After 115 days spent flying her tiny Shark UL plane around the world, 19-year-old Zara Rutherford finally landed in Belgium on Jan. 20 and claimed the distinction of being the youngest woman to complete a solo flight around the world. Her ...
Adventure
Vehicle Situational Awareness – Staying Safe on the Road
Windows down, radio up on the highway with the soothing hum of the vehicle with some beefy AT tires on the asphalt on the way to a weekend adventure. We can not always get there overnight, or to some wooded quiet campground as much as we like. On ...
Backup Power as Part of Your Survival Plan
In today’s world, most of our creature comforts, survival equipment, and communication tools require electricity. When disaster strikes, grid power is one of the first utilities to fail and one of the last to be restored. Systematic preparation and ...
Going Solo: Preparing to Face the Backcountry on Your Own
Perhaps the greatest part of going hunting is sharing the outdoor world with your friends. The backcountry is a place to be shared and attacked as a unit. The weeks before the season opener where you and your compadres gather around maps and decide ...
Screaming Barfies: Necessary Intel for Your First Ice Climbing Adventure
“Screaming barfies” was the first term I learned on my inaugural ice climbing adventure. Amid all the dangers accompanying this venture, that highly un-technical term got my attention. Imagine feeling your hands go completely numb and then for ...
Winterizing Your Survival Kit
Growing up in New England, I learned to appreciate the frequency of the seasons changing. When the seasons changed, so did the way we had to live with the corresponding weather and environmental conditions. Spring teaches you to deal with rain, ...
Rocky Mountain National Park Shootout: Ranger Hit, Suspect Wounded
A man who shot a federal ranger inside Rocky Mountain National Park is in custody and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, according to the FBI. Daron Marquel Ellis, 29, was arrested at a hospital in Loveland, Colorado, by FBI Special Agent ...
Reader’s Choice: The 10 Biggest Free Range American Stories of 2021
This was a good year for Free Range American. We grew by hundreds of percentage points in every conceivable metric and covered a wide range of topics (and controversies) other outdoor media sites were afraid to touch. We broke the news on an ...
Son’s Quick Thinking, CPR Training Saves Father’s Life on Michigan Hunt
If you were hunting with a buddy or family member and they had a bad fall or lost consciousness and stopped breathing, would you know how to render first aid? Do you have CPR training, and if so, could you stay calm and stabilize a hunting partner in ...
Burnover: Shocking Video Reveals Daring Hellscape Drive
For at least 109 seconds, the night turned orange as a towering blaze closed over the firefighters. Captured in a video shot Sept. 10 from inside the cab of a truck, at least two men can be heard screaming obscenities, shouting directions, ...
Two Hikers, Ages 83 and 5, Make Appalachian Trail History
The Appalachian National Scenic Trail was established in 1937. That’s just one year before M.J. Eberhart was born, and the 83-year-old just hiked his way into Appalachian Trail history. On November 6, 2021, he completed the trail’s roughly 2,200 ...
New Documentary Chronicles Insane Mountain Climbing Record Quest
Climbing the 14 highest peaks in the world is an accomplishment very few mountaineers have achieved. Only 44 highly motivated souls, to be exact, have done it. Nirmal “Nimsdai” Purja, a Nepalese mountaineer and former British army soldier, is the ...
Wilderness First Aid: The Backcountry Medkit Every Hunter Should Carry
Backcountry hunters obsess over dialing in their gear. There’s ultralight gore-tex this and treated down that. But there’s one piece of gear to which many hunters don’t pay enough attention: wilderness first aid and the medkit they carry. Jimmy ...
Dumb-Ass Tourists: Methheads, Turds, Golfballs, and Baseballs
US National Parks welcomed 237 million visitors into their 423 national gems last year, and 168 million people trekked into the wilds of our national forests. Hundreds of thousands more laced up their trail shoes to recreate in the great outdoors at ...
Surfing in Bali: Brazilian Puts Down Killer Minute-Plus Run on Bombie
When it comes to surfing in Bali, professional surfer Bruno Santos experienced the closest thing to transcendence that a wave rider can get when he dropped into an empty lineup on Bombie and carved the cliff face of a seemingly neverending wave for ...
‘The Alpinist’ Should Be the Next Climbing Documentary You Watch
The Alpinist (2021) is a new and riveting documentary about the extraordinary life of Canadian climber Marc-André Leclerc. This climbing documentary chronicles Lelerc’s remarkable transition from living in a stairwell with girlfriend Brette ...
Watch: Crazy Ultramarathon Blizzard Rescue Captured on Video
Hundreds of trail runners struck out to tackle the DC Peaks 50 Ultramarathon in Utah. The off-road faithful knew they had 12,000 feet of climbing ahead of them, but none of them expected to be pulled from the trail during a crushing blizzard just ...
Navy Veteran Finds Peace Through Motorcycles, Photography
When you’re cruising at 80 miles an hour on a custom-built chopper, everything becomes quiet, and it feels like flying. For Liam Kennedy, it’s when he finally finds himself free from insecurities and past missteps and finds a balance between self and ...
Naked And Afraid: What I’ve Learned From Survival Shows
We have all been guilty of being backseat adventurers when watching programs such as Naked and Afraid, Man vs. Wild or Alone, just to name a few. We kick back, crack open a cold one and proceed to judge the ever-loving shit out of ...
National Park Murders: Hundreds Killed, Missing – No One Is Talking
The tragic Gabby Petito story sparked some controversy and got a lot of attention the past few weeks, though you can’t be blamed for letting it fall off your radar with how fast news cycles move. The internet churned up plenty of conspiracy theories ...
Planning a Big, Badass Outdoor Trip – Adventure 101
My husband Caleb and I recently completed our first real big, badass outdoor trip. We were gone for a month, backpacked 75 miles, and drove 3,500 miles. Through it all, we saw and experienced things unlike anything we could have imagined, but it ...
Making a Hiking Road Trip Food Plan – Adventure 101
After you have written a trip itinerary, but before you pack up your gear and take care of last-minute things, you need to think about food. Planning a long outdoor adventure requires a lot of food, which means you need a hiking trip food plan. ...
How to Pack for a Big Outdoor Trip – Adventure 101
There is a necessary list of gear that you need to pack for every outdoor trip, and the specifics of that list change depending on what you plan to do. Since you have already written your itinerary and planned your food, you might be getting ...
The Importance of Mental and Physical Fitness Prep – Adventure 101
Tending to mental and physical fitness before leaving for an adventure is equally as important as planning, preparing food, and packing the gear, but it's something many people often overlook. One of the things I did this summer on the 30-day ...
Intense Photos From the West’s 5 Most Extreme 2021 Wildfires
Blistering hot, prodded by high winds, and feeding greedily on a tinder-dry landscape, the 2021 wildfires continue to devour the West just as the previous year's fires did. The fact is, there's nothing that can stop the fire from racing through the ...
War, Van Life, and Journalism: The Many Adventures of Marty Skovlund Jr.
As a member of the Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment, Marty Skovlund Jr. completed five combat deployments. But the only time he ever got shot was in basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. It was a hot July afternoon on the range, and as he ...
Peak-Bagging in the US: Getting Climbers High Since 1876
On any given day during the climbing season, in every region home to the towering glacial remains of the past 250 to 700 millennia, the faithful commence with their peak-bagging pilgrimages to the highest points possible. Guided by a bit of ...
Goonies Never Say Die: The Hunt for Sunken Treasure
The waves crest and crash against the Spanish treasure fleet off the coast of Cartagena, Columbia. It is 1708, during the War of Spanish Succession. The fleet is 17 ships strong, consisting of three Spanish warships and 14 merchant vessels. The ...
5 Ways To Avoid a Grizzly Bear Attack and How To Survive One
The sun warms your shoulders as you adjust your pack and make your way down a path strewn with pine needles. It’s only a bit wider than a well-used game trail, perfect for a solitary hike through the backcountry. As you crest the ridge, ready to rest ...
Zara Rutherford, 19, Is Flying Solo Around the World Right Now
Zara Rutherford, 19, is currently on a quest to fly around the world all on her own. She's traveling a wide course that she began in August and plans to complete by early November. The incredible journey will see Rutherford fly over five continents ...
