The Dirtbag Diaries

"In the day to day tangle of life, it's easy to let go of the things that provide 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. 

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 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 committing to them. Happy 2015!

There comes a stage in a great athlete's career when the pursuit of the technical difficulty take a backseat. It gives way to simplicity, an aesthetic, and possibly to an iconic style that leaves an impression on a sport. Will Gadd is one of the most accomplished mountain athletes ever. Most people know him as a climbing legend, but he also holds that stature in the fringe sport of paragliding where he's won competitions and held the single flight distance record for a decade. Last year, Will and renowned pilot Gavin McClurg embarked on a truly incredible trip down the spine of the Canadian Rockies. The goal was to create a continuous line through the air. At night, they landed in the alpine, slept and repeated the process for 35 days. The trip changed Will's perspective, not just on the craft, but on how he pursues adventure. 

"I'm thirty-year-old, and a complete and utter failure," writes Chris Kalman. "My mom is a PhD astrophysicist, my dad, a PhD mathematician, and my sister has a Master's in epidemiology. They all have jobs, children, houses. I, on the other hand, am a dirtbag."Earlier this fall, Chris moved away from his favorite climbing haunts toward something bigger and more intimidating than giant rock walls. As he helped care for an extended family member thousands of miles from the place he had called home, he had to figure out how to take a journey very different than an annual pilgrimage to climb in Patagonia: a journey within. You can find more of Chris Kalman's writing on his blog, Fringe's Folly, "for the purists, dirtbags and salty oldtimers who live climbing."CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

"Death-by-lightning-strike statistics kept swirling through my head, causing me to push my 13-year-old daughter to the very limits of her physical ability. We were on her Trip," writes Otto Gallaher. Today, we bring you the story of a rite-of-passage tradition in Otto's family simply known as 'The Trip'. What outdoor traditions does your family keep?CLICK HERE TO LISTEN You can find more photos of Otto and Riley's trip on Otto's photography website. 

Regardless of how you choose to play outside, if someone gets hurt in the mountains, the first step on the checklist remains the same: "scene safety"--you make sure the thing that hurt your buddy isn't going to hurt you too. But there's no checklist for emotional safety when things go wrong. Today we bring you the story of a family, an accident and the repercussions they navigated for years afterwards. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Ghost stories. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, ghost stories have a way of seeping into your mind. And, if they're really good, suddenly, that soft rapping on the window or the flickering lights become more ominous--like we've primed out minds to seek another explanation. In part, that's the fun of ghost stories. But how do we explain those things we had no intention of seeing? Our Tales of Terror winners, Justin Gero and Melina Coogan, present tales of seeing something they really, really didn't want to.CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

"It's never encouraging to be awoken in a tent by headlights. I wanted to play possum--roll over, and pretend to sleep until they left," writes David Hanson. "But this was exactly why I was here, a few hundred miles into a 500-mile canoe float down Georgia's Chattahoochee. I came here to see the river, but I really came here to see its people. And here they were." Today, we bring you David's story of discovering a culture at once foreign and strangely familiar--and all within a day's drive of the place where he grew up.  CLICK HERE TO LISTENDavid recently returned to the Chattahoochee to create a documentary, Who Owns Water, that chronicles a tri-state water war that threatens the river and the communities that depend on it.  

"The reality of climbing is, if you climb long enough, you're bound to bail," writes Dean Fleming. "I've left rappel biners on sport bolted 5.8s. I've bailed from trees, chockstones, fixed cams, and Manzanita bushes. Sure, sometimes my pride gets a little dinged, but so far I've survived some pretty weird situations."We figured with that kind of experience, Dean could teach us a thing or two. Today, Dean presents another Lifestyle Tip for the Committed, with his five step guide to convinving your climbing partner to rig a retreat. Find more of Dean's words + photos at California Climber Magazine.                                     CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

"Encouragement. Peer Pressure. Bullying. Call it what you like," writes Tom Ireson, "but the climbing community is full of it."We rely on our friends, mentors and coaches to push us past our own self-doubt--help us realize what we're capable of. And yet, we never actually know what someone is capable of ahead of time. Today, we bring you a story on searching for the line between pushing someone to succeed, and pushing them too far. You can hear more of Tom's stories if you visit him at The Olive Branch in El Chorro, Spain--a family run hostel for adventurers of all kinds--where he works as a chef.You can find Paul's music here.                                     CLICK HERE TO LISTEN