When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Sometimes we’re a little too plugged in and browsing adventure reads can turn from minutes to hours. To nourish your adventure fix, here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.
A game of rivers: Alex Roddie and two friends spend three months bikepacking through the wilderness of Iceland, navigating strong headwinds, black sands, and multiple river crossings.
“I was the ultimate climbing and sailing dirtbag; I had no car or money”: Ben Zartman managed to live on $3,000 a year in the 1990s, lived in a cave in Yosemite, and climbed every day. After meeting his wife in a deli, they hopped in a cheap sailboat and spent three years sailing to South America. That is only the beginning of Zartman’s life of adventure.
Finding awe amid everyday splendor: We usually view the experience of awe as an uncommon feeling of positive overwhelm. We usually leave it there, with not much deeper reflection on the effect of awe on our lives. A professor of psychology has spent two decades studying how experiencing awe can counteract the self-focus and disenchantment of everyday life.
Old shipwrecks in a new light
Photo: Shutterstock
New photography techniques reveal the Baltic’s eerie wrecks, in pictures: The Baltic Sea serves as a graveyard for hundreds of ships that span centuries. Advancements in underwater photography provide incredible images of the wreckage and how the sea has preserved these crucial historical markers.
Defining adventure: The Rock Fight podcast starts its new series by discussing the personal nature of adventure with Steve Casimiro of Adventure Journal. What constitutes adventure for one person may not be so for another, but there are a few universal elements at play.
The end of wild camping in England: A lengthy legal battle has ended in favor of the wealthy in England. The ability to wild camp is now illegal across the entire country. ExWeb writer Ash Routen says that “Dartmoor was the last national park in the UK where wild camping was legal. Now you have to commit trespass. It’s a slow erosion of the right to roam by rich landowners.”
The unpredictability of the big wave
Photo: Shutterstock
When the Big Wave Doesn’t Break, but Your Emotions Do: Conditions must be perfect in order for the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational to happen. The prestigious competition is by invitation only, and surfers have little notice to get to the island in time. This year, it looked like the contest would run for the first time since 2016. Then it was canceled as surfers were mid-trip to Hawaii, precipitating a rollercoaster of emotions.
A new generation of shepherds in the French Pyrenees: Modernity meets tradition in the French Pyrenees, as two young female shepherds tend their cows and sheep. They use updated clothing, gear, and cell phones, as well as old practices and equipment, such as shepherd’s crooks and sheepdogs.
When hikers die, why are we so quick to judge?: There are certain expected ways to react to the news of a hiker’s death. Sadness and sympathy are surely acceptable. So are genuine curiosity into what went wrong, in order to prevent future instances. Then there are those with such a sense of ego that they must criticize the departed hiker’s choices in an attempt to self-aggrandize. Why do some default to such a negative and judgemental attitude?
