Gear Patrol Magazine, Issue One Re-Issue

N E W YO R K

C A N A DA

CHILE

N O R WAY

LAKE SUPERIOR

PAC I F I C N O R T H W E S T

THE DEFINITIVE BUYING GUIDE

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A E TH E R A P PA R E L .CO M N e w Yo r k

San Francisco

Los Angeles

GP / OP INE L

ANY TIME Manufactured in the French Alps.

Opinel remains a family-owned business.

One Opinel is sold every ten seconds.

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GP / OP INE L

ANY WHERE Shaped by Joseph Opinel 125 years ago.

Opinel’s locking ring was patented in 1955.

A sharp and robust companion.

OPINEL-USA.COM

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Heli-skiing the

Wine, foraged cuisine,

Our feature profile of

Selkirks, an overnight

graffiti and more

Conrad Anker, accomplished

including an electric bike

in Calgary and a fatty,

from Patagonia to

mountaineer and subject

race around Brooklyn.

one-dish meal.

the Atacama.

of the documentary Meru.

NEW YORK CANADA CHILE THE INTERVIEW

A thorough study of our home, NYC,

Start Here

The Gear Patrol magazine is designed to be read over a few sittings. Each chapter is a self-contained mini magazine focused on a place in the world that we visited this year. If you want to skip straight to the gear, flip to the next page for an index that will take you directly to the products featured in this issue.

Many of our stories don’t end with the last printed word. Look for the URLs at the end of select reports, guides and features, where you’ll be directed to pages rich with additional photos, videos and storytelling that you can read on your phone or tablet. Finally, we hope you’ll hang on to this magazine and use it as a starting point for adventures of your own.

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242 On the road, and at

The North’s

Booze, knives,

greatest lake reveals

literature and

the rodeo, in the

legendary drives and

itself during an

island hopping.

lonely heart of the

bravado in the sky.

1,800-mile roadtrip.

Plus a gear crawl.

American West.

NORWAY LAKE SUPERIOR PACIFIC NORTHWEST WYOMING

In Scandinavia, we seek out design,

GEAR PATROL STUDIO

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Photo by Henry Phillips.

gearpatrol.com

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Story on page 84

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AVIATION WATCHES

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GOODS MADE IN NEW YORK

BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT V8 S

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FERRARI F12BERLINETTA

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THE BUSINESS TRIP PACKING LIST

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PASSONI CUSTOM BICYCLES

A. LANGE & SÖHNE LANGE 1 TIME ZONE

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FORD MUSTANG SHELBY GT350R 50 THE E-BIKE CRITERIUM VOLVO XC90

LAKE SUPERIOR

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194 NORTHERN ROAD TRIP ESSENTIALS 200 AUDEZE EL-8 203

THE ULTIMATE SKI TOURING KIT 70 A NEW BREED OF CARRY-ONS

PRO COMPACT CAMERAS 82 HASSELBLAD CFV-50C DIGITAL BACK 94

PACIFIC NORTHWEST

CANADA

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ANALOGUE NT

COLD WEATHER JACKETS 208 PORTLAND KNIFE BRANDS 212 LUCCA A53 241

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BACKCOUNTRY TENTS

WYOMING

FIELD TESTING TUDOR’S NEW WATCHES

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LEICA SL

BERETTA 486 BY MARC NEWSON

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Satel l i te ti m e in j ust 3 se c o n d s S ate llite Wave – Wor l d Ti m e GP S

Available at Citizen Flagship Store Times Square Macy’s and macys.com

@ G E A R PAT R O L

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The idea of creating a magazine goes pretty far back for me. I practically grew up in the magazine aisle of a Kroger in Knoxville, Tennessee — reading through as many pages as I could before Mom got to the checkout aisle. On some visits, I brought home a handful of magazines, or when times were tougher, just one. No matter what, though, selection was always hard. National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Motor Trend, Car and Driver, Macworld, Time, Esquire, The New Yorker, Archie. I loved reading them all. The idea of stitching one together myself existed only as a far-flung idea.

First and foremost, we’d like to offer a genuine thanks to our readers. Our hope is that this magazine inspires and complements the daily stories, photos and films you experience on our website.

If you’d like to support our work, we encourage you to subscribe to our magazine at gearpatrol.com. As a

And yet, now, bleary-eyed on a Wednesday evening, crammed into a conference room at our offices here in New York, I find some cathartic irony in the final moments before this magazine goes to press. I can’t help but think of my own son, Hunter, whom my wife and I just welcomed into the world a couple months ago. Through the late nights and weekends at the office, my wife’s texts and pictures of herself and Hunter have tugged especially hard. My consolation, I can only hope, is that this magazine will inspire a smiliar awe of print that I had, when my eyes were as fresh and optimistic as his.

At Gear Patrol, we believe there are many types of adventures. Traveling to distant locales, conquering physical challenges, learning a new craft or language, designing great products — they all count. As a publication, our biggest adventure to date has been using what we’ve learned from our digital roots and applying it to the time-honored format of print. We’ve tried to do it in a way that feels original and authentic to what we’ve been doing as a team since 2007. This biannual magazine is a collection of chapters representing seven places, each of them small journals unto themselves.

Collectively, they make up a journey around the world.

That you’re holding this magazine, which is heavier than we thought it would be, is wholly the result of the names you see to the right. They’re the best around and I’m lucky to work alongside them each day. I leave it to them to tell their stories and share their photos. I hope you enjoy.

Oh, and Hunter, this one’s for you.

-Eric

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subscriber, you’ll be the first to receive each issue in the spring and fall, plus you’ll receive other content and offers exclusive to subscribers.

You’ll also receive a discount at the Gear Patrol Store, a new online shop we’ve stocked with collaborations, prints, exclusives and other goods.

est. 2007

T H E S P I R I T O F A DV E N T U R E

EDITOR IN CHIEF

ERIC YANG MANAGING EDITOR

BEN BOWERS SENIOR EDITORS

MATTHEW ANKENY

ART DIRECTOR

JEREMY BERGER

ANDREW HAYNES

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

MANAGER OF PHOTOGRAPHY

CHRIS WRIGHT

HENRY PHILLIPS

DIRECTOR, FILM

SUNG HAN STAFF WRITER

JASON HEATON ASSOCIATE STAFF WRITERS

TUCKER BOWE

BRYAN CAMPBELL

JACK SEEMER

J. TRAVIS SMITH

ASSOCIATE COPY EDITOR

NICK MILANES

APPRENTICES ANDREW CONNOR

CHASE PELLERIN

AJ POWELL

ISSUE ONE CONTRIBUTORS ERIC ADAMS

COCO ARAMAKI

BLAKE BUETTNER

MARTÍN AZAMBUJA / HERB LESTER WILL MCGOUGH

JOHN O’CONNOR

DANIEL CRONIN

ALLAN COLE

EMILIANO GRANADO

GISHANI RATNAYAKE

TOM SAMILJAN

DIRECTOR OF PARTNERSHIPS & ADVERTISING

SENIOR DIRECTOR OF REVENUE STRATEGY

ZACH MADER

ELISE LAYTON advertising@gearpatrol.com

FOUNDER CO-FOUNDER

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Today in Gear every morning.

New stories every weekday.

Original videos from around the world. and now Two magazines every year.

Visit gearpatrol.com to subscribe. You can also sign-up for our free email newsletter: a daily dispatch of the latest content, photo essays, films and more.

For more frequent updates, follow @gearpatrol.

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WEB | PRINT | FILM

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NEW YORK 18

Photo by Eric Adams

F LY I N G T H E I C O N A 5 GOODS MADE IN NEW YORK F E R R A R I F 1 2 B E R L I N E T TA NYC LIKE A LOCAL PA S S O N I ’ S T I TA N I U M B I C YC L E S S TAT E N I S L A N D ’ S B I G W H E E L A QUEENS FOOD TOUR M A N H AT TA N ’ S E V O LV I N G T E C H S C E N E THE FUTURE OF COWORKING B E LG I A N B E E R S AT T H E C A N N I B A L F O R D M U S TA N G S H E L BY G T 3 5 0 R and THE E-BIKE CRITERIUM

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THE A5 PERSONAL AIRCRAFT

AN ICON IN THE SKIES Eric Adams • Photography by Eric Adams “This isn’t transportation or utility — it’s recreation, enjoyment,” says Kirk Hawkins, the fighter-jock Founder and CEO of Icon Aircraft. “Our goal was a fun, safe, easy-to-fly, and beautiful airplane.”

We’re admiring the result of his obsession, the Icon A5, an amphibious airplane meant for recreational enthusiast flyers. Hawkins flew F-16s in the Air Force, so it’s a bit surprising hearing him advocating for a Sunday flyer — an easygoing sweetheart of an aircraft that may not set your hair on fire, but will certainly show you the world from a new perspective (and bring you home in one piece).

“Our long-term vision is the democratization of aviation,” Hawkins says. “We want people to look at the A5 and say, ‘Hey, I can do that!’”

I did do it — flying the two-seat A5 above the Hudson River on a bright Tuesday, my left arm on the sill of the wide-open window as though we’re out cruising around in a Miata.

The A5 is the first small airplane I’ve been in that didn’t stress me out as a passenger — let alone an amateur pilot occasionally allowed to take the controls. Partially, this is because the airplane — built mostly from carbon fiber, to enhance strength and minimize weight — is designed to be aesthetically appealing. The controls are simple: just a few essential dials

and a pair of small joysticks for control.

The A5 is considered a Light Sport Aircraft, which limits its use to daytime flight in good weather. Therefore, absent is all the hardware that makes flying in trickier conditions possible. In fact, pilots under the Sport Pilot rules are only required to have about half the training of conventional certificate holders, which significantly broadens aviation’s overall appeal. The creation of the Light Sport category by the FAA 10 years ago was a key motivator behind Hawkins’ decision to create his own airplane. In order to convert those fantasies into reality safely, however, Hawkins and his team had to execute some precedent-setting engineering. In particular, they had to make the airplane resist stalls and spins. Hawkins hired aeronautical engineer Jon Karkow away from legendary experimental aircraft builder Scaled Composites — creator of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital space plane, among many other aviation marvels — and tasked him with leading the effort. The hard-won result is the first conventional production aircraft to meet the FAA’s standard of spin resistance.

The secret is in the wing. Its complex shaping and size allow the airplane to remain stable even when airflow is disrupted over

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certain areas. On my flight, Icon pilot Craig “Bowser” Bowers — also a former military pilot, of F-18s in the Marine Corps — demonstrated. He throttled back the engine, pitched the nose up, and our airspeed dropped lower and lower. The custom-designed, easily legible stall-warning gauge on the instrument panel inched up into the “red” zone, yet the airplane remained steady and stable.

We started to drop, yet didn’t enter a spin as many aircraft would. In fact, we could still control the airplane, and we just pitched slightly forward and flew easily out of trouble.

The A5 is easy to fly, and hard to crash.

Of course, with a base price of $189,000, it may not exactly “democratize” aviation, though many clubs and group owners will certainly broaden access beyond the core of wealthy enthusiasts. (It’s notable that the initial three-year run of 1,500 is sold out.)

But the A5 is already breathing new life into aviation, with enthusiastic reactions from pilots who’ve tried it out. This is true not only because it’s a dream in the air, but on the ground as well. The wings fold and pivot rearward for storage and transport, allowing for easy trailering from home to a lake or runway.

Airport hangar fees? Zero.

Ultimately, however, the flying is the thing. After our stall demonstration, we cruised down the Hudson River, arced gracefully around Lady Liberty, swung over to Governor’s Island, then dipped down to salute a small squad of jet skis. When I took the controls for a few sweeping turns above the river, the A5 felt, as all the best machines should, like an extension of me. I didn’t have to work to keep flying. I simply pointed it, and it went — to a fly-by of the Concord on a pier by 34th street, to hopping over the George Washington Bridge, or to head back to a smooth landing at the docks, just in time for dinner. ♦

ICON A5 Seats: Two Maximum Takeoff Weight: 1,510 lbs (686.4 kg) Useful Load: 430-550 lbs (195-249 kg) Fuel: 91 Octane Auto Gas or 100LL Aviation Gas Top Speed: 109 mph Range: 427nm (45 min reserve) Runway Takeoff Distance: 710 ft Runway Landing Distance: 530 ft Water Takeoff Distance: 920 ft Water Landing Distance: 840 ft Horsepower: 100 $189,000+

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NEW YORK GOODS

BUILT IN THE BOROUGHS Ben Bowers • Photography by Henry Phillips

New York. It’s where names are made and careers are launched. But what about hard goods?

There’s a new manufacturing scene sprouting through the concrete, led by those who feel they can make things better — not just anywhere, but here, in this city not sleeping. For them, it’s about quality, creativity and respecting the craft.

From headphones to furniture to bespoke denim, these are the things being made inside the five boroughs — not in a minute, always done right.

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The Transience DOPP KIT $240 Chelsea Miller Knives CHEF KNIFE $800 Grown&Sewn PATCHED GHURKA SLIM PANT $395 Grado PS1000e HEADPHONES $1,695 Kings County Distillery BOURBON $25 Brooklyn Butcher Blocks LONG GRAIN CUTTING BOARD $79 Brooklyn Watches SAINT JAMES $1,050+

Empire Mayonnaise Co. SMOKED PAPRIKA MAYO $8 MCMC Fragrances DUDE NO. 1 BEARD OIL $65 Ernest Alexander RENZO LEATHER BRIEF $1,095 Corridor JAPANESE DOT SHIRT $215 Corridor VINTAGE COBALT FLANNEL SHIRT $220 3x1 M3 SLIM STRAIGHT GAMMA DENIM $265 Atocha Design SIDEKICK LEATHER LP SLING $875

FERRARI’S F12BERLINETTA

THE WORST CAR TO DRIVE IN THE CITY Henry Phillips • Photo by Henry Phillips

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It’s impossible to make the argument for the Ferrari F12berlinetta in New York City. Either I’m drowning polar bears as CO2 cascades out of the quad-tipped exhaust, disturbing hundreds with the incessant whine of a 730 horsepower V12 or coming across as a bit of a jackass crawling through Williamsburg traffic in what amounts to a $330,000 codpiece (Brooklynites, in their inimitable way, have already managed to shout this at me a couple times). The “enthusiast” would point out that I’m nowhere near the potential of this car. I really couldn’t care less.

In a Ferrari of old, piddling through the uneven, stop-and-go streets of New York would’ve been terrible. The engine would be overheating, the weight of the clutch would have my leg cramping, and mid-century Italian engineering would assure that something would — passionately and con brio — explode. Not with the F12berlinetta. The steering is light, the stereo is good, the seats are comfortable. It’s no harder to drive than a Fiat 500. And, most importantly: it’s a red Ferrari with a huge V12 and a little knob labeled “Pit Speed” near the steering wheel (“cruise control” wasn’t exciting enough to an Italian designer). With so much power, panache and absurdity, the F12berlinetta is the best place in New York to spend a morning, no matter what the rest of the city thinks.

read more

gear.gp/berlinetta

OPINION

LIVE LIKE A LOCAL

Our Favorite NYC Spots Illustrations by Allan Cole

Mile End Delicatessen • Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Tucked into an old garage on Hoyt and Pacific Streets, Mile End Delicatessen is refreshingly diminutive, and that’s what makes this Jewish-Canadian deli so great.

You’re an arm’s length away from the fellow preparing your food, you can order off the plainspoken menu before the coffee arrives, and regulars come to know the staff in a way that only seems to happen at local New York haunts: face, not name. Mile End is also indispensable because it lacks pretense. As you nosh on savory deli staples, listening to the ambiance of Brooklyn’s swelling creative class and Boerum Hill’s young families, you can’t help but get the sense that ego is boiled away alongside the bagels.

Along with a good spicy mustard, that’s all one needs in a local delicatessen.

- Eric Yang

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Melody Lanes • Sunset Park, Brooklyn The first time I Yelped Melody Lanes, hope fluttered in my gut. “The one overwhelming feeling I got was DIRTY and outdated,” wrote a top reviewer. Perfect. New York City bowling alleys, I’d found to my dismay, were expensive, techno-playing, dressed-up dens of unease. I yearned for my old hometown haunt closed years ago, a shag-carpeted hellhole with rigged claw machines and piles of cheap greasy food.

Melody Lanes squatted on a Brooklyn corner, vomiting people to the sound of clattering pins. It was packed with wailing birthday parties. The woman at the front desk requested my shoe size, then screeched into the garbled PA system about pin resets. At the bar, Pete, dressed in a cumberbund, poured $9 pitchers of Bud and asked me what I knew about quantum physics. Our lane was crowded with troublemakers and shit-talkers; the pin reset only knew how to break down; the front desk woman screeched her indecipherable song. And, for the first time in a long time, amid the cacophony and grime, I bowled.

- Chris Wright

Oslo Coffee • Williamsburg, Brooklyn Over two years there’s been relationships, apartments and a brief infatuation with How I Met Your Mother — all now come and gone. But my coffee shop on the corner of Roebling and North 4th Street is there every Saturday. It’s a simple enough recipe: good coffee, a big communal table, natural light, music that can be anything from Cat Power to Nate Dogg, and an enormous magazine selection. The rest is an exercise in reduction. There’s no wi-fi, there’s no loyalty card, there are no Oreo Coolattas.

Families shuffle in and out, friends reconnect over an exquisite cappuccino, someone writes a novel in the corner. And me, I enjoy what’s left of the neighborhood in Williamsburg, without a headphoned power-user or quad-shot latte in sight.

- Henry Phillips

Village Vanguard • Greenwich Village, Manhattan I first went to the Village Vanguard on a date, 10 years ago. I was 22, I liked jazz, and it seemed like a cool place to impress my girlfriend. We followed a narrow stairwell down below the street, entered an angular room crowded with tables. The stage glowed red. We showed up just before the show and got shuffled into the back by the bar where we drank three martinis apiece and worked our way toward breaking up in a gyre of booze and disparate expectations.

On my most recent visit I went for the music. Legendary drummer Billy Hart was playing that night with a quartet including Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus. The martini was mediocre; the ticket was $35. But Hart led the quartet for 90 minutes of bliss, a mass of energy radiating lavishly from the red corner of the room. Between songs, Hart recited Dada-esque incantations into the mic. It shows that 10 years on, Village Vanguard is as cool as ever — even without the two extra martinis.

- Jeremy Berger

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ITALIAN TITANIUM

BICYCLE AS ART Matthew Ankeny • Photography by Henry Phillips “It is artisanality, not luxury,” Danilo Colombo says in the shadow of one of Passoni’s $18,000 custom bikes. Colombo, a spokesman for the Italian brand, stands at a booth in the back corner of a convention hall at the world’s largest bicycle convention, Eurobike. The booth is Gokiso’s (a Japanese hub and wheel manufacturer). Passoni isn’t a listed vendor.

Those who know, know. Those who don’t, likely can’t afford. Passoni makes its custom bicycles in a factory (an “atelier”) in Milan.

The company’s craftsmen shape titanium into custom sizes for riders who have been carefully measured and analyzed. They spend 30 hours to finish a welded frame.

Colombo is a compact man with a trim build. He’s attentive and focused. He maintains exceptional eye contact. He wears a well-tailored suit without projecting the casual apathy of some Italians in suits. He cares desperately about not only the performance of Passoni bicycles, but the culture that surrounds them. He does not want potential customers to believe that they are buying a luxury good. He wants them to know they are buying a finely built riding machine.

He also wants them to know they are buying an experience — one that’s distinctly Italian (beyond the Columbus forks, Campagnolo components, Selle Italia saddle).

I first talked to Colombo, on the phone, while I stood on a hill overlooking Saratoga National Park, New York — a pivotal battleground in the American Revolution, in 1777.

Colombo was in Italy. He wanted to know about the ride of the Passoni bicycles, the titanium Top Force and the carbon fiber Nero XL I’d been spinning through the rolling hillsides. He asked if it made for a performanceoriented, comfortable ride. He asked if the bike rolled smooth, if it was responsive, if it absorbed road noise. He wanted to know, not as someone looking for casual hillside rides through casual vintage Americana countryside. He wanted to know how the bike would ride in the region it’s born — the Alps.

Passoni’s bicycles are smooth and elegant.

Weld points, often problem spots for titanium bicycles, are so finely finished that the frame

appears as a monocoque. The lines are clean and traditional and flow straightforward and steady from headtube to toptube, downtube and into the rear triangle. The triple-butted titanium, in a buffed, matte finish, shines without shouting; it is a narrative of performance geometry fitted to a material known for comfort.

Passoni draws inspiration from the artwork of Mernet Larsen, Timo Nasseri, Kate Castelli, Carmen Herrera, Lu Chao, Niko Luoma. There are no bicycles on their public inspiration wall (there are, but they are installations by Ai Weiwei). Their bikes are modern, minimalist art — studies in shape, color, line. Rothko, Pollock. The focus is on beauty — on finding what is elemental about a bicycle design and how it can reveal something of human experience.

Yet the artwork on a bicycle only comes from the time spent with the saddle between the legs. The strain of power pressed into the pedals, transferred to the frame, pushed through the drivetrain and into the wheels: that holds all judgment. The ride is the place of art. Precision-crafted titanium can go to that level — for the right rider, in the right situation. Colombo tells me that many former tour riders have come to Passoni for bicycles. He does not name names. This is not about them. This is about the ride at hand, the moments on the inclines, declines — it is about stiffness, flex, speed.

I tell Colombo about the ride. It is brilliant.

The Top Force is responsive, light under my body, snappy into and out of corners, solid on the road. The Nero XL is irresistibly stiff.

Every flat is a sprint. Every downhill in full tuck. Climbs turned molehills. It feels an experience beyond the stock frames I have ridden — it feels artisan. Luxury. Colombo is glad. To downplay, or to redirect, he proposes that next, when I am in Italy, I stop by the shop. Go for a ride. Race up some hills. Stop for a caffè. Take time to enjoy a ride. Allow a ride to let camaraderie bleed into competition. Have some wine. The bikes will be ready.

He will see me soon, hopefully, to ride beautifully in the Alps. ♦

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PASSONI TOP FORCE Fork: Columbus Grammy Components: Campagnolo Super Record 11 Cables: Nokon Wheels: Lightweight Meilenstein Seat: Selle Italia SLR Pedals: Shimano Dura Ace 36 $18,000+

REPORT

The Greatest Wheel in the World OBSERVATION WHEELS ARE ROLLING INTO CITIES AROUND THE WORLD. NEW YORK’S WILL BE THE MOST SPECTACULAR YET — AND IT WILL CHANGE THE CITY FOR GOOD.

Image by The New York Wheel

Eric Adams Tourists and curious locals queue up to enter sleek, climate-controlled pods. The view changes slowly as they rise into the sky. They take photos; they take selfies. Some propose marriage. Thirty-eight minutes later, after traveling 2,000 feet in that time, they disembark from the most stately, graceful carnival ride on earth. This is New York, 2017.

The Big Apple is getting a big wheel, akin to the London Eye, the Singapore Flyer and, most recently, the perfectly named High Roller in Las Vegas. Contracts have been signed, and caissons are being hammered into bedrock to support what will be the largest such attraction yet, a 630-foot-tall circular web of white steel adorned with 7 million digitally dancing LEDs. Rich Marin, a former Wall Street investment banking executive tasked by project investors with making the New York Wheel a reality, says the placement in Staten Island, while a surprise to many, is ideal. “The Wheel has a scale and grandness that works beautifully in such a special and important location,” he explains during a phone call late on a Sunday night. “It will enhance the borough’s standing, and fill a gap in the New York skyline.”

Will the strategy work? Wheels such as this — distinguished from Ferris wheels by the fact that their gondolas rotate mechanically with the wheel’s movement, rather than being suspended — have become icons in London, Singapore and Vegas, and smaller ones dot Japan, China and Australia.

But many more projects have stalled or failed, leaving such metropolises as Bangkok,

Moscow, Berlin, Baghdad and Shanghai without their enormous revenue mills and Instagram darlings. Usually the reasons are financial — work on the 500-foot SkyVue, also in Vegas, has ceased permanently due to funding issues, even though two concrete supports have been built. But it also stems from competition. Orlando opened its 400foot Orlando Eye in May, but it has been underperforming thanks to the abundance of amusement parks in the area and a generally bland landscape to observe at the top. It also didn’t help that the Orlando wheel shut down several times due to mechanical faults, including a three-hour freeze that resulted in firefighter-aided evacuations.

More robust wheels, like New York’s proposed wheel, are typically shielded from glitches and positioned to maximize appeal.

Even though the 550-foot High Roller, owned by Caesars Entertainment and set at the recently renovated LINQ Hotel & Casino, sits squarely amid its own competition on the Strip, the spot works in its favor. “Every day the view is unique,” notes Eric Eberhart, general manager of the High Roller. “We have the mountains and the valley during the day, and the scene transforms into an amazing light show from the Strip at night.

Plus, there’s a fountain performance from a certain competitor across the street (that shall remain nameless) and we have one of the best views of that, too.”

The New York Wheel, of course, will have its own head start, thanks to its perch across from a dynamic world cultural capital. The view from Staten Island will be a fresh

alternative to the usual vistas of the city from New Jersey and Brooklyn, and a more inclusive one. From the Wheel you’ll see the city’s endlessly sprouting skyscrapers, the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and all the action in the harbor. This view is usually enjoyed by a relative few — just residents and the occasional tourists who think to actually visit the “forgotten borough” (rather than take the ferry across and then immediately return). Then there’s the fact that the Wheel will itself become an objet d’art — i.e., its own attraction, visible from miles around thanks to Staten Island’s low land mass.

It’s also unlikely to run into funding problems. The $580 million to redevelop the waterfront with the Wheel and a new Empire Outlets mall is secure. And, visitor traffic, according to Marin, already exists at the site.

“Do you know what the second most popular attraction is in New York City? The Staten Island Ferry, which gets 1.8 million visitors per year, and is the only free public transport in the city,” he notes.

Once those visitors set their sights on the Wheel, it’ll exert a magnetic pull. Such has been the impact of other wheels around the world — they’re more kinetic than towers and skyscrapers, and thus more exciting.

They’re simultaneously nostalgic, timeless and futuristic. The 36 artfully designed selfleveling pods will feel more like small glass apartments or even spaceships than rickety gondolas, and the whole machine will be beautiful enough to be as much a star in visitors’ photos as the city they came to see. ♦ 37

REVIEW

A Queens Bounty QUEENS IS THE MOST ETHNICALLY DIVERSE URBAN AREA ON THE PLANET — AND THAT’S TRUE NEW AMERICAN. WE SOUGHT THE BEST PLATES IN A LITERAL WORLD OF WORLD FOOD.

Nick Milanes • Photography by Henry Phillips

GREEK

Loukoumi Taverna • 45-07 Ditmars Blvd Loukoumi’s father-and-son owners lean toward tradition; but unlike most Greek eateries, they strive for lighter takes on the classics. The off-the-menu moussaka is appropriate for any season, with fluffy ricotta and the finest minced beef this side of Crete.

The grilled octopus is another can’t-miss, its crunchy, blackened suckers counterbalanced by spongy tissue as fatty as pork. With locals gabbing in Greek and fresh air passing through the open facade, you’re just an olive grove away from the genuine article.

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INDIAN

Seva • 30-07 34th St Good Indian restaurants are worth praise in any New York neighborhood, but in Astoria, there’s one Indian eatery that warrants worship — Seva.

All other samosas fall before theirs, particularly the chicken variety, with meat ground down to a grainy texture that scrubs the tongue with spice. But pick up the meal-size appetizer platter, since you won’t want to miss the neighborhood-favorite lamb spring rolls.

FILIPINO

Tito Rad’s Grill • 49-10 Queens Blvd They call it “Little Manila” — an enclave of Filipino families, settled just off the Roosevelt/63rd street stop on the 7. There you’ll find Tito Rad’s, a classy, bigger-than-you’d-think bistro whose menu spans the entirety of Filipino history: from traditional dishes to Chinese-leaning ones born of pan-Asian trade to Caribbean-like fare from the days of Spanish Colonialism. The space neighbors another Filipino restaurant, which in turn neighbors a strip club.

Give yourself to the experience with a full grilled tuna jaw, easily split between four friends — just fork away at it, and let that fishy flesh melt in your own maw.

COLOMBIAN

Pollos a la Brasa Mario • 81-01 Roosevelt Ave Few things look natural underneath an elevated train, yet somehow Pollos a la Brasa, a little red barnhouse sitting under the 7 line, looks right at home — knockoff Looney Tunes drawings on the walls and gloriously hapless menu design included. While nominally a Colombian joint, this isn’t a place to split hairs over boundaries; it’s where Jackson Heights locals, one in two of whom identify as Latino, stop in for some quick, no-frills comfort food. So order a $30 meat platter: pollo a la plancha, steak, sausage, potatoes, yucca and a couple of shrimp thrown in for good measure, all piled on a greasy skillet.

CHINESE

Uncle Zhou • 83-29 Broadway While Flushing has the more quintessential Chinatown, Elmhurst is a worth-while alternative that doesn’t require a whole day to visit. Moreover, it’s home to Uncle Zhou, a modest (yet Michelin-rated and Times-adored) noodle house sitting atop a beauty salon. Try the hand-drawn noodles with gelatinous beef tendon, or their delicately fried dumplings, which, unlike competitors’, highlight the meat rather than the oil.

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REPORT

COASTA L CO M P E TI TI O N

New York Is the New Silicon Valley Darren Murph • Photo by Eric Adams

I was thrust into the tech universe in 2006, the halcyon days of tech blogging, where a ragtag gang of kids with a penchant for splicing wit into tech reporting could gain influence. At the time, I didn’t realize what we were building — a juggernaut that brought everyday consumers closer to the technology we knew would shape our future. This was Engadget, and quickly our demographic expanded from 18- to 35-year-old males to all humans aged four to 104. We graduated from covering portable CD players from Seoul and Tokyo to 3D printers and home-health robots pieced together in Queens.

In my decade living in this sector, I’ve always kept my distance — both emotional and physical — from both major tech regions in the county, San Francisco and New York.

While Engadget was co-headquartered in both coastal spots, I was hunkered down in North Carolina. The arrangement enabled me to travel frequently, and I still carry partially loaded fare cards for the New York City Subway and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), despite my home being anywhere between one and five hours away via plane. In ways it’s made me a more objective observer — I don’t have a particular preference for where technology thrives, I’m just an insider living on the outside.

While San Francisco and the surrounding areas have garnered the lion’s share of the spotlight — particularly in the de facto Age of Unicorns — America’s largest city is steadily becoming its own mecca of tech. According to Dow Jones VentureSource, information technology companies scoring exits of $500 million or greater dipped by 1.3 percent in Silicon Valley when comparing ’88 to ’00 with ’01 to ’13. Conversely, the New York Metro area saw that metric surge by 7.9 percent over the same periods. While California will always be able to claim the likes of Apple, PayPal, Facebook and Google — companies that continue to change the universe as we know it — New York is growing its own crop of powerhouse tech institutions.

In 2013, Tumblr sold to Yahoo for $1.1 billion, becoming NYC’s first billion-dollar 40

tech startup exit. Just a few blocks south, Shutterstock IPO’d with a market valuation of nearly $558.3 million. Now, we’re neck deep in what many pundits are describing as a bubble, with companies all over the globe notching valuations of hundreds of millions with only the scantest of monetization plans.

Even looking beyond artificial inflation, New York is quietly blossoming into an East Coast technology hub that has no interest in being seen as second rate. Importantly, New York feels entirely more prepared to handle any impending bubble popping. Silicon Valley lives and dies by the almighty transistor, but New York is diversified by design. Said another way, there’s no tech hub in the US more able to pivot than the Big Apple.

Madison Avenue has always been the place for media, advertising, marketing, fashion, lifestyle and travel. In the early noughties, however, broadband penetration soared while infrastructure costs plummeted, enabling New York’s physical staples to test the digital waters. Practically overnight, the connectedness of the technology sphere gave NYC the opportunity it needed to launch the likes of Buzzfeed, Etsy, Warby Parker, Birchbox, Foursquare,Tumblr, ZocDoc, Kickstarter, and Makerbot ( just to name a few).

It was my job to keep a pulse on all of this, and though a fair amount of tech outlets saw fit to launch new products at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, a staggering amount favored New York. From smaller companies like Dyson to stalwarts like Samsung, I watched as New York became the home base for tech launches for at least half of what the average consumer cares about. Over the years, NYC was chosen more often than not, which makes sense if you follow the money.

Research from Thomson One found that venture capital pouring into NY-based IT companies surged 13.3 percent (from $0.7 billion to $2.6 billion) in the decade spanning 2003 to 2013. For the sake of comparison, Silicon Valley saw VC injections rise 6.4 percent over the same period, from $4.9 billion to $9.1 billion. The greater Boston

area, which was previously regarded as the tech hub of the Eastern Seaboard, has fallen behind the Big Apple in terms of new deals and overall venture spending. Even the West Coast’s proudest products — Twitter, Amazon, eBay, Google and Facebook — are all making massive investments to build formidable teams in NYC. In a recent CNBC interview, Chad Dickerson, CEO of Brooklyn’s own Etsy, talked about watching the eastward march. In his half-decade operating as a startup founder, he noted that nearly every West Coast venture firm now has a permanent office in NYC — an office that’s viewed as equal both internally and externally.

Meanwhile, even New York’s government is prioritizing the growth of its tech sector.

The city maintains a heat map of startups, events, jobs and investors at Digital.NYC. At time of writing, 6,742 startups call one of the five boroughs home, alongside 186 investors, 423 events, 8,491 jobs, 344 workspaces and 76 incubators. It also expanded its We Are Made in NY campaign to the tech space in 2013, and more recently created the $10 million Tech Talent Pipeline to “encourage entrepreneurship and inclusion in the New York tech community through job placement efforts and educational and training programs.”

Speaking on a more personal level, I see New York evolving into a Silicon Valley equal in the next 10 to 20 years. New York’s work ethic is grittier, failure is less acceptable, and time is viewed as a more precious commodity. Courtesy of the last 15 years, it now has an impressive roster of highly successful tech outfits to call its own, which is no doubt enticing to venture capitalists in search of something different. And, the location is arguably its greatest asset, allowing tech firms to tap the best talent in industries outside of engineering, from content strategy to brand building to media partnerships.

Technology has become too big to live entirely within a hundred-mile radius in NorCal. New York, it seems, is poised to not only handle the overflow, but share the role as incubator. ♦

Reinventing the Office INSIDE THE COWORKING TREND

Tucker Bowe • Photography by Henry Phillips 41

REPORT

A paper by the NAIOP Research Foundation reported that there was only one shared workspace in America in 2005. In 2013, there were 781. According to a survey by Deskmag, a coworking publication, shared workspaces grew by 83 percent globally between 2012 and 2013. So, what explains the growth?

And why are shared spaces so compelling?

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REPORT

TODAY, ACCORDING TO A 2014 STUDY

conducted by the independent research firm Edelman Berland, there are over 53 million Americans who freelance, which by their calculation means that 34 percent of America’s workforce is eschewing the traditional single-occupant office. And while there isn’t a study directly linking the rise of shared workspaces with the proliferation of freelancers and startups, anyone working in a collective will affirm, anecdotally, that they’re related.

“Back in the day, it meant that you were transient or not established,” says Debra Larsen, founder of the shared workspace Workhouse NYC. “Now people view it as a better way to office.” Shared workspaces emerged to fill a need. Larsen says startups began demanding more out of traditional office spaces after the dot-com era. Because they didn’t have credit or capital, startups were attracted to the idea of a low overhead and an amenity-rich environment: desks, wi-fi, kitchens and other utilities are included in a shared workspace’s rent. In the event of explosive growth, or abrupt failure, startups preferred not to be tied down to long-term leases. Today, most shared workspaces only require members to pay month to month.

The allure of shared workspaces isn’t just affordability, but also collaboration. Most spaces have open floor plans to promote networking and encourage serendipitous meetings. They also group together common areas, kitchens and printing stations. “The big focus is building community through design,” says Devin Vermeulen, WeWork’s creative director. But finding a balance between collaboration and productivity is a challenge.

To accommodate members who need privacy and quiet, most collaborative workspaces

have separate suites (which can be reserved), phone booths and designated quiet areas.

The difference between coworking spaces is small but important. In Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, Fueled Collective has leather couches and English decor that seems straight out of a Sherlock Holmes film; Projective Space, in the Lower East Side, is minimalistic in design. Perhaps more importantly, coworking spaces differentiate themselves by the professionals they accept. In New York, coworking spaces like Grind and Workhouse NYC, both in Midtown, prefer more established tech or corporate startups. WeWork, which has 19 workspaces in New York and 54 locations globally, caters to a wider audience of freelancers. Most shared workspaces require prospective members to apply to ensure that they’ll benefit the collective. But some, like Freehold Brooklyn, don’t require memberships or applications. Anyone can walk in, work, use the free wi-fi and buy a drink or snack.

In America, the highest concentrations of coworking spaces are in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Boston and New York City.

They’ve helped cultivate multimillion-dollar (and billion-dollar) companies like Uber, Reddit and Airbnb. Even larger players, like Microsoft and American Express, are now renting spaces. And while 90 percent of today’s startups fail, the opposite is true with collective workspaces. In January 2014, Deskmag predicted that 90 percent of coworking spaces would increase memberships, and 60 percent of existing spaces were expected to expand. The workplaces of today’s workforce certainly look different from our parents and grandparents offices — but the job is still getting done. ♦

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AT THE CANNIBAL

DRINKING BELGIUM’S BEST AJ Powell • Photography by Henry Phillips Named for legendary Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx, The Cannibal is New York’s only first-rate purveyor of beer, meat and cycling gear. Some come in for a spread of lamb liver pâté, smoked kielbasa and steak tartare; others come for a post-ride debrief and a cocktail on the patio (owner Christian Pappanicholas’s primary aim is to “foster the NYC cycling community”). We went for the selection of more than 450 beers from around the world, in particular the selection of Belgian beer, which is one of the best in the city. Hard-to-find bottles line the shelves and a private cellar houses a treasure trove of once-in-a-lifetime brews.

“When I think about beers that will end up on my ‘five beers to take to the desert island’ list, a lot of these beers would go on it,” Pappanicholas said, referring to his collection of Belgians. They were on ours, too. During our tasting, Pappanicholas produced a rare and wonderfully aged bottle of Cantillon Classic Gueuze from 2012 — a bright and delicious beer from the producer of the best Belgian lambics in the world — as well as a Pannepot Reserva and Trappist Westvleteren XII, two of the best Belgian quadrupels to hit a bottle. We drank them with chef Francis Derby’s duck rillettes and the chicken liver pâté and vowed to put in a few extra miles on the weekend ride.

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BROUWERIJ WESTMALLE WESTMALLE TRAPPIST DUBBEL

DE BRABANDERE PETRUS AGED PALE

BRASSERIE D’ORVAL S.A. ORVAL TRAPPIST ALE 2010 VINTAGE

ABV: 7%

ABV: 7.3%

ABV: 6.2%

Style: Dubbel

Style: Belgian Pale Ale

Style: Belgian Pale Ale

Tasting Notes: Plum, raisin, biscuit, some caramel notes

Tasting Notes: Light on the palate, fresh, sour

Tasting Notes: Some dark fruit, balanced sour note

KLEINBROUWERIJ DE GLAZEN TOREN D’ERPE MERE

BROUWERIJ WESTVLETEREN TRAPPIST WESTVLETEREN XII 2014 VINTAGE

BROUWERIJ DE RANKE XX BITTER

ABV: 6.9%

ABV: 10.2%

Style: Saison

Style: Quadrupel

Tasting Notes: Bright, spice, clove

Tasting Notes: Sweet chocolate, hint of hops, alcohol warming

BROUWERIJ VAN HONSEBROUCK NV BACCHUS 2014 VINTAGE

DE STRUISE BROUWERS PANNEPOT RESERVA 2008

ABV: 6.2% Style: Belgian IPA Tasting Notes: Slight hoppiness, hint of sour

BRASSERIE CANTILLON CLASSIC GUEUZE 2012 VINTAGE

ABV: 4.5%

ABV: 10%

ABV: 5%

Style: Flanders Oud Bruin

Style: Quadrupel

Style: Gueuze

Tasting Notes: Hint of sour, dark fruits

Tasting Notes: Plum, cherry, warming alcohol, some barrel notes

Tasting Notes: Bright, slightly tannic, green apple

WISH LIST : 1/7

SHELBY GT350R Bryan Campbell • Photo by Henry Phillips Ford has never created a car like the 2016 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R. Decibels trickle out in discernible pops and bangs at a standstill; at full bore, they stampede out at 8,250 seamless explosions a minute. The GT350R is the Blue Oval’s first flat-plane crank V8 ever and the marque’s most powerful naturally aspirated eightcylinder yet. It’s a high-revving race car for the road, flashing a wild child middle finger to political correctness and convention; it is, in effect, our best distillation of classic American muscle. $61,295

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WELCOME TO THE

E-BIKE CRITERIUM Jeremy Berger • Photography by Emiliano Granado

STARRING MICHAEL GIL BRYAN CAMPBELL NEIL BEZDEK CHASE PELLERIN ANDREW HAYNES ERICA TRICARICO

and JEFF CARVALHO

n New York City, bike commuting is competing. A race against time, of which there’s never enough. It’s a struggle of slipping past gridlocked cabs, dodging wayward tourists, sprinting to beat lights and avoiding the squeeze of a merging car and bus. It’s a contest of who looks the best and sweats the least. But most of all, it’s a race to put the smartass on a fixie in his place, once and for all, when he tries to pass you on the Manhattan Bridge. Can’t you see I’ve got Di2, bro?

The whole ecosystem has been upended by e-bikes, a class of two-wheeler that looks ostensibly like any other bike but for the small outboard battery and a motor integrated into the hub or drivetrain, which offer pedal assist — in some cases up to 28 mph. Once mainly the transportation de rigueur of Chinese take-out delivery men, e-bikes are turning up in bigger numbers on the city streets and as far away as mountain

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bike trails. They’re fast, nimble and they’ve reinvigorated the commute — because there’s nothing quite like winning the holeshot on a longtail cargo bike that weighs 60 pounds (without breaking a sweat).

But how do e-bikes perform in real-life situations? Like when you need to pull over for an emergency ice cream cone, refuel on espresso mid-ride or pick up flowers for your lover — all while making good time? To find out, we assembled an elite crew of seven riders (including two elite cyclists), six of the finest electric bikes and one of the finest electric skateboards, for the inaugural E-bike Criterium on the streets of Brooklyn. Cycling photographer Emiliano Granado of Manual for Speed, riding his own bike, captured the action. *Our thanks to NYC eWheels in Manhattan and Propel Bikes in Brooklyn for providing the bikes.

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THE RACERS

MICHAEL GIL Copywriter • BRYAN CAMPBELL Associate Staff Writer, Gear Patrol NEIL BEZDEK Former Pro Cyclist • CHASE PELLERIN Apprentice, Gear Patrol • ANDREW HAYNES Art Director, Gear Patrol ERICA TRICARICO Semi-Pro Cyclist • JEFF CARVALHO Executive Editor, Highsnobiety

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THE OFFICIALS

AJ POWELL Apprentice, Gear Patrol JEREMY BERGER Senior Editor, Gear Patrol

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EMILIANO

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THE GEAR

From left to right: MICHAEL: Brompton M3L WITH ELECTRIC CONVERSION KIT $2,795, wearing a Narifuri THREE-PIECE DRY SUIT JEFF: Xtracycle EDGERUNNER 9E $5,999, wearing LEVI’S COMMUTER APPAREL BRYAN: Specialized TURBO S $7,000 CHASE: ONEWHEEL $1,499, wearing Outlier FUTUREWORKS PANTS $125, and MOJAVE PIVOT SHIRT $120 NEIL: Haibike XDURO SUPERRACE $6,800 ANDREW: Surly MOONLANDER WITH BIONX MOTOR $4,900, wearing Kitsbow A/M SHORT $295, and Swrve TEE $45 ERICA: Stromer ST2 $6,990 (as tested)

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CHALLENGE ONE: SECURE ICE CREAM

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CHALLENGE TWO: FLOWERS FOR A LOVER

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C H A L L E N G E T H R E E : C A F F E I N AT E

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THE WINNER: HAIBIKE XDURO SUPERRACE

Body Position / Suggested Use : Forward Aggressive / Road, Urban Electric Bike Class : Speed Pedalec (Class 3) Motor Type / Nominal Output : Mid-Mounted Geared Motor / 350 watt Total Weight / Motor Weight / Battery Weight : 40 lbs (18.14 kg) 8.8 lbs (3.99 kg) 5.5 lbs (2.49 kg) Estimated Charge Time: 3.5 hrs Top Speed: 28 mph (45.06 kph) $6,800

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“I COULD THROW IT AROUND AND EVEN BUNNY HOP LIKE A NORMAL ROAD BIKE, EXCEPT THIS ONE IS SUPERCHARGED!”

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R A C E S TAT S

4.9mi

COURSE DISTANCE

224ft

29% SHAVED LEGS

COURSE ELEVATION GAIN

$ 35,983 RETAIL VALUE OF BIKES

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STOPLIGHTS 66

12

ICE CREAM SCOOPS CONSUMED

62lbs HEAVIEST BIKE

917-743-3780

SHOWROOM IN DUMBO, BROOKLYN oswaldsmillaudio.com

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CANADA 68

Photo by Henry Phillips

T H E U LT I M AT E S K I TO U R I N G K I T R E T H I N K I N G T H E C A R RY- O N C A LGA RY T R AV E L G U I D E CO M PAC T T R AV E L C A M E R A S HELI-SKIING IN THE SELKIRKS T H E TA R T I F L E T T E ANALOGUE NT

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THE ULTIMATE SKI TOURING KIT In increasing numbers, skiers looking to escape the creature comforts of resort life and rekindle their relationship with the mountain are tackling snow-covered wilderness, sometimes for days at a time. Ski touring is the snowsport of the moment, and whether you hit a local mountain after work or take on big peaks in the Canadian Rockies, you’ll need a comprehensive kit that’s lightweight and fast, waterproof and breathable, and most importantly, equipped for worst-case scenarios.

J. Travis Smith • Photo by Henry Phillips 70

LEKI BLUE BIRD VARIO POLES Durable, versatile and lightweight, these poles have huge baskets for floating above snow, and adjustable lengths for skiing in all types of terrain. $150 BLACK DIAMOND EVAC 7 SHOVEL A strong and lightweight shovel for uncovering buried skiers, with a spade that adjusts to become a 90-degree hoe for faster digging. $80 ORTOVOX 240 CARBON PFA PROBE Without an avalanche probe, there’s little hope for rescuing a trapped skier.

Ortovox focuses on reliability and simplicity with their lifesaving devices. This probe is lightweight, durable and has a patented PFA quick-release tensioning system. $85 MAMMUT PULSE BARRYVOX AVALANCHE BEACON For finding someone fast in a mound of snow, Mammut’s top-tier beacon has a 50m transmission range for digital communication, which jumps to 80m when switched to analog mode. Movement sensors analyze and transmit vital data from trapped skiers to rescuers, which allows the beacon to automatically switch from searching for distress signals to sending distress signals in the case of a second avalanche. $490 LA SPORTIVA SPITFIRE 2.0 BOOTS With the constant movement of cross-country travel, ergonomics are key in touring boots. The nylon polymer construction of these boots cuts weight to save your legs, while a 68-degree range of motion provides maximum agility on switchbacks and allows for longer strides on flats, without creating hot spots on your feet. $899 MARKER KINGPIN 10 BINDINGS Six power springs and ultra-wide pin placement set a high-water mark for energy transmission, while a simple step-in attachment and easy switching from ski to walk mode save time in transitions. Overall, a highly versatile touring binding. $599 FISCHER TRANSALP 88 SKIS Ultra-lightweight skis with rockered tips and camber under the boots are ideal for the maneuverability needed during long treks in deep snow and over hardpack. Use them with Fischer’s new synthetic Profoil, which attaches to the bottom of the ski, replacing traditional skins. $699 FISCHER PROFOIL These lightweight polyethylene skin alternatives, patterned after fish scales, grant the same uphill traction as traditional mohair skins while allowing for better gliding on flats and slight descents during cross-country travel. Because they are 100 percent waterproof, they won’t pick up extra moisture weight during shoulder season. $275 GOPRO HERO4 BLACK This versatile, top-tier GoPro captures 4K Ultra HD video at 30 fps and 720p at up to 240 fps while providing the crispest audio available in the GoPro line. The ultra-wide lens is also waterproof up to 131 feet and captures 12MP photos with burst speeds of 30 photos per second. It’s the best way to record your adventures, bar none. $500 UNTAPPED WAFFLES High in carbs and sugar for an energy boost when you need it, yet thin enough to shove into a coat pocket, these waffles are soaked in real maple syrup for a delicious snack befitting mountain excursions. $9

Victorinox Spectra 2.0 Dual-Access Global Carry-On 71

BLACK DIAMOND RECON SKI PANTS Hardshell material on the front of these pants protects from the wind and snow while breathable stretch-woven fabric on the back allows for freer athletic movements and temperature regulation. The hybrid construction makes these Black Diamond’s most versatile pants to date. $399 ARC’TERYX LITHIC GLOVES Arc’teryx heat mapped the hands of alpinists and then used a combination of three-layer Gore-Tex fabrics and Primaloft insulation to add warmth in areas vulnerable to cold, like the backs of the hands, in addition to improving the finger and palm grips for better dexterity and durability in the backcountry. $249 MAMMUT RIDE PROTECTION AIRBAG This avy pack provides the space to store and organize everything you need to bring to the mountains, along with back harnesses for carrying your skis. Most importantly, though, the Protection Airbag System at the neck deploys to help you maintain an upright body position in the event of an avalanche. $780 for 22L SWEET PROTECTION GRIMNIR HELMET The carbon fiber-reinforced polymer shell is a lightweight first line of defense against shots to your dome in the backcountry, while the interior “impact shields” make for unmatched shock absorption. The Multidirectional Impact Protection System (MIPS) absorbs rotational energy during impact, helping protect wearers against concussions. Plus, it looks good. $450 OAKLEY FLIGHT DECK XM GOGGLES Styled after the visors of fighter pilots, these goggles feature a rimless design for unmatched field of view. A border of vents keeps the lens from fogging, leaving the the scenery clear, crisp and unobstructed. $200 PATAGONIA REFUGITIVE JACKET Patagonia’s lightest three-layer Gore-Tex shell makes for easy packing, while the stretchable fabric along its upper back and arms is designed specifically for the movements required while touring in the backcountry. $499

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A NEW BREED OF CARRY-ONS In the past, carry-on travel bags have been spartan, utilitarian at best. They did their job, with little flair: your clumsy, breakable, standard black rollaboard. The new breed of travel bags offers traveler-friendly features and increased durability aimed at taking the stress out of air travel. While there’s no guarantee that the TSA will stop rifling through your things, these bags will help you stay more organized, stylish and efficient when flying.

AJ Powell • Photography by Henry Phillips

VICTORINOX SPECTRA 2.0 DUAL-ACCESS GLOBAL CARRY-ON The Victorinox Spectra 2.0 features a quick-access front panel that makes it easy to reach critical tech items both in the security line and on the plane. Its break-resistant polycarbonate shell will also keep all of your belongings safe while being tossed around in transit. $350

VOCIER C38 LUGGAGE The Vocier C38 offers a new spin on the traditional roller board.

Its zero-crease system ensures suits remain ready to wear.

A magnetic hanger system, a removable interior compartment and a jacket valet hook on the handle — one wonders why all travel bags aren’t designed this way. $775

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LEXDRAY LONDON GARMENT Lexdray’s London Garment bag is the sophisticated evolution of the traditional garment bag. Its business duffle exterior unzips to reveal organized shelves that eliminate the need to unpack, while a removable garment bag keeps formal clothes looking their best. $540

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TUMI 1975 INTERNATIONAL CARRY-ON The epitome of luxury and opulence, Tumi’s 1975 International Carry-On celebrates 40 years of travel bag refinement. The bag features a ballistic nylon exterior with leather accents and plenty of interior pockets to keep you organized. $1,295

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HOOK & ALBERT LEATHER GARMENT WEEKENDER BAG Hook & Albert has disguised a garment bag in the body of a weekend duffel. The top and sides of the bag unzip to lay flat, providing wrinklefree storage for your suits, and convenient compartments in the side flaps are designed to store dress shoes. $585

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AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO CALGARY Skiers en route to western Canada will find themselves traveling to Vancouver International Airport (YVR) or Calgary International Airport (YYC).

Most, given the option, would prefer to spend their rest days in Vancouver.

But that’s changing as Calgary, an oil city some well-traveled locals compare to Houston, finds its stride with new restaurants, bars, hotels and stores.

We asked a few well-connected locals to clue us in on their favorite spots to eat, drink, stay and get outfitted for the slopes.

Jeremy Berger • Photography by John Fache

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STAY: HOTEL ARTS • 119 12 AVE SW “Hotel Arts is a boutique hotel located in the heart of the city. Avoid the chains and visit this contemporary gem instead. With two award-winning restaurants in the hotel and the vibrant Stephen Avenue a short walk away, there’s plenty to do here whether you feel like staying put or going out to explore the city.”

JOHN FACHE, 24, PHOTOGRAPHER AND OWNER OF CAMP & CITY

EAT: SIDEWALK CITIZEN BAKERY • 618 CONFLUENCE WAY SE “A trip to Calgary isn’t complete without visiting Sidewalk Citizen, Calgary’s most charming bakery. Five years ago they began as a small operation delivering bread by bicycle, and now they’ve grown into a local staple and my weekly culinary addiction. Serving everything from artisan pizzas to carefully made salads, this place will keep your stomach smiling all day long.”

ANGEL GUERRA, 34, COFOUNDER OF MARKET COLLECTIVE

DRINK: PIGEONHOLE • 306 17 AVE SW “Pigeonhole is a new wine and snack bar in Calgary with a selection of seasonal small plates and a great wine list. They have an open kitchen with a hibachi-style grill on their line, so you can expect to find a lot of dishes with smoky notes that pair well with wine.

Their menu includes items like lamb tartare, salted halibut pierogies with ramps and crème fraîche, and grilled octopus with lamb merguez, green tomato and pine nuts.”

BRETT MCDERMOTT, 31, CHEF AND OWNER OF OUR DAILY BRETT

GET OUTFITTED: FRESH SPORTS • 108 10 STREET NW “If you call yourself a skier, and you call Calgary home, you shop at Fresh. It’s been a staple in the Kensington neighborhood for over 10 years now. You feel the great atmosphere as you walk through the front door and see the freeski memorabilia (like original Salomon 1080s signed by JP Auclair and Mike Douglas) displayed proudly on the walls. The staff is laid back, knowledgeable and incredibly friendly. Every October, Fresh owner Steve Saranchuk organizes a ski movie festival called “the Freshtival” that brings everyone in the western ski community together to enjoy the latest ski films, have a few adult sodas and celebrate the white peaks in the distance.”

ROB HEULE, 24, PRO SKIER AND OWNER OF RAD PACKS

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AMATEUR TRIP, PRO CAMERA

POINT, SHOOT, TRAVEL. O u r p h o n es are more th an c a pa ble of c a pturing da ily mo me n ts, b u t th eir lack o f optic a l zoom a nd poor lowl i g h t ch op s still leave p lenty to be de sire d — espec ia lly fo r t ravelers h op in g to d o c um ent every ex perience.

Th an k f ully a n ew b reed of a dva nced high-e nd p o i n t - an d - sh oots comb in es versatile optic s with p owe f u l sen sors to of fer pe rform a nce com pa ra ble to p ro e q u ip men t in a su rprisingly porta ble form .

Tom Samiljan • Photo by Eric Yang

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LEICA Q

CANON G3X

SONY RX100 IV

Money won’t buy you talent, but it can

Zoom, zoom, zoom. That’s what this

No bigger than a bar of soap, Sony’s

help you take better photographs. At four

compact, albeit slightly bulky, camera is

latest-generation RX100 fits easily into

grand, this fixed-lens, magnesium-body

all about, thanks to a fixed lens that can

any pocket but punches way above

point-and-shoot from Germany’s premier

zero in up to 25x, optically. This unrivaled

its size and weight. A powerful new

lens and camera maker delivers a

capability (for an all-in-one shooter)

image sensor and processor allow for

nuanced mix of sharp and soft with its

makes the G3X ideal for capturing

impressive capabilities, such as burst-

legendary optics (in this case, a fast

close-ups of, say, cherubs on a chapel

shooting up to 16 fps and ultra-high-res

28mm f/1.7 aperture lens that’s perfect

ceiling in Rome. But it isn’t just about

4K video. The high-frame-rate (HFR)

for wide vistas and low light) and a

distance; the 3.2-inch tilting touchscreen

mode can slow down your videos up

full-frame, 24MP sensor that’ll let you

makes low-angle shots a cinch.

to 40x, making for stellar capture of,

blow pictures up to big-screen TV

Concessions to video makers include

say, every last sparkle of snow, sweat

(or gallery wall) size. With a smooth

inputs for external mics and outputs for

or surf when taking action shots.

manual focus and a high-res viewfinder,

headphones (to monitor sound). It won’t

Pair those features with a pop-up

this is the kind of camera that

fit in your pocket, but if you want

viewfinder, flexible flash, Carl Zeiss

pros bring on vacation. $4,250

incredible telephoto capabilities without

lens and a handy 180-degree-tilt LCD

the bulk of a DSLR, then hang this

screen, and the RX100 IV has set a

water-and dust-resistant powerhouse

new standard in point-and-shoot

around your neck. $1,000

capabilities yet again. $950

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HELI 84

SKI

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The Bell 212 twin-engine helicopter set down 100 yards from the lodge and 10 inches from our group of eight. This was our transport for the next four days, while we heli-skied the untouched ridges of the Selkirks and Purcells. We ducked under the blades, skis in tow, and took the quick ride to 8,800 feet.

The helicopter followed our descent as we dodged crevasses, slashed turns and relished some of the best skiing any of us had seen. When we finally reached the pickup point it was “head down,” back in the heli, and up the mountain to do it all again.

Henry Phillips • Photography by Henry Phillips 87

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THE CAMERA BEHIND HELI-SKI: H A S S E L B L A D C F V - 5 0 C D I G I TA L B A C K

50MP 43.8 x 32.9mm CMOS Sensor V System Camera & Lens Compatibility ISO Range: 100-6400 16 Bit Color Depth 3.0” TFT Color LCD Display $15,500

95

Hestra FALL LINE GLOVES $150

96 Julbo VERMONT MYTHIC SUNGLASSES $260

HOW TO MAKE A TARTIFLETTE

The Official Dish of Ski Season Jeremy Berger • Photo by Henry Phillips “In the summertime we’re down in Nice with pan bagnat,” Jody Williams says, giving onions a rough chop on a butcher block. “And then during apple season we hit the Alps and start drinking Chardonnay from Jura and eating tartiflette.” We’ve come to Buvette, Williams’s French restaurant in New York City’s West Village, specifically for the tartiflette, a traditional Savoyard dish often found in ski towns.

Her tartiflette is exactly what you want to eat after a long day outside in the cold. It’s a calorie bomb loaded with thick-cut bacon, onions, potatoes, slightly funky Reblochon cheese, heavy cream and crème fraîche, complemented by sage and nutmeg and cooked until it’s gooey, crispy and bubbling over the edge of its gratin dish. She takes one out of the oven and brings it to a table in the small dining room appointed with wooden tables and wrought iron chairs. 1920s jazz standards play as a server brings golden-brown croissants to a table; another writes the names of incoming patrons in chalk on the door frame. Baristas pull espresso shots one after the next.

Williams describes Buvette as a “gastrothèque,” a place that does tradition, non-traditionally.

“We don’t have the formula with a first course and second course, or prescribe what you can eat during which hours,” she says. “You can eat tarte tatin all day.” The food, though, is authentic to the region where it originated and to the local ingredients with which it’s made. Right now you can find Williams’s food in New York and Paris, and there are plans to open restaurants in London and Tokyo in the coming years. Everywhere else, follow her simple recipe for a tartiflette to bring a bit of Buvette and the French Alps to your home this winter.

INGREDIENTS

PREPARATION

1/4 pound sliced bacon,

Place the bacon in a large, heavy, ovenproof skillet

cut crosswise into

set over medium heat. Cook, stirring now and then,

1/2 inch slices (lardons)

until all the fat is nearly rendered and the bacon is just beginning to crisp, about five to 10 minutes.

1 yellow onion, diced Add the onions to the skillet and cook, stirring now and 1 1/2 pounds small, waxy

then, until the onions are softened, another 10 minutes.

yellow potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-size pieces

Add the sage and potatoes and cook, stirring now and then, until the onions are quite browned and

Coarse salt

sticky, almost like a jam, and the potatoes are just cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes.

8 leaves fresh sage, roughly chopped Stir the nutmeg and crème fraîche into the potato 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg 1/2 cup crème fraîche

mixture and season to taste with salt.

Transfer the potatoes to a gratin dish or individual ramekins, or simply leave them in the skillet.

1/3 pound Reblochon cheese (or any soft, washed rind cheese such as Brie)

Blanket the potato mixture with the cheese and evenly pour the heavy cream over it all. Place the skillet in a 425˚F oven and bake until the cheese is melted and

2 tablespoons heavy cream

browned, about 15 minutes.

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WISH LIST: 2/7

ANALOGUE NT Nick Milanes • Photo by Henry Phillips For the price of an Xbox One, your dusty copy of Duck Hunt can have a new life — in glorious 1080p, for $79 more. Yes, for a device with mostly the same innards as the original Nintendo Entertainment System (albeit in a striking aluminum case), it’s a bit absurd. But then again, it’s got 48 kHz 16-bit stereo and boosted resolution to provide classic games with unwarped visuals. And how much do some guys pay to buy the cars they drove in high school? $499

Next Item: Page 138

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CHILE 100

Photo by Sung Han

AT T H E E D G E O F T H E WO R L D THE STORY OF JUAN TORO O F F - S E A S O N S T Y L E I N PATAG O N I A THE EXPLORA MOTORCYCLING TO THE COAST FORAGING WITH CHILE’S TOP CHEF NEW WORLD OF WINE VA L PA R A Í S O ’ S G R A FFITI S C E N E CHILEAN CRAFT BEER A DV E N T U R E S I N T H E ATAC A M A D E S E R T LEICA SL

presented by

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AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD When it comes to the origin of Chile’s name, theories abound. A 17th-century Spanish chronicler wrote that it sprang from the Incan name assigned to a prominent valley, which itself was a bastardization of a tribal chief’s title. Other etymologists point instead to word derivations from several native tongues, all of whose rough English translations — “Ends of the Earth,” “Where the Land Ends” or the “Deepest Point of the Earth” — touch on a singular observation. It was to this Chile, the living frontier at the terminus of a continent, that we set off to explore.

During our three-week expedition spanning the frozen granite of the Paine Massif, the lunar-like surface of the Atacama Desert, the vine-lined roads of the Maipo Valley and the salty docks of Valparaíso, we wore three unique timepieces, designed for modern adventurers, in the elements they were built to master.

GP / TU DOR

GP / TU DOR

TO THE FACE OF THE HORNS

Chile’s famed Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia draws its namesake from its “Blue Towers,” but the Cuernos (“Horns”) are the real appeal — as long as they’re in view.

Equipped with TUDOR’s North Flag, a watch built from the ground up to keep precise time despite challenging conditions, we hiked to the base of the Cuernos as dusk approached, hoping daylight would remain and the fog blocking the Cuernos would disappear.

The North Flag, equipped with the company’s first-ever in-house caliber MT5621 automatic movement, steadily beat time as we hiked, fingers crossed for a break in the weather. $3,675 as shown

continue the story gear.gp/northflag

RIDING FROM THE ANDES TO THE OCEAN The best way to cover ground between Santiago, Chile’s capital, and Valparaíso, “The Jewel of the Pacific,” is by motorcycle. We rented a BMW R 1200 GS, strapped on TUDOR’s Fastrider Chrono and engaged the PVD-coated pusher.

With eight hours to kill and miles of road ahead — pavement that twists back on itself, carving through wineries and the Cordillera de la Costa — we set out through the dusty, traffic-clogged streets of Santiago to find freedom outside of the city. $4,100 as shown

continue the story gear.gp/fastrider

A MARITIME ICON HOLDS ON Thanks to its role as the primary harbor for the Chilean Navy and its proximity to the Straits of Magellan, Valparaíso was once a great gate to the seas for ships crossing between the Pacific and Atlantic. Armed with the TUDOR Pelagos — which features the same heritage “snowflake” hour hand found on watches once designed for the French Navy — we set out to hunt down the remaining history of the coastal city.

The ethos of the Pelagos, a maritime-inspired watch made with modern advances like a titanium and steel case, an anti-magnetic silicon hairspring, a 500m depth rating and a 70-hour power reserve, was reflected in Valparaíso, where we discovered a city fighting to preserve tradition. $4,400 as shown

continue the story gear.gp/pelagos

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THE STORY OF JUAN TORO

First Ranger As told to Jack Seemer • Photo by Jack Seemer

In 1974, Juan Toro became the first ranger stationed in Torres del Paine National Park in southern Chile. As of 2015, he is also its longest-serving employee, having lived and worked there for 41 years. We first met him during a brief visit to the remote area of Laguna Azul, one of the park’s nine sectors, where he greeted us warmly with handshakes and asked us to visit again soon. We did, perhaps a bit earlier than he expected, when we drove five hours from our hotel that night to share some mate in his home, which doubles as a park office, and hear his story. The following text was taken from a recording of the conversation and translated from Spanish.

I was 17 years old when I first started working for CONAF, the National Forest Corporation of Chile. I am 63 now. You can do the math.

My parents were farmers in a small town called Curarrehue. I was born in Pucón, where I later worked in a wood-processing plant. I also served in the military for one year. But that is another story.

I came to Torres del Paine 41 years ago, in February of 1974. The park was very different, much smaller than what you see today. Back then it was just called the National Park of Lago Grey, bordered by Salto Grande and Glaciar Grey.

I spent more than one year alone after I arrived here. But I am one of the lucky ones. I met my wife, Rosa, in the Araucanía Region. We married in 1975. She has put up with a lot over the years. Today we have a small business in Puerto Natales.

My schedule is simple. I work nine days in the park, and six days in Natales. Rosa and I have two children, Alejandra, who lives in Natales, and David, who is in the army. Now I even have two grandchildren. I am very happy with my family.

My main job here is to protect: patrol the trails, look for fires, see that nobody gets hurt.

Because we are surrounded by farmland, I make sure other animals, like sheep, don’t come into the park. When they do, I escort them out. During the summer, there is much administrative work to be done as a ranger. In the winter, many of the shelters are closed. There is less to do. You must be prepared as a visitor if you are coming then. But there are benefits. The park is empty, and you can have it to yourself. I think you need 10 days to really experience it all.

I was here during the three big fires. The first was in ’85, then again in 2005 and 2011.

There have been others too, of course, but those were the bad ones. Fires usually happen in the summer, when it is dry, and there are visitors out camping in many different locations, smoking cigarettes or building campfires that get out of control.

I meet many young Chileans who want to become rangers. Unfortunately there is not enough money to employ them. The job is very competitive. Many will come for the summer, expecting to become employed full time afterwards. But that doesn’t happen often, and it’s easy for them to lose interest. It takes patience to become a ranger.

You have to really love the park.

I will retire in two years, when I am 65. I haven’t thought much about what I will do. But I will probably stay in Natales to be close to the park. For me, Torres del Paine is my home.

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WINTER IN TORRES DEL PAINE

OFF -SEASON The cold winter months from June through August offer unique solitude in Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia. But in this part of southern Chile, the weather often works against you. It’s not uncommon to encounter wind, rain or snow — sometimes all in a single day. It’s wise to pack accordingly; the 50th parallel south is a long, long way from home.

Jack Seemer • Photography by Sung Han

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Previous Page Snow Peak WAXED MOUNTAIN DOWN JACKET $800 Front General Store MILITARY WATCH CAP $15 This Page Vuarnet 002 SUNGLASSES $215 Tudor NORTH FLAG WATCH $3,675

SmartWool TREKKING HEAVY CREW SOCKS $21 Zamberlan 1025 TOFANE GTX BOOTS $470 Woolpower 400G FULL ZIP JACKET $175

Mystery Ranch 3-DAY ASSAULT PACK $325

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Fjällräven KEB TROUSERS $200 Patagonia MERINO AIR CREW BASELAYER $129

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ABOUT HOTEL EXPLORA Coordinates: 50˚ 45S, 73˚ 22W Year built: 1993 Distance from closest airport: 200 miles Winter rates (all-inclusive): $725+ per night

EXPLORA PATAGONIA Jack Seemer Photo by Sung Han 114

Winter is an open secret among locals who live in and around Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, the region’s central attraction.

927 square miles — filled with glaciers, turquoise lakes and dramatic mountain vistas — lay quiet and undisturbed, lacking the annual horde of high-season tourists. For those looking to be at the heart of it all, the Explora Patagonia on the shore of Lake Pehoé is among the few overnights in the region to keep its doors open throughout the winter and the only upscale hotel to sit within the park’s official boundaries.

First opened in 1993, the hotel was designed by two of Chile’s most respected architects, José Cruz Ovalle and Germán del Sol. Painted white, the main building is a modern lodge, blending qualities of the urban (square geometry) and rustic (wooden shingles). The hybrid

tone continues inside, where humble furnishings are matched with mid-century accents.

There are 49 rooms, tiered based on size and view; all have access to the adjacent sauna, Casa de Baños del Ona, with its hot tubs overlooking Salto Chico Lake.

Make no mistake, however: the reason you are here is to make full use of Explora’s famed adventure program. Included in the price per night are more than 50 excursions led by an experienced team of guides. Highlights include gaucho-led lessons in horse riding, full-day treks to the base of the famous torres and even easy morning hikes spent learning about the native flora and fauna. Small and intimate, the excursions never include more than eight guests to a group. But with the trails empty this time of year, chances are you’ll have Torres del Paine all to yourself.

A MOTORCYCLE JOURNEY

The Road to Valparaíso Heading west, towards the coast, I escape Santiago’s waves of unruly city traffic, smog at the city limits, and the chilly, overcast early morning. On this ride in the Andes, so far, the only elemental embrace I receive is a cold one, testing my patience and fortitude. But as the road starts to wrinkle and kink on itself, Chile’s Central Valley opens up with vineyards, blooming cherry blossoms and the smell of burning oak in the distance.

As the hills rise, growing greener in hue, the salty sea air becomes richer, and Valparaíso greets me with a balmy and well-earned welcome. Shedding layers in a bath of sun, I realize Santiago is farther away in my mind than it is on a map, the harshness of morning no longer worth mentioning.

Bryan Campbell • Photo by Sung Han

116

FLAVORS OF THE EARTH

Th e C h ilean lan d sca pe stre tc hes 2,653 m ile s from n orth to sou th . For Rodolfo Guzm á n, it ’s a n ope n p an try, u n tap p ed a nd ripe for the pic king.

Jack Seemer • Photography by Sung Han and Jack Seemer

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AT 9:23 on a warm winter morning, Rodolfo Guzmán pulls into Boragó, the celebrated restaurant he opened nine years ago in the leafy Vitacura neighborhood of Santiago de Chile.

He’s late. “You know, the traffic in this city…” he says, stepping out of his gray Subaru, the thought trailing off into embarrassment. Despite a frazzled air, the 37-year-old Guzmán is naturally handsome: taller than most Chileans, with fair skin and freckles that dot both sides of his unshaven face.

He explains that he’s in the middle of moving houses. “It’s fucking terrible,” he says. “Maybe I don’t look like a mess, but I feel like one, you know.” He leads me up an outdoor staircase, removing a faded baseball cap to reveal his head of bushy brown hair.

We pass through the heavy door and I get my first look at Boragó’s test kitchen, which Guzmán has agreed over email to show me “inside and out.”

The walls here, painted black, are covered with chalk. They chart the night’s 18-course tasting menu, along with a stepby-step preparation of Guzmán’s latest creation: a carrot infused with live cultures that “melts in your mouth like Camembert and is the craziest fucking texture” he’s ever tasted.

The words menos es más — “less is more” — are scribbled at the top of a large wave diagram near the ceiling. Guzmán escapes

downstairs for coffee, leaving me alone to wander. By the window, a bookshelf is lined with culinary titans — Redzepi, Andoni, Adrià. Below them are boxes of ingredients labeled with names I don’t understand: “Conchas Picorocos,” “Rica Rica.” From the far end of the room, it all looks like the makings of one big science fair project.

Guzmán returns to find me nose deep in a bowl of wet moss.

At the helm of Boragó — which is currently number two on the San Pellegrino list of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants (ahead of stalwarts Astrid y Gastón in Lima and D.O.M. in São Paulo) — Guzmán has become somewhat of a gastronomic celebrity, a title he shuns with predisposed humility. “I’m just a cook,” he says, albeit one who’s doing something very different in the eyes of the Chilean public. He describes Boragó as “a continuation of the Mapuches,” the country’s indigenous people whose culture dates back to 600 BC. The key to channeling a native identity, and the reason behind Guzmán’s newfound notoriety, is his steady conviction in the discovery of Chile’s vast endemic pantry. “We have ingredients that are very unique in the world,” he says.

“We’ve found things in the mountains that only last for two or three weeks a year before they’re gone — the same in the forest or on

119

SEA SPINACH

PIÑONES

PELILLO SEAWEED

RICA-RICA

CARNOSA LEAVES

GUANACO

ROSA DEL AÑO

SEA URCHIN

PICOROCO SHELLS

LAMPAYA

SEA STARS

COQUITO NUTS

“I’M VERY IN LOVE WITH MY COUNTRY,” HE ADDS. “WE TRY REALLY HARD HERE FOR PEOPLE TO GET THE WHOLE PICTURE.” the coast.” Boragó’s mission is to put them on a plate. Guzmán and I begin our tour of the restaurant, paradoxically, with an hour drive to Isla Negra to forage on the beach — a ritual he and his team must perform several times a week. In addition to the kitchen, Boragó’s team has grown into a network of some 200 foragers and biologists across the country who help identify and source a growing index of Chile’s native produce.

(Guzmán needs the manpower: last year, the restaurant served almost 700 different preparations, operating on a grand microseason calendar.) They also collaborate with a biodynamic farm in the nearby town of El Monte, where Guzmán has introduced several of his field discoveries, including sea strawberries that are peeled and a breed of native chicken that lays blue eggs. In 2016, Guzmán plans to publish his findings in a multi-volume series of books and apps called Conectáz, which will categorize the country’s most obscure ingredients along with preferred methods of harvesting and cooking them.

At Isla Negra, Guzmán pulls off to the side of a dirt road checkered with wooden houses. I step out of the car and hear the ocean breaking on the nearby rocks. Guzmán extracts a styrofoam tub from the trunk and takes off down a wet slope toward the sea.

“Careful!” he shouts behind his shoulder.

We come across pale vegetables with bubbly outgrowth. They’re sea drops, he says. He plucks a handful and tosses them back. I do the same. They pop. “There’s no flavor, no aroma,” says Guzmán. His wide eyes dance with excitement. “It’s just seawater encapsulated into a vegetable. It’s fucking crazy!”

As thrilled as he is, however, he’s not interested in taking any back to Santiago.

A little farther on, he spots a patch of white flowers and runs over, his jeans sinking below his hips. Sea stars. I pluck 122

one and eat it. There’s a hint of spring onion before a wave of honey. “They’re amazing!” says Guzmán, who says he’s been waiting all year for them to show up. He plucks them by the base of their stems, making bouquets and stacking them in the tub. There’s a possibility of rain next week, which could wipe them out for another year. “Hopefully they’ll come out again,” he says, “but we learn to adapt ourselves to what we have.” I ask what he plans to do with the flowers and his face lights up with a grin. “It’s a surprise,” he says.

THAT NIGHT, I sit down for my first and

only meal at Boragó. Its 18 courses last for two hours, six minutes and 35 seconds.

Every table is full, the minimalist decor matched by a soft, yellow lighting. There is no music, no tablecloths, no waiters — only the cooks, including Guzmán, who take turns explaining every dish. These range from quick bite-size “snacks” to larger dishes that encourage pause: one course, a purée of plants hardened into a clay-like rock, slowly softens and breaks apart in a puddle of seaweed broth.

My least favorite preparation comes early on: the skin of a piure, which one of the cooks explains is a filter-feeding tunicate.

It looks like a ball of wet Play-Doh, filled with a bitter orange purée, meant to mellow the piure’s natural and very potent flavor of iodine. It doesn’t. I swallow it without chewing and am glad there is not a second.

Fortunately, the next dish arrives quickly — a combination of crab and coarse sea spinaches, Guzmán’s homage to the central coast of Chile.

The hallmark of the night comes just before dessert. Guzmán approaches my table with a familiar grin. “This is when it gets fun,” he says. He presents a plate of conger eel, cooked in honey and coated with sunflower seed juice. On top are the sea stars

from the morning, sprinkled like snow.

Taken as a whole, there is little debate that the meal is delicious. But a low-level state of anxiety underscores one’s introduction to Boragó — not wholly unlike taking the first steps into a foreign city. Only here, the emotional amalgam of excitement, uncertainty and surprise unfolds over an 18-course sequence of bold, unfamiliar flavors. When I ask Guzmán how he expects the average eater to respond, he struggles to find an answer. “It’s about perception,” he says. “We all come from different cultures, different contexts. Everyone feels it differently.” For most, Guzmán’s goal is simply to expose a world that he calls his home. “I’m very in love with my country,” he adds. “We try really hard here for people to get the whole picture.”

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, I ring the bell

to the test kitchen for my final visit. A short man with a mustache and slicked-back hair answers the door. I recognize him from the night before as Koto Sierra, Boragó’s sous chef. He’s noticeably younger than Guzmán, with gauges in his ears. He shakes my hand and I notice his arm is tattooed with produce — red onions, the outlines of mushrooms.

Guzmán is by the stove, dressed in his chef ’s whites with a brown apron tied around his waist. A sharp hissing escapes from a pressure cooker. He tells me they’re working a new dish to debut next week, one made with the deer-like guanaco, sourced from his guy in Patagonia.

The noise gets louder and I see that Sierra is letting out the pressure. Its ceasing leaves only the hushed silence of the room. Guzmán keeps it quiet on purpose. “This is where we study,” he says, pointing to the cookbooks on the shelf. “The test kitchen is a place of learning. Not just for us two, but the whole kitchen — the stagiaires, the line cooks.”

Sierra tells Guzmán that he’s ready to plate the guanaco and removes a piece of meat from the pressure cooker. The broth inside has reduced to a thick, gravy-like consistency.

There are remnants of carrots and onions swimming about. It smells like a hearty stew, the kind of familiar peasant fare recognized in every culture around the world.

Guzmán opens a plastic container with a black syrup made from Patagonian maqui berries and proceeds to coat the meat. He’s trying to treat the dish like a dessert; he’s had this idea since January, but has been waiting for the cherry blossoms that color Chile’s central valley every spring. Both men use tweezers to carefully place the flowers, which are sourced from nearby almond and plum trees around Santiago. A final dollop of almond puree (meant to mimic the taste of Chilean kefir, yogurt de pajarito) is added on top.

Then the the two men tear it apart — first with wooden spoons and then their fingers.

Each bite changes the proportions of the components. More meat. More syrup. Guzmán uses a squeeze bottle to add the almond puree between his thumb and index finger, licking it off with his eyes closed. They mumble with a hurried intensity: “The guanaco has to be richer.” “Smoked? What do you think?”

“There’s too much sugar.” “We need more acidity, more almonds, more bitterness.”

“More flowers, more flowers!” Guzmán takes a handful of cherry blossoms and splashes them down on the guanaco. The whole scene unfolds in under a minute. By the end, there’s just an empty plate with streaks of syrup and a couple stray petals.

Sierra retreats first, leaving Guzmán by himself to ponder. The dish is not perfect. And during its short two-week run on the menu — which will last only as long as the cherry blossoms — it never will be. Guzmán knows this. But he also doesn’t care. There’s something here, his wide eyes suggest. And it’s worth sharing. ♦ 123

REPORT

BIODYNAMIC VITICULTURE

The New World of Wine Jack Seemer Photography by Sung Han

In the southeastern corner of the Maipo Valley, some 40 miles from Santiago, nameless roads pass almond trees and sleepy bungalows, crawling up into the foothills of the Andes. Nights here are cold. “Once the sun sets, there is a breeze from the mountains that cools the entire area,” says Álvaro Espinoza, the affable biodynamic winemaker behind Chile’s first garage winery, Antiyal. These sort of quick climatic shifts can increase the tannins that accumulate in the skin of red wine grapes; the result, explains Espinoza, is often fuller, richer wine. As such, Maipo is one of Chile’s oldest and most celebrated regions for red varietals, such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Carménère — a French grape that’s become Chile’s signature. Locally, this reputation has even earned Maipo a nickname: the Bordeaux of South America.

At 53, Espinoza has long hair and a goatee, both accented gray. He’s laid back, a natural conversationalist who flexes humor between English, French and Spanish. But walking across the idyll that is Antiyal, blanketed by cherry blossoms in the spring, he carries a quiet sense of conviction when it comes to matters of wine. Born in Santiago, he grew up visiting nearby vineyards with his father, who made his living as a winemaking consultant and professor of enology in the capital city.

The early exposure proved formative for the young Espinoza. “I never saw myself with an office job. I just loved to be in nature,” he says of his drive to pursue viticulture professionally. “It was in my blood.”

At the time, Chile’s wine industry was burdened by the economic crisis of the 1980s.

After studying at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Espinoza traveled to France, 124

where he received the Diplôme national d’oenologue, or DNO, from the University of Bordeaux. But things turned around for the Chilean wine industry in what Espinoza calls the “boom of the ‘90s.” European investors like Miguel Torres and Éric de Rothschild arrived and began developing large-scale operations with modern technologies. The country was quickly on its way to becoming a major player in global wine production. (As of 2015, L’Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin reports that Chile is the fourth-largest exporter in the world, behind Italy, Spain and France, respectively.)

Espinoza decided to return home. With his experience abroad, he landed a position at Chile’s oldest winery, Carmen, which sits about six miles from the vineyards of presentday Antiyal. There he first met Jim Fetzer of Fetzer Wines in California, a pioneer of organic and biodynamic viticulture in the New World. When he visited Fetzer in the States, Espinoza was introduced to concepts of organics and biodynamics — but perhaps more importantly, to the limitations of conventional farming to produce unique wines.

“I was impressed by the work I saw,” he says.

“Here in Chile, nobody was talking about organic or biodynamic techniques.”

Espinoza was excited. He wanted to bring these ideas back to Chile, but knew it would be difficult to develop them at an established operation like Carmen. Though Espinoza steered the winery to create Nativa, the first certified organic line in the country, he wasn’t satisfied. His craving to unearth the purest expression of the Maipo Valley, namely through biodynamics, drove him to his own side project: In 1996, he and his wife, Marina,

started Antiyal in their garage. “We didn’t think of it as a business at the time,” he says.

“It was something to teach our kids, like a hobby.” In 2000, he left Carmen entirely.

Over the past two decades, Antiyal has grown to cover roughly 24 acres in the region — and in more than just rows of vines. The farm is home to 15 chickens, eight geese, five horses, three alpacas, one goat, one sheep, one cow and Espinoza’s beloved family of bullmastiff dogs. A large compost pile, about the size of his orange VW bus (parked nearby), sits a short walk from the house he shares with his wife. At face value, this could all appear to be just another vineyard in the Maipo Valley, albeit one with animals running around. But what’s happening in the soil and the grapes is very different from a conventional vineyard, says Espinoza. And to understand it is to know the name Rudolf Steiner.

Biodynamics has its roots in the early 1900s, when Steiner, an outspoken Austrian intellectual, advocated for a more holistic approach to agriculture than what was developing in Europe at the time. Its main tenet treats the farm as a “low-input” ecosystem where all, or most, of what is used for production is sourced from inside the farm itself. The logic is simple. “In conventional farming you can bring anything that the soil lacks from outside, changing its fertility, age and sometimes even its structure,” says Espinoza. Not so at Antiyal, where, for example, the farm’s llamas serve as one of the vineyard’s primary weed controls, eating unwanted growth to protect the grapes.

Closed-system production is Espinoza’s main draw to biodynamics, or what he calls its “most seductive difference” from

“MY DREAM IS THAT, IF PEOPLE WANT A BEAUTIFUL, PREMIUM WINE, THEY SEE CHILE.”

conventional and even organic viticulture. It is often the terroir — or the expression of place through flavor — that distinguishes a specific wine from others. Importing foreign agents, which can also be sourced by other farms, tends to homogenize the yield, and grapes from different vineyards start to become uniform. “It’s a bit like Coca-Cola,” says Espinoza. “It doesn’t matter where it’s produced because it all tastes pretty much the same.

This is the big critique of the new world of wines, that they are not unique expressions of where they come from.”

But Steiner’s ideas go two steps further — and for some, too far. Subscribers utilize a lunar calendar to organize their farms and processes. This is because the moon affects gravity, says Espinoza. “If I have low-vigor vines, and I don’t want to lose sap or nutrients, I will cut them while the moon is in descendant,” he says. “With high vigor vines, it’s the other way around.” But the most esoteric, and hotly debated, aspect of Steiner’s theories relates to six compost “preparations,” made with herbs and flowers that are fermented in the body parts of different animals. Espinoza, for example, places yarrow flowers in the bladder of a deer. “It’s weird,” he says. “But the deer is a nervous animal, and these nerves concentrate in the bladder.” Other preparations include camomile sausages and oak bark placed inside the skulls of cows, both of which are then added to the compost in small, specific doses. “These preparations are meant to bring back the vitality of animals to the fields,” says Espinoza. “There are conventional farms for vegetables with no animals, and farms for animals with no vegetables. These things need each other to survive. We’re just trying to

tap the energy in between.”

Today, Antiyal cultivates five grape varieties — Cabernet Sauvignon, Carménère, Petit Verdot, Syrah and Garnacha — which all play their part in the composition of its different wines. Espinoza is most celebrated for his flagship blend, known simply as Antiyal, which reflects his bright style. “I think it’s more fun to mix grapes,” he says. “The wines are more unique. It’s harder to tell what it is.”

Despite the general demur of biodynamics, Espinoza has won the attention and admiration of Chile’s top hotels and restaurants, including Boragó in Santiago, which many consider the top eating destination in the country. The restaurant’s head sommelier, Danilo Avila, is a candid fan. “He changed the perception of how you can make premium wines,” says Avila. “If you study in sommelier school, there is a class on Antiyal and biodynamics.” Though Avila admits it’s near impossible to distinguish a biodynamic wine from a conventional counterpart by taste alone, it’s the passion in the process that comes through for him. “If you are happy making wine, and you care about your grapes, you can taste it,” he says, playing into Steiner’s idea of vitality.

“There’s a velvety tannin [character] that develops.” He thinks Espinoza is very happy.

Chilean wine critic Patricio Tapia, founder of the reputable wine guide Descorchados, echoes Avila’s sentiment. “There are many things happening now with Chilean wines — people discovering new grapes, new vines, new regions — that would not have happened without Alvaro. Not only because he was the only biodynamic winemaker in Chile. He was the first winemaker who broke off to start his own project. He is a pioneer, one of the most

important winemakers in Chile, by far — actually in South America.”

Today there are roughly half a dozen certified biodynamic wineries in Chile, most of which are small-scale producers. But in 2000, a winery named Emiliana hired Espinoza as a consultant to develop its biodynamic initiative. With over 2,700 acres now devoted to the project in nearby regions Casablanca and Colchagua, Emiliana is the largest biodynamic winery in the world.

Internationally, Antiyal is extending its own reach. 2014 proved a milestone for the winery, which, despite its continued growth, still only produces 2,500 cases of wine annually. Though its exports go to 16 different countries (including big buyers like China and the Unites States), 2014 was the first year that its largest annual export went to France — a notoriously tough market to break into. For Espinoza, however, the numbers were indicative of something hopeful on the horizon, not just for Antiyal, but Chile as a whole.

“Around the world, Chilean wines are mostly recognized for their value,” he says.

But for small-scale winemakers who focus their energy on the production of top-shelf wines, this reputation can be a hurdle. “When a consumer in the United States wants to have a $50 or $80 bottle, they see Italy, France or Spain,” says Espinoza, “They don’t see Chile.”

“It might take 200 years for that to change,” he adds, “but the quality is here. My dream is that, if people want a beautiful, premium wine, they see Chile.” ♦

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VALPARAÍSO

Graffiti Capital of the World Jack Seemer • Photography by Sung Han Valparaíso, a city of less than 300,000, looks down at the Chilean coastline from atop its 44 hills.

Once an important port center along the early South American sea routes, Valparaíso found its relevancy diminished by the completion of the Panama Canal in the early 20th century.

Today, however, “Valpo” has risen through the ranks as a world-class cultural center; its historic district by the sea became an official UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.

Behind the city’s newfound soft power is an unexpected art form: graffiti. Though illegal, street art is a widely accepted practice — the police are known to turn a blind eye if they approve — putting the creative community in company with the world’s most renown graffiti capitals, like Lisbon and Berlin. While good tours of the art’s historical evolution and current climate are offered by travel agencies, one of the most enjoyable ways to engage is by simply wandering the hilly streets, stopping at whichever wall catches your eye. Chances are there will be many, and perhaps even a local artist at work, painting a new face on the old “Jewel of the Pacific.”

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CHILE GOES CRAFT

Chile’s beer-making tradition dates back to the mid-1800s, when the first wave of German immigrants settled around the southern port city of Valdivia. But it’s only been a few years since domestic producers have looked beyond the country’s three basic styles — rubia (blonde), ámbar (amber) and negra (stout).

With craft beer on the rise, these are the 10 breweries from Chile to keep an eye on.

Upper Left, Clockwise: CERVEZA GRANIZO GRAN IPA • ABV: 7.5% CERVEZA DE GARAGE +56 OATMEAL STOUT • ABV: 7.5% CUELLO NEGRO STOUT • ABV: 8% CASA CERVECERA ALTAMIRA PALE ALE • ABV: 5% KROSS MAIBOCK • ABV: 6.5% CERVEZA SPOH ANIMAL IPA • ABV: 7.5% CERVEZA GUAYACÁN DIAGUITAS #33 • ABV: 7%

Jack Seemer Photo by Eric Yang

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ZIGURAT AMERICAN PALE ALE • ABV: 5% CERVECERÍA JESTER COSMONAUTA RUSSIAN IMPERIAL STOUT • ABV: 9.5% EMPERADOR STOUT • ABV: 6%

THE ATACAMA Over four days in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile, we took every minute of daylight (and some moonlight) to explore the region’s iconic adventures.

Photography by Sung Han and Jack Seemer

MOUNTAIN BIKING THROUGH THE GARGANTA DEL DIABLO RAVINE Heading into Devil’s Throat Ravine astride a mountain bike, the demonic name seems like overkill. The semi-paved, semi-dirt road is flat, unchallenging, nearly inviting. Then, slowly, the canyon walls close in and the path starts to wind, the hard-packed dirt turns to sand, and intrigue and energy fuel the push forward. Short but challenging diversions off the path inspire confidence to take on increasingly risky trails down ridges and rock formations.

At the halfway point, the guide warns, “From here, it’s mostly downhill with some deep sand. I hope you’re strong.”

The belly of the beast. Crests rise and fall, paths barely the width of the bike are littered with knee-shattering rocks.

Speeds increase, brakes lock, tires slide.

Finally, the trail relents to a clearing with an abandoned church almost too metaphoric to be true. Burning up, drenched in sweat, I sit in the shade. The Devil deserves its due. - Bryan Campbell

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BOARDING THE DESERT DUNES The boots are the same, the board is the same, the techniques are the same, but when I lean to my toe-side edge and drag my hand down the hillside, there’s no white, fluffy wake kicking up behind me.

Muscle memory usually reserved for the winter months and snowcapped mountain terrain is being called to action at the end of August, in the middle of the Atacama Desert.

And after only a few exhausting runs on the mocha hills, it’s not a cup of hot cocoa, jacuzzi or fireside front-row seat I’m after. I need a gallon of water, a cold pool or an even colder Chilean microbrew. Or all three, in that order.

- Bryan Campbell

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SHOPPING FOR COCA LEAVES IN SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA The dry adobe town of San Pedro de Atacama sits at 7,900 feet above sea level, hugged by volcanoes, copper mines and salt flats charged with lithium. I am battling a mild case of soroche, or altitude sickness. My breath trembles. Ducking into the Feria Artesanal, a shaded alleyway of stalls that sell clothing and herbs, I hunt for coca leaves, which are said to cure symptoms of soroche.

At the far end I meet Melicia Cruz Delgado, a merchant by way of Bolivia.

Her skin looks like leather and her teeth are black. She is not the only merchant in San Pedro de Atacama to carry coca, but the only one who agrees to sell me lejía, an alkali that changes the pH of one’s mouth, making the subtle effects of coca-chewing more potent. It comes in the form of a hard stone and costs 200 pesos — about 30 cents.

“Be careful,” she says in Spanish, pointing to her teeth. “It can burn your mouth.” I think twice and thank her, stepping back out onto the dusty streets of San Pedro de Atacama. I throw back a handful of leaves with the stone. I get hints of green tea. My gums tingle slightly, then go full numb. - Jack Seemer

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MOON WALKING ON THE EDGE OF THE VALLE DE LA MUERTE At 10:30 p.m. in Valle de la Muerte in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile, an hour’s walk from any sort of population, a headlamp is needed to see anything just two feet in front of our faces. The sun has long since set in the west and a cool glow emanates from below the horizon in the east.

The Milky Way, a distant cloud of stars and galaxies above, sits unfiltered in an ink-black sky, surrounded by a dusting of southern constellations. The moon rises and casts long, sharp shadows as it illuminates the entire valley. The headlamps become redundant. We switch them off, and walk only by the glow of the moonlight on our way back to town. - Bryan Campbell

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WISH LIST : 3/7

LEICA SL Henry Phillips • Photo by Henry Phillips Mirrorless cameras have been having a moment. Fujifilm’s X-T1, the Olympus OM-D series and Sony’s revered A7 cameras are all causing pundits to throw out near-perfect reviews on a regular basis as each iteration outdoes the last. For all their supposed greatness though, they’ve been unable to unseat the DSLR when it comes to professional use. Leica’s out to change that with the SL. The DSLR-shaped camera is focused less on a mind-blowing spec sheet (though it managed one, anyway) and more on being a usable, dependable workhorse that can shoulder a pro’s abuse. Though a five-figure price tag will deter most, Leica has created the first mirrorless camera that could realistically dethrone the DSLR for the pro photographer. Body $7,450 Lens $4,950

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Jeremy Berger • Photography by Sung Han 141

Conrad Anker puts his hand on my head and musses my hair. He’s seated behind me wearing 3-D glasses and a red trucker hat, holding a can of Modelo with another in the armrest beside him. An enthusiastic smile spreads across his angular jaw. Anker looks like Thor, despite carrying himself with the comportment of a college science professor.

His voice is slightly nasal, and he has a pen clipped to his shirt pocket. “Drink!” he says in an emphatic whisper, pointing at my beer.

We’re in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Anker is paying a visit to a nearby mill that’s knitting a sock he designed for his particular occupation: climbing up the sheer, ice-covered walls of the largest mountains on earth in subfreezing temperatures. Tonight, though, we’re cracking lagers at the Carmike East Ridge 18 & IMAX theater.

It was his idea to play a drinking game while watching Everest, which chronicles the 1996 Mount Everest expedition that took a turn for the deadly, documented in Jon Krakauer’s bestselling book Into Thin Air. It’s your run-ofthe-mill drinking game: six rules, each mandating anywhere from a swig to a half beer for different situations, tropes and tragedies. Rule number one: take a swig for every theatrical stumble. For death, we dip a pinky into the beer and flick it three times, a gesture of respect Anker says is practiced by Sherpas in Nepal.

Beck Weathers, played by Josh Brolin, slips on a ladder bridge and I give Anker a thumbs up, crack my beer and take a swig.

Anker, now 53 and living in Bozeman, Montana, is well acquainted with Mount Everest. He first summited in 1999 when a team set out to find the body of pioneering English mountaineer, George Mallory, who disappeared en route to the summit in 1924.

Anker found Mallory’s preserved body — apparently only hours after the search began — and members of the expedition ultimately suggested that it was unlikely Mallory and his partner Sandy Irvine made it to the 29,029foot summit. Anker ascended Everest two more times, first in 2007 to further document the circumstances of Mallory’s disappearance and then again in 2012, without supplemental oxygen, to do geological research and 142

conduct tests on high-altitude human physiology. While Anker says that climbing Everest would leave him “depleted for weeks,” it was far from his most challenging ascent.

The routes that best define Anker’s mountaineering require mixed climbing, or a combination of rock and ice climbing, on vertical and overhanging terrain, often at 20,000 feet or more above sea level and in extreme weather. They’re often first ascents — routes that nobody has ever climbed — and in some cases they’re considered nearly impossible.

Most recently — and by his own measure, his greatest achievement — he climbed a route up the Shark’s Fin feature on Meru Central in India’s Garhwal Himalaya Range, elevation 20,700 feet, in 2011. A film about the climb, Meru, won the US Documentary Audience Award at Sundance in 2015.

The credits roll at the end of Everest and the theater empties, but Anker sits quietly until the screen goes dark. He’s reading through a list of friends and colleagues, including his periodic climbing partner, Krakauer, and Rob Hall, the head guide of the doomed expedition, who never made it down from the mountain.

“These are real people with real families,” he says, thoughtfully. “But if you were to take that away and compare it to Kung Fu Panda, it’s good entertainment.”

But he’s quick to point out that he doesn’t like playing the critic. “Write this down,” he says. “I find the positive in whatever I do.”

ANKER PRODUCES a bluetooth speaker

from his backpack. “Collectively, if we’re okay with tunes, we have tunes,” he says. “We can go yacht rock or classic rock. Classic rock?

That’s what I want to hear.” “Spooky” by The Classics IV comes on. In the cool of the evening when everything is getting kinda groovy, I call you up and ask you if you want to go and meet and see a movie… Anker puts on an orange climbing harness. He’s thrusting his hips and flicking chalk dust, which hangs in the damp Tennessee air. First you say no, you’ve got some plans for the night, and then you stop, and say, “all right.”

Anker’s rack of climbing gear is draped over a tree branch. There are little anchors

etched into the carabiners and cams. His shoes have little anchors drawn on them in black marker. Between songs the carabiners blow like chimes in a gentle breeze.

“This is one of my favorite things to do,” he says. “Just hang out at the crag and climb. I’ve been doing it for 39 years. I can’t live without it. I wake up and I’m like, ‘Let’s go climbing.’”

This morning, we drove 45 minutes to Foster Falls in South Cumberland State Park after a quick night’s sleep at a climbingthemed hostel called The Crash Pad. The park has a two-mile-long cliff filled with climbing routes, many of them difficult wall and overhanging roof climbs. We settled in front of a rock face called the Dihedrals on a route called Twist and Shout, next to a few twentysomethings Anker befriended at the trailhead.

With Anker is Ben Schoedel, a local carpenter and climber, someone he met by exchanging photos on Instagram. Schoedel scouted routes earlier in the morning and is helping Anker put on something of a lesson and demo today. “Getting a call from Conrad is like Michael Jordan calling you for a game of pickup basketball,” Schoedel tells me as we unpack ropes and harnesses. This inclusiveness and mentorship is the backbone of climbing, a sensei-student relationship that allows the discipline to progress with each generation. When you complicate things with snow, ice and extreme elevation, as Anker does, mentorship is even more important.

“In climbing, it’s essential,” Anker said earlier on the car ride to the park. “If you want to run, you just go. Climbing, because it’s so systems-intensive, you need someone who can, literally, show you the ropes.”

Anker first learned about the outdoors from his father and grandfather. Though he moved around as a kid because of his father’s work — from Tokyo to Hong Kong to Frankfurt — his family has been based for several generations in Big Oak Flat, California, just outside Yosemite National Park. He’d climbed Mount Rainier, a bucket list event for many outdoorsmen, by the time he was 16. Anker met his first mentor, Mugs Stump, while studying at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where he also worked in a

mountaineering store. Anker had a side job selling bicycle parts and traded Stump a bike for some camming devices. From then on, the two climbed together — until Stump died in 1992, while guiding clients down the South Buttress of Alaska’s Denali, the highest peak in North America.

“When Mugs died it rocked my world because I was 29,” Anker said. “I see now how emotional it is for the 20-year-olds when they lose someone. Now, in my 50s, it’s just a matter of time — not in the mountains, but generally. People my age die because of health problems and things like that. When you’re young and you first get into climbing, it’s like this gift — nothing can go wrong — and things do go wrong.”

Twist and Shout begins with an overhanging section and then follows an arête, or sharp edge, up the face — and Anker is making short work of it. He’s about six-foot-two and strong, but he looks bigger when he starts to climb. He has a broad reach in all directions, and he’s densely muscled, the cumulative strength of four decades waging war against gravity. He’s wearing his red trucker hat, along with a green t-shirt, gray pants and amber tortoiseshell glasses. He’s past the initial overhang quickly and begins to scale the arête fluidly toward the powder blue sky.

“Clipping,” he says, attaching a carabiner to a bolt in the rock and putting his rope through. He continues upward, using contours and indentations to grip with chalkcovered hands and push off with his feet. He never appears to be reaching too far or trying too hard. He moves gracefully. He makes it look easy. And then, just before he reaches the top, he pauses.

“Hello, look around, wake up!” he says to himself, realizing he missed an easier way up.

“Hey, you know what? I’m having fun. Life is good. We’re climbing. All of a sudden we had that moment where we’re like, ‘This is what we’re meant to do.’”

“Don’t Let Me Down” by The Beatles is playing on the portable speaker at the bottom of the rock wall. I’m in love for the first time.

Don’t you know it’s gonna last? It’s a love that lasts forever. It’s a love that has no past.

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“CLIMBING, BECAUSE IT’S SO SYSTEMS-INTENSIVE, YOU NEED SOMEONE WHO CAN, LITERALLY, SHOW YOU THE ROPES.”

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“Clipping. Lower please.” Anker tiptoes down the wall backwards.

“Nice work!” I say.

“Nice enjoyment,” he says.

ANKER’S BEST FRIEND, Alex Lowe, died

in an avalanche in 1999. Lowe was Anker’s climbing partner and by most accounts the greatest mountaineer of the ‘90s. He, Anker and a climber named David Bridges were on an expedition to ski from the summit of Shishapangma, 26,335 feet above sea level in Tibet. While scouting the route, a piece of the mountain cracked off and rushed toward them, killing Lowe and Bridges and battering Anker. Footage from the event, which appears in Meru , is haunting: Anker, bleeding from the head and dazed, calls Lowe’s wife, Jenni, and shares the terrible news.

Lowe and Anker were rock stars in the climbing world for the better part of the ‘90s, earning a reputation early in their relationship when Lowe placed first and Anker second in a speed climbing competition in 1993. The route was up Khan Tengri, a 22,950-foot mountain in Kazakhstan, where Lowe broke the world record by four hours. The exploits continued from there, including first ascents up Ak-Su in Kyrgyzstan’s Pamir range in 1995 and Rakekniven in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, in 1997. In 1995, they rescued two Taiwanese climbers on Denali, dragging them 3,000 feet by their harnesses to a rescue helicopter and then immediately going on to summit a 4,000foot route of rock and ice on Mount Hunter.

Yet their friendship was even more compelling than their physical accomplishments together. In a letter to Jenni, printed in her memoir Forget Me Not, Lowe wrote of Anker: “If true soul-mates are the gold bullion of the climbing experience, Conrad Anker is the mother lode. To extol his matchless technical and athletic climbing genius and dwell on his boundless résumé of climbing adventures misses the most remarkable and profound aspects of this unique person.

Conrad’s motivation for climbing is altruistic and endearingly simple — he reveres the mountains. Being in the mountains, for Conrad, is as natural and essential as breathing… It’s where his heart beats, where his soul abides.”

Lowe’s death crushed Anker. “It’s a very expensive price to pay to understand that you live in the moment with people,” he says during a quiet moment at Foster Falls. He’s a bit guarded, or lost in thought, or both. “You can’t circle back and live in the past. You celebrate the people you’ve lost, but you want to be present and live in the moment and think about the future.” His tone isn’t prescriptive; it’s more Socratic, like he’s having a discussion with himself, reaffirming what he believes to be true. He lives by those words to a rather extreme degree. In 2001, in the wake of Lowe’s death, Anker and Jenni fell

in love and married, with Anker adopting the couple’s three children. It’s hard not to notice the resemblance to a Levirate marriage, historically a part of Tibetan and Central Asian culture, in which the brother of a deceased man marries his brother’s widow. “It’s something we never talked about, but it feels very natural,” Anker says.

ALTHOUGH THESE TRAGEDIES close

to Anker have in large part defined his public image — he’s had two unsmiling portraits on the cover of Outside magazine — his career as a mountaineer has been a tremendous success, with first ascents or major expeditions in places that include Everest, Latok II in Pakistan, Tibet’s remote Changtang Plateau, Middle Triple Peak in Alaska’s Kichatna Spires and the Vinson Massif in Antarctica. He also founded the Khumbu Climbing Center in Phortse, Nepal, which provides a variety of safety training courses to high altitude workers. Outside of the climbing community all of this may not mean much, but the release of Meru is bringing more awareness to the significance of his achievements. Beyond winning at Sundance, it received positive reviews in Variety, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, NPR and The Guardian.

More than being about a near-impossible Himalayan climb — it’s “the culmination of all I’ve done and all I’ve wanted to do,” Anker says in the film — Meru is the definitive Conrad Anker biopic.

The Shark’s Fin route on Meru had been attempted unsuccessfully more than two dozen times before Anker set his sights on it.

Two of those belonged to his mentor, Mugs Stump. Anker tried it once in 2003, before recruiting Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk, both climbers and professional photographers and filmmakers, to join the expedition.

He also added Chin and Ozturk to The North Face’s professional athlete team, an incubator for some of the best adventure athletes in the world, which Anker has helmed for close to 10 years.

Chin credits Anker with launching his career as a professional photographer and climber, he said over the phone. “He’s not just doing it for the brand,” he said. “He’s giving people career opportunities. He picked me, Renan, Daniel Woods, Alex Honnold — there are so many people he’s pulled onto the team over the years.” Ozturk, the youngest member of the Meru team, further credits Anker with recognizing that he and Chin were the right match creatively to make the film possible.

“Conrad loves creativity in his own way,” he said. “He saw that there could be an incredibly creative partnership between me and Jimmy — he had that inkling — and he deserves a lot of credit for that.” With commentary by Jon Krakauer to lend big-picture context, coupled with real-life footage by Chin and Ozturk — beginning with their unsuccessful attempt in 2008 and their return in in 2011 — Meru makes clear why the Shark’s Fin climb is so 147

difficult. Unlike Everest, which has its own challenges of extreme weather and altitude, Meru is mostly vertical and overhanging climbing on rock walls and ice, requiring a mixed bag of skills that few athletes on the planet possess. Anker, Chin and Ozturk haul a few hundred pounds of gear and supplies up sheer walls as they climb, sleeping at night suspended in a tent, called a portaledge, that hangs from the rock.

The climbing shots in the film are spectacular. At one especially harrowing point, Anker, Chin and Ozturk sit in their portaledge for three days while a storm batters them and avalanches crash down around them. There are moments of joy, humor and even bliss in Meru, but the climbing it portrays is mostly hard living, complete with meager portions of simple food, extreme cold and uncertainty with every movement into new territory.

Meru also establishes Anker as an elder statesmen of mountaineering, a guy who has accomplished much, experienced great loss and come out the other side with humility and wisdom for the next generation. As the three climbers reach the summit of Meru, Chin suggests that Anker lead the final few meters to the top. It had been his dream, inherited from Mugs. But Anker has another idea. “I was now seven years older than Mugs was when he died,” he wrote later in The Alpinist. “It was already time to pass on that metaphysical ball of knowledge to someone younger.” He insists Chin take the lead.

Anker, for his part, sees mentorship as the role he’s inherited by virtue of his long career. “Just by being the silverback and being around and bossing the kids around, they gave me the job,” he says of his leadership role with The North Face athlete team. “I’m grooming other guys, though. You’ve got to think about your successor and not hog it all.”

ANKER IS HIGH on a slab of burnt orange

sandstone called the Sanford Wall, just a short hike from Twist and Shout. He’s talking to himself again. “Oooh weakness,” he says.

“Get strong. That’s the move!” He touches the top of the route and comes down. The sun has come out and he’s sweating through his shirt.

“It’s hot,” he says, “and I’m out of shape. I’ll admit it.”

“Out of shape” is relative. In July, Anker

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and 24-year-old climber David Lama established a first ascent up a route called Latent Core in Zion National Park, a climb Anker had been unable to finish when he tried 24 years before. During his downtime in Tennessee, Anker texts with Lama, exchanging maps of the Mahalangur Himalaya where they plan to climb in late 2015. Anker sends him a photo of a mountain with hand-drawn routes on it and the caption, “Let’s climb this mountain!”

I resist asking the obvious question, the one that Krakauer poses to the climbers at Base Camp in Everest: Why? Lowe’s account in his letter to Jenni seems consistent with the present-day Anker, whose enthusiasm for climbing remains endearingly simple. But this explanation seems somehow incomplete.

How can he explain his own desire to keep pursuing extreme routes in the Himalayas, with its potential for tragic accidents? As we pack up and hike toward Foster Falls for a late-afternoon swim, I think about a book Anker gave me the previous night at The Crash Pad, one that he thought would help me better understand his chosen vocation.

In Starlight and Storm, published in 1954, French alpinist and mountain guide Gaston Rébuffat describes climbing as a fellowship with the mountains. “At the end of the day the mountaineer looks for a ledge, lays down his sack, hammers in a piton and attaches himself to it,” Rébuffat writes. “After the hard, acrobatic effort of the climb he is lost — like the poet — in contemplation; but to a greater degree than the poet he can be a part of the hills around. The man who bivouacs becomes one with the mountain.” Anker climbs to be one with the mountain. Implicit in this relationship is that the climber must submit to the laws of the mountains, which are indifferent to ideas like fairness and empathy; death is part of the natural order of things.

At the end of the day of climbing, we drop our packs and start stripping down for a quick swim under the falls, which pours down from 60 feet above. We’re hot and sweaty, fingers scraped from wedging them into cracks in the rock. Anker is in the water before anyone else.

As the rest of us wade in, he’s off swimming under the waterfall. He pauses at the base, treads for a minute, then reaches out of the water, grabs hold of the rock, and in nothing but his underwear, he starts to climb. ♦

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NORWAY 150

Photo by Eric Yang

NORDIC HELICOPTER PILOTS AV I AT I O N WATC H E S D R I V I N G T H E AT L A N T I C R OA D S TO R FJ O R D H OTEL T H E U LT I M AT E C A R R Y- O N A . LANGE & SÖHNE LANGE 1 TIME ZONE

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The Nordic Helicopter Pilots AIR HAULERS

Andrew Connor • Photography by Eric Yang

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IN 2011, NORWEGIAN GEOGRAPHERS

completed a three-year project to more accurately measure the length of their country’s coastline, taking into account islands that had previously been unaccounted for in calculating the sum length of Norway’s coast.

The geographers found an extra 11,000 miles, bringing the total number to about 63,000 miles of beautiful and complex Nordic coastline, comprised of islands, mountains and fjords that cut deep into Norway’s mainland.

Transportation in this region comes with its share of challenges. With so many regions separated by water, direct links between peninsulas and islands are few. The various undersea motoring tunnels that have opened in Norway since 1982 (there are currently 33) have helped, as have ferry services, but flight is the quickest and most flexible option for getting from point A to point B. Nord Helikopter’s main base is out of Vigra Airport in Ålesund — a municipality of about 45,000 people on the northern portion of Western Norway. In order to cover a broad swath of the Norwegian landscape, Nord Helikopter runs a decentralized business model. “We operate all over Norway — from Finnmark in the north to Agder in the south,” says company spokesperson Torstein Standal.

To do so, Nord Helikopter has bases in Narvik, Bergen, Nordfjordeid and Kvinesdal.

The crew consists of 10 full-time pilots and 10 loadmasters. Every single crew member has experience in flying; even the loadmasters — guys on the ground, securing cargo — have, at the least, commercial pilots licenses. The most skilled pilots have decades of experience in Arctic, bush flying and emergency operations, while loadmasters will work their way up the ranks through Nord’s trainee program — progressing from easier missions like sightseeing tours to more advanced operations like carrying cargo by sling.

The Nord Helikopter crew uses a fleet of six orange-liveried Airbus AS350 B3s, which can seat six, have a top speed of 137 knots (about 158 mph) and can lift up to 2,976 pounds.

AS350s are known at airfields across the

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world for their versatility and build quality.

“It’s like a little pickup truck,” says Nord Helikopter pilot Michael Elmeskog. “Practical and extremely strong for its size.”

Approximately 95 percent of Nord Helikopter’s activity is comprised of commercial accounts, and their skills in cargo carrying and power-line constructionhave also helped in the building and maintenance of power plants, dikes, and antennas.

Nord has also flown for news crews, film crews, photographers, BASE jumpers and even wingsuit flyers. When fires break out, Nord often gets called in by a local fire department. Despite the variety, construction is the most common, and most difficult, operation.

“Our core activity is construction of high-voltage power-transmission lines in mountainous and fjord areas,” says Standal.

This includes transporting crew members, parts and equipment, as well as erecting towers and stringing lines. In standard conditions, this is a highly technical operation. “We often work next to major powerlines in hostile areas close to big mountain walls with tricky winds,” says Elmeskog.

When humidity from the ocean hits the mountains, it can cause excessive rain, fog and turbulence, complicating missions. As the risk increases, Nord Helikopter’s pilots must be judicious about their own safety.

“I make all the decisions myself,” says Elmeskog. “If I’m not comfortable with a mission, we cancel immediately.”

The 63,000 miles of jagged and rippled and vertiginous coast provides a stunning and diverse office for these pilots.

And when the scalpel-like precision of the pilots is on display, the spotlight turns away from the rugged beauty of the place and onto the capabilities of these men and their machines. With Nord Helikopter in the air, the coastline is simply the complicated and dangerous canvas on which the pilots work, a showcase of immense human skill and adaptability in the face of monumental natural challenges. ♦

ROLEX GMT-MASTER II Diameter: 40mm Movement: Rolex Caliber 3186 $8,540

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FLIGHT TIME Just like a great pair of aviators or a worn leather jacket, the aviation watch feels charismatic, cocksure, cool.

But it’s not just about aeronautical badassery. The best aviation watches are built to exacting standards and are particularly legible. And yet, a dash of iconic style never hurts, does it?

Blake Buettner • Photography by Henry Phillips

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CITIZEN SATELLITE WAVE WORLD TIME GPS F150

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BELL & ROSS BR 03-92

Diameter: 44mm

Diameter: 42mm

Movement: Eco-Drive F150

Movement: ETA 2892

$1,075

$4,000

OMEGA SKYWALKER X-33 SOLAR IMPULSE

BREMONT SOLO

Diameter: 45mm

Diameter: 43mm

Movement: Omega Caliber 5619 (quartz)

Movement: BE-36AE

$5,900

Price: $4,100

ZENITH PILOT MONTRE

ORIS BIG CROWN PROPILOT CALIBER 111

D’AERONEF TYPE 20 GMT

Diameter: 44mm

Diameter: 48mm

Movement: Oris Caliber 111

Movement: Zenith Caliber 693

$5,400

$7,900

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Norse Røute DR IVIN G N ORWAY’S GREAT ROADS

Eric Yang • Photography by Eric Yang

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GIVEN ENOUGH TIME, conversations about

cars will make their way to great driving roads. There’s a reason for this. Great roads are common ground, anchored in permanence. One may travel a road at a different time or in a different car than another driver, but their conversation can still operate on the denominator of the great road. The bad tend to be congested, poorly maintained and associated with a commute. The good are well maintained, straightforward and almost always found away from coasts and cities.

The great roads, however, are the uncommon combination of far flung, beautifully maintained and slightly dangerous. We drive for thrills; we drive to conquer a challenge with a proper machine. Great roads deliver the potential for both.

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One might add that roads also serve a more primitive, exploratory purpose: at some point, someone looked yonder, saw a destination or mass, surveyed the topography and said, “To there many will go.” Drivers live out that thought, and the concept of driving a great road rests in the tradition of adventure as much as the lure of adrenaline. To foster both, drivers wax about roads they’ve driven, and the web is rife with endless lists of famous roads, arranged and rearranged in order of difficulty, danger, or Top Gear episode.

Depending on your idea of a memorable road, though, Europe tends to sit high atop the destination list.”

On Norway’s western coast, there is the Trollstigen, a serpentine mountain pass which connects to the Atlantic Ocean Road

— also considered blue-ribbon pavement.

For this journey from mountain to ocean, I drove a Bentley Continental GT V8 S, one of the world’s finest grand tourers. It’s a car conceived with British circumstance, tuned with panache and rooted in engineering. Granted, this car is popular among America’s jetset and lyrically inclined, but at its heart, it’s a damn fine grand tourer.

The Trollstigen is closed for half the year (Limitations? Check), touts emergency runoffs for lesser-equipped cars (Danger?

Check) and has inspired differing accounts of its number of hairpins (Mystery? Check).

It’s a road that requires the nimbleness of a goat, surrounded by water cascading down its cliffs (Scenery? Check). This road is beautiful, treacherous and — with a 521

TROLLSTIGEN Elevation: 2,300 ft Gradient: 10% Opened: July 31, 1936 Hairpins: 11

horsepower cabriolet dynamo at your disposal — an absolute riot. The Trollstigen begs for several attempts. Once for experience.

Twice for speed. And a third for tempting the widowmaker.

Then there is the Atlantic Ocean Road.

In 2005, Norway voted it “the construction of the century,” and rightfully so. Its design may well have been penned alongside a Hans Wegner chair. Curvaceous and tight, the five miles are all bridges, causeways and viaducts leaping across an archipelago and the stormy Hustadvika Bay. The road’s original purpose, to span a connection between the municipality of Averøy with the mainland at Eide, is an engineer’s childhood fantasy paid for with public funds. Eight bridges carry drivers through and over angry tides that culminate

WE DRIVE FOR THRILLS; WE DRIVE TO CONQUER A CHALLENGE WITH A PROPER MACHINE. GREAT ROADS DELIVER THE POTENTIAL FOR BOTH.

at the wonderfully cantilevered Storseisundet Bridge, a concrete Eames.

The drive ends with a descent into the Atlantic Ocean Tunnel, an equally impressive engineering feat (it’s one of the world’s deepest undersea tunnels), giving a literal comedown from the day’s journey. Unforgettable roads set in unforgettable terrain in an unforgettable car. It’s a strong entry into the personal annals of driving experiences, and I won’t mind the next time conversation makes its way onto the topic of a great road. Or two. ♦

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gear.gp/atlanticroad 163

STORSEISUNDET BRIDGE Length: 850 ft Clearance: 75 ft Opened: July 7, 1989 Type: Cantilever

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BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT V8 S Engine: 4-liter V8 Horsepower: 521 Torque: 502 lb-ft 0-60 mph: 4.3 sec Top Speed: 192 mph $205,700

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STORFJORD HOTEL J. Travis Smith Photography by Eric Yang 168

Tens of thousands of years ago, the glacial ice that blanketed Scandinavia retreated north, leaving behind a web of narrow blue scars cut deep between high, snowy mountains. These narrow waterways, known now as fjords, are isolated from the sea’s currents, casting them in serene calm among scattered islands topped with lush forests. This is the view from the Storfjord Hotel, one of the most beautiful hotels in the world.

For the better part of a decade, the 23-room hotel, run by British cinematographer Barry Brown in the style of a family business, has quietly become known as the premiere location for experiencing Western Norway. From a hilltop in Ålesun overlooking the Storfjorden, one of the longest fjords in Norway, the hotel is a base station for tours of the area’s cuisine, fishing and hiking, providing personalized helicopter trips throughout the region. Beaches, golf courses and ski resorts

are all a short drive away. This intersection of private luxury and cultural immersion has attracted many high-profile guests traveling to the area — even Bill Gates came in for a five-day stay.

In 2006, Brown built the hotel by renovating old barns, using traditional crosslogging construction. The spacious wood cabin rooms are full of leather, furs and sunlight. Each day starts with a Norwegian-style breakfast buffet, featuring great coffee and even better soft-boiled eggs, and ends with a four-course dinner made from only local ingredients, typically a cut of filet mignon or salt fish, served on garden tables overlooking panoramas of the fjord and Sunnmøre Alps beyond. Because of the rough terrain that characterizes the region, the fjords can only be crossed by ferry — so you can leave the bridges and tunnels back at home, where they belong.

STORFJORD AT A GLANCE Average November Temperature: 37˚F Distance from closest airport: 40 minutes Rooms: 23 $245+ per night

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3 DAYS. 2 COUNTRIES. 1 BAG.

The 72-hour international business trip is a packing conundrum on its own, and traveling in the colder months only ups the stakes. Efficiency is the target, not austerity. A suit to seal the deal, matched with well-shined shoes and outerwear styled for summits of the managerial variety are your first priority.

Next come comfortable, functional clothes for surviving the flights and streets. Time is just as precious as space. Items that arrive ready to wear and accessible with minimalunpacking can translate into an extra hour of sleep or catching a nightcap with friends.

From the perfect bag to the right looks and essential tech, this is a blueprint to follow when work goes abroad.

Ben Bowers Photography by Henry Phillips

STOW THE SUIT Lexdray’s ingenious London Garment bag includes a removable stand-alone Oxford Suiter.

This complements the main bag’s “shelving” system, designed to eliminate the need to ever fully unpack.

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THE FLIGHT OVER

Tumi PAX PATROL PACKABLE TRAVEL PUFFER JACKET $195, David Kind CLOVER GLASSES $295, Brunello Cucinelli CARDIGAN $3,370, Mophie SPACESTATION $150+, WANT Les Essentiels de la Vie PEARSON PASSPORT COVER $125, Ralph Lauren PURPLE LABEL ASTON DRESS SHIRT $425, Kiehl’s FACIAL FUEL EYE DE-PUFFER $20, Rolex GMT MASTER II $8,450, Bose QUIETCOMFORT 25 NOISE CANCELING HEADPHONES $300, Apple MACBOOK $1,299+, Ursa Major ESSENTIAL FACE WIPES $24

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THE GYM

Isaora MICRO-KNIT NO-SEW T-SHIRT $85, Braun TRAVEL ALARM CLOCK $35, Kiehl’s OLIVE FRUIT OIL NOURISHING CONDITIONER $7, Kiehl’s ULTRA FACIAL CLEANSER $20, Kiehl’s ULTIMATE BRUSHLESS SHAVE CREAM $16, Quip ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSH $25, Gillette FUSION PROGLIDE FLEXBALL RAZOR $10, Nuun PLUS TABLETS $6, L’Occitane EAU DES BAUX’ DEODORANT $18, Kiehl’s DAMAGE REPAIRING & REHYDRATING SHAMPOO $20, Hard Graft REFRESH DOPP KIT $242, Isaora NEO BONDED SWEATPANT $149

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A DAY AROUND TOWN

Capital Forrest AUBURN TORTOISE SUNGLASSES $165, Fujifilm X-T10 with 35mm XF R f/1.4 LENS $1,400, Bonobos TRAVEL JEAN $98, Bison NO. 6 WALLET $125, Greats THE BAB CHUKKA SNEAKER $59, Billy Reid INDIAN CREW $115, Tumi PAX PATROL PACKABLE TRAVEL PUFFER JACKET $195

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THE MEETING

Arc’teryx VEILANCE FIELD IS JACKET $1,195, Club Monaco GRANT TRAVEL SUIT $680, Turnbull & Asser ROYAL BLUE GINGHAM FINE CHECK SHIRT $335, Turnbull & Asser LACE SPOT TIE $190, Brunello Cucinelli PRINCE OF WALES CASHMERE SCARF $835, Patek Philippe CALATRAVA REF. 5227G-010 $34,700, Word. BLUE MOUNTAIN NOTEBOOK $10, Twelve South PLUGBUG WORLD $44, Smartwool HOUNDSTOOTH CREW SOCKS $19, Ghurka ATTACHE NO. 24 $1,195

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THE NIGHT OUT

Cadet OFFICER SUIT JACKET $378, ExOfficio GIVE-N-GO-BOXER $26, Mophie SPACE PACK $150, Paul Evans THE MARTIN WHOLECUT OXFORDS $369, A Kind of Guise ATA GLOVES $223, Baldwin Denim THE HENLEY IN RAW SELVAGE $220, Outlier MERINO / CO PIVOT SHIRT $175, Scotch-Brite MINI LINT ROLLER $3, Arc’teryx VEILANCE FIELD IS JACKET $1,195

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THE FLIGHT HOME

Ghurka ATTACHE NO. 24 $1,195, Ninox HUDSON SHIRT $109, LensCoat BODYBAG w/LENS $28, Astell & Kern AK JR $500, Bas & Lokes MANOLO HANDMADE LEATHER WATCH POUCH $89, Muji DOUBLE FASTENER CASE $10, iPad MINI 4 $399+, Octovo IPAD MINI SLEEVE $85, Bonobos TRAVEL JEAN $98

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WISH LIST : 4/7

LANGE 1 TIME ZONE Eric Yang • Photo by Henry Phillips There are countless tools that can tell you the time in different parts of the world, but few devices can convey time like an A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1 Time Zone. This breathtaking piece of horological engineering elevates the measurement of time from a simple cipher to a grandiose spectacle. An outsize date window, off-center main dial and peripheral city ring are all encased in sultry pink gold, and a see-through case back offers a view into its treasure-chest-like, and ticking, guts. Of course, the show is the point here. Mankind will always aspire to control time, but the Time Zone may just be the best reason to embrace it. $49,400.

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Next Item: Page 203

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LAKE SUPERIOR 180

Photo by Gishani Ratnayake

CIRCLING LAKE SUPERIOR AROUND AN INLAND SEA V O LV O X C 9 0 THE NORTH HOUSE FOLK SCHOOL NORTHERN ROAD TRIP ESSENTIALS THE NANIBOUJOU CLUB LODGE A U D E Z E E L- 8

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CIRCLING LAKE SUPERIOR People imagine a lake as something they can jog around in an hour or two. Lake Superior is not that lake. Navigating its 1,800-mile shoreline is the equivalent of driving from Bangor, Maine to Key West, and cuts through three states and a Canadian province. Ten days is about the sweet spot to do it properly. Mind your fuel gauge and keep an eye out for moose. Pack warm clothes even in summer and be prepared for plenty of adventures scattered around the world’s largest freshwater lake. Here are some suggestions for stops along the way.

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Jason Heaton Illustration by Martín Azambuja / Herb Lester

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FUEL FOR THE TRIP: CAR - 1,823 miles at 25 miles per gallon = 72.9 gallons of gas ME - 9 days at 3 cups of coffee per day = 27 cups of coffee

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DULUTH, MN

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GRAND MARAIS, MN

Consult the shipping news at the Maritime

Learn a traditional Northern craft like

Visitor’s Center in Canal Park, then wave to deck-

boatbuilding or blacksmithing at the North

hands on the 1,000-foot lake freighters that churn

House Folk School, or go for a day sail on

underneath the iconic Aerial Lift Bridge.

the school’s schooner, Hjørdis.

GRAND MARAIS, MN

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THUNDER BAY, ON

Spend the night at the Naniboujou

Have traditional Finnish pancakes at the

Lodge, built in 1929, and marvel at

Hoito Restaurant in the century-old

the largest stone fireplace in Minnesota.

Finnish Labour Temple.

ROSSPORT, ON

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NEYS PROVINCIAL PARK, ON

Spend the night at the Rossport Inn and

Hike the Point Trail, past the ruins of a former

listen to the owner tell the story of the

WWII POW camp, to spectacular views of one of

Gunilda shipwreck that lies just offshore.

the most remote parts of Lake Superior.

BATHTUB ISLAND, ON

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LAKE SUPERIOR PROVINCIAL PARK, ON

Wade 50 meters into the lake to tiny

Brave slippery rocks to see the Native

Bathtub Island and take in the view from

American pictographs at Agawa Rock.

a pool of sun-warmed water.

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WHITEFISH POINT, MI

MUNISING, MI

At the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum,

Fuel up on the Upper Peninsula’s famous

walk among artifacts from numerous wrecks,

pasties at Muldoons, then spend the day

including the Edmund Fitzgerald‘s bell.

paddling from Miners Castle to Lover’s Leap at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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MARQUETTE, MI

KEWEENAW PENINSULA, MI

Grab a six-pack of Blackrocks 51k IPA,

Rappel into a former copper mine at the

then hop the fence for a clandestine tour

Adventure Mine Company near Greenland;

of Marquette’s defunct ore dock, which

watch the sunrise in Copper Harbor with

dominates the local skyline.

coffee from Jamsen’s Fish Market.

BAYFIELD, WI

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Catch the hourly ferry over to Madeline

SUPERIOR, WI Finish your tour with a beer and a

Island and spend the day exploring by

burger at the Anchor Bar & Grill (a gritty

kayak or on foot.

sailor’s den) and marvel at the collection of nautical ephemera.

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read more

gear.gp/lakesuperior

Askov Finlayson was born in the North, a region of America unified by geography, cold winters, hard work, and creativity. We enjoy spending time outdoors all year long and our products are designed for those who do, too.

One of our favorite things about life in the North is having four distinct seasons, including our winters, which we like just the way they are.

Keep The North Cold is a partnership with Climate Generation: A Will Steger Legacy

www.askovfinlayson.com/north ww 185

NORTHERN 186

EXPOSURE 187

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Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world, with a coastline twice as long as California’s and a surface area that could nearly swallow the state of Maine. With an average depth of 483 feet, an average temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and 350 shipwrecks that have claimed over 1,000 souls dotting its bottom, Superior can be a foreboding place.

It’s also a strangely alluring one — filled with a unique stew of Native American, French and Scandinavian loggers, miners, fishermen and mariners who have braved the region’s challenging weather to form rich histories in scattered small towns and industrial cities. This past August, we set off from Duluth, Minnesota, on a clockwise loop around this inland sea.

Jason Heaton • Photography by Gishani Ratnayake 189

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REVIEW

NORDIC TOURER

DODGING MOOSE IN THE VOLVO XC90 Jason Heaton Photography by Gishani Ratnayake Racing the sunset past White River, Ontario, I thought about the local’s warning. “Get to Wawa before dark,” she’d said. “Moose are great, but you don’t want to see them on the road.” I clicked on the fog lamps to cut through the settling mist and switched the Volvo XC90 into Dynamic mode. The big vehicle downshifted and leapt forward. I was in the most remote part of my circumnavigation of Lake Superior, away from the shoreline, skirting Pukaskwa National Park to make it to my motel room in Wawa. The Trans-Canada Highway here, winding and empty, tempted me to explore triple digits on the speedometer. But every tree, stump and rock became a moose in my peripheral vision. I held back.

As I scanned the darkening road, I drew small comfort from the fact that, since the 1970s, Volvo has included a “moose collision” test in its vehicle safety protocols.

This specific crash test makes sense, and not only because the Swedish brand is a leader in safety engineering. Moose collisions are not uncommon in Scandinavia; testing the impact of a 1,000-pound animal 194

on a car’s hood, windscreen and roof is vital.

Many living along Superior’s shores are of Scandinavian descent; their culture and food made my journey almost seem like a Nordic test drive. The XC90 felt right at home on this trip, which involved 1,800 miles of driving while hauling prodigious amounts of gear for camping, kayaking and hiking along the way. Even on performance-oriented Pirelli Scorpion tires, the XC90 handled any and all road types — tarmac, gravel, dirt, even a dry riverbed — thanks to its Comfort, Dynamic and Off-Road modes, which altered the vehicle’s suspension height and shift points accordingly. Up front, I was coddled in perforated, cooled leather seats, surrounded by blonde wood and metal accents and entertained by a tablet-based infotainment system that was nothing less than state of the art. The Bowers & Wilkins sound system could be tuned to replicate the acoustics of the Gothenburg Opera House (naturally), which was perfect for blasting Neil Young.

A week after Wawa, I crossed the bridge into Duluth again, the port from which I

started my journey, sunburned and craving a good curry after a week of fish and chips. I hadn’t done half the things I wanted to on my circumnavigation — and, anticlimactically, I hadn’t seen a single moose. All the same, the XC90 proved itself an SUV that could get me to the trailhead, then roll up to the trendy bistro afterward with mud on its fenders, a kayak on its roof and nothing to prove. Moose protection was just an added bonus.

VOLVO XC90 Engine: 2.0-Liter Turbocharged and Supercharged In-line 4-Cylinder Towing Capacity: 5,000 Pounds Horsepower: 316 Torque: 295 lb-ft MPG: 20 City / 25 Highway Top Speed: 128 mph $49,800

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OLD CRAFTS, NEW STUDENTS

The North House Folk School

Jason Heaton • Photography by Gishani Ratnayake

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REPORT “THAT’S AN UMIAK,” Jessa Frost says as

she points to a sleek watercraft hanging from the ceiling. Frost, the program director of the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota, finishes describing the boat — its name means “woman’s boat,” and it was used

by Inuit women to carry their children while the men hunted in kayaks — then leads us out of the student commons into an uncommonly perfect summer day on the north shore of Lake Superior. Down at the dock, the school’s two-masted schooner, the Hjørdis, creaks in the breeze. Behind us, the sound of metal striking metal rings from the blacksmith shop. North House is a place of dissonant elements — Inuit hunting craft, Norwegian sailboats and forge welding — knitted together by a common theme: keeping alive the North’s traditional crafts.

Given its reputation for snow and cold, not to mention a sizable population of Norwegian and Swedish descendants, northern Minnesota is the perfect place for the school, which is based on the Scandinavian folkehøjskole but has expanded beyond Nordic crafts to include those of the Inuit, the Sami and the French Canadian voyageurs. Its home, Grand Marais, is one of the most picturesque towns anywhere on Lake Superior. Part fishing village, part artists’ colony, it draws tourists by the carload all summer long for its beautiful harbor, its eclectic mix of shops and cafes and its proximity to the Gunflint Trail, the jumping-off point for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Out of this artsy-outdoorsy milieu sprang North House Folk School in the mid-1990s, founded by some local residents, initially to teach woodstrip canoe building and Scandinavian bowl making. But the school quickly filled a desire for experiential learning. As its curriculum grew, so did its campus, which fills a quiet space on the marina behind a fish market, with brightly painted wooden buildings that could stand in for a Swedish vacation town in a pinch.

North House’s course offerings have swelled from those first boat- and bowlmaking seminars to a catalog that now lists upwards of 300 classes. They range from simple one-day lessons in wood-fired baking to a two-week course in which students build a wooden rowboat seaworthy enough to ply the chilly harbor outside the woodshop. In between are weekend classes in everything from forging a Damascus steel knife and tanning a deer hide to embroidery, cooking and landscape photography. While there are a few full-time staff at the school, many of its teachers are guests who come from greater Minnesota or beyond to pass on their knowledge, like acclaimed nature photographer Layne Kennedy, chef Scott Graden and polar explorer Lonnie Dupre, who lives in Grand Marais when he’s not summiting Denali solo 198

in winter. While a few of their classes demand prerequisite knowledge or experience, most are open to rank beginners who don’t know a chisel from a punch — or an umiak from a kayak. The noncompetitive environment builds assurance and a sense of accomplishment, which can end up being more important than the knowledge a student may have gained. Building a pair of shoes out of deer hide isn’t a skill you can take back to the office on Monday. Confidence is.

The feel of the campus is one of a utopian neo-Luddite experiment, one that seems to be working remarkably well way up here on the big lake. In some ways the scene is reminiscent of a historical reenactment or recreated village, like Plimoth Plantation or Colonial Williamsburg. But the students and instructors here aren’t actors dressed up in period costumes. It’s a mix of all ages, from gap-year kids to retirees, hippies to yuppies.

Phones aren’t expressly forbidden, but the hard manual work and concentration leaves little time for social media or emails. In the student commons, white-haired embroidery

“THE MOST IMPORTANT GOAL LISTED IN OUR MISSION STATEMENT IS BUILDING COMMUNITY.” pupils mingle with bearded boat builders and leather-clad blacksmith apprentices pour coffee for fresh-faced college kids. This is a cultural and socioeconomic melting pot of people brought together purely by a desire to get outside of their comfort zones, to rediscover that it’s working with their hands that makes them human. “The most important goal listed in our mission statement is building community,” Frost says. That the crafts taught at North House are “Northern” is not really the point. The North is what they know here, so that’s what they teach. The crafts themselves are merely a vehicle for bigger missions — empowerment and collaboration.

Once a week, the school fires up the outdoor wood oven for a campus-wide pizza dinner over picnic tables by the pebble beach.

The days are long here, and the work hard; hand planing a wooden canoe hull or running a forge bellows makes for achy shoulders, especially for the weekend warriors who aren’t used to it. At the end of the meal, everyone chips in on cleanup duty. Someone builds a fire; someone strums a guitar. When the sun goes down, a chill blows in off the lake and, although it’s still August, you can tell winter can’t be far away. This is the North, after all. ♦

ROAD TRIP ESSENTIALS

Prepping right for a road trip around Lake Superior’s 1,800-mile perimeter means packing for chilly mornings, hot afternoons and frigid nights. This gear reflects the range of weather you’ll encounter.

Topo Designs MOUNTAIN BRIEFCASE $149 Topo Designs FLEECE JACKET $129 Lanona Shoe Company ACADEMIC BOOT $320 Askov Finlayson LAKER SWIM TRUNK $120 Hydro Flask 16oz WIDE MOUTH CONTAINER $25 Hydro Flask 32oz WIDE MOUTH CONTAINER $34 Stormy Kromer WAXED COTTON CAP $45 Duluth Trading Company ARMACHILLO LONG-SLEEVED COOLING SHIRT $65 Kammok ROO HAMMOCK $99

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Smith x Howler Brothers DOCKSIDE SUNGLASSES $209 Farm to Feet COKEVILLE SOCKS $20 Elemental Herbs ALL GOOD SPF 33 SUNSCREEN $16

MKI

AN Y R E SE M B L AN CE TO T H E DA SH BOAR D O F THE E-T YPE JAGUAR IS PURELY INTENTIONAL .

Enzo Ferrari called it the most beautiful car in the world. Now two new watches pay homage to Malcolm Sayer’s ground-breaking design. The Bremont MKI and MKII have been developed in partnership with Jaguar. The dials are inspired by the E-Type’s tachometer and the winding weight is based on the car’s iconic steering wheel. You may never own the car, but the MKI and the MKII might just be the next best thing.

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THE NANIBOUJOU CLUB LODGE Jason Heaton Photo by Gishani Ratnayake 202

Far, far up Minnesota’s Highway 61, near the Canadian border, red ramparts and flags flapping in a stiff offshore breeze emerge from the morning fog of Lake Superior. This is no castle. This is Naniboujou Lodge, a relic from a past era that remains unlike anything else on the big lake.

Naniboujou was built in 1929 as a private club for wealthy men like Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey and Ring Lardner, who sought the promise of a Northern retreat far from the bright lights of fame. But only months after the club opened, the stock market crashed.

Investment money dried up. A shadow of its prestigious potential, the club passed through various owners’ hands until the ‘90s, when the current owners restored it to its original glory.

Today Naniboujou retains its refinement.

But instead of a decadent playground for the wealthy, it has become a base camp for the adventurous. Its rooms are comfortable and cozy but lack TV or wi-fi; its proximity to the frothing Brule River, miles of hiking and an empty pebble beach are distraction enough.

But Naniboujou’s star attraction is its huge dining room anchored by a 20-foot-high stone fireplace. The arched ceiling painted in traditional Cree Indian motifs adds to the fairy-tale appeal of the lodge.

Naniboujou is not only a place to break journey. It is a place to find more journeys big and small — hike the river, skip stones on the lake, nap in the sun. And when those journeys end, and the Naniboujou disappears back into the fog, you won’t forget that it remains there, awaiting your return. ♦

WISH LIST : 5/7

AUDEZE EL-8 Eric Yang • Photo by Henry Phillips Audeze has long been famous for its LCD line of headphones. The wood-rimmed goliaths were famous for reference-quality sound, powerful bass and a planar magnetic design that promises lower sonic distortion and clearer sound.

Audeze has now brought the same LCD greatness down into a more affordable and (relatively) more portable package with the new EL-8. The headphones, designed in tandem with BMW’s Designworks studio, boast impressive resolution and noteworthy bass, with no issues being driven by all-in-one devices like an iPhone or Astell & Kern portable player — though you’ll want the highest-res audio you can find to get the most out of them. $699

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Photo by Sung Han

PORTLAND’S OUTFITTERS AND BARS C O L D W E AT H E R JAC K E T S T H E K N I F E C A P I TA L A W I N T E R C O C K TA I L THE SAN JUAN ISLANDS RARE ADVENTURE BOOKS A M E R I C A’ S S I N G L E M A LT W H I S K E Y M AV E R I C K S S T E A M B OAT B AY F I S H I N G C LU B LUCCA A53

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A GEAR & BAR CRAWL If you need proof of Portland’s active-living soul, cast your eyes to the plethora of stores scattered throughout its downtown. Some were born here. Others have raised plush flagships in tribute to its denizens. Both types make the Rose City a mecca for gear nerds looking to outfit their next adventure, especially when the hunt is strategically paused to soak up another city obsession: craft beer and spirits.

Consult our map highlighting the best outdoor shops and taprooms to hit — just make sure the drained glasses don’t lead to drained bank accounts.

AJ Powell • Illustration by Martín Azambuja / Herb Lester

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SNOW PEAK

DANNER

POLER STUFF

NEXT ADVENTURE

526 NW 13th Ave

410 NW 14th Ave

1022 W Burnside St

413 SW 10th Ave

426 SE Grand Ave

Filson is rooted in

This is the beloved

One of only four

Based in PDX, this

When it comes to being

the PNW and this

Japanese camping

Danner storefronts

is Poler’s first and

outfitted for your next

Portland store is

brand’s first retail

in the country, the

flagship brick-and-

backpacking or kayaking

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location in the

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trip, Next Adventure has

most historic.

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not to be missed.

you covered.

MORE STORES: F) REI, G) Patagonia, H) Montbell, I) Mountain Hardwear, J) Columbia Sportswear, K) Evo, L) Arc’teryx.

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PÉPÉ LE MOKO

POPE HOUSE

THE COMMONS

RUM CLUB

BAILEY’S

407 SW 10th Ave

BOURBON LOUNGE

BREWERY

720 SE Sandy Blvd

TAPROOM

What to Order:

2075 NW Glisan St

630 SE Belmont St

What to Order:

213 SW Broadway

Amaretto Sour

What to Order: Anything

What to Order: Any of

Their signature

What to Order:

(or let the bartender

from the Buffalo Trace

their highly acclaimed

Cannonball Run

Any of their mostly

decide for you).

Antique Collection.

farmhouse ales.

cocktail.

local draft offerings.

MORE BARS: 6) Low Brow Lounge, 7) Oven & Shaker, 8) Clyde Common, 9) Kask, 10) Multnomah Whiskey Library, 11) Hair of the Dog Brewing, 12) Trifecta Tavern.

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WINTER PROOF There was a time when winter got in the way of things. Families hunkered down indoors, entire northern cities hibernated. Not anymore. With the right clothing, climate becomes only a backdrop, a sidelined opponent in your race, your practice, your expedition.

We found the jackets of those athletes and adventurers who don’t slow down, even for mother nature.

J. Travis Smith • Photography by Henry Phillips

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AETHER PASSAGE Adjustable cuffs and a zip-away hood provide warmth on the street, while heather styling means this versatile jacket can hang comfortably at your favorite dinner spot. $625 209

MOUNTAIN HARDWEAR SUPERCHARGER HOODED JACKET Designed with the help of alpine speed climber Ueli Steck, this jacket is a series of paradoxes: light and tough, weather resistant and stretchy, performance-minded and comfortable. $350

ADIDAS TERREX AGRAVIC PRIMALOFT JACKET Super soft and water resistant, this is your warmup companion before a race, or for a comfortable chilly morning jog. $299

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WESTCOMB APOC Westcomb updated their classic jacket with a thicker construction, for more warmth and durability around the resort, while maintaining high breathability and complete waterproofing for off-piste adventures. $520

RAPHA PRO TEAM JACKET This warm softshell provides the water resistance and windproofing of a race cape with the breathability of a race jersey. $290

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BARBOUR COLUMN WAX JACKET This is a clean-cut Barbour jacket, with only two front pocketsand stud fasteners for simplicity, along with a quilted interior and fleece collar for warmth. $399

ARC’TERYX ZETA LT Shockingly thin and with a tailored fit, the Zeta LT can be squeezed into any corner of a hiking pack for portable waterproofing without the extra weight. $399

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A Winter Cocktail THE GEORGE WASHINGTON

In the winter of 1787, George Washington told his wife, “Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person’s own mind than on the externals of the world.” In the spirit of keeping our minds right this winter, we’ll be drinking a sturdy cocktail named for the first POTUS, courtesy of Jim Meehan, mixology OG and proprietor of Please Don’t Tell, or PDT, a cocktail bar in New York City’s East Village.

Jeremy Berger • Photo by Henry Phillips

INGREDIENTS 1 ounce Laird’s Applejack 1 ounce Rittenhouse Bonded Rye Whiskey .75 ounces Cocchi Vermouth di Torino

PREPARATION Combine ingredients.

Stir with ice.

Rinse a chilled rocks glass with The Bitter Truth Pimento Dram.

.75 ounces Cazottes Wild Cherry Sweet Wine Strain over one large ice cube.

1 splash The Bitter Truth Pimento Dram 3 Brandied Cherries

Garnish with three brandied cherries on a pick.

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Portland Sharp Andrew Connor • Photo by Henry Phillips Portland is no stranger to industry. Oregon’s largest city is known for its shoe companies, breweries and outdoor apparel brands. But the business acumen of the City of Roses doesn’t end at Nike, Widmer Brothers and Columbia. Portland is also home to a knifemaking industry that includes some of the biggest names in blades — Gerber, Benchmade, CRKT, Kershaw, Leatherman — as well as passionate, small-scale artisans.

Coast Cutlery was the first of the big outdoor knife makers to settle in Portland, in 1919. Twenty years later, Joseph R. Gerber formed Gerber Legendary Blades. Then in 1974, former Gerber employee Pete Kershaw left to form his own company, Kershaw. And, in 1994 Columbia River Knife & Tool (CRKT) was formed by Paul Gillespi and Rod Bremer, both former employees of Kershaw. Knife companies begat more knife companies, and eventually the city became home to around a quarter of America’s pocket knife brands.

As companies grew, so did the number of local parts suppliers and machining companies, offering a reliable and skilled vendor base to the industry. With a strong base of part suppliers, Portland became a viable option for burgeoning knife makers. Several companies like Benchmade — founded in L.A. by Les de Asis — have since relocated to Stumptown.

The city’s creative spirit also drives the knife industry, especially for the artisan knife-makers. “There is a freedom here that encourages people to explore and follow

their creative ideas,” says William Tuch, who makes his pocket knives by hand. “When my studio was downtown I would walk the streets late into the night. The historic buildings, with their intricate details, served well for inspiring my designs. I don’t think I would have followed this path if I had lived anywhere else.”

Murray Carter, a knife artisan who lives just outside Portland, served as an apprentice for a member of the Sakemoto bladesmith family in Japan. After moving back from Japan to Oregon, he found that the greater Portland area was a good fit for his knifemaking style. “It’s easy to try new things...you don’t have a pressure for conformity here,” says Carter. “My outdoor knives are forged in a coke fire, quenched in water and honed to a razor’s edge by Japanese water stones — that’s not very conformist by Western standards, but it’s embraced here.”

The Oregon Employment Department estimates that in the last 10 years somewhere between 2,200 and 2,600 individuals have worked in the knife-making industry statewide. Thomas Welk, a spokesperson for Kai (makers of Kershaw knives), suggests that the majority of those jobs are in the Portland area. “Portland is in an ideal location for hikers, campers, hunters, anglers, kayakers, climbers, bikers, boaters — really any outdoor activity,” says Welk. And when cutting loose a knot or gutting the day’s catch requires a good blade — a healthy infrastructure in Portland is poised to tackle the task. ♦

Leatherman CRATER C33TX $46 Benchmade SADDLE MOUNTAIN SKINNER $155 Gerber STRONGARM FIXED BLADE COYOTE BROWN SE $86 CRKT HOOTENANNY $70 Carter Cutlery BIRD AND FISH NECK KNIFE $695

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I SLAND TIME 217

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“When people talk about the beauty of the San Juan Islands, they’re usually referring to the four islands you can access by ferry,” Seattle-based photographer Coco Aramaki says of the archipelago off the coast of Washington.

“When I started asking boat captains if it was possible to see all of the 128 named islands in eight days, they all had a similar response: ‘I don’t think anyone has ever done that before.’ That’s when I knew it would be my kind of project.”

Aramaki found a captain, Greg Hertel of Friday Harbor Cruises, and together with some friends she set out aboard his 1968 Grand Banks trawler yacht, loaded with a Zodiac and kayaks for accessing the islands. While traveling in the archipelago, they encountered a 1,500-pound sea lion, paid homage to soaring bald eagles, climbed tall trees and weather-beaten crags, swam in 50-degree water and met one local who carves totem poles for a living.

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THE GEAR Eddie Bauer IGNITELITE FLUX 40 HOODED JACKET $199 Fjällräven BARENTS PRO HYDRATIC TROUSERS $200 Lululemon FURTIVE JACKET $228 Coal EMERSON KNITTED HAT $35 Helly Hansen LOKE JACKET $100 Coal SUMMIT CAP $20 Oru COAST KAYAK $1,975 SealLine BOUNDARY PORTAGE PACK DRY BAG $90 Boreas ECHO BACKPACK $140 Carhartt FULL SWING FORCE MANDAN SHIRT $60 Pendleton SHAWL BLANKET $260+ Goal Zero LIGHTHOUSE MINI LANTERN $60

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Meet Eight.

A new paragon in coffee. Built to strike the ideal balance between beauty and performance.

ratiocoffee.com

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INSIDE POWELL’S RARE BOOK ROOM Before journalists reported live from halfway around the world, and before Instagram and Facebook made travel photos into an everyday triviality, the thought of globe-trotting ruled the Western imagination. All we knew of prominent journeymen’s travels were the words they wrote upon returning, months and years after their adventures. At Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, the largest used bookstore in the US, we cracked open a few of the rarest travel books — field notes and chronicles, filled with tales of adventure, exploration and gumption — from the Age of Discovery to the present day.

Nick Milanes • Photography by Daniel Cronin 234

For the Anglophile THE LIFE OF CAPTAIN JAMES COOK by Andrew Kippis Famed for making the first European contact with Australia and Hawaii, as well as circumnavigating New Zealand, James Cook is one of history’s most beloved explorers. The first edition of his two-volume biography, written by an English clergyman and published in 1788, was bound in calfskin. For the oldest book on our list, it’s surprisingly well preserved, with only light wearing of the bindings and little damage to the pages.

For the Historian A JOURNAL OF THE VOYAGES AND TRAVELS OF A CORPS OF DISCOVERY by Patrick Gass Early Americans met news of the Lewis & Clark expedition with the same wonder that discoveries on Mars inspire in us today. The first word from that landmark journey came from Patrick Gass, a sergeant in the Corps of Discovery, in 1807, seven years before the titular explorers’ accounts. This volume shows its years in a number of marks and overall age-toning.

For the Outdoorsman INTO THIN AIR by Jon Krakauer A more recent selection, Jon Krakauer’s seminal account of the disastrous descent of Everest that claimed eight lives on May 10, 1996 is a landmark entry in outdoors writing, taking on the commercialization of mountains like Everest and the dangers therein. This signed collector’s edition is bound in dark blue leather with gilt accents and includes a certificate of authenticity.

For the Literary Buff THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain Before railways and airlines, the ends of the United States hardly knew each other; Mark Twain’s masterpiece, inasmuch as it was a scathing treatment of prejudice, racism and hypocrisy, also vividly detailed states up and down the Mississippi, culled from Twain’s own experience as a riverboat captain. Published by Twain’s short-lived publishing firm, this first edition features a handful of typos and imperfections.

For the Romantic OVER THE ANDES by May Crommelin Strife at home in Ulster, Ireland led May Crommelin’s family to travel often throughout the second half of the 19th century. What began as necessity became her forte: as an adult, she channeled her travel experience into her novels and nonfiction, and used her income to finance further expeditions.

Over the Andes details one such journey; this first edition contains the publisher’s original blue cover boards and illustrations.

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REPORT

Can America Improve Single Malt?

SEATTLE’S WESTLAND DISTILLERY J. Travis Smith • Photography by J. Travis Smith This past August, Emerson Lamb led a group of food and drink writers to a field on the backside of a soils and absorbents factory owned by two brothers in Shelton, Washington. It hadn’t rained in over two months, unusual for the area, and the procession kicked up dust as they marched down a service trail running into the forest. After a few hundred feet, the trail pulled from the trees and spilled into a secluded peat bog, the only one in the entire state that can be legally harvested for commercial use. Lamb grabbed a handful of peat and stood holding the clump in his outstretched hands for a few dozen photographs, then explained how he was experimenting with using it to make single malt whiskey.

A few feet behind him, the spongy peat, composed primarily from the rosemary that still grew along the ground, disappeared into a deep pool of water. Circling the pool, a ledge jutted out at odd angles from where one brother used a yellow John Deere excavator, which sat on a nearby stack of logs so as not to sink into the bog, to remove buckets of peat for Lamb’s whiskey experiments. Lamb, who founded the Westland Distillery in Seattle, was using the peat to smoke barley for Westland Peated Whiskey, which the distillery claims will become the first American single malt whiskey ever made with domestic peat, if they ever manage to figure out the best way to use it.

Lamb threw the clump back into the bog.

It was a hot day, and the sweat on his head shined as much as the water behind him.

Lamb’s skin was pale white, with shades of pink from the sun. Not long ago a tuft of reddish hair had covered his head, but now freckles showed along a closely shaved scalp, and a goatee covered his chin. The desired 236

effect was obvious. Lamb is only 26 but looks like he could be a full decade older. He founded Westland Distillery in 2010 with Master Distiller Matthew Hofmann, who also sports a shaved head and a full reddish beard, and who is also 26. When you want to convince America that you represent the future of single malt whiskey, you need to look the part. So far it’s worked; Westland, only five years old, is currently one of the largest producers of single malt whiskey in America and last month took home the “Craft Producer of the Year” Award from Whisky Magazine.

The Lambs amassed considerable wealth from the once hugely profitable timber industry in Washington, but the advent of the computer brought on the paper industry’s steady decline. So when Hofmann, Lamb’s high school friend and a whiskey distiller from age 18, came to Lamb’s father, David Lamb, with a proposal to pivot to another industry based in the Pacific Northwest in 2010, the elder Lamb agreed to become the principal investor. Emerson Lamb recently left the company, but Hofmann and the elder Lamb are continuing to grow Westland with a product made using primarily Washingtongrown barley, Washington water, and, hopefully soon, Washington peat. Today a bottle of Westland, which retails at $70, comes slapped with the distiller’s symbol: a Washington pine, its roots growing into the curl of a copper pot still, all set within the Lamb family diamond.

Craft spirit distilleries are booming in America, with sales increasing 50 percent in 2014, according to the American Distilling Institute, and attracting entrepreneurs like Hofmann and the Lambs. Although bourbon is most closely associated with the boom,

American single malt is having a smaller, but just as significant, moment. In 2012, Balcones Distillery in Waco, Texas, won the prestigious “Best in Glass” award, beating nine other single malts, including big-name Scotches like Macallan, Glenmorangie and Balvenie and the Japanese whisky Nikka, in a blind tasting by British spirits experts. New drinkers that made their way into whiskey through bourbon or flavored whiskey are transitioning to rye and, more recently, American single malts. Though craft distillers, defined as distilleries producing less than 100,000 proof gallons a year, are estimated to make up less than 1 percent of the domestic spirits industry, the American Distilling Institute predicts that by 2020 this number will grow to 7 to 8 percent of total spirits sold in the US by volume.

American single malts are unusual. Unlike bourbon and Scotch, which have restrictive legal definitions and expected taste profiles, there are only a few rules that an American single malt must follow: it must be produced and aged entirely by one distillery in the US, made of at least 51 percent grain, and be aged in new charred oak barrels (for any amount of time); it must enter the barrel no higher than 125 proof, enter the bottle no lower than 80 proof and contain no coloring or flavoring additives. Everything else is up to distillers to shape, giving newcomers like Westland unprecedented incentive to rethink whiskey for a booming market.

Meanwhile, the old image of bourbon, once quaint and family-centric, is beginning to peel away and reveal a homogenous industry. “It doesn’t take a lot to be unusual in this market because there are so many similar whiskeys. So many whiskeys on the

shelf are just different versions of MGP,” said Darek Bell, master distiller at the Corsair Distillery in Nashville, Tennessee, referring to Midwestern Grain Products, a distillery in Indiana. “What’s different between those brands? Mostly just packaging and marketing,” said Bell. Many companies that do produce unique mash bills are mostly owned by a handful of parent companies. Maker’s Mark, based in Kentucky, and Laphroaig, based in Islay, Scotland, are both brands in the Jim Beam portfolio, which in turn was purchased in 2014 by Suntory, a powerhouse of distilling in Japan.

This fact isn’t lost on millennials, who have relatively little allegiance to legacy spirit brands and are already swept up by movements emphasizing eating and drinking locally. Sometime during 2015, millennials officially took over as the largest generation by size in America, according to the Pew Research Center, and the market power of 75 million young drinkers has started to shape the industry.

“We’re not set in history,” said Hofmann.

“We don’t have all of this culture that’s telling us we’ve been making whiskey this one way for a long time. We’re taking the creativity, that’s what single malt whiskey is all about.”

That starts with Westland’s grain mash, which — unlike most other whiskeys, but similar to craft beers — uses a mix of five different malted barleys. “The whiskey textbooks say pale malt or peated malt. But here was brown malt, and here’s chocolate malt,” said Hofmann, who traveled to Scotland to study distillation at Heriot-Watt University. “[I] began to wonder: Why do they never talk about these things in whiskey making?”

Whereas most whiskey makers favor

distiller’s yeast for its clean efficiency, Westland uses a Belgian brewer’s yeast, nicknamed Jean-Claude Van Damme for the powerful esters and fruity flavors it produces, normally avoided by other distillers.

Once the hearts — the tastiest distillates — are collected, they’re poured into specially dried and charred new oak casks, which lend an oakiness common to bourbon but avoided in Scotch. The barrels are stored in the Westland barrel warehouses, which are also unconventional. “You can feel the humidity in here. That’s coming from the open floors.

The metal roof is drawing moisture out of the ground and regulating the swings in temperature,” said the younger Lamb. “This is the exact opposite of what you hear in Kentucky.”

Bourbon distillers wax poetic about how the huge temperature changes of Kentucky’s climate cause the wood to swell up with whiskey in the summer and then push the whiskey out when the wood contracts during the winter, leading to “faster” aging and more oaky flavors.

Not so here. Westland’s focus on barley and its iconoclastic attitude produce a flavor that isn’t attainable by older, well-known distilleries, which are tied down by massive stocks of whiskey made with generations-old recipes. But as craft tries to innovate faster than legacy brands to secure a piece of the market, legacy brands aren’t standing still.

Historians consider Buffalo Trace to be the oldest continuously operating distillery in the US, and critics regularly award the distillery and its line of whiskeys the most prestigious awards in the industry, including the award last year of “Brand Innovator of the Year” by Whisky Magazine. This award came shortly after the distillery built a new warehouse,

named Warehouse X, for the sole purpose of experimenting with every aspect of the aging process, along with a small whiskey still to make experimental batches on site.

Back in Seattle, Hofmann is currently working with Wayne Carpenter, the founder of Skagit Malting Company, the only malting company Westland could find that would experiment with peating barley. Hoffman is taking cuts of peat from three different depths in the bog — which will produce three different flavors — to use for smoking Washington barley at the Skagit plant, instead of buying peated barley from abroad, as is common practice.This is an effort to maintain Westland’s “house style,” which they anchor in Washington’s terroir, hoping drinkers from the Pacific Northwest want to buy local.

This terroir comes from a Western Washington that is “a lot like Scotland because of the climate, which yields low-protein, fatty kernels” in the malt, said Carpenter. The Skagit facility is a small-scale operation; with luck, its 11 batches of malt will help Hofmann produce a five-barrel batch of entirely Washington-peated Westland whiskey. Hofmann expects to produce the new whiskey by late 2015 or early 2016, and it will need to age three years before bottling. It’s a long time to wait, especially for an unknown result.

“What would the wine business be if all the wine was Californian Merlot?” asked Hofmann rhetorically. “I’m stubborn as all hell and I don’t like being told what to do. I don’t want to just follow somebody else’s thing. I want to push it forward in a new way.”♦ read more

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Whiskey Mavericks Sometime during 2015, the millennial generation surpassed the baby boomers as the largest generation in America. Their spirit of choice is whiskey. The drinkers among these 75 million millennials are exerting massive market forces, spurring a 9.6 percent increase in the sale of bourbon and Tennessee whiskey in 2014, according to the Distilled Spirits Council.

Because these new drinkers have relatively few allegiances to any one brand, or even type of whiskey, this growth has spilled indiscriminately into rye, American single malt and flavored whiskeys. Eager to attract new drinkers, distillers are feeling intense pressure to continue to innovate and differentiate their product on a level never before seen in American whiskey. We caught up with the leading innovators in the industry to find out how they nurture creativity and keep ahead of the competition.

J. Travis Smith • Photo by Henry Phillips

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REPORT

Darek Bell, Founder & Owner of Corsair Distillery I’d been home brewing for a great number of years. I loved all of the experimentation and risk taking, and so I came out of that culture of creating…We’re where craft beer was in 1990. If that!

Buck Yeah is distilled from a combination of malted barley and buckwheat.

Harlen Wheatley, Master Distiller at Buffalo Trace We experiment with aging, recipes and the environment. When you combine all those things you’re getting at the holy grail of bourbon. I don’t know when we’re gonna get there, but it’s all about the journey, right?

The Experimental Collection studies the effect of incremental changes in production on taste.

David Perkins, Proprietor of High West Distillery In Scotland we stayed in a bed and breakfast. They were boiling a pot of Laphroaig with a cup of sugar...they served the [simple] syrup drizzled on ripe honeydew. Sweet and smoky. I loved it! That’s where the idea [for Campfire] came from.

Campfire is a blend of rye whiskey, straight bourbon and blended Scotch.

Ralph Erenzo, Founder of Tuthilltown Spirits Farm Distillery We didn’t so much watch other distillers as encourage. Every single distillery that’s opened in New York has come to us first. No one understood what we [craft distillers] were doing. We need people out there teaching customers.

Hudson Maple Cask Rye is rye whiskey aged in casks that once held fresh maple syrup.

Colin Spoelman, Co-Founder & Master Distiller at Kings County Distillery In my work I try a bunch of whiskeys. Some are so far from traditional whiskey that it’s baffling. But that’s fine. For too long we’ve had the same three mashbills from the same thirteen distilleries.

After adding a bag of peated malt to bourbon mash thinking it was unpeated, Spoelman rolled with the accident and barreled the result.

read more

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STEAMBOAT BAY FISHING CLUB

Will McGough Photo by Sung Han

Swell-tossed boats. Cutting stations. Fish guts. A salty-dog bar and a cot in the corner of a small room. These are the blue-collar images running through my mind as I stand on the rainy dock, waiting for a boat transfer to Steamboat Bay Fishing Club, a small, remote fishing lodge located in the coastal waterways that spread like fingers from Ketchikan. I prepare myself for a few days of roughing it. Alaska is indeed the last American frontier, and several days off the grid at a fishing lodge in the Tongass National Forest ought to teach me a few lessons.

When I first spot Steamboat Bay, I notice that the great room of the lodge looks exactly like the bow of a boat from the outside. A humpback whale breaches and bald eagles circle on the treeline. As we disembark the boat, an employee nearby cleans a fish, dumping the guts down a slide that ends in the water. That’s the last glimpse of grit I see for some time.

Yes, fishing is a rough endeavor, but Steamboat Bay’s purpose is to provide the yin to the sport’s yang. There’s nothing quite like coming home after a day at sea to a woodburning sauna that overlooks the bay, then going into the great room for a bowl of hot cioppino that incorporates the day’s catch.

That the lodge is small, with only 10 rooms, means that every staff member knows your name (and what you drink) by the end of the first day. It also means that you eat well.

Each night, the chef offers an ever-evolving menu of local fish and game meats to go along with comfort food, like salmon and halibut, roasted duck and elk, smoked salmon mac and cheese and Baked Alaska.

The rooms are huge, with wood-burning stoves, floor-to-ceiling windows and wood paneling. These in-room luxuries, in combination with the aforementioned upscale comfort food, make Steamboat Bay feel like a spa hotel. Yet aspects like the do-it-yourself wood-burning sauna, the pool and poker tables and the cigar bar show that it’s been built with men in mind. This highlights what I grow to love most about the property: how it takes the edge off of fishing. Each night, the sight of Steamboat Bay is like a candle in the window, a light that someone has left on, signaling that it is time to trade in rubber boots for a bathrobe.

The three-night package starts at $5,825 per person and includes round-trip seaplane transfer from Ketchikan, daily guided fishing trips, professional seafood processing, accommodations and all food and drinks.

WISH LIST : 6/7

LUCCA A53 Jack Seemer • Photo by Henry Phillips Though La Spaziale’s pedigree dates back to 1969, it’s the Italian company’s latest espresso warrior, the Lucca A53, made exclusively for Portland’s Clive Coffee, that warrants a closer look. Time-tested internal components (a dual-boiler system, closed-loop temperature controller, and pulse-free rotary pump) are found inside a stainless steel case with matte black accents and distinctive wooden side panels — available in bubinga, mahogany, wenge and walnut (pictured). $2,675

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WYOMING 242

Photo by Henry Phillips

LEGACY POWER TRUCKS THE CODY NITE RODEO A N I G H T AT B E A R PAW L A K E TENT TESTING IN THE BACKCOUNTRY THE BULLFIGHTER F I V E - W E I G H T F LY R O D S B E R E T TA 4 8 6 BY M A R C N E W S O N

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Legacy Power Trucks RESTORING AMERICA’S 4X4

Matthew Ankeny • Photography Matthew Ankeny Teton Pass Road rolls between Wyoming and Idaho through peaks that otherwise wouldn’t be scalable without some serious boots and the heart of an ox. It’s a total bitch, even paved. In the middle of a Western summer, the roadway is a proving ground for runners, cyclists and vehicles. “If a truck can get to the top of Teton Pass on a hot summer day and not overheat, that cooling system is totally bomber,” says Winslow Bent, Founder of Legacy Trucks in Jackson, Wyoming. “You cannot find something more challenging on a cooling system than wide-open throttle for seven miles all the way to the top of that pass.”

Fine. Good. But every modern truck will take the pass without a wiggle of the oil temperature gauge. The Porsche Cayenne I was in hightailed up the curves with German growl.

Bent’s on a different page, though. He’s not talking about trucks from this century. He’s stuck back in WWII time, and he’s talking

about taking the first-ever 4x4 brought to the civilian market — the Dodge Power Wagon — up over the curves of the pass.

Bent, born in Chicago, grew up with a father obsessed with WWII-era vehicles. Bent worked on a Power Wagon of his own while living and working in Wyoming, then sold that first restoration, in 2008, for six figures. That was affirming; he opened up shop. At the subtle request of his wife, he moved operations out of his garage, over Teton Pass and into Idaho.

“I have spent my wheel time in these trucks,” he says. “I’ve driven and owned and operated and grew up around plenty of these vehicles to understand: ‘Wow, here’s what’s great and here’s what sucks.’”

Bent’s job is to make what sucks not suck.

He buys field-sale Power Wagons, brings them to his shop in Driggs, Idaho, strips them down, scavenges scrap parts, rips apart frames, sands down sheet metal and then converts a

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rust pile into a polished piece of machinery.

His team puts 1,000 to 2,000 man hours into restorations. The trucks sell for as much as $250,000. They can do 0-60 in 6.3 seconds and can cruise at 80 mph for days. They can tackle Teton Pass Road.

“As Americans, we’re fascinated with this concept of the rugged individual — ‘One man, heading out into the woods and accomplishing something great,’” Bent tells me. “And these trucks were the vehicles that made those experiences possible.” Stepping into one of his single-cab conversions, I feel infinitely capable — 40-inch wheels do that to one’s ego. The truck I’m in is particularly proficient — it’s run the perimeter of New Zealand, off-roading and rock-hopping its way over the North and South Islands. Then, the owner shipped it to L.A., drove it up to Wyoming and over the Rockies and sold it back to Bent, who will make some updates and tweaks before putting it back on the market. It crackles and spits to life, and we head out of Driggs to the Tetons.

It’s hard to turn heads in this part of the West. Every truck out here is big and loud.

But the flame-red Legacy Power Wagon gets looks. Backpackers turn their packs. Granola crunchers’ jaws drop. Cowboy hats nod.

The Power Wagon resonates in some deep, intrinsic, platonic, spiritual, audacious American way. It articulates both our history and our aspirations. It’s the 4x4 in ideal form.

“You see all these relics on the side of the road. Abandoned old trucks. And they’re sitting there,” Bent tells me. “I’m the guy that, when I drive by one of those, says, ‘How did that vehicle end up there? What has it done?’

And I stop, and I look at the trucks, and I see

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these things as having a story that they want to tell.” He sets his task force of mechanics and restoration specialists to work and he turns the dump of rusted metal into something shiny and new. He’ll drop in a 3.9-liter Cummins turbo-diesel, tack on a 16,500-pound Warn winch. He’ll install a Nardi steering wheel and bomber-inspired gauges. He’ll paint it flamered and have a local craftsman furnish a furniture-grade wood bed. It rumbles out of his shop just like the original, but exponentially better.

“Initially, people thought we were crazy — like, you can’t do a Concours-level restoration to an abandoned old truck that was used for hauling apples from the orchard.

That’s insane.” Bent pauses. “Lo and behold, we did it.”

In the hills of the Tetons — dirt, paved, steep, flat — that restoration rumbles over all. The thick tread of the tires takes on a more appropriate muted gray of dirt on black rubber. Bent’s never cute about his creations.

He doesn’t intend for them to be coddled, but to fulfill the workhorse purpose they were initially built to perform. The Dodge motto used to be “A Self-Propelled Power Plant.” These trucks made their way into the hands of the Forest Service, ranchers and outdoorsmen.

To service the labor of those workmen is still Bent’s intention.

“If you want to hook up four-horse trailer and go off-roading and haul it up a mountain pass? It’ll do that,” he says. “It’s always about functionality. It’s always about being able to do what they say they can do. A rancher or farmer or whomever can take his truck out into the wilderness and perform incredible tasks.” ♦

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It’s the Nite Rodeo that’s different — not us in the crowd. We’re all same same — tourists, flocking in to see a rodeo spectacle before taking buses or cars or bicycles into Yellowstone.

We’re the ones who live in safe cities, who save money, who take vacations to wild places to see adventure.

We think to protect our kids from obvious danger; we avoid mounting one-ton animals; we are the ones who would piss ourselves if we ever came face to face with a bull that knows nothing other than to charge.

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BEARPAW LAKE, GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK Chris Wright • Photo by Henry Phillips 43.831058 Lat / -110.728175 Long 21:27:00 MDT Canon 5DS R • 30 Seconds, ISO 200, ƒ/13

All across Wyoming we’d heard the same chorus: “Wait till you see the Tetons!” But at the parking lot, the sky tried to drown us. The fearsome range looked like a pile of gray slop across a lake rapidly filling with more water.

Then, at the trailhead, the torrent tired and died. A few clouds barreled over the tops of the peaks, then blue sky broke through. We sang happy tunes hiking to our campsite — not just to keep the bears away. As darkness fell, the skies opened again.

This time we were encamped, hunkered in around a fire, and we’d had our fill of both dinner and the view. The rain provided a calming soundtrack as we tucked into our sleeping bags, gently rapping against our tents the liquid song of the Tetons.

BACKCOUNTRY SHELTERS On the shore of Bearpaw Lake, in the shadow of the Tetons, we settled into camp — spread out footprints, assembled poles, and lofted the poly knit mesh of three brand-new two-person tents. Then the rains came.

Storm clouds flowed over the peaks. Rain flies rippled. Water pooled in pine needles. And through the night, we stayed dry. In the morning we climbed from our zippered holes — clothes dry, our assembly intact — spirits high for breakfast with a view.

Matthew Ankeny • Photo by Henry Phillips

For the money, the BOREAS TRAVA is a steal — high-strength stakes don’t bend when hammered and the single-pole design keeps setup kindergarten simple. The triangular doors take two hands to open and close, but they open wide for easy entry and exit. $330

The BIG AGNES COPPER SPUR UL2 MTNGLO illuminates with built-in LED lighting (powered by battery or USB), features six interior pockets, and even with the extra tech, still weighs in under four pounds. $450

A center cross-pole creates two dry-entry vestibules on either side of the MOUNTAIN HARDWEAR SKYLEDGE 2 DP, and the rain fly sits several inches above its entirely mesh canopy, welcoming wafting airflow into what would otherwise be a stuffy, sleepless night. $450

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THE BULLFIGHTER

For f ive- time World Cha m pion Dusty Tuc kne ss, rod eo b u llf ig h tin g isn’t just sav ing fa lle n cowboys f rom a f lu rry of h ooves a nd horns — it ’s turning th e escape into a m a sterpiece.

Chris Wright • Illustration by Allan Cole

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THE BULL riders at Cheyenne’s Frontier Days rodeo wear jeans, chaps, cowboy hats, spurred boots and numbers pinned to the back of their black protective vests. Not Dusty Tuckness.

Standing by the gate where the stadium’s guts bleed out into a maze of animal pens and lounging cowboys, he wears an open buttondown, suspenders, torn blue jean cutoffs with mesh shorts underneath, bulky knee braces and neon green cleats that say “JESUS” on one heel and “SAVES” on the other. All he shares in common with the riders is a cowboy hat — but underneath his brim, where they wear pursed lips and steely eyes, he wears wispy streaks of white and red grease paint.

Tuckness is 29 years old, around five-footten, quietly athletic in his baggy farmstead attire, with a crooked smile and brown eyes that are slightly cow-like in their immutable calm. Ten feet behind us cowboys sip Coors atop bullpen gates, the day’s work over, the air cool and sweet with cattle yard smells. It’s impossible to tell, looking at his eyes now, that just an hour ago Tuckness was saving some of the toughest men in the world from a severe mauling.

Tuckness is a rodeo bullfighter. He is not a matador; he does not use a cape or a sword.

Nor is he a rodeo clown; he is not funny, performs no skits, tells no jokes. His job is the keystone of the modern rodeo: keeping bull riders alive.

The rodeo bullfighter’s job description is to distract and absorb the hulking, charging, pinwheeling Brahma bull of American professional rodeo competition, which weighs upwards of 2,000 pounds and has been bred to buck with all its might. He is called upon almost every “go-round” or ride, since riders almost always end up in the dirt with the bull bearing down on them. As another five-time bullfighting champion, Rob Smets, has said, the work can be boiled down to “presenting 270

the bull with a better target than the rider.”

This is the bald-faced truth of this job — that Tuckness is less a distraction and more a swift streak that is occasionally leveled, gored and trampled.

He takes this fact with a shrug. “There’s times we get hooked, run over, stepped on, thrown in the air,” Tuckness says. “I guess that’s really why we have a job.”

Tuckness is very good at his job. He has been named the World Champion Bullfighter five times in the last five years, so, in fact, he is probably the best bullfighter on the face of the rodeo-riding earth. But even on his best days, like today, he faces down a bloody mangling.

In the final round of the day, while pulling a bull away from a downed rider — his hands in the bull’s face, his legs doing a quick backstep away and to the side — Tuckness had been caught by a wicked sideswipe of the horns and rag-dolled into the shadows of the stadium’s exit chute. The announcers gasped and the crowd drew a collective breath. But then, after half a verse of Van Halen’s “Panama” had screeched its way out of the grounds’ loudspeakers, there was Tuckness, upright, trotting back into the bullring to defuse the next 2,000-pound bomb of animalistic fury. Business as usual.

There are no theatrics after a bullfighter’s successful “save,” no celebration dances, no points scored, no gags for laughs, no opportunity for the crowd to salute his work. Most often Tuckness walks over to the rider whose life he just preserved and hands him the cowboy hat he lost during his ride. Then he turns to ready himself for the next bull.

Only now, in person, can I see that Tuckness’s face has been bruised and scraped by his run-in with the bull’s horns. One cheek blows out like it’s holding a plug of chaw. “I’ve broke a handful of bones, had my shoulder fixed,” he says. “It kinda comes with the territory, so

you gotta learn to fight through the pain. I’ve worked with broken bones before. You’ve just gotta have some mental toughness and push through it.”

KANIN ASAY, a bull rider and good friend

of Tuckness’s, can relay a whole lot of hurt in a short amount of time. His worst injury happened in Oregon in 2008. “The bull was bucking, knocked me off, and tore my ear partway off,” he says. “I had a left eye fracture, a skull fracture, a brain bleed, six broken ribs.

It ruptured my spleen and hyperextended my knee. And that all happened in about six seconds.”

Tuckness wasn’t bullfighting at that rodeo, but he was there when Asay came home from the hospital. The two grew up together in Wyoming’s amateur rodeo circuit. When Asay’s mother died in a sudden horseback riding accident several years ago, Tuckness helped him through it.

Tuckness’s devotion to others is not questioned among the rodeo community; neither is his commitment to his calling. He had a chance at a different life. Out of high school, he was offered a scholarship at University of Montana Western to play football. Weeks before school began, Tuckness’s coaches found out he was bullfighting on the side.

They told him if he kept it up they’d pull his scholarship. That was the end of his college football career.

Asay has to put on headphones to talk to me over the phone because he’s having trouble hearing out of his right ear. It was ripped 75 percent of the way off a second time in an accident a few weeks ago, when a bull kicked him in the head as he was thrown, then stepped on his helmet. Three hours of surgery and 200 stitches later he was fixed up and ready to keep on riding for the rest of the season — another 20 to 30 rodeos. He’s currently 15th in the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) rankings.

In bull riding, injuries like this are par for the course, and they are occasionally deadly.

Lane Frost, the best bullfighter in the world in 1989, was driven into the ground by a bull at Cheyenne, breaking his ribs and piercing his aorta. He died on the stadium dirt at the age of 25. Riders die every year in what the industry calls “freak accidents,” but to the casual onlooker who sees the carnage a normal day of rodeoing brings, it seems death should be much more prevalent than it is. Bullfighters are largely to thank.

That’s not understood by those outside of the rodeo community. “There are two things I get a lot when I tell people what I do,” says Tuckness. “I say bullfighter, and they say, ‘Oh, you ride bulls.’ I don’t know if I’m talking too fast sometimes; I said bullfighter. They’re like, ‘You fight the bull.’ So you go back to the rodeo clown to try and paint the picture.”

TUCKNESS’S FATHER , Timber Tuckness,

went by rodeo clown, barrel man, or funny

“IT KINDA COMES WITH THE TERRITORY, SO YOU GOTTA LEARN TO FIGHT THROUGH THE PAIN. I’VE WORKED WITH BROKEN BONES BEFORE.”

man, though he was a bullfighter too. He wore suspenders and “baggies” and a smile painted on his chin. He sometimes wore a fat suit with a bikini and fake blowup breasts, and performed a routine where he danced the YMCA with a set of puppets dressed as the rest of the Village People attached to him by dowel rods.

This was rodeo clowning before Dusty Tuckness and a new wave of bullfighters tore away its humor: full makeup, funny acts, saving lives in between.

This duality persisted from rodeo clowning’s birth in the 1920s to as recently as the 1980s. As Gail Hughbanks Woerner, a rodeo historian and the author of Fearless Funnymen: The History of the Rodeo Clown, tells me, prior to the 1920s the rodeo clown’s job was to keep the paying audience entertained during downtime in the show with skits and jokes. No death-defying was necessary; the steers the cowboys rode were of the mundane sort, bulls pulled from American stockyards.

Then, in the 1920s, came the introduction of Spanish Brahma bulls — the muscle-rippled monsters with humps associated with rodeo today. As opposed to the common steers before that, Brahmas would “just as soon kill you as look at you,” says Woerner. They revolutionized bull riding, but their ferocity during and after the ride quickly made organizers realize they were a few go-rounds away from a dead cowboy. Clowns, already employed and flamboyant in their costumes and manner, with nothing else to do while the riding went on, were the obvious choice to distract the bulls.

The clowns began pulling double duty as entertainers and lifesavers. “It was from one extreme to another. He was making a fool of himself the rest of the rodeo, but during the bull riding, he had got to stand out there and put his life on the line,” says Woerner.

The first bullfighter to ditch clowning didn’t do it purposefully. Wick Peth, a rodeo clown in the 1960s, “had a good eye for a bull,” Woerner says. “But one time an announcer said he was about as funny as a funeral in the rain.” Peth’s athleticism and skill dodging and disrupting the bulls earned him respect and jobs in spite of his humorlessness; eventually, more and more rodeo clowns became specialized for either humor acts or their bullfighting skill.

Today Tuckness is the star of a new class of bullfighters that’s dropped clowning entirely.

The rise of the bullfighter has coincided with the decline of the rodeo clown. Modern rodeos employ at least two bullfighters, and often three. The funny man or clown has become a separate entity, far away from the melee, cracking jokes and bantering with the announcers; he may as well be in the booth.

As fans and riders become more entranced by the serious side of the sport, humor’s place is eroding. “When I started all this 30 years ago, not all the rodeos had more than one bullfighter,” says Woerner. “They all have them now regardless of the size of the rodeo. So the money is obviously going toward having two 271

“I HAD A LEFT EYE FRACTURE, A SKULL FRACTURE, A BRAIN BLEED, SIX BROKEN RIBS. IT RUPTURED MY SPLEEN AND HYPEREXTENDED MY KNEE. 272

AND THAT ALL HAPPENED IN ABOUT SIX SECONDS.” 273

bullfighters there to protect — and that takes away from funny.” Some rodeos, including the world championship, forego clowns entirely.

The two professions are no longer seen as one and the same. “A clown, he’s the one who entertains the crowd,” says Clayton Savage, a pro bull rider in the PRCA. “He’s the goofball out there for entertainment. The bullfighters — well, I wouldn’t even call ‘em bullfighters. I’d call ‘em lifesavers.”

Bullfighters are freelancers, booked by individual rodeos and negotiating their own fees. Reputable sources say the best, like Tuckness, can make up to $1,500 per performance; one source estimated that Tuckness, last year, made at least $100,000 on fees alone.

During rodeo season, 11 months out of the year, Tuckness will work almost every day.

So maybe it’s no surprise he doesn’t want to be associated with skits and fat suits with bikinis and fake breasts like his father was.

And yet, he still wears face paint. “I got a little old school in me,” Tuckness says. “You’ll see guys nowadays, they’re wearing just jerseys and shorts. They say, ‘We’re athletes, so we dress like athletes.’ Me, I could have a ball cap, shorts and tennis shoes on and I’d still go out.

Just growing up with it, following some of my heroes, they always wore the baggies and the grease paint. That’s where people will still tie us back to rodeo clowns. It doesn’t take any athleticism away from me.”

Tuckness’s decision to call himself a bullfighter is also a smart business choice. He’s got the right title for the direction the sport’s taking. “[Bullfighters] are heroes to those fans, and they know how hard they work because the announcer tells everybody,” Woerner says.

“If it wasn’t for these guys, there wouldn’t be bull riding.”

HOW EXACTLY Tuckness protects bull rid-

ers without becoming a smudge on the dirt is a hard thing to get out of him. Asked about the specifics of his profession, Tuckness closes down, cowboy shy with a touch of exasperation — the mark of a man who finds his work so natural that its basic techniques are obvious as a bull’s need to buck. The best bullfighters make their job look easy. To the unlearned eye, it seems the fighter simply waits for the rider to be bucked off, then sandwiches himself in the no-man’s-land between the cowboy and the bull, drawing the beast’s attention by sheer proximity. The bull, following its new target, tends to lose interest once the bullfighter dodges away once or twice. Things happen fast on the arena dirt. The escape from the bull looks like the cut-work of a backyard footballer, amateurish and improvisational, if lightning quick.

The actual textbook technique, Tuckness says, is in fact very simple: make a circle. “You have to stay out front of that bull’s shoulder.

In order for a bull to move forward his butt end’s gotta get around, so you gotta make that circle, be tight, be aggressive, keep step with that shoulder.” This is the Spanish 274

bullfighter’s intent, too. But with a cape he tricks the bull into orbiting him; the American bullfighter must do his own legwork, a reversal that puts the athleticism onto the man and not the bull. The Brahma bulls aren’t quite as quick as the Spanish fighting bulls, because they are bigger by several hundred pounds on average.

But they are still, as Asay tells me, “like 2,000pound cats.” Tuckness’s repertoire of escape moves are all bounded by this basic principle.

Watch him work and you’ll see spins, double moves, jukes, and the occasional dive. On occasion he simply escapes in the same direction as the bull, its heavy head prodding him along like a wave pushing a body surfer. Asay compares the technique to bull riding itself: by making the right “counter move” at the right time, both professions can negate the bull’s power. Tuckness makes his work look like a dance, water flowing around an angry, horned rock.

Tuckness begins each rider’s attempt by holding a ready stance five to ten yards away from the action and reading the bull and its rider as they tango across the dirt. Nine times out of 10, Tuckness says, bullfighters can anticipate where a fallen cowboy will land to within a six-foot spot. Things happen too quickly to think. There are no pre-planned plays. “It’s just like a linebacker reading a running back,” he says. “[The linebacker] can’t be like, ‘he’s going left.’ No. He’s reading that, so he’s gonna flow over there. The guys that do it right and don’t hesitate and get in there and take a shot — those are the guys you see succeed.”

His timing, when he does decide to “flow over there,” has to be perfect in order to hit “the gap,” or the area between the fallen rider and the bull, at the right moment. Once there, Tuckness does what he needs to get the bull’s attention and keep it away from the cowboy, including grabbing its horns or waving a hand in its face. “There’s times when you see a bullfighter step in and get ahold of their head,” Tuckness says. “Sometimes that’ll pick that bull’s head up, so it has a bigger range to see, and it really locks onto you.”

The instincts required to do this are second nature to someone who’s played among angry bulls since the age of 12. But that’s not enough.

Tuckness works out five to six days a week when he’s not working. He’s developed specific regimens with trainers from NFL teams to keep in perfect shape for his work — a manner of evasion much like that of a running back who doesn’t have an offensive line and must evade a linebacker 100 times his size, all the while protecting a defenseless player, immobilized on the ground. “You can’t be out of shape out there,” he says, pointing to the arena. Part of his job is understanding how a bull reacts to certain stimuli. This includes watching footage of past rides and evasions to learn a bull’s habits and peccadilloes — which way it will spin, whether it tends to trot off after a ride or cause havoc.

Commitment to the job seems simple but breaks down fast in the face of a one-ton bellowing charge. Tuckness is beloved by bull

“I WOULDN’T SAY ‘BEAUTIFUL’ WOULD BE A WORD IN RODEO, BY NO MEANS,” HE REBUTS. “BUT YOU’RE OUT THERE, AND IT IS AN ART.” riders of all types — they’ve voted him the best bullfighter in the world for the past five years — because he applies this consistency to saving each and every bull rider who enters the ring. Some bullfighters will only lay themselves on the line in front of a charging, living locomotive for the very best riders; not Tuckness.

“Your percentage is a whole lot higher for getting away when Dusty is in the ring,” Asay says.

The final inch that has earned Tuckness the Best Bullfighter title is mental. He says he feels no fear when he is in the ring protecting cowboys. Considering the injuries he has sustained, and that he is up against a perturbed animal the weight of a Mazda Miata, this is hard to believe. But when questioned on the matter, he takes on a tone that says: you’ve seen me work — you’ve seen me willingly put myself between a hulking muscled creature and a supine form without an instant of hesitation or an ounce of regret. What the hell else do I have to do to prove it to you that I’m not afraid?

“You get guys saying you’re crazy,” he says.

“I don’t really feel that I’m crazy at all. Sometimes it’s kind of an insult. In a sense, crazy people really don’t know what they’re doing.

We’re trained. We’re professionals.”

The difference between a good bullfighter and a great bullfighter is this: a lack of fear, or at least an utter lack of hesitation in the face of fear. Otherwise, Tuckness says, “you sit there and go ‘Ooh, that might be a little risky.’ You step back, then kinda work it after the wreck happened. And you didn’t really do your job. You were just kinda there.”

I ask Asay if he believes his friend has no fear of the bulls.

“As far as bucking bulls or fighting bulls, there’s no fear there. It’s beautiful to see when you’re a bull rider.”

I ask him if he’s ever seen his best friend do anything unbelievable in the ring.

“As far as for cowboy protection,” Asay says, “everything’s crazy for that guy. I’ve watched him sit on a bull’s head, or grab the bull by its eyelashes, to get it away from that

rider. As far as crazy stupid: probably the one thing I would say is just the backflips.”

GOOGLE “DUSTY TUCKNESS ” and you

will find a video, set to Christian heavy metal, of Tuckness backflipping over bulls that are trying to maul him. The first half shows Tuckness doing what he’s renowned for. Tuckness throws a cowboy down into the dirt and absorbs a hit from the bull’s lowered head; he wrenches loose a cowboy’s hand stuck in a suicide wrap, both men on opposite flanks of the pinwheeling bull, the cowboy dragged and limp and tenuously close to stomping hooves, Tuckness leaping across the bull’s back as it bucks in order to reach the rope. Several times he is launched by a head-on collision with the bull’s head, then flips through the air and lands on his feet. Many more times he does not land on his feet and gets up limping away as fast as he can.

Then, halfway through the video, bold white letters declare “Freestyle,” signaling a switch from bull rider protection to a form of American bullfighting competition that most resembles Spanish bullfighting, without the capes or the killing. There are no bull riders.

The bull enters the ring, head up, not bucking with a nuisance on its back, and there is Tuckness, still in face paint, still in “baggies” and cleats, but now alone in the center of the arena, poised to dance, freed from the most vital duty at every rodeo he’s ever worked: lifesaving. This is Dusty Tuckness the artist.

The bull charges.

Ernest Hemingway wrote renowned passages on the sport of Spanish bullfighting, but his explanations of the Tercio de Banderillas and the Tercio de Muerte — when the matador leaps the bull’s shoulders to plant a spiked banderilla and then makes the killing stroke of a sword — can be confusing to those who haven’t seen the performance in person; the physics just don’t seem to line up. Tuckness’s leaps bring those passages to life: the cliché of the bull’s pawing, the charge, the man’s standing vault, his body slipping like silk over the rising horns, the bull’s front, then back legs kicking up spasmodically in a lunge that

misses by inches, the leaper in a split second having flowed from nose to tail and come back down in a spurt of dust, unsteady after a moment of raw grace.

Later in the video, Tuckness faces away from the bull, looks over his shoulder, then leaps when the bull is upon him, backflipping over its lunging length. This is not a fluke. He does it three times in a single highlight video.

One time his back is catapulted off the bull’s hump, which flings him through the air to complete his rotation.

Some would say his freestyle work is beautiful, though Tuckness refutes this. “I wouldn’t say beautiful would be a word in rodeo, by no means,” he rebuts. “But you’re out there, and it is an art.”

He’s right. The Spanish bullfighter kills the bull; the bull rider conquers the bull, for a few seconds; the bullfighter negates the bull, stymying its violence with great effort and, sometimes, a touch of martyrdom.

But in freestyle, the bull becomes the canvas on which Tuckness paints his masterpiece.

Asay has a favorite bull jump, a leap over a pure white bull, “tip to tail,” the most amazing feat he’s ever seen his friend perform. I watch it.

It is night. The camera looks head-on at the bull, with Tuckness in the foreground.

The bull sprints at Tuckness. Tuckness does a funny thing: he sprints at the bull. At the very last second Tuckness changes his angle slightly, and leaps, throwing his legs to the side and up. The bull rises, its horns flashing.

Tuckness, way up in the air, his ass the closest part of his body to the ground, rides the ripple of angry muscle as it tries to put its body on a collision course, rising and falling in an oncoming wave. The bullfighter lands in stride.

The white bull exits stage left. And Tuckness again does something funny, a quick thing, a release he almost never allows himself during competition: having for once saved only himself, he takes off his cowboy hat and frisbees it through the air, then raises his face to the bright arena lights, letting his true colors glow out into the night. ♦ 275

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Weight Shootout

For all practical purposes, a five-weight, nine-foot rod is the industrystandard freshwater fly-fishing ensemble. Its versatility provides an infinite fund of success across species and water types. That, plus the fact that rods are implausibly well made these days (with materials originally intended for aerospace design) and packaged with lifetime warranties, means it’s entirely plausible to fish with a single fiveweight for the rest of your life.

A rare blend of qualities makes a great five-weight. Most crucially, it must cast well in all sorts of conditions with all manner of tackle: you want it to carry dry flies at short distances with feathery precision; it should shotgun streamers across roiling stretches of water, with sinktip line if needed; and it must chuck bass poppers into murky weed beds and extract them like swords from stones. The best rods have soft tips and fast action, brawny midsections and sturdy butt ends to help land fish quickly.

The crux, of course, is price. Of the five-weights reviewed here, the cheapest is $460. But think of it as an investment in your sanity, and also as a measure of what you intend to get out of the sport. You’ll nurture many agonies as a fly fisherman. Don’t let a fly rod be the source of your unraveling. Think plainly about this. Hear the rushing water. See the riverbank receding in mist. You want a rod to last the whole stretch of the way. You want it to be pretty while it helps you land your fish, year after epic year. These five rods offer the surest paths.

John O’Connor • Photo by Henry Phillips

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BEST ALL-AROUND ROD: G. LOOMIS NRX LP Flyfishing is not a realm that engenders consensus. But everyone I talked to about this rod — from finicky guides to jaded instructors to fly shop owners who trend towards lifelong contrarians nursing a final, bitter bone of contention — agreed that the NRX LP is a goddamned miracle. Count me among the fanatics. From its strapping power all the way down to the alignment dots on the ferrules, everything about this thing is pure, bottomless joy. The first time I cast the rod it nearly came out of my hands, so stunned I was by its unearthly balance and stately, flush delivery. Its sweet spot seems to be the 50-foot range, while its center is held aloft by a perfect swing weight that irons out even an inexpert cast. Lifetime warranty. $795

BEST WIND ROD: SAGE ONE 590-4 Every time I fish with a Sage I’m floored by its voluptuous craftsmanship, its immaculate surfaces — this one’s a glossy black with a polished walnut reel seat — and the feeling that I’ve encountered, after years of wandering, my true love. The One 590-4 employs Sage’s new carbon-resin compound (called “Konnetic” technology), which accounts for its slim profile and uncanny light touch. Uncanny, because the rod seems to spring-load torque like it’s shooting little pressurized puffs of air with each false cast, translating into a line speed that feels like it originated in a pistol — at a mere 2.75 ounces of rod, that’s no mean feat. My single quibble is the near-anorexic case, which admits the rod only after much cursing and wriggling. Lifetime warranty. $775

BEST ENDURANCE ROD: ORVIS HELIOS 2 There’s a sensation that comes over you on the water sometimes, usually in the dusky hours of fatigue, when a rod becomes a totally independent organism operating outside of you. The whoosh and slant of graphite can become possessed, as if an invisible hand were shoving it along. In that vein, the Helios 2 at times follows its own inexorable course, whistling with uncontainable force over the water. This rod, currently the lightest on the market at a scant 2.4 ounces, is also, after the NRX LP, arguably the best. The company’s PR jargon isn’t far off: “The Helios 2 is a featherlight war club that defies the laws of physics and has the backbone of an I-beam.” It’s also the prettiest rod out right now, painted a deep Gulf Stream aqua with a reel seat of “California buckeye burl” that seems stripped straight from the dash of a Rolls-Royce Phantom. 25-year warranty. $795

BEST MID-PRICED ROD: ST. CROIX LEGEND ELITE At about half the cost, the Legend Elite runs neck and neck with the best in the marketplace, a touch heavier than some but with the same quiet, subtle, enchanting performance you’d expect from one of the best rod manufacturers. With its supple tip, serious midsection muscle, smooth-aswax delivery and trigger-quick action, the Legend Elite is a multifaceted rod that’s terrific close in and at longer distances. I love the St. Croix “Gallatin green” patina, a shadowy jade that always makes me think of largemouth bass rocketing into the light at dusk. The company’s proprietary “FRS” (for “Fortified Resin System”) adds an extra plane of durability that’s reassuring for the catastrophe-prone. Lifetime warranty. $460

BEST DISTANCE ROD: SCOTT RADIAN The Radian has earned gobs of accolades from Field & Stream and Yellowstone Angler, ranking level with the NRX LP in almost every category except short range. I thought it cast excellently by every measure, though it performed especially well at long range. It felt exceedingly well balanced, almost weightless, as it swept in tight loops against the wind. I didn’t have to wrestle a lick with the size 6 bass popper I’d stupidly tied on, hoping the Radian would somehow enliven my awkward cast. It did. sunset orange and a reel seat of speckled ginger with a black aluminum skeleton. I loved everything about the rod except for one thing: it doesn’t come with a case, which is odd for an $800 rod that you’ll surely want to toss in your trunk among the tire irons and wading boots and 10-pound anchors.

It does, however, come with a lifetime warranty. $795

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Images by G. Loomis, Sage, Orvis, St Croix and Scott

The rod — the color a kind of faded charcoal — is a beauty to behold, with ferrules trimmed in a Napa

WISH LIST : 7/7

BERETTA 486 BY MARC NEWSON Henry Phillips • Photo by Henry Phillips The beauty of the Beretta 486 by Marc Newson is in the details: the perfectly polished barrels’ seamless transition into the receiver, the strikingly 21st-century opening lever that hovers above burnished walnut, an engraving that eschews gilded dogs and grouse for an homage to the pheasant’s native Asia.

The 486 isn’t one of Newson’s revolutionary forms like the Apple Watch or the Nike Zvezdochka, but it honors Beretta’s 500 years of manufacturing with one of his greatest designs to date. $24,900

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index Jeremy Berger

S o yo u made it to th e l ast p ag e. Or you ’re a con t ra r ia n a n d st a r ted w it h th e l a st page. Or the l ast p ag e fe l l ou t an d you fo u n d it o n t h e st reet , a pi e ce of blaze ora n g e p ap e r f l u t te r i n g al on g i n t h e w in d . I f t h e lat ter, u s e i t to wrap a sma l l g i f t . If t h e for me r, g e t b a c k in t h ere — n o way yo u c a u ght that floating com b on 176 .

300-Pound Ice Blocks

Gravity Defying Combs

128, 208-212

176

Antiquarian-Style Eyewear

Headphones

96, 199

28, 99, 153, 155, 170, 172, 268

Artisan Mayonnaise

Helicopters

27

COVER, 86-87, 89, 147, 151-155, 168

Avalanches

Illustrations

70-73, 147-148

30-31, 182-183, 206-207, 268-269, 272-273

Baked Goods

References to Top Gear

142, 235

30, 39, 81, 96-97, 240

52-53, 54, 57, 60, 62, 162

References to doing things “like a local”

Bridges

Knives

30-31, 38-39, 80-81, 206-207

22-23, 28-29, 164-165, 206-207

6-7, 26, 212-213, 224-225

Selfies

Bros Being Bros

Luggage

56

12-13, 20-23, 28-29, 42-45, 52-65, 84-94, 100,

27, 74-79, 170-177, 190, 200

Stubble

Maps

52-56, 58-59, 61-62, 65, 108, 116-117, 143, 146,

115, 130-133, 136-137, 140-149, 196-199, 218-231, 250-263, 268-275

Cameras 17, 70-71, 82-83, 95, 138, 171, 174, 177, 200

Crunchy Blackened Suckers 38

Cycling 13, 32-35, 51-66, 130-131

Dairy Products 31, 58-59, 62, 96-97

Food

182-183, 206-207

Men Looking Into the Distance 4-5, 63, 94, 103, 106-107, 108, 112-113, 136-137, 139,

275-277, 279-280

People Wearing Sunglasses 12-13, 52-58, 60, 62, 108, 132, 139

Photos of GP Staffers 12-13, 29, 52-55, 57-58, 60-63, 103, 106-109, 112-113, 115, 130-133, 136-137, 195

References to Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

148-149, 152-153, 222, 224, 230-231, 239, 251

Watches 11-12, 27, 103, 111, 139, 156-159, 172, 174-178, 195, 201

152-153, 180, 190-191, 220-221, 224, 228, 250

Wood Detailing

Pork Products

6-7, 26-27, 168, 172, 175, 195, 197-198, 199, 203, 212,

38-39, 96-97

The Color Orange COVER, SPINE, 2-3, 8-9, 11-13, 15-17, 19, 21, 27-28, 30, 32-36, 38-41, 44-45, 47-48, 50-65, 69, 73-74, 81, 85-86, 92-95, 97, 99, 101-106, 114-116, 120, 123-128, 131-133, 136-139, 141, 143, 149, 151, 153-155, 157, 160,

12-13, 30-31, 38-39, 58-59, 70,

162-163, 167-168, 170-171, 175, 178, 181-184, 190, 194,

80, 96-97, 116-123, 168, 184

198-200, 202-203, 205-207, 210-211, 213-214, 222,

280

225, 234, 236-238, 240-241, 243, 246-249, 266,

220-222, 223-224, 228, 230-231, 233, 238, 241, 276-279

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