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Author: Yakima
The Gambler 500

The Gambler 500

Born from a dream. A dream of giving forgotten, tossed aside and abandoned autos new life. A chance to become legendary. How do they become legendary?  By completing a 500 mile off-road journey through the beautiful wilderness of Oregon.  Imagine a train of beaters, gimmick rides (think sketchy ambulance), and woefully “off-road unready” vehicles charging through the dirt roads that surround Mt Hood and other parts of the scenic Oregon landscape.  It makes for quite a show. It all began in 2014, when co-founder Tate Morgan said to his friend “It would be cool to get a bunch of guys together, go out and buy $500 cars and see how far we can go.”  That simple statement started with 14 vehicles, and three years later the

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July 13, 2017
Outdoor Afro

Outdoor Afro: Rediscovering the Inner Nature Swagger

Outdoor Afro helps to reconnect people with their “inner nature swagger.” We’re psyched to partner with them, and recently joined them on a trip to Olympic National Park to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Buffalo Soldiers. Started as a blog by Rue Mapp in 2009, Outdoor Afro leverages social media and technology to create an adaptive, responsive network of networks that gets African Americans involved with nature. It may start with going on a hike. It may simply be looking at pictures from someone else’s hike on Instagram or Facebook. How you initially connect doesn’t matter, what does matter is shifting the visual representation of who gets outdoors. You can get involved as deeply as you want, any way

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June 29, 2017
DeathGrip

Yakima X Deathgrip

Brendan Fairclough is one of the world’s best mountain bike riders. Clay Porter is one of the world’s best mountain bike filmmakers. They’ve been good friends for a decade. You know they had to do a film together. For the last two years, Porter and Fairclough have been shooting and editing Deathgrip. Fairclough—joined by a squad of some of this generation’s most influential riders—and Porter traveled the world to push mountain biking’s envelope and bring it to the people. Says Porter, “Deathgrip is essentially a byproduct of our 10-year long professional relationship with the sport of gravity mountain biking. We are using our collective experience working with each other to give our audience a futuristic vision into the sport and

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April 24, 2017

5 Incredible National Parks for Cycling

From the seat of a bike, exploring America’s national parks takes on a different view. As you pedal slowly through these protected lands, awareness of nature becomes strong, filling your nose with the smells of wilderness, while you feel the wind on your face. From cycling on the rim of a volcano and biking next to herds of bison to pedaling through the deserts of Utah and everything in between, these parks give cyclists of all levels amazing experiences in nature. It is a great way to bond with your family, your friends, or as a couple in the majesty of the great outdoors. The views, trails, and roads are awesome, but what lingers are not the miles you put

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April 17, 2017
Home on Wheels

Our Home on Wheels

Hey there! We are Our Home On Wheels, also known as Jace, Giddi, and baby Juniper. We are a full-time traveling family living in a 2005 self-converted Sprinter van with our pup, Lotus. We often get asked why we decided to sell everything and move into such a small space. To put it simply, this is what we needed. Flashback two years ago and Jace and I were working the typical 9-5 schedule and feeling as if our dreams were slipping away from us. There’s nothing abnormal about working 5 days a week. Millions of people do it — even many van dwellers continue to happily work a day job. For us though, this wasn’t working. We felt something was

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March 27, 2017
brianna madia

Brianna Madia

I think a lot of folks hear that we live in our van and assume we’re on some sort of trip. But there is no Point B to our Point A. While we do live “on the road” by technicality, we very much call Utah home. We came here from the East Coast nearly 5 years ago, drawn in by the lure of the mountains and the freedom of the American West…but it was the deserts that kept us here.  We felt an indescribable pull to that undeveloped wilderness. And while Utah has an abundance of National and State parks, we much prefer the complete solitude of the rugged BLM lands of the desert backcountry. We learned early on in

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March 20, 2017

Carabiner Coffee

Oh hey there! This is Erik from @carabinercoffee. Our story is what you get when you take one dirtbag climber, one hefty dose of wanderlust, one 71 VW bus named Ol Blue plus one great cup of coffee and mix them all together. Over the past  3 years we have been traveling to some of the most beautiful places in the country making coffee for anyone who happens to be around. Our Yakima Skybox loaded down with everything we could possible need to live simply and adventure often. Photo: Daniel Noll This story all started on an especially cold day in the middle of a cross country solo bike tour. Pedaling down the Oregon coast and in need of something

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March 13, 2017
The Bus and Us

The Bus and Us

We are @TheBusAndUs, which consists of Dillon, Tessa and our 1975 Volkswagen Bus, Rita. It was 2014, while we were two young working professionals making a life for ourselves in Alaska when the travel bug burrowed deep into us. Tessa was happily in a special education teaching career in Anchorage, spending her free time camping, skiing, fishing and exploring the large state she calls home. Dillon was working in supply chain management and with what little time off he had he could be found weekend warrior-ing to the max, trying to snowboard, surf, and camp as far from town as possible. It was then that we realized that we would rather be road tripping, camping, and adventuring full time rather

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March 6, 2017
National Parks

5 Amazing National Parks for Camping

Nothing is as memorable as camping in the breathtaking wilderness of America’s national parks, where lifelong memories of sitting around the campfire, roasting marshmallows, and gazing at the gazillion stars above are forged. The memories are so strong, in fact, that even just the smell of burning wood will transport you back to the campsite where you last spent the night. Whether you are in a tent, a hammock, or sleeping out in the wilderness, camping in the national parks helps reconnect you with a way of life mostly forgotten in the daily hustle and bustle. There are 59 national parks for you to find that one-of-a-kind bedroom under the stars. Here are the five best for incredible camping. Many

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January 12, 2017
Yonder Journal

Dead Reckoning – A Summer of Getting Lost

“…pack your stuff late, get up early, and hit the road” We jumped on board to help Yonder Journal, a team of cultural anthropologists and sportsmen, on their latest big project – Dead Reckoning. They loaded up their bikes and did some over-mountain exploration using ancient and modern trade routes. Then they wrote about what happened. Take a look. “Over the past two years Yonder Journal has investigated, documented, and published the possibilities of Over-Mountain exploration. We call this project Dead Reckoning. We applied the technologies and methodologies of adventure-cycling, bike-packing, and ultra-lightweight-touring to multi-day-style expeditions with a focus on crossing mountains using a variety of both ancient and modern trade routes. We choose a bike because they cover ground

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November 15, 2016

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