When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.
Sailor Home After Nine-Year Round the World Odyssey: After nine years at sea, 68-year-old former lifeboatman Barry Perrins has sailed solo around the world. The 48,280km journey took him from Portugal, across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, and then onto the Pacific.
At one point, Perrins was declared missing for 71 days, but he later reappeared in French Polynesia. He documented the journey on his hugely popular YouTube Channel, Adventures of an Old Seadog, which now has over 30 million views.
Surviving a 150m fall
I Fell 150m Down A Couloir: Every year after 400 hours of teaching, Julie King and a fellow ski instructor hike up Cody Bowl to ski the Four Shadows line in Jackson Hole Mountain Ski Resort in Wyoming.
This year, they missed their entrance and unknowingly entered the death-defying descent next to it: Central Couloir. The slope’s steep 50° angle sent King tumbling over the route’s infamous cliff.
Rescue Efforts For Minnesota Man in Wyoming Wilderness Abandoned: After a 20-day search using ground teams, helicopters, planes, and search dogs, authorities in Wyoming have abandoned the search for missing hiker Grant Gardner.
Sheriff Ken Blackburn explained that after almost three weeks, even “the most optimistic survival odds have run out.” On July 29, Gardner told his wife he had successfully summited Cloud Peak. She raised the alarm when he did not return home as expected on August 1.
Lincoln Knowles free solos Crescendo (5.9) in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. Photo: Bruce Wilson/Three Peak Films
An unhealthy approach to free soloing?
Climbing’s Newest Social Media Star Is Going Viral for Free Soloing: At 21, Lincoln Knowles has attracted attention for his “free solo a harder route every day until I fall” challenge. He asks for Venmo donations mid-climb and has built a 13-million-view YouTube channel. Free solo legend Alex Honnold cautions that creating such public pressure and self-filming creates a “deeply unhealthy approach” to what is already a dangerous sport.
The Lost Art of Hitchhiking: Often touted as unsafe and outdated, hitchhiking is making a comeback among adventurous, eco-minded travelers. They are drawn to its mix of human connection and low-carbon travel.
Austrian duo Alexandra Menz and Bernhard Endlicher have thumbed down more than 4,000 rides across 65 countries and even been whisked to a Kurdish wedding. Influencers like Courtney Allan and Lorenza D’Agostino hitchhike solo to prove the world is safer than most people think.
Hitchhiking. Photo: Alexandra Menz and Bernhard Endlicher
Prison sentence for faking death
Kayaker Who Faked Death Sentenced to 89 Days in Prison: Ryan Borgwardt, 45, has been sentenced to 89 days in jail. This matches the number of days he spent misleading authorities after staging his own disappearance in August 2024.
After meeting a woman online, Borgwardt faked his own death and fled from Wisconsin to the eastern European country of Georgia. He set up an elaborate scene: capsizing his kayak on Green Lake, leaving his fishing gear scattered, and fleeing using an inflatable boat, an e-bike, and then a flight to Europe. When his family reported him missing, a large search-and-rescue effort began using divers, underwater drones, and sonar.
Our Favourite Dog Adventure Tales: Outside share their favorite tales of outdoor adventures with canine companions. From a surprise marriage proposal delivered via dog collar in New Mexico to hiking through six countries with a rescue dog, and stumbling across a whale carcass that was too tempting not to roll in, exploring with your furry best friend is often a good idea.
The Tracy Arm fiord. Photo: Landslide Hazards Program/U.S. Geological Survey
An Alaskan tsunami
Alaska Was Lucky to Avoid Disaster After A Landslide and Tsunami: On August 10, a colossal landslide occurred in Alaska’s Tracy Arm fjord. A huge chunk of the fiord wall crashed into the water near the South Sawyer Glacier, triggering a tsunami that surged 425m up the opposite fiord wall and created waves up to 30m high.
Miraculously, an area that sees 500,000 visitors a year was mostly unoccupied at the time, and no casualties occurred. Scientists say the event highlights a worrying global trend: glacial retreat and thawing permafrost are destabilizing steep slopes and increasing the risk of landslides.
