Home All writing Essays Feautres Gear Profiles, News, and How-to's

Essays


The Snowboarder's Journal •

Trees, Baby

I hadn’t been on my board for years, but when my then 6-year-old son Sam said he wanted to learn how to ride, I quickly answered: “I can teach you.”
I’d been a Level I instructor at Homewood Mountain Resort on the West Shore of Lake Tahoe in my mid-20s. But when I moved to Boulder, CO, when I was 29, I was neck-deep in endurance sports and didn’t want to pay for a ski pass. I spent weekends racing on snowshoes and learning to skate ski. I married a rock climber. We had kids....
Outside •

For Outdoor Moms, a Group Adventure Is Unlike Any Other Trip

During a recent weekend, four mom friends and I gathered at the base of Colorado’s Winter Park Ski Resort, while our respective families were back home. My friends and I giddily skinned into the woods and ended up climbing over 2,000 feet, sharing snacks and sweating profusely, en route to a lunch spot. After a beer at the lodge, and some conversation you can only have with your girlfriends—sorry, husbands—we rode the slopes for a couple hours before a night of doing a puzzle in our sweats and l...
Yoga Journal •

What Happens When a Runner Does Power Yoga Every Day?

There’s a reason I don’t believe in running streaks. As in, committing to putting on my running shoes and heading out every single day for a certain number of days or months regardless of what it takes to keep the streak going. It just isn’t right for me and my body.
A streak means ignoring aches, pains, cravings for different physical movements, or, at times, no movement at all. I credit listening to my body and carefully heeding what it’s telling me for my longevity in terms of being able to r...
Outside Online •

Forget Roses. This Is What Your Outdoorsy Partner Really Wants for Valentine’s Day.

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today.
Forget roses. I don’t need chocolate. And the last thing I want to do for Valentine’s Day is go out to an overpriced prix fixe dinner. What I want for Valentine’s Day, and what I think is the most valuable gift from one partner to another, is to spend quality time together in the great outdoors. Time out...
Outside Online •

6 Ways to Carry Your Phone on a Run

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
I’m somewhat baffled when I see people running with a phone in their hand. I get why you want your phone with you: for safety, for taking spontaneous photos, for emergency calls from loved ones. But awkwardly gripping a sweaty phone during a run is hard work (tightens your muscles and throws off your b...
Outside Online •

Fanny Packs Are Back and I’m On Board, Sort Of

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve been wearing a fanny pack lately. And not ironically, as part of a retro costume with roller skates, leg warmers, or a boom box on my shoulder.
I’d been seeing them on the streets and trails for a while, but I had successfully fought the resurgence of the 1980s...
Outside Online •

The Best Thing You Can Do at the Beach, and Three Smart Things You Can Do for the Beach

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
Growing up in San Diego, I used to beachcomb with my mom. We’d walk slowly, staring down at the sand at our feet with the sound of waves and seabirds in the background, looking for sand dollars and interestingly shaped shells. It was calming. Mesmerizing. We’d lose track of time.
So when I found myself...
Outside Online •

The Best Thing You Can Do at the Beach, and Three Smart Things You Can Do for the Beach

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
Growing up in San Diego, I used to beachcomb with my mom. We’d walk slowly, staring down at the sand at our feet with the sound of waves and seabirds in the background, looking for sand dollars and interestingly shaped shells. It was calming. Mesmerizing. We’d lose track of time.
So when I found myself...
Trail Runner Magazine •

Why Dogs Are the Best Trail Running Partners

My dog and I have the same needs: slow morning walks, just taking in our surroundings. Running on trails with wild abandon. Jumping in mountain lakes and wallowing in bubbling streams. Lying in the sun like a bum. We both love being outside in the sights, sounds, and smells of nature, and we enjoy each other’s company—steadfast support and shared appreciation for each other. For those reasons and more, my nine-year-old yellow lab named Lulu is my favorite trail running partner. (Sorry, regular h...

Keeping Pace - Patagonia Stories

All photos by Brendan Davis
Tom’s body had been seizing up for hours when he first went down. He was around 85 miles into the 2001 Western States 100-mile endurance run; I’d been running with him for about the last 20. After more than 24 hours on the trail, his muscles had tightened up so much that he listed to the left. Every time he hit a rock, root or rut that challenged his footing, his balance would falter. He’d fall over. I’d pick him up and pull on his right arm, tugging it downward towar...
Outside Online •

My New Splitboard Sometimes Frightens and Frustrates Me—That’s One Reason I Love It

It is fairly terrifying to trust a strip of fuzzy fabric to keep you from careening backwards down a steep, snowy ski hill while trying to climb up it. That fuzz’s friction is all I could think about the first time I splitboarded up Steamboat, Colorado’s blue runs at seven a.m. while my family was still nestled in their beds in the condo nearby. I had only ever splitboarded once before on demo gear, so I was putting a lot of faith in my new Pomoca Free Pro 2.0 skins affixed to the bottom of my 2
Outside Online •

I Own Expensive Skate Skis. Here’s Why I Still Reach for My Old Beaters.

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app .

The year I moved from beachy San Diego to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, Colorado, I decided to learn how to skate ski. All the endurance athletes around here are doing it, I thought, and I considered myself among that crew. I rented a pair of slightly banged up Fischer SCS demo skis from the local outdoor shop and headed to North Boulder Park, where, graciou
Outside Online •

Why My Favorite Strength-Training Equipment Is a Backpack Made for Distance Running

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app .

Two years ago during one autumn week, I carried a load of food, water, a change of clothes, and some recovery slides on my back while running the Appalachian Trail between huts for four days. As one would expect, I worried how my body would hold up under the added weight. By the end of the trip, however, I felt stronger than I had when we’d begun.

Back at home in Boulder, Col
Outside Online •

This Obscure Piece of Gear Made Me (a SoCal Gal) Fall in Love with Winter

In my late-20s, I moved from San Francisco into a ski-lease cabin on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe with just my yellow lab, Hannah. I’d left the comfort of roommates and city life for a quieter existence that better-suited my inner mountain girl (who had yet to fully emerge from my Southern California upbringing and post-college urbanite self). I—we—lived alone most of the time, though there was no telling when one or more of 16 lease-mates might drive up from the city to stay a night or two (or
Backpacker •

Take Your Kid for A Hike—Any Hike

I’ve been to Honolulu numerous times: as a kid with my parents (my Korean-born dad loved vacationing on Waikiki Beach, I think mostly for the readily available Asian food), for high school and college volleyball tournaments, and as an adult. But I’ve never hiked to the top of the iconic mountain that sits at the end of Waikiki, the one in all the postcards.

Of all the hikes on the island of Oahu—many through bamboo forests and to waterfalls—the .8-mile, mostly paved trail up Diamond Head has al
Outside Online •

My First Kiss at a Campfire Actually Taught Me a Lot About Life

I had my first kiss—not a Spin-the-Bottle peck, or a Truth-or-Dare mini-smooch—in front of a campfire. Unfortunately, it was also in front of about 100 other summer campers, and a handful of camp directors who didn’t appreciate the PDA. And it was hardly a show of genuine affection. Rather, I’d been sitting on a log next to a really cute guy who liked my friend; I knew she didn’t like him, so I figured he was fair game.

I decided to flirt with him—I’ll call him “John,” because that was his name
Trail Runner Magazine •

How Running To Water Can Jumpstart Your Sense of Adventure

My friend Sara and I thought we were so clever naming our Strava trail run “Poolgrimage.” I thought of the name in the first mile of our run of the Mesa Trail out of Chautauqua Park in Boulder, Colorado, because I was carrying a bikini in my hydration pack and we were on a one-way pilgrimage to the Eldorado Springs Pool, 6.7 miles from where we started.

It’s not necessarily an epic run, but running one-way to something, anything, felt more adventurous than our regular runs—loops on Mount Sanita
Trail Runner Magazine •

I’m Hypermobile, and Trail Running Helps Me

There were years—decades, really—where I thought that, surely, someday I’d be told there was a reason why my body hurt so badly. “These pains can’t be normal,” I held in the back of my mind as I trained for the Los Angeles Marathon during my senior year of college. Distance running was new to me, but the stabbing pain in my back and hip didn’t seem like something all runners feel.

At 33, after years of managing weird injuries of all sorts through running, triathlon, volleyball playing, and adve
Outside Online •

Running from My Father’s War

Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app .

I inherited my father’s almond-shaped eyes, his tawny Korean skin tone, and legs that are stronger than they look. I also mirror certain parts of his personality, like his fierce competitiveness mixed with sappy sentimentalism, a deep obsession with sports, and, unfortunately, a propensity for anxiety. Up until a few years ago, I thought the traits he passed on to me stop

Moving Through Grief, Joy, and Everything Else in the Indian Peaks

Between 320 and 280 million years ago, what’s known as the Ancestral Rocky Mountains formed as what are now the continents of Africa and North America were merging together. Over time, leftover sedimentary rock eroded and a geologic event known as the Laramide Orogeny, which took place between 70 and 45 million years ago, created what we see as the Rocky Mountain range. Today’s Rocky Mountain range spans roughly 3,000 miles in length from northern Alberta Canada to New Mexico. The range juts acr
Elevation Outdoors Magazine •

New Tricks

This is what happens when one rusty—but determined—snowboarder tries to get rad with her son and husband at a Woodward Copper private lesson.

Back in the day, I happily followed ripper friends around Lake Tahoe resorts and attempted little tricks like 180s and hucking off tabletops. I even taught snowboarding at Homewood Mountain Resort part-time during one of the three winters I lived on the North Shore of the lake (cue the joke about the difference between a beginning snowboarder and a snowbo
Women's Running •

Why I Need Adventure

I sort of always have. As a kid in North County San Diego, I’d explore the canyons around our house, cracking open rocks to look for fossils and building dams in gutters after a rain. As a young adult, I found adventure racing, and spent a number of years traipsing about on foot, bike, kayak, etc., often through the night and for days on end, with a map and compass to guide the way.

And now, as a working mother of two in my 40s, adventure most often takes the form of trail runs in the mountains
Backpacker •

Why I Take My Colorado-Raised Kids to the Ocean

Unlike most of my outdoorsy peers, I didn’t grow up backpacking, or camping, or even hiking. Instead, my childhood involved long days on the beach in California, building sand castles with my dad, dunking under waves, and playing beach volleyball. The first passenger in my beat-up 1975 Chevy Monza when I got my driver’s license was my dog, Kimba; I’d promised I’d take him to the beach as soon as I could drive. He stuck his head far out the window, wagging his tail as he sniffed at the smell of s