After the disastrous performances displayed in the first two episodes of Survivor 45, we finally got to see the players find their rhythm. For the first time this season, it felt like we were watching people actually play the game rather than just lose. 

In episode three, we watched the players on all three teams work together toward a common goal. Reba found an idol and won immunity, Belo went fishing and stayed safe, and Lulu finally won a challenge.

Although Lulu went to the tribal council for the third time in a row — Hannah Rose quit and Brandon Donlon was a liability — it wasn’t because of someone’s inability to perform. 

With all that said, there were two takeaways from Survivor 45 episode 3. 

Survivor 45 Episode 3 Recap

Kaleb the Star

Lulu’s Kaleb Gebrewold, a 29-year-old software salesman from Vancouver, was the star of episode three. He was the one all of the team members sought for advice and he even transformed the most contentious player this season, Emily Flippen, into a likable person. 

For those reasons, his team picked him to “raid” team Reba’s camp for some of their fishing gear. What his team didn’t know was that being the person to raid the camp, he was also awarded a “goodwill advantage” to win back a vote, which he was permitted to share with a stranger.

However, while he was schmoozing with the enemy, his three teammates discussed what to do if they had to vote again. Sabiyah Broderick and Sean Edwards agreed that Kaleb’s social skills were too dangerous to keep around and would prove dangerous later in the game. 

In the end, though, the 28-year-old truck driver and former Marine, Broderick, was voted out two-to-one. The reason for that was partly due to Gebrewold’s alliance with Flippen and the fact that she lost her vote and opted to not use her idol. 

“I didn’t vote because I just didn’t think I needed to,” Broderick said. “I mean, after all of the conversations that I had I was sure it was Kaleb going home tonight. Even though I got blindsided, you blindside the best players. You blindside the players that you’re afraid of, so it’s good to know that they were scared.”

Why Did Jake Faint?

DID JAKE JUST FALL INTO THE FIRE??? #Survivor #Survivor45 pic.twitter.com/nzwFiCSSTt

— Carson Garrett (@CarsonGarrett_) October 5, 2023

Besides who won and who lost, there was one other thing that seemed important to note.

With all of the health scares being broadcasted on TV, especially among our aging politicians, it was a little shocking to see 26-year-old Jake O’Kane faint at the beginning of the episode. 

Kendra McQuarrie, the 31-year-old bartender from Colorado, who witnessed the fall, called the incident “really, really scary.”

“Jake kind of took a tumble and it looked almost like a small seizure,” she said, adding he was “shaky” and then just snapped out of it. 

In his own words, O’Kane explained that he was trying to blow on the fire to get the embers started and then saw stars. 

“I felt my whole hand start shaking and everything. Like my body was just convulsing,” he said. “I may have fell over. I really don’t know. That was a really scary moment.”

When you go to the tape, you see Jake standing after blowing on the embers. He has a slight smile yet his eyes look glassy. Then, all of a sudden, he falls to his hands and knees, and almost face-plants completely as his arms buckle. 

He reasoned that he involuntarily collapsed because he had consumed very little food and water during his six days on the island. He added that he wasn’t worried, though, because Survivor was a “once-in-a-lifetime thing.” 

And that’s all we got for a diagnosis. But it’s okay. It helped him strengthen his alliance with McQuarrie.

Watch Survivor on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. on CBS.

The post ‘Survivor’ 45 Episode 3 Recap: Kaleb the Star appeared first on Outdoors with Bear Grylls.

Watching the season 45 premiere of Survivor left me thinking and feeling exactly what I imagine the show’s producers wanted me to. At the end, I felt irritated at people I don’t even know and questioned why the producers cast some of the contestants for the show. 

I mean, that has to be true. 

I say that because the casting team spent eight months screening some 25,000 audition tapes for potential candidates. Then, they screened those people further with psychological tests, background checks, and multiple rounds of interviews until they found the best 18 for the season.

Also, the show has been on the air for 23 years now, which breaks down into 44 seasons and approximately 650 episodes. It’s also consistently ranked as one of the best-performing shows for its primetime spot. You don’t typically reach that level of success without knowing what you’re doing. 

I could be wrong, though. 

Watching the press screener of “We Can Do Hard Things,” I couldn’t help but adopt the groupthink when one contestant did something that was obviously annoying or selfish. In one instance, a player was overly critical of all her teammates for things like stacking logs, and at times she even seemed to be expressing some sort of prejudice against them by using words like “they” and “these people.”  

Then, the same contestant couldn’t comprehend how all of her teammates could agree that aliens built the pyramids. It’s one of those conspiracies that people like to entertain because it’s funny and it happened so long ago that who really knows. What annoyed her about that conversation wasn’t the fact that it was offensive because people actually designed and built the pyramids. No, she just didn’t find the topic interesting. 

The moment reminded me that Survivor is a game show that’s selectively edited to highlight drama and create a story arc. For the episode, the cameras filmed 18 people for 48 hours, but the producers only used 60 minutes, so there’s some context missing. Plus, watching benevolent people do things competently doesn’t always create entertaining social situations. 

Which brings me to my last point.

In the first few minutes of the episode, we see a grown man cry uncontrollably because he’s feeling “a lot of emotion” by fulfilling his lifelong goal of competing on Survivor. It’s not my goal or the goal of anyone I really know, but to each their own. 

What gives me pause, though, is that he didn’t appear as if he trained or conditioned himself in any way for this experience of a lifetime. He appeared both mentally and physically incapable of enduring the challenges of the show and struggled with things like climbing a ladder and living without a medication he’s been taking his entire life.  

I have full confidence that the people behind the scenes at Survivor would never let someone die on TV, but I do wonder what happens to some of these contestants after what appears to be their worst traits and incompetencies are on full display for the world to see. 

With that said, 10 out of 10. Will watch the next episode. 

The season 45 premiere of Survivor airs Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 8 pm Eastern on CBS and you can stream it on Paramount+. 

‘Survivor’ 45 Premiere Recap: ‘Lulu Losers’

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What the passengers got instead was a real-life version of the terrors outlined in the waiver they’d signed before stepping foot on the submarine. After a frantic five-day search, the U.S. Coast Guard determined that the Titan had in fact imploded, killing everyone on board. The vessel couldn’t stand up to the pressures of the deep.

The debacle raises questions about this type of extreme tourism—the kind in which ordinary people (often ordinary rich people) do extraordinary things, like summiting Everest, going up into space, and diving into the deep sea. Is this ethical? Is it fair? Is it reckless?

Outdoors.com sought perspectives from three people who have interest in and experience with these areas of extreme tourism: high-altitude trekking and mountaineering, space flight, and deep-sea dives. Here’s what they had to say.

Everest, A Playground for the Rich

It was a deadly spring climbing season on Mount Everest, which boasts the highest peak on Planet Earth. Reports suggest 17 people have died on these icy slopes in 2023. Already a sort of frozen graveyard, where doomed mountaineers like “Sleeping Beauty” and “Green Boots” serve as trail markers and somber warnings to those who shuffle past, Everest is certainly not for most. 

In recent years, though, it’s become more accessible to anyone who fancies themselves worthy of this hallowed peak—as long as they can pay the price, which can, in some cases, exceed $100,000. Nepal’s government issued a record number of permits in 2023 to people keen to summit. Is this exclusive adventure becoming a bit too accessible? 

Gelje Sherpa knows a thing or two about Everest and high-altitude trekking. He was the sherpa who, in May, helped rescue a Malaysian climber from Mount Everest’s “death zone.” Since he began his high-altitude career in 2017, 30-year-old Gelje has summited 13 of the 8,000-meter peaks and remains the youngest person to summit K2 in winter. He’s also led more than 25 successful expeditions to 8,000-meter peaks, including Everest, and he’s participated in more than 50 rescues across several peaks and trekking expeditions. 

Gelje makes his living guiding gung-ho climbers to the highest places in the world, but he’s also seen how humbling these expeditions can be, even to those who arrive prepared. So what does he think about Everest’s growing popularity and accessibility?

“The world of high-altitude mountaineering has exploded in the past years, and as [a] guide I have seen firsthand the impacts this has had,” Gelje said in an interview with Outdoors.com. “More and more people are embracing this concept of ‘nothing is impossible,’ mostly because of documentaries that have been released. This, to some people, means turning up to an 8,000-meter peak with no training and no idea of the skills involved. This is deadly. More and more people are involved in accidents because they just don’t know how to look after themselves.”

He suggests that not every person with deep pockets should be able to show up and get a permit to climb Everest—that’s a recipe for disaster. If the number of permits continues to increase every year, it’s possible the number of deaths will increase, too (although, it’s worth noting that most people blame climate change for the high death toll this year).  

Another problem is that as demand increases, companies raise their prices, essentially making the trek too expensive for many who are qualified to attempt the climb.

“[The] way it’s looking, yes, it’s just becoming a playground for the rich,” Gelje said. “Everest for sure is getting more and more expensive each year and limiting to people who have had this dream to climb it but could never afford it. [. . .] It’s a huge shame because Everest is such a stunning mountain to climb, but it’s just too overcrowded now, it takes away the beauty of it all.” 

“We also have to control how we move forward, potentially being more selective with clients who can receive a permit to climb an 8,000-meter peak,” he added. “This could mean making sure they have already summited a 6,000er before or [passing] a basic test to see their knowledge, et cetera.”

Another way to keep the danger factor in check, Gelje said, would be to limit permits. He doesn’t think this solution would go over very well, though.

“I think the only way to do it is by restricting permits to people who have the proper experience before coming to an 8,000er,” he explained. “However, this is highly unlikely, as it would probably half the number of people coming to Everest, and both the companies and the government would probably not back that idea.”

Gelje believes it’s also important to keep the sport open to newcomers who deserve the opportunity to try to make their dreams come true. In fact, asked whether “ordinary” people should be climbing Everest, Gelje is all for it, as long as they have the right experience. 

“Adri, my climbing partner, was an ‘ordinary’ person five years ago, but she trained hard and it was obvious, and now she is a mountaineer,” Gelje said.

Gelje and Adriana Brownlee “Adri” own AGA Adventures, and they help people grow in the mountaineering space and prepare for their dream quests, whether that’s trekking Annapurna Circuit or climbing Everest itself. Between the two of them, Adri and Gelje have three Guinness World Records, 30+ 8,000-meter peak summits, and 40+ mountaineering expeditions under their belts.

Space, the Final Frontier, Conquered?

Earlier this summer, a Blue Origin rocket engine exploded during testing at a facility in Texas—a harsh reminder that spaceflight is a dangerous undertaking. Blue Origin is Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos’s private space company that has successfully taken paying customers up into space aboard the New Shepard rocket, which is named after American astronaut Alan Shepard. 

Dylan Taylor was aboard the New Shepard on December 11, 2021, when he became one of the relatively few humans who have traveled to space—and one of even fewer humans to have traveled to space as a commercial astronaut. 

Taylor is a business leader and philanthropist. He is the chairman and CEO of Voyager Space and founder of the nonprofit Space for Humanity. As a cherry on top, he’s also one of the very few who have descended into the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench—the deepest known place on Earth. 

As an extreme tourist himself, Taylor is a believer in democratizing the world’s most exclusive adventures. 

“I’m in the camp that says space is the next big thing for humanity, that it’s sort of the blank canvas that we have the ability to sort of reimagine what’s possible, treat each other better, have a better civilization, those kinds of concepts,” he said in an exclusive interview with Outdoors.com. 

For Taylor, going to space was nothing short of life-changing.

“It is a very profound and transformative experience to see the earth from space, [and] it is very apparent when you’re up there that this is really a miracle that we have here on Earth,” he explained. “The rest of the universe is not like this. So far as we know, it’s cold and dark and hostile, and we have this sort of amazing, beautiful paradise here on Earth that sometimes I think we take for granted. It is very apparent when you’re up there how fragile the ecosystem is.”

Taylor paid a lot of money for this experience (he couldn’t share just how much, because he signed an NDA saying he wouldn’t), but he wants more people to be able to experience what he experienced, and this is something Space for Humanity is actively doing. He believes those who go to space come back with a new perspective on Planet Earth—and a renewed drive to protect it.

“There’s this notion that going to space has this transformative power—the overview effect, if you will—and that’s really a gift that should be shared widely,” Taylor said. “It shouldn’t be just professional astronauts or very wealthy people that benefit from that.” 

Space for Humanity’s Citizen Astronaut program fields thousands of applications each year from people who want to become citizen astronauts. They apply in part by outlining how their trip will empower them to be a force for good here on Earth. The program sponsors a new citizen astronaut each year, with the caveat that he or she will work on the projects or initiatives outlined in his or her application upon return.

While Space for Humanity is working to democratize space travel, for the most part, it’s still the realm of billionaires. Is space travel, then, becoming a prestigious feather in a very rich person’s cap?

“I think people have different motivations,” Taylor said. “Some, I think, are legitimately trying to check boxes and go down the list of all the different things you can do. Other people are just, like, in my case, just being super passionate about a lifelong dream.”

“But I think that desire to look [at] what’s over the hill and explore and do things that are unique and challenging, I think that’s sort of been embedded in humanity since the beginning of time.”

While humans’ desire to explore and push themselves to the limits is not new, the technology to take them to new heights—or depths—is relatively new, and, as OceanGate recently proved, technology can fail. Asked whether it’s reckless to take regular people to space, Taylor says no.

“I think it’s risky, and it’s really important that people who do those trips really understand the risks involved,” he explained. “But I don’t think it’s reckless.”

In the case of space, Taylor says regulations have kept it a tier or more above, say, OceanGate, but for-profit companies in this realm, in his view, should be investing profits back into making these extreme journeys safer and more accessible.

“Are there operators who are taking undue risk for monetary gain? I’ll leave that to others to decide, [but] in the case of space flight, it’s very tightly regulated, so it’s pretty difficult to do a money grab without crossing some boundaries that regulators would not allow you to,” he explained. 

“But I think a lot of these experiences are for-profit, [and] as long as those profits are reinvested back into perfecting the technology and making it more accessible, that’s probably a good thing. I think where it’s not a good thing is if people take undue risks for financial benefit and they don’t disclose what those risks are,” Taylor added. “I think that’s where it crosses the line in my view.”

Into the Abyss

Whether you book a ticket to space, participate in extreme sports like skydiving or big-wave surfing, hike in a national park, or drive to the grocery store down the street, safety is never guaranteed. However, when talking about the extremes of high-altitude climbs, being rocketed into space, and descending to the depths of the ocean, danger is more front and center in the conversation because a lot can go wrong, and, if it does, help may not be available. 

For the passengers of OceanGate’s Titan this past June, the chance to see the Titanic with their own eyes was worth the expense and the risk. If the demand is there, can we fault the companies that deliver the supply to meet the demand? Is an occasional disaster just part of human exploration?

Joe Dituri is a deep-sea diver who spent 28 years in the Navy, serving part of that time as a Navy Diving Saturation Officer. He also has a PhD in biomedical engineering and is known as “Dr. Deep Sea.” In June, Dr. Dituri surfaced after a 100-day jaunt living underwater. Dituri was his own test subject in Project NEPTUNE, in which he lived in the Jules’ Undersea Lodge, an underwater habitat in Key Largo, Florida, for 100 days straight, conducting daily experiments in human physiology.

Dituri is a huge proponent of pushing the envelope for human exploration. 

“My personal investment in this whole thing stems around the advancement of the human race,” he said in a video call with Outdoors.com from his Undersea Oxygen Clinic in Tampa, Florida. “So, we are advancing humans, we’re going down the road to that next thing that we’re doing. Once we solve this, we cure that. Once we do this, what’s left? Exploration of our galaxy, exploration of other galaxies. Exploration of all the world, right, to find everything that there is to be found. It’s the whole Star Trek thing. It’s to ‘boldly go where no man has gone before.’ But what is this about? It really is about exploration. It’s the only thing that will be left in the end.”

Dituri has traveled nearly 2,000 feet deep in the ocean, but not as a tourist. It was part of his training as a deep-sea emergency rescue unit in the U.S. military. Even still, he says democratizing adventure and exploration is critical, and it’s only reckless if participants aren’t trained and prepared.

“It is important to push the boundaries; nay, it is required to push the boundaries. We go boldly. This is what we do. This is, as a society, what we need to do,” Dituri said. “But, we need to perform risk mitigation. [. . .] When I jump out of an airplane, I have two parachutes on my back. It’s not just one. I always have a backup, and I’m well trained in what could go wrong. So . . . that’s the overall goal. You mitigate the risk down to an acceptable level, with training and education, and that’s what we’re looking to do. That’s the only way to pursue and go forward and basically make meaningful contributions.”

Therefore, Dituri does not see the democratization of deep-sea exploration as a money grab. 

“The quote from President Kennedy comes up,” he added. “We choose to do these things. We choose to go to the moon and these other things in this century. Not because they’re easy, but because they’re hard.” 

“This is the whole spirit of exploration,” Dituri concludes. “We need to gain and gather that knowledge and information . . . so that we can give it to the rest of humanity.”

If viewed through a glass-half-full lens, then, every implosion and explosion equates to some massive lessons learned—it’s one small step for man, one giant leap for humankind, so to speak. Not all extreme adventures that end badly offer up some consolation prize of knowledge or experience, though. Some just rip away a person’s life. Whether that person signed a waiver, handed over a fat check, or simply lived for the thrill, it nonetheless begs the question: Is there such a thing as an adventure too extreme, or are today’s most extreme adventures the proving ground for the next era in human exploration?

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Path of Light: A Walk Through Colliding Legacies of Glen Canyon

By Morgan Sjogren

In Path of Light, Morgan Sjogren writes about retracing expedition routes that Charles L. Bernheimer and his team took in the 1920s as they explored Glen Canyon and what is now Bears Ears National Monument in the southwest U.S. Sjogren also weaves in her own first-person experiences and anecdotes, using historic photographs and journals to trace the route, sharing stories along the way. She writes about the region’s original inhabitants and the many people who have lived in the region over the years, always keeping a mindful eye towards the effects of colonization and the responsibility of preserving wild lands for future generations.

The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean

By Susan Casey

Known for her bestselling books about the intricacies of the ocean, Susan Casey once again dives deep in The Underworld, which explores the deep sea. Her previous works have covered dolphins, great white sharks, and rogue waves, and this book dives far below the ocean’s surface, exploring the science of the deep sea. 

To tell this story, she joined a variety of experts, including oceanographers, marine biologists, and marine geologists in the field, interviewing them and learning more about what lies far beneath the ocean, exploring the deep valleys, undersea volcanoes and mountains, tectonic plates, and fascinating lifeforms that live in darkness and under deep pressure. Her message of exploration is also interlaced with the need to protect the ocean from a number of threats, like pollution, exploitation, and the impacts of climate change.

Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future

By Gloria Dickie

Eight species of bears currently live on Earth, and Gloria Dickie went on a quest to write about all of them. She covers North America’s bear trio—polar, brown, and American black bears—as well as South America’s spectacled bear and four different bears that live in Asia, including sloth, panda, moon, and sun bears. 

Interweaving her first-hand experiences with bears and the people who live and work with them, she incorporates bear-related mythologies and lore. She also discusses human-bear conflict and potential solutions to help keep people and bears safe. 

The World’s Best National Parks in 500 Walks

By Mary Caperton Morton

Start dreaming of your next adventures with this great guide to the world’s best national park walks. Sorted by continent and region, even a quick flip through this book will give you a case of wanderlust and an itch to start planning trips. 

The book contains 500 different walks around the globe, from the world’s first national park—Yellowstone—to an orangutan trek in Indonesia. Whether you would rather explore Wizard Beach in Bastimentos Island National Park, Panama or Wales’ Llyn Idwal Trail in Snowdonia National Park, there’s something for everyone. Enjoy the gorgeous imagery, along with a few maps and illustrations, and use this book as the launching point for a lifetime of adventure.

Life Lived Wild: Adventures at the Edge of the Map

By Rick Ridgeway

During the course of his life, Rick Ridgeway estimates he has spent around five years sleeping in tents, and he shares some of his adventurous tales in his aptly named memoir, Life Lived Wild. His expeditions are impressive—from being part of the first K2 ascent by Americans to trekking to remote areas of Tibet and crossing Borneo. 

He interweaves these sometimes harrowing stories of adventure with a celebration of the people he enjoys getting outside with, including friends like Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and the late Doug Tompkins, who founded The North Face. Go along with Ridgeway and pals on their adventures and find inspiration to live life a little bit more untamed.

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But fear not campers; there’s a new trend that’s sure to make its way to the camping community—or at least the glamping community—soon, and that would be luxury ice. 

Let’s break it down.

This year, ice- and water-related internet trends have included ice drawer tours and “Watertok” in which Tiktok users mix a variety of flavor packets and syrups into their reusable water bottles to create flavored water. Though this isn’t quite the same, luxury ice seems to be the next big thing. 

Companies like Gläce Luxury Ice are building businesses in this new market, claiming their ice is way better because it maximizes beverages by keeping them cold and limiting the dilution of the drink’s flavor and quality. Disco Cubes is another growing brand in the industry. This company creates botanical and custom ice cubes for your events. Though luxury ice cubes decorated by company logos have been common at high-end parties for a while, luxury ice is now beginning to make its way into the mainstream.

While aesthetics and creature comforts don’t traditionally play a very important role in the traditional camping community, we do see how ice that keeps food and beverages colder longer and doesn’t dilute your drinks could be a hit among campers and glampers. When you’re sitting around the campsite in the full sun of midday enjoying something on the rocks, traditional ice melts fast—sometimes no matter how good your tumbler is. Could “fancy ice” be the answer?

The post The Newest Camping Trend Is . . . Fancy Ice? appeared first on Outdoors with Bear Grylls.

A Brief History of Pluto

Percival Lowell was researching to find intelligent life on Mars when he suggested the existence of a ninth planet. In 1902, he noticed “deviations in the orbits of Neptune and Uranus.” From 1905 to 1911, Lowell and his team searched for what would later be named Pluto but could not find it.

Astronomers Clyde W. Tombaugh and William H. Pickering finally discovered Pluto on February 18, 1930 at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. This period of astronomy is defined by planet-hunting.

Pluto, located in the Kuiper Belt zone, beyond Neptune’s orbit, was named the ninth planet from the sun. Its name has a dual meaning. A young girl from Oxford, England suggested the planet be named after Pluto, the God of the Underworld. Her grandfather told the Lowell Observatory, and they decided to use the name, especially because the first two letters of Pluto were the initials of Percival Lowell.

Why Was Pluto ‘Demoted’?

Pluto was demoted from being the ninth planet in our solar system to being the fifth dwarf planet in August 2006. Pluto was considered to be a unique object within the Kuiper Belt, but after more research, astronomers found that there are many objects in the belt similar to Pluto—and, in fact, more similar to Pluto than Pluto is to the other planets within the solar system.

Before Pluto could be demoted, though, the International Astronomical Union had to define what a planet was. The three criteria for an object in space to be considered a planet are:

1. It must orbit around the sun
2. It must be big enough to have enough gravity to force it into a spherical shape
3. It must be big enough for its gravity to clear away any other objects of similar size near its orbit around the sun

Pluto only meets the first two criteria.

Defining a Dwarf Planet

Astronomers estimate that there could be over 200 dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt alone, even though there are only five named: Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake. NASA defines a dwarf planet as “a celestial body that orbits the sun, has enough mass to assume a nearly round shape, has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, and is not a moon.” 

The Hot Button Debate: Should Pluto be Reinstated?

Since Pluto’s demotion in 2006, there has been debate among scientists and Pluto fans alike about whether or not the planet should have been demoted. At the time, people objected to the demotion saying it “altered tradition and history.”

In 2015, the New Horizons mission passed by Pluto, where it was discovered that the dwarf planet has vast “geological complexity.” Since 2017, members of this mission have been advocating for the reinstatement of Pluto as the ninth planet in our solar system.

Arguments for the reinstatement of Pluto suggest that the definition of what a planet is needs to be redefined because it does not take into consideration other planets orbiting around other stars in the universe.

In 2021, a study in the Icarus Journal claimed that the IAU’s definition of what a planet is came from astrology, not science. The New Horizon mission photographed Pluto’s surface, which gave scientists a strong argument for the reinstatement of the dwarf planet as the ninth planet in our solar system because it has a complex and icy surface with mountains and glaciers.

Why I Believe Pluto Should Be Reinstated

Pluto Demoted Day is a polarizing faux holiday. I have no real stake in the argument for or against the inclusion of Pluto as the ninth planet of our solar system,but personally, I think Pluto should gain its planet status back. Astronomers tend to agree with me. In a vote on whether or not to demote Pluto, only 5% of astronomers voted for the demotion the planet. I may not be very good at math, but that seems like the minority ruled on this vote.

Do you think that Pluto should still be a planet?

The post A Brief History of Pluto, From a Pluto Apologist appeared first on Outdoors with Bear Grylls.

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We asked: “Do you go on day hikes with your significant other? If one of you is slower than the other, how do you handle that? Do you wait, or just keep going?”

Whether it’s safety, logistics, or just plain kindness, many Facebook followers say they stay side by side when hiking with their significant other.

Here are some of the comments:

• Brenda Howe said: “Let them set the pace. Emergencies can happen at any moment. We stay close.”
• Herb Davis said: “I would never leave my wife behind on our hike. I don’t look at hiking as a competition.”
• Lee Rofre said: “I have much longer legs than she, so I become the trailblazer and then wait ahead so we can compare notes.”
• Dan Godfrey said: “It depends how she’s coping on the day, but always there if she needs me or anyone else for that matter. I walk with whoever is within our group.”

However, not everyone agrees. Some hikers prefer to go the solo route to avoid the issue altogether:

• Gina Koch said: “I like to go by myself so nobody slows me down. More peaceful that way too.”

So how do you like to hike? Let us know in the comments.

The post Hike Ahead or Wait for Your Partner? The Outdoors.com Community Weighs in appeared first on Outdoors with Bear Grylls.

“Cast iron Dutch oven and griddle. I cook on fire as much as possible.” - Marilyn Hulme

“Fire, bring several lighters .you will probably need a small campfire. For many reasons” - Brian Weston

“Camp axe and paracord” - Mike Cee

“My Stanley thermos..” as well as a lot of different coffee makers - Kathy Tully White & other commenters

“zip ties. The best useful-to-weight ratio in all gear.” - Michael Kucan

“Water and filter if necessary and sweatshirt if cool” - Metteke Jack Vanden Bout

- Kelly Ann

“WATER.” lots and lots of water - Carol Shenk & other commenters

“Don’t forget the Charmin.” - Wade Osborne

“Summer - Battery backup fan! Winter-Heater!” - Rhonda Johnson King

“camp: a storm proof tent, a cot, a fan, and a mattress. Back country: new knees” - Gary Russell

“A tarp above the picnic table to keep you dry while preparing meals and dining.” -Doug Belyea

“Coleman gas grill” - Steve Warner

“Toothpaste bits, rinse free bathing clothes (soap already in it), first aid kit, axe, paracord, durable clothes and underclothes depending on the elements, tarp, emergency blanket, water filter” - Shondae Phelps

- Scott Stanley

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