Southern Indiana Trails

On April 15, a climber at Everest Base Camp became the first known case of COVID-19  documented at the foot of the world’s highest peak. It’s hard to get a complete picture of what the disease is doing at Everest right now, but the situation only appears to be getting worse.  “I have taken a helicopter out of EBC back to Kathmandu after 1 day,” Gina Marie Han-Lee, a climber from New York, wrote on Facebook on April 29. “The Covid situation at EBC is a total shitstorm. I had no clue what I was flying into.” On April 28, Polish climber Pawel Michalski also  wrote on Facebook that “more than 30 people have already been evacuated with propellers to Kathmandu, with suspicion of pulmonary edema—later found to be positive for coronavirus.” Two people with close connections to climbers and doctors currently on Everest described the scene this way: “The COVID situation is much worse than anyone knows.” (Both sources wished to remain anonymous, for fear of i...

After more than a year of pandemic living, our lives have migrated online to a remarkable degree: we Zoom and tweet and Slack all day, then Netflix and Hulu ourselves to sleep. Now, as we emerge into a hopeful spring and summer, our challenge is to awaken the adventurous sides of ourselves that have gone dormant. In this episode, Chris Colin, author of the brilliantly funny new book Off: The Day the Internet Died , puts forth a simple solution: just start talking about all the awesome outdoorsy things we wish we were doing instead of staring at our devices. He explains how to make your way back to the strange and magical experiences that can only be found in the real world. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Lake Hartwell Country, a largely undiscovered region in the mountains of South Carolina that’s one of the best adventure playgrounds anywhere. Visit lakehartwellcountry.com to start planning your trip now. by Outside Editors via Outside Magazine: All

Last week, on Patriots’ Day, Des Linden announced that she would be taking part in this year’s Boston Marathon, which is scheduled for Monday, October 11. A few days before that, Linden launched her ultrarunning career by setting a world record in the 50K in a paced, low key event in Eugene, Oregon; her official time of 2:59:54 made her the first woman to break three hours in the distance. The 50K was Linden’s first major event since February 2020, when she narrowly missed making her third U.S. Olympic team in the marathon, finishing fourth at the Trials in Atlanta. As it stands right now, Linden is the first alternate if one of the three women currently going to Tokyo can’t make the trip.   The 2018 Boston Marathon champion is also turning 38 this year—an age when most elite-level distance runners have either retired, or are at least contemplating the end of the road. (Linden’s two-time Olympic teammate Shalane Flanagan was 38 when she retired in 2019 .) As she proved in ...

Lostine , the new short film from Shane Anderson  and the nonprofit  Pacific Rivers , highlights the powerful story of collaboration between the Nez Perce Tribe and Woody Wolfe, a sixth-generation rancher in Wallowa, Oregon. Wolfe’s land abuts the confluence of the Wallowa and Lostine Rivers, where salmon populations have been decimated by a series of dams. Together, he and Nez Perce tribal leaders are trying to restore the river and its wildlife.  by Outside Editors via Outside Magazine: All

Anytime I watch a nature documentary, I hope it will include my favorite type of scene: animals edited into an Old Western-style showdown sequence. Think of the iconic example of the baby marine iguana getting chased by a horde of snakes  in Planet Earth II . There’s something satisfying about the combination of serious (and often British-accented) narration, recognizable music tropes pulled from a chase scene, and high-definition footage of surprisingly expressive reptiles. A new entry into my personal canon comes from the newest David Attenborough-narrated nature film, Life in Color , currently streaming on Netflix. The three-part series illuminates how animals see and use   color in all kinds of ways, including mating, hunting, and avoiding predators. The show features animals ranging from tigers in India to ptarmigans in Scotland, but one highlight is a knock-down fight between two strawberry poison dart frogs on Solarte Island in Bocas del Toro, a remote ...

This week, Idaho Governor Brad Little is expected to sign into law a bill that calls for the extermination of 90 percent of the state’s 1,500-strong wolf population. Proponents say wolves are ruining the livelihoods of ranchers and hunters. Opponents say the wolves are necessary to a healthy ecosystem. “They’re destroying ranchers,” said Republican Senator Mark Harris, one of the bill’s sponsors, during a debate in the Idaho statehouse. “They’re destroying wildlife. This is a needed bill.” “The politicians behind this bill lack science, ethics, and fact,” Amaroq Weiss, senior West Coast wolf advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, told Outside .  After being eradicated earlier in the 20th century, wolves were reintroduced to Idaho in 1995 . Initially protected by the federal government under the Endangered Species Act, the state legislature worked to establish political control over management of the species. The Idaho Wolf Conservation and Management Plan was passe...

Since his first few days on the campaign trail, Joe Biden has held the line that addressing the climate crisis is one of his top priorities , calling it “the number one issue facing humanity.” In January, in anticipation of his inauguration, Outside published an ambitious outline for what we thought Biden should do to steer the United States out of its Trump-era nosedive and protect the planet and country from impending fiery doom (or at least to try to slow the burning). Now, President Biden is 100 days into his term, and we’re not just speculating anymore. “The Biden administration has hit the ground running. I’m really pleasantly surprised at the speed at which they’re moving,” says Aaron Weiss, deputy director at the nonpartisan conservation group Center for Western Priorities . “When you look at the concrete actions that they’re taking, they’ve gotten an amazing amount of stuff done in a short amount of time.” So, what has the Biden administration accompli...

There’s no vehicle more liberating than the bicycle: it’s lightweight, mechanically simple, profoundly efficient, and blissfully free from onerous registration and licensing requirements. (Unless you live in one of those places where they’re selectively enforced .) Unfortunately, these same attributes are also what make bikes so easy to steal. Just as effortlessly as you throw a leg over your bike, a thief can roll it right out of your life. Thanks to the current bike boom , there are also a lot more bikes to steal, with bike thefts up 24 percent in 2020 over 2019 . Besides “sharing” the road with motor vehicle traffic, thwarting bike thieves is probably the biggest challenge you’ll face as a cyclist. (Seating stubborn tubeless tires is a distant third.) Moreover, if you actually use your bike to its maximum potential—for shopping, for transportation, for socializing, for recreation—you’ll need to leave it unattended from time to time. So how do you make sure your steed will still b...

L. Renee Blount  believes in “endless curiosity.” That guiding philosophy   led her to set the goal of   trying a new outdoor sport every month. When Blount  told us about her challenge, we thought, Now that’s something we can get behind. So she and Outside teamed up with the folks at Topo Designs  to bring you Beyond Familiar ,   a video series about “the journey, the joy, and the try.”   Follow along as Blount attempts activities for the first time. In this episode, she learns to ride a Cake electric dirt bike across the sand dunes and salt flats of Knolls, Utah. by Outside Editors via Outside Magazine: All

This story was originally published by  Backpacker . There is no official hiking season. Some places are mild and hike-friendly year-round, but in many parts of the northern hemisphere, the weather and trail conditions are only good for trekking from late spring all the way to mid-November. That’s six solid months for day hikes, backpacking, mountain climbing, and scrambling. Add snowshoes or skis, and there’s no reason you can’t get into the backcountry all year round. But if you think you can just hop off the couch after a long layoff, slip on your boots, and hit the trail, think again. Most trails are uneven and have at least some elevation gain, so even the easiest hiking requires balance and strength to avoid injury. The good news: getting back into the swing of things isn’t as hard as you think. Start with These Basic Hiking Fitness Tips Two of the most common hiking injuries are ankle rolling and ankle sprains. If you’re out of shape or just haven’t been active for a w...

When researchers from Nike were plotting the details of their Breaking2 marathon project in 2017, one of the variables they considered was start time. The usual early-morning starts give you cool air that gradually heats up—but an evening start could give you cool air that gradually gets even cooler as the runners heat up. They eventually stuck with the morning start, mostly to avoid practical problems like figuring out what runners should eat all day before an evening marathon. But the discussion made me realize that there’s more to race temperatures than what the thermometer reads when the starting gun fires. A pair of recent papers in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise explores the topic of heat stress in the Boston Marathon. Boston is a major outlier among marathons, with a traditional start time of noon that was changed in 2007 to 10 A.M. for the first wave of the mass start—still much later than most races. One of the papers , from a team led by sports science co...

Deb Haaland made history on March 18 when she became the first Native American to be sworn in as a Cabinet secretary . Since then she’s established a  climate task force , promised to prioritize racial justice and equity , and revoked a dozen orders issued by both of her Trump-era predecessors. On a phone call earlier this week, we discussed the future of the department, the pressing issue of climate change, and how the national parks might evolve under the current administration. Outside : Earlier this month, when President Biden’s 2022 budget plan was announced, the Interior Department was set to receive a $2.4 billion increase from the previous year. What large projects does the department have in mind with the new funding?  Haaland: Let me just start by saying that with respect to Indian tribes, one of the big issues, and one of President Biden’s top priorities, is tribal consultation. So, with respect to any money tribes get, that is the first priority—to consult...