Outside Podcast
Outside Podcast is an audio extension of Outside magazine's long-form storytelling. It features a range of story formats, from reports by correspondents in the field to interviews with major figures in sports, adventure, and the outdoors. The show started in 2016 with the series Science of Survival and has since expanded to cover various topics. It aims to entertain and inform listeners with high-quality narrative journalism.
Episodes
Long Read: What Really Happened During the Broad Peak Avalanche
Today's Long Read with Outside Magazine Features Editor, Fred Drier, reveals the magnitude and devastating impact of the recent tragedy on Broad Peak, in the Karakoram Range between Pakistan and China. The 26,414-foot mountain is considered one of the challenging in the region, and 10 lives lost make it the deadliest high-alpine avalanche in more than a decade. Outside's Mount Everest corresponden
Seeing Your Adventures Get the Hollywood Treatment, with Peter Heller
When Peter Heller moved to the Rocky Mountains, he arrived ready to split his time between paddling rivers and penning stories. What began with a shot-in-the-dark cold call led to a career in adventure journalism. Peter’s award winning body of work saw him on assignment in some of the most dramatic and extreme locales around the globe. And these stories in turn became the foundation for his New Y
Long Read! Seagulls Terrorized Ocean City, So Ocean City Fought Back
Today's Long Read with Outside Magazine Features Editor, Fred Drier, is for anyone who's done battle with snack-hunting seagulls on a beach trip this summer. Writer Andrew Zaleski tells the tale of how one beach community—Ocean City, NJ—got so fed up with the gulls dive bombing its guests, it decided to respond with the big guns: Birds of prey. Come take a walk on the Jersey Shore, with the falcon
Why You Should (And Shouldn’t) Meet Your Heroes, with Heather Hansman
When it comes to the GOATs of outdoorsy heroes, who do you think of first? Chances are it’s not Grand Canyon rafting legend Georgie White, groundbreaking author and Adirondack wilderness guide Anne LaBastille, and backcountry powder-skiing trailblazer Dolores LaChapelle. And author Heather Hansman wants to change that. Her new book, “Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited Ame
Long Read! In Search of Michelle Vanek: Part 2
Today's Long Read with Outside Magazine Features Editor, is Part 2 of one of the most read articles in Outside's history: the story of the only hiker to eve rdie while seeking the summit of central colorado's most famous 14er. Ted Katauskas, a member of the search team that finally recovered her remains 19 years later, investigates who she was and what we can all learn from her death before our ow
How to Act Like a Crime-Solving National Park Ranger, with Tracy Spiridakos
When you watch a movie or TV show in which an actor portrays a skier or biker or climber or…whatever-er, do you believe them? Whether or not they can convincingly descend/ascend a mountain or a wall or a tree is often the difference between success and failure for shows set in the wilderness. Luckily for the brand new USA Network show, “Anna Pigeon”, veteran TV actress and outdoorswoman Tracy Spir
Long Read! In Search of Michelle Vanek: Part 1
Today's Long Read with Outside Magazine Features Editor, Fred Drier, is Part 1 of one of the most read articles in Outside's history: the story of the only hiker ever to die while seeing the summit of central Colorado's most famous 14er. Ted Katauskas, a member of the search team that finally recovered her remains 19 years later, investigates who she was and what we can all learn from her death be
Why You Should Take Your Grandma Camping, with Brad Ryan
Surely you know someone who has eaten the most nachos at apres. Maybe you have the fastest Strava segment on your local lunch loop bike ride. But if you’re aiming for a truly impressive outdoorsy goal, you’ll need more than quad strength to pull it off. Take Brad Ryan for example: Brad’s best known as one half of the viral duo “Grandma Joy’s Road Trip.” Brad and his grandmother, Joy Ryan, v
Long Read! Bears Keep Attacking People in Japan. We Traveled There to Find Out Why
Today's Long Read with Outside Magazine Features Editor Fred Drier, is about an issue you may have seen on social media or in the news: In Japan, bears have been attacking humans at an alarming rate. They attacked more than 100 people in 2025 alone, prompting the Japanese government to send the military to parts of the country to protect towns and villages.
We first saw news stories pop up about
Our Connection With the Ocean Goes Deeper Than You Think, with Kevin Dawson
It’s August, it’s hot, and everyone is dreaming of some beach time. But it’s not just the dog days of summer that pulls us to the ocean. It has a draw on all of us. Today, to celebrate that draw, we’re replaying one of our favorite episodes. Historian Kevin Dawon, a professor at UC Merced, has been surfing for most of his life and spent his career investigating the rich tradition of African aquati
Long Read! Low Water, No Problem. We Took a Packraft Down One of the Most Remote Rivers in the West
This week's Long Read, with Outside Magazine Features Editor Fred Drier, follows Owen Clark's journey down the Lower Owyhee River in Eastern Oregon. The trip was notable because it occurred during the river's lowest point of the year. Rather than using traditional rafts, the group used pack rafts—inflatable crafts made to navigate even the lowest streams.
It turns out, that Clark's tour was a ha
When You Think About it, Why Does Anyone Run at All? With Abby Levene
If you’re listening to this podcast, you have likely jogged before. Maybe you’ve even run a Turkey Trot or local 5K. Suffice to say, you know that running is a time-consuming, physically exhausting sweaty mess. And yet, more people than ever are lacing up and taking to the trails right now. Which begs the question: Why?! Well, according to Abby Levene, the Managing Editor of the newly revamped Tra
Long Read! Hot Pools, Waterslides, and Cocktails: Inside the New Supersized Spas
This week's Long Read feature story, with Outside Magazine's Features Editor Fred Drier, follows writer Bill Gifford as he explores a European company called Therme, which is turning wellness concepts like hot springs, saunas, and cold plunges into gigantic destinations that look like bewildering mashups of spas, cruise ships, and casinos. They're already popular throughout Europe, and, now, Therm
It’s True, Boating the Grand Canyon Will Change Your Life, with Steve Kenney
Steve Kenny has spent nearly three decades rowing boats and has the rippling shoulders and permanent tan to prove it. But under his ZZ Top-length beard, weather-battered Hawaiian shirt, and woman’s skirt he often sports, Steve is a lot more than an ace boatman. He’s a poet with a recently published collection of work—Scribblins: Poetry from Mountains, Deserts, and Rivers—and he had three careers b
Long Read! 40 Years, Zero Kills. We Spent a Weekend with Colorado's Least-Successful Elk Hunter
It's Saturday, which means it's time for another Long Read, with Outside Magazine's Features Editor, Fred Drier.
This week's story is "40 Years, Zero Kills. We Spent a Weekend with Colorado's Least Successful Elk Hunter", by Devon O'Neill.
This story profiles a guy named Carl Cochiarella, a dedicated Colorado bow hunter who, despite his best efforts, hasn't ever killed an elk with a bow and ar
LIVE! Proof That World-Feeding Chef José Andrés is an Actual Superhero
Today, we are taking you back to the Ideas Stage of this year’s Outside Days festival in Denver. Outside’s media GM, Mary-Frances Heck (a James Beard Award winner herself) interviews chef and humanitarian José Andrés. José is an award-winning chef. Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to eat at one of his 40 restaurants around the globe. José doesn’t just cook up tasty vittles in his restaurants though
Long Read! To Hold His Breath for 24 Minutes, a Freediver Learned to Turn Off His Brain
It's Saturday, which means it's time for another Long Read, with Outside Magazine's Features Editor, Fred Drier.
This week on the podcast, we have a story titled The Man Who Held His Breath for 24 Minutes, written by Sean Williams. This story was published in October of 2025.
The story focuses on a Croatian freediver named Budimir Sobat and the amazing transformation he went through in order to
Don’t Worry, the Yellowstone Super Volcano Won’t Kill Us All, with Ben Bradford
There are plenty of spooky things out there to make your palms extra sweaty: brown recluse bites, a flat tire in the backcountry, what to do when folks sing “Happy Birthday.” But things like climate change, nuclear war, or any other number of human world enders have a special way of keeping us up at night. In his new show, “Are We Doomed?”, journalist Ben Bradford explores the existential threats
Long Read! 32 Hours, 135 Miles, and 118 Degrees: What It Takes to Crew the Hardest Race on Earth
Check out the new Long Reads, now with a real human voice! Outside Magazine Featured Editor Fred Drier is here to spin a tale about ultrarunning grit, determination, and transcendence ... and we're not even talking about the competitors.
You may have heard about the Badwater 135. It's a running race that starts at the depths of Death Valley and goes all the way up to the trailhead at Mount Whitn
LIVE! Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien on How the Welsh Countryside Saved His Soul
Ed O’Brien is a songwriter and guitarist best known for his work with Radiohead, one of the most influential bands of the past three decades. What Ed isn’t known for—at least not until now—is the crushing mental health challenges he faced during the COVID pandemic. That “dark night of the soul,” as he refers to it, was only relieved by a re-ordering of his life around the Welsh countryside, where
PaddyO’s in the Hot Seat in Our First Ever Mailbag
A few months back, we asked you to send us any and all the questions you have on what it takes to create a weekly podcast about the surprising impacts of a life outside. And, dear listener, you sent in some stellar inquiries. Today, angry Care Bear co-producer Micah Abrams is flipping on his mic and turning the tables on host PaddyO. Micah acts as your proxy, asking PaddyO your questions. Ever wo
How to Deal With a Shark (and Other Wildlife Lessons), with Pippa Ehrlich
Even people who are uncomfortable getting in above their waist can be transformed by the ocean. But most of us connect with being on the water, not under it. What lies beneath our oceans is closer to another planet than anything on land, and the intrepid few who feel at home in this alien world are more like astronauts than typical outdoors folk. Filmmaker and diver Pippa Ehrlich is one of these a
Why Raw Cookie Dough is Worse Than Cooked Possum, with Andrew Zimmern
If you’re a fan of food TV, you’ve probably seen chef and TV host Andrew Zimmern, whose hit show “Bizarre Foods” ran for 13 seasons and had him eating everything from guinea pigs to clotted cow’s blood. Andrew has made a career following the rumble in his belly—and a love of fishing and hunting—on way-out-there adventures in places like Madagascar and Colombia. Before his big break on TV, Andre
Are You a “Struggle Runner”? With Mrs. Space Cadet (aka Erin Azar)
Chances are you have a storage space, garage, car trunk, and slash or cornucopia of plastic bins double stuffed with outdoor gear; anything and everything you need to get outside and get rad. But the most valuable piece of gear is something you can’t buy at your local shop: a sense of humor. Professional struggle runner Erin Azar knows this all too well. Erin is a runner and social media personal
BONUS! I Traced an Anthropologist's Deadly Obsession with the Dark World of Kanaima
Do you have opinions about our use of automated voices on the Long Reads episodes? Tell us!
https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8881338/11781bd91e29
Every now and then, the writers at Outside discover a story that is set in the outdoors, but is about something much, much larger—sometimes these stories are about universal truths or paradigm-shifting discoveries. And sometimes, they cross into areas t
All Gas No Brakes Adventure, with Comedian Brooks Wheelan
Sandbagging is a right of passage in adventure. When a pal or significant other deliberately undersells the difficulty or intensity of an adventure in order to convince you to join, despite the fact that you’re either new to the sport in question or woefully under-trained slash unprepared for the outing, has a special way of pushing you out of your comfort zone and revealing that we are pretty tou
BONUS! Death on Shishapangma
Howdy pals. It’s Saturday, which means it’s time for another Long Read podcast from the Outside Archive.
Tragic endings are all too common in the Himalaya, but the 2024 deaths of Anna Gutu and Gina Rzucidlo on the relatively obscure Tibetan mountain Shishapangma resonated beyond the cloistered world of 8,000-meter climbing. The two women died in separate avalanches on the same day, raising troub
Vermonters are Tough; Adaptive Vermonters are Even Tougher, With Allie Bianchi
We will look for all sorts of things to fuel our adventures: the new electrolyte drink mix, the fancy sport goo, any and every type of futuristic gear. But mostly the best thing to get us outside is already inside of us in the form of a good old fashioned eff this attitude. Allie Bianchi grew up in the gritty Vermont outdoor community. A skier, hiker, mountain biker, no matter the weather or circu
Bonus! Want to Climb Mount Everest? The Training May Leave You Breathless
Howdy pals. It’s Saturday, which means it’s time for another Long Read podcast from the Outside Archive.
We assume, dear listener, that you find Mount Everest interesting. We assume that because, over the decades, many of our most popular articles and podcasts have been about the world’s tallest mountain, and the fascination it inspires in climbers and non-climbers alike. And today’s Long Read p
Cracking Open the Outdoors (And Maybe Spacetime) Through Sculpture, with Cannupa Hanska Luger
Unless you grew up inside a tumbleweed, chances are you remember your outdoorsy firsts. The first time your dad took you hiking, the time your mom helped you reel in your first fish, the first big family camp out or ski trip or the road trip to your first National Park. But there are those special few whose connection to the outdoors predates every single memory, folks like artist Cannupa Hanksa
Bonus! The Great Bedrock Clog Heist
It’s Saturday, which means it’s time for another Long Read podcast from the Outside Archive.
Today’s story combines two things that you don’t expect to go well together but wind up really working, like peanut butter and cucumbers (try it, seriously). In this case, those two things are cool camp footwear and … international grand larceny? Writer Scott Yorko tells the unlikely story of how Bedrock
The Unexpected Ultrarunning/Rock and Roll Connection, with Ben Gibbard
The Outside Days festival Denver is coming up fast, and you should come! If you need further convincing, check out one of our favorite episodes from the vault, which just so happens to feature the frontman for festival headliner Death Cab For Cutie: Ben Gibbard. The singer, songwriter, and guitarist applies the same approach to ultramarathons that he does to touring: just keep moving. Ben got into
BONUS! Why Does Yellowstone National Park Turn Us All into Maniacs?
Howdy folks. PaddyO here with a special treat: We’re going to be sharing some of our favorite feature stories from Outside Magazine and Outside Online every Saturday. We call these our “Long Reads,” and they’re the kind of eye-opening, sometimes heart-pounding, always inspiring-you-to-go-outside storytelling Outside has done for decades. Think of it as a weekend couch read type thing, but one you
How a Normal(ish) Woman Got To The South Pole Unsupported, with Monet Izabeth
We love our spur of the moment adventuring. Maybe a pal calls us up for a self-inflicted, day-long backcountry sufferfest, maybe we decide on a whim to see how many miles we can push it on a bike ride, maybe we sign up for a Turkey Trot 10k with no training. But there is one woman who has taken that “maybe I’ll get off the couch and just try this hard thing” mindset to the ends of the Earth. Lite
How Running Can Heal Your Body, Mind, and Community, with Anthony Clary
Endurance running is objectively terrible: the immediate quad and lung burn, the myth of runner’s high, the blisters, the chafing—running is brutal. And yet, there are brief moments when running can make you feel strong, capable, and proud. Just ask Anthony Clary. After a college football career, Anthony began running following a terrifying prediabetic diagnosis. But what started as a health scare
What a Healthy Relationship With Your Phone Looks Like, with Catherine Price
We use our smartphones in service of our outdoor time all the time. We plan trips, track our runs, hikes, and bike rides. Use compass and mapping apps to better navigate outdoor fun. We take photos and videos of our adventures, archive these precious memories in our Favorites folder. And if that’s all we used our phones for? Well, then we’d be happier and society would function better. Unfortunate
LIVE! Matt Lyons, Katie Burell, & Eland Stribling On Why The Outdoors Are A Joke (From Outside Days)
In the runup to the third annual Outside Days festival in Denver, Colorado, at the end of May, we’re revisiting a panel that podcast host PaddyO moderated—or rather tried to moderate—while stand up comic Eeland Stribling, Instagram and TikTok phenomenon Matt Lyons, and the new host of the Warren Miller ski and snowboard film Katie Burrell, riffed on the endless ways we can poke fun at our outdoors
The Joys and Wonders of Never Leaving Your Campsite, with Rolland Tizuela
Hot Take: We should camp for camping’s sake! If you’re anything like me, your camping is often (always?) in service of some greater objective, whether it’s a backpacking trip or mountain you’re climbing or a weekend of mountain biking. But are those objectives actually greater than simply hanging out under the clouds and stars for a few days? Campthropologist’s Rolland Tizuela doesn’t think so. Th
The Lifelong Benefits of Uprooting and Moving to Santa Fe with Katie Arnold
Every great character has a captivating origin story—the thing that explains not just the how but also the why of who they are. Santa Fe’s Katie Arnold is a great character: a writer, ultra runner, and Zen practitioner who rattles off insights about running, adventure, and the outdoors the way most of us rattle off to do lists. And her origin story is a classic: gal graduates college into a big ci
Anniversary Special!!! - Why Outdoorsy People Are The Funniest People, With Scott Losse
Today we are celebrating one year of PaddyO as host of the new interview format of your beloved Outside Podcast. We’ve got some big plans for this next year, and to commemorate the occasion we are revisiting one of our (and your) favorite chats. Enjoy this conversation with standup comedian and snowboarder Scott Losse. And thank you for tuning in! …
An interesting thing happened when Scott Losse
Where Surfing Ends and Music Begins, with Third Eye Blind’s Stephan Jenkins
In the mid-90s, the cultural collision of music and sports was everywhere in pop culture. You saw it through the brand new X Games and MTV Sports, in movies like “Point Break” and “Airborne,” and you heard it through what we used to call “alternative rock.” The band Third Eye Blind was a staple of this era, so you’d think that frontman Stephan Jenkins might have followed a similar trajectory to hi
Awe, and the Scientific Proof that the Outdoors is Good For Your Brain, with Dr. Paul Piff
You’re on a hike and the faff of daily life won’t stop clanging around your head. Then, all of a sudden, the to-do list instantly evaporates when you notice dappled light dancing on the trail. Calm sweeps over you and you’re filled with a great sense of connection and gratitude. This is the phenomenon of awe and it’s not just an ooey-gooey feeling; it’s a new area of scientific study. Just ask soc
The Joy (and Agony) of Skiing, Surfing, and Climbing in the Dead of Night, with Chris Benchetler
Outdoor folks love to push themselves to go farther, faster, higher, etc., and there’s a good reason for it: When you climb a big mountain or finish that half marathon or ski that steep run, it can translate into a confidence that makes hard things in the rest of our lives seem less daunting. But most of us are just as—or maybe more—familiar with the feeling of talking ourselves out of big goals,
What a Chill Adventure Looks Like to the ‘Free Solo’ Guy, with Alex Honnold
“Chill”, “mellow”, and “relaxed” are probably not words you think of when you hear about the latest climbing feat from Alex Honnold. ”Terrified” and “mesmerized” likely better describe what it felt like watching live as the ropeless wonder scaled the 1,667-foot Taipei 101 skyscraper. So you might be surprised to learn that Alex recently did something else for the TV camera that was, in fact, pret
Life Lessons Learned Hanging Off a 2,600-Foot Cliff For 9 Days, with Sasha DiGiulian
Big wall climbing is about as relatable as space travel to the average human. To whit: When Sasha DiGiulian and her partner Elliot Faber attempted the audacious Platinum route, they planned to spend 15 days on the massive wall. Then, 2,600 feet up, a freak winter storm pinned them inside their tiny portaledge tents for nine full days. But just because Sasha has the skill to get herself into that b
What You Can Learn From the Biggest Failure in Endurance Sports, with Epic Bill Bradley
In the 1980s and 90s, Bill Bradley was a video rental mogul. At his peak, he had stores all over Santa Rosa, California, was worth millions of dollars, and was seen as an industry innovator. That's probably why he was dismissive when a little company called Netflix appeared and proceeded to lay waste to the entire video rental industry. In a whiplash-inducing turn of events, Bill lost everything—
Connecting to Your Animal Self Through Fly Fishing, with April Vokey
April Vokey turned a gift for fishing into a career as a guide, a TV personality, a podcast host, and the founder of an online community and education platform under the brand name Anchored. This gift set the direction of her life as a teenager, and it helped her after a drunk driver nearly killed her in her 20s. It’s powerful stuff, but possibly less powerful than April’s other gift: the gift of
Losing Your Leg and Finding Your Calling, with Paralympian Brenna Huckaby
If you’ve ever felt like forces beyond your control have grabbed the wheel of your life’s metaphorical car and are driving like a lunatic, there are no shortage of purported experts who claim to have the solution. Meditation, journaling, throwing away your possessions, saunas, ice baths, saunas then ice baths … it’s overwhelming. So here’s a different tip: ignore all that and take a cue from Brenn
Raising Fearless Kids Who Won’t Give You a Heart Attack, with Jeremy Jones
There’s no guarantee that your kids will be into the same things you’re into, so Jeremy Jones knows he’s lucky to have two who froth as hard about snowboarding as he does. But what do you do when your kids want to literally follow in your tracks, even though those tracks go down some of the biggest and most technically challenging lines in the history of the sport? Jeremy is a consensus pick for o
LIVE! Selema Masekela, Mike de la Rocha, Douglas Miles, and James Andrews on Love and Masculinity (Outside Festival)
These days, traditional definitions of masculinity are in tension with the need for a more expansive understanding of how to be a man in the world. This is as true in the outdoors as anywhere, but the natural world also offers unique paths for men, toward emotional liberation, connection, and strength. For today’s episode, we dipped into our archive from last year’s Outside Festival (which is now
Being Hunted by Lions While Totally Naked, with Reality TV Star Max Djenohan
Survivalist Max Djenohan sees your ultralight backpacking rig and chuckles. An eight-time contestant and fan favorite on the peak reality TV show “Naked and Afraid,” Max says roughing it with nothing more than a knife and a firestarter is both thrilling and gratifying in ways that belie the somewhat absurdist and lurid motivation for the show itself. In some ways, his run on the show revived his f
OLYMPICS PREVIEW: Thriving Under Pressure with Jessie Diggins
The Olympics is a ridiculous mixture of hit-you-straight-in-the-feels origin stories and Greek god-level athletic prowess. Even in the endless parade of epic performances it inevitably serves up, Jessie Diggins’ will likely stand out. The most decorated American crosscountry skier of all time, Jessie was one of the most thrilling moments in Olympic history when she and teammate Kikkan Randall won
OLYMPICS PREVIEW: Why Winning a Gold Medal Wasn’t What I Expected, with Nick Goepper
The comeback is central to the mythology of sports, and when one plays out on the already mythic stage of the Olympics, athletes in relatively obscure sports can become legends. That’s the context in which halfpipe skier Nick Goepper finds himself as the U.S. Ski Team prepares to name its Olympians next week. An unlikely ski phenom from Indiana, who first drew attention in the park of his 400-vert
HOLIDAY SPECIAL: The Magical Connection Between Skiing and Food, With Cody Townsend
Adventuring outside is great for the beauty, the sense of awe, the fitness, but really…we’re all in it for the snacks. And no one chases down the munchies quite like skiers. Maybe you’ve seen a snowy wiggler pull a bratwurst out of a jacket pocket while on a chairlift. Maybe you yourself have devoured a towering plate of loaded tatter tots at apres. There’s just something about scarfing oodles of
Pack Rafting, “Hell Biking”, and Other Alaskan Sufferfests, with Roman Dial
Roman Dial is engaged in a five-decade exploration of Alaska by raft, mountain bike, and foot … but not trail. Over the course of locally legendary adventures like his 800-mile traverse of the Brooks Range and the 628 miles he once hiked with a single backpack’s worth of food and gear, Dial was forced to invent new means of transport, like the pack raft and a form of bushwack mountain biking calle
What Scares the Woman Who Skis the World’s Hairiest Lines, with Christina Lustenberger
Even those of us who seek freedom and adventure in the wilderness are hardwired to keep themselves safe. It’s why we, as a species, outlasted the dodo and reached the top of the food chain. But there is a subset of outdoor athletes who seem to have found the genetic safety switch in their mitochondria and turned it off—folks like ski alpinist Christina Lustenberger. Lusti, as her superhuman friend
When the Outdoors is Bad For Your Mental Health, with Cory Richards
When the mountains grab ahold of your heart, they have a way of directing your life, even becoming a keystone of your identity. But what happens when you associate your time adventuring outside with the lowest points in your life? Can you retire from the outdoors? That’s exactly what photographer and mountaineer Cory Richards did. You may have heard Cory’s story: after nearly two decades of first
Thanksgiving Special: The Wild, Weird, and Sketchy World of Truffle Hunting
Something funky this way comes. All over the world, deep inside dark forests, hunters tip toe in secret for a wildly expensive delicacy: truffles. The aromatic fungi grows underground, tethered to tree roots, and is exceptionally difficult to find—which is why specially trained dogs are needed to sniff them out, and they’re worth their weight in gold. As it turns out, the truffle business is not t
What Rock Climbing Teaches Us About Balance in Real Life, with Kai Lightner
If you’ve ever been bucked off your mogul line, stuffed a front bike tire, caught a toe on a rock, or collapsed the leg of a camp chair, you know that to go outside is to have an intense relationship with balance. But recovering physical balance is a lot easier than emotional balance. Just ask climber and balance Jedi Kai Lightner. Kai has been a climbing savant since he scaled a 50-foot flagpole
The Ancient Roots of Exploration, with Paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi
Have you ever wondered why you feel a pull to go for that grueling trail run or long bike ride or demanding backcountry ski? We have an innate need for adventure, but why? According to paleoanthropologist and evolutionary biologist Ella Al-Shamahi, it’s in our DNA. Ella’s years of Paleolithic study focuses on the first humans and how they behaved—everything from community building to tool evolutio
Why You Might Consider Jumping Out of a Plane, with Alexey Galda
They say it’s not the fall that gets ya, it’s the landing. Fear of falling, or smacking one’s face onto the cold hard earth, is an innate human emotion. Even for athletes who’ve spent a lifetime climbing mountains, traversing sheer cliffs, balancing on knife-edge ridgelines, this fear never disappears. And that’s why folks who paraglide, speedfly, and skydive are both fascinating and confounding.
Why Adventure is a Form of Art, With Ski Touring Legend John King
In 1978, skier and kinetic artist John King, along with two pals, set out on a singular and epic adventure: a backcountry ski tour from Durango, Colorado to the Medicine Bow Range near Fort Collins. Over six weeks, the trio skied 490 miles, climbed 65,000 vertical feet. They finished gaunt and sun cooked, with boots held together by tape. Their route influenced the design of the Colorado Trail and
What You Learn About People by Paddling From Ottawa to NYC, with Dan Rubinstein
Chitchatting is a natural part of any adventure you do with a pal—what else are you gonna do around a campfire or sitting on the tailgate at a trailhead or going for a long walk in the woods? But most of us don’t set out on a journey for the sole purpose of talking with strangers. That’s exactly what writer and standup paddleboarder Dan Rubinstein did. Over 11 weeks, he paddled 1,200 miles from hi
The Most Insane Event in Mountain Biking is About to Happen, with the Pinkbike Podcast
For most of us, mountain biking is a great way to get into the outdoors, get a workout, get an adrenaline rush, and hopefully avoid losing any skin or breaking a collarbone. For the mountain bikers of Red Bull’s annual Rampage contest, mountain biking is a means of defining the limits of human performance and fear tolerance. Every year, these men and women gather on a sprawling ridgeline near Zion
Outdoor Adventure and the Art of Self Reliance, with Nick Offerman
Ruggedness, dependability, and handiness define a lot of outdoor archetypes, from the ski patroller to the river guide to the park ranger. So why would you find all three in a famous actor? Maybe because the actor in question—Nick Offerman—is an avid outdoorsman in his own right. Surely you know Nick from one of his many memorable roles, like Ron Swanson on Parks And Recreation and General Sidney
What the Ocean Teaches You About Perseverance, with Chad Nelsen
Many outdoorsy folks will happily slog for hours toward outdoor fun, despite the fact that any number of adventure derailing smackdowns await us. Gear malfunctions, crummy weather, and bloodied limbs don’t stop us from heading into the unknown. No one puts this optimistic persistence to better use than lifelong surfer and CEO of the Surfrider Foundation, Chad Nelsen. Chad grew up in smog-choked La
The Unexpected Benefits of Chopping Wood, with Nicole Coenen
Wood chopping is objectively awful for all the obvious reasons: blisters, back aches, over-the-counter painkiller expenses. But that’s not what you remember months later, when the fruits of your labor warm you and your loved ones on a cold winter night. See, wood chopping is really an investment—both in terms of that crackling fire, but also your emotional well being. That is something Nicole Coe
What You Learn Running Toward, Rather Than Away, From a Tornado, With Pecos Hank
Spend time outdoors, and you’ll eventually spend time in brutal, even scary weather. Dangerous winds, flash flood-inducing rain, and vision-erasing whiteouts are sometimes the cost of entry. By the same token, you’re as likely to remember the upsides to those experience—the belly laughter of relief, the rainbows after the rain, the waist deep powder—as the scary parts. Hank Schyma, aka Pecos Hank,
Running as Art, With Olympian and Filmmaker Alexi Pappas
Extreme adaptability and versatility can be found throughout the animal kingdom, but may have found their peak expression in Alexi Pappas. As a runner, Pappas was a two-time All-American for Dartmouth who set a national record running for Greece at the 2016 Olympics. As a performer, she was a member of Dartmouth’s gut-busting Dog Day improv group before going on to write, direct, and star in sever
Running Toward Love, with Lawlor Coe and Family
After Lawlor Coe lost his brother Hunter to tragedy, he did everything he could to avoid his pain. Then he laced up his joggers and began to run. At first, it was to elude his grief. But over time, as he began to log miles and miles, he found that the physical suffering he was enduring out on the trail helped him find his way to peace, and then back to joy. He was no longer running from his sorrow
African Surfing and the Ocean as a Source of Joy, with Professor Kevin Dawson
The blissed out, swell chasing surfer with a single-minded focus on the next great ride is a pervasive outdoorsy archetype that’s completely at odds with the lived experience of many surfers. Take historian Kevin Dawon, a professor at UC Merced, for whom surfing serves as his connection to a rich tradition of African aquatic culture. Dawson is credited with resurfacing the first account of surfing
What Life in the Grand Canyon Tells Us About Life Everywhere Else, With Cindell Dale
We love our outdoor archetypes, the folk heroes who reject the trappings of the 9 to 5 life and solely focus on the trail, the powder turn, or the frothing whitewater. River guides live a romantic sunburnt existence, ones in which bucket list adventures are their everyday. It’s not just their ability to read water and navigate huge standing waves day after day, but their spiritual connection to th
What’s Harder Than the Ironman World Championship, with Chelsea Sodaro
We love our stories of human endurance, from Shackleton’s famed expedition to the 11-hour Wimbledon match to days-long ultramarathons. Hell, even the Coney Island Hot Dog eating contest is broadcast on television; that’s just how much we celebrate a person pushing themselves to the brink. But the moments that inspire the most are the ones in which a solo athlete has spent everything physically and
Recreating Hollywood’s Greatest, Dumbest Road Trip Of All Time, with Zack Courts and Ari Henning
In celebration of summertime road trips, this week we’re revisiting an episode from our archives that is one of PaddyO’s favorites. In 2021, two men set out to do something seemingly impossible. And also pretty dumb. Motorcycle gurus and YouTube stars Zack Courts and Ari Henning would squeeze together, buttcrack to belt buckle, onto a minibike—a vehicle roughly the size of a children’s bicycle and
Getting Outside of the Hollywood Star Machine, with Tony Cavalero
Famous Hollywood actors aren’t outdoorsy, right? They’re too busy being…well, famous to enjoy the outdoors and certainly too fancy to listen to a podcast about the surprising impacts of a life outside, aren’t they? Turns out, HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones” star, Tony Cavalero, is a longtime listener of the Outside Podcast because he’s been obsessed with outdoor adventure since first donning a Boy
LIVE! To Alex Honnold, Fear Isn’t Real (From the Outside Festival)
Alex Honnold is the most accomplished and daring rock climber since the invention of the chalk bag. He grabbed global attention for his free solo ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, immortalized in the Academy Award®-winning documentary Free Solo. This monumental feat solidified his status as a superstar of the climbing community and a guru of staying calm in objectively terrifying sit
How (Literal) Pants-Wetting Anxiety Can Clarify Life, with Sierra Schlag
Throughout professional skier Sierra Schlag’s childhood, her Japanese heritage and cultural practices made her the target of racist bullying. Then, when she traveled to Japan to visit family as a child, and later as an adult, she was referred to as “Nisei”—a person born in North America whose parent(s) immigrated from Japan. She couldn’t make sense of being seen as white in Japan and Japanese in A
David Blaine and Diana Nyad on the Art of Endurance
For decades, legendary magician David Blaine has completed record-breaking stunts that defy the impossible: He has held his breath for more than 17 minutes, was buried alive for seven days, frozen alive for three days, fasted for 44 days, caught a bullet fired from a gun in his mouth, and so much more. In his new National Geographic series David Blaine: Do Not Attempt, he travels the planet to lea
Surfing The Waves Of The American Culture War, with David Litt
In 2020, David Litt, former senior speech writer to President Obama, moved from Washington DC to the Jersey Shore, and felt the need for a jolt of life amidst the pandemic. So he did what anyone would do: David decided he needed to learn to surf. As a sensible Yale-educated, New York Times best selling author, David knew he needed help. And that’s how he ended up bobbing in the ocean with someone
How To Walk Through—And Away From—A Digital World, with Craig Mod
Craig Mod may think in binary code, but he does so from the perspective of a visual artist. Mod is…well, a lot of things. He’s a writer, a photographer, and a digital media designer. And he’s likely influenced your life, even if you have never heard his name. Craig worked on massive digital platforms, like Medium and Flipboard, and has spent two decades as a tech start up consultant. But to make s
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