Outside Podcast

Today's Long Read with Outside Magazine Features Editor Fred Drier, is about an issue you may have seen on social media or in the news: In Japan, bears have been attacking humans at an alarming rate. They attacked more than 100 people in 2025 alone, prompting the Japanese government to send the military to parts of the country to protect towns and villages.

We first saw news stories pop up about Japan’s bear attacks in 2022 and 2023, and the stories often honed in on the weirdest elements: How rural communities were building robotic wolves with glowing red eyeballs to scare bears away from crops. Or, how bears had entered a grocery store and mauled an elderly woman.In late 2025 we sent Owen Clarke to the Akita prefecture, which is Ground Zero for Japan’s bear problem, to try and figure out what the heck was going on. How were these bear attacks impacting the community? What were these bears actually like? And what about these rural communities made them so susceptible to bears? Owen came back with answers, and a lot more than that.

It’s August, it’s hot, and everyone is dreaming of some beach time. But it’s not just the dog days of summer that pulls us to the ocean. It has a draw on all of us. Today, to celebrate that draw, we’re replaying one of our favorite episodes. Historian Kevin Dawon, a professor at UC Merced, has been surfing for most of his life and spent his career investigating the rich tradition of African aquatic culture. Dawson is credited with resurfacing the first account of surfing in Africa, from 1640—more than 100 years before Captain Cook’s famed account from Hawaii—and his research centers centuries of oceanic accomplishment by Black communities there and in North America that have been ignored or actively erased. Dawson’s experiences in the waters of Africa, the Caribbean, and his native California bear little resemblance to what many people think of when they hear “surfer,” but they’re drenched in a joy that’s recognizable to anyone who has ever played in the waves.

This week's Long Read, with Outside Magazine Features Editor Fred Drier, follows Owen Clark's journey down the Lower Owyhee River in Eastern Oregon. The trip was notable because it occurred during the river's lowest point of the year. Rather than using traditional rafts, the group used pack rafts—inflatable crafts made to navigate even the lowest streams.

It turns out, that Clark's tour was a harbinger for what a lot of rafting operations faced in the spring and summer months of 2026, when a historically bad snow year led to challenging river conditions across the west.

If you’re listening to this podcast, you have likely jogged before. Maybe you’ve even run a Turkey Trot or local 5K. Suffice to say, you know that running is a time-consuming, physically exhausting sweaty mess. And yet, more people than ever are lacing up and taking to the trails right now. Which begs the question: Why?! Well, according to Abby Levene, the Managing Editor of the newly revamped Trail Runner, we are all born runners. It doesn’t matter your size, shape, age, lung capacity, or whether or not your quads feel like overinflated balloons any time you move past a walking pace. Trail running is having its own boomlet amidst the explosion of running generally, and Abby thinks she knows why. Listen to her moving depictions of how a run turns into a flow through the woods, and how a community turns exercise into mind meld with the natural world and the question is no longer, “Why does anyone run?” It’s “How quickly can I get out and find a trail?”

This week's Long Read feature story, with Outside Magazine's Features Editor Fred Drier, follows writer Bill Gifford as he explores a European company called Therme, which is turning wellness concepts like hot springs, saunas, and cold plunges into gigantic destinations that look like bewildering mashups of spas, cruise ships, and casinos. They're already popular throughout Europe, and, now, Therme has set it's sites on the U.S. Are we ready?