Outside Podcast

When we venture into the wilderness, we accept that there are certain dangers, like bears and snakes and crazy weather. Truth be told, a bit of risk is what attracts many people to the backcountry (even if normal urban life is much riskier). But there are times when the usual natural threats are replaced by something far more menacing: an aggressive human. In this gripping story from our friends at Backpacker’s Out Alive podcast, we hear the tragic tale of a group of hikers who found themselves out in the woods in the worst kind of trouble. This episode is brought to you by Sta-bil, maker of America’s number one fuel stabilizer treatment as well as a growing number of exceptional products that keep the vehicles we depend on for our adventures running the way they’re supposed to. Learn more at stabilradio.com.

Among people who spend a lot of time in the wilderness, there’s a notion that the trail is our teacher. And if you talk to serious outdoor adventurers, you quickly realize just how powerful trail lessons can be. Take the case of professional endurance athlete Rebecca Rusch, who was schooled over the last several winters while riding a bike across the Alaska Range as a racer in the 350-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational. Rusch has long been lauded for her ability to push through the most agonizing of competitive events, but she discovered a new kind of suffering in Alaska—which is exactly what she was after. In this episode of our new series, The Wild Files, Rusch takes us through her hardest moments on the trail and explains why pushing herself to go way, way outside her comfort zone was essential for her progression as an athlete and as a human being. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco

There are few places on earth where humans aren’t at the top of the food chain, but the Arctic sea ice is one of them. Photographer Kiliii Yuyan saw this firsthand while documenting the Inupiat people’s spring whale hunt. A hungry polar bear began stalking the party, forcing the hunters to defend themselves. The dramatic experience was a harsh lesson in the realities of survival in a truly wild place, but Yuyan was even more impacted by what he witnessed in the aftermath. As the Inupiat continued to move among more bears during the hunt, they treated their fellow predators with respect, awe, and admiration. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco

American road racing has struggled in the past decade. Following the downfall of Lance Armstrong, road racing became almost synonymous with doping, sponsors walked away, and fans became disenchanted. But new energy is emerging again in the longtime American discipline of crit racing, or criterium, which has riders hammering out laps on courses through city streets. It’s fast, rowdy, and full of crashes—cycling’s version of Nascar. “If you love football, if you like watching people get smacked and running into each other, getting dunked on, it has the same feel,” says top crit rider Justin Williams. Known as an outspoken advocate for diversity in the sport, Williams is now on a quest to create a whole new fan base for road riding by making it a commercial sport for the masses. This episode is brought to you by Sta-bil, maker of America’s number one fuel stabilizer treatment as well as a growing number of exceptional products that keep the vehicles we depend on for our adventures running the way they’re supposed to. Learn more at stabilradio.com.

For survivors of harrowing events, the most challenging part of the saga often comes after they’ve lived through what seemed like an impossible scenario. Such was the case of Joe Stone, who was a high-flying athlete addicted to the thrills of sports like skydiving and BASE jumping before a brutal accident left him paralyzed from the chest down and with limited fine motor skills in his hands. And so he faced a giant question: What am I supposed to do now? His answer was to do things that everyone told him would be impossible. Joe’s story, one of our favorites from the Outside Podcast archives, offers a remarkable lesson in resiliency that feels fitting for a moment when the whole world is wondering how we’re supposed to move forward after a really hard time.

If you’re a climber, the risk of falling is always there—it's an essential fact about the sport. And for a lot of climbers, this is actually part of the appeal. That was definitely how Brendan Leonard saw it. Today Leonard is best known as a trail runner and the creator of Semi-Rad, where he publishes essays and illustrations about life as a nonprofessional athlete. But back in his twenties, climber was the identity Leonard latched on to while he was recovering from alcohol addiction and trying to figure out what kind of person he was going to be, despite the fact that climbing scared him. Leonard wanted to face his fears and put them in their place. But then he was involved in an accident while climbing near Moab, Utah, that forced him to reckon with his identity once again. In this first episode of our new series, The Wild Files, we look at what happens when you decide that you’ve had enough of being afraid. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn more at ford.com/bronco

It’s the ultimate mountain-town caricature: the shaggy semi-athlete who lives in a van (or truck or crowded apartment), works a number of crappy jobs (pizza delivery, barback, liftie), and skis 100 days every winter. This is the ski bum: a hero to some, a loser to others, and an enigma to everyone—until now. In this episode, bona fide ski bum Paddy “Paddy O” O’Connell presents irrefutable evidence that the campy ski flicks of the eighties and nineties—cult classics like Hot Dog, Ski Patrol, and Aspen Extreme—are what inspired so many vulnerable youth to drop everything and head for the hills. He should know. As a young man, Paddy O fell so deeply under the spell of one very special film that, despite never having skied before, he abandoned his life in the Midwest and ran away to the Rockies forever.    This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by the all-new Ford Bronco Sport, an adventure-ready 4x4 SUV with seven available G.O.A.T. modes that enable it to go over any type of terrain. Learn how you can outfit it to match your lifestyle at Ford.com.

People are drawn to the mountains for all kinds of reasons—the desire to challenge themselves physically or emotionally, a hunger for risk or perhaps solitude, the need for a sense of accomplishment. But for some, the appeal is both deeper and far more complicated. So it is with Sequoia Schmidt, whose father and brother died on K2, the world’s second-tallest and most dangerous peak. That tragedy ultimately propelled her into the mountains herself—to, as she says, “find my soul.” In this episode from our friends at the Strangers podcast, we take a remarkable journey with Sequoia, one unlike any other climbing story we’ve ever heard. This episode is brought to you by Belize, one of the world’s great adventure destinations and a country that’s created a comprehensive and common sense COVID-19 safety system for travelers. Learn more about how you can safely experience the wonder of Belize at travelbelize.org

In 2001, when Caroline Gleich was 15 years old, her half-brother Martin died in an avalanche while skiing in the Utah backcountry. That tragedy didn’t prevent Gleich from becoming a professional skier—quite the opposite—but it has led her to develop a unique approach to managing risk. The truth is, avalanches are largely predictable: they only occur on certain slopes and under certain conditions. The problem is that such slopes and conditions coincide almost perfectly with the most fun skiing and snowboarding in the backcountry. This often leads people to make dangerous decisions, especially when they’ve been lucky so many times before. In this second episode of a two-part special exploring our relationship to the hazards of avalanches, Gleich talks about her long journey to becoming comfortable in the backcountry and how she believes we can stack the odds in our favor, even in the most unpredictable environments. This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Lake Hartwell Country, a largely undiscovered region in the mountains of South Carolina that’s one of the best adventure playgrounds anywhere. Visit lakehartwellcountry.com to start planning your trip now.

It was a glorious powder day in the Sierra Nevada when three friends set off into the backcountry at dawn. They had tons of experience and all the essential emergency gear, so they were unfazed by the fact that the local avalanche center had listed the danger that day as considerable. As the trio saw it, if you wanted to enjoy good skiing conditions in the backcountry, you had to accept some risk. But then, in an instant, a slide buried one of them and the other two began a frantic search to find him and save his life before he ran out of air. In this episode, the first of a two-part special exploring our relationship to the hazards of avalanches, we chronicle a miraculous survival story and ask what we ultimately learn when we make it through worst-case scenarios. This episode is brought to you by Belize, one of the world’s great adventure destinations and a country that’s created a comprehensive and common sense COVID-19 safety system for travelers. Learn more about how you can safely experience the wonder of Belize at travelbelize.org