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Bill Donahue is a writer for Outside, Harper’s, Wired, The New York Times Magazine, and more…

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January 7, 2021January 20, 2021 by Bill Donahue

The National Brotherhood of Skiers: An Oral History

Let’s go back to the 1970s, when the sight of Black skiers on the slopes was enough reason to put the National Guard on standby.

Outside
Edited by Gloria Liu


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March 25, 2020March 25, 2020 by Bill Donahue

The Ambitious Plan to Build a Ski Utopia in Maine

Shuddered for five years, Saddleback Maine aims to become a rare thing in today’s ski industry when it reopens: a humane mountain where the workers are treated well and the PBR flows at a people’s price.   

 

Outside
Edited by Gloria Liu

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January 12, 2020March 25, 2020 by Bill Donahue

Breaking Up The Boys Club

Walking across deserts, jungles and tundra, Sarah Marquis is rewriting the rules of exploration. 


Outside

Edited by Gloria Liu

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November 5, 2018May 7, 2019 by Bill Donahue

Full Cleetus

Kale Poland is the progenitor of a new philosophy of physical fitness. “Cleetus Fit” eschews the gymnasium and sees practitioners hoisting large rocks, mud wrestling with cows, and sipping Pabst Blue Ribbon while seated in the Lotus position.

Outside
Edited by Elizabeth Hightower

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July 29, 2018 by Bill Donahue

The Monk’s Tale

Remembering my Uncle Bill, a Catholic monk and a scholar who left the church to spend his last 30 years in the French Pyrenees, tending his garden and translating Thucydides from Greek into Latin.

Outside
Edited by Elizabeth Hightower

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December 29, 2017November 14, 2019 by Bill Donahue

The Last Naturalist

In a world where our time and attention are fractured into smaller and smaller bits, legendary biologist and runner Bernd Heinrich is a throwback, a man who has carved a deep grove in his patch of Maine woods.

Outside
Edited by Elizabeth Hightower. Photo by Jesse Burke.

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November 30, 2016October 9, 2017 by Bill Donahue

The Million Mile Man

When cyclist Danny Chew was 21, he resolved to ride his bike a million lifetime miles. Then, at age 54 and 783,000 miles into his quest, he crashed and became paralyzed. 

Outside
Edited by Elizabeth Hightower. Photograph by Michael Swensen.

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April 1, 2002October 10, 2017 by Bill Donahue

Nasty, Brutish, and Loud

The Hatfield-McCoy Recreation Area, in the stripmined hills of West Virginia, is the world’s premier all-terrain-vehicle playground—and oh, what a joy it is to ride there after midnight and toss your empties into the woods! 

Outside
Edited by Jay Stowe. Photos by Charles Gullung.

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February 1, 2002October 10, 2017 by Bill Donahue

End of the Run

Skier Bill Johnson won the gold medal in the downhill in the 1984 Olympics. Then in 1999, when he was 39 years old and ravaged by years of hard drinking, he tried to make a comeback. He crashed, incurring permanent brain damage. 

Outside
Edited by Laura Hohnhold. Photo by Michael Lewis.

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© Bill Donahue. All rights reserved.

Site photography:
Cycling in the hills of New Hampshire, by Hector Emanuel. Cross country skiing in the Alaskan Arctic, by Otso Könönen. Interviewing Syrian refugees in Idomeni, Greece, by Julius Motal. Among the Maasai in Kenya, by Georgina Goodwin. At the desk, by Julie Keefe. Outside the barn, by Michele Olvera. Scrambling across Thompson Peak boulder field, by Justin Garwood.

Website by curio museum design.

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