The Boston Athletic Association’s (B.A.A.) Tom Burke called out each entrant’s name. Hamilton Gray, representing the St. George Athletic Club of New York, had won a national 10-mile championship. In Harvard’s crimson was medical student and star miler Richard Grant, the local favorite. And wearing the dark blue singlet and baggy shorts of New York’s … Continue reading Little Mac: America’s First Great Marathoner
A Hiker Investigates His Fear of Heights I. One of my oldest memories survives from an unknown year in the early 1980s, when I was 6 or 7, and takes place near the top of a long-since-forgotten mountain in Acadia National Park. I had been following my parents as usual when we stepped out from … Continue reading High Jinxed
Foraging with Russ Cohen Three large black walnut trees stand in a perfect line, parallel to the side of a home in Wenham, Mass. An old rope swing dangles from a lofty branch. The owner says her kids sometimes bounce on the swing to dislodge walnuts from high above. Hundreds of the nuts litter the … Continue reading Outdoor Dining
Dogsledding in the Maine Wilderness I’m wary of big dogs, especially those that look like wolves. So when Stephen Madera asks me to help Teddy, a 50-pound Siberian husky, get down from the kennel on the back of his truck, I’m nervous. “He might like to use your shoulder,” Madera says. I hook a hand … Continue reading One of the Team
Lauren Fleshman Finds Herself in Oregon A few wisps of dirty blond hair and a primal “OOOOOOW!” emerge from inside Lauren Fleshman’s hood. She holds her black sweatshirt above her navel to keep it dry and lowers her legs into the Willamette River’s frigid current. It’s a cold Friday morning in mid-December. She soaks here … Continue reading The Professional
Tom Wessels teaches us about much more than trees Rain drips through the canopy of pine needles and yellowing sumac and bounces off the brim of Tom Wessels’s green felt hat. He’s standing on a narrow, leaf-strewn trail in Keene, N.H., declaring the pile of rocks at his feet to be the eighth wonder of … Continue reading Beyond the Forest
A Mid-Atlantic Bike Tour I’d expected a day of uninterrupted, flat pedaling along the Delaware River. But small nuisances that don’t show on a map—that you wouldn’t even notice in a car—mounted. A bit of flood damage. Road construction. Angry geese. River Road wasn’t flat and meandering as I’d imagined, but Hill Road lived up … Continue reading Roads Less Traveled
The Story of the Ill-Fated Antarctica Marathon “Good morning everybody! This is your 5:30 wake up call,” boomed the speaker in the corner of my cabin on Tuesday, February 6th, for the second day in a row. “It’s a blustery morning out there. A little snow. It’s zero degrees Celsius, and the winds are moderate, … Continue reading Whistling Up the Wind
Marc Chalufour 