Nature
ArchiveConundrum Hot Springs party people, mid-August. Photo: Will McGough By Will McGough, Wake and Wander Sitting in the nearly 100-degree water, among several naked bathers in the Conundrum Hot Springs near Aspen, Colorado, I looked around at the pine…
The most ambitious environmental documentary since An Inconvenient Truth tries to make the case that we just might win
Noah Davis takes a look at Wade Barrett's transition from professional soccer player to semi-serious ultramarathoner
Photo: Egan Snow/Flickr As summer wanes and garden harvests start to dwindle, this news lands with a thud: a recent study performed at Stanford University indicated that eating organic produce doesn’t necessarily mean eating more nutritious produce. If you figured this would…
It's a lot easier to imagine you're a colonial settler when you're not 25, Katie Heaney learns
The story behind the otter-exclusion zone, a stretch of water on the California coast from Point Conception to the Mexican border where otters are barred by Congress from swimming
Readers voted Richmond, Virginia, the nation's most livable river town. (No joke!) To find out why, Jon Billman paddles, runs, and snorkels for crabs in the former Confederate capital. Plus: the lowdown on nine other great river towns.
Grizzly print, and a notebook. Photo: Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation Rachel Carson earned a master's degree in zoology from John Hopkins University and spent most of her career working as a marine biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife…
Image: DDB Group China Car sales in China are a wee bit flat right now, but it’s still one of the world’s largest car markets. Congestion in cities is so bad that local governments have begun restricting how many people can drive each day. Despite that,…
What does the popularity of a zombie-themed obstacle race say about American society?
As more blazes rage across the West this summer and government policy shifts toward aggressive wildfire suppression, firefighters’ lives are increasingly placed at risk
Fly-by drinking. Photo: Ofer Levy/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012 With a wing span of up to five feet, the grey-headed flying fox is the largest bat…
Meaghen Brown is in France, reporting from one of the world's most grueling footraces
Delicate Arch, Arches National Park. Photo: Ryan Dearth Last year, as part of his Call to Action plan to revise and improve the way our national parks are managed, National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis asked a committee of…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=F7VghMbLiMA Last week, the West Yellowstone Chamber of Commerce posted a video of a bison charging children on its Facebook page—accompanied by a scolding: “This video is one that makes us angry, expecially at the irresponsible person behind the…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WEe1bVjORN4 The lines, curves, and whorls made by ocean currents in NASA's Perpetual Ocean video look like they were taken straight out of Vincent van Gogh's A Starry Night. All the pretty strokes came courtesy of the space agency's Scientific Visualization Studio, which…
Tropical Storm Isaac, August 28. Photo: NASA The city lights all appear on as Tropical Storm Isaac nears the Gulf Coast in this satellite image taken just after midnight on August 28.
Behind the scenes with sculptor and Burning Man regular Marco Cochrane. Read about the festival’s history in Brad Wiener’s story, “Hot Mess.” Find more of Ian Mackenzie’s work.
Tsunami debris. Photo: Stiv Wilson By Stiv Wilson, 5 Gyres Institute Out across a plastic stratified strand, two surfers, silhouetted in the failing light, are finishing a session. A year and half ago, this wasn’t a surf spot. A tsunami destroyed everything…
What made Katie Heaney feel like a combination of Pocahontas and Jesus Christ? Standing on a board and holding a paddle.
Inside the unsolved killing that has an idyllic lakeside town reeling
Chinook salmon. Photo: NWFishers/Flickr The Elwha Dam is gone. The Glines Canyon Dam is nearly gone. With the dams no longer blocking fish from their migratory route up the river, Chinook (king) and other species of salmon and trout are returning. Salmon fry…
Mississippi River south of Memphis, August 2011. Photo: NASA Mississippi River south of Memphis, August 2012. Photo: NASA A drought that has led to low water levels in…
Fisherman. Photo: Piotr Wawrzyniuk/Shutterstock Here’s an outdoor recreation stat worth breaking out at the water cooler. One out of every one hundred dollars of all goods and services produced in the United States in 2011 was due to hunting, fishing, and…
Yao Ming in Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve. Photo: Kristian Schmidt/WildAid Yao Ming is a giant man, but he paled in comparison to the corpse of the elephant stripped of ivory that lay at his…
Sea turtle hatchling, Baguan Island, Philippines. Photo: Keith Ellenbogen Examples of poor ocean health are too easy—unfortunately—to find in many parts of the world, especially along densely populated coastlines or in the midst of ocean gyres filled with plastic pollution. But what is…
This month marks 25 years of amazing footage, corny hosts, and fake blood for the Discovery Channel’s most-watched series
Fall is here, and the temps are dropping—time to pick a fresh new adventure in the American Southwest
Photo: Bradleygee/Flickr One point four million. That's how many cigarette butts volunteers collected during beach clean-up events in the United States in 2008 alone, according to Ocean Conservancy. Think of how many they missed. And consider all the butts you've seen tossed off…
Outside correspondent Steven Rinella talks to his longtime editor, Mary Turner, about his new book (and TV show of the same name) Meat Eater, how he got started fishing and hunting, and why he’ll never stop
For years, outdoorsman and hunter Steven Rinella dreamed of felling a Dall sheep, North America's most difficult game animal. After seeing his friends come home with horns of their own, in this excerpt from his new book, Meat Eater: Adventures of an American Hunter, he went all in and booked a trip to the Alaska Range.
Red means it's the warmest month ever. Photo: NOAA This past July was the hottest month in the recorded history of the lower 48 states. A severe drought and…
I picked up the following video of off Krulwich Wonders, a science blog by NPR's Robert Krulwich. He doesn't ruin the surprise on his post, so I won't either. Mark Peters and his friends headed 20 miles west of…
A Perseid. Photo: ESO/Wikimedia Commons The best nights to see the best meteor shower of the year will start this weekend, according to NASA. The agency has released a video guide (below) that says the prime viewing nights for the Perseid meteor…
Katie Heaney won't ever climb Mount Everest, but she's ready to step outside and try some things—like looking for a moose
The National Resources Defense Council's latest annual “Toxic Power” report contains good news for air quality, namely that toxic air pollution from power plants decreased roughly 19 percent from 2009 to 2010. The improvement came as many plants switched to burning natural gas instead…
Earlier this spring, Google's Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg created a living wind map of the United States. The interactive graphic displays surface wind data from the…
Bug spray seems messy and outdated. Do the apps for Android phones and iPhones really work? What about bug-repellent clothing?
This is a moment that never gets old, especially since it seems every year it is captured in more detail, in slower motion, with just enough explanation. It's a great white shark breaching in the waters off of South Africa to bite a seal dummy, which it spits out…
Plying the Icicle River, Washington. Photo: Leah Ricketts By Russ Ricketts It all started innocently enough. My friend Matt told me about snorkeling with the salmon in our local rivers in the Cascade Mountains. His epic tales of huge fish, deep pools and fast currents held…
In this weekly roundup, we scour the Web for our favorite long-form magazine and newspaper articles, collecting them here and on Longreads.com and Twitter. This installment focuses on the future of fast food, what it means to be an amateur, and all-things Olympic Games.
We all live downstream. Photo: Flickr/Kevin Krejci Next week, tens of thousands of manufacturers, retailers, media and marketers of outdoor gear will convene in Salt Lake City for the Outdoor Retailer (OR) Summer Market. Among them will be many…
Captain Don Voss, marine pollution from a diver's POV. Photos: Marine Cleanup Initiative, Inc. When he returned, wounded, from serving in Vietnam, doctors told Don Voss he wouldn't walk again. But Voss, now a 64-year-old ship captain, turned to swimming as therapy. With more…
Michael Kodas is chasing the ever-growing forest inferno all throughout Colorado
When a YouTube video showing a "big-ass" shark snatching a tasty red drum off the end of a fishing pole went viral last week, Chris Dixon, who lives on the water in the area, wondered if he should be more concerned. He spoke to Arnold Postell, a senior biologist at the South Carolina Aquarium, to find out.
After years of warnings and years of inaction, our forests are on fire and the blaze should only continue to grow.
This illegal deer stand is bigger than most Manhattan studios. Photo: St. Louis County Land and Minerals Dept. Deer hunters wait. They find a good spot in the forest, and they wait. To get a better vantage, they might climb into a tree or build a…
Fabiola in smoke. Photo: Brian Nevins This past April, 33-year-old, Hampton, New Hampshire-based photographer Brian Nevins won the Telus Pro Photographer Showdown in Whistler, British Columbia. It’s one of…
Telluride Mountain School students explore the Needle Mountains. Photo: Jamie Salem By Emily Brendler Shoff The older kids get, the easier it is to take them into the backcountry. This is even true for teenagers, who, despite getting a bad rap for being addicted to all…
Photo: Fremlin/CC 2.0/Flickr Going into 2012 Montana's wolf population exceeded 600. Looking for more ways to keep the population in check, the state's Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) Commission passed new rules on Thursday, July 12, that will allow wolves to be trapped.
World-renowned scientist E.O. Wilson did not take up calculus until he was 32 years old. When he did finally tackle the subject, he sat next to undergraduate students taking his introductory biology class. He uses this anecdote as a way into his five…
From sharks and cougars to avalanches and frozen waters, four survivors share their stories in their own words. Plus: expert commentary.
To get things between the 740 islands of the Falklands, a lot of flying is needed. Much of it is done by one of the four pilots in the Falkland Islands Government Air Service. Pilot Troyd Bowles delivers everything from tourists to remote lodges to farm animals to remote pastures…
The loud and awestruck reaction of the people on the dock makes this video. It would be easy to make fun of their excited cries of shark in a dismissive way—Who let the double rainbow guy on the dock? We know, it's a shark. etc.— but there's something that's…
Photo: Shutterstock/Amy Walters Last month, the House of Representatives passed an omnibus bill that would exempt the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from more than 10 important environmental laws, including the Wilderness Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and…
In this weekly roundup, we scour the Web for our favorite long-form magazine and newspaper articles, collecting them here and on Longreads.com and Twitter. This installment focuses on the animals—and languages—we're eradicating, the dopers we're catching and the fight su
Surveying the beaches in his home state of North Carolina with a world-renowned erosion expert, David Gessner considers the folly of trying to deny what all the sandbags and misguided legislation in the world can never stop: the rising sea
There are plenty of hungry predators roaming the USA. But the deadliest ones for humans may not be the those you expect.
Alligators and crocodiles landed in the #10 spot in the CDC's database. Photo: Shutterstock Whether it's by stinging, crushing, biting, butting, kicking, or any other variety of accidental or nefarious means, animals injure millions and kill hundreds of people every year. The…
If you’ve seen Red Gold, about efforts to stop the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska, you know the documentary-making prowess behind Felt Soul Media. The trailer for the team’s next film, DamNation, has just been released. Conceived by…
For better and (only sometimes) worse, elite athletes are our role models. We admire their discipline and commitment; their strength and skill inspire us to reach higher in our own lives. When I talked to alpinist Hilaree O'Neill last month by cell phone from Everest Base Camp,…
Hui Yu Kim, “Boating Fun” (Atkins’ Young Environmental Photographer of the Year: Under 16 Highly Commended) Don't let the incredibly long and clunky name turn you off: The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management's annual…
Cougar. Photo: Shutterstock Cougars are on the rise in the Midwest. From 1990 to 2008, the number of sightings confirmed by wildlife professionals increased. That's good news for fans of big cats, which were extirpated from most of that area around…
Kaieteur Falls, Guyana. Photo: Wilderness Explorers Newsweek said last week that visiting Guyana should be on your Bucket List. Then USA Today said just about the same thing. We first sang Guyana's praises…
San Francisco views at Angel Island State Park. Photo: John Trippe/FecalFace.com If you're all about eating locally-produced food and being active in your community, consider staking claim to some nearby dirt or sand, too. Here's a quick (and coastal-centric) list of camping options.
Thirty-five years ago, a national recession and high fuel prices led to the opening of the massive, controversial Trans-Alaska Pipeline System—and a host of problems and pollution that came with it. Sound familiar?
Photo: Mara/Flickr One of our top 10 environmental news stories of 2011 was the troubling violence that environmental activists face in many parts of the world, particularly in Brazil, where three high-profile activists were slain last May. While researching that…
The Rio Chama. Photo: Ingrid Truemper/Flickr If done right, an adventure day trip can be just as satisfying as a bigger mission. If not, it can be way more stressful. To make the most of your summer, you’ll want to plan a…
Simulated wetland used in silver nanoparticle research at Duke University. Photo: Benjamin Espinasse In recent years, many outdoor apparel manufacturers have embraced a new range of anti-microbial textile coatings that are designed to inhibit the growth of bacterial and fungus that cause odors. Less stinky…
White Marble. Photo: NASA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/Flickr By now you’ve probably heard of Blue Marble, the super hi-res composite image of earth. It’s not the single biggest hi-res…
Photo: Kesu/Shutterstock I know, it's Friday and in your head you're probably half-way down the nearest trail or river already. But next week, world leaders are meeting in Rio, 20 years after their last meeting there (thus, “Rio+20”) to try to hammer out some…
Midway Atoll is a 2.4-square-mile atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with three islands covering 1,549 acres. It's small, remote, and an essential landing strip for giant seabirds. More than three million of them plop down on the islands every…
In the stunning and remote wilderness along northern British Columbia’s Highway 16, at least 18 women—by some estimates, many more—have gone missing over the past four decades. After years of investigation, authorities still don’t know if it’s the work of a serial killer or multiple offenders. Bob Friel drives into the darkness for answers.
CrossFitter Mel Soria puts his functional fitness training to the test in the backwoods of Georgia, chasing down prey that's as delicious as it is dangerous
The filmmaker behind The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom explains why she's drawn to the world's gnarliest spots
In the flow, finally: Conejos River, Colorado. Photo: Katie Arnold Whenever you take young children on outdoor adventures, there will invariably come a moment when you’ll ask yourself, head in hands, between clenched teeth, possibly on the verge of tears or mental breakdown: How could this…