Outside Podcast

In the past couple of years, South Carolina–based writer Latria Graham has published a pair of essays in Outside magazine about the challenges that Black people face in the outdoors. Both stories generated a great deal of attention to this matter and also spurred a number of readers to write to her to ask questions, as well as share their own personal experiences. For Graham, one category of letters proved to be a heavy burden: those from people of color asking her advice on where they could be safe and welcome in outdoor spaces. Unsure of how to respond, she said nothing for a long time. But after many months of reckoning with the national movement for racial justice in America, she was ready to give her answer. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by L.L. Bean, your source for ready-for-anything outerwear this winter. Outside podcast listeners get $10 off online purchases of $75 or more between November 11 and December 6, 2020. Go to llbean.com and enter the promo code OUTSIDE at checkout.

It wasn’t all that long ago that protecting the environment was an issue considered to be above partisanship. In 1970, it was Richard Nixon who announced the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency and signed the Clean Air Act into law. So how did the environment become one of the most divisive issues in American politics? The answer is a fight over trees. In the 1990s, a fierce confrontation in the Pacific Northwest pitted loggers against activists and scientists trying to defend ancient forests. As it escalated into a national debate, it created new battle lines that would define decades of conflicts over everything from fracking to climate change. In this first episode of the new podcast series Timber Wars, journalist Aaron Scott of Oregon Public Broadcasting explains how it all got started—and why we’re still having the same fight in 2020.   This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Bose, maker of the new Bose Frames Tempo, high-performance sports sunglasses that deliver high quality audio. It’s the sound you expect from Bose with everything you need from sport sunglasses. Learn more about how they can elevate your running and cycling at bose.com.

For many years, Jeremy Jones had a simple job: he was the king of freeride snowboarding, traveling the planet to carve lines down jagged peaks for action films. But then he began to notice changes in the mountains he was visiting: less snow, shrinking glaciers, and other signs that matched what scientists were saying about the growing menace of climate change. After struggling for a way to respond, he founded an organization to do something about it, Protect Our Winters. Over the past 13 years, POW has become an influential force in the outdoor industry and on Capitol Hill, arguing that rising global temperatures will decimate snow sports, which pump tens of billions of dollars into the U.S. economy. Now, in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Jones and POW are hoping to unleash the political might of what they call the Outdoor State, the 50 million Americans united by a shared passion for our natural playgrounds, energizing them to vote on behalf of the climate. This episode of the Outside podcast is brought to you by Whoop, the fitness tracker that gets you training smarter by giving you feedback on every moment of your day. For a limited time, Outside Podcast listeners get 15 percent off a membership; just enter the code OUTSIDE at checkout.

To become an elite climber, you need to get very good at defying gravity. This requires developing extraordinary control of your body while also maximizing your strength to weight ratio. To do that, you train constantly and also pay attention to your diet. At the upper echelons of the sport, where every move counts, there’s pressure on athletes to do all they can to make themselves stronger, while also getting smaller and lighter. For professional climbers Kai Lightner and Beth Rodden, that pressure led them both to develop eating disorders. Rodden was a major figure in traditional climbing in the early 2000s, when she helped push the discipline forward. Lightner is a top sport climber who’s currently active in competitions. But while they come from different eras, they faced similar challenges. Both of them recently wrote essays for Outside about their hard times and their recovery. In this episode, they open up about their journeys and talk about the need to change damaging beliefs about weight and food that are deeply embedded in the culture of the sport. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Bose, maker of the new Bose Frames Tempo, high-performance sports sunglasses that deliver high quality audio. It’s the sound you expect from Bose with everything you need from sport sunglasses. Learn more about how they can elevate your running and cycling at bose.com.

One of the defining aspects of modern life is our inability to hear the sounds of nature due to noise pollution. But since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, people across the world have remarked that they’re hearing birds and other creatures more clearly than ever before. This includes professional listeners like Chris Watson, the legendary field recordist who for decades has captured the sounds of wildlife heard in David Attenborough’s films, including The Green Planet, which will premier in 2022. As Watson points out, the moment noise pollution stops, the problem goes away. But this period of relative global silence we’re experiencing right now is temporary, and something we should all take advantage of. “Most of our time, in much of our lives, we spend time blocking out sound simply to get through the day,” he says. But if we open our ears, “We can easily train ourselves to be good listeners.” This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Feetures, socks that help you perform at your best. See for yourself why Feetures has become the number one running sock in America. Outside Podcast listeners receive $10 off your first pair. Go to feetures.com and enter the code “outside” at checkout.

Of all the people who might end up on a deer hunt in Arizona, Rachel Levin has to be among the least likely candidates. Growing up, her closest connection to hunting was Elmer Fudd cartoons. Today she’s a food writer in San Francisco, where she knows just one person who hunts. But like a lot of food obsessives, Rachel was often curious about how the meat on her plate got there. Earlier this year, she got a chance to find out when she joined a bow hunt for mule deer with two rising stars of huntstagram, the social media sphere dedicated to all things hunting. Rihana Cary and Amanda Caldwell are part of a growing group of women hunters with large followings on Instagram, which they use to broadcast live from the field to their audiences. In this episode, Rachel recounts her surprising trip, discusses evolving attitudes on who can be a hunter, and explains why she can’t wait to go again. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by L.L. Bean, your source for ready-for-anything outerwear this winter. Visit llbean.com to shop winter gear now, find a store near you, or check out their online guides to a number of outdoor activities. L.L. Bean, be an Outsider. 

You’ve been breathing wrong your whole life. That’s the message journalist and outdoor athlete James Nestor delivers in his new bestseller Breath, which explains how the human species has lost the ability to breathe properly and why this is so bad for our health in all kinds of ways. But his reporting also shows that with minor adjustments in how we inhale and exhale, we can dramatically improve on everything from the quality of our sleep to our athletic performance to our posture. Nestor, whose interest in breathing began when he wrote a feature for Outside on the sport of freediving, talks with editor Christopher Keyes about his years-long investigation into the history and science of human breathing, and his own journey to becoming a better breather. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Feetures, socks that help you perform at your best. See for yourself why Feetures has become the number one running sock in America. Outside Podcast listeners receive $10 off your first pair. Go to feetures.com and enter the code "outside" at checkout.

It sounds like a fantasy: join forces with a good friend to build a sweet little cabin in the woods. And for Bryan Schatz and Patrick Hutchison, that’s exactly how it felt. They took time away from promising careers to pursue a dream of crafting a base camp for adventures in an idyllic spot in Washington’s Cascade Range. There was just one problem: they had no idea what they were doing. Their planned summer project turned into a yearlong saga that drained their bank accounts and stressed their relationships with family, friends, and each other. But they stuck it out and ended up not only with a gorgeous cabin but a new perspective on what matters most in life. This episode of the Outside podcast is brought to you by Whoop, the fitness tracker that gets you training smarter by giving you feedback on every moment of your day. For a limited time, Outside Podcast listeners get 15 percent off a membership; just enter the code “outside” at checkout.

In recent years, the search for extraterrestrials has been accelerated by a wave of new technologies that allow us to better probe distant reaches of the galaxy. Meanwhile, a pair of events have generated enormous excitement among those who believe that aliens might already be among us. In 2017, when the first interstellar object was detected in our solar system, a highly respected Harvard astrophysicist suggested it might be a probe that was sent by aliens. That same year, the public learned about a secret program by the U.S. military that was investigating potential threatening UFOs. All of this was enough to spur journalist Laura Krantz to launch an investigation of her own into what we really know about extraterrestrials. The result is a new season of Wild Thing, a podcast that explores the strange and unusual things that capture our imaginations. This week, we talk to Laura about the challenges of doing rigorous reporting on a topic that a lot of people don’t take seriously and share the kickoff episode of her otherworldly new series. This episode of the Outside podcast is brought to you by Whoop, the fitness tracker that gets you training smarter by giving you feedback on every moment of your day. For a limited time, Outside Podcast listeners get 15 percent off a membership; just enter the code "outside" at checkout.

You know how when you listen to certain songs, you feel you feel like you’re being transported to a totally different place? Most of the time, this is exactly what the musician was trying to do—especially if the musician is Jackson Stell, who creates music under the name Big Wild. Stell is a rapidly rising artist in the electronic and dance scene, though his songs don’t fit neatly in that genre. As a producer, musician, songwriter, and vocalist, he’s crafting works that are inspired by remarkable outdoor landscapes and capture the ecstatic feelings we have when we venture into the natural world. The result is songs that make us feel like we’re on an adventure—and having a fantastic time. In this episode, we take a journey through Big Wild’s catalogue and talk to Stell about how his personal journey led him to seek out a new kind of sound experience. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Bank of the West, and their new 1% for the Planet checking account, the first bank account designed for climate action. Learn ow you can make your money work for the environment at bankofthewest.com/1percent