Suit up: Yama Mountain brings the gear here

Born from conversations with hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2006, local gear company Yama Mountain combines founder Gen Shimizu’s love of designing and making with his appreciation for the outdoors. “Yama is the result of those passions coming together,” he says. The company’s products, which range from tarps and tents to rain mitts […]

Runner’s world: A budding athlete discovers a new hobby

When Randi Rod says she completed a couch-to-10-mile running program, she means it. She was sitting on her couch when her friend, Holly Herring, called last fall to ask her to run the Charlottesville Ten Miler with her. Rod, 53, who hadn’t exercised much while raising her three children (her youngest is 16), laughed at […]

Into the wild: Learn to eat from the garden that grows itself

Some folks think of “greens” as the contents of a plastic bag in the produce section; others grow lettuce and spinach in their home gardens. There’s another vegetable paradigm, though, and it’s lurking right outside your back door. Welcome to the world of wild edibles. To walk through an ordinary backyard with Kate Knott or […]