This was no ordinary winter on the world’s second-highest mountain. For the first time ever, a team summited 28,251-foot-high K2 in winter, marking the achievement of the last great first in Himalayan mountaineering. The successful team comprised ...
Adventure
A Beginner’s Guide to Snowshoeing
Blinded by the wind and stung by the cold, we set up our camp as the day grew dark around us. The two of us had snowshoed to Dogsled Pass, deep in the Talkeetna Mountains of south central Alaska. We hoped to explore nearby alpine valleys over the ...
5 Winter Survival Tips You Need to Know, According to the Boy Scouts
When the days grow cold and short, a lot of people use that as an excuse to stay indoors. But with a little bit of preparation and forethought, you can hike and backpack all through the winter without an issue. The Boy Scouts of America keep a ...
Full Throttle: BRCC Driver Noah Gragson Returns to Daytona
NASCAR driver Noah Gragson, in the No. 9 Bass Pro Shops / TrueTimber / Black Rifle Coffee Company Chevy Camaro, is one of the hardest-charging young guns in racing — and he’s pedal-down powering toward another winning weekend in Daytona. In only ...
6 Ways to Beat Cabin Fever This Winter
This can be a hard time of year. The holidays are over, and we’re ready for spring — but it’s still winter. For many people that means not leaving the house, or the couch, until the middle of March. But let's face it, there are only so many shows you ...
Popping Viagra and Teetotaling on Top of the World — High-Altitude Mountaineering Hacks That (Probably) Work
High-altitude mountaineering is a miserable endeavor. In the rarefied air of the world’s highest peaks, there’s simply not enough oxygen for the body to function normally. At great height, however, our genes kickstart a whole host of corporeal ...
Nepalese Team Edges Out American O’Brady for Historic 1st Winter Ascent of K2
Near sunset on Saturday, a team of 10 Nepalese Sherpa climbers paused just short of the summit of the world’s second-highest mountain. Even amid temperatures dipping below minus 60 Fahrenheit, and with the lethal promise of the looming night on the ...
Meet Cal Fire’s Pranay Manghirmalani
It takes a special kind of person to stride into the hellscape of a raging wildfire and do battle with an actual force of nature. Pranay Manghirmalani is one of those people. He talked with Free Range American about where he’s from and why he does ...
I Swam from Europe to Asia and Earned My Survival
I stopped swimming to poke my head above the waves and figure out where I was. While treading water, I met a chilling sight — nothing. Through the spray of the 30-knot winds coming off the water, I could barely make out a cell phone tower on the ...
‘There Is Magic in Suffering’ — The Allure of the Ultramarathon
6 a.m. — At the trailhead of the Illinois and Michigan Canal State Trail, three runners silently step up to the starting line through the morning fog. There are six spectators on hand. The trio of runners have their arms folded against the early ...
A Conversation with ‘Professional Caveman’ Donny Dust
This story originally ran on Oct. 15, 2020 on The Ultimate Predator. Even the most experienced, seasoned hunters get a chill when imagining themselves stripped of their gear, alone in the wilderness. It’s a pretty extraordinary thing, then, to ...
2020 FRA Holiday Gift Guide: The Adventure Travel Wish List
Shopping for traveling adventure seekers is tough. So much gear marketed at globe-trotters is straight junk, like outlet adapters we’ll never need, passport wallets, or goofy hats and vests. And a good adventure, if anything, helps us pare down on ...
In Historic Ascent, American Woman Free Climbs Yosemite’s El Capitan in a Day
While most Americans remained glued to the news, watching the presidential election results slowly roll in during the wee hours of Nov. 4, American climber Emily Harrington was hard at work adding her own personal mark to a historic week, becoming ...
Married to Adventure: Martin & Osa Johnson’s Photography Escapades Across Two Continents
Martin and Osa Johnson relied on Boculy, the elephant tracker who joined them on many of their African safaris. They sometimes referred to him as the “Little Brother of the Elephant” because he knew the precise locations of the elephants no matter ...
Did an American Just Ride One of the Biggest Waves in Surf History?
Catching a wave as tall as a seven-story building is a dangerous and complicated business. Mason Barnes is in that business. And business is good. In October off the coast of Portugal, Hurricane Epsilon combined with a low-pressure system near ...
Every Adventure Needs a Dog — Here’s How to Pick the Right One
Whether you’re hiking a new trail, sleeping under the stars, or casting a line for hidden fish, any outdoor adventure is always better with your best friend. While human friends may scoff at the idea of walking several miles in the rain, the right ...
Smagical Thinking: The Life and (Near) Death of Phil Smage
Sweat dripping down his face, Phil Smage sat on his Kawasaki KLX 110 pit bike at the starting line of the first-ever Pastranaland Pit Bike Championship. Nine national-level motocross competitors were beside him — all gunning for ...
A Trial by Fire in the Antarctic Ice Marathon
I passed the threshold of the aircraft door and the cold cut through my piled-on layers of down and fleece in a flash. The cold went straight to my bones, and the primitive, reptilian part of my brain spoke, informing me that this ...
Man vs. Mountain Lion: A Near Deadly Encounter Caught on Video
Snapping jaws, claws swinging through the air, the mountain lion came in hot and ready to pounce, driven to protect her cubs with a lethal barrage against an unfortunate 26-year-old trail runner who happened to stumble upon them. Kyle Burgess of ...
Setting a Wingsuit World Record
In 2015, Andy Stumpf, a retired Navy SEAL, broke the standing world record for absolute distance flown in a wingsuit, covering 18.257 miles and falling 36,500 feet. It was a hell of an accomplishment, considering he volunteered for the undertaking ...
How to Pick the Perfect Campsite in the Backcountry
The sun set to the north that day, at least as framed by the steep walls of the Chugach Mountains, casting a golden light over the valley. Up in the alpine, 4,000 feet above sea level, we watched the day end. It was a good campsite and one of the ...
Off the Couch and into Life: Get Children Excited About the Outdoors
I won’t lie, I’m not super dad — heck, sometimes it seems like I struggle to be average. Married with two sons, 7 and 10 years old, my wife and I work and try to play when we can. But sometimes the siren song of the couch is too strong and we find ...
How a US Air Force Combat Controller Survived a Double Parachute Failure
Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane is scary. Having your main chute fail? Even worse. Having the backup fail? Shit just got real. And that's just where Jared “CCT Peaches” Pietras, an Air Force Combat Controller, found himself during what was ...
How One Woman Prepared to Race in the Iditarod
Gliding across the snow on a dogsled is a perception changer. Traveling by dog team opens up the wilderness. In a world filled with mechanical transport, allowing a team of Alaskan huskies to pull you across a frozen muskeg or through the taiga is a ...
How Generations of Loggers Have Kept the Petersen Ranch Sustainable
In a small, dead-end valley in Springfield, Oregon, on Camp Creek, three generations of the Petersen family still work the ranch they have owned since 1941. Over the decades, despite the majority of the land being devoted to a variety of things ...
3 of the Best Winter Snowshoe Adventures
Floating across the frozen backcountry on snowshoes is a unique way to see the wilderness. But finding a place to go out and enjoy the snow can be hard. A good summer hiking trail may not be a good snowshoe hike, but areas that are hard to access in ...
3 of the Most Beautiful US Hikes for Viewing Fall Foliage
When the air turns crisp and the days get shorter, it’s time to put on an extra layer (or two) and prepare to take in one of nature’s most aesthetically pleasing seasonal changes — fall foliage. Fall is one of the best times to hike — it’s cool but ...
The Beer is 6.2% Alcohol, and 7 Other Things I Learned the Hard Way at Oktoberfest
For the majority of my life, Oktoberfest has been just another tradition — like Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick’s Day — that we Americans appropriated for the express purpose of drinking our freakin’ faces off. I didn’t know much about the festivities ...
Logging in Alaska: The Complex Battle Waged Over Tongass National Forest
From thick coastal forests to high alpine peaks and sprawling glaciers, Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest stretches over 16.7 million acres. If the Tongass were a state, it would be larger than West Virginia — but it’s also almost devoid of ...
The Basics of Layering Clothing for Fall Hikes
Outdoors clothing needs to meet the conditions a hiker will face. How hot or cold is the climate? How intense is the planned activity? Is rain or snow in the forecast? What about changes in elevation? Outdoors people are often told to “dress in ...
