Ridiculous (ly awesome) Sleds
It’s sledding season! Time to scour the garage for your favorite sled and hit the slopes for some winter wonderland fun and adventure. If you don’t have a sled because you always forget to buy one until it snows and then all the stores are sold out, you may need to get online where millions of sleds are waiting for you. If you’re smart, you’ll get a basic disc sled. If you want to frighten yourself and any other riders, you’ll get one of these.
Hammerhead Pro XLD
It says something about a sled company when they only make one type of sled, in three slightly different versions. It’s arrogant, in a way, but the people at Hammerhead only do it because they can, because they engineered a sled which will probably be used for time travel in the next decade or so. The Hammerhead Pro XLD comes with four skis, a mesh seating area and precision steering controls. If the $350 price tag doesn’t make you take this sled seriously, perhaps the official racing accessories and mounted lights will. Hammerhead sells cones, bells, even clipboards to make your next Hammerhead race session a complete success. Continue reading »
Conservation Gains In Afghanistan
In the war-torn and devastated nation of Afghanistan, it should come at no surprise that there is only one conservation group working within its borders. What might be surprising, actually, especially when considering the extensive needs of the human population, is that there exists conservation efforts in the country at all. Because Afghanistan rests at the nexus of three distinct biogeographic regions, the New York Times reports, it boasts an extremely unique array of rare animals.
Peter Zahler is the deputy director for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Asia programs – the sole conservation project currently operating in the country – and he’s been working there ever since 2002. Zahler and affiliated scientists suggest that their conservation efforts can contribute to stabilizing the country, stating, “As much as we are the Wildlife Conservation Society and we try to save wildlife, a great deal of our efforts are focused on building the human capacity to manage those resources.” Continue reading »
Extreme Dayhiking Is Not An Oxymoron
Extreme Bird Watching, Extreme Tiddlywinks, Extreme Cow Tipping–sports any outdoor enthusiast worth their mettle has endured. When you’re eyeball to closed eyeball with a sleeping steer and ankle-deep in a mud/manure mix, you don’t shrink from the challenge. When those Tiddlywinks lay splayed across the ground, do you stand motionless and wish they’d pick themselves up? No, you bend down and play Tiddlywinks like a man and/or woman. When birds perch on branches and do their bird thing, do you cover your eyes and refuse to watch? That’s a negative, soldier! You open those peepers and stare the h-e-double hockey sticks out of them.
The same is true with Extreme Dayhiking. You might scoff at this, the most radical of outdoor sports, but we all know it’s because you’re afraid. Afraid to step up to the challenge. Afraid to lace those shoes and confront your insecurities. Afraid to hike the crap out of the day. The fear ends here, boys and girls. Saddle up and learn how to beat feet like a true dayhiking warrior. Continue reading »
Five Alternatives to Traditional Outdoorsy Gifts
It’s not that I have anything against Nalgene bottles and Petzl Tikka headlamps. I don’t. I’m just at a point where I have more water bottles than cupboard space and I can only wear one headlamp at a time. Actually, that’s not true. Anyway, to avoid another onslaught of water bottles and survival lighters, I thought it might be useful to provide a list for those who want to get something for the outdoors enthusiast in their life, but aren’t quite sure what to get.
Socks
I know what you’re thinking. First, this is probably a traditional holiday present and secondly, who wants to get socks for the holidays? I do. Nobody ever gets them for me for Christmas and those things are expensive! Man, you head to your favorite retail store thinking you’re going to drop a few dollars on socks and 60 dollars later you have two pair of socks and you’re thinking, “what the hell just happened?” I’m a pretty big fan of my Darn Tough socks, but I love these Dakine Vista Socks as well. If you always get socks for the holidays and would rather have a water bottle, let’s get in touch. We can trade.
Organized Trip
When I was 10 my Dad took me on a kayaking trip on Yellowstone Lake. Best. Present. Ever. Continue reading »
Extreme U-Cutting: When Testosterone Meets Tree
It’s that time of year. With Thanksgiving out of the way, we can focus on the big players of the holiday season. Holidays where sitting around a table with friends and family simply won’t cut out. Holidays where we go out and destroy 10-year old trees just for the hell out of it or because they smell good. It’s sadistic. It’s necessary. It’s fun. It’s U-Cut.
Location
There’s are simple rules for determining if you’re in the right place for a Christmas tree. If you can hear traffic, if you see holiday lights, if the ground underneath your feet is asphalt, if a man is helping you find the perfect tree. If you see or hear any of these things, you’re in the wrong place. You should see deer, hear the howling wind and only feel snow under your feet. For a small fee, many national parks allow visitors to cut a tree for the holidays. So get out there. Continue reading »
The 2011 Stocking Stuffers Guide: For the Gents
Is your man into mountains? Does your boy like to boulder? Does your son spelunk? It can be difficult to shop for the men in our lives, particularly the rugged ones who prize experience over material possessions. Or so they say! Deep down, every outdoorsy man loves a sporty gadget and a perfect pair of socks. This holiday season we made gift buying a little easier for you by creating a guide to 2011′s best stocking stuffers. Move over, Chapstick and nail clippers, this year we’ll be filling his stocking with all the pint-sized gear he really wants. After all, he’s been good….right?
Climber’s Belt
We love Mountain Hardwear’s Alloy Nut Belt because it rocks the half nerdy, half rugged combo that we all crave. It’s built out of recycled nylon webbing, and mountain Hardwear’s little screw logo is embroidered on the belt and screen-printed on the buckle, so you can be eco-conscious and trendy. Remember, nothing says “manly” like an outdoorsy belt, and nothing says “classy” like keeping your pants up! Continue reading »
The Mystery of Everett Ruess
On the 12th of November 1934, Everett Ruess, a 20-year-old wilderness adventurer, painter and poet who had been exploring the southwest for the better part of four years, walked his two mules into the mouth of Escalante Canyon in the desolate Utah wilderness and was never seen again.
Everett Ruess was a wanderer, a sage of barren landscapes and a champion of his own destiny. He graduated high school in Hollywood – an area with, as the best author of all time, Denis Johnson, puts it, “people wandering the streets with their heads shot off by money.” – and was disgusted by it all. He felt cities were mistakes, took sanctuary in the solitude of the wilds and at fifteen years old, pledged to “never…follow any way but the sweeping way of the wind.” Continue reading »
TE Exclusive: Dave Cornthwaite of Expedition 1000
A thousand miles holds many different meanings. It might mean geographical separation for some and a daily commute for others. But for British adventurer, Dave Cornthwaite, 1,000 miles means a satisfactory trip by non-motorized means, and he plans to accomplish 25 of them. Five years into his Expedition 1000, Dave has skateboarded, kayaked, SUP’ed and tandem biked; all over a thousand miles.
Your goal for Expedition 1000 is 25 non-motorized trips over 1000 miles. How did you convince yourself to undertake this challenge?
DC: My first two expeditions were very formative for me but I had no plans for the aftermath, so I ended up wasting time. I needed a long-term focus to solidify what I was doing into a meaningful project, rather than a bunch of alien, one-off expeditions. I wanted variety because I’m not particularly attached to any part of the planet, or especially good at any sport or mode of transport, so Expedition ticked all of my boxes. It’s an extreme bucket list of sorts, but as soon as I made it my career took off. Continue reading »
TE Exclusive: Exploring Human Flight With Loic Jean-Albert
You’ve probably seen the videos: people donning wingsuits who backflip off several thousand-foot cliffs in Switzerland and Norway, only to correct themselves in mid-air and then literally fly down and alongside the contours of the mountain to see how close they can get without smashing against the granite. Eventually they pull open a parachute and, if they’re lucky, land without any broken bones. That’s the sport of proximity flying – a BASE jump turned human-bird journey, where your fingers nearly scrape the cliffs as you propel towards the earth at 100 miles per hour – and Loic Jean-Albert is its innovator.
During Loic’s career, he’s seen the man who taught him the sport as well as many of his friends die in accidents. Plenty others have been seriously injured and Loic himself suffered a broken back while speed flying in New Zealand. With a young family and a healthy understanding of when it’s a good time to retire, we at Trail’s Edge caught up with Loic to find out about his life in flight, and what he’s been up to since hanging up the wings.
How did you get into wingsuit flying?
Well I was on the French Parachuting team when Patrick de Gayardon was doing his first jumps on wingsuit. He is like the inventor of the modern wingsuit. He did the first wingsuit design that inflates with reactive wind. He was doing this in ’96 or something like that. So I met him and I did my first wingsuit jump with him. At the time he was the only guy doing these jumps. He died in ’98 and I was doing my own design at the time and I kept going with my own design of wingsuit. There was no manufacturer at the time, so we had to build our own stuff. Continue reading »
Tips for Dirtbags: Roadkill Gourmet
You won’t always have the luxury of shoveling food scraps from a stranger’s plate down your deprived gullet. That kind of fanciful living is limited to Yosemite Lodge after successfully sneaking beyond the pesky cashiers that block the dining area entrance. But what about the points in between outdoor destinations – the desolate highways where everyone’s too scared to pick you up; the train tracks where the locomotives sit stalled for hours or days? It’s roadkill time. Despite popular delusion, roadkill can be a perfectly fresh, healthy and delicious meal that rivals any meat found in the grocery store.
Take Your Pick
Not every carcass you come across will be fit for human consumption. Maggots and other scavenging insects and a general rotting stink are things to be avoided. Check to see if the animal’s hair slips at all – if not, it’s probably fresh. Another good indicator is the blood: if it hasn’t coagulated, you’re in for meat. As Chelsea Green writes in Eating Roadkill: Would You?, “There may be not much of a difference from a deer you hunt, and a deer you kill accidentally.” Continue reading »
