Outside USA - September 2019

Outside Magazine Between the Lines

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Feedback

Deep Undercover

In May, reporter Rowan Jacobsen joined

top execu tives from Coca-Cola, HP, and

Procter and Gamble, along with scientists

and activists, on an expedition to the

North Atlantic aboard the RCGS Resolute

(“Castaway,” page 74). The goal was to give

those corporate leaders a visceral sense

of the havoc plastic is wreaking on ocean

ecosystems. Along the way, Jacobsen

created a beach mural with Canadian

artist Von Wong and snorkeled through

masses of floating trash. (He recommends

Rite in the Rain notebooks for open-water

reporting.) Though Jacobsen was aware of

his own plastic use before the trip, he left

with a new appreciation of its impact. “I

always tried to cut my consumption, but I

was doing a half-ass job,” he says. “Now I’m

going to do a full-ass job.”

The Pulaski Is Mightier

than the Sword

Late in the spring, Outside Online published

an article by Marc Peruzzi entitled “Trail

Runners Are Lazy Parasites,” which argued

that participants in the rapidly growing

sport aren’t doing their share when it

comes to volunteer trail maintenance. The

piece generated an enormous reaction,

with many readers contesting the central

premise or taking offense at the tone.

(Subsequently, we published a follow-up by

writer and ultrarunner Stephanie Case, who

countered Peruzzi’s assertions.)

This is narrow-

minded and

woefully unin-

formed. As an avid

trail runner and

cofounder of the

West Michigan Trail

Runners, I am

officially insulted.

We trail runners

are the sole group

that maintains

arguably the most

difficult trail in

West Michigan.

@DirtyRob

Twitter

I guess he has little

trail-runner dolls

that he sticks pins

in when he’s not

being pompous

and opinionated.

@Chloebeetle

Twitter

As a lifelong trail

runner and

trail-running

enthusiast who

preaches the joys

of the lifestyle, I

think this article

has a lot of merit

and can start a

discussion. Don’t

unsubscribe.

Engage. Converse.

As of now, I know I

could do more and

plan to. Thanks for

stirring the pot.

@_JeffColt

Twitter

Where

7 KHUH·V

Smoke

I read “Up in

Smoke” (June)

with great interest.

You did excellent

research to provide

a picture of what

we are facing. I

collaborated with

Stanford Medicine

to publish the

results of a study

recently showing

that controlled-fire

smoke can have a

much smaller

impact on immune

and cardiovascular

function in children

compared with

wildfire.

Rodd Kelsey

Sacramento,

California

Finding New Limits

As I’ve noted before in this space, the realms

of adventure and exploration have changed

dramatically in the past two decades. The

most significant firsts were all achieved dur-

ing the previous century, including reaching

the North and South Poles, summiting all 14 of

the world’s 8,000-meter peaks, and running

the planet’s gnarliest rivers. Now that we’ve

probed Mars and used satellites to map every

square inch of our own planet, the very con-

cept of earthly exploration has become anach-

ronistic. Adventure, on the other hand, is alive

and well. Yet the state of the art is increasingly

defined by speed or style, the latter requiring

levels of esoteric nuance that are hard for the

general public to appreciate.

All this was on our minds as we selected sto-

ries for this month’s Adventure Issue, aiming

to provide a snapshot of the realities modern

athletes and explorers confront.

Our cover features the man who

last year completed the first

human-powered solo crossing

of Antarctica (“Colin O’Brady

Wants to Tell You a Story,” page

56). As Tim Neville recounts,

O’Brady’s feat captured the

world’s attention despite being

labeled no big deal by veteran

polar travelers, demonstrating

how, in today’s era, promotion

and narrativization can some-

times trump the historical im-

portance of new achievements.

In “Island of No Return” (page

62), Alex Perry investigates the

saga of John Allen Chau, the

American missionary killed by

tribesmen on a remote speck

of the Andaman Islands. The

event generated weeks of inter-

national media coverage, not

because the death of a mission-

ary at the hands of an uncon-

tacted tribe was unique—it was

once a common fate of overzealous Christian

evangelists—but because most people were

shocked to learn that a world unsullied by

human contact could still exist. Contributing

editor Nick Heil, meanwhile, reports on the

deaths of three of alpinism’s brightest stars,

David Lama, Jess Roskelley, and Hansjörg

Auer, on Canada’s Howse Peak last spring

(“The Dying of the Light,” page 84), and ex-

amines whether the sport’s fast and light

ethos has been pushed too far.

Elsewhere we consider how climate change

is altering the world we play in, embark on an

Atlantic voyage with an unexpected team of

business leaders and NGO representatives

trying to rid the oceans of plastic, and spot-

light a paraplegic mountaineer who is defying

expectations. Adventure will never disappear;

it’s just gotten a lot more complicated.

—CHRISTOPHER KEYES ( @KEYESER)