One runner gets her fix helping others chase their dreams, again and again.
Standing up for the health of lands and waters is part of every Patagonia ambassador’s job description, even when they’re off the clock.
Three friends, an avalanche and an iPhone on Yashkuk Sar I.
Looking for a temperature guide for Patagonia Yulex® Regulator® Wetsuits? Zip up—we’re diving deep.
Paige Alms, Moona Whyte and Kyle Thiermann travel into northern territory to put a slew of our cold-water surf gear to the test.
Behind the scenes of our ambassadors' trickiest and most meaningful ascents.
One runner’s attempt to link his hometown skyline becomes something much greater.
Education through risk, consequence and building the skills to live simply.
Two photographers set out on a 10-day road trip in search of connection, community and a whole bunch of singletrack.
How Tommy Caldwell is reshaping his love for rock climbing by building relationships with Indigenous stewards of Bears Ears.
Cómo la experiencia de infancia en el Sendero de los Apalaches determinó la forma en que una madre enseñaría a sus cuatro hijos a conectar con la naturaleza en el corazón de Nueva York.
For routes like Crown Royale, a lot of what goes into putting them up is falling down.
Descubriendo el Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre del Ártico en pack raft.
Esquiando en el Parque Nacional Banff con dos hijas adolescentes.
Un viaje a Amami Ōshima, en Japón, transporta a Gerry Lopez hacia un sentimiento familiar en una tierra distante.
“Al interior de los esfuerzos por proteger el Valle Cochamó, en Chile, del desarrollo invasivo y el turismo masivo”.
A medida que las temperaturas suben en el suroeste, los ciclistas montañeros de Phoenix, Arizona, se aventuran en la noche para escapar del calor.
Big-wave icon Greg Long, a past Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational winner, passes the baton to the next generation during 2024’s incredible event.
How the worst climbing conditions can bring out the best in us.
Wild trout populations in Southwest Montana have collapsed. Save Wild Trout says enough is enough.
12 de septiembre de 2024
Conoce al hombre que trabaja por salvar Punta Conejo en México.
I’ve been angry at politicians for as long as I’ve been an activist. Here’s why I still vote.
After a devastating wildfire, the community of West Maui continues to recover and rebuild.
Un experimentado diseñador del equipo de I+D de Patagonia viaja a los Alpes suecos para poner a prueba un nuevo prototipo de mochila y una intrépida idea que replantea la forma de viajar por senderos durante varios días.
Correr no va a solucionar el problema de la contaminación por pellets de madera. Pero puede crear comunidad e incentivar la conversación. Eso es un comienzo.
After years of trying to fit in with Western trail culture, one runner realizes that what she’s been missing lies in the Colombian mountains of her youth.
Simplicity, style and lessons in bike jazz on Eastern Washington’s Beacon Hill.
Running Up For Air no es solo una carrera. Es una comunidad, un encuentro entre amigos y un evento de recaudación por la defensa del aire limpio.
Una amistad forjada en el mar se convierte en una poderoza alianza para la protección de rompientes.
Our next fight against Big Oil is for basic human rights.
Cómo una joven familia abordó los 2,092 kilómetros del PCT (una pista: hubo caramelos involucrados).
narinda heng lo averigua al tomar el transporte público desde Oakland al parque nacional de Yosemite.
Esta es la bitácora de un capitán sobre la mayor marejada que ha azotado los arrecifes exteriores de Oahu en los últimos años.
A nuestros cerebros les gusta hacerlo.
Estamos destruyendo lo que amamos. El enorme sistema de criaderos de peces y piscifactorías en aguas abiertas que hemos creado es, de alguna forma, una expresión de nuestro afecto hacia los peces de aguas frías como alimento, como objeto recreacional y como un recurso comercial. No obstante, y a pesar de nuestras buenas intenciones, estos…
Algunas veces, olvidarte de llegar a la cumbre es lo que te pone ahí arriba.
Tras un devastador incendio forestal, las comunidades de Lost Sierra, en California, buscan senderos para encontrar esperanza, sanación y una dosis de la magia de la tierra.
El alpinismo de alta dificultad persiste en la cordillera Huayhuash, a pesar del efecto del clima en el recorrido de las rutas.
En un pequeño pueblo de montaña en British Columbia, una mujer aprovecha los senderos para ayudar a sanar heridas y conectar dos comunidades.
El campamento Footprints Running Camp no solo se trata de correr, sino también de encontrar soluciones para la crisis climática.
En un mundo dominado por hombres, Juliana García está abriendo el camino para una nueva generación de mujeres montañeras.
La disminución de los insectos acuáticos debería preocuparnos a todos.
Un viaje fotográfico en el tiempo con Gary Bigham, veterano colaborador de Patagonia.
Those with the most to lose are uniting to save the Northwest’s salmon and steelhead.
Un pueblo despojado de su vínculo con el océano encuentra una oportunidad de reconexión.
Una vida llena de grandiosas escaladas con buenos amigos.
Para estas mujeres afganas, escalar en Yosemite es conectar con su tierra natal.
Cydney Knapp y su esposo, Bartek, sabían que querían criar a sus hijos para amar el estar afuera, así que aprendieron a navegar el cambio y abrazaron el caos.
Sin conectar totalmente con algunas formas de activismo climático, Josh Wharton encontró su propia forma de contribuir.
Cada cierto tiempo te cruzas con alguien cuyas acciones y conducta te inspiran, te maravillan. Así me pasó cuando conocí a Ramón Navarro. Yo tenía 19 años y estaba en lo que ya era la extensión de la temporada invernal en la legendaria costa norte de O‘ahu, Hawaii, con la esperanza de perfeccionar mis habilidades para…
Una mirada al interior de la pasión compartida por el surf en el Yakutat Surf Club al sureste de Alaska
Escenas desde la zona cero del mayor evento del surf en siete años.
TM Herbert helped put up the first ascent of the Muir Wall in 1965. His son followed in his footsteps 55 years later.
Un grupo de ciclistas de montaña desciende entre los cafetales de Colombia y explora el impacto del cambio climático sobre uno de los brebajes más amados del mundo y la vida de quienes dependen de él.
In Southeast Alaska, a Native skier searches for something deeper than powder on her homelands.
Una familia vive a su ritmo en un refugio histórico cerca de Chamonix, Francia.
Transformando el consumo eléctrico en un cambio positivo para las personas, el planeta y nuestra punta favorita.
Poet Cameron Keller Scott reads an excerpt from his piece, A River’s Own Name. View a video excerpt of A River’s Own Name at the link below. I. Valley Maker Suppose one day we were to wake up and understand the name of a river. Not the names we’ve given, but the name it asks us to…
A runner explores what it takes to find quiet in the world, and in our minds.
Un movimiento comunitario por la seguridad en la montaña.
Una oda a Raúl Revilla Quiroz, uno de los padres de la escalada mexicana.
Elder Wilson Wewa tells the creation story of Animal Village. Tara Kerzhner and Len Necefer consider how these stories can reshape stewardship.
La vida es mucho más que diversión en la playa, los resultados de los torneos de surf y lograr un buen cutback al correr una ola.
Una conversación entre Lor Sabourin y Madaleine Sorkin.
Charlie Fowler was a world-class alpinist; what did he find out in Colorado’s Wild, Wild West climbing area that kept him coming back?
Un intercambio de olas y prácticas culturales indígenas en la costa del pacífico mexicano.
Un optimismo delirante y una inmersión alpina en las South Chilcotin Mountains de British Columbia.
Reflections on the 2022 Oak Flat Prayer Run, a gathering and a protest of a planned copper mine that could destroy this sacred site.
Al aprender su idioma ancestral, una mountain biker descubre una forma distinta de relacionarse con las palabras, con ella misma y con su comunidad, así como de andar en su bicicleta.
Grappling with her aging trail dog’s declining health, a mountain biker decides to give her furry best friend one last dose of singletrack.
Mientras hacemos la transición hacia fuentes de energía renovables, no renovemos los mismos viejos errores.
On an intergenerational new routing trip in the Sierra, Tad McCrea asks, What if your best adventure is the one you’re already on?
Una tropa de amigas montañeras aprende que cuando ponen atención a lo que ven, la confianza y la seguridad vienen de la mano.
The toughest fish you’ll ever catch could knock a few minutes off your finish time at Flyathlon, a backcountry race in Colorado that combines trail running and fly fishing.
Paddling Salish and Nimiipuu home waters, once again.
Lecciones de algo que pudo ser más serio en Alaska.
An excerpt from Dylan Tomine’s Headwaters: The Adventures, Obsession, and Evolution of a Fly Fisherman proves he was born to fish and born to write.
Tras casi 30 años sobre los sagrados senderos del sur de la Columbia Británica, Betty Birrell aún piensa que la vida es un gran patio de juegos. Y que nunca es muy tarde para lanzarte
Tiny but mighty, herring might be the most important fish in the ocean.
Folkeaksjonen is taking action against petroleum exploration in the Norwegian Sea.
Where worthless and priceless collide.
Hace cincuenta años, Yvon Chouinard, Tom Frost y Doug Robinson establecieron una ética para la escalada que ponía énfasis en la moderación y el respeto por la roca. En 2022, esa ética es más necesaria que nunca.
Un intento de establecer el menor tiempo conocido para los 296 kilómetros del sendero hacia la fuente del río Támesis.
Cuando instaron a los escaladores a dejar de usar su producto más vendido en 1972, Tom Frost e Yvon Chouinard sentaron las bases para el trabajo de Patagonia hoy en día.
Following the impacts of snow sports through the mountains of Italy.
Big Mineral Mining is tearing up the coastline and restricting access to some of South Africa’s most pristine beaches and waves—and it’s getting way out of hand.
Upstream of the Snake River dams in Idaho, Riggins waits for the fish to return.
In North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest, a collaboration between anglers and mountain bikers uses better trails to create healthier rivers.
In a tiny Colorado ski town, the world’s oldest mountain-bike club is facing the complicated reality of recreation gone right.
One woman’s against-all-odds journey to save a beautiful piece of a stolen future.
Los recientes avances en protocolos y equipamiento de seguridad, ¿hacen más peligrosos los lineups en el surf de olas grandes?
Reciprocal learning while exploring traditional Indigenous territories in British Columbia.
Niseko’s Akio Shinya on avalanches,kayak expeditions and rules to live by.
The case for readopting Indigenous fire management practices.
Ohio’s burning river made headlines in 1969. Now, the Cuyahoga’s telling a new story.
The industrious truth of British Columbia’s forgotten forests.
How Captain Liz Clark’s Tahitian residency opened a new chapter in her activist work.
Rolling Stone called him “the real Indiana Jones.” His new memoir reveals why our friend Rick has always been a great deal more.
Rolling through a full-scale sensory rebellion in New England.
Buscando la confluencia entre identidad, liderazgo y escalada en roca.
The Big Muddy is polluted. Securing the Driftless Area can help clean it.
Las comunidades del Cajón del Maipo, en Chile, ven su entorno amenazado por un proyecto innecesario.
Una entrevista con Gabo Benoit, creador de senderos y uno de los portavoces del mountain bike en Coyhaique, Chile.
Tapping into the beginner’s mind while teaching his daughter to surf.
Exploring one of the least visited but most revisited national parks, on foot.
After a difficult year, a runner finds life anew in the Sierra.
Childhood friends, Hayley Talbot and Dan Ross, are determined to save a mighty river.
Building positivity, inspiration and purpose out of a racist encounter in Los Angeles.
Roots and recovery on Abaco and Grand Bahama Islands.
Una lección sobre las reglas para la construcción de senderos.
This Great Lakes surfer never felt represented in the surf scene, so she created a new surf culture of her own.
Seasoned waterman, master woodworker and Patagonia Surf Ambassador Ben Wilkinson channels his skills toward a new environmental calling.
Rule changes and the future of the Olympic Peninsula’s wild steelhead.
El coautor, Kim McCoy, relata cómo descubrió el misterio de lo que hay bajo las olas, donde el océano y la tierra se encuentran y compiten.
An unlikely community, in the most unlikely location, has become an even more unlikely force for public lands conservation.
Ramón Navarro and Kohl Christensen bring Léa Brassy into the jaws of a Chilean monster.
Nota del Editor: Este relato fue compartido originalmente por Fletcher Chouinard en 2011, con la historia de su viaje desde California a Chile para surfear algunas de las olas más grandes que se han visto en El Buey. Sábado Kohl: “Hermano, ¡va a estar graaaaande! Nos vemos en Chile!” Domingo Kohl: “Se ve INCREÍBLE! Estoy…
La estrella del mountain bike de Becoming Ruby va en busca de algunas de las esquiadoras más poderosas allá afuera.
How a nonprofit that takes San Francisco kids surfing expanded its work in 2020.
Una mirada a los chalecos de impacto para surf y a quienes han traído de regreso a casa.
Following in Indigenous footsteps on the Ute Pass Trail.
Natasha Woodworth, la diseñadora detrás de los nuevos kits de esquí de backcountry de Patagonia, aborda el esquí y el diseño técnico con la misma competencia un tanto subestimada.
Observaciones sobre un ecosistema complejo de los amantes de la nieve en Sitka, Alaska.
Recreation in the Alabama Hills is surging at an unsustainable pace. But some people are working to ensure that it doesn’t get loved to death.
Snowboarder Alex Yoder takes a Regenerative Organic approach to his new coffee business by thinking like an astronaut.
6,000 words about dressing for alpine climbing you didn’t know you needed to know.
Clyde Aikau on why the most culturally significant big-wave event in surfing will always matter.
As editor of the world’s largest mountain bike magazine, Nicole Formosa showed her audience the world’s largest issues—and revealed the sport’s resistance to confronting them.
Ahí donde termina un camino de tierra es donde comienza un nuevo desafío, una lucha por la protección del Yosemite de Sudamérica.
Cómo Zahan Billimoria encontró el equilibrio después de una tragedia impensable.
How one suburban mountain biker’s vision for a trail system reshaped a former industrial town—and turned trail building into a family tradition.
Reflecting on a lifetime of climbing, and the risks and rewards that come with it.
Kohl Christensen analiza cómo surgió el BWRAG y su reciente experiencia cercana a la muerte, cortesía del arrecife de Pipeline.
El editor adjunto de BIKE Magazine elabora sobre nuestra percepción de tener el derecho a pedalear donde queramos.
Para una mejor comprensión de los peligros que representa una tóxica mina de cobre para las más de 400.000 hectáreas de terreno natural en las Aguas Limítrofes, por favor mira la película “A Northern Light” (abajo). Con una extensión superior a las 400.000 hectáreas a lo largo de la frontera entre Estados Unidos y Canadá,…
Eliza Earle, Austin Siadak y Drew Smith nos cuentan sobre la temporada del otoño 2019 escalando en Yosemite.
A Small Florida Town Was Once Host to the World’s Largest Tarpon. What Happened?
Eric Bissell captured his first published image with Patagonia on a climbing trip to establish a new route on Mount Ololokwe.
Snow lovers and professional athletes are mobilizing to elect climate leaders.
Patagonia Fly Fish releases “We Stand for the Water We Stand In” poster.
In the second installment of our “Best of Home” series, photographer, writer and editor Colin Wiseman takes us to Washington State’s gloomy, fern-filled Whatcom County for a signature Pacific Northwest ride.
A climber remembers her first experience with theunexpected on Thalay Sagar.
Una ecléctica banda de esquiadores argentinos le da vida a la comunidad del esquí de montaña local en una de las cordilleras más severas del planeta.
Photo editor Kyle Sparks kicks off our new social media series, “Best of Home,” documenting the everyday, out-the-back-door trails that mountain biking depends on.
Are public lands still “public” when you can’t access them?
Un audaz plan para echar de una vez a las granjas salmoneras en corrales de malla.
Running through the most-visited wilderness in the continental United States, rallying to its defense.
A trail running race in southwest Wyoming brings attention to the importance of protecting the largest unfenced area in the contiguous United States.
Me despierto temprano con el deslumbrante calor del sol africano. Colgando a 400 metros de altura en una enorme pared de granito en el centro de Madagascar, todo lo que puedo ver es negro y azul, el color del granito malgache cuando se encuentra con el cielo y, coincidentemente, el mismo color que hay en…
Dave Rastovich and Greg Long log in and discuss the current state of surfing, its cultural and ecological impacts, and where it’s headed.
Outdoor recreation can be a lifeline for rural economies, but the industry has also benefited from the erasure of Indigenous peoples from their lands.
For three women of color in Wyoming, going into the mountains isn’t about representation—it’s about reclaiming their power, together.
A French ski patroller’s move to become a permaculture farmer.
How Casper reimagined the North Platte.
Cómo las redes de pesca desechadas terminaron en la visera de nuestros gorros.
El FKT de Luke Nelson en el Wasatch Ultimate Ridge Linkup.
Conoce a Annie Reickert, la surfista de 18 años oriunda de Maui que Paige Alms tomó bajo su tutela en Jaws y mucho más allá.
Una escaladora se va de viaje a Bishop y Las Vegas para descifrar la narrativa de quien viaja y quien escala.
Un viaje a la sierra, con buena luz y solo un caso de mal de altura.
Explorando a pie las tierras públicas de Sudamérica.
A bikepacking expedition inspired by one of North America’s most iconic landscapes, and the American Prairie Reserve’s audacious effort to restore it.
Después de años soñándolo, Nick Russell y Christian Pondella completan un descenso limpio en el Monte Morrison de la Sierra Oriental.
Levantar la voz para proteger un lugar especial antes de que desaparezca.
Si no encontraste lo que fuiste a buscar, asegúrate de disfrutar el viaje.
Enseñarle a tus hijos a pescar es una decisión inteligente. Que Yvon Chouinard le enseñe a tus hijos a pescar es genial.
Last November, Fitz Caldwell (age 6) finished his first multipitch climb, Sunnyside Bench in Yosemite National Park. He did it with his dad, Tommy.
En Coyhaique, Chile, los fantasmas de la extracción de recursos pueden ofrecer el camino hacia un futuro basado en la recreación.
Zumbando a través de la Sierra High Route.
Kimi Werner emprende un viaje a la isla de Jeju para encontrar lecciones sobre maternidad, cultura, buceo y cómo proveer para la familia, por parte de las “mujeres del mar” surcoreanas, también conocidas como las haenyeo.
Downieville, en California, una vez fue uno de los pueblos más ricos del estado, pero hacia la mitad de la década de 1990 empezó a irse a pique. Eso hasta que un puñado de mountainbikers locales comenzó a usar los senderos aledaños para darle una nueva vida al lugar, convirtiendo al otrora pueblo fantasma en una meca de la recreación.
De Telegraph Creek, B.C., a Wrangell, Alaska, con esquíes y kayak
Captain Liz Clark’s been self-isolating aboard her sailboat Swell since 2005; here she provides her experiences and insight for navigating isolation during a pandemic.
Perched in the Himalaya and once accessible only by trail, India’s Zanskar region has remained largely free of Western influences for over 2,000 years. That could all change as a new highway brings a wave of instant globalization.
How Belinda Baggs went from an ‘armchair’ activist to the front lines.
After surviving calamity in British Columbia’s Coast Mountains, a few skiers return to COVID-19.
Rolando Garibotti looks back at a lifetime spent in Patagonia and forward to the generation following in his footsteps.
Photo Essay: Waiting for the Wild on Oregon’s North Coast
Greg Long, Al Mackinnon and Pete Geall’s dusty search for uncrowded perfection at Location Redacted.
Feature: Squeaky Wheels, Wild Fish and Carrot Sticks
“That comfort, the ability to feel like you’re not stepping outside of some boundary; It’s not like, ‘Do I belong here?’ No, this is where I’m supposed to be.”
After a century of conflict on the Columbia between salmon and dams, the fates of these two iconic energy systems are now intertwined.
There’s nothing more important than having waves a few minutes away.
Changing our dynamics with the mountains can help us be in them longer, and appreciate them more.
When Vince Anderson took a break from alpine climbing, his mountaineering attitude manifested itself in a single-speed hardtail, on which he’s won some of the sport’s most grueling races.
The Slickrock Trail, in Moab, Utah, is one of the most popular mountain bike rides in the world. Now, under a recent BLM decision, it could also be opening to oil and gas drilling.
The Trans-Cascadia has become one of the Pacific Northwest’s most notorious races. This past August, the Back Country Horsemen of Washington joined the Trans-Cascadia team—a first for all involved.
How a father and son found a way to climb one of Utah's most sought-after ice routes in a bygone era.
Feature: An intimate canoe trip through The Boundary Waters with Nathaniel Riverhorse Nakadate.
While Australia burns, its government is greenlighting oil drilling in the unspoiled Great Australian Bight. But surfers and coastal communities are saying no—and uniting to keep Big Oil out.
Listen to the story Sometimes when I look at the Fitz Roy Range, I see a silhouetted jawline of mountainous teeth that gnash the sky. Other times, the teeth transform to fingers that don’t crush aspirations but cradle them, like a hand cupping something precious. The distinction really depends on whether I’m looking at the…
Predawn on April 4, 2019. There’s hardly any snow in the mountains. Worst year in recent history, the locals are saying. We’re loading boxes of food onto the ferry, preparing to board the Alaska Marine Highway from Juneau to Haines. “It’s southeast Alaska, you never know,” Ryland Bell says. “It might rain for 90 days…
A mining company owns the mineral rights to a Colorado mountain. For 42 years, the Red Ladies have been showing up—and dressing up—to keep the mountain wild.
In the 1980s, a group of cyclists in Washington banded together to protect their local trails from illicit activities; 30 years later, that momentum has reshaped the city and preserved a watershed.
Snow and icy rime break from the porous black volcanic ridgeline crackling beneath my feet. Gale-force updrafts from the gullied ridges below whip the skis and splitboards strapped to our backs. Each gust forces us to step toward the cornice that hangs above the caldera to our right. The temperature drops steadily and our breath…
Lessons from Yosemite’s first climbing guidebook “I have this idea,” Mikey texted last October. “Let’s climb all of the suggested routes from the Yosemite red-cover guidebook.” I agreed immediately. The tattered copy of A Climber’s Guide to Yosemite Valley arrived in the mail less than a week later. First published in 1964 by the Sierra Club,…
The patchwork history of public lands that transformed the area around a small New Mexico town into a world-class bouldering area We left the Mills Canyon Rim Campground, where we’d been living for three cold January weeks, just before dawn on our last morning in New Mexico. I pulled over to the north side of…
On an incredibly clear, early autumn morning, the aging Yosemite Search and Rescue (YOSAR) van bumped along Tioga Pass Road, taking precariously tight turns at an alarming speed. Twelve of us were crammed in the back, chattering and bracing ourselves against the van’s interior walls. When the road was no longer passable for vehicles, we…
Sampling the Offerings at Crater Lake “Go for Dirksen…” There was considerable static on my little two-way radio, but it was a small miracle we could hear Josh Dirksen at all. We hadn’t seen him since a dinner rendezvous two days prior in Bend. An agreed-upon radio channel and call time had actually worked, as…
He’s on a mission to be the best climber in the world.
“Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.” —William Ruckelshaus, first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency A coho salmon the size of my pinky drifts quietly in the shade. It’s hardly distinguishable from the sand below. But Marie-France Roy, a professional snowboarder who does volunteer habitat- enhancement work in her hometown…
In a fossil-rich corner of western Colorado, set against lush agricultural fields, the big-box stores of Grand Junction and the sandstone formations of the Colorado National Monument, you’ll find Fruita. These days, the town is an international mountain-biking destination known for its ribbony, high-desert trails, technical routes overlooking the Colorado River and funky downtown where…
Krissy Moehl reports from the 2019 inaugural takayna ultramarathon “There are no footprints.” Fellow Patagonia ambassador and New Zealand native Grant Guise voiced what I was thinking. Our headlamps and phone lights dimly illuminated the overgrown double-track from Rebecca Road. “If 100 people are starting a race in five minutes, we would see footprints,” he…
At Fletcher Chouinard Designs, the focus is on durable, high-performing equipment that lets you have fun no matter what the ocean is doing. There are never enough hours in a day for Fletcher Chouinard. As a surfer, shaper, kiteboarder and new father, he was really doing the dance. Then along came foilboarding, which has made…
The Best Times Are About Friends, Not Perfection It had been four years since Liz Clark, Léa Brassy and I first spent time together, on a sailing trip through the Tuamotus. We knew we’d found something special from the moment we met, and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. We’re all very individual women and…
Fog from the distant Caspian Sea swirled around us as we left the road, crossed a narrow mountain stream on a rickety footbridge of wornwooden planks, passed a pungent corral full of dank, scruffy sheep, and started the steep climb to Alam Kuh base camp in the Alborz mountain range of Iran. Brittany Griffith, Kate…
On the west face of Mount Whitney, just off the summit of the highest peak in the lower 48, we had to traverse right. For us skiers it was no real issue, a bit of sidestepping and poling would do the trick. Yet, our group was comprised of both two sticks and singular planks, and…
Friday night at the Hot Tomato is not for those in a hurry. Hungry customers grip pints of beer and compare notes on the day’s rides in lines that spill into the parking lot. Music pumps and the staff whirls behind the counter, tossing floury dough, yelling requests to the kitchen, giving each other shit.…
The Trump administration wants to open almost all of America’s coastline to the oil industry, putting our beaches and oceans at serious risk. Fifty years ago, an offshore rig spilled 100,000 barrels of crude oil into California’s Santa Barbara Channel, creating a 35-mile slick that fouled the wave-rich shoreline from Goleta to Ventura. It should…
Steve House joins forces with coach Scott Johnston and athlete Kílian Jornet to develop a comprehensive approach to finding the joy and the payoff of intense training. Even lunges.
Patagonia is thrilled to publish Steve House and Scott Johnston’s second training book, Training for the Uphill Athlete, for which they teamed up with world-class endurance athlete Kílian Jornet. This is an excerpt from the book, now available in Patagonia stores, on Patagonia.com, and at your favorite bookstore or online distributor. I race a lot:…
It was November 1991. I was with two friends and we were at the beginning of a three-month surf trip around the coasts of Spain and Portugal. Mundaka was our starting point. We all agreed that we would be happy just to get something better than the cold, windblown beach breaks we had left behind…
For the slo-mo, bug-bitten, exhausted joy of really long runs. Time expands and compresses on long runs. Moments of navigation or extended discomfort can seem endless, while the landscape sifts by like a slow-moving picture. And then suddenly it’s been hours that slipped by without you noticing, except for the subtle changes in light and…
When you lose your trout stream to climate change, where do you go to find yourself? It was late September and the creek ran clear and low out of the West Elks in southwestern Colorado. My favorite time of year: Through the V of the ravine upstream I could see the shoulders of Mount Gunnison…
When we move through the forest in winter, we’re often left wonderstruck by snow-shrouded trees bent and morphed from years of wear in silent solitude. Their depth of character becomes evident as we weave ourselves into their lives and ecosystems. But we often tell our stories and not theirs. Our new film Treeline follows skiers…
When we move through the forest in winter, we’re often left wonderstruck by snow-shrouded trees bent and morphed from years of wear in silent solitude. Their depth of character becomes evident as we weave ourselves into their lives and ecosystems. But we often tell our stories and not theirs. Our new film Treeline follows skiers…
When we move through the forest in winter, we’re often left wonderstruck by snow-shrouded trees bent and morphed from years of wear in silent solitude. Their depth of character becomes evident as we weave ourselves into their lives and ecosystems. But we often tell our stories and not theirs. Our new film Treeline follows skiers…
When we move through the forest in winter, we’re often left wonderstruck by snow-shrouded trees bent and morphed from years of wear in silent solitude. Their depth of character becomes evident as we weave ourselves into their lives and ecosystems. But we often tell our stories and not theirs. Our new film Treeline follows skiers and…
On establishing a route in Cochamó Valley that might be too hard—but might not.
Some families share religion, camping, lavish vacations, opera. Other families go running.
Weather has a way of complicating—and enriching—everything. By the time I top out, it’s snowing and it’s dark. I walk back as far as the rope will let me, and in the flattest spot I can find, I dig a hole and sit, bracing myself. I yell, “Rope-fixed!” repeatedly, but my partners can’t hear me…
After a failed first attempt, three friends return to India’s Mount Nilkantha to confront—and embrace—the terrible, beautiful duality of a life in the mountains.
Quietly, patiently, trees endure. They are the oldest living beings we come to know during our time on earth, living bridges into our planet’s expansive past. Treeline is a film celebrating the forests on which our species has always depended—and around which some skiers and snowboarders etch their entire lives. Follow a group of snow-seekers,…
Before we could challenge the snow industry to move to recycled materials, we had to change our thinking, too. There are a number of ways to reduce a garment’s impact, but none more significant than making it out of recycled fabric. Doing so keeps material out of landfills and cuts demand for the petroleum used…
A climber describes her passion for the wildness of the world. My brother’s cheeks smooshed against the blue velour seat and his mouth hung slightly ajar. His gangly legs stretched from door to door, covering the back bench of our family Buick. On the floor, parallel, I fidgeted over the hump dividing passenger and driver…
On clear days in the Pacific Northwest, views of Mount Baker depend on the marine layer and the storms. The 10,781-foot snowcapped dome is often obscured by the shifting weather, and though I’d grown up looking at the mountain, I didn’t see it much this year. But when Jeremy Wolf emailed me about running to…
Patagonia mourns the loss of Tom Frost, Yvon Chouinard’s former climbing and business partner, who passed away Friday morning. Tom, with Yvon, Chuck Pratt and Royal Robbins, made the first ascent of the North America Wall of El Capitan in 1964. He made other notable first ascents with Valley pioneers and others in Yosemite, the…
The raw potential of mountain biking in Iceland’s Westfjords.
Six years ago, when that famous wave broke on the Third Ledge at Cloudbreak—tearing down reef, tearing through time, majestically unridden, surfers scrambling for their lives—there was one question left hanging in the air like sea mist. As the last wave washed through the lagoon and slunk back into the ocean, the water still hissing,…
I’m sitting on a sunny bench in some random park in central Oregon holding my eight-month-old daughter in my arms and watching my four-year-old son launch himself down a slide. We’ve been on the road as a family for nearly a month now, and the daily hunt for a decent playground is often as essential…
I recently had the opportunity to tag along with two of the world’s leading bonefish researchers for a weekend of fishing Grand Bahama Island out of East End Lodge. Dr. Aaron Adams serves as the director of science and conservation for Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (BTT), a non-profit based in Miami whose mission is to conserve…
Groggily I stirred in the sweaty musk of my sleeping bag. I’d spent the night on the hard concrete slab directly outside the Independence campground’s pit toilets, with the wafting stench of shit enveloping my fitful slumber. I shut my eyes, trying to forget where I was. My hips were sore, my kidneys ached and…
It starts with the focal beam of a headlamp. Sunrise is more than an hour away and it’s pouring rain. Hands tucked into the sleeves of a jacket, and the pace already quick through the sharp Tasmanian buttongrass—trying to stay warm. There is an urgency to understand this threatened place, to know takayna / Tarkine as…
May 14, 2017, Mother’s Day. Dear friends, yesterday I topped out on the Zodiac on El Capitan. Some of you have loyally and patiently supported me for almost six months while I prepared for and fretted about this adventure. Some of you have no idea what the Zodiac is. No matter. Thanks for being part…
Yesterday, Alex Megos sent one of the most difficult routes in the world, completing the first ascent of Perfecto Mundo (5.15c or 9b+) at the limestone crag of Margalef in Catalunya, Spain. He called it the first hard route of his life. It marked not an apex, but rather a beginning. Which raises a wild…
A film about exploring the Great Barrier Reef and how our choices affect the most vulnerable places on Earth.
On the Argentine side of the Patagonian Andes, the Chaltén Massif is a dense range of extremely steep mountains, famous for Cerro Torre and Chaltén itself (the native name for the peak also known as Fitz Roy). I have been coming to this mountain range on an annual basis since 2003, often for a three-month…
The map showed an unbroken line contoured to the ridge. We started running along that line and ran past its end, into a space between two worlds. A few orange ribbons hung on branches in natural openings, marking what might eventually be the beginning of a trail. We followed it. When a gravel slope appeared…
It had been a while. I don’t climb in weather like this. I stay inside and drink coffee. But I dutifully marched through the whiteout, following Simon as he navigated by compass toward the highland plateau of Cairn Gorm. He was searching for a particular block of rock, from which we would rappel into nowhere…
Last year I decided to truly dig in to my effort to raise awareness about epilepsy, a disease that affects 1 out of every 26 people in the United States, by using my social media and long-distance paddling skills. I worked hard to prepare for a 17-mile paddle, reached out to the Epilepsy Foundation of…
It was about an hour before dark. The spot had been a lot easier to find than I thought—five minutes from the main road and within easy viewing distance from a cliff. A few weeks earlier a friend had told me he had seen “something breaking” along this stretch of coast. This must be it,…
After an hour’s sleep, I wake to the sound of fat raindrops pelting the deck. The noise quickly escalates into a deafening torrent, and I push up off the settee and climb up the steps. Glancing at the radar screen on my way up, I see a massive squall blacking out the entire 8-mile radius…
The Continental Divide Trail is not often traveled, and rarely by bike. The sheer remoteness makes access tricky. With this in mind, Scott Rinckenberger, Justin Olsen and I set out for 11 days on our bikes, pedaling northeast from Chief Joseph Pass. We wanted to shed some light on this beautiful area. The second night…
When I think about climbing, I don’t think about summits. I see serrated ridgelines rising and falling between earth and sky, and sunlight slipping between spires, casting the shadows of giants onto rubble-strewn rivers of ice below, curving, moving, bending with the passage of time. I remember my partners and I, roped together with no…
Fly fishing guide Ansil Saunders recalls his time in the boat with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In May 1981, I set out in a home-built Hawaiian sailing canoe from South Point on the island of Hawai‘i to my home on Kaua‘i. It was an adventure that would take me from the southern-most to the northern-most point of the Hawaiian Islands. I named my canoe Holopuni, “to sail everywhere,” and I’ve been…
Besides a lighthouse, a dirt trail and a few small structures, Isla De Todos Santos is almost completely undeveloped. The only permanent resident is the lighthouse keeper, who greeted us in Spanish as we approached after stepping ashore on a bright October morning. Those who choose to live in solitude fascinate me and I wanted…
“The notion that there’s one dream that we’re all after, and agreed upon ways in which you can verify that you are indeed living that dream drives me crazy,” says Forest McBrian. “Everyone’s dream is a little bit different. If there is a dream that we all lust after, then we’re all just trying to…
As we sat on the tailgate of the truck, our frozen breath swirling under the light of a headlamp, we heard the first distant thud of rubber on dirt. The approaching runner was still a mile away, but you can hear just about anything that happens in the dense stillness of 2 a.m. in the…
On January 23, it was snowing so hard that the sound, the roaring hiss of snow hitting the ground, woke me up at 3 a.m. I threw on a jacket and walked outside into the certain knowledge that California’s nearly five-year snow drought was over. It was the deepest, most stacked I’d ever seen my…
Pain pulses in my right foot to the rhythm of my heartbeats. I know something’s wrong, but the only option is to ignore it. The swelling presses against my shoe, but I’m afraid if I take it off, I’ll never get it back on. Still, I feel like I can’t complain. My foot is still…
We were off-the-couch bikers, versed in miles per hour, not miles per day. After seven days of biking to ski, we needed a rest day. Hot springs mandatory. We remembered a shortcut to the Green Church pools, which was 9 miles shorter than the highway route. Shortcuts—with deeply rutted, washboard dirt roads on bicycles loaded…
As a younger climber I was totally committed to big long routes, often in the mountains and often involving a lot of suffering. The beauty of each place is what got me there, and the partnerships kept me there. I wanted to be in those big landscapes, sleeping on the wall, scoured by the wind,…
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks—a whirlwind of events, to say the least. Seems like the world got turned over in less than a month. Natural disasters are igniting on all sides of the globe. Could it be that the planet is trying to tell us something? Is humanity in harm’s way? Nature tends…
In honor of the release of A Mountaineer’s Life by Allen Steck, Patagonia Books is pleased to share this excerpt from chapter eight. Camp II was a desperate and fearful place. We spent seven days there in severe weather. We could not leave the tents without going onto the fixed lines; the weakened cornice behind us…
If you were to ask me what I did on the Danube River during my 21-day solo paddle from Ingolstadt, Germany to Belgrade, Serbia, my answer is simple. I fought crime, outran bad guys in speedboats with machine guns, almost died a few times from river monsters and 20-foot waves … oh yeah, it was…
Punta de Lobos is awarded World Surfing Reserve status—an all too rare conservation success story.
We are so sad to learn of the deaths of Hayden Kennedy and Inge Perkins. Malinda and I knew Hayden all his years. His parents, Michael and Julie Kennedy, are good friends who passed on to their son their love of climbing and skiing, and their ethics. The family also shared, in the presence of…
Back in 2006, Patagonia hosted a social event in its downtown Denver retail store in conjunction with the Fly Fishing Retailer trade show. At the event, a colleague and I addressed the attendees about an emerging threat to the world’s most productive wild salmon fishery in Bristol Bay. Later that evening, I met a young…
I’m not a scientist. But I am a fisherman of more than 70 years, and I’ve seen firsthand that of the myriad threats facing cold-water fish all over the world, global warming is the most dire. Water all over the planet is heating up in response to climate change, and our cold-water fish are in…
The jacket was probably red once but it’s now more of a muddy pink with an overlay of permanent scuff and smudge. The zipper, replaced four years ago, stands out a little brighter. The interior sports a size tag (Kids XXS) but has no hand-me-down label—it predates that Patagonia tradition. Around 13 years ago, it…
About five minutes from where I live, there is a small village called Tapia de Casariego. The waves at Tapia are not world-class, but they can get very good on the right conditions. Tapia is also very significant in Spanish surfing history, being one of the birthplaces of surfing in this country. Most of the…
It started on a hot afternoon in May, deep in Bears Ears National Monument. Four of us had been going hard for a couple of days and the fatigue from difficult miles was stacking up. One of us was struggling. It might have been lack of training, or perhaps improper fueling for back-to-back 12-hour days…
Lasting Function and a Commitment to Repair In a landscape of disposable ski and snowboard fashion, fixing and keeping your snow gear in play is the most radical act we know. On average, most of us keep a piece of clothing for just three years, yet the materials and processes for making any new garment…
When I was ten years old, I was a hyperactive kid who had problems staying focused for a long period of time. One day I was sitting in class at primary school, listening to a subject that didn’t really interest me. Bored, I started playing with the scissors that I found in my school bag.…
Robby Naish once spoke about the irony of traveling the world to compete. He spent 30 years filling passport after passport, but never really saw anything other than the beach. It’s an easy trap to fall into. With today’s high-paced society and accurate weather forecasts, traveling surfers and kite surfers often focus too much on…
As I wake, I become aware of the shovel-scraping-asphalt croak of a blue heron, or the brilliant complex cascading song of the winter wren, or the yammering calls of the kingfisher being chased by an accipiter. In the fall a flock of kinglets, moving through the trees and shrubs surrounding our camp, deliver their pure,…
“Picture walking through a parking lot with a ski mask rolled up on your head and a pistol in your pocket. You’re getting closer to the bank, your heart’s beating faster, adrenaline’s starting to rush through your head, and you can’t believe you’re about to do what you’re about to do,” says Roland Thompson. “When…
It didn’t take long for Ben Wilkinson to figure out that there was freedom to be had in working for himself—and that freedom was the first requirement if he wanted to go surfing whenever the waves got huge. “I left home when I was 16,” he remembers, “which was old enough in my eyes. But…
“We just have to run 20, 30 or 50 miles a day over some mountains. What could go wrong?” When I received my itinerary from Jenn Shelton to run the Tour du Mont Blanc, I took a hard swallow of quickly drying saliva, knowing that my background as a middle-distance track racer (specializing in the 5K)…
Dear Kaz and Irenna, Today you are 10-months old. This week, the last of winter’s snow left our garden, and the final crocus patch bloomed and closed just in time to escape your attempts to eat its purple petals. I spent our first winter together pulling you behind me in a tandem sled that gave…
Filmmaking. Some people follow the storyboard, some follow their gut. Keith Malloy? Ten parts gut, zero parts plan. Well, I take that back. He’s got a plan, it’s just hard to discern it behind that beard. Fortunately, he’s got some friends (and a legendary wife) who know how to organize, use cameras, record sound, scuba dive…
A sea of a thousand rocky thumbs. Which one do you take? Balancing trustingly on ten millimeters of rocky protrusion, your index finger wraps around the top of a feldspar knob. Don’t breathe too deeply or it might push you off. You have it, but you feel your balance waver. For a millisecond you’re falling…
I can’t help but say or think or feel it: this is Abbey Land. Despite the various crusts that have formed over the years since Abbey was alive and well in the Moab area, this is still his place. Of course, it is the earth first, shifting and sliding and tectonically galloping—and not giving a…
The Secretary of the Interior arrived in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument midday on May 10, 2017. He came to perform an “assessment” of the monument—to see whether the current boundaries overstepped their task of protecting natural and cultural resources and spurring economic growth. It was raining, windy and cold, but hundreds of locals gathered at…
I’ve just returned to Seattle from a trip to the Central Alaska Range, which was shorter than most with only two weeks of camping at Kahiltna Base Camp, but more successful than some Alaska Range trips I’ve done that were three times the length. In May 2012, I attempted to solo Begguya—the third-highest peak in…
“MISHEEEEEEEE!” boomed Cecilia, almost crushing Michi’s large frame with a huge hug as we both walked in the door. It was 2016 and the twenty-eighth time Michi (pronounced Mickey) Mohr had come to Madeira Island. Even though he was based in Munich, he knew the waves of Madeira as well as anyone, and could more…
As I write these words, the future of this place we humans now call Indian Creek is up in the balance. In December of 2016, President Obama designated Bears Ears—in which Indian Creek is located—a national monument under the Antiquities Act. But lawmakers are pushing to rescind this designation in favor of privatization and development.…
Back in Tokyo, for a break. Just in need of a change, you know, “to get away from things.” Having worked hard all summer long, there couldn’t be more of a contrast between reeling in salmon on a river in Swedish Lapland and heading to Tokyo. For me, working hard means fishing hard and playing…
A crash course in crewing a sailing canoe.
Eight hours earlier, we were a canoe team without paddles. After a last-minute transport change, the Bad News Bears of outrigger racing had arrived at the start of the Moloka‘i Hoe having forgotten our most important equipment in another truck. It was a tense hour or so until our paddles finally arrived. But now, halfway…
Like the rest of the world’s climbing community, we at Patagonia are deeply saddened by the death of renowned Swiss climber and mountaineer Ueli Steck on April 30, 2017, in Nepal. Below, alpinist Steve House remembers his friend. “There are dreams that are worth a certain amount of risk.”—Ueli Steck Ueli was, and always will be,…
Professional photographer Andrew Burr reaffirms his skill set in Mongolia.
“It can’t be a route if there aren’t any holds, Sonnie,” Alex called from the ground. I could see him down there, sitting back in his harness comfortably, looking up at me, grinning. I was roughly 60 feet in the air, on the opposite end of the 9mm rope he was holding, and searching for…
Snowboarding began as a way of riding waves in their frozen form. There are still plenty of snow shredders who take their inspiration from surf style—and plenty of surfers who are just as stoked to get up into the mountains. Each year at Mt. Bachelor, the Gerry Lopez Big Wave Challenge celebrates the links between…
Almost a decade ago, I’d heard stories of mystical right points peeling forever without another soul in sight. What surfer addicted to logging wouldn’t crave to check it out, even though it meant ignoring travel warnings and venturing into a region suffering from civil unrest? Young, naive and most probably foolish, I set off on…
As I step into MAS Active-Leisureline, a Fair Trade Certified factory that makes Patagonia products near Colombo, Sri Lanka, the first thing that confronts my senses is the sound. Row after row of clamorous cutting and sewing machinery is being operated by a few hundred workers, all dressed in bright green uniforms and working under…
I woke in a daze and waddled, still in my sleeping bag, bottom unzipped, feet out, toward the camp kitchen to greet the team. The morning was brisk and we’d gone light on clothes to save weight. My hands snuck out to grasp a cup of hot coffee. Two bull bison emerged in the mist…
I was looking for real mountain wilderness in Europe. All of the roads, ski lifts, huts, dams and avalanche safety reports make it really easy and comfortable to access great ski touring, climbing and freeriding in the central European Alps. Some of the huts feel more like hotels than shelters for mountaineers. The price we…
Everyone in the Patagonia family is saddened to hear about the passing of Royal Robbins on March 14, 2017. Some in the company knew him personally, many of us did not. But we are, to this day, greatly inspired by his pioneering spirit and commitment to clean climbing. In honor of his friend, Patagonia founder…
It started as a joke: “Do you think the interior has snow?” Marie-France Roy posed the question. She, Kael Martin, Sean Black and I were eating a stale breakfast in a Campbell River, BC, hotel lobby. It was warm and murky outside. That kind of murk which can only mean January drizzle on Canada’s west…
For those of you who don’t know surfing, Gerry Lopez is an icon of the sport. Since the late sixties, Gerry has made surfers from around the world hoot with hyper fascination as he dazzled them with his tube riding prowess. His flowing, effortless grace in heavy-water situations is revered by surfers worldwide. Famous for…
Digging deep to climb the three hardest routes on Longs Peak in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park.
One Christmas, my brother gifted me a copy of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. I hate those kind of books. He and his girlfriend could both name-drop dozens of the tick-listed destinations, but I was mostly perplexed. What did you do there? Came, saw, conquered—never to look back. Judginess harshed my holiday spirit.…
Gerry Lopez first surfed Uluwatu in 1974. The fabled Balinese wave was pristine, magical and empty (more on that below). Forty years later, he returned to host a yoga retreat, get a few waves between classes and help preserve Uluwatu for future generations. In this short film, Gerry uses Uluwatu and surfing as metaphors for change—and…
I was lucky to grow up in the valley of the Haute-Durance, located in the Hautes-Alpes not far from Briançon and the border to Italy. Home was a wild and protected area where my parents introduced me to the joys of mountain trails, skiing on beautiful slopes through evergreens and climbing on pristine cliffs. Later…
“I just want to stay home and ride wind lips,” Josh Dirksen says. A simple statement. A simple goal. It was April 2014. We’d been camped out on Central Oregon’s South Sister for a couple of days. Getting to our midmountain camping spot had taken some time, but not a lot of nerve. It was…
“The real conflict of the beach is not between sea and shore […] but between Man and Nature. On the beach, Nature has achieved a dynamic equilibrium that is alien to Man and his static sense of equilibrium. Once a line has been established, whether it be a shoreline or a property line, Man unreasonably…
British Columbia doesn’t need another ski resort, especially one in the middle of the wild Purcell Mountains.
“This planet is so powerful and diverse, but also fragile. I felt that building a smaller home, out of as many local, natural and recycled resources as possible, would be a wonderful way for me to remain more connected and grounded.”—Marie-France Roy You can tell a lot about a person by their bookshelf. I’d repeatedly…
I took a hex off the rack and pushed it far into the crack. The rime was thick, and the crack’s edges blurry. The hex mushed into the rime and stuck. I beat on it with my ice axe just to be sure, then gave it a swift tug. It ripped straight out. Technical winter…
One of my earliest outdoor climbing experiences was at the crags around the quaint countryside village of Dunkeld. An escarpment of Schist can be seen escaping from the deep forest high on the hill just beyond the village. It was here that I would spend many a day for ten years. The climbing here is unique.…
As I swung my tools into the unconsolidated snowy headwall and tried to catch something that would hold my weight, I looked down and saw Jason and Caro huddled together at a hanging belay. In the gathering dark, they were trying to avoid the constant barrage of snow and ice I was creating. We’d been…
“You don’t have to be crazy,” Ty likes to say, “but it helps.” I’ve stopped counting how many times over the years these words have described our harebrained outings. Right then, I was trying to focus on surviving the current one. Anything that actually resembled running had stopped hours ago. The sun was shining, but…
The national park system may not have saved my life but it definitely allowed me to truly discover and continually define it. Following an abysmal 13th grade at an entry level university and an equally lamentable year employed in one of the most dangerous professions, I bolted west to manifest my destiny. After a summer…
Ten years after its original publication, Penguin Books has released a completely revised and expanded edition of Yvon Chouinard’s classic memoir, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, with more than 40 percent new material and featuring a new foreword by Naomi Klein, author of the bestselling book This Changes Everything. In the…
I have epilepsy. I don’t know if I was born with it. The better conclusion is I developed it from a series of concussions in high school. But truly, no doctor will say for certain. Such is the story of epilepsy. I was diagnosed on my way to my freshman year at the University of…
Why Fish A Single Pattern All Year? Insight (And a Lot of Fish)
The musings of a dirtbag’s disciple.
A portrait of the man who made more first ascents than any other North American climber, wrote beautiful and meticulous mountain guides of the wild areas he loved, and defined the “dirtbag” archetype in a way that no one else ever has or could.
My work with adaptive athletes began when my brother Sean was injured almost 25 years ago. He’s paralyzed from the waist down and lives life from a wheelchair where he more than rolls with it, he thrives. Ever since we topped out on El Capitan for the first time in 2005—that’s 3,000 feet of vertical…
There’s no place on Earth like southeastern Utah’s Bears Ears region. From world-class crack climbing at Indian Creek, biking singletrack in the Abajo Mountains, backpacking in Grand Gulch to floating the San Juan River, adventure abounds here. But it’s not just valuable for climbing and biking. Home to more than 100,000 archaeological sites, it is…
I couldn’t feel my feet. We had crossed the frigid river too many times to count, and locating a passable route along the narrow canyon floor required scrambling, crashing through willows and crisscrossing the river over and over again. We’d covered a mere six miles in three hours, and I began to think we’d bitten…
We are now third and fourth generation surfers. We have the confidence to leave the stereotypes behind. We’re the scroungiest dirtbags one day and then return to the urban environment as activists for change the next. Two time periods epitomize the style and sensibility of what we are working to create in the coming years.…
“Great climb, eh?” said a voice from up and over my right shoulder. “Yeah,” I replied, while clipping the anchor on After Midnight one of Mount Wellington’s most prized pitches and no giveaway at 24 (or 5.11d in Yosemite terms), “incredible, actually.” “Where you from?” the voice asked. “Canada!” I said. I looked up to…
After El Capitan, my desire for wall climbing diminished. Perhaps it was growing older, or perhaps it was just my surroundings. The Black Canyon was no longer an hour away. Yosemite was no longer in my waking dreams every day. Durango was so close to the desert, and thus the desert became all that mattered…
At first light, a toucan comes flying over the patio and sits in an old tree in front of the house. The bird stares at me as I have my first sip of coffee. Then another toucan lands in the tree, followed by a whole flock. I get up and snap a picture of the…
“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul. ” – Edward Abbey Scale is a hard thing to get a handle on. We pour over maps to try to understand a landscape. Better yet, sometimes we get to fly over it, circling the valleys and mountains to get a real lay of the land.…
My previous Patagonia climbing season, climbing last year mostly with Marc-André Leclerc and Alex Honnold, had been my most successful yet. Among a bunch of other activity was the first ascent of the Travesía del Oso Buda, the first repeat and direct variation to El Arca de los Vientos, and a nearly complete, one-day Torre…
“Fish, two o’clock,” shouted Norman Chumaceiro, my guide to tarpon on the idyllic island of Curacao, 40 miles off the coast of Venezuela. “Now they’re at nine! And six. They’re everywhere!” he exclaimed. If anyone could help me come tight on a tarpon it’s Chumaceiro, who, along with his friend Albert Macares, are the only…
Both of my kids love their science classes in school, and Skyla often mentions wanting to be a marine biologist when she grows up. So when the field biologists from the Wild Fish Conservancy invited us to participate in some beach-seine sampling, as part of their project to assess juvenile salmon habitat around Puget Sound, we jumped…
It’s 2002. Dan Malloy, the youngest of the Malloy brothers, is surfing in a contest at Sunset Beach on Oʻahu. He is 25 years old and upholding a foundation built by his two older brothers, which has made him the most hopeful of the Malloy clan to excel in the competitive surfing world. But it’s…
The road has been my home for the better part of my adult life. That elusive space not quite here or there, but simply a collection of moments in between. Let’s rephrase that. The road has been where I’ve felt most at home for the better part of my entire life. Sure, I’ve had homes…
In early 2014, I spent some time exploring the coastline around southern Chile looking for waves and generally just checking out a place that I had always wanted to visit. I ended up heading as far south as Chiloe which is the first island on the coast of where Patagonia starts. It had been a…
Rolo and a handful of stoked Patagonia ambassadors and friends will be sharing images and stories of their adventures throughout the Patagonia climbing season. Follow along at patagonia.com/vidapatagonia. If you’re planning to make a climbing trip to the area, tag your photos with #VidaPatagonia to appear on the page. The peaks of the Chaltén Massif…
The pig squeals and groans in protest as I wrestle it back onto my sweaty body. I groan even louder. Seventy pounds of ropes, cams, pins, beaks, portaledges, tents, food, fuel and everything else for a month-long big-wall expedition bulge from my haul bag, digging deep into my spine. I’ve already carried two of these…
Feeling lost. Feeling far from help. Far from a store, motors and people. I am existing in a world much bigger than I can comprehend. What I can see is all that is. I’m alive to find what I can’t yet see. There are two times of day: light and dark. Food is fuel for…
“Just go in,” said the woman’s voice. “There’s nobody there at the moment but the house is always left open. Yours is room two, upstairs.” I was calling ahead to the small guesthouse where we had booked a room. Slightly bewildered, I looked across at my traveling buddy, Martín. “It’s cool man, aquí no roban,”…
It is with heavy hearts that we share news of the passing of two Patagonia climbing ambassadors, Kei Taniguchi and Kenshi Imai, in two separate incidents. Kei Taniguchi passed away on December 22 at Mount Kurodake in Hokkaido, Japan. Our deepest condolences and best wishes go out to her family and friends. She was 43 years…
Fire in the Belly What were we thinking? Was it arrogant of us to go straight up this blank-looking headwall? The chances that this line would go free were pretty slim. Was it the aesthetics of the blankness and steepness that had attracted us? Why didn’t we choose to follow more obvious features that were…
For 24 years, residents of the Kootenays in British Columbia, Canada, have been largely opposed to a proposed year-round ski resort in the heart of the Central Purcell Mountains—a region that encompasses both cherished alpine backcountry and critical core grizzly bear habitat. At the time this story was going to print, the provincial government had…
Winter in Iceland is ridiculously unpredictable. It can be beaten by wind and swell one minute and infused with silence and solitude the next. Drawn by the appeal of its wilderness, my partner and I dreamed of traveling there for a long time. Combining both of our passions for surfing and exploring, we decided to…
Jasmin Caton and Leah Evans both live and work in southeastern British Columbia: Caton as a ski guide and co-owner of Valhalla Mountain Touring; Evans as founder and director of the freeski program Girls Do Ski in Revelstoke. Caton has been skiing the backcountry since she was a child, while Evans comes from a hard-charging,…
On Saturday October 3, 2015, over 300 people—fishermen, Native Americans, farmers, orca lovers, business owners, students, salmon advocates, kayakers, and conservationists—took to the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington, a short distance from the Lower Granite Dam. Together, this diverse group formed the “Free the Snake Flotilla.” They were a representative slice of the movement…
If you didn’t look close you just might miss it, and we do. Gazing across the Columbia River Basin into the morning light on the Purcell Mountains, we pass right by the Radium Hot Springs municipal offices. It’s not difficult to do here, where human presence is a mere asterisk on the seemingly infinite word…
By Luke Nelson There is something unnerving about waking up shivering. I rolled over and did a dozen or so push-ups in an attempt to get warm enough to fall back asleep. My commotion led to Cody pressing the light on his watch. “It’s almost 4 a.m.,” I mumbled. “I’ve been cold for a while,”…
By Jessica Salcido For the past few years, a small group of kiters here at Patagonia have participated in Kiteboarding 4 Cancer, a spectacularly beautiful kite race in Hood River, Oregon designed to raise money for the survivor-focused nonprofit, Athletes 4 Cancer. Cancer has impacted all of our lives—we’ve loved and cared for friends, family,…
As my friends and I get older, the threat of slipping into a normal lifestyle becomes more real. I have to mow the lawn, get the oil and filter changed in the car, go to the dentist. These days, given a choice, I would rather do a few sport pitches and get a good workout…
The cacophonous boom of that explosion will forever resonate within me. With the flip of a switch, one hundred years of destructive history began to wash away. It was a new day—a day in which the Elwha was finally free. At long last, its waters could once again run unabated to the sea and its…
In its deep summer slumber, it is hard to gauge the latent fury this place can serve up to the unsuspecting. There are, however, clues to the power of this landscape that can both give and take in equal measure. The weathered faces of naked shale give evidence to deadly drops of tonnage. The natural…
Honestly, we went to Iceland to catch big fish. It was that simple. We wanted to bask in the late Arctic sun while bringing dreamy meter-long Atlantic salmon to hand. We wanted to drink whiskey afterwards, go to bed and do it again every day we could. What surprised us wasn’t our ability to check…
This op-ed was originally published in the Sacramento Bee on July 23, 2015. On May 7, the Yuba Salmon Partnership Initiative (YSPI) shared a plan that would create the first “trap and haul” program of its kind in California. Trap and haul involves capturing fish, putting them in trucks, and moving them up or down…
Fifteen years ago, I was drawn to southeastern Utah by the vast tracts of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and National Forest lands where I could find the freedom to explore and climb and have an adventure—rarely seeing another human other than my climbing partners or an intrepid hiker. I loved the feeling that my…
Exactly one month ago I tightened the last bolt in the last hold on the first-ever climbing boulder in Mozambique—and then climbed on it with over 1,000 Mozambican school children. Tonight, over dinner in Central Mozambique, I made a promise to climb a 12-pitch run-out granite slab with a Mozambican farmer named Elias who’s never…
The official grand opening of the new Patagonia National Park in southern Chile is scheduled for late November but the park, even now, is attracting thousands of visitors including three of our trail running ambassadors who, in January, ran parts of the 100-plus miles of trails already constructed. Patagonia-the-company funded part of that construction but…
When the first surfers turned up at Mundaka around the late 1960s and set their eyes upon those perfect lefthanders, they had no reason to think the waves wouldn’t be there forever. Almost half a century later, we now know that Mundaka is a very special wave, perhaps unique in the world; not just because…
I got on a plane in Vancouver around midday on April 16. I was exhausted. After a four-month season in Patagonia, my six weeks back in North America turned out much less restful than I had imagined. Conditions had been excellent, and I couldn’t keep myself from going out in the mountains a bunch. The…
The Mont Blanc range is not a very big mountain range, but it is steep. It has become a kind of laboratory for skiers, mountaineers and climbers from around the world. Laurent and I consider ourselves somewhere is the middle as we are ski-mountaineers, IFMGA mountain guides and part of the Peakpowder guide team. The…
“It starts as rain or snow falling on Scotland’s highest mountain—Ben Nevis. Either as rain or melting snow it percolates the thin layer of peat soil until it reaches the granite rock and unable to penetrate it, runs under the surface until emerging in Coire Leish or Coire na Ciste. The outflows from these two…
My friend Leonard Lee works in the oil industry across San Juan County, Utah, both on and off the Navajo Nation. He oversees oil and gas wells and the crews who work them. So it may surprise you that Leonard is also the Vice-Chairman of a Native American organization that intends to protect 1.9 million…
Fundamentals of releasing a fish and the path to responsible angling.
How do you tell the story of 106 miles in two days in a short and concise manner? It’s nearly impossible—similar to trying to restore an ecosystem and build a national park. So many little steps, so many little stories. Our route would take us through the new Patagonia Park. Starting north in the town…
Things have changed. That old “live simply” ethos Jenna and I lived by, roaming around the desert and mountains in our ’83 Dodge Prospector van (with a sci-fi mural on the hood and velvet interior), feels a bit like a past life. Climbing these days is tightly packed between a life of airports, computers, conference…
By Michel Caron Not long ago, I joined Jasmine and my girlfriend, Marie-Pier, for a day of cross-country skiing in Craftsbury, Vermont. Marie-Pier is a certified ski instructor and Jasmine is a strong skier while I, uh, I am able to follow for some time until I find something else worth discovering and photographing. That…
I’ve had a few pets on Swell over the last nine years—most of them made their way aboard on their own. I don’t mind the geckos that often show up in a banana stock. They hide, so I rarely get to see them, but they are harmless and make cute coughing noises in the evening.…
An open-pit mining boom is underway in northern British Columbia, Canada. The massive size and location of the mines—at the headwaters of major salmon rivers that flow across the border into Alaska—has Alaskans concerned over pollution risks posed to their multi-billion dollar fishing and tourism industries. These concerns were heightened with the August 4, 2014…
The Copp-Dash Inspire Award, sponsored by Black Diamond Equipment, La Sportiva, Mountain Hardwear and Patagonia (with additional in-kind support from Adventure Film Festival, the American Alpine Club, Jonny Copp Foundation and Sender Films), announced the 2015 winners of the climbing grant established in memory of American climbers Jonny Copp and Micah Dash who were killed…
When I lived in Chicago I ran like there was no tomorrow. Sundays had me running long steady miles, Mondays were a set up for double-down Tuesdays, and Wednesday’s leg screaming repeats on the University of Illinois’s Circle Campus track provided the week’s endorphin highlight. A friend whom I trained with told me about ultramarathon…
![Alex Megos Makes the Third Ascent of Lucid Dreaming (V15) [Updated with video]](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/6a00d8341d07fd53ef01bb07e602af970d-768x512.jpg.webp)
Patagonia climber Alexander Megos made the third ascent of Lucid Dreaming (V15) this week on the Grandpa Peabody boulder in the Buttermilks. It was a double-milestone effort for the German phenom. “Feels like a DREAM but it’s not. Finally took down my hardest boulder ever and as well my longest project ever!” Alex said on…
We are saddened today to give you the tragic news that Patagonia ski ambassador Dave Rosenbarger—“American Dave” as we knew him—died on Friday, January 23 when he was caught in an avalanche while skiing on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc Massif. Dave has been a part of the Patagonia family since 2010. Our hearts…
On January 14, 2015, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson made the first free ascent of The Dawn Wall on Yosemite’s El Capitan. Today we’re happy to share this exclusive video of Tommy climbing pitch 15, rated 5.14c—the first footage released by the film crew on the wall. “The crux holds of pitch 15 are some…
We’ve been watching the updates with bated breath and now all of us at Patagonia are thrilled to congratulate Tommy Caldwell and his partner Kevin Jorgeson on the first free ascent of the Dawn Wall in Yosemite Valley. Tommy first conceived the idea of the climb in 2007 and, seven years later, summited the route…
I’m sitting in a bar with Doug Chabot, director of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center. The man has more enthusiasm for snow science, alpine climbing and general life than about anyone I know. And the best part: it’s infectious. We are both a couple beers deep before our pizza arrives. The conversation floats, with…
After my second trip to Southern Chile this past July, I have absolutely fallen in love with its simple way of life. More and more nowadays, it seems there is so much going on that it’s impossible to get ahead. Chile doesn’t know or care about that. Life there is content to just continue rolling…
It’s early morning and our pre-dawn bedroom is see-your-breath freezing. But I’m curled up with my daughter Lily, snug in our cozy nest of blankets. I’m in that happy place between dreaming and waking. A habitual late-riser, I relish long, lazy mornings. I love adventure, I just prefer to initiate it after 9:00 a.m. and…
President Obama’s recent protection of Bristol Bay from oil and gas exploration may feel like a victory for fish and the environment, but I think it’s really about time and money. Which in this case, is just as good. Here’s why: Oil and gas reserves, as we know, are limited by however much is already…
By Greta Hyland I dream of running, not figuratively but literally. In my dreams it is effortless, exhilarating. When I wake from these dreams I feel pumped and want to jump out of bed and run—there have been times at night when I have. For a while, running was a nightmare. I got tired. My…
