#free-climbing

#free-climbing

Abiqua Falls is a stunning 92-foot waterfall that tumbles over a wall of columnar basalt into a wide pool, perfect for swimming. The surrounding area features a pebbled beach that provides breathtaking views of the falls and lush greenery.

King of the Hammers, now in its 20th year, has evolved from a small contest among friends to a major off-road racing event, drawing over 80,000 attendees.

Guides poisoned trekkers' food with baking powder, uncooked chicken and even rat droppings to trigger altitude sickness symptoms, then terrified them into unnecessary evacuations.

The goal of this trip isn't perfection, it's survival. At that altitude, your judgment fades as quickly as your lung capacity.

The Million Dollar Highway is a narrow, two-lane road that runs above a deep gorge, with sheer rock walls on one side and an unguarded drop on the other. Drivers experience awe-inspiring views of 14,000-foot peaks as they navigate this perilous route.

For 2025, there was good news and bad news: overall, these areas were visited 323 million times over the course of the year. That's the good news; the bad news is that this figure was down ever so slightly - specifically, 2.7% - from a record-setting 2024.

Many glamping places are right off the highway. With Backland, we wanted an immersive nature experience-total comfort, with unobstructed views. The camp sits on an immense and grassy meadow ringed by an unnamed forest. Ten nature suites looked more like futuristic Quonset huts than white tents.

The video, posted to an account bearing Propeck's name, pans to the man's face as he deploys a parachute, it states. A license plate reader detected Propeck's car entering the national park on Oct. 7 and leaving Oct. 8, and photos showed Propeck behind the wheel, wearing the same purple mirrored sunglasses the man was seen wearing in the Instagram video, according to the complaint.

On day five of an eight-day, 500-mile mountain bike race in Africa, Piers Constable found himself sprawled in the dirt for the second time. First he'd crashed on his left side, then on his right, until he was, in his own words, "muddied and bloodied," staring at a bike that was very much broken. He remembered a feed station a couple miles away and realized he had two choices: quit or run. He picked up the bike and ran.

The terrain is choked with rhododendron and dog hobble, ground cover that makes it easy to get lost and hard to be found. There are eight hundred and forty-eight miles of trail, and countless manways, which masquerade as trails. The many waterfalls are fed by rain on par with that of the Pacific Northwest. The rivers rise and boil with astonishing speed. There's little to no cell service.

I'd been stopped maybe 2 seconds and the slope started to move. I pivoted to straightline but was swamped-no speed, no chance. The impact was like stepping off a curb in front of a 40 Tonne truck doing 60 mph.

I trekked it in December 2023 with plans and a permit to camp at Bright Angel Campground, a scenic cottonwood-shaded hideaway just near the famed Phantom Ranch (the only lodging on the world wonder's floor). Then, two days before my trip, a miracle happened: One last-minute reservation became available for Phantom Ranch. The ranch digs typically book out over a year in advance, but if you're lucky, you can either get in via the lottery or a last-minute opening. This made the grueling but gorgeous hike down and up the steep South Kaibab Trail even more memorable.

A sudden weather change, a mechanical, a missed turn, or a momentary lapse in judgment can all turn a "quick ride" into a surprisingly long day. The good news? While some of those problems are big, the solutions are often small. A last-second weather check. An extra granola bar. A quick link and a zip tie that's been living in the bottom of your bag for the last five years. Little things can often be the difference between a perfect ride and a problem ride.

It was exactly 23 years ago to the day that Shane McConkey pulled off his first ski base ever at Lover's Leap in Strawberry, California and we are stoked to share that one of his biggest fans in the world has recreated his historic jump. Professional wingsuit athlete Kasey English used the exact same exit point on top of the famous granite cliff near Highway 50 and excuted a picture perfect flight before safely drifted to valley floor under canopy.

Cornice collapses can be incredibly dangerous, having the potential to crush people, pull them down mountains and potentially over rocky cliffs, and cause larger avalanches. Professional skier Josh Daiek doesn't seem to be impacted by cornices as much as a regular skier or snowboarder would be, though. This incredible line starts with a heart pounding moment as he looked over the edge.

In ice climbing, you want to try to have a solid base with your footing and to get the ice axes over the tops of each other to have the most leverage. We worked on these skills from the comfort of top roping, which entails having a fixed anchor you can rappel down from. This gives the feeling like you are in a climbing gym and greatly reduces the risks.

The man behind the camera filming his friend triggering a massive cornice fall may have been chuckling but cornice safety is no laughing matter. Releasing an overhanging mass of snow formed by wind deposits (triggering a cornice fall) can lead to snow immersion suffocation (SIS) when the skier lands and trigger avalanches or simply entrain large amounts of loose snow along with the cornice debris which is also a dangerous scenario.