Men's Journal

field notes

Feedback I recently subscribed to MJ, after having not purchased a men’s magazine in years. I made a good call: The December 2019 issue was full of vivid photos, and the stories transported me to far-flung places I hope to visit one day. ROYZAL TAMI TAWAU, MALAYSIA OPPOSING WORLDVIEW I’m always amused when anyone says, “It’s so-and-so’s world, we just live in it.” According to MJ’s latest issue, it’s Mark Wahlberg’s world we’re living in. I try to do what I love and make the most out of life, so I’m pretty sure I’m living in my own world. MICHAEL DITTAMO VIA FACEBOOK REAL DEAL I enjoyed “Rolling on the River” (November 2019). MJ is at its best when it covers real stories on real people doing real things. Let the movie mags do the moviestar stuff. ADRIAN SHAW VIA EMAIL Hangover…

steep thrills

JUST OUTSIDE Caineville, Utah, lies Swing Arm City, a 2,600-acre hot spot for off-road J junkies. The destination boasts countless hills, precipitous drop-offs, and ridgeline singletrack trails, along with some of the country’s biggest natural jumps. Tom Parsons, a 38-year-old motocross rider, has made the trek there from his Florida home numerous times. One recent August, he and Chris Tedesco, a Denver-based photographer, spent three days in the 100-degree heat, crisscrossing the moonlike landscape. One precarious feature, in particular, called to the pair. The slope was difficult to walk up, let alone ride, owing to the steep grade and powdery silt covering it. Still, Parsons, a former X Games gold medalist, was bent on reaching the top. Hitting the base at 35 mph, he used the raw power of his…

fastest to the top

ON OCTOBER 29, when Nir-mal “Nims” Purja stepped onto the summit of Tibet’s 26,335-foot Shishapangma, he wrapped up a record-shattering odyssey to climb all of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in a single season. Purja climbed the planet’s 14 highest mountains in six months and six days, obliterating the previous fastest time of seven years, 10 months, and six days. “Nobody thought it could be done, but I always believed it was possible,” Purja says. “I had to go through so many unplanned problems, but I always kept believing that I would break the record.” The accomplishment is rare in any time frame—only 40-odd people in history have climbed all 8,000-meter peaks. But doing them so quickly is a physical and logistical feat without precedent. So why haven’t you heard of Purja? Unlike…

himalayan nirvana

BHUTAN FAMOUSLY wrote the concept of Gross National Happiness into its constitution in 2008, but the recent opening of five lodges by wellness-focused hotelier Six Senses is upping visitors’ endorphins in a much more tangible way. The properties are spread over five distinct valleys, and each is stunning in its own right, but its lodge just outside the capital city of Thimphu may be the most spectacular. Layered into the mountainside some 7,710 feet up, Thimphu is like a Bhutanese castle in the sky. Hand-painted dragons cover the walls, and moatlike reflecting ponds mirror the clouds and stars in such a way you’d think you could step out onto them. But it’s not all Zen. You can also heli-hike, mountain bike, or test your archery skills (the national sport) with…

cali’s new foodie capital

IF YOU LOOK up while jogging around Sacramento these days, as I discovered last fall, you may find yourself face-to-face with a four-story-tall orangutan. Or a menagerie of jungle birds in flight. Or even Johnny Cash. Over the past several years, some of the best muralists in the world—including heavyweight artists Axel Void and Shepard Fairey—have transformed the state capital’s buildings into a giant plein air gallery, with more than 120 pieces of art. It’s all part of Sacramento’s Wide Open Walls, a two-week festival promoting the arts. During my running tour of the murals, my jogging buddy/guide was Jenn Kistler-McCoy, founder of Sac Tour Company, which specializes in tours via foot or bike. At the time, Kistler-McCoy was training for the Boston Marathon; I was just hoping to detox a bit…

the bigfoot believers

SHANE CARPENTER IS a reluctant believer. The S former MMA fighter and gym owner had his first encounter when he was 10. He was walking an uncle’s Missouri property, looking for a lost dog. After taking a few steps into the woods, “I had this feeling of being watched,” he recalls on a warm October Saturday. “Like, a physical sensation. Then this thing steps out from behind a tree, 30 feet away.” Carpenter, now 45, is standing in a field turned overflow parking lot, in rural southeast Oklahoma. The creature was upright, bipedal, and covered in black hair, he continues. For a 10-second eternity, the two gazed at each other. “There was a human quality behind its eyes,” he adds. Then the creature turned and walked over a hill and disappeared.…