Get Out!

I had the pleasure of taking a 9-year-old girl on her first rock climbing outing last weekend at the Hocking State Forest Rock Climbing and Rappelling Area . Then I had the – well, I wouldn’t say pleasure – of seeing her Junior Girl Scout Badge Book. Flipping through the guide, I truly couldn’t believe some of what I saw. Did you know that young Girl Scouts can earn a badge for Looking Your Best? I am not making this up. The actual sew-on badge features a hairbrush, a comb and a mirror. Then here’s the badge big oil somehow managed to get into the Girl Scout curriculum: Oil Up. The badge is an oil derrick and it only goes downhill from there. (In fairness, the guide has a photo of a bear with spilled crude oil on her fur. She is definitely not looking her best.) It’s not all bad, of course. There are plenty of standard badges – Swimming, Adventure Sports, Finding Your Way (compass skills) and Being My Best. There are even some progressive elements in the Girl Scout Badge Book – the Car...

The tagline for Get Out! magazine is “outdoor adventure in the Ohio River region.” As an outdoor adventurer, I only occasionally ask myself what adventure is. Sometimes it’s like porn: you can’t define it, but you know it when you see it. According to Merriam-Webster.com, adventure is defined as: 1 a: an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b: the encountering of risks 2: an exciting or remarkable experience 3: an enterprise involving financial risk It’s interesting that the dictionary definition of adventure largely invokes the word risk. If adventure were strictly defined by risk, then driving a car to the trailhead would be the most adventurous part of your trip (see What Will Really Kill You Outdoors ). But there is some truth to that – backpacking in bear country is definitely adventurous and largely because it’s so risky, or at least it feels risky. Ditto whitewater rafting, skydiving, rock climbing, BASE jumping, biking in rush hour traffic and so on. I’d like...

I was trolling through some of the regional outdoor blogs I post on getoutzine.com and came upon this one, from Bird Watcher's Digest: Spark Bird . It's a great concept: what bird sparked your interest in your lifelong pursuit of bird watching ? I knew my answer immediately. When I lived in Colorado, I spent many an afternoon cycling on the roads where the high plains meet the Rocky Mountains. I wasn't a birder at all. Nor was I much interested in the world around me except to play in it. But there was this beautiful - beautiful! - bird song that demanded I listen. Now I am demanding, or at least requesting, that you listen . Every time I jerked my helmeted head around to see where this song was coming from, a bird with a yellow breast with a big black V was sitting there on the fence. Could spotting it get any easier than that? I borrowed a friend's Peterson's Guide to Western birds and there it was - the Western meadowlark. Now I am only a backyard birder, but the...

Actually, everyone isn’t a critic, but it can sometimes feel that way. For example, I was once at a party and met a guy who was training to swim around the island of Manhattan. Wow. I was really impressed, excited for him, peppered him with questions about his training regimen, congratulated him in advance for even dipping one toe into the frigid and polluted water. Then I mentioned the woman (Alison Streeter) who has swum across the English Channel something like 43 times – you know, the chubbiest elite athlete you’ve ever seen. She rocks! His tone turned on a dime and he began to badmouth her for some kind of insanely insignificant point. I think she puts Vaseline between her thighs to prevent chafing or something like that. To him, this all but disqualifies her feats. My mental reaction to his criticism was, what an asshole. My verbal response wasn’t too much nicer, something like, “Yeah, she sucks. Swim the English Channel? Hey, a fish could do that.” But this isn’t the way I wa...

New Year’s resolutions are a great way to take some time to think about goals for the next year, but there’s reason to be cynical about them. As John Katsares, personal trainer coordinator for Ohio State University’s Recreation and Physical Activity Center says in our article, Make Your New Year’s Weight Loss Resolution Stick , the New Year’s resolution attendance ‘bump’ at fitness centers usually is over by Valentine’s Day. I have a goal that I’d like to achieve in 2009: climbing in Yosemite. But I face stiff challenges, including fitness (I’ve had some injuries in 2008), time (I launched a magazine in 2008) and money (I launched a magazine in 2008). But over the course of the last year, I’ve either been reminded of or learned about a few tricks to help me reach my goal. For one, the ultimate motivators are buddies and goals . My 2009 goal is stated and I have two people who want to reach this goal, too. Hopefully, we’ll keep each other on track. We also have mini climbing goals to pr...

I’ve been thinking of what to give my niece and nephews (all under 10) for the holidays. The holiday would be Christmas in their household, but the question applies to all holidays and gift-giving celebrations. Well I’ve got my own little agenda with this one. They live in a household where they don’t go outside often and they watch a lot of TV. I, of course, want to turn them into environmentalist outdoor lovers and future backpacking, biking, climbing and paddling partners. Plus, I want to lead by example and try to move toward a zero-waste holiday event. Tall order, huh? Here are my best ideas: 1. Vintage outdoor gear. Think about it: what would be more meaningful to you, a new Swiss army knife or the knife your great grandfather used while in the Swiss army? A no brainer. My version is this: I am going to take a retired climbing rope and cut it into jump rope-sized sections. They can jump rope with their sections, but I will also use the ropes as a chance to teach them some basic...

In the course of my job as editor of Get Out! magazine, I talk to a lot of outdoor adventurers. When I talk to cavers, it’s usually a different experience than when I talk to others. I get a lot of suspicion – who are you, what’s your agenda and so on. When I ask them about their favorite caves, I often receive no reply. While this behavior can be off putting, there is a very good reason for it: cavers guard their favorite caves like nobody’s business. If you join a grotto – a local caving club – they are likely to first take you to a so-called sacrifice cave. That is, they’ll take you to a place that isn’t that great or pristine in order to check you out. Only when you prove your conservationist cred – and only after they’ve had a chance to teach you a thing or two about cave conservation – will they introduce you to an underground world you never knew existed. My favorite cave is right here in the Ohio River region. A couple of friends and I pieced together word-of-mouth information ...