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.
Cougar Attack: A young male cougar attacked five cyclists on the Tokul Creek Trail in Washington State. All of the women were competitive cyclists in their 50s and 60s.
Thirty kilometers into a ride, a cougar tackled Keri Burger from her bike and clamped its teeth down on her jaw as they both fell into a ditch. Her four friends spent the next 45 minutes trying to get the cat off her. They threw stones, tried to pry open its jaw, stabbed it with a small knife, and even tried to choke it.
Heather Middleton looks for fossils on a beach near Weymouth. Photo: Alexander Turner
I Discovered Thousands of Fossils After Retirement: Heather Middleton’s love of fossils started when she was 10 and found ammonites in her garden.
After studying natural sciences and working in Ghana, she put her research plans on hold to raise a family. At the age of 60, she returned to her love of paleontology. Two decades later, she discovered over 2,000 fossils and co-authored a book about her findings.
Solo paddler and distance swimmer
Lean And Hard And Sunbrowned And Kind: Listen to a podcast about long-distance swimmer and solo paddler Audrey Sutherland, who lived completely out of the ordinary.
Living in rural Hawaii, Sutherland would head off to swim the Moloka’i coast, leaving her eldest children in charge, and only returning a week later. The family would spend weekends and holidays exploring and foraging.
Sutherland paddled all over the world in a kayak she ordered from a magazine, but her favorite place was Alaska. She loved it so much that she returned there 24 summers in a row.
The Surf School for Young Sri Lankan Women: In 2004, a tsunami killed over 30,000 Sri Lankans. Unsurprisingly, many people are still wary of the water decades later.
SeaSisters is a social enterprise program training young women to swim and surf so that they feel more confident in the ocean. Surfing was always seen as something tourists and men did. This program is working to change that.
The Groove Repeated After 16 Years: James Pearson made the first ascent of The Groove on Cratcliffe Tor in 2008. On March 6, 2024, Pearson’s original line was successfully repeated for the first time.
Alex Moore explains why he wanted to climb this particular route and how it differs from the route climbed by Kevin Jorgeson.
No evidence
Sports Psychology Has an Evidence Problem: Most people in the extreme sports world will tell you the mental component of a challenge is as hard as, if not harder than, the physical aspect.
Sports psychology has long interested Alex Hutchinson. He was surprised when a new study came out earlier this year claiming evidence behind sports psychology theories is seriously lacking. He decided to investigate.
Holden Ringer walked from Washington State to Washington, D.C. Photo: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades
A Year of Walking across the U.S.: In March 2023, Holden Ringer started hiking across America. Beginning in La Push, Washington, he walked across 14 states and finished in Washington D.C. last week.
Ringer did not take the most direct route. He wanted to stop in the many cities where he knew people. He began with a backpack, but after injury concerns, he switched to a cart.
Pierce Brosnan Pleads Guilty: Pierce Brosnan has pleaded guilty to walking in a restricted thermal area of Yellowstone National Park last year. He initially entered a not-guilty plea but retracted this during his hearing.
The court ordered Brosnan to pay a $500 fine and donate $1,000 to the nonprofit Yellowstone Forever. “As an environmentalist, I have the utmost respect for and love of our natural world. I deeply regret my transgression and offer my heartfelt apologies to all for trespassing in this sensitive area,” Brosnan wrote on social media.
