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It’s not easy to get into rock climbing. Starting out means building strength, mastering knots, and—for some of us, anyway—conquering a fear of heights. But for many would-be climbers, the hardest part isn’t technical know-how or tricky moves: it’s just getting to the wall.

It’s a problem...

Journalist and photographer Michael A. Estrada doesn’t shy away from the big questions. And right now the biggest question driving his art and work is how our relationship with nature—and our self-perception—are influenced by the mainstream depiction of the Great Outdoors: an esoteric realm, far...

The veteran of more than 20 long-distance wilderness hikes, Liz Thomas knows how to navigate the most remote, wild places on earth. In 2011, she set the record for the fastest female thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, and she’s gone on to make a living as...

Lisa Bauman-Cook has spent thousands of hours crawling, shimmying, scrambling, and rappelling into caves across the western United States. But do not call her a spelunker. 

That term, she says, was coined by mid-20th-century tourism boosters to entice customers into caves. As a result, in...