Mar

The Threshold Moment

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When Kevin Fedarko stepped through the door of the O.A.R.S. boathouse in Flagstaff, AZ, he didn’t realize he had crossed a figurative threshold as well as a literal one. Kevin had planned on rafting the Grand Canyon for a wilderness medicine course. Then, he planned to go back to his life as a successful freelance writer. But what he saw in that warehouse and in that first week on the Colorado River left him desperate to find a way to keep coming back. Kevin spent the next smelly, humiliating, beautiful and life-altering decade of his life developing a relationship with the Grand Canyon, writing about the Grand Canyon, and, ultimately, fighting to protect it.

To learn more about the current threats to the Grand Canyon and how you can help, visit Save the Confluence and Grand Canyon Trust.

You can purchase Kevin’s book, The Emerald Mile, here.

Brendan Leonard wrote and narrated this episode. You can find more of his work at Semi-Rad.com.

Music: Moving On by Andrew Ferris • Bad to the Bone by Finn • Existential by Gordon Bell • Shit Outta Luck by Life Has Teeth • Clover by Little Glass Men • A Garden Grows by Jason Tyler Burton

Music provided by Mevio’s Music Alley, Free Music Archive, Diaries‘ listener Jason Tyler Burton.

Additional scoring by Amy Stolzenbach.

Feb

The Shorts — The Swallow and the Anchor

The Swallow and the Anchor

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Check out “Going Into the Wild,” another essay Joe wrote on hitchhiking–but this time thumbing cars not boats, through Interior Alaska.

Music: Drop of Water In the Ocean by Broke for Free • In This Minute by A Single Voice • If the Battersea Power Station Could Fly by A Single Voice • We Wish You a Merry Christmas by United States Marine Band • Sailor’s Lament by Jason Shaw

Tracks provided by Mevio’s Music Alley and Free Music Archive.

Feb

El Avalanchisto

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When Matt McKee first heard about the position forecasting avalanches for Minera Pimenton, a gold mine in the Chilean Andes, it sounded like the snow geek’s dream job. But mere hours after his plane touched down in Santiago, Matt started getting hints that maybe he had walked into a situation that more closely resembled a nightmare: a den of avalanche paths, a mine full of workers who didn’t believe in avalanches and a country that looked for someone to blame if things went wrong. Today, we bring you Matt’s story of trying to make it out alive.

You can read Matt’s unabridged version of the story from the 2008 International Snow Science Workshop here.

Music: Young Blood by Black Pistol Fire • mountain_soul_fire by woodrowgerber • Letters Home by emFrik • The Undefeated by Vienna Ditto • Dark Spots by A Crooked Pulse

Tracks provided by Mevio’s Music Alley and Free Music Archive. Additional music composed by our talented friend, Amy Stolzenbach.

Jan

The Shorts — 365 Days

365 Days

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“In the day to day tangle of life, it’s easy to let go of the things that provide that focus, and calm and perspective,” writes Fitz Cahall. “I find that serenity so easily in wilderness. How do we carry that home?” While on a trip to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, Fitz resolved to do something back in “regular life” to try to tap into that quietness every day, for one year.

Music: Wide Eyed by Stillborn Identity • Eclosion by Salmo • Shoulda Said Something by Unquiet Nights

Tracks provided by Mevio’s Music Alley and Free Music Archive. Additional music by the one and only Amy Stolzenbach.

Jan

Adventure 1000

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It’s January. Time for our annual Year of Big Ideas. This year, we talked to Alastair Humphreys, a 2012 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. Among other things, Alastair has walked across India, and 1000 miles through the largest sand desert in the world, cycled 46,000 miles around the world in four years and rowed across the Atlantic.

People often come up to him after his talks and tell him they wish they could go on the kinds of adventures that he does. Alastair believes that they can. Today, he explains what he’s learned about what it takes to make an adventure happen. Here’s to another year of big ideas, and to committing to them. Happy 2015.

Music: The Floodwork Fireflies by A Single Voice • Neo Zen by Ketsa • Shine by Publish the Quest • Ripping Susan by A Single Voice • Then You Were There by Ketsa • The Rent is Late by Publish the Quest

The songs by Publish the Quest came off their new album, A Thousand Kinds of Gold. Other tracks provided by Mevio’s Music Alley and Free Music Archive.