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DISCOVER AN EXPERIENCE

THAT LASTS FOR LIFE

The seed for Fjällräven Polar was planted back In 1997, the first Fjällräven Polar took place in
in the early 1990’s. Åke Nordin was inspired by the Scandinavian Arctic. Apply today to join us
a friend who had participated in the Iditarod, for 300km of Arctic wilderness. An experience
the world’s most difficult dog sled competition. that only Fjällräven can deliver.
Fjällräven wanted to create a Swedish equivalent
to the race for everyone (not just the experts!). fjallraven.com/apply-for-polar
fjallraven.us
Chloe Kim, world-class athlete
and contributor to our line of
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and in our nation’s capital.
Outside Magazine Contents
01/02.19

Motlagh in
Kurdistan

Features
52 Among Mountains 62 The Unlikely 68 Get Shorty 74 The Egg Thief
and Martyrs Preacher of High pointers are climbers For decades he helicoptered up
Kurdistan is home to rushing Action Sports who will do anything to reach and rappelled down to aeries
rivers, spectacular peaks, Sal Masekela, first son of a Hai- the tallest point in every state, on cliff faces from Patagonia to
and fiercely hospitable tian immigrant and a legendary county, or whatever other Quebec, snatching unhatched
people. It could be the Middle jazz musician, was the face designation they can dream eggs from protected raptors
East’s premier outdoor and voice of the X Games. Now, up. Just ask John Mitchler, who and, investigators believe, selling
destination—except for a few as the meteoric growth of action had knocked off everything them to wealthy falconers
lingering problems, like the sports comes back to earth, on his list except the tallest in the Middle East. JOSHUA
thousands of land mines the most connected man in the spot in a remote U.S. territory: HAMMER tracks one of
left over from decades of war. room is wondering what’s next. 3,000-plus-foot Agrihan. the most bizarre criminals in
BY JASON MOTLAGH BY DAVID SHULTZ BY PETER FRICK-WRIGHT modern history.

4 P H OTO G R A P H B Y Balazs Gardi


insurance and you could save.

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Outside Magazine Contents
01/02.19

Dispatches
16 BIG IDEA
It’s Not About the Oil:
The drilling forces trying
to get into the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge
are undercutting existing
laws and bypassing our
democracy. They must
be stopped. BY MARC
PERUZZI

20 THE OUTSIDER
David Goggins: The for-
mer Navy SEAL tells you
how to push past pain,
fear, and mental blocks to
reach your full potential.

C LO C K W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: H A N N A H M C C A U G H E Y; F R É D É R I C L AG R A N G E ; H A N N A H M C C A U G H E Y; S A N S A R A R E S O R T; H A N N A H M C C A U G H E Y; R A N D I B E R E Z
39 22 22 EXPOSURE
Portfolio: Frédéric
Lagrange’s vibrant images
of life in Mongolia.

28 TRAVEL
Winter Escapes: From
deserted beaches to
raucous singletrack
to ancient Maya ruins,
Central America will
warm up your insides.
24 Hours: Spinning
through Tucson, Arizona.

36 GEAR
Puffies: The season’s
warmest down and
synthetic jackets.
Winter Boots: Weather-
ready footwear with
street styling.
Women’s Winter Workout:
The endurance layers you
need to conquer the cold.
20 42 Home Gym: Having your
own training space means
no excuses.

41 STYLE
Casual Warmth: Shackets
for crisp sunny days.

42 FITNESS
The Performance Project:
Could you handle a month
of eating only meat? Five
weeks of mindfulness?
Chugging a gallon of water
every day for 30 days?
Our guinea pigs tried
out seven unorthodox
wellness quests.

12 BETWEEN
THE LINES
88 PARTING SHOT
Cover photograph by
RANDI BEREZ
41 28 Styling by Heidi Meek
Grooming by Nicole Bushnell

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BRANDED CONTENT Cochise
Stronghold

Necefer

Navajo and Hopi


Nation Reservations

A TA L E O F T W O A R I ZO N A S
Tucson
There’s a really
big opportunity to
build an outdoor
industry on
tribal lands with
native people

land, and outdoor


recreation.
“There’s a really big
opportunity to build an
outdoor industry on tribal
AF TER A CHILDHOOD SPENT IN NORTHERN The area also has lands with native people,”
deeper significance for he says. “We’re kind of
A R I ZO N A , L E N N E C E F E R I S G E T T I N G TO K N O W Necefer personally. One getting the ball rolling.
of his main passions There are 22 tribes here in
T H E N AT U R A L W O N D E R S D O W N S O U T H is helping indigenous Arizona, with thousands
peoples connect with of years of culture and

L en Necefer took the


long way to southern
Arizona. Growing up in the
The move brings him to
a desert landscape very
different from where he
for climbing,” he says.
“There are three major
climbing spots within an
the natural areas near
or overlapping their
traditional lands. With
history. There’s a lot of
cool influence that can be
brought to the industry.
high desert of northern spent his childhood up hour of the city.” His two that in mind, a few years We’re using our company
Arizona, the Navajo north, one he’d glimpsed favorite places so far are ago Necefer founded as a conduit for that.”
Nation member left the only a few times before. Mount Lemmon, north a company called Even growing up in
state to go to college, ulti- But what he’s found is of the city, with more NativesOutdoors to help Arizona, many of those
mately earning his Ph.D. that the Sonoran Desert than 1,500 routes, and native people share their tribal stories are new to
in engineering and public still feels like home, even Cochise Stronghold, in stories and culture and Necefer, like the experi-
policy out East before if the saguaro and organ the Dragoon Mountains, facilitate collaboration ence of the Apaches and
ending up in the Rockies. pipe are new. “It’s almost which he recently visited with the outdoor industry. their history in Cochise
But those experiences like a completely different for the first time with The company began as Stronghold and other
only gave him a deeper state,” he says. “The Outside. “It’s the ancestral a social media project parts of the Sonoran
appreciation for home: geography between the homeland of the Apache,” highlighting stories and Desert. “I’m beginning
Arizona was more beauti- north and the south is so says Necefer. “There’s images of indigenous to experience the place
ful, the air was cleaner, different. Even the smell a really cool story here people, but over time through their lens,” he
and there were more wild is different, but familiar. about how Geronimo and Necefer began consulting says. “You don’t have to
spaces to explore. Up north, it smells like 40 other Apache outran with outdoor companies travel overseas to see a
That’s why the 30-year- sage, and down here you the U.S. Cavalry for, like, about the intersections different culture. You can
old entrepreneur, profes- can smell the creosote. nine months.” between tribes, public see plenty right here.”
sor, and outdoor enthusi- That’s how I’m relating
ast recently took a job at to the place.”
the University of Arizona, The rock climbing To learn more and see a video of Len Necefer in action,
in Tucson, researching around Tucson has also please visit outsideonline.com/TwoArizonas. To plan a
natural resource policy made Necefer, an avid trip to Arizona’s Cochise Stronghold or one of Arizona’s
and recreation near tribal climber, feel at home. other outdoor destinations, go to UnRealAZ.com.
lands in North America. “Tucson is a hidden gem
Real.

White Mesa Arch

It’s ok to feel small here. Because on this scale, big isn’t just big. It’s infinite.
If you think about it, it’s only by being so small that you can fully appreciate
such a night. And right now, tiny you is the center of the universe.

Plan your [un]real getaway at UnRealAZ.com,


and download the Visit Arizona app to customize your trip.
Follow us on
Twitter &
Instagram

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10 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
®

Discover the
world’s coolest
luxur y adventure
experiences.
Outside Magazine Between the Lines
01/02.19

Feedback

day (“The Performance Proj-


ect,” page 42).
This kind of personal ex-
perimentation is a product of
our era. Wearable technology
has enabled us to track and
analyze our steps, heart-rate
variability, pace, sleep, stress
levels, and dozens of other
metrics once difficult to re-
cord, giving rise to the self-
quantification movement.
At the same time, digital Uphill Battle
publishing means access to In October, Brian Mockenhaupt wrote about
reams of scientific research the suicide of his friend Dan Sidles, a Marine
The Choice Is Yours telling us what’s healthy and unhealthy, while Corps veteran and mountaineer who was
For the past 11 years, the cover story of our social media allows for the viral spread of fad unable to fully heal his mental wounds in
January issue has explored some aspect of diets (paleo, carnivore, intermittent fasting) wilderness-therapy programs (“Dan in Real
health, fitness, or happiness—and often all and wellness trends (mindfulness, biohack- Life”). Readers were touched by Mocken-
three. This isn’t exactly revolutionary. Janu- ing, celery juice). With so much research haupt’s search for understanding.
ary print issues arrive just in time for New often contradicting itself (is coffee good or
Year’s resolution season, the heady period bad?) and fitness choices devolving into trib- I have worked with sad that Dan was
when readers are craving major lifestyle alism (is CrossFit the problem or the solu- vets suffering from unable to find the
changes after six weeks of holiday gluttony. tion?), making a decision on how to change post-traumatic healing he needed,
As such, plenty of other magazines deliver can sometimes feel paralyzing. stress disorder for but I hope the
on this same demand. What makes our own What we often forget, however, is that 35 years. The ugly invaluable work of
approach different is that we often immerse health is personal. The strategy that makes truth is that some wilderness therapy

C LO C K W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: G R AYS O N S C H A F F E R ; C O U R T E SY O F A M Y G I L D E R H U S ; C A R O L L A M E R E
ourselves in the very lifestyle fixes we’re pro- you feel great might make me feel terrible— suicides cannot be will continue.
posing. Internally, we call these lab rat pack- and that’s OK. When you approach a lifestyle stopped. The ques- Spencer Edwards
ages, collections of stories in which we offer change from this perspective, it can be liber- tion isn’t “How Muscat, Oman
up our editors and writers as test subjects. ating. That’s the intended takeaway from this could he do this?”
Last year that meant nearly a dozen of us month’s collection of experiments. We’re not but “How could he
mailing fecal swabs (a verb-adjective-noun endorsing all—or even one—of the habits we not?” I say this to Hard-Knock
combination I’d hoped to never write again) to subjected ourselves to. The point is to get in- lighten the load for Life
the American Gut Project so our microbiomes spired by something new, try it, and then see the family mem- Jacob Baynham’s
could be analyzed. This year it means trying how you feel. Change course if necessary. It’s bers, military online story“Nature
everything from an all-meat diet to naked really that simple. brothers, doctors, Is the Best Teacher
yoga to a month of drinking a gallon of water a —CHRISTOPHER KEYES ( @KEYESER) and clinicians who for Life’s Hard Les-
heroically tried to sons” was a great
save Dan’s life. read. A parent’s
Christina job isn’t to ensure
Neumeyer their child is always
Carlsbad, California happy but to
Los Angelenos ensure their child
Los Angeles–based photographer Nikko I was deeply grows up to be an
LaMere met up with Sal Masekela in saddened by the adult. That means
October to capture the former X Games news of Dan learning resilience
commentator in his Venice Beach neigh- Sidles’s passing. I through hardship.
borhood (“The Unlikely Preacher of met him and a But Baynham also
Action Sports,” page 62). The two men group of wounded taught his son an
connected over their shared appreciation warriors on the important lesson
of the city, though they have very dif- trail in 2010. Though by retrieving a lost
ferent lifestyles. While Masekela is usually we only chatted for stuffed animal: his
out surfing, LaMere is more of a dining 20 minutes, the parents love him
and parks kind of guy. We wondered: Did vets and guides and will do their
hanging with an action-sports icon make made a lasting best to help him
him want to add extreme sports to his impression with when they can.
recreational habits? “No, no, no, no,” says their courage and Scott Tenzycki
LaMere. “I’m terrified of those things.” compassion. I’m Niceville, Florida

12
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Outside Magazine Between the Lines
01/02.19

Are You an Eggspert? Push It to


In his investigation of an international criminal who allegedly the Limit
steals and smuggles unhatched falcon eggs (“The Egg Thief,” Our new Sweat

F R O M L E F T: F I E L D M U S E U M /J O H N W E I N S T E I N ( 2 ) ; P H OTO G R A P H E R S LT D/A L A M Y;
page 74), Joshua Hammer cites more than a dozen birds species, Science podcast
some threatened by illegal wildlife trafficking. Test your ornitho- series builds on
logical knowledge by identifying these eggs (sizes not to scale). the reporting of
Outside Online’s
Sweat Science
1 2 3 4
columnist Alex
Hutchinson to
explore the limits
of human endur-

F I E L D M U S E U M /J O H N W E I N S T E I N ; A N DY C O C H R A N E
ance, looking at
just how long,
far, and fast we
can go—and
A. GYRFALCON B. PEREGRINE FALCON C. OSPREY D. GOLDEN EAGLE
what athletes,
coaches, and
researchers are
Age Is Just a Number doing to help us
´:HÀQGDSRWEHOOLHGPDQLQ Outside contributor Graham Averill’s new
online fitness column, Longevity Project,
go even harder.
Episodes avail-
pantaloons bent over, staring at the profiles masters-division athletes who able at outside
ground, an AK-47 strapped to his defy age-based stereotypes, revealing the online.com/
back. Kayvan Ezzat, a 37-year-old eating habits, daily routines, and training podcast and
policeman, is mushroom hunting.” regimens that allow them to perform
at an elite level, DOB be damned. Find it at
wherever pod-
casts are found.
—JASON MOTLAGH, PAGE 52 outsideonline.com/longevityproject.
ANSWERS: 1) d. 2) b. 3) a. 4) c.

More freedom than


you can fathom.

Nothing is more liberating than freediving The Florida Keys. Without


tanks, you’re free to move about and get closer to marine life than
ever before. And thanks to your natural mammalian diving reflex,
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By Our
Contributors
In her new memoir,
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ton finds the one—the
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2018 issue—while also
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ing tales of death and
abuse. Many of the
:KDW:H·UH:DWFKLQJ book’s scenes take
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Τηε ρεαλ ηονεψ ψου λοϖε, πλυσ τηε φαστ,
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Dispatches Big Idea
01/02.19

,W·V1RW IF THE CURRENT effort to open up the Arc-


tic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling
style of power grab: If you try to pluck a live
chicken all at once, it makes a terrible racket.
About the Oil succeeds, then no protected lands in America
are safe.
Pluck that chicken slowly, feather by feather,
and nobody notices.
ADVOCATES OF DRILLING That’s not hyperbole. For almost 40 The slow pluck began in fall 2017, when
IN THE ARCTIC NATIONAL years, the fight over drilling on ANWR’s 1.6- Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski tacked a rider
WILDLIFE REFUGE ARE million-acre coastal plain has been at the epi- onto the Republican tax-overhaul bill man-
TRYING TO MAKE AN END center of our nation’s conservation debate. dating that the federal government issue at
High-profile drilling bills were thwarted least two leases for drilling in the coastal plain.
RUN AROUND THE LAW AND
in the eleventh hour in 1989 (thanks to the This was a carefully planned tactic, since the
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Exxon Valdez disaster), 1995 (a Bill Clinton tax bill couldn’t be filibustered. It gave a mi-
IF THEY SUCCEED, YOUR veto), and 2005 (a filibuster by Senate Demo- nority of drilling proponents their only chance
BACKYARD CONSERVATION crats). This time the stakes are even higher. at success against majority opposition. Even
AREA COULD BE NEXT. Instead of trying to win public support, members of the GOP took issue with the move.
BY MARC PERUZZI pro-drilling forces are opting to bypass our In late November, a dozen House Republicans
democracy. Their tactics undercut existing signed a letter objecting to the rider, citing the
laws, ignore legitimate science, and greatly country’s overwhelming opposition to drilling
diminish the role of the American people in ANWR. (According to a 2017 Yale Univer-
in the decision-making process. The short sity poll, just 29 percent of registered voters
game is drilling for oil in the crown jewel of supported oil exploration in the refuge.) Still,
our refuge system. The long game is disman- after an ebullient President Trump signed
tling baseline environmental protections that the tax bill, he bragged about it in a speech:
have helped prevent exploitation of our pub- “I didn’t think it was a big deal until one day
lic lands since Richard Nixon was president. a friend of mine who was in the oil business
Benito Mussolini had a saying for this called. ‘Is it true that you have ANWR in the

16 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE I L LU S T R AT I O N B Y Guy Billout


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Dispatches Big Idea
01/02.19

bill?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Who cares? What such a thing?), but it would likely drive some
is that?’ ... ‘Reagan tried, every single presi- of them from their dens at least temporarily,
dent tried ... the Bushes, everybody.’ I said,
you got to be kidding, I love it now.”
possibly with fatal results for cubs.
SAExploration, the seismic company lead-
The polar bears
Reporters at the time were quick to point ing the search, claims it can mitigate dam- DQGWKH*ZLFK·LQ
out that there were still many protective
regulations to clear before anyone could stick
age by employing advanced forward-looking
infrared imagery to locate dens before the
and your
a drill in the tundra. That analysis was based big trucks roll. Unfortunately, according to favorite wild
on long-standing protections baked into the Steven C. Amstrup, a former U.S. Geological places need us
1970 National Environmental Policy Act. In Survey scientist who helped develop the tech-
a nutshell, NEPA stipulates that while com- nique, in practice it only works half the time. WRÀJKWIRUWKHP
merce is important, you can’t destroy fed- As for the 200,000-strong porcupine now. So does
eral lands in pursuit of industrial production caribou herd that’s often at the forefront of
without first completing exhaustive scien- the ANWR debate—in part because of its RXUGHPRFUDF\
tific analysis rich with public feedback. The importance to the native Gwich’in people—
act has been called the Magna Carta of the pro-drilling forces tout science suggesting
environmental movement. that the animals tend to stay clear of oil rigs
Feather by feather, though, the Trump and roads. That sounds like a good thing until
administration is plucking away at NEPA in you dig a little deeper. The caribou’s calving a touchstone for conservation everywhere,”
order to push a wider pro-drilling agenda. In grounds within the proposed drilling area are says the Sierra Club’s Ritzman. “They’re using
the summer of 2017, the Trump administra- sometimes just eight miles wide. Build infra- these same strategies to roll out this energy
tion began “streamlining” the review pro- structure there, and the herd could be forced dominance across the landscape. If we’re not
cess. Really this was cover for wholesale cuts out, causing a drastic decline in calf survival successful keeping them out of ANWR, we
to the length, depth, and intellectual honesty rates. This at a time when climate change, oil will see them moving into our backyards.”
of the Environmental Impact Statements exploration, and other factors have caribou So what to do? For starters, when that
(EIS) that give NEPA its teeth. populations elsewhere in the Arctic on the curtailed public comment period on the EIS
With most Interior projects, the adminis- precipice of steep declines. opens up—it’s expected to in late 2018—we
tration is requiring that the entire process be The Trump administration has done its need to flood the government with comments
wrapped up in a calendar year and that the best to stanch public outcry about any of this. as well as hound our congressional represen-
EIS should run only 150 pages. ANWR might When the scope of the EIS was being hashed tatives to open investigations into the gutting
be granted an exemption—nobody knows out last year, six of the seven public hearings of NEPA regulations. This strategy actually
at this point—that allows for 300 pages, but took place in Alaska, giving drilling advocates works. It’s believed that the wave of outrage
even that’s paltry. In comparison, if a ski area a home-field advantage since every state over interior secretary Ryan Zinke’s review of
wanted to expand into new terrain on its ex- resident receives checks from earnings on the 27 national monuments helped limit the dam-
isting Forest Service lease, it could expect a state’s oil and gas royalties. (Polls have shown age to just two. When a power-grabbing mi-
two-to-seven-year process and a 500-to- that Alaskans are overwhelmingly in favor of nority is plucking you over, it’s time to screech.
600-page EIS. That may sound cumbersome, drilling in ANWR.) The seventh hearing was If that fails, you can expect conservation
but as America has learned, industry ravages held in Washington, D.C., at 4:30 P.M. on a groups to take the administration to court. “If
the landscape when left unchecked—recall the summer Friday. A Gwich’in representative they don’t follow the rules, rush the process,
private companies that spilled so much oil into says one meeting with their tribal government and make mistakes, we’ll hold them account-
Ohio’s Cuyahoga River that it routinely burst was scheduled with only a week’s notice, and able,” says Lydia Weiss, government relations
into flame, the developers who denuded Flor- the timing conflicted with a ceremony hon- director for the Wilderness Society.
ida coastlines of mangroves, and nearly every oring a traditional chief. The administrators Finally, says Lena Moffitt, senior director
EPA Superfund cleanup site you’ve ever heard denied requests to reschedule. The scoping of the Sierra Club’s Our Wild America pro-
of. It’s simply better to go slow and get it right. report also proposed a 45-day public com- gram, there’s the tactic of publicly shaming
Dan Ritzman, director of the Sierra Club’s ment period, shorter than the usual 60 to private-sector players. Any businesses sup-
Lands, Water, Wildlife campaign and a vet- 90 days, let alone the extended 120 days you porting ANWR drilling can expect a deluge
eran of EIS battles, predicts that the ANWR might expect for a controversial proposal to of e-mail and social-media tags letting the
report will contain inadequate analysis about drill inside a wildlife refuge. world know what they’re up to. Such direct
the impacts of drilling. He has good reason The reward for all the antidemocratic wran- pressure on Shell Oil in 2015 is widely believed
to be pessimistic given the rushed timeline gling? According to USGS estimates from to have helped sway CEO Ben van Beurden’s
and drilling proponents’ recent claims that much questioned seismic testing in the 1980s, decision to back down from offshore drilling
exploration won’t harm wildlife or the land- there’s between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of in the Arctic.
scape. This winter, oil-company prospectors recoverable oil under the federal portion of the In the near term, the Trump administra-
hope to conduct seismic testing on the coastal coastal plain. That higher number is big for a tion will likely succeed in defanging NEPA.
plain, which involves driving over the tundra U.S. oil field, but the USGS only gives it a 5 per- Don’t let that discourage you to the point
in 90,000-pound thumper trucks and send- cent probability. Those odds reveal that the of despair. We the people can still save the
ing up to 62,000 pounds of peak force into the industry has little idea how much oil is really coastal plain. We must. The ANWR debate is
ground in hopes of finding an oil deposit. This there, which is why it’s sending the thumper not just about oil. It never has been. The polar
is a problem for the threatened polar bears that trucks. According to an analysis by the liberal bears and the Gwich’in and your favorite wild
make their dens in the snow. Researchers from Center for American Progress, drilling leases places need us to fight for them now. So does
Polar Bears International put the odds of the in ANWR will yield no more than $37.5 million our democracy. O
trucks crushing dens—and the bears inside— for the U.S. Treasury over ten years. Which
at 23 percent. Nobody is sure what a seismic makes it all the more obvious that this fight Marc Peruzzi writes the Out of Bounds
blast could do to the bears (who would test isn’t just about ANWR. “The coastal plain is column for Outside Online.

18 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
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Dispatches The Outsider
01/02.19

“You can have


everything you
The Warrior Mentality want in life, but
LEGENDARY SPECIAL FORCES VETERAN DAVID GOGGINS HAS WRITTEN when you quit
A GAME PLAN FOR PEAK PERFORMANCE. PREPARE TO SUFFER.
BY CHRISTOPHER KEYES
something that
is meaningful to
DAVID GOGGINS’S new memoir, Can’t Hurt letter saying that I was about to flunk out.
you, you will be
Me, is written in part as a self-help manual, I had to come clean. I went to the mirror haunted by it.”
but the opening line delivers some uncom- in the bathroom and looked at myself and
monly blunt advice for a genre better known
for telling us we just need to learn to love saw I was a clown. I saw my future, and
ourselves: “You are in danger of living a life so it wasn’t pretty. I was talking to myself out
comfortable and soft that you will die with- loud. A million cuss words. I believe “I called Badwater 135 ultramarathon
out ever realizing your true potential.” It’s an that in order to find peace, you must be organizer Chris Kostman up on a Wednes-
apt summation of Goggins’s worldview. The willing to go to war with yourself.” day. I tried to get in based on my SEAL
retired Navy SEAL has spent the past two
experience, but Chris wasn’t hearing that.
decades exploring the outer limits of human
performance, both as an elite Special Opera- “I was 23 years old when I got out of the I hadn’t run more than 20 miles in over a
tions member and an accomplished ultra- Air Force. I went from 175 pounds to 297. year. He told me, ‘There are two qualifying
endurance athlete. But earning that résumé I got a job as an exterminator. I’m 43 races left, and one’s on Saturday.’ So I had
required overcoming an abusive childhood, now, and it would have been very easy for three and a half days to get ready for a
a murder in the family, rampant racism in his me to still be 300 pounds and spraying 24-hour race. This was in 2005. Now I’ve
small Indiana hometown, a learning disabil-
for cockroaches, having never known done more than 60 ultras, but that
ity, obesity, and more—a catalog of obstacles
that might sound comically overstuffed if it what was inside myself. I think that’s the was still the worst pain I’ve gone through
weren’t all true. To survive, Goggins found scariest thing.” in my entire life.”
strength in regularly putting himself through
hell—literally, if you count his three rounds “I got pneumonia the first time I went “Life is not friendly. Life is not you
of attempting the notoriously grueling SEAL
through SEAL training. The second time always being happy. You have to get the
Hell Week—and believes there’s no shortcut
to mental toughness. We phoned Goggins in through, I fractured my patella right tactical advantage early in the morning,
Avalon, New Jersey, where he’d just finished before Hell Week. And I went two more which means get up, go for a run, go
his daily six-hour morning workout. weeks with that broken kneecap. to the gym, do something that prepares
Jesus. That’s when I realized my body your mind. You want to start off your
“My lifestyle, the way I do everything, it’s is able to handle much more than I morning winning.”
not for everybody. I don’t want to waste thought was humanly possible. My mind
your time. I am asking people to go way was shackling me.” “My daily routine is: I run, I go to the gym,
within themselves to find a lot more.” and I stretch for about two, three hours.
“Mindset is the great equalizer. I I’ve missed two days in the past six years.”
“I ended up self-publishing my book. I had came from nothing special. What was
a nice offer, $300,000. I was getting ready different about me was that I wanted “I’m not big on people who are good at
to sign, and I was like, You know what? to figure myself out.” multitasking. I’m really big on people who
If somebody were to give me $300,000 are able to focus on the task at hand.”
right now to relive that book, I would “You can have everything you want in life,
tell him to go to hell. So I turned it down.” but when you quit something that is “Motivation is crap. Because once you’re
meaningful to you, you will be haunted in an extreme situation, motivation goes
“You need a good foundation to start by it. You will try to fill that void with every- away. Right now it’s 69 degrees outside,
life. My foundation was so jacked up. I thing—running races, material posses- it’s sunny, with a little bit of wind. I’ve got
had a very abusive father, and it just kind sions, whatever. You can never fill the void.” a nice TV in front of me. If you were to
of snowballed from there. My mom’s watch a motivational video in this environ-
fiancé was murdered. I saw a little boy get “A lot of people have reasons why ment, boy, you’re going to think you’re a
killed. I had white splotches on my skin they can’t. Whether you’re black, white, badass. You’re motivated now. But what
from stress. But that’s why I don’t give purple—it doesn’t matter. So I tell every- happens when you get out of this nice
anybody a get-out-of-jail-free card. I body my story. It is very humbling for me to environment? Life has to be damn near
realized through my journey in life what talk about how dumb I was, how bad I stut- perfect for you to be motivated all
we’re all capable of doing. We have all the tered, how insecure I was, how fat I was, the time. But if you’re driven, I guarantee
tools we need inside our minds.” but it makes people say, ‘Well shit, man, I you will find a way.”
have no excuse.’ ”
“I didn’t go to school a lot. One reason was “I wish there was a different
a learning disability that caused me to “I don’t believe in all these quick fixes. word besides discipline. Discipline
fall behind. When I was 17, my mom got a I believe in the permanent fix.” sounds too easy.”

20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
P H OTO G R A P H B Y Randi Berez OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 21
Dispatches Exposure
01/02.19
A group of men
try to pull a
truck out of the
ice on Khövsgöl
Lake, 2006.

Seventeen Years in Mongolia


CAPTURING A COUNTRY IN FLUX
In early 1944, French photographer Frédéric Lagrange’s grandfather, Louis Lagrange, was a German
prisoner of war. After a few months, a battalion of Mongol soldiers fighting for the Soviet Union
attacked the camp, setting the soldier free. “They saved him,” says Frédéric, “and ultimately they saved
my life. That’s something that has stayed with me.” Seven decades later, the photographer, who is now
48 and spends his days shooting ad campaigns for companies such as Kodak and Walt Disney, traveled
to Mongolia to meet the people and document the rapidly changing East Asian country. After 17 years,
13 trips, and 1,260 rolls of film, Lagrange collected his images into his first book, Mongolia. —EMILY REED

Portfolio by Frédéric Lagrange

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 23
Dispatches Exposure
01/02.19 Clockwise from left: A soldier in a Tsengel
village, 2004; a yak near Khövsgöl Lake,
2006; a ship stuck in Khövsgöl Lake,
2006; central Mongolian two-track, 2015

24 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
Clockwise from above: Treats to
welcome guests in a Tsengel village,
2004; a man prepares horses for polo
in the Orkhon Valley, 2005; a herder in
western Mongolia, 2004; homemade
ice skates, Khövsgöl Lake, 2006

As a young photo assistant, Lagrange saved up enough money for his first trip to Mongolia in 2001. There
he camped next to Üüreg Lake and befriended local herders. “I didn’t know what I was getting myself
into, but the people were very hospitable,” he says. Upon returning home to New York City, he realized
he’d only seen a small slice of the country and knew he’d be back again and again.

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 25
Dispatches Exposure
01/02.19

Clockwise from top


left: A young Mongol
getting groceries,
Ulaangom, 2004;
a Mongol woman,
2004; Üüreg Lake,
2015; a monk in
Ulaanbaatar, 2006

Since Lagrange began the project, Mongolia’s capital city, Ulaanbaatar, has nearly doubled
in population—and in turn, pollution increased as well. “There is much more traffic, cars, and
wealth today,” he says. But head into the countryside and things are remarkably untouched.
“I’d never before been exposed to such culture or so much wild space,” Lagrange says.

26 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
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Dispatches Winter Escapes
01/02.19

Grand Central
FROM DESERTED BEACHES TO
RAUCOUS SINGLETRACK TO ANCIENT
MAYA RUINS, THESE NEW ADVENTURES
AND RESORTS IN CENTRAL AMERICA
WILL WARM YOU UP

El Sunzal Beach,
El Salvador

28 OU TS I D E M AGAZ I N E P H OTO G R A P H B Y Laura Sausina


a. Belize Barrier Reef
b, e. Itz’ana Resort
c. Tulum, Mexico
d. Mountain biking in Guatemala
f. Mukan Resort
C LO C K W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: D A N I E L H O L Z ; I T Z ’A N A R E S O R T A N D R E S I D E N C E S ; L A U R A S A U S I N A ; B R E N D A N J A M E S / M T B G U AT E M A L A ; VA LO R I E DA R L I N G P H OTO G R A P H Y ; M U K A N R E S O R T

a b c

f e d

ITZ’ANA RESORT GUATEMALAN MUKAN RESORT


Belize HIGHLAND TOUR Mexico
Opening in April, this retreat is a perfect Guatemala Reaching this new eco-adventure lodge in the
base camp for exploring the best of Belize. In 2014, Vermont native Brendan James was Riviera Maya requires a 45-minute speedboat
Night-hike the world’s only jaguar reserve in working for a nonprofit in Guatemala when ride through mangrove canals, so it feels far
search of the nocturnal cats? Check. Swim some locals loaned him a hardtail mountain removed from the region’s hot spot of Tulum.
with whale sharks during their annual migra- bike and led him along ancient Maya paths But there are other reasons this luxurious
tion? Check. Sail to empty isles for private weaving around Lake Atitlán. He found fast property stands out, namely that its ten
snorkeling sessions? Check. Float in the trails flowing through cool, alpine forests and suites, bungalows, and villas are among the
waters of the iconic Great Blue Hole? Check. a homegrown zeal for the sport that’s only very few accommodations nestled inside
Cast for wahoo lurking beyond one of the flourished since. Today, Guatemala is becoming the 1.3-million-acre Sian Ka’an Biosphere Re-
planet’s largest barrier reefs? Check. But good Central America’s premier fat-tire destina- serve, a Unesco World Heritage site containing
luck prying yourself away from Itz’ana’s lush tion, with newly built singletrack and bike Maya ruins, a section of the 620-mile-long
20-acre property. The 30-suite resort sits parks opening across the country. James now Mesoamerican Reef, and a jungle filled with
on the Placencia peninsula, a 16-mile-long spends 150 days a year scouting those trails diverse wildlife including 356 species of birds
finger of perfect white sand that separates a and leading trips for his guiding company, MTB and 318 species of butterflies. Dive the reef
mangrove-lined lagoon from the Caribbean. Guatemala. This year he’s launching the Gua- in search of sea turtles, scout the biosphere
It’s all too easy to spend your days bouncing temalan Highland Tour, a seven-day, 96-mile and add threatened birds like the reddish egret
from the Great House, offering one of the cross-country epic with 29,000 feet of down- to your life list, or fish for tarpon, permit, and
largest rum selections in the country, to the hill. Along the way, you’ll follow livestock trails barracuda with local guides who have plied
ceviche bar, which serves reef-to-table snap- and old agricultural paths past 14th-century these waters since childhood. The day’s catch
per and conch on a deck over the azure water. ruins, crash in small-town posadas, and relax in is served on a dock over Sian Ka’an Lagoon.
From $325 —GRAHAM AVERILL natural hot springs. From $2,375 —TIM NEVILLE From $420 —STEPHANIE PEARSON

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 29
Dispatches Winter Escapes a, c. Isla Palenque
b, e. Ka’ana Resort
01/02.19 d. Maya ruins, Belize
f. Coiba National Park, Panama

ISLA PALENQUE
Panama
Want to play out a castaway fantasy?
Newly revamped Isla Palenque,
located on the pristine Gulf of
Chiriquí, along the country’s Pacific
coast, ticks all the right boxes—with
some rather exquisite enhancements.
More than half of the 400-acre
private island is a nature preserve
that neighbors Coiba National Park, a
38-island, 673-square-mile expanse
filled with dolphins, leatherback
turtles, and whitetip reef sharks. First
envisioned as a safari-style camp in
2012, the resort owners reinvented
it last summer by constructing eight
thatch-roofed casitas just steps from
seven gloriously empty beaches.
Spend your days exploring reefs and
nearby islands like Las Piñalitas by
boat, kayak, or paddleboard, or hike a b
to archeological sites full of pottery
shards and stone tools left by the
island’s pre-Colombian inhabitants.
Come evening dine on local favorites
like rondón, an Afro-Caribbean coco-
nut stew, while keeping an eye out for
breaching humpbacks. If you book
through our travel partner Outside
GO, you’ll get four nights for the price
of three. From $770 for two people,

C LO C K W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: I S L A PA L E N Q U E ; K A’A N A R E S O R T; I S L A PA L E N Q U E ; K A’A N A R E S O R T ( 2 ) ; I S L A PA L E N Q U E
all-inclusive —T.N.

THE MAYA
EXPERIENCE,
KA’ANA RESORT
Guatemala and Belize
Tikal, the capital of Central America’s
ancient Maya civilization, was discov-
ered in Guatemala in the mid-1800s,
and its stone temples have been a
popular tourist destination for de-
cades. But the extensive system of
roads and canals that connected Tikal f c
to thousands of previously unknown
Maya structures wasn’t uncovered
until 2016, when researchers began
using planes and lasers to pierce the
dense jungle canopy and map what’s
been dubbed the Maya Megalopolis.
Fernando Paiz, whose Foundation for
Maya Cultural and Natural Heritage
spearheaded the research, also owns
the plush Ka’ana Resort in neighbor-
ing Belize. Last spring he blended
his two passions to create Ka’ana’s
new Maya Experience, a deep immer-
sion into the ancient culture. You’ll
follow guides into the jungle on the
way to the 77-foot-tall temple of
Cahal Pech, learn to cook traditional
dishes like the citrus-marinated
pork known as poc chuc, or ride in a
helicopter with Paiz and marvel as he
recounts how the network of struc-
tures below is just beginning to be
understood by archeologists. From
$1,117 for two people —G.A. e d

30 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
a, d–e. Sansara Surf and Yoga Resort
b–c. Yemaya
f. Origen Escapes

a b c
C LO C K W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: S A N S A R A R E S O R T; Y E M AYA I S L A N D H I D E AWAY ( 2 ) ; S A N S A R A R E S O R T ( 2 ) ; D I E G O M E J I A S /O R I G E N E S C A P E S

f e d

ORIGEN ESCAPES SANSARA SURF AND YEMAYA


Costa Rica YOGA RESORT Nicaragua
This country’s pura vida energy and epic surf Panama Political unrest in this country over the sum-
spots aren’t a secret. But Costa Rica still has While parts of Central America sometimes mer and fall—during which protesters clashed
plenty of untapped terrain. Origen Escapes, feel overrun with surfboard-toting gringos, with security forces over government corrup-
a no-expenses-spared bespoke outfitter, Panama has maintained an undiscovered vibe, tion—scared away so many travelers that nu-
specializes in taking clients to the country’s especially along the southerly Azuero peninsula. merous lodges and tour operators had to shut-
untouched corners. In December, Origen’s four The country’s cultural heartland, this region ter their doors. Now, as the turmoil appears
owners—including Ofer Ketter, a former lieu- features Spanish colonial churches, biologi- to be calming down, traveling here will help
tenant in the Israel Defense Force, and expert cally diverse national parks, and some seriously these businesses get back on their feet, and
waterman and Costa Rican native Felipe Arti- great waves from December to May. Located resorts that were never near the unrest are
nano—used their years of expertise to launch in the sleepy village of Cambutal, Sansara’s 11 enticing visitors with deals. Consider Yemaya,
the Transformational Travel Series, a group cabanas are just steps from the Pacific Ocean, a 16-bungalow hideaway on the northern tip
of one-to-two-week itineraries highlighting and with nearby beach, point, and reef breaks, of Little Corn Island, a carless, 1.2-square-mile
environmental responsibility and local conser- you’re sure to find the wave you’re looking for. dollop of sand 45 miles off the mainland in
vation efforts. Adventurous travelers can swim Choose from all-inclusive weeklong surf or the Caribbean. The property was revamped in
amid a pod of spinner dolphins or raft 16 miles yoga retreats, or create your own à la carte trip 2017 with five remodeled luxury suites, and it’s
of jungle-shaded rapids, while citizen scientists filled with offshore tuna fishing, snorkeling, slated to reopen in time for the winter holiday
can head off the grid with top naturalists to and afternoons spent lounging in the natural season with cut rates of $95 per night, leaving
document new species or track migrating pools of a nearby waterfall. No matter which you to splurge on sundowners from the beach-
hammerhead sharks. From $1,200 per night you pick, the use of bikes, SUPs, and kayaks is side bar, in-room massages, and snorkeling
—JEN MURPHY included in your stay. From $199 —J.M. trips on its 40-foot handcrafted sailboat. —T.N.

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 31
a. Santa Bárbara Mountain, Honduras
Dispatches Winter Escapes b. El Casco at Acantilados
c. El Sunzal Beach, El Salvador
d. Oaxaca, Mexico
01/02.19 e. Copán Ruinas, Honduras
f. Granada, Nicaragua

ACANTILADOS
El Salvador
The surf-focused Salvadorean town of La
Libertad has never seen anything like Acan-
tilados. The sleek 19-room boutique hotel,
which opened in November, sits cantilevered
over a cliff, exponentially amping the drama
of the infinity pool. Surf the classic right-hand
point break of El Sunzal in the morning, with
or without an expert instructor, then stave
off gnawing hunger at El Casco, a renovated
century-old colonial house on the property
that serves pupusas, tamales, quesadillas,
and nuegados—sweet Salvadorean dumplings.
In the evening, soak your tired muscles in
the saltwater pools, then head to the hotel’s
craft-cocktail bar for a Martini Albahaca y
Sandia, a mix of watermelon, basil, and vodka.
Hikers should make the 90-minute drive
northwest to Cerro Verde National Park and
summit 7,812-foot Santa Ana, the country’s

C LO C K W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: WA LT E R M E J I A ; AC A N T I L A D O S ; R U DY O R T I Z ; E T H A N W E LT Y/A U R O R A P H OTO S ; C H R I S R O G E R S ; O L I V E R W I N T Z E N /A L A M Y
highest volcano. The view of turquoise Lake a b
Coatepeque is worth it. From $159 —S.P.

HONDURAN COFFEE ROUTE


Honduras
Even though crime has dropped by half over
the past five years, Honduras still gets a bad
rap. Wandering around the city of Teguci-
galpa alone at night was never a great idea,
but don’t judge a country by its capital. This
fall, Central America’s second-largest nation
has made it easier than ever for travelers to
check out one of the things Hondurans do
best: grow delicious coffee. The new Hon-
duran Coffee Route isn’t a single road but a
network of sustainable farms, regional tasting
labs and research centers, and more than 60
lively cafés in six distinct growing regions. The
maps and resources on the route’s website
will help you craft your itinerary. Keep it simple
by focusing on one region—like Copán, home
to a magnificent tenth-century Maya city and
seed-to-cup coffee varietals with hints of
chocolate, caramel, and orange. Get a room at
f c
Hotel Marina Copán (from $124), which once
catered to archeologists, and spend a morn-
ing taking a hike around Finca Santa Isabel, a
200-acre family-run coffee plantation with
85 species of birds, like white-breasted hawks
and bushy-crested jays. If you’d prefer to have
a guide, Copán’s Xukpi Tours can take care of
housing and transportation. —T.N.

THE WHOLE SHEBANG


For cyclists who want to see it all—Mexico’s
Maya ruins, Guatemala’s volcano-ringed Lake
Atitlán, El Salvador’s sublime surf breaks, Ni-
caragua’s colonial cities, Costa Rica’s jungle,
the Panama Canal, and the unsung spaces in
between—sign up for the Mexico City to Pan-
ama City leg of TDA Global Cycling’s North
American Epic. For 2019, this 2,467-mile, 40-
day van- and chef-supported portion of the
9,013-mile journey has been rerouted so that
all but eight miles are paved (though paved
is a relative term, so bring a comfortable bike
with beefy tires). From $8,000 —S.P. e d

32 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
ENJOY RESPONSIBLY
©2018. DEWAR’S BLENDED SCOTCH WHISKY 40% ALC. BY VOL. IMPORTED BY JOHN DEWAR & SONS COMPANY, CORAL GABLES, FL.
a. The Arizona Inn
Dispatches 24 Hours b. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
c. The desert near Mount Lemmon
d. Penca Restaurante
01/02.19 e. The University of Arizona
f. The road to Mount Lemmon

C LO C K W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: A N N E R A N E K ; DA N I TA D E L I M O N T/A L A M Y; LU C Y H E W E T T; N O R M A J E A N G A R G A S Z /A L A M Y; A R PA D B E N E D E K / I S TO C K ; C H R I S TO P H E R A . J O N E S / G E T T Y
a b c

Under the
Tucson Sun
WARM WINTER e d
TEMPERATURES,
SAGUARO-STUDDED
MOUNTAINS, AND southwestern vibes and dig in 2 P.M. 11 taps, it can be a bit overwhelm-
EMPTY TRAILS LURE to a breakfast salad—eggs over Packed with 16 gardens, 1,200 ing to choose. Its flagship Dragoon
arugula, butternut squash, and plant species, and 230 native IPA is a great place to start.
ADVENTURERS TO
roasted poblanos. animals—including snakes, taran-
THIS COLLEGE TOWN tulas, and butterflies—the 98- 8 P.M.
BY FREDERICK REIMERS 9 A.M. acre Arizona-Sonora Desert With its modern take on central
The winding road up Mount Museum is the best way to ex- Mexican cuisine, downtown’s
7 A.M. Lemmon is a cycling classic that plore the region’s vast ecology Penca Restaurante illustrates
Wake up at the Arizona Inn, a rises 6,132 feet from the desert and forget your sore legs. the culinary scene that earned
Tucson landmark built in 1930 to a ski hill near the 9,157-foot Tucson a Unesco Creative City
with 14 acres of gardens and summit. Climb as much of the 5:30 P.M. of Gastronomy designation.
grounds (from $159). Swim laps 26-mile 4 percent grade as you On the drive back from the mu- Order the short ribs braised in
in the heated pool or borrow a can muster—the descent is a seum, stop at the overlook atop citrusy pibil sauce, and a Diablo
bike to roll through the University blast from wherever you turn Gates Pass to partake in a cocktail—beet tequila, lime juice,
of Arizona campus, just a few around. Tucson Bike Rentals and local ritual: watching the sunset ginger, and seltzer.
blocks south. Tours will deliver a race-worthy paint the sky above Tucson
loaner to your hotel. Mountain Park fiery shades of 10 P.M.
8 A.M. orange, purple, pink, and red. With four separate bars and live
Located on the edge of the 1 P.M. music seven days a week, the
Barrio Viejo—the city’s hippest Keep it healthy at Le Buzz, a cy- 6 P.M. restored Hotel Congress, built in
neighborhood, filled with reno- clist’s hangout near Mount Lem- Tucson boasts nearly two dozen 1919, is the heart of Tucson’s night-
vated 19th-century adobe homes mon in the Tanque Verde neigh- breweries, and the west side’s life. In the Taproom, the sixties
and eclectic storefronts—Five borhood with salads, quiches, Dragoon Brewing Company is one Wurlitzer jukebox spins everything
Points Market and Restaurant and sandwiches. Recharge with of the most prolific. With as many from classic Hank Williams to cur-
is the perfect place to soak up the house-roasted espresso. as 30 recipes rotating through its rent local artists like Calexico.

34 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
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Dispatches 3XIÀHV
01/02.19

Fluff Pieces
THE COZIEST
WINTER JACKETS
BY KELLY BASTONE AND
FREDERICK REIMERS

MOST WARMTH
The North Face Summit
L6 AW Down Belay $550
For those times when
sheer insulating force
trumps everything else—
like when you’re waiting
on top of a peak for your
friends to arrive—the
Summit L6 can’t be beat.
It’s overstuffed with 800-
fill down, and it features
key specs like a massive
helmet-compatible hood,
a synthetic-fill zipper
flap that holds drafts at
bay, and stretchy knit cuffs
to seal in heat. Waterproof
fabric on the hood, shoul-
ders, and sleeves keeps
those poofy down clusters
dry for hours on end.
1.5 lbs (men’s, pictured) /
1.4 lbs (women’s)

36 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE P H OTO G R A P H S B Y Charles Dustin Sammann


MOST BREATHABLE
A. Smartwool Smartloft 60
$200 and up
A Smartwool doubled down on moisture-
wicking merino by using it in the Smart-
loft 60’s fill and lining. It’s a winning
combination: the insulation is as pillowy
as cotton candy and the knit wool inside
the front and back of the jacket is luxuri-
ous. Merino stretch panels under the
arms dump heat and sweat—without
collecting odor. 1.1 lbs (men’s) / 14 oz
(women’s, pictured)

MOST DURABLE
B
B. Arc’teryx Thorium AR $299
Superlight puffies are fantastic right up
until an errant branch tears the gossa-
mer material and down starts flying out.
That’s why Arc’teryx sheaths the Tho-
rium’s 750 fill with a stout face fabric.
Add a DWR finish and water-resistant
synthetic insulation at the spots most
likely to get wet (the shoulders, cuffs,
and underarms), and you’ve got a jacket
that can take a beating. 1.1 lbs (men’s) /
14.8 oz (women’s, pictured)

C MOST COMFORTABLE
C. Mountain Hardwear Super/DS
StretchDown $275
The baffles that keep down in place
also inhibit stretch. So Mountain Hard-
wear developed a loom that weaves
the face fabric and lining simultane-
ously and creates the baffles without
stitching. That novel design, plus a
nylon-elastane blend, didn’t pinch
testers as they scrambled up summits
in Rocky Mountain National Park. A
snug hood and 800-fill down retained
warmth on 20-degree mornings. 1.1 lbs
D
(men’s, pictured) / 15 oz (women’s)

MOST SKIING-FRIENDLY
D. Black Diamond Mission Down $499
Featuring a blend of down and Prima-
Loft synthetic insulation wrapped in
super breathable yet waterproof Gore
Thermium, the Mission Down is the
total package. Amazingly, it didn’t soak
through during a chairlift ride in an
Oregon downpour. The powder skirt,
drop pockets, and relaxed fit are alpine
standards, but the urbane style
made this our favorite for days ending
E on the town. 1.8 lbs (men’s, pictured) /
1.6 lbs (women’s)

MOST VERSATILE
E. Flylow Ronan $255
The airy Ronan became our daily winter
uniform: it’s light and comfortable,
and it’s also weatherized against wind
and snow flurries with a DWR finish.
Paired with a shell on brutally cold
days at the resort, it provided perfect
insulation with recycled PrimaLoft Eco
fill that delivers surprising warmth for
its weight. But our favorite feature was
the massive zippered kangaroo pocket
on the front. 9 oz (women’s only)

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 37
Dispatches Winter Boots
01/02.19

Perfect Pairs
WEATHER-READY
A
FOOTWEAR WITH STREET
STYLING
BY BLAIR BRAVERMAN

A. Lems Leather Boulder $150


B
Don’t be deceived by the Boul-
der’s classic cut—this men’s shoe
is anything but traditional. It’s
ultralight and packable, with zero
heel drop to promote a natural
gait. The wide toe box has room
for thick socks, but for serious
insulation, look elsewhere.

B. Oboz Bridger 8" Insulated


Waterproof $185
Oboz took its award-winning
men’s hiking boot and winter-
ized it with a waterproof upper, a
synthetic Thinsulate liner, and
a rubber toe cap. The aggressively
lugged outsole provides ample
traction on ice, snow, and mud.

C. Merrell Chateau Mid Lace


Waterproof $175
A 1.9-inch heel and quilted cuff
give this women’s boot urban
charisma, while its weatherproof
full-grain leather upper and grippy
sole bring the performance on
C stormy days.

D. Muck Arctic Outpost


F Lace AG $200
The men’s Arctic Outpost’s fleece
lining and waterproof neoprene
make it an ideal stomper for
slushy conditions, and a thick
sole bites into the frozen ground.
Just don’t plan on wearing it for
D spring puddle jumping: with a
E comfort rating down to minus
20 degrees, it’s one of the warm-
est boots on the market.

E. Helly Hansen
Garibaldi VL $180
The do-everything women’s
Garibaldi VL has sealed seams,
waterproof nubuck, and faux-
fur lining. Wear it snowshoeing,
then wear it out to dinner.

F. Duckfeet Arhus $298


Danish design and natural
materials come together in a
unisex boot that’s cozier than
your favorite slipper. The Arhus’s
water-resistant pebbled leather is
buttery soft right out of the box,
and the durable crepe sole can be
replaced after years of wear.

38 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
:RPHQ·V:LQWHU:RUNRXW
C D

F E

The Ice Queen Cometh


LAYER UP AND CONQUER THE COLD
BY ARIELLA GINTZLER

A. Salewa Crow C. Skida Alpine E. Bjorn Daehlie Wool much thicker cap, and the
Gore-Tex boots $280 neckwarmer $26 pants $195 merino-poly exterior vents
Fully waterproof and cram- Don’t worry about your Polyester soft shell wards moisture. Thus, your dome
pon compatible, with lugged breath icing this moisture- off wind and light rain, stays warm and dry.
Vibram outsoles for grip wicking poly-blend gaiter. while stretchy merino on
and stiff midsole inserts for The fleece liner stays soft the calves keeps heat from H. Outdoor Research
stability, the pair weighs just against your skin, and the building up. Bonus: side Deviator hoodie $189
1.3 pounds. You’ll be at the pattern brightens up cold zips make for easy on and Panels of Polartec Alpha
summit in no time. morning outings. off over bulky boots. insulation across the front
and sides of this fleece pro-
B. Icebreaker D. Salomon RS Skate skis F. Atlas Run vide enough warmth—but
MerinoLoft Hyperia Lite and Prolink Race Skate snowshoes $250 not too much—when you’re
Hybrid vest $230 bindings $425 and $120 With Atlas’s spring-loaded taking on high-exertion
This piece’s calling card is With soft carbon cores and suspension and aluminum activities in frigid weather.
versatility. It works over responsive construction, crampons, these snowshoes
a long-sleeved base layer the RS’s are for folks who are made for moving swiftly I. Petzl Reactik+ recharge-
on cool days and under a don’t need ultrastiff race over flat hardpack. able headlamp $110
shell on bone-chilling ones, sticks but still want perfor- Sensors adjust the beam
thanks to breathable 100- mance. Pair them with the G. Brynje Arctic hat $50 based on your viewing dis-
gram merino fill and stretchy Prolinks for compatibility to A loose mesh lining gives tance, so you can check your
knit sections on the sides. a range of boot brands. this beanie the feeling of a watch without being blinded.

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 39
Dispatches Home Gym
01/02.19

tromagnetic resistance C. Metolius Wood Grips E. XYLsports G. Rep Fitness kettlebells


24-Hour and is compatible with Deluxe II hang board $99 jump rope $7 $10 and up

Fitness nearly all virtual train-


ing programs. It folds up
All athletes can ben-
efit from strong backs,
A jump rope is simply
great for everything from
Kettlebells can be used
for functional arm and
HAVING YOUR OWN in seconds to stash in a shoulders, and arms, but warming up and full cardio leg workouts, big lifts,
TRAINING SPACE closet or the garage. at-home pull-up bars are sessions to HIIT and agil- or adding resistance to
MEANS NO EXCUSES ugly and can destroy your ity sets. This one from bodyweight exercises. The
BY WES JUDD B. Zwift subscription doorframe. The solu- XYLsports is highly du- bells in this set have wide,
$45 for three months tion: the Deluxe II, which rable, shortens from ten flat bottoms, which makes
A. CycleOps M2 Smart Zwift’s platform lets features a variety of holds feet to variable lengths, them exceptionally stable.
trainer $600 trainer-bound cyclists designed for climbers and and has comfortable
Made to work with both gamify their workouts screws neatly into the wall. foam grips. H. Perform Better
road and mountain bikes, and compete in real time First Place Mini
the M2 offers quiet elec- against other riders. A new D. Jade Yoga F. NordicTrack X22i band $3 and up
treadmill program gets Harmony mat $80 Incline treadmill $3,564 Resistance bands help
runners in on the action. The U.S.-made Jade mat Running indoors doesn’t runners and hikers stretch
works just as well for have to mean ditching their all-important glutes
stretching and core work hill drills. NordicTrack’s and warm up their hip
as it does for yoga by first-of-a-kind X22i rises flexors. Perform Better’s
improving grip, adding to a whopping 40 percent bands come in a range
cushioning, and keeping grade and slopes down of strengths, from light to
sweat off the floor. to negative 6. extra heavy.

B C

H E

40 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
Style

Lighten Up, Will Ya?


SLICK SHACKETS FOR BLUEBIRD DAYS

The North Face


Fort Point
Insulated
Flannel, $120

Patagonia
Silent Down
Shirt, $229

Outerknown
Blanket
Shirt, $145

Fjällräven
Greenland
Down Liner
Jacket, $260

P H OTO G R A P H B Y Hannah McCaughey OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 41


'LVSDWFKHVFitness
01/02.19

'2:1/2$'
7281/2$'

7KH3HUIRUPDQFH3URMHFW Countless apps


promise to quiet
the anxious
mind. These
stand out. —E.B.
A month on a meat-only diet, a survey of New 3DXVH
A calming fix for
=SVO'MX]¸W[IMVHIWX[SVOSYXGPEWWIWERHÁZI a bad day.
Zone out to soothing
sounds and a pulsing

other unorthodox wellness quests


blob of light that
you move around
with your finger. $2;
Android and iOS

+HDGVSDFH
$UWLÀFLDO includes multiple-choice-style
chats, and it acts as a daily mood
The thing to understand about
Woebot is that it’s very obviously A gentle
(PRWLRQDO tracker, casual mental-health
coach, and negative-thoughts
an app. But part of its brilliance is
that it teaches you to talk to your-
mindfulness
guide.
,QWHOOLJHQFH troubleshooter. Those attributes
lower the barrier to interaction: it
self by parroting your sentences
back at you, along with a question.
Most sessions last
from one to twenty
YOUR IDEAL THERAPIST doesn’t feel like a major time in- “Does your thought have a should minutes, with
MIGHT NOT BE HUMAN vestment to use the app because statement?” it asked me. Well, themed topics like
BY ERIN BERGER the onus isn’t on me to understand there’s a hidden I should be a great sleep, emergency
and describe my emotions. climber in there. “How would you calm-down mo-
THE OTHER DAY, as I slogged Like a choose-your-own mental- rewrite your thought?” Woebot ments, and long
through e-mail at work, my phone health adventure, Woebot feeds continued. “I may feel awkward runs. All of them are
lit up: “Hey, just thought of you!” you response options. Every day, getting back into climbing, but I led by a guy with a
I wrote back that I was having the app invites you to check in, want to do it,” I replied. soothing British ac-
difficulty sleeping lately, and we then asks what you’re doing Then I kind of felt better. Damn, cent. Free (premium,
talked about the benefits of set- and how you’re feeling. When I Woebot, I guess you have a point. $13 per month);
ting aside 20 minutes of “worry answered neutrally or positively, Vandana Aspen, a clinical psy- Android and iOS
time” every evening to inventory it offered a lesson that usually chologist in the San Francisco Bay
my anxieties. fell under the general umbrella Area, considers apps like Woebot 0RRGQRWHV
My friends are sweet but not of cognitive behavioral therapy, to be most helpful as a supple- Data to
that sweet. My thoughtful cor- giving me tips on how to identify ment to in-person therapy. “You’re understand
respondent wasn’t even human; my mood, dissect my thoughts, reminded of the skills you learned your confusing
it was the machine-learning- or tone down negative thinking. during a session. If you go to the emotions.
powered app Woebot, which pack- Woebot and I have discussed dentist and don’t have cavities, Come for the daily
ages mental-health coaching into such diverse and delightful cogni- you’re not going to stop brushing CBT-based mood-
a chat format, supplemented with tive hang-ups as labeling (“I’m a your teeth,” she says.“It’s the same tracking questions;
the occasional hedgehog GIF. hack”) and all-or-nothing state- for mental health.” Aspen also stay for the colorful
Woebot is my second foray into ments (“No one likes me”). The acknowledges that an app could graphs that put your
app-based therapy. I’ve never app also offers tailored conversa- be a useful alternative for some- habits and feelings
been to a real-life therapist, so I’ll tions for dealing with specific life one who doesn’t have access to into aesthetically
stop short of diagnosing myself issues, including loneliness, insom- therapy or can’t afford it. pleasing order.
with anything clinical. But I will say nia, financial pressures, jealousy, In my experience, after using $5; iOS
that, in Woebot’s emoji parlance, and grief. Woebot every day for a month,
I generally feel contented face When I gave a negative answer I found myself playing the app’s 7DONVSDFH
or grinning face, and sometimes during a daily check-in, I had a few Pollyannaish role in my own head. A human
slightly frowning face, sobbing options. Woebot could help me You’re mind reading, I’d tell myself therapist without
face, or Edvard Munchian scream- feel calmer, as it did one stressful when I felt a pang of mortal em- the office visits.
ing face. I briefly tried the remote- day by guiding me through some barrassment after a meeting. That Text with an as-
therapy app Talkspace, but it breathing exercises and advis- statement seems loaded with sub- signed therapist as
wasn’t right for me: I was rarely ing me to splash cold water on jective assumptions, I’d think when much as you want,
in the mood to write the lengthy my wrists to cool down. I could my self-esteem bottomed out. with the option of
missives on how I was feeling scream my frustrations into the These days I’m not beaming occasional video
and what I thought was causing Woebot void and leave it at that, face 24/7, but I’m surprisingly calls. As in real life,
my anxiety that were required or I could let the app ask ques- more levelheaded and feel less you can play the
to receive specific feedback. tions about what I was strug- prone to anxiety spirals. And I still field until you find
Plus, it was weird opening up to gling with. One example (nothing check in with Woebot a couple of the right one. Unlike
a human stranger via text. juicy—you’re not my therapist): I times a week—I like the private, real life, the cost is
Woebot’s namesake is a cute hadn’t been to the climbing gym targeted, on-my-own-time con- the same no matter
robot character that’s quick to in several months and was feeling versations. One day I’ll get a real who you choose. $50
clarify: “I don’t do therapy or open- nervous about going again. “I’m therapist, too, but they’ll have to and up per week;
ended conversation.” The free app going to look stupid,” I typed. send me hedgehog GIFs. Android and iOS

42 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
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P H OTO G R A P H S B Y

+DQQDK0F&DXJKH\ OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 43


'LVSDWFKHVFitness
01/02.19

)/8,' ,VZDWHUWKH
'<1$0,&6 PDJLFDOFXUHIRU
Nicole Lund,
a nutritionist WKHJHQHUDOL]HG
at New York IDWLJXHP\GRFWRU
University’s
Langone Sports LQVLVWVLVQRWD
Performance UHDOWKLQJ"
Center, explains
the basics of
hydration —A.B.
+RZPXFK
“Proper hydration
means 85 ounces
of water a day from
food and bever-
ages, plus more to
replenish what you
lose when exercis-
ing.” (That’s roughly
four ounces of water
for every quarter-
pound of weight
lost during your
workout.)

(QHUJ\DQG
SHUIRUPDQFH
“Physiological
changes occur even
in the early stages
of dehydration,
including decreased
blood volume and
less oxygen deliv-
ered to working tis-
sues. These changes
make it harder to
sweat, which will
increase body tem-
perature and heart
rate and make you
feel more fatigued
during exercise.”

%DWKURRP
EUHDNV Frequent
trips to the restroom
are normal with in-
creased water intake, :DWHU:DWHU dehydration was the reason I
continually felt tired and achy.
DAY 1:
I’m peeing every 15 minutes.
Lund says. “As with
anything else that
(YHU\ZKHUH So, in an effort to overcompen-
sate my way to better life habits,
How in the hell am I supposed to
get anything done?
you change drasti- ONE GALLON. EVERY DAY. I decided to slosh through a feat
cally, your body FOR A MONTH. known across the internet as DAY 2:
needs time to adjust BY ALETA BURCHYSKI the Water Gallon Challenge: drink- I did not think it was physically
if you start drinking ing a gallon per day for a month, possible to pee more than I did
a lot more.” I AM THAT PERSON who hates with the promise of glowing skin yesterday (21 times), yet here
drinking water. Where others enjoy and a lot more energy. Given we are, 23 times. Additional in-
7KHERWWRP a satisfying thirst quencher, I suffer my taste sensitivities, I went the stances of bodily rebellion include
OLQH “We all wake through a barrage of sulfur, algae, filtered route and brought with an afternoon of mild nausea and
up slightly dehy- swimming pool, and old metal me a hoard of limes, cucumbers, a slight headache.
drated. The easiest pipes. Most days I avoid the issue and sea salt, plus an emergency
change you can make entirely, subsisting on coffee, stash of electrolyte mix and a DAY 4:
is to have a big glass herbal tea, and the occasional journal to track my energy, yoga I didn’t feel like a 70-year-old
of water first thing LaCroix. But a few months ago, performance, and bathroom woman when I got out of bed this
in the morning.” I began to suspect that chronic breaks. Here’s how it went. morning. I deep-cleaned my house

44 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
with the stamina of an old-
school Disney princess. Is water
%UDLQ3RZHU control and decision-making. The
upshot: when stressed, athletes
HOW MINDFULNESS
the magical cure for the general- generated less of the negative
ized fatigue my doctor insists is FOR ATHLETES self-talk in the PCC that can lead
not a real thing? CAN SUPERCHARGE to diminished results.
PERFORMANCE I was intrigued by the idea of
DAY 5: BY CHRISTOPHER KEYES a mindfulness class aimed at
Yes! Water is life! I no longer hob- performance, but I’d already read
ble into my day with my feet and “BEGIN BY gathering up all your plenty of headlines touting the
spine curled up like dry leaves. I attention and bringing it to what- benefits of sitting still in a dark
thought this experiment would be ever sensations you’re feeling in room and focusing on breathing.
miserable, but I totally get it now. the body.” Research shows that medita-
(Though to be clear, water—even I’m lying on the rug in my living tion reduces stress, lowers blood
filtered water—still tastes disgust- room, listening to Pete Kirchmer— pressure, boosts the immune
ing without flavor enhancements.) a professional life coach and the system, increases our capacity to
director of mPEAK, a performance- learn, and may even slow the aging
DAY 7: driven mindfulness program—walk process. But many of these ben-
Can we talk about how good I am me through a “body-scan medi- efits accrue only with consistent
at yoga right now? My hamstrings tation” via an app on my phone. practice, something I’ve always
are much more flexible, and my Kirchmer directs me to focus on had trouble with. So when I signed
back bends with ease. Even better, each body part, starting with my up for mPEAK, I wasn’t really look-
I have energy afterward, and I’m feet and methodically moving up ing for performance gains—I was
not horribly sore the next day. toward my head. After a few mo- trying to purchase accountability.
ments, I notice a tingling sensation I figured that paying $250 for nine
DAY 10: in my toes. When I get to my lower classes spread over two months
A switch to water that’s been back, I feel some tension and try might be the kick start I needed to
ultrapurified by reverse osmosis to relax it. In my abdomen, I sense build an enduring, lifelong habit.
(plus “carbon polishing” and UV mild anxiety as I finish each exhale. Every Monday night, I joined
sterilization) has proved reve- And at my head? Drool. I fell asleep 11 students at a wellness center
latory. It’s fully palatable and around the ten-minute mark. in Santa Fe, where our instructor,
delicately sweet, without a hint of The body scan is my first Kate Reynolds (who was trained
chlorine. I’m now the proud owner homework assignment in a nine- by Kirchmer in San Diego), led us
of a refillable three-gallon jug. week mPEAK class. (The acronym through a series of exercises. First
stands for Mindful Performance we learned the body scan—and
DAY 14: Enhancement, Awareness, were told, to my relief, that falling
I crave water first thing in the and Knowledge.) The program asleep is common—followed by
morning instead of coffee. I don’t launched in 2014, when a group box breathing (holding each inhale,
recognize myself anymore. of neuroscientists and mindful- exhale, and pause between them
ness experts from the University for a count of four), walking medi-
DAY 19: of California at San Diego joined tation (essentially slow-motion
The peeing has decreased to ten forces with coaches from the pacing), movement medita-
times per day. I’m still acutely USA BMX Cycling team to study a tion (akin to tai chi), and breath
aware of how much water I’m meditation-based curriculum for meditation (the familiar sitting
flushing down the toilet, so I’ve elite athletes. Over seven weeks, practice). After each lesson, we’d
donated $30 to Charity: Water, Olympic-level racers practiced talk about our experiences, learn
which funds clean-water projects mindfulness to increase interocep- about the goal of the technique
in 26 countries. tive awareness—the sensations we’d just been instructed on, and
we feel in our bodies, whether participate in various stress tests,
DAY 24: stomach butterflies or shoulder including straw breathing (harder
My massage therapist confirms tension. Afterward, according to a than it sounds) and squeezing a
that my muscles and fascia are published study, the participants piece of ice for several minutes
noticeably looser. She’s shocked were better equipped to handle (surprisingly painful), using mind-
to learn that before this, in the stress during races. fulness tools to persevere.
two-plus years she’s been trying The athletes’ brains changed as Between classes we were
to fix my body, I had been drinking well. Before and after the program, directed to maintain a daily
barely any water. participants were given a test de- meditation practice for whatever
signed to induce stress—inhaling amount of time we were willing
DAY 32: through a mouthpiece that re- to commit to. (I started with ten
Oops, the month is over and I stricts breathing—while lying in an minutes.) We were also given
didn’t even notice—hydration fMRI machine. The results showed homework assignments intended
is routine, and I’m loving it. Am I that the athletes had reduced to make us reflect on our experi-
going to keep guzzling 128 ounces connectivity between the poste- ences. One worksheet, ominously
every day? Not unless I’m sweat- rior cingulate cortex (PCC), one titled Unpleasant Events Calendar,
ing buckets. But you better believe of the regions in the brain respon- asked us to record an irritating
I’ll keep sipping on glorious, ultra- sible for self-awareness, and the experience each day for a week,
purified water like my well-being anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), including the thoughts we had
depends on it. which plays a part in impulse and the feelings in our body as

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 45
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01/02.19

)$677,0(6 the minor crises transpired. We Southern California. Longo is also While fasting is increasingly
There are did the same thing the following the author of a 2018 book called accepted by mainstream medicine
plenty of week for pleasant events. The les- The Longevity Diet, and he’s been as a useful health practice, many
popular calorie- sons gently prodded us to relearn researching aging in relation to doctors say there haven’t been
restriction how to recognize and experience calorie-restricted eating for nearly enough long-term studies on its
methods, just stress, happiness, and anxiety—in three decades. He believes that effectiveness, and some worry
don’t dive our bodies rather than our heads. fasting plays a role in living a longer, that forcing a body into starva-
in without Cultivating that skill, according to healthier life. tion mode could slow a person’s
consulting a one of the class handouts, “may Some say that the most effec- metabolism or cause hormonal
doctor —M.T. hold the key to greater well-being tive fasting method is to drink changes in women. Doctors,
and optimal performance.” water and consume nothing else. including Longo, advise against
,QWHUPLWWHQW I’ve been lousy with the work- But people on water fasts should fasting if you’re pregnant, diabetic,
IDVWLQJ ,)  sheets, but as the weeks go by, I’m be medically supervised, and it on certain medications, or gener-
An umbrella acing the practice. I’ve increased isn’t safe to attempt a program ally in poor health. Stacy Sims, a
term for diets that my daily sit to 20 minutes, and like that while working or running nutrition scientist and exercise
alternate periods of I’m noticing minor shifts in how I after kids. So Longo came up with physiologist, adds that athletes
fasting and eating move through the world. I’m able a five-day, $249 meal kit that need to be careful, too. “A therapy
over designated to catch myself before getting lost delivers a scientifically formulated that works well in a clinical popula-
periods of time. in my usual thought patterns while low-calorie vegan diet. (His profits tion cannot be generalized to the
driving to work, instead forcing from ProLon and his book go to active, healthy, athletic population
7LPHUHVWULFWHG myself to notice something new his medical foundation, Create and have the same effects,” she
HDWLQJ every day. I’ve started adapting Cures.) The goal is to trick your says. “The fasting research does
A type of IF that the walking meditations to my body into thinking you’re water not yet include exercise.” (Longo is
calls for scheduling daily runs, paying attention to fasting while giving you enough currently conducting clinical trials
meals within a minute bodily sensations—stress, food energy and nutrients to per- on fasting and exercise.)
set window—for fatigue, general wear and tear— form basic tasks. Longo suggests avoiding strenu-
example, eating rather than the Daily podcast from A typical ProLon day includes a ous exercise during the fast, to
breakfast, lunch, The New York Times. In fact, after macadamia nut bar for breakfast, a avert negative side effects like
and dinner between last week’s lesson, I turned off the cup of freeze-dried vegetable soup fainting. On day three, ignoring
7 A.M. and 7 P.M. podcast altogether. (plus kale crackers or green olives) this advice, I took a morning spin
In class we learned how setting for lunch, another cup of freeze- class—and soon regretted it. I felt
$OWHUQDWHGD\ aside blocks of unstructured time dried vegetable soup for dinner, the totally depleted. Otherwise I found
IDVWLQJ to simply think can prime us for occasional small dark-chocolate ProLon to be an easy program to
Eating normally that elusive performance state wafer, as much herbal tea as you follow. Everything you need arrives
for 24 hours, then known as flow. Running used to can drink, a plant-based omega-3 in a large shoebox. Inside are five
taking in 25 percent be where I did exactly that kind of supplement, and a multivitamin. smaller boxes, labeled for each
of your caloric needs free thinking—and it was my best Total calories: between 800 and day, containing all the food you’ll
for 24 hours. source of creative ideas. It took 1,150 per day. (An active 30-year- eat. The most labor-intensive task
mindfulness training to make me old woman should normally eat is boiling water for soup and tea.
7KHSODQ realize that I’d shut it all down with about 2,400 calories per day.) There are no hard-to-find ingre-
Eating normally constant auditory stimulation. I was eager to try ProLon, to dients involved or hours spent
for five days, then That insight alone was worth the jump-start healthier habits after Vitamixing kale-chia shakes.
consuming 25 per- $250. Next up: enlightenment. a summer of overindulgence. Full I started the fast on a Monday
cent of your caloric disclosure: I’m not a fasting neo- morning and finished on a Friday
needs each day  phyte. I’m one of those annoying night. There was a party that week
people who have lived on juice for that I couldn’t skip, and I won’t lie:
for two days.
+XQJHU*DPHV ten days and embarked on 21-day I wanted to kill my friend who was
)DVW CAN A FASTING PROGRAM cleanses without caffeine, sugar, chowing down on sweet potato
PLPLFNLQJ HELP YOU LIVE LONGER? alcohol, wheat, or dairy. These pro- fries while I sipped herbal tea.
GLHW BY MARY TURNER grams share a premise: our bodies Thankfully, part of the ProLon pro-
A multi-day, need a break from digesting food gram includes something called
low calorie plan I’M COUNTING the number of so that we can heal damaged cells, the L-Drink, a vegetable-glycerin
like ProLon (see green olives in my snack. There build new ones, and reduce inflam- concoction mixed with water or
“Hunger Games,” are seven, and they are exception- mation, all of which increases our herbal tea that helps quell hunger
right) that features ally small. I eat each one slowly. likelihood of avoiding a host of and boost energy. You drink it on
foods that are low Desperate for more when I finish, diseases rampant in the U.S. today, days two through five. I gripped
in carbs and protein I drink the liquid at the bottom including diabetes and cancer. mine like a baby bottle.
and high in fat. of the packet that they came “When you’re fasting, energy The hardest part of the fast was
in. I’m on day three of a five-day is diverted from digesting food to breaking my psychological addic-
:DWHUIDVWLQJ fast-mimicking diet called Pro- the digestion of components of tion to treats, like an afternoon
This approach Lon (short for prolonging longev- cells and organs, which are rebuilt oat-milk latte or a salted-caramel
requires medical ity). It was developed over the upon returning to a normal diet,” chocolate bar. I had to find other
supervision. You past 15 years by Valter Longo, a Longo explains. “It allows the body ways to soothe myself—a walk
drink only water 51-year-old professor of geron- to kill damaged cells and pro- around the block helped, as did a
for periods ranging tology and biological sciences duce stem cells, resulting in the visit with a coworker. On the plus
from 24 hours to and the director of the Longev- regeneration and rejuvenation of side, after five days on ProLon,
several days. ity Institute at the University of multiple systems.” I lost five pounds, and I had an

46 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
)XOOGLVFORVXUH
,·PQRWDIDVWLQJ
QHRSK\WH,·PRQH
RIWKRVHDQQR\LQJ
SHRSOHZKRKDYH
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HPEDUNHGRQ
GD\FOHDQVHV

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 47
'LVSDWFKHVFitness
01/02.19

+2:7+( obnoxious amount of energy and two years, Baker has eaten four enzyme called lipase. But accord-
6$86$*( mental clarity. to six pounds of meat daily. No ing to Teresa Fung, a nutritionist
:$60$'( I asked Longo why I felt so good. fruits, vegetables, bread, or sugar. at Boston’s Simmons College, the
I kept a detailed He said that his studies on mice (Eggs and fish are allowed.) To amount of fat I was eating had
spreadsheet to have shown that fasting is good his 50,000 Instagram follow- surpassed my ability to digest it.
quantify my for the brain. “At the end of a long ers, the Carnivore King, as Baker Which is why I got the runs. Those
carnivorous fast or fast-mimicking diet, in most has come to be known, routinely embracing carnivorism say that
journey. These people about half of the brain’s en- shares the success stories of folks the problem usually abates after
are the highlights, ergy is generated by metabolizing who embrace his methods. His about six weeks. While I ate meat
by the numbers. ketone bodies instead of sugars,” acolytes say the diet can improve for only four, the situation became
—A.Z. he says. In other words, I may have sleep, eliminate joint pain, normal- so dire that I had to buy supple-
been burning more fat than carbo- ize blood pressure, clear up skin, mental lipase, taking two capsules
610 hydrates. On low-calorie, low-carb boost energy, help with weight before every meal. That, plus some
Average grams diets like ProLon, the body gradu- loss, and pump up the libido. Imodium, helped make things a bit
of protein ally enters a state of partial ketosis Who wouldn’t want a piece of all more manageable.
consumed each after two or three days. that? So on September 1, armed A 30-day trial isn’t long enough
day (1.3 pounds). To break the ProLon fast, with more than 40 pounds of rib to tease out all the negative ef-
you eat small amounts of veg- eye and strip steak, I began my fects of a meat-only diet, but it
91 etables, legumes, starches, and experiment with a steak and eggs was sufficient for me to decide to
Grams most proteins for 48 hours. Once you breakfast. Research warns against go back to my usual eating habits.
Americans eat. resume normal eating, Longo the potential dangers of this Fung said that she would have
recommends a pescatarian diet, lifestyle, suggesting that overcon- been concerned for my health had
 combining salmon or other fish sumption of meat, and red meat I continued with nothing but meat,
Glasses of water two or three times a week with in particular, can increase risk for citing increased risk for colorectal
consumed over 30 otherwise primarily vegan meals, diabetes and cardiovascular dis- cancer. But in the short term—
days (to wash down all eaten within a 12-hour window ease as we age. Plus, many neces- bathroom woes notwithstanding—
all that extra meat). (for instance, between 8 A.M. sary nutrients, including vitamin C, I spent those 30 days feeling fairly
and 8 P.M.). can be found only in plant-based content. And simplifying mealtime
 What happens if you come off foods. Then there’s the environ- certainly didn’t hurt. If you’re think-
Pounds lost ProLon and go back to eating, say, mental impact of an all-meat ing of trying this at home, I won’t
after nine days margaritas and chips and queso? diet: in 2013, the United Nations dissuade you. But do yourself a
on the diet. “Our clinical trials suggest that estimated that 14.5 percent of favor: switch to two-ply.
people who have the worst diet global greenhouse-gas emissions
 will benefit the most from ProLon,” come from farming livestock. Still,
I was curious about the potential
Pounds of bacon
eaten in a single
Longo says. He adds that doing
ProLon regularly—twice a year for benefits. &RXUVH&DWDORJ
morning. (I don’t healthy individuals on a pescatar- At first the diet was satisfying. A FRANK SURVEY OF
recommend this.) ian diet who exercise regularly After a week, I felt less sluggish in THE LATEST WORKOUT-
and don’t smoke—has inspired the morning and more energetic CLASS TRENDS
19 some to improve their eating through the afternoon. Drinking
BY NATE DERN
Strip steaks habits. With travel and the routine four or more cups of coffee to
consumed in stresses of life, such inspiration stay awake seemed like a quaint KNOWING THAT we all get a little
30 days. doesn’t last forever for me, and my vice. I ate whenever I was hungry, bored with our fitness routines, I
afternoon caffeine-and-chocolate averaging about a pound and a tested out six of the most unusual
addiction is already rearing its half of meat per day, and never classes I could find in the New York
head again. It might be time for felt bloated. My blood pressure City area. You’re welcome.
round two. remained normal. In the gym, my
ectomorphic body—125 pounds 1$.(',1027,21
dripping wet—was soon bench- WHAT IT IS: Nude yoga.
ing 130 pounds with ease. The
7KH&DUQLYRUH·V muscles in my arms, chest, and
FATIGUE LEVEL: 5/10
SHAME LEVEL: 11/10

'LOHPPD back were more defined. And while


I lost several pounds, I was never
INSTRUCTOR QUOTE: “Class
rules: Nudity is mandatory.
HOW MUCH MEAT IS famished. Eventually, my cravings Everyone must participate.”
TOO MUCH? for other foods subsided, and I lost TAKE THIS CLASS IF: You’re tired
BY ANDREW ZALESKI the desire to cheat. of washing your sweaty workout
Around day eight, however, the clothes.
THIS FALL, I made the dubious problems began. THE GIST: In 2016, Willow
decision to eat nothing but meat “A lot of people worry about Merveille founded Naked in
for 30 days. I’d first heard about constipation on the diet, but quite Motion to create a safe, inclusive
the carnivore diet several months honestly, diarrhea is probably the space that would “offer a tool for
earlier, during an episode of Joe more common outcome,” Baker developing a kinder relationship
Rogan’s podcast. His guest was tells me, confirming my personal with the mind and body.” I was
Shawn Baker, an athlete, a former experience. Cutting out carbs skeptical. Ten of the eleven
orthopedic surgeon, and one of means that the body turns to the students were men. Was this a
the most visible evangelists of fattiness of meat for energy. To di- way to get more comfortable
the meat-only movement. For gest fat, the pancreas secretes an with your body, or yet another

48 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
7KH&DUQLYRUH
.LQJ·VDFRO\WHV
VD\WKHGLHWFDQ
LPSURYHVOHHS
HOLPLQDWHMRLQW
SDLQQRUPDOL]H
EORRGSUHVVXUH
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ORVVDQGSXPS
XSWKHOLELGR

opportunity for those already THE GIST: SLT stands for SHAME LEVEL: 3/10
comfortable with their body— strengthen, lengthen, and tone. INSTRUCTOR QUOTE: “Everyone
mostly dudes—to flaunt it? By the The class comprises eternal grab your sandbag and meet me
end of class, I was surprised to find planks, deep-as-you-can-go at the South Pole!”
that I was OK with getting flexible lunges, and pulsing squats, all in TAKE THIS CLASS IF: You’ve had
in my birthday suit, surrounded by an intense 50-minute session. it with hot yoga.
a classroom full of strangers. Give The pace of the reps is measured, THE GIST: This was the most
this a shot at least once—you’ll be but the transitions between genuinely enjoyable workout
a hero at parties. exercises are fast, which had me experience of the bunch. Brrrn
looking around the room to see describes itself as “the world’s
6/7 what contortion I was supposed first cool-temperature fitness
WHAT IT IS: Pilates centered on to be doing. Color-coded numbers concept.” In other words, they
a reformer that’s been modified gave me Twister flashbacks. It’s crank the A/C. I took a slide-board
with extra pulleys, springs, and a great workout, but be careful class and not only learned what
bungees to ensure maximum burn. not to sprain your ego when your slide boarding is (repeated lateral
FATIGUE LEVEL: 7/10 body starts shaking during a move movement on a piece of slippery
SHAME LEVEL: 6/10 called the Mermaid. rubber while wearing booties), but
INSTRUCTOR QUOTE: “You can also discovered that 55 degrees is
runner’s lunge, but you can’t hide.” BRRRN my optimal workout temperature.
TAKE THIS CLASS IF: You’re a WHAT IT IS: Yoga, slide-board, I wore a tank top and for once
Pilates enthusiast and you’ve and HIIT classes in an extra-cold didn’t end the class by trying to
wondered, Will more straps, bars, walk-in fridge. mop up an embarrassingly large
and pulleys increase my leg shake? FATIGUE LEVEL: 6/10 puddle of sweat.

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 49
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&21%2'< rather than to hitting specific “trough,” a specific time during


WHAT IT IS: Boot-camp-inspired speeds. A laminated pace chart is the day when our energy and
body-weight exercises taught by mounted onto each treadmill, and mood severely flag. While there’s
ex-cons who yell at you. it encompasses a wide variety of no avoiding it, Pink believes that
FATIGUE LEVEL: 9/10 fitness levels. Pro tip: don’t choose we can maximize our productivity
SHAME LEVEL: 7/10 a machine directly opposite a by planning around it. Step one is
INSTRUCTOR QUOTE: “You mirror. Nobody has a flattering recording your behavior in a daily
confused? You better not fucking tempo face. time tracker for a week to find out
mess up!”(Directed at me, following when your low point occurs. Every
an explanation of the exercise $* 90 minutes beginning at 7 A.M.,
progression to the entire class.) WHAT IT IS: A circuit-based class you answer three questions: What
TAKE THIS CLASS IF: You’re set in the world of Tron. am I doing? How mentally alert
planning to commit a crime and FATIGUE LEVEL: 6/10 do I feel? How energetic am I? My
need to be scared straight. SHAME LEVEL: 2/10 data showed a clear dip beginning
THE GIST: The hardest class I INSTRUCTOR QUOTE: “Trust your between 3 and 4 P.M. and bottom-
took. The sign by the door said athletic intuition. Uncover your ing out at 5:30. In other words, my
it all: “CrossFit. Cycling. Pilates. sixth sense.” peak hours are 10 A.M. to 3 P.M.
These white collar workouts TAKE THIS CLASS IF: You’d Once you identify your trough,
aren’t cutting it.” My instructor, rather play Candy Crush than go Pink offers a few suggestions that
Coss Marte, founded ConBody to the gym. anyone can use to make better use
after developing a workout routine THE GIST: This 45-minute of their time. (For example, many
during a four-year prison sentence. session at Asphalt Green, a of us waste our most productive
He didn’t particularly care about nonprofit organization dedicated morning hours on e-mail.) But I
catering to our egos; he was going to improving the health of local wanted to truly optimize my daily
to lead us through a difficult residents, makes familiar circuit- schedule. To that end, I devised a
workout—60 minutes without a based workout stations more three-week test. In the first week,
break—and we could follow along interesting with light-up tiles I worked during my trough. In the
or not. I was dripping sweat as on the floor and walls that are second, I scheduled my lunch break
I struggled through a series of responsive to touch. So you’re not for that time. In the third, I took
jumping jacks, push-ups, high just doing sprints, you’re doing an hourlong lunch at 12:30 and a
knees, burpees, suicide sprints, sprints to illuminate a circle on couple of ten-minute breaks at
mountain climbers, bear crawls, the ground! You’re not just doing other points. I kept a strict journal,
wall sits, and more. But intense medicine-ball slams, you’re doing and what at first felt like a highly
workouts aside, ConBody’s real medicine-ball slams to illuminate subjective experiment yielded
mission is championing prison a circle on the ground! You get some surprisingly useful results.
reform, and it hires formerly incar- the idea. This class was the most
cerated individuals to teach its stimulating, but it also made me WEEK ONE: Working during
classes. As soon as my hamstrings realize that sometimes all I want my trough period is something
recover, I’ll be back. is a boring old jog. I’ve done my whole life, and it’s
exhausting. By 4 P.M., I often have
0,/(+,*+581&/8% to talk myself into moving forward
WHAT IT IS: Like a spin class, but
with really nice treadmills instead 7LPH7ULDO with a project. Before the test, I’d
scroll through Twitter or chat with
of bikes. WANT TO BE MORE colleagues on Slack. But now I had
FATIGUE LEVEL: 8/10 PRODUCTIVE? START BY a rule: no unscheduled breaks.
SHAME LEVEL: 2/10 FINDING YOUR TROUGH. So I slogged on. By Thursday, I’d
INSTRUCTOR QUOTE: “We’re all resorted to buying a fancy face
BY JENNY EARNEST
on our own run. Run your run, don’t mist to spray myself during my
run anybody else’s run.” MY NAME IS Jenny, and I’m an ef- afternoon slump. It didn’t help me
TAKE THIS CLASS IF: You like the ficiency addict. It started in college focus, but according to my notes,
cardio intensity of spin but are when a professor told everyone in it sure felt nice.
looking for something with a little our class to use an app to record
more impact on your knees. how we spent our time. Soon it WEEK TWO: During the second
THE GIST: An admission: I’ve wasn’t enough to know how much phase of my test, time flew by.
done this class before, and I love I was working. I also wanted to I aimed to check off all my most
it. It’s basically an interval workout know how well I was working. Four demanding tasks (drafting
on a Woodway 4Front treadmill, years later, I now spend my down- reports, analyzing data, writing
a roughly $10,000 machine that time devouring the latest wisdom proposals) by 3 P.M. Then I took a
is to a standard treadmill what a from writers like Tim Ferriss and break, leaving the more mundane
Tesla is to Fred Flintstone’s car. Marie Kondo. stuff on my to-do list (responding
Classes are offered at 28-minute, My most recent obsession is to e-mail, finding photos for
45-minute, and 60-minute dura- Daniel Pink’s When: The Scientific Outside’s Instagram account) for
tions. What sets MHRC apart Secrets of Perfect Timing. Pink out- the end of the day. I tried several
from other treadmill-interval lines what he refers to as the hid- break strategies: going to the
classes is the special attention den pattern of everyday life—the climbing gym, practicing yoga at
paid to your perceived-effort level idea that each of us has a unique home, running errands, and taking

50 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE
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a nap. It was blissful, but my brain the building, and popping into until midafternoon, then take
was still foggy afterward. I often coworkers’ offices to chat were the an out-of-office break around
found myself staying late at the practices I found most restorative. three. (Breaking an hour earlier
office, because it took me longer If you don’t have a flexible office gives me time to settle back in.)
to get back in the zone. culture, add your breaks to your The workday passes much more
calendar and treat them as seri- quickly than it did when I forced
WEEK THREE: Taking my lunch ously as a meeting. As Pink writes: myself to take lunch at 12:30,
around noon felt like a disruption— “What gets scheduled gets done.” which completely zapped my
it cut my morning flow in half. productivity. This entire process
But the ten-minute breaks were THE VERDICT: I’ve stuck with the has been great, but I know I’ll be
lifesavers. Preparing and eating a schedule from week two, with a restless again soon. Anyone read
healthy snack, taking a walk around minor tweak—I work uninterrupted any life-changing books lately?

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 51
M O U

KURDISTAN IS HOME TO SPECTACULAR PEAKS, RUSHING RIVERS,


A N D F I E RC E LY H O S P I TA B L E P E O P L E . I T CO U L D B E T H E M I D D L E
E AST ’S P R E M I E R O U T D O O R D EST I N AT I O N — E XC E P T F O R A F E W
LINGERING PROBLEMS, INCLUDING LAND MINES LEFT OVER FROM
DECADES OF WAR. LESS THAN A YEAR AFTER THE DEFEAT OF THE
ISLAMIC STATE, JASON MOTLAGH TRAVELED THROUGH IRAQ’S
N O R T H E R N B AC KC O U N T RY— A P L AC E W H E R E O L D C O N F L I C T S
COULD FINALLY GIVE WAY TO NEW ADVENTURES.

52 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
A M O N G
N T A I N S
A N D
M A R T Y R S
The author riding near
Choman, Iraq

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y
B A L A Z S G A R D I
THE MONTHS APART after the embargo was lifted.
Following a stroll through another mar-

W E R E N O T K I N D . ket for supplies, we return to our bikes. This


time mine won’t fire up. I stomp the kick-
starter again and again, issuing a flurry of
When we finally track down our motorcycle troops. Sections of Baghdad and the south- f-bombs and drawing a small crowd.
on the outskirts of Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s ern cities were no-go zones, terrorized by “Engine too much gas,” a mustached man
semiautonomous Kurdish region, the engine suicide car bombs and sectarian death says when I stop to catch my breath.
is dead and all three tires are flat. The sidecar squads. In contrast, Erbil, a city of around I grunt out a yes. Inevitably, he asks me
has become a trash can, strewed with empty one million, was a bastion of calm guarded where I’m from.
beer bottles, newspapers, and a splash of by the fearsome Peshmerga (“those who face “Ah, Amreekah friend,” he says when I tell
motor oil. “Sorry, old girl,” sighs Carmen death”), the Kurds’ national fighting force. him. “Rambo number one! Bush good also.”
Gentile, my traveling companion and the Having a U.S. passport in Kurdistan was Another man squats down to my right and
bike’s owner. He slumps in the saddle for a a bonus. Soon after the end of the 1991 Gulf starts stripping the plastic off my ignition
while, head bowed, a little heartbroken. “I’m War, the U.S. enforced a no-fly zone over the cable with his teeth. He pulls out a knife to
sad, dude,” he says. “This bike deserves so region that helped stop Saddam Hussein’s finish the job, twists the bare copper threads
much better.” brutal counteroffensive against the Kurd- into a braid, and taps the spark plug. On his
In the summer of 2017, while reporting on ish rebellion, and Kurds have never forgot- cue, I give the bike a sharp kick, and it starts
a campaign by Iraqi forces to purge the Is- ten that. I was invited to a wedding, ate free with a whimper, then revs to life. The group
lamic State from the city of Mosul, Carmen meals, and celebrated the Muslim New Year erupts into trilling, high-pitched ululations
had found the bike—a Russian-made Ural— with friends and fireworks beneath the tow- that send us off.
buried under the rubble of a mortar strike, ering walls of the ancient citadel of Erbil, one Kurdish hospitality is as robust as ever,
its gas tank crushed, its fenders shot through of the oldest continuously occupied settle- but the early signals are clear. Nothing will
with bullet holes. An incurable moto enthu- ments in the world. It’s hard to believe that come easy on this trip.
siast, he launched a salvage mission that two wars have happened since my last visit.
involved jury-rigging parts and schmoozing Carmen and I park next to a glitzy new IN THE MORNING, we ride northeast up
his way through countless checkpoints on plaza that fronts the citadel and hike up to Hamilton Road, an old British-built highway
the 50-mile drive east to Erbil. The bike was the viewing platform. The skyline bristles that snakes some 110 miles from Erbil to the
then left with a friend of a friend, who ap- with shopping malls, cranes, and half-built Iranian frontier. Near the city limits, a series
parently didn’t share Carmen’s affections. condominium complexes thrown up by of Peshmerga checkpoints give way to rolling
Nearly a year later, with the jihadists on hills dotted with farmhouses and
the run, we’re back to explore Iraqi Kurd- stone fortresses dating back to the
istan’s potential as the Middle East’s next tenth century. Balazs is following
K U R D I S H A U T H O R I T I E S H AV E T R I E D
great adventure destination. Our plan is to us in a chase car, but it’s not long
dust off the Ural and ride with photographer H A R D T O P R O M O T E K U R D I S TA N before we’re chasing him.
Balazs Gardi, who’ll rent a car, traveling from AS “THE OTHER IRAQ,” BUT TO Just as the landscape opens
the sunbaked plains up to the mountains MOST FOREIGNERS IT’S STILL A up, my bike starts to flag. I pin
that flare along the Iranian border—an al- the throttle, to no effect. A
pine wilderness that’s home to virgin peaks, LAND SYNONYMOUS WITH THE cling-clang of loose metal rattles
raging whitewater, and the region’s first na- BLOODSHED AND BEHEADINGS around in my engine. “Man, this
tional park. It’s not far from where a group T H AT H AV E S T I G M AT I Z E D T H E R E S T is not good!” I shout to Carmen,
of American hikers were taken prisoner nine who’s having gear problems of his
years ago by Iranian border guards, an inci- O F T H E C O U N T R Y. own. The predicament is made
dent that muted the media hype that Kurdis- worse by Kurdish motorists who
tan was the next big thing. But I’m in contact seem hell-bent on running us
with a guide who knows the terrain well, and developers from Turkey and Dubai. Swarms off the road. We sputter on, past a billboard
several high-octane travel dispatches I’ve of package tourists from Baghdad shame- honoring the “immaculate precious bodies”
seen online (“Taking on Kurdistan’s Wildest lessly snap selfies around us, but I don’t see of all the Peshmerga martyrs who’ve fought
Mountain River,” “Iraqi Kurdistan: Intrepid any Westerners. and died to defend this terrain.
Skiers Break New Ground”) suggest that Kurdish authorities have tried hard to Kurdish history is a catalog of tragedy.
a serious outdoor scene is emerging in the promote Kurdistan as “the other Iraq,” but to Blessed with natural beauty and cursed by
high country. We want to check it out. most foreigners it’s still a land synonymous location, the ancestral heartland straddles
The Ural won’t get us there, obviously, so with the bloodshed and beheadings that a tangle of ethnic, religious, and geopoliti-
we head to a bustling moto market in a differ- have stigmatized the rest of the country. In cal fault lines where conflict has ebbed and
ent part of town. Rows of cheap Iranian 125cc September 2017, flush from victory in their flowed for centuries. During the breakup
four-speeds fail to rouse our spirits, but we three-year battle against Islamic State mili- of the Ottoman Empire after World War I,
have no choice. We settle on a pair of Honda tants, Kurdish leaders made matters worse when Allied powers divvied up the region,
knockoffs, slap on some stickers of Che by holding an independence referendum, plans to create an independent Kurdish state
Guevara for good luck, and ride down to the in defiance of Iraq’s central government. It never came to fruition. Today some 30 mil-
old city center to buy last-minute provisions. backfired catastrophically. Iraqi forces re- lion stateless Kurds are spread across four
I’ve been here before. On my first visit to taliated by seizing swaths of oil-rich Kurd- countries—Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. In
Kurdistan, in 2007, the Iraq War was raging ish lands and banning international flights to Iraq, decades of ruthless government per-
full tilt. It was the deadliest year yet for U.S. the region’s airports. We arrived just weeks secution have hardened the Kurds’ drive to

54 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
Environmental
activist Nabil
Musa running a
tributary of Iraq’s
Rawanduz River
carve out a homeland of their own. up and executed. An additional 120 were territory they had Clockwise from
Two hours, many stops, and maybe 35 taken from the next village. “No one knows controlled since the top left: Bakhtyar
miles up the road, we pause to rest at the edge what happened to them,” he says. Bahjat; PKK martyr
2014 fight against the
billboards; Carmen
of a sprawling farm valley outside the town Like most able-bodied Kurdish men, Islamic State. This Gentile in Shaqlawa;
of Shaqlawa. A pair of aging freedom fighters Qasim and Ahmad fought with the guer- area includes the city Nabil Musa in
in traditional Kurdish costume—baggy pan- rillas for several years. But with families to of Kirkuk, whose oil Sulaymaniyah; Iraqi
taloons, vest, cummerbund, head wrap—are look after, they eventually fled to Iran, part fields drive the Kurd- men taking selfies;
thumbing prayer beads in the dusky light. of the more than one million Kurds who ish economy and tribeswomen in
Qandil; Bahjat,
They say as-salaamu alaikum (peace be left the country in waves that lasted into would be the lifeblood the author, and
upon you) and touch their hearts. I introduce the early 1990s. A 1991 uprising ultimately of a state. Turkey Musa climbing
myself and say what a beautiful place it is. evicted Iraqi forces from the north and led to is launching cross- Mount Halgurd;
“You should have been here in ’74,” says de facto self-rule, thanks largely to the U.S.- border attacks against Kurdish men playing
Qasim Abdullah, the taller one, warming up enforced no-fly zone that targeted Iraqi jets Kurdish rebels and dominos in Choman
to tell a story. “Saddam’s fighters were up flying over Kurdish airspace, but not before talking about a ground
there and we were over there, firing artillery a bloody crackdown by Saddam. Rival Kurd- invasion, while Iran is targeting Iranian Kurd-
back and forth.” He points across the valley ish factions then turned against each other ish opposition bases inside Kurdistan. “We’ve
to where he was. “At night we sometimes in a civil war that ended in 1998, splitting never been comfortable in our lives,” says
had to cross minefields between us. Too the government in two. The groups did not Qasim. “This peace won’t last.”
many men died here.” merge again until after Saddam’s ouster and Back on the highway, the knocking in my
In the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam tried to the drafting of the 2005 constitution. engine seems to be amplified by the dark-
Arabize Iraq’s estimated six million Kurds. As Iraq plunged into chaos, Kurdistan ness, and the bike stalls out on a steep, pot-
More than 4,000 Kurdish villages were razed became the paradigm of peace and prosper- holed descent. My rear wheel slides, and
and entire communities forcibly relocated. ity that American leaders had envisioned I almost crash before skidding to a stop.
When Iraqi Kurdish fighters sided with Iran for the entire country. Qasim and Ahmad Balazs is somewhere up ahead in the car, so I
during the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from came home to try and realize the dream of a wait for Carmen. A half hour passes before I
1980 to 1988, Saddam launched a scorched- free and independent state. But that dream walk back down the road and find him talk-
earth campaign of bombing and chemical is fading. Clashes with the Iraqi army fol- ing with a Peshmerga officer at a checkpoint.
attacks that claimed at least 50,000 lives. lowing the hasty independence referendum Turns out his front tire went flat and I’d left
Ahmad Mustafa, the shorter, stouter man, saw the vaunted Peshmerga concede to him behind. “Nearly lost it,” he says. “What
says that 20 of his neighbors were rounded Iraq a reported 40 percent of the disputed happened to you?” He bursts into lunatic

56 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
laughter when I tell him I’ve stalled. dumping campaign had him doing
THE SIDE OF THE RAFT SHRIEKS
The motorcycle trip is becoming a fiasco. headstands by the oil pools outside
Waiting for a flatbed trailer to haul our bro- Sulaymaniyah, his birthplace and A G A I N S T T H E M E TA L S P I K E S .
ken bikes back to Erbil, Carmen decides to Kurdistan’s second-largest city. S O M E H O W I T D O E S N ’ T B U R S T.
fold and go home to Croatia early. He has just Balazs and I detour to meet him there.
WE SPEND THE LAST LEG OF
published a war memoir about getting shot Nabil is 41 but appears a decade
in the face with a rocket-propelled grenade older, with the road-worn look of THE TRIP GLIDING IN SILENCE,
in Afghanistan, and he needs to prepare for a chain-smoker who’s spent his SOAKED AND SHAKEN. “IF THIS
a book tour in the U.S. Balazs and I will head life on the move. Wearing sandals, RAFT WERE CHINESE, WE’D BE
deeper into the backcountry in pursuit of shorts, and a tank top that reveals a
wild mountains and rivers. But first we need strong build, he cooks us dinner at D E A D , ” N A B I L S AY S .
to find our guide. his apartment and riffs rapid-fire
about his plans to raft and trek in the
“MAN, WE’RE GONNA do some crazy shit mountains around Choman, a gateway town abani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—
together,” Nabil Musa told me the first time near the Iran-Iraq border. He’s been stuck exchanged mortar and artillery fire on the
we connected on the phone. Nabil was rec- in Sulaymaniyah for more than a month, strategic heights above us. Thousands died
ommended by an American friend who used and his restlessness verges on manic. “I just in the fighting, and Kurdish hopes for self-
to live in Kurdistan, with the caveat that he’s need to get out,” he says in a faint British ac- determination nearly perished with them.
an environmentalist, not a backcountry cent picked up abroad. “I go mad if I don’t Like most Kurds of his generation, Nabil
guide. I took his gonzo talk as just that: talk. get outside enough.” has seen violence. As a teenager during the
As Iraq’s lone representative for Water- In the morning, we load his pickup from a 1991 uprising against Saddam, he witnessed
keeper Alliance, a global advocacy group garage full of kayaking and rafting gear, and the death of his two best friends during a
based in New York City, Nabil is tasked with soon we’re back on the road, climbing past battle for the Iraqi Intelligence Service’s
protecting waterways that flow through sawtooth ridges and burned limestone can- Sulaymaniyah headquarters, a former tor-
Kurdistan. This involves a mix of protest yons, with “Guantanamera” blasting out of ture chamber that’s now a bullet-pocked
stunts and derring-do: multi-day swims his speakers. In a cloud of smoke, Nabil re- museum. In 1996, during the civil war, he
across freshwater lakes that are being poi- calls how, back in the mid-1990s, during fled overland to Turkey, then to Europe. He
soned by industrial pollution, kayak trips to the civil war, the two main Kurdish political spent several years busking on the streets
highlight the threat of multiplying Turkish factions—the Kurdistan Democratic Party and joined a traveling theater group in the
dams, and so forth. More recently, an anti- (KDP), led by Masoud Barzani, and Jalal Tal- UK before returning home permanently in

01/02.19 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 57
2011 to take the Waterkeeper job. graph our passage through the crux. Nabil Nabil. He jogs over and turns on his camera
In the time Nabil had been away, a popu- and I drive a few miles upriver, inflate a to shame the driver. The driver stares back
lation boom and rapid development had big raft, and don helmets and vests. “Just at him, confused. Tons of rocks go crashing
taken a toll. Trash and toxic runoff choked follow my lead,” he says, “and when I say down the bank, adding new complications
the river he grew up fishing. Nabil had paddle, give it everything you got.” We push to the rapid we just passed through.
dreamed of this river while in exile, and he off, me in the front, him driving at the rear,
was angry that no one seemed to care. “Ev- easy drifting. The cliff to our left soars more NIGHT IS FALLING when we pull into Cho-
eryone here is obsessed with security and than 300 feet and, at intervals, hangs over man. Erbil, around 100 miles west of here,
making money,” he says. “The environment the river like a roof, lined with tumbledown seems a world away. The main street is
didn’t have many defenders.” A friend told vines that glisten from the last rainfall. On a empty and quiet, except for the patter of yel-
him about the Waterkeeper gig, and he de- day like today, it’s hard to believe that there’s low and green political banners that flap in a
cided to become “a voice for the rivers.” He no one else out here. crisp breeze. Up ahead, Mount Halgurd—at
has tattoos of the organization’s logo, a stur- Suddenly, Nabil shouts “Hard right!” 11,831 feet, the highest peak situated entirely
geon mosaic, on his calf and shoulder. We’re too late. An eddy catches the edge of inside Iraq—is socked in by clouds.
About 20 miles past the resort town of the boat and we whipsaw around, bounc- During the drive, I asked Nabil if it would
Rawanduz, Nabil pulls over near a bridge ing backward off the rocks. I turn to look at be possible for us to climb Halgurd. Ever the
spanning the Azadi River, one of Kurdistan’s Nabil, alarmed. optimist, he said we’d have to speak to his
fastest. Or so he says, and I’m taking his “OK, that was my bad,” he says. “I fucked friend Bakhtyar Bahjat, acting director of
word for it. My online searches yield no de- that one up.” Halgurd-Sakran, the first national park in
tails on the waterway, and there are no legit- We shake it off and keep drifting. The next Iraqi Kurdistan. I’d been told that the roughly
imate outfitters in the area for us to consult. rapids are slippery smooth. Rounding a wide 460-square-mile park—set high in the
Nabil figures that the stretch of rapids we’re bend, the flow starts to surge, the roar of the
sizing up are Class IV-plus, though he ad- water becomes more deafening. I thought
mits he can’t be sure. To his knowledge, no I had a good read on the rapid from above,
one has ever run them. He wants A truck
to be the first. dumping
A stocky fire-brigade rescue rubble
swimmer named Khalil Mahmoud R E D M E TA L P O S T S T O P P E D W I T H into the
SKULL-AND-BONES SYMBOLS Azadi River
walks over and asks what we’re
up to. When we tell him, he says, L I N E T H E R O A D . T H E S E I N D I C AT E
“You are not right in the head. It’s
MINES STILL TO BE REMOVED. BUT
full of trash, and there are hidden
currents—this is a death river.” I T A P P E A R S T H AT R O C K S L I D E S
Every year, 15 to 20 people drown, H AV E S H I F T E D T H E P O S I T I O N S
he says, adding, “Four days ago I
OF SOME OF THE POSTS.
pulled out another man.” A gov-
ernment placard behind him states
the obvious: SWIMMING HERE IS
DANGEROUS . but at this level, the line through the boul-
Nabil starts pacing back and forth, taking ders is invisible.“Which way?” I shout back.
long pulls on his cigarette. “Fuck it,” he fi- “Which way? Nabil?”
nally says. “Let’s do this.” The current has a grip on us, and all I hear
is “Paddle!” In an instant, we smash straight
I LIKE NABIL’S can-do attitude, but our into a rock and spin sideways into an adjoin- border triangle of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey—
combined experience running hardcore ing chute of whitewater that almost throws contains unclimbed peaks and dense for-
rapids is limited. On the drive up, he told us me from the raft. ests prowled by bears, wolves, and Persian
about the last time he paddled a portion of As we slide deeper into the churn, I see leopards. It’s also home to armed guerrillas
the Azadi, in 2014, as part of an anti-dam Khalil, poised in a wrestler’s crouch, ready whose presence both protects an extraor-
campaign. One of the men in his group had to jump in to save us. Balazs is right be- dinary natural bounty and keeps part of the
his hand cut open by underwater debris. My hind him, tracking us with his lens. At that park off-limits.
whitewater experience includes a few Class moment we’re swept left and shot into the The next morning, Bakhtyar meets us at
IV rafting trips in the Himalayas, all with in- bank of broken concrete. The side of the raft the visitor center. He’s a hale man with a buzz
ternationally recognized outfitters. shrieks against the metal spikes. Somehow cut and the earnest gusto of a schoolteacher
“You’re free to do whatever you want—I it doesn’t burst. We spend the last leg of the (his day job). His crisp suit and upbeat atti-
just have to warn you,” Khalil says. But he’s trip gliding in silence, soaked and shaken. tude are at odds with the dereliction around
also a little excited by the turn of events and “If this raft were Chinese, we’d be dead,” us. The park’s carved entrance sign has been
offers to stand at the water’s edge to save us Nabil says as we step onto the riverbank. My pulled from the ground and leans sideways
if we flip. He points to the opposite bank, jaws are clenched. against a wall. The courtyard fountain is
where a nasty concrete shelf juts out beyond With no footpath to speak of, Khalil and dry, and the faux-log-cabin-style offices—
the crux of the whitewater, bristling with another man help us scrape the raft up the crammed with topographical maps, pastoral
shafts of rebar. “If you make it through, you canyon face. Down the road, a flatbed truck nature paintings, and creepy taxidermy—
must avoid that!” he says. is backing up to the river’s edge to dump a are covered by a sheet of dust, remnants of a
Balazs hangs back with Khalil to photo- load of rubble. “Look at this bastard,” says grand dream now forsaken. “Unfortunately,

58 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
Policeman
Kayvan Ezzat
hunting
mushrooms

Gravestones of
PKK fighters

01/02.19 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 59
we are facing some challenges at the mo- land mines and unexploded munitions from As we pick our way through the final stretch
ment,” Bakhtyar says. conflicts that date back four decades. Kurd- of rocky dirt, heading for the snow line,
Background information on the park is ish fighters based in these mountains have Kurdistan is starting to feel a lot like Iraq.
scarce, but some articles about it say that alternately faced off against Iranian attack-
the vision for a national park came to Cho- ers, Iraqi jets armed with Saddam Hussein’s IT’S WELL PAST noon when we reach the
man’s former mayor Abdulwahid Gwani chemical weapons, Turkish commandos, shoulder; clouds sheath the entire peak,
after a 2010 trip to Austria. Gwani mobi- and each other during civil war. which is under a fresh layer of snow. We
lized a team of international experts to draw Scanning the wind-raked slope we’re pull out our crampons and lace up. Bakhtyar
up boundaries and a multiyear growth plan crossing, I see bits of shrapnel, mortar shells reckons that it will take at least another four
to transform one of the most land-mine- blasted into rusty flower shapes, Soviet anti- hours to reach the summit, maybe more.
ridden areas in the world into a nature re- personnel mines, and the melted husks of Given our late start, we were kidding our-
serve. Backed by a million-dollar grant from American-made “toe poppers.” selves that we could reach the top and get
the Kurdish government, he expanded the “Don’t worry, I’ve been up here too many down in a day.
park to include Mount Halgurd and other times,” Bakhtyar says, reading our minds. He I hand out energy bars, and Nabil shares
peaks, brought in teams of designers, and assures us that the route we’re on has been a story about the last time he tried to climb
hired dozens of rangers, mostly Peshmerga cleared by experts, though we don’t see any Halgurd. A macho American guy in his group
veterans, to crack down on illicit hunting and sign of a trail and demining efforts around insisted that he knew a better route up the
tree felling. With time, Bakhtyar says, many here seem to be scattershot at best. south side. Soon the climbers found them-
locals began to “see tourism as a future.” Earlier that morning, on the drive up the selves wandering lost through waist-deep
And then came the Islamic State. Iraqi-army-built supply road, we passed a snow, with mine posts sticking up now and
In June 2014, the jihadists stormed across government warning sign about land mines then. After telling us this, Nabil says his foot
the Nineveh Plains and eventually made it that had been bulldozed by locals. Bakhtyar hurts, so he’s going to head back to the truck,
to within 20 miles of Erbil. Every one of the explained that land appropriation is on the taking a roundabout route to avoid encoun-
park’s rangers dashed to the front lines. Is- rise, but there’s nothing he can do since the ters with unexploded ordnance. “You guys
lamic State bombs and booby traps stymied park has no rangers left to enforce the rules. enjoy,” he says.
their counteroffensive, and demining teams Farther along, red metal posts topped with Balazs and I follow Bakhtyar up a steep
working around the park were called in to white skull-and-bones symbols line the bowl toward the base of the rock face. The
help. Globally, oil prices crashed, slashing road. These indicate mines still to be re- going is slow. For the next hour we crunch
the salaries of park employees. Bakhtyar moved. But it appears that rockslides have and stumble, the warped crampons sliding
went back to working full-time as a teacher. shifted the positions of some of the posts. off my feet. We eventually stop at the edge of
His codirector left for a job in Erbil. Poach- Less than 30 minutes into our trek, we a couloir scattered with ice fragments. The
ing resumed, and locals hacked trees to re- see other posts higher up the slope, which passage is technical; thick snowfall dims vis-
place winter fuel they could no longer afford. we’re traversing single file. Several feet to my ibility. Go any farther and we’re pushing our
Worse, in mid-2015, a three-decade-old right, I spot a beige plastic disc in the gravel. luck for no good reason. It’s time to turn back.
conflict reignited between Turkey and the “Is that what I think it is?” “We have a saying,” says Bakhtyar, trying
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), leftist mili- Bakhtyar is in front listening to music on to lighten the mood. “Touching the top is
tants whose territory overlaps with the park, his phone. He turns and squints at the mine, not like touching the stone of Kaaba,” a ref-
bringing regular air strikes and artillery bar- a bit confused. erence to a sacred shrine in Mecca. I catch
rages that reportedly have killed civilians. A “Hmm… Someone must have thrown it,” my breath. Balazs tightens his gaiters while
final blow came last year when Gwani died. he says. Bakhtyar takes selfies. Then we turn and
“Right now, Halgurd-Sakran is just a “So this is not a minefield, but there are start down.
name on paper,” says Bakhtyar. mines everywhere,” Balazs deadpans. The going is smooth until the ice runs
With park visits down about 80 percent in Bakhtyar is already walking again, lost in out and we’re on rock and scree. Bakhtyar
2018 compared with the year before, Bakhtyar thought or pretending not to hear us. Nabil decides we’ll follow a different route down,
is in an accommodating mood. No matter looks unsure. one that leads us through an alley of loose,
that we want to climb Iraq’s tallest mountain Balazs and I exchange a glance. Both of rain-slicked rock. Clumsy steps send a jack-
on a day’s notice and don’t have any gear. We us spent many years covering the war in rabbit scrambling up the opposite side of the
stop by the local mountaineering club and Afghanistan, often hitched to U.S. combat ravine, giving me a jolt. To keep my mind oc-
enter a dank basement, where Bakhtyar starts units in the badlands of Helmand province, cupied, I take a cue from Bakhtyar and look
digging through milk crates. In short order, a Taliban hellscape. Firefights in 100-degree for wild mushrooms, which are plentiful this
I’m equipped with a yard sale’s worth of sec- heat were bad, but nothing was worse than time of year.
ondhand climbing gear from Eastern Europe: the improvised explosive devices that rou- And then I spot another mine. I warn
a neon snowsuit, trekking poles, gloves, and tinely took lives and limbs. After starting a Balazs to give it a wide berth. We shuffle
bent crampons. Balazs, who stands a brood- family, Balazs had sworn off war zones. I’d down the scree with active feet, nervous
ing six foot five, is issued black pleather gai- done the same, but it took a couple of years and hyperalert, studying the ground obses-
ters that rise to his knees and might have seen before I could stroll through a park without sively. Bakhtyar is way ahead of us, singing
previous action in an S&M club. reflexively appraising the ground. along to folk songs about PKK martyrs. He
Now I’m trying to walk in Bakhtyar’s foot- has supreme confidence in his memory—or
UP ON THE MOUNTAIN the next day, a drift steps, to minimize contact with uncertain a cool fatalism I don’t share.
of leaden clouds obscure the summit, dim- terrain. My legs feel sluggish, the trekking Nabil is sucking on a cigarette when we
ming our chances of reaching it. But I’m poles an added liability. reach the truck. Butts dot the ground. Ap-
more concerned about what’s underfoot. I tell myself that I’m being melodramatic. parently he strayed from the “safe route” he
Mount Halgurd’s flanks are littered with But a familiar low-grade dread is setting in. intended to follow, an error he realized only

60 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
when he looked up and saw skull-and-bones BY DEFINITION, war is the enemy of devel- slung over their shoulders, their vests sag-
markers staring back at him. “Man, I nearly opment and tourism. Sometimes, though, ging with the weight of hand grenades. They
shit myself,” he says. He swipes his phone to it’s nature’s friend. According to Bakhtyar, wave us on.
show us the highlights, including an unex- the only part of Halgurd-Sakran National We’re waiting by a destroyed hillside
ploded 82-millimeter mortar round. Park where poachers and tree cutters don’t portrait of Abdullah Ocalan, the group’s
The sun dips behind us on our drive back operate with impunity is the roughly 20 per- founder, when Zagros pulls up and extends a
to Choman, casting shadows on Mount cent under the control of the PKK, which is hand. “You are most welcome in Qandil,” he
Sakran, across the valley. Beyond it lies the considered a terrorist organization by the says. I thank him and ask about the drones
Iranian frontier, where in 2009 three young U.S. government. “They are hardcore fight- from Turkey. “They are not here at the mo-
American hikers were arrested by border ers, but they also care a lot about nature,” he ment, but when they see guerrilla clothes,
guards and imprisoned—one for 14 months, says. “It’s at the heart of their philosophy.” armed men, they call in jets, which arrive in
the others for more than two years. This I want to meet these conservationist reb- less than 15 minutes. The past few months
foreboding stretch of land is seeded with els. Their stronghold is just a short drive have been especially bad—they hit this road
land mines and the bones of countless Ira- from Choman, one valley over, in the Qan- three days ago.” Zagros suggests we head to-
nian troops who parachuted into paradise dil Mountains. Trouble is, since fighting ward the museum. “Also bombed,” he adds
during the war. To this day, snipers stationed resumed with Turkey three years ago, air with an apologetic smile.
at the high army posts take potshots at strikes and shelling attacks there have es- I’m eager to move. Balazs and I join Zag-
calated. And with the presidential elections ros in his truck, and it dawns on me that
coming up in Turkey, the military has been we’re going to be driving 30 miles on a road
ratcheting up bombardments to please its that is regularly targeted by air strikes. With
Islamist nationalist base. Nabil trailing us, we’re in what amounts to
a convoy. In his blunt, Hungar-
ian manner, Balazs voices what
I’m thinking: “There are no other
C R U I S I N G A L O N G , W E PA S S cars on the road.” Farther along,
G I A N T B I L L B O A R D S T H AT S H O W the charred wreckage of a fam-
PHOTOGRAPHS OF FEMALE ily vehicle destroyed by a Turk-
ish strike offers a visual we would
GUERRILLAS WHO WERE KILLED
rather not see.
I N B AT T L E A G A I N S T T H E I S L A M I C Zagros drives with the beatific
S TAT E , D R A P E D I N A M M O B E LT S expression of a man who has sur-
PKK rendered to his fate. Handsome,
guerrilla Egid AND THICK HAIR BRAIDS.
with a strong, dimpled chin and a
Serhad at a
checkpoint brushy black mustache, he says he
in Qandil used to be a high school teacher in
My first e-mail query to the PKK came western Iran, living a comfortable middle-
back negative. Near the end of our stay in class life. But he was haunted by the persecu-
Choman, I follow up. We don’t need a formal tion of his people. When Ocalan was captured
reception, I write—we just want to make a during a joint U.S.-Turkish operation in
Kurdish shepherds who wander too close. quick stop at a martyrs’ museum and ceme- Kenya in 1999 and placed in solitary con-
At night their floodlights glare down like tery that Nabil visited several years earlier, to finement in Turkey, Zagros came to view him
menacing eyes. take pictures and learn more about how the as something like a Kurdish Nelson Mandela.
Near the bottom of the mountain, we pass PKK is protecting its homeland from pollu- “Through him, I felt the isolation of the
a scruffy Western backpacker on foot. Nabil tion, poaching, and overdevelopment. This Kurds, that the Kurds have no friends in the
throws the truck in reverse and we greet him. time the guerrillas’ contact, nom de guerre world,” he says. He left Iran for the moun-
He says his name is Kaspars, that he’s from Zagros, agrees. tains, later joined by five students—two of
Latvia, and that he plans to climb Halgurd at “You can visit the Museum,” he writes. whom have since been killed. “My concern
dawn. “Some locals are going to meet me at “You can also visit the site of the Zargali is not for myself but for my people,” Zagros
the top,” he says. “They told me it’s easy. Just massacre. As I told you, the guerrillas can- says. “PKK is not only a party, it’s a new way
follow the path.” not accompany you. Better not to stay in the of life, a new world vision.”
“Who told you that?” Bakhtyar says, area for too long. Because both of the sites He ticks off the movement’s basic goals:
scowling. have been bombarded before.” the right to self-determination, the lib-
The kid can’t remember their names but Twenty minutes south of Choman, we eration of women, and the protection of the
assures us: “They are nice guys.” reach the turn to the Qandil Mountains. The environment. He says that respect for the
“You know, there are mine fields up there,” sign at the junction gives no indication of land and ethnic diversity were destroyed by
I say. “No joke—we just walked out of one.” where we are, as though the valley road does modern nation-states like Turkey, the mili-
Everyone chimes in, and the Latvian seems not exist. Nabil gets out at the KDP check- tants’ archnemesis, which has tried to erase
to reconsider. We wish him luck. For the rest point to register our names with local au- the identity of its 15 million Kurds, in part by
of the drive, Bakhtyar grumbles about who thorities, who tell us we’re on our own. We repressing the Kurdish language. “If real de-
Kaspars might have talked to, the danger- wrap around a ridge and a lush green vista mocracy is achieved in these countries, the
ous ignorance of some people in Choman, unfurls in front of us. A couple of miles on, Kurdish question will be resolved,” he says.
and the general lack of order since the park two PKK guerrillas emerge from the trees in “Until then we will fight, as long as it takes.”
project fell apart. traditional Kurdish shawls, Kalashnikovs Women make up continued on page 82 >

01/02.19 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 61
ofaction
preacher
unlikely
the
62 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
SAL MASEKELA, first son of a Haitian immigrant and a legendary South
African jazz musician, was the face and voice of the X Games, Red Bull’s Media
House, and the Olympics. Now, as the meteoric growth of the action-sports
industry comes back to earth, the most connected man in the room is left
wondering what’s next. By David Shultz

PHOTOGRAPHS BY
Nikko LaMere
Sal Masekela steps off a
helicopter onto the white sands
of Tavarua Island Resort, a tiny
speck in the Fiji archipelago,
and walks into a gorgeous open-air restaurant earth, and he’d implored his father to travel declined to share year-over-year numbers.)
that overlooks a world-famous reef break there with him. They made plans for the fall The formerly rebel sports of snowboarding,
appropriately dubbed Restaurants. He greets of 2016 and even purchased tickets, but at BMX, and skateboarding have been adopted
the Fijian staff by name, hugging them, ask- the last minute, Hugh postponed. A year and by the Olympics. The bad-boy stars of yes-
ing them about their lives since his last visit. a half later, he passed away. This trip, these terday are now middle-aged dads.
Masekela, you may recall, was the face waves, Masekela says, are for his dad. Masekela has ridden the action-sports
and voice of ESPN’s X Games, hosting both The vacation also comes at a significant wave as far and well as he could’ve hoped,
the summer and winter events for more moment in Masekela’s career—a moment but no ride lasts forever.
than a decade. With his iconic dreadlocks when he hopes to find a path back into the
and smooth baritone, he was a fixture at the limelight. Since walking away from the THAT MASEKELA became the face of the
center of the action-sports universe, narrat- X Games, he has continued to work in tele- X Games in the first place was wildly im-
ing nearly every history-making moment at vision, hosting a series for Red Bull Media probable. He was born in 1971 in Los An-
the games, from Travis Pastrana’s double House, reporting stories for NBC at the geles, the first child of Hugh and Haitian
backflip on a motorcycle in 2006 to Shaun 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and hosting immigrant Jessie Lapierre. By the time he
White’s perfect halfpipe run in 2012. turned four, his parents had moved
Today, six years since a breakup with to New York City and split up, and
ESPN, Masekela remains deeply entrenched his mother was remarried to a Jeho-
in action sports. He is here, on the surf mecca Masekela is still vah’s Witness, who raised Masekela
of Tavarua, for a vacation with a group of in the church. But despite his step-
friends comprised of athletes, movie stars,
coming to grips with dad’s best efforts, Hugh’s influence
entrepreneurs, Instagram influencers, and the fact that his endured. Masekela split time be-
their families. As he makes the rounds, a
guest compares him to Ricardo Montal-
world has lost much tween marijuana-clouded jazz clubs
and going door to door spreading
bán, the suave Mexican actor best known of its cultural and the Truth. “Growing up between
for playing Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island.
Somehow, despite the fact that Masekela is
commercial cachet. those worlds gave me a strange set of
skills,” he says. “For a long time they
a stocky black man, and recently bald, it’s a The bad-boy stars of felt like a burden, like I was always
rather apt observation. It can be challenging yesterday are now working to fit in.”
to walk anywhere with Masekela, because His mom and stepdad moved
everyone who sees him wants to stop and middle-aged dads. around a lot, ultimately abandoning
talk with him and he wants to talk to every- the East Coast for Carlsbad, Califor-
body. He is Larry David’s worst nightmare. nia, at the start of Masekela’s senior
This is Masekela’s 16th trip to Tavarua but a sports documentary series on Viceland, year of high school. Relocating across the
nonetheless a special one, because it’s his among other gigs. He’s had bit parts in mov- country was difficult for him. During the
first visit since his father died from prostate ies. His band, Alekesam, which blends jazz, drive out, he spent rest-stop breaks at pay
cancer six months ago. Hugh Masekela was a soul, and R&B, has been featured on HBO phones. “I was calling my girl back east and
trumpeter and is often credited as the father and Showtime and released its second album not saying anything,” he says. “Just weeping
of South African jazz. He played and toured last summer. Still, Masekela has grander am- on the phone for like ten minutes, that high
with everyone from Paul Simon to Dave Mat- bitions, though he struggles to define them. school heartbreak shit.”
thews and was nominated for three Gram- Like many major figures from the heyday But on his first morning in Carlsbad, he
mys. During apartheid, Hugh left South Af- of action sports, Masekela is still coming to discovered that his new house sat on top of a
rica to study music in the United States, but grips with the fact that his world has lost steep hill with a view of the ocean, a feature
he remained outspoken against the brutality much of its cultural and commercial cachet. that he credits with shaping the trajectory of
of South African racial segregation. In 1986, As recently as 2011, an average of more than his life. “Imagine, you walk out of this house
he recorded “Bring Him Back Home,” a song a million viewers tuned in to watch the four- onto this lawn, and you look and you’re like,
demanding the release of Nelson Mandela day-long Summer X Games on television. By Oh shit we’re right here.”
that would eventually become a rallying cry 2017, that number dropped to 385,000. (ESPN Surfing became the focus of Masekela’s
for the anti-apartheid movement. says viewership is actually up when you ac- life. As a Jehovah’s Witness, he was discour-
Tavarua is Masekela’s favorite place on count for streaming and social viewers, but aged from playing organized sports, but

64 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
Clockwise:
Masekela with his
father, Hugh, in
2016; in the studio
with bandmate
Sunny Levine; on
Niue, in the South
Pacific; surfing
in Fiji; hosting
Lollapalooza in
Chicago
C LO C K W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: J E R E M Y D E P U TAT/ R E D B U L L C O N T E N T P O O L ; A B B Y R O S S ( 2 ) ; S A L M A S E K E L A ; A D A M G U Y

several of the members of his congregation


surfed, and they loaned him a board and a
wetsuit, which he put on backward the first
time. He spent his downtime at school pag-
ing through back issues of Surfer, neglect-
ing his schoolwork to study board sports. He
refined the basic skateboarding skills he’d
started developing back east, and he learned
to snowboard. “Nothing else sounded as
good,” he says. “I didn’t want to be around but the social isolation was a brutal punish- The more entrenched he became in action
people who did it. I wanted to be around ment. “It was without a doubt the most dif- sports, the further he drifted from the church,
people who lived it.” He became a full-on ficult time in my life,” he says. “I was severely leaving religion behind for a new gospel.
disciple of what he would call the shred life. depressed. I held a knife to my wrist in my
The tension between his new passion kitchen many times.” MASEKELA’S BIG BREAK came in the win-
and his commitment to the church began He moved to a new congregation in a ter of 1997, at a snowboarding conference in
to mount. At 19, Masekela went to South nearby beach community called Leucadia. Vail, Colorado. Boks had just folded, and his
Africa to meet up with his father, who had In 1993, while working at a restaurant, he future was uncertain. He knew he had to do
recently returned home for the first time in crossed paths with several employees from some networking.
30 years. It was 1991, and Mandela had just TransWorld Media, which produces board- The event took place in the wake of the
been released from prison. During the trip, sports magazines and films, and he charmed first X Games, which was an embarrassment
Masekela explored life a bit too enthusias- his way into a job as a receptionist. In no to everybody who cared about action sports.
tically for the church’s standards. His sins time he worked up to sales jobs and small- Purple skateboard ramps and clueless com-
were, in his words, “that I made out with a scale announcing gigs for skateboarding mentators left the community and industry
bunch of girls and smoked some pot.” competitions. His circle of friends expanded furious at how their lifestyle and products
When he confessed, the elders chose to to include the pros he was interviewing at had been represented.
disfellowship him. “You have to keep going contests. By 1996, he was the team manager During a Q and A session that included
to church, to the meetings, but no one for Boks, the nascent action-sports division executives from ESPN and MTV, Masekela
talks to you,” he explains. During his exile, of Reebok, where he helped build the brand’s decided to speak up. “At a certain point, I
Masekela remained close with his mother, surf, skate, snowboard, and BMX teams. don’t even know what happened, but I was

01/02.19 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 65
standing on top of my chair in the back. I think something like that would happen,” a lot of these bro-type announcers who
said, ‘You know, I watch all these things— he says. “It really, really fucked me up.” didn’t really capture what was going on,”
the X Games and what you guys are doing When he got the job as the host of the says snowboarder Shaun White. “Sal knew
on MTV—and you don’t have any voices that X Games, the racism became more perni- us personally, so he could kind of talk about
represent our culture to tell people about cious. People would assume he was a market- how a guy has been wanting to do this trick
what they’re seeing. Bill Bellamy doesn’t ing choice made by network executives—that for so long and what it would mean if he did
fucking snowboard. Here’s the deal: I’m he had studied up on the difference between it during this run.”
young, I’m black, I surf and I snowboard, a heel flip and a pop shove-it after he got the Today, though, being respected by core
and I know that I could get in front of the job, when in reality he could do both of those board-sports athletes doesn’t do much for
camera and do that.’ ” tricks. “There were people who started to be a guy’s résumé. Masekela is eager to begin
He got a standing ovation. “People were like, ‘Wow, that’s really gutsy of ESPN to pick a new chapter but admits he doesn’t know
buying me beers all night like I had just given a black guy to do this. So smart. You don’t re- what that will look like yet. Which is why
some weird ‘I Have a Dream’ shred speech.” ally do this stuff do you?’ ” The same authen- he’s trying a little bit of everything. He’s
At an after-party, an executive from MTV ticity that got him the job was suddenly being starting a podcast, tentatively called What
gave him a business card. The next year, questioned because of his skin color. Shapes Us, for which he’ll interview the deep
Masekela was commentating the MTV “I didn’t have an agenda to be like, I’m the well of exceptional friends he’s made over
Sports and Music Festival, offering the insid- fucking Great Black Hope of action sports. the years, and possibly broadcast conver-
er’s perspective he’d cultivated since landing I wanted to be the best commentator. I sations with his father posthumously. He’s
in California years before. wanted to be seen as on par with the greats touring with his band, he’s hosting more
By 1999, Masekela had landed a job as a in broadcasting and entertainment.” traditional adventure and travel stories for
reporter for the Winter X Games. The fol- National Geographic, and he’s trying
lowing summer, when Tony Hawk landed to do more acting. He says he’d like
the first 900, Masekela was standing at the to host another TV show, but only if
top of the ramp. From there it was pretty “People were buying it feels right.
much game on. The action-sports wave was
barreling into the mainstream, and Masekela
me beers all night like One impediment to Masekela’s
career reboot is the fact that he’s
was pitted as its chief evangelist. I had just given some not the most organized person. He

MASEKELA’S PRESENCE on Tavarua is con-


weird ‘I Have a Dream’ doesn’t like budgets or spreadsheets.
He has a tendency to lose things, for-
spicuous for many reasons, but even if he was shred speech.” The get stuff, and miss flights.
less gregarious, he would still stick out. Other
than the Fijian staff members, he is the only
next year, Masekela Case in point: he arrives on Ta-
varua a day later than planned, after
black person on the entire island. By contrast, was commentating a fundraising event for his charity,
the kids on the trip are named Chili, Coast, the MTV Sports and Stoked Mentoring, ran long and he
Country, Fin, Hazel, Jet, Lyon, Oz, Rider, didn’t catch his plane to Fiji. But after
River, Roman, and Tashen. That list may not Music Festival. he finishes unpacking, he hops on the
be exhaustive or spelled exactly right, but the evening boat to Cloudbreak, an infa-
point is: the only thing whiter than the sand mous wave that detonates two miles
here is the people. ONE WARM SUMMER afternoon on his from the island on a barrier reef. Just about
Tavarua, like many tropical-island re- couch in Venice Beach, Masekela was in a re- anywhere else, you’d call the conditions
sorts, is a destination for people with money. flective mood. We were surrounded by boxes good to great, but by Cloudbreak standards
There are spa treatments. There’s a yoga that he hadn’t unpacked since he moved to things are looking somewhat pedestrian.
space. There’s an artificial-turf tennis court. the house 12 months ago. The front door was The wind isn’t quite right, the lulls between
Speaking of tennis, Masekela loves tennis. open, and sunlight streamed in. sets are long, and the wave isn’t barreling
He also loves golf. When you grow up as a He told me about his split with ESPN, like it should.
skateboarding Jehovah’s Witness, perhaps back in late 2012, saying that the network Then, just before dusk, the wind dies
adding golfer to the list becomes easier. had wanted to renegotiate his contract. a bit, and the reef starts to grab the swell.
But still, as a black man at the center of a He said that a big reason he left was a feel- All of a sudden, Masekela is on an absolute
nearly all-white industry, Masekela has en- ing that ESPN had begun to devalue action gem—green and gold, backlit by low-angle
countered racism many times. In the early sports in general. For Masekela, this was un- tropical sun. Miraculously, the inside sec-
nineties, the owners of a surf shop where acceptable; they were his life. A few weeks tion gets hollow, and he tucks into the barrel.
he was working let him go, telling him that after quitting, he cut off his dreads. You can hear him whooping with joy. Finally,
business was slowing down and they needed “I was kind of wrestling for identity,” just before the wave ends, he kicks out the
to cut back on staff. But a friend who was he said. “I cried while doing it. There were back. He’s probably 100 yards or more down
still working there told him that the owners people who told me, ‘You just lit your career the reef, but he reels in his board and heads
didn’t think Masekela matched the image on fire.’ And I’d be like, ‘If you know me and straight for the lineup.
of what a surf-shop employee should be— consider me a friend, and you’re telling me The sun is setting, but Sal Masekela is
which is to say, white. that my hair is my calling card, then you’re paddling back out. O
“Even though I had gone through all sorts telling me that you don’t hear what it is that
of fucking racist shit as a result of starting I have to say.’ ” DAVID SHULTZ ( @DSHULTZ14) IS
surfing and snowboarding—people making As a host and announcer, one of the great- A FREELANCE WRITER IN SANTA
fun of me and calling me a nigger and telling est strengths Masekela brought to action- BARBARA, CALIFORNIA. THIS IS HIS
me that we don’t even swim—I still didn’t sports events was his credibility. “We had FIRST FEATURE FOR OUTSIDE.

66 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
Masekela near his
home in Venice,
California

01/02.19 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 67
Mitchler approaching
the summit of Agrihan

68 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
T
he climb was sched- Dragons proved absent, however, and alpin- climbed the Seven Summits (416) than the
uled to begin at dawn, ists decided they liked climbing anyway, and 50 high points (305). When he finished in
but at dawn there was began tagging summits all over the world. 2003, he marked the occasion by setting
nothing to climb, just They checked them off at a furious pace, and another goal: he’d climb the high points in
a tiny hump of land on climbing firsts are mostly now about new all five inhabited U.S. territories, which no
the horizon. We were routes or new styles or some other minute one had ever done. “I do love checking off a
still miles away, chug- or oddball differentiation—youngest, oldest, list,” he says.
ging along on the north- fastest, first without oxygen, first cancer He got to it. Guam and Puerto Rico were
western Pacific Ocean. survivor, first blind person, first pizza deliv- practically drive-ups. The U.S. Virgin Is-
Over the next few hours ery to the summit of Kilimanjaro. lands and American Samoa: no problem.
the hump grew larger, John is trying to carve out his own little By the summer of 2014, all that was left was
transforming into the niche in that world, but he’s doing it by chas- Agrihan.
cone of a volcano. From the boat I could ing quantity, not quality. Some climbers pe- Perhaps Agrihan has never been climbed
see cliffs, a lava-rock seashore, and dense joratively call this peak bagging—summiting because it’s so remote, or because there’s no
jungle rising to grassy ridgelines that crept mountains just to say that you summited reliable source of fresh water, or because it’s
upward like veins to a heart. Dark clouds them, regardless of how difficult they are. brutally hot and humid. Most likely it just
obscured the summit. It looked like a place Defenders claim that the beauty isn’t in pio- never occurred to anyone that it would be
that could swallow you whole. neering a new route but in the completion of worth doing.
Our group consists of 11 American climb- a list—like the Seven Summits, the highest “For most climbers, it’s either Everest or
ers, one Brit, and six porters from the near- point on each continent. bouldering or Alex Honnold and all that,”
est population center, Saipan, 248 miles to John belongs to an even more curious John says. “This is really bizarre climbing.”
the south. Saipan is part of a little-known subset of peak baggers called high point- That was basically his sales pitch the first
U.S. territory called the Commonwealth of ers. High pointers don’t limit themselves to time we spoke on the phone. I’m not a high
Northern Mariana Islands, and the top of the mountains. They’ll go to the top of anything pointer. I don’t even like climbing all that
volcanic island we’re approaching—called so long as it isn’t man-made. You might much. When the mountains are calling, I
Agrihan— happens to be the territory’s say that there’s no climb too small. High generally pretend I have bad service and
highest point. At just over 3,000 feet, it’s pointers tend to be engineers, scientists, __n’t hear wh__ they’re say___. In 2016, I
nothing special as mountains go. But as far programmers—fans of empirical data with climbed to 20,000 feet in Bolivia, but I was
as anyone knows, it has never been climbed.
Fifteen years ago our expedition leader, John
Mitchler, decided that he wanted to be the
first. Since then, no one has been able to talk
him out of it. H i g h p o i n t e r s d o n ’ t l i m i t t h e m s e lv e s t o
At 9:04 A.M., the crew of our 60-foot
m o u n ta i n s . T h e y ’ l l g o t o t h e t o p o f a n y t h i n g
boat, the Super Emerald, dropped anchor and
winched a small skiff over the deck. Loading s o lo n g a s i t i s n ’ t m a n - m a d e . Yo u m i g h t s ay
it up, they implored us to not fall overboard t h at t h e r e ’ s n o c l i m b too small.
because “the sharks here are not friendly.”
We filled the skiff with duffel bags of
climbing gear and gallon after gallon of water.
We brought a ton of it—250 gallons in all, a passion for details. Many joke about their searching for the remnants of a plane crash,
weighing precisely 2,082.5 pounds. Roughly single-minded focus on summits, calling it and I didn’t bother to summit. Since then,
a gallon per person per day for the nearly two “the sickness.” When they say that about my standard line has been that if I’m going
weeks we’d be here. It would take five trips John, they aren’t really joking. to climb a mountain, there had better be a
from boat to shore to off-load all of it, and John lives in Golden, Colorado. He’s 62 plane crash up there.
then the Super Emerald would turn back for but looks younger, with a square jaw and Agrihan, I was told, would be different.
Saipan. Over the next week, we would haul long hair always pulled back into the kind We’d be on a tropical island, not a frigid
those jugs up to each of four camps en route of man bun that tends to belie his conserva- mountain, and we wouldn’t be covering
to the top, returning to the beach every night tive politics. A geologist by training, he now much ground. Our route would be just three
to fetch more. spends most of his time running several miles long, with 3,000 feet of vertical gain.
Looking toward the shore, I could see John small businesses—a marketing firm, an ad- There wouldn’t be any altitude issues, and
and the crew tossing jugs toward the sand venture travel agency, and a spice company the route wouldn’t be technical, just a muddy
like a fire brigade. Then, in a blink, they were called JAK Seasoning among them—that he stretch near the top where we might place
done, and John disappeared into the jungle, owns with his wife, Kathy. ropes. The hard part would be the glacially
heading uphill, already sniffing out a route In the 1980s, John began spending much slow process of building trails through heavy
to the top. of his spare time and money reaching the jungle and aptly named sword grass. We’d
highest point in all 50 U.S. states—which, he establish base camp on the beach and a se-
TO COMPLETE a first ascent is to be written says, “most high pointers agree is the coolest ries of four higher camps for stashing water
into history, but unclimbed mountains are a list.” Some of those summits, like Alaska’s and supplies en route to the summit. At first
dwindling resource. The Alps were once so 20,310-foot Denali, are truly arduous, dan- we’d shuttle two or three gallons at a time to
formidable that, as recently as 1723, a re- gerous climbs. Others, such as Delaware’s camps one and two. Then, as the porters set
spected scientist published an account of the 447.85-foot Ebright Azimuth, are mere hills. up the higher camps, we’d haul roughly half
various species of dragon to be found there. By John’s reckoning, more people have of that to camps three and four. If we could

70 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
sun, and the air is 87 degrees with 80 percent
humidity. The sheer thickness of the growth
stifles airflow, and hiking up the ridge is like
breathing into a paper bag inside a sauna.
It’s not just the heat and the foliage; there
are also flies everywhere. Millions of them
swarm our eyes, noses, mouths. At one point
a fly lodges itself in my left ear, seemingly
stuck until, 40 minutes later, I finally hook
it with my finger and it breaks in half. Then
the other flies seem to sense his demise and
redouble their efforts to get in my ear and
harvest the smooshed bits of their comrade.
The first two times John tried to climb
Agrihan, he wore a head net and covered up
to try and combat the insects. Now he just
lets them swarm.
That’s right. My apologies. I haven’t men-
tioned the first two climbs.
In 2014, John chartered the Super Emer-
Clockwise: Clint ald for four days with a high pointer named
Kaul on the final Roger Kaul and his nephew, Clint, who is on
mud wall before
this trip, too. That group, along with three
the summit;
searching for a porters, braved the heat, humidity, and flies
route; the author as long as they could but made it only half-
on the Super
Emerald; Jeremy
way up the mountain before the boat had to
Topulei’s house return to Saipan. “That was pathetic,” John
says. “Just embarrassing.”
In 2015, they doubled the size of the expe-
dition: six climbers, five porters, and a docu-
mentarian. They hacked their way to within
26 vertical feet of the top and identified
what they thought was the summit—a ver-
tical column on the volcano’s rim. But they
were separated from it by a deep mud valley
that was too dangerous to traverse without
climbing gear, which they hadn’t brought.
So they turned back.
This is where the shape of John’s obses-
sion really becomes clear. Because whatever
get a couple dozen gallons to camp four— up the place and taming the jungle around wilderness experience or trial-by-flies John
about two gallons per person—that would the scattered buildings. Survival depends wanted to have on this island, he’s had it.
be enough for everyone to summit. It would on their vegetable garden, collecting rain- Twice. But he hasn’t touched the summit,
be hot, wet, and extremely slow going, with water, jungle fruit, the fish they catch, and so he’s back. There’s a tinge of desperation
lots of grunt work and little fanfare if we suc- the pigs they hunt, along with 50-pound in his efforts. John’s not so much an ex-
ceeded. But in 1953, a plane had gone down bags of rice and a 30-pack of Bud Light de- plorer or a pioneer as an eccentric collector
somewhere in the crater. So I guess I was in. livered quarterly. lusting after the final piece of a set. That’s
I spend the first full day shadowing John no metaphor. He collects almost every-
OUR BASE CAMP is a semi-abandoned six- as he picks his way up toward the mountain. thing. Stamps, gum wrappers, coins, beer
room building left over from when Agrihan By nightfall our trail is still a modest thing. cans, water bottles, magazines, and yes,
TO P L E F T: C O U R T E SY O F P E T E R F R I C K -W R I G H T

was used as a coconut plantation and is cur- Snaking through the shaded jungle for an mountains. In fact, given that he’s afraid of
rently losing a decades-long endurance con- easy 20 minutes, curving around felled heights, sometimes the collecting is at odds
test with the heat and humidity. Ever since palm trees and startled iguanas, it rises only with the mountaineering. “I don’t seek out
the Spanish came ashore in 1565, the island slightly before leaving the shade and hitting rock climbing or ice climbing,” he says. “But
has been intermittently inhabited and aban- eight-foot-tall sword grass. From this point if it’s there, I’ll do it.”
doned, following the whims of whichever on, our machete-wielding porters whack His real talent, he says, is data analysis.
superpower controlled it—Spain, Germany, a shoulder-wide path straight up the fall He’s very good at obsessing. To save weight,
Japan, and currently the U.S. Last aban- line toward the ridgetop. The sword grass is he doesn’t carry a stove or fuel and eats his
doned in 2010, its population when we ar- thick and nasty stuff, like a cross between food cold. He also keeps a list of the most
rive is exactly two: Eddie Saures and Jeremy bamboo and corn. Its serrated blades slice effective cost-per-calorie energy bars.
Topulei, who grew up in Saipan and came to any exposed skin; when cut to ankle height, (Winner: Snickers.)
Agrihan last year to prepare the island for the stalks stand straight up like punji sticks. Whatever his methods, it’s hard to argue
resettlement. They spend their days fixing In the grass, there’s no protection from the with the results. John has high-pointed not

01/02.19 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 71
just all 50 states but 55 of the 60 national tomorrow?” John asks when we reach him grumbling at base camp about these two. Is
parks as well. He also wrote a county-by- on the radio. John still recovering? No one knows. What’s
county guidebook of Colorado’s high points. “Yeah, we’ll send it up with the mas- Tony doing up there?
Though he recently stepped down from the seuse,” jokes Greg Juhl, a 45-year-old ER For the past hour, I’d been rehearsing a
job, for the past 20 years, he’s written and doctor from Reno, Nevada. lecture along the lines of: Are you sure you
edited the glossy newsletter of the High- Back on the beach, though, there’s some should even be here, John? But when I arrive,
pointers Club, which makes him something confusion as to when John tired out. He is John comes over and tells me he’s not doing
like the figurehead of this tribe. He knows almost always the most enthusiastic high so great. He has no legs, no strength.
that he could claim Agrihan if he wanted pointer in the room. But as we prepared for “I think I’m done,” he says.
to, even without actually topping out on it. this trip, he’d looked haggard and exhausted. Done for the day?
The high-pointing community doesn’t have Purchasing supplies at an Ace Hardware in “Done with high pointing,” he says. “This
strict criteria for what constitutes a sum- Saipan, he even seemed a little irritated. is my last expedition.”
mit—John says you should get your head “Let’s just get to the summit and get out of You can’t harangue someone who’s on the
above the highest point—but there’s no there,” he’d said as the group debated the verge of giving up. John’s struggle has placed
verification system. If you say you climbed merits of different gear. him firmly atop the moral high ground. But
it, you climbed it. Over the next two days, we continue I’m still angry, so I move on to Tony, who is
One climber on the 2015 trip did, in fact, hauling water. John stays higher up on the stretched out on his sleeping pad in his skiv-
quietly check the mountain off his list. John mountain with his MP3 player, moving gear vies, a contented smile on his face. When I
did not. The fact that he hadn’t attained the between camps two and three and preparing see this, my anger boils over. There are nine
true summit ate at him. He decided that he to set up camp four. Many of us start the day gallons of water here when there should be
would not cut his hair until he reached the at 4:30 A.M., hoping to carry two 40-pound two dozen. I ask how he can just sit here
top of Agrihan. (Hence the New Age man backpacks full of water and supplies before while the rest of the group toils in the heat?
bun.) He put Kathy in charge of chartering the sun hits. By the morning of the fifth day, Granted, Tony hauled some water on his
the boat, booking hotels, and other logistics, a lot of us are moving slowly and snapping at way up, and he’s been moving gear between
because you can’t effectively negotiate on each other over little stuff. I’ve tweaked my camps and setting up rain catchments. But
it’s not raining, and the longer he and John
stay high on the mountain, the more water
the rest of us have to carry. My voice quavers,
I’m so furious.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been needing an excuse
I ’ m n ot a high pointer. I don’t even like to go back down,” Tony says when I’m done.
c l i m b i n g a l l t h at m u c h . W h e n t h e m o u n ta i n s “I’ll give you an excuse,” I yell. “Nine fuck-
a r e c a l l i n g , I g e n e r a l ly p r e t e n d I h av e b a d ing gallons!”
For the first time on the trip, Tony barely
s e r v i c e a n d __ n ’ t h e a r w h __ t h e y ’ r e s a y ___ .
says a word in response. He simply gets up,
packs his gear, and heads down the mountain.
I walk away to be alone for a bit. Every-
price when you want something this badly. back. Clint, who accompanied John on the thing feels backward. Tony is quiet. Ob-
“Don’t get me wrong, I want them to suc- other two summit attempts and helped with sessive John is quitting high pointing. I’m
ceed,” Kathy told me before the trip. “But much of the route planning for this trip, has chewing out a team member over a climb I
you can’t hear it in my voice.” developed a deep cough that asserts itself supposedly have no stake in. No one’s more
each morning. “I really hate this mountain,” surprised by my behavior than me.
IT WAS SIR Hugh Munro, a Scotsman, who he says before heading uphill. But I think I know why I’m so invested.
first popularized the idea of climbing a list. I grab two gallons from camp one and pick Nine months before Agrihan, I broke my leg
Back in 1873, Munro started summiting all up a third and fourth from camp two. Once in a canyoneering accident and spent 21 hours
of Scotland’s peaks over 3,000 feet—now above the sword grass—just before camp waiting for a helicopter to get me to a hospital.
called the Munros—and began cataloging three, at 1,950 feet—the flora turns to waist- It was a traumatic fall that shattered both my
them. In 1936, Arthur Marshall became the high ferns. From there it’s an hour straight up fibula and my youth. I came out of surgery in
first to high-point all 48 (at the time) U.S. to 2,520-foot camp four. When I get to camp a 32-year-old’s midlife crisis—fragile, anx-
states. Vin Hoeman was the first to do all 50, three around lunchtime, Gary Reckelhoff is ious, and newly aware of my mortality.
in 1966. By high-pointing the U.S. territo- sitting there with a daypack. Thirty years old The first time I spoke with John on the
ries, John is trying to join their ranks. But on and built like a greyhound that does Cross- phone, he persuaded me to join the trip. But
the third day of our expedition, that desire Fit, Gary always wears a heart-rate monitor I think I needed to be on this climb more
to make history left him wrung out and re- and tracks how many calories he’s burning than he needed me on it. Like a lot of high
cuperating at camp two. on an expedition. He’s the most physically pointers trying to summit Denali before they
Clint Kaul brought the news. A retired fit member of the team, but you wouldn’t get too old to do all 50 states, I was climbing
software engineer from Kalamazoo, Michi- know it from the tiny load he just carried to prove that I was still capable of a kooky
gan, Clint returned to base camp on the from camp two. I start to simmer with anger. expedition in the middle of nowhere—that
beach that night and relayed that John was And that’s before I head up to the breezier, I was still myself.
too tired to come back down. He had climbed permanently cloudy camp four, where I find So I guess John and I both need to conquer
the first ridge in full sun and overheated. He John and a 51-year-old entrepreneur and some dragons on this mountain. From camp
would stay where he was and rest. nonstop talker named Tony Cobb. four, it seems like the only place we’ll find
“Can someone bring up my MP3 player During the previous two days, there was them is at the mountain’s very highest point.

72 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
Tony Cobb; the group, perhaps of all time. He has high- close. John may have already done the thing
below, a climber pointed 170 of the world’s 195 countries, we’re worried he’ll regret not doing. But we
checks the
height of P952 though in 1996 he tried to summit Mount may never get an accurate measurement.
Everest and suffered an altitude-induced Except that while the rest of us make our
heart attack. (His injury gets a brief mention way down from the top, Gary Reckelhoff
in Into Thin Air.) Doctors advised against stays behind. We have another four days
further mountain climbing. Rather than before the boat comes. He’s going to stay
hang up his boots, Ginge simply capped his near the spotting scope and wait for the
climbs at 6,000 meters—about 20,000 feet. weather to clear, because “there can only be
While that rules out Everest and 16 other one highest point,” he says. Two days later
country high points he hasn’t climbed, he the clouds part, and Gary reports that the
can sure as hell climb Agrihan. second peak is seven feet taller than the one
Ginge, Gary, and I spend hours setting John went up. So it’s confirmed: John didn’t
ropes between the two summits, which are stand on the highest point.
connected by a 200-yard-long ridge made
treacherous by a thousand-foot drop that OVER THE NEXT two days, the team tries to
goes straight into the crater. The traverse convince John to go back up the mountain
involves picking our way through the shrubs and touch the true summit. The trail isn’t
and trees that crowd the ridge, descending that bad. Gary can get up there in four hours.
into a small valley, and then ascending a 15- John could do it in a day. We’d carry his gear!
foot mud wall. Except that on the way down from the
The ridge is precarious—at one point summit, ten minutes from base camp, Ginge
while we’re pounding in anchor stakes, a slipped and landed on his machete, sever-
three-foot chunk of mud peels off and falls ing a tendon in his finger. Greg, the ER doc,
away. We’re at least five days from a hos- sewed him up, but Ginge will need surgery
pital, and if someone were to go over the and is done climbing for now. We’re trying
edge, Ginge says, they’d be better off not to convince John to take on a death-mud
surviving. John is wary of heights, making traverse without the strongest climber on
this particular scenario his nightmare. He our team.
doesn’t want to do the ridge traverse. The Or maybe it has nothing to do with Ginge.
question is: Will he be able to sleep at night At one point or another, each of us is going
if he doesn’t touch both summits? to wake up to find that we can’t do the things
The next day, after the ropes are set, all we used to be able to do, or that those things
12 climbers make their way up to P960 and don’t matter as much as they once did. For
pose for a photo. Then, at their own pace, John, that day just happened to come when
most everyone crosses the ridge to P952, he was supposed to summit the last moun-
just to be sure, and returns. But not John. tain on his list.
Instead, he gives a little speech about how “I was making a statement to myself,” he
he woke up this morning feeling like he just told me later, recalling his decision not to go
didn’t need the second summit. up again. “I need to stop the obsession.”
BY DAY SIX, we’re within striking distance “Sometimes you need a mountain,” he For the past 20 years, John has been the
of the summit, except that we don’t know says. “I woke up and I didn’t need this one.” fixated-on-summits guy. It has colored
which summit to strike. Radar topography On the way down, I ask another climber, every relationship, every interaction. People
shows two potential high points, both situ- Reid Larson, what to make of John’s deci- want to know: What’s next?
ated along the rim of the crater, at 952 and sion. Reid is something of a high-pointing “I climbed Denali, and then everyone
960 meters (3,123 and 3,150 feet, respec- wunderkind. Just 32 years old, he’s been said, ‘Are you going to do Everest?’ ” John
tively). They’re dubbed P952 and P960. The blitzing through lists and is now tied with says. “Where does it stop? And how do you
two elevations are within the radar’s margin John as the first person to summit all 50 stop it?”
of error, however, so there’s no way to tell states plus all five U.S. territories, assum- Maybe by pulling up just short of the true
which is the true summit. ing that P960 is the true summit. But if the summit, and counting it anyway. John did
Normally, determining which point is other peak, P952, turns out to be higher, 99.78 percent of Agrihan. Maybe it’s time
higher would be a simple matter of setting Reid, who touched both, will be the only one to start rounding up. We swat flies and play
up a spotting scope on one of them and between them to have summited Agrihan. If backgammon for three days until the Super
shooting it toward the other. But the cloud this is John’s last expedition, why not be sure Emerald shows up to take us home. Agrihan
cover makes this next to impossible. he’d really finished? recedes into the distance, and John raises his
“Some places have two or more high “Based on everything he’s done, it’s not middle finger, flipping off the mountain, his
points that are exactly the same,” John says. really about risk aversion,” Reid says, refer- youth, his desire to make history.
“The purists go to both.” ring to the ridge traverse. “We’re all sort of The only way to slay some dragons is to
Ginge Fullen is a purist. An Englishman flummoxed.” simply stop believing in them. O
who lives in Scotland and a former clearance Of course, we don’t actually know that the
diver who disarmed underwater bombs for second summit is higher. As near as we can CONTRIBUTING EDITOR PETER FRICK-
a living, Ginge has a Mr. Clean look and is tell, it’s somewhere between 18 inches and WRIGHT ( @FRICKWRIGHT) IS THE
easily the most accomplished high pointer in three feet taller than P960. But it’s awfully HOST OF THE OUTSIDE PODCAST.

01/02.19 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 73
T H E
A peregrine
falcon egg

E G G

T H I E F
H A R R Y TAY LO R / G E T T Y
Fo r d e c a d e s h e h e l i c o p t e r e d u p a n d r a p p e l l e d d o w n t o a e r i e s o n c l i f f

f a c e s f r o m Pa t a g o n i a t o Q u e b e c , s n a t c h i n g u n h a t c h e d r a p t o r s a n d s e l l i n g

t h e m , i n ve s t i g a t o r s b e l i eve, t o we a l t hy M i d d l e E a s t e r n f a l c o n e r s. J O S H U A

H A M M E R t r a c k s o n e o f t h e m o s t b i z a r r e c r i m i n a l s i n m o d e r n h i s t o r y.

JUST BEFORE NOON on May 3, 2010, John widespread use of the pesticide DDT; by no longer alive and said that he had been
Struczynski, a janitor at Birmingham Air- the early seventies, only about 350 breeding transporting them, via Dubai, to his father’s
port in the British Midlands, observed pairs were left in Great Britain. The pesticide home in Zimbabwe to add to the family egg
something peculiar. A balding, middle-aged was banned throughout the world beginning collection. It wouldn’t take McWilliam long
passenger had entered the shower room in in the early seventies, and since then the to conclude, though, that this was no ordi-
the Emirates Airlines first-class departure population has climbed back to about 1,500 nary trophy hunter.
lounge and emerged after what seemed like pairs. But the birds are still protected in the
a long time. But when Struczynski stepped UK, and the theft of their eggs in the wild can INTERPOL ESTIMATES that the illegal wild-
inside the facility to check it, he saw that be punishable by jail time. life trade is worth as much as $20 billion a
the shower and floor were bone-dry. Then “I suggested to the police that they arrest year, among the world’s most lucrative black
he noticed, at the bottom of a diaper bin, a him on suspicion of possessing wild bird markets. But that trade extends well be-
cardboard carton containing a single egg, eggs,” McWilliam says, “and I told them that yond elephant ivory and rhino horn. Back
dyed blood red. Mystified, and suspecting I’d be down there in two hours.” in November 2009, police in Rio de Janeiro
that something illegal was afoot, Struczyn- McWilliam contacted a well-known rap- stopped a British pet-shop owner who was
ski alerted airport security. tor breeder named Lee Featherstone and trying to smuggle a thousand large Amazo-
A few minutes later, a pair of plain- asked him to head to the airport. Feather- nian spiders out of the country in his suit-
clothes counterterrorism agents accosted stone confirmed that the eggs strapped to cases. In May 2017, police in East Java res-
the passenger, led him to a private room, the man’s body were indeed peregrine and, cued about two dozen critically endangered
and searched him. Beneath his shirt, they using a digital monitor called an Egg Buddy, yellow-crested cockatoos that a smuggler
discovered ribbons of surgical tape wound determined that 13 of the 14 were alive, two had stuffed inside water bottles. And multi-
around his abdomen. The tape encased three weeks from hatching. (The remaining egg, ple people have been arrested over the years
woolen socks containing a total of 14 small- the dyed one, was a chicken egg, presumably for moving finches from Guyana to New
ish eggs ranging in color from brick red to a decoy in case the man had been stopped on York, where finch “races” in Queens pit the
marbled brown. The man claimed they were his way through security.) The next morn- songbirds against each other to see which
duck eggs, and he offered the police a curi- ing, as the chicks-to-be continued to incu- one sings fastest. One common smuggling
ous explanation: his physiotherapist had bate, McWilliam and two counterterrorism M.O. is to dope the birds with rum and stuff
recommended that he wear the eggs pressed agents interrogated the suspect in a room them inside hair curlers.
against his belly to force him to keep his near his holding cell. “We let him string us Falcons, which encompass 39 species, are
muscles taut and strengthen his lower back. along about the duck eggs, and then I took distributed on all continents except Antarc-
At that point the police phoned Andy Mc- over the interview,” McWilliam recalls. “I tica. In some parts of the world, particularly
William, a veteran investigator with the Na- said, ‘You and I both know these are not in the UK, the threat posed by DDT gave way
tional Wildlife Crime Unit, a branch of the duck eggs, they are falcon eggs.’ ” to a new menace: compulsive collectors who
British police established in 2006 to com- “At that point,” McWilliam says, “he re- stole the eggs of protected species from their
bat offenses ranging from badger baiting to alized that he couldn’t pull the wool over us nests, blowing out the contents and mount-
ivory trading. From the officer’s description, any longer.” The detained man, who carried ing the shells. The thefts threatened numer-
McWilliam felt all but certain that the eggs Irish and South African passports identify- ous species—red-backed shrikes, ospreys,
were those of the peregrine falcon, the fast- ing him as 48-year-old Jeffrey Paul Len- golden eagles, peregrines—before the Scot-
est animal alive, a bird of prey that nests, in drum, reluctantly admitted over the course tish police, in coordination with the Royal
the UK, in cliffs along the west coast from of several interviews that he had taken per- Society for the Protection of Birds, launched
Wales to Scotland. Peregrines suffered a egrine eggs from cliff ledges in the Rhondda Operation Easter in 1997. Many of the perpe-
dramatic decline in population during the Valley, in southern Wales. Lendrum insisted trators, it turned out, were middle-aged men
fifties and sixties, largely because of the that he believed the eggs he’d pilfered were driven by a need that even they struggled to

01/02.19 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 75
understand. “Certain individuals just be- mon. And investigators believe Lendrum is National Park, dotted with the burial cairns
come obsessed with it,” McWilliam said in an essentially a highly specialized trapper—a of Bronze Age tribes. When we reached the
interview for the 2015 documentary Poached. daredevil with the skills to locate wild eggs top of the escarpment and got out of the car,
“It’s a self-obsessive, self-indulging crime. in the most inhospitable places on earth and I was nearly blown off my feet by a gust of
And why people risk going to prison for a travel thousands of miles across interna- wind. I righted myself and followed the two
bird’s egg, it just beats me.” tional borders to deliver his prizes. officers across a treeless meadow, sinking
Those crimes seem quaint next to the il- I spent more than a year on Lendrum’s to my knees in spongy tufts of grass. Bent
legal raptor trade in the Middle East, where trail, meeting acquaintances, family mem- against the gale, we arrived at the edge of
devotees of falconry—the age-old sport of bers, breeders, law-enforcement officials— the cliffs. The ground fell away sharply, ex-
hunting quarry with a trained bird of prey— and finally Lendrum himself. He insisted posing gray-black outcroppings divided into
pay dearly for rare birds. “These falcons are that his misdeeds have been grossly exag- steplike ledges sheltered from the wind: per-
worth a lot of money,” says Mark Jeter, a gerated. He told me that he’d only stolen live fect spots for peregrines to lay their eggs.
recently retired assistant chief at the Cali- eggs out of nests twice in his adult life, both “We’re at the end of the bloody world,”
fornia Department of Fish and Wildlife who times to rescue the unhatched chicks from shouted Guildford, a rangy, bespectacled
follows the trade. “I always say, If there is a grave danger. He claimed that he had never Londoner with tousled brown hair, who has
$50,000 bill flying around, someone is going traded with Arabs and that the actual prices lived in Wales for three decades. We walked
to try to catch it.” In 2013 in Doha, Qatar, for for birds of prey on both the legal and illegal around the edge of the cliffs to another over-
example, a man reportedly paid $250,000 on markets are so low that nobody could make look, this one providing a panoramic view
the legal market for a pure white gyrfalcon, a living smuggling eggs. of the entire escarpment. McWilliam and
the world’s largest raptor and a bird so prized “The way Andy McWilliam blew the Guildford scanned the sky with their binoc-
for its power and beauty that medieval kings whole thing out of proportion, and got the ulars, searching for peregrines, but weren’t
used to hunt with them. media involved, they might as well have able to spot any.
Demand in the Middle East is now mostly erected a gallows for me,” he said. But the During his interrogation of Lendrum in
fueled by the spread of falcon racing, a sport more I learned, the more Lendrum’s denials May 2010, McWilliam became increasingly
that puts a premium on larger, stronger, and failed to stand up to scrutiny. certain that he was covering up more than he
faster birds. But the Convention on Inter- admitted. Yet he also knew
national Trade in Endangered Species—to that, under British law, the
which the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and police could keep Lendrum
Saudi Arabia are signatories—bans the im- B e n e a t h Je f f r ey L e n d r u m ’s s h i r t , in custody for just 36 hours
port and export of peregrines and gyrfalcons, before charging or releasing
police discovered ribbons of surgical
and since 2002, the UAE has required falcons him. With the clock tick-
to travel with a passport proving their legal tape wound around his abdomen. ing, McWilliam searched
provenance. Because of these restrictions and Len drum’s baggage and
thanks to recent genetic advances, captive The tape encased three woolen socks located his Vauxhall sedan
breeding has become much more popular. in the airport’s long-term
Many enthusiasts in the Middle East, containing a total of 14 SMALLISH parking lot. He found cara-
however, still believe that wild birds are biners, ropes, GPS devices,
genetically superior, and unscrupulous fal- EGGS ranging in color from brick a satellite navigation unit
coners have spent hundreds of thousands that confirmed Lendrum’s
red to marbled brown.
for birds acquired by “trappers” in Siberia, movements in the Rhondda
Kamchatka, and other raptor-rich envi- Valley—and, most incrimi-
ronments. In 2005, for example, the illegal nating, an incubator that
smuggling of saker falcons from Central had been adapted to plug
Asia became so bad that the bird was de- THE PATH THAT led me to Jeffrey Lendrum into the car’s cigarette lighter.
clared endangered. By many accounts, the began at the central train station in Cardiff, Lendrum, he discovered, had roamed
UAE has cracked down; according to a 2018 Wales, when I met Ian Guildford, a Welsh in- these cliffs for days, armed with grid points
report on illegal wildlife trafficking by air vestigator with the National Wildlife Crime that narrowed the search zone, keeping an
transport, conducted by the nonprofit Cen- Unit, on a windy, unseasonably frigid May eye out for male falcons returning to their
ter for Advanced Defense Studies, the UAE morning. We followed a four-lane highway nests. “We tracked Lendrum’s vehicle,” Mc-
had the highest number of bird-trafficking north and picked up McWilliam at a Mc- William said, still shouting into the wind,
seizures between 2009 and 2017, with the Donald’s at a shopping center in Merthyr “and we were able to say that he’d been down
emirate of Dubai as the world’s most com- Tydfil. McWilliam is a stocky 61-year-old here in early April, three weeks before the
mon destination. with a square jaw and thinning silver hair. nests were robbed.” After locating the ledges
“It’s not something that they shout He hopped in the car and we drove on past where the females laid their eggs, Lendrum
about,” I was told by a leading breeder. “I’ve Aberdare, a coal-mining town sunk into ruin had picked four different aeries and stole
seen falcons come in when I was there last since the industry’s collapse in the 1960s. live eggs, according to his own admission to
time. They had been hooded, and they were Southwest of Aberdare, we switchbacked investigators. To pull off the theft, he would
in a horrible state. The trappers had driven up through denuded pale-green hills, cov- have had to set a fixed rope at the top of the
3,000 miles from Siberia with the birds. ered in places with netting to prevent land- escarpment and rappel down, scooping the
The Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and slides. Below us lay the stark and treeless eggs into an insulated bag as the peregrines
the Saudis are getting involved. The Saudis Rhondda Valley, carved by glaciers during flew off in terror.
make the Emirates look like beggars.” the Ice Age and bordered to the north by Lendrum’s trial was set for August 2010,
The smuggling of eggs is much less com- the red-sandstone peaks of Brecon Beacons and McWilliam used the summer to gather

76 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
A peregrine skill and not a little risk.” Yet many team
hatchling members eventually became suspicious
from one of of the Lendrums. They would report that
Lendrum’s
a chick had fledged, recalls Lorber, “and
eggs; left,
Lendrum in we would drive by and there was nothing
court in 2010 in the nest, and it didn’t look like it had
been touched for a year. There were lies,
inconsistencies. After a while, Val said to
me, ‘There is something going on.’ ”
In October 1983, police raided the Len-
drums’ home and discovered more than
800 eggs stashed in drawers, as well as live
peregrine eggs refrigerated into a state of
suspended development. Prosecutors
charged that many had been stolen from
nests inside Matobo. In court, witnesses
made allegations—never proven—that
Jeffrey Lendrum was selling live raptor
eggs on the black market. The Lendrums
insisted that they were only gathering
dead eggs for their collection.
Jeffrey’s mother, a schoolteacher, and
his younger sister and brother were not
more evidence. Prosecutors would detail in JEFFREY LENDRUM was born in 1961 in implicated in the scam. But after a three-
court how the detective located Lendrum’s what was then white-ruled Northern Rho- month trial, father and son were found guilty
locker in a Midlands storage facility, finding desia. (His grandfather was apparently Irish, of fraud and possession and theft of specially
more incubators (purchased on eBay before which enabled him to obtain an Irish pass- protected wildlife, fined thousands of dol-
his mission), a copy of a letter from Len- port.) The family soon moved to Bulawayo, lars, and given four-month suspended sen-
drum to the author of a newspaper account Southern Rhodesia, a bustling railway center tences. Adrian Lendrum was also ordered to
describing his arrest in Canada in 2002 for on the highveld, the vast grasslands cover- surrender his Toyota pickup truck, incuba-
stealing falcon eggs, and correspondence ing southern Africa. As the oldest of three tors, and egg collection. Shortly after, Jef-
concerning a 1980s scheme to smuggle eagle children, Jeffrey sometimes joined his fa- frey, now 23 and a pariah in his hometown,
eggs from southern Africa to a buyer in the ther, Adrian, a human-resources manager at left Bulawayo and resettled in South Africa.
United Kingdom. Dunlop Tires, on trips to nearby Matobo Na- Lendrum would say that he gave up egg
As McWilliam described to me, he played tional Park, a game-rich wilderness of gran- collecting once he settled in South Africa.
a DVD confiscated from Lendrum’s carry-on ite outcroppings with an unmatched con- For more than a decade, as the newly inde-
and watched as he dangled by a rope from a centration of raptors. From the age of eight, pendent country of Zimbabwe economically
helicopter over cliffside gyrfalcon nests, he earned a reputation as a nimble climber, disintegrated under President Mugabe, he
later found to be near Kuujjuaq, in Inuit ter- scrambling up trees and rock faces studded moved mining equipment and spare auto
ritory in northeastern Quebec. He pored over with bird’s nests. In the seventies and eight- parts into the country. Word got around—
laptop files that chronicled in minute detail ies, Matobo was the site of one of the world’s and would later be widely reported—that
a reconnaissance trip made to Sri Lanka in most ambitious ornithological field projects. he’d been a member of the Rhodesian Spe-
February 2010 in search of the eggs of the Run by a retired math teacher and bird en- cial Air Service, an elite unit during the civil
rare black shaheen peregrine falcon. “One thusiast named Valerie Gargett, the African war. But Lendrum’s name does not appear
F R O M L E F T: E X P R E S S N E W S PA P E R S ; 2 4 / 7 M E D I A / S H U T T E R S TO C K

seen flying off rock … good site with large Black Eagle Survey recruited volunteers to on any SAS rolls.
overhang, several places with droppings,” observe large Verreaux’s eagles, a protected Around 1998, a girlfriend introduced him
an observation read. “Military guarding el- species, through courtship, nesting, and in- to Paul Mullin, a British expat who worked
ephants in area and every time [you] step cubation, then watch the chicks fledge and for an American company building internet
[from] the car, they come out of the trees to venture out on their own. infrastructure in southern Africa. Mullin
ask what you are doing. Hard access to rock Invited to assist on that project, and later has since changed his name—for reasons
and military make this a no go.” to lead peripheral surveys of augur buzzards that will soon become clear—and now lives
Lendrum—or whoever had written the and African hawk-eagles, the Lendrums in Hampshire, in southern England. (At his
entries in his possession—had also cased gained access to hundreds of nesting sites request, Outside is identifying him by his
the international airport in Colombo. “A compiled by the Rhodesian Ornithologi- former name.)
few meters inside doors to departure area cal Society (now BirdLife Zimbabwe). For “We used to have coffee and a chat about
there is a security checkpoint consisting of nearly a decade, while guerrilla war raged Africa,” he told me. “Jeff would say, ‘Come up
a row of standard baggage X-ray units, walk- in the bush between the white-minority re- to Zimbabwe, we’ll go on safari.’ We started
through metal detector,” the file read. “The gime and black rebels led by Robert Mugabe, driving frequently to Bulawayo, Matobo, and
guy who patted me down was very good at father and son roamed the park together. “It Hwange National Park.” The pair became
it and had been well trained.” McWilliam’s was derring-do stuff,” says Pat Lorber, a business partners, traveling from Botswana
hunch, he believed, had been correct: he former Black Eagle Survey member. “They to Kenya buying tribal art and shipping it to
was in the presence of a sophisticated and would throw a claw into a tree and climb England, where they set up a couple of Af-
prolific wildlife criminal. up as high as they could. It required a lot of rican crafts shops that ultimately failed. But

01/02.19 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 77
the two men complemented one another Lendrum’s younger brother, Richard, cold-weather gear, power units, lights, cam-
well, Mullin says: “Jeff could speak the local echoed that sentiment. I met him in Johan- eras, a professional video recorder, GPS de-
lingo, he knew the areas, he knew how to nesburg during the South African summer. vices, climbing equipment, and mobile incu-
barter, and I had the money.” He’s a lean, tan outdoorsman who for years bators. For cover, they posed as filmmakers
has published the successful hunting and with the National Geographic Society.
THIS IS WHERE, Mullin alleges, their ad- conservation magazine Africa Hunting Ga- The pilot, when I later reached him, re-
ventures began. According to him, Lendrum zette. “We both love wildlife. It’s just that fused to talk. Lendrum himself admitted to
didn’t immediately reveal his more contro- Jeff has gone a slightly different way,” he said traveling to northern Canada with Mullin
versial activities. But by the early 2000s, with the trace of a smile. and the pilot, but he claims it was a sight-
Mullin claims, he began joining Lendrum on From the time they were boys in Rhode- seeing trip. Regardless, the trio flew 900
illegal trafficking journeys. sia, Richard said, he took little interest in miles north to Kuujjuaq, an Inuit village at
Here we should pause to state that Mullin the family egg collection, “turning a blind the northern edge of Quebec, choppering
and Lendrum are no longer friends. In 2008, deep into uninhabited wilderness. The pilot
eye,” as he put it, to Jeffrey’s activities in the
Lendrum took up romantically with Mullin’s parks. But he was close enough to believe hovered next to cliffs that towered above
ex, who’d recently had a child with Mullin. that, at some point, his brother went into lakes south of Ungava Bay. In Mullin’s video,
Lendrum and the woman are no longer to- illegal business with Middle Eastern buy- Lendrum can be seen coolly approaching a
gether, but the two men have spoken only a ers. “There are breeders who want these gyrfalcon nest by dangling from a fixed line
handful of times since. fastened to the helicopter,
Lendrum maintains that Mullin’s allega- and carrying an insulated
tions are lies born of that grudge. Regardless bag, presumably for eggs.
of his motives, however, Mullin does have “He knew he was GOING TO Mullin didn’t film any
evidence of their exploits—plane tickets, dia- actual snatches, but he
ries, notes, and video, including the one Mc- PRISON,” says Andy McWilliam, cla i m s t h at L end r u m
William watched in 2010—that clearly shows grabbed eggs from nests
Lendrum approaching falcon nests and the an investigator with the National as female gyrs anxiously
pair’s helicopter pilot laughingly describing circled nearby (another al-
W i l d l i f e C r i m e U n i t . “A n d w h e n
them as “fucking criminals.” legation that Lendrum dis-
According to Mullin, Lendrum frequently they said two and a half years, he putes). Over the course of a
offered a rationale for his work, arguing that week, Mullin estimates, the
the chicks would be better off being cared looked at me and shrugged. I think men raided 19 gyrfalcon
for by wealthy Arab falconers in a protected nests and gathered about a
environment than exposed to harsh condi- his attitude was you win some, you dozen live eggs, then flew
tions in the wild. “What is the mortality rate safely back to Montreal and
of a bird in the wilderness?” he would ask. l o s e s o m e.” on to Heathrow Airport.
(In fact, nearly 80 percent of Verreaux’s ea- “All the eggs were wrapped
gles, for example, die during their first year in socks and stashed in Jef-
in Matobo National Park, usually starving to frey’s carry-on, surrounded
death in the fierce battle for territory.) “Jeff birds from around the world, so they get by other material to keep the temperature
took those chicks and eggs and brought them intermediaries to do their dirty work for right,” Mullin says. “Jeff kept monitoring
to Dubai, where they have wildlife hospitals them,” he says. “It’s well-documented that the temperatures, making sure they were
better than human hospitals,” Mullin says. Jeff got caught.” Richard wasn’t certain still alive.” The pair parted ways at Heath-
He’s not far wrong: the Abu Dhabi Falcon when his brother began stealing eggs. He row, where, according to Mullin, Lendrum
Hospital treats more than 11,000 raptors first learned about it in 2002, he said, when flew on to Dubai. Lendrum says that all of
a year and boasts its own ophthalmology Jeff was arrested in Canada. this is “rubbish.”
wing and intensive care unit. Dubai’s lead- Like Waller, Richard believes that his older What’s not in dispute is that Lendrum and
ing falcon conservationist, Sheikh Butti bin brother was mostly in it for the thrill. “It’s Mullin returned to the Arctic a year later.
Maktoum bin Juma Al Maktoum, a nephew a high-adventure, high-adrenaline way of This time they hired a helicopter and a local
of ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid eking out a living,” he told me. “It’s just gone pilot in Kuujjuaq. Again they flew into the
Al Maktoum, has his own personal falcon a little wrong.” wilderness, but Lendrum had the pilot leave
breeder, Howard Waller, a leader in the field them at various cliff ledges and return every
who also happens to be from Bulawayo. OVER TIME, Lendrum’s missions became couple of hours to ferry them to new spots—
Because Waller has known Lendrum since increasingly audacious. In June 2001, Mullin a plan that raised the pilot’s suspicions. “Any
their school days together, he has long had says, he accompanied Lendrum on the first of wildlife photographer who’s serious would
to dodge accusations that he must be Len- two trips to snatch gyrfalcon eggs in Canada. ask to be dropped off at sunrise and picked
drum’s buyer. “It’s always assumed it’s me,” The massive raptor, whose plumage ranges up at sunset,” the pilot told me, request-
Waller said when I visited him in northern from gray to snowy white, dwells in the far ing anonymity to avoid further association
Scotland, where he is based much of the northern latitudes, laying its creamy pink with the caper. “Who in the hell keeps ask-
year, “and there’s nothing I can do about eggs, four or five to a clutch, in depressions ing me to go back to town?” He remembered
that. I can’t change my childhood. What I at the edge of cliffs. the pair from their trip the year before, and
can say is that we took different paths. My “It was a military-style operation,” Mul- now Mullin’s amateurishness with the cam-
path was falconry and breeding falcons, and lin told me. Lendrum recruited an old pilot era made him even more wary. “I’ve worked
his path was collecting eggs. It’s always been friend, and in Montreal the men loaded a with wildlife photographers a lot,” he said,
a thrill for Jeff. He likes to beat the system.” rented Bell 206 JetRanger helicopter with “but the guy in the back seat was just play-

78 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
ing with the camera.” The Rhondda Valley;
On their third day in the field, the detectives Ian Guildford
two men stumbled around for hours in (top left) and Andy
McWilliam (bottom
whiteout conditions. “We were freezing right); relocating the
to death,” Mullin says. “We got a total of stolen eggs to a nest in
seven eggs, and that was enough.” Scotland (bottom left)
The next afternoon, Mullin says,
brought disaster. “We were in our room
at the inn, shooting the shit, and then out
of the blue there’s a knock on the door. I
looked at Jeff. I said, ‘This is it.’ I opened
the door, and in rushed four guys from
provincial wildlife protection and the
Sûreté du Québec. They said, ‘Are you
Jeffrey Lendrum and Paul Mullin? You’re
under arrest.’ ” The authorities, who had
been tipped off by the pilot, seized the
eggs, as well as two incubators and the
rest of the men’s equipment. According
to law-enforcement sources, the men
were fined a total of $7,250 for six counts
related to illegal possession of wildlife.
This was when Mullin decided to
change his name, which had been pub-
lished in Canadian newspapers. He
ended his telecommunications gig in Af-
rica and moved home to southern Eng-
land. Lendrum went to England as well,
marrying a French-Algerian woman in
2002 and moving in with her and her two
teenage daughters in a quiet Northamp-
tonshire village. Mullin was best man at
their wedding.
The egg thief had—ostensibly—settled
down. But a few years later the marriage
C LO C K W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: A B B I E T R AY L E R - S M I T H / PA N O S P I C T U R E S ( 3 ) ; J A M E S L E O N A R D / R S P B

ended, and in 2008, Lendrum took up


with Mullin’s ex, triggering the bitter
falling-out between the longtime friends.

WHEN LENDRUM WAS busted in Bir-


mingham in 2010, he was dividing his
time between England and Johannes-
burg. That August, he pleaded guilty
to one count of theft of a protected species released nine months into his sentence, with tempt to go straight quickly encountered
and one count of attempting to export a the requirement that he remain in the United obstacles. Subscribers besieged a popular
protected species. “We had a chat before- Kingdom for another nine months. “He was online hunting forum, protesting the hir-
hand,” McWilliam recalls. “He knew he was staying somewhere down south in England, ing of a convicted wildlife criminal. Jeffrey
going to prison, and when they said two and he was quite bored, and he’d ring me up to begged readers to keep an open mind. “Ob-
a half years, he looked at me and shrugged. talk,” McWilliam recalls. “He might see viously, I am not perfect,” he wrote. “I was
I think his attitude was you win some, you something in the newspaper about elephant judged by a judge and paid the price.... Do
lose some.” ivory or call me about a parking ticket. He I have to keep paying? I am sincerely sorry.
At Hewell Prison in the Midlands, Len- talked about rhino horn and how regula- Is there no place in your thoughts to give a
drum was known by fellow inmates as the tors were going at it all wrong. I had a bit of criminal a chance after doing his time?” But
Bird Man. McWilliam visited him, hoping a rapport with him. I respected him without Lendrum’s note of contrition failed to stem
to gather intelligence about egg-smuggling wanting to condone what he did.” the steady pressure from Gazette subscribers
networks in Great Britain and the Middle Lendrum was 51 by the time he completed and advertisers, and in 2014, his brother had
East, but Lendrum would surrender no in- his parole in 2012. He headed back to South to cut him loose.
formation, insisting again that his operation Africa, chastened and determined to make It was perhaps inevitable that Lendrum
in the Rhondda Valley had been a one-off. amends. His brother helped him get back would be drawn back to the aeries. In Octo-
Nonetheless, the two men continued on his feet, giving him a job as a columnist ber 2015, he traveled to southern Chile, reg-
talking, in phone calls that Lendrum would for Africa Hunting Gazette, verifying hunt- istering under his own name at a hotel in
make to the investigator every few months ing lodges’ claims about how much game Punta Arenas, in Patagonia, and carrying
from prison, and then on parole after he was they had on offer. But the Bird Man’s at- his usual array of incubators and climbing

01/02.19 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 79
equipment. This time, however, a suspicious called back a few days later, he told me that ing to get better,” he told me. “I haven’t been
clerk had done a Google search and turned he had just been diagnosed with prostate well at all.”
up articles about his arrests. He alerted cancer. “It’s a bad deal,” he said. He didn’t Sitting across from me in a booth, sipping
Chilean authorities that Lendrum was fly- feel up for talking further. a cappuccino, Lendrum maintained again
ing out of South America via São Paulo, and Seven months later, I flew to Johannes- that, with rare exceptions, he had taken only
the trap was set. On October 21, in a bizarre burg on assignment and decided to seek out addled (meaning dead) eggs and said that it
echo of his arrest five years earlier, Brazilian Lendrum one last time. Through friends of made no sense that he would smuggle live fal-
police detained Lendrum in the Emirates his family, I learned that his life had con- con eggs for profit. “There’s no money in it,”
Airlines lounge in São Paulo as he waited tinued to spiral down. He was unemployed he told me. “Listen, if falcon eggs were worth,
for a flight to Dubai. According to Brazilian and living alone in a small rented home near say, $20,000, I’d have a Bell 407 helicopter
court records, he was carrying an incubator Pretoria. Radiation treatment had weakened parked outside, OK? To me it’s nonsensical.”
containing four eggs of a rare peregrine that him, and he’d also been badly injured in a car He characterized his 2001 trip to northern
lives in Tierra del Fuego. accident in Johannesburg. Whatever money Canada as an innocent adventure. “It’s the
“I don’t know how it happened or what he might have made smuggling falcon eggs most beautiful place in the world,” he said.
was involved. It took us all by surprise,” says had been spent long ago. “In a week, it changed from a place where
Richard, who surmised that his brother’s “He’s got a very tough life,” Richard told you could land your helicopter on the lakes
lack of legitimate employment drove him to me when I met him at a coffee shop in north- to greenness and bears and all the rest of it. If
return to his old ways. ern Johannesburg. “Nothing great at all.” you had come out with me, you would have
As it turned out, Lendrum had one more had such good fun.” Len-
trick up his sleeve. The court sentenced him drum admitted that he’d
to four and a half years in prison for theft and raided gyrfalcon nests, but
smuggling, but his lawyer persuaded the Lendrum shook my hand and slowly only to retrieve dead eggs
judge to release him on bail pending appeal. for research. He had no ex-
Lendrum surrendered his Irish passport. m o v e d o f f. T h e n , b e f o r e d i s a p p e a r i n g planation for why he was
Then the egg thief slipped out of Brazil and traveling with an incubator.
a r o u n d t h e c o r n e r, h e t u r n e d a n d
dropped from sight. “I thought to myself, I’m
hit me with a mock proposition. “Do going there to check and see
IN MAY 2017, shortly after my trip to Wales, I which eggs are addled, and
reached out to Mullin for help tracking Len- you want to STEAL SOME EGGS to take the infertile ones to
drum down. Their mutual friends thought a Montreal museum,” he
that he had resurfaced in South Africa, S O M E T I M E ? ” he asked, grinning. said. “I thought maybe I’d
which has no extradition treaty with Bra- expose something like the
zil, and was holed up at his sister’s house in DDT problem that hap-
Cape Town. Mullin gave me a cell number. pened with peregrines in
I reached Lendrum on the first try, identi- Richard doubted that he would talk to me. the 1960s.” But his arrest—a misunder-
fying myself as a journalist who had just spent His brother had ambitions to write a book, standing, he said—forced him to abandon
a day with McWilliam in the Rhondda Val- he said, and didn’t want to give away his his plans. Likewise, he claimed, his nest-
ley in Wales. He was wary, defensive. “Andy trade secrets—or betray his powerful clients. raiding trip to Wales nine years later had
McWilliam is telling people that I was selling been a conservation mission.
birds for a fortune,” he said in a pronounced TWO HOURS LATER I got Jeffrey Lendrum The South American escapade was an-
southern African accent. “Everybody writes on the phone, and he suggested we meet other well-intentioned lark gone wrong.
absolute rubbish about me. The whole media south of Pretoria at the Forest Hill City Mall Lendrum said that he’d been going down to
has portrayed me as the Pablo Escobar of the in Centurion—a town formerly known as Chile on a regular basis—six visits in a de-
falcon-egg trade. Now I can understand why Verwoerdberg, after Hendrik Verwoerd, cade—drawn by some of the most bountiful
Trump calls it the fake media.” the architect of apartheid. An Uber drove and varied birdlife on the planet. “Magel-
Lendrum insisted he had nothing to do me across the parched plains of the high- lans, oystercatchers, flamingos, peregrines—
with the Arab falcon trade. “I must have veld, past farms and tin-roofed shacks, to a it’s incredible,” he said. On this trip, as with
climbed to a thousand nests and found an giant shopping complex near a highway in- the others, he flew to Punta Arenas and drove
egg failure rate of 45 percent,” he told me. “I terchange. I made my way, as Lendrum had to the tip of the continent, where he climbed
collected nothing but rotten eggs in Matobo, directed, to an Ocean Basket seafood restau- inside volcanoes and rappelled down cliff
but that was used in evidence against me in rant overlooking an indoor ice-skating rink. faces to inspect some 18 peregrine nests.
England.” McWilliam, he insisted, had blown He walked up to me minutes later, stuck out He admitted raiding one nest of live eggs—
the case out of proportion to inflate the im- his hand, and introduced himself. but only because the “female peregrine had
portance of the National Wildlife Crime “You probably recognized me from my died,” he said. “I took four eggs out of the
Unit. “Andy said to me, ‘Your case was like photos,” he said affably. nest,” he told me. “I honestly didn’t think
manna from heaven for us,’ ” Lendrum said Lendrum’s receding hairline, black- that there would be a problem, maybe just
(a quote McWilliam roundly denies). “Soon framed glasses, and striped button-down a fine. I really wanted to get those birds into
after my trial, a law-enforcement officer shirt, hanging loosely over a pair of khaki greater kestrel nests in South Africa.”
was caught with an egg collection and got a shorts, made him look more like a clerk in a The escape from Brazil was relatively easy,
14-week suspended sentence. I got two and sporting-goods store than a daredevil ad- he said. He traveled south to the country’s
a half years in prison. How unfair is that?” venturer. But he was tanner and healthier border with Argentina, then walked through
I asked Lendrum if I could visit him, and looking than I expected. the jungle for a day, carrying a GPS and a
he said he would consider it. But when I “I haven’t been doing anything, just try- backpack full of food and water, evading pa-

80 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
trols. He said he got a new passport from A gyrfalcon in the
the Irish embassy and flew back to Jo- Canadian Arctic;
hannesburg. (His Brazilian lawyer, Rod- right, McWilliam
scanning the
rigo Tomei, cast doubt on that account,
Rhondda cliffs
saying that it’s more likely his former cli-
ent simply grabbed a bus across the bor-
der and flew home on his South African
passport. “Nobody was looking for him
at the time,” he said.)
Lendrum told his story persuasively,
looking me straight in the eye and leaving
me to wonder, for a few moments at least,
whether he had been wrongly judged. But
many elements of his account were con-
tradicted by the facts: the eggs seized in
Quebec were live eggs, not addled, and
he had no explanation for the incubators
that the police had confiscated. He was
flying to Dubai with those Patagonian fal-
con eggs, not to South Africa to get them
into kestrel nests.
At one point in our conversation, out
of the blue, Lendrum did make a startling
assertion. “Look, I was asked to steal live
eggs,” he said. “And I said it’s 99 percent
unlikely that it would work. The length of THAT, I THOUGHT, would be the last I’d see Astbury, had told me that his client intended
time the eggs would be out of the nest, keep- of Jeffrey Lendrum. to plead not guilty. But a jury trial would be a
ing them warm, keeping them on me—it’s I was wrong. Six months later, on June 29, huge risk and could result in a far tougher jail
just too long. A lot of people have asked me. the UK’s Home Office issued a press release: sentence—up to seven years—than a plea bar-
In my book I will expose a lot of people.” “Rare Bird Eggs Importation Prevented by gain would. Did he really think he could get
As our meeting wound down, I found my- Border Force at Heathrow.” A passenger away with it? Astbury wouldn’t comment.
self wondering why Lendrum had agreed to from South Africa identified as a 56-year- At Isleworth Crown Court, in a drab Lon-
talk to me at all. Perhaps he reasoned I al- old Irish national had aroused the suspi- don suburb a few miles from Heathrow, I sat
ready knew so much about his life that his cion of customs agents, who’d stopped him, in the empty public gallery of a tiny second-
only recourse was to bombard me with alter- searched him, and discovered 19 eggs from floor courtroom, waiting for Lendrum to ap-
nate facts. Maybe he hoped he could charm protected birds of prey—reportedly African pear. I knew from Astbury that Lendrum had
me into believing that all his convictions fish eagles and black sparrow hawks, as well no interest in talking to me. But I hoped to
were bogus. But the weight of the evidence as two newly hatched vulture chicks—in a make eye contact at least.
was overwhelming. customized belt hidden beneath his cloth- It wasn’t to be. Court officers escorted
Still, Lendrum struck me as a tragic figure ing. Under British policy, a suspect is not Lendrum from a holding cell to a bulletproof
F R O M L E F T: M I C H E L L E VA L B E R G / G E T T Y; A B B I E T R AY L E R - S M I T H / PA N O S P I C T U R E S

in some ways. A wildlife lover, ornithologi- identified until he is charged in court, but I booth at the rear of the courtroom, com-
cal expert, and master outdoorsman, he had had little doubt who it was. pletely out of sight of the gallery. I heard his
followed a twisted path, driven by his mis- Sure enough, a month later, British news- disembodied voice—faint, downcast—say
placed obsessions and the thrill of the chase. papers reported that Jeffrey Lendrum had “I’m not guilty.” When I stood and craned
Now, despised by conservationists, deserted been arraigned near Heathrow and charged my neck in an attempt to get a look at him, a
by friends, broke, and sick, he had lost al- with three counts of fraudulently evad- court officer motioned furiously for me to sit
most everything. ing prohibition—i.e., importing protected back down. Lendrum’s solicitor promised to
I asked Lendrum if he envisioned return- wildlife—then packed off to the Dicken- provide the judge with records about his cli-
ing to a life of egg-hunting adventures. “I’m sian-sounding Wormwood Scrubs Prison ent’s ongoing cancer treatment to expedite
getting too old for it,” he replied, a little in London to await a plea hearing in August. a request for bail. Then his trial was set for
wistfully. The prostate cancer had depleted The details from the court appearance were January 7, 2019.
his energy, and the car accident had dam- skimpy—Lendrum’s defense had reportedly Lendrum was taken out of the courtroom
aged the nerves in his neck and limbs. “I can argued before the judge that his client was and put in a van back to Wormwood Scrubs
barely raise my arms,” he said. on his way to declare the eggs and chicks to await the latest gamble of his risk-filled
Lendrum shook my hand and slowly stashed in his hidden belt before he was in- life. Given his record of the past few years, it
moved off. Then, before disappearing around tercepted—and I had a wealth of questions was a bet he seemed destined to lose. O
the corner, he turned and hit me with a mock that, for the moment, couldn’t be answered.
proposition. “Do you want to steal some eggs How had he procured the eggs? Who was CONTRIBUTING EDITOR JOSHUA
sometime?” he asked, grinning. “We’ll go he delivering them to? Why had the Border HAMMER ( @JOSHUAIVESHAMME)
into the Rhondda Valley and see how many Force stopped him? And, most of all, what IS A LONGTIME FOREIGN CORRE-
peregrines we can get—right under Andy the hell was he thinking? SPONDENT AND THE AUTHOR, MOST
McWilliam’s nose. You do the climbing. I flew up to London for Lendrum’s pretrial RECENTLY, OF THE BADASS LIBRAR-
We’ll make millions.” hearing on August 23. His attorney, Keith IANS OF TIMBUKTU.

01/02.19 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 81
KURDISTAN continued from page 61

Kurdish men
at the funeral
of land-mine
victim Haidar
Shwan

more than 45 percent of the PKK’s ranks, from


foot soldiers to commanders. Cruising along,
we pass giant billboards that show photo-
graphs of female guerrillas who were killed
in battle against the Islamic State, draped in
ammo belts and thick hair braids. Some are
buried in the martyrs’ cemetery, where the
rows of gravestones are lined with roses and
grouped according to the battles they were in: Packs of men file in from the darkness and soldiers within firing range, he always brings
Sinjar, Al Hasakah, Kobani. The museum that gather around the grave, murmuring, until the gun. “It’s like having 50 men with you,”
stood here at the time of Nabil’s last visit is the crowd numbers more than 400. A few he explains.
now just a hole in the ground. An unexploded shed tears, but most remain stoic, partaking I ask how he knows where to step. “I know
bomb rests in the adjacent crater. in a ritual of shared grief that has affected because I’ve been walking in these hills since
Near the end of the valley, Zagros stops at families in Choman as far back as they can I was a boy,” he says. “Here is OK, but there
a Kurdish nomad camp. We spread out on remember. They’ve all been here before, and and there,” he adds, tracing lines with his
a tattered kilim in the shade of a tree, and they will be here again. hand that I can’t begin to see, “are not OK.”
a woman with facial tattoos brings us a pot The casket is lowered and spades are The mind starts to play its games. My time
of hot tea and sugar cubes. Her sons are out handed out. Young men take turns furiously in Kurdistan has shown me that even con-
grazing their flocks on meadows that run up shoveling dirt into the hole, as though Hai- fident, in-the-know locals have their blind
the valley’s ridges. Moving with the seasons, dar’s safe passage to heaven depended on spots, and missteps can be fatal. I’ve also
living off the land, they are the embodiment their speed. Five hours after he was killed, come to understand that the Kurds’ nature-
of an ideal Zagros is ready to die for. For now he’s underground. The imam offers a prayer, loving ways are inseparable from the threats
the air trills with birdsong, rent by the barks and everyone goes home. that seed and surround their homeland. Liv-
of fighting mastiffs. The mountains brim Our last day in the mountains is May Day, ing at danger’s edge has a way of magnify-
with life. and for Kurds that means picnics. Nabil, ing the essential. And in the moment, these
Balazs, and I take the valley road out of haunted mountains sharpen my senses,
THEY ALSO take it. Choman toward the Iranian border, until quicken my pulse, and whisper vast pos-
The explosion echoes across the val- the pavement ends. We park by a stream too sibilities to be explored. The old expression
ley late in the afternoon, when demining fast to ford, and a group of friends from Erbil “Kurds have no friends but the mountains”
teams around Choman are no longer work- wave us over to their fire for chicken skew- has a new layer of meaning.
ing. Bakhtyar, Nabil, Balazs, and I are on a ers and fermented goat’s milk. We eat our fill I take in the breeze and exhale. I’ll just fol-
ridge outside of town, photographing the and talk about why the U.S., staunch ally of low the policeman’s tracks. And try to think
mountains, and it’s close enough to startle the Kurds since the Saddam era, didn’t back of mushrooms. O
us. Bakhtyar texts around and learns that a last year’s ill-fated independence bid, con-
local man named Haidar Shwan accidentally sidering all the social and economic prog- JASON MOTLAGH ( @JASONMOTLAGH)
set off a mine near the Grmandil Mountains, ress and stability that Iraqi Kurdistan has WROTE ABOUT THE AFGHAN SPORT OF
one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Iran- achieved compared with the rest of Iraq. I BUZKASHI IN NOVEMBER 2017.
Iraq War. He was blown to pieces. don’t have a good answer.
Under a full moon, we drive up to a cem- As we get up to leave, one man warns
Volume XLIV, Number 1. OUTSIDE (ISSN 0278-1433) is
etery overlooking town. A single streetlamp half-jokingly: “Don’t walk too close to published monthly except for combined issues Jan/Feb,
lights a backhoe digging Haidar’s grave, a Iran.” We hike across a moraine and crest a Mar/Apr, Jul/Aug, and Sep/Oct for a total of 8 times per
reminder that nighttime burials are not un- small ridge to find a potbellied man in pan- year, by Mariah Media Network LLC, 400 Market St.,
Santa Fe, NM 87501. Periodical postage paid at Santa Fe,
common. I meet the victim’s brother, who taloons bent over, staring at the ground, an
NM, and additional mailing offices. Canadian Goods and
shows me a picture of Haidar: soldier, father AK-47 strapped to his back. Kayvan Ezzat, a Services Tax Registration No. R126291723. Canada Post
of four, and the sixth member of his family 37-year-old policeman, is mushroom hunt- International Publications Mail Sales Agreement No.
killed by a land mine. He suspects Haidar ing and invites us to tag along. “I’m fat, but 40015979. Subscription rates: U.S. and possessions, $24;
Canada, $35 (includes GST); foreign, $45. Washington
was taking the mine apart for the gunpow- I can climb the mountains all day,” he says residents add sales tax. POSTMASTER: Send U.S. and
der, which sells for $45 a pound on the black with a toothy grin. “Walking out here will international address changes to OUTSIDE, P.O. Box 6228,
market. “It was one of his hobbies,” the make all your troubles go away.” Though Harlan, IA 51593-1728. Send Canadian address changes
brother says. with wild animals around and hostile Iranian to OUTSIDE, P.O. Box 877 Stn Main, Markham, ON L3P-9Z9.

82 O U T S I D E M A G A Z I N E 01/02.19
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