Southern Indiana Trails

German climber Alex Megos is perhaps best known for putting down one of the hardest routes in the world, Bibliographie (initially thought to be 5.15d, a grade climbed only once before , but eventually determined to be 5.15c), in Céüse, France, in 2020. The 28-year-old is also a regular on the competitive climbing circuit and one of the most exciting athletes in the sport at the moment. In recent weeks, however, Megos has shifted his focus from training to helping Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion. “It’s strange to call them refugees, because they’re friends and family,” Megos told Outside . “But they had to leave their home involuntarily, and they are living with us now.” On Wednesday, Megos posted a video on Instagram asking his 365,000 followers for financial support. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Megos and his family have taken in 15 Ukrainians, including his girlfriend—climber Jenya Kazbekova —and her mother and sister. The refugees have moved onto...

Become your own meteorologist with Wilderness Weather Fundamentals from Outside Learn . Recognize storm clouds, measure changes in pressure, stay safe from lightning and other dangerous weather, and more. Outside+ members can start learning right now. Watch: Learn to predict the weather with Wilderness Weather Fundamentals from Outside Learn . What Causes Storms? All weather activity is driven by atmospheric lift, or the vertical movement of air. As air rises, it cools, causing water vapor to condense and clouds to form. With enough lift, you get precipitation. Faster lift causes more-dramatic weather changes.   Air doesn’t lift itself. Four factors drive lift: fronts, low-pressure systems, mountains (which cause what’s known as orographic lift), and convection (when the sun warms the earth’s surface).   Fronts A cold front is a boundary of cooler air pushing up warmer air ahead of it. Clouds and precipitation lie along and just ahead of a cold front. Cold front...

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I have this terrible fear of death. Not my death, but my loved ones’. Whenever they leave the house and go on adventures, vivid visions of car crashes and climbing accidents wiggle their way deep into my brain. It wasn’t until I was 30 that I learned not everyone thinks like this. My partner at the time was a worry-free skier, climber, and biker who would often put his phone on airplane mode before heading into the mountains. As soon as the sun would set, I’d wait, my mind frantic, desperate to feel the vibration of a text message. Does he have a headlamp? Shouldn’t he be finished with his tour? I’d pull up the local avalanche-center reports and check for news of any accidents. I’d pace around my house, unable to focus on simple tasks and wondering how soon I could call search and rescue. Backcountry recreators have used GPS devices for years to share their locations with loved ones. But it was rare that people could watch the comings and goings of their partners on screen at any g...

You’ve finally made it to your long-planned ski vacation. You’re excited to hit the slopes, feel the wind in your ears, and enjoy some après time in a snowy mountain town. But guess what? Life has become increasingly difficult for many people who live in mountain towns, work for ski resorts, or cater to guests like yourself. Jobs in the ski industry often pay uncompetitive wages, and the cost of housing in American ski towns has skyrocketed. The pandemic caused an acute labor shortage and intensified the housing crunch . And, of course, climate change is drastically altering life in these communities. While you may not want to fixate on these wider forces during your ski trip, we recommend considering them when you are interacting with locals. After all, the last thing you want to do is make life harder for the person scanning your lift ticket or serving you slopeside chili. Conor Ryan, a Lakota skier and founder of the athletic and creative collective Natives Outdoors , says vaca...

I’m not sure that the trend has survived the pandemic, but for a while it was common to see NBA players toss their headbands into the stands, post-game, to the delight of certain dedicated fans . Call it a holy relic for our secular, sports-addled age: a branded, sopping halo of terry cloth, straight from Lebron’s dome. Surely, our reverence for super jocks is without precedent. Or so I thought until I came across a fascinating historical tidbit in Bill Hayes’ new book, Sweat: A History of Exercise , where we learn that the sweat of athletes “was considered a prize commodity in the ancient world.” Apparently, in both Greek and Roman cultures, men famous for their physical prowess “would scrape the accumulated sweat and oil from their bodies and funnel it into small pots.” At the time, it was believed that this substance—called gloios —contained some essence of athletic excellence, though it was primarily sold in ancient gymnasia as a salve for skin conditions like hemorrhoids and ge...

The other day I searched for Alfred Lansing’s 1959 book Endurance in my local library’s database. I live in the Yukon, in northern Canada, and usually when I search for a decades-old book in the library’s extensive Arctic and Antarctic collections, I find what I need. But this time, every copy of Endurance was already checked out. Ernest Shackleton’s sunken ship, Endurance , had just been located 10,000 feet down on the floor of the Weddell Sea, and Lansing’s classic is the definitive tale of of the extraordinary events that followed the 1915 sinking: Shackleton and his crew, over the course of two years, fought their way through Antarctica and made it back home. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the book was in high demand. Luckily for those of us who are fired up about the discovery of the Endurance shipwreck, there is plenty to read and watch to slake our thirst for polar adventure and suffering. The last decade alone has seen the publication of a flurry of book...

The other day I searched for Alfred Lansing’s 1959 book Endurance in my local library’s database. I live in the Yukon, in northern Canada, and usually when I search for a decades-old book in the library’s extensive Arctic and Antarctic collections, I find what I need. But this time, every copy of Endurance was already checked out. Ernest Shackleton’s sunken ship, Endurance , had just been located 10,000 feet down on the floor of the Weddell Sea, and Lansing’s classic is the definitive tale of of the extraordinary events that followed the 1915 sinking: Shackleton and his crew, over the course of two years, fought their way through Antarctica and made it back home. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the book was in high demand. Luckily for those of us who are fired up about the discovery of the Endurance shipwreck, there is plenty to read and watch to slake our thirst for polar adventure and suffering. The last decade alone has seen the publication of a flurry of book...

The recent discovery of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance has thrust his epic tale of Antarctic survival into the limelight   once again. The story still resonates with readers more than a century later: the sinking of Endurance amid the pack ice; the bone-rattling conditions on Elephant Island; the improbable 800-mile journey across windblown seas in the 22-foot James Caird ; the mountainous trek across South Georgia Island to finally raise a rescue party. Shackleton and his men have been the subject of much media fervor throughout the last century, and this latest flurry of Shackleton media comes more than two decades after the tale experienced a worldwide revival. In 1998, British author Caroline Alexander published T he Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition . Alexander’s book, which drew on new source material, birthed two separate Shackleton documentary films, and more media projects followed in its wake. Actor Kenneth Branagh played Shackleton in a...

If you’re serious about climbing harder grades, then you need better footwork. In our Outside Learn online course Precision Footwork , master technician Paige Claassen teaches tips and drills to power your movement from your toes up through your legs and core to send your very best. Learn more. If you watch the video of Margo Hayes on La Rambla (5.15a), you’ll see she never readjusts her feet. She stabs her shoes into the limestone with precision, placing them correctly every time. And if you watch Janja Garnbret climbing in a World Cup event, you’ll notice that every time her feet swing away from the wall, they return to the volumes effortlessly, without readjustment. Or perhaps your moment of realization will be at the local crag, where a strongwoman will dance up her project without much upper-body effort, weighting her feet the entire way. When my foot slipped below the first clip at the 2004 Youth Nationals in Sacramento, costing me a spot in finals, I knew I had to devote...

We’ve all been there: shivering because our jacket isn’t warm enough, or sweating buckets because it’s too thick. Well, there’s good news—puffies just continue to get better. They’re toastier on one end of the spectrum and more breathable, but still cozy, on the other. These are a collection of our top picks from this winter season that will serve you well for years to come. Aether Launch ($425) (Photo: Courtesy Aether) A true trail-to-town crossover, the Launch (and women’s Senna, $375) fuses technical materials with urban design. The bomber jacket’s fit is as stylish as it is effective at sealing in heat at the cuffs and hem. Meanwhile, interior seams with elastic binding and a 16 percent spandex blend in the shell allow for superior stretch when adjusting snowshoe straps and planting ski poles. The 800-fill goose down makes this garment warmer than you’d expect given the low-bulk silhouette. (Men’s XS–XXL, 1.2 lbs; women’s XS–XL, 1 lb) Men’s Women’s Columbia Bulo Point I...