Black Sand Beach - Hana, Hawaii

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The Suicide Clusters That Threaten Mountain Towns

Gear Hack: How to Fix Your Down Jacket

Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival

Tell President Trump Not to Raise Our Gear Prices

As Outside’s gear editor, I’ll be one of the first to admit that, much to the chagrin of many of our readers, we cover some expensive stuff. Anytime we write about an $8,000 carbon mountain bike or $900 ski shell, I fully expect a deluge of negative Facebook and Twitter comments.

Believe me, I understand the ire. That’s why we seek to balance the reviews of that splurgy, aspirational gear with coverage of more affordable products you don’t have to take out a second mortgage to afford. As for the expensive stuff, we’ll continue to cover it, because it’s our job to showcase the coolest, most capable product out there.

That gear is about to get more expensive. In fact, the price of pretty much every product we cover in the magazine, in our semiannual Buyer’s Guides, and on the website is about to go up. And we have President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs on Chinese imports to thank.

The outdoor industry was largely (but not totally) spared in the initial rounds of tariffs, in March and June, which covered raw materials like steel and aluminum, but also a broad range of consumer products, among them e-bikes and bike computers. Under the proposed new tariffs, things get more complicated: everything from ski gloves and knit hats to titanium stoves and knives will be taxed 10 to 25 percent as they enter the U.S. Outdoor brands have already gone on record saying that the increased cost will be shifted onto consumers. Cycling-advocacy group People for Bikes told Outside last week that it expects prices for bikes and accessories to increase 25 percent. That $8,000 carbon mountain bike I mentioned before? You’re looking at an additional two grand. That’s untenable. “It will force some companies to discontinue popular and profitable products and cease the development of new products that could significantly grow the company and the overall outdoor recreation economy,” Outdoor Industry Association international-trade manager Rich Harper said in his testimony before Congress in August. “And it will put many of these products out of the reach of U.S. consumers.”

It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario for some companies. Brent Merriam, CEO of NEMO, told Outside that brands could cope with the tariffs by raising prices and losing business as a result, or charge the same old prices, absorb the additional cost themselves, and go out of business. And, as Harper said in his testimony, it’s the smallest brands that stand to be hit hardest. More expensive gear is also liable to drive consumers away from pricier U.S.–made or distributed gear manufactured from tariffed materials. And as we reported last week, with the de minimus loophole that excludes imported personal online purchases under $800 from taxes, you might be more inclined to buy gear from sites like Amazon, which further undermines smaller U.S. companies and could result in you landing a knockoff—the very thing Trump claims these tariffs are meant to curb.

In the end, the rising expense of gear becomes yet another barrier to getting outside. You could argue that no one really needs the latest, most bomber skis or packs to enjoy nature. But under Trump’s tariffs, the affordable products could soon become the expensive products, and what was once merely expensive will be accessible only to professional athletes and the one percent. 

Now’s the time to speak up. The public-comment period for the new tariffs ends Wednesday, and you can submit your feedback to the government here. This administration has made concerted attack after concerted attack on access to the outdoors, from shrinking public lands to forcing up the cost of your camp stove. One of the things we here at Outside have been emphasizing lately is ways to broaden access and inclusiveness. As many of you have repeated in letters and online comments, the outdoors are for everyone, not just those who can afford it.

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‘A Toast to Iceland’

Trump’s National Park Service Superintendent Is a Win

On Friday, the Trump Administration announced its plan to nominate Raymond David Vela, the current chief of Grand Teton National Park, to lead the National Park Service. If Congress signs off, David Vela would become the first Latino superintendent of the NPS, with a resume that's extraordinarily encouraging for champions of public land. 

“David Vela has demonstrated all of the ideals that the National Park Service stands for, and his long track record of leadership on behalf of the people and places of the National Park Service distinguish him as the right man for the job,” Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said in a statement. “Our extraordinary national parks will be in the best of hands with David at the helm.”

Ordinarily, praise from Zinke would not be a good thing. Since his appointment, the DOI Secretary has spearheaded an assault on America’s public lands, as part of an effort to sell off our heritage to the oil and gas industries. But David Vela seems like a genuinely stellar candidate to fill a position that’s been empty since January 2017 when Jonathan Jarvis retired. 

David Vela began his career at the Park Service in 1981 as a cooperative education student at San Antonio Missions National Historical Park in Texas. He became a full-time park ranger soon after that, where he quickly rose through the ranks; in 1984, he was promoted to Supervisory Park Ranger at Virginia’s Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. Three years later, he left the park service to serve as a special agent in the Department of Health and Human Services. David Vela then served as the special assistant for Hispanic affairs for Texas Democratic congressman George Leland, while working as a special investigator in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1996, David Vela was appointed director of the Texas Child Support Program. He returned to the NPS in 1998, when he was appointed Superintendent of Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site in Texas. Since then, he's run the George Washington Memorial Parkway, in D.C., and Grand Teton National Park, in Wyoming. 

Even more promising, David Vela served as the park service’s associate director for Workforce, Relevancy, and Inclusion, where he oversaw various equal opportunity and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Given the park service’s current struggles with sexual harassment allegations and the outdoor recreation industry’s ongoing efforts to serve a more diverse audience, he sounds like exactly the right man for the job. “He is especially passionate about making our national parks more relevant to diverse populations,” stated park service Intermountain Regional Director Sue Masica in a 2014 press release. 

Should he be approved by Congress, David Vela will inherit all the aforementioned problems, in addition to the park service’s nearly $12-billion maintenance backlog. And he’ll be forced to tackle those issues within a DOI that’s openly hostile to the future of federally managed public lands. Is David Vela up for the challenge and will he work in the interest of the American people? We’ll find out. 

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What We Know About Vitamin D and Performance

Vitamin D is an essential nutrient that regulates some 1,000 processes in the body, and doctors have long known its importance to bone density and preventing the related illnesses like rickets and osteoporosis. Now researchers are beginning to study its role in athletic performance. While an extra dose of vitamin D might increase muscle strength and endurance, the science is far from settled. Still, many athletes are eyeing the vitamin for possible performance gains.

Given that the science is still young, is it worth hitting the drugstore? To find out, we reached out to some experts to understand what we know about the nutrient and what that means for athletes.

The Basics of Vitamin D

The main sources of vitamin D are sunshine and certain foods, including salmon, cod liver oil, and fortified cereal and dairy products. The USDA suggests an intake of 600 International Units per day, or 800 IU for adults over 70. You can easily meet that recommendation by spending 15 minutes outside on a sunny day.

In athletes, a vitamin D deficiency increases your risk of stress fractures, anemia, and a weakened immune system—all of which can hurt performance. In a study of 214 NFL players, scientists observed more muscle injuries in athletes with lower vitamin D levels. There’s no clear consensus about how widespread the deficiency is. In 2015 review, scientists found that about 56 percent of athletes had inadequate levels of the vitamin. Still, in a large-scale review, researchers at the National Academy of Medicine (then the U.S. Institute of Medicine) observed that, on average, Americans’ vitamin D levels appeared fine.

One cause of this discrepancy is that scientists don’t agree on the definition of “adequate” when it comes to vitamin D levels. The most common test for the nutrient measures a precursor version of its hormone form—the form of the vitamin that is actually used by the body. Sometimes this precursor doesn’t predict how much vitamin D exists in hormone form. Certain researchers, like those with the Endocrine Society, argue for higher concentration thresholds than than those of the National Academy of Medicine.

That said, some factors might increase your likelihood of a deficiency, such as living far away from the equator. During the Canadian winter, for example, it’s nearly impossible for your body to naturally produce vitamin D, says Dylan Dahlquist, a researcher and editor at Science Driven Nutrition. To prevent skin cancer, many people avoid unfiltered sun exposure entirely, says Graeme Close, a professor of sport and exercise sciences at Liverpool John Moores University. Though Close advises precautionary measures to avoid sunburns, ten to 15 minutes of UV exposure will help meet your daily vitamin D needs. Fair-skinned people can sustain sun-related skin damage in as little as five minutes, so vitamin D is no excuse to skimp on protection.

Skin tone is also a factor in how our bodies produce and use vitamin D. Higher-melanin skin blocks more UV rays, limiting vitamin D production. Some experts think this puts darker-skinned athletes at higher risk of a deficiency, but it’s still unclear what this means for bone health. “Some of the athletes with the strongest bones I have ever tested are darker skinned [and have] low vitamin D,” Close says. “It may be incorrect to have a blanket target concentration for all people.” So, while there’s a correlation between vitamin D and bone health and between dark skin and vitamin D absorption, the connection between dark skin and poor bone health is a leap that still isn’t backed by robust research.

Vitamin D and Performance

A number of studies in recent years have investigated a new possible function for vitamin D: boosting athletic performance. Preliminary research shows that supplementing with the vitamin could improve muscle strength, power, and recovery time. In a 2014 study, soccer players took a hefty dose of 5,000 IU per day for eight weeks. These supplements were linked to faster sprints and higher jumps. In another study of 14 rowers, a daily 6,000 IU regimen seemed to boost athletes’ maximum oxygen uptake, which is a measure of the body’s ability to use oxygen and thus generate energy.

The problem with these conclusions, aside from the small sample size in many of the studies, is that it’s still unclear whether the performance-enhancing benefits are related to remedying an existing vitamin D deficiency or increasing the nutrient to a greater, more optimal level. In other words, is it simply that the athletes in those studies were deficient? Or is there a performance-enhancing benefit of taking vitamin D even if you’re not deficient?

“In some cases, we are running before we have walked,” Close says. “In sports now, most athletes are taking vitamin D, and we have not seen a revolution in race times and injury rates.”

All the experts interviewed for this story agreed that performance-enhancing benefits of large doses, while intriguing, are still unclear.

Should You Supplement?

Getting enough vitamin D starts with a well-balanced, healthy diet, Dahlquist says. Still, it can take a lot of vitamin-rich foods to hit your daily needs, especially if you’re unable to get much sunlight.

According to Dahlquist, given the potentially high rate of deficiency, some supplementation doesn’t hurt. He recommends 1,000 to 2,000 IUs of the supplement (in the form of vitamin D3) per day, particularly in winter. This higher dose reflects the fact that athletes likely need more, since intense exercise burns through nutrients fast. Close advises against supplementing with more than 4,000 IU per day, however; beyond that amount, he found that the body stalls its use of the nutrient. In rare cases, regular supplementation of more than 4,000 IU a day can lead to vitamin D toxicity and a subsequent buildup of calcium in the bloodstream, called hypercalcemia. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, and frequent urination.

Shane J. Nho, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist, adds that he advises female athletes to take vitamin D and calcium to prevent osteoporosis later in life. “[The bones are] almost like a bank account,” he says. “Basically, we need to save enough so that in the future, as your bones become more brittle, you’ll have enough stored calcium and calcium uptake to prevent fractures.”

If you’re still concerned about your levels, get a blood test. The test isn’t perfect, but it’s cheap and easy, requiring just a small sample of blood from your fingertip, and can offer some valuable insights, Close says. If you choose this route, keep in mind that your results can vary with the seasons.

Overall, while the performance-enhancing benefits of vitamin D aren’t definitive, having at least adequate levels of the nutrient is important for overall health. Close and Nho say that, especially for competitive athletes, it’s important to watch for and correct deficiencies. And, Dahlquist argues, maintaining your health by supplementing can in turn help you maximize performance.

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A Portable Fire Pit Is a Backyard Essential

5 Ways to Use Leftover Bacon Grease

If you’ve ever watched your grandmother cook, you probably noticed her saving every ounce of rendered bacon fat. And if you’re like me, you’ve probably started doing this too. And if you’re really like me, you now have an overflowing container of bacon fat in your fridge that needs to be dealt with.

It turns out there are a bunch of ways to put that leftover grease to use for camping. Here are five of our favorite uses for the stuff, and three tips from the internet that you should definitely not trust.

Do Use It to Butter Your Backcountry Toast

Another thing you probably saw your grandmother do was keep the bacon grease on the counter. Because it’s nearly all fat, grease is surprisingly shelf stable. In fact, we asked a food safety expert at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and found out that you’re more likely to notice off flavors from the oil going rancid before you run into a bacterial issue. And because bacon fat, like butter, is solid at room temperature, it’s the perfect thing to bring on multiday camping trips. Smear it on bread for a quick calorie hit, or stir it into your rehydrated mashed potatoes for an instant meal upgrade.

Do Use It to Stoke Your Fire

Cotton-ball fire starters are all the rage in the prepper community. The usual recommendation is to soak cotton balls with Vaseline, but bacon grease also works, as long as you pull the cotton ball apart to let it breathe more. After that, you’re ready to light some kindling.

Do Use It to Season Your Cast-Iron Collection

Seasoning your skillet adds years to its life and gives it that gorgeous black patina. In our guide to cleaning cast iron, we recommend seasoning by cooking regularly with coconut oil. While it’s not the most preferred, bacon grease can work as well—it just might not coat the skillet as uniformly. If you want to try it, give your skillet a good rubdown with grease from your jar of lard and put it in the oven for an hour at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Do Use It to Make Bangin’ Dog Biscuits

You wouldn’t leave for a multiday trip without some extra-tasty snacks, would you? So why would you pack just boring old kibble for your four-legged companion? Bacon grease adds a huge amount of flavor to homemade dog biscuits. Try this recipe.

Do Use It to Moisturize Parched Hiking Boots

Aside from being tasty, bacon grease acts like lotion on leather boots. While it’s probably not as ideal as using true leather moisturizer, if you’re 13 days into a 30-day hike and your boots are starting to crack, smear some bacon grease on those bad boys or girls. A couple caveats: Don’t use bacon grease on synthetic boots, and it might be best to avoid this if you’re in bear country.

Do Not Use It to Condition Your Canvas Clothing

Grease is hydrophobic, so it should, in theory, repel water. Luckily, before we tried to waterproof our favorite hunting pants with it, we called Nathan Grey, a product specialist at Filson. “I would not recommend anyone use bacon grease,” he says. “I’d rather get wet until I could get some wax to treat it properly.” Bacon grease, Grey says, would probably stiffen up in colder temperatures and might attract bacteria and get “really foul smelling.”

Do Not Use It as Bug Repellant

There’s a myth that a little bacon grease can keep flies and other unwanted bugs away. In most instances, I heard this rumor among the equestrian crowd, who use it on their horses. But it would stand to reason that if it works on a horse, it might work on a human. We put this one to the folks behind All the Biscuits in Georgia, a Southern pro-bacon blog. Their response was a firm no. “Smelling like bacon may make you attractive to bears, bobcats, coyotes, yellow jackets, fire ants, and some other unfriendly wildlife that wish you ill.”

Do Not Use It to Feed Your Dog

Yes, we gave you a dog treat recipe that uses bacon grease, but that was okay because it’s mixed with other ingredients and not a significant portion of your pup’s diet. In large quantities, bacon fat can make your dog sick. Rick Woodford, the author of Feed Your Best Friend Better, advises keeping fats like this to a minimum. They tend to be loaded with sodium, and too much salt at one time could result in vomiting, diarrhea, and pancreatitis. It’s rare, but sometimes bacon doesn’t make everything better.

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It might not be a scenic view, but to me nothing compares to how protected I feel in the forest.

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