Imagine a freezing city in the dead of winter. But instead of people tucked away inside and events and gatherings canceled until the snow melts, the city brings life to the coldest season of the year by throwing parties around fire pits, holding outdoor concerts under twinkle lights, and encouraging its residents and visitors to get outside on ice skates, bikes, and听cross-country skis. These cities around the world celebrate the chillier months in a big way, proving that frigid weather doesn鈥檛 have to mean being shut in.

Denver, Colorado

From downtown Denver, you can see the snowcapped Rocky Mountains towering on the horizon to the west. A love of winter runs deep here. From held outdoors at Red Rocks Amphitheater to a in February, there鈥檚 no shortage of things to be excited about during the colder months. To get people exploring downtown during the season, the city sets up a two-mile , plus , with prizes for those who successfully make their way around Denver鈥檚 art, landmarks, and history.

, a hip zone that opened in Denver鈥檚 LoDo neighborhood in 2017, was designed to be utilized year-round, with heaters, lights, and patio dining. This year the block is hosting an every weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and a February Mardi Gras celebration. The block鈥檚 boutique 172-room (from $154) has a Snowed In package that includes cookies and hot cocoa with your stay. Or head to the renovated , the historic train depot that鈥檚 now full of caf茅s and shops, where you can ride a from downtown straight to the slopes of the 鈥攕lated to launch on weekends in early January and run through late March.

搁别测办箩补惫铆办, Iceland

This close to the Arctic Circle, there鈥檚 very little daylight at the height of winter (less than four hours of sun on the shortest day of the year), but Iceland鈥檚 capital city makes up for the darkness with ample听festivities. A free-to-access pops up each winter in a downtown square, the festival celebrates contemporary music in January, and a brightens up the streets in February. To honor the Norse god Thor, some 搁别测办箩补惫铆办 restaurants host Thorrablot, a midwinter feast with traditional foods to celebrate the season.

Indoor food halls are a fun way to dine on street fare in a warmer setting than the street itself: what used to be the city鈥檚 bus terminal is now the indoor , and a former fish factory in the old harbor district is now the nine-vendor . Want to be outside? Go soak in one of the city鈥檚 many year-round geothermally heated pools鈥攖here鈥檚 even a free-to-access sandy geothermal beach at . The (from $183) rents cruiser bikes for exploring downtown all winter long.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

The college town of Cambridge gets plenty of winter storms鈥攖he Boston area averages around 50 inches of snow annually鈥攂ut that doesn鈥檛 mean residents stay inside when the weather turns cold. This is the city that refuses to close its farmers鈥� market just because it鈥檚 icy. The popular , held on Saturdays from January to April, will return to the gym at the Cambridge Community Center this year, with vendors selling local produce, seafood, and baked goods.

In Cambridge鈥檚 , what was once a parking lot has been transformed into a year-round pop-up market, with over a dozen mini storefronts selling their wares, and outdoor murals, string lights, and warming stations enhancing the atmosphere. The city is working to design protected bike lanes for snowy conditions and currently offers city-run on winter bicycling basics, where you鈥檒l get tips on route planning and layering while bike commuting during inclement weather.

Copenhagen, Denmark

The Danes invented the concept of hygge, that now global trend of creating a warm, cozy atmosphere, so it鈥檚 no wonder the capital city of Copenhagen maintains a good vibe come wintertime. Cycling is a main mode of transportation here, and that doesn鈥檛 stop in the colder months. With shorter days at this time of year, the city even swapped out its streetlights for smarter, more energy-efficient bulbs that shine brighter when a cyclist approaches.

Things to do come winter: Take in a jazz concert at , a nationwide festival held in February. Enjoy the , also in February, with light installations throughout the city. Or ski down a former power plant at . Additionally, you can ice-skate for free at public squares, like , or skate and grab food from , a street-food market with an ice rink. To warm up, go soak in a hot tub or sweat in a sauna with views of the city at , a collection of floating and stationary tubs in the harbor of northern Copenhagen. Winter swimming is surprisingly popular here鈥攍ast year听 were added to the harbor.

Edmonton, Canada

A decade ago, city planners in Edmonton got together to change the city鈥檚 approach to winter. Instead of building indoor malls and sending people inside, how could the city help people love the frosty season? Their solution was , which united a team of urban-planning experts tasked with making it easier for Edmontonians to get outside in the cold.

Local ski clubs offered free ski lessons to newbies, bike lanes were cleared of snow to promote winter cycling, and winter outdoor markets popped up around the city. Public spaces and outdoor patios were redesigned with fire pits, string lights, and heated seats. All those winter improvements now reappear every year starting around November. This February, the ten-day will feature ice skating, snow sculptures, and music, or you can compete in ax throwing and canoe races down a ski hill at 听that same month.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis is the city where ice fishing and pond hockey get folks outside in subzero temperatures, where bike paths are plowed for winter cyclists, and where the taproom and outdoor beer garden at 听are popular no matter what the weather is doing. The take place here each January, and at the ten-day , held in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in late January, chefs cook over outdoor grills, artists and filmmakers debut their work, and experts host workshops on everything from winter bird-watching to walking meditation. This winter you鈥檒l be able to walk through LED-lit ice sculptures and tunnels as part of the new installment.

At Theodore Wirth Regional Park, winter recreation is king: the city-owned park hosts an in February and has 20 miles of cross-country trails, affordable ski rentals and lessons, sledding hills, singletrack for fat-tire biking, and lakes for ice fishing. There are many other places to cross-country ski and snowshoe, too. The state鈥檚 gets you access to any trails within state parks or state forests; it costs $10 a day or $25 for the year. In addition,听 offers free snowshoe rentals in many city-owned parks.

Sapporo, Japan

Host of the 1972 Winter Olympic Games, Sapporo is known as one of the snowiest cities in the world, with an average snowfall of about 16 feet. But instead of getting buried by all that powder, citizens carve it into giant castles and snow slides. The city鈥檚 now famous , held at Odori Park in February, attracts millions of people and has been running since 1950. It features elaborate snow and ice sculptures as tall as buildings.

The festival isn鈥檛 the only thing to do in Sapporo in winter. located within the city and accessible via city bus, is open until 10 P.M.听and has lessons and gear rentals for beginners, as well as the biggest halfpipe in Japan for everyone else. Afterward, slurp a bowl of steaming ramen at , an alleyway lit up by paper lanterns, with a collection of over a dozen ramen shops, or soak in an onsen at , a hot-springs resort just outside the city.

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In late March,听the United Nations published the , a comprehensive look at what makes the most contented countries work so well. For the seventh year in a row, the Nordic nations of Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden dominated the top ten. While rankings are based on several factors, including political rights and economic equality, these countries have a few key metrics in common: low corruption rates, universal public services, and great access to the outdoors.听

For many of these countries, not only is nature within easy reach, but it鈥檚 an important part of their cultures. For the Scandinavian nations that take up six of the top-ten听spots, the term friluftsliv, which literally translates to 鈥渙pen-air living,鈥� denotes 鈥渁 philosophical lifestyle based on experiences of the freedom in nature and the spiritual connectedness with the landscape,鈥� according to听鈥�,鈥� an article in The Canadian Journal of Environmental Education.听

Sweden, which ranked seventh on the list, that nearly one-third of all residents participate in outdoor recreation at least once a week and, in a country that strives for economic equality, nearly 50 percent of the population has . Denmark, ranked second, has for children to encourage learning in the outdoors at a young age, and one found that children from greener neighborhoods were less likely to develop mental illness. The country is also home to the world鈥檚 most bike-friendly city, Copenhagen (though it鈥檚 not alone: many of the happiest countries have ). And Finland, which topped the list, boasts听188,000 inland lakes and forests that cover 75 percent of the country.

Finland, Norway, and Sweden also have 鈥渇reedom to roam鈥� policies, or which allow residents and visitors alike听to hike or camp nearly anywhere, including on private land. It鈥檚 also part of the region鈥檚 approach to work-life balance: many businesses in Scandinavian countries encourage employees to go outside each day, even that set aside time in the workday for fresh air. The most important part of their outdoor philosophy, though, is how they embrace the cold, dark winter months, as is expressed in the popular saying听of Norwegian origin that鈥檚 now used throughout the region:听鈥淭here鈥檚 no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.鈥� Parents in Scandinavia are known to let their听听in freezing temperatures to help them sleep better and听longer, Finns embrace harsh conditions with their sauna culture, and when the Danes and Swedes aren鈥檛 skiing, sledding, or to tobogganing, they鈥檙e practicing hygge, which loosely translates to being cozy.

The other countries that rounded out the top ten鈥擲witzerland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Austria, and Luxembourg鈥攁re also well-known adventure hubs. With its iconic snowcapped peaks, Switzerland is one of Europe鈥檚 most popular ski and hiking destinations. New Zealand has a system of ten Great Walks that allow even relatively inexperienced backcountry hikers to experience some of the country鈥檚 most beautiful landscapes for days and weeks at a time. The Netherlands is an established听haven for cyclists, with residents making of their daily trips via bike.听

The UN鈥檚 Sustainable Development Solutions Network bases its annual report on six categories: GDP per capita, life expectancy, social support, trust and corruption, perceived freedom to make life decisions, and generosity. The rankings are largely based on findings from the , a yearly survey conducted in more than 160 nations that evaluates respondents鈥� perceived quality of life .听

By comparison, the U.S ranks 18th in terms of overall happiness, a move up from 19th in 2019. While this can be seen as a good sign, the fluctuation among the top 20 happiest countries is marginal. The U.S. has never cracked the top ten, perhaps in part because Americans are spending less time outdoors. According to an Outdoor Foundation study released in January, nearly half the U.S. population doesn鈥檛 participate in outdoor recreation, with only 18 percent of people getting out for physical activity at least once a week. In addition, Americans took one billion fewer trips outside in 2018 than they did in 2008.听

Beyond their appreciation for the outdoors, additional aspects of the top-ten听societies likely contributed to their residents鈥� well-being. Most have universal health care systems, offer free college education, have substantial听, and are among some of the wealthiest countries in the world. By comparison, the unhappiest countries include Afghanistan, Yemen, and Palestine, which have continuously been racked with wars and conflict in recent history.听

It to think about what the future will look like, as social-distancing guidelines cause feelings of isolation and听cabin fever,听补苍诲 . But if you鈥檙e looking for ways to increase your own well-being and set in motion a more outdoors-based lifestyle once this is all over, start now by following these rules for getting outside safely.

The post What the Happiest Countries in the World Have in Common appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

On a cold, windy December day in Denmark, Amager Bakke might look, at least through severely fogged goggles, like any other ski slope. Near the top, helmeted skiers slalom down steep black-diamond runs, while at the bottom, headphone-wearing snowboarders hit jumps and rails. An instructor schools children in the art of the pizza wedge, while two friends giggle after one takes a tumble near the safety netting. At the nearby lodge, people enjoy glasses of apr猫s-ski glogg.

Wipe the goggles, and a whole other reality emerges. Amager Bakke, or CopenHill,听as it鈥檚 been dubbed, is a 462,848-square-foot waste-to-energy plant鈥攚hich just happens to have a ski slope on its roof鈥攔ising like a glittering aluminum iceberg from the flat plains of a semi-industrial section of Amager (pronounced, inexplicably, 鈥渁m-ah鈥�), an island that comprises part of听the city of Copenhagen.

Standing at the 279-foot summit of what is now one of the city鈥檚 tallest structures presents a surreal spectacle: skiers whooshing down a vast carpet of green Neveplast, a synthetic 鈥渄ry skiing鈥� surface from Italy, amid听a staggering听panorama听that鈥檚听dominated by the smokestacks of nearby biomass plants and, behind them, the gloomy, fog-shrouded expanse of the North Sea, dotted with massive wind turbines. Like the writer Don DeLillo鈥檚 鈥減ostmodern sunsets,鈥� it鈥檚 at once inspiringly beautiful and vaguely apocalyptic.

Walking around the windswept peak, I run into Chemmy Alcott, a now retired English ski racer and four-time Olympian, who鈥檚 filming a segment for the and has just completed a run on silicone-coated skis (a required lubricant on CopenHill).

鈥淚t鈥檚 really quite epic,鈥� she says. No stranger to artificial snow, she tells me that she finds the stubbier Neveplast faster than she鈥檚 used to. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not boring,鈥� she said of Amager Bakke, praising the 鈥渦ndulating terrain鈥� and the strange experience of skiing through the vaporous plumes of steam being vented by the plant. 鈥淔or a moment听you lose awareness, and then you come out the other side,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like when you skydive and go through a cloud.鈥�

CopenHill, which, along with the plant below, is owned听by听 (ARC),听offers more than skiing. You can simply hike to the summit on the marked trail听for the best view in Copenhagen, stopping to admire the wild strawberries growing on landscaped sections to one side of the slope (where a fox was recently spied). You can also run that path up (there鈥檚 already a Strava segment).听If you鈥檝e any gas left, there are CrossFit bars at the top. 鈥淟ast weekend we had a race with 450 people dressed as Santa Claus,鈥澨鼵ecilie Nielsen, CopenHill鈥檚 head of customer relations, tells me. 鈥淚t was awesome.鈥�

Come spring, one of the world鈥檚 tallest climbing walls, a twisting and weaving ascent, will open听on a corner of the building, which will eventually听be laced with green听as the structure鈥檚 built-in aluminum window boxes begin to bloom. And, lest they forget why they are there, climbers, as they traverse along the holds, will get occasional views into the plant itself,听where soaring apses support听the huge and complex workings that turn Danish garbage into Danish heat and electricity.

That a听cutting-edge waste-to-energy facility听now also boasts the best skiing in Denmark鈥攃all it the powder plant鈥攊s thanks to native son Bjarke Ingels, one of the world鈥檚 best-known architects听and an espouser of a way of thinking he鈥檚 called 鈥渟ustainable hedonism,鈥� a near oxymoronic philosophy that dares to ask the question: Can saving the world be fun?

Ingels seems to have a thing for roofs.

When I first met him in Copenhagen in 2006, we were standing atop a building he鈥檇 designed along with his former business partner, Julien De Smedt. Called the , it serves as听a sailing club with a youth center. Lacking outdoor space, the architects fashioned the roof into a swooping, skateboard-park-like deck.

Strolling through the vast range of his subsequent work that was on view at the this past fall, this seeming penchant for upward听thinking was on abundant display鈥攆rom residential projects like the Mountain听in Copenhagen听(a building that happens to look like a mountain)听or Stockholm鈥檚 79th and听Park,听whose roof is comprised of terraces, many planted with greenery,听to the in-progress design for the new Oakland A鈥檚 stadium, which features a tree-lined linear park running along a curved covering that dips toward the ground. The projects of the听 (BIG)听often look like dramatic staging grounds for some extreme sport or another (to take one example, the proposed Google campus in Sunnyvale, California), so it鈥檚听small wonder that听Ingels鈥攁nd some of his work鈥攁ppeared in a film about parkour.

When I ask Ingels, as we sit in the Denali听conference room inside the waste-to-energy plant beneath the ski slope, if any sort of line can be drawn between the small-scale Maritime Youth House and the huge CopenHill, he smiles. 鈥淚n a very literal way, there is the idea of doing things you鈥檙e not supposed to do on the roof,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut more fundamentally, there鈥檚 this idea that if we鈥檙e going to do something, we might as well do it the most exciting way possible.鈥� This is a man, after all, who once compared his architecture to a game of Twister, which only becomes fun鈥攎ore 鈥渁crobatic and enjoyable鈥濃€攁s you start 鈥減ouring on more demands.鈥�

The idea of a hill loomed, by necessity, early in the project. The engineers, Ingels says, had dictated a basic envelope for the building, based on the machinery inside. 鈥淚t was this kind of tiered series of blocks that got taller,鈥� he says, like an ascending stereo-equalizer display. 鈥淭he diagram was already mountainesque.鈥�

Initially, BIG听added 鈥渢he simplest kind of sloping roof,鈥� adorned with a rooftop park. But he felt they were 鈥渟taying in the realm of cosmetics,鈥� like 鈥減utting lipstick on a pig.鈥� He wondered if they could do something more transformative. On a site visit, Ingels noticed the nearby Copenhagen Cable Park, which whizzes wakeboarders around the harbor via overhead wires. 鈥淚t just became so clear: the skiers had already arrived, but only in the summer.鈥�

That part of Copenhagen wasn鈥檛 hurting for open space, but what it lacked鈥攚hat the entire country lacked鈥攚as an enticing ski hill. 鈥淵ou have to drive four hours to Isaberg, in Sweden,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd Isaberg is not a very large mountain. The main slope is only a 150-meter [492-foot] drop. So it dawned on us that we could actually do two-thirds of a real mountain ski slope.鈥� It seemed far-fetched at first. They talked to a ski-resort operator. They talked to Team Denmark, an elite-sports organization. No one told them it couldn鈥檛 be done, if only because no one had done it. 鈥淲e started getting an understanding that we couldn鈥檛 actually shoot the idea down.鈥�

Not that it was easy. As Jesper Boye Anderson, a designer at BIG, had told me in the firm鈥檚 Brooklyn offices: 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 open the code books and then look how to do a ski slope on top of a waste-burning plant.鈥�

In one unconventional twist, the building is designed so that, in the event of a fire or an explosion, the walls will give way before the roof, as a safety measure for the skiers up top. The company, too, had to get the topography right from the get-go. 鈥淥nce you mount concrete slabs,鈥� Andersen听said, 鈥測ou鈥檙e kind of locked on the geometry.鈥� On top of those slabs, a layer of soil was attached, on which grass was planted听to cushion skiers鈥� falls and help with drainage. On top of that听went听the Neveplast panels, and听skiers鈥� blades trim听the grass that听pokes through.

But BIG鈥檚 architects didn鈥檛 like the joints between the seven-by-five-foot听panels, which could expand with warm weather. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e afraid that you鈥檒l get your skis caught in the joints,鈥� Andersen听said. So the company鈥檚 R&D wing, BIG Ideas,听working with Neveplast, created nearly invisible joints within the pattern itself, so it鈥檚 one long carpet of ski surface, 107,000 square feet of upturned hairbrush.

One of the things that attracted ARC鈥檚听CEO to BIG鈥檚 proposal, Ingels believes, 鈥渋s that it makes blatantly obvious something that would otherwise be completely invisible.鈥� The company鈥檚 former waste-to-energy plant, located just next door and currently being dismantled, was hardly on anyone鈥檚 radar. And a new facility, even one that claims to be one of the most efficient garbage-burning听facilities of the world鈥攑art of Copenhagen鈥檚 seemingly achievable goal of being carbon-neutral by 2025鈥攚ould hardly be a bucket-list destination for most people.

To make itself known, says Ingels, 鈥渢hey would have to make ad campaigns听or shout it from the rooftops.鈥� Now, he says, people see it鈥攊ts towering apex and steamy stack is hard to miss anywhere in town鈥攁nd note that 鈥渋t鈥檚 clearly something different, and, wait, how come there鈥檚 a ski hill? And then you start learning the story.鈥� It becomes 鈥渁 way to communicate what鈥檚 great about this power plant compared to others,鈥� he says.

So far, it鈥檚 working. Since opening in October听2019, CopenHill has hosted a constant stream of media and foreign delegations (that afternoon, according to a screen in the lobby, South Korea鈥檚 environmental minister was scheduled to visit), not to mention tourists, who come to ski, hike the hill, or merely gawk and take selfies by the thousands. It鈥檚 easily the world鈥檚 most Instagrammed waste-to-energy plant, a virtual advertisement for itself.

There are actually two mountains at Amager Bakke.

One is the 1,312-foot-long听ski run, with its black, green, and blue sections. It鈥檚 a festive, daytime world, with breathtaking views.

The other mountain is a mountain of trash, cloying and festering, that lurks deep inside the structure, fed by the 200 to 300 garbage trucks that visit the facility each day. Sune Scheibye, ARC鈥檚 communications point man, takes me to the best place to view this towering, ever shifting aggregation: a听small control room, normally empty, where an engineer听sitting in a massive swivel chair worthy of the bridge of the USS听Enterprise听silently tracks the performance听through a large glass window, as听a set of automated cranes move clumps of debris from one side of the huge chamber to another. I feel like I鈥檓 living in The Terminator, and Skynet is definitely winning.

鈥淚t looks like one of those kids鈥� games, where you have to try to grab a prize with the claw,鈥� I offer听to one of the men, who is terse and sober听in that Scandinavian way. 鈥淓xcept in this game, you actually grab something,鈥� he says, cracking the smallest of smiles. 鈥淏ut not something you want to take home, by any means.鈥�

From here, the trash is fed into one of two massive furnaces, each burning at 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit, an otherworldly orange glow visible through small glass portals. 鈥淭he ash is used to build roadbeds,鈥� Scheibye says. In 2018, the heat that was generated powered district heating for 70,000 homes in Copenhagen, while steam-powered turbines generated electricity for another 32,000.听Much of the plant is occupied by a series of huge,听twisting tubes and silos, which scrub more than 95 percent of the various noxious elements contained in the smoke.

The plume鈥攎ostly steam, with a touch of CO2鈥攖hat gushes from the peak of CopenHill looms like a perpetual beacon on the city skyline. Ingels, working with the Berlin-based artists鈥� group Realities:United, had a thought, early on in the process, to have the emissions come out in giant smoke rings. 鈥淭he idea was, if we could express that the plume was not this kind of toxic thing of the past,鈥� he says. The project鈥檚 principals weren鈥檛 willing to fund this extravagance, but they weren鈥檛 exactly opposed to it either. So BIG, working with a local professor of airflow and turbulence, constructed a functioning one-third-scale prototype听fed by a ring of 24 nozzles. But a change in the project鈥檚 management put the idea on the back burner. 鈥淚 said, 鈥極K, let鈥檚 open the ski slope, celebrate some successes, and then we鈥檒l try to get it done.鈥欌€�

For Ingels, the smoke rings were a sort of living, breathing symbol of his philosophy of sustainable hedonism, 鈥渓ike smoking a cigar and puffing听smoke rings,鈥� he laughs. At the same time, it could serve as a potent symbol of the environmental gains being made. 鈥淚 was thinking it could be linked to an emission count鈥攍et鈥檚 say every time we鈥檇 reduced the emissions of CO2 by a ton, or 100 tons, or whatever, by replacing the old power plant with this one, it would be celebrated by puffing a ring.鈥� Like a contemporary twist on a church bell, it would playfully signal social gains.

Much of the discourse around sustainability has become听almost inescapably freighted with negativity, he argues. 鈥淓ither scaring people into action听or this kind of Protestant idea of taking cold showers. We felt that鈥檚 not very desirable.鈥� But what if a sustainable life could also be a more enjoyable life? 鈥淭hat would be so much more powerful,鈥� Ingels says.听

It鈥檚 become a rather common urban trope for the cast-off products of industrialization to be turned into contemporary sources of pleasure and ennoblement; think of London鈥檚 Tate Modern, housed in the former Bankside Power Station,听or New York City鈥檚 High Line, an arterial park fashioned from a defunct stretch of elevated freight rail. 鈥淲e thought,听What if you don鈥檛 have to wait until they shut the power plant down before you make it enjoyable?鈥�

That plant鈥檚 machinery, as one , will, too,听be obsolete in a number of decades, replaced, one hopes, by ever more efficient technology. 鈥淏ut he was quite certain that, in the end, the building will last,鈥� Ingels says, 鈥渘ot because of its core purpose听but because of these extra ideas that we invented.鈥�

Standing at the windswept summit of CopenHill, where a Christmas tree glittered daintily next to the towering smokestack, its grayish-silver silhouette nearly the same brooding color as the Danish sky, I felt as if I were neither quite fully in nature nor quite fully in the city, like I was听inhabiting a new space pried open by the human imagination. Nursing a knee injury, I鈥攕adly, reluctantly鈥攄idn鈥檛 want to test myself on the fast (and new听to me) Neveplast. Instead I watched the surreal sight of skiers as they pushed off and slalomed down toward听a watery strait听ringed by industrial听buildings. That sentence upsets our normal mental geographies听and doesn鈥檛 quite make sense at first, but then again, neither did a ski slope on top of a giant trash incinerator.

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Thirty-five years ago, a young researcher at the University of Delaware conducted .听Having spent his childhood听sick with kidney disease, in and out of 鈥済loomy, sometimes brutal鈥� hospitals, Roger Ulrich was interested in finding ways to improve 鈥渢he environments where patients are treated.鈥� So he sought to test the potential influence of an old friend that had brought him comfort as a child: a solitary pine that he could view through the window by his sickbed. 鈥淚 think seeing that tree helped my emotional state,鈥� he recalled .

That small study would give birth to thousands of replications and expansions鈥攁nd an entire movement in architecture. Ulrich managed to find a hospital ward where, for years, patients had recovered from gallbladder surgery in identical rooms that overlooked either a small stand of deciduous trees or a brick wall. After pouring through nearly ten years鈥櫶齱orth of ward records, Ulrich found that patients with a view of the trees fared far better than the miserable patients with nothing but a wall to look at, even if their cases were identical. Those with a view took fewer painkillers, were rated by their nurses as being in better spirits, and, on average, left the hospital nearly a day earlier than those without a view. What was going on?听

We鈥檝e learned a lot about nature and the brain since then. After Ulrich鈥檚 foundational work, more than 100 studies have investigated the potential . From these studies鈥攎any of them small, observational, and imperfect鈥攚e believe that nonthreatening natural stimuli (as opposed to, say, a nearby lightning strike) can play a profound role in the regulation of our autonomic, or involuntary, nervous system. Natural settings that, to quote Ulrich, are 鈥渇avorable to ongoing well-being or survival鈥� appear to signal our brains that it is time to take a breather, allowing us to turn down our fight-or-flight system, restore our resources, and approach things that are good for us, like finding food or socializing. Specifically, we have learned that nature tends to result in reduced circulating levels of the 听and the inflammatory marker immunoglobulin A. It is also associated with lowered blood pressure,听 (or short-term emotional experience), blunted 鈥減erceived stress鈥� after , and lower short-term levels of . We also appear to after we鈥檝e spent time in nature, a phenomenon distinct enough to appear as differences in neural activity during brain scans.

But while compelling, that evidence base has left one glaring question unanswered: Does exposure to nature actually, lastingly improve our mental health? Two groundbreaking new studies have, in part, helped to answer that question.

Imagine that the day you were born you were assigned a personal code, much like听a Social Security number. You used this code when you enrolled in school, visited your doctor, filled a prescription, paid your taxes, got married, got divorced. But unlike a Social Security number, this code tracked your every move, inscribed in a massive system of interlocking data registers that could tell a researcher almost anything they wanted to know about your life. Such a personal identification system is the norm in Nordic countries, where the government provides a wide net of services for its citizens and consequently monitors their health, needs, and use of public services. This year, researchers in Denmark used this system to generate the largest and most comprehensive observational study of mental health and the environment yet undertaken: one million young adults, or from 1985 to 2003 and still living there by their tenth birthday.

The research team, led by Kristine Engemann and Jens-Christian Svenning at Aarhus University, combined long-term data on mental-disorder diagnoses from the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register (which tracks inpatient and outpatient psychiatric care) with years of land-cover data derived from satellite imagery. They then asked if children raised in homes surrounded by more nature鈥攕pecifically green vegetation鈥攅xperienced better mental health as they grew into adolescents and young adults.

The researchers considered 16 distinct mental disorders, from schizophrenia and depression to anorexia and personality disorders. Based on prior evidence, they had reason to expect that rates of depression or anxiety might be lower among children raised in greener neighborhoods. in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March, they found, to their surprise, that children from greener neighborhoods were less likely to develop nearly any diagnosable mental illness.

Because those areas tend to be wealthier, the authors adjusted their findings for levels of family and neighborhood affluence, using the rich personal data available, under lock and key, to epidemiologists working in Denmark. They found that the link remained significant for 14 out of the 16 examined disorders. 鈥淲e thought maybe we would see an interesting association within a band of disorders,鈥� Engemann says. 鈥淏ut there was this general association that being surrounded by higher levels of green space in childhood was associated with lower risk.鈥� This was regardless, she says, of where in Denmark children lived or how nice their neighborhoods were. 鈥淭his was not a localized phenomenon.鈥�

All told, children raised in the least green neighborhoods were 55 percent more likely to develop a mental illness than their peers who grew up in the greenest neighborhoods, regardless of social standing, the area鈥檚 level of affluence, or parental history of mental illness.

鈥淭his was a really powerful study,鈥� says Ben Wheeler, an epidemiologist at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health, who designs large-scale听studies of nature and health. 鈥淚 was quite surprised by the scale of the effects.鈥澨鼳 few years ago, Wheeler was involved in a similar, albeit smaller, study in the UK, monitoring the mental health of over 1,000 people as they changed residences across many years. His team found that when people are living in greener environments, they report better psychological well-being and less psychological distress, regardless of what else is going on in their lives or neighborhoods. The new study from Denmark suggests that this lower distress can be measured in actual mental illness averted. 鈥淥nce you look at the numbers,鈥� Engemann notes, 鈥渢hat adds up to quite a large number of yearly cases.鈥�

Of course, correlation does not prove causation. That鈥檚 where the second study comes in, this time observing differences among people exposed to different levels of greenery by actually manipulating the environment听on a city scale.

In a first-of-its-kind randomized control trial, the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open in July 2018,听researchers from multiple U.S. universities, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, discretely altered the environment of an entire city to ask if changing the quality of open and green spaces results in a detectable shift in residents鈥� safety, criminal behavior, and mental health. 鈥淲e presented this as how a randomized trial for a new drug would go鈥攂ut for spaces and places,鈥� recalls one of the project鈥檚 leaders, Charles Branas, chair of the department of epidemiology at Columbia University鈥檚 Mailman School of Public Health.

Branas and his colleagues selected 541 vacant lots across the city of Philadelphia and randomly allocated each to either receive no intervention, receive regular trash removal and mowing, or be turned into open pocket parks, with trees and a pleasant, short wooden-perimeter fence. Survey teams blind to the intervention were sent out to question residents at random听before and after the great experiment, eventually interviewing nearly 450 people about their mental health. When the study was complete, its architects found that residents of neighborhoods where lots had been greened were much healthier psychologically than those whose lots had merely been cleaned. Around greened lots, neighborhood-level rates of feeling 鈥渄epressed鈥� dropped by 42 percent, feeling 鈥渨orthless鈥� by 51 percent, and having generally 鈥減oor mental health鈥� by 63 percent.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a big finding,鈥� says Eugenia South, the study鈥檚 lead author, a doctor of emergency medicine at Presbyterian Medical Center of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania. 鈥淭his is the first study to show that changing the environment prospectively can change the way people feel听and improve their mental health.鈥� She notes that interviewed residents were not always aware that a change had necessarily occurred in their neighborhood, which suggests that you may benefit from having nature around you even if you aren鈥檛 conscious of it.

For now, these recent studies provide suggestive but compelling evidence of nature鈥檚 lasting effects on our mental health. But one mystery still remains: just how precisely it calms us down. Does the magic happen through autonomic stress reduction,听having a place to meet people and get active, or just by seeing something beautiful every day? 鈥淲e still don鈥檛 know,鈥� says Kathleen Wolf, a social scientist at the University of Washington who has studied this phenomenon for decades. While her younger colleagues call these new studies 鈥済ame changing,鈥澨齭he can only shake her head in amazement at the recognition and funding that the field is finally getting.

But the lingering questions shouldn鈥檛 stop us from filling that free mental-health prescription by spending more time in natural settings听regularly and intentionally. As we reported in 国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 May issue,听clinicians, public health departments, and even some health insurers are deciding that they don鈥檛 need to wait for more evidence before acting. Many are beginning to experiment with using the outdoors as the stage of the next great health intervention. Maybe you should, too.

The post The Incredible Link Between Nature and Your Emotions appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has always billed himself as a progressive. Back in February, in his State of the City address, he boldly announced that he鈥檇 transform this town of $1-million studio apartments and 听into 鈥渢he fairest big city in the world.鈥� But here鈥檚 the thing:

You can鈥檛 have a truly fair city unless you start beating back all the cars.

鈥淣onsense!鈥� you might say. 鈥淒enying me the unfettered use of my Freedom Machine is the very antithesis of fairness!鈥� Well, sure, it may seem unfair to you and your SUV鈥攅specially when you鈥檙e looking for a parking space. But letting people in private vehicles run roughshod over the city causes crushing traffic jams, delays public transit, pollutes the air, creates noise, wastes public resources, and takes up an obscene amount of space in a city that doesn鈥檛 have enough of it. Oh, and there鈥檚 also all the people these automobiles听kill.

To de Blasio鈥檚 credit, under his administration the city has continued to add bike lanes, even defying certain cyclist-hating community boards when necessary. The city has also been experimenting with dockless bike share, as well as with dedicated car-share parking spots. By American standards, we鈥檝e done a lot to provide and promote alternatives to car ownership. In fact, you could even go so far as to say that in this country, we鈥檙e on the very forefront of enacting bold car-free policy.

So does that mean we鈥檙e doing an excellent job when it comes to cutting back on cars? Sadly, no. We鈥檙e great at a lot of stuff here in New York (making bagels and complaining about stuff both come to mind), but having the most progressive transit policy in the U.S. is like having the best bagels in Topeka: the competition is not exactly cutthroat. Then there鈥檚 climate change. Shit鈥檚 getting real out there and :

Scientists described the quickening rate of carbon dioxide emissions in stark terms, comparing it to a 鈥渟peeding freight train鈥� and laying part of the blame on an unexpected surge in the appetite for oil as people around the world not only buy more cars but also drive them farther than in the past鈥攎ore than offsetting any gains from the spread of electric vehicles.

Indeed, when you see what other cities in other countries are up to, you see that New York City doesn鈥檛 even come close to real bike-centric progress. Here are just a few examples:

Paris

In Manhattan, cars with Jersey plates choke the streets and throngs of pedestrians are so starved for sidewalk space they spill over into the bike lanes. In Paris (where car trips have since 1990), Mayor Anne Hildago is hacking away at car dominance by pedestrianizing swaths of the city, on the first Sunday of every month, and announcing plans to of gasoline-powered cars by 2030. So how would Parisiens get around in this socialist Hemi-free hellscape if she gets her way? Why, on bikes, scooters鈥攁nd , of course. 听

Copenhagen

听of Copenhageners commute by bike. In New York, the fancy new protected bike lane you鈥檙e riding on will eventually just , leaving you to slug it out with truck traffic. In Copenhagen, they鈥檝e got connecting the suburbs to the city. Mayor Frank Jensen wants to from entering the city by 2019; Denmark is moving to eventually the sale of fossil fuel cars entirely. They鈥檝e even got in Copenhagen, for chrissakes! Here, the closest you鈥檒l get to that kind of amenity is perching yourself on the running board of a Cadillac Escalade at a red light.

Madrid (and Beyond)

Madrid 听in some parts of the city by setting tough new vehicle emissions standards. Elsewhere in Spain, Seville turned itself into a cycling city in four years鈥攜ou know, by . And the city of Pontreveda has after realizing the following:

鈥淗ow can it be that the elderly or children aren鈥檛 able to use the street because of cars?鈥� asks C茅sar Mosquera, the city鈥檚 head of infrastructures. 鈥淗ow can it be that private property鈥攖he car鈥攐ccupies the public space?鈥�

Meanwhile, in America we call not being able to use public outdoor space 鈥渇reedom.鈥�

London

New Yorkers suffer from a bad case of exceptionalism; 鈥淭his isn鈥檛 [insert lesser city here]!,鈥� we cry whenever someone proposes a new idea. 鈥淭hat shit ain鈥檛 gonna fly in this town.鈥� And yes, some of these other cities are somewhat diminutive compared to our mighty metropolis of over eight million people. But you can鈥檛 say that about London, a fellow global power听that鈥檚 equally huge in population and cultural and commercial clout. Sure, they鈥檝e got their just like we do, but they鈥檝e also got cycling superhighways, motor-vehicle-congestion pricing, and soon, an . Here in New York, the best we鈥檝e come up with so far is 鈥�,鈥� which is basically a handful of days a year we politely ask people not to drive.

Tokyo

In New York City, space is at a premium, and this is some of the most expensive real estate in the country鈥攜et we give away much of our curb space for private vehicle storage. This glut of cars has a seriously negative impact on our quality of life. Yet if I owned fifteen cars I could park them all out on the street for free, and while some might say I was simply exercising my rights as an American, what it really makes me is an asshole. But in Tokyo (another gigantic global power city), you can鈥檛 even buy a car without showing proof that you鈥檝e secured a parking space for it鈥攁nd , because overnight parking is illegal.

So basically, our international peers have had it up to their unshaven armpits with cars, and they鈥檙e doing something about it. Meanwhile, back in New York City, our mayor wouldn鈥檛 even move the needle on the International Progressive-O-Meter. 鈥淚 just don鈥檛 like the idea, personally,鈥� he of e-bikes and e-scooters. He鈥檚 also resisted congestion pricing on the basis that it鈥檚 a 鈥渞egressive tax鈥� on low-income New Yorkers, even though who are driving into the proposed congestion pricing zone听and even though it would help fund the transit system on which lower income New Yorkers (and really all New Yorkers) depend.

As for climate change, de Blasio,听eager to show the world that he was ready to help lead the fight, kicked off 2018 by that the city would sue the big oil companies鈥攁 case that has since been . So much for that. He also continues to travel from Manhattan to Brooklyn in order to work out on a stationary bicycle.

For better or for worse, some may think New York City is an aberration in this land of pickup trucks and firearms, but it doesn鈥檛 get much more American than that.

The post To Create a Truly Great City, We Have to Ban the Car appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Consider Amelia Boone. The world-champion Spartan racer is a Type A pusher. When she鈥檚 not winning Spartan events or racing ultramarathons, she鈥檚 a corporate lawyer for Apple. Boone has always set high expectations for herself, and that has undoubtedly helped propel her to the top.

But after a string of serious injuries in 2016, including a femoral stress fracture, her athletic performance declined. At first, Boone expected to recover quickly from her injury. When that didn鈥檛 happen, she was disappointed. Once she finally recovered from the injury itself鈥攕lowly, over the course of many months鈥擝oone found that she had 鈥渦nderestimated the length of time needed to rebuild as an athlete after a year on the sidelines,鈥� she told me. Disappointment yet again.

Striving for big, hard-to-reach goals is good. Up to a point.

In a recent blog post reflecting on her experience, Boone that she was tempted to wait until she felt fully ready to race again, 鈥渦ntil I鈥檇 regained all the strength I鈥檇 lost, until my running paces had come back, until I was sure I could go out there and dominate.鈥� But she realized this attitude may have been setting her up for even further disappointment. What if she never felt fully ready? What if her strength and running paces never completely returned?

鈥淸I realized] I could set aside my ego, toe the start line feeling less than confident, and accept what my current limitations were,鈥� writes Boone. 鈥淚 could accept that I鈥檓 rusty, accept that I鈥檓 scared, and accept that the results may not be what I like. Essentially, I could accept where I am in the process and be okay with that. There鈥檚 freedom in realizing your expectations are only constructs you create in your own head.鈥�

The problem with placing too much emphasis on your expectations鈥攅specially when they are exceedingly high鈥攊s that if you don鈥檛 meet them, you鈥檙e liable to feel sad, perhaps even burned out. This isn鈥檛 to say that you shouldn鈥檛 strive for excellence, but there鈥檚 wisdom in not letting perfect be the enemy of good.

In 2006, epidemiologists from the University of Southern Denmark set out to explore why citizens of Denmark consistently score higher than any other Western country on measures of life satisfaction. Their findings, in the medical journal BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), zeroed in on the importance of expectations. 鈥淚f expectations are unrealistically high they could be the basis of disappointment and low life satisfaction,鈥� write the authors. 鈥淲hile the Danes are very satisfied, their expectations [compared to other countries] are rather low.鈥�

In a more recent that included more than 18,000 participants and was published in 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from University College in London examined people鈥檚 happiness from moment to moment. They found that 鈥渕omentary happiness in response to outcomes of a probabilistic reward task is not explained by current task earnings, but by the combined influence of the recent reward expectations and prediction errors arising from those expectations.鈥� In other words: Happiness at any given moment equals reality minus expectations.

Still, it鈥檚 worth reiterating that setting high expectations is integral to personal, athletic, and professional improvement. If you don鈥檛 aim for progressively higher targets, you鈥檙e liable to stay where you are, or maybe even stagnate. But it鈥檚 equally important to realize that if you are setting unreasonably high expectations, you won鈥檛 be too happy (at least not for long), and it鈥檚 hard to be on top of your game when you鈥檙e feeling down. Another way to think about this is that, yes, you should set goals, but you should make sure they are achievable鈥攁nd try not to stress over what you can鈥檛 control. And after you鈥檝e set them, perhaps you should spend a little less time focusing on the goals (expectations) and more time on doing your best in the moment (reality).

In the of Jason Fried, founder and CEO of software company and author of multiple books on workplace performance: 鈥淚 used to set expectations in my head all day long. But constantly measuring reality against an imagined reality is taxing and tiring, [and] often wrings the joy out of experiencing something for what it is.鈥�

Brad Stulberg () writes 国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 Do It Better column and is the author of the new book .

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The majority of us鈥擳V viewers, fantasy strategists, and Olympics听bingers鈥攖hink of our athletic heroes as having high-powered nutritionists at their side, serving a militant diet where everything is as plain as oatmeal with a dot of honey. But many athletes around the world eat things that would surprise even the Chopped听judging table.

鈥淢ost of the international athletes I鈥檝e encountered tend to prefer what鈥檚 common in their home country.听I鈥檝e found that they don鈥檛 have bland diets,鈥� says Shawn Arent, sports medicine and performance expert and director of the Center for Health and听Human Performance at Rutgers University. 鈥淲e鈥檝e even seen a problem when foreign athletes come to the U.S. and access more processed foods. In many cases, I鈥檝e seen those athletes gain quite a bit of weight as they adapt to different foods.鈥�

We connected with athletes around the world to discover what鈥檚 in the training meal听(or cheat meal)听that they can鈥檛 get enough of.

Adam Ondra, Rock Climber, Czech Republic听

In the Czech Republic鈥檚 southwestern city of Brno, climber听Adam Ondra听relies on听local produce from the lowlands for superfoods. Colder months yield a side dish of raw sour cabbage that鈥檚 chock-full of vitamins.听Poppy seeds are in every bread and bun on the plate or blended into a smoothie. For the traditional Czech taste, though, he turns to svickova: a thin cut of beef served with cream-based gravy, bread dumplings, and cranberry topping. The dish is made by the masters (grandmothers), and Ondra indulges once, maybe twice, a year鈥攐ne must stay lean on the cliff faces.

Mira Rai, Trail Runner, Nepal

The petite, 108-pound Mira Rai puts away the remarkable amount of calories trail runners need by eating the traditional dish,听dal bhat. The Nepalese staple includes a heaping pile of white or brown rice;听a side bowl of lentils, spinach, and other mixed veggies;听occasional slices of meat;听and a spice mix of coriander, cumin, garam masala, and turmeric. Like all Nepalese dishes, dal bhat is听eaten with the hands.

Atsede Baysa,听Marathon听Runner, Ethiopia听

This year鈥檚 Boston Marathon winner, Atsede Baysa, lives and trains 45 miles west of Ethiopia鈥檚 centrally听located capital of听Addis Ababa, in a small town near the Chilimo-Gaji forest. She supplements standard starch and protein combos of pasta and fish with national treasure injera chechebsa. Injera is Ethiopia鈥檚 sour and spongy bread, rich in both iron and carbohydrates.听Chechebsa, commonly known as kita firfir, is fried injera seasoned in a berbere sauce made with hot red pepper powder, all served with honey. The dish provides protein and fat for Baysa, who eats it with a tilapia-like white fish called Nile perch.

Jain Kim, Rock Climber, South Korea

The summer heat in South Korea calls for cold noodle soup, and climber听Jain Kim favors the wildly popular naengmyeon. Seldom served in other Asian countries, the buckwheat noodle soup comes with sliced beef, cucumbers, Korean pear, and a soft-boiled egg. A simpler variation, called mul-naengmyeon, relies on beef broth alone, but Kim opts for the bibim-naengmyeon, which incorporates spicy red chili peppers into the broth.

Max Matissek, Windsurfer, Greece

Some of the best local produce in Naxos, Greece, are juicy tomatoes, which windsurfer听Max Matissek eats on top of daily salads with Naxian cheese鈥攊magine a hybrid of cottage cheese and feta. His protein comes from chicken souvlaki, the lightly marinated meat skewers over rice, with a side of Naxian potatoes鈥攐ven-roasted and mixed with local olive oil, garlic, lemon, and pepper.

Mo Hrezi, Marathon听Runner, Libya/United States

As a听former Italian colony, Libya boasts cuisine with Mediterranean, North African, and Middle Eastern influences. The country鈥檚 residents take the preparation and sharing of food seriously, and Mo听Hrezi, a Libyan-American runner with a carb-heavy, spicy-infused diet, is no exception. When he visits his parents and sisters in Tripoli, where he hopes to one day move back after finishing college, his most savored dish is rishdet burma, a warm, soupy, spicy bowl of homemade pasta with a tomato base, chickpeas, fava beans, lentils, fenugreek, and gideed (dried and salted meat).

Farida Osman, Swimmer, Egypt/United States

For Olympic swimmer Farida听Osman, the late-morning spread in her Zamalek neighborhood of Cairo includes ful medames鈥攍ocal beans seasoned with olive oil, lemon,听补苍诲 cumin鈥攁nd traditional molokheya, made by mixing the dish鈥檚 namesake听plant leaves with coriander, garlic, and chicken stock. Keeping with the sharp flavors of Egyptian cuisine, Osman tops her dishes with roumy, the native听crumbly cheese similar to a manchego.听

Irina Sazonova, Gymnast, Iceland

In her hometown of Reykjavik, the nation鈥檚 capital, 24-year-old gymnast Irina Sazonova prefers meat-centric dishes like kj枚ts煤pa (Icelandic lamb soup). The lean meat is raised more responsibly than anywhere else in the world thanks to Iceland鈥檚 robust agriculture regulations. Cuts are often served bone-in, and the soup adjoins plenty of thyme, oregano, carrots, cauliflower, potatoes, brown rice, and rutabaga (turnip). 听

Annika Langvad, Cross-Country Mountain Biker, Denmark

When in Copenhagen, childhood staples reign supreme for daytime snacks, and it鈥檚 all about the nationwide-favorite sm酶rrebr酶d at lunch. For听Langvad, a small, thin slice of Danish-style rye bread serves as the base for the open-faced sandwich.听Her favorite topping combination includes warm leverpostej (liver pat茅听meat spread) with pickled beets and fresh herbs. The Danes often take their sm酶rrebr酶d simple, like Langvad鈥檚, but that doesn鈥檛 mean you can鈥檛 find tricked-out combinations, like a smoked halibut rillette with pickled radish, capers, and rosemary.

The post Rishdet Burma, Not Rice Cakes: 9 Athletes’ Favorite Regional Dishes appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

For the past two years, Squamish, B.C., photographer had been sitting on an idea: capture a skier on a slope silhouetted by a total solar eclipse. It鈥檚 a once-in-a-career opportunity for many reasons鈥攑rimarily because solar eclipses are only visible from a given location once every 200 years, on average. And seeing one can take much longer. Los Angeles, for instance, will go more than 1,500 years between total solar eclipses.

Plus, Krabbe needed his eclipse to cast above somewhere with snow and mountains鈥攁 rare combo. After researching the astronomy calendar, the 24-year-old realized he would get his chance during the March 20, 2015 eclipse, which would be visible from two places: the Faroe Islands of Denmark, and Svalbard, Norway, a mountainous archipelago in the Arctic that happens to have spectacular skiing.

Krabbe pitched his idea to , which produces the popular series. To the surprise of Switchback directors Mike Douglas and Anthony Bonello, Salomon bit on the Svalbard idea. At a cost of more than $100,000, the trip would be the most expensive in Freeski TV history. 鈥淵ou guys do understand that one cloudy day and this could be a bust?鈥� they told Salomon. 鈥淵eah,鈥� came the reply. 鈥淏ut if we get it, it could be really incredible.鈥�

Bonello and Krabbe enlisted pro skiers Cody Townsend, Chris Rubens, and Brody Leven, as well as a British expat guide named Steve Lewis. The team of ten people, including filmmakers, skiers, and support staffers, spent two weeks camped on a glacier in polar bear country to get photos and footage, a process that is chronicled in 鈥淓clipse,鈥� a 31-minute film that premiered听Wednesday at the and comes out online on听November 10.

The group arrived in Svalbard听on听March 10, two weeks after the sun returned from its annual six-month absence during fall and winter. (Most skiers go in April and May when the days are longer and warmer.) They spent ten days scouting for the perfect location to capture the eclipse, a process that wore on the skiers. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard when you鈥檙e suffering, you鈥檙e freezing your ass off and expending so much energy just to survive, and your only bastion of fun is to go skiing,鈥� Townsend says. 鈥淪o when we鈥檙e spending multiple days looking for the right terrain for this photo, you鈥檙e kind of like, this is ridiculous. It鈥檚 just one person鈥檚 goal.鈥�

The team endured vicious storms on the glacier during the lead-up to the eclipse. But the morning of March 20 brought sunny skies鈥攁long with a minus-22-degree wind chill. Krabbe and Bonello positioned themselves a mile away from the skiers, who waited on an alpine ridge. For nearly an hour, the eclipse built toward its two-and-a-half-minute 鈥渢otality鈥濃€攖he golden window the crew came for鈥攚hich started at exactly 11:11 a.m. Bonello called what followed 鈥渢he craziest thing I鈥檝e seen with my own eyes.鈥�

鈥淯nless you have those , you can鈥檛 tell that the sun is disappearing,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hen, very quickly, [the sunlight] just starts shutting down. Thirty seconds out, there鈥檚 this insane shimmer on the snow. It鈥檚 like the place is on fire. Nothing prepared any of us for that. You can鈥檛 feel it, but it鈥檚 like this electric current all over you.鈥�

Watching the film, you can鈥檛 help but grin when you hear Townsend, Rubens, and Leven hoot and holler from the top of a mountain in the middle of the Arctic, watching one of the rarest natural phenomena in the world.

鈥淥h my goodness, that was better than I thought it could鈥檝e been!鈥� Krabbe exclaims while holding his camera. 鈥淚 hope I didn鈥檛 fuck that up.鈥�

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This road to the North Cape of Europe was not far from the home of my interim Sami family on the Norwegian island of Mager酶ya in Finnmark. Sometimes a caravan of tour buses would come barreling down the road, or perhaps a few bicyclists who were near the end of a long journey. But more often than not the land was silent, and the animals went about their business as if the road was an extension of nature. This was a large reindeer buck, owned by the family that housed me, but free to roam for hundreds of miles in the Norwegian Arctic.听

TOOLS: Canon 5D Mark II, 50mm f1.2L, 1/250 second, f/4, ISO 100

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It used to be, you could get to the airport. Thankfully, the great urban two-wheel boom has seen dedicated lanes and other cycling infrastructure added to airports worldwide. Thus, it鈥檚 no longer that strange (or seemingly suspicious鈥攕heesh!) for a cyclist to pedal to a flight.

Behold, our picks for the most cyclist-friendly airports in the world, based on and , a communications company dedicated to all things biking.听 听

Portland International Airport (PDX)

The boasts secure bike parking, an assembly and repair station, tools for rent (pedal wrenches, air pumps, etc.), and paths that hook up with the regional bike trail system for the very doable 9-mile ride to and from Portland鈥檚 central business district.

San Francisco International Airport (SFO)

Similar to PDX, offers assembly stations, five parking areas throughout the airport (including valet parking on level four of the domestic garage鈥攕core!) and tools at the airport travel agency in the international terminal. Best of all? Bike parking here is free of charge.

Z眉rich Airport (ZRH)

A large swath of is a dedicated nature reserve, including the 鈥淜lotener Riet鈥� conservation area between the two runways. Stuck in soul-crushing layover? Rent a cruiser from the ZRH鈥檚 service center and hit the Klotener Riet鈥檚 trails, which wind through reed meadows, marshes and woodland. The bikes run around $22 for a half day (up to four hours) and $39 for the full eight hours.听 听听

Other Notables: Dedicated lanes make biking to and from a breeze. As an added bonus, Schiphol sells bicycle boxes at its basement baggage depot. In addition to its close proximity to the city center, offers free covered and uncovered bike parking throughout the complex鈥攖hough plan accordingly as the spots are known to fill up quickly. Veteran commuters to in Chicago know to park their rides at the remote parking lot E and take the free train to the main terminals. They also know they can access the showers for a small fee at the Hilton Health Club across from terminals 1, 2, and 3.

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