In this month's issue, we illuminate 20 crucial skills, hot tips, and shameless shortcuts to help you keep your cool in this wild world—from how to build a signal fire to making the perfect s'more. Here are 27 additional tips in our online Adventurer's Handbook >>

Remote, desolate and fantastically beautiful, South America's Altiplano has long mesmerized visitors with its vast geographic wonders (from red lakes to gigantic salt flats). Join Contributing Photographer Peter McBride on a visual mindbender with outtakes from the expedition >>

A wave of high-altitude theft of the Sierra Nevada's summit registers has renewed interest in these weathered logs that sometimes bear signatures of such outdoor illuminati as Ansel Adams and Norman Clyde. Check out some of these historical time capsules >>