The Outside Portfolio
When the Giant Sequoia Talks, People Listen
Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. 401(k), but the Wall Street free ride is over. So how to keep fattening your net worth without getting cozy with the bad guys? Tip: Try our (hopefully) prescient picks for the coming year's best green stocks and mutual funds.
By Nelson D. Schwartz

You Gotta Have Friends. Which Is Damned Unfortunate.
Is there anything more thrilling than deciding to hike the Appalachian Trail? Is there anything more touching than an old pal asking to join in? Is there anything more idiotic than saying yes?
By Bill Bryson

SPRING FASHION: Wet Work
The good news on Bimini is that every day is casual day at the office. The bad news is that sometimes you have to work with some sharks. Real sharks.
Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

A new surfing movie tries, God bless it, to break the hackneyed mold.
The Clinton administration takes a bold stand against the timber industry — sort of.
Some unorthodox Russian climbers pull off a truly audacious ascent.

PLUS: The Holy Land Theme Park readies for business, an in-line provocateur skates to the summit of Kilimanjaro, how to buy yourself a prime piece of real estate on the moon, and more.

Field Notes: A peek under the rug of Aspen's ER
The weekend before Michael Kennedy's death in a skiing accident, it was business as usual at the Aspen ER. Or at least as usual as it gets in a place where the patients gas up their Lear jets for a quick second opinion.
By Florence Williams

Out There: Achieving the good life in Maya Ortiz
Northern Mexico's canyon country is a lovely place for a wedding — a wedding, say, involving a village woman and the brother of a certain columnist. The brother doesn't want to get married? Details, details.
By Tim Cahill

The Wild File
How do migrating monarch butterflies stay on course? What causes knuckles to crack? What's a moonbow, and where can you see one?

Destinations: Hook, Line, and Regulator
Traveler's alert: Some of the people who come to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to dive the breathtaking walls, reefs, caves, and wrecks of the Red Sea just can't see the point of going home. A guide to the attractions (underwater and otherwise) of this jewel of the Middle East.

Southern hospitality: floating campsites on North Carolina's Roanoke River.

Climbing, paddling, and biking in China's top-secret answer to Yosemite.

PLUS: A slice of untouched Caribbean at Trinidad's Mount Plaisir Estate Hotel and more.

Bodywork: To Fare the Foul
Strategies for coping with the lung-offending rites of spring.

Suffer from allergies? Here's the latest on treatment options, from antihistamines to stinging nettles to coffee. Coffee?.
Plus, the inside dope on jumping rope, five non-crunch ways to spiff up your abs, and more.

Review: In-Line Come Lately
The next generation of high-performance skates: If you want to log serious in-line miles fast and comfortably, plenty of skate, footwear, and ski manufacturers are vying for your attention. Ten of the best new models from Bauer, Fila, K2, Nike, Oxygen, Roces, Rollerblade, Rossignol, Salomon, and Tecnica.

Three-season bags that'll have you bagging wilderness Zs like a champ.
Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth, by Richard Fortey; Cloudsplitter, by Russell Banks; and more.

PLUS: A low-tech but effective way to get rescuers' attention, grippy — yet not soggy or clammy — new shoes for kayakers, and a high-end camcorder housing for aspiring Cousteaus. Between the Lines

Letters

Active Traveler Directory