THERE'S NOTHING MORE inspiring to us than great adventure writing, so it's only fitting that we launch Outside Books—a new joint book imprint from this magazine and W.W. Norton & Company—with Points Unknown: A
Century of Great Exploration, an anthology of wilderness obsessions, idylls, and ordeals that arrives in bookstores this month. In assembling Points Unknown, David Roberts, a longtime contributing editor, prolific author, and a mountaineer with 30 first ascents to his credit, selected stories from classic modern
adventure books, with subjects ranging from turn-of-the-century Arctic exploration and 20th-century first ascents to recent epics such as the tragic tale of the Andrea Gail's last voyage in the North Atlantic, excerpted from Sebastian Junger's best-seller, The Perfect Storm. (Junger's
book began as an article in Outside's October 1994 issue and was published by Norton in 1997.) The anthology also offers the eerie journal of Robert Falcon Scott in the final days of his doomed South Pole expedition, H. M. Tomlinson's little-known account of his journey by sea from England to Brazil and on foot
through the Amazon, and Jon Krakauer's story of his solo attempt on Alaska's Devil's Thumb.
"Every generation of adventurers laments the fact that it was born too late," writes Roberts in his introduction. "But in the year 2000 adventure is alive and well. And in the 21st century, an incalculable richness of journeys await." Indeed, the roster of titles planned for Outside Books suggests that the spirit of exploration, though much
changed over the last century, is not dead at all. Look for a collection of Wild File columns and the first three Outside Adventure Travel Guides this spring.
Of course, not all adventures end well. Twenty years ago this fall, an American summit attempt on 24,790-foot Minya Konka in China's recently opened Ta-hsüeh Mountains was cut short when an avalanche carried Kim Schmitz, Jonathan Wright, Yvon Chouinard, and Rick Ridgeway on a
terrifying 1,500-foot slide. Ridgeway, Chouinard, and Schmitz survived, but Wright died minutes later. He left behind a wife and a one-year-old daughter, Asia. Nineteen years later, as Ridgeway turned 50 and Asia Wright turned 20, Ridgeway accompanied Asia on a journey to her father's grave on Minya Konka. "It was probably the most
meaningful trip I've ever taken," says Ridgeway, who was among the first Americans to summit K2 in 1978 and is the author of five books. His latest, Below Another Sky, about his journey with Asia, will be published in January by Henry Holt.
David Quammen
When Editor-at-Large David Quammen skied into the Carpathian Mountains, he encountered some of the few Romanians to have benefited from the country's former Communist rule: wolves and brown bears. "Still, the locals say you can walk in the forest for years and not see one," says Quammen, who's traveling the world researching his next book,
tentatively titled Monsters of God, about the relationship between humans and large predators. "The Post-Communist Wolf"Craig Vetter
You'd think climbing 12 of the world's 8,000-meter peaks without bottled oxygen would require a maniacal, even antisocial single-mindedness. But contributing editor Craig Vetter found none of this in Ed Viesturs, the best-paid mountaineer in the world. "I couldn't find a single cranky moment," says Vetter, who lives in Chicago. "The Immovable Object Meets the Unstoppable Force" leads our cover package.
John Goodman
Boston-based portrait specialist John Goodman prefers photographing athletes because they offer more to look at. "This shoot was like some crazy sports event," says Goodman, who met with Outside All-Stars Ed Viesturs, big-mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones,
and champion musher Doug Swingley (with his 50-pound lead husky, Cola), among others, on Plum Island, Massachusetts. "They brought a dog, a kayak, ropes—their toys, the things that they love."
Porter Fox
While in Golden—a rough British Columbia mill town blessed with prime powder and the largest North American ski resort upgrade in the last 20 years—Porter Fox found himself in the middle of a 65-man open-air brawl. "I got to see the meat and bones of the town," says Fox, who lives in San Juan Capistrano, California. He escaped the
fight after his heli-guide pulled up in a 4Runner and opened the door. "Golden Rules" appears on page 30.
John Balzar
John Balzar, who recently mushed in the Yukon and sailed across the Pacific, isn't interested in adventure as much as our relationship with the outdoors. Which led him to Baja's sole clothing-optional resort ("Baja Beach Babylon,"). "The outdoors enhances your
senses anyway," says Balzar, who is a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and author of Yukon Alone, published last year by Henry Holt. "Being in the buff just happens to feel even better."
THERE'S NOTHING MORE inspiring to us than great adventure writing, so it's only fitting that we launch Outside Books—a new joint book imprint from this magazine and W.W. Norton & Company—with Points Unknown: A
Century of Great Exploration, an anthology of wilderness obsessions, idylls, and ordeals that arrives in bookstores this month. In assembling Points Unknown, David Roberts, a longtime contributing editor, prolific author, and a mountaineer with 30 first ascents to his credit, selected stories from classic modern
adventure books, with subjects ranging from turn-of-the-century Arctic exploration and 20th-century first ascents to recent epics such as the tragic tale of the Andrea Gail's last voyage in the North Atlantic, excerpted from Sebastian Junger's best-seller, The Perfect Storm. (Junger's
book began as an article in Outside's October 1994 issue and was published by Norton in 1997.) The anthology also offers the eerie journal of Robert Falcon Scott in the final days of his doomed South Pole expedition, H. M. Tomlinson's little-known account of his journey by sea from England to Brazil and on foot
through the Amazon, and Jon Krakauer's story of his solo attempt on Alaska's Devil's Thumb.
