Keep your eyes on Mars in our night sky this week. Our neighboring planet鈥攖he fourth from the sun in our solar system and approximately half the size of Earth鈥攚ill look larger and brighter in our heavens than it has for the past two years, particularly Wednesday night. That鈥檚 when Earth will pass directly between Mars and the sun, putting us within 60 million miles of the Red Planet, roughly 42 percent closer than average.

Astronomers call this phenomenon opposition, and it affords prime sky-watching conditions. During opposition, a planet is closer to Earth, and we benefit from seeing the celestial body with the sun鈥檚 full glare, which makes it appear exceptionally vivid.

While we can enjoy the opposition of distant planets like Jupiter and Saturn almost every year, Mars is only in opposition once every 27 months because our orbits are closer, according to . And this week marks its long-awaited moment in the sun.

Here鈥檚 when and how to best observe Mars during opposition. It won鈥檛 be this radiant again for us until 2027.

The Best Nights to View Mars During Opposition

Mars technically reaches opposition between January 15 to 16, but even now it鈥檚 already more luminous than usual. If you go outside tonight鈥攐r any night until Wednesday鈥攖he Red Planet will look spectacular and only get brighter as we near opposition.

Here’s a video of Mars next to the moon during the 2022 opposition, as viewed via a Nikon P1000 camera:

On January 13, we鈥檒l see another interesting Martian sight: , which occurs when this month鈥檚 full Wolf Moon slides in front of Mars. According to , this will begin over the contiguous U.S. at 8:45 P.M. EST and will be visible to the naked eye above most of North America. (Exact timing and duration will vary by location.)

Throughout opposition week, if the sky is clear in your location, Mars will shine as vividly as Sirius, the night sky鈥檚 brightest star. But if you can only stay up late one night, I recommend the January 15 opposition, when the planet will be more dazzling to us on Earth than any time since December 2022.

Where to Spot Mars in the Sky During Opposition Week

Mars will rise in the east at dusk and set above the western horizon around sunrise. Seek out the planet鈥檚 tangerine tinge in the Gemini constellation (the hue will become bolder closer to opposition). Peak viewing begins around midnight, when Mars is highest in the sky.

Even in light-polluted cities, Mars is visible to the naked eye. I shot the following photo on January 7 while I was in San Diego, and visibility was still quite remarkable.

That said, a pair of binoculars鈥攐r better yet a telescope鈥攚ill show off the planet鈥檚 surface details, including a vast canyon system and Olympus Mons, a volcano three times as high as Mount Everest.

If you鈥檙e new to planet-watching, download a stargazing app to navigate the heavens and to locate other prominent nearby celestial sights, like Jupiter and Sirius.

Regional Astronomy Events Celebrating Mars That Are Worth Traveling To

Consider attending a community astronomy night, where night-sky experts will show you the stars and planets via telescope. I found a half dozen excellent stargazing events across the country that will focus on the Mars opposition this week, but it鈥檚 always worth reaching out to your to see if it鈥檚 hosting any get-togethers for planet-gazing, too. (Note: all events below are weather permitting.)

The East

Chester, Pennsylvania

The astronomy and physics faculty at Widener University, just south of Philadelphia, are running a public at its observatory starting at 7 P.M. on January 15. . As of publication, this event is at full capacity, but you can join the waitlist. Free

The South

Conway, Arkansas

At 6 P.M. on January 15, the , located north of Little Rock, will open its observatory to the public for night-sky observations through a powerful Meade 14-inch-aperture LX200R telescope. Free

The Midwest

Jeff Davis County, Texas

The McDonald Observatory, located in West Texas but part of the University of Texas at Austin, will host a star party at 7 P.M. on January 14. Come for the amphitheater tour and stay for the telescope viewing. is required. From $25

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Heide Observatory鈥檚 aligns perfectly with the Mars opposition. The January 15 event begins at 6 P.M. at the Hawthorn Hollow Nature Sanctuary and Arboretum. Guides will lead guests through a tour of the night sky via laser pointer. $12

The West

Divide, Colorado

The Colorado Springs Astronomical Society is hosting a at Mueller State Park, 33 miles west of Colorado Springs, starting at 7 P.M on January 17. The event will take place at the park鈥檚 visitor center; no registration is required, but you will need a (from $10).

Sunriver, Oregon

The , roughly 20 miles south of Bend, is giving the public a prime view of Mars on January 15 starting at 7 P.M. The observatory has one of the largest collections of publicly accessible telescopes in the country, with staff astronomers at the ready to help visitors learn to use them. Registration is required. $28 for nonmembers; free for members

Stephanie Vermillion is 国产吃瓜黑料 Online鈥�s astrotourism columnist. She鈥檚 the author of the new National Geographic book, , and she plans to watch Mars鈥檚 opposition on a stargazing getaway to Loreto, Mexico.

The post You Can See Mars at Its Brightest This Week. Here鈥檚 How. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

In my mid-20s, I moved to Ocean Beach, Southern California, specifically to learn how to surf. I spent the first six months of my tenure unemployed, so I was in the water every day, launching myself into the whitewash at Dog Beach, the most beginner-friendly break within a few miles of my apartment. I was enthralled with the surf, but I loved the town of Ocean Beach, San Diego, even more.

Back then, the small enclave was still grungy, with a downtown full of cheap breakfast joints and bars that only took cash. The bartenders looked at you funny if you wore closed-toe shoes. It was a surf town.

More than two decades later, I鈥檓 still enamored with surf towns. My home is in the mountains, four hours and 22 minutes from the closest surf break (but who鈥檚 counting?). Yet I still take surf trips regularly, as much to explore the towns by the beaches as the surf itself. I鈥檝e been fortunate enough to paddle into waves in Costa Rica, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Hawaii, and areas up and down So Cal and the Southeastern United States. I鈥檓 not a great surfer, but I bar hop and scout out the best fish tacos at a very high level.

A great surf town has quick access to waves and adventure, but also good food, good vibes, and a dedication to quality of life. Read on for what I believe to be the eight best surf towns in the U.S.

1. Hale鈥檌wa, Hawaii

Hawaii is loaded with bucket-list surf destinations, but it鈥檚 hard to beat the North Shore of Oahu, home of the world-famous beaches of Waimea Bay and Banzai Pipeline. The town of Hale鈥檌wa is the cultural hub of the North Shore, with a small downtown full of shops, food trucks, and surf instructors ready to teach tourists.

Halei鈥檞a is only an hour from the bustling cities of Honolulu and Waikiki, but it has the slower pace of a farming community. The town sits within a 20-minute drive of Waimea Bay, Banzai, and Sunset Beach, and has plenty of adjacent surf as well. Winter brings heavy conditions, with massive, glassy waves that only pros should paddle into, but the swells mellow during summer, allowing us mortals a go in this storied destination.

Patches of reef scattered throughout the area on the sandy bottom catch the swell. Start with the beginner-friendly waves at Pua鈥檈na Point, which is popular with surf instructors. The beach is small, but has plenty of shade. A double reef break offers bigger rides on the outer reef and a smaller, longboard-friendly wave closer to shore. Then try Ali鈥檌 Beach, the closest surf to town. Much like Pua鈥檈na Point, Ali鈥檌 Beach has a beginner-friendly wave close to shore and a larger, more advanced wave in deeper water.

Hale鈥檌wa proper has fewer than 5,000 permanent residents and a downtown full of sugar-plantation-era architecture framed by Oahu鈥檚 green mountains beyond. It鈥檚 a picture-perfect island town where you鈥檒l find waterfalls in the surrounding hills, and a fun and bustling live-music and food-truck scene in town. Paddleboarding the Anahulu River, beneath Hale鈥檌wa鈥檚 Rainbow Bridge, is a great way to spend some time away from the surf.

Surf Shop: , right across the street from Ali鈥檌 Beach, has rentals from soft tops to performance short boards (from $30 a day).

Surf Instruction: , a female-owned company with a full staff of women instructors, teaches lessons at Pua鈥檈na Point for the whole family (from $66).

Eat and Drink: If there鈥檚 one thing you have to eat when you鈥檙e in Hale鈥檌wa, it鈥檚 shaved ice from , a family-run business established in 1951 that still uses homemade syrup recipes. The North Shore has become a magnet for food trucks, which serve traditional Hawaiian dishes al fresco. Online reviews say the garlic butter shrimp at is the best in town. I鈥檓 dying to go check out the reports.

2. Solana Beach, California

Here鈥檚 the problem with an article about the best surf towns in the country: I could write about 20 deserving towns in California alone. Carlsbad, San Clemente, Santa Cruz鈥ll awesome. I could choose Huntington Beach, which is literally known as 鈥淪urf City U.S.A.鈥� thanks to the legends that pioneered the sport there, but the town won the rights to that title via a court battle, which doesn鈥檛 seem very surfer chill to me. (Also, the breaks are notorious for their localism.)

So I鈥檓 picking the much smaller and more easygoing Solana Beach, in San Diego County. Is there a bit of nostalgia involved because I took my first surf lesson here, 30 minutes north of my old apartment in Ocean Beach? Perhaps. But this small town has a gorgeous, cliff-lined coast and relatively friendly locals, which makes for a powerful combo in Southern California.

鈥淚t鈥檚 super laid back, almost what you imagine when listening to a Beach Boys song,鈥� says John Cavan, a 48-year-old lawyer and surfer who鈥檚 been exploring the beaches up and down the coast from Manhattan Beach outside of L.A. for more than 20 years.

The beach is flanked by tall cliffs topped by private residences, both of which help keep the crowds at bay compared to those in other popular breaks in Southern California, making Solana a top choice for surf instructors. The town offers quick access to a handful of breaks; the most obvious option is Fletcher Cove, Solana鈥檚 main beach, with plenty of parking and a sidewalk.

A beach break that picks up size during the summer makes Fletcher a popular spot for all surfers, but it鈥檚 still a great option for beginners. Another good nearby choice, Seascape, has a long sandy beach and a reef break deeper offshore that is good for intermediate to advanced surfers. Want something more aggressive? Swami鈥檚, a legendary right-hand point break, is just four miles up the street in Encinitas.

In town, the Cedros Design District is full of boutiques and restaurants, and just outside of it is a weekend farmers鈥� market based in 1940s-era Quonset huts. The legendary live-music venue has hosted a wide variety of talent, from B.B. King to Ludacris to Hayes Carl.

Surf Shop: , located just south of Swami鈥檚 on PCH 101, has been a SoCal institution since the 1960s. You can rent soft tops (from $20 a day) and performance boards (from $45 a day) along with wetsuits, snorkels, and SUPs.

Surf Instruction: For lessons, try , which offers two-hour instruction sessions ($120 per person).

Eat and Drink: has been a pillar of good pizza and craft beer since the early 1990s. The place helped establish the West Coast style of IPA and is still a master of it today.

3. Ocracoke, Outer Banks, North Carolina

The Outer Banks is a chain of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina that is absolutely full of great surf, and a dozen towns up and down the islands could qualify for this list. OB is the epicenter of surf culture on the East Coast, and the towns that line the northern section, like Kitty Hawk and Nags Head, have some of the finest breaks on the Atlantic.

But they鈥檙e also pretty crowded, which is why I鈥檓 choosing Ocracoke, a sleepy fishing village on its own island on the southern end of the Outer Banks, as my favorite surf town. I鈥檝e surfed and camped dune-side there several times over the years.

Ocracoke has under a thousand year-round residents, and you can only reach the island by boat. A can take you from Cedar Island ($15 with car) to , crossing the Pamlico Sound in just over two hours. The remoteness means crowds are minimal compared to other towns on the barrier islands, and the vibe is pretty tranquil. A small fishing village wraps around the harbor, and most of the 17-mile-long island is protected as part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which means there are miles of undeveloped beach and dunes covered in sea oats to explore, not to mention inexpensive just inland of the breaks.

All of the surf on Ocracoke is beach break, and the sandbars are constantly shifting, so it鈥檚 hard to point you to one specific spot. Ocracoke Lifeguarded Beach, two miles south of the village, has a guard on duty and, thanks to that added safety net, is the best place to get in the water as someone who is new to the sport. But if you鈥檙e an experienced surfer and have 4WD you can cruise the beach looking for your own personal break. The surf is best in the fall and winter, but you can find good conditions year round. You鈥檒l need a (which is free) to drive the beach, and while you鈥檙e at it, snag a permit for a , too.

Surf Shop: has rentals (from $25 a day) and lessons (from $95 per hour).

Eat and Drink: is an institution, with a shaded back porch perfect for drinking beer. has the southern staples of barbecue and fried fish along with its bivalves.

4. New Smyrna Beach, Florida

The Sunshine State has no shortage of beach towns, but New Smyrna Beach, in North Florida directly northeast of Orlando, gets the nod on this list because of the consistent quality of waves and the variety of options. Sandwiched between Daytona Beach and Cocoa Beach (childhood home of pro surfer Kelly Slater), New Smyrna Beach is blessed with long beach breaks and a river inlet with stone jetties that create what may be the most bankable surf in all of Florida. The conditions are so good, the beach is a stop in the USA Surfing鈥檚 Prime Series of competitions for rippers under 18.

As you might expect, the breaks are incredibly popular, so weekends can feel like a zoo, especially at the best wave, Ponce Inlet, where two rivers meet the Atlantic between stone jetties, adding shape and size to the swell. Ponce is a great option for advanced surfers who know how to maneuver through a lineup, but New Smyrna also has 17 miles of other beaches and waves.

鈥淵ou can drive onto the beach at Flagler Avenue and drive north on the sand until you see a spot you like,鈥� says Joshua Stallworth, a 24-year-old law student who spent his college years surfing the various breaks around New Smyrna Beach. You need a to drive on the beach ($20 per vehicle, per day).

The town is sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. Flagler Avenue is the main strip, stacked with fish shacks and surf shops, while Canal Street Historic District is a little more upscale, lined with palm trees and boutiques. New Smyrna Beach also makes for a great basecamp for exploring other beaches in the area.

Head south to , a 58,000-acre wildlife refuge with 26 miles of undeveloped sand. Playalinda Beach, inside the National Seashore, has a beginner-friendly beach break without many crowds. Canaveral is the longest stretch of undeveloped coast on the Atlantic coast of Florida, protecting wildlife such as manatee and sea turtles, as well as ancient shell mounds left by the native Temicua.

Surf Shop: is the area鈥檚 oldest, with board rentals (from $35) delivered to you at the beach, and two-hour lessons (from $109).

Eat and Drink: You can鈥檛 beat the location of , a burger bar with local Half Wall Brewing beers on tap overlooking the Atlantic. Head to for a lobster roll and wood-fired pizzas.

5. Westport, Washington

Washington鈥檚 coast might offer the most dramatic surf backdrop in the U.S., with beach and reef breaks tucked between dense green redwood forests and craggy sea stacks rising offshore from deep water. The state offers adventure surfing at its finest, with many of the best options requiring multi-mile approach hikes where you carry your board. Westport, a town of 28,000 two hours west of Seattle, is the happy exception, with two steady breaks on its outskirts. The surfing is so good, locals refer to Westport as the 鈥淪urf City of the Pacific Northwest.鈥�

The two main breaks start with the Groins, a big left-hander on the north side of Westport鈥檚 marina. This one is best for advanced surfers, not just because of the sizable wave but the powerful currents and shifting tides, which can change as much as 20 feet. The Jetty, however, in Westhaven State Park, is less daunting and has something for both beginners and advanced surfers. It鈥檚 known as the most reliable wave in Washington, thanks to the rock jetty that helps shape the swell and deliver point breaks, while the sandy bottom and frothy whitewash (that’s the foam after a wave breaks close to shore) offer a less intimidating option for learning.

鈥淭here鈥檚 always a wave in Westport,鈥� says Brian Calder, owner of Bigfoot Surf School. 鈥淓ven if the surf is too big for beginners, we can push them into the whitewater on a sandy beach so they can practice standing up in it. And we teach new surfers to respect the locals, who are usually surfing bigger waves on the outside.鈥�

The Jetty can get crowded on weekends, but it鈥檚 an expansive break with long waves, so you should be able to find a spot in the lineup. Just be aware of rip currents, which locals may use as an expressway back out to the lineup after surfing a long wave in鈥攏ot a move new surfers should ever try.

Surf Shop: was the first in Washington, opening in 1986. LOGE has a basecamp in Westport that not only has rooms, but performance boards and soft tops to rent.

Surf Instruction: has semi-private lessons (from $175 per person including the board) and will get you paddling out into the whitewash at Westhaven State Park.

Eat and Drink: Westport is a hub of commercial fishing, and you can find fisherfolk selling their catches, from albacore tuna to Dungeness crabs, right on the docks. Or you can hop over to , which has a variety of local catch as well as a fish 鈥檔鈥� chips restaurant.

6. Newport, Rhode Island

Rhode Island may be the smallest state in the country, but it鈥檚 also dubbed 鈥渢he Ocean State,鈥� with more than 400 miles of coastline to brag about. Located on the edge of the state鈥檚 Aquidneck Island, Newport is positioned to make the most of that coast. Traditionally known as a hub for sailing (the harbor is full of yachts, and America鈥檚 Cup is staged here every year), the swanky town is also the epicenter of surf in New England, with very big swell showing up offshore during hurricane season in the fall.

Locals surf the town鈥檚 handful of beach breaks year round, getting the thickest wetsuits on the market for the bitter winter temps. Newport was long home to Water Brothers Surf and Skate, a cornerstone of surf culture for more than 50 years until the owner, Sid Abruzzi, closed the shop to focus on making apparel two years ago.

The northeastern edge of Aquidneck Island offers a handful of breaks, with something for all levels of surfers. Ruggles, with a rocky bottom and big, powerful storm waves, is the most famous of those breaks, attracting the biggest names in surf during hurricane season. Easton鈥檚 Beach, near downtown Newport, has beginner-friendly waves.

The town of Newport is well-known for its Gilded Age mansions, once built by America鈥檚 wealthiest families as their summer retreats, some of which you can now tour as museums. Enjoy Newport鈥檚 historic 3.5-mile Cliff Walk, showing you many of those homes.

Surf Shop: has boards and anything else you might need for the water.

Surf instruction: offers private lessons ($75 per person for one hour, includes a board).

Eat and Drink: Seafood is the name of the game in Newport, and much of it is upscale. , though, is a casual burger-and-beer bar downtown. , in neighboring Middletown, has house-made clam chowder and massive warm lobster rolls.

7. Pacific City, Oregon

Pacific City is a former fishing village of just over 1,000 full-time residents that in recent years has turned into the surf mecca of Oregon. Surfing here is as much about the scenery as the waves. The break is framed by , a sandstone headland that reaches out into the water, protecting the beach from the wind, while huge sea stacks rise just offshore. As for the wave, it鈥檚 not huge, but the shield effect results in a glassy structure over a sandy bottom that鈥檚 ideal for beginner and intermediate surfers. A popular is held at the beach every September, and it all happens steps from downtown at Pacific City Beach.

Pacific City is hella charming, even without the surfing. Fisherfolk launch dories straight from the beach and paddle beyond the break to haul in cod and salmon off the point of Cape Kiwanda. The hiking in travels through Sitka spruce forest to the top of the 246-foot tall 鈥淕reat Dune,鈥� with dramatic views of the Pacific below. In town, breweries and restaurants embrace the scenery, with outdoor beer gardens and expansive windows.

Surf Shop: , two blocks from the beach, has everything you need for cold-water surfing, with full rental packages that include wetsuits (from $75). The place also offers daily two-hour lessons (from $165 per person).

Eat and Drink: might have the best view in town, with a beer garden that unfolds directly onto the beach and a full view of Haystack Rock, the most notable sea stack in the region. Kiwanda Ale is the place鈥檚 signature easy-drinking beer, named after the home cape.

8. Sheboygan, Wisconsin

Yes, there鈥檚 surfing on the Great Lakes, whose 4,500 miles of shores are often dubbed 鈥淎merica鈥檚 Third Coast.鈥� Hardy surfers track down waves all over these inland seas, and Sheboygan, a small town on the western shore of Lake Michigan, is arguably the most surf-centric town in the Great Lakes area. Locals call it the 鈥淢alibu of the Midwest鈥� because of the laid-back vibe and access to good surf, which can be found year round, but is best in the fall and winter.

鈥淪ummer is pretty flat, but come fall and winter you can get out a couple of times a week at least,鈥� says Nathan Anderson, who grew up in the area and now works at EOS Surf Shop downtown.

The surf is dependent on the wind and gets the biggest when heavy gusts come in from the northeast or southwest. Since the best waves form in fall and winter, a thick wetsuit is necessary. The lakes are fresh water, less buoyant than salt, which means long boards are a must for most surfers.

North Beach of Deland Park is the best break in town, thanks to the jetty that helps shape the wave. The shore has a sandy bottom and can be suited to beginners on mellow days, or hard chargers when the wind and surf are up.

Beyond surfing, Sheboygan is a town of 49,000 situated between Green Bay and Milwaukee and known for its bratwurst. There鈥檚 a vibrant downtown with a good and even better food. Also cool, the city of Sheboygan places a handful of large fire rings, each about twice the size of a Solo Stove backyard pit, out for lakeside bonfires from Memorial Day through August, north of Deland Beach near North Point Park. Kohler-Andrae State Park, next door to downtown Sheboygan, has two miles of sandy beach and dunes.

Surf Shop: is the only game in town, and they鈥檝e got you covered with local knowledge, rentals (from $40 a day), and two-hour lessons ($120).

Eat and Drink: You鈥檒l find bratwurst all over town, but has been an institution since the 1950s, serving a brat burger that does the town鈥檚 reputation proud. To drink something local, check out , which has a 10,000-square-foot taproom and a Fresh Coast juicy pale ale.

Graham Averill is 国产吃瓜黑料 magazine鈥檚 national-parks columnist. He鈥檚 always been torn between the mountains and the beach, but currently lives in the Southern Appalachians. Construction has begun on a surf wave in the French Broad River close to his home of Asheville, North Carolina, so that could solve all of his problems.

For more by this author, see:

The Best Ways to Get 国产吃瓜黑料 in West Virginia

The 10 Best National Parks in Canada

The Ultimate Guide to Driving the Blue Ridge Parkway

Boating Turns Me Green. But I Couldn鈥檛 Miss a Chance to See the Channel Islands.

The post 8 Surf Towns Where You Can Learn the Sport and the Culture appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

The beach was disorienting. There was just so much of it, spreading north and south as far as I could see: only sand, dunes, and ocean. No high-rise condos. No putt-putt courses. No boardwalk crammed with souvenir shops. It was just raw.

It was my first time in North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and I was in awe over the wild nature of the land and seascape鈥攖he exact emotion that our national park system is supposed to induce.

The park system protects many pristine beaches, long stretches of sand or secluded rocky coves just as awesome as a 14,000-foot mountain peak or 5,000-foot-deep canyon. And it鈥檚 summer, the perfect time to go to the beach. There鈥檚 no better place to do that than in a wild national park. Here are my top ten to visit.

1. Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Wisconsin

The sea caves of are truly stunning. Dozens of them, where Lake Superior has eaten holes in the orange and red sandstone cliffs, are scattered along the mainland of Wisconsin and the 21 islands that comprise this national lakeshore. But don鈥檛 ignore the beaches between these cliffs, which are just as spectacular. The great Meyers Beach, which is on the mainland strip of this park unit and accessible by car, is the easiest choice. But if you truly want wild sand, strike out for one of the isles that sit deeper in Lake Superior.

Several of those islands have beaches you can only reach by boat, and most are beautiful. But Lake Superior鈥檚 water temperature is notoriously cold, so my advice is to head to Julian Bay, on Stockton Island, where on sunny days a protected, shallow bay offers water temps in the 70s. The 1.5-mile-long beach wraps around the bay, giving you plenty of opportunity to find your own patch of sand with views that stretch across Lake Superior. Better yet, especially for kids, the sand 鈥渟ings鈥� when you brush it with your hand, because of the shape of the grains. It actually sounds like a seal barking.

Though you can kayak to some of the islands in this park, Stockton is 14 miles from the mainland, so consider taking a water taxi or hopping on the from Bayfield, Wisconsin ($52). The boat will dock at Presque Isle Bay. Walk the .4-mile Julian Bay Trail to Julian Bay Beach and relax. You can bring camping gear, but the ferry runs morning and afternoon service so you could just spend the day.

Logistics: There鈥檚 no entrance fee to the park. Getting around requires aquatic transportation, though.

Stay the night: Stockton has a waterfront campground with 21 sites tucked into the pines of Presque Isle Bay. ($15 a night.) Make reservations at .

2. Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia

There鈥檚 a lot of human history to be discovered on , a 36,415-acre barrier island near the Georgia-Florida border that has been both the home of a freed-slave settlement and the resort mansions of the Carnegie family. Those slaves earned their freedom by fighting for the British in the War of 1812. Meanwhile, descendants of the Carnegies still retain rights to live on the island.

The natural beauty is a mix of marsh channels, live oak forest, and wide-open beaches. There are castle-like ruins to explore 补苍诲听 also plenty of wildlife to keep an eye out for鈥攁lligators dominate the interior marshes, and a herd of feral horses, descendants of a pack left behind in the late 1800s, roam the island. Almost 10,000 acres of Cumberland is federally designated wilderness. The beach is extensive, running for 17 miles along the eastern edge of the island.

Crowds are scarce because the ferry from St. Marys can only bring a maximum of 300 people over on any given day, so it鈥檚 easy to find a slice of sand to yourself if you鈥檙e willing to hike. The majority of day trippers stick to Sea Camp Beach, on the southern end of the island, less than half a mile from the ferry drop. You can rent a bike ($16 a day) and ride Grand Avenue north, or hike along the beach until you find a spot with the right amount of solitude. The waves are generally too little to surf, but perfect for swimming, reading trashy novels, and taking naps.

Logistics: Catch a from St. Marys ($40 per person). Entrance fee is $15 per person.

Stay the Night: Cumberland Island has . Sea Camp is the most developed and easiest to reach, just a half mile from the ferry dock. It has 18 sites situated in a live oak forest with plenty of shade a quarter mile from Sea Camp Beach ($22 a night). Stafford Beach is your other developed option, with 10 sites and cold showers (which is fine鈥攊t’s hot here, so you wouldn’t want a warm shower), flush toilets, and potable water. It鈥檚 a 3.5-mile hike from the ferry dock, but puts you in the middle of the island with fewer crowds and quick access to the north side of Cumberland. ($12 a night.)

3. Olympic National Park, Washington

Olympic National Park encompasses some of the most diverse terrain of any park in the country. Protecting nearly a million acres, the terrain varies from glaciated peaks to rocky beaches. There are 73 miles of coastline within the park鈥檚 boundaries, including the popular and picture-perfect Rialto and Kalaloch beaches.

But if you want a wilder experience, hike beyond these vehicle-accessed destinations and deeper into the Olympic National Park鈥檚 Wilderness Coast. Just be prepared for an arduous hike: a mix of forested paths, boulder hopping, and steep, rope-assisted trails that climb and descend tall headlands. You also have to pay attention to the tides; high tides can close out the beach.

Ozette Ranger Station, in the middle of the Wilderness Coast, is the perfect starting point. From there, you can do short, three-mile boardwalk hikes to Cape Alava or Sand Point, or begin multi-day treks 20 miles south to Rialto Beach or . If you head north,聽 you鈥檒l be inundated with tidepools full of starfish, tall cliffs with sweeping views, and more sea stacks rising from the surf than you can count.

Shi Shi itself offers two miles of hard-packed sand bookended by tall cliffs and sea stacks. It鈥檚 a popular spot, so don鈥檛 expect to have it to yourself, but you won鈥檛 find a better sunset on the West Coast. The waves are good too, and people surf here, but that means lugging your board on the hike.

Logistics: There鈥檚 a $30 entrance fee to enter Olympic. If you plan to hike the Wilderness Coast, you can arrange for a shuttle with .

Stay the Night: Get a wilderness ($8 per person per night) and you can camp in one of the traditional forested campsites adjacent to the beach or pitch a tent on the sand itself. You can build a fire on the beach below the high-tide line, but may only gather driftwood, not wood from the forest. Shi Shi Beach, 15 miles from the Ozette Ranger Station, is a popular destination for backpackers.

4. Virgin Islands National Park, Virgin Islands

The U.S. Virgin Islands are a collection of three tropical keys in the Caribbean that range from the touristy (St. Thomas) to the culturally significant (St. Croix). Virgin Islands National Park protects more than 7,000 acres of the decidedly more rustic St. Johns, comprising roughly half of the island鈥檚 total footprint and offering a mix of lush, forested hiking trails and picture-perfect beaches.

Trunk Bay is the most famous, largely because of its natural beauty; the white sand forms a horseshoe around light blue water, islands rise from the sea just off the beach, and mountains frame the horizon. Yes, it鈥檚 crowded, but it鈥檚 worth it. The Underwater Snorkel Trail is also a great way to get acquainted with the unofficial sport of the Virgin Islands鈥攕taring at fish through goggles.

But don鈥檛 spend all your time at Trunk Bay. Hit a few of the park鈥檚 beaches to get a taste of the variety of terrain. Brown Bay has a small spit of flat sand that鈥檚 only accessible by boat or trail, offering more solitude than Trunk Bay. Maho Bay is known for an abundance of sea turtles thanks to its healthy seagrass beds, and Honeymoon Bay has two beaches split by a rocky point where several species of coral offer habitat for colonies of colorful fish. I recommend visiting as many beaches as you can while you鈥檙e on the island, and bring goggles and a snorkel. The park protects roughly 5,000 acres of coral reefs and seagrass beds beneath the surface of the clear water.

Logistics: There鈥檚 no entrance fee to the park, but Trunk Bay charges a $5 amenity fee.

Stay the Night: The privately run operates within the national-park boundaries, complete with its own beach. You can bring your own tent, but we say opt for one of the campground鈥檚 eco-tents, which have queen beds, fans, and shaded decks. (Two-night minimum; $165 per night.)

5. Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland

is a 32-mile-long barrier island that splits its zip codes between Maryland and Virginia, though most of the national seashore is located in Maryland. It is a wild expanse of land known for its maritime forests, salt marshes, and mellow interior bays.

The Atlantic side of the island is dominated by a primitive beach that stretches for miles between choppy surf and tall dunes. Oh, and Assateague also has a population of magnificent wild ponies. Legend has it that the equine are descendants of ponies that swam to shore from a sunken Spanish ship in the 1500s.

The national seashore is just a couple hundred miles from Washington, D.C., so it can be crowded, but the beach is gorgeous, and there鈥檚 a good chance you鈥檒l build a sand castle a couple hundred yards from a pony.

Take a break from the beach and paddle the Sinepuxent Bay, a shallow sound on the inland side of the island, where you鈥檒l have a good chance of seeing the wild ponies as they graze on the tall grass that borders the water. has boat rentals and tours (rentals start at $20, tours start at $50). is a thing on the island. In Maryland, crabbing season runs from April 1 to December 31. Only keep crabs you鈥檙e planning to eat, and only if they鈥檙e at least five inches across.

Logistics: Entrance fee is $25. Get a to explore the Over Sand Vehicle (OSV) zone ($110, valid for one year), which is 11 miles long and offers your best chance of avoiding the crowds.

Stay the night: The many camping options here range from the developed campground of 鈥攁n 800-acre state park on the same island as the national seashore with 350 campsites ($27.50 a night)鈥攖o the primitive beach camping within the Bullpen area of the OSV zone ($200 for a year). Note that you must camp in a hard-sided vehicle with an approved waste-management system. Campfires are allowed on the beach below the high-tide line.

6. Redwood National Park, California

Redwood National Park is best known for protecting some of the world鈥檚 largest trees, which can rise to more than 350 feet tall. The park also encompasses 40 miles of northern California鈥檚 coast, where sandy beaches hide beneath bluffs holding old-growth spruce forest.

Gold Bluffs Beach makes for a good introduction to the coast, with miles of gray sand flanked by orange-colored cliffs. It鈥檚 a popular beach with easy road access, so you鈥檒l need to apply for a if you鈥檙e visiting between May 15 and Sept. 15, and pay a $12 day-use fee.

Gold Bluffs isn鈥檛 your only destination in Redwood National Park. The California Coastal Trail stretches for 70 miles through the national park and adjacent public lands, connecting a number of less crowded beaches. You can visit a few gems by hiking an portion of the CCT from False Klamath Cove south to the Klamath River. The trail mostly traverses the wooded hillside above the ocean, but short side spurs lead to secluded beaches without any road access.

One of the best is Hidden Beach, where a gray-sand cove is flanked by grass-covered hills, and massive rocks jut out of the Pacific surf. A pile of driftwood has collected at the high-water mark of the beach, and small boulders are sunk into the sand. The whole scene has a misty, moody vibe that feels more Pacific Northwest than California.

Logistics: No entrance fee required, but the parking lot at Gold Bluffs has a $12 day use fee.

Stay the Night: Grab a site at which sits within Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, and has 26 sites you can reserve up to six months in advance ($35 a night) with quick access to the beach below and the California Coastal Trail.

7. Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts

protects 40 miles of the coast where Massachusetts meets the Atlantic, defining the edge of New England, and is so beautiful that in the 1800s Henry David Thoreau wrote about this place: 鈥淎 man may stand there and put all America behind him.鈥� The seashore has no shortage of beaches, but Race Point, in Provincetown, offers an idyllic slice of the region.

This expanse isn鈥檛 rugged and dramatic like some of the West Coast鈥檚 beaches. Instead of tall cliffs and jagged sea stacks, you have soft sand and rolling sand dunes speckled with wispy grass. The beach itself is mellow, conducive to relaxation and the occasional nap. The sand next to the parking lot ($25 fee) in Provincetown can get crowded, but Race Point stretches for several miles around the tip of the Cape, so if you have the legs for it, keep walking until you find a quiet spot.

The thick grassland that separates the beach from the road and parking facilities gives you a more rustic vibe than a lot of more overdeveloped East Coast beaches. Spring is whale-migration season, so bring some binoculars and look for right and humpback whales cruising the channels off the coast.

Logistics: $25 entrance fee.

Stay the Night: There鈥檚 no camping within Cape Cod National Seashore, but the park has a that put you close to the park鈥檚 beaches (from $170 a night).

8. Gulf Islands National Seashore, Florida and Mississippi

The beaches along the Gulf of Mexico are known for their sugar-white sand, like those found on , which protects pieces of the coast of Mississippi and Florida and islands within the Gulf. The national seashore hosts a mix of historic military forts, coastal forest, and pristine beaches.

The best sand of the lot is on Horn Island, an 8-mile-long, 1-mile-wide barrier island off the coast of Mississippi, protected as a federally-designated wilderness, and only accessible by boat. Horn is located seven miles off the coast of Mississippi, sitting in the Mississippi Sound of the Gulf of Mexico. No commercial ferries service the island, so you鈥檒l need your own boat (or to hire a private charter) to reach it.

A sandy path connects the two sides of the island. The beach on the south side, facing the Gulf, features soft sand flanked by small, grassy dunes. The interior of the island has warm lagoons and tall pine trees with tufts of green nettles at their tips, looking like giant bonsai trees. You鈥檒l find the occasional alligator on Horn, as well as nesting ospreys. Anglers wade into the shallow waters of the Gulf and cast for speckled trout and redfish, but mostly, you just soak in the deserted-island vibes.

Logistics: There鈥檚 no entrance fee to visit Horn Island, and you don鈥檛 need reservations to camp. But you do need a boat. There鈥檚 no regular ferry service to Horn, but you can find .

Stay the night: You鈥檙e allowed to on the beach here, as long as you stay off the dunes and any vegetation. There are no facilities and no drinking water, so bring everything you need on the boat. You can have a campfire below the high-tide line. No permits or reservations needed, but there is a 14-day maximum stay.

9. Channel Islands National Park, California

If you ever wondered what California was like before all the people showed up, take a 20-mile boat ride out to Channel Islands National Park, a five-island archipelago with craggy coastlines, rugged mountains, and remote coves where you鈥檒l find more sea lions and seals than suntanned bodies. Santa Cruz Island is the largest within the national park, with a total of 77 miles of shoreline, and has regular ferry service. It also has the best beaches.

Start by exploring and snorkeling in Scorpion Beach, a rocky patch of land between two cliffs with clear water and underwater kelp forests. If you want a more adventurous beach, hike four miles across the island from Scorpion Beach to Smuggler鈥檚 Cove Beach, a mix of dark sand and rock tucked into a protected cove surrounded by steep headlands. You might see some sailboats anchored off the beach, but probably won鈥檛 have to share the sand with anyone.

Regardless of the beach you choose, keep an eye out for gray, blue, and humpback whales frolicking in the water near the islands in the summer and fall. You can also sign up for a to explore the sea caves that punctuate the rocky coast ($186 per person).

Logistics: Entrance to the park is free. If you don鈥檛 have a boat, from Ventura, California. It鈥檚 a 20-mile cruise to Santa Cruz. (From $31)

Stay the Night: Santa Cruz has one developed campground, , with 31 sites and fresh water. It鈥檚 just a half-mile walk from the boat landing. You can make reservations six months in advance. ($15 per night.)

10. Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North Carolina

stretches for 70 miles, protecting a string of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina. The park is a mix of dune-flanked beaches, meandering channels, historic lighthouses, and small, thriving towns. This is the wild Outer Banks that has attracted visitors from the pirate Blackbeard, looking to lay low from the law in the 1700s, to surfers today seeking consistent East Coast barrels.

A single highway connects most of the Outer Banks with a series of bridges, with quality beaches along the entire length of this park. But Ocracoke Beach, on Ocracoke Island, is your destination, because it鈥檚 largely undeveloped, and it鈥檚 less crowded than most other beaches in the area; the island is isolated on the southern end of the national seashore. To reach it, you need your own boat or to catch a ferry ride from the mainland.

Development is centered around the harbor on the southern end of the island, complete with a lighthouse, while the rest of the spit is left mostly untouched. Ocracoke Beach is 16 miles of sand, tall dunes, and relentless surf. Bring a board, or ($25 a day), some fishing gear, and a 4WD vehicle; sections of the beach are open to offroad vehicles with a permit.

Logistics: There鈥檚 no entrance fee to the park, but you need to catch a from either Cedar Island or Hatteras Island to reach Ocracoke ($15 one way). You can get an to drive on sections of Ocracoke Beach ($50 for a 10-day permit).

Stay the Night: Ocracoke Island has a (136 sites) with gravel tent pads situated just behind the dunes, so you can hear the waves crash as you drift to sleep in your tent. ($28 per night.)

Graham Averill is 国产吃瓜黑料 magazine鈥檚 national-parks columnist. He is constantly having an internal debate about whether it鈥檚 better to live at the beach or in the mountains. Right now, because it鈥檚 summer, the beach is winning.

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When Stephanie Prellwitz and Taylor Haag cobbled together their video entry for the , they didn鈥檛 expect to hear back. It was a last-minute application, and as a tiny nonprofit working to protect more than 7,000 acres of lake in south-central Wisconsin, they just didn鈥檛 have time to produce much more than a Hail Mary.

But when the judges, including 国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 editorial director, Chris Keyes, sat down to review the entries, something about Prellwitz鈥檚 story struck them. It was so personal and touching that they came back to her video again and again.In it, Prellwitz shares a memory of walking her baby girl down to the edge of Green Lake to dip her into the water for the first time. That first dip is a rite of passage for Green Lake locals. Ask anyone in town about their relationship with the lake, Prellwitz says, and they鈥檒l launch into a story about how old they were when they first felt the water touch their skin.

But when it was Prellwitz鈥檚 turn to give her first child that ritual bath, she strode to the edge, lowered her daughter to the surface鈥攁nd hesitated.

鈥淭here鈥檚 nothing like being a first-time mom and holding your infant over the water to give you a reality check,鈥� Prellwitz says. At that moment, stories about E. coli and other contaminants in the water鈥攕tories Prellwitz had brushed off for years鈥攃ame flooding through her memory. As much as she loved this lake, she was suddenly afraid for her daughter鈥檚 health.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 when I realized just how much water quality mattered,鈥� Prellwitz explains. 鈥淚t mattered to families. It mattered to me. That鈥檚 when I knew I wanted to do everything I could to protect the lake, so that when my daughter was grown up鈥攁nd when she was holding her child over the water for the first time鈥攕he wouldn鈥檛 have to hesitate.鈥�

Prellwitz went on to become the executive director of the (GLA), a nonprofit dedicated to improving water quality in Wisconsin鈥檚 deepest natural inland lake. Over the past few years, the group has restored native trout to the watershed and created a rapid public water-quality alert system. Its work has benefited both the threatened species that dwell in the lake and the people who treasure it as a community resource. For that reason, Land Rover pronounced GLA the winner in the Environment and Conservation Category for this year鈥檚 Defender Service Awards.

Given all that GLA does, it was a designation 国产吃瓜黑料 is proud to support. 鈥淲e were so impressed with the Green Lake Association鈥檚 singular focus,鈥� says Keyes. 鈥淏y facilitating local residents鈥� desire to take ownership of the health of their watershed, this small organization has had a huge impact.鈥�

The Defender Service Awards, founded by Land Rover and presented by Chase in partnership with 国产吃瓜黑料, are distributed annually to outstanding nonprofits across the country. More than 800 organizations submitted video entries for the 2022 Defender Service Awards. Only five winners were selected, based first on their entry videos and then on a competitive round of community voting. GLA was one of those five.

鈥淲e were shocked,鈥� recalls Haag, GLA鈥檚 watershed engagement manager. She was the one who had first read about the award on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online and suggested to Prellwitz that they create an entry video. When Haag answered the phone months later鈥攁nd realized it was Land Rover on the other end鈥攕he says she practically froze to the spot.

鈥淲e鈥檙e from a really small rural area,鈥� Haag explains. 鈥淪o to have had the community support to actually push us over the edge to win the voting stage was really incredible.鈥�

During the community voting window, GLA staffers drove flyers to coffee shops, put up posters around town, and told everyone they could think of to vote for their organization. The community came through in a big way. When Land Rover , Prellwitz says locals came out of the woodwork to congratulate her.

鈥淓ven the crossing guard at my daughter鈥檚 preschool recognized me in the carpool line,鈥� she laughs. 鈥淗e spotted me and shouted, 鈥楬ey! Land Rover!鈥� to tell me he鈥檇 seen the press release. Honestly, the response has been incredible. We are awestruck and overwhelmed.鈥�

The marquee prize鈥攁 鈥攎eans GLA will be able to drive to the lakeshore for the first time in the nonprofit鈥檚 history. In the past, the group has had to lean heavily on volunteers to drive the rough roads to the water鈥檚 edge. Now they鈥檒l be able to collect water samples themselves. That will accelerate their monitoring and responses to water-quality threats and help them streamline their advocacy work in the wider community.

The rest of the prize includes a $5,000 donation from Chase and an additional $25,000 cash donation from 国产吃瓜黑料., the parent corporation of 国产吃瓜黑料 magazine and the sponsor of the Environment and Conservation Category. With the Defender 130 and $30,000 windfall in hand, the Green Lake Association is better positioned than ever to ensure that Prellwitz鈥檚 daughter will find clean water if she ever dips her own child in the lake.

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It was on the first hill, locked in a tight formation with hundreds of other skiers, all clad in matching purple jerseys and assorted skin-tight racing gear, our skinny nordic skis chunking in inelegant wedges over the snow, that I began to think that I might have made a huge mistake.

I was just minutes into the American Birkebeiner, the longest cross-country ski race in North America, which winds through 50 kilometers of woods from the very small town of Cable (population: 206) to the not-quite-as-small town of Hayward (population: 2,500) in the northwestern corner of Wisconsin. What was I doing there? It was a question I asked myself many times that day. (Along with, 鈥淲hat if I die here?,鈥� as I muscled up yet another incline, gasping for breath with my face frozen.)

For the last seven years, I鈥檝e worked as an environmental journalist. I鈥檝e reported on how climate change is making life harder for , the injustice of in the southeast, , trying to . It can be a depressing job, documenting the ongoing chaos and the looming danger on our planet. And鈥攎uch to my surprise鈥攊t鈥檚 turned me, a lifelong New Yorker, into an outdoorsy person.

My anxiety about the future and my knowledge of the present have made me want to spend as much time connecting to nature as I can. I鈥檝e become someone who can鈥檛 stop moving. I try to take advantage of every nice day, to hike all the hikes and swim in new bodies of water. Part of me knows this is silly: humans are a part of nature, and the future world will still be full of beauty. It will still snow, somewhere, on a warmer planet. But I also fear the inevitable losses, and I want to make sure I get a chance to appreciate the incredible and unlikely accidents of evolution and physics that have made Earth the way it is.

So when some friends told me they were planning to ski something called 鈥淭he Birkie,鈥� I didn鈥檛 ask many questions; I just said I was in. I did my research later, mainly while on the course. (I do not recommend this approach.) The Birkie, I eventually learned, has 鈥渟ome of the鈥ost challenging terrain of any trail system in the world,鈥� , the international federation of cross-country ski marathons. It has about 4,600 feet of elevation gain, in the form of 鈥渞olling hills,鈥� a description that now feels like a prank.

I learned to cross-country ski in 2016. I don鈥檛 do it well, or often. Reliably snowy, cold winters have largely faded from New York City, and cross-country skiing is becoming less and less possible within a few hours鈥� drive. , particularly during the winters. To train for the Birkie, my husband and I took two trips to Vermont. There was so little snow that we could barely ski either time. We resigned ourselves to laps around a small section of a golf course.

I cross-trained as much as I could, making the most of New York鈥檚 by going for long runs in Central Park. Even that was fraught: I was grateful for the mild temperatures as a runner, but I had a hard time quieting my bubbling anxiety when I woke up to another April-like day in early February.

The Birkie, and other winter activities like it, depends on the synchronicity of human time and climate time. I a few years ago about how old agricultural proverbs in Spain weren鈥檛 useful anymore because they described a climate that no longer existed. What happens to a place, and the people who live there, when the events that mark their calendars are no longer predictable and reliable? How will we adapt to shifts in the cultural practices that make us human?

The origins of the Birkie date back more than 800 years. In 1206, two loyal followers鈥攌nown as Birkebeiners, or 鈥渂irchbark-leggings-wearers鈥濃�攐f the recently deceased Norwegian king, Haakon Sverresson, scooped up the toddler heir apparent to the throne, and carried him to safety on skis across mountains and forests in the middle of a civil war. Since the 1930s, Norwegian skiers have honored that trip with a 54-kilometer ski race from Rena to Lillehammer called the Birkebeinerrennet.

In 1973, Wisconsin entrepreneur Tony Wise created his own version, the American Birkebeiner, which runs each year on the last Saturday in February. When Wise put on the first Birkie, there was a reliable 17 inches of snow and the average high temperature was around 27 degrees Fahrenheit. This year, the average high rose to 29.4. From mid-February until days before the race, temperatures jumped up 10 degrees above average, replete with days of heavy rain. Wisconsin might not have headline-grabbing climate-change impacts like more intense and frequent forest fires or hurricanes. But all is not well in the Dairy state. It鈥檚 experiencing warmer winters, more floods, and more droughts, all of which are upending the normal rhythms of life.

鈥淎ll of our seasons in Wisconsin are warming,鈥� said Steve Vavrus, , 鈥渂ut than any other season since the middle of the 20th century.鈥� In addition to that, northwestern Wisconsin, home of the Birkie, is warming more quickly than any other region in the state.

In 2000 and 2017, the Birkie was canceled because there wasn鈥檛 enough snow. The date, distance, or direction have been changed eight times because of warm weather, winter rain, a lack of snow, or open water on Lake Hayward, which was historically frozen, allowing skiers passage to the finish line.

This winter has actually seen more snow than average, Vavrus said. The problem is the warm days in between, which melt the snow. The lack of snow cover decreases what鈥檚 known as the albedo effect, or the extent to which a surface is capable of reflecting sunlight, and therefore heat, back to space. As snow melts, less heat is reflected off the earth, our planet warms, and more snow melts鈥攁 vicious spiral. (Of course, the consequences of this extend far beyond a cross-country ski race: reduced snow cover is , where its white winter coat still provides camouflage; forest soil that whips between thawing and frozen because the soggy ground can鈥檛 handle the heavy equipment.)

Like many cross-country and downhill ski areas across North America, the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation, which puts on the race, recently acquired a snowmaking machine. The foundation figured it was essential to the Birkie鈥檚 future, even if the race just takes place on a five- or ten-kilometer loop some years, says Blair Flickinger, the head of marketing for the foundation. 鈥淲e鈥檙e investing to ensure that the sport can continue in Northwestern Wisconsin.鈥�.

Olympic gold medalist Jessie Diggins grew up in neighboring Minnesota, and dreamed about competing in the Birkie. 鈥淭he idea that we could very easily lose it is really sad,鈥� she says. But she also finds it motivating, because of how much is at stake, and all that still can be done to save it. 鈥淲hen you dedicate your life to something, you want other people to be able to experience it too,鈥� she says. In the last few years, she has become an advocate for climate action, through the organization Protect Our Winters.

Even though I don鈥檛 depend on this particular stretch of our country for my livelihood or survival, it matters to me that it鈥檚 there, a healthy ecosystem for all its residents, human or not. 鈥淎ll flourishing is mutual,鈥� wrote Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass.

I didn鈥檛 exactly flourish during the Birkie, but I was grateful for the chance to try.

The day of the race was clear, bright, and cold. It had snowed 5.8 inches in Hayward the Thursday before the race and then stayed cold, with enough time to groom the course to a sparkling, firm corduroy.

That鈥檚 not, however, what it looked like by the time I got there, on the heels of thousands of other skiers, almost all of whom had been through the course by the time I started in the final of eight waves, which is reserved for first-timers. The waves begin about five minutes apart and the fastest skiers finish in just over two hours. Shortly after I started my full-day odyssey, the fast people were already finished.

During my many hours on the trails, I discovered that Wisconsin, though famously flat, is actually a land of mountains. Where were the open, gentle hills of dairy farms and wheat fields I was promised?

I inched up and down the course, wiping out on the ice luge-like downhills while some drunk snowmobilers filmed me and laughed. Periodically an elderly gentleman would speed past, only for me to catch him while he rested on the next uphill climb. 鈥淲e meet again,鈥� I said when I pulled up beside him for the umpteenth time. He laughed. He was 81 years old, he told me, and this was聽 his nineteenth Birkie. Then he took off.

I tracked him down a few days later, after I got home. Tom Smith, from Lakeville, Minnesota, has raced in the Norwegian Birkebeiner, as well as the Marcialonga in Italy and Germany鈥檚 K枚nig Ludwig Lauf. He didn鈥檛 start competing until he turned 51. He told me about his childhood in Duluth, where Lake Superior froze every winter and the baseball field was covered with snow until his birthday in the middle of May. He鈥檚 planning to do the Birkie again next year. He hopes his grandchildren and great-grandchildren will get a chance to race it, too.

For much of my time on the course, I was totally alone and it was quiet. The birch trees creaked in the wind; the hills were unbroken white waves. When the sun winked through the bare trees and sparkled on the snow and I had a chance to breathe in the cool air, I no longer worried about dying on the course. Instead, I thought of the Wallace Stevens poem 鈥溾��: I felt that, for the first time in my life, I had what Stevens calls a 鈥渕ind of winter.鈥�

Finally, after seven hours, there was a clearing. I passed by the last of the birch trees and pines and slid onto the smooth, flat, frozen surface of Wisconsin鈥檚 Lake Hayward. I heard the distant clanging of cowbells, mixing with cheers from people, somehow still standing along the course as the sun began to set. The sky was full of tie-dye swirls of electric pinks, purples, and oranges, and the temperatures were settling back down to the single digits.

On the lake, my cross-country skis began to skate in a rhythm, something that had eluded me for much of the day. I felt like I was flying. Eventually, I heaved myself up over the final hill to the finish line鈥攍aughing hysterically, my face in my hands, looking for my friends on the sidelines and unable to believe it was actually over. Out of 3,855 skate skiers, I came in 3,839th, finishing just a half-hour under the eight-hour cut-off time.

My friend Nick, the champion of our group who had crossed the line several hours ahead of me, said that when he got to the end he 鈥渃ouldn鈥檛 imagine spending another second on skis.鈥� I didn’t have to imagine: I got to spend close to 10,000 more seconds on skis than he did, almost as much time on the course as the rules allowed鈥揳 different kind of victory.

But all that extra time felt like a gift to me, a chance to move through this calm expanse of land. As I crossed Lake Hayward, the only flat portion of the race, I felt so incredibly lucky to live on this planet in a moment in time in which this is all possible.

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Bill McKee was an avid outdoorsman: in 10 years of vacations to Colorado, he and his sons fished backcountry streams, hiked for miles, and summited several fourteeners, until a motorcycle accident in 2002 put him in a wheelchair. Afterward he felt unable to do many of the things he loves most. Trying the Action Trackchair, a beefy, battery-powered wheelchair with tank-like treads, last year changed that.

鈥淏eing on a trail in Colorado was a blast from the past,鈥� the 64-year-old McKee, of Garland, Texas, said. Developed in 2008, the Trackchair, which can handle rugged terrain that would stall a traditional chair, 鈥渂rought me full circle to the adventurer and explorer that lives inside me,鈥� McKee said.

While a volunteer-led program launched in 2016 at Staunton State Park, near Denver, is considered the granddaddy of adventure-wheelchair loaner programs, others are now blooming. On November 4, a collaboration between the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the debuted a fleet of 12 all-terrain wheelchairs for use, free of charge, at 11 state parks and historic sites across Georgia. This past spring, the Department of Natural Resources launched a pilot program to provide track chairs at five state parks. The Department of Natural Resources, which received its first track chair, donated by , in 2017, now has 15 loaners spread over each of 11 state parks and recreation areas. The Department of Wildlife and Parks offers track chairs at eight state parks, while has one chair and has two at state parks; and Wisconsin has the chairs at stations in 12 counties through the nonprofit . Two years ago Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan was the first national park to offer a track chair. It now has three.

In a massive shift, public land managers across the U.S. are beginning to look at accessibility as an integral part of park improvements and additions, rather than a separate and possibly expendable line item in the budget. 鈥淲e are really following the path of improving accessibility as we improve our overall infrastructure,鈥� said Jeremy Buzzell, manager of the Park Accessibility for Visitors and Employees (PAVE) program at the National Park Service, adding that accessibility 鈥渉as to be baked into everything we do, so that it becomes a part of the culture.鈥�

The Staunton initiative, which started with one chair donated in memory of the avid outdoorsperson and quadriplegic Mark Madsen, now has five battery-powered Action Trackchairs and three and is leading similar efforts, according to Kristin Waltz, program manager. This year alone, park personnel have consulted with organizations from upstate New York, Florida, and Brazil on bringing track chairs and greater accessibility to their regions.

The Georgia initiative, known as All Terrain Georgia, provides people with mobility impairments with and easy access. A visitor to popular sites like Panola Mountain State Park and Cloudland Canyon State Park simply needs to complete an program to learn how to operate the chair (which costs roughly $12,500 retail), then make a reservation for a hike via the organization鈥檚 鈥搉o doctor鈥檚 note required.

鈥淎ll Terrain Georgia bridges the gap between accessibility and wilderness,鈥� said Aimee Copeland, director of the Aimee Copeland Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to create outdoor experiences for people with physical disabilities. Copeland has used a wheelchair for ten years since losing her hands, a foot and one leg to amputation following a ziplining accident and bacterial infection at age 24, and tested the track chairs herself. The chairs can go up banks, across streams, and even over fallen trees. 鈥淚 love that these chairs allow me to safely explore with my friends who love camping,” she said, 鈥渨ithout putting the chair I rely on every day at risk.鈥� She hopes to extend the program in the Southeast and South, she said, and into the national parks.

The Minnesota program has met with resounding success, taking off immediately. 鈥淭he chairs were used often in the first six months of the program, especially on weekends,鈥� said Jamie McBride, state parks and recreation area program consultant at the department. 鈥淔eedback from users as well as park staff has been overwhelmingly positive.鈥�

, 13.7 percent of U.S. adults report living with a serious mobility disability. That鈥檚 over 28 million people. Though the Park Service鈥檚 PAVE program has been around in some form since the 1970s, it鈥檚 largely focused on maintaining existing ADA-compliant campgrounds and paved pathways, like South Rim Trail and many of Valley鈥檚 trails. Yet the world of mobility devices is rapidly evolving.

鈥淭here鈥檚 all kinds of stuff out there that even ten years ago didn’t exist,鈥� said Buzzell.

At the moment, is the only unit within the NPS that offers a track-chair loaner program, and it might take some time before larger national parks ramp up. 鈥淥ur preference would be for organizations that represent the disability community to partner with us, so that the devices can be provided,鈥� said Buzzell. He added that the NPS wants to ensure visitors鈥� safety by making sure that the people checking out the chairs have the necessary training and assistance. Some parks, like in California and , Colorado, already provide special sand-specific devices, and many more have standard wheelchairs available at visitor centers.

鈥淭here has been a lot of interest from the public about us being able to provide better access to mobility devices,鈥� said Buzzell. 鈥淥bviously, there’s a considerable expense involved in transporting them from home.鈥�

Syren Nagakyrie, founder and director of , cited 鈥渁 combination of a lack of awareness and motivation, lack of funding, and complicated protocols鈥� as the biggest hurdles facing improvement of access programs in parks today, while saying that well-designed trails can benefit everyone. For example, an accessible boardwalk leading to a remote campsite at Apostle Islands, in Wisconsin, also helps prevent erosion caused by visitor foot traffic.

When used properly, the burly Action Trackchairs should also leave no trace, even on dirt trails, said Copeland: the chairs are all-electric and quieter than they appear. 鈥淪tigma around all-terrain chairs due to misuse and misinformation is an issue,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen operated properly, the chair鈥檚 impact is no more than footprints.鈥� She called this generation of chairs 鈥渢ruly spectacular.鈥�

The age of all-terrain wheelchairs in our parks is instigating a strategy shift in how trails are labeled, too, because these modern devices have the power to travel deep into the backcountry. Rather than marking some paths as 鈥渁ccessible,鈥� because they meet a series of , land managers are instead compiling as much trail information as possible (like grade, surface pack, length, and stair count) and letting visitors decide what works best for them. 鈥淲hat we call an accessible trail might not be accessible to everyone, and what we say is not an accessible trail might be accessible to plenty of people,鈥� said Buzzell.

Buzzell believes all Americans, regardless of their ability level, deserve to experience what he called the magical national park 鈥渁ha moment.鈥�

鈥淲e can design trails that are sustainable and accessible,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd that’s going to improve the experience for everyone.鈥�

At Staunton, McKee, accompanied by a volunteer, takes gravel trails through dense forests, to airy vistas of high mountain peaks, and even small tarns stocked with trout.

鈥淭o be back in the wild and coming across wildlife and smelling the pine-scented air was emotional and satisfying,鈥� McKee said after riding the track chair at Staunton, which he called 鈥渁 very pretty place.鈥�

鈥淵ou are in the forest most of the time and there are several small streams and then open fields with wildflowers and some views of large cliffs. There is an accessible area to fish and some small ponds … so you can add fishing to your accomplishments for the day.鈥�

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Survival-themed reality television rides a fine line between authenticity and artifice. The scrapes, bruises, and bug bites are real enough; the hunger, cold, and other discomforts endured by the contestants are too. And yeah, a guy on Survivor fell face-first into a campfire that one time. But for the most part, the contestants on these shows are playing a game: one with clear rules, fixed time limits, and medical teams on standby.

Blair Braverman knows this fine line well鈥攕he appeared on the hit Discovery series Naked and Afraid in an episode that aired in March 2019, lasting 14 days on the South Africa-Botswana border before illness forced her to leave. (She wrote about it all in harrowing detail for 国产吃瓜黑料.)

After that experience, Braverman wondered: What would happen if a made-for-TV survival scenario suddenly became a real fight for survival? How would the contestants react, in both action and emotion?

鈥淚 had become obsessed with this idea of a reality show where people play at survival and it turns into real survival, and they have to grapple with that shift and with what the reality of survival actually is versus what they thought it was going to be when they signed up for a show about it,鈥� she says.

Until a cast of camera-ready castaways gets stranded in real life (and survive to tell us about it), that鈥檚 a question only fiction can try to answer. Braverman, 34, is a nonfiction author and dogsled racer based in Wisconsin, who published a widely acclaimed memoir in 2016 called Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube. She hadn鈥檛 written fiction since college. So at first, she tried聽to give the idea away. But when she attempted to hand the concept off to novelist friends, 鈥淣o one was as obsessed with it as I was.鈥�

It was January 2021, and her slate of dogsled races for the year was still up in the air because of pandemic restrictions. Braverman realized if she wanted to know what happens in her imagined scenario, she would have to sit down and write it herself.

The result is her debut novel, , which was released on November 1.

The book follows Mara, a young woman who grew up off-grid and gets recruited, via her survival school job, onto a new reality show called Civilization. It鈥檚 not a typical competition show: no one gets voted off the island. Instead, Mara and her four teammates have to work together to survive, starting from only the barest essentials. The show鈥檚 conceit is that the group will have to find a way to build a new human society in six weeks. Anyone can tap out and walk away at any time, and everyone who鈥檚 still there at the end of the game gets the prize money. But things go awry, and shit gets real.

Braverman鈥檚 characters are informed by her experience on reality TV鈥攆or instance, while on Naked and Afraid, she went eleven days with hardly anything at all to eat. She has a vivid memory of how helpless she felt, looking at the landscape where she鈥檇 been planted in the South African bush, 鈥渟eeing food all around me and not knowing how to get it into a state that I could eat.鈥� And crucially, she understands not just what it feels like to be cold and hungry and vulnerable, but what it feels like to be filmed鈥攖o become a product for the entertainment of others, while being cold and hungry and vulnerable. Without some of those details, she says, the book 鈥渨ould鈥檝e been flatter.鈥�

But she didn鈥檛 rely solely on her own memories. She also interviewed other former contestants from various聽shows, and took their experiences into account as she crafted her story. In those interviews, she says, 鈥渁 theme that came through was there was some pressure for people to stay on. They could not afford not to make the money. So even if they thought they were really in danger, they were like, I need to win this amount of money.鈥�

Naked and Afraid has no prize money, so, she says, 鈥淚 was not in that situation. But this show in the book does have prize money, and that certainly affects people鈥檚 decisions.鈥�

She and her husband, Quince Mountain (who was also cast in an episode of Naked and Afraid), had done a lot of research on survival skills as preparation for their TV stints: practicing fire-starting techniques, building traps, and memorizing what they could about edible flora and fauna. But for the book, she needed to expand on that base of knowledge. Partly due to pandemic travel challenges, which would have made it difficult for her to research a far-flung tropical location, she set Civilization in the north woods of Wisconsin, her own stomping grounds. 鈥淭hat was definitely a second choice,鈥� she says, 鈥渂ut I ended up really appreciating it because it gave me a chance to learn about the woods differently, and engage with them differently than I do on an everyday basis when I鈥檓 hiking or running my dogs.鈥� She went out into the forest with expert friends, learning about mushrooms, fish,聽and plants.

The writing came fast, and by the spring of 2021, she had a first draft. That meant she could revise her second draft while also refining her knowledge of the seasonal changes that her characters experienced: summer鈥檚 bloom and fade. 鈥淚 was going out every single day with a notebook, and walking for an hour or two and just taking notes of every detail I noticed changing in the environment every day,鈥� says Braverman. 鈥淎nd then I would incorporate those details into the book.鈥�

The carefully foraged sensory details will please lovers of nature and outdoor writing, but Small Game is not a slow, musing, meandering kind of book. It鈥檚 a thriller, gripping and unsettling, and a very human story鈥攁bout physical vulnerability and resilience, but also about the unraveling mental states of people under duress.

In the end, did Braverman manage to answer her own question about what would happen if an artificial survival scenario became frighteningly real? 鈥淚 think I did get an answer,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 feel like that question is more settled for me, and it was something I鈥檇 been so curious about for years. I would love to hear other people鈥檚 perspectives because everyone is going to have a different answer to that question. But I figured out my answer.鈥�

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It鈥檚 been a hard year for everyone. This summer, how about we let the kids pretend like everything is OK in the world? These getaway spots offer perks for the grownups, like mountain bike trails, surf breaks, and rooftop bars, as well as the drive-in movie theaters, hot-springs-fed pools, and skate parks that will keep the kids happy.聽

Escalante, Utah

is paradise for young explorers.聽They can wander among slot canyons, gape at sandstone arches and natural bridges, and dig for dinosaur fossils. If your kids can handle a six-mile round-trip hike, it鈥檚 worth the trek to聽, which drops 130 feet into a pool below. Take a drive on聽 to explore hoodoos in聽 or hike the family-friendly聽 slot canyons. The reward: burgers and shakes at聽 in the town of Escalante afterward.聽 (RV sites from $69; cabins from $249) opened this year on the grounds of an old drive-in movie theater and has custom-designed A-frame cabins, vintage Airstreams, and RV sites. You can watch an outdoor movie from the seat of a restored classic car.聽聽

Ouray, Colorado

This high-altitude town is famous for its ice climbing in the winter, but Ouray is gorgeous in the summer, too. A new聽鈥攁 European-style cable climbing route鈥攐pened here in 2020, crossing the Uncompahgre Gorge via a 35-foot-long cable wire bridge.聽 leads guided climbs (from $139) on the new routes, which are geared for all ages and abilities. The geothermally heated pools at make for a nice post-climbing activity. (from $105) opened聽in 2020 in a historic building that was once a saloon and brothel and now has six rooms, a rooftop bar, and a wood-burning sauna.

Woodward, Pennsylvania

Admittedly, your kids are going to like this destination more than you, but there鈥檚 still a lot for adults to enjoy鈥攆rom paddleboarding to hiking trails鈥攁t聽, the premier action sports training facility in the U.S. Whether you鈥檙e coming for the聽 (from $200) or you鈥檙e signing your teen up for a skate or BMX camp, this place is all about fun. The 48-acre campus has skate parks, BMX race tracks, go-karts, a pool, and more. Families can stay at the Woodward Lodge (from $280) or pitch a tent at the nearby (from $30), a campground adjacent to one of the largest underground caverns in Pennsylvania (private cave tours available by reservation).

York, Maine

If you鈥檙e looking for a laid-back beach destination on the East Coast, head to this small town 45 miles south of Portland.聽Take a stroll on the one-mile Long Sands Beach or hike up 692-foot聽鈥攖he kids will enjoy it all, too. Afterward, take in the view of聽 from Sohier Park and watch saltwater taffy get made at the , which has been making candy for over 100 years. Stay at the oceanfront聽 (from $249), which is opening this summer in a restored motel property with a new heated pool, bungalows, and rooms that are decorated to celebrate the area鈥檚 long-standing surf culture.

Eureka, California

This Northern California coastal town聽is home to some of the world鈥檚 tallest trees, the towering redwoods of Humboldt County. The coolest new way to see those trees? From 100 feet above the forest floor on the聽, a suspended, self-guided walkway opening in early June among聽60 acres of old-growth and second-growth redwoods in the city鈥檚 beloved Sequoia Park Zoo. Book a suite at the聽 (from $166), and enjoy its聽lawn games, hot tubs, and beach access. Your kids are going to love roasting marshmallows at the fire pits and taking a bath after the beach in the outdoor clawfoot tubs that are part of the property鈥檚 historic bathhouse.

Sister Bay, Wisconsin

Door County, the peninsula that juts into Lake Michigan from eastern Wisconsin, has聽300 miles of shoreline, dozens of surrounding islands, and a culture that celebrates its Scandinavian heritage. Don鈥檛 miss聽, a designated Dark Sky Park with hike-in campsites, 30 miles of trails, and excellent stargazing. The kids will dig the聽 to Washington Island and a movie at the聽, which opens for the summer season in May. This four-bedroom, mid-century聽 (from $399), newly listed for this summer via Airbnb, will house the whole family.

Jackson, Wyoming

By midsummer, the town of Jackson and its neighboring聽 补苍诲听 will be busy. But Memorial Day into early June is still early for the summer crowds.聽 (from $549)鈥攏amed after the Cloudveil Dome in the Teton Range鈥攊s a new hotel in the town square that鈥檚 opening on May 26. The kids will enjoy the outdoor pool, but you鈥檒l love the rooftop terrace and in-house bar and restaurant. Hotel staff can help curate itineraries for the whole family, ranging from fly-fishing or rafting on the Snake River to guided mountain biking and hiking. Or head to聽 for hiking and biking trails for you; alpine slide and ziplines for them.

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Just before Emily Ford became a teenager, she announced her plans for her debut long-distance hike to her mother, Paula: come Saturday morning, she was going to wake up well before dawn and trek the railroad tracks through their Minnesota neighborhood for as long as she could stand. Her mother sighed, then consented.

Around 3 A.M., Ford stirred from bed and gathered her supplies: a tub of peanut butter, a few saltines, a pack of gum, a little water bottle from Walmart. She hit her de facto route through Brooklyn Park, a large northern suburb of Minneapolis, around 5 A.M. By mid-afternoon, she鈥檇 covered 12 miles before calling her mother to pick her up.

鈥淚 loved it,鈥� Ford, now 28, remembers. 鈥淚 was such a weird kid, not super popular, an introvert who didn鈥檛 mind spending time by myself. I wanted to see how far I could get, how far my body could take me.鈥�

In March, Ford found that the answer was at least 100 times longer鈥攖hrough knee-deep snow and bone-gnawing temperatures, no less. Ford became the second to traverse the through an unrelenting Wisconsin winter and .聽Accompanied by a borrowed Alaskan Husky named Diggins, she trudged south from the toward the Illinois border, then headed due north into Wisconsin鈥檚聽upper latitudes until turning west and walking to the , the border of Minnesota.

For 69 days, Ford shuffled down paved roads, camped in any clearings she could find, devoured gas-station sandwiches, and trusted strangers in their homes amid a pandemic. She deflected locals who thought she and her dog were homeless and freezing and offered up cash. She welcomed trail magic from strangers who followed her journey online via her frank Instagram chronicles.

And during that span, Ford鈥攁 queer power lifter and career gardener聽whose mother is white and whose father is Black鈥攂ecame an unintentional avatar for increased diversity and representation outside. She is, after all, the first woman ever to finish the Ice Age Trail during the winter and one of only five people of color to finish it all. Following a summer of urgent conversations about American equity, Ford has become an empowering symbol of new possibilities.

鈥淚n the beginning, if I would have quit, maybe I would have been letting down a very small group of people. Mostly I would have let myself down; I鈥檓 just a finisher,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut by the end of this trip, so many people were watching me鈥擨 didn鈥檛 want to let anyone 诲辞飞苍.鈥�

To wit, a documentarian, Jesse Roesler, joined Ford on the trail for several day hikes, asking her about her inspirations and exhaustion. Ford has been profiled by , , and , while the that Ford鈥檚 international visibility gave the trail a welcome jolt of attention. , which she started only five weeks before her hike began, has ballooned into a popular platform, not only for discussing winter gear, but also for encouraging others who aren鈥檛 鈥渓anky white dudes,鈥� as she puts it, to get into the woods.

鈥淏efore I left, I looked at Instagram to see what other people of color were doing on trail, hashtags like or ,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 knew that was my place in the racial justice movement. But I didn鈥檛 realize the impact it would have. It felt weird to be chosen.鈥�

For all the conversation about Ford鈥檚 ostensible differences as a thru-hiker, her path into the woods feels like anyone else鈥檚.

As a toddler, she would dig in the dirt alongside her mother in the family garden. Before her father left when she was five, she admired his athleticism on road bikes and during the basketball games they would share. She would pass the summer thaws on her grandparents鈥� farm in northern Minnesota, where her grandfather grew hybrid poplars for paper pulp and her grandmother taught her to cook the food they raised. She fished, swam, drove tractors, and made a friend whose parents took her paddling through the , the intricate network of waterways and dense forests along the Canadian border.

鈥淚 realized I loved being outside鈥攕leeping in a tent, waking up, paddling around. And when I was a kid, not having to shower may have been the biggest deal,鈥� she says, chuckling. 鈥淣othing really came of that trip for me, but it planted these little seeds that didn鈥檛 die.鈥�

Instead, they lay dormant for years, despite family trips to state parks and continued romps around the farm. She struggled, meanwhile, to find her sport, trying tee-ball, basketball, cheerleading, volleyball, and even wrestling with modest success at best. But in junior high school, she found twin callings: weightlifting and the strength-driven sides of track and field, like throwing shot put and discus. At 5鈥�9鈥� with broad shoulders and large hands, Ford realized for the first time her size offered an athletic advantage, an epiphany she carried into a brief collegiate career as a thrower, then into a subsequent stint with rugby and an adult obsession with powerlifting.

鈥淲hen you think of a normal track athlete, you think of someone who is fast, really lean, the face of Gatorade,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut throwers are very fit in a different way, so it鈥檚 a door for bigger people. It was a nice space to shine in a sport people don鈥檛 know exists. You feel so powerful.鈥�

In college, at the small Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, the seeds stowed since her childhood Boundary Waters journey came roaring back to life. A struggling physics major, she took a geology class on a whim. After her unit rowed an inflatable dinghy into Lake Emily to take a floor sample, she was hooked. As a kid, after all, she had begged her mom to buy her cargo shorts so she could carry the rocks she collected during her walkabouts.

Soon after Ford earned her geology degree, the University of Minnesota-Duluth hired her to drive all the way to Florida, collecting seeds from prairie flowers along the way. Hotel rooms were beyond their budget, though, so they told her to camp with her new puppy, Zulu. She fell in love with backpacking in earnest en route, and, back home, began taking Zulu on trips along the 310-mile . She eventually thru-hiked it in tandem with the Border Route Trail, which cuts through the very Boundary Waters that had been so formative.

鈥淚 had this dual, duplicitous life in my mind,鈥� Ford says. 鈥淗alf of me went to college, became an engineer, and got filthy rich. The other half of me didn鈥檛 go to college, worked seasonal jobs, and rode trains from place to place with my dog, with just enough money to live. I have been trying to find that balance.鈥�

And then, in the summer of 2019, during a volleyball game聽in the yard of a Duluth bar, she admitted to a friend she needed to get out of her city routine and back on a long trail. She had lost the balance. Her pal suggested looking into some 鈥済lacier trail鈥� in Wisconsin, a route that traced a colossal glacier鈥檚 continental retreat 12,000 years ago.

The geologist was sold.

Ford knew from the start she would pursue her longest hike yet in the winter. As the head gardener at , a century-old spread built by iron-mining magnates on the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth, she is occupied for three seasons every year. On social media, she searched for Mike Summers, who had finished the only 聽winter hike of the Ice Age in February 2017, at the age of 26. She wanted his advice about hardships and strategies, but she never found him. In its own way, that was helpful.

鈥淚 didn鈥檛 have any doubts I could do it because I didn鈥檛 know anything about it,鈥� says Ford, laughing nervously weeks after she finished. 鈥淭here were no stories telling me I couldn鈥檛 do it. The stories about people doing it in the winter were all about people doing 100 miles and quitting. I knew I was going to do more than that.鈥�

There was one predictable problem with her plan: Zulu couldn鈥檛 handle the cold. During a previous winter trip, Ford fretted as Zulu, a short-haired Catahoula-lab mix that was then too big to tuck inside her sleeping bag, shivered through the night. She knew this expedition would be too much.

鈥淗e is a great boy, but he is a three-season dog. You can鈥檛 justify torturing your best friend for 60 or 70 days,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey will keep going, because it is their mentality to please you.鈥�

During a backcountry skiing trip, though, a guide told Ford about a statewide Facebook group of mushers, suggesting she post her plan there and ask if anyone had a working dog to spare. , a dog-mushing farmer two hours south of Duluth, invited Ford to meet her team in October in the sled kennel. Diggins immediately rolled over, offering Ford her underbelly. The night before she left for the trail, Diggins cavorted in her urban backyard, yipping so loudly a neighbor called the Duluth police, afraid a wild animal had invaded the neighborhood.

Ford loves the silence and solitude that hiking affords鈥攐r, rather, the awareness of how loud nature can be and how deafening feet crunching snow or a porcupine chewing a tree is when there鈥檚 nothing else around. She doesn鈥檛 hike with headphones or distract herself through music or podcasts, even wondering what people who do are trying to get out of their time in the woods. (After she finished the Ice Age Trail, she wore noise-canceling headphones around her home, because of the city鈥檚 din.) On the Ice Age Trail, she鈥檇 at most allow an occasional Britney Spears dance party of聽one, a way to warm up when at rest. For many of those 1,200 miles, she talked to herself鈥斺�渟elf-talk,鈥� she calls it.

Diggins became a crucial companion, a link to sanity that might tell her if she were pushing too hard. Near the start, she dropped her snowshoes and sled. So during the last two weeks, Ford was consistently postholing, moving through double-crusted snow so deep she would sink to her knees with each step. It was as exhausting as it sounds, draining an astonishing amount of energy with each step as she moved at half a mile per hour, her toes perpetually cold. And it was nerve-wracking, because she couldn鈥檛 see where each step ended.

鈥淚 would fall to my knees, hold Diggins, and hug her. I would literally tell her, 鈥楰eep pulling me forward. Don鈥檛 let me stop,鈥欌�� Ford says. 鈥淚t was so mind-numbingly difficult.鈥�

On February 21, just before that dreaded postholing intensified, Diggins turned three on trail. Ford broke the silence by singing her 鈥淗appy Birthday,鈥� feeding her extra beef sticks, and hunting for a dog-sized birthday hat in a Wisconsin hamlet. On March 6, when Ford finally reached the Minnesota border, Beatty was there to take Diggins home.

鈥淵ou wish for so many miles to be done. When the miles get smaller, you say, 鈥榃ait a minute, I want this to last forever,鈥欌�� she says. 鈥淚 was bawling at the end, because it all happened so fast.鈥�

For weeks after Ford was finished, a photo of Diggins hung above Ford鈥檚 desk. In late April, she and her partner, Flo, became a family of four when they officially .

During her 69 days on the Ice Age Trail, Ford paid more attention to the skies than the headlines. Often without cellphone service, she studied the cloud ceiling and its density; she began to intuit when a storm might encroach by feeling the pressure on her skin. She also paid less attention to the COVID-19 pandemic than she might have hoped. Given the weather or the state of her supplies, she depended some nights on the kindness of strangers offering their homes. And she didn鈥檛 pay close attention to her own burgeoning status as some wilderness-equity figurehead. She almost turned down Roesler, the documentarian, because she wasn鈥檛 on trail to make a point.

Ford hiked, instead, for many of the same reasons that 鈥渓anky white dudes鈥� or anyone else might take to the woods: to pay attention to herself, to have space to think through the life she had led for 28 years and where she wanted it to go. She faced down the person she had been, especially as an overconfident college student who didn鈥檛 come out until several years after school.

鈥淚鈥檓 sure I hurt people in the tussle of figuring out who I was,鈥� she says. 鈥淥n trail, I could go back into my memories and be angry with myself. There鈥檚 no one else on the trail but you.鈥�

And, of course, she was in the woods to reconnect to nature, to be surrounded by nothing but it鈥攁n extreme version of what she found on her grandparents鈥� farm, during her first paddling trip in the Boundary Waters, in her gardens at the mansion.

鈥淲hen I鈥檓 backpacking, I can come back to knowing who I am. It resets something inside of me,鈥� says Ford. 鈥淲aking, eating, hiking, sleeping: your rhythm is back in line with all that nature is asking of you.鈥�

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Grassroots Outdoor Alliance dropped some big news this week. The specialty retailer advocacy group added ten new member companies to its nationwide roster in a single stroke, one of the biggest spikes since the organization’s founding in 1994.

According to the association’s leadership, the move was not a concerted push to add numbers, but rather the natural result of a new system implemented to make onboarding faster and less labor-intensive.

“Last year, Dana Howe, our director of retail membership and education, put a goal in place to update the process of applying for membership status,” Grassroots president Rich Hill told 国产吃瓜黑料 Business Journal this week. “We’re not changing the requirements or metrics needed to become a member. But from now on, the process will be much easier.”

The new onboarding process handles membership verification through Grassroots’ main office on a rolling basis, rather than at board meetings, as in years past.

Grassroots Outdoor Alliance added 10 new members in one fell swoop this month.

“Going to the board [to verify members] used to be a super slow process,” said Hill. “Over the past few years, the board has been deliberate about putting in place strict metrics required for membership so that new requests can be handled by the office, which works much faster.”

Hill joked that in recent years, the path to membership with Grassroots has been “somewhat mystical” and convoluted. Board meetings would occasionally devolve into what he called “new member exhaustion” after hours of vetting applicants.

No more, he said. “As an organization, we want to get to the size where our advocacy power is on par with anyone in the industry. Smoothing out the member onboarding process will help with that goal.”

The ultimate plan, Hill says, is to widen Grassroots’ reach until 100 percent of attendees at the Grassroots Connect show鈥攃ancelled this year due to the pandemic鈥攁re Grassroots members. Last year’s attendance was made up of 65 percent members and 35 percent non-members.

Until that goal is reached, Grassroots plans to continue refining processes that make onboarding and serving members as scalable as possible. “We seem to have crossed some invisible threshold in terms of size,” Hill said of the recent additions. “This latest round of additions is getting a lot of attention, but we can feel it inside the organization, too. Everyone is hopeful that we’ll speed up even more.”

The new Grassroots members include D.D. Bullwinkel鈥檚 of Brevard, North Carolina; Earth鈥檚 Edge of Grand Haven, Michigan; Gear for 国产吃瓜黑料 of Hamburg, New York; Great Miami Outfitters of Centerville, Ohio; High Mountain Sports of Oakland, Maryland; Nugget Alaskan Outfitter of Juneau, Alaska; Pine Needle Mountaineering & Pine Needle Dry Goods of Durango, Colorado; Rutabaga Paddlesports of Madison, Wisconsin; Walkabout Paddle & Apparel of Eagle River, Wisconsin; and Wanderlust Outfitters of St. Joseph, Michigan.

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