Misadventures - Issue 1

IS S U E 1 | S U M M E R 2 0 1 6

T H E A DV E N T U R E M A G A Z I N E F O R W O M E N

UNDERGROUND ASTRONAUTS AFRICA’S BEST FEMALE KAYAKER AND THE DISAPPEARING NILE THE UNTOLD STORY OF SKATEBOARDING PIONEERS + HOW TO LAND A HANG GLIDER, BREW HONEY WINE, AND FASHION A BLOWGUN FOR FUN, FOOD, OR REVENGE

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Issue 1 Summer 2016

Exit Strategy

Featured here is Erin Ashley. She's a pastry chef, holds a Master's in Eastern Religion, and, as shown, absolutely tears it up on a longboard. Photos by Alex Swanson.

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YOUR COMPASS

THE GUIDEBOOK 34

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Way Out at Hueco

Hueco Tanks has a long history of being an oasis, hideout, and climbers' paradise.

By ANN RABER

B EHOLD

I Keep My Eyes Open On long stretches of empty road it can become impossible to avoid what you may be running from. Fiction by JILLIAN JACKSON

THE SUMMER ISSUE

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The Misadventures Summer Survival Guide A warm-weather reference of essential how-tos, from landing a hang glider, to brewing honey wine, to fashioning a blowgun for fun, food, or revenge.

54 Where Water Meets Land

A guide to islands and near-islands. Featuring JENNIFER DZIUVENIS, KRISTIN O’CONNELL, and LARAINE WYN-JONES

58 Summer Pack List

What to bring on your summer cycling, caving, and paddling excursions. Photography by MIKAELA HAMILTON

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CREDIT Climbing photograph by Ann Raber

ALSO 50

M AK E

Fish Fry in Grizzly Country

This spread takes your usual fireside fare to the next level. By REBECCA SGOUROS and MATT STIRN

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Underground Astronauts

Seeking: archaeologists, paleoanthropologists, etc. Must be skinny, preferably small. Should have caving experience; climbing experience a bonus. Most importantly: must not be claustrophobic!

By REBECCA SGOUROS

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A Conversation with DJ Courtesy

The Apeiron Crew’s Najaraaq Vestbirk talks about making it as a DJ and starting a record label. By ZOË BALACONIS

Africa's Best Female Kayaker and the Disappearing Nile Amina Tayona learned to kayak on Uganda’s White Nile, where the sport was essentially unheard of a generation ago. By RYAN LENORA BROWN

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Solo in Croatia

An ode to traveling alone, in words and pictures. By CELESTE NOCHE

Summer Reading List

Beach reads, backpacking reads, bathtub reads—a book for all your summer situations.

By SARA-KAY MOONEY

Romping Around

Fashion: Summer means fewer clothes, but it still means clothes. A style guide for the adventurous. By MIA FLANAGAN AND ALEJANDRO POVEDA

Candyman

The next installment in the acclaimed hard-hitting series on regional sweet treats.

By JULIENNE ALEXANDER

Wilderness First Aid Coloring Page

Crises are stressful; coloring is supposed to be relaxing. Illustrated by JULIENNE ALEXANDER

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THE PIONEERS REPORT 8 Shifting Gears How one bicycle collective in Tucson is changing the mechanics of empowerment.

By JESSICA C. MALORDY

ILLUSTRATIONS by Julienne Alexander

14 The Next Wave Brown Girl Surf is an organization dedicated to raising up the next generation of surfers.

By KRISTIANA CHAN

CREDIT Underground Astronauts photograph of scientist Marina Elliott with Homo naledi. Courtesy of Wits University.

15 Exploring Women

Francine LeFrak shares her philosophy on philanthropy.

By CHRISTINE DENNISON

18 The Untold Story of Skateboarding Pioneers

Meet the women behind the 1970s skate scene. By JESSE SPOSATO

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A LESSON ON METAPHOR

EDITORS’ LETTER DITING A MAGAZINE IS a funny business.

We never know exactly what we’re looking for when we start planning an issue, but we like to think of it as a story—something someone might read from cover to cover and, at the end, if we’re lucky, feel something.

I had a teacher who said a story should have a beginning, middle, and end.

I had another who said a good story should shut like a carved wooden box.

I had another who said it should “sing.”

I had another who said it should leave you with a moment of clarity, even if brief, that makes you say “ah.”

Marybeth, our creative director, tells a story about being a summer camp counselor on a dock, and putting her sunglasses on top of a piling. A camper came along and knocked them off into the water. She told him to dive in after them. He did, and came back up to the surface not with her sunglasses, but with another, better pair.

Though I hope this second issue of Misadventures shuts like a wooden box and all the rest of that, I keep coming back to Marybeth’s story.

Throughout this go-round’s editing process we were constantly throwing ideas out there, and the writers, photographers, and illustrators we worked with to make this issue come together were always bringing back better ones—better glasses with better lenses.

I would say that it was a pleasant surprise, except that given the group it was hardly surprising, and rather than being pleasant, it was closer to sublime.

Since Misadventures has started, we’ve changed our own definition of “a good adventure story” quite a bit; we’ve expanded it to include more perspectives—more lenses. The aspect that’s remained constant, and that’s guided us, is our desire to show readers that there’s a whole world out there. And, like a good story, it’s full of twists.

And wonder. There’s another way. In fact, there are many, many ways. More than we have stories for.

Yours in misadventure, Zoë Balaconis, Editor-in-Chief Marybeth Campeau, Creative Director Jessica C. Malordy, Senior Editor

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THE MISADVENTURES TEAM S I G N AT U R E D IV E / F L O P

My signature dive starts as a dolphin dive, but transforms into a splash-making cannonball before water entry. Surprise!

– Kristiana Chan

D R E A M SW I M M I N G S P OT

The Maldives!

They truly are an island paradise.

– Kristin O'Connell

Zoë Balaconis EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Marybeth Campeau CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Jessica C. Malordy SENIOR EDITOR

Sarah Connette OPERATIONS MANAGER

Hannah Hinson SALES & ADVERTISING

ILLUSTRATOR: Julienne Alexander CONTRIBUTORS: Ryan Lenora Brown, Kristiana Chan, Jen Dziuvenis, Jillian Jackson, Kristin O’Connell, Laraine Wyn-Jones, Christine Dennison, Mia Flanagan, Mikaela Hamilton, Sara Kay Mooney, Celeste Noche, Alejandro Poveda, Ann Raber, Rebecca Sgouros, Jesse Sposato, Matt Stirn

H OW I STAY C O O L

Lots and lots of popsicles. Anything that will give you brain freeze.

– Jillian Jackson

INTERNS: Ellyn Gibbs, Dana Guth S I G N AT U R E D IV E / F L O P

I want to say it's an elegant swan dive, but it's more like "pinch-mynose and hop over the edge" plop.

– Celeste Noche S I G N AT U R E D IV E / F L O P

The mighty mouse. Always the mighty mouse.

– Rebecca Sgouros

H OW I STAY C O O L

I don't wear clothes.

– Sara Kay Mooney

With Thanks To: Lila Allen, The Awesome Foundation, Tori Barnett, Korrin Bishop, Eddie Brawner, Olivia Bronson, Hannah Brotherton, Lindsay Brownell, Page Buono, Toni Carey, Chris Catanese, Suzanne Churchill, Davidson College, Catherine DiSanto, Maria Fackler, Kaela Frank, Alanna Ford, Shane Gibson, Franny Goffinet, Tory Hayssen, Carolyn Highland, Tim Houston, Zoran Kuzmanovich, Rachel Leeds, Hannah Levinson, Tim Morin, Walter Olin Nisbet III, Marian Nisbet, Walter Olin “Chip” Nisbet IV, William McGowan Nisbet, Alan Michael Parker, Jeanine Pesce, Sarah Reijonen, Kate Reutersward, Allison Dulin Salisbury, Peter Scorcia, Liz Song, Jon Springfield, Gale Straub, Annie Temmink, Jessie Tuckman, Carol Quillen, Ross Saldarini, Emmett Weindruch, Mark Williams, moms and dads everywhere Advertising Inquiries: advertise@misadventuresmag.com Press Inquiries: hello@misadventuresmag.com

D R E A M SW I M M I N G S P OT S I G N AT U R E D IV E / F L O P

I just ease into the water very smooth-like with a pool noodle in hand.

– Mia Flanagan

ILLUSTRATIONS by Julienne Alexander

A winter day in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico: cold river - hot pool - repeat.

– Ann Raber

Cover Photo By: Alejandro Poveda Flip Book: Illustration adapted from britishswimming.com (reverse dive)

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THE PIONEERS REPORT

Shifting Gears How one bicycle collective in Tucson is changing the mechanics of empowerment

BY JESSICA C. MALORDY

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PHOTO From L-R: Lane Santa Cruz, Monique Laraway, Wendy Bedoya, Carlyn Arteaga, and Beverley Makhubele, with the “Attitude Adjustment Wrench.”

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THE PIONEERS REPORT “I NEVER FEEL WELCOME going into a normal bike shop,” declares Monique Laraway, staff mechanic and art coordinator for Tucson’s Bicycle Inter-Community Art and Salvage—better known as BICAS. “And I'm a bike mechanic and have been for a long time! But for most of its existence, the bike industry has been dominated by dudes, and when I go into a bike shop, it’s an uncomfortable space, with this weird barrier—like, if you’re a woman, you don’t know as much.”

Luckily for Mo, BICAS is anything but a normal bike shop.

Founded in 1989, BICAS (itself a nickname for the legal name, Bootstraps to Share of Tucson) is one of the oldest bicycle cooperatives in the country, and a leader for bike collectives nationwide.

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Social justice has always been central to its mission: the original charter lays out a plan to expand access to employment, housing, and transportation for Tucson’s homeless community.

Funnily enough, it doesn’t mention bikes—but quickly, it became clear that homeless and other Tucsonans had a need for recycled bicycles, as well as a DIY repair shop.

Since then, BICAS has grown from a “toolbox in the dirt outside of community centers” into a Tucson institution. They’ve established award-winning youth and arts education programs; offered bike clinics in both Tucson and Mexico; partake annually in Cyclovia, Tucson’s 50,000-strong cycling festival; and even teamed up with the International Rescue Committee

to help refugees in Tucson navigate their new home. BICAS’s work-trade program, which racks up an astonishing 5500 hours a year, enables anyone to tune up and take home an old bike in exchange for some elbow grease as a BICAS volunteer; and their bike maintenance workshops, Build-A-Bike classes, annual art auction, and open shop hours are staples of the Tucson cycling community. These days, BICAS’s clientele comprises Tucsonans of all incomes and demographics, united by a desire for access—to tools, know-how, or community.

“In Tucson,” proclaims substitute mechanic Holden St. Aubyn, “everyone looks like their bike.”

Not only is BICAS beloved, but also it’s pretty hard to miss.

The basement warehouse it’s called home since 1997 is located

WHAT’S WITH THE ASTERISK? More and more, when the word “trans*” is written, folks who are hoping to use the term in its most inclusive sense are attaching an asterisk on the end. Just as the asterisk is used as a wildcard in web searches by acting as a placeholder or a fill-in-the blank symbol, the asterisk at the end of “trans*” expands the trans* umbrella to include all those who don’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth (including, but obviously not limited to, transgender folks). To learn more, visit pdxqcenter.org/bridgingthegap.

PHOTOS L: BICAS entrance.

R: Lane Santa Cruz removes a tire.

WANT TO FOLLOW IN BICAS’S TRACKS? Here are some principles that guide the WTF Workshop, and can help make your own cycling community (or any group) more accessible.

1. Allow individuals to self-identify.

When it comes to determining who’s a woman, trans*, or femme, it’s not up to you, it’s up to them. “That’s really important,” Holden says, “because it’s a space you can enter without judgment, even if you face judgment in other communities.”

2. Think intersectionally.

It’s important to remember that accessibility is impacted by intersecting identities and that, depending on your community, accessibility issues can differ. For instance, at BICAS, every shift includes at least one female-identifying mechanic and one Spanish-speaking mechanic.

at the center of the city, and scattered across the dusty desert yard are striking works of art fashioned from recycled bicycle parts, as well as an eye-catching mural surrounding an entrance ramp that facilitates easy bike access to the basement. On Mondays, however, what’s most striking is the sign propped at the bottom of the ramp: STOP: WOMEN TRANS AND FEMME ONLY. IN AN EFFORT TO MAKE OUR SPACE MORE ACCESSIBLE, BICAS IS CURRENTLY RESERVED FOR WOMEN, TRANSGENDER AND FEMME PERSONS. IF THIS ISN’T YOU, WE’D BE HAPPY TO HELP YOU DURING BUSINESS HOURS TUES-SUN 11-6.

“We’re about accessibility,” explains Lane Santa Cruz, a

BICAS mechanic for the past five years. “And we can't just say, ‘Oh we’re accessible.’ We have to be really intentional about who we hire.” Lane started working at BICAS when the Women, Trans* & Femme (WTF) Workshop was still fairly new, and at first, Lane recalls, “It was just having those discussions about who is at the shop, who works here, and they happened to be mostly white men in their twenties…and when we’re talking about accessibility, when it looks like that, then you start to think that bikes are only for that demographic. So there was an intentional move to hire more female-identified people.”

Sometimes that even meant hiring individuals without much experience; for instance, though Lane was a dedicated cyclist who had gotten around Tucson for years without a car,

GENDER IMBALANCE Data collected in 2013 from the three largest bikeshare programs in the United States—New York, Chicago and Boston—show that women make up only 24.7 percent of riders. The most recent National Household Travel Survey shows that 24 percent of bike trips in 2009 were made by women. Cyclist icon by Ludovic Riffault from The Noun Project.

3. Be mindful of bodies and space.

“Many women, trans*, and femme folks experience a lot of violence around their bodies, so we try to be mindful of the way we move our own bodies,” Bev notes. “Sometimes that means making a verbal announcement that I will move into your space or my hand will reach around you to grab this tool.”

4. Speak up.

In moments when accessibility is jeopardized, “Step up and be a voice,” Mo urges. “Like, ‘hey, it’s okay for her to learn how to do this thing.’

It’s a constant conversation, but unless people are really addressing it daily, nothing will change.”

5. Do it together.

“A DIY, we-just-tell-you-how-todo-it kind of space can still be intimidating,” Lane says. “But what I’ve learned from my peers is more of a do-it-together approach. We might even ask other people for help, because I’m not the expert either, you know? I’m right there with you.”

DEDICATED Tucson, which contains over 1000 miles of dedicated, relatively smooth bikeways was recently named America’s #1 Best Bike Town by Outside magazine.

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TUNE UP

towing her kids on a trailer, when BICAS brought her on board she had no idea how to patch a flat—a memory that makes her laugh today. “But we like to give opportunities to people who wouldn’t normally have mechanical skills in bikes,” Lane says. “If they have the dedication for the community, and they care about the work, then anybody can learn mechanical skills.” In keeping with that foundational belief, BICAS continued to expand gender accessibility, not only hiring more female-identified staff but also setting aside specific

shop hours for women, trans*, and femme customers only.

Six years later, the WTF Workshop is a BICAS mainstay. It takes place every Monday from 3 to 7 p.m., and is entirely staffed by mechanics who are themselves women, trans*, or femme. As volunteer and outreach coordinator Beverley Makhubele explains, “Mechanics is such a gendered industry, and the bike shop can be a very triggering space. But during WTF hours, women, trans* and femme folks can come down and be certain they’re not going to have to deal with rubbish. It’s

“If you don’t speak up, it’s just going to keep happening, because people don’t realize it’s an issue.”

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UPHILL In its last Regional Bicycle Report, Tucson measured a 22% increase in female bike ridership from 2012 to 2013.

a great place to learn and not feel pressured, not feel weird.”

Bev also points out, “This isn’t a big moneymaker for us. In fact, we might actually lose money tonight, because we have three mechanics on staff, and sometimes we have days that are really slow. But the fact that our staff members still feel like it’s worthwhile to stay open for that one person who might come in early or late—that folks feel it’s worthwhile to keep it going regardless of whether there’s a profit—that feels really special. Everybody who’s here is here because they are dedicated to doing this work. They really believe in this workshop, and in advocating for its necessity here in Tucson.”

This isn’t to say improving gender accessibility is simple or easy, especially for staff. During regular shop hours, says mechanic Wendy Bedoya, “People are really straightforward: ‘I don’t want you to talk to me because you’re a woman.’ Not always white guys, brown guys too. Unfortunately, sexism comes

PHOTOS L: Tools on display.

R: The WTF sign, located at BICAS’s front door.

down here. It’s not like we're somehow protected from that.”

And though WTF is the “time of week that I can take a breath,” Wendy adds that “it’s challenging to tell guys they can’t come in, because it’s constant.”

Mo describes an incident when a man barged in, stole a bike seat, and then physically threatened the WTF staff. Even on a smaller scale, Mo says, “A lot of people don’t respect this space—‘Oh, if I wear a dress, I can come in?’ I think a lot of guys feel entitled to things: ‘If a woman has it, why can’t I?’ We still get dudes taking tools out of our hands—and you just have to confront it head-on,” she concludes. “If you don’t speak up, it’s just going to keep happening, because people don’t realize it’s an issue.”

Fortunately, the WTF workshop is helping to change the

B

rW uilt fo

conversation. Six years after its inception, the vast majority of BICAS clientele value and support the workshop. “I always hear good things about WTF out in the community,” Bev says.

“And at our last orientation, a volunteer noted how powerful it was for them to know that there was a space for WTF, though they themselves didn’t identify.

More than anything, people are really moved by the intention.”

That intention—to improve gender accessibility to traditionally male-dominated spaces and activities—is spreading beyond BICAS, and beyond Tucson too.

Xerocraft Hackerspace, located across the street from BICAS, offers everything from 3-D printing to welding; inspired by their neighbors, they now hold WTF hours on Tuesdays. BICAS itself has changed: “What’s

beautiful now,” Lane says, “is that sometimes you come down here and there’ll still be a lot of men working on their bikes, but it'll be an all-female or trans*-identified staff working.”

What’s more, other bicycle collectives and cycling organizations around the country have reached out to learn more about how to make their organizations “more accessible and comfortable and welcoming to people who identify all across the board,” as Mo puts it. “Moms, trans* folks, women of color.

That’s really powerful for everyone, just creating a safe space. We actually count, and have a voice. I know a lot of women who are intimidated by bike spaces, but we should feel empowered to bike! It’s important that we step up and make our presence known.”

omen

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MEMORIES THAT LAST START WITH GEAR THAT LASTS

# KELTYBUILT

THE PIONEERS REPORT

GENERATIONS AND GENERATIONS

The Next Wave

Brown Girl Surf carves a space for women of color

BY KRISTIANA CHAN ALL HEADS TURNED TOWARD the team of a dozen women and girls, dressed in black wetsuits under fluorescent pink rash guards, bright against any background but made even louder on this unusually clear, sunny morning. It was a sight to behold. The girls stood in a circle, fists pumping to a bucket-drum rhythm and recited the Brown Girl Surf manifesto: “We! Are! Brown Girl Surf!” They concluded with a shout, a resounding declaration.

Brown Girl Surf, an Oaklandbased organization that runs surf education programs for Bay Area girls of color, also hosts community events like surf movie screenings and Earth Day beach cleanups, inviting women of all ages and colors into a diverse and inclusive community. This morning’s event, Surf Sister Saturday, was geared toward "sisters ages

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9 to 99” and most of the participants present were brand new to the sport. “It was hard because I kept falling off my board," said Arianna, a seventh-grader. "But I liked hanging out with the other girls in the water. It was a new experience, but it made me want to surf even more, and experience a lot more things in my life.”

Named for the first female Polynesian surfers, Brown Girl Surf celebrates the heritage of femininity in surfing and is a proponent for the deep connection to the environment that this sport provides. “What we’re trying to do,” director and lead surf instructor Mira Manickam says, “is build a really strong women’s surf community that feels accepting and welcoming to all women regardless of what you look like or how much money you make. I feel like the ocean and all CREDIT Brown Girl Surf at the water’s edge. Photo by Kristiana Chan

“What we’re trying to do is build a really strong women’s surf community that feels accepting and welcoming to all women regardless of what you look like.” the benefits of being in it are something we should all have access to—confidence, healing, a connection and consciousness to and of the earth.” Driven by a deep sense of social and environmental justice, Mira has worked for over ten years following these passions and effectively, contagiously, spreading the stoke with those around her. “For me, Brown Girl Surf is about recreating surf culture in our own image, carving a space for women, especially women of color. I want to shift surf culture so that it reflects me, feels welcoming to me, and other women like me.”

SAME SKY

EX P LORI NG WOME N

Francine LeFrak

The founder of Same Sky, a non-profit that supports the education and training of Rwandan women to become artisans, shares her path to a life of philanthropy.

BY CHRISTINE DENNISON

Christine Dennison is a true explorer and adventurer who leads expeditions to the most remote corners of the world and has been honored as a Fellow with the Explorers Club in New York and the Royal Geographical Society of London.

FRANCINE LEFRAK IS CHANGING the way we view philanthropy.

Born into a family that emphasized the importance of giving back, Ms. LeFrak’s hard work and vision have taken her on a global journey as an award-winning media producer, filmmaker, businesswoman and staunch supporter of women’s rights. In 2008, she founded a non-profit organization called Same Sky, which supports the education and training of Rwandan women who survived the genocide and are living with HIV to become artisans in their communities. She recently founded Same Sky America to begin similar work with women in New Jersey who had difficulty finding employment after incarceration.

I had the opportunity to interview Ms. LeFrak and learn about her commitment to empower women in rebuilding their lives through work and education. First and foremost, I asked, what drives her to want to create these opportunities for women? “3.5 billion people in the world are living on less than $2

AWARD-WINNING FILMMAKER Francine’s films have been screened at Cannes, London, Munich, Milan and Sundance Film Festivals, and her productions have won Tony, EMMY and Peabody Awards. She has been awarded the United Nations’ Women Together Award; the Ellis Island Medal of Honor; and the Human Spirit Award, from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

Quite a résumé, if we may say so.

a day,” she replied. “In America, 46 million people live below the poverty line. With globalization and the Internet, we can no longer close our eyes to extreme poverty.”

Ms. LeFrak has an extensive background in women’s rights initiatives. She is the former Chair of the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard’s Kennedy School, “which advances issues related to women throughout the world.”

She added that “the women who make up the Women’s Leadership Board (WLB) are the architects of the roadmap to gender equality.

This group is the real model of the transformative power of women working together. I’m also involved with UN Women for Peace, Women Moving Millions, and the Soulful Economy, which seeks to empower women through ethical fashion.”

Given her passion and experience, Ms. LeFrak knew she “couldn’t stand by and do nothing” following the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

“Reports from the International Criminal Tribunal stated that 1 million people were murdered within 100 days. The

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THE PIONEERS REPORT

SAME SKY

report detailed that more than 250,000 women were raped, and of the survivors, approximately 70% were infected with HIV/AIDS.” Driven to action, Ms. LeFrak “knew that helping people 7,000 miles away would work best by working on the ground. In Rwanda, we implemented community-driven initiatives that provide education and pay the women directly for their work. We pay 15 to 20 times the average Sub-Saharan wage.”

She added, “I have always been of the belief that the best philanthropy in the world is a good job.

Therefore, I believe in sustainable community-driven initiatives. We provide our collectives of women with education and training, livelihoods that recognize their dignity, as well as a platform for the sale and distribution of their products. This leads to direct results. For example, when you purchase a Hope necklace, it funds the education of an artisan’s child for a whole year.”

Ms. LeFrak traces her passion for philanthropy to family history.

“For me, philanthropy started the day I was born, and I believe it is empathy that brought me to where I am now. My mother and sisters are also strong women. We were all taught the importance of giving back from a young age.

We were also taught to acknowledge how lucky we are. As we go about our daily lives, it is easy to forget—or perhaps to push aside—the knowledge that

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“How do we keep the momentum of women helping women?” there are other people, all over this planet, right now, who will never have the opportunity to live the life that so many of us take for granted. But I believe with that privilege comes responsibility.”

When asked to describe her first hands-on experience with giving back, Ms. LeFrak recalled, “When I was a freshman in college, I tutored impoverished girls in struggling neighborhoods.

I started doing the film Prison Stories: Women on the Inside. That project instilled a moral imperative to do something that uses my talent and assets, which eventually led to Same Sky America. We now employ women who are just getting out of Hudson County Jail and working to re-enter society.”

Ms. LeFrak is also pushing the envelope in the philanthropy world on a philosophical level. “I am trying to break into a new model of aid called philanthro-capitalism,” she explained. “My strategy is for outdated philanthropic models to be renewed. For-profit, for-benefit is a new model where you don’t need to be rich to have a positive impact on the globe. I also believe in sustainable models of philanthropy that support meaningful livelihoods and tools for people to lift themselves out of poverty.”

In Ms. LeFrak’s case, she focuses on the economic empowerment of women because “they give to something larger than themselves. Women reinvest 80 percent of their available resources into their families, whereas men only reinvest 30 percent. Women investing in women, especially through education or

PAPAYA Our personal favorite Same Sky bracelet (left). This one is called “Papaya” and is made with hand-blown glass beads.

providing jobs, leads directly back into communities, the economy, and the future.” Though those numbers are promising, Ms. LeFrak emphasized there there’s still a long way to go to ensure that women are on the receiving end of resources and support.

“We need to focus our attention on how to build this trend. How do we keep the momentum of women helping women? Because the fact is, even as we give more and do more, the need is still huge. Women are 60 percent of the world's hungry. Women are at least 56 percent of the world's trafficking victims. Girls make up 57 percent of the world's children not in primary school.”

Same Sky organizes events around the country to connect with the artisans and purchase their beautiful jewelry in-person. I have had the pleasure of attending these events, and seeing Francine LeFrak in action, connecting the women she works with in Rwanda to women in the United States who are eager to make a difference. After each of these events, I walk away with renewed admiration for Ms. LeFrak, not only because of her work and success but also her humility and kindness. She is gracious, generous with her knowledge and time, possesses a tireless work ethic, and believes emphatically in creating change by working as a collective. In short, she is a wonderful role model for women.

Through her hard work and hands-on approach, she motivates and inspires those around her to become involved in a greater cause.

H i g h P e r fo r m a n ce B l a n ke t s

GoRumpl.com Photo @InTheRiverValley

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THE UNTOLD STORY OF SKATEBOARDING PIONEERS “I think there are a ton of girls out there that can kick ass over a lot of guys out there,” Laura Thornhill said over the phone— and after hearing the rest of her story, it’s clear she’s right. But, let’s start at the beginning.

BY JESSE SPOSATO THORNHILL GOT HER FIRST skateboard for her thirteenth birthday, a month after moving to Southern California from Dallas, Texas. The first issue of Skateboarder Magazine had just come out and Thornhill recalls there being a couple of random, odd pictures of girls in it, a novelty even now. “I thought, ‘I want to be in this magazine.

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CREDIT Photo courtesy of Laura Thornhill Caswell.

Photo by James O’Mahoney.

This is what I want to do.’ And that was my mission. I just ate and breathed skateboarding every day from then on.”

Before I’d heard of Thornhill, I knew the names of skaters like Stacy Peralta, Tony Alva, Jay Adams, and Peggy Oki—players from the Zephyr team who put the ’70s Southern California skate scene, and skateboarding in general, on the map. (The documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys chronicles their quick rise to fame.) Oki was the only girl to ride for the famous Dogtown team, and the second woman to be inducted into the Skateboard Hall of Fame.

But surely she couldn’t have been the only female skater to come out of the ’70s?

Turns out, at the same time that Dogtown’s Z-Boys were tearing up the SoCal suburbs, there were a bunch of girls, besides Oki, doing the same. Their names are less well known, information about them is harder to find—you have to dig for it—but for those in the know, their legacy looms.

Thornhill, of course, was one of them. She eventually got her wish to be a pro skateboarder.

After entering and winning her first contest, at her middle school—she was the lone girl competing—she gained the courage to enter Steve’s South Bay Contest, and won first place in freestyle. Afterwards, she was asked to join the Logan Earth Ski team. “Everything just snowballed from there,” she says. “I had the first ‘Who’s Hot’ in Skateboarder Magazine, the first female centerfold, the

first interview in the magazine for a girl, the first female signature model in that new era.”

Thornhill didn’t stay the only girl with a signature model board for long. Also on the Logan team was Robin Logan—Logan was her family’s company—and her board came out not long after.

“When I first started, I didn’t know any girls who skated,” Thornhill remembers. “And then once I got on the Logan team, there was a small, little group of us girls that rode.”

sister took her to a place called La Costa: a brand-new housing development still missing its houses. “It was perfect,” Berryman recalls. “All that fresh asphalt; those nice, wide roads…”

At La Costa, they rode freestyle, and set up cones for slalom racing. It was 1975 and skate parks didn’t exist yet; neither did vert skating. The style—the long boards and downhill cruising—was reflective of the style of surfing that was popular at the time. The skater girls of

THESE WOMEN, CONSCIOUSLY OR SUBCONSCIOUSLY, KNEW THAT THERE WAS NO LONG-TERM PLACE FOR THEM IN SKATEBOARDING

Ellen Berryman was another. She remembers being frustrated the first time she got on a skateboard. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it again, but then, like the second or third time, I just fell in love with it.”

Berryman grew up in Encinitas, in North San Diego County, a ’70s skateboarding hotspot, but didn’t start skating until she was 15. It was then that her older

the ’70s had long hair that spun wildly as they glided, carved, and turned effortless 360s. They were defined by their graceful freestyle moves, their short-shorts, their tube socks, their cool insouciance. Style was everything.

It was at La Costa that Berryman met most of the other handful of girls skateboarding at the time, like Thornhill, Logan, and Ellen O’Neal. A year after

WHEELIN' & DEALIN' Frank Nasworthy is credited with introducing the gripping polyurethane wheel to skateboarding in the 1970s. Before him, skateboards were outfitted with the hard, steel wheels on roller skates or crumbly clay wheels. The polyurethane technology allowed for a smoother, faster, more controllable ride. After that, skating was never the same.

19

THE PIONEERS REPORT

DOWNHILL SKATE, UPHILL BATTLE

she started skating, Berryman, well-known for her aerobic style and perfect poise, turned pro and started riding for Bahne Skateboards. At 16, Ellen O’Neal saved up enough money from her paper route to buy her first real board, a Bahne skateboard with Chicago trucks and Cadillac wheels. “I thought I was the shit!” O’Neal exclaims. When she entered her first skate competition through The Tribune, she was the only girl out of 60 guys. She ended up scoring second place, and an invitation to try out for the Gordon & Smith team. “That was kind of my beginning,” O’Neal says.

“We had a union,” Berryman says of the small group of girls, “because there were so few of us, but we were competitive.” She adds, “Ellen O’Neal and I were pen pals, but she was my biggest competition.

She was the one to beat.”

Desiree Von Essen was part of the competition circuit too—though, living up in Ventura, a few hours away, she felt somewhat isolated. Despite the distance, Von Essen—who looks back on ’74, ’75, when she was 15, as her best years—felt like she had gotten into skateboarding at the exact right time. “It was such a fresh sport. The urethane wheel had recently come out, and that’s when it just took off.

The whole sport took off.”

So it did. But skateboarding, perhaps more than any other sport, is a kind of chameleon; blink, and it’s changed. “The culture in the ’70s was—you

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Misadventures Issue 1

can’t even compare it to the skaters now. We thought we were wild and crazy in the ’70s, and the culture is very different now,” O’Neal says, laughing.

It’s true: O’Neal’s style of skating would die with the decade. But another ’70s phenomenon that did set the tone for current skate culture is, of course, Dogtown’s Z-Boys. The Dogtown boys are kind of a sore subject for some of the skater girls, a rivalry perhaps amplified

by Skateboarder Magazine.

Though some fondly reminisce over the days they shared—at one point, Tony Alva, Jay Adams, Bob Biniak, and Steve Piccolo, some of the best Dogtown riders, were riding for Logan Earth Ski— others feel slightly envious of all the media coverage they received.

As Von Essen put it, not at all bitterly, but matter-of-factly: “That same type of riding they did—this is what always surprises me—we were riding like that, too. They just got the media all over them for it. And they had the attitude to make them look, you know, cooler and punkier. I didn’t really have the right image.

I had the wrong image.” She adds, “It was kind of funny. You’d have the long, flowing blonde hair, so it was different. It was.”

Whether the Zephyr team’s fame was a fluke or a direct product of reporter Craig Stecyk’s series of articles for Skateboarder Magazine on the Z-Boys, the pool and vert riding they were doing in the late ’70s was surely pushing the skateboarding movement in a new direction. And, as

A CLASSIC Behold, one of the Logan Earth Ski originals.

this direction continued to inch forward, a lot of the ’70s skater girls began to phase out of the scene for one reason or another.

This timing was a coincidence. Sort of.

Ellen Berryman went off to college, so she stopped competing, though she still continued to skate. Desiree Von Essen (now Harrington) phased out right after high school; she was on a team she had to drive three hours to reach, with players she didn’t feel a particular connection to. Plus, she was growing up. “I was not happy at that stage of where I was, and I was just getting out of high school. So I was like, ‘OK, I think I’m done with it.’”

Logan Earth Ski closed its doors, which, Logan remembers, “took the air out of [her] sails,” and Laura Thornhill severely dislocated her elbow. Ellen O’Neal recalls going to Japan for a few months with Gordon & Smith and coming back to a whole new world of skating. She had done a little bit of vert skating before she left—she “really enjoyed carving the bowls”—but she never got into pool riding.

“When I came back, there were people that were doing tricks already that were so advanced … Just three months later, we were that far behind, and I was like, ‘I’m getting too old for this.’

It just wasn’t fun anymore.”

So, while each girl’s reason for leaving competitive skating wasn’t necessarily related to skating’s transition to vert, or because a male force directly

pushed them out or made them feel unwelcome, here is what’s not a coincidence about their departures: that these women, consciously or subconsciously, knew that there was no long-term place for them in skateboarding.

There was no career path and no road map. (Remember, this was the ’70s; X Games, whatever you may think of them, were not an option.) Even if there were a chance of having some kind of lucrative career as a skateboarder, it would mean having to fight a battle that the female skaters who came later—even with increased opportunities as the sport advanced—still struggled desperately to fight. A perfect example of this is Cara-Beth Burnside, ’80s phenom who had to take up snowboarding in order to get noticed as a skateboarder.

Skater Cindy Whitehead was coming up as an amateur while the ’70s core girls were in their heyday, and she continued to climb the ranks, turning pro as they phased out. In sync with the changing times, Whitehead dominated vert skating—the pipes and the pools. Even then, she noticed the imbalance of opportunities for male and female skaters. “The sponsorship money was so little, like, I’d go win a contest and I’d get a hundred bucks, and a guy would win the same contest and he’d get, you know, five thousand dollars or something.”

Logan, who was receiving a FedEx delivery of retro Logan skateboards as we spoke, chimed

in on the same note: “Money has never been equal, not even close. We made, like, one fourth of whatever the guys made.”

THORNHILL BROUGHT IT BACK to the present: “I know that the girls today, they feel like they’re not getting their dues with sponsorship, equal prize money, and so much stuff. It’s just been a terrible thing that women have had to deal with over the course of these past many years.”

Just a short time after the ’70s girls phased out of professional skating, concerned parents became lawsuit-happy, and skate parks started to shut down. Skateboarding essentially died for a period. Judi Oyama grew up in Santa Cruz and her skating career fell somewhere in between the core ’70s girls’ and Whitehead’s—she took Thornhill’s place in a tour, and competed against Whitehead.

When the parks started closing, she found herself at a huge loss.

“There was kind of no place to go. Then you just got into college,” Oyama says. “I always skated and kept a skateboard; I just stopped competing when the parks closed.”

Whitehead has a similar tale.

“I slowly phased out of skating competitively, as I wasn't making my living from it and most of us were in our early twenties and had to start paying the bills. I still skated backyard ramps for fun but I couldn’t afford to do

CARVING In the 1950s, skateboarding gained its first wave of popularity as a thing to do when the waves weren’t good, hence “sidewalk surfing.”

“THE SPONSORSHIP MONEY WAS SO LITTLE, LIKE, I’D GO WIN A CONTEST AND I’D GET A HUNDRED BUCKS, AND A GUY WOULD WIN THE SAME CONTEST AND HE’D GET, YOU KNOW, FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS OR SOMETHING.”

it every day, all day like I had since I was sixteen-years-old.”

She adds, “I never lost interest, and never will; it was just harder money-wise to continue.”

Skategirl Documentary 2006 (Part 3), a YouTube mini documentary-in-parts (that seems to be annoyingly missing a beginning, end, and any kind of filmmaker credits), offers this brilliant sound bite in regards to the death of skateboarding in the early ’80s: “Times change quickly in popular culture. And when skating went underground in the early 1980s, it was hard for everyone, but the door pretty much closed for the girls.”

Which isn’t to say that there

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THE PIONEERS REPORT

DOWNHILL SKATE, UPHILL BATTLE

aren’t women skateboarding today—of course there are.

Women like Cara-Beth Burnside and Elissa Steamer have largely been credited with helping to create a resurgence for women skateboarders, and many have followed in their path since.

In 2003, the X Games featured female skateboarding competitions for the first time, and continues to do so to this day.

As for the ’70s skater girls, now women, they’ve opened their doors again, this time to each other. They’ve traveled together to Skateboard Hall of Fame ceremonies, where Thornhill (now Caswell), O’Neal (now Deason), and Logan have all been inducted.

By the time this article comes out, Berryman and Whitehead will have been inducted, too.

Whitehead writes in an email, “All the girls will be at [the] Skateboarding Hall of Fame… to celebrate the inductions, including mine. So awesome to have my skate sisters there for me on this special night…their

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Misadventures Issue 1

CREDIT L: Courtesy of Laura Thornhill Caswell. Photo by James O’Mahoney.

R: Courtesy of Laura Thornhill Caswell.

Photo by Lucia Griggi.

support means the world to me!”

She says of the California girls, “We all judge skate contests together, and we try to meet up for breakfast if we’re in the same city, all that kind of stuff.

We’re very, very tight. It’s kind of a club that you were in that you never leave.” The ladies take turns being honored at skater Barbara Odanaka’s Mighty Mama Skate-O-Rama fundraiser event; and recently, Whitehead, Thornhill, and a few others came together for the Venice Ladies Springtime Skate Jam to “support the younger generation and cheer them on,” Whitehead says.

It’s something that’s very important to her. To support and inspire younger generations of female skateboarders is exactly why she started “Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word,” a brand that collaborates with companies to make skateboards and helmets geared towards young women.

She says of attending events like the skate jam, “I hope that by all of us OG girls showing up and

IN 2003, THE X GAMES FEATURED FEMALE SKATEBOARDING COMPETITIONS FOR THE FIRST TIME, AND CONTINUES TO DO SO TO THIS DAY.

supporting the younger generation of skater girls, they then see how important it is to work together and support one another to further themselves and skateboarding. To have them know our stories and to know what we went through is important.” She knows young female skateboarders still have a long way to go. “My hope is that we will see these girls having 100 percent equality in the coming years via sponsorships and prize money…only time will tell how far skateboarding can go, and I’m really looking forward to seeing that day.”

STARS IN THE MAKING Poppy Starr Olsen. Beverly Flood. Zoe Benedetto. Minna Stess.

Sky Brown. Some of the members of Team GINA4LW are as young as seven years old— but theirs are names to know. Watch incredible footage of the next generation of skating superstars at girlisnota4letterword.com.

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25

M ISADVE NTURE S SUM M E R G UIDE

THRIVE CA N 'T STO P T HE H ER BI PO P(SICLE)

DIRECTIONS

Summer is basil season. And strawberry season. And popsicle season.

See what we’re getting at here?

2. Chop the strawberries. Mix with

YOU WILL NEED

• • • • • • • • •

10 basil leaves 2 cups strawberries 1/3 cup honey 1 cup Greek yogurt 1 tsp. balsamic vinegar 1 mixing bowl 1 blender 1 freezer 10 popsicle molds

1. Place popsicle molds in the freezer, to chill in advance.

honey and balsamic vinegar in a bowl. Put aside for 15 minutes.

3. Pour the strawberry mixture

into the blender. Add yogurt and basil leaves. Blend thoroughly.

4. Pour into popsicle molds. Then pop the pops into the freezer for 4 hours, or until firm.

T EJ: ET H IOPIAN ST Y LE HON E Y WIN E

KN OTBRARY: TAUT L IN E HITCH

Clear your afternoon schedule if you decide to pour yourself a glass of this summer mead. It’s delicious. And strong. Really, quite strong. Can’t emphasize the strength enough. This is your last warning.

The great outdoors. Isn’t it great? Yes, but it can also include a lot of rain, bugs, sand, wind, dust, raccoon-y onlookers—you can only take so much.

Here’s the standard method for keeping the environment out and your tent tight.

YOU WILL NEED

MINT C UC UMB ER FAC E D IS G UIS E Summer can be hard on faces. It’s just so...bright. If you need a quick rejuvenator or sunburn reliever, try this simple and luxurious remedy.

YOU WILL NEED

• 1 Tbsp. powdered milk • 1 tsp. plain yogurt, as thick as you can find it • 1 tsp. honey • 1 tsp. fresh mint leaves • ½ cucumber, peeled

DIRECTIONS

1. Mix all ingredients with a

blender or mortar and pestle.

2. With your fingertips, apply gently but

thickly to your face, avoiding your eyes.

3. Let it sit for about 15 minutes before rinsing.

Best if used with a friend so you’re not alone...with yogurt on your face.

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Misadventures Issue 1

• 1 gallon (or larger) ceramic crock, wide-mouth jar, or plastic bucket • Airlock (from beer and wine supply shop, under $1! Not necessary, but helpful) • 3 cups honey • 12 cups water

DIRECTIONS

1. Mix water and honey in the crock or

jar. Stir well, until honey is thoroughly dissolved. Cover with a towel or cloth and set aside in a warm room for a few days, stirring at least twice a day.

2. After 3 or 4 days (less if very hot out

there), the brew should be bubbly and fragrant. Once it’s bubbly, transfer wine into a clean glass jug. If the jug is not full, you can add water and honey in a 4:1 ratio to fill. Cork with an airlock that lets air out but not in, if you can easily find one. If not, cover the bottle with a balloon, or any jar lid that can rest on it loosely and keep air out without holding pressure in.

3. Leave for 2-4 weeks, until bubbling slows.

This is “instant” gratification wine. Give it a sniff. Sweet, no? Drink it now! For variations, try adding fruit or herbs!

Based on the recipe in Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz, 2003.

YOU WILL NEED

• a cord • a tent pole or sturdy stick for an anchor

DIRECTIONS

1. Really smash that sturdy object (tent pole, stick) in the ground.

2. Tie any ol’ knot around your

tarp or tent flap, what have you.

Leave some room to extend from the flap for the line hitch.

3. Wrap cord around the sturdy thing, and then make a tight loop around the cord at least four times, with each wrap nearer to the pole.

4. Skip back to the section of cord nearer to the tent itself, and tie a slippery half hitch.

5. LOCK IT OFF. Slide the hitch to tighten the cord.

M ISADVE NTURE S SUM M E R G UID E

+ SURVIVE

AMATE UR AUG URY HOUR Weather can be unpredictable—that’s why it’s so fun to talk about. But, if you pay attention, meteorological clues abound.

L A N D A HANG GL I D E R You’re up in the air—now what?

YOU WILL NEED

• a hang glider • a cleared landing area (a field, a country road, etc)

DIRECTIONS

1. The Approach: Head straight into

the wind. Make sure your hands are level with your shoulders. Maintain an increased airspeed to give you extra control. Keep the glider level.

2. Bleeding Off Speed: Maintain a

light grip and look well ahead.

Level off three or four feet above the ground. Keep your feet up and legs trailing behind you.

3. The Flare: Wait until the downtubes

are neither pushing nor pulling against your hands—that means you’re at trim speed. Raise the nose smoothly and rapidly (push out your hands!) so that the wing slows to the point of stall, then push the nose so high that the glider fully stalls in the air and drops you gently to the ground from the altitude of one or two feet.

HERE ARE SOME WAYS TO TELL IF A SUMMER MAELSTROM’S ON THE HORIZON:

• If the setting sun is encircled with clouds.

• If the horns of the moon point down.

• If leaves show their backs.

• If cows are lying down in the pasture.

• If earthworms appear on the earth’s surface.

• If you see a black snake in a tree.

• If an ant covers the hole to its ant hill.

• If there is a ring around the moon.

CR AFT YOUR OW N BL OWG UN Impress your friends and enemies with your blowgun skills. Significant practice recommended before demonstrations in large crowds. Novices may want to begin with peas, glitter, gumballs, or grapes before advancing to darts.

Practice on a tree before upping your game to moving targets.

YOU WILL NEED • • • • • •

river cane coal hardwood sticks a pocket knife thistle twine

1. Find a tall piece of river

cane—look near rivers and streams in the Southeast.

2 - 4ft. in length should do it.

2. Push a hot coal down through the cane with a thinner piece of cane to burn out the inside and make it smooth-like.

3. Whittle your darts out of

sticks—hardwoods like oak or hickory are best, if possible. 6-10 in. darts, as sharp as needed.

4. Find some thistle, remove those

purple pods and toss ‘em, dry the rest of the thistle, then extract the fluffy inside for your dart tails. Roll up some thistle fluff and tie it onto the end of your darts with the twine.

Adapted from traditional Cherokee blowguns, as described by the Cherokee Heritage Center

Bees are great neighbors, most of the time.

2. Stir in the lavender essential oil

ILLUSTRATIONS by Julienne Alexander

DIRECTIONS

*DO NOT INHALE.

DIRECTIONS

2-3 tsp. beeswax 1 Tbsp. coconut oil 4 drops lavender essential oil ½ tsp. raw honey a small container; a jar, perhaps?

From: The Foxfire Book. Edited by Eliot Wigginton and his students.

First Anchor Books Edition, 1972.

and POOF! Dinner. *

MI X U P A K ILLER B E E ST I N G BA LM

• • • • •

• You hear a screech owl.

• Smoke rises.

• Crickets holler.

6. Insert dart into blowgun

From Hang Gliding For Beginning pilots, by Peter Cheney, 1990.

(Official Flight Training Manual of the United States Hang Gliding Association).

YOU WILL NEED

THE WEATHER WILL BE FAIR IF…

1. Melt the beeswax and coconut oil together. Remove from heat. and the raw honey. (Ironic!)

3. Pour into your small container, and let cool before use.

HOLY HELL I'VE BEEN STUNG

1. Quickly remove the stinger.

Don’t pull it out by the end: that releases more venom! Scrape it free with a fingernail instead.

2. Apply bee balm.

3. Breathe ferociously. Stiff upper lip,

you. If you don’t have your bee balm handy, for immediate pain relief you can also apply any of the following: ice, mud, crushed garlic, rhubarb juice, meat tenderizer, or toothpaste. If it really hurts don’t look at it. Look up.

For more information on what to do when stung, quickly refer to our Wilderness First Aid Coloring Page (flip to the end).

27

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Misadventures Issue 1

MEET THE

UNDERGROUND AST R O N A UT S

By REBECCA SGOUROS

Six archaeologists and anthropologists squeezed themselves through a seven-inch wide crevice—for science—and discovered a new species of hominid on the other side.

IN 2013, DR. LEE BERGER, a paleoanthropologist at University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, sent Steven Tucker and Rick Hunter on an expedition to explore caves in South Africa for evidence of early humans.

They struck the jackpot when they discovered that what

seemed to be just a narrow slanted crevice in the Rising Star cave system actually led to a large chamber littered with fossils. Dr. Berger knew he had to get a team in there quickly—but he needed just the right people.

Where did he turn? Facebook, of course, in search of:

29

FIELD WORK

Dr. Lee Berger October 7, 2013

“… three or four individuals with excellent archaeological/palaeontological and excavation skills for a short term project that may kick off as early as November 1st 2013 and last the month if all logistics go as planned.

The catch is this – the person must be skinny and preferably small. They must not be claustrophobic, they must be fit, they should have some caving experience, climbing experience would be a bonus. They must be willing to work in cramped quarters, have a good attitude and be a team player.

7

Given the highly specialized, and perhaps rare nature of what I am looking for, I would be willing to look at an experienced Ph.D. student or a very well trained Masters student, even though the more experience the better (PH.D.’s and senior scientists most welcome). No age limit here either.

I do not think we will have much money available for pay…”

6

5

4

3

2

1

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Misadventures Issue 1

7"

SUPERMAN CRAWL Here's the seven-inch height of the narrowest part of the journey, The Superman Crawl. Think you could get your body through that?

ILLUSTRATION by Marybeth Campeau, inspired by interviews with the team of underground astronauts.

In less than a month, Dr. Berger had assembled a team of six advanced scientists, all women, affectionately nicknamed the “Underground Astronauts.” The initial excavation portion of the project lasted just four weeks, and included an international support crew of cooks, climbers, cavers, and expert researchers. The mission? To recover as many of the fossils as possible.

The catch? In order to reach the Dinaledi Chamber, located some 82 feet underground, the Underground Astronauts had to navigate a veritable obstacle course: a seven-inch squeeze

known as the “Superman’s Crawl,” to a scramble up a jagged rock wall called “the Dragon’s Back,” to a 39-foot sheer drop through a narrow chute into the Dinaledi Chamber. It took each Underground Astronaut nearly 30 minutes to reach the chamber, and, once there, the team worked in grueling four to eight hour shifts, cramped and contorted around one another, to 3D scan and excavate over 1,550 fossils.

Their efforts were not for naught; the results were groundbreaking. Analysis of the bones revealed a previously unknown hominin species,

Homo naledi, which had a medley of human and ape-like features, including a humanoid face, feet, and hands, alongside an ape-like torso and a brain the size of a gorilla’s. The average individual was less than five feet tall and weighed about 100 lbs. What’s more—as if the discovery of fifteen members of a new hominin species wasn’t enough—the location of the bones suggests that the Dinaledi Chamber was a burial site, a cultural practice thought only to belong to humans.

It was, for the Underground Astronauts, some of the most exciting research of their lives.

THE UNDERGROUND ASTRONAUTS HAD TO NAVIGATE A SEVEN-INCH SQUEEZE KNOWN AS THE "SUPERMAN'S CRAWL," SCRAMBLE UP A JAGGED ROCK WALL CALLED "THE DRAGON'S BACK," AND RAPPEL DOWN A NARROW 39-FOOT CHUTE CELESTIAL The word naledi means "star" in Sotho. The fossils are so called because they were found in the Dinaledi chamber ("chamber of stars") of South Africa’s Rising Star cave system.

31

B IOLOGICA L ANT HROPOL OG IST/ AR CHA EOLOG IST

PAL E O ANTH R O P O L O G IST

PAL EO ANTH R O P O L O G IST

MARINA ELLIOT

ELEN FEUERRIEGEL

ALIA GURTOV

“To be able to combine scientific research in my field with adventure, travel—and a little danger—was almost irresistible.”

“It was a bit like entering a cathedral….Cave systems are such a primordial kind of terrain, it’s hard not to feel connected to deep evolutionary history when you’re exploring one.”

“I selected my anthropology major way back in undergrad because it would facilitate traveling and playing in the dirt—an unbeatable combination.”

Elen conducts complex experiments on modern humans in order to understand how early human behavior (like making tools) influenced the evolution of our arm and shoulder. Despite growing up a recreational caver and climber, she was sure she wouldn’t be selected. “I eventually convinced myself I had nothing to lose by applying,” she said—and, once chosen, Elen read every book she could find, and even built an obstacle course in her apartment to be sure she could get through the 7-inch pinch!

For someone who studies two-million-year-old interactions between carnivores and humans, excavation in the baking heat of the African desert is just another day at the office. It’s this kind of tough disposition that drew Alia to this extreme archaeology expedition in the first place. “To be part of a team excavating a hominin skeleton (or 15 of them) was a dream I’d had all my adult life,” she said.

Her words to live by? “Don’t hesitate.”

Marina discovered anthropology in her 30s, after a career in veterinary medicine, and has honed her skills in Alaska, British Columbia and Siberia. The Naledi project was a natural fit: she caves, climbs, bungee jumps, skydives, scuba dives, and has flown ultralight aircraft.

She was first to enter the chamber, and likened the experience to discovering King Tut’s tomb —full of excitement, and overwhelming awe.

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Misadventures Issue 1

THE TEAM At the time of the hominid discovery, the press raved about the team of “skinny girls” who had made it all possible. Interviews with them, however, reveal them to be much more than a solution to a logistics problem; they’re a one-of-a-kind group of extreme specialists. Between the six of them, they hold nine graduate degrees and are on their way to a whopping fourteen.

PALEOANTHROPOL OG IST

AR C H AEO L O G IST

AR C H AEO L O G IST

K. LINDSAY HUNTER

HANNAH MORRIS

BECCA PEIXOTTO

“Don’t let anyone else tell you who you are or what you are capable of doing… It always looks impossible, until it becomes routine.”

“You know, I think I could do that. And it would probably be a hell of an adventure.”

“My friends said ‘Of course you are!’ when I told them I’d be caving in South Africa. I guess because adventuring in some unusual location is not out of character for me.”

Lindsay describes herself as “an information hoarder with a keen interest in human behavior and communication.” She found paleoanthropology after meandering her way through writing and Shakespeare, Museum Studies, Holocaust Studies, and history. Knowing that there were countless people worldwide as enthralled by the project as she was, Lindsay live-tweeted her experience. “They were able to literally peek over our shoulders as we excavated,” she said. Her reaction to entering the chamber for the first time? “THANK GOODNESS I FIT” followed quickly by “It’s EVERYWHERE!”

At an early age, Hannah tagged along on her dad’s geology field courses, even excavating on a dinosaur dig. “I loved every part of it,” she recalled. “Being outside all day, getting dirty, the ‘tedious’ nature of excavation—everything.”

A climber, caver, avid traveler, and international archaeologist, Hannah looked back on the media buzz over the team’s small size, and emphasized, “I'd rather talk about, and be recognized for, the amazing experiences I've had as an archaeologist than fuel the fire that is the media’s obsession with women's bodies.”

The extreme environments Becca has worked in include outdoor education programs in remote settings and archaeological fieldwork in the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina, where she worked in maroon communities with descendants of escaped slaves. Her interest in archaeology stems from fascination with the past: “There is so much we don’t know, whether it’s species of our earliest relatives, or more recent people whose stories of resistance and resilience were never recorded during their lives. It’s neat to investigate these mysteries.”

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way out at Hueco YOU CAN SEE IT AS YOU DRIVE IN OR FLY OVER. SCRUB BUSH AND DESERT FOR MILES, THEN BOOM, OUT OF NOWHERE, THREE DISTINCT PILES OF ROCK AND A SPUR. WE CALL THEM MOUNTAINS, BUT THEY ARE DWARFED BY THE HILLS IN THE DISTANCE. WITHIN THESE MOUNTAINS, AN UNFATHOMABLE AMOUNT OF SURFACE AREA CREATES WHAT FEELS LIKE ENDLESS HIDING SPOTS, CAVES, ROOMS BEHIND ROOMS BEHIND ROOMS, AND SUDDENLY YOU POP OUT SOMEWHERE ELSE, LIKE A PINBALL MACHINE.

WHEN THE APOCALYPSE ARRIVES, YOU WON’T FIND ME,

BUT I WILL BE THERE.

By ANN RABER

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SOLID HOLDS

THIS ROCK,

ITS PARTICULAR TEXTURE AND formation that has given life to plants and animals and people throughout human inhabitance, also serves as the benchmark for what makes good bouldering.

The weaknesses in the rock— where the iron patina has cracked, where water has run over slopes, where bubbles in magma burst—have made holds that feel like they were created for human hands. The angles at which the boulders tumbled and broke created faces and prows so steep that a few months after a visit your brain starts to flatten them out. Next year you will walk up to your favorite warm-up and be alarmed at how aggressively its face tips back at you: in your mind it was taller, and easier.

The fall of 2015 marked my seventh season in Hueco Tanks. I always arrive in early November and stay until March. Hueco feels to me like college, or like camp. Every year I come back and it’s mostly the same people.

Each year I carefully select my projects: the boulder problems that I want to complete. I always pick a few that are likely to come together quickly, and a few that may take a while, and at least a couple that I’m not sure I will be able to do a single move of. That first month is a time to take out lots of public tours, try everything on my list, and revise my goals.

The rest of the year I climb in

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other places, sometimes even on a rope, but the entire year is geared towards performing well when I get to Hueco.

Evidence of human inhabitants from generations ago fills Hueco Tanks. There are paintings on the walls that depict the divine (figures of gods) and the practical (directions to nearby water).

There are pictographs etched into the soft rock, still clear.

There are grinding holes, too, perfectly round and deep, used to prepare food. Returning to Hueco today, it's easy to understand that it's always been an oasis.

For a modern person lost in life, guided by a passion for movement over rock, Hueco Tanks can be what it has always been for humans: a seasonal home, a hideout, a waypoint, a place to lay low and strategize before heading back into the desert.

Hueco has been where I’ve met and grown into my adult self. For many women who come here, alone or with a partner or friends, it’s a lot to take in at first. You wander around with a huge crashpad and a guidebook, groping at holds, finding your way to, then up, then on top of a boulder. You feel helpless, then

HEY LITTLE FELLAS Despite its desert climate, freshwater shrimp and spadefoot toads are able to live in the oasis pools of Hueco Tanks.

better, then worse, repeat. For most women, I believe, there is an escape to be made. Maybe it’s from the expectations of others, and what we expected of ourselves, what we thought our lives would look like. When that vision finally blurs, Hueco Tanks is a safe place to hide for a while, until you are ready to climb out and re-enter the world.

IT'S BEEN POURING RAIN for two hours and I'm huddled in a cave with my friend Rachel and a girl whose name escapes me, but she seems nice and is 19. We're all wearing damp puffy jackets and scooting our bags and bouldering pads further and further into the small shelter as the rain pools in small depressions and runs down the walls.

Rachel and I are in our 30s; she's a doctor on a two-week bouldering vacation with her husband. Our new friend is with a group of seven that came from Arizona, most of them in college, and I am their guide for the day.

We sit in the cave talking, the rest of our tour group just around the corner, climbing on four holds that have stayed

PHOTOS courtesy of Ann Raber

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dry despite the long morning of consistent showers and heavy mist. Storms like this can blow through Hueco Tanks in a matter of minutes, so we’ve held on to optimism. This group is only here for a weekend. They drove through the night, getting to Hueco at 2 a.m., 20 miles outside of El Paso, Texas and close to the point where the corners of New Mexico, Texas, and Old Mexico meet. With two days to climb and this tour booked well in advance, they're going out and pulling down on rock no matter what.

This group could have come out to these rocks by themselves.

They are experienced climbers and don’t require a guide for their typical day out. But Hueco Tanks is not a typical climbing area, and they need me if they want to visit the classic bouldering zones in the backcountry—which is just a few hundred steps from the parking lot. But because of the archaeological significance and ecological fragility of the area, visitors are required to hire a certified guide to take them to many of the most popular climbing areas. Over the

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years, many dedicated boulderers like myself have become guides, taking a series of required courses and certifications, and buying insurance each season.

These public tours, booked online or by word of mouth, earn me enough to cover the cost of being a guide, and to spend four months each year—November through March—climbing here.

Bouldering is a form of climbing that distills the interaction between human form and rock to its most essential. We climb for difficulty, for complexity, rather than for physical endurance or to stand on some high summit (although both of those things occur in bouldering now and then). A typical climb in Hueco (we call them “problems” in bouldering) starts sitting down at the base of a rock feature, holding onto holds at about eye level. Hands and feet work in concert through powerful, tenuous movement, holding onto grips that are uncomfortable, stepping onto obvious or subtle footholds along the way to a finish. Typical Hueco problems finish on a large

hold, but it’s not quite over until you pull over the top and stand on top of the boulder. At that point you might find yourself at ground level, having climbed out of a hole, or you might be at the highest point on the plateau.

This style of bouldering has been replicated in climbing gyms all over the country; it's North American style at its very finest. I always tell new visitors, if you’ve climbed in an American bouldering gym, you’ve climbed here, in a sense: this place inspired many of the plastic shapes you find indoors. These holds and angles dictated for a generation what made a boulder problem “good.” When you accomplish a climb in Hueco Tanks, you've mastered something of history.

You've put your body through the paces established over many years. It's a hassle, dealing with guides and tours and restrictions to access, but when you pull over onto the top of a boulder at Hueco that you've really put some time into, it’s worth it.

But on this November day, since a massive early-season

IN A NAME As befits such a beloved landmark, the bouldering routes at Hueco have their own terms of endearment. Some of the best? The Mushroom Roof, See Spot Run, T-Bone Shuffle, Sex After Death, Better Eat Your Wheaties, Nobody Here Gets Out Alive and—our personal favorite—Hobbit in a Blender. Samwise Jam-jee...or...Froyo Baggins....

Bouldering distills the interaction between human form and rock to its most essential. storm has parked itself on our island of rock, all our efforts are on pause. Rachel and I and our new young friend are sharing trail mix and thermos caps of hot tea, talking about how we wound up here. Our new friend tells us that she's been climbing for a few years, and has decided to stay in her hometown to try and make a relationship work rather than move away for college.

Rachel and I nod, because who doesn't recall the first time when a relationship, the potential for true love, was the motivating factor in our life choices? "But that's why I stick with climbing,” she tells us, “because my biggest fear is to lose someone I love, but I know that even if that happens, climbing will be there for me."

Rachel and I both consider this. I am unable for a moment to relate. "My biggest fear," I say finally, "is getting a disease or an injury that ends my climbing."

Rachel is nodding.

"Yeah, for sure."

We've felt the way she feels before, but now losing people we love and climbing through the terrible times has become routine. The next unknown for us is how we will keep loving through the loss of climbing.

WITH RACHEL OUT AT Hueco for a couple of weeks, I’m excited to show her some of my projects. I

suspect she will like them, and I’m right. We brought five crash pads so Rachel and I could build a flat, soft landing under the face we want to climb, despite the jumble of rocks. It’s early in the season so no one has climbed on this wall yet, and there are none of the usually ubiquitous white chalk marks left behind by long-gone climbers.

We touch everything with our white, chalky hands, leaving those marks and making extra marks to remind us in the moment where exactly the index finger needs to land to secure the hold. In bouldering, the ultimate goal is to start at the bottom and climb over the top without falling or stepping off, but to learn the most difficult moves we will start midway up, or only climb part of the line. On this line, one small hand move has proven especially trying, and it seems to be related to an uncomfortably high foot placement that is throwing both Rachel and me off balance. When I hit the pile of crashpads I notice that one of my fingers is bleeding right where I need it most to be strong.

We spend the rest of the session trying to sort out the foothold issue. I have a clump of tape on my fingertip and won’t be able to climb on tiny holds until it heals. I have a system of BandAids, ointment, and sandpapering that should have me back in shape within three days, so long as I don’t re-tear it. Bouldering involves

READ UP John Sherman’s Hueco Tanks Climbing and Bouldering Guide is the original, 1995 go-to resource for Hueco Tanks, and includes everything from topo maps of bouldering problems to a list of El Paso’s best Mexican restaurants, some of which may still be standing.

a lot of time sitting under a rock waiting for the body to regenerate.

In that time it’s best to distract myself a little bit. So we talk.

IN 2012, I SPENT a long, dusty season in Hueco with Ashley Veevers and Kate Davenport. It was a magical time when were each (mostly) single with no commitments except to climbing hard and scoring a shower at least once a week. We marched out to the boulders to assault our projects, even as it got hot and windy and the dust started to blow in the early spring. When Kate and Ashley both did a project and it took me forever to finish, they hiked pads out and sat in the sun, making me laugh while I fell again and again, giving up time that they could have spent trying their next objectives.

Then it was Kate’s turn. We watched her struggle and finally succeed on a hard, painful boulder with an exposed, scary finish.

She dug three thin fingers into a jagged pocket just two moves from the top, bending them hard at the second knuckle. With that hand secure, she shook out her other hand behind her back. Everyone stayed quiet as Kate took control of her breathing, pulling it down and pushing it out slowly while she hung there, the sharp tips of her toes dug in on small edges and her body hanging in between the three points like a hammock over a pile of pads and a steep slope.

This tenuous position is rather ludicrously referred to as a “rest.”

Tough as these problems were, we held on to the last cool breeze conditions before moving on to cap off the season at Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, a town a few hours north where the main street is lined with a wide array of hot springs resorts

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LAND + PEOPLE

THE HISTORICAL STRATA OF HUECO Humans have been a part of Hueco Tanks for nearly 10,000 years: the earliest prehistoric people left behind spear heads carved out of hard syenite, and later indigenous groups settled there and added to the gallery of pictographs on the cave walls. By the 1800s, the Apaches, Kiowas, Comanches, Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans had all left their mark on Hueco Tanks in one way or another, but it was in 1955 that rock climbers began to make their presence known.

According to Park Superintendent Ruben Ocampos, after the first major climbing and bouldering guides were published in the 1990s, management of Hueco Tanks became imperative. In 1998, a Public Use Plan was drawn up, resulting in the closure of 13 climbing sites—but leaving more than 2000 others open to climbers, boulderers, and other visitors: “Day users are allowed access to North Mountain, which is a designated self-guided area, and can take guided pictograph and petroglyph, hiking, and bouldering tours to East and West Mountains.

User groups and community stakeholders continue to help protect trails, vegetation, wildlife, and cultural resources so that future visitors can enjoy the site’s beauty and experience its serenity.”

and thrift stores. The three of us haven’t spent such a long time together since, but that season set the tone for our next phases of life: I drove up to northern California to give the guy I'd met a real chance; Kate went back to Boulder for graduate school; Ashley joined the indoor bouldering competition circuit, got a crash pad sponsor, and started aiming for that ultimate rock climber gig: contract traveling nurse. Four years on, and those divergent paths still bring us together, if only for a hot minute, season after season at Hueco.

This year we were all there again. Ashley had upgraded to a downright palatial Astrovan. We got cozy inside and had a moment.

Oh my gosh, we’re all still here.

Our fears—that the different directions we had followed would take us away from Hueco—had not come to pass. Despite putting

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down roots in our own ways, hundreds of miles apart, Kate, Ashley and I still make space to choose, and we still choose bouldering, and we still choose Hueco.

Kate, the most eloquent and economic speaker, laid it out. "Even though my life and job doesn't let me spend as much time here as I used to, I feel the most like myself here.

I can see my life, and I can see what I want it to be like."

THIS SEASON I GUIDED for a woman named Corinne, a Quebecer, on a 6-month bouldering trip, traveling the U.S. and Canada in a Dodge minivan with her older brother. It's great to be together with someone, she tells me, but big brothers can be incredibly mean. Corinne is 20.

She was an indoor competition climber through high school.

Now she's only climbing outside, and she's very good in a way that Quebecers and people who competed on plastic as kids often are—climbing technique is so deeply patterned in their bodies, they seem to stumble without thinking into efficient, graceful climbing. I love seeing Corinne use her talent, which she doesn’t really even trust yet, to unravel classic climbs all over the park. She’s never been here before, her list of projects is long, and every single one is a climb I remember. Watching her, I recall that feeling of momentum as the Hueco climbing style starts to make sense in the body, problems come together faster, and you start to think gosh, maybe I could try something harder?

Corinne takes her time on the projects and puts in as many days as it takes to go from the start to the top. She's selective and persistent, and I can feel her excitement build as she ticks things off her list, and I let myself rise up on her wave. I’m dug in deep on one of my harder projects, a long roof line that travels a great distance about five feet off the dirt. I’m close, doing all the hardest parts most days but feeling far from finishing.

Corinne is projecting a line that follows the final moves of mine.

Corinne says that spending these months outdoors on real stone has made her feel pressure.

She feels late to the game: “I should have been doing this all along,” she says, instead of “wasting time” in the gym all through high school. I can only laugh. That feeling of being late before I even began is so familiar to me. Corrine has plenty of time and the years spent on plastic have laid a strong foundation. But it's impossible to talk a person out of that pressured feeling.

GLYPHY Intrigued by Hueco’s ancient pictographs and petroglyphs? You’re not alone. Dr. Kay Sutherland and Forrest Kirkland’s Rock Paintings at Hueco Tanks Historic Site is chock full of archaeological and historical factoids, as well as watercolor renderings of the rock paintings. Visit texas.gov to check it out.

IN SPRING, WHEN THE sun starts to skew closer and four months of crimping and yarding hard and living in the sand start to pile on, the Hueco climbing season ends. Local boulderers and climbers who stick it out year-round like to remind us that there are plenty of cool days through June and most of the caves never see the sun. Still, spring break is the last gasp of the high bouldering season, and by the last week of March there are more animals roaming the rocks than visitors. While there may have been hours of waiting to enter the park in February,

by April 1st you drive right in.

Every year in late spring I visit one last time, to make sure the RV isn’t full of mice, snakes, or water, and to lay some groundwork for next fall. Ana Burgos is still at Hueco: she lives here with her husband all year long. They know the park more intimately than anyone else I know, and see the seasonal climbing population rise and fall and then fall even further still. When I come through in May, it feels heavenly and quiet and so, so sunny. Ana and I go into the park together and she graciously helps me to do all the moves of a hard line, so I know if I should even be considering it for next season or just let it go.

Ana is from the Southeast, and she’s among the most accomplished and prolific female boulderers in the country, particularly in Hueco. At significantly under 5 feet tall and 100 percent muscle and bone, Ana has taken down boulder problems that no one of her stature had done before or since. She’s low profile, low key, and high energy, and spending time in the boulders with her is both an education and a vacation. Because she has been

here for so long, there is always a sense of infinite time. A less than perfect performance day is nothing, she knows, and a feeling of attachment dispelled as easily as it arose. Ana and her husband live in a trailer on a perfect plot of land that sits in the shadow of West Mountain, the largest of the four formations that make up Hueco Tanks. She knows every deposit of artifacts, the tracks and call of each animal, which plants are poisonous, and the location of every grinding hole and pictograph. She has spent time in Hueco for the last twenty years and she still looks at it in awe. “Never gets old, Hueco Tanks!” she says. Compared to the rocks’ erosion, seasons pass quickly. People come and go.

WHAT CLIMBERS DIDN’T KNOW when they started coming here was that it was already sacred. Infrared technology has revealed dozens of paintings clinging lightly to the rock’s surface. Archaeologists and anthropologists studying the place insist that if Hueco goes unprotected, what little remains will be destroyed. And they’re right. In 1988 the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department began closing off sections of the caves, keeping tourists and climbers at a safe distance. That hasn’t happened in most parts of the park, but there has been tension over the ownership of these rocks—among locals, climbers, academics, the TPWD, and Native American groups—for decades. Last year, the TPWD organized a Hueco Tanks Working Group dedicated to preserving the park’s resources for everyone.

The rocks, of course, remain silent on the matter. We put

meaning to them, paint them, chalk them up, scan them, but they're just there. It’s hard to remember that though I may feel at home at Hueco Tanks, so do others. Every time I leave a white handprint on a hold, I can’t help but think of someone else, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, doing the same, adding another layer to the palimpsestic history visible in the rock’s very surface.

Among climbers, we don’t talk much about what’s going to happen to this place. When it comes to arguments for keeping Hueco Tanks open to climbers, there’s not much to hold onto, apart from our memories: the people we’ve met, the projects we’ve tackled, the problems that still evade our grasp. So we focus instead on the task at hand. We tell ourselves that this season we are allowed to be here, and that’s all we can be certain of.

Geological time, the rate of a mountain’s life from formation to destruction, is beyond humans' ability to observe. The most we can do is unite in the moments when the rocks serve some purpose in our relatively short lives.

I’M TOLD THAT SOMETIME in the 1830s ten men were running for their lives through the sandy hills of west Texas, chased by members of a rival army. They made it from the scrub bush desert into the rocks of Hueco Tanks, where they darted through the outcroppings and caves. One bad turn, and they were cornered. Those in pursuit tried to smoke them out.

They had no choice but to climb.

One by one they inched their way up a crack, emerging, as you still do in Hueco, on a rocky rise out of view. There, hidden from sight, they made a break for it.

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UNDERCURRENTS

Africa's Best Female Kayaker

AND THE DISAPPEARING NILE

By RYAN LENORA BROWN

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TO THE SEA The Nile River has two main tributaries: the White Nile, sourced in Lake Victoria (the world’s second-largest freshwater lake, divided between three countries: Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda); and the Blue Nile, which originates at Lake Tana in Ethiopia.

The rambling stretch of the Nile River that runs past the village of Bujagali in southeast Uganda is still and glossy, a perfect mirror for the yellow-pink equatorial sunsets that slink low over the water here each evening. But if it looks cut from a postcard, for Amina Tayona, that still water reflects something else entirely—a profound loss.

CHAMP Uganda’s Amina Tayona took first place in 2016’s African Freestyle Kayaking Championships.

UNTIL FIVE YEARS AGO, the river here was choppy with rapids, world-class ones, which pulled in a steady crowd of both pro kayakers and tourists on day-long rafting trips up the Nile. In Bujagali, where Amina grew up, and the nearby town of Jinja, locals created jobs for themselves ferrying the visiting wazungu—white people—on wheezing motorcycle taxis called boda bodas and selling them warm Rolexes—a Ugandan street food made by rolling an omelet in steaming chapati bread. When Amina and her friends weren’t in school, they would sit by the river and jokingly call after the visitors in oversized life jackets, “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to teach me how to kayak?”

Then one day when Amina was 14, a man glanced back over his shoulder, locked eyes with her, and said, “Sure, why not?”

A decade later, Amina Tayona is the best female freestyle whitewater kayaker on the continent—the only African woman to compete in last year’s world championships in Canada and part of a growing cadre of world-class kayakers from a nation where the sport was unheard of a generation ago.

But the rapids where she first learned her sport are now gone, flooded out by massive Bujagali dam, a hydroelectric power project completed by the Ugandan government and its private partners in 2012. Now the remaining Ugandan rapids here are under siege as well. If nothing changes, in two years’ time they will also be flattened, taking the remainder of the rafting industry—and likely Amina’s promising career—along with them.

The Ugandan government says its Nile hydroelectric projects are a necessity – the only way this poor, landlocked

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country can kick-start industrial development and begin providing electricity to the more than 80 percent of Ugandans who still live without it. But for those living in the dams’ shadow, construction threatens the river and the tourism industry that have long sustained them.

“I’m worried, I’m really worried,” Amina says. “If this dam comes in, we’ll be left with nothing.”

Anywhere in the world, freestyle whitewater kayaking is a maniac’s endeavor. In competition, athletes navigate short stretches of white water rapids while attempting to pull off as many tricks—flips, rolls, spins— as they can in 45 seconds. But it requires a special brand of daring when you come from rural Uganda, where most people get by growing corn, bananas, and

sweet potatoes on the Nile’s fertile shores and adventure sports are something for the white NGO workers who troop in from Kampala on the weekends. Like most of the continent’s best paddlers, Amina took a backdoor into the sport, working first as a safety kayaker for a local rafting outfit—the first and currently one of just two Ugandan women in the country to hold that job. (The other is a friend she trained.)

“People at home thought I was crazy, to go into the rapids in a little boat like that—especially as a lady,” Amina says. “But I always tell them, you just have to know you can’t fight the water and then you relax, because it is stronger than you can ever be.”

But what eventually convinced her family wasn’t the poetry of the water, but something a bit more prosaic.

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CREDIT Amina Tayona takes on the rapids of the White Nile. Credit: Jenny Farmer

Misadventures Issue 1

In a country where the average household income hovers around $130 per month and at least two thirds of young adults are formally unemployed, Amina makes $40 per day as a safety kayaker—more on the days she sits in the raft itself as a guide.

That income allows her to support her three-year old son and the stay-at-home husband who cares for him, plus contribute to the expenses of a constellation of extended family members.

“It’s really big money,” she says.

But not big enough for the Ugandan government, who say the benefits of its two hydroelectric dam projects on the Nile—Bujagali, opened in 2012, and Isimba, slated to open in 2018—far outweigh the costs to the adventure tourism industry and local environment.

“People at home thought I was crazy, to go into the rapids in a little boat like that—especially as a lady.”

“We have to choose between two,” Ugandan Energy Ministry spokesman Bukenya Motovo told NPR last year. “Which one do we take? Do we sacrifice energy for tourism? Do we run both? Or do we sacrifice tourism for energy?”

But activists here say compromise is still possible.

Technically, the area downstream of the Bujagali Dam should be shielded from harm by an environmental protection agreement signed in 2007 between the World Bank—who provided the loans and grants for the dam projects—and the Ugandan government.

The pact, called the Kalagala Offset, prohibits construction of a dam that would flood the remaining White Nile rapids.

But the Ugandan government now appears to be flouting that promise, repeatedly refusing to publicize the height of the Isimba dam while promising that it would produce 183 megawatts of power—which is only possible if it is also large enough to destroy the rapids.

“The construction of the dam is progressing rapidly, which means that our opportunity to save the river is passing quickly,” says Haley McKee, a representative of the advocacy group Save The White Nile. “But we live in hope. We hope that the Government of Uganda and the World Bank will act soon to honor their commitment to Uganda’s people and biodiversity.”

In the meantime, however,

PHOTOS L: Amina kayaks her way to victory. Credit: Philip Robert. R: The winners’ podium at the 2016 African Freestyle Championships, with Amina in first place! Credit: Tammy Muir, 2nd Place, South Africa.

HELP OUT To join the campaign to save eco­tourism on the White Nile, visit www.savethewhitenile.org.

the kayaking community around Jinja has refused to slow down. Last year, Amina was part of the first ever Ugandan team to compete in the World Freestyle Kayak Championships on the Ottawa River in Canada – and she will represent Uganda again this year after finishing first in the African championships in early April.

“It’s the best kayakers in the world competing,” she says. “But even there, people were telling us how much they loved the rapids we have back in Uganda, and how lucky we are to have them.”

This report supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Great Lakes Reporting Initiative.

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FIC T I O N

I Keep My Eyes Open

All roads go somewhere. Some go to Graceland.

By JILLIAN JACKSON

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ILLUSTRATIONS by Julienne Alexander

CREDIT Tennessee icon by Maria Darron from The Noun Project

The billboard for Graceland has Elvis’s face, curled lip, exit 5B, off I-55.

The whole cross-country trip it is always like this: a billboard, a sight to see, a tourist trap, a 72-ounce steak in Texas, Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota, authentic native American handicrafts, the world’s largest ball of twine, tallest filing cabinet, largest nonstick frying pan. A back and forth between the two of us: should we take the exit? Do you want to? Do you really want to? Should we do it?

When we stop we do it because I cannot resist.

I am the one who cannot wait to get out of the car, who cannot get enough, who wants to see and see and see. In the cramped car it does not matter. I don’t care if all we do is stand in front of a thing for two minutes and spend ten minutes wandering the gift shop, aisle after aisle of mugs and key chains and shot glasses and baseball caps. Everything is worth seeing, anything that means I can get up and out and stretch my legs.

“I’m in love,” Nate says from behind the wheel.

“I’m all shook up.”

There is no back-and-forth about Graceland. What is there to discuss? We are in love. We are all shook up. I tell Nate there is only one thing I really want to do in Memphis, other than Graceland, and that is find somewhere to see the fireworks for the Fourth of July.

“I almost forgot,” he says.

I did not forget, because

Fourth of July is my mother’s birthday, and this is only her second birthday since she left my father, taking off without a word, with no word since. Every other year except for this one and the last we did the same thing. My mother and father and sister and I spent the whole day at the beach near the house I grew up in, a small stretch of Maine coast that is almost equal parts sand and rock. We brought sand-

wiches and a radio and we swam and at night we watched the fireworks explode right over our heads, the ashes floating down like feathers and landing softly in the sea. If I cannot have the beach and I cannot have my family I will at least have fireworks.

WE STARTED THE TRIP in Boston where we share a small apartment and we moved from

ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS This piece may be fiction, but that big ball of twine is fact, ladies and gentlemen—meaning that it’s contested. No fewer than four cities are duking it out for the honor of world’s largest twine ball: Darwin, Minnesota; Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin; Cawker City, Kansas; and Branson, Missouri.

Now’s the time to decide where your loyalties lie. Pictured: The JFK ball (photo credit to Jonathan Beilin).

east to west, now west to east.

We drink Bloody Marys and smoke cigarettes, even though we do neither of these things in our real lives, our normal lives, our lives where have unsteady, low-paying jobs; jobs that are easy to leave and pick up again. We keep a cooler in the backseat filled with deli meat from Wal-Mart and when we are hungry the passenger crawls back and assembles lunch. The deli meat is from Wal-Mart because there are WalMarts everywhere. When our phones die and we have to ask for directions, people often say to us, take a left at the Wal-Mart, or, there is a Wal-Mart and then you pass through a set of lights.

We stay in all different kinds of campgrounds.

Some are just patches of grass and gravel. There is one with skinny trees and a brook, and one with a restaurant where a sweet old man in suspenders served us the best biscuits and white sausage gravy I have ever had. In Minnesota the girls at the neighboring campsite gave us pre-made margaritas in silver bags that looked like Capri Sun and I stayed up with them and we danced on the grass wet with dew and we only stopped when we realized our toes were frozen.

In Colorado I drove up the Rocky Mountains. I had to stop for deer and buffalo to cross. I tried to look around me, below me, above me, but I could not take it all in. Nate said, “This is unbelievable,” but I was struck dumb, wordless.

Later when we set up camp and I regained speech I said to Nate that he looked like a moun-

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WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE ROOM

Maybe you should try just sitting still for once.

FIC T I O N

tain man. He had a thick beard, and he was wearing a flannel shirt, his brown hair mussed.

In the tent at night, once we are zipped into our sleeping bags, Nate always falls asleep right away. I stay awake. I watch his eyelids flutter. He has long eyelashes that are thick and dark. Sometimes I lie like this until the sun shines bright through the orange nylon of the tent and heats it up. Sometimes in the middle of the night I go out and wander around, sit on a picnic bench and smoke, listen for coyotes or bears or owls. I strain to make out shapes in the dark. I look for Big Foot, imagine him lumbering toward me through the shadows of trees.

TWO WEEKS AGO WE stayed with my sister in Chicago.

We had driven for hours and seen nothing but scattered

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farmhouses and then the roads began to fill and soon we were in rush hour traffic, circling the city, seeing it from the outside, skyscrapers in the center. I thought about how the cities were hubs like this, pulsing like stars, radiating out and fading until there was another city, but with so much space in between, light years of rolling plains and highways.

She cooked for us in her Hyde Park apartment. It was the first time I had been there. It felt good to see her life, her mundane things, her coffee mugs, what she watched on television at night.

After dinner and three glasses of wine she took me into the other room. With her green eyes just like our mother’s, she stared down at me and asked me why I was doing this, driving like this, what I was hoping to find. “Maybe you should try just sitting still for once,” she said.

SHAGGY The Jungle Room was converted into a recording studio in 1976. Presley recorded most of his final two albums there on the green shag.

Everyone is always telling me to sit still, as if saying the words will make a difference, as if it is as simple as finding the answer to a riddle. As if it would make it easier for me, take away my antsy fingers, quiet my leg that shakes up and down when I’m ready for whatever is next.

I have tried everything. Daily physical activity to wear myself down. Meditation and yoga. Breathing exercises.

Herbal remedies. Lavender oil sprayed on my pillow at night, on my pulse points. I can never concentrate, never listen, never stop, never sleep.

AT GRACELAND I SAY, “I feel my mother here.”

We are in the Jungle Room.

There are green shag carpets and fur and leather and hanging plants and wood carved figurines.

Nate says, “Why do you talk about her like she’s dead?”

She is not dead, but she is gone, taken up with a boyfriend after a longtime affair. She doesn’t even really like Elvis. The whole trip I think to myself: there are a million ways to find a person. It is harder to not find them, to let them disappear.

I TRY TO DO both. I try to find her and let her disappear. I look for her without looking. I do no research but I keep my eyes open. While we are driving, the highways shrinking and expanding, slimming down to two lanes, back out to four, filling with more cars, then less cars, with big rigs with giant pictures plastered to their sides, advertisements for Coca Cola, Lays Chips, Snapple, we say to each other: “Look.” We point at whatever we see out the window, because we don’t want each other to miss anything.

In Montana we saw horses by the side of the road and we stopped and leaned against the low wooden fence just so I could feel the nose of one on the back of my hand.

In Iowa we saw the billboard for the world’s largest nonstick frying pan. We stood in front of it and we said, is this really the largest? Then we said: do we really care? It’s hilarious; it’s amazing. What a world we live in, that there’s a chance we could possibly be standing in front of the world’s largest nonstick frying pan.

AFTER GRACELAND WE SPLURGE on a cheap hotel and walk around downtown Memphis. We end up on Beale Street, where we hear there will be fireworks. There are brass bands playing, slide trombonists

and horn players with open cases with red lining, a few dollars tossed in. There are barbecue places and drunken tourists wandering with oversized cups of booze-laden slushies. I am wearing a dress I bought at a consignment shop in South Dakota for five dollars. It is wild, this crazy retro sixties mod thing, short and square with bright blue, red, and yellow squares and triangles.

Then it starts. The fireworks are going off, big and bright, lighting everything up, booming and cracking and fizzing and flying off in all different directions. The first ones are my favorites, glittering gold; the ones that shoot up high and burn down long and slow, so slow that as they fade they end up looking like a weeping willow tree.

I scan the crowd and over Nate's shoulder I see a woman who looks like my mother. She has her blond curls swept up in a red silk scarf and she is wearing a white shift dress. I am smelling her perfume, citrus and pine, and my brain flashes to the last night I saw her, in front of her vanity, spraying it, the square bottle with the light blue cap in her hand, an expression on her face I could not read.

I am convinced it is her.

Her back is to me. She moves forward and away, slipping between bodies in the crowd.

“I have to go,” I say to Nate. “Let me go.”

“Sarah?” he says.

I want to follow her but I just keep standing. The fireworks boom over our heads.

WHEN I AM FINALLY forced to sit still, I will dream of the road trip. My mind will slow enough to process everything I saw. I know this with certainty: I will be an old

woman with old bones and old blood and I will be forced awake in the night from the feeling of rising into the Rocky Mountains. I will sit up from my bed and in the stillness I will feel the remnants of the dream, the fog, the trees, the winding road behind me and below me going down and down and down deeper into a shrinking valley, the cars and people like moving dots, a panorama in miniature, distant, the air from the open windows getting colder and thinner as we go up and up.

ON MY MOTHER’S BIRTHDAYS at the beach she and I always played underwater tea party while my sister read and my father slept or while my sister buried my father and we could see his head poking out of the sand like a deranged sea turtle. “Wave to the sea turtle,” my mother would say from where we stood in the water.

And then we’d count and drop down. We would open our eyes underwater and pretend to drink tea, to have a proper British tea time together before we rose up, and because it only lasted for a few seconds I'd make her do it again and again. I was trying to make the fragments—the brief stints underwater—become a continuous whole. I wanted to do this over and over, the way only a kid can want to do something over and over, long after it has become tedious for an adult. But she did it without complaint. It only lasted seconds, but I always wanted longer; I wanted the stasis, the mid-underwater beauty, the feeling of floating in everything, the muffled sounds, her blurred smile, the way she stuck out her pinky before we floated back up to the surface. If only we could have weighed ourselves down.

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Fish Fry in Grizzly Country Just because you’re in the wild doesn’t mean you have to eat dirt.

By REBECCA SGUOROS and MATT STIRN

HE NUMBER ONE RULE on my backcountry trips is “Eat Good Food.”

Good food is the key to keeping morale up—if you doubt this now, please remember my advice the next time you are on day six of freezing rain at 12,000 feet, trying to warm up a pack of dehydrated mac-and-cheese under your armpit. That said, producing quality food for every meal of a camping CREDIT All photos by Jessie Blount

trip can be a harrowing task.

While I could go on about how to design a multi-day menu that uses all fresh food, or how to safely transport eggs into the backcountry, I’d rather share one of my best mountain meals: a classic Southern-style fish fry. Last summer, I was doing a three-day archaeological survey of an area in the Tetons dotted with large alpine lakes—and what better to eat at the edge of a beau-

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Food always tastes better when you’ve fought the elements for it and survived.

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CHARMED, I’M SURE Catfish are so named for the whisker-like barbels protruding from their mouths. They can be found in freshwater habitats and coastal regions of every continent in the world (except Antarctica—for now).

tiful lake than fish? While most of the lakes and streams in this area are teaming with trout, it’s never a good idea to rely entirely on catching your meal, so I packed in catfish. But if you’re a more confident fisherperson than I clearly am, cast away. This would be delicious with freshly-caught fish.

The prep and the cooking process itself is relatively easy—in theory. There aren’t a ton of ingredients, and buying frozen chopped okra cuts down on most of the prep work. But, things that are easy in a kitchen can get complicated in the outdoors—fast. Just as I got the oil hot and was dropping in the okra, a micro-burst came through and turned our campsite into the opening scenes of The Wizard of Oz. One hand was on the pan trying to keep the okra from burning, the oil from spilling, and everything from catching fire, while the other was trying to hold up the top of our tarp shelter. In the end, self-preservation trumped food-preservation, and we pulled the tarp loose, turned off the stove, and covered the food for a few minutes until the storm passed.

Food always tastes better when you’ve slaved away over it or when you’ve fought the elements for it and survived. As a frequent backcountry explorer, I count the miles walked, the elevation gained, the bug bites scratched.

But I also count the great meals I’ve had. This fried fish is tucked away in my memories between the eggs Benedict I ate with wolves circling our camp; the bananas Foster that got flambéed in a rainforest bungalow; and the mushroom and kale risotto that was crafted with a bottle of Newcastle painstakingly transported across the continental divide. Stories for another day.

PHOTOS by Matt Stirn

A SOUTHERN FISH FRY FRIED CATFISH FILLETS, FRIED OKRA, AND COLLARD GREENS Nothing like enjoying some hot, hearty comfort food al fresco. Whether you’ve spent the last 8 hours hiking, backcountry lounging, or otherwise exploring, this is the perfect way to slow down and enjoy the last light of the day.

Serves 2-6 people (depending on fillets caught or bought) or 1 bear (with very discerning taste) INGREDIENTS

Catfish fillets Bread crumbs (pre-seasoned) Cajun seasoning Garlic powder Eggs or egg beaters Frozen okra (sliced) Collard greens Red wine vinegar Hot sauce

DIRECTIONS

1 Collard Greens: Chop the collard greens and place in boiling water with several tablespoons of vinegar, salt, and pepper. Let simmer at least 30 minutes. Add liberal amounts of hot sauce to cooked collard greens and serve hot.

2 Breading station: Crack eggs or pour egg beaters into a bowl. This will help the breadcrumbs adhere to the okra and fish. In a large plastic re-sealable bag combine the breadcrumbs and a healthy amount of Cajun seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Dip the okra into the egg mixture and then add to the bag of breadcrumbs.

Shake the bag until all the okra pieces are completely coated. The process will be the same for the fillets.

3 Frying: Heat your oil (vegetable or canola oil is best for frying) in a large pan and add okra to pan in several batches. Cook okra to a nice crispy golden brown. Drain excess oil from okra by lining plate with paper towel and placing okra on that. The process will be the same for the fillets. Remember to cook the fish last so that they’re nice and hot once you’re ready to eat. Pack the oil out in a container—you don’t want to litter or attract bears.

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ISLANDS NEAR AND FAR

Where Water Meets Land A Guide to Islands and Near-Islands

THERE’S A LEGEND TOLD on the Orkney and Shetland islands, in the North Sea, of sea creatures called selkies: seals who shed their skins to become human women. The stories were often tragic, about selkies who started families with fishermen but ultimately returned to the depths, leaving behind children who were never quite content—caught between the land and sea.

Today, one theory about the origins of the myth is that the so-called selkies were really the Saami, a nomadic tribe indigenous to Arctic Scandinavia, who often kayaked in seal-skin vessels. It’s easy to understand how someone might have looked out into the distance, over the ocean, and mistaken the human face bobbing on the waves for a seal, transformed.

Likewise, it’s easy to understand how medieval maps got their sea creatures so wrong (if walruses and whales exist, why not dragons?). After all, we're

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talking about the ocean here: dark, vast, impossible to plumb.

An incredible underwater world out of which, for millennia, land has surged and also vanished, sometimes overnight.

What, then, is our attraction to islands? Why, throughout history, have we bundled ourselves into vessels (sealskin or no) and paddled out to that distant shape on the horizon, not knowing what we might find when we get there?

The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the word island derives from the Old English īegland, a compound of the Old Norse ey—meaning “watery, watered”—and land, meaning, well, land. The very word reflects the meeting of elements. But to step foot on the shore of that "watery land,” you have to be brave enough to cross the depths first. Here, in our island guide, you’ll see why such a voyage is worth it—and what you'll find on the other side.

Tasmania, Australia Fly into Hobart around New Year’s and you may just catch the Taste of Tasmania Festival. After that, why not spend a week road-tripping around the island—watch out for wombats! There are the rugged peaks of Cradle Mountain, the glacial tarns at Mt. Field National Park, the red-coated rocks at Bay of Fires. Breathe in curving reams of lavender at the largest lavender farm in the southern hemisphere. Hike to Cape Raoul, where cliffs careen to the ocean. With half of the island protected in reserves, national parks, and World Heritage Sites, Tasmania is truly something to behold.

BEHOLD The Bay of Fires is a region on the northeast coast of Tasmania featuring orange-hued granite, the color of which is actually produced by a lichen.

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115 Island, Myanmar Find a guide and a catamaran to explore any of 800 islands in the Andaman Sea, where Myanmar nestles up to Thailand.

Many of the islands are only inhabited by thriving, creeping, swooping, gliding wildlife. Or by the Moken, the sea-dwelling people. On 115 Island, do some jungle trekking, kayak 'til you find the caves, and snorkel around in a kaleidoscope of marine life. If you scorn well-trod paths, 115 Island may be for you—it defies attempts at nomenclature.

THE SMALL ISLES, SCOTLAND

Sri Lanka

LARAINE WYN-JONES

KRISTIN O’CONNELL "Off the mountainous coast of Scotland lies a huddle of small rocks known as the Small Isles. With nothing but ocean to the west, the weather rolls across the Atlantic all the way from Newfoundland.

In winter, boats to the Small Isles are frequently canceled due to sudden storms along this stretch of coastline. Islanders can be tempest-bound for weeks at a time. These islands are harsh and unforgiving in the winter, but lush in the summer, and each has a distinct personality.

The Isle of Rum is the largest at just over 40 square miles. It’s mostly mountainous and inhospitable, home to around 30 hardy folk, numerous red deer, feral goats and the largest number of midges in Scotland.

Rum is a place for serious hikers; it’s the wettest place in Great Britain, and if you venture here, you'll be rewarded with Mordor-esque scenery, plenty of isolation and maybe even occasional glimpses of the whitetailed sea eagle, known locally as the 'ironing board of the sky!'

"It's been over eleven years since the Boxing Day tsunami devastated Sri Lanka island and a mere seven since a 26-year civil war ended.

Despite that harsh history, the locals welcome visitors. Kids strike up conversations with you on the beach, eager to practice their English. Fishermen wait for schools of fish in the shallow water, perched on single-poled stilts. Sparse beach vendors are equally interested in selling their wares as telling their stories. The mood is open, quiet, and communal.

After a day of surfing, unwind with a Lion beer at a beach bar, watching the sunset with the friendliest and smiliest wild dogs you’ve ever met."

In direct comparison, the Isle of Muck is the smallest of the Small Isles at only 2.2 square miles. It’s green, fertile and welcoming. Owned by the Lairds MacEwan, it is where landed gentry fly in by helicopter to shoot small game. Muck is a place to enjoy gentle walks and a cup of tea.

Nestled between Muck and Rum is the Isle of Eigg; with the highest population of the Small Isles (around 90 people) and covering about twelve square miles, Eigg has a gruesome history of clan massacres—the entire population was wiped out in the 16th century. These days, the island is far less dangerous.

Eigg has the most diverse landscape of the Small Isles, from the largest single pitchstone in the world, known as An Sgurr, to open moorland, thick forest, white sand beaches, and even a bustling island brewery.

Hidden behind Rum, and the furthest from the mainland, the Isle of Canna is the least populated of the Small Isles. Owned by the National Trust of Scotland and covering around 4.4 square miles, Canna has a rich and well-documented history in its extensive Gaelic library. For those who may enjoy an archival trip to learn about the spread of Christianity across Scotland in the 6th century, this is the place for you.

No matter where you go in the Small Isles, pack your waterproofs, your insect repellent, and your favorite hangover cure."

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Todos Santos, Baja California, Mexico KRISTIN O’CONNELL

"Unlike most surf destinations, Todos Santos is in the desert: think dirt highways and cardon cacti against a backdrop of royal blue. The sun is harsh here. Hot pink bougainvilleas grow along white iron railings and paint chips flake off brightly-colored colonial buildings. The steaming asphalt streets are lined with art galleries and desert-chic boutiques. At the heart of town is a square where you can buy chili-covered candy.

A t-shirt from the La Katrina Surf Shop provides a summary for the place: steer skull, surfboard, rattlesnake, and a lone cactus. But there’s more to it, of course. T-shirts rarely say everything."

WILL BE ON THE TEST Let’s brush up on some vocabulary, shall we? An isthmus has water on two sides, a peninsula has water on three sides, an island has water on all sides, and an atoll has water outside and inside, like a coral donut. An island in a river or lake can be called an eyot or an ait. An island isn’t a desert island unless it has a desert climate. A deserted island can have any climate, but no people living on it (that you know of).

ATLASOV ISLAND

Socotra Island, Yemen

ISLANDS FEATURED 115 Island Ataslov Island Deception Island Kauai Socotra Sri Lanka Tasmania The Small Isles Todos Santos

ISLANDS NOT FEATURED Busta Rhymes Island Christmas Island Deer Island Easter Island Fangataufa Possession Island Brava Lonely Island Tristan da Cunha

ISLANDS IMAGINED Amity Island Bali Ha’i Gullah Gullah Island The Island of Dr. Moreau Lilliput Ping Islands Ship-Trap Island Island of Dropped Calls Island of Initial Regret

KAUAI ISLAND, HAWAII,USA

Unlike many far-flung islands, Socotra is not a volcano—it actually split off from the supercontinent Gondwana nearly 7 million years ago. Out of this isolation sprang the Arabian Sea’s jewel of bio-divergence: the only mammals native to the island are bats, and a third of Socotra’s fantastic flora is found nowhere else on earth, including the infamous Dracaena cinnabari, or dragon’s blood tree, so named for its telltale red sap.

Atlasov Island, Kuril Islands, Russia Atlasov Island is the exquisitely-shaped peak of Vulcan Alaid, a volcano whose base is deep in the Sea of Okhotsk. It goes by many names: Araido, Uyakhuzhach, Oyakoba, and Alaid—a testament to the many times explorers, scientists, poets, and geographers have become enchanted with this remote and uninhabited place. One can reach it by boat from the Kamchatka Peninsula.

CHASING KALALAU JEN DZIUVENIS "We were seven miles into our hike on Kauai’s Kalalau Trail when the ledges came into view. The wind was howling and our legs were wobbly from a grueling hike with heavy packs. To our left, a rock wall provided some solid places to put our hands. To our right was nothing but air. Surefootedness was all that separated us from a life-ending plummet to the angry ocean some 50 feet below.

These narrow and exposed ledges, sometimes less than a foot wide, were the crux of the hike, the major obstacle separating us from our destination. The reward? One of the most beautiful beaches on the planet. Trapped between the raging Pacific Ocean and towering green cliffs, Kalalau Beach and its adjacent valley are places that you can’t begin to comprehend until you’ve actually been there. Not until you’ve showered in a waterfall or sprawled in the sun will you truly understand why you hiked all that way and risked life and limb on this crumbling stretch of coastline.

The hike back out a few days later was easier on our bodies and our nerves. Maybe it’s because our packs were lighter, our legs were stronger, and we knew there was cold beer waiting for us in Hanalei. But I think it was something else entirely. Kalalau lifts your spirit and makes difficult, dangerous things seem manageable. We had been told that Kauai takes care of its visitors. On the hike out, that’s easy to believe."

Deception Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica Once a whaling outpost, this volcanic island is now home to Argentinean and Spanish research stations. Visitors can submerge themselves in the geothermal lagoons that dot Deception’s black sand beaches and commune with local chinstrap penguins.

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SUMMER PACK LIST What to bring on this summer's biking, caving, and paddling trips.

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MISADVENTURES

SUMMER PACK LIST

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ON THE

TRAIL 1

9

4

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5 1. Elite Socks from Feetures. $14.99 2. Kik Spacedye Leggings from Avalanche. $42 3. Neo Rain Jacket from Giro. $349.95

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4. Outcross Evo-Women’s Shoes from Chaco. $87.99 - $110 5. Clip+ Portable Bluetooth Speaker from JBL. $39.95 6. Kinga Handlebar Bag-Mosaic from Po Campo. $39.99

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7. Y-Back Backpack (Silver) from Topo Designs. $98 8. Yurbuds from Harman. $29.99 9. Glacier National Park Roll-Up Blanket from Pendleton. $299

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ON THE

WATER

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CREDIT Paddle icon by Samu Parra from The Noun Project

Kick off your sh and stay awhil oes e.

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9 1. Holden One-Piece Swimsuit from Carve Designs. $90 2. Refillable Mosquito-Repellent Band and Clip from PARA’KITO. Each $19.50, including 3 refills

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3. Stainless Steel Packable Shot Glasses from Stanley. $19.95 4. Meru 5-Panel Hat from Cotopaxi. $24.95 5. Breaker Shirt Jacket from Topo Designs. $149

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6. Equinox DLX PFD from Equinox. $89.99 7. Vacuum Insulated Tumbler from Klean Kanteen. $17.95 8. Bug-Free Scarf from White Sierra. $25

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9. Original Buff from Buff. $20 10. Icemule Classic Cooler. $59.95 11. Amuri Z-Trek Sport Sandal from XeroShoes. $59.99 12. Glacier National Park Beach Towel from Pendleton. $49.50

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INSET PHOTO A. Linger High-Back Chair from Kelty. $139.95 B. Tru-Comfort Zip Sleeping Bag from Kelty. $119.95

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C. Kayak from a friendly stranger D. Glacier National Park Beach Towel from Pendleton. $49.50

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CREDIT Headlamp by Jesper Vestergaard from The Noun Project

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1. Seafoam Puffy Rumpl from Rumpl. $99 - $199 2. Portage Caving Bag from Petzl. $136.95

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3. Elia Women's Helmet from Petzl. $64.95 4. Imo Helix Coveralls from Meander. $170 5. Undertop from C2. $79 6. Damascus Crew Elite Hiker Socks from Farm to Feet. $22.50 7. Power Knife from Brunton. $24.99 8. Cup from Kelty. Priceless 9. Ultra Vario Headlamp from Petzl. $429.95 10. Glo Stick Multi-Clip USB from Seattle Sports Co. $21.95 11. Pinnacle Dualist Ultralight Cookset from GSI. $51.96 12. Trail Crampons from Hillsound. $59.99 13. Monty Hi Women’s from Ridgemont Outfitters. $99 14. Armadillo LT Gaiters from Hillsound. $49

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MUSIC

Reading The Crowd

DJ Courtesy of Apeiron Crew answers our questions

By ZOË BALACONIS

WHEN I CALLED NAJARAAQ Vestbirk, she was taking buns out of the oven. “I bake things to relax,” she said.

Mixing things together and waiting for the slow rise of kneaded dough isn’t too different, at least poetically, from her main pursuit. She’s a DJ who plays all over the world, and when she’s spinning she goes by Courtesy. When she’s joined by her all-women squad, they’re called the Apeiron Crew. Vestbirk is an alumna of the prestigious Music Conservatory in Denmark, as well as the highly selective (and intense) Red Bull Music Academy. She met her crew (Sara Svenholm, Simone Øster, and Emma Blake) in the Copenhagen

techno scene when they were told, over and over, that they should meet. They did, and the rest is Apeiron history. During our conversation, Vestbirk filled in some of the details. We spoke about her record label, improvisation, and reading a crowd.

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DANCE DANCE EVOLUTION An ectotherm is the name for any cold-blooded animal that depends on external heat sources to stay alive. A sweaty dance floor might be their ideal habitat.

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PHOTO Courtesy performs at Red Bull Music Academy presents SonarDome at Sonar Festival in Barcelona, Spain, June 18th 2015. Credit: Pere Masramon/Red Bull Content Pool

How do you support other women musicians with your techno label, Ectotherm?

If we get demos from women we like, we release them for sure. To be honest, that's not the part in the food chain that's missing. Right now, it's just not having women doing music to begin with. I'm teaching at

When I was eighteen I saw a female DJ, and I'd never seen that before, and I thought, okay, I could do that. different music schools where I go and do one-day workshops or lectures, and I spend a lot of time explaining to students that there is absolutely nothing about their gender that prevents them from being good DJs or good producers, but they need to put in the time. I think everything's really difficult when you start. If some younger girls think that's because they can't figure it out, it's not. It's that they need to practice harder. I've sometimes been at events—DJ practice events for girls—and the people running the workshop will tell the girls all this is really easy—anyone can be a DJ. And I'm thinking, actually, that's not true. It's really hard. But there's nothing about your gender that says you can't be as good at it as the guys, but it isn't easy.

How did you get started as a DJ? I've always been a music dictator. When I was a kid in school there would be one CD player in our classroom. I would decide what would be played on that CD player—super-arrogant—and no one else could play any music on it. I thought I had better taste than other people, but I never ever thought of becoming a DJ. I started going to these kids’ dance parties when I was eleven and I would dance and dance because I just loved club music so much. When I was eighteen I saw a female DJ, and I'd never seen that before, and I thought, okay, I could do that. And then I went out and spent all my kids' savings buying record players.

I started practicing. The skill of being a music nerd has always been there, but I just needed a role model of some kind to see that it was actually possible.

That's what's really important when I think about booking female artists and minorities, as well. People have to be able to see themselves in those positions. That’s why I make an extra effort to book good female artists.

How much does improvisation play into your sets?

It's very much improvised. When you're in the room you have to read the room. That's the difference between a live act and a DJ. You have a function at the party, and that is to make people dance. It's my job to figure out how to create the best energy in the room, and you can only do that by looking at it and taking the room in from minute to minute. There's no preparation.

WWWTD Like Wu-Tang, everyone in The Apeiron Crew has their own solo projects.

According to Vestbirk, when they’re faced with a decision or wondering what to prioritize, they say, “what would Wu-Tang do?” Words to live by.

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MUSIC

Can you talk about building your record collection?

It's hard to be a vinyl DJ when you’re first starting out because it's quite expensive. I often spend 15 euros on one or two songs. What I really like about vinyl is you become more picky. If I'm not willing to pay 15 euros for a song then it's probably not good enough to play in a club anyway.

We started as a party crew. We wanted to organize parties together, then we started practicing DJing together, and then we started getting bookings together. In the beginning it didn't matter that much that we weren't that good at playing together. I think it took a year for everyone to develop into their own style. Then the hard part was making us, four individually good DJs, be good together.

How did you pick your crew name and your stage name?

When we decided to form a crew we collected a list of words that we liked and, in the end, chose Apeiron. It’s a Greek word that means infinity. In terms of my own name, Courtesy, it's actually a bit funny. People see it as this very nice, polite name, but the reason I picked it is because “courtesy music” is what it's called when you have, say, your boyfriend over and maybe you live in a dorm with thin walls. It's music to cover up whatever activities you have in your bedroom that you don't want everyone else to hear about.

What historical, mythological or animated crew would you compare your crew to?

Wu-Tang.

Do your individual DJ styles complement each other?

What do you like to eat?

Pasta. I eat a lot of pasta. And I love bread.

What makes you mad?

When men in the industry talk to me like I don't know what I'm doing.

What's your favorite type of place to play?

I like sweaty clubs with low ceilings. I like when it's warm. Obviously a good sound system, but the room doesn't have to be big. When you're done playing and you're sweating, you feel like you did something.

follow your path

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Worldwide Wellness Opportunities, Travel Jobs, & Community. yogatrade.com

Not your typical Saturday night with friends claritascollection.com

DISCOVER BOOKS DISCOVER // BOOKS

S U M M E R R E A D I N G L IST B O O KS ( 2 5 0 PA G E S O R L E SS ! ) TO S N AC K O N

By SARA-KAY MOONEY

If you’re like me, you enter June with every intention of sinking your teeth into some tasty summer reads, but by the time August approaches you’ve barely nibbled on the first few chapters of that new book everyone's raving about.

We’re all busy. There’s always more that needs to be done. But reading shouldn’t get the boot entirely.

Our suggestion? Do it tapas-style. That is, read smaller portion sizes.

You can start with this menu offering a diverse sampling of delicious books—all 250 pages or less. Here are 50 (plus four TV shows) by some of the most talented female authors out there. Bon appétit!

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Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast: 240 p.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel: 232 p.

Ms. Marvel #1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson: 120 p.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff: 194 p.

A Thousand Mornings

by Mary Oliver: 65 p.

The Kingdom of Ordinary Time by Marie Howe: 80 p.

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine: 160 p.

Poetry

No regrets.

Huh?

Not that important.

Very.

Juicy, succulent, flavorful

I need to know.

Are you curious about how sausage is made?

Honored Guest by Joy Williams: 228 p.

Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis: 219 p.

Bark by Lorrie Moore: 192 p.

Short Stories

How important is the presentation?

Salty, with a little bit of spice

Graphic Novel

On Immunity, Eula Biss: 216 p.

Lifeboat No. 8: An Untold Tale of Love, Loss, and Surviving the Titanic by Elizabeth Kaye: 67 p.

We’ve Got a Job: the 1963 Birmingham Children’s March by Cynthia Levinson: 180 p.

Notorious RBG by Irin Cameron and Shana Knizhnik: 240 p.

Nonfiction

Something from the cookbook from the back of the cupboard

That recipe you know by heart

Did you eat the plums in the icebox (so sweet, so cold)?

Lush and delicate hors d'oeuvres

Story of a Girl by Sarah Zarr: 224 p.

Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou: 192 p.

Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman: 213 p.

Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget by Sarah Hepola: 230 p.

Tapas!

We're eating in! What's the recipe?

Earthy, organic, homegrown

Love that Dog by Sharon Creech: 128 p.

Young Adult

Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters by Annie Dillard: 176 p.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion: 238 p.

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf: 114 p.

Essay Collections

Want fewer bras and more pie?

Do you think kumquat's a funny word?

Memoir

Full-bodied and filling— something I can sink my teeth into

Light, sweet, and little bit zesty

Pick your poison. What are you craving?

Yes

Can't we talk about something more pleasant?

Smokey, with a bit of satisfying crunch

Let’s get started. First off, do you really want to read? Be honest. We won’t judge.

No

DISCOVER BOOKS

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Look, a fruitbowl!

Do you think "still life" or "smoothie"?

Nope.

Hilarious.

I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley: 230 p.

Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores

by Jennifer Campbell: 144 p.

Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg: 240 p.

Humor

Look at that smoothie potential!

Still life.

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: 64 p.

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit: 171 p.

Feminist Manifestos

Yes!

Remember when it used to be a Waffle House? I miss that.

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton: 77 p.

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Gillman Perkins: 70 p.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin: 96 p.

Classics

Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found by Sophie Blackall: 128 p.

Lost In Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World by Ella Frances Sanders: 112 p.

Fictitious Dishes by Dinah Fried: 128 p.

Art Books

Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination by J.K. Rowling: 81. p.

Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz Weber: 224 p.

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brene Brown: 160 p.

Broadchurch by Chris Chibnall

Jane the Virgin by Jennie Snyder Urman

The Great British Baking Show, by Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins

Jessica Jones, by Melissa Rosenberg

Then be sure to catch these shows on Netflix featuring strong female leads:

No Ordinary Woman: The Story of Mary Schaffer Warren

by Janice Sanford Beck This bestselling book captures the spirit of a woman who refuted nineteenth-century norms in pursuit of extraordinary accomplishments that continue to inspire mountaineers everywhere.

Wolf Spirit: A Story of Healing, Wolves and Wonder by Gudrun Pflüger In this memoir, elite runner, mountaineer and skier Gudrun Pflüger describes her fight against brain cancer and how she embraced the spirit of the wolves she studied and admired.

Finding Jim by Susan Oakey-Baker A heart-wrenching exploration of loss and love. Susan Oakey-Baker shares her search for solace in the natural world following the tragic death of her husband.

June Mickle: One Woman's Life in the Foothills and Mountains of Western Canada by Kathy Calvert Written with enthusiasm by one of the first female National Park wardens in Canada, this book charts June Mickle’s rise from obscurity to backcountry adventure legend in the Canadian Rockies.

Keeper of the Mountains: The Elizabeth Hawley Story by Bernadette McDonald An intriguing biography of the woman who—though she never climbed a mountain herself—chronicled the history of climbing in Nepal.

Women in the Outdoors

Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope, and Repair by Anne Lamott: 112 p.

Inspiration

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson: 219 p.

Sula by Toni Morrison: 192 p.

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill: 192 p.

Novels

Yes!

Fancy that new restaurant around the corner?

Pass for now.

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx: 64 p.

Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan: 160 p.

The Lover by Marguerite Duras: 128 p.

The End of the Sentence by Maria Dahvana Headley and Kat Howard: 176 p.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson: 146 p.

Romance

The Case of the Caretaker by Agatha Christie: 40 p.

Mystery/Suspense

In April I took a week off from work to relax and rejuvenate at the SwellWomen Surf & Yoga retreat in Nicaragua. The scenery, surfing, yoga, food and overall experience was unbelievable. But the highlight of the trip for me was sharing the experience with eight other incredible women that inspired me throughout the week. I'm counting down the days until the 2017 trip!

- BLAIR LOCKHART

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BEHOLD

TRAVEL

SOLO IN CROATIA

BY CELESTE NOCHE

When I first dreamed this trip, I'd planned to brave the road as a solo traveler, drive alone in a foreign country, and explore the Dalmatian Coast.

Instead, Croatia reminds me that my Airbnb host tried to assault me and because of it, I've become an advocate for solo female travel.

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FASHION

AS I SAT LOCKED IN MY ROOM, thankful that the rejected kiss had not escalated to

anything else, I initially felt helpless. I was trapped in a house with nowhere else to go, no other place to stay. Even the next ferry off the island didn't depart until the following morning. I tried to reason the experience to cultural difference—that I was a single woman traveling alone and he wasn't used to the idea. And then I became livid. I hadn't done anything wrong. Why shouldn't women be able to travel alone, as we please, without being questioned and judged?

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My experience could be construed as a cautionary tale, but I see it as a challenge. If my host and countless other assailants see single female travelers as an invitation, then I believe we have an opportunity: to travel solo more often, so that women on their own will no longer be seen as singular. By traveling and facing the prejudice head on, we not only change the norm, but define it ourselves.

Photography by CELESTE NOCHE

Clockwise from left: 1. Navigating my way around Vis, the island furthest from Split. Vis is quite sleepy, with only two main roads from end to end, but still boasts stunning coves and beaches with pristine water.

2. My Croatian friend insisted I stop in Mali Ston on my drive up the coast for some fresh seafood. Turns out the mussels I ordered as my appetizer were meant for three people to share. Whoops! All of the seafood at Vila Koruna was fresh and delectable. 3. One of many old, beautiful doors on the island Vis. 4. Early morning on Dubrovnik's ancient city walls. Jet lag was my friend this time, because within a few hours, the walls were swarming with people.

Previous page: Locals out for a morning boat ride and swim.

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FASHION STYLIST Mia Flanagan

PHOTOGRAPHER Alejandro Poveda

MODELS Ciara and Tiara C. @ Modelogic Mid-Atlantic

Romping Around Summer means fewer clothes, but it still means clothes.

A style guide for the adventurous.

THERE COULDN’T HAVE BEEN a better day to try on summer clothes. It was late spring, but Richmond, Virginia was already hot. The team spent all day on the shoot, traveling from the dappled fields of Maymont Park to the rocky shore of Belle Isle.

The models, Ciara and Tiara C., are sisters, and they said that while the whole day was great,

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“what stands out most is that we did this together and we always have fun shooting together.” They said that given the humidity and the hiking they were doing to get from scene to scene, it was “hard to get the right shot but it was worth it.”

As far as forecasting for summer, look out for structured whites and earth tones with

BEHOLD Visit www.shop-manners.com to travel vicariously through curated, found clothing. Each piece you buy is “packaged with mementos giving insight to its provenance, such as a photograph from the city in which it was purchased or a doodled portrait of the friend from whom it was handed down.”

pops of bright, warm color. The summer vibe? Geo-casual. The summer pattern? Stripes. The summer footwear? A sturdy sandal. The summer accessory?

Binoculars. The line between high performance and high fashion has been getting blurrier and blurrier, and now—it’s 2016, after all—you don’t even have to choose between them.

SHOUT OUT Special thanks to Christine Young.

BINOCULARS Nau Reverb Trench Avalanche Ziva Joggers Keen Dauntless Ankle Sandals

Headgear From the Past, Priceless

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FASHION

Romping Around

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LOOK AWAY United By Blue Hyde Stripe Swing Dress Woolrich Camp Shirt Midi Dress

WATER, CENTER Carve Designs Holden One Piece Some Waders by Cabela’s, Probably

FIELD, LEFT Cotopaxi Kilimanjaro 20L Backpack in Driftwood United By Blue Tenton Cuff Shirt Cotopaxi Meru 5 Panel Hat Cotopaxi Sumaco 22L Backpack in Black Nau Pantalones

STRETCH, LEFT Proof Chaplin Eco Sunglasses Outdoor Voices Mockneck Crop Carve Designs

STRETCH, RIGHT Proof Donner Eco Sunglasses Carve Designs Cardiff Bottoms Outdoor Voices Stretch Crepe Track Pant Carve Designs Hana Top

FIELD, RIGHT Buff Circle Scarf Manners White Mandarin Collar Crop Cotopaxi Kilimanjaro 20L Backpack in Driftwood White Sierra Hanalei Bermuda Shorts

BANANAS Nau Wrap Shirt Manners Chambray Cut Paper Top Carve Designs Willow Capri Woolrich Appalachian Trail Blanket

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TASTE OF NAWLINS

Let’s see, what do we have here?

The strange Creole cookie-shaped candy called the pecan praline, but which should maybe be spelled “prawline” made with fresh “peck-ons.” Like most things that start in Europe and end up in the New World, there seems to be quite a bit of confusion surrounding the praline's exact origins. However, I can tell you this: they were created in 17th-century France either to pacify children, woo women, or to make money: you be the judge!

And what exactly am I eating?

Sugar, pecans, cream, vanilla, butter, and salt mostly. By and large, New Orleans pralines are crisp and dry to the touch, but then melty once in the mouth, which seems like quite a feat.

There are also some thicker, creamier varietals that might actually be fudge masquerading (how apropos!) as pralines; some use whole nuts, some chop them up, or add other ingredients like peanut butter, chocolate, coconut, etc.

Is this really candy?

Well, it might be dried icing.

What else are the people eating?

Many people I polled directed me to their favorite local candymaker, who they called “Roman.” As it turns out, they meant to say The Roman Candy Company, which makes Italian taffy in long skinny soft-rods in a mule-drawn buggy and which has been rolling around the city since 1915. After looking everywhere for signs of this roaming Roman, I found a secondary buggy permanently stationed at the Audubon Zoo, thank the gods, and bought some freshly-pulled taffy.

[A NAMELESS STREET VENDOR’S] Praline Pecans A twist with a ratio of nut-tosugar that I can get behind!

SOUTHERN CANDYMAKERS Coconut: Very shreddy. Wouldn’t be the worst idea to dip it in rum.

Chocolate: Very Hershey and yet cookie at the same time.

Original: A caramel-forward, delightfully crisp buddy.

Peanut Butter: A dusty little dude that melts into Jiffy.

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BELLE CREOLE CONFECTIONS Creamy Praline Creamy is an interesting word, isn’t it? I’d say more... lipid-drenched, yum!

MAGNOLIA PRALINE Original Praline Does vanilla bean sort of taste like the smell of magnolias?

If so, this company is doing something very tricky indeed.

AUNT SALLY'S CREOLE PRALINE Triple Chocolate Creamy Praline: Be honest, Sal, this is chocolate fudge. Why beat around the bush?

Bananas Foster Praline: Crunchy, salty, sweet, nutty plus BANANA! Tastes like a carnival, before you get on an upside-down ride.

NEW ORLEANS FAMOUS PRALINE Original Pecan Praline Softer, but crisp, like caramel left in a dessert, with pecan nibs.

ROMAN CANDY Strawberry: You remember those markers that smell like fruit? This tastes just like the pink one.

Vanilla: Marshmallow-flavored, actually. Need that pesky molar removed? No problem!

Chocolate: For those who feel that Tootsie Rolls could be a bit more mellow.

NANNY’S CANDY Peanut Brittle Need a break from pecans?

Here’s the thing! Very brittle, very cavity-encouraging.

ELMER CHOCOLATES Pecan Egg A white goo claiming to be nougat, covered in pecans and caramel—like a very bad, locally-made Snickers.

is a woman who loves candy named Julienne Alexander.

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TREAT HEAT STROKE Something's not going right, sweat-wise.

• Remove from heat and sun • Cool by soaking with water and fanning • Hydrate • Massage limbs • Transport immediately to hospital

SET A FOREARM SPLINT FOR A FRACTURE When in doubt, splint.

• Check circulation • Pull traction in-line to slowly and gently move the extremity into proper anatomical alignment • Create a rigid but well-padded splint • Immobilize the entire extremity, including the joint above and below the site of injury

Nothing like coloring to relax while contemplating your own possible catastrophes. Crises are stressful; keep your cool by staying in the lines.

MUD A STING That insect repellent didn’t work? Drat!

• Remove stinger/poison sack by scraping; do not use tweezers • Assess and monitor for anaphylaxis • Use topical “bite and sting” stick for comfort. If you don’t have that, use mud. The mud might just be a distracting activity, but at least it’s something.

• Give an oral antihistamine to prevent an allergic reaction

DRESS A WOUND Did ya hurt your skin or something under it? Yowch.

• Control the bleeding with direct pressure, elevation, and dressing • Clean around the wound with soap and water or a dilute solution of iodine. Clean the wound itself by irrigation with a forceful flow of sterile water or a dilute solution of iodine by using an irrigation syringe or water bottle.

• Bandage with dry sterile dressings and keep clean and dry • Monitor and change the dressings every 12 hours

WILDERNESS FIRST AID COLORING PAGE

BEHOLD GRUESOME REALITIES

ILLUSTRATIONS by Julienne Alexander

CREDIT Directions heavily adapted from SOLO's Field Guide to Wilderness First Aid, Second Edition, by Frank Hubbell, 2007.

Turn Your Passion Into Your Profession

Outdoor Industries Women’s Coalition

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Find your next big adventure at oiwc.org/jobs.

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