Culture Stories
Life on the deck of Hokule’a, the double-hulled canoe that sails around the world using only ancient wayfinding techniques.
Making face masks in the time of COVID-19: when “breathable face fabric” takes on a whole new meaning.
Young farmers learn what it means to do essential work during a global crisis.
Three moms share the details.
Jasmin Caton worried having twins might slow down her life in the mountains. Then she remembered what her parents did with her.
Welcoming Back the ‘Welcoming Noise’ Near the Arctic Circle
It’s fascinating to hear Zaria Forman talk about ice, especially the way that it sounds. She describes the way it rumbles and thunders and cracks, even when you can’t see anything. It crackles and pops like breakfast cereal on high volume. “Ice crispies,” she calls it. “It’s a really beautiful sound.” Polar ice is possibly…
“We biked through wind, rain, and snow. If lightning struck, we kept going. We only stopped if it got too close. We outran tornadoes in Oklahoma. We waited out a storm in an old horse barn in Montana, huddled like penguins, our bikes cast carelessly aside in the mud,” writes John Flynn. After John lost…
Editor’s note: This post discusses anxiety and suicide. In a humble workshop in Washougal, Washington, a blind craftsman holds a locally harvested log that he has made into a blank with his miter saw. He turns it in his hands to feel its shape and weight. He measures and marks, measures and marks. A flick…
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…
Rule #1 of a road trip: Vehicle may break down. Rule #2 of a road trip: You may break down along with it. Near the Ruby Mountains in Nevada, Gordon and Meredith Wiltsie were struggling with wrenches and wire after the muffler came loose on their old International Travelall. As their 4-year-old son, Nick, whacked at…
Dave Murray lives in a wooded mountain valley in western Montana with his wife, Connie; a labradoodle rightly named Loki, after the Norse god of mischief; and a bunch of mules. I live 140 miles north near Glacier National Park. He and I met on a float trip down a wild river in northern British…
Restoring a traditional Hawaiian koa canoe. Ka Wahine u‘i O Hale‘iwa, which roughly translates to “Beautiful Young Woman of Hale‘iwa,” is the pride and joy of the Manu O Ke Kai Canoe Club here in Hale‘iwa on the North Shore of O‘ahu. Carved from a single koa tree, U‘i’s life began at 5,400 feet on…
Indigenous communities across the United States are increasingly confronted with threats to their sovereignty and to the places they rely on for their culture and way of life. Nowhere is this threat felt more than in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A new short film, Welcome to Gwichyaa Zhee, looks at the Gwich’in people’s work to protect…
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.…
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.
Jeanie Adamson, a 50-something mom, decided to switch things up last year for spring break. When she told her son, Luke, she wanted to ski at every resort between Dallas and Lake Tahoe, he offered up his newly-renovated 1990 Dodge Ram van, Sherrod, for the job. The two of them threw in their skis, buckled…
Following ancient pathways in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains. According to our local guide, Samir Ahmoudou, to travel anywhere in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, you only need to know three Amazigh words: sow, gow, ich—“eat, sleep, drink.” Hospitality will take care of the rest. Such advice seems simple to the point of unlikely, but the piles of…
Jordan Leads wants everybody to know she is alive and well. When she was six months old, she had her picture taken with her family at Joshua Tree’s Turtle Rock: a baby in midair, swaddled in a puffy purple jumpsuit, thrown over a disturbingly large gap between boulders. (Her parents, Jeff and Sherry, were the…
After falling in love with John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Charlie Turnbull and Leon Morton set out to recreate the 1,615-mile journey described in the novel – but on bikes. In July. With camera gear and a few buddies in tow, they followed historic Route 66 from Oklahoma to Southern California. And along the way,…
“I’d built it up in my head a lot—being a professional climber. This felt like the consummation of those dreams. I found the valley, I envisioned the trip, I got the funding, made it happen, stood at the base, picked the line, climbed it, sent, we were at the top and it wasn’t feeling the…
“For better or for worse, ideas are infectious. They become our goals, and the struggle to realize them becomes memory, the story of our lives,” says Fitz Cahall. When Brian O’Dell decided it was time to stop driving his Honda Civic, he didn’t list in on Craigslist. Instead, he posted in to outdoor forums in…
What if you could hit pause on life? This last year, Fitz turned 40. Instead of buying a sports car, Fitz took a sabbatical. Today, he presents a story about mountain biking the Oregon Timber Trail, a 670-mile-long, mostly single track trail across the state’s deserts and forests. What’s the difference between a groove and…
Drew Hamilton makes a living by taking tourists out into the remote Alaskan wilderness to hang out with brown bears. No fences, no guns—just Drew, and the eight hundred pound, six and a half foot tall, Ursus arctos horribilis of southern Alaska. Most people call them grizzlies. These days, he does it, in large part, as a…
“Any time I ski a steep line, I’ve done it hundreds of times, and still every time for me there is that moment of fear on top, where I am like, ‘Do I really want to do this?’,” says Jason Hummel. “But, also, anytime you do anything scary, it really ties you down to the…
“I was certain I was paralyzed. My legs were totally limp, I was hanging upside down and the only thing stopping me from falling 160-feet headfirst into the talus below, was this rope that was wrapped around my foot,” remembers Craig Gorder. In November, 2016, Craig took a fall in Indian Creek that injured him…
“I have a pretty young grandfather, but he was starting to get old and knew he had one or two more big expeditions in him,” says Ethan Roebuck. “He wanted to put together a big trip, because he’s getting older, but also because I’m getting older, these are skills that he thinks are important, and…
An excerpt from the book Family Business by Malinda Chouinard and Jennifer Ridgeway.
For most of his adult life, Cam Fenton has fought against climate change–and particularly to protect the Arctic. “The funny thing was, for most of that time, I couldn’t tell you why,” says Cam. “Sure, I could recite, and often wrote, the talking points: to stop sea level rise, stand with small island nations and…
Peter Kinnoch Noone, who embodied the down-to-earth style of the outdoor industry’s early days and helped shaped the development of the outdoor store as a commercial force, customer refuge and sentinel for the protection of wilderness, died at his home in Ojai, California, on July 9 of recurrent cancer. He was 75 years old. Peter…
“The definition of kidnapping is moving someone from one point to another point against their will, and that’s exactly what had happened to us,” says Ben Stookesberry. “But, to me, the most noteworthy part of the day was that, for the first time in the entire trip, we were actually all working together as a…
Building cultural bridges through a shared love of wild rivers and folk music.
There are a lot of serious problems in this world, but the solutions don’t always have to be serious. Fly fisherman and trail runner Andrew Todd channeled his concern for Colorado’s native trout and the watersheds that support them into the creation of a joyful, irreverent event: The Flyathlon. The rules: Run 10-miles Catch a…
“I was working this corporate job, and, every day, I looked out the window and thought, ‘Man, those mountains are so beautiful, I wish I was out there,’” remembers Perry Cohen. Growing up, Perry was an outdoorsy kid—hiking and cross-country skiing in rural New Hampshire. He was thrilled when, as a teenager, he got to…
“For me, it was a way to stay connected, literally: tied to my free-range daughter by a length of 10-millimeter climbing rope, and connected to my own dream of being an adventurer,” says David Altschul. “And that was how I found myself, a few days later, on a ledge, high above the Columbia River, in…
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…
For millennia, horses helped us build the modern world. We might need them now more than ever.
Realizing our own shortcomings when it comes to being more inclusive.
“It’s like being caught in a spiderweb. You’ll find yourself pushing with every part of your body, and no part of your body will be able to move. You’re totally trapped by–held by plants,” says Elsa Sebastian, describing what it’s like to bushwhack through a 25-year old clear cut in Southeast Alaska. It’s something the…
Sarah Cartier, the valiant captain of one of the most emblematic refuges on the Alps, unveils life in her little corner of paradise 2,481m above sea level. Being the start and end point of all great alpine adventures, the refuges are one of the strongest emblems of mountain culture. A warm and friendly haven, they…
“I think the jack of all trades gets a bum rap. The jack is the master of none, but I think the jack probably has a lot of fun,” says Fitz Cahall. This year, The Dirtbag Diaries opens their annual The Year of Big Ideas with an ode to “mediocrity” from Fitz, then turns, as…
I’ve watched my friends and peers hopscotch across the world. Some of them have reached the top of their craft, authored ridiculous lines up mountains, followed rivers into wrinkles of the deepest canyons, found the edge of human endurance. If I look back on the last ten years, I’m often surprised that I didn’t end…
Rallying for conservation of one of Earth’s most iconic rivers.
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…
“Disconnect to connect,” Leah Evans says to us, 13 total strangers standing in a circle at a remote trailhead in British Columbia’s Purcell Mountains. We’re about to embark on the inaugural Airplane Mode Camp led by Evans and her dream team of experts: Madeleine Martin-Preney, a hiking/ski guide and the first woman to traverse the…
An excerpt from the book Family Business by Malinda Chouinard and Jennifer Ridgeway.
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…
“It’s like the Iditarod with a chance of drowning,” says Jake Beatty, one of the organizers of a bizarre, crazy race called the Race to Alaska. The course traces 750 miles of Alaska’s Inside Passage through complicated currents and tides, busy shipping channels and bear-ridden coastlines from Port Townsend, Washington, to Ketchikan, Alaska. In June.…
For our eighth annual Tales of Terror episode, we have not three, but five stories that span the range of things to fear—from angry men with shotguns, to bears and mountain lions, to things that really don’t have any explanation in the world of science. First, we visit an abandoned Pennsylvania town with Joe Shearer.…
My artistic heroes have always been the turn-of-the-century landscape painters: Frederic Church, Sanford Gifford, Thomas Moran, to name a few. They were rugged outdoorsmen, exploring places like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite on some of the very first European expeditions to those places. They trekked into the mountains with primitive camping gear and heavy…
An excerpt from the book Family Business by Malinda Chouinard and Jennifer Ridgeway.
Raising awareness. It seems like every day, someone embarks on a new project to ‘raise awareness’ about a particular issue, cause, disease, endangered species or threatened public land. But what separates the projects that cut through the noise and the ones that get drowned out in the static of issues competing for our attention? For…
“When we were living in a house, we were always compromising because we had the weight of a mortgage, of doing what we thought we should be doing,” remembers Kathy Holcombe. Until the day she, her husband Peter and their daughter Abby moved into a Winnebago to travel and work from the road. “I want…
March 11, Saidi Tagnob Conservancy, Zighar, Tajikistan Odina, a Tajik ranger from the Saidi Tagnob Conservancy, squats alongside the cliff edge. With large field glasses pressed to his face, he scans the opposite mountainside for familiar movement. He motions excitedly for the spotting scope. I squint hopelessly across the ravine at I-know-not-what. And then I…
Patagonia CEO encourages other business leaders to support working families with paid leave and on-site child care.
It’s drizzling and a bag piper is piping—cliché but cute—as I roll through the steep, salty streets of Lamlash, on Scotland’s Isle of Arran, into a rooty, ferny slick single track, with 149 other bikers. Within the first quarter mile of the Grinduro Scotland, about half the participants are already off their bikes and walking.…
“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…
Excerpted from chapter one of The Voyage of the Cormorant—new edition now available in paperback. A two-week supply of food, water, and gear in dry bags fit neatly in the boat, and I secured my surfboard in a padded bag over the top of my stowed equipment. My plan was to sail the sparsely populated…
The dust has settled and the results from the Reno Distribution Center 2017 Bike to Work Week (B2WW), back in May, are in—another successful year that demonstrated that the Patagonia Reno Service Center rises to the occasion and puts in those hard bike miles when it matters. The highlight this year was the participation of…