Southern Indiana Trails

Americans are spending less time outdoors, according to a 2019 Outdoor Foundation study  released on January 29. Nearly half of the U.S. population doesn’t participate in any outdoor recreation at all, and only 17.9 percent got out at least once a week in 2018. The result? One billion fewer hikes, climbs, rides, and other outdoor exursions in 2018 than in 2008. Even kids are staying inside. Children took part in 15 percent fewer outdoor activities in 2018 than they did six years before. The study suggests barriers like work, technology, and cost of entry prevent individuals from playing outside. “[The study] indicates that we’re becoming an indoor nation,” says Lise Aangeenbrug, the executive director of the Outdoor Foundation, the philanthropic extension of the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA). “People are missing out on the joy, learning, and community building that the outdoors can provide. Whether you bike, hike, ski, hunt, run, or fish, it’s a lost opportunity.” ...

Remember Hummer? General Motors canceled the truck brand at the peak of the real estate crisis in 2009, but now says it will return as an electric “super truck.” Only limited details are available, but with a claimed 1,000 horsepower and a 3.0 second 0-60 miles per hour figure, it looks like this thing is going to deserve that label.  “GMC’s all-electric super truck will generate remarkable metrics in terms of horsepower, torque, and acceleration, while providing incredible on- and off-road capability,” reads a short press release from the brand. “All of this is combined with the vastly reduced noise and zero emissions inherent in the operation of an electric vehicle.” General Motors produced SUVs under the Hummer brand from 1998 to 2009. As fuel prices soared and SUVs became symbolic of the excess, GM decided halted production for Hummer, but retained ownership of the brand and its intellectual property. Now, it appears that Hummer will be a model within the GMC bran...

We know snow season is well underway when the  Outside  gear team heads to Denver for the  Outdoor Retailer Winter Show . Our editors are on the show floor this week, sifting through thousands of the best upcoming products, to bring you the highlights, starting with our picks for Gear of Show. In this video,  Outside ’s Gear Guy walks through what we’re most excited to test out. Read the full article here .  by Emily Reed via Outside Magazine: All

Winter is the prime season for lots of fun activities: skiing, snowboarding, ice climbing , ice skating, curling, and sledding among them. But you’d rather not have fun. You’d rather keep running through the worst weather of the year—getting wet, getting cold, having your extremities go numb from cold and then electric with shooting pains when rewarmed, snot freezing inside your nose, breathing heavily in air so frigid you wonder if you’re doing permanent damage to your respiratory system, in constant fear of ripping knee ligaments from a hard slip on some ice. No one but you knows why you do it, but that’s OK, you fucking weirdo. To keep you running through the dark, cold, miserable, lonely, demoralizing, uncomfortable, and hopeless season that is winter, and to keep you as miserable, cold, and demoralized as possible while doing it, here are a few tips: First of all, stick with running, outdoors, even though you’ve heard of many reasonable cold-weather alternat...

More than 75 percent of Baja’s 3.3 million residents live in the northern cities of Tijuana and Ensenada . Much of the rest of the 55,366-square-mile peninsula—surrounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west coast and the Gulf of California on the east coast—is wide-open space, an increasing amount of which is becoming preserved as federal lands, private reserves, and community projects. In total there are more than 14 million acres of protected land and water, including seven national parks, like Sierra de San Pedro Mártir in northern Baja, where Picacho del Diablo, the peninsula’s highest peak, rises to 10,154 feet. The rocky hike to the top is rewarded with views of the Pacific and the Sea of Cortez. Mountain bikers can get in on ocean views, too, with an exponentially growing network of trails in the mountains surrounding La Paz, Todos Santos, and Los Cabos.  But Baja’s most celebrated feature is its 2,038 miles of jagged coastline , which courts surfers, stand-up...

Alpine touring bindings have evolved tremendously since the days when the only way to earn turns was tele skiing. From kingpins to the groundbreaking Shift , there are more options than ever, whether your priority is shedding weight or shredding hard. But none of them are particularly beginner-friendly. One thing that’s particularly tricky for first-time ski tourers to figure out: using heel risers.  These small pieces of metal at the back of any touring binding keep your foot more level on uphill inclines, to make each step forward more efficient and comfortable, much like walking up stairs. Most bindings offer two settings—low and high—which the skier manually flips between as the skin track grows steeper or eases back. The mechanisms are effective, but they do take a few seconds to adjust—on most models, you have to stop skinning, lift your heel, and flick the risers with your pole or adjust by hand in order to get them to move up or down....

To be honest, writing another “stretching is useless” article feels a little bit like spiking the football. A decade ago, whenever I wrote about evidence suggesting that traditional static stretching doesn’t have any obvious benefits and might even impair performance, I’d get a stream of angry messages upbraiding me for my ignorance. These days, the battle is over. No one is obsessed with touching their toes anymore. Or so I thought. But when I saw a new opinion piece  in Sports Medicine titled “The Case for Retiring Flexibility as a Major Component of Physical Fitness,” I couldn’t resist giving it a look. And one of the stats in the article caught my eye. According to a 2016 study  of 605 personal trainers in the U.S.—virtually all of whom had certifications from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) or the National Strength and Conditioning Association—80 percent of them still prescribed traditional static stretching to their clients. The battle’s not over a...