It’s one thing to have a dedicated moisturizer—which is one of the essential skincare products, up there with a cleanser and exfoliator. But it’s another thing entirely to have a dedicated night cream, and to use it in place of your daytime one.

The reasoning is simple: You may not need the same defenses at night time as you would during the day (against UV rays and pollution), but moreover, your slumber is the best time to charge your skin and treat it with targeted ingredients. That’s because your body regenerates itself while you sleep, and your skin cells turn over quickly. This means that if you apply the right products for your specific needs, you’ll maximize and expedite their benefits, especially if you’re getting 7-8 hours of sleep and staying hydrated and healthy.

Night creams tend to be denser than their daytime counterparts, both physically and in terms of … Read more

Continue Reading

Few modern endurance athletes have traveled across wild lands by as many means of outdoor activity as Nathan Fa’avae. Credit that effective movement across various environments and sport disciplines to the home base. Fa’avae lives on the South Island of New Zealand. There, he says locals jokingly liken the area—where it seems nearly all of the island’s one million-plus residents carry kayaks, surfboards, skis, or climbing gear in their cars year-round—to one big adventure club. Fa’avae grew up connected to the outdoors: camping, fishing, diving for food, and cooking over fires on the beach with his family. By his late teens, Fa’avae knew he wanted to be an adventure professional and studied for work as an outdoor educator, learning the ropes in sports like rock climbing, kayaking, and mountain biking (the latter of which he raced semi-professionally, qualifying to represent New Zealand in the 1996 Summer Olympics, though he … Read more

Continue Reading

On Tuesday, I went to the butt museum. On Friday, I went to the club. And by Sunday, I was in the Caribbean. How does that work in a pandemic? I’m alone in my living room on a Peloton Bike+, and I’m having the time of my life. Desperate times, you say? In a way, yes, but saddling up on this machine—smiling at instructors’ affirmations, acquiescing to their challenges to achieve “glazed donut status” STAT, huffing in my Brooklyn walkup as passersby on the street see me maniacally spinning—has brought me a lot of joy, and kicked my ass far more than I anticipated over the last four months.

You probably clicked on this because you’re looking to invest in cardio equipment for your home gym. Stationary bikes might be firmly hedged in your mind as being both female oriented and dominated. But trust me, the newest … Read more

Continue Reading

Leg days are typically the most demanding for lifters—and also the most effective. Because you’re hitting some of the biggest muscles in your body, these workouts generate the greatest hormonal response, sending your testosterone levels through the roof. But if you don’t have access to a full gym—squat rack, barbell, plates, machines—you’ve got to get creative. You might not be able to build the kind of mass that, say, heavy squats and deadlifts create, but you can get some great conditioning and build muscle with at-home leg workouts.

For those reasons, it’s useful to make do with what you’ve got—even if it’s just free weights and a bench. What matters most is that you’re still training the lower body well, hard, and consistently. Try these at-home leg workouts on for size. Muster up some gumption, because these are killer.

Continue Reading

There are two types of desert travelers: those who appreciate its austere beauty and those who consider it a necessary evil on the drive to Vegas. Unlike most things in our increasingly binary society, the third presentation of Desert X will appeal to both. Featuring large-scale installations from a roster of international artists, the outdoor art exhibition will run from March 12 to May 16 at sites spanning 40 miles across Southern California’s Coachella Valley.

Organizers say the exhibition provides artists a rare opportunity to present work at a time when many museums are closed. Past highlights included a series of billboards displaying images by Chemehuevi Indian artist Cara Romero, whose visceral representations of Indigenous cultural memory and modern experience inspired thousands of roadside selfies. This year’s edition was curated by César García-Alvarez and Neville Wakefield, and features pieces from 13 artists.

“Projects will explore issues essential to … Read more

Continue Reading

Backcountry ski touring is blowing up, so now’s the time to snag your gear—before demand outpaces supply. A light, smart ski-touring setup lets you ditch the crowds and earn your turns on the hill of your choice, whether in the backcountry or at a resort. And once you free yourself from lift lines and skied-out conditions, you might never go back to hot laps and overpriced après again.

Build Your Foundation With These Key Pieces

Skis

Dynafit Blacklight 88

All-rounder touring skis should inspire confidence in a wide variety of terrain and conditions, and the Blacklight 88 overdelivers on that aim in every way. Tuned by expert athletes for optimal speed and responsiveness, this mid-fat tourer features a core of ultralight yet super-strong paulownia wood with a top layer of unidirectional carbon fiber. That high-end construction makes for great stability at speed despite the light weight. Fast on … Read more

Continue Reading

Pining for your next big adventure? Waiting to embark on a trip is tough, but it’s also an opportunity in disguise: Now’s a great time to learn some new skills before you venture into the wilderness, and outdoor skills schools are an ideal way to do just that.

Here, we’ve highlighted five outdoor skills schools that allow you to learn online (perfect for when you’re stuck at home because of a pandemic). Become a virtuoso at tying knots, identifying birds, planning trips, surviving unexpected wilderness scenarios, and much more—all from the comfort of your couch.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Crux Academy (@crux.academy)

Crux Academy

Crux Academy distills the knowledge of decorated outdoor athletes and icons into immersive courses … Read more

Continue Reading

Colorado’s San Juan Mountains are known for their deep snowpack, complex terrain, solitude, splendor, and challenge. In a winter when travel is restricted, and snowfall has been sparse, the San Juans are more empty of crowds and buried under a blanket of carvable white fluff. That potential has created a lot of excitement for San Juan Mountain Guides (SJMG) new Interconnect backcountry ski trip. Scaling 13,000-foot passes and carving creamy turns down steep slopes, the tour pauses at full-service huts and lodges along the way for gourmet homestyle meals—and the serenity that only a high camp can provide.

This five-day, four-night Colorado hut-to-hut high traverse winds through a zone often compared to the Alps, earning it a label as America’s answer to legendary multi-day “Haute Route” from the Chamonix valley to Zermatt. The guided, catered trip is also full-service. Skiers need only carry a daypack—other … Read more

Continue Reading

Our mud-spattered mini-convoy—a trio of aggressive, high-powered sport UTVs—has been tearing through these dense backwoods since first light. Behind the wheel of a machine that boasts more horsepower than the car that brought me to the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, I’m hustling to keep sight of our local trail sherpa as he blazes across narrow ridgelines and around an endless succession of gritty switchbacks. So I’m somewhat relieved when he eases off the accelerator on a rare level stretch. As he suddenly swerves, though, it becomes apparent that he was simply pausing to locate the gap of a narrow side trail. Unlike the mapped, sprawling Hatfield-McCoy Trails system we’ve been navigating, this new path isn’t marked, and zags up a rise at a neck-popping angle—steeper than anything we’ve so far tackled.

“If you’re not already in low gear, I highly recommend it,” a voice crackles from the walkie … Read more

Continue Reading

The ski season is only a few months old and already 25 people in U.S. have died in avalanches, with dozens more caught or buried. With solid snowpacks now covering most target ranges across the country, and pandemic hordes of both new and experienced backcountry users still seeking social distance and fresh snow, that number is sure to increase. On average, 27 people die in avalanches every year in the U.S.

No matter whether it’s hiking, snowshoeing, ice climbing, snowmobiling or backcountry skiing, experts agree the best way to stay safe in the backcountry is not just carrying the basic safety gear: a shovel, probe and beacon. And it’s not an airbag backpack—though it can improve the odds of surviving a slide by up to 50 percent.

The most important survival tool is knowledge. Both the skill to use the tools in an avalanche accident, but even … Read more

Continue Reading

Twenty years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the stories of human suffering triggered by that horrific day remain as relevant as ever. The Mauritanian, starring Tahar Rahim (A Prophet), tells one such tale of torture and human-rights abuses at Gitmo, a Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Also starring Jodie Foster, Shailene Woodley, and Benedict Cumberbatch, the film is based on the explosive memoir, and New York Times best-seller, Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi.

Slahi handwrote the 466 pages after he was captured by the U.S. government—under suspicion of being a recruiter for al Qaeda—in his cell at Camp Five Echo, a secret disciplinary block made up of shipping containers. The prisoner from Mauritania (hence the movie’s title) languished in Gitmo for 14 years without being charged with a crime before finding champions in defense attorney Nancy Hollander (Foster) and her associate, Teri Duncan (Woodley). … Read more

Continue Reading