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Otter Chaos Continues! Surfboard-Chomping Sea Otter Returns After Mysterious...
Last summer, a sea otter known as 841 captured hearts, minds, and — occasionally — surfboards due to her tendency to chomp and then hijack the boards of Santa Cruz, California surfers. After a summer...
View ArticleExtreme Kayaker Bren Orton’s Body Found
More than two weeks after disappearing while kayaking Switzerland’s Melezza River, the body of talented and groundbreaking whitewater kayaker Bren Orton has been found, Swiss authorities have...
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Weekend Warm-Up: High-Level Skiers Balance Adventure and Family in ‘The Hagens’
Parenthood can be a bit of a dilemma. You want to provide your kids with a rich life, full of the things that make you, you. On the other hand, raising children often requires you to set those things...
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Flamingos, Spiders, and Other Animals Are Showing Up Where They’ve Never Been
Developing an amateur interest in naturalism means becoming intimately familiar with a particular ecosystem and drilling into what makes it tick. Think Aldo Leopold with his careful, obsessively...
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New Evidence That Bath’s Famous Waters Actually Prevent Disease
New research conducted at the site of the Roman baths in Bath, England, seems to back up the long-held belief that the waters there could do more than relieve achy joints and promote relaxation. They...
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Great Explorers: Jim Bridger
Here’s a recipe. Take one part larger-than-life figure, add two parts adventurous exploits, a dash of some of the most rugged country in the world, and salt liberally with the passage of time. That’s...
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What is Going On? Monolith Appears Outside Vegas, One of 200 Worldwide
On Gass Peak, just north of the valley where Las Vegas sparkles in the desert night, sits a mysterious shiny object. And nobody — including the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) — knows...
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Women Hold Up Better to Space Travel: Study
In news that’s no surprise to fans of all-time great sci-fi movies, a new study has found that women may better withstand the physical rigors of space flight than men. The study, conducted by a team...
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Old Maps Online: A Gateway to Hours of Historical Exploration
History and geography already make excellent bedfellows, but OldMapsOnline.org has taken the alliance one step further. The website is 50% map room of the Royal Geographical Society, 50% British...
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Great Explorers: Old Bill Williams
The humans who cast their eyes to far horizons and then set out to reach them are a special breed. It takes enormous physical and emotional fortitude to be an explorer. But what about spiritual...
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Travel Icon Lonely Planet Shutters China Operations
Even the longest journeys have to come to an end, and that end has arrived for one iconic travel brand’s time in China. Lonely Planet, the well-known publisher of travel guides and related content,...
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Weekend Warm-Up: Trail Running Every Mountain in Wales
Will Renwick is the first to tell you that he probably chose the wrong time of year to attempt a continuous trail run of every 600m+ peak in Wales. “[September] is very cold. The nights are very long,...
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‘Frog Saunas’ Could Help Combat Deadly Amphibian Fungus
It’s not easy being green, as one of our greatest sages is fond of remarking. The latest example of this universal fact is the chytrid fungus, a pernicious pest fond of takingup residence on the...
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Small Population of Woolly Mammoths Survived for Centuries, Against All Odds
Ten thousand years ago, as the Pleistocene ended and the Holocene began, sea levels rose and trapped a small group of woolly mammoths — possibly as few as eight — on Wrangel Island off the Siberian...
View ArticleArtist Creates Full-Size Kayak From Fungus
There are lots of ways to make a boat. You can carve one out of a solid log, wrap cedar strips around a mold, or use animal skin, plastic, fiberglass, or any number of space-age materials. But growing...
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World’s Oldest Cave Art Found in Indonesia
Scientists have discovered a painting of three human figures surrounding a large pig in a cave on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Using a new technique where a laser nips off several tiny pieces...
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When Hippos Fly
The ancient Greeks believed that hippos were a kind of rough draft of horses, so it makes sense that the god Poseidon had both horses and hippopotamuses under his purview. But modern scientists from...
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Great Explorers: Gino Watkins
The annals of polar exploration are filled with luminaries who perished too young. Shackleton: dead at 47. Scott: 43. Amundsen: 55. Though these men passed on far too early, they had enough behind them...
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Weekend Warm-Up: Explore the Costa Rican Cloud Forest in ‘Climbing Giants’
In Costa Rica, unique trees grow in a special, mist-shrouded woodland. The cloud forest is called Monteverde. The trees are strangler figs — unusual giants that erupt above the surrounding canopy like...
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Jaw, Meet Floor. This Year’s ‘Astronomy Photographer of the Year’ Finalists...
Every year, the Royal Museums Greenwich conducts its Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest. Hundreds of entries flood in from around the world, and the museum’s panel of judges selects winning...
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Natural Wonders: Synchronous Fireflies
Fireflies. Lightning bugs. Whatever you call the little beetles, they’re a beautiful evening spectacle — illuminating the dusky woodlands with a spectral and fleeting glow all their own. Over 2,000...
View ArticleUtah Hikers Found Dead as Record Temps Roil American West
A father and daughter perished from the heat while hiking in Canyonlands National Park late last week, according to the National Park Service (NPS). The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office identified the...
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Newly Discovered Moon Cave Could Host Future Colony
Location, location, location. Countries and space agencies worldwide are looking for prime real estate on the Moon as the race to colonize our planet’s solitary large orbiting body continues. Now, an...
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Weekend Warm-Up: A Shoshone Man Restores Buffalo to Past Haunts in ‘Homecoming’
Jason Baldes, a member of the Eastern Shoshone tribe, grew up hunting with his father. But as the two men explored the natural landscape of Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation, the younger Baldes...
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Natural Wonders: Pamukkale Water Terraces
So far as quality of life went in the Classical world, it was pretty great to be a Roman and not-so-great to be their enemy. But say what you will about the Roman tendency to push the boundaries of...
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How We Learned to Measure Longitude at Sea
Finding accurate navigation at sea has been one of mankind’s toughest nuts to crack. Not so much the direction you’re headed — expert ancient sailors from Phoenicians to Chinese to Polynesians learned...
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Great Explorers: Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay
In the 19th century, biology, physics, chemistry, archaeology, geology, geography, and paleontology took off like a rocket, as did social fields like psychology and anthropology. Unfortunately, many...
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Exploration Mysteries: Where Are These Famous Figures Buried?
Despite what proponents of pseudo-archaeology would have you believe, the past is interesting enough without bringing aliens into it. For instance, there are plenty of history-altering, world-shaking...
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Natural Wonders: The Waitomo Glowworm Caves
It’s New Zealand in 1887. Two men push an unsteady raft into a stream, just where it vanishes into a rift in the Earth. Opaque water laps at the edges of the raft as they venture into the twilight zone...
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Weekend Warm-Up: Range Rider
Daniel Curry grew up poor in a single-parent household and was home alone a lot. “Although not alone. Home with animals,” Curry says, pointing to these hard days as the genesis of his bond with the...
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Exploration Mysteries: The Troublesome End of Meriwether Lewis
On Oct. 11, 1809, in a small inn named Grinder’s Stand, along an ancient trail called the Natchez Trace, a great man died too young. This in and of itself is not unusual. It was an age of sub-optimal...
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Weekend Warm-Up: Cycling from Finland to Singapore
“Kids kept asking us, why not just fly to Singapore?” That’s the opening line of Curious Pedals, a cycling film by self-described “novice photographer” Alvari Poikola and his friend Valtteri Heinila....
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Great Explorers: Auguste Piccard
There are explorers who plumb great depths: Bob Ballard, Jacques Cousteau, or even James Cameron. Then there are adventurers who take to the skies: Chuck Yeager, Neil Armstrong, and Amelia Earhart,...
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Natural Wonders: Cave of Crystals
The Chihuahuan Desert is a sparse but stunning ecosystem straddling the border between Northern Mexico, Southern New Mexico, and West Texas. High in elevation and low in humidity, the desert plays home...
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Great Explorers: Alexander Gordon Laing
Say what you will about the British Empire in the early 1800s — and there’s lots to say about colonialism and the theft of important artifacts from other cultures — that rain-soaked collection of...
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Natural Wonders: The Rainbow Swamps of the American South
Swamps and wetlands get a bad rap, and not without reason. They can be difficult to navigate, play home to various venomous and tooth-filled creatures, and often serve as breeding grounds for one of...
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DNA Researchers Identify Cannibalized Remains From Lost Franklin Expedition
Another piece of the Franklin Expedition puzzle has dropped into place. However, like most new bits of information concerning this enduring exploration mystery, it raises more questions than it...
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Untouched Burial Crypt Found at Site of Indiana Jones Movie
Talk to any archaeologist, and one of the first things they’ll tell you is that the discipline has very little to do with bullwhips, leather jackets, or punching Nazis. But a team of scientists digging...
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Russian Man Found Alive After 67 Days Adrift at Sea
A Russian man has survived a grueling 67 days adrift in a small inflatable boat in the Sea of Okhotsk, authorities reported on Tuesday. The man, identified by Russian media as 46-year-old Mikhail...
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Weekend Warm-Up: Fay Manners and Michelle Dvorak Tackle Denali’s ‘Cassin Ridge’
What do you do when a good friend and climbing partner calls you out of the blue and asks you to tackle a demanding route on Denali, the highest peak in North America? If you’re Fay Manners, you say...
View ArticleClimbers Tanner Wanish and Michael Vaill Smash Yosemite Triple Crown Speed...
Climbers Tanner Wanish and Michael Vaill racked up a major accomplishment in Yosemite over the weekend, shaving an impressive 35 minutes off the previous record on a famously difficult route that only...
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Tibetan Elevation Causing Human Evolution in Real Time
Fans of mountaineering likely know all about altitude sickness. They may even have experienced it — difficulty breathing, dizziness, nausea, dangerous fluid buildups in the lungs and brain, thickened...
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The Devil Made Me Do It: Why So Many Wild Places Are Called Hell This or Hell...
Environmentalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Wallace Stegner once famously wrote, “National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our...
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Weekend Warm-Up: Watch in Awe as Nouria Newman Kayaks Patagonia
If big water, three accomplished kayakers, and one of South America’s standout scenic locations is your cup of tea, look no further: This short film is for you. Kayaking Patagonia’s 3 Toughest Rivers...
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Exploration Mysteries: The Ghastly Tale of the ‘Ourang Medan’
In June 1947, the American vessel Silver Star pulled alongside the strangely silent Dutch merchant ship Ourang Medan. Nothing moved aboard the Dutch ship, and hails went unanswered. All was quiet. Not...
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Wingsuit Foil Smashes Three Distance Records
Austrian wingsuit pilot Peter Salzmann broke three wingsuit records last week with new technology developed in partnership with Red Bull. On October 24, Salzmann leaped off a Swiss mountain at a...
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Weekend Warm-Up: Revisiting the 1996 Everest Disaster
It's been almost 30 years since the 1996 storm on Mount Everest claimed the lives of eight people: guides Andrew Harris, Rob Hall, and Scott Fischer; clients Doug Hanson and Yasuko Namba; and...
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American Elections Incoming. So How Do Astronauts Vote From Space?
Major elections take place on Tuesday here in the U.S., and the Presidential race, in particular, will be decided by razor-thin margins in a handful of battleground states. So, in a democratic country...
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Here Are the 2024 Banff Mountain Film Festival Winners
The Banff Mountain Film Festival is the crème de la crème of outdoor and film showcases, and this year was no exception. This year's festival took place this past week, and the winners cover a range of...
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Catching Up With Frank Wolf After 1,350Km Arctic Canoe Expedition
Adventurer Frank Wolf sure had an eventful year. The Canadian completed a 500km kayak expedition around the Darian Gap, notched a 325km ski trip on Baffin Island, and — most recently — traveled 1,350km...
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