than expected. Back now and happy to be so. Photo: Sleeping Buddha at Long Son Pagoda, Nha Trang by Daniel Persson via Wikimedia Commons.
    That sharp pinching sensation? Might be the sequester

    That sharp pinching sensation? Might be the sequester

    At first glance, the sequester seemed like nothing more than a Great Unpleasantness. Much bickering, many threats and accusations, many teeth gnashed by people who said the across-the-board cuts were irresponsible and idiotic. But there was no obvious sense of urgency, which is why your federal leaders declined to hammer out a deal.   A...
    London doubles down on biking

    London doubles down on biking

    Londoners have always had a genius for urban transportation: faced with a massive population and crowded streets, the city built the world’s first subways (inaugurated in 1863). They also improvised double-decker buses—first powered by horse, then by motor—as a way to get twice as many people moving along the same square footage of roadway.  ...
    Sally Free Ride

    Sally Free Ride

    Last week’s biggest under-reported story was the U.S. Senate’s confirmation hearing for Sally Jewell, CEO of outdoor retailer REI and President Obama’s nominee to be Secretary of the Interior.   It’s easy to see why this story is big: the Department of the Interior holds the deed to 417 million acres—18.4 percent of the land...
    Fauja Singh, the Harold Stassen of road racing

    Fauja Singh, the Harold Stassen of road racing

    Fauja Singh, the baddest 101-year-old vegetarian marathoner on the planet, has maybe possibly (but not really) retired from competitive racing.   Singh, who turns 102 on April 1, finished last weekend’s Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon’s 10-kilometer (6.25-mile) race in 1 hour, 32 minutes, 28 seconds—half a minute faster than he ran it last year...
    Please ignore our travel needs

    Please ignore our travel needs

    Baby Boomers are a kind of demographic interstate: everywhere they flow, they change the landscape. Music is a good example. Boomers haven’t actually obliterated what was there before, but they certainly affected it. It’s also true for housing. And medicine and public policy. Boomers have also redefined travel. In the 60s and 70s, they forged...
    Someone wants to send you up the river

    Someone wants to send you up the river

    If everything you know about river cruising comes from Mark Twain (or Davey Crockett), you haven’t been paying attention. (You also haven’t been watching Downton Abbey, which is sponsored by Viking River Cruises.) Right now might be a good time to start taking note.   Here’s why: River cruises are booming, especially for Boomers. Booming...
    Good advice for older travelers

    Good advice for older travelers

    It’s easy to be irritated with the New York Times “Booming” section, or subdomain, or whatever we are supposed to call it. Like many features aimed at Baby Boomers, it seems to slide easily into the morbid. There are upbeat stories, certainly (like a recent slideshow on attractive women who have decided not to dye...
    Don't know squat about squats?

    Don’t know squat about squats?

      The world falls into four camps: people who have no interest in leg strength and therefore no interest in squats (you are excused), people want leg strength but fear squats because they have seen too many crippled power-lifters, and people who swear by squats and believe the risks of working them into your routine...