Southern Indiana Trails

There are a few theories as to how Colorado’s so-called Million Dollar Highway—the 25-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 550 that connects the high-elevation towns of Silverton and Ouray—got its name. According to an old mining legend, the gravel required to build the narrow mountain roadway contained $1 million worth of gold and silver ore. Or there’s the story of locals who used to say they wouldn’t drive that dangerous road even for a million bucks. (Fun fact, albeit nerve-racking: the pass has no guardrails.) The most likely story? Back in the early 1920s, when the road was still a wagon route, city planners estimated it would cost that amount to build over the mountain pass. Either way, the nickname has persisted. And the views really are worth a million bucks. Drive this route in the winter and you’ll need a four-wheel-drive vehicle and proper snow tires. Blizzard conditions and avalanches are common occurrences, and though it stays open year-round, the pass can close intermittently...

Three years ago, I had our small, fenced-in back yard replaced with synthetic grass. Was it expensive? Yes. But just look at the results. And this is what the yard looks like every single day, no matter what my three big dogs do to it. Here’s why astroturf is the single best investment dog owners can make to their home.   It only took Wiley, Bowie, and Teddy one year to completely destroy the natural grass in our back yard. It probably would have been less time, if the yard wasn’t blanketed in snow for five or six months.   And that destruction wasn’t just unsightly. All of that dirt and mud clung to their paws and fur, so every time they came inside, they tracked it all over our shiny black floors and nice furniture. Owning three big dogs already requires a lot of work. (Think: shedding, exercise, diet, and shenanigans.) So, having to bust out the mop multiple times a week, too, just felt egregious.   Within the space of a year, our dogs had turned the yard into an...

I have a vivid memory from my first high-school cross country season. Late in the race at the city championships, I caught up to the top runner on my team and tucked in behind him, elated that I was doing so well. But after a few hundred meters, I glanced behind me and realized that a few other runners were gaining on us. We needed to accelerate! But my teammate wasn’t responding. I started to panic, and I remember reaching a hand out to give him a friendly but impatient shove in the small of the back. Then I had a brainwave. I could just pass my teammate. I swung wide and started sprinting. My friend responded in kind, and we pulled away from our pursuers. But I still remember those brief moments when I was frozen in limbo, unable to conceive of the possibility of breaking out of my position in the team pecking order. Mice feel the same way, apparently. There’s a fascinating new study in Nature , from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, that looks at the role of social ...

The not-so-small acts of kindness stuck out to Luke Konson and Daniel Balserak. Local anglers shared priceless intel about how to catch their state’s official fish and, Konson says, “Got us onto spots we had no business being.” In Hawaii, a family let the two borrow their minivan to get around the island, and a sailor offered the teenage boys a place to stay. Trying to catch channel catfish in Iowa, they pulled into a Raising Cane’s restaurant for directions and met a man who recognized them from a story in a local paper. He’d read about their mission to catch the state fish in every U.S. state. He wished them luck, then handed them $200. A fishing guide in Alaska donated time and resources. A governor honored them at the state capitol. Once, they were stuck on a snowy pass in New Mexico, without cell service and 20 miles from the nearest town, when a guy in a four-wheel-drive Jeep reversed back up the mountain and towed them to safety. And during one of their lowest moments, strand...

Welcome to Tough Love . We’re answering your questions about dating, breakups, and everything in between. Our advice giver is Blair Braverman , dogsled racer and author of Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube . Have a question of your own? Write to us at  toughlove@outsideinc.com . My friend since elementary school is shopping for a trip, so I went with her to visit a store to help her find supplies. While we were there, she was looking at tents, and I looked around more generally. At one point she came over to me, and showed me a tent that was packed in a bag. She said “This is the green two-person tent, right?” It seemed like she was confused about the label. I wasn’t paying much attention, but it was green and it seemed like the right size so I said yes.  She bought the tent and we got in her car. As soon as we started driving she started laughing. It took me a few minutes to realize that she had switched the price stickers on two tents in order to get a more expensive tent ...

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Outdoor Retailer was our industry’s indispensable event. Twice annually, more than 20,000 people crowded into the trade show, wandering a vast grid of booths that displayed companies’ top-secret coming attractions—racks of impossibly light down parkas, cases of glittering climbing hardware, and gadgets like stoves that charge a smartphone with a twig fire. The national media reported breathlessly on next year’s gear and shop owners and employees rubbed elbows with outdoor celebrities like Alex Honnold and Bear Grylls and partied at corporate shindigs featuring bands like Parliament Funkadelic and Macklemore. Beyond the gear bacchanal, Outdoor Retailer was instrumental in growing the industry’s conscience. Dozens of conservation and equity nonprofits rallied support at the show, and the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), which has been the show’s title sponsor for over 25 years, grew from a trade-issues lobbying group into a more forceful advocate for pu...

What’s your worst outdoor fear? Is it being stalked by a mountain lion or chased by a grizzly bear ? Perhaps it’s being buried in an avalanche , or running out of food and water deep in the wilderness. My worst outdoor fear is far less adventurous but way more disgusting. I’m terrified of the lowly trailhead toilet; specifically, I worry I might somehow fall into one and land on the mountain of human waste rising from below. I always assumed this anxiety was irrational and unfounded, until I read this story about a woman in Washington State who plummeted headfirst into a trailhead toilet last Tuesday. The woman, described as in her mid-forties, was visiting the Mount Walker hiking trail on Olympic Peninsula when she entered one of the pit toilets and accidentally dropped her phone down the bowl. I hate to pass judgement, but no Instagram video or brilliant tweet would convince me to do what she did next: rather than cut bait on the device, the woman attempted multiple methods to ...

Last week’s Boston Marathon sparked yet another debate about shoe tech in professional running . This time, the question wasn’t whether super shoes were undermining cherished notions of competitive fairness, but whether pro runners are being forced to choose between getting the best possible sponsorship deal and maximizing their chances of success by retaining the freedom to race in their preferred shoe. This has been framed as a choice between financial security and “betting on yourself.” In Boston, Scott Fauble and Nell Rojas were the fastest Americans in the men’s and women’s races, running PRs of 2:08:52 and 2:25:57, respectively. Both athletes had recently opted out of their sponsorship contracts and were running unattached; Fauble decided not to renew his relationship with Hoka late last year, while Rojas had ended her contract with Adidas prior to Boston after only a few months with the brand. Fauble maintained that his decision was based on the fact that he had hit a plate...

For the better part of two years, after I finished hiking the Appalachian Trail and tried ( and repeatedly failed ) to return to running, the lower half of my right leg became a medical battlefield. I went to physical therapists and massage therapists, general practitioners and osteopaths, surgeons and shrinks, asking them all why I was in so much pain. With me as a proxy, this slew of professionals fought over exactly why the inside of my shin and ankle felt like a tender tree branch about to snap in a strong wind.  Some jabbed me with dry needles or jerked at my joints. Others authorized X-rays or ordered elaborate shoe inserts. Still others dug into trigger points with their fingers or ground soft tissue with what looked like medieval torture instruments . From time to time, my terrible pain—imagine being stabbed with a pencil in the meat just between your shin and calf until the feeling radiates downward, across the ankle, and beneath the big toe—would relent. But ...

Alternating bouts of jogging and walking, Thomas Puzey —widely known as “Tommy Rivs” or simply “Rivs”—made his way along Boylston Street toward the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 18. Flashing a wide smile and waving to the crowd, the Arizona-based runner celebrated his return to the site of his fastest marathon. Five years ago, Puzey ran the race of his life here, averaging 5:17 per mile as he covered the hilly course in 2:18:20 to place 16th overall. This year, he utilized a run-walk method throughout and averaged just under 15 minutes per mile, reaching the finish line in 6:31:54. Officially, he was 24,799th out of 24,918 finishers. Few, however, covered the course with as much joy and gratitude or received so much support and goodwill. The 37-year-old is a far different runner now than he was in 2017, after a near-death battle with an aggressive form of lung cancer. “I know I am one of the lucky ones, to still be alive,” he says. This time around, Puzey’s 26.2-mile...