Over 50, Outdoors

Adventure, fitness, travel, gear
Shoulder Season 2: (Supposed) Best Hikes in the U.S.

Shoulder Season 2: (Supposed) Best Hikes in the U.S.

Let’s begin with the obvious: there is no such thing as a “best hike.” We have chocolate and vanilla for a reason, which is that people have different tastes. And capacities. What might excite or challenge one hiker could bore another. You get the point. That said, it is an...
Shoulder Season 1: It’s soon time to hike

Shoulder Season 1: It’s soon time to hike

Ski season isn’t over, but the end is nigh. (Seasonally, of course. Also, existentially. If the world gets another few bad winters, the ski resort economy in some countries will be in serious trouble. Doubt us? Check this collection of abandoned lifts and dirt slopes.) So it’s time to think...
Klaus Obermeyer is a 100-year-old beast

Klaus Obermeyer is a 100-year-old beast

Apologies if you woke up this morning and hoped for a day in which you didn’t feel lame. Because this isn’t going to help: Klaus Obermeyer just turned 100, and he has been celebrating the way a ski legend should, with a daily half-mile swim, long stints in the gym...
The Soft Bigotry of Age Brackets

The Soft Bigotry of Age Brackets

Age gives one a good, heavy rind. A durable crust that preserves the psyche and reduces the faint sting of left-handed compliments and micro-aggressions. Pride is still there, but it’s tempered by the knowledge that you do have limits. And failures. But still, repeated slights—no matter how subtle—get under the...
Ski North Korea! Also, Again: Climate Change

Ski North Korea! Also, Again: Climate Change

Yes, climate change is an existential threat to the planet, so you can’t really belabor the point. Yet, there are other things going on in the world. Since we’ve mentioned climate a number of times in the past month (including our last post), it’s probably time to move on. But...
When obsessions collide: Pensions, skiing and climate change

When obsessions collide: Pensions, skiing and climate change

This will be of limited utility but we find it difficult to ignore a set of stories that tickle three—count ‘em—three of our current preoccupations. To begin: workers in France are in a major state of whip-up-idness over proposed changes to their pension system. Pensions…for younger American readers who don’t...
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    Let’s not get too excited about e-bikes

    Let’s not get too excited about e-bikes

    E-bikes—already a big deal—are bound to get bigger. Analysts expect the global market to grow by 60 percent or more by 2025, with at least one major European bike maker projecting that it will soon sell more e-bikes than regular bikes. Giant, the world’s largest bike-maker, expects e-bike sales to increase by 30 percent this...
    Backpacks!

    Backpacks!

    Relaunching is hard, which is why the ocean floor is littered with the husks of Saturn rockets. So let’s begin with an easy link to a helpful article on backpacks…because ski season is over and it’s time to think of long hikes in high country. This is a great article for obvious reasons: it’s informed,...
    Mother Nature doesn’t care if you make it or not

    Mother Nature doesn’t care if you make it or not

    A few years ago, on the recommendation of multiple friends and gushing book reviewers, I picked up Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. And I finished it. But I didn’t read it in the normal fashion. I hate-read it. I sat in my easy chair with a cup of coffee or herbal tea or small juice glass with...
    Ladies: eat, pray and stretch that check

    Ladies: eat, pray and stretch that check

    They’re homebodies. And they’re affiliative, depending on social and emotional bonds to get through daily life…or so we assume, because when they travel they like to travel with others. And by they, we mean men. Editors for International Living—the on-line and print publication that encourages retirees to find new adventures and, crucially, save money by...
    Starting Over

    Starting Over

      Notwithstanding the relentless self-promotion practiced by our sitting president, we think it’s unseemly to draw attention to one’s own nice touches. Unless we think they’re really pretty good and someone might miss that “Starting Over” is a John Lennon song and our last entry…four years ago…was about a John Lennon song. Four years later,...
    Worst Beatles song ever?

    Worst Beatles song ever?

    This is way outside our wheelhouse, but nevertheless worthy of note. After years of uncritically embracing Beatles songs, it has been brought to our attention that occasionally, like all mortals, they could—and resoundingly did—suck.   Here’s an example: a recording of John Lennon singing the (deservedly) rare “India India.” No complaints about the quality—it’s a...
    The crayon-colored hills of Zhangye Danxia

    The crayon-colored hills of Zhangye Danxia

    There are many pleasing outdoor wonders to visit, and most them are closer to your home than the multicolored land formations of China’s Zhangye Danxia, where you’ll find what the Atlas of Wonders calls “perhaps the greatest gathering of different pigments in natural stone in the world.” But if you’re going to China anyway, shouldn’t...
    Bill Clinton is going to make you a vegan

    Bill Clinton is going to make you a vegan

    Bill Clinton is a very persuasive man. He’s persuasive in the way every good salesman is persuasive, which is that you don’t know you’re being convinced of something until it’s all over. There’s a good chance you might not even know then. You might be pretty sure it was your idea all along.   Case...
    Biking might allay Parkinson’s symptoms

    Biking might allay Parkinson’s symptoms

    Human bodies age like a saddle: they get comfortable and develop character, but they also start to break down.   The older they get, the more problems they have, one of which is Parkinson’s disease. An estimated one percent of people over 60 are affected by this degenerative nervous disorder. Those estimates vary because it’s...
    Never forget the Icy Finger of Death

    Never forget the Icy Finger of Death

    You’ve been baking under the sun for a few weeks now. There’s more to come. Summer feels like an energy leech, sucking away your strength, your enthusiasm, your life force. You long for winter. So it’s time to remind everyone that cold, though attractive right now, can be as terrifying and lethal as fire. To...
    Work makes you crazy; retirement causes dementia

    Work makes you crazy; retirement causes dementia

    Let’s begin at the end: you are screwed, regardless. That is the rational conclusion you can draw from a recent and huge (half a million participants) study in France.   What the researchers found was that you have two life choices, neither of which is good for you. You can keep working. (This wasn’t addressed...
    Koreans love the outdoors like Americans love spectator sports

    Koreans love the outdoors like Americans love spectator sports

    Twenty-five years ago, when Koreans were known for having the world’s longest work week (nominally six days, often longer), they still found time to get outdoors. Hiking clubs were a big deal. Camping was less popular because it requires a couple days of leisure in a row, but it was still popular.   Over the...