Three pieces of excellent outdoor-related writing to note here included two works from Outside Magazine and one from Field & Stream.
From the June issue of Outside was an essay by William Broyles titled "My son and the bear". Broyles is a noted author and screenwriter and his essay was about fathers and sons, hiking in the woods, and memories of dangerous times fighting in Vietnam. The writing is riveting and with an additional part of the story of course being about... a bear, the story reminded me of a great short piece "Pain" that C.J. Chivers (more on him later in this post) wrote for Field & Stream on a Grizzly Bear attack.
The second piece from Outside to mention here was "Escaping the recession by boat" from Sarah Rose. Written for the August issue of Outside, the story from Rose is about three 20-somethings sailing the Pacific. It's an interesting and well done article on Nick and Alex Kleeman and their friend Dave Green in an adventure based not necessarily in foolhardiness, but at least relative inexperience and enthusiasm. In addition to the piece itself, I found myself interested in the "Between the Lines" page at the beginning of the issue where Rose briefly detailed her time in the South Pacific reporting the story. Waiting for four days, sleeping in coffin-like quarters, suffering from seasickness and food poisoning... sounds like quite the glamorous time she had.
The other outdoor piece I found of note was by the aforementioned C.J. Chivers with "Powerless at Sea: How a Spare Fuse Became a Lifesaver" for the July issue of Field & Stream. This story of time fishing with his family is a sort of follow up to his piece "Operation Thresher: Fishing for Monster Sharks off The Shores of Rhode Island" and writing from Chivers strikes me as just so authentic with his experience as a Marine Captain and conflict reporter as well as outdoorsman.
