Behind The Curtain

2025 Banff Mountain Book Award Finalist: Mountain Article Division

“Nathan Kukathas hadn’t slept in five days. The bleary-eyed Australian sat in his workshop, bent over his sewing machine, delirious from lack of sleep. The room was strewn with the carcasses and guts of gear. Wads of fabric, heaps of insulation, spools of thread. Kukathas ran a hand through his wild, dark hair, and took another sip of cold coffee. His flight was about to leave. But he had everything under control.”

Feature; print only

Years After My Mentor Died in the Tetons, I Retraced His Final Steps

“When my alarm split open the darkness at 1:00 AM on July 10, 2021, I wondered vaguely if this was the day I was going to die. The climb I was about to do was the one that had killed my mentor. A piece of me wondered if I was doomed to the same.”

Feature; online only

Tahiti’s Massive Open-Ocean Canoe Race is As Badass As it Sounds

"As I clutched the side of the boat, drenched, shivering and desperately trying to keep my breakfast down, I couldn’t help but remember that Steve had tried to warn us.”

Feature; online only

Thomas Camero
Finished Last

“Thomas Camero doesn’t look like a legend. He doesn’t look 78 years old, either. If you stare a little longer, you’ll maybe notice the wire-frame glasses or the ears that stick out a little from under his helmet. But mostly, you’ll notice the grin.”

Feature; online only

The Harrowing Beauty of the Torment-Forbidden Traverse

“Climbing Washington State’s Torment-Forbidden Traverse feels like riding the spine of a dragon. The ridge shifts and molts. Water vapor clings to the gendarmes like wisps of smoke. You’re dirty, exhausted, and in peril, with no easy way off.”

Should Obscene or Offensive Routes Be Renamed?

“Melissa Utomo’s first trip to Ten Sleep, Wyoming, was memorable. Sure, the limitless limestone and sea of wildflowers left an impression. But what stood out most was an area called the Slavery Wall. Flipping through the guidebook, Utomo was shocked: Routes included Happiness in Slavery (5.12b), Aunt Jemima’s Bisquick Thunderdome (5.12c), and 40 Acres and a Mule (5.11a).”

All Hail the Upcycling Queen

“Nicole McLaughlin, a fashion designer, artist, and gorpcore icon based in Boulder, Colorado, has made a jacket from oven mitts—and an oven mitt from a loaf of bread. She’s turned cereal bags (still filled with Froot Loops and Corn Flakes) into a vest, and she’s sewn a puffy jacket filled with toy cars. Each of her garments is quirky and evocative—and has the power to chip away at the very foundations of the outdoor gear world.”

Feature; print and online

The Secret Joy of Hiking in the Rain

“The air was still. Mist clung to the tree branches like gauze. Walls of white curtained every horizon.

‘It’s so green here,’ I said as we plunged into the forest. ‘So different from home.’ As soon as I said it, I winced: I had no home, not anymore. I’d torn the roots out of the life I’d built in Colorado. Now, I was living out of a suitcase. I was between houses. I felt like I was between lives.”

At Denver’s George Floyd Protests, the Brothers of Brass Set the Rhythm

“For Brothers of Brass band founder Khalil Simon, there are two essential tools of protest: a megaphone and a sousaphone.”

Breaking the Bank

“As you read this, your life savings are funding things that probably repulse you. You’re paying to raze the Amazon, lay pipe across Arctic tundra, and manufacture the cigarette butts that line the bellies of fish. You didn’t make those decisions. But your bank did.”

Feature; print and online

This is What You Learn When You Bury Your Father

“This winter, I buried my father’s ashes with a long-handled floral shovel in the soil behind our house. When someone you love dies, the world flips. I was suddenly hanging by my feet, staring down into the earth. Staring back into the past.”

Finding Home, One Leaf at a Time

“I kneel in the dirt on the side of the trail, just beyond the sumac’s reach, and thumb a blade of grass to compare the ligule to my fingernail. To anyone else, the bundle of stems wouldn’t be worth a second glance. But it is to me. I need to know what it is. I need to know its name.”

It’s Time to Give Up the Longevity Experiment

“Over recent years, the longevity trend has ballooned into a billion-dollar industry. From plasma infusions and vampire facials to fad diets and exercise regimes, there’s a lot you can do to try and claw back days, months, or even years of your youth.

But does any of it actually work? Or are you more likely to waste years of your life in trying to extend it?”

Feature; online only

Cold War

“The elevator bundled us down, and the narrow hallway coughed us out, and that’s where the cold found us again. It crept up and sank in and made itself at home in the marrow of our bones. But tonight was Christmas Eve. Stars hung from the bellies of bridges, their reflections glittering in the canals below. Tonight, there was light enough in Russia to keep the ghosts at bay.”

Feature; print and online

Scotland is Reinventing its Centuries-Old Canals for Paddlers

“When we told our Scottish friends our plan to kayak from Glasgow to Edinburgh, they were anything but supportive. Scotland is home to stunning peaks, scenic coasts and mist-veiled lochs—but the canals?”

Shifting Gears

“My bike tottered. My screaming quads and rasping lungs made their opinion very clear: No gear was low enough for this hill.

Far ahead, my coworkers, chatting easily, pedaled uphill in their sleek wind jackets and flashy clip-in shoes. For a minute, I hated them.”

The Mountain You Never Finish Climbing

“As descents into madness go, this one was slow and steady. If you wanted to, you could trace my downward spiral to age 15 when I started pinching my side in the high school lunch line to remind myself not to add dessert to my tray.”

Game of Fear

“The wind was growing violent. Sílvia Vidal glanced at the gray-green fly of her portaledge. The nylon quivered. A storm was coming.

Vidal had been living on the wall for more than a month. When it rained, she climbed anyway, hooking edges, tapping gear into seams, and rigging improbable pendulums over wet rock and dirty ledges. The rain didn’t bother her. The ferocious Patagonian wind, however, was another story.”

Feature; print only.

How a Fantastical Labyrinth Became a Refuge for Europe’s Bats

“Mother and son walked the maze with candles in hand. The dim light led the way, catching against whorls and ridges in the hand-carved walls. The vaulted ceiling soared overhead and the shadows crowded close. Masing held his breath.”

Lauren Shartell Becomes the Second U.S. Woman to Send The Lightning

“On November 8, 2020, after 160 feet of climbing, Lauren Shartell stuck both picks into thin ice and pulled onto the slab that rims Vail's Rigid Designator Amphitheatre.”

The Strange Underworld of Competition Ice Climbing

“The man in charge has a horseshoe mustache and an enormous Russian fur hat. It’s March 2019, cold, and he’s been stomping around this defunct apple orchard in Michigan, with a power drill for days now…”

Feature; online only

Learning to Embrace the Invisible on New Zealand’s Mt. Taranaki

“We watch the cloud’s ragged hem through the high windows as it rises and falls on the slope like an ocean tide. Tomorrow, we’re to climb a vertical mile up a mountain we’ve yet to see.”