Saturday, December 12, 2020

Enjoy All The Wonders of KOMODO with an extended stay at the first 5-star resort on Flores Island


The much anticipated opening of AYANA Komodo Resort, Waecicu Beach and AYANA Lako di’a take places this September on the stunning island of Flores.
As the excitement around the grand opening grows, AYANA has launched an unmissable limited time offer!
Whether guests are lured by the pristine aqua waters to sample some of the world’s finest dive spots or attracted to the surreal landscapes of Padar Island, rushing Cunca Rami waterfall, or eager to visit the world’s oldest species of lizard – the famous Komodo dragon, Komodo is labyrinth of on and off-land adventures. The magical archipelago is a must visit destination and from September 15, 2018, guests can experience alla the wonders of Komodo from AYANA’s new five-star luxury resort AYANA Komodo Resort, Waecicu Beach or from the decks of the group’s first 9-bedroom luxury phinisi, AYANA Lako di’a.
To celebrate the grand opening, and to ensure there is plenty of time to take in all the islnads have to offer, guests can now book 2 nights and get 1 extra night free, or book 4 nights and receive 2 extra nights free at AYANA Komodo Resort, Waecicu Beach.
With additional nights, plus 20% pre-opening discount and complimentary 2-way airport transfer, there are plenty of perks to booking your dream holiday early. Families can also enjoy all the resort has to offer with connecting rooms at 50% off, children’s pool, kid’s club, and plenty of child-friendly activities.

For those tempted by the elite experience of AYANA Lako di’a, guest can sail across the island’s aquatic shores from one of the Phinisi’s 9-luxury cabins. Departing every Monday, passengers can board for a one, two or three-night voyage of their dreams. This once-in-a lifetime experience hails a new standard of travel.
Too book your stay at  AYANA Komodo Resort, Waecicu Beach and AYANA Lako di’a visit ayanakomodo.com

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

WINGS

The Daring Dream of Personal Flight

Oringal test by Nancy Shute; Executive summary by darmansjah


ON THE BRINK Australian Jim Mitchell leaps off Ottawa Peak on Canada’s Baffin Island while wearing a wing suit in April 2010. He died weeks later when a jump from a nearby mountain went tragically awry.

Perched on the edge of a cold, windswept dune in North Carolina, I was about to fulfill a dream I shared with Leonardo da Vinci: To fly. The Renaissance genius spent years deciphering the flight of birds an devising personal flying machines. On his deathbed in 1519, Leonardo said one of his regrets was that he had never flown. Five hundred years of innovation since then had produced the hang glider I held above my head, simple and safe enough to be offered as a tourist entertainment. But despite those centuries of adventure and experimentation, personal flight-the ability to bound from Earth like a skylark, swoop like a falcon, and dart as blithely as a hummingbird-remains elusive.

Our human longing to mimic birds has often proved painful. Greek mythology mourns the melted dreams of Icarus. Arab poetry relates a crushing crash by ninth-century inventor Abbas ibn Firnas. Medieval British monk Eilmer became lame after leaping from an abbey on homemade wings. But as technology takes off, the dream of personal flight seems closer than ever.

1480’S The “aerial screw” one of several flying devices sketched by Leonardo da Vinci, hints at the whirling motion of the modern helicopter.

1783 A taffeta hot-air balloon carries two men over Paris. Its inventors were said to be inspired by paper-or underwear-floating in a fire’s updraft.

1853 Sir George Cayley, 79m sees his “governable parachute” briefly glide through what the calls “an uninterrupted navigable ocean that comes to…every man’s door”-the sky.

1891-1896 To prove hang gliders are more than a passing fancy. German engineer Otto Lilienthal flies his own versions some 2,000 times before a fatal fall.

1900-1911 The Wright brothers pioneer the airplane and develop better gliders. Orville’s 1911 model soars nearly ten minutes, the longest unpowered flight yet.

That’s not for lack of trying. Many lives have been lost and fortunes squandered pursuing the dream of flight, and even today scientists, inventors, and adventures persist in the quest.

Leonardo drew hundreds of images of birds on the wing, trying to decode their secrets, and drafted meticulous plans for flying machines not unlike today’s gliders and helicopters. But he never figured out the physics of flight. It took more than 300 years and many more failed experiments until Sir George Cayley, a British engineer, determined that flight required lift, propulsion, and control. He built a glider with a curved wing to generate lift. Then he ordered his coachman into it and had farm workers pull it down a slope until it gained enough speed to fly. Control, alas, was lacking. The craft crashed after flying a few hundred yards. The coachman survived, but reportedly was not amused.

My students hang glider was almost as low concept as Cayley’s, and though I knew it could fly, control clearly remains an issue. The instructors at Kitty Hawk Kites, at Kill Devil Hills a couple of miles from where the Wright brothers flew the first powered aircraft in 1903’s, explained that piloting requires just five simple motions: lean left or right to turn; push the bar up to land. But students in my class still augered into the sand. One fell hard enough to break the glider’s sturdy aluminum strut. That made me more determined to succeed.

I have always loved to fly, even in lumbering jumbo jets. When the Kitty Hawk Kites school quoted Leonardo as saying, “for once you have tasted flight, you will walk the Earth with your eyes turned skywards,” I sighed in recognition.
Some years back I learned to fly a single engine plane, but flying a small plane is about as thrilling as sitting at a card table. I hoped hang gliding would deliver the unencumbered essence of flight. It certainly delivered the fear. My grip on the control bar was painfully tight as I ran down the lip of the dune. Suddenly I was running in thin air. Flying! After a few seconds the instructors shouted “Flare!” I pushed the control bar over my head and landed, unsteady but on my feet-then headed back uphill. I wanted to feel again that strange, lovely moment aloft.

A glider wing is an efficient way to generate lift, but my seconds-long flight proved that running off a dune doesn’t generate much speed.  Glider flight is a controlled descent; pilots gain altitude only if they catch rising air and ride it aloft. Birds don’t have that problem; they fly with great efficiency and more precision than any aircraft. Sooty shearwaters log almost 40,000 miles migrating from New Zealand to Alaska and back, while ruby-throated hummingbirds can fly 20 hours without stop migrating across the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists still struggle to understand the physiology of avian flight, but light bones and an intricate collaboration among chest and wing muscles appear essential. A hummmingbird’s chest muscles, it would stick out like a 55-gallon drum,” he says. “It would be freakin’ enormous”

Legend has it Icarus fell from the sky because hubris led him too close to the sun, melting the wax that held the feathers on his wings. More likely, his arms just gave out. Uncounted numbers of “birdmen” had died  over the centuries after leaping from tower or cliff not realizing they could never flap homemade wings hard or fast enough to stay aloft. Their modern heirs, BASE jumpers, leap from buildings, cliffs, and bridges, plunge for a few exhilarating moments, then throw out a parachute to slow their fall. Some don wing suits, with baffled fabric wings that generate enough lift to propel the wearer forward at up to 160 miles an hour while falling. J.T. Holmes of Squaw Valley, California, who has made about a thousand wing-suit jumps, says, “It’s as close as human beings can get to flying like a bird.” It’s also extraordinary dangerous: About 12 BASE jumpers die each year. Hitting the mountain while free-falling or after the parachute deploys is a common cause.

The best success in purely human-powered flight came in 1988, when the Daedalus, a light weight aircraft built by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, flew 71,5 miles from the Greek Island of Crete to Santorini. The 69-pound craft, pedaled by a Greek Olympic cyclist, got caught in turbulence as it approached the beach at Santorini. It crashed in the sea, a few yards from the shore.

1935 spreading homemade canvas wings at 10,000 feet, “Bird-man” Clem Sohn rides the wind for 75 seconds. Two years later, a horrified crowd sees the stunt artist’s parachute fail.

1948 aerospace engineer Francis Rogallo and his wife invent the flexible “paraglider” wing as a sort of parachute for space capsules. Human fliers latch on to it.

1955 On the Hiller Flying Platform, a pilot stands atop twin fans and steers by leaning. It proves too unwieldy for military use.

1956  When the U.S. Army orders a dozen De Lackner Aerocycles, one journalist envisions a “cavalry on modern sky-bustling steeds.” Test pilots deem the open-rotor craft unsafe.

1961 Bell engineer Harold Graham straps on a hydrogen peroxide fueled Rocket Belt and flies for 13 seconds.

1960s Modern hang gliding is born as pilots attach flight frames to the Rogallo flexible wing.

1970-1983 The jet-powered Williams Aerial Systems Platform flies, but flops in the military market. Years later, the New York Times calls it “a flying garbage can.”

To solve such problems, Wilbur and Orville Wright had fitted a motor and propeller on a glider. That clanking, smoky machine may have ushered in modern aviation but apparently delivered little joy. The Wirghts also returned to flying unpowered gliders off dunes. But powered aviation did offer hope of a personal aircraft that could soar into the air like a bird, something my glider could not do. enter the rocket men.

After World War II, the American military funded a parade of personal-flight experiments, none of which fulfilled the mission of safe, maneuverable, or stealthy flight. Consider rocket belts the wearer of the belt would fly less than a minute because of limits on the fuel a person can carry. Plus, the device is expensive, noisy, and notoriously  difficult to control. Just ask Bill Suitor, his neighbor Wendell Moore, a Bell Aerospace engineer, needed an average guy to test the Rocket Belt, which he was developing for the U.S. Army in the early 1960x, and recruited 19-year-old Suitor. Now 66, Suitor has flown more than 1,300 times. “Controlling the rockets’ power was the biggest challenge,” he says. “It’s like a fire-breathing dragon.”

Inventors continue to try to bring the comic book fantasy of personal jet flight to life, and Yves Rossy has come closest. This Swiss pilot flings himself out of an aircraft wearing a six-foot-wide carbon-fiber wing of his own invention, powered by four tiny jet engines. In May, Rossy leaped from a helicopter above the Grand Canyon and flew eight minutes before parachuting to Earth. The jets give him powered ascent and the oomph to do loop. That freedom doesn’t come easy; it took Rossy years to master his tiny craft. “I steer myself in space with only my body,” he explains. “To go left, I turn my shoulders left, and that’s it!” He says it’s like parachuting with a wing suit, whose panels between the body and limbs slow a skydiver’s fall, but with more liberty. “It’s awesome, it’s great, it’s fantastic!”

You won’t catch me jumping out of a plane with a wing strapped to my back. But I yearn for even a small measure of Rossy’s joie de vol. after five runs off the Outer Banks dune last April, I was getting closer-able to fly into the wind, then floating gently down onto my feet. It was as if the glider wasn’t there.

I wanted more. Sandra Vernon, a 47-years-old mother of three I my class on the dune, egged me on. She’d been flying towed tandem flights, pulled up to 2,000 feet behind an ultralight. This usually grants a hand glider a good ten-minute flight back down to Earth, even if there are no rising thermals to help keep the craft aloft. “I’m short, I’m chubby, I’m not spry,” Vernon says. “I wish I had been doing this in my 20s. you can’t help but love it.

Challenge accepted, I strapped myself into the harness of a tandem glider with instructor Jon Thompson. He warned that eh moment when the towplane released us would remind me of going over the top of a roller coaster. I’m a coaster fan. This was nothing like that. It felt like falling headfirst off the top of a 2,000-foot-tall bulding. “You can fly now,” Thompson said, genially offering me the controls. “No! I shouted over the wind. In a few moments the glider gained lift and leveled off. My terror waned, and I took control. I banked left, then right-more of a pigeon than a sooty shearwater but flying all the same.

In pursuit of flight, I’m also keeping my eye on the Puffin, a “personal air vehicle” that became an Internet sensation when NASA unveiled it in 2010. Big advances in superefficient electric motors and control systems, which let the air craft feel the intention of the pilot, may make it possible to fly a one-person craft like this safely without typical pilot training. “We are trying to create a horse-and-rider kind of experience,” says Mark Moore, a NASA aerospace engineer who developed the prototype. “A horse is an intelligent vehicle, but it’s only intelligent than the horse could ever discern.”

1977 A British prize set up in 1959 for the first human-powered plane is finally caimed by the Gossamer Condor, which has Mylar wings and a furiously pedaling pilot.

1980s French skydiver Patrick de Gayardon soars in his batlike nylon wing suit. Hed dies testing a new model in 1998.

2000 U.S. defense grants begin funding a program to develop a flying “exoskeleton.” The idea is to create a suit that soldiers can wear to take off and land vertically, with a propeller fan over each shoulder.

2006 Seeking the power of a plane without its confines, Swiss pilot Yves Rossy puts jet engines and carbon-fiber wings on his own body.

2008 Martin Aircraft tests its fan-powered “Jetpack” and says it plans to sell a recreational model. Flight time : 30 minutes Price: $100,000.

2010 NASA’s Puffin concept a 300-pound electric “flying suit,” would stand on its stubby tail for takeoff, then level off to cruise on wings.

The Puffin may never fly, but other inventors are tinkering. JoeBen Bevirt, an entrepreneur in Santa Cruz, California, has already flown a small scale prototype of his version of a flying car. He envisions it as a sleek, red plane with eight electric motors. It would take off and land vertically and fly a hundred miles in an hour, zooming him to a San Francisco meeting in half the time it takes in his Prius. “I want one,” he says flatly. Me too.

Saturday, October 10, 2020

Wild China

Wild China

Executive summary by darmansjah

Wild China is a six-part nature documentary series on the natural history of China, co-produced by the BBC Natural History Unit and China Central Television (CCTV) and filmed entirely in high-definition (HD). It was screened in the UK on BBC Two from 11 May to 5 June 2008. The English narration was provided by Bernard Hill and the series produced by Phil Chapman for the BBC and Gao Xiaoping for CCTV. The Chinese version was broadcast under the title Beautiful China. In Canada, it was broadcast on CBC as part of the series The Nature Of Things narrated by David Suzuki. Wild China was also broadcast in Australia on ABC1 and ABC HD each Sunday at 7:30pm from 18 May 2008.

The musical score to accompany the series was composed by Barnaby Taylor and is performed by Cheng Yu and the UK Chinese Ensemble.

Prior to broadcast, the series was billed as the culmination of the BBC Natural History Unit's "Continents" programmes, a long-running strand of blue-chip wildlife documentaries which surveyed the natural history of each of the world's major land areas. It was preceded by Wild Caribbean in 2007, but with the broadcast of South Pacific in 2009 the BBC signalled a continuation of the strand.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics gave the BBC Natural History Unit team the opportunity to make the first comprehensive series on China's natural history. In the run up to the Games, the Chinese government was "understandably keen to promote itself as a country worth visiting" according to BBC producer Phil Chapman. Permission for Wild China was granted in 2005, with the BBC working alongside local partners CTV, a Beijing production company closely allied to state broadcaster CCTV. The series marks the first time that CCTV has collaborated with a foreign broadcaster.

With wildlife filmmaking in its infancy in China, and a perception in the developed world of a country plagued by environmental problems, the producers hoped that the series would change attitudes in both the East and the West:

Filming for the series took place over 16 months, and involved half a million miles of travel on 57 separate filming trips to some of China's most inaccessible and spectacular locations. The production team shot over 500 hours of HD footage in 26 of China's 30 provinces.

Despite being granted unprecedented access to many remote and protected areas, one of the main challenges faced by the filmmakers was finding wildlife. Although 15% of China's territory has some form of protection, this is not a guarantee of safety for wildlife, as reserves were often found to be under-equipped and under-staffed. In addition, they encountered a lack of local expertise and specialist knowledge, as few of China's zoologists were naturalists with an interest in observing wildlife. Producers even struggled to film the courting behaviour of one of the country's commonest creatures, the rice-paddy frog. Consequently, the team's attempts to find and film wildlife were not always successful.

With the support of local party officials, the producers found it easier to contact and film local people. They were particularly keen to record examples of traditional lifestyles which incorporate the natural world to give the series a cultural context. The episodes were divided by region to present the distinct cultural as well as ecological differences.

1. "Heart of the Dragon"

The Li River and the Hills of Guilin

The first programme in the series concentrates on South China, where the climate and terrain is ideal for rice cultivation. The terraced paddy fields of Yuanyang County plunge 2000 metres down steep hillsides to the Red River valley, and are some of the oldest man-made structures in China. In a Miao household in Guizhou province, the arrival of red-rumped swallows signals the time for planting. Other creatures which benefit from the rice monoculture include little egrets and Chinese pond herons. Of the hundreds of caves beneath the limestone hills of this karst region, few have been explored. At Zhongdong, an entire community, including a school, lives in the shelter of a cave. Francois' langurs, a rare primate, use their rock-climbing skills to enter caves at night for protection. Other cave dwellers include swifts and Rickett’s mouse eared bats, filmed for the first time catching fish in the dark. Freshwater creatures are an important resource for the people of South China. The Li River cormorant fishermen now only practice their art for tourists, but at Caohai Lake, dragonfly nymphs are a unique and valuable harvest. Some delicacies, such as freshwater turtles, are vanishingly rare. Chinese alligators only survive in Anhui province thanks to dedicated conservation efforts. A troop of Huangshan macaques is shown retreating to the safety of the treetops when a venomous Chinese moccasin is spotted. After the autumn rice harvest, migratory birds including tundra swans and Siberian cranes gather at Poyang Lake.

2. "Shangri-La"

Kawagebo (6740m), the highest mountain in Yunnan, lies in the Hengduan range

This episode profiles the rich biodiversity of south-western Yunnan province. Forming the eastern boundary of the Himalaya, the Hengduan Mountains have buckled into a series of parallel ridges running north-south. The Nujiang River is one of a succession of deep gorges that carve their way through the mountains. In summer, monsoon rainclouds from the Indian Ocean are funnelled up the valleys, creating a unique climate in which species from the tropics can flourish at a more northerly latitude. Yunnan’s 18,000 plant species, of which 3,000 are found nowhere else, attracted Western botanists and explorers such as Joseph Rock. In the snowbound forests surrounding the pilgrimage site of Kawakarpo (6740m), rare Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys are filmed feeding on lichen. In the Gaoligong Mountains, tropical and alpine plants grow side by side. Birdlife filmed here includes sunbirds feeding on epiphytes and the courtship display of a Temminck's Tragopan. The fruiting trees attract bear macaques and black giant squirrels, whilst China’s 250 remaining wild Asian elephants forage below. A Lesser Bamboo Bat colony is filmed at their roost inside a single stem; each bat is the size of a bumblebee. A giant elephant yam flower is pollinated by carrion beetles at night. Black crested gibbons are filmed in the forests of Wuliangshan. The people of Yunnan include the Dai, Hani and Jino tribes, each of whom regard the forests as sacred and harvest them sustainably, but modern times are bringing new threats such as rubber plantations and tourism.

3. "Tibet"

A seabird colony on a Qinghai Lake island

The Tibetan Plateau is the subject of the third installment. It covers one quarter of China’s land area, but just 2.5 million people live there, the majority Tibetan Buddhists. Their religion mixes traditional Buddhism with older shamanic beliefs, and its teachings have instilled a respectful attitude to wildlife. Rare species such as black-necked cranes and Tibetan eared pheasants can benefit directly from co-existence with people. Meltwaters from Tibet’s 35,000 glaciers form large freshwater lakes including Qinghai and Manasarovar. Nesting birds here include great crested grebes and bar-headed geese. The plateau is a high altitude desert swept by freezing winds, but is also home to China’s biggest concentration of large animals. Argali sheep are seen descending hillsides to their winter grazing sites. In the Changtang, Chiru are filmed congregating in the rutting season, and wild yaks are only found in the remotest areas. Predators include the elusive snow leopard and the Tibetan fox, filmed profiting from a Tibetan bear’s attempts to hunt pika. A highly lucrative "caterpillar fungus" (yatsa gunbu) is harvested from the spring ground for use as a traditional remedy. Life even clings on in the most extreme environments; the slopes of Everest are home to a species of jumping spider, whilst the unique hot spring snake survives at 4,500m by warming its body in thermal springs. The Saga Dawa festival takes place at sacred Mount Kailash and draws pilgrims of many faiths. Tibet is a fragile ecosystem; its glaciers are melting, and this will have a profound effect on the future for billions of people who depend on waters flowing from the plateau.

4. "Beyond the Great Wall"

Siberian tigers inhabit the forests bordering the Amur River

The fourth episode looks at the lands north of China’s Great Wall. Here, nomadic tribes from a variety of ethnic groups still roam, but their traditional ways of life are changing as people move to modern cities. In ancient Manchuria, the last Hezhe fishermen still cast their nets beneath the thick ice of the frozen Black Dragon River. The forests here support wild boar, which forage for walnuts in winter, and the last remaining wild Siberian tigers in China. Ewenki reindeer herders came from Siberia hundreds of years ago: now, only 30 remain. Further west lie the rolling Mongolian steppe grasslands, and at Bayan Bulak, the livestock of Mongolian horsemen share the pastures and wetlands with breeding demoiselle cranes and whooper swans. Continuing westwards, the land becomes increasingly hot and dry, turning first to arid grasslands roamed by rare goitered gazelles, and then to the Taklamakan Desert, the world’s largest shifting sand desert. Here stand ruined towns, a legacy of the Silk Road, and many yardangs, sand-sculpted rock formations. Underground irrigation canals at the Turpan oasis enable grapes to be cultivated, and red-tailed gerbils are quick to take advantage. Kazakh nomads spend the summer in the Tian Shan before descending to the Junggar Basin, an arid land bordering the Gobi Desert, to overwinter. Here their livestock shares the meagre pasture with the last wild horses on earth. A Kazakh demonstrates the 6000-year-old tradition of hunting with golden eagles. The closing scenes show the Harbin Ice Festival.

5. "Land of the Panda"

The film features courtship and mating of wild giant pandas

The fifth installment features central China, home to the Han Chinese. They are the largest ethnic group on Earth, and their language Mandarin the most widely spoken. The programme looks at how the relationship between people and wildlife has changed over time. Ancient Chinese beliefs placed great importance in the harmonious co-existence of man and nature. At the beginning of China’s period of rapid economic growth, this ideal was largely forgotten. A number of political references contrast the more enlightened environmental policies of the current government with those under Chairman Mao Zedong, which led to widespread degradation. The Chinese alligator and crested ibis are two species saved from extinction by direct intervention. Other animals have benefited from ancient spiritual beliefs and customs which live on, promoting respect and reverence for wildlife: the yellow weasels and Mandarin ducks of Beijing are two such creatures. However, wildlife is still threatened by illegal poaching for food and traditional medicine. West of Beijing lie the fertile lands of the North China Plain and the Loess plateau, source of the Yellow River. Increased demand for water has changed the river’s flow, and soil erosion causes dust storms which reach the capital. Further west, the Qinling Mountains are a refuge for some of China’s rarest species including the takin, golden snub-nosed monkey and giant panda. Giant panda courtship and mating is shown, filmed for the first time in the wild. In the colourful lakes of Jiuzhaigou, unique fish swim amongst forests preserved underwater.

6. "Tides of Change"

Rare black-faced spoonbills overwinter in Hong Kong

The final programme features China’s 14,500 km coastline, home to 700 million people. Despite decades of rapid urban development, it is still an important migration route for birds. Endangered red-crowned cranes depart their northern breeding grounds to overwinter at Yancheng salt marsh, the largest coastal wetland in China. Shedao Island is an important stopover on the migration route, but the resident Shedao Island pitvipers, stranded by rising sea levels, lie in ambush in the branches. A snake strikes a songbird, and another is filmed swallowing a kingfisher. All along the coast, traditional forms of cultivation allow wildlife and people to live side by side. Crops vary from seaweed and cockles in the north to prawns further south, allowing birds such as whooper swans and black-faced spoonbills to prosper. Kejia tea-growers and Hui'an women harvesting oysters are also shown. China’s rivers and seas are heavily polluted. Sewage and fertiliser washed into the Bohai Gulf cause plankton blooms, attracting jellyfish, which in China are a commercial catch. In the Yangtze estuary, the migrations of creatures such as Yangtze sturgeon and mitten crabs are being impeded by upstream dams. In the tropical South China Sea, where coral reefs are under threat, whale sharks are rare visitors. Other rare creatures filmed include Pere David's deer and Chinese white dolphins. On Hainan island, macaques are shown jumping into a hotel swimming pool, epitomising the uneasy coexistence of wildlife and people in China, and the challenge of continuing its traditional harmonious relationship with nature.

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

America's 100 Best Adventures



Executive summary by darmansjah


Alaska
Complete a NOLS Semester
Explore ANWR
Heli-Ski the Chugach Mountains
Tree-Climb Chilkat
Float the Tatshenshini-Alsek River
Trek Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve
Climb Mount McKinley
Camp With Alaska Brown Bears



Arizona
Row Down the Grand Canyon
Hike Buckskin Gulch (& Utah)
Ride Monument Valley


California
Surf the Lost Coast
Bike the Death Ride
Hike Half Dome
Hike the Sierra High Route
Paddle Santa Cruz Island
Mountain Bike the Tahoe Rim Trail (& Nevada)
Bodysurf the Wedge
Raft the Forks of the Kern
Ski Mountaineer Mount Shasta


Colorado
Bike From Durango to Moab (& Utah)
Climb Ouray
Ski Scar Face
Hike the Colorado Trail
Run the TransRockies
Ski Silverton Mountain
Race the Leadville Trail 100
Backcountry Ski the 10th Mountain Division Huts
Bag Fourteeners in the Weminuche Wilderness
Climb the Diamond on Longs Peak



Florida
Kiteboard the Keys
Paddle the Everglades
Swamp Tromp in Big Cypress National Preserve
Dive Freshwater Caves
Fly-Fish for the Florida Keys Slam


Georgia
Canoe the Okeefenokee


Hawaii
Kayak the Na Pali Coast
Hike the Muliwai Trail
Kiteboard Maui's North Shore


Iowa
Bike RAGBRAI


Idaho
Hike the Salmon
Snowkite Camas Valley
Raft the Owyhee River (& Oregon & Nevada)


Kentucky
Climb Red River Gorge


Maine
Kayak the Maine Island Trail
Canoe the Allagash


Michigan
Sail the Manitous
Wreck Dive Lake Superior


Minnesota
Dogsled the Boundary Waters
Race the Arrowhead 135
Canoe the Boundary Waters
Hike the Superior Trail



Missouri
Paddle 340 Miles of the Mighty Missouri—Nonstop



Montana
Hike the Bob Marshall
Climb Granite Peak
Ice Climb Hyalite Canyon
Fly-Fish the Spring Creeks of Paradise Valley
Backpack Glacier National Park


Multistate
Get Fit at a Navy SEAL Immersion Camp
Bike Across America
Learn to Fly a Wingsuit
Backpack the Pacific Northwest Trail
Bike the Continental Divide Trail


North Carolina
Paddle the Outer Banks
Learn Paddling at Nantahala Outdoor Center


North Dakota
Bike the Maah Daah Hey
New Hampshire
Ski Tuckerman Ravine
Hike the Traverse


New Mexico
Fly-Fish the Pecos
Horsepack the Gila Wilderness



Nevada
Heli-Ski the Ruby Mountains



New York
Canoe the Adirondacks
Climb the Gunks



Oregon
Four-Wheel the Steens
Kiteboard the Columbia River Gorge (& Washington)
Ski the Wallowas



Tennessee
Hike the Roan Highlands
Raft the Ocoee



Texas
Float the Big Bend of the Rio Grande
Boulder Hueco Tanks



Utah
Raft the Green River
Scale Red-Rock Towers
Paddle Lake Powell
Backpack the Hayduke Trail
Canyoneer Grand Staircase-Escalante
Hike the Zion Narrows



Vermont
Ski Inn-to-Inn on the Catamount Trail



Washington
Transect the Olympic
Climb Mount Rainier
Hike Glacier Peak
Sea Kayak the San Juan Islands



Wisconsin
Ski the Birkebeiner



West Virginia
Raft the Gauley River



Wyoming
Hike the Winds
Climb the Grand Teton
Backcountry Ski Teton Pass
Kayak Lake Yellowstone
Hike Yellowstone’s Wild Southwest