Interviews

Two years ago, Nate and Steph Yarbrough, both now 29, posted their first YouTube video announcing their move into a van. Both their channel and blog, Adventure in a Backpack, were created as journals to share their new lives working full-time on the road with family and friends. ...read more

Fred Beckey’s best friends were the mountains and everything else in his life was secondary to them, up until the climbing renegade passed away in October 2017. One man had the unique opportunity to spend the last 12 years with Beckey, when his wrinkles were deeper, gray hair was ...read more

In celebration of the amazing women in the outdoor industry, and of March as Women's History Month, SNEWS has featured a number of female leaders in stories about Camber Outdoors' Deanne Buck to 10 rad women-led companies. In this new Q&A series, we asked women in all sorts of ...read more

On a trip to the Lower Salmon River in Idaho, Alan Davis had his first vision for his own company. Someone had brought along a two-piece chair that didn't last through the trip. He wanted to create one for himself that was invincible and wouldn't break under any weight. He ...read more

In celebration of the amazing women in the outdoor industry, and of March as Women's History Month, SNEWS has featured a number of female leaders in stories about Camber Outdoors' Deanne Buck to 10 rad women-led companies. In this new Q&A series, we asked women in all sorts of ...read more

In order to complete the full running loop on a recent Run Wild Retreats trip in Iceland, a group of 15 women needed to cross an unexpectedly high, rushing river. Elinor Fish, the retreat group’s founder, watched on as one woman’s trepidation turned into elation as she crossed ...read more

In celebration of the amazing women in the outdoor industry, and of March as Women's History Month, SNEWS has featured a number of female leaders in stories about Camber Outdoors' Deanne Buck to 10 rad women-led companies. In this new Q&A series, we asked women in all sorts of ...read more

Courtney Matthews has been creating marketing concepts for outdoor brands since 1994. She's done stints at media outlets like BACKPACKER and Bicycling magazines, as well as at big brands like The North Face and Sierra Designs.Recently joining the Active Interest Media team as ...read more

Forty-six years ago, a passionate hiker, climber and camper named John Burroughs had a groundbreaking idea: Sleeping on the solid earth, surrounded by the wilderness that he loved, shouldn’t need to be miserable.Burroughs had a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford and, at ...read more

Even with a sneaker on one foot and a climbing shoe on the other, Deanne Buck ascended with grace up an overhung, 50-foot wall at Boulder’s Movement Climbing & Fitness on a recent Friday evening. In the empty gym, she and I made our way from route to route, and in evaluating each ...read more

Hilde Midthjell is one of Norway’s richest women, and the first to earn 1 billion Norwegian Kroner (by 2016), according to the country’s business magazine, Kapital. She got there by founding, owning, and managing one of Scandinavia’s largest cosmetic and skincare distribution ...read more

Diversifying the outdoor industry is critical, says Jeff Wiguna—not only to sell more gear, but ultimately to expand the reach of its environmentally friendly, sustainable, and healthy-living philosophies. That’s the goal for Wiguna’s newly established Outdoor Diversity Coalition ...read more

The adventure travel industry is thinking about the footprint it leaves behind. Beyond the tourism dollars outfitters bring to remote parts of the world, Chris Baker, a former Teach For America corps member and Yale University graduate (where he spent a semester in Nepal), wanted ...read more

These days, next year’s gear from Outdoor Retailer hits social media feeds within seconds—or even before the show—giving consumers pause in their purchase decisions: “Maybe I should wait until next year to buy those new skis with the latest technology?” Those early announcements ...read more

Self-described “brand turnaround guy” John Walbrecht has spent his career pushing innovation at companies like Timberland, Spyder Active Sports, Fenix Outdoor, and Mountain Hardwear. So when he took the helm at Black Diamond in fall 2016, it’s no surprise that his goal was to ...read more

For many, Pittsburgh doesn’t conjure up the image of an outdoor town. But after Christine Iksic and Chris Kaminski moved back to the ‘Burgh after separately spending several years of living elsewhere, the two business partners saw an opportunity for an independent gear hub that ...read more

Bobbi Gale Bensman has spent more than three decades working within the industry. She started back in 1981 at Desert Mountain Sports in Phoenix, Arizona, while climbing professionally at the same time. She retired from the climbing circuit in 1999, but continued building her ...read more

The average marketing director doesn’t come armed with a degree in chemical and biomedical engineering. But that background has proved the perfect fit for Cindy McNaull of CORDURA—a major player in the outdoor industry that engineers fabric and textiles to help apparel and gear ...read more

In 2015, Kevin Fedarko and Peter McBride set out to thru-hike more than 700 miles across the entire length of the Grand Canyon to raise awareness about the threats facing one of the nation’s most iconic national parks. The expedition resulted in a feature for National Geographic ...read more

Kimberly Barrett traces the roots of her career as a scientist and outdoor educator back to before she was born: “My family is from Jamaica, and I grew up having a deep sense of love and appreciation for the outdoors. My ancestral connections, my connection to my family, and to ...read more

What’s more important to today’s consumer—the product, or the story behind it? In a crowded outdoor market, the determining factor has increasingly come down to the brand’s background and what it stands for, says Sue Harvey-Brown. She has seen firsthand the power of brand ...read more

Eight years after becoming the first wool company in the world to incorporate traceability into its products (with its innovative “Baacode”), and just two months after announcing its acquisition by VF Corp., New Zealand’s 22-year-old Icebreaker turns the spotlight on its own ...read more

It’s one of the more sparsely populated states in the union, but with abundant coastline, thick woods, craggy peaks, and its flagship national park (Acadia), Maine is no lightweight when it comes to outdoor recreation. In fact, Maine is home to 76,000 outdoor industry jobs and ...read more

Brian Vargo has a thing for titanium. His love affair with the superlight, superstrong, and quite expensive metal began on the Appalachian Trail in 1995. He simply wanted a lighter load for his thru-hike. He began his quest for minimal weight by developing titanium tent stakes, ...read more