Outside Podcast

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Science of Survival: A Very Old Man for a Wolf Apr 24, 2018

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One day in 2005 or 2006, a young wolf in Idaho headed west. He swam across the Snake River to Oregon, which was then outside the gray wolf’s range. After he established a territory, he became the most controversial canid in the state. Dubbed OR4 by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, he was the alpha male of the first pack to live in Oregon in more than half a century. For years, biologist Russ Morgan tracked him, collared him, counted his pups, weighed him, photographed him, and protected him. Environmentalists rejoiced. Cattle ranchers called for his death. OR4 continued making bold raids on livestock and became known for his enduring competence as a hunter, father, and survivor. But nothing lasts forever.

Dispatches: The Woman Who Rides Mountains Apr 17, 2018

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Maverick’s, the monster surf break off the Northern California coast, has long been a proving ground for the world’s best big-wave surfers. But the contest held there most years has never included women, despite the fact that female surfers have been dropping in on giant swells for decades. In fact, the inaugural event at Maverick’s, held in 1999 and called Men Who Ride Mountains, took place several weeks after Sarah Gerhardt caught her first wave there. She wasn’t a professional surfer—she was a graduate student at the nearby University of California at Santa Cruz, where she had just started a Ph.D. in chemistry. Fast forward to today, and Gerhardt was one of six women invited to compete in a Maverick’s event. Outside contributor Stephanie Joyce caught up with the pioneering athlete to talk about her remarkable path.

Dispatches: Kris Tompkins’s 10-Million-Acre Life Apr 10, 2018

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After building Patagonia into an internationally renowned apparel brand, the company’s first CEO, Kris Tompkins, walked away from the job, following her heart to South America. She landed on a small farm in Chile, where she and her soon-to-be husband, The North Face founder Doug Tompkins, set to work conserving one of the last wild places on earth. But just as their dream of creating a network of parks stretching across Argentina and Chile was coming to fruition in 2015, she lost Doug in a kayaking accident. In response, Kris has doubled down on their vision while figuring out how to forge a new path forward, on her own.

Science of Survival: “F/V Destination, Do You Copy?” Apr 03, 2018

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It was the kind of disaster that wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. On February 11, 2017, the fishing vessel Destination disappeared in the Bering Sea on its way to the crab grounds. The boat went missing with an experienced crew, in unremarkable weather conditions, yet there was no mayday and rescue crews could find no life raft or survivors. For the past year, reporter Stephanie May Joyce has been following the investigation into what went wrong and how this mysterious tragedy has changed Alaskan fishing.

Dispatches: Bear Grylls Will Never Give Up Mar 20, 2018

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Apparently nobody told Bear Grylls that reality TV stars never have long careers. A dozen years after the cheeky Briton exploded onto American television, the king of survival entertainment is charging harder than ever, guiding A-listers into the wild for his NBC show Running Wild with Bear Grylls and launching innovative new series for Facebook and Netflix. He’s also building an adventure theme park in England and hosting a new survival race this spring outside Los Angeles that’s open to anyone. Outside executive editor Michael Roberts, who’s been covering Grylls for over a decade, tracked down the enduring icon on location in the Sierra Nevada to ask him: What’s your secret for survival? And why are you so convinced that going through tough times is good for all of us?

Dispatches: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild Creativity Mar 06, 2018

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In her acclaimed 2012 memoir, Wild, Cheryl Strayed delivered a fresh take on outdoor writing—a redemption story set on the Pacific Crest Trail. The book spent seven weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List and reminded people everywhere that a grueling journey through the wilderness can help us overcome almost anything. At last year’s SXSW conference, Tim Ferriss sat down with Strayed for an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show to ask her about her creative process and philosophy. He has a way of getting remarkable people to explain their most effective habits and this conversation, on a stage in front of some 2,000 people, didn’t disappoint. We’ve been eager to share it with our audience since we heard it and this week we finally have our chance. You can also read a shortened text excerpt of the interview here

Dispatches: An Amazingly Crappy Story Feb 20, 2018

Show notes

In 2009, Canadian researcher Geoff Hill asked park managers across North America what problems they needed solved. Every single one of them said human waste. Since then, Hill has been on a quest to figure out what to do about the fact that U.S. national parks get more than 300 million visitors each year, and at some point most of them have to take a dump. So far, every solution has failed. And so with every trip to the outhouse, we’re contaminating groundwater, spreading disease, and costing parks a fortune. Recently, however, Geoff found an elegant remedy.

Correction: In this episode, we mistakenly say that Geoff Hill licensed a toilet from Ecosphere. The company’s name is Ecodomeo.

The Outside Interview: Your Hungry Brain is Making You Fat Feb 06, 2018

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If you’ve ever beaten yourself up after eating an entire pint of ice cream, know this: it’s really not your fault. According to obesity researcher and neurobiologist Stephen Guyenet, author of The Hungry Brain and founder of the wellness and science blog Whole Health Source, millions of years of evolution have hardwired us to seek out sugary, fatty, and salty foods. All those calories kept us alive back when we were hunter-gathers. Today they just make us fat. Outside editor Christopher Keyes sits down with Guyenet to discuss why we feel so powerless in the face of decadent desserts, how different systems in our brain compete for dominance, and what we can do to combat all this temptation.

Dispatches: Red Dawn in Lapland Jan 23, 2018

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On the 833-mile border between Finland and Russia, a band of elite Finnish soldiers are preparing to defend the country if Russia decides it wants to again redraw the map of Europe. With tensions still high after the Kremlin’s invasion of Crimea and Ukraine, writer David Wolman went to Finland to find out what this tiny band of Finns can possibly do if the Russian war machine heads their way. Quite a lot, it turns out.

The Outside Interview: Susan Casey Might Have Gills Jan 09, 2018

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To write her three bestselling books on the ocean, Susan Casey went deep with great white sharks in California, big-wave surfing icon Laird Hamilton in Hawaii, and wild dolphins around the world. Her willingness to literally immerse herself in the topic of the ocean—she’s a former competitive swimmer—has allowed her to craft captivating stories that chronicle our relationship with the sea. And yet she’s a relative newcomer to the life aquatic. In the mid-nineties, she was Outside’s creative director, helping guide the publication to an unprecedented three consecutive National Magazine Awards. She was later the editor in chief of O, the Oprah Magazine. It seems that every time she tries something new she becomes one of the best at it. Outside editor Chris Keyes sat down with her to ask: How does she do it? And why is she so concerned about the future of the sea?

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