Friday, 23 October 2026
International edition · English
That pleasant smell of the first drops after dry days has had a scientific name since 1964. Behind it are plant oils, soil bacteria and a surprisingly sensitive human nose.
When the cold arrives, the Alpine marmot shuts itself in a burrow with its family and spends almost half the year in deep torpor. Its heart almost stops and it lives off the fat it built up in summer.
A snowflake is made of ice, and ice is transparent. So why is snow white and glaciers blue? The answer lies in how light bounces and is absorbed.
At sea level water boils at 100 °C, but not in the mountains. With less pressure, molecules escape sooner and water boils at a lower temperature. That is why pasta takes longer in a mountain hut.
Mountains seem eternal, but they move. India keeps pushing against Asia and the Himalaya gains a few millimetres every year, while ice, water and earthquakes shape it in the opposite direction.
Under your feet, in any forest, there are kilometres of fungal threads joined to tree roots. Thanks to them trees get water and nutrients, and some studies have detected exchanges between neighbouring trees.
A journey on foot following a wolf, the life of a black bear, Alaska offline and the most spectacular bivouac huts in the Alps. Banff's book competition, one of the most prestigious in mountain literature, has its category winners.
Hidesuke Taneishi and Tetsu Hashimoto were attempting the first ascent of Gangapurna West (7,140 m), next to the Annapurna massif. Their last contact was on 15 October. A helicopter and a drone made it possible to find them on the south face.
The baby, a male, was born on 17 October to the female Ruzuzi. It is the Bageni family's fourth birth of the year and the park's seventeenth; Virunga is home to a quarter of the world's mountain gorillas.
The equatorial Pacific is much warmer than normal and forecast centres point to a very strong, perhaps historic, El Niño. We explain what it is, what is expected and what it could mean for the snow season.
Three Russian climbers are attempting one of Everest's hardest and least repeated routes this autumn. After two days of struggle above the Lho La, coughing, fatigue and harder terrain than expected have forced them back down to Base Camp.
At 78° north, Svalbard's main town is living Arctic warming first-hand: tap water unfit to drink, homes made uninhabitable by thawing permafrost, avalanches and tour guides changing their routes.
His best so far is 7,537 metres. This autumn he is acclimatising in the Annapurna region, wants to reach 8,000 m before winter and plans to start on Everest on 22 December. He puts his own chances at 20%.
A wall of water more than 100 metres high swept through 60 kilometres of valley in seconds. Two months on, the UN's project services agency calls it one of the most destructive and deadliest climate-related disasters and urges rich countries to keep their promises.
Dressing for the mountains is not about fashion, but you do not need to look like you are in costume either. Six practical combinations by type of route and time of year, item by item, with ideas on where to buy them.
Little winter snow, heatwaves from May to September and the 0 °C isotherm above 4,000 metres for 76 days: the result is the second-worst year for Swiss glaciers since measurements began.
The mountains do not have to be expensive. We go through the options for kitting yourself out on a budget —big sports chains, online shops, sales, second-hand and rental— and the items where saving money can cost you dearly.
Today is International Snow Leopard Day, created to protect the great cat of Asia's mountains. We look at how many are left, what threatens them and what works to protect them.
You do not need everything in the shop window to get started. We suggest three kits —minimal, comfortable and complete— with the buying order we recommend and what each item brings.
Measurement campaigns by the Swiss glacier monitoring network document the biggest losses since records began. We explain what the numbers mean and why they matter beyond Switzerland.
In May 2025 a huge flow of ice, rock and mud almost completely destroyed the village of Blatten, in the Lötschental. A preventive evacuation avoided a far greater tragedy. We look at what happened and why it is a warning for the whole of the Alps.
The permit for the south side rose from 11,000 to 15,000 dollars, climbers must carry down their own waste and experience requirements are being discussed. We review the measures trying to bring order to the world's most famous mountain.
After eight centuries of calm, the Reykjanes peninsula has been erupting since 2021 and, above all, since December 2023 near Grindavík. We explain the phenomenon and how to travel safely.
Europe has lowered the wolf's level of protection after years of debate between farmers and conservationists. Does that mean it can be hunted? What happens in Spain? The answers, without slogans.
At the start of the century fewer than a hundred were left. Today the Iberian lynx numbers more than 2,400 and is no longer listed as Endangered on the Red List. This is how it was achieved and what could still go wrong.
Not all dangerous mountains are dangerous for the same reason. Some kill with avalanches, others with altitude, unpredictable weather or because they look easier than they are. Fifteen summits and their reasons.
The European Copernicus service ranked 2024 as the warmest year on record and the first to exceed the 1.5 °C threshold. Have we already broken the Paris Agreement? Not exactly. Here is why.
Freezing and coming back to life, living without haemoglobin in sub-zero water or surviving the vacuum of space. Eight animals that push the limits of what we think is possible, explained with what science really knows.
The Sierra Nevada de Mérida once had at least six glaciers. By 2024 the last one —Humboldt— had shrunk into a small ice field. Venezuela thus became the first country in modern times to lose all its glaciers.
Some forests look like film sets: trunks a hundred metres tall, bamboo corridors, carpets of blue flowers or pines that grow bent without anyone quite knowing why. Ten places to see at least once.
When a border follows the watershed across a glacier, melting can move it. That is what has happened around the Matterhorn, where Switzerland and Italy have had to adjust their shared boundary.
You do not need to be a mountaineer to walk beside glaciers, peer into a fjord or circle the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Ten routes any hiker with reasonable fitness and common sense can do.
Adopted in 2024 after a fiercely contested process, the Nature Restoration Regulation requires EU countries to bring degraded ecosystems back. What it says, what it does not say and when its effects will be seen.
Where a human struggles to breathe, some animals live, hunt and breed. A mouse on the summit of an Andean volcano, a spider above 6,000 metres and a goose that can fly over the Himalaya.
At 3,000 metres every breath carries around 30% less oxygen than at sea level. Your body reacts within minutes, adapts within days… and sometimes fails. This is what happens and what to do.
Seeing a wild wolf is a rare privilege. Wolves avoid people, but it is worth knowing how to behave: stay calm, do not run away and never try to get closer.
Everest is the highest mountain above sea level, but if you measure from the centre of the Earth, an Ecuadorian volcano wins. The reason: our planet is not a perfect sphere.
Some rise on a glacier in Tibet, others at a lost spring in the Andes whose title two mountains dispute. Ten rivers that are still wild, told from their source.
Running on trails is not road running with a different view: technique, pace and training all change. This is how to get into trail running without getting injured and enjoy it from day one.
A glacier is a balance between the snow it gains and the ice it loses. When the books come out in the red year after year, it retreats. We explain why this is happening almost everywhere and what it means for us.
Most bear encounters end with the animal walking away. But knowing what to do —and what not to do— makes all the difference. We explain it for the European brown bear and for North American species.
Some of nature's shows look like special effects, but they really happen and you can see them without scientific equipment. Ten phenomena, explained, with the best times and places to watch them.
With a wingspan of almost three metres and a diet made up mostly of bones, the bearded vulture is one of the most astonishing birds on the planet. After disappearing from much of Europe, it is soaring over its mountains again.
Rhyolite mountains in every colour, obsidian fields, fumaroles and glacial rivers to ford. The Laugavegur is short in kilometres and huge in scenery, with a climate that does not forgive improvisation.
Your phone runs out of battery, the signal disappears or the GPS goes haywire in a deep valley. These are the navigation techniques that really work when technology fails.
More than a third of humanity cannot see the Milky Way from home. These are the places where the sky is still as it was centuries ago, and how to make the most of them even without a telescope.
Snow is not just scenery: it is a natural reservoir that releases water when it is needed most. When it snows less or melts earlier, rivers, forests, wildlife and the economy of entire valleys change.
There are still corners of the planet where human presence is minimal and natural processes set the pace: active volcanoes, deltas in the middle of the desert, immense ice fields and rainforests still to be explored.
Glaciers, turquoise lakes and the three granite towers at sunrise. The W is one of the most spectacular treks in the world, but you need to book well in advance and respect the Patagonian wind.
It is not about wearing lots of clothes, but the right clothes, and knowing when to take them off or put them on. This is how the layering system used by mountaineers all over the world works.
It lives in twelve countries, roams huge territories above 3,000 metres and is so elusive that many researchers study it for years without seeing it. This is how the snow leopard survives.
There is no such thing as the best mountain boot: there is the best one for your foot and the kind of routes you do. We explain what to look for, how to try them on and the most common buying mistakes.
Three countries, a dozen passes and Mont Blanc always on the horizon. The TMB is probably Europe's most famous trek: demanding for its total ascent, but with no technical sections on its classic route.
Choosing a route that suits you, estimating times properly, checking the forecast and knowing when to turn back. Everything you need so your first mountain outing is the start of something, not a bad memory.
Some landscapes that seem eternal today could look very different by the end of the century. We review ten places where scientists are already measuring profound changes, separating what has been observed from what is projected.
It is one of Spain's most popular hikes and looks like a stroll, but the path runs beside unprotected drops, with rockfall and a return that doubles the distance. Here is how to do it right.
Sleeping in the mountains completely changes the experience of a route. We tell you which gear is essential, what you can leave at home and how to pack it so your backpack weighs no more than it needs to.
In summer, some snowfields in the Alps, the Pyrenees or the Arctic turn pink. It is not dust or pollution: it is microscopic algae with their own 'sunscreen'. And their colour has consequences.
It lives only in the canals of Xochimilco, in Mexico City, never loses its juvenile look and can regrow legs, tail and even parts of organs. While it thrives in labs and aquariums, in the wild it is on the brink of extinction.
A '-5 °C' bag can leave you shivering at 2 °C if you misread the label. We explain the European temperature standard, down versus synthetic, and why your mat matters as much as your bag.
Vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered... Behind each label are very specific scientific criteria. We explain how the world's most widely used tool for measuring extinction risk works.
Summer storms in the mountains form quickly, but they give warning. We show you how to read the clouds, calculate the distance of lightning and get to the least exposed spot if it reaches you.
There are only a few dozen of them, they live between the Strait of Gibraltar and the Bay of Biscay and since 2020 they have been interacting with the rudders of sailing boats. We review what is known —and what is not— about this unique population.
6a, VII, 5.11d, V5... Every country and every type of climbing has its own difficulty system. We explain how they work, how they compare and why a grade is never an exact science.
Polyester fibres above 8,000 metres, particles raining from the sky in remote Pyrenean valleys, plastic in Antarctic snow. The mountains are not safe from plastic, and part of the problem is what we wear.
A wildfire can move faster than you can walk, especially uphill. Reading the wind and the terrain, raising the alarm early and choosing the right escape route can save lives.
Its velvety look is not decorative: it is armour against the radiation, cold and dryness of the high mountains. The natural and cultural history of the most famous flower in the Alps.
Getting lost is not an emergency; what you do in the next few minutes can turn it into one. Stop, think, observe and plan. And do not be afraid to ask for help in time.
Running out of water ruins a hike; carrying twice what you need does too. Here is a practical guideline, how to adjust it to your situation and when you can trust natural water sources.