|
F E A T U R E S
1998'S BEST TRIPS
Adventure Found: That Unforgettable Trip You've Been After? Here's 83 of them.
For those looking to break free of the armchair's tyranny, a guide to the best trips money can buy — as well as the kind of advice it can't.
Godforsaken
Only two types of people find themselves sailing the Southern Ocean: those foolhardy and self-confident enough to imagine they can conquer the world's most treacherous stretch of sea, and those foolhardy and selfless enough to try to save them.
By Craig Vetter
The 1998 Outside Prognosticator
If the early reports — Alligator reintroduction in the New York sewers! Adventure travel in terrorist hot zones! Pre-teens in the Iditarod! — are any indication, the new year is shaping up to be the strangest one yet. Then again, it could simply be our imagination.
By David Rakoff
Working Your Way to the Top
Why, you may wonder, is the back-straining slog of ski touring so damn alluring? Well, for starters, there's the tradition and the trendiness, the egalitarianism and the snobbery. But above all else, there is a puritan ideal — the notion that a bit of suffering must somehow be the toll for such a thoroughly sinful pleasure.
By Rob Buchanan
Me, My Thoughts, and I
A half-year's sojourn into the margins of civilization, to a cabin in the woods all but reclaimed by the porcupines and starlings and butternut trees, raises a question more Nietzsche than Thoreau: Does nature even exist? A first look at the author's forthcoming book, Wickerby: An Urban Pastoral.
By Charles Siebert
D E P A R T M E N T S
Wildlife: For Me? You Shouldn't Have.
Idaho Senator Dirk Kempthorne proves he's Washington's most effective environmental deal-maker. But can his Endangered Species Act rewrite be trusted?
By Allan Freedman
Travel: Calling All Cashonauts
How to boldly go where no adventure traveler has gone before. (Hint: You'll need $98,000…)
By Bill Vaughn
Sport: That's Gunther to You, Pal
A multinational's high-stakes plan to commandeer our favorite cocoa-fueled pastime.
By Bill Donahue
Events: Hey, You're Not Davy Crockett!
As wintertime boredom sets in, the hook-and-bullet crowd turns back the clock
By Paul Kvinta
Science: Check It Out, Beavis: They Said "Appendage"
Five-legged signs of the apocalypse say "ribbit" — live! — on the World Wide Web.
By Sarah Horowitz
Due Process: Or Maybe We Get a Gigantic Shop-Vac…
From the private sector and, naturally, the Army Corps of Engineers, some ingenious schemes for the inevitable draining of Lake Powell.
By Bruce McCall
Out There: I Have a Scheme
In his long-awaited return to the column he pioneered, our man finds cause to wonder: What is it about my mug that attracts such a hapless breed of swindler? A curious tale of money laundering, in the most literal sense of the term.
By Tim Cahill
The Wild File
How does Chilly Willy keep his feet from freezing? What ever happened to getting your passport stamped at the border? How long does it take an angry skunk to reload?
By Elizabeth Royte
Bodywork
The right way to work out indoors: Sure, you know how to knock around on all those fancy fitness machines. But do you know how to really get the most out of them? A bang-for-your-buck primer.
By Joanne Trestrail
Prescriptions
The weight-lifting shortcut that the experts actually endorse.
By Laura Hilgers
Review: The Streamlined Home Gym
Home, sweet gym: Now that you're schooled in all those contraptions, you might even consider making them your own. The worthiest club-quality bikes, stair climbers, treadmills, rowers, and skiing machines for the exercise-friendly abode.
By Patrick Leyland
Essentials
Heavy-duty barbells that save space and money.
By Patrick Leyland
The Other Stuff
A helmet so cool even snowboarders will wear it; Lowe Alpine's answer for the ageless duffel-or-backpack debate; and the perfect chair for lounging in high style.
Books
Richard Manning's One Round River: The Curse of Gold and the Fight for the Big Blackfoot, Nicholas Clapp's The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands, Susanna Howe's Sick: A Cultural History of Snowboarding, and more.
By Miles Harvey
Between the Lines
Letters
Active Traveler Directory
Photograph by Chris Noble; Illustrations by Stuart Bradford, James Yang
|
