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When a Good Adventure Goes Bad

Anything Worth Doing coverBook Review
Anything Worth Doing: A True Story of Adventure, Friendship and Tragedy on the Last of the West’s Great Rivers
By Jo Deurbrouck
197 pgs., Sundog Book Publishing, $15

Those of us who pursue adventure and challenge in nature sometimes cross a line into a place where life becomes fragile. But as the unfortunate who have stumbled inadvertently into that dark space learn, the threshold is never actually a distinct line; it’s a gray zone where we make a series of fateful decisions and are never granted the foresight to know what awaits at the end of them. In Anything Worth Doing, former whitewater rafting guide Jo Deurbrouck takes the reader on a riveting journey into the lives of two semi-legendary Idaho river guides, showing how a life lived well can sometimes end too soon.

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Trail Food Review: Honey Stinger Organic Waffles

Honey Stinger Organic Waffles

Trail Food
Honey Stinger Organic Waffles
$22 per box of 16 packets, 1 oz. per packet
Five flavors: honey, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and lemon
honeystinger.com

I’m admittedly a little behind the curve on this—these waffles have been on the market for a while. But I filled a zip-lock bag with them for a recent five-day backpacking trip with my wife, 11-year-old son, and nine-year-old daughter in Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness—and they became an instant backcountry staple food for my family.

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Book Review: “The First 20 Minutes”

Book Review
The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer
By Gretchen Reynolds
257 pgs., Hudson Street Press, $25.95

How many books have you read that changed the way you live? This one did for me. Gretchen Reynolds, who pens the “Phys Ed” column for the New York Times (online in the Well blog on health and fitness, and in the “Science Times” print section), has synthesized scores of contemporary studies and interviews with researchers and experts in a book that is chock-full of information, advice, and data, and yet is a fast and fascinating read. I’ve returned repeatedly to my own heavily dog-eared copy.

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Trail Food Review: Probars

Probar flavors

Trail Food
Probar
$3, 3 oz.
theprobar.com

I’ve grown tired of some of the energy bars on the market. But having sampled the new Probar flavors—double chocolate, peanut butter, peanut butter chocolate chip, and superfruit slam—on several days of backcountry skiing, I have to say they taste really good.

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