The Dirtbag Diaries

A mythical, semi-secret, surf spot on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast – that’s as descriptive as Australian Duncan McNee would get. This secret break, a quick bike ride from McNee’s day job as a high school teacher, requires the perfect synchronicity of swell, tide and windless days. On average, the variables come together once every two years. At long last, we bring you a surfing story.

Today, we bring you the Crusade, the story of two stockbrokers, an engineer and a nuclear physicist who, with a little help from the Internet, helped shaped American ski mountaineering without ever leaving their backyard.

In the Year of Big Ideas, my childhood friend Brad laid it out – he was going to climb El Cap in 2008. We planned and tried to convince others to join us, but in the end, Brad and I were on our own to wrestle with one very big – arguably bad – idea. A third of the way through 2008, where are you in your year of big ideas? We’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment and a little inspiration. What have you ticked off the list? What’s left?

Through the years, I’ve tried to escape words and journalism, but the writing life always has a funny way of creeping back into my world. This time it came in the form of a 230-pound cameraman with a fear of heights, a fast talking New York producer and a 30-year-old broadcaster trying to return to her childhood. It turns out you have to earn your 15 seconds of fame.

Seventeen years ago, Sean O’Neill – artist athlete and big brother to pro climber Timmy O’Neill – lost the use of his legs. After the accident, Timmy dreamed about helping his older brother climb El Capitan. In 2005, the brothers decided it was time to act. James Mills brings us a story about two brothers, one very big cliff face and a 17-year-old dream.

When listener Andy Guinigundo’s email appeared in the inbox on a rainy spring day, I read through it, read it again and thought “Damn, I wish I could have been there.? That’s because no matter where you ski, a powder day is a magical thing. I’d been wanting to create some smaller shorts between feature episodes, so Andy joined us in the Dirtbag Diaries Midwest Studios and gave us his own farewell to an unforgettable winter season.

In spring of 1991, Tom Broxson survived a 200-foot fall off the top of Yosemite Valley’s Washington Column. To this day, Tom, his climbing partner Pat and the rescuers who saved his life aren’t exactly sure what happened. Today we bring you Tom’s story of survival, recovery and will.

Today, Becca Cahall brings us All These Things – a story about getting older and skiing faster. We’re headed for British Columbia’s Selkirk Mountains – an incredible range of open alpine faces, perfect tree skiing and tight chutes that every backcountry skier dreams of visiting.

In the summer of 2007, kayaker and blogger Shane Robinson found himself paddling down Peru’s isolated Apurimac River with Andrew Oberhardt and Bryan Smith. They had no map, no aerial photos and enough food for five days. Fifteen years of kayaking had led to this moment.

Today we bring you the “Year of Big Ideas? – a show all about goals, some big, some small. We’ve interviewed friends, professional athletes, random people on chairlifts, anyone we could rope into contributing. Here’s to dreaming big and going bigger in the New Year.

Today, we bring you the tale of Ryan Utz and Micah Helser -- both climbers, both soldiers -- and their quest to create a lifeline back from the frontlines to the things that matter the most – friends, family and that freedom found only in open spaces. We are headed to the world’s most improbable climbing wall. This is Camp Taji. Welcome to Iraq.

In 2005, photographer, writer and avid cyclist Blake Gordon joined the Logsdon brothers in the midst of pedaling 15,000 miles and raising money for the National Brain Tumor Foundation. Today, we present The Reckoning – a story plucked from the pages of a young photographer’s notebook. You can ride your bike to the edge of a continent, but when the road ends it doesn’t always lead to neat resolutions.

There’s no such thing as a perfect job. What if there was a magical place where you could get paid to climb? At the center of this kingdom is a mountain, and all you have to do is climb it. Find out what happens when a bunch of climbers are left unsupervised with the keys to the Magic Kingdom.

Today on the Dirtbag Diaries, we’re traveling from the halls of a New England boarding school where two boys forged an unlikely friendship to the wind-swept wilderness deep inside the Cascade Mountains, where a trio of climbers have been hard at work solving one of the Northwest’s greatest free climbing projects.

In 1996, photographer John Burcham and three friends completed the first foot traverse of the 650-mile long Alaska Range. Burcham decided to leave the group at the very end of the trip in order to make it to his sister's wedding. He was alone in the continent's last great wilderness with a sobering realization -- crevasses, hungry wildlife and hypothermia can kill you, but loneliness can drive you crazy.

This week the Dirtbag Diaries presents the Anatomy of an Accident. What do you take away from a near-death experience? Is there meaning in it? If so, what does it say about our relationships with these mountains, these rivers and these oceans.

This week we're headed for Laos to recount the story of two friends and one spectacularly bad idea. Join us as we follow Jacob Bain, Colin Brynn and a bamboo raft down a river at the edge of the world.

There is no textbook on adventure journalism, but if there were one, it would contain one single, steadfast rule -- you can't photograph adventure from a safe distance. This week, adventure photographer Corey Rich gives us photos and the untold stories behind them.

Many of us associate our vehicles with freedom, independence and youth. But can a hunk of metal have a soul? Fitz presents the sometimes-true tale of a 1974 Mitsubishi Sigma, a boy on the cusp of adulthood and a life changing journey across Australia.

On a remote cliff in northern Arizona, we join rock climbers Albert Newman and James Q Martin as they attempt the first free ascent of Tooth Rock.

Gaper. Touron. Weekend warrior. As mountain people, we can be a cold, hard lot adhering to an "Us and Them" mentality, but at the root, what makes a dirtbag a dirtbag? Is it a look? The clothes we wear or the skis we ride? Or is there something deeper to out culture? Can anyone be a dirtbag?